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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12353-0.txt b/12353-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6207b79 --- /dev/null +++ b/12353-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13580 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12353 *** + +THE MAKING OF RELIGION + +BY +ANDREW LANG + +M.A., LL.D. ST ANDREWS + +HONORARY FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE OXFORD +SOMETIME GIFFORD LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS + +SECOND EDITION +1900 + + + + +_TO THE PRINCIPAL +OF THE +UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS + + +DEAR PRINCIPAL DONALDSON, + +I hope you will permit me to lay at the feet of the University of St. +Andrews, in acknowledgment of her life-long kindnesses to her old pupil, +these chapters on the early History of Religion. They may be taken as +representing the Gifford Lectures delivered by me, though in fact they +contain very little that was spoken from Lord Gifford's chair. I wish they +were more worthy of an Alma Mater which fostered in the past the leaders +of forlorn hopes that were destined to triumph; and the friends of lost +causes who fought bravely against Fate--Patrick Hamilton, Cargill, and +Argyll, Beaton and Montrose, and Dundee. + +Believe me + +Very sincerely yours, + +ANDREW LANG_. + + * * * * * + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION + +By the nature of things this book falls under two divisions. The first +eight chapters criticise the current anthropological theory of the origins +of the belief in _spirits._ Chapters ix.-xvii., again, criticise the +current anthropological theory as to how, the notion of _spirit_ once +attained, man arrived at the idea of a Supreme Being. These two branches +of the topic are treated in most modern works concerned with the Origins +of Religion, such as Mr. Tyler's "Primitive Culture," Mr. Herbert +Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," Mr. Jevons's "Introduction to the +History of Religion," the late Mr. Grant Allen's "Evolution of the Idea of +God," and many others. Yet I have been censured for combining, in this +work, the two branches of my subject; and the second part has been +regarded as but faintly connected with the first. + +The reason for this criticism seems to be, that while one small set of +students is interested in, and familiar with the themes examined in the +first part (namely the psychological characteristics of certain mental +states from which, in part, the doctrine of spirits is said to have +arisen), that set of students neither knows nor cares anything about the +matter handled in the second part. This group of students is busied with +"Psychical Research," and the obscure human faculties implied in alleged +cases of hallucination, telepathy, "double personality," human automatism, +clairvoyance, and so on. Meanwhile anthropological readers are equally +indifferent as to that branch of psychology which examines the conditions +of hysteria, hypnotic trance, "double personality," and the like. +Anthropologists have not hitherto applied to the savage mental conditions, +out of which, in part, the doctrine of "spirits" arose, the recent +researches of French, German, and English psychologists of the new school. +As to whether these researches into abnormal psychological conditions do, +or do not, indicate the existence of a transcendental region of human +faculty, anthropologists appear to be unconcerned. The only English +exception known to me is Mr. Tylor, and his great work, "Primitive +Culture," was written thirty years ago, before the modern psychological +studies of Professor William James, Dr. Romaine Newbold, M. Richet, Dr. +Janet, Professor Sidgwick, Mr. Myers, Mr. Gurney, Dr. Parish, and many +others had commenced. + +Anthropologists have gone on discussing the trances, and visions, and +so-called "demoniacal possession" of savages, as if no new researches into +similar facts in the psychology of civilised mankind existed; or, if they +existed, threw any glimmer of light on the abnormal psychology of savages. +I have, on the other hand, thought it desirable to sketch out a study of +savage psychology in the light of recent psychological research. Thanks to +this daring novelty, the book has been virtually taken as two books; +anthropologists have criticised the second part, and one or two Psychical +Researchers have criticised the first part; each school leaving one part +severely alone. Such are the natural results of a too restricted +specialism. + +Even to Psychical Researchers the earlier division is of scant interest, +because witnesses to _successful_ abnormal or supernormal faculty in +savages cannot be brought into court and cross-examined. But I do not give +anecdotes of such savage successes as evidence to _facts;_ they are only +illustrations, and evidence to _beliefs and methods_ (as of crystal gazing +and automatic utterances of "secondary personality"), which, among the +savages, correspond to the supposed facts examined by Psychical Research +among the civilised. I only point out, as Bastian had already pointed out, +the existence of a field that deserves closer study by anthropologists +who can observe savages in their homes. We need persons trained in +the psychological laboratories of Europe and America, as members of +anthropological expeditions. It may be noted that, in his "Letters from +the South Seas," Mr. Louis Stevenson makes some curious observations, +especially on a singular form of hypnotism applied to himself with +fortunate results. The method, used in native medicine, was novel; and +the results were entirely inexplicable to Mr. Stevenson, who had not been +amenable to European hypnotic practice. But he was not a trained expert. + +Anthropology must remain incomplete while it neglects this field, whether +among wild or civilised men. In the course of time this will come to be +acknowledged. It will be seen that we cannot really account for the origin +of the belief in spirits while we neglect the scientific study of those +psychical conditions, as of hallucination and the hypnotic trance, in +which that belief must probably have had some, at least, of its origins. + +As to the second part of the book, I have argued that the first dim +surmises as to a Supreme Being need not have arisen (as on the current +anthropological theory) in the notion of spirits at all. (See chapter xi.) +Here I have been said to draw a mere "verbal distinction" but no +distinction can be more essential. If such a Supreme Being as many savages +acknowledge is _not_ envisaged by them as a "spirit," then the theories +and processes by which he is derived from a ghost of a dead man are +invalid, and remote from the point. As to the origin of a belief in a +kind of germinal Supreme Being (say the Australian Baiame), I do not, in +this book, offer any opinion. I again and again decline to offer an +opinion. Critics, none the less, have said that I attribute the belief to +revelation! I shall therefore here indicate what I think probable in so +obscure a field. + +As soon as man had the idea of "making" things, he might conjecture as to +a Maker of things which he himself had not made, and could not make. He +would regard this unknown Maker as a "magnified non-natural man." These +speculations appear to me to need less reflection than the long and +complicated processes of thought by which Mr. Tylor believes, and probably +believes with justice, the theory of "spirits" to have been evolved. (See +chapter iii.) This conception of a magnified non-natural man, who is a +Maker, being given; his Power would be recognised, and fancy would clothe +one who had made such useful things with certain other moral attributes, +as of Fatherhood, goodness, and regard for the ethics of his children; +these ethics having been developed naturally in the evolution of social +life. In all this there is nothing "mystical," nor anything, as far as I +can see, beyond the limited mental powers of any beings that deserve to be +called human. + +But I hasten to add that another theory may be entertained. Since this +book was written there appeared "The Native Tribes of Central Australia," +by Professor Spencer and Mr. Gillen, a most valuable study.[1] The +authors, closely scrutinising the esoteric rites of the Arunta and other +tribes in Central Australia, found none of the moral precepts and +attributes which (according to Mr. Howitt, to whom their work is +dedicated), prevail in the mysteries of the natives of New South Wales and +Victoria. (See chapter x.) What they found was a belief in 'the great +spirit, _Twanyirika_,' who is believed 'by uninitiated boys and women' +(but, apparently, not by adults) to preside over the cruel rites of tribal +initiation.[2] No more is said, no myths about 'the great spirit' are +given. He is dismissed in a brief note. Now if these ten lines contain +_all_ the native lore of Twanyirika, he is a mere bugbear, not believed in +(apparently) by adults, but invented by them to terrorise the women and +boys. Next, granting that the information of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen is +exhaustive, and granting that (as Mr. J.G. Frazer holds, in his essays in +the 'Fortnightly Review,' April and May, 1899) the Arunta are the most +primitive of mortals, it will seem to follow that the _moral_ attributes +of Baiame and other gods of other Australian regions are later accretions +round the form of an original and confessed bugbear, as among the +primitive Arunta, 'a bogle of the nursery,' in the phrase repudiated by +Maitland of Lethington. Though not otherwise conspicuously more civilised +than the Arunta (except, perhaps, in marriage relations), Mr. Howitt's +South Eastern natives will have improved the Arunta confessed 'bogle' +into a beneficent and moral Father and Maker. Religion will have its +origin in a tribal joke, and will have become not '_diablement_,' but +'_divinement_,' '_changée en route_.' Readers of Messrs. Spencer and +Gillen will see that the Arunta philosophy, primitive or not, is of a high +ingenuity, and so artfully composed that it contains no room either for a +Supreme Being or for the doctrine of the survival of the soul, with a +future of rewards and punishments; opinions declared to be extant among +other Australian tribes. There is no creator, and every soul, after death, +is reincarnated in a new member of the tribe. On the other hand (granting +that the brief note on Twanyirika is exhaustive), the Arunta, in their +isolation, may have degenerated in religion, and may have dropped, in the +case of Twanyirika, the moral attributes of Baiame. It may be noticed +that, in South Eastern Australia, the Being who presides, like Twanyirika, +over initiations is _not_ the supreme being, but a son or deputy of his, +such as the Kurnai Tundun. We do not know whether the Arunta have, or have +had and lost, or never possessed, a being superior to Twanyirika. + +With regard, to all such moral, and, in certain versions, creative Beings +as Baiame, criticism has taken various lines. There is the high a priori +line that savage minds are incapable of originating the notion of a moral +Maker. I have already said that the notion, in an early form, seems to be +well within the range of any minds deserving to be called human. Next, the +facts are disputed. I can only refer readers to the authorities cited. +They speak for tribes in many quarters of the world, and the witnesses +are laymen as well as missionaries. I am accused, again, of using a +misleading rhetoric, and of thereby covertly introducing Christian or +philosophical ideas into my account of "savages guiltless of Christian +teaching." As to the latter point, I am also accused of mistaking for +native opinions the results of "Christian teaching." One or other charge +must fall to the ground. As to my rhetoric, in the use of such words as +'Creator,' 'Eternal,' and the like, I shall later qualify and explain it. +For a long discussion between myself and Mr. Sidney Hartland, involving +minute detail, I may refer the reader to _Folk-Lore_, the last number of +1898 and the first of 1899, and to the Introduction to the new edition of +my 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion' (1899). + +Where relatively high moral attributes are assigned to a Being, I have +called the result 'Religion;' where the same Being acts like Zeus in +Greek fable, plays silly or obscene tricks, is lustful and false, I have +spoken of 'Myth.'[3] These distinctions of Myth and Religion may be, and +indeed are, called arbitrary. The whole complex set of statements about +the Being, good or bad, sublime or silly, are equally Myths, it may be +urged. Very well; but one set, the loftier set, is fitter to survive, and +does survive, in what we still commonly call Religion; while the other +set, the puerile set of statements, is fairly near to extinction, and is +usually called Mythology. One set has been the root of a goodly tree: the +other set is being lopped off, like the parasitic mistletoe. + +I am arguing that the two classes of ideas arise from two separate human +moods; moods as different and distinct as lust and love. I am arguing +that, as far as our information goes, the nobler set of ideas is as +ancient as the lower. Personally (though we cannot have direct evidence) +I find it easy to believe that the loftier notions are the earlier. If man +began with the conception of a powerful and beneficent Maker or Father, +then I can see how the humorous savage fancy ran away with the idea of +Power, and attributed to a potent being just such tricks as a waggish and +libidinous savage would like to play if he could. Moreover, I have +actually traced (in 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion') some plausible processes +of mythical accretion. The early mind was not only religious, in its way, +but scientific, in its way. It embraced the idea of Evolution as well as +the idea of Creation. To one mood a Maker seemed to exist. But the +institution of Totemism (whatever its origin) suggested the idea of +Evolution; for men, it was held, developed out of their Totems-animals and +plants. But then, on the other hand, Zeus, or Baiame, or Mungun-ngaur, was +regarded as their Father. How were these contradictions to be reconciled? +Easily, thus: Zeus _was_ the Father, but, in each case, was the Father by +an amour in which he wore the form of the Totem-snake, swan, bull, ant, +dog, or the like. At once a degraded set of secondary erotic myths cluster +around Zeus. + +Again, it is notoriously the nature of man to attribute every institution +to a primal inventor or legislator. Men then, find themselves performing +certain rites, often of a buffooning or scandalous character; and, in +origin, mainly magical, intended for the increase of game, edible plants, +or, later, for the benefit of the crops. _Why_ do they perform these +rites? they ask: and, looking about, as usual, for a primal initiator, +they attribute what they do to a primal being, the Corn Spirit, Demeter, +or to Zeus, or to Baiame, or Manabozho, or Punjel. This is man's usual way +of going back to origins. Instantly, then, a new set of parasitic myths +crystallises round a Being who, perhaps, was originally moral. The savage +mind, in short, has not maintained itself on the high level, any more than +the facetious mediaeval myths maintained themselves, say, on the original +level of the conception of the character of St. Peter, the keeper of the +keys of Heaven. + +All this appears perfectly natural and human, and in this, and in other +ways, what we call low Myth may have invaded the higher realms of +Religion: a lower invaded a higher element. But reverse the hypothesis. +Conceive that Zeus, or Baiame, was _originally_, not a Father and +guardian, but a lewd and tricky ghost of a medicine-man, a dancer of +indecent dances, a wooer of other men's wives, a shape-shifter, a +burlesque droll, a more jocular bugbear, like Twanyirika. By what means +did he come to be accredited later with his loftiest attributes, and with +regard for the tribal ethics, which, in practice, he daily broke and +despised? Students who argue for the possible priority of the lowest, or, +as I call them, mythical attributes of the Being, must advance an +hypothesis of the concretion of the nobler elements around the original +wanton and mischievous ghost. + +Then let us suppose that the Arunta Twanyirika, a confessed bugbear, +discredited by adults, and only invented to keep women and children in +order, was the original germ of the moral and fatherly Baiame, of South +Eastern Australian tribes. How, in that case, did the adults of the tribe +fall into their own trap, come to believe seriously in their invented +bugbear, and credit him with the superintendence of such tribal ethics as +generosity and unselfishness? What were the processes of the conversion of +Twanyirika? I do not deny that this theory may be correct, but I wish to +see an hypothesis of the process of elevation. + +I fail to frame such an hypothesis. Grant that the adults merely chuckle +over Twanyirika, whose 'voice' they themselves produce; by whirling the +wooden tundun, or bull-roarer. Grant that, on initiation, the boys learn +that 'the great spirit' is a mere bogle, invented to mystify the women, +and keep them away from the initiatory rites. How, then, did men come to +believe in _him_ as a terrible, all-seeing, all-knowing, creative, and +potent moral being? For this, undeniably, is the belief of many Australian +tribes, where his 'voice' (or rather that of his subordinate) is produced +by whirling the tundun. That these higher beliefs are of European origin, +Mr. Howitt denies. How were they evolved out of the notion of a confessed +artificial bogle? I am unable to frame a theory. + +From my point of view, namely, that the higher and simple ideas may well +be the earlier, I have, at least, offered a theory of the processes by +which the lower attributes crystallised around a conception supposed +(_argumenti gratia_) to be originally high. Other processes of degradation +would come in, as (on my theory) the creed and practice of Animism, or +worship of human ghosts, often of low character, swamped and invaded the +prior belief in a fairly moral and beneficent, but not originally +spiritual, Being. My theory, at least, _is_ a theory, and, rightly or +wrongly, accounts for the phenomenon, the combination of the highest +divine and the lowest animal qualities in the same Being. But I have yet +to learn how, if the lowest myths are the earliest, the highest attributes +came in time to be conferred on the hero of the lowest myths. Why, or how, +did a silly buffoon, or a confessed 'bogle' arrive at being regarded as a +patron of such morality as had been evolved? An hypothesis of the +processes involved must be indicated. It is not enough to reply, in +general, that the rudimentary human mind is illogical and confused. That +is granted; but there must have been a method in its madness. What that +method was (from my point of view) I have shown, and it must be as easy +for opponents to set forth what, from their point of view, the method was. + +We are here concerned with what, since the time of the earliest Greek +philosophers, has been the _crux_ of mythology: why are infamous myths +told about 'the Father of gods and men'? We can easily explain the nature +of the myths. They are the natural flowers of savage fancy and humour. +But wherefore do they crystallise round Zeus? I have, at least, shown some +probable processes in the evolution. + +Where criticism has not disputed the facts of the moral attributes, now +attached to, say, an Australian Being, it has accounted for them by a +supposed process of borrowing from missionaries and other Europeans. In +this book I deal with that hypothesis as urged by Sir A.B. Ellis, in West +Africa (chapter xiii.). I need not have taken the trouble, as this +distinguished writer had already, in a work which I overlooked, formally +withdrawn, as regards Africa, his theory of 'loan-gods.' Miss Kingsley, +too, is no believer in the borrowing hypothesis for West Africa, in +regard, that is, to the highest divine conception. I was, when I wrote, +unaware that, especially as concerns America and Australia, Mr. Tylor had +recently advocated the theory of borrowing ('Journal of Anthrop. +Institute,' vol. xxi.). To Mr. Tylor's arguments, when I read them, I +replied in the 'Nineteenth Century,' January 1899: 'Are Savage Gods +Borrowed from Missionaries?' I do not here repeat my arguments, but await +the publication of Mr. Tylor's 'Gifford Lectures,' in which his hypothesis +may be reinforced, and may win my adhesion. + +It may here be said, however, that if the Australian higher religious +ideas are of recent and missionary origin, they would necessarily be known +to the native women, from whom, in fact, they are absolutely concealed by +the men, under penalty of death. Again, if the Son, or Sons, of Australian +chief Beings resemble part of the Christian dogma, they much more closely +resemble the Apollo and Hermes of Greece.[4] But nobody will say that the +Australians borrowed them from Greek mythology! + +In chapter xiv., owing to a bibliographical error of my own, I have done +injustice to Mr. Tylor, by supposing him to have overlooked Strachey's +account of the Virginian god Ahone. He did not overlook Ahone, but +mistrusted Strachey. In an excursus on Ahone, in the new edition of 'Myth, +Ritual, and Religion,' I have tried my best to elucidate the bibliography +and other aspects of Strachey's account, which I cannot regard as +baseless. Mr. Tylor's opinion is, doubtless, different, and may prove more +persuasive. As to Australia, Mr. Howitt, our best authority, continues to +disbelieve in the theory of borrowing. + +I have to withdraw in chapters x. xi. the statement that 'Darumulun never +died at all.' Mr. Hartland has corrected me, and pointed out that, among +the Wiraijuri, a myth represents him as having been destroyed, for his +offences, by Baiame. In that tribe, however, Darumulun is not the highest, +but a subordinate Being. Mr. Hartland has also collected a few myths in +which Australian Supreme Beings _do_ (contrary to my statement) 'set the +example of sinning.' Nothing can surprise me less, and I only wonder that, +in so savage a race, the examples, hitherto collected, are so rare, and so +easily to be accounted for on the theory of processes of crystallisation +of myths already suggested. + +As to a remark in Appendix B, Mr. Podmore takes a distinction. I quote his +remark, 'the phenomena described are quite inexplicable by ordinary +mechanical means,' and I contrast this, as illogical, with his opinion +that a girl 'may have been directly responsible for all that took place.' +Mr. Podmore replies that what was 'described' is not necessarily identical +with what _occurred_. Strictly speaking, he is right; but the evidence was +copious, was given by many witnesses, and (as offered by me) was in part +_contemporary_ (being derived from the local newspapers), so that here Mr. +Podmore's theory of illusions of memory on a large scale, developed in the +five weeks which elapsed before he examined the spectators, is out of +court. The evidence was of contemporary published record. + +The handling of fire by Home is accounted for by Mr. Podmore, in the same +chapter, as the result of Home's use of a 'non-conducting substance.' +Asked, 'what substance?' he answered, 'asbestos.' Sir William Crookes, +again repeating his account of the performance which he witnessed, says, +'Home took up a lump of red-hot charcoal about twice the size of an egg +into his hand, on which certainly no asbestos was visible. He blew into +his hands, and the flames could be seen coming out between his fingers, +and he carried the charcoal round the room.'[5] Sir W. Crookes stood close +beside Home. The light was that of the fire and of two candles. Probably +Sir William could see a piece of asbestos, if it was covering Home's +hands, which he was watching. + +What I had to say, by way of withdrawal, qualification, explanation, or +otherwise, I inserted (in order to seize the earliest opportunity) in the +Introduction to the recent edition of my 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion' +(1899). The reader will perhaps make his own kind deductions from my +rhetoric when I talk, for example, about a Creator in the creed of low +savages. They have no business, anthropologists declare, to entertain so +large an idea. But in 'The Journal of the Anthropological Institute,' +N.S. II., Nos. 1, 2, p. 85, Dr. Bennett gives an account of the religion +of the cannibal Fangs of the Congo, first described by Du Chaillu. 