Plutarch's Morals: Theosophical Essays: On Superstition

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ON SUPERSTITION.

The want of learning and the want of knowledge concerning the gods, splitting into two separate streams immediately at the source—the one, as if flowing in hard ground, has in unyielding dispositions generated Atheism; the other, as if in moist soil, produces in tender minds its opposite, Superstition. Now all false belief, especially if it be so on this subject, is a distressing thing; but that which is accompanied with passion is most troublesome of all: for every passion is like a stroke productive of inflammation; and just as dislocations of the joints attended with laceration, so perversions of the soul attended with passion, 1 are the more difficult to cure. One man believes Atoms and the Vacuum to be the final causes of the universe—a false supposition this—but one that does not produce a wound, nor a bruise, nor distracting pain. Another man thinks Wealth to be the highest good—this is a fallacy that contains a corrosive poison: it eats into the soul, it excites, it suffers him not to sleep, it brings a swarm of gad flies about him, it drives him down precipices, it chokes him, it takes away all cheerfulness. On the other hand, one man fancies that Virtue and Vice are a body [element]: a disgraceful blunder, perhaps, but not

worth crying for or lamenting over: but whatever are such maxims and opinions as this,

and cast aside injustice, the cause of wealth, and intemperance, the real source of all happiness; 1—these sentiments, indeed, we ought both to pity and be angry with!

Consequently, as regards the subjects of our inquiry, Atheism being an ungrounded opinion that there is nothing essentially happy and incorruptible, appears to bring round the soul into a state of insensibility through a disbelief of the Deity; and its object in not believing in gods is the not being afraid of them: whereas for Superstition (Godfearing), its very name shows it to be an opinion involving passion (feeling), and a conception that, engenders fear which humiliates and crushes a man, inasmuch as he believes there are gods, but that they are spiteful and mischievous gods. For the Atheist appears to be one that is insensible to what is Divine; the Superstitious man to be sensible in the wrong way, and thereby perverted. For want of knowledge has produced in the one a disbelief in the Benefactor; whilst in the other case it has superadded the fear that the same Power is a malignant one. Consequently, Atheism is Reason deceived, Superstition a passion arising out of false reasoning.

Ugly indeed are all passions and maladies of the soul, yet there is in some of them, a showiness, a loftiness, and a singularity by reason of their airiness, and they are not by any means, so to speak, destitute of practical energy. For it is the general fault of all the passions, that being impelled by practical tendencies they hang on to, and stimulate the reason: but Fear, being as deficient in

courage as it is in reason, has its stupidity accompanied with indolence, perplexity, and helplessness: on which account its faculty of fettering at once and disturbing the soul has been called "terror" and "awe." 1 Now, of all fears the most incapacitating from action, and the most helpless, is that springing from Superstition. He that goes not on voyages, fears not the sea; nor he that goes not for soldier, war; nor highwaymen, he that stays at home: nor the informer, he who has no money; nor envy, the man in private life; nor earthquakes, he who lives in Gaul; nor lightning, the dweller in Æthiopia. But he who is afraid of the gods, is in fear of everything—the sea, the air, the sky, darkness, light, a call, 2 silence, a dream. Slaves forget their tyrants when they are asleep, slumber lightens the weight of their chains to those in fetters, even inflammations accompanying wounds, and fierce and agonizing ulcers that eat into the flesh quit for a while the sleeping man:—

This, Superstition does not allow one to exclaim, for it is the only thing that makes no truce with sleep, nor grants to the soul then, at least, to repose, and gain a little courage by driving off its burdensome and painful notions about the Deity, but as it were in the realms of the damned, it raises up in the sleep of the superstitious, terrific phantoms, monsters, apparitions, and tortures of all kinds; scaring the miserable soul, it chases it out of the refuge of sleep with spectres: while it is scourged and tormented by its own self, as though by the hand of another; and receives troubles both dreadful and of

strange sort; and then, when they wake up, they do not come to their senses, nor laugh at their visionary fears, nor feel glad that nothing of what had so disturbed them was a reality; but after having escaped the visionary illusion that had no harm in it, they cheat themselves over again, waste their money, and vex themselves, by rushing to fortune-tellers and such like impostors, and saying—

and dip thyself in the sea, and pass a day seated on the earth.

