I think we have sufficiently paved the way for the answer to both these
questions. It will be found if we fix our attention on the psychical
origin of religious ideas. These, which profess to be dogmas, are not
the residue of experience or the final result of reflection; they are
illusions, fulfilments of the oldest, strongest and most insistent
wishes of mankind; the secret of their strength is the strength of these
wishes. We know already that the terrifying effect of infantile
helplessness aroused the need for protection—protection through
love—which the father relieved, and that the discovery that this
helplessness would continue through the whole of life made it necessary
to cling to the existence of a father—but this time a more powerful one.
Thus the benevolent rule of divine providence allays our anxiety in face
of life’s dangers, the establishment of a moral world order ensures the
fulfilment of the demands of justice, which within human culture have so
often remained unfulfilled, and the prolongation of earthly existence by
a future life provides in addition the local and temporal setting for
these wish-fulfilments. Answers to the questions that tempt human
curiosity, such as the origin of the universe and the relation between
the body and the soul, are developed in accordance with the underlying
assumptions of this system; it betokens a tremendous relief for the
individual psyche if it is released from the conflicts of childhood
arising out of the father complex, which are never wholly overcome, and
if these conflicts are afforded a universally accepted solution.
When I say that they are illusions, I must define the meaning of the
word. An illusion is not the same as an error, it is indeed not
necessarily an error. Aristotle’s belief that vermin are evolved out of
dung, to which ignorant people still cling, was an error; so was the
belief of a former generation of doctors that _tabes dorsalis_ was the
result of sexual excess. It would be improper to call these errors
illusions. On the other hand, it was an illusion on the part of Columbus
that he had discovered a new sea-route to India. The part played by his
wish in this error is very clear. One may describe as an illusion the
statement of certain nationalists that the Indo-Germanic race is the
only one capable of culture, or the belief, which only psycho-analysis
destroyed, that the child is a being without sexuality. It is
characteristic of the illusion that it is derived from men’s wishes; in
this respect it approaches the psychiatric delusion, but it is to be
distinguished from this, quite apart from the more complicated structure
of the latter. In the delusion we emphasize as essential the conflict
with reality; the illusion need not be necessarily false, that is to
say, unrealizable or incompatible with reality. For instance, a poor
girl may have an illusion that a prince will come and fetch her home. It
is possible; some such cases have occurred. That the Messiah will come
and found a golden age is much less probable; according to one’s
personal attitude one will classify this belief as an illusion or as
analogous to a delusion. Examples of illusions that have come true are
not easy to discover, but the illusion of the alchemists that all metals
can be turned into gold may prove to be one. The desire to have lots of
gold, as much gold as possible, has been considerably damped by our
modern insight into the nature of wealth, yet chemistry no longer
considers a transmutation of metals into gold as impossible. Thus we
call a belief an illusion when wish-fulfilment is a prominent factor in
its motivation, while disregarding its relations to reality, just as the
illusion itself does.
If after this survey we turn again to religious doctrines, we may
reiterate that they are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and
no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.
Some of them are so improbable, so very incompatible with everything we
have laboriously discovered about the reality of the world, that we may
compare them—taking adequately into account the psychological
differences—to delusions. Of the reality value of most of them we cannot
judge; just as they cannot be proved, neither can they be refuted. We
still know too little to approach them critically. The riddles of the
universe only reveal themselves slowly to our enquiry, to many questions
science can as yet give no answer; but scientific work is our only way
to the knowledge of external reality. Again, it is merely illusion to
expect anything from intuition or trance; they can give us nothing but
particulars, which are difficult to interpret, about our own mental
life, never information about the questions that are so lightly answered
by the doctrines of religion. It would be wanton to let one’s own
arbitrary action fill the gap, and according to one’s personal estimate
declare this or that part of the religious system to be more or less
acceptable. These questions are too momentous for that; too sacred, one
might say.
At this point it may be objected: well, then, if even the crabbed
sceptics admit that the statements of religion cannot be confuted by
reason, why should not I believe in them, since they have so much on
their side—tradition, the concurrence of mankind, and all the
consolation they yield? Yes, why not? Just as no one can be forced into
belief, so no one can be forced into unbelief. But do not deceive
yourself into thinking that with such arguments you are following the
path of correct reasoning. If ever there was a case of facile argument,
this is one. Ignorance is ignorance; no right to believe anything is
derived from it. No reasonable man will behave so frivolously in other
matters or rest content with such feeble grounds for his opinions or for
the attitude he adopts; it is only in the highest and holiest things
that he allows this. In reality these are only attempts to delude
oneself or other people into the belief that one still holds fast to
religion, when one has long cut oneself loose from it. Where questions
of religion are concerned people are guilty of every possible kind of
insincerity and intellectual misdemeanour. Philosophers stretch the
meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original
sense; by calling ‘God’ some vague abstraction which they have created
for themselves, they pose as deists, as believers, before the world;
they may even pride themselves on having attained a higher and purer
idea of God, although their God is nothing but an insubstantial shadow
and no longer the mighty personality of religious doctrine. Critics
persist in calling ‘deeply religious’ a person who confesses to a sense
of man’s insignificance and impotence in face of the universe, although
it is not this feeling that constitutes the essence of religious
emotion, but rather the next step, the reaction to it, which seeks a
remedy against this feeling. He who goes no further, he who humbly
acquiesces in the insignificant part man plays in the universe, is, on
the contrary, irreligious in the truest sense of the word.
It does not lie within the scope of this enquiry to estimate the value
of religious doctrines as truth. It suffices that we have recognized
them, psychologically considered, as illusions. But we need not conceal
the fact that this discovery strongly influences our attitude to what
must appear to many the most important of questions. We know
approximately at what periods and by what sort of men religious
doctrines were formed. If we now learn from what motives this happened,
our attitude to the problem of religion will suffer an appreciable
change. We say to ourselves: it would indeed be very nice if there were
a God, who was both creator of the world and a benevolent providence, if
there were a moral world order and a future life, but at the same time
it is very odd that this is all just as we should wish it ourselves. And
it would be still odder if our poor, ignorant, enslaved ancestors had
succeeded in solving all these difficult riddles of the universe.