Such a population lives by and within the framework of the mechanistic logic, and is in a fair way to lose faith in any proposition that can not be stated convincingly in terms of this mechanistic logic.

Superstitions are liable to lapse by neglect or disuse in such a community; that is to say propositions of a non-mechanistic complexion are liable to insensible disestablishment in such a case; "superstition" in these premises coming to signify whatever is not of this mechanistic, or "materialistic" character.

An exception to this broad characterisation of non-mechanistic propositions as "superstition" would be matters that are of the nature of an immediate deliverance of the senses or of the aesthetic sensibilities.
By a simile it might be said that what so falls under the caption of "superstition" in such a case is subject to decay by inanition.

It should not be difficult to conceive the general course of such a decay of superstitions under this unremitting discipline of mechanistic habits of life.

The recent past offers an illustration, in the unemotional progress of decay that has overtaken religious beliefs in the more civilised countries, and more particularly among the intellectually trained workmen of the mechanical industries.