ON SUPERSTITION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20330, 11 February 1928, Page 9

ON SUPERSTITION.

“ What a, shameful anj discreditable Bung it is. says Lean Inge, to see an otherwise intelligent person refusing to sit down at dinner as one of 13, objecting to be married in May, or ‘ touching wood’ if ho has said anything unlucky C And he proceeds, in his magnificent stylo of taking things for granted that no otherwise intelligent person ought to take tor granted, to speak of the supersititious man as “ a man who bolives in a God who w, 1 punish him for getting married in May.” 1 have never yet met a superstitious man wiio, when an unlucky omen was followed by ill-luck, jiut the blame an heaven (says Robert Lynd in the Daily News). All that the most superstitious man says is that, in the course of Nature, certain things are followed by certain consequences—that if you jump into a river you will got wet, that a rise in the barometer in your hall will for some reason or other bo followed by good weather (or ought to be), that a mackerel sky is the precursor of a stormy day, and that, if you spill the salt and do jiot throw a pinch of it over your left shulder, smething that you do not like will probably happen to you.

I am myself not more than usually superstitious, but I am supe-sfitious enough to know what superstition mcanr.. And I certainly never believe that the unlucky omen is tho cause of the bad luck that follows it. It is at most the announcement that it is coming. Omens have no more to do with producing what follows them than weathercocks and barometers with producing changes in tho wind and weather. There are, I confess, certain superstitions that I dislike as heartily as Dean Inge. I dislike prying into the future with the aid of a pack of cards. I dislike all superstitions that imply that, when a bad omen appears, there is no means ot averting the threatened consequences. I prefer to read a bad omen as a warning of a perfectly preventable calamity, like one of those early symptoms that enable us to ward off a serious illness. Those who cannot take this optimistic view ot superstitions ought not to be allowed to have superstitions, I have seen people living miserably for seven long years as the result of breaking a looking-glass, when all they had to do was to mend their ways ami live virtuously and nothing whatever would have happened to them. Superstitions, indeed, should be carried lightly. They should bq a play of the fancy, and a gloomy fatalistic creed. Docs Dean Inge realise the enormous amount of happiness that is caused every month by seeing tbs new moon not through glass? lias he ever thought of the millions of men and women whoso hearts have leaped up at the sight of pins lying on the ground ? Has he ever considered whether the world would be the richer or the pooier if tho superstitious belief in tho Christmas stocking were abolished? If we judge superstition by its results, we shall be forced to admit that tno superstitious people who know arc just as happv and just --is intelligent as tne unsuporstitious and (when we remember the use of mascots during the war by airmen) just as brave. As to whether there is anything in superstitions, Ido not know. All I know is that only twice in my life have I sat down to table as one of 13, and that on each occasion, when I looked round I discovered that there was nothing to drink but lemonade. Dean Inge might regard this as a mere coincidence. It may be, but it is a very remarkable coincidence. I shall always feel a little nervous of sitting down to table as one of 13 lest the same thing should happen again.