'These +anthropophagi have some idea of a God, a superior being, their _Tata_ +("Father"), _a bo mam merere_ ("he made all things"), Anyambi is their +_Tata_ (Father), and ranks above all other Fang gods, because _a'ne yap_ +(literally, "he lives in heaven").' This is inconsiderate in the Fangs. A +set of native cannibals have no business with a creative Father who is in +heaven. I say 'creative' because 'he made all things,' and (as the bowler +said about a 'Yorker') 'what else can you call him?' In all such cases, +where 'creator' and 'creative' are used by me, readers will allow for the +imperfections of the English language. As anthropologists say, the savages +simply cannot have the corresponding ideas; and I must throw the blame on +people who, knowing the savages and their language, assure us that they +_have_. This Fang Father or _Tata_ 'is considered indifferent to the wants +and sufferings of men, women, and children.' Offerings and prayers are +therefore made, not to him, but to the ghosts of parents, who are more +accessible. This additional information precisely illustrates my general +theory, that the chief Being was not evolved out of ghosts, but came to be +neglected as ghost-worship arose. I am not aware that Dr. Bennett is a +missionary. Anthropologists distrust missionaries, and most of my evidence +is from laymen. If the anthropological study of religion is to advance, +the high and usually indolent chief Beings of savage religions must be +carefully examined, not consigned to a casual page or paragraph. I have +found them most potent, and most moral, where ghost-worship has not +been evolved; least potent, or at all events most indifferent, where +ghost-worship is most in vogue. The inferences (granting the facts) are +fatal to the current anthropological theory. + +The phrases 'Creator,' 'creative,' as applied to Anyambi, or Baiame, +have been described, by critics, as rhetorical, covertly introducing +conceptions of which savages are incapable. I have already shown that I +only follow my authorities, and their translations of phrases in various +savage tongues. But the phrase 'eternal,' applied to Anyambi or Baiame, +may be misleading. I do not wish to assert that, if you talked to a savage +about 'eternity,' he would understand what you intend. I merely mean what +Mariner says that the Tongans mean as to the god Tá-li-y Tooboo. 'Of his +origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal.' The savage +theologians assert no beginning for such beings (as a rule), and no end, +except where Unkulunkulu is by some Zulus thought to be dead, and +where the Wiraijuris declare that their Darumulun (_not_ supreme) was +'destroyed' by Baiame. I do not wish to credit savages with thoughts more +abstract than they possess. But that their thought can be abstract is +proved, even in the case of the absolutely 'primitive Arunta,' by +their myth of the _Ungambikula_, 'a word which means "out of nothing," +or "self-existing,"' say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.[6] Once more, +I find that I have spoken of some savage Beings as 'omnipresent' +and 'omnipotent.' But I have pointed out that this is only a modern +metaphysical rendering of the actual words attributed to the savage: 'He +can go everywhere, and do everything.' As to the phrase, also used, that +Baiame, for example, 'makes for righteousness,' I mean that he sanctions +the morality of his people; for instance, sanctions veracity and +unselfishness, as Mr. Howitt distinctly avers. These are examples of +'righteousness' in conduct. I do not mean that these virtues were +impressed on savages in some supernatural way, as a critic has daringly +averred that I do. The strong reaction of some early men against the +cosmical process by which 'the weakest goes to the wall,' is, indeed, a +curious moral phenomenon, and deserves the attention of moralists. But I +never dreamed of supposing that this reaction (which extends beyond the +limit of the tribe or group) had a 'supernatural' origin! It has been +argued that 'tribal morality' is only a set of regulations based on the +convenience of the elders of the tribe: is, in fact, as the Platonic +Thrasymachus says, 'the interest of the strongest.' That does not appear +to me to be demonstrated; but this is no place for a discussion of the +origin of morals. 'The interest of the strongest,' and of the nomadic +group, would be to knock elderly invalids on the head. But Dampier says, +of the Australians, in 1688, 'Be it little, or be it much they get, every +one has his part, as well the young and tender, and the old and feeble, +who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' The origin of +this fair and generous dealing may be obscure, but it is precisely the +kind of dealing on which, according to Mr. Howitt, the religion of the +Kurnai insists (chapter x.). Thus the Being concerned does 'make for +righteousness.' + +With these explanations I trust that my rhetorical use of such phrases as +'eternal,' 'creative,' 'omniscient,' 'omnipotent,' 'omnipresent,' and +'moral,' may not be found to mislead, or covertly to import modern or +Christian ideas into my account of the religious conceptions of savages. + +As to the evidence throughout, a learned historian has informed me that +'no anthropological evidence is of any value.' If so, there can be no +anthropology (in the realm of institutions). But the evidence that I +adduce is from such sources as anthropologists, at least, accept, and +employ in the construction of theories from which, in some points, I +venture to dissent. + +A.L. + +[Footnote 1: Macmillans, 1899.] + +[Footnote 2: Op. cit. p. 246, note.] + +[Footnote 3: See the new edition of _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, +especially the new Introduction.] + +[Footnote 4: See Introductions to my _Homeric Hymns_. Allen. 1899.] + +[Footnote 5: _Journal S.P.R._, December 1890, p. 147.] + +[Footnote 6: _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 388.] + + + + +PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION + +'The only begetter' of this work is Monsieur Lefébure, author of 'Les +Yeux d'Horus,' and other studies in Egyptology. He suggested the writing +of the book, but is in no way responsible for the opinions expressed. + +The author cannot omit the opportunity of thanking Mr. Frederic Myers for +his kindness in reading the proof sheets of the earlier chapters and +suggesting some corrections of statement. Mr. Myers, however, is probably +not in agreement with the author on certain points; for example, in +the chapter on 'Possession.' As the second part of the book differs +considerably from the opinions which have recommended themselves to most +anthropological writers on early Religion, the author must say here, as he +says later, that no harm can come of trying how facts look from a new +point of view, and that he certainly did not expect them to fall into the +shape which he now presents for criticism. + +ST. ANDREWS: _April 3, 1898._ + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER +II. SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' + +III. ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION +IV. 'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE' +V. CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED +VI. ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS +VII. DEMONIACAL POSSESSION +VIII. FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM +IX. EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD +X. HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES +XI. SUPREME GODS NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIRITS' +XII. SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS +XIII. MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS +XIV. AHONE. TI-RA-WÁ. NÀ-PI. PACHACAMAC. TUI LAGA. TAA-ROA +XV. THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY +XVI. THEORIES OF JEHOVAH +XVII. CONCLUSION + +APPENDICES. + +A. OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE +B. THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS +C. CRYSTAL-GAZING +D. CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA + +INDEX + + * * * * * + +THE MAKING OF RELIGION + +I + +_INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER_ + +The modern Science of the History of Religion has attained conclusions +which already possess an air of being firmly established. These +conclusions may be briefly stated thus: Man derived the conception of +'spirit' or 'soul' from his reflections on the phenomena of sleep, dreams, +death, shadow, and from the experiences of trance and hallucination. +Worshipping first the departed souls of his kindred, man later extended +the doctrine of spiritual beings in many directions. Ghosts, or other +spiritual existences fashioned on the same lines, prospered till they +became gods. Finally, as the result of a variety of processes, one of +these gods became supreme, and, at last, was regarded as the one only God. +Meanwhile man retained his belief in the existence of his own soul, +surviving after the death of the body, and so reached the conception of +immortality. Thus the ideas of God and of the soul are the result of early +fallacious reasonings about misunderstood experiences. + +It may seem almost wanton to suggest the desirableness of revising a +system at once so simple, so logical, and apparently so well bottomed on +facts. But there can never be any real harm in studying masses of evidence +from fresh points of view. At worst, the failure of adverse criticism must +help to establish the doctrines assailed. Now, as we shall show, there are +two points of view from which the evidence as to religion in its early +stages has not been steadily contemplated. Therefore we intend to ask, +first, what, if anything, can be ascertained as to the nature of the +'visions' and hallucinations which, according to Mr. Tylor in his +celebrated work 'Primitive Culture,' lent their aid to the formation of +the idea of 'spirit.' Secondly, we shall collect and compare the accounts +which we possess of the High Gods and creative beings worshipped or +believed in, by the most backward races. We shall then ask whether these +relatively Supreme Beings, so conceived of by men in very rudimentary +social conditions, can be, as anthropology declares, mere developments +from the belief in ghosts of the dead. + +We shall end by venturing to suggest that the savage theory of the soul +may be based, at least in part, on experiences which cannot, at present, +be made to fit into any purely materialistic system of the universe. We +shall also bring evidence tending to prove that the idea of God, in its +earliest known shape, need not logically be derived from the idea of +spirit, however that idea itself may have been attained or evolved. The +conception of God, then, need not be evolved out of reflections on dreams +and 'ghosts.' + +If these two positions can be defended with any success, it is obvious +that the whole theory of the Science of Religion will need to be +reconsidered. But it is no less evident that our two positions do not +depend on each other. The first may be regarded as fantastic, or +improbable, or may be 'masked' and left on one side. But the strength of +the second position, derived from evidence of a different character, will +not, therefore, be in any way impaired. Our first position can only be +argued for by dint of evidence highly unpopular in character, and, as a +general rule, condemned by modern science. The evidence is obtained by +what is, at all events, a legitimate anthropological proceeding. We may +follow Mr. Tylor's example, and collect savage _beliefs_ about visions, +hallucinations, 'clairvoyance,' and the acquisition of knowledge +apparently not attainable through the normal channels of sense. We may +then compare these savage beliefs with attested records of similar +_experiences_ among living and educated civilised men. Even if we attain +to no conclusion, or a negative conclusion, as to the actuality and +supernormal character of the alleged experiences, still to compare data of +savage and civilised psychology, or even of savage and civilised illusions +and fables, is decidedly part, though a neglected part, of the function of +anthropological science. The results, whether they do or do not strengthen +our first position, must be curious and instructive, if only as a chapter +in the history of human error. That chapter, too, is concerned with no +mean topic, but with what we may call the X region of our nature. Out of +that region, out of miracle, prophecy, vision, have certainly come forth +the great religions, Christianity and Islam; and the great religious +innovators and leaders, our Lord Himself, St. Francis, John Knox, Jeanne +d'Arc, down to the founder of the new faith of the Sioux and Arapahoe. It +cannot, then, be unscientific to compare the barbaric with the civilised +beliefs and experiences about a region so dimly understood, and so fertile +in potent influences. Here the topic will be examined rather by the method +of anthropology than of psychology. We may conceivably have something to +learn (as has been the case before) from the rough observations and hasty +inferences of the most backward races. + +We may illustrate this by an anecdote: + +'The Northern Indians call the _Aurora Borealis_ "Edthin," that is "Deer." +Their ideas in this respect are founded on a principle one would not +imagine. Experience has shown them that when a hairy deer-skin is briskly +stroked with the hand on a dark night, it will emit many sparks of +electrical fire.' + +So says Hearne in his 'Journey,' published in 1795 (p. 346). + +This observation of the Red Men is a kind of parable representing a part +of the purport of the following treatise. The Indians, making a hasty +inference from a trivial phenomenon, arrived unawares at a probably +correct conclusion, long unknown to civilised science. They connected the +Aurora Borealis with electricity, supposing that multitudes of deer +in the sky rubbed the sparks out of each other! Meanwhile, even in +the last century, a puzzled populace spoke of the phenomenon as 'Lord +Derwentwater's Lights.' The cosmic pomp and splendour shone to welcome the +loyal Derwentwater into heaven, when he had given his life for his exiled +king. + +Now, my purpose in the earlier portion of this essay is to suggest that +certain phenomena of human nature, apparently as trivial as the sparks +rubbed out of a deer's hide in a dark night, may indicate, and may be +allied to a force or forces, which, like the Aurora Borealis, may shine +from one end of the heavens to the other, strangely illumining the +darkness of our destiny. Such phenomena science has ignored, as it so long +ignored the sparks from the stroked deer-skin, and the attractive power of +rubbed amber. These trivial things were not known to be allied to the +lightning, or to indicate a force which man could tame and use. But just +as the Indians, by a rapid careless inference, attributed the Aurora +Borealis to electric influences, so (as anthropology assures us) savages +everywhere have inferred the existence of soul or spirit, intelligence +that + + 'Does not know the bond of Time, + Nor wear the manacles of Space,' + +in part from certain apparently trivial phenomena of human faculty. These +phenomena, as Mr. Tylor says, 'the great intellectual movement of the last +two centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless.'[1] I refer to alleged +experiences, merely odd, sporadic, and, for commercial purposes, useless, +such as the transference of thought from one mind to another by no known +channel of sense, the occurrence of hallucinations which, _prima facie_, +correspond coincidentally with unknown events at a distance, all that is +called 'second sight,' or 'clairvoyance,' and other things even more +obscure. Reasoning on these real or alleged phenomena, and on other quite +normal and accepted facts of dream, shadow, sleep, trance, and death, +savages have inferred the existence of spirit or soul, exactly as the +Indians arrived at the notion of electricity (not so called by them, of +course) as the cause of the Aurora Borealis. But, just as the Indians +thought that the cosmic lights were caused by the rubbing together of +crowded deer in the heavens (a theory quite childishly absurd), so the +savage has expressed, in rude fantastic ways, his conclusion as to the +existence of spirit. He believes in wandering separable souls of men, +surviving death, and he has peopled with his dreams the whole inanimate +universe. + +My suggestion is that, in spite of his fantasies, the savage had possibly +drawn from his premises an inference not wholly, or not demonstrably +erroneous. As the sparks of the deer-skin indicated electricity, so the +strange lights in the night of human nature may indicate faculties which +science, till of late and in a few instances, has laughed at, ignored, +'thrown aside as worthless.' + +It should be observed that I am not speaking of 'spiritualism,' a word of +the worst associations, inextricably entangled with fraud, bad logic, and +the blindest credulity. Some of the phenomena alluded to have, however, +been claimed as their own province by 'spiritists,' and need to be rescued +from them. Mr. Tylor writes: + +'The issue raised by the comparison of savage, barbaric, and civilised +spiritualism is this: Do the Red Indian medicine-man, the Tatar +necromancer, the Highland ghost-seer, and the Boston medium, share the +possession of belief and knowledge of the highest truth and import, +which, nevertheless, the great intellectual movement of the last two +centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless?' + +_Distinguo!_ That does not seem to me to be the issue. In my opinion the +issue is: 'Have the Red Indian, the Tatar, the Highland seer, and the +Boston medium (the least reputable of the menagerie) observed, and +reasoned wildly from, and counterfeited, and darkened with imposture, +certain genuine by-products of human faculty, which do not _prima facie_ +deserve to be thrown aside?' + +That, I venture to think, is the real issue. That science may toss aside +as worthless some valuable observations of savages is now universally +admitted by people who know the facts. Among these observations is the +whole topic of Hypnotism, with the use of suggestion for healing purposes, +and the phenomena, no longer denied, of 'alternating personalities.' For +the truth of this statement we may appeal to one of the greatest of +Continental anthropologists, Adolf Bastian.[2] The missionaries, like +Livingstone, usually supposed that the savage seer's declared ignorance-- +after his so-called fit of inspiration--of what occurred in that state, +was an imposture. But nobody now doubts the similar oblivion of what has +passed that sometimes follows the analogous hypnotic sleep. Of a +remarkable cure, which the school of the Salpêtrière or Nancy would +ascribe, with probable justice, to 'suggestion,' a savage example will be +given later. + +Savage hypnotism and 'suggestion,' among the Sioux and Arapahoe, has been +thought worthy of a whole volume in the Reports of the Ethnological Bureau +of the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, U.S., 1892-98). Republican +Governments publish scientific matter 'regardless of expense,' and the +essential points might have been put more shortly. They illustrate the +fact that only certain persons can hypnotise others, and throw light on +some peculiarities of _rapport._[3] In brief, savages anticipated us in +the modern science of experimental psychology, as is frankly acknowledged +by the Society for Experimental Psychology of Berlin. 'That many mystical +phenomena are much more common and prominent among savages than among +ourselves is familiar to everyone acquainted with the subject. The +_ethnological_ side of our inquiry demands penetrative study.'[4] + +That study I am about to try to sketch. My object is to examine some +'superstitious practices' and beliefs of savages by aid of the comparative +method. I shall compare, as I have already said, the ethnological evidence +for savage usages and beliefs analogous to thought-transference, +coincidental hallucinations, alternating personality, and so forth, with +the best attested modern examples, experimental or spontaneous. This +raises the question of our evidence, which is all-important. We proceed to +defend it. The savage accounts are on the level of much anthropological +evidence; they may, that is, be dismissed by adversaries as 'travellers' +tales.' But the best testimony for the truth of the reports as to actual +belief in the facts is the undesigned coincidence of evidence from all +ages and quarters.[5] When the stories brought by travellers, ancient and +modern, learned and unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we +have all the certainty that anthropology can offer. Again, when we find +practically the same strange neglected sparks, not only rumoured of +in European popular superstition, but attested in many hundreds of +depositions made at first hand by respectable modern witnesses, educated +and responsible, we cannot honestly or safely dismiss the coincidence of +report as indicating a mere 'survival' of savage superstitious belief, and +nothing more. + +We can no longer do so, it is agreed, in the case of hypnotic phenomena. I +hope to make it seem possible that we should not do so in the matter of +the hallucinations provoked by gazing in a smooth deep, usually styled +'crystal-gazing.' Ethnologically, this practice is at least as old as +classical times, and is of practically world-wide distribution. I shall +prove its existence in Australia, New Zealand, North America, South +America, Asia, Africa, Polynesia, and among the Incas, not to speak of +the middle and recent European ages. The universal idea is that such +visions may be 'clairvoyant.' To take a Polynesian case, 'resembling the +Hawaiian _wai harru_.' When anyone has been robbed, the priest, after +praying, has a hole dug in the floor of the house, and filled with water. +Then he gazes into the water, 'over which the god is supposed to place the +spirit of the thief.... The image of the thief was, according to their +account, reflected in the water, and being perceived by the priest, he +named the individual, or the parties.'[6] Here the statement about the +'spirit' is a mere savage philosophical explanation. But the fact that +hallucinatory pictures can really be seen by a fair percentage of educated +Europeans, in water, glass balls, and so forth, is now confirmed by +frequent experiment, and accepted by opponents, 'non-mystical writers,' +like Dr. Parish of Munich.[7] I shall bring evidence to suggest that the +visions may correctly reflect, as it were, persons and places absolutely +unknown to the gazer, and that they may even reveal details unknown to +every one present. Such results among savages, or among the superstitious, +would be, and are, explained by the theory of 'spirits.' Modern science +has still to find an explanation consistent with recognised laws of +nature, but 'spirits' we shall not invoke. + +In the same way I mean to examine all or most of the 'so-called mystical +phenomena of savage life.' I then compare them with the better vouched for +modern examples. To return to the question of evidence, I confess that I +do not see how the adverse anthropologist, psychologist, or popular +agnostic is to evade the following dilemma: To the anthropologist we say, +'The evidence we adduce is your own evidence, that of books of travel in +all lands and countries. If _you_ may argue from it, so may we. Some +of it is evidence to unusual facts, more of it is evidence to singular +beliefs, which we think not necessarily without foundation. As raising a +presumption in favour of that opinion, we cite examples in which savage +observations of abnormal and once rejected facts, are now admitted by +science to have a large residuum of truth, we argue that what is admitted +in some cases may come to be admitted in more. No _a priori_ line can here +be drawn.' + +To the psychologist who objects that our modern instances are mere +anecdotes, we reply by asking, 'Dear sir, what are _your_ modern +instances? What do you know of "Mrs. A.," whom you still persistently +cite as an example of morbid recurrent hallucinations? Name the German +servant girl who, in a fever, talked several learned languages, which she +had heard her former master, a scholar, declaim! Where did she live? Who +vouches for her, who heard her, who understood her? There is, you know, no +evidence at all; the anecdote is told by Coleridge: the phenomena are said +by him to have been observed "in a Roman Catholic town in Germany, a year +or two before my arrival at Göttingen.... Many eminent physiologists and +psychologists visited the town." Why do you not name a few out of the +distinguished crowd?'