The Foundations of Personality [139]
and with the growth of taste little disharmonies offend deeply. Some men have reacted in this way against gratification and satisfaction, against the building up of needs and tastes, and in every age we hear of the "simple life," the happy, contented life, where needs are few and things are "natural." The ascetic ideal of renunciation is the dominant note in Buddhism and Christianity; fly from the pleasures of this world, give up and renounce, for all is vanity and folly. To every struggler this seems true when the battle is hardest, when achievement seems futile and empty, and when he whispers to himself, "What is it all about, anyway?" To stop struggling, to desire only the plainest food, the plainest clothes, to live without the needless multiplication of refinements, to work at something essential for daily bread, to stop competing with one's neighbor in clothes, houses, ornaments, tastes,--it seems so pleasant and restful. But the competition gets keener, the struggle harder, tastes multiply, yesterday's luxury is to-day's need--to what end? Will mankind ever accept a modified asceticism as its goal? I think it will be forced to, but it may be that the wish is father to the thought. Sometimes it seems as if the real crucifixion for every one of us is in our contending desires and tastes, in the artificial competing standards that are mislabeled refinement. To be finicky is to court anhedonia, and the joy of life is in robust tastes not easily offended and easily gratified. Perhaps this is irrelevant in a chapter on play and recreation, but it is easily seen that much of play is a revolt against refinement and taste, just as much as humor is directed against them. In play we allow ourselves to shout, laugh aloud and to be unrefined; we welcome dirt and disorder; we forget clothes and manners; we are "natural," i. e., unrefined. The higher we build our tastes the more we need play. If such a thing as a "state of nature" could be reached, play and recreation in the adult sense would hardly more than exist.
CHAPTER XVI. RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS. DISHARMONY IN CHARACTER I find in William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience", the following definition of religion: "Religion, therefore, as I shall ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts and experiences of individuals in their solitude so far as they comprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." It seems to me the common man would as soon understand Einstein as this definition. In fact, the religious trends of the men and women in this world have many sources and are no more unified than their humor is. Whether all peoples, no matter how low in culture, have had religion cannot be settled by a study of the present inhabitants of the world, for every one of these, though savage, has tradition and some culture. Theoretically, for the one who accepts some form of evolution as true, at some time in man's history he has first asked himself some of the questions answered by religion. For my part, as I read the anthropologists (whose answers to the question of the origin of religion I regard as the only valid ones, since they are the only ones without prejudice and with some regard for scientific method), it is the practical needs of man, his curiosity and his tendency to explain by human force, which are the first sources of the religions. How to get good crops, how to catch fish and game, how to win over enemies, how and whom to marry, what to do to be strong and successful as individual and group, found various answers in the taboo, the prayer, the ceremony and the priest, magician and scientist. Curiosity as to what was behind each phenomenon of nature and the tendency of man to personalize all force, as well as the awe and admiration aroused by the strong, wise and crafty contemporary and ancestor brought into the world the "old man-cult," ancestor- worship, gods and goddesses of ranging degrees and power, but very much like men and women except for power and longevity. Certain natural phenomena--death,
CHAPTER XVI. RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS. DISHARMONY IN CHARACTER I find in William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience", the following definition of religion: "Religion, therefore, as I shall ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts and experiences of individuals in their solitude so far as they comprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." It seems to me the common man would as soon understand Einstein as this definition. In fact, the religious trends of the men and women in this world have many sources and are no more unified than their humor is. Whether all peoples, no matter how low in culture, have had religion cannot be settled by a study of the present inhabitants of the world, for every one of these, though savage, has tradition and some culture. Theoretically, for the one who accepts some form of evolution as true, at some time in man's history he has first asked himself some of the questions answered by religion. For my part, as I read the anthropologists (whose answers to the question of the origin of religion I regard as the only valid ones, since they are the only ones without prejudice and with some regard for scientific method), it is the practical needs of man, his curiosity and his tendency to explain by human force, which are the first sources of the religions. How to get good crops, how to catch fish and game, how to win over enemies, how and whom to marry, what to do to be strong and successful as individual and group, found various answers in the taboo, the prayer, the ceremony and the priest, magician and scientist. Curiosity as to what was behind each phenomenon of nature and the tendency of man to personalize all force, as well as the awe and admiration aroused by the strong, wise and crafty contemporary and ancestor brought into the world the "old man-cult," ancestor- worship, gods and goddesses of ranging degrees and power, but very much like men and women except for power and longevity. Certain natural phenomena--death,