through your own superstition, such as smearing with mud, wallowing in the mire, Sabbath-keeping, 1 unseemly prostrations on the face, long sittings before the idol, extraordinary gestures of adoration. 2 "To sing with a just mouth" was the advice to lyrists of those who professed to keep up the established rules of music—we, on our part, demand that men pray to the gods with mouths erect and as it should be, and not merely to examine whether the tongue or top of the entrails of the victim be clean and fitting, whilst they distort and pollute their own tongues with absurd titles and foreign 3 invocations, to do shame to, and sin against, the divine and national dignity of religion. But the comic poet has said somewhere with respect to those who overlay their beds with gold or with silver, that sleep

is the only thing the gods have given us gratis, "Why, then, dost thou make it too an expensive article to thyself?" It is equally right to say to the superstitious man: "Sleep the gods have bestowed upon us as the balm of troubles, and for refreshment; wherefore dost thou make it a torture-chamber for thyself, hateful and painful, thy wretched soul not being able to make its escape, and take refuge in a second slumber? Heraclitus observes that for men awake there is one and a common world; but of men asleep each one wanders away into a world of his own. But for the superstitious there is no world in common with the rest; for neither when awake does he enjoy the rational world, nor when asleep does he escape from the terrifying one; but his reason is always a-dreaming, he fears even when awake—escape is impossible, so is change of place. Polycrates was a terrible tyrant at Samos, Periander another at Corinth; yet nobody was afraid of them after he had migrated into a free city, democratically governed; but he that dreads the government of the gods as a gloomy and implacable tyranny—whither shall he migrate, where shall he flee, what land shall he find free from gods, what sea? into what part of the earth canst thou creep and hide thyself, poor wretch! and be sure that thou hast escaped from God? Even slaves without hope of manumission are allowed by law to demand to be sold, and to change their master for a milder one; 1 but Superstition allows not of a change of gods, nor is it possible to find a god whom that man shall not fear who is afraid of those of his own country and own family—he that shudders at the Preservers and the Benevolent; he that trembles at and dreads the beings from whom we ask in prayer riches, plenty, peace, concord, the prospering of our works and

best actions. And then these very people consider servitude a misfortune, and exclaim:

But how much more grievous do you hold their case who get masters whom they cannot flee from, cannot get out of their way, cannot pacify! Even slaves have an altar of refuge; even robbers hold many temples to be inviolable; and people fleeing from enemies take courage if they can embrace some idol or shrine—but these are the very things the superstitious man most shudders at, is frightened with, and fears—the very things in which such as dread dangers place their trust! Tear not away the superstitious man from the altar—it is there that he is tortured, and receives the punishment of his offence!

What need is there to speak at length? The appointed limit of Life for all mankind. is Death; but to Superstition not even death is the limit—she leaps over the boundaries of Life into the other side, making Fear longer-lived than life, and tacking on to Death the imagination of never-ending woes. And when she comes to the end of her troubles, she fancies that she is entering upon others that have no end. Deep below are opened the gates of Hell, rivers of fire, and fountains of Styx are at once disclosed; a fantastic darkness envelopes all, where certain spectral forms flit about, offering frightful sights to the eye, piteous sounds to the ear; also judges seated, and executioners at hand; yawning gulfs and deep places, crammed with all manner of evil things. Thus unhappy Superstition has obtained through death an end of suffering, but has, through its folly, created an expectation of future misery for itself. Atheism is exposed to none of these evils; yet its ignorance is painful, and to be in error and blindness concerning things of such moment is a great misfortune

to the soul—just as though it had had put out the brightest and most important of its many eyes, namely, the idea of the Deity; but still (as above remarked) passion, wounds, disturbance, and abjectness do not, as a matter of course, regularly accompany this state of belief. "Music," says Plato, "the creator of harmony and order, was not given by heaven to man for the purpose of amusement and tickling of the ears, but to disentangle gently, bring round, and restore again to its proper place the turbulence of the soul that has gone astray in the body as regards its revolutions and connections, and has often committed excesses through a deficiency in education and gracefulness, by intemperance and neglect of duty." "Whomsoever Jove loveth not," says Pindar, "are disgusted at hearing the voice of the Muses," for they are exasperated and vexed thereby. In fact, they say that tigers, if a tambourine be sounded over them, become furious, grow mad, and finally tear themselves to pieces. But it is a less evil 1 for them upon whom is come a want of taste for, and insensibility to, the charms of music, by reason of deafness and loss of hearing. Tiresias suffered a misfortune in not seeing his children or his acquaintances; but Athamas suffered a greater one, as did Agave, in seeing them in the shape of lions or stags. And surely it had been better for Hercules in his madness, neither to have seen, or been sensible of their presence, rather than to have treated those most dear to him like so many foes. What then? Does it not seem to you that the state of the Atheists, as compared with that of the superstitious, presents exactly the same sort of difference? The former do not see the gods at all, the latter believe that they exist; the former overlook them; the latter fancy terrible what is benign, tyrannical what is paternal, mischievous what is preservative, savage and bestial that which is pure. And

