An enquiry that proceeds uninterruptedly, like a monologue, is not altogether without its dangers. One is too easily tempted to push aside thoughts that would interrupt it, and in exchange one is left with a feeling of uncertainty which one will drown in the end by over-decisiveness. I shall therefore imagine an opponent who follows my arguments with mistrust, and I shall let him interject remarks here and there. I hear him saying: ‘You have repeatedly used the expressions “culture creates these religious ideas”, “culture places them at the disposal of its members”, which sounds strange to me somehow. I could not say why myself, but it does not sound so natural as to say that culture has made regulations about distributing the products of labour or about the rights over women and children.’ I think, nevertheless, that one is justified in expressing oneself thus. I have tried to show that religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all the other achievements of culture: from the necessity for defending itself against the crushing supremacy of nature. And there was a second motive: the eager desire to correct the so painfully felt imperfections of culture. Moreover, there is something particularly apposite in saying that culture gives the individual these ideas, for he finds them at hand, they are presented to him ready-made; he would not be in a position to find them by himself. It is the heritage of many generations which he enters into and which he takes over as he does the multiplication table, geometry, etc. There is certainly a distinction in this, but it lies elsewhere, and I cannot examine it at this point. The feeling of strangeness that you mention may be partly accounted for by the fact that this stock of religious ideas is generally offered as a divine revelation. But that is in itself a part of the religious system, and entirely leaves out of account the known historical development of these ideas and their variations in different ages and cultures. ‘Another point which seems to me more important. You would derive the humanization of nature from the desire to put an end to human perplexity and helplessness in the face of nature’s dreaded forces, and from the necessity for establishing relations with, and finally influencing, these forces. But this explanation seems to be superfluous. For primitive man has no choice, he has no other way of thinking. It is natural to him, as if innate, to project his existence outwards into the world, and to regard all events that come under his observation as the manifestations of beings who fundamentally resemble himself. It is his only method of comprehension. And it is by no means self-evident, on the contrary it is a remarkable coincidence, that he should succeed in satisfying one of his great wants by thus indulging his natural disposition.’