[8] This anecdote, a rumour of a rumour of a +Protestant explanation of a Catholic marvel, was told by Coleridge at +least twenty years after the possible date. The psychologists copy it,[9] +one after the other, as a flock of sheep jump where their leader has +jumped. An example by way of anecdote may be permitted. + +According to the current anthropological theory, the idea of soul or +spirit was suggested to early men by their experiences in dreams. They +seemed, in sleep, to visit remote places; therefore, they argued, +something within them was capable of leaving the body and wandering about. + +This something was the soul or spirit. Now it is obvious that this opinion +of early men would be confirmed if they ever chanced to acquire, in +dreams, knowledge of places which they had never visited, and of facts as +to which, in their waking state, they could have no information. This +experience, indeed, would suggest problems even To Mr. Herbert Spencer, if +it occurred to him. + +Conversing on this topic with a friend of acknowledged philosophical +eminence, I illustrated my meaning by a story of a dream. It was reported +to me by the dreamer, with whom I am well acquainted, was of very recent +occurrence, and was corroborated by the evidence of another person, to +whom the dream was narrated, before its fulfilment was discovered. I am +not at liberty to publish the details, for good reasons, but the essence +of the matter was this: A. and B. (the dreamer) had common interests. A. +had taken certain steps about which B. had only a surmise, and a vague +one, that steps had probably been taken. A. then died, and B. in an +extremely vivid dream (a thing unfamiliar to him) seemed to read a mass of +unknown facts, culminating in two definite results, capable of being +stated in figures. These results, by the very nature of the case, could +not be known to A., so that, before he was placed out of B.'s reach by +death, he could not have stated them to him, and, afterwards, had +assuredly no means of doing so. + +The dream, two days after its occurrence, and after it had been told to +C., proved to be literally correct. Now I am not asking the reader's +belief for this anecdote (for that could only be yielded in virtue of +knowledge of the veracity of B. and C.), but I invite his attention to the +psychological explanation. My friend suggested that A. had told B. all +about the affair, that B. had not listened (though his interests were +vitally concerned), and that the crowd of curious details, naturally +unfamiliar to B., had reposed in his subconscious memory, and had been +revived in the dream. + +Now B.'s dream was a dream of reading a mass of minute details, including +names of places entirely unknown to him. It may be admitted, in accordance +with the psychological theory, that B. might have received all this +information from A., but, by dint of inattention--'the malady of not +marking'--might never have been _consciously_ aware of what he heard. Then +B.'s subconscious memory of what he did not _consciously_ know might break +upon him in his dream. Instances of similar mental phenomena are not +uncommon. But the general result of the combined details was one which +could not possibly be known to A. before his death; nor to B. could it be +known at all. Yet B.'s dream represented this general result with perfect +accuracy, which cannot be accounted for by the revival of subconscious +memory in sleep. Neither asleep nor awake can a man remember what it is +impossible for him to have known. The dream contained no _prediction_ for +the results were now fixed; but (granting the good faith of the narrator) +the dream did contain information not normally accessible. + +However, by way of psychological explanation of the dream, my friend cited +Coleridge's legend, as to the German girl and her unconscious knowledge of +certain learned languages. 'And what is the evidence for the truth of +Coleridge's legend?' Of course, there is none, or none known to all the +psychologists who quote it from Coleridge. Neither, if true, was the +legend to the point. However, psychology will accept such unauthenticated +narratives, and yet will scoff at first baud, duly corroborated testimony +from living and honourable people, about recent events. + +Only a great force of prejudice can explain this acceptance, by +psychologists, of one kind of marvellous tale on no evidence, and this +rejection of another class of marvellous tale, when supported by first +hand, signed and corroborated evidence, of living witnesses. I see only +one escape for psychologists from this dilemma. Their marvellous tales are +_possible_, though unvouched for, because they have always heard them and +repeated them in lectures, and read and repeated them in books. _Our_ +marvellous tales are impossible, because the psychologists know that they +are impossible, which means that they have not been familiar with them, +from youth upwards, in lectures and manuals. But man has no right to have +'clear ideas of the possible and impossible,' like Faraday, _a priori_, +except in the exact sciences. There are other instances of weak evidence +which satisfies psychologists. + +Hamilton has an anecdote, borrowed from Monboddo, who got it from Mr. Hans +Stanley, who, 'about twenty-six years ago,' heard it from the subject of +the story, Madame de Laval. 'I have the memorandum somewhere in my +papers,' says Mr. Stanley, vaguely. Then we have two American anecdotes by +Dr. Flint and Mr. Rush; and such is Sir William Hamilton's equipment of +odd facts for discussing the unconscious or subconscious. The least +credible and worst attested of these narratives still appears in popular +works on psychology. Moreover, all psychology, except experimental +psychology, is based on anecdotes which people tell about their own +subjective experiences. Mr. Galton, whose original researches are well +known, even offered rewards in money for such narratives about visualised +rows of coloured figures, and so on. + +Clearly the psychologist, then, has no _prima facie_ right to object to +our anecdotes of experiences, which he regards as purely subjective. As +evidence, we only accept them at first hand, and, when possible, the +witnesses have been cross-examined personally. Our evidence then, where it +consists of travellers' tales, is on a level with that which satisfies the +anthropologist. Where it consists of modern statements of personal +experience, our evidence is often infinitely better than much which is +accepted by the nonexperimental psychologist. As for the agnostic writer +on the Non-Religion of the Future, M. Guyau actually illustrates the +Resurrection of our Lord by an American myth about a criminal, of whom a +hallucinatory phantasm appeared to each of his gaol companions, separately +and successively, on a day after his execution! For this prodigious fable +no hint of reference to authority is given.[10] Yet the evidence appears +to satisfy M. Guyau, and is used by him to reinforce his argument. + +The anthropologist and psychologist, then, must either admit that their +evidence is no better than ours, if as good, or must say that they only +believe evidence as to 'possible' facts. They thus constitute themselves +judges of what is possible, and practically regard themselves as +omniscient. Science has had to accept so many things once scoffed at as +'impossible,' that this attitude of hers, as we shall show in chapter ii., +ceases to command respect. + +My suggestion is that the trivial, rejected, or unheeded phenomena +vouched for by the evidence here defended may, not inconceivably, be of +considerable importance. But, stating the case at the lowest, if we are +only concerned with illusions and fables, it cannot but be curious to note +their persistent uniformity in savage and civilised life. + +To make the first of our two main positions clear, and in part to justify +ourselves in asking any attention for such matters, we now offer an +historical sketch of the relations between Science and the so-called +'Miraculous' in the past. + +[Footnote 1: _Primitive Culture_, i. 156. London, 1891.] + +[Footnote 2: _Ueber psychische Beobachiungen bei Naiurvülkern_. Leipzig, +Gunther, 1890.] + +[Footnote 3: See especially pp. 922-926. The book is interesting in other +ways, and, indeed, touching, as it describes the founding of a new Red +Indian religion, on a basis of Hypnotism and Christianity.] + +[Footnote 4: Programme of the Society, p. iv.] + +[Footnote 5: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i, 9, 10.] + +[Footnote 6: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, ii. p. 240.] + +[Footnote 7: _Hallucinations and Illusions_, English edition, pp. 69-70, +297.] + +[Footnote 8: Sir William Hamilton's _Lectures_, i. 345.] + +[Footnote 9: Maudsley, Kerner, Carpentor, Du Prel, Zangwill.] + +[Footnote 10: Coleridge's mythical maid (p. 10) is set down by Mr. Samuel +Laing to an experiment of Braid's! No references are given.--Laing: +_Problems of the Future._] + + + + +II + +SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' + +_Historical Sketch_ + +Research in the X region is not a new thing under the sun. When Saul +disguised himself before his conference with the Witch of Endor, he made +an elementary attempt at a scientific test of the supernormal. Croesus, +the king, went much further, when he tested the clairvoyance of the +oracles of Greece, by sending an embassy to ask what he was doing at a +given hour on a given day, and by then doing something very _bizarre_. We +do not know how the Delphic oracle found out the right answer, but various +easy methods of fraud at once occur to the mind. However, the procedure of +Croesus, if he took certain precautions, was relatively scientific. +Relatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphyry, with whose +position our own is not unlikely to be compared. Unable, or reluctant, to +accept Christianity, Porphyry 'sought after a sign' of an element of +supernormal truth in Paganism. But he began at the wrong end, namely at +Pagan spiritualistic _séances_, with the usual accompaniments of darkness +and fraud. His perplexed letter to Anebo, with the reply attributed to +Iamblichus, reveal Porphyry wandering puzzled among mediums, floating +lights, odd noises, queer dubious 'physical phenomena.' He did not begin +with accurate experiments as to the existence of rare, and apparently +supernormal human faculties, and he seems to have attained no conclusion +except that 'spirits' are 'deceitful.'[1] + +Something more akin to modern research began about the time of the +Reformation, and lasted till about 1680. The fury for burning witches led +men of sense, learning, and humanity to ask whether there was any reality +in witchcraft, and, generally, in the marvels of popular belief. The +inquiries of Thyraeus, Lavaterus, Bodinus, Wierus, Le Loyer, Reginald +Scot, and many others, tended on the whole to the negative side as regards +the wilder fables about witches, but left the problems of ghosts and +haunted houses pretty much where they were before. It may be observed that +Lavaterus (circ. 1580) already put forth a form of the hypothesis of +telepathy (that 'ghosts' are hallucinations produced by the direct action +of one mind, or brain, upon another), while Thyraeus doubted whether the +noises heard in 'haunted houses' were not mere hallucinations of the sense +of hearing. But all these early writers, like Cardan, were very careless +of first-hand evidence, and, indeed, preferred ghosts vouched for by +classical authority, Pliny, Plutarch, or Suetonius. With the Rev. Joseph +Glanvil, F.R.S. (circ. 1666), a more careful examination of evidence came +into use. Among the marvels of Glanvil's and other tracts usually +published together in his 'Sadducismus Triumphatus' will be found letters +which show that he and his friends, like Henry More and Boyle, laboured to +collect first-hand evidence for second sight, haunted houses, ghosts, and +wraiths. The confessed object was to procure a 'Whip for the Droll,' a +reply to the laughing scepticism of the Restoration. The result was to +bring on Glanvil a throng of bores--he was 'worse haunted than Mr. +Mompesson's house,' he says-and Mr. Pepys found his arguments 'not very +convincing.' Mr. Pepys, however, was alarmed by 'our young gib-cat,' +which he mistook for a 'spright.' With Henry More, Baxter, and Glanvil +practically died, for the time, the attempt to investigate these topics +scientifically, though an impression of doubt was left on the mind of +Addison. Witchcraft ceased to win belief, and was abolished, as a crime, +in 1736. Some of the Scottish clergy, and John Wesley, clung fondly +to the old faith, but Wodrow, and Cotton Mather (about 1710-1730) were +singularly careless and unlucky in producing anything like evidence for +their narratives. Ghost stories continued to be told, but not to be +investigated. + +Then one of the most acute of philosophers decided that investigation +ought never to be attempted. This scientific attitude towards X phenomena, +that of refusing to examine them, and denying them without examination, +was fixed by David Hume in his celebrated essay on 'Miracles.' Hume +derided the observation and study of what he called 'Miracles,' in the +field of experience, and he looked for an _a priori_ argument which would +for ever settle the question without examination of facts. In an age of +experimental philosophy, which derided _a priori_ methods, this was Hume's +great contribution to knowledge. His famous argument, the joy of many an +honest breast, is a tissue of fallacies which might be given for exposure +to beginners in logic, as an elementary exercise. In announcing his +discovery, Hume amusingly displays the self-complacency and the want of +humour with which we Scots are commonly charged by our critics: + +'I flatter myself that I have discovered an argument which, if just, +will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds +of superstitious delusions, and consequently will be useful as long as +the world endures.' + +He does not expect, however, to convince the multitude. Till the end of +the world, 'accounts of miracles and prodigies, I suppose, will be found +in all histories, sacred and profane.' Without saying here what he +means by a miracle, Hume argues that 'experience is our only guide in +reasoning.' He then defines a miracle as 'a violation of the laws +of nature.' By a 'law of nature' he means a uniformity, not of all +experience, but of each experience as he will deign to admit; while he +excludes, without examination, all evidence for experience of the absence +of such uniformity. That kind of experience cannot be considered. 'There +must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the +event would not merit that appellation.' If there be any experience in +favour of the event, that experience does not count. A miracle is counter +to universal experience, no event is counter to universal experience, +therefore no event is a miracle. If you produce evidence to what Hume +calls a miracle (we shall see examples) he replies that the evidence is +not valid, unless its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact. +Now no error of human evidence can be more miraculous than a 'miracle.' +Therefore there can be no valid evidence for 'miracles.' Fortunately, +Hume now gives an example of what he means by 'miracles.' He says:-- + +'For, first, there is _not to be found_, in _all history_, any miracle +attested by a _sufficient number_ of men, of such unquestioned _good +sense, education_, and _learning_, as to secure us against all delusion +in themselves; of such undoubted _integrity_, as to place them beyond +all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and +reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in +case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time +attesting facts performed in such a _public manner_, and in so +_celebrated a part of the world_, as to render the detection +unavoidable; all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full +assurance in the testimony of men.'[2] + +Hume added a note at the end of his book, in which he contradicted every +assertion which he had made in the passage just cited; indeed, be +contradicted himself before he had written six pages. + +'There surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person +than those which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the +tomb of Abbé Paris, the famous Jansenist, with whose sanctity the people +were so long deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, +and sight to the blind, were everywhere talked of as the usual effects of +that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles +were _immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned +integrity_, attested by _witnesses of credit and distinction_, in _a +learned age_, and on the most _eminent theatre_ that is _now in the +world_. Nor is this all. A relation of them was published and dispersed +everywhere; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, supported +by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions, +in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able +_distinctly to refute or detect them_. Where shall we find such a number +of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what +have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute +_impossibility, or miraculous nature_ of the events which they relate? +And this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be +regarded as a sufficient refutation.' + +Thus Hume, first denies the existence of such evidence, given in such +circumstances as he demands, and then he produces an example of that very +kind of evidence. Having done this, he abandons (as Mr. Wallace observes) +his original assertion that the evidence does not exist, and takes refuge +in alleging 'the absolute impossibility' of the events which the evidence +supports. Thus Hume poses as a perfect judge of the possible, in a kind of +omniscience. He takes his stand on the uniformity of all experience that +is not hostile to his idea of the possible, and dismisses all testimony to +other experience, even when it reaches his standard of evidence. He is +remote indeed from Virchow's position 'that what we call the laws of +nature must vary according to our frequent new experiences.'[3] In his +note, Hume buttresses and confirms his evidence for the Jansenist +miracles. They have even a martyr, M. Montgeron, who wrote an account of +the events, and, says Hume lightly, 'is now said to be somewhere in a +dungeon on account of his book.' 'Many of the miracles of the Abbé Paris +were proved immediately by witnesses before the Bishop's court at Paris, +under the eye of Cardinal Noailles....' 'His successor was an enemy to the +Jansenists, yet twenty-two _curés_ of Paris ... pressed him to examine +these miracles ... _But he wisely forbore_.' Hume adds his testimony to +the character of these _curés_. Thus it is wisdom, according to Hume, to +dismiss the most public and well-attested 'miracles' without examination. +This is experimental science of an odd kind. + +The phenomena were cases of healing, many of them surprising, of +cataleptic rigidity, and of insensibility to pain, among visitors to the +tomb of the Abbé Paris (1731). Had the cases been judicially examined (all +medical evidence was in their favour), and had they been proved false, the +cause of Hume would have profited enormously. A strong presumption would +have been raised against the miracles of Christianity. But Hume applauds +the wisdom of not giving his own theory this chance of a triumph. The +cataleptic seizures were of the sort now familiar to science. These have, +therefore, emerged from the miraculous. In fact, the phenomena which +occurred at the tomb of the Abbé Paris have emerged almost too far, and +now seem in danger of being too readily and too easily accepted. In 1887 +MM. Binet and Féré, of the school of the Salpêtrière, published in English +a popular manual styled 'Animal Magnetism.' These authors write with great +caution about such alleged phenomena as the reading, by the hypnotised +patient, of the thoughts in the mind of the hypnotiser. But as to the +phenomena at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, they say that 'suggestion +explains them.'[4] That is, in the opinion of MM. Binet and Féré +the so-called 'miracles' really occurred, and were worked by 'the +imagination,' by 'self-suggestion.' + +The most famous case--that of Mlle. Coirin--has been carefully examined by +Dr. Charcot.[5] + +Mlle. Coirin had a dangerous fall from her horse, in September 1716, in +her thirty-first year. The medical details may be looked for in Dr. +Charcot's essay or in Montgeron.[6] 'Her disease was diagnosed as cancer +of the left breast,' the nipple 'fell off bodily.' Amputation of the +breast was proposed, but Madame Coirin, believing the disease to be +radically incurable, refused her consent. Paralysis of the left side set +in (1718), the left leg shrivelling up. On August 9, 1731, Mlle. Coirin +'tried the off chance' of a miracle, put on a shift that had touched the +tomb of Paris, and used some earth from the grave. On August 11, Mlle. +Coirin could turn herself in bed; on the 12th the horrible wound 'was +staunched, and began to close up and heal.' The paralysed side recovered +life and its natural proportions. By September 3, Mlle. Coirin could go +out for a drive. + +All her malady, says Dr. Charcot, paralysis, 'cancer,' and all, was +'hysterical;' 'hysterical oedema,' for which he quotes many French +authorities and one American. 'Under the physical [psychical?] influence +brought to bear by the application of the shift ... the oedema, which was +due to vaso-motor trouble, disappeared almost instantaneously. The breast +regained its normal size.' + +Dr. Charcot generously adds that shrines, like Lourdes, have cured +patients in whom he could not 'inspire the operation of the faith cure.' +He certainly cannot explain everything which claims to be of supernatural +origin in the faith cure. We have to learn the lesson of patience. I am +among the first to recognise that Shakespeare's words hold good to-day: + + 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, + Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' + +If Dr. Charcot had believed in what the French call _suggestion mentale_-- +suggestion by thought-transference (which I think he did not)--he could +have explained the healing of the Centurion's servant, 'Say the word, +Lord, and my servant shall be healed,' by suggestion & distance +(telepathy), and by premising that the servant's palsy was 'hysterical.' +But what do we mean by 'hysterical'? Nobody knows. The 'mind,' somehow, +causes gangrenes, if not cancers, paralysis, shrinking of tissues; the +mind, somehow, cures them. And what is the 'mind'? As my object is to give +savage parallels to modern instances better vouched for. I quote a +singular Red Indian cure by 'suggestion.' Hearne, travelling in Canada, in +1770, met a native who had 'dead palsy,' affecting the whole of one side. +He was dragged on a sledge, 'reduced to a mere skeleton,' and so was +placed in the magic lodge. The first step in his cure was the public +swallowing by a conjurer of a board of wood, 'about the size of a +barrel-stave,' twice as wide across as his mouth. Hearne stood beside the +man, 'naked as he was born,' 'and, notwithstanding I was all attention, I +could not detect the deceit.' Of course, Hearne believes that this was +mere legerdemain, and (p. 216) mentions a most suspicious circumstance. +The account is amusing, and deserves the attention of Mr. Neville +Maskelyne. The same conjurer had previously swallowed a cradle! Now +bayonet swallowing, which he also did, is possible, though Hearne denies +it (p. 217). + +The real object of these preliminary feats, however performed, is, +probably, to inspire _faith_, which Dr. Charcot might have done by +swallowing a cradle. The Indians explain that the barrel staves apparently +swallowed are merely dematerialised by 'spirits,' leaving only the forked +end sticking out of the conjurer's mouth. In fact, Hearne caught the +conjurer in the act of making a separate forked end. + +Faith being thus inspired, the conjurer, for three entire days, blew, +sang, and danced round 'the poor paralytic, fasting.' 