Note 19 — LECTURE I. The Scientific Study of Primitive Religions—Methods and Definitions.
Reading edition
Some have explained superstition as “degenerate religion”; others as “religious error”; others (Pfleiderer) as “a pathological condition of normal belief”; but all such definitions depend on the view-point. As Roskoff remarks: “The man who is plunged in superstition is sure to hold it for the only true faith, and is contented with it so long as he is not troubled with doubts.”—Das Religionswesen der Naturvölker, p. 17.