Corresponding Member Neurol. and Psychol. Societies of Paris, etc.
Neurologist to Freedmen's Hospital and Epiphany Dispensary, Lecturer on
Nervous and Mental Diseases, Howard University, Washington, D. C.
THERE is a general impression that the explanations of natural phenomena,
including human destinies, to which the term superstitious is given are
usually attributable to the vestiges of traditional cosmogonies of our
tribal ancestors handed down to children at the knees of their parents or
guardians. This explanation however, is only true of a portion of the
beliefs which we call superstitions. The demand for superstitious
explanations depends upon psychophysiological tendencies of the human
organism, the root of which is comprised in the affect which we call
craving. This theorem I have tried to develop as follows:--
I
Craving is a sign of physiological need. It is a sensory phenomenon, of
which, however, explicit awareness cannot always be discovered. It is
conspicuously noticed in cases of disturbance of the body secretions, such
as occurs in over-function of the thyroid gland. It is regarded as a crude
body-consciousness that something is the matter. In motorial organisms it
causes visible reaction: this expresses itself in what is termed
restlessness. But the unrest may show itself by a fixation more particularly
in the muscles of emotional expression, although the manifestation is not
confined to these; shallow respirations and restricted amplitude of movement
in limbs and trunk may be observed also. In cerebrate animals the reaction
of the individual is under the guidance of preceding impressions stored in
the pallium and known as memories; whereas in the animals without a pallium
all reaction is accomplished through stable mechanisms known as instincts.
Both of these types of reaction are tropisms merely; but the former are
labile, conditionable; whereas the latter cannot be modified. The science of
conditionable reactions of cerebrate animals is called psychology, and the
means by which the reactions are influenced are called psychogenetic,
whether these are healthy or diseased. It must not be forgotten, however,
that the genesis of a psychological disturbance may be purely somatic,
although the manner in which the reaction shows itself is contingent mainly
upon the features of the individual which have been derived from previous
sensory impressions and their resultant motor reactions commonly known as
experience. It is the influence of these upon the hereditary dispositions of
the individual which constitute what is known as "make-up" or character; and
it is this which determines the form which reaction to stimulus must take,
whether the stimulus is purely psychological or somatic.
Now physiological discomfort is an experience universal at one time of life
or another; but the reaction to it is infinite in variety; and while part of
it depends upon the congenital dispositions which are the common property of
humanity, a larger part is contingent upon the psychogenetic factors which
have stamped the individual.