'And it is truly +wonderful, though the strictest truth, that when the poor man was taken +from the conjuring house ... he was able to move all the fingers and toes +of the side that had been so long dead.... At the end of six weeks he went +a-hunting for his family' (p. 219). Hearne kept up his acquaintance, and +adds, what is very curious, that he developed almost a secondary +personality. 'Before that dreadful paralytic stroke, he had been +distinguished for his good nature and benevolent disposition, was entirely +free from every appearance of avarice,... but after this event he was the +most fractious, quarrelsome, discontented, and covetous wretch alive' +(p. 220). + +Dr. Charcot, if he had been acquainted with this case, would probably have +said that it 'is of the nature of those which Professor Russell Reynolds +has classified under the head of "paralysis dependent on idea."'[7] +Unluckily, Hearne does not tell us how his hunter, an untutored Indian, +became 'paralysed by idea.' + +Dr. Charcot adds: 'In every case, science is a foe to systematic negation, +which the morrow may cause to melt away in the light of its new triumphs.' +The present 'new triumph' is a mere coincidence with the dicta of our +Lord, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole.... I have not found so great faith, +no, not in Israel.' There are cures, as there are maladies, caused 'by +idea.' So, in fact, we had always understood. But the point is that +science, wherever it agrees with David Hume, is not a foe, but a friend to +'systematic negation.' + +A parallel case of a 'miracle,' the stigmata of St. Francis, was, of +course, regarded by science as a fable or a fraud. But, now that blisters +and other lesions can be produced by suggestion, the fable has become a +probable fact, and, therefore, not a miracle at all.[8] Mr. James remarks: +'As so often happens, a fact is denied till a welcome interpretation +comes with it. Then it is admitted readily enough, and evidence quite +insufficient to back a claim, so long as the Church had an interest +in making it, proves to be quite sufficient for modern scientific +enlightenment the moment it appears that a reputed saint can thereby be +claimed as a case of "hystero-epilepsy."'[9] + +But the Church continues to have an interest in the matter. As the class +of facts which Hume declined to examine begins to be gradually admitted by +science, the thing becomes clear. The evidence which could safely convey +these now admittedly possible facts, say from the time of Christ, is so +far proved to be not necessarily mythical--proved to be not incapable of +carrying statements probably correct, which once seemed absolutely +false. If so, where, precisely, ends its power of carrying facts? Thus +considered, the kinds of marvellous events recorded in the Gospels, +for example, are no longer to be dismissed on _a priori_ grounds as +'mythical.' We cannot now discard evidence as necessarily false because +it clashes with our present ideas of the possible, when we have to +acknowledge that the very same evidence may safely convey to us facts +which clashed with our fathers' notions of what is possible, but which +are now accepted. Our notions of the possible cease to be a criterion of +truth or falsehood, and our contempt for the Gospels as myths must +slowly die, as 'miracle' after 'miracle' is brought within the realm of +acknowledged law. With each such admission the hypothesis that the Gospel +evidence is mythical must grow weaker, and weaker must grow the negative +certainty of popular science. + +The occurrences which took place at and near the tomb of Paris were +attested, as Hume truly avers, by a great body of excellent evidence. But +the wisdom which declined to make a judicial examination has deprived us +of the best kind of record. Analogous if not exactly similar events now +confessedly take place, and are no longer looked upon as miraculous. But +as long as they were held to be miraculous, not to examine the evidence, +said Hume, was the policy of 'all reasonable people.' The result was to +deprive Science of the best sort of record of facts which she welcomes as +soon as she thinks she can explain them.[10] Examples of the folly of +_a priori_ negation are common. The British Association refused to hear +the essay which Braid, the inventor of the word 'hypnotism,' had written +upon the subject. Braid, Elliotson, and other English inquirers of the +mid-century, were subjected to such persecutions as official science could +inflict. We read of M. Deslon, a disciple of Mesmer, about 1783, that he +was 'condemned by the Faculty of Medicine, without any examination of the +facts.' The Inquisition proceeded more fairly than these scientific +obscurantists. + +Another curious example may be cited. M. Guyau, in his work 'The +Non-Religion of the Future,' argues that Religion is doomed. 'Poetic +genius has withdrawn its services,' witness Tennyson and Browning! 'Among +orthodox Protestant nations miracles do not happen.'[11] But 'marvellous +facts' _do_ happen.[12] These 'marvellous facts,' accepted by M. Guyau, +are what Hume called 'miracles,' and advised the 'wise and learned' to +laugh at, without examination. They were not facts, and could not be, he +said. Now to M. Guyau's mind they _are_ facts, and therefore are not +miracles. He includes 'mental suggestion taking place even at a distance.' +A man 'can transmit an almost compulsive command, it appears nowadays, by +a simple tension of his will.' If this be so, if 'will' can affect matter +from a distance, obviously the relations of will and matter are not what +popular science tells us that they are. Again, if this truth is now +established, and won from that region which Hume and popular science +forbid us to investigate, who knows what other facts may be redeemed from +that limbo, or how far they may affect our views of possibilities? The +admission of mental action, operative _à distance_, is, of course, +personal only to M. Guyau, among friends of the new negative tradition. + +We return to Hume. He next argues that the pleasures of wonder make all +accounts of 'miracles' worthless. He has just given an example of the +equivalent pleasures of dogmatic disbelief. Then Religion is a disturbing +force; but so, manifestly, is irreligion. 'The wise and learned are +content to deride the absurdity, without informing themselves of the +particular facts.' The wise and learned are applauded for their scientific +attitude. Again, miracles destroy each other, for all religions have their +miracles, but all religions cannot be true. This argument is no longer of +force with people who look on 'miracles' as = 'X phenomena,' not as divine +evidences to the truth of this or that creed. 'The gazing populace +receives, without examination, whatever soothes superstition,' and +Hume's whole purpose is to make the wise and learned imitate the gazing +populace by rejecting alleged facts 'without examination.' The populace +investigated more than did the wise and learned. + +Hume has an alternative definition of a miracle--'a miracle is a +transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or +by the interposition of some invisible agent.' We reply that what +Hume calls a 'miracle' may result from the operation of some as yet +unascertained law of nature (say self-suggestion), and that our business, +at present, is to examine such events, not to account for them. + +It may fairly be said that Hume is arguing against men who wished to make +so-called 'miracles' a test of the truth of Jansenism, for example, and +that he could not be expected to answer, by anticipation, ideas not +current in his day. But he remains guilty of denouncing the investigation +of apparent facts. No attitude can be less scientific than his, or more +common among many men of science. + +According to the humorous wont of things in this world, the whole question +of the marvellous had no sooner been settled for ever by David Hume than +it was reopened by Emanuel Swedenborg. Now, Kant was familiar with certain +of the works of Hume, whether he had read his 'Essay on Miracles' or not. +Far from declining to examine the portentous 'visions' of Swedenborg, Kant +interested himself deeply in the topic. As early as 1758 he wrote his +first remarks on the seer, containing some reports of stories or legends +about Swedenborg's 'clairvoyance.' In the true spirit of psychical +research, Kant wrote a letter to Swedenborg, asking for information at +first hand. The seer got the letter, but he never answered it. Kant, +however, prints one or two examples of Swedenborg's successes. Madame +Harteville, widow of the Dutch envoy in Stockholm, was dunned by a +silversmith for a debt of her late husband's. She believed that it had +been paid, but could not find the receipt. She therefore asked Swedenborg +to use his renowned gifts. He promised to see what he could do, and, three +days later, arrived at the lady's house while she was giving a tea, or +rather a coffee, party. To the assembled society Swedenborg remarked, 'in +a cold-blooded way, that he had seen her man, and spoken to him.' The late +M. Harteville declared to Swedenborg that he had paid the bill, seven +months before his decease: the receipt was in a cupboard upstairs. Madame +Harteville replied that the cupboard had been thoroughly searched to no +purpose. Swedenborg answered that, as he learned from the ghost, there was +a secret drawer behind the side-plank within the cupboard. The drawer +contained diplomatic correspondence, and the missing receipt. The whole +company then went upstairs, found the secret drawer, and the receipt among +the other papers. Kant adds Swedenborg's clairvoyant vision, from +Gothenburg, of a great fire at Stockholm (dated September 1756). Kant +pined to see Swedenborg himself, and waited eagerly for his book, 'Arcana +Coelestia.' At last he obtained this work, at the ransom, ruinous to Kant +at that time, of 7£. But he was disappointed with what he read, and in +'Träume eines Geistersehers,' made a somewhat sarcastic attempt at a +metaphysical theory of apparitions. + + 'Velut aegri somnia vanae + Finguntur species' + +is his motto. + +Kant's real position about all these matters is, I venture to say, almost +identical with that of Sir Walter Scott. A Scot himself, by descent, Kant +may have heard tales of second-sight and bogles. Like Scott, he dearly +loved a ghost-story; like Scott he was canny enough to laugh, publicly, at +them and at himself for his interest in them. Yet both would take trouble +to inquire. As Kant vainly wrote to Swedenborg and others--as he vainly +spent 7£. on 'Arcana Coelestia,' so Sir Walter was anxious to go to Egypt +to examine the facts of ink-gazing clairvoyance. Kant confesses that each +individual ghost-story found him sceptical, whereas the cumulative mass +made a considerable impression.[13] + +The first seventy pages of the 'Tribune' are devoted to a perfectly +serious discussion of the metaphysics of 'Spirits.' On page 73 he +pleasantly remarks, 'Now we shall understand that all said hitherto is +superfluous,' and he will not reproach the reader who regards seers _not_ +as citizens of two worlds (Plotinus), but as candidates for Bedlam. + +Kant's irony is peculiarly Scottish. He does not himself know how far he +is in earnest, and, to save his self-respect and character for canniness, +he 'jocks wi' deeficulty.' He amuses himself with trying how far he can +carry speculations on metaphysics (not yet reformed by himself) into the +realm of the ghostly. He makes admissions about his own tendency to think +that he has an immaterial soul, and that these points are, or may be, or +some day will be, scientifically solved. These admissions are eagerly +welcomed by Du Prel in his 'Philosophy of Mysticism;' but they are only +part of Kant's joke, and how far they are serious, Kant himself does not +know. If spiritualists knew their own business, they would translate and +publish Kant's first seventy pages of 'Träume.' Something like telepathy, +action of spirit, even discarnate, on spirit, is alluded to, but the idea +is as old as Lavaterus at least (p. 52). Kant has a good deal to say, like +Scott in his 'Demonology,' on the physics of Hallucination, but it is +antiquated matter. He thinks the whole topic of spiritual being only +important as bearing on hopes of a future life. As speculation, all is 'in +the air,' and as in such matters the learned and unlearned are on a level +of ignorance, science will not discuss them. He then repeats the +Swedenborg stories, and thinks it would be useful to posterity if some one +would investigate them while witnesses are alive and memories are fresh. + +In fact, Kant asks for psychical research. + +As for Swedenborg's so costly book, Kant laughs at it. There is in it no +evidence, only assertion. Kant ends, having pleased nobody, he says, and +as ignorant as when he began, by citing _cultivons notre jardin_. + +Kant returned to the theme in 'Anthropologische Didaktik.' He discusses +the unconscious, or sub-conscious, which, till Sir William Hamilton +lectured, seems to have been an absolutely unknown topic to British +psychologists. 'So ist das Feld dunkler Vorstellungen das grösste in +Menschen.' He has a chapter on 'The Divining Faculty' (pp. 89-93). He will +not hear of presentiments, and, unlike Hegel, he scouts the Highland +second-sight. The 'possessed' of anthropology are epileptic patients. +Mystics (Swedenborg) are victims of _Schwärmerei_. + +This reference to Swedenborg is remarked upon by Schubert in his preface +to the essay of Kant. He points out that 'it is interesting to compare the +circumspection, the almost uncertainty of Kant when he had to deliver a +judgment on the phenomena described by himself and as to which he had made +inquiry [i.e. in his letter _re_ Swedenborg to Mlle. de Knobloch], and the +very decided opinions he expressed forty years later on Swedenborg and +his companions' [in the work cited, sections 35-37. The opinion in +paragraph 35 is a general one as to mystics. There is no other mention of +Swedenborg]. + +On the whole Kant is interested, but despairing. He wants facts, and no +facts are given to him but the book of the Prophet Emanuel. But, as it +happened, a new, or a revived, order of facts was just about to solicit +scientific attention. Kant had (1766) heard rumours of healing by +magnetism, and of the alleged effect of the magnet on the human frame. The +subject was in the air, and had already won the attention of Mesmer, about +whom Kant had information. It were superfluous to tell again the familiar +story of Mesmer's performances at Paris. While Mesmer's theory of +'magnetism' was denounced by contemporary science, the discovery of the +hypnotic sleep was made by his pupil, Puységur. This gentleman was +persuaded that instances of 'thought-transference' (not through known +channels of sense) occurred between the patient and the magnetiser, and he +also believed that he had witnessed cases of 'clairvoyance,' 'lucidity,' +_vue à distance_, in which the patient apparently beheld places and events +remote in space. These things would now be explained by 'unconscious +suggestion' in the more sceptical schools of psychological science. The +Revolution interrupted scientific study in France to a great degree, but +'somnambulism' (the hypnotic sleep) and 'magnetism' were eagerly examined +in Germany. Modern manuals, for some reason, are apt to overlook these +German researches and speculations. (Compare Mr. Vincent's 'Elements of +Hypnotism,' p. 34.) The Schellings were interested; Ritter thought he had +detected a new force, 'Siderism.' Mr. Wallace, in his preface to Hegel's +'Philosophie des Geistes,' speaks as if Ritter had made experiments in +telepathy. He may have done so, but his 'Siderismus' (Tübingen, 1808) +is a Report undertaken for the Academy of Munich, on the doings of an +Italian water-finder, or 'dowser.' Ritter gives details of seventy-four +experiments in 'dowsing' for water, metals, or coal. He believes in the +faculty, but not in 'psychic' explanations, or the Devil. He talks +about 'electricity' (pp. 170, 190). He describes his precautions to +avoid vulgar fraud, but he took no precautions against unconscious +thought-transference. He reckoned the faculty 'temperamental' and useful. + +Amoretti, at Milan, examined hundreds of cases of the so-called Divining +Rod, and Jung Stilling became an early spiritualist and 'full-welling +fountain head' of ghost stories. + +Probably the most important philosophical result of the early German +researches into the hypnotic slumber is to be found in the writings of +Hegel. Owing to his peculiar use of a terminology, or scientific language, +all his own, it is extremely difficult to make Hegel's meaning even +moderately clear. Perhaps we may partly elucidate it by a similitude of +Mr. Frederic Myers. Suppose we compare the ordinary everyday consciousness +of each of us to a _spectrum_, whose ends towards each extremity fade out +of our view. + +Beyond the range of sight there may be imagined a lower or physiological +end: for our ordinary consciousness, of course, is unaware of many +physiological processes which are eternally going on within us. Digestion, +so long as it is healthy, is an obvious example. But hypnotic experiment +makes it certain that a patient, in the _hypnotic_ condition, can +consciously, or at least purposefully, affect physiological processes to +which the _ordinary_ consciousness is blind--for example, by raising a +blister, when it is suggested that a blister must be raised. Again +(granting the facts hypothetically and merely for the sake of argument), +at the _upper_ end of the spectrum, beyond the view of ordinary everyday +consciousness, knowledge may be acquired of things which are out of the +view of the consciousness of every day. For example (for the sake of +argument let us admit it), unknown and remote people and places may be +seen and described by clairvoyance, or _vue à distance_. + +Now Hegel accepted as genuine the facts which we here adduce merely for +the sake of argument, and by way of illustrations. But he did not regard +the clairvoyant consciousness (or whatever we call it) which, _ex +hypothesi_, is untrammelled by space, or even by time, as occupying what +we style the _upper_ end of the psychical spectrum. On the contrary, he +placed it at the _lower_ end. Hegel's upper end 'loses itself in light;' +the lower end, _qui voit tant de choses_, as La Fontaine's shepherd says, +is _not_ 'a sublime mental phase, and capable of conveying general +truths.' Time and space do not thwart the consciousness at Hegel's _lower_ +end, which springs from 'the great soul of nature.' But that lower end, +though it may see for Jeanne d'Arc at Valcouleurs a battle at Rouvray, a +hundred leagues away, does not communicate any lofty philosophic +truths.[14] The phenomena of clairvoyance, in Hegel's opinion, merely +indicate that the 'material' is really 'ideal,' which, perhaps, is as much +as we can ask from them. 'The somnambulist and clairvoyant see without +eyes, and carry their visions directly into regions where the waiting +consciousness of orderly intelligence cannot enter' (Wallace). Hegel +admits, however, that 'in ordinary self-possessed conscious life' there +are traces of the 'magic tie,' 'especially between female friends of +delicate nerves,' to whom he adds husband and wife, and members of the +same family. He gives (without date or source) a case of a girl in Germany +who saw her brother lying dead in a hospital at Valladolid. Her brother +was at the time in the hospital, but it was another man in the nest bed +who was dead. 'It is thus impossible to make out whether what the +clairvoyants really see preponderates over what they deceive themselves +in.' + +As long as the facts which Hegel accepted are not officially welcomed by +science, it may seem superfluous to dispute as to whether they are +attained by the lower or the higher stratum of our consciousness. But +perhaps the question here at issue may be elucidated by some remarks of +Dr. Max Dessoir. Psychology, he says, has proved that in every conception +and idea an image or group of images must be present. These mental images +are the recrudescence or recurrence of perceptions. We see a tree, or a +man, or a dog, and whenever we have before our minds the conception or +idea of any of these things the original perception of them returns, +though of course more faintly. But in Dr. Dessoir's opinion these revived +mental images would reach the height of actual hallucinations (so that the +man, dog, or tree would seem visibly present) if other memories and new +sensations did not compete with them and check their development. + +Suppose, to use Mlle. Ferrand's metaphor, a human body, living, but with +all its channels of sensation hitherto unopened. Open the sense of sight +to receive a flash of green colour, and close it again. Apparently, +whenever the mind informing this body had the conception of green (and it +could have no other) it would also have an hallucination of green, thus + + 'Annihilating all that's made, + To a green thought in a green shade.' + +Now, in sleep or hypnotic trance the competition of new sensations and +other memories is removed or diminished, and therefore the idea of a man, +dog, or tree once suggested to the hypnotised patient, does become an +actual hallucination. The hypnotised patient sees the absent object which +he is told to see, the sleeper sees things not really present. + +Our primitive state, before the enormous competition of other memories and +new sensations set in, would thus be a state of hallucination. Our normal +present condition, in which hallucination is checked by competing memories +and new sensations, is a suppression of our original, primitive, natural +tendencies. Hallucination represents 'the main trunk of our psychical +existence.'[15] In Dr. Dessoir's theory this condition of hallucination +is man's original and most primitive condition, but it is not a _higher_, +rather a lower state of spiritual activity than the everyday practical +unhallucinated consciousness. + +This is also the opinion of Hegel, who supposes our primitive mental +condition to be capable of descrying objects remote in space and time. Mr. +Myers, as we saw, is of the opposite opinion, as to the relative dignity +and relative reality of the present everyday self, and the old original +fundamental Self. Dr. Dessoir refrains from pronouncing a decided opinion +as to whether the original, primitive, hallucinated self within us does +'preside over powers and actions at a distance,' such as clairvoyance; but +he believes in hypnotisation at a distance. His theory, like Hegel's, is +that of 'atavism,' or 'throwing back' to some very remote ancestral +condition. This will prove of interest later. + +Hegel, at all events, believed in the fact of clairvoyance (though deeming +it of little practical use); he accepted telepathy ('the magic tie'); he +accepted interchange of sensations between the hypnotiser and the +hypnotised; he believed in the divining rod, and, unlike Kant, even in +'Scottish second-sight.' 'The intuitive soul oversteps the conditions of +time and space; it beholds things remote, things long past, and things to +come.'