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  ...he himself knows to be right; and he thinks it religion on his part to interpret the oracle accordingly, or even to prompt it. In such ways the most arbitrary superstitions take a moral colour in a moral mind; something which can come about all the more easily since the roots of reason and superstition are intertwined in the mind, and society has always expressed and cultivated them together.

CHAPTER III
MAGIC, SACRIFICE, AND PRAYER
[Sidenote: Fear created the gods.] That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.   To recognise an external power it is requisite that we should find the inner stream and tendency of life somehow checked or disturbed; if all went well and acceptably, we should attribute divinity only to ourselves. The external is therefore evil rather than good to early apprehension--a sentiment which still survives in respect to matter; for it takes reflection to conceive that external forces form a necessary environment, creating as well as limiting us, and offering us as many...   Santayana, George

Excerpt from The Life of Reason · This quote is tagged Fear · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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