The truth seems to
be that to this day the peasant remains a pagan and savage at heart; his
civilization is merely a thin veneer which the hard knocks of life soon
abrade, exposing the solid core of paganism and savagery below. The
danger created by a bottomless layer of ignorance and superstition under
the crust of civilized society is lessened, not only by the natural
torpidity and inertia of the bucolic mind, but also by the progressive
decrease of the rural as compared with the urban population in modern
states; for I believe it will be found that the artisans who congregate
in towns are far less retentive of primitive modes of thought than their
rustic brethren. In every age cities have been the centres and as it
were the lighthouses from which ideas radiate into the surrounding
darkness, kindled by the friction of mind with mind in the crowded
haunts of men; and it is natural that at these beacons of intellectual
light all should partake in some measure of the general illumination. No
doubt the mental ferment and unrest of great cities have their dark as
well as their bright side; but among the evils to be apprehended from
them the chances of a pagan revival need hardly be reckoned.
Another point on which I have changed my mind is the nature of the great
Aryan god whom the Romans called Jupiter and the Greeks Zeus. Whereas I
formerly argued that he was primarily a personification of the sacred
oak and only in the second place a personification of the thundering
sky, I now invert the order of his divine functions and believe that he
was a sky-god before he came to be associated with the oak.
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