[16] + +The pendulum of thought has swung back a long way from the point whither +it was urged by David Hume. Hegel remarks: 'The facts, it might seem, +first of all call for verification. But such verification would be +superfluous to those on whose account it was called for, since they +facilitate the inquiry for themselves by declaring the narratives, +infinitely numerous though they be, and accredited by the education and +character of the witnesses, to be mere deception and imposture. Their _a +priori_ conceptions are so rooted that no testimony can avail against +them, and they have even denied what they have seen with their own eyes,' +and reported under their own hands, like Sir David Brewster. Hegel, it +will be observed, takes the facts as given, and works them into his +general theory of the Sensitive Soul (_fühlende Seele_). He does not try +to establish the facts; but to establish, or at least to examine them, is +the first business of Psychical Research. Theorising comes later. + +The years which have passed between the date of Hegel's 'Philosophy of +Mind' and our own time have witnessed the long dispute over the existence, +the nature, and the causes of the hypnotic condition, and over the reality +and limitations of the phenomena. Thus the Academy of Medicine in Paris +appointed a Committee to examine the subject in 1825. The Report on +'Animal Magnetism,' as it was then styled, was presented in 1831. The +Academy lacked the courage to publish it, for the Report was favourable +even to certain of the still disputed phenomena. At that time, in +accordance with a survival of the theory of Mesmer, the agent in hypnotic +cases was believed to be a kind of efflux of a cosmic fluid from the +'magnetiser' to the patient. There was 'a magnetic connection.' + +Though no distinction between mesmerism and hypnotism is taken in popular +language, 'mesmerism' is a word implying this theory of 'magnetic' or +other unknown personal influence. 'Hypnotism,' as will presently be seen, +implies no such theory. The Academy's Report (1831) attested the +development, under 'magnetism,' of 'new faculties,' such as clairvoyance +and intuition, also the production of 'great changes in the physical +economy,' such as insensibility, and sudden increase of strength. The +Report declared it to be 'demonstrated' that sleep could be produced +'without suggestion,' as we say now, though the term was not then in use. +'Sleep has been produced in circumstances in which the persons could not +see or were ignorant of the means employed to produce it.' + +The Academy did its best to suppress this Report, which attests the +phenomena that Hegel accepted, phenomena still disputed. Six years later +(1837), a Committee reported against the pretensions of a certain Berna, +a 'magnetiser.' No person acted on both Committees, and this Report was +accepted. Later, a number of people tried to read a letter in a box, and +failed. 'This,' says Mr. Vincent, 'settled the question with regard to +clairvoyance;' though it might be more logical to say that it settled the +pretensions of the competitors on that occasion. The Academy now decided +that, because certain persons did not satisfy the expectations raised by +their preliminary advertisements, therefore the question of magnetism was +definitely closed. + +We have often to regret that scientific eminence is not always accompanied +by scientific logic. Where science neglects a subject, charlatans and +dupes take it up. In England 'animal magnetism' had been abandoned to this +class of enthusiasts, till Thackeray's friend, Dr. Elliotson, devoted +himself to the topic. He was persecuted as doctors know how to persecute; +but in 1841, Braid, of Manchester, discovered that the so-called 'magnetic +sleep' could be produced without any 'magnetism,' He made his patients +stare fixedly at an object, and encouraged them to expect to go to sleep. +He called his method 'Hypnotism,' a term which begs no question. Seeming +to cease to be mysterious, hypnotism became all but respectable, and was +being used in surgical operations, till it was superseded by chloroform. +In England, the study has been, and remains, rather _suspect_, while on +The Continent hypnotism is used both for healing purposes and in the +inquiries of experimental psychology. Wide differences of opinion still +exist, as to the nature of the hypnotic sleep, as to its physiological +concomitants, and as to the limits of the faculties exercised in or out of +the slumber. It is not even absolutely certain that the exercise of the +stranger faculties--for instance, that the production of anaesthesia and +rigidity--are the results merely of 'suggestion' and expectancy. A +hypnotised patient is told that the middle finger of his left hand will +become rigid and incapable of sensation. This occurs, and is explained by +'suggestion,' though _how_ 'suggestion' produces the astonishing effect +is another problem. The late Mr. Gurney, however, made a number of +experiments in which no suggestion was pronounced, nor did the patients +know which of their fingers was to become rigid and incapable of pain. The +patient's hands were thrust through a screen; on the other side of which +the hypnotist made passes above the finger which was to become rigid. The +lookers-on selected the finger, and the insensibility was tested by a +strong electric current. The effect was also produced _without_ passes, +the operator merely pointing at the selected finger, and 'willing' the +result. If he did not 'will' it, nothing occurred, nor did anything occur +if he willed without pointing. The proximity of the operator's hand +produced no effect if he did not 'will,' nor was his 'willing' successful +if he did not bring his hand near that of the patient. Other people's +hands, similarly situated, produced no effect. + +Experiments in transferring taste, as of salt, sugar, cayenne pepper, from +operator to subject, were also successful. Drs. Janet and Gibert also +produced sleep in a woman at a distance, by 'willing' it, at hours which +were selected by a system of drawing lots.[17] These facts, of course, +rather point to an element of truth in the old mesmeric hypothesis of some +specific influence in the operator. They cannot very well be explained by +suggestion and expectancy. But these facts and facts of clairvoyance and +thought-transference will be rejected as superstitious delusions by people +who have not met them in their own experience. This need not prevent us +from examining them, because _all_ the facts, including those now +universally accepted by Continental and scarcely impeached by British +science, have been noisily rejected again and again on Hume's principles. + +The rarer facts, as Mr. Gurney remarks, 'still go through the hollow form +of taking place.' Here is an example of the mode in which these phenomena +are treated by popular science. Mr. Vincent says that 'clairvoyance and +phrenology were Elliotson's constant stock in trade.' (Phrenology was +also Braid's stock in trade.) 'It is a matter of congratulation to have +been so soon delivered from what Dr. Lloyd Tuckey has well called "a mass +of superincumbent rubbish."'[18] Clairvoyance is part of a mass of +rubbish, on page 57. On page 67, Mr. Vincent says: 'There are many +interesting questions, such as telepathy, thought-reading, clairvoyance, +upon which it would be perhaps rash to give any decided opinion.... All +these strange psychical conditions present problems of great interest,' +and are only omitted because 'they have not a sufficient bearing on the +normal states of hypnosis....' Thus what was 'rubbish' in one page +'presents problems of great interest' ten pages later, and, after offering +a decided opinion that clairvoyance is rubbish, Mr. Vincent thinks it rash +to give any decided opinion. It is rather rash to give a decided opinion, +and then to say that it is rash to do so.[19] + +This brief sketch shows that science is confronted by certain facts, +which, in his time, Hume dismissed as incredible miracles, beneath the +contempt of the wise and learned. We also see that the stranger and rarer +phenomena which Hegel accepted as facts, and interwove with his general +philosophy, are still matters of dispute. Admitted by some men of science, +they are doubted by others; by others, again, are denied, while most of +the journalists and authors of cheap primers, who inspire popular +tradition, regard the phenomena as frauds or fables of superstition. But +it is plain that these phenomena, like the more ordinary facts of +hypnotism, _may_ finally be admitted by science. The scientific world +laughed, not so long ago, at Ogham inscriptions, meteorites, and at +palaeolithic weapons as impostures, or freaks of nature. Now nobody has +any doubt on these matters, and clairvoyance, thought-transference, and +telepathy may, not inconceivably, be as fortunate in the long run as +meteorites, or as the more usual phenomena of hypnotism. + +It is only Lord Kelvin who now maintains, or lately maintained, that in +hypnotism there is nothing at all but fraud and malobservation. In years +to come it may be that only some similar belated voice will cry that in +thought-transference there is nothing but malobservation and fraud. At +present the serious attention and careful experiment needed for the +establishment of the facts are more common among French than among English +men of science. When published, these experiments, if they contain any +affirmative instances, are denounced as 'superstitious,' or criticized +after what we must charitably deem to be a very hasty glance, by the +guides of popular opinion. Examples of this method will be later quoted. +Meanwhile the disputes as to these alleged facts are noticed here, because +of their supposed relation to the Origin of Religion. + +[Footnote 1: See Mr. Myers's paper on the 'Ancient Oracles,' in _Classical +Essays_, and the author's 'Ancient Spiritualism,' in _Cock Lane and Common +Sense_.] + +[Footnote 2: The italics here are those of Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, in +his _Miracles and Modern Science_. Mr. Huxley, in his exposure of Hume's +fallacies (in his Life of Hume), did not examine the Jansenist 'miracles' +which Hume was criticising.] + +[Footnote 3: Moll, _Hypnotism_, p. 357.] + +[Footnote 4: _Animal Magnetism_, p. 355.] + +[Footnote 5: A translation of his work was published in the _New Review_, +January 1693.] + +[Footnote 6: _La Vérité des Miracles_, Cologne, 1747, Septièmo +Démonstration.] + +[Footnote 7: See Dr. Russell Reynolds's paper in _British Medical +Journal_, November 1869.] + +[Footnote 8: James, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 612. Charcot, +op. cit.] + +[Footnote 9: I do not need to be told that Dr. Maudsley denied the fact in +1886. I am prepared with the evidence, if it is asked for by some savant +who happens not to know it.] + +[Footnote 10: I am not responsible, of course, for the scientific validity +of Dr. Charcot's theory of healing 'by idea.' My point merely is that +certain experts of no slight experience or mean reputation do now admit, +as important certainties within their personal knowledge, exactly the +phenomena which Hume asks the wise and learned to laugh at, indeed, but +never to investigate.] + +[Footnote 11: Pp. 353-356.] + +[Footnote 12: P. 93.] + +[Footnote 13: _Träume_, p. 76.] + +[Footnote 14: Hegel accepts the clairvoyance of the Pucelle.] + +[Footnote 15: See Dr. Dessoir, in _Das Doppel Ich,_ as quoted by Mr. +Myers, _Proceedings_, vol. vi. 213.] + +[Footnote 16: _Philosophie des Geistes, Werke,_ vol. vii. 179. Berlin. +1845. The examples and much of the philosophising are in the _Zusätze_, +not translated in Mr. Wallace's version, Oxford, 1894.] + +[Footnote 17: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., vol. ii. pp. 201-207, 390-392.] + +[Footnote 18: _Elements of Hypnotism_, p. 67.] + +[Footnote 19: Possibly Mr. Vincent only means that Elliotson's +experiments, 'little more than sober footing' (p. 57), with the sisters +Okey, were rubbish. But whether the sisters Okey were or were not honest +is a question on which we cannot enter here.] + + + + +III + +ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION + +Among the various forms of science which are reaching and affecting the +new popular tradition, we have reckoned Anthropology. Pleasantly enough, +Anthropology has herself but recently emerged from that limbo of +the unrecognised in which Psychical Research is pining. The British +Association used to reject anthropological papers as 'vain dreams based on +travellers' tales.' No doubt the British Association would reject a paper +on clairvoyance as a vain dream based on old wives' fables, or on +hysterical imposture. Undeniably the study of such themes is hampered by +fable and fraud, just as anthropology has to be ceaselessly on its guard +against 'travellers' tales,' against European misunderstandings of savage +ideas, and against civilised notions and scientific theories unconsciously +read into barbaric customs, rites, traditions, and usages. Man, _ondoyant +et divers_, is the subject alike of anthropology and of psychical +research. Man (especially savage man) cannot be secluded from disturbing +influences, and watched, like the materials of a chemical experiment in a +laboratory. Nor can man be caught in a 'primitive' state: his intellectual +beginnings lie very far behind the stage of culture in which we find the +lowest known races. Consequently the matter on which anthropology works is +fluctuating; the evidence on which it rests needs the most sceptical +criticism, and many of its conclusions, in the necessary absence of +historical testimony as to times far behind the lowest known savages, must +be hypothetical. + +For these sound reasons official science long looked askance on +Anthropology. Her followers were not regarded as genuine scholars, and, +perhaps as a result of this contempt, they were often 'broken men,' +intellectual outlaws, people of one wild idea. To the scientific mind, +anthropologists or ethnologists were a horde who darkly muttered of +serpent worship, phallus worship, Arkite doctrines, and the Ten Lost +Tribes that kept turning up in the most unexpected places. Anthropologists +were said to gloat over dirty rites of dirty savages, and to seek reason +where there was none. The exiled, the outcast, the pariah of Science, is, +indeed, apt to find himself in odd company. Round the camp-fire of +Psychical Research too, in the unofficial, unstaked waste of Science, +hover odd, menacing figures of Esoteric Buddhists, _Satanistes_, +Occultists, Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, and Astrologers, as the +Arkites and Lost Tribesmen haunted the cradle of anthropology. + +But there was found at last to be reason in the thing, and method in the +madness. Evolution was in it. The acceptance, after long ridicule, of +palaeolithic weapons as relics of human culture, probably helped to bring +Anthropology within the sacred circle of permitted knowledge. Her topic +was full of illustrations of the doctrine of Mr. Darwin. Modern writers on +the theme had been anticipated by the less systematic students of the +eighteenth century--Goguet, de Brosses, Millar, Fontenelle, Lafitau, +Boulanger, or even Hume and Voltaire. As pioneers these writers answer to +the early mesmerists and magnetists, Puységur, Amoretti, Ritter, +Elliotson, Mayo, Gregory, in the history of Psychical Research. They +were on the same track, in each case, as Lubbock, Tylor, Spencer, +Bastian, and Frazer, or as Gurney, Richet, Myers, Janet, Dessoir, and Von +Schrenck-Notzing. But the earlier students were less careful of method and +evidence. + +Evidence! that was the stumbling block of anthropology. We still hear, in +the later works of Mr. Max Müller, the echo of the old complaints. +Anything you please, Mr. Max Müller says, you may find among your useful +savages, and (in regard to some anthropologists) his criticism is just. +You have but to skim a few books of travel, pencil in hand, and pick out +what suits your case. Suppose, as regards our present theme, your theory +is that savages possess broken lights of the belief in a Supreme Being. +You can find evidence for that. Or suppose you want to show that they have +no religious ideas at all; you can find evidence for that also. Your +testimony is often derived from observers ignorant of the language of the +people whom they talk about, or who are themselves prejudiced by one or +other theory or bias. How can you pretend to raise a science on such +foundations, especially as the savage informants wish to please or to +mystify inquirers, or they answer at random, or deliberately conceal their +most sacred institutions, or have never paid any attention to the subject? + +To all these perfectly natural objections Mr. Tylor has replied.[1] +Evidence must be collected, sifted, tested, as in any other branch of +inquiry. A writer, 'of course, is bound to use his best judgment as to +the trustworthiness of all authors he quotes, and, if possible, to obtain +several accounts to certify each point in each locality.' Mr. Tylor then +adduces 'the test of recurrence,' of undesigned coincidence in testimony, +as Millar had already argued in the last century.[2] If a mediaeval +Mahommedan in Tartary, a Jesuit in Brazil, a Wesleyan in Fiji, one may add +a police magistrate in Australia, a Presbyterian in Central Africa, a +trapper in Canada, agree in describing some analogous rite or myth in +these diverse lands and ages, we cannot set down the coincidence to chance +or fraud. 'Now, the most important facts of ethnography are vouched for in +this way.' + +We may add that even when the ideas of savages are obscure, we can +often detect them by analysis of the institutions in which they are +expressed.[3] + +Thus anthropological, like psychical or any other evidence, must be +submitted to conscientious processes of testing and sifting. Contradictory +instances must be hunted for sedulously. Nothing can be less scientific +than to snatch up any traveller's tale which makes for our theory, and to +ignore evidence, perhaps earlier, or later, or better observed, which +makes against it. Yet this, unfortunately, in certain instances (which +will be adduced) has been the occasional error of Mr. Huxley and Mr. +Spencer.[4] Mr. Spencer opens his 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' by the +remark that 'the implication [from the reported absence of the ideas of +belief in persons born deaf and dumb] is that the religious ideas of +civilised men are not innate' (who says they are?), and this implication +Mr. Spencer supports by 'proofs that among various savages religious ideas +do not exist.' 'Sir John Lubbock has given many of these.' But it would be +well to advise the reader to consult Roskoff's confutation of Sir John +Lubbock, and Mr. Tylor's masterly statement.[5] Mr. Spencer cited Sir +Samuel Baker for savages without even 'a ray of superstition' or a trace +of worship. Mr. Tylor, twelve years before Mr. Spencer wrote, had +demolished Sir Samuel Baker's assertion,[6] as regards many tribes, and so +shaken it as regards the Latukas, quoted by Mr. Spencer. The godless +Dinkas have 'a good deity and heaven-dwelling creator,' carefully recorded +years before Sir Samuel's 'rash denial.' We show later that Mr. Spencer, +relying on a single isolated sentence in Brough Smyth, omits all his +essential information about the Australian Supreme Being; while Mr. +Huxley--overlooking the copious and conclusive evidence as to their +ethical religion--charges the Australians with having merely a non-moral +belief in casual spirits. We have also to show that Mr. Huxley, under the +dominance of his theory, and inadvertently, quotes a good authority as +saying the precise reverse of what he really does say. + +If the facts not fitting their theories are little observed by authorities +so popular as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer; if _instantiae contradictoriae_ +are ignored by them, or left vague; if these things are done in the green +tree, we may easily imagine what shall be done in the dry. But we need not +war with hasty _vulgarisateurs_ and headlong theorists. + +Enough has been said to show the position of anthropology as regards +evidence, and to prove that, if he confines his observations to certain +anthropologists, the censures of Mr. Max Müller are justified. It is +mainly for this reason that the arguments presently to follow are strung +on the thread of Mr. Tylor's truly learned and accurate book, 'Primitive +Culture.' + +Though but recently crept forth, _vix aut ne vix quidem_, from the chill +shade of scientific disdain, Anthropology adopts the airs of her elder +sisters among the sciences, and is as severe as they to the Cinderella of +the family, Psychical Research. She must murmur of her fairies among the +cinders of the hearth, while they go forth to the ball, and dance with +provincial mayors at the festivities of the British Association. This is +ungenerous, and unfortunate, as the records of anthropology are rich in +unexamined materials of psychical research. I am unacquainted with any +work devoted by an anthropologist of renown to the hypnotic and kindred +practices of the lower races, except Herr Bastian's very meagre tract, +'Über psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturvölkern.'