Psychology, or, A view of the human soul, including anthropology : adapted for the use of colleges / By Rev. Frederick A. Rauch.

  • Rauch, Friedrich August, 1806-1841.
Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Psychology, or, A view of the human soul, including anthropology : adapted for the use of colleges / By Rev. Frederick A. Rauch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tions and his feelings, so that none of these mental activi- ties will feel healthy and joyful without this reference to God. Religion then is always based upon a communica- tion of God to man, and where this communication is want- ing, where the regenerating power of the Spirit is absent, there cannot be true religion. We must, therefore, con- sider all heathenish religions as superstitious ; they rest on a faith created by themselves, and not produced by God in them ; they do not free man from sin by converting him, but lead him deeper into it. A glance at them must prove this, and especially prove too, that the activities of the soul, while man is in the state of nature, are at war with each other. For all religions are either the productions of de- sire to the exclusion of the other activities, or of imagina- tion, or of cool reflection and under standing. § 3. RELIGIONS OF DESIRE. 1. The lowest of all superstitions, and one spread among the numerous tribes of Africa, is that of enchantment or feticism. It is wholly produced by desire and a feeling of want. By his immediate will man expects to effect what he desires, to exercise power over nature and its elements, to conjure storms, diseases, and death. “ Enchantment is in itself nothing else than the expression that something opposes the purposes of man, and that it ought not to be.” This opposition is pronounced without the use of any means in a direct manner, or means are called in aid, and the en- chantment is indirect. The principal thing is, that man by his mere will, here and there, desires to coerce nature to be at his disposal. Again : Whatever may injure or benefit man, receives his adoration ; whatever may serve as re- medy or means, all stones, and herbs, and animals, dese/ve his devotion, for each is possessed of a peculiar power, and each good for something. Gold differs from copper, the hare from the stag, the fur of the former from that of the latter ; each has an efficacy different from that of the other 33*