then they believe metal-workers, and sculptors, and wax-modellers, that the gods are of human form; and in such form do they model, and procure, and worship them: and despise philosophers and statesmen when they teach that the majesty of God is coupled with goodness and magnificence, with strength and with protective care for man. The one party, therefore, are possessed with an insensibility to, and a disbelief in, the good things that benefit them; the other party are filled with alarm at, and fear of, the things that benefit them. And to sum up—Atheism is insensibility to what is divine, which shows itself in not understanding what is good; Superstition an over-sensibility, in suspecting the good to be bad. People are afraid of the gods, and fly for refuge to the gods; they flatter them, and they revile them; they make vows to them, and they upbraid them. It is the common lot of mankind not to prosper to the end in all things. "For they are ever young, and free from sickness, unacquainted with all troubles, having escaped the loud-roaring fury of the Acheron," says Pindar of the gods; but human sufferings and doings are mixed up with chances flowing in different channels for different people. Come, now, and contemplate the Atheist in misfortune, and observe the way in which he behaves (that is, if he be one who practises self-control on other occasions)—how he makes the best of the matter, and supplies himself with consolations and remedies: and if he be impatient and annoyed by his troubles, how he lays all his complaints against Fortune and Chance, and exclaims that nothing goes according to right, and by the dispensation of Providence; but all are borne along confusedly and irrationally, and human affairs are all caprice. Such is not the behaviour of the superstitious man: but if the mishap that has befallen him is of the most trifling kind, he sits down building up upon his trouble yet further calamities, grievous, great, and not to

be averted; and heaping besides upon himself apprehensions, fears, and suspicions, making the mischief burn 1 with all sorts of weeping and groaning. For it is not man, nor chance, nor occasion, nor himself, but God on whom he lays the blame of all, and from Him he says the heaven-sent stream of calamity comes rushing down upon himself, and that he, not because he is unfortunate, but as being hateful to God, is therefore tormented and punished by the Powers above, and suffers everything according to his deserts, on account of his own misconduct. 2 Now the Atheist, when sick, counts up to himself, and calls to mind his errors, and excesses, and irregularities as to diet, or his over great fatigue, or unaccustomed changes of climate and of place. Again, if he have met with disappointments in political matters, having got into bad odour with the populace, or into ill repute with the upper powers, he examines the mischance as though proceeding from himself, or those about him:

But to the superstitious man, every infirmity of body, every loss of money, or loss of children, every unpleasantness or failure in political matters, are called "plagues from God," and "assaults of the demon;" consequently, he ventures not to help himself under what has happened, nor to remedy it, nor resist it, lest he should appear to fight against God, and to resist when he is chastised; but, if sick, the physician is pushed away; if in sorrow, the philosopher who comes to advise and comfort him has the door slammed in his face. "Let me alone (says he), my good fellow, to suffer my punishment—impious, accursed

as I am, hateful to gods and dæmons!" And then, in tho case of a man that does not believe there is a God, but who is sick or suffering greatly in some other way, one can wipe away his tears, cut off his hair, remove his bed-clothes; but as for the superstitious man, how can you possibly address him, or in what way can you bring him help? He sits out of doors, wearing sackcloth, or else girded with filthy rags. Oftentimes wallowing quite naked in the mire, he makes confession aloud of his sins of omission and commission, of having eaten or drank this or that, 1 or walked along a way that the genius had forbidden him. And if he come best off, and suffers from a mild form of superstition, he sits at home surrounded with burning incense, besmeared with unguents, "whilst the old women (says Bion) tie round him, and tie to him, like a peg, whatever they please."

Tiribazus, they tell us, when arrested by the Persians, being a strong man, drew his sword and made a desperate resistance, until those who were seizing him protested and called out that they did so by the king's order, and then he threw down his weapon and allowed them to tie his hands. Is not this a parallel case? Other men struggle with their misfortunes, and push away their troubles, devising ways of escape for themselves, and means of averting their difficulties. But the superstitious man, by listening to nobody, by saying to himself: "Wretch! all these things dost thou suffer from Providence, and by God's command," has cast away all hope, has abandoned himself, fled from and baffled the efforts of those coming to his relief. Many trifling evils Superstition makes into fatal ones. Midas of old, as it appears, being dispirited and panic-struck by certain dreams he had had, was so

affected in mind that he sought a voluntary death by drinking bull's blood. Aristodemus, King of the Messenians, in the war around Ithome, because his dogs howled in a way like the wolves, and furze grew up around his paternal hearthstone, and the diviners were alarmed at the omens, lost all courage and hope through utter terror, and slew himself with his own hand. And perhaps it had been better for Nicias, general of the Athenians, to have got rid of his superstition in the same way as did Midas and Aristodemus rather than to have sat still and allowed himself to be walled up by the enemy, because he was frightened at the shadow of the moon's eclipse; and finally, together with forty thousand of his men, either butchered or taken alive, to fall into their hands, and perish ingloriously. For the opposing barrier of earth that lay in his way, at a time for making the best use of his legs, was nothing formidable nor frightful, merely because a shadow crept over the moon, but what really was terrible was the darkness of superstition that fell upon him, to confuse and blind the man's judgment in a state of things the most requiring sound judgment.

"To sharpen well the spear, and brace the shield,"