[7] We possess, none the +less, a mass of scattered information on this topic, the savage side of +psychical phenomena, in works of travel, and in Mr. Tylor's monumental +'Primitive Culture.' Mr. Tylor, however, as we shall see, regards it as a +matter of indifference, or, at least, as a matter beyond the scope of his +essay, to decide whether the parallel supernormal phenomena believed +in by savages, and said to recur in civilisation, are facts of actual +experience, or not. + +Now, this question is not otiose. Mr. Tylor, like other anthropologists, +Mr. Huxley, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and their followers and popularisers, +constructs on anthropological grounds, a theory of the Origin of Religion. + +That origin anthropology explains as the result of early and fallacious +reasonings on a number of biological and psychological phenomena, both +normal and (as is alleged by savages) supernormal. These reasonings led to +the belief in souls and spirits. Now, first, anthropology has taken for +granted that the Supreme Deities of savages are envisaged by them as +'spirits.' This, paradoxical as the statement may appear, is just what +does not seem to be proved, as we shall show. Next, if the supernormal +phenomena (clairvoyance, thought-transference, phantasms of the dead, +phantasms of the dying, and others) be real matters of experience, the +inferences drawn from them by early savage philosophy may be, in some +degree, erroneous. But the inferences drawn by materialists who reject the +supernormal phenomena will also, perhaps, be, let us say, incomplete. +Religion will have been, in part, developed out of facts, perhaps +inconsistent with materialism in its present dogmatic form. To put it less +trenchantly, and perhaps more accurately, the alleged facts 'are not +merely dramatically strange, they are not merely extraordinary and +striking, but they are "odd" in the sense that they will not easily fit in +with the views which physicists and men of science generally give us of +the universe in which we live' (Mr. A.J. Balfour, President's Address, +'Proceedings,' S.P.R. vol. x. p. 8, 1894). + +As this is the case, it might seem to be the business of Anthropology, the +Science of Man, to examine, among other things, the evidence for the +actual existence of those alleged unusual and supernormal phenomena, +belief in which is given as one of the origins of religion. + +To make this examination, in the ethnographic field, is almost a new +labour. As we shall see, anthropologists have not hitherto investigated +such things as the 'Fire-walk' of savages, uninjured in the flames, like +the Three Holy Children. The world-wide savage practice of divining by +hallucinations induced through gazing into a smooth deep (crystal-gazing) +has been studied, I think, by no anthropologist. The veracity of +'messages' uttered by savage seers when (as they suppose) 'possessed' or +'inspired' has not been criticised, and probably cannot be, for lack of +detailed information. The 'physical phenomena' which answer among savages +to the use of the 'divining rod,' and to 'spiritist' marvels in modern +times, have only been glanced at. In short, all the savage parallels +to the so-called 'psychical phenomena' now under discussion in England, +America, Germany, Italy, and France, have escaped critical analysis and +comparison with their civilised counterparts. + +An exception among anthropologists is Mr. Tylor. He has not suppressed the +existence of these barbaric parallels to our modern problems of this kind. +But his interest in them practically ends when he has shown that the +phenomena helped to originate the savage belief in 'spirits,' and when he +has displayed the 'survival' of that belief in later culture. He does not +ask 'Are the phenomena real?' he is concerned only with the savage +philosophy of the phenomena and with its relics in modern spiritism and +religion. My purpose is to do, by way only of _ébauche_, what neither +anthropology nor psychical research nor psychology has done: to put the +savage and modern phenomena side by side. Such evidence as we can give for +the actuality of the modern experiences will, so far as it goes, raise a +presumption that the savage beliefs, however erroneous, however darkened +by fraud and fancy, repose on a basis of real observation of actual +phenomena. + +Anthropology is concerned with man and what is in man--_humani nihil +a se alienum putat_. These researches, therefore, are within the +anthropological province, especially as they bear on the prevalent +anthropological theory of the Origin of Religion. By 'religion' we mean, +for the purpose of this argument, the belief in the existence of an +Intelligence, or Intelligences not human, and not dependent on a material +mechanism of brain and nerves, which may, or may not, powerfully control +men's fortunes and the nature of things. We also mean the additional +belief that there is, in man, an element so far kindred to these +Intelligences that it can transcend the knowledge obtained through the +known bodily senses, and may possibly survive the death of the body. These +two beliefs at present (though not necessarily in their origin) appear +chiefly as the faith in God and in the Immortality of the Soul. + +It is important, then, to trace, if possible, the origin of these two +beliefs. If they arose in actual communion with Deity (as the first at +least did, in the theory of the Hebrew Scriptures), or if they could be +proved to arise in an unanalysable _sensus numinis_, or even in 'a +perception of the Infinite' (Max Müller), religion would have a divine, or +at least a necessary source. To the Theist, what is inevitable cannot but +be divinely ordained, therefore religion is divinely preordained, +therefore, in essentials, though not in accidental details, religion is +true. The atheist, or non-theist, of course draws no such inferences. + +But if religion, as now understood among men, be the latest evolutionary +form of a series of mistakes, fallacies, and illusions, if its germ be a +blunder, and its present form only the result of progressive but +unessential refinements on that blunder, the inference that religion is +untrue--that nothing actual corresponds to its hypothesis--is very easily +drawn. The inference is not, perhaps, logical, for all our science itself +is the result of progressive refinements upon hypotheses originally +erroneous, fashioned to explain facts misconceived. Yet our science is +true, within its limits, though very far from being exhaustive of the +truth. In the same way, it might be argued, our religion, even granting +that it arose out of primitive fallacies and false hypotheses, may yet +have been refined, as science has been, through a multitude of causes, +into an approximate truth. + +Frequently as I am compelled to differ from Mr. Spencer both as to facts +and their interpretation, I am happy to find that he has anticipated me +here. Opponents will urge, he says, that 'if the primitive belief' (in +ghosts) 'was absolutely false, all derived beliefs from it must be +absolutely false?' Mr. Spencer replies: 'A germ of truth was contained in +the primitive conception--the truth, namely, that the power which +manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of +the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness.' In fact, we find +Mr. Spencer, like Faust as described by Marguerite, saying much the same +thing as the priests, but not quite in the same way. Of course, I allow +for a much larger 'germ of truth' in the origin of the ghost theory than +Mr. Spencer does. But we can both say 'the ultimate form of the religious +consciousness is' (will be?) 'the final development of a consciousness +which at the outset contained a germ of truth obscured by multitudinous +errors.'[8] + + 'One God, one law, one element, + And one far-off divine event, + To which the whole creation moves.' + +Coming at last to Mr. Tylor, we find that he begins by dismissing the idea +that any known race of men is devoid of religious conceptions. He +disproves, out of their own mouths, the allegations of several writers who +have made this exploded assertion about 'godless tribes.' He says: +'The thoughts and principles of modern Christianity are attached to +intellectual clues which run back through far pre-Christian ages to the +very origin of human civilisation, _perhaps even of human existence_.'[9] +So far we abound in Mr. Tylor's sense. 'As a minimum definition of +religion' he gives 'the belief in spiritual beings,' which appears +'among all low races with whom we have attained to thoroughly intimate +relations.' The existence of this belief at present does not prove that no +races were ever, at any time, destitute of all belief. But it prevents us +from positing the existence of such creedless races, in any age, as a +demonstrated fact. We have thus, in short, no opportunity of observing, +_historically_, man's development from blank unbelief into even the +minimum or most rudimentary form of belief. We can only theorise and make +more or less plausible conjectures as to the first rudiments of human +faith in God and in spiritual beings. We find no race whose mind, as to +faith, is a _tabula rasa_. + +To the earliest faith Mr. Tylor gives the name of _Animism_, a term not +wholly free from objection, though 'Spiritualism' is still less desirable, +having been usurped by a form of modern superstitiousness. This Animism, +'in its full development, includes the belief in souls and in a future +state, in controlling deities and subordinate spirits.' In Mr. Tylor's +opinion, as in Mr. Huxley's, Animism, in its lower (and earlier) forms, +has scarcely any connection with ethics. Its 'spirits' do not 'make for +righteousness.' This is a side issue to be examined later, but we may +provisionally observe, in passing, that the ethical ideas, such as they +are, even of Australian blacks are reported to be inculcated at the +religious mysteries (_Bora_) of the tribes, which were instituted by and +are performed in honour of the gods of their native belief. But this topic +must be reserved for our closing chapters. + +Mr. Tylor, however, is chiefly concerned with Animism as 'an ancient and +world-wide philosophy, of which belief is the theory, and worship is the +practice.' Given Animism, then, or the belief in spiritual beings, as the +earliest form and minimum of religious faith, what is the origin of +Animism? It will be seen that, by Animism, Mr. Tylor does not mean the +alleged early theory, implicitly if not explicitly and consciously held, +that all things whatsoever are animated and are personalities.[10] Judging +from the behaviour of little children, and from the myths of savages, +early man may have half-consciously extended his own sense of personal and +potent and animated existence to the whole of nature as known to him. Not +only animals, but vegetables and inorganic objects, may have been looked +on by him as persons, like what he felt himself to be. The child (perhaps +merely because _taught_ to do so) beats the naughty chair, and all objects +are persons in early mythology. But this _feeling_, rather than theory, +may conceivably have existed among early men, before they developed the +hypothesis of 'spirits,' 'ghosts,' or souls. It is the origin of _that_ +hypothesis, 'Animism,' which Mr. Tylor investigates. + +What, then, is the origin of Animism? It arose in the earliest traceable +speculations on 'two groups of biological problems: + +(1) 'What is it that makes the difference between a living body and a +dead one; what causes waking, sleep, trance, disease, and death?' + +(2) 'What are those human shapes which appear in dreams and +visions?'[11] + +Here it should be noted that Mr. Tylor most properly takes a distinction +between sleeping 'dreams' and waking 'visions,' or 'clear vision.' The +distinction is made even by the blacks of Australia. Thus one of the +Kurnai announced that his _Yambo_, or soul, could 'go out' during sleep, +and see the distant and the dead. But 'while any one might be able to +communicate with the ghosts, _during sleep_, it was only the wizards who +were able to do so in waking hours.' A wizard, in fact, is a person +susceptible (or feigning to be susceptible) when awake to hallucinatory +perceptions of phantasms of the dead. 'Among the Kulin of Wimmera River a +man became a wizard who, as a boy, had seen his mother's ghost sitting at +her grave.'[12] These facts prove that a race of savages at the bottom of +the scale of culture do take a formal distinction between normal dreams in +sleep and waking hallucinations--a thing apt to be denied. + +Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer offers the massive generalisation that savages do +not possess a language enabling a man to say 'I dreamed that I saw,' +instead of 'I saw' ('Principles of Sociology,' p. 150). This could only be +proved by giving examples of such highly deficient languages, which Mr. +Spencer does not do.[13] In many savage speculations there occur ideas as +subtly metaphysical as those of Hegel. Moreover, even the Australian +languages have the verb 'to see,' and the substantive 'sleep.' Nothing, +then, prevents a man from saying 'I saw in sleep' (_insomnium_, +[Greek: enupnion]). + +We have shown too, that the Australians take an essential distinction +between waking hallucinations (ghosts seen by a man when awake) and the +common hallucinations of slumber. Anybody can have these; the man who sees +ghosts when awake is marked out for a wizard. + +At the same time the vividness of dreams among certain savages, as +recorded in Mr. Im Thurn's 'Indians of Guiana,' and the consequent +confusion of dreaming and waking experiences, are certain facts. Wilson +says the same of some negroes, and Mr. Spencer illustrates from the +confusion of mind in dreamy children. They, we know, are much more +addicted to somnambulism than grown-up people. I am unaware that +spontaneous somnambulism among savages has been studied as it ought to be. +I have demonstrated, however, that very low savages can and do draw an +essential distinction between sleeping and waking hallucinations. + +Again, the crystal-gazer, whose apparently telepathic crystal pictures are +discussed later (chap. v.), was introduced to a crystal just because she +had previously been known to be susceptible to waking and occasionally +veracious hallucinations. + +It was not only on the dreams of sleep, so easily forgotten as they are, +that the savage pondered, in his early speculations about the life and the +soul. He included in his materials the much more striking and memorable +experiences of waking hours, as we and Mr. Tylor agree in holding. + +Reflecting on these things, the earliest savage reasoners would decide: +(1) that man has a 'life' (which leaves him temporarily in sleep, finally +in death); (2) that man also possesses a 'phantom' (which appears to +other people in their visions and dreams). The savage philosopher would +then 'combine his information,' like a celebrated writer on Chinese +metaphysics. He would merely 'combine the life and the phantom,' as +'manifestations of one and the same soul.' The result would be 'an +apparitional soul,' or 'ghost-soul.' + +This ghost-soul would be a highly accomplished creature, 'a vapour, film, +or shadow,' yet conscious, capable of leaving the body, mostly invisible +and impalpable, 'yet also manifesting physical power,' existing and +appearing after the death of the body, able to act on the bodies of other +men, beasts, and things.[14] + +When the earliest reasoners, in an age and in mental conditions of which +we know nothing historically, had evolved the hypothesis of this +conscious, powerful, separable soul, capable of surviving the death of the +body, it was not difficult for them to develop the rest of Religion, as +Mr. Tylor thinks. A powerful ghost of a dead man might thrive till, its +original owner being long forgotten, it became a God. Again (souls once +given) it would not be a very difficult logical leap, perhaps, to conceive +of souls, or spirits, that had never been human at all. It is, we may say, +only _le premier pas qui coûte_, the step to the belief in a surviving +separable soul. Nevertheless, when we remember that Mr. Tylor is +theorising about savages in the dim background of human evolution, savages +whom we know nothing of by experience, savages far behind Australians and +Bushmen (who possess Gods), we must admit that he credits them with great +ingenuity, and strong powers of abstract reasoning. He may be right in his +opinion. In the same way, just as primitive men were keen reasoners, so +early bees, more clever than modern bees, may have evolved the system of +hexagonal cells, and only an early fish of genius could first have hit +on the plan, now hereditary of killing a fly by blowing water at it. + +To this theory of metaphysical genius in very low savages I have no +objection to offer. We shall find, later, astonishing examples of savage +abstract speculation, certainly not derived from missionary sources, +because wholly out of the missionary's line of duty and reflection. + +As early beasts had genius, so the earliest reasoners appear to have been +as logically gifted as the lowest savages now known to us, or even as some +Biblical critics. By Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, they first conceived the +extremely abstract idea of Life, 'that which makes the difference between +a living body and a dead one.'[15] This highly abstract conception must +have been, however, the more difficult to early man, as, to him, all +things, universally, are 'animated.'[16] Mr. Tylor illustrates this +theory of early man by the little child's idea that 'chairs, sticks, and +wooden horses are actuated by the same sort of personal will as nurses and +children and kittens.... In such matters the savage mind well represents +the childish stage.'[17] + +Now, nothing can be more certain than that, if children think sticks are +animated, they don't think so because they have heard, or discovered, that +they possess souls, and then transfer souls to sticks. We may doubt, then, +if primitive man came, in this way, by reasoning on souls, to suppose +that all things, universally, were animated. But if he did think all +things animated--a corpse, to his mind, was just as much animated as +anything else. Did he reason: 'All things are animated. A corpse is not +animated. Therefore a corpse is not a thing (within the meaning of my +General Law)'? + +How, again, did early man conceive of Life, before he identified Life +(1) with 'that which makes the difference between a living body and a dead +one' (a difference which, _ex hypothesi_, he did not draw, _all_ things +being animated to his mind) and (2) with 'those human shapes which appear +in dreams and visions'? 'The ancient savage philosophers probably reached +the obvious inference that every man had two things belonging to him, a +life and a phantom.' But everything was supposed to have 'a life,' as far +as one makes out, before the idea of separable soul was developed, at +least if savages arrived at the theory of universal animation as children +are said to do. + +We are dealing here quite conjecturally with facts beyond our experience. + +In any case, early man excogitated (by the hypothesis) the abstract idea +of Life, _before_ he first 'envisaged' it in material terms as 'breath,' +or 'shadow.' He next decided that mere breath or shadow was not only +identical with the more abstract conception of Life, but could also take +on forms as real and full-bodied as, to him, are the hallucinations of +dream or waking vision. His reasoning appears to have proceeded from the +more abstract (the idea of Life) to the more concrete, to the life first +shadowy and vaporous, then clothed in the very aspect of the real man. + +Mr. Tylor has thus (whether we follow his logic or not) provided man with +a theory of active, intelligent, separable souls, which can survive the +death of the body. At this theory early man arrived by speculations on the +nature of life, and on the causes of phantasms of the dead or living +beheld in 'dreams and visions.' But our author by no means leaves out of +sight the effects of alleged supernormal phenomena believed in by savages, +with their parallels in modern civilisation. These supernormal phenomena, +whether real or illusory, are, he conceives, facts in that mass of +experiences from which savages constructed their belief in separable, +enduring, intelligent souls or ghosts, the foundation of religion. + +While we are, perhaps owing to our own want of capacity, puzzled by what +seem to be two kinds of early philosophy--(1) a sort of instinctive or +unreasoned belief in universal animation, which Mr. Spencer calls +'Animism' and does not believe in, (2) the reasoned belief in separable +and surviving souls of men (and in things), which Mr. Spencer believes in, +and Mr. Tylor calls 'Animism'--we must also note another difficulty. Mr. +Tylor may seem to be taking it for granted that the earliest, remote, +unknown thinkers on life and the soul were existing on the same psychical +plane as we ourselves, or, at least, as modern savages. Between modern +savages and ourselves, in this regard, he takes certain differences, but +takes none between modern savages and the remote founders of religion. + +Thus Mr. Tylor observes: + +'The condition of the modern ghost-seer, whose imagination passes on +such slight excitement into positive hallucination, is rather the rule +than the exception among uncultured and intensely imaginative tribes, +whose minds may be thrown off their balance by a touch, a word, a +gesture, an unaccustomed noise.'[18] + +I find evidence that low contemporary savages are _not_ great ghost-seers, +and, again, I cannot quite accept Mr. Tylor's psychology of the 'modern +ghost-seer.' Most such favoured persons whom I have known were steady, +unimaginative, unexcitable people, with just one odd experience. Lord +Tennyson, too, after sleeping in the bed of his recently lost father on +purpose to see his ghost, decided that ghosts 'are not seen by imaginative +people.' + +We now examine, at greater length, the psychical conditions in which, +according to Mr. Tylor, contemporary savages differ from civilised men. +Later we shall ask what may be said as to possible or presumable psychical +differences between modern savages and the datelessly distant founders of +the belief in souls. Mr. Tylor attributes to the lower races, and +even to races high above their level, 'morbid ecstasy, brought on by +meditation, fasting, narcotics, excitement, or disease.' Now, we may +still 'meditate'--and how far the result is 'morbid' is a matter for +psychologists and pathologists to determine. Fasting we do not practise +voluntarily, nor would we easily accept evidence from an Englishman as to +the veracity of voluntary fasting visions, like those of Cotton Mather. +The visions of disease we should set aside, as a rule, with those of +'excitement,' produced, for instance, by 'devil-dances.' Narcotic and +alcoholic visions are not in question.[19] For our purpose the _induced_ +trances of savages (in whatever way voluntarily brought on) are analogous +to the modern induced hypnotic trance. Any supernormal acquisitions of +knowledge in these induced conditions, among savages, would be on a par +with similar alleged experiences of persons under hypnotism. + +We do not differ from known savages in being able to bring on non-normal +psychological conditions, but we produce these, as a rule, by other +methods than theirs, and such experiments are not made on _all_ of us, as +they were on all Red Indian boys and girls in the 'medicine-fast,' at +the age of puberty. + +Further, in their normal state, known savages, or some of them, are more +'suggestible' than educated Europeans at least.[20] They can be more +easily hallucinated in their normal waking state by suggestion. Once more, +their intervals of hunger, followed by gorges of food, and their lack of +artificial light, combine to make savages more apt to see what is not +there than are comfortable educated white men. But Mr. Tylor goes too far +when he says 'where the savage could see phantasms, the civilised man has +come to amuse himself with fancies.'[21] The civilised man, beyond all +doubt, is capable of being _enfantosmé_. + +In all that he says on this point, the point of psychical condition, Mr. +Tylor is writing about known savages as they differ from ourselves. But +the savages who _ex hypothesi_ evolved the doctrine of souls lie beyond +our ken, far behind the modern savages, among whom we find belief not +only in souls and ghosts, but in moral gods. About the psychical condition +of the savages who worked out the theory of souls and founded religion we +necessarily know nothing. If there be such experiences as clairvoyance, +telepathy, and so on, these unknown ancestors of ours may (for all that we +can tell) have been peculiarly open to them, and therefore peculiarly apt +to believe in separable souls. In fact, when we write about these far-off +founders of religion, we guess in the dark, or by the flickering light of +analogy. The lower animals have faculties (as in their power of finding +their way home through new unknown regions, and in the ants' modes of +acquiring and communicating knowledge to each other) which are mysteries +to us. The terror of dogs in 'haunted houses' and of horses in passing +'haunted' scenes has often been reported, and is alluded to briefly by Mr. +Tylor. Balaam's ass, and the dogs which crouched and whined before Athene, +whom Eumaeus could not see, are 'classical' instances. + +The weakness of the anthropological argument here is, we must repeat, that +we know little more about the mental condition and experiences of the +early thinkers who developed the doctrine of Souls than we know about +the mental condition and experiences of the lower animals. And the more +firmly a philosopher believes in the Darwinian hypothesis, the less, he +must admit, can he suppose himself to know about the twilight ages, +between the lower animal and the fully evolved man. What kind of creature +was man when he first conceived the germs, or received the light, +of Religion? All is guess-work here! We may just allude to Hegel's +theory that clairvoyance and hypnotic phenomena are produced in a +kind of temporary _atavism_, or 'throwing hack' to a remotely ancient +condition of the 'sensitive soul' (_füklende Seele_). The 'sensitive' +[unconditioned, clairvoyant] faculty or 'soul' is 'a disease when it +becomes a state of the self-conscious, educated, self-possessed human +being of civilisation.'[22] 'Second sight,' Hegel thinks, was a product +of an earlier day and earlier mental condition than ours. + +Approaching this almost untouched subject--the early psychical condition +of man--not from the side of metaphysical speculations like Hegel, but +with the instruments of modern psychology and physiology, Dr. Max Dessoir, +of Berlin, following, indeed, M. Taine, has arrived, as we saw, at +somewhat similar conclusions. 'This fully conscious life of the spirit,' +in which we moderns now live, 'seems to rest upon a substratum of reflex +action of a hallucinatory type.' Our actual modern condition is _not_ +'fundamental,' and 'hallucination represents, at least in its nascent +condition, the main trunk of our psychical existence.'[23] + +Now, suppose that the remote and unknown ancestors of ours who first +developed the doctrine of souls had not yet spread far from 'the main +trunk of our psychical existence,' far from constant hallucination. In +that case (at least, according to Dr. Dessoir's theory) their psychical +experiences would be such as we cannot estimate, yet cannot leave, as a +possibility influencing religion, out of our calculations. + +If early men were ever in a condition in which telepathy and clairvoyance +(granting their possibility) were prevalent, one might expect that +faculties so useful would be developed in the struggle for existence. That +they are deliberately cultivated by modern savages we know. The Indian +foster-mother of John Tanner used, when food was needed, to suggest +herself into an hypnotic condition, so that she became _clairvoyante_ as +to the whereabouts of game. Tanner, an English boy, caught early +by the Indians, was sceptical, but came to practise the same art, not +unsuccessfully, himself.[24] His reminiscences, which he dictated on his +return to civilisation, were certainly not feigned in the interests of any +theories. But the most telepathic human stocks, it may be said, ought, +_ceteris paribus_, to have been the most successful in the struggle +for existence. We may infer that the _cetera_ were not _paria_, the +clairvoyant state not being precisely the best for the practical business +of life. But really we know nothing of the psychical state of the earliest +men. They may have had experiences tending towards a belief in 'spirits,' +of which we can tell nothing. We are obliged to guess, in considerable +ignorance of the actual conditions, and this historical ignorance +inevitably besets all anthropological speculation about the origin of +religion. + +The knowledge of our nescience as to the psychical condition of our first +thinking ancestors may suggest hesitation as to taking it for granted that +early man was on our own or on the modern savage level in 'psychical' +experience. Even savage races, as Mr. Tylor justly says, attribute +superior psychical knowledge to neighbouring tribes on a yet lower level +of culture than themselves. The Finn esteems the Lapp sorcerers above his +own; the Lapp yields to the superior pretensions of the Samoyeds. There +may be more ways than one of explaining this relative humility: there is +Hegel's way and there is Mr. Tylor's way. We cannot be certain, _a +priori_, that the earliest man knew no more of supernormal or apparently +supernormal experiences than we commonly do, or that these did not +influence his thoughts on animism. + +It is an example of the chameleon-like changes of science (even of +'science falsely so called' if you please) that when he wrote his book, in +1871, Mr. Tylor could not possibly have anticipated this line of argument. + +'Psychical planes' had not been invented; hypnotism, with its problems, +had not been much noticed in England. But 'Spiritualism' was flourishing. +Mr. Tylor did not ignore this revival of savage philosophy. He saw very +well that the end of the century was beholding the partial rehabilitation +of beliefs which were scouted from 1660 to 1850. Seventy years ago, as Mr. +Tylor says, Dr. Macculloch, in his 'Description of the Western Islands of +Scotland,' wrote of 'the famous Highland second sight' that 'ceasing to be +believed it has ceased to exist.'[25] + +Dr. Macculloch was mistaken in his facts. 'Second sight' has never +ceased to exist (or to be believed to exist), and it has recently been +investigated in the 'Journal' of the Caledonian Medical Society. Mr. Tylor +himself says that it has been 'reinstated in a far larger range of +society, and under far better circumstances of learning and prosperity.' +This fact he ascribes generally to 'a direct revival from the regions of +savage philosophy and peasant folklore,' a revival brought about in great +part by the writings of Swedenborg. To-day things have altered. The +students now interested in this whole class of alleged supernormal +phenomena are seldom believers in the philosophy of Spiritualism in the +American sense of the word.[26] + +Mr. Tylor, as we have seen, attributes the revival of interest in this +obscure class of subjects to the influence of Swedenborg. It is true, as +has been shown, that Swedenborg attracted the attention of Kant. But +modern interest has chiefly been aroused and kept alive by the phenomena +of hypnotism. The interest is now, among educated students, really +scientific. + +Thus Mr. William James, Professor of Psychology in the University of +Harvard, writes: + +'I was attracted to this subject (Psychical Research) some years ago by +my love of fair play in Science.'[27] + +Mr. Tylor is not incapable of appreciating this attitude. Even the +so-called 'spirit manifestations,' he says, 'should be discussed on their +merits,' and the investigation 'would seem apt to throw light on some most +interesting psychological questions.' Nothing can be more remote from the +logic of Hume. + +The ideas of Mr. Tylor on the causes of the origin of religion are +now criticised, not from the point of view of spiritualism, but of +experimental psychology. We hold that very probably there exist human +faculties of unknown scope; that these conceivably were more powerful +and prevalent among our very remote ancestors who founded religion; that +they may still exist in savage as in civilised races, and that they may +have confirmed, if they did not originate, the doctrine of separable +souls. If they _do_ exist, the circumstance is important, in view of the +fact that modern ideas rest on a denial of their existence. + +Mr. Tylor next examines the savage and other _names_ for the ghost-soul, +such as shadow (_umbra_), breath (_spiritus_), and he gives cases in +which the _shadow_ of a man is regarded as equivalent to his _life_. Of +course, the shadow in the sunlight does not resemble the phantasm in a +dream. The two, however, were combined and identified by early thinkers, +while _breath_ and _heart_ were used as symbols of 'that in men which +makes them live,' a phrase found among the natives of Nicaragua in 1528. +The confessedly symbolical character of the phrase, 'it is _not_ +precisely the heart, but that in them which makes them live,' proves that +to the speaker life was _not_ 'heart' or 'breath,' but that these terms +were known to be material word-counters for the conception of life.[1] +Whether the earliest thinkers identified heart, breath, shadow, with life, +or whether they consciously used words of material origin to denote an +immaterial conception, of course we do not know. But the word in the +latter case would react on the thought, till the Roman inhaled (as his +life?) the last breath of his dying kinsman, he well knowing that the +Manes of the said kinsman were elsewhere, and not to be inhaled. + +Subdivisions and distinctions were then recognised, as of the Egyptian +_Ka_, the 'double,' the Karen _kelah_, or 'personal life-phantom' +(_wraith_), on one side, and the Karen _thah_, 'the responsible moral +soul,' on the other. The Roman _umbra_ hovers about the grave, the _manes_ +go to Orcus, the _spiritus_ seeks the stars. + +We are next presented with a crowd of cases in which sickness or lethargy +is ascribed by savages to the absence of the patient's spirit, or of one +of his spirits. This idea of migratory spirit is next used by savages to +explain certain proceedings of the sorcerer, priest, or seer. His soul, +or one of his souls is thought to go forth to distant places in quest of +information, while the seer, perhaps, remains lethargic. Probably, in the +struggle for existence, he lost more by being lethargic than he gained by +being clairvoyant! + +Now, here we touch the first point in Mr. Tylor's theory, where a critic +may ask, Was this belief in the wandering abroad of the seer's spirit a +theory not only false in its form (as probably it is), but also wholly +unbased on experiences which might raise a presumption in favour of the +existence of phenomena really supernormal? By 'supernormal' experiences I +here mean such as the acquisition by a human mind of knowledge which could +not be obtained by it through the recognised channels of sensation. Say, +for the sake of argument, that a person, savage or civilised, obtains in +trance information about distant places or events, to him unknown, and, +through channels of sense, unknowable. The savage will explain this by +saying that the seer's soul, shadow, or spirit, wandered out of the body +to the distant scene. This is, at present, an unverified theory. But +still, for the sake of argument, suppose that the seer did honestly +obtain this information in trance, lethargy, or hypnotic sleep, or any +other condition. If so, the modern savage (or his more gifted ancestors) +would have other grounds for his theory of the wandering soul than any +ground presented by normal occurrences, ordinary dreams, shadows, and so +forth. Again, in human nature there would be (if such things occur) a +potentiality of experiences other and stranger than materialism will admit +as possible. It will (granting the facts) be impossible to aver that there +is _nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu_. The soul will be not +_ce qu'un vain peuple pense_ under the new popular tradition, and the +savage's theory of the spirit will be, at least in part, based on other +than normal and every-day facts. That condition in which the seer acquires +information, not otherwise accessible, about events remote in space, is +what the mesmerists of the mid-century called 'travelling clairvoyance.' + +If such an experience be _in rerum natura_, it will not, of course, +justify the savage's theory that the soul is a separable entity, capable +of voyaging, and also capable of existing after the death of the body. But +it will give the savage a better excuse for his theory than normal +experiences provide; and will even raise a presumption that reflection on +mere ordinary experiences--death, shadow, trance--is not the sole origin +of his theory. For a savage so acute as Mr. Tylor's hypothetical early +reasoner might decline to believe that his own or a friend's soul had been +absent on an expedition, unless it brought back information not normally +to be acquired. However, we cannot reason, _a priori_, as to how far the +logic of a savage might or might not go on occasion. + +In any case, a scientific reasoner might be expected to ask: 'Is this +alleged acquisition of knowledge, _not_ through the ordinary channels of +sense, a thing _in rerum natura_?' Because, if it is, we must obviously +increase our list of the savage's reasons for believing in a soul: we +must make his reasons include 'psychical' experiences, and there must be +an X region to investigate. + +These considerations did not fail to present themselves to Mr. Tylor. But +his manner of dealing with them is peculiar. With his unequalled knowledge +of the lower races, it was easy for him to examine travellers' tales about +savage seers who beheld distant events in vision, and to allow them what +weight he thought proper, after discounting possibilities of falsehood and +collusion. He might then have examined modern narratives of similar +performances among the civilised, which are abundant. It is obvious and +undeniable that if the supernormal acquisition of knowledge in trance is a +_vera causa_, a real process, however rare, Mr. Tylor's theory needs +modifications; while the character of the savage's reasoning becomes more +creditable to the savage, and appears as better bottomed than we had been +asked to suppose. But Mr. Tylor does not examine this large body of +evidence at all, or, at least, does not offer us the details of his +examination. He merely writes in this place: + +'A typical spiritualistic instance may be quoted from Jung-Stilling, who +says that examples have come to his knowledge of sick persons who, +longing to see absent friends, have fallen into a swoon, during which +they have appeared to the distant objects of their affection.'[29] + +Jung-Stilling (though he wrote before modern 'Spiritualism' came in) is +not a very valid authority; there is plenty of better evidence than his, +but Mr. Tylor passes it by, merely remarking that 'modern Europe has kept +closely enough to the lines of early philosophy.' Modern Europe has indeed +done so, if it explains the supernormal acquisition of knowledge, or the +hallucinatory appearance of a distant person to his friend by a theory of +wandering 'spirits.' But facts do not cease to be facts because wrong +interpretations have been put upon them by savages, by Jung-Stilling, or +by anyone else. The real question is, Do such events occur among lower and +higher races, beyond explanation by fraud and fortuitous coincidence? We +gladly grant that the belief in Animism, when it takes the form of a +theory of 'wandering spirits,' is probably untenable, as it is assuredly +of savage origin. But we are not absolutely so sure that in this aspect +the theory is not based on actual experiences, not of a normal and +ordinary kind. If so, the savage philosophy and its supposed survivals in +belief will appear in a new light. And we are inclined to hold that an +examination of the mass of evidence to which Mr. Tylor offers here so +slight an allusion will at least make it wise to suspend our judgment, +not only as to the origins of the savage theory of spirits, but as to the +materialistic hypothesis of the absence of a psychical element in man. + +I may seem to have outrun already the limits of permissible hypothesis. It +may appear absurd to surmise that there can exist in man, savage or +civilised, a faculty for acquiring information not accessible by the known +channels of sense, a faculty attributed by savage philosophers to the +wandering soul. But one may be permitted to quote the opinion of +M. Charles Richet, Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine +in Paris. It is not cited because M. Richet is a professor of physiology, +but because he reached his conclusion after six years of minute +experiment. He says: 'There exists in certain persons, at certain moments, +a faculty of acquiring knowledge which has no _rapport_ with our normal +faculties of that kind.'[30] + +Instances tending to raise a presumption in favour of M. Richet's idea may +now be sought in savage and civilised life. + +[Footnote 1: _Primitive Culture,_ i. 9, 10.] + +[Footnote 2: _Origin of Ranks._] + +[Footnote 3: I may be permitted to refer to 'Reply to Objections' in the +appendix to my _Myth, Ritual, and Religion,_ vol. ii.] + +[Footnote 4: Spencer, _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, pp. 672, 673.] + +[Footnote 5: _Primitive Culture_, i. 417-425. Cf. however _Princip. Of +Sociol._, p. 304.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. i. 423, 424.] + +[Footnote 7: Published for the Berlin Society of Experimental Psychology, +Günther, Leipzig, 1890.] + +[Footnote 8: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, 837-839.] + +[Footnote 9: _Primitive Culture_, i. 421, chapter xi.] + +[Footnote 10: This theory is what Mr. Spencer calls 'Animism,' and does +not believe in. What Mr. Tylor calls 'Animism' Mr. Spencer believes in, +but he calls it the 'Ghost Theory.'] + +[Footnote 11: _Primitive Culture_, i. 428.] + +[Footnote 12: Howitt, _Journal of Anthropological Institute_, xiii. +191-195.] + +[Footnote 13: The curious may consult, for savage words for 'dreams,' Mr. +Scott's _Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language_, s.v. 'Lots,' or any +glossary of any savage language.] + +[Footnote 14: _Prim. Cult._ i. 429.] + +[Footnote 15: _Prim. Cult._ i. 428.] + +[Footnote 16: Ibid. i. 285.] + +[Footnote 17: Ibid. i. 285, 286.] + +[Footnote 18: _Primitive Culture_, i. 446.] + +[Footnote 19: See, however, Dr. Von Schrenck-Notzing, _Die Beobachtung +narcolischer Mittel für den Hypnotismus_, and S.P.R. _Proceedings_, x. +292-899.] + +[Footnote 20: _Primitive Culture_, i. 306-316.] + +[Footnote 21: i. 315.] + +[Footnote 22: _Phil. des Geistes_, pp. 406, 408.] + +[Footnote 23: See also Mr. A.J. Balfour's Presidential Address to the +Society for Psychical Research, _Proceedings_, vol. x. See, too, Taine, +_De l'Intelligence_, i. 78, 106, 139.] + +[Footnote 24: Tanner's _Narrative_, New York, 1830.] + +[Footnote 25: _Primitive Culture_, i. 143.] + +[Footnote 26: As 'spiritualism' is often used in opposition to +'materialism,' and with no reference to rapping 'spirits,' the modern +belief in that class of intelligences may here be called spiritism.] + +[Footnote 27: _The Will to Believe_, preface, p. xiv.] + +[Footnote 28: _Primitive Culture_, i. 432,433. Citing Oviedo, _Hist. De +Nicaragua,_ pp. 21-51.] + +[Footnote 29: _Primitive Culture_, i. 440. Citing Stilling after Dale Owen, +and quoting Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace's _Scientific Aspect of the +Supernatural_, p. 43. Mr. Tylor also adds folk-lore practices of +ghost-seeing, as on St. John's Eve. St. Mark's Eve, too, is in point, as +far as folk-lore goes.] + +[Footnote 30: _Proceedings_, S.P.R. v. 167.] + + + + +IV + +'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE' + +'To open the Gates of Distance' is the poetical Zulu phrase for what is +called clairvoyance, or _vue à distance_. This, if it exists, is the +result of a faculty of undetermined nature, whereby knowledge of remote +events may be acquired, not through normal channels of sense. As the Zulus +say: '_Isiyezi_ is a state in which a man becomes slightly insensible. He +is awake, but still sees things which he would not see if he were not in a +state of ecstasy (_nasiyesi_).'[1] The Zulu description of _isiyezi_ +includes what is technically styled 'dissociation.' No psychologist or +pathologist will deny that visions of an hallucinatory sort may occur in +dissociated states, say in the _petit mal_ of epilepsy. The question, +however, is whether any such visions convey actual information not +otherwise to be acquired, beyond the reach of chance coincidence to +explain. + +A Scottish example, from the records of a court of law, exactly +illustrates the Zulu theory. At the moment when the husband of Jonka +Dyneis was in danger six miles from her house in his boat, Jonka 'was +found, and seen standing at her own house wall in a trance, and being +taken, she could not give answer, but stood as bereft of her senses, and +when she was asked why she was so moved, she answered, "If our boat be not +lost, she was in great hazard."' (October 2, 1616.)[2] + +The belief in opening the Gates of Distance is, of course, very widely +diffused. The gift is attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, to Plotinus, to +many Saints, to Catherine de' Medici, to the Rev. Mr. Peden,[3] and to +Jeanne d'Arc, while the faculty is the stock in trade of savage seers in +all regions.[4] + +The question, however, on which Mr. Tylor does not touch, is, _Are any of +the stories true?_ If so, of course they would confirm in the mind +of the savage his theory of the wandering soul. Now, to find anything +like attested cases of successful clairvoyance among savages is a +difficult task. White men either scout the idea, or are afraid of seeming +superstitious if they give examples, or, if they do give examples, are +accused of having sunk to the degraded level of Zulus or Red Indians. Even +where travellers, like Scheffer, have told about their own experiences, +the narratives are omitted by modern writers on savage divination.[5] We +must therefore make our own researches, and it is to be noted that +the stories of successful savage clairvoyance are given as illustrations +merely, not as evidence to facts, for we cannot cross-examine the +witnesses. + +Mr. Tylor dismisses the topic in a manner rather cavalier: + +'Without discussing on their merits the accounts of what is called +"second sight,"[6] it may be pointed out that they are related among +savage tribes, as when Captain Jonathan Carver obtained from a Cree +medicine-man a true prophecy of the arrival of a canoe with news next +day at noon; or when Mr. J. Mason Brown, travelling with two _voyageurs_ +on the Copper Mine River, was met by Indians of the very band he was +seeking, these having been sent by their medicine-man, who, on +enquiry, stated that "he saw them coming, and heard them talk on their +journey."'[7] + +Now, in our opinion, the 'merits' of stories of second sight need +discussion, because they may, if well attested, raise a presumption that +the savage's theory has a better foundation than Mr. Tylor supposes. Oddly +enough, though Mr. Tylor does not say so, Dr. Brinton (from whom he +borrows his two anecdotes) is more or less of our opinion. + +'There are,' says Dr. Brinton, 'statements supported by unquestionable +testimony, which ought not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot +but approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of +exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our +lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put +aside without serious consideration?' + +That is exactly what we complain of; the alleged facts are 'put aside +without serious consideration.' + +We, at least, are not slaves to the idea that 'the laws of exact science' +must be the only laws at work in the world. Science, however exact, does +not pretend to have discovered all 'laws.' + +To return to actual examples of the alleged supernormal acquisition of +knowledge by savages: Dr. Brinton gives an example from Charlevoix and +General Mason Brown's anecdote.[8] In General Mason Brown's instance the +medicine-man, at a great distance, bade his emissaries 'seek three whites, +whose horses, arms, attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, +which description was repeated to General Brown by the warriors _before +they saw his two companions.'_ General Brown assured Dr. Brinton of 'the +accuracy of this in every particular.' Mr. Tylor has certainly not +improved the story in his condensed version. Dr. Brinton refers to 'many' +tales such as these, and some will be found in 'Among the Zulus,' by Mr. +David Leslie (1875). + +Mr. Leslie was a Scottish sportsman, brought up from boyhood in +familiarity with the Zulus. His knowledge of their language and customs +was minute, and his book, privately printed, contains much interesting +matter. He writes: + +'I was obliged to proceed to the Zulu country to meet my Kaffir +elephant-hunters, the time for their return having arrived. They were +hunting in a very unhealthy country, and I had agreed to wait for them +on the North-East border, the nearest point I could go to with safety. +I reached the appointed rendezvous, but could not gain the slightest +intelligence of my people at the kraal. + +'After waiting some time, and becoming very uneasy about them, one of +my servants recommended me to go to the doctor, and at last, out of +curiosity and _pour passer le temps_, I did go. + +'I stated what I wanted--information about my hunters--and I was met by +a stern refusal. "I cannot tell anything about white men," said he, "and +I know nothing of their ways." However, after some persuasion and +promise of liberal payment, impressing upon him the fact that it was not +white men but Kaffirs I wanted to know about, he at last consented, +saying "he would _open the Gate of Distance_, and would travel through +it, even although his body should lie before me." + +'His first proceeding was to ask me the number and names of my hunters. +To this I demurred, telling him that if he obtained that information +from me he might easily substitute some news which he may have heard +from others, instead of the "spiritual telegraphic news" which I +expected him to get from his "familiar." + +'To this he answered: "I told you I did not understand white men's ways; +but if I am to do anything for you it must be done in my way--not +yours." On receiving this fillip I felt inclined to give it up, as I +thought I might receive some rambling statement with a considerable +dash of truth, it being easy for anyone who knew anything of hunting to +give a tolerably correct idea of their motions. + +'However, I conceded this point also, and otherwise satisfied him. + +'The doctor then made eight little fires--that being the number of my +hunters; on each he cast some roots,[9] which emitted a curious sickly +odour and thick smoke; into each he cast a small stone, shouting, as he +did so, the name to which the stone was dedicated; then he ate some +"medicine," and fell over in what appeared to be a trance for about ten +minutes, during all which time his limbs kept moving. Then he seemed to +wake, went to one of the fires, raked the ashes about, looked at the +stone attentively, described the man faithfully, and said: "This man has +died of the fever, and your gun is lost." + +'To the next fire as before: "This man" (correctly described) "has +killed four elephants," and then he described the tusks. The next: "This +man" (again describing him) "has been killed by an elephant, but your +gun is coming home," and so on through the whole, the men being minutely +and correctly described; their success or non-success being equally so. +I was told where the survivors were, and what they were doing, and that +in three months they would come out, but as they would not expect to +find me waiting on them there so long after the time appointed, they +would not pass that way. + +'I took a particular note of all this information at the time, and to my +utter amazement _it turned out correct in every particular_. + +'It was scarcely within the bounds of possibility that this man could +have had ordinary intelligence of the hunters; they were scattered about +in a country two hundred miles away.' + +Mr. Leslie could discover no explanation, nor was any suggested by friends +familiar with the country and the natives whom he consulted. He gives +another example, which may be explained by 'suggestion.' A parallel case +from Central Africa will be found in the 'Journal of the Anthropological +Institute,' November 1897, p. 320, where 'private information,' as usual, +would explain the singular facts. + +The Zulus themselves lay claim to a kind of clairvoyance which looks like +the result of intense visualising power, combined with the awakening of +the subconscious memory.[10] + +'There is among black men a something which is divination within them. +When anything valuable is lost, they look for it at once; when they +cannot find it, each one begins to practise this inner divination, +trying to feel where the thing is; for, not being able to see it, he +feels internally a pointing, which tells him if he will go down to such +a place it is there, and he will find it. At length it says he will find +it; at length he sees it, and himself approaching it; before he begins +to move from where he is, he sees it very clearly indeed, and there is +an end of doubt. That sight is so clear that it is as though it was not +an inner sight, but as if he saw the very thing itself, and the place +where it is; so he quickly arises and goes to the place. If it is a +hidden place he throws himself into it, as though there was something +that impelled him to go as swiftly as the wind; and, in fact, he finds +the thing, if he has not acted by mere head-guessing. If it has been +done by real inner divination, he really sees it. But if it is done by +mere head-guessing and knowledge that he has not gone to such a place +and such a place, and that therefore it must be in such another place, +he generally misses the mark.' + +Other Zulu instances will be given under the heads 'Possession' and +'Fetishism.' + +To take a Northern people: In his 'History of the Lapps'[11] Scheffer +describes mechanical modes of divination practised by that race, who use a +drum and other objects for the purpose. These modes depend on more +traditional rules for interpreting the accidental combinations of lots. +But a Lapp confessed to Scheffer, with tears, that he could not help +seeing visions, as he proved by giving Scheffer a minute relation 'of +whatever particulars had happened to me in my journey to Lapland. And he +further complained that he know not how to make use of his eyes, since +things altogether distant were presented to them.' This Lapp was anxious +to become a Christian, hence his regret at being a 'rare and valuable' +example of clairvoyance. Torfaeus also was posed by the clairvoyance of a +Samoyed, as was Regnard by a Lapp seer.[12] + +The next case is of old date, and, like the other savage examples, is +merely given for purposes of illustration. + + '_25e Lettre_.[13] + + '"_Suite des Traditions des Sauvages._" + + 'Au Fort de la Rivière de St. Joseph, ce 14 Septembre 1721. + + '"_Des Jongleurs_"-- ... Vous ayez vu à Paris Madame de Marson, & elle + y est encore; voici ce que M. le Marquis de Vaudreuil son Gendre, + actuellement notre Gouverneur Général, me raconta cet Hyver, & qu'il a + sçû de cette Dame, qui n'est rien moíns qu'un esprit foible. Elle etoit + un jour fort inquiette an sujet de M. de Marson, son Mari, lequel + commandoit dans un Poste, que nous avions en Accadie; et etoit absent, & + le tems qu'il avoit marqué pour son retour, etoit passé. + + 'Une Femme Sauvage, qui vit Madame de Marson en peine, lui en demanda la + cause, & l'ayant apprise, lui dit, après y avoir un peu rêvé, de ne plus + se chagriner, que son Epoux reviendroit tel jour et à telle heure, + qu'elle lui marqua, avec un chapeau gris sur la tête. Comme elle + s'apperçut que la Dame n'ajoutoit point foi à sa prédiction, au jour & à + l'heure, qu'elle avoit assignée, elle rotourna chez elle, lui demanda si + elle ne vouloit pas venir voir arriver son Mari, & la pressa de telle + sorte de la suivre, qu'elle l'entraîna au bord de la Rivière. + + 'A peine y etoíent-elles arrivées, que M. de Marson parut dans un Canot, + un chapeau gris sur la tête; & ayant appris ce qui s'etoit passé, assûra + qu'il ne pouvoit pas comprendre comment la Sauvagesse avoit pû sçavoir + l'heure & le jour de son arrivée.' + +It is unusual for European travellers and missionaries to give anecdotes +which might seem to 'confirm the delusions of benighted savages.' Such +anecdotes, again, are among the _arcana_ of these wild philosophers, and +are not readily communicated to strangers. When successful cases are +reported, it is natural to assert that they come through Europeans who +have sunk into barbarous superstition, or that they may be explained by +fraud and collusion. It is certain, however, that savage proficients +believe in their own powers, though no less certainly they will eke them +out by imposture. Seers are chosen in Zululand, as among Eskimos and +Samoyeds, from the class which in Europe supplies the persons who used to +be, but are no longer the most favourite hypnotic subjects, 'abnormal +children,' epileptic and hysterical. These are subjected to 'a long and +methodical course of training.'[14] Stoll, speaking of Guatemala, says +that 'certainly most of the induced and spontaneous phenomena with which +we are familiar occur among savages,' and appeals to travellers for +observations.[15] Information is likely to come in, as educated travellers +devote attention to the topic. + +Dr. Callaway translates some Zulu communications which indicate the +amount of belief in this very practical and sceptical people. Amusing +illustrations of their scepticism will be quoted later, under +'Possession,' but they do accept as seers certain hysterical patients. +These are tested by their skill in finding objects which have been +hidden without their knowledge. They then behave much like Mr. Stuart +Cumberland, but have not the advantage of muscular contact with the +person who knows where the hidden objects are concealed. The neighbours +even deny that they have hidden anything at all. 'When they persist in +their denial ... he finds all the things that they have hidden. They see +that he is a great _inyanga_ (seer) when he has found all the things they +have concealed.' No doubt he is guided, perhaps in a super-sensitive +condition, by the unconscious indications of the excited spectators. + +The point is that, while the savage conjurer will doubtless use fraud +wherever he can, still the experience of low races is in favour of +employing as seers the class of people who in Europe were, till recently, +supposed to make the best hypnotic subjects. Thus, in West Africa, 'the +presiding elders, during your initiation to the secret society of your +tribe, discover this gift [of Ebumtupism, or second sight], and so select +you as "a witch doctor."'[15] Among the Karens, the 'Wees,' or prophets, +'are nervous excitable men, such as would become mediums,'[16] as mediums +are diagnosed by Mr. Tylor. + +In short, not to multiply examples, there is an element of actual +observation and of _bona fides_ entangled in the trickery of savage +practice. Though the subjects may be selected partly because of the +physical phenomena of convulsions which they exhibit, and which +favourably impress their clients, they are also such subjects as +occasionally yield that evidence of supernormal faculty which is +investigated by modern psychologists, like Richet, Janet, and William +James. + +The following example, by no means unique, shows the view taken by savages +of their own magic, after they have become Christians. Catherine Wabose, a +converted Red Indian seeress, described her preliminary fast, at the age +of puberty. After six days of abstention from food she was rapt away to an +unknown place, where a radiant being welcomed her. Later a dark round +object promised her the gift of prophecy. She found her natural senses +greatly sharpened by lack of food. She first exercised her powers when her +kinsfolk in large numbers were starving, a medicine-lodge, or 'tabernacle' +as Lufitau calls it, was built for her, and she crawled in. As is well +known, these lodges are violently shaken during the magician's stay within +them, which the early Jesuits at first attributed to muscular efforts by +the seers. In 1637 Père Lejeune was astonished by the violent motions of a +large lodge, tenanted by a small man. One sorcerer, with an appearance of +candour, vowed that 'a great wind entered boisterously,' and the Father +was assured that, if he went in himself, he would become clairvoyant. He +did not make the experiment. The Methodist convert, Catherine, gave the +same description of her own experience: 'The lodge began shaking violently +by supernatural means. I knew this by the compressed current of air above, +and the noise of motion.' She had been beating a small drum and singing, +now she lay quiet. The radiant 'orbicular' spirit then informed her that +they 'must go westwards for game; how short-sighted you are!' 'The +advice was taken and crowned by instant success.' This established her +reputation.[17] Catherine's conversion was led up to by a dream of her +dying son, who beheld a Sacred Figure, and received from Him white +raiment. Her magical songs tell how unseen hands shake the magic lodge. +They invoke the Great Spirit that + + 'Illumines earth + Illumines heaven! + Ah, say what Spirit, or Body, is this Body, + That fills the world around, + Speak, man, ah say + What Spirit, or Body, is this Body?' + +It is like a savage hymn to Hegel's _fühlende Seele_: the all-pervading +Sensitive Soul. We are reminded, too, of 'the doctrine of the Sanscrit +Upanishads: There is no limit to the knowing of the Self that knows.'[18] + +Unluckily Catherine was not asked to give other examples of what she +considered her successes. + +Acosta, who has not the best possible repute as an authority, informs us +that Peruvian clairvoyants 'tell what hath passed in the furthest parts +before news can come. In the distance of two or three hundred leagues +they would tell what the Spaniards did or suffered in their civil wars.' To +Du Pont, in 1606, a sorcerer 'rendered a true oracle of the coming of +Poutrincourt, saying his Devil had told him so.'[19] + +We now give a modern case, from a scientific laboratory, of knowledge +apparently acquired in no normal way, by a person of the sort usually +chosen to be a prophet, or wizard, by savages. + +Professor Richet writes:[20] + +'On Monday, July 2, 1888, after having passed all the day in my +laboratory, I hypnotised Léonie at 8 P.M., and while she tried to make +out a diagram concealed in an envelope I said to her quite suddenly: +"What has happened to M. Langlois?" Léonie knows M. Langlois from +having seen him two or three times some time ago in my physiological +laboratory, where he acts as my assistant.--"He has burnt himself," +Léonie replied,--"Good," I said, "and where has he burnt himself?"--"On +the left hand. It is not fire: it is--I don't know its name. Why does he +not take care when he pours it out?"--"Of what colour," I asked, "is the +stuff which he pours out?"--"It is not red, it is brown; he has hurt +himself very much--the skin puffed up directly." + +'Now, this description is admirably exact. At 4 P.M. that day M. +Langlois had wished to pour some bromine into a bottle. He had done this +clumsily, so that some of the bromine flowed on to his left hand, which +held the funnel, and at once burnt him severely. Although he at once put +his hand into water, wherever the bromine had touched it a blister was +formed in a few seconds--a blister which one could not better describe +than by saying, "the skin puffed up." I need not say that Léonie had not +left my house, nor seen anyone from my laboratory. Of this I am +_absolutely certain,_ and I am certain that I had not mentioned the +incident of the burn to anyone. Moreover, this was the first time for +nearly a year that M. Langlois had handled bromine, and when Léonie saw +him six months before at the laboratory he was engaged in experiments +of quite another kind.' + +Here the savage reasoner would infer that Léonie's spirit had visited M. +Langlois. The modern inquirer will probably say that Léonie became aware +of what was passing in the mind of M. Richet. This supranormal way of +acquiring knowledge was observed in the last century by M. de Puységur in +one of his earliest cases of somnambulism. MM. Binet and Féré say: 'It is +not yet admitted that the subject is able to divine the thoughts of the +magnetiser without any material communication;' while they grant, as a +minimum, that 'research should be continued in this direction.'[21] They +appear to think that Léonie may have read 'involuntary signs' in the +aspect of M. Richet. This is a difficult hypothesis. + +Here follows a case recorded in his diary by Mr. Dobbie, of Adelaide, +Australia, who has practised hypnotism for curative purposes. He explains +(June 10, 1884) that he had mesmerised Miss ---- on several occasions to +relieve rheumatic pain and sore throat. He found her to be clairvoyant. + +'The following is a verbatim account of the second time I tested her +powers in this respect, April 12, 1884. There were four persons present +during the _séance_. One of the company wrote down the replies as they +were spoken. + +'Her father was at the time over fifty miles away, but we did not know +exactly where, so I questioned her as follows: "Can you find your father +at the present moment?" At first she replied that she could not see him, +but in a minute or two she said, "Oh, yes; now I can see him, Mr. +Dobbie." "Where is he?" "Sitting at a large table in a large room, and +there are a lot of people going in and out." "What is he doing?" +"Writing a letter, and there is a book in front of him." "Whom is he +writing to?" "To the newspaper." Here she paused and laughingly said, +"Well, I declare, he is writing to the A B" (naming a newspaper). "You +said there was a book there. Can you tell me what book it is?" "It has +gilt letters on it." "Can you read them, or tell me the name of the +author?" She read, or pronounced slowly, "W.L.W." (giving the full +surname of the author). She answered several minor questions _re_ the +furniture in the room, and I then said to her, "Is it any effort or +trouble to you to travel in this way?" "Yes, a little; I have to think." + +'I now stood behind her, holding a half-crown in my hand, and asked her +if she could tell me what I had in my hand, to which she replied, "It is +a shilling." It seemed as though she could see what was happening miles +away easier than she could see what was going on in the room. + +'Her father returned home nearly a week afterwards, and was perfectly +astounded when told by his wife and family what he had been doing on +that particular evening; and, although previous to that date he was a +thorough sceptic as to clairvoyance, he frankly admitted that my +clairvoyant was perfectly correct in every particular. He also informed +us that the book referred to was a new one, which he had purchased after +he had left his home, so that there was no possibility of his daughter +guessing that he had the book before him. I may add that the letter in +due course appeared in the paper; and I saw and handled the book.' + +A number of cases of so-called 'clairvoyance' will be found in the +'Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.'[22] As the authors of +these essays remark, even after discounting, in each case, fraud, +malobservation, and misreporting, the residue of cases can seldom justify +either the savage theory of the wandering soul (which is not here +seriously proposed) or Hegel's theory that the _fühlende Seele_ is +unconditioned by space. For, if thought transference be a fact, the +apparent clairvoyant may only be reading the mind of a person at a +distance. The results, however, when successful, would naturally suggest +to the savage thinker the belief in the wandering soul, or corroborate it +if it had already been suggested by the common phenomena of dreaming. + +To these instances of knowledge acquired otherwise than by the recognised +channels of sense we might add the Scottish tales of 'second sight.' That +phrase is merely a local term covering examples of what is called +'clairvoyance'--views of things remote in space, hallucinations of sight +that coincide with some notable event, premonitions of things future, and +so on. The belief and hallucinatory experiences are still very common in +the Highlands, where I have myself collected many recent instances. Mr. +Tylor observes that the examples 'prove a little too much; they vouch not +only for human apparitions, but for such phantoms as demon dogs, and for +still more fanciful symbolic omens.' This is perfectly true. I have found +no cases of demon dogs; but wandering lights, probably of meteoric or +miasmatic origin, are certainly regarded as tokens of death. This is +obviously a superstitious hypothesis, the lights being real phenomena +misconstrued. Again, funerals are not uncommonly seen where no funeral is +taking place; it is then alleged that a real funeral, similar and +similarly situated, soon afterwards occurred. On the hypothesis of +believers, the percipients somehow behold + + 'Such refraction of events + As often rises ere they rise.' + +Even the savage cannot account for this experience by the wandering of the +soul in space; nor do I suggest any explanation. I give, however, one or +two instances. They are published in the 'Journal of the Caledonian +Medical Society,' 1897, by Dr. Alastair Macgregor, on the authority of the +MSS. of his father, a minister in the island of Skye. + +'He once told me that when he first went to Skye he scoffed at the idea of +such a power as second sight being genuine; but he said that, after having +been there for some years as a clergyman, he had been so often consulted +_beforehand_ by people who said they had seen visions of events which +subsequently occurred, to my father's knowledge, in exact accordance with +the form and details of the vision as foretold, that he was compelled to +confess that some folks had, apparently at least, the unfortunate faculty. + +'As my father expressed it, this faculty was "neither voluntary nor +constant, and was considered rather annoying than agreeable to the +possessors of it. The gift was possessed by individuals of both sexes, and +its fits came on within doors and without, sitting and standing, at night +and by day, and at whatever employment the votary might chance to be +engaged."' + +Here follows a typical example of the vision of a funeral: + +'The session clerk at Dull, a small village in Perthshire, was ill, and +my grandfather, clergyman there at the time, had to do duty for him. One +fine summer evening, about 7 o'clock, a young man and woman came to get +some papers filled up, as they were going to be married. My grandfather +was with the couple in the session clerk's room, no doubt attending to +the papers, when suddenly _all three_ saw through the window a funeral +procession passing along the road. From their dress the bulk of the +mourners seemed to be farm labourers--indeed the young woman recognised +some of them as natives of Dull, who had gone to live and work near +Dunkeld. Remarks were naturally made by my grandfather and the young +couple about the untimely hour for a funeral, and, hastily filling in +the papers, my grandfather went out to get the key of the churchyard, +which was kept in the manse, as, without the key, the procession +could not get into God's acre. Wondering how it was that he had received +no intimation of the funeral, he went to the manse by a short cut, got +the key, and hurried down to the churchyard gate, where, of course, he +expected to find the cortège waiting. _Not a soul was there_ except the +young couple, who were as amazed as my grandfather! + +'Well, at the same hour in the evening of the same day in the following +week the funeral, this time in reality, arrived quite unexpectedly. The +facts were that a boy, a native of Dull, had got gored by a bull at +Dunkeld, and was so shockingly mangled that his remains were picked +up and put into a coffin and taken without delay to Dull. A grave was +dug as quickly as possible--the poor lad having no relatives--and the +remains were interred. My grandfather and the young couple recognised +several of the mourners as being among those whom they had seen out of +the session clerk's room, exactly a week previously, in the phantom +cortège. The young woman knew some of them personally, and related to +them what she had seen, but they of course denied all knowledge of the +affair, having been then in Dunkeld.' + +I give another example, because the experience was auditory, as well as +visual, and the prediction was announced before the event. + +'The parishioners in Skye were evidently largely imbued with the +Romanist-like belief in the powers of intercession vested in their +clergyman; so when they had a "warning" or "vision" they usually consulted +my father as to what they could do to prevent the coming disaster +befalling their relatives or friends. In this way my father had the +opportunity of noting down the minutiae of the "warning" or "vision" +directly it was told him. Having had the advantage of a medical, previous +to his theological, training, he was able to note down sound facts, +unembellished by superadded imagination. Entering into this method of +case-taking with a mind perfectly open, except for a slight touch of +scepticism, he was greatly surprised to discover how very frequently +realisations occurred exactly in conformance with the minutiae of the +vision as detailed in his note-book. Finally, he was compelled to +discard his scepticism, and to admit that some people had undoubtedly +the uncanny gift. Almost the first case he took (Case X.) was that of a +woman who had one day a vision of her son falling over a high rock at Uig, +in Skye, with a sheep or lamb. + +'CASE X.--She heard her son exclaim in Gaelic, "This is a fatal lamb for +me." As her son lived several miles from Uig, and was a fisherman, +realisation seemed to my father very unlikely, but one month afterwards +the realisation occurred only too true. Unknown to his mother, who had +warned him against having anything to do with sheep or lambs, the son +one day, instead of going out in his boat, thought he would take a +holiday inland, and went off to Uig, where a farmer enlisted his +services in separating some lambs from the ewes. One of the lambs ran +away, and the fisher lad ran headlong after it, and not looking where he +was going, on catching the lamb was pulled by it to the edge of one of +the very picturesque but exceedingly dangerous rocks at Uig. Too late +realizing his critical position, he exclaimed, "This is a fatal lamb for +me," but going with such an impetus he was unable to bring himself up in +time, and, along with the lamb, fell over into the ravine below, and +was, of course, killed on the spot. The farmer, when he saw the lad's +danger, ran to his assistance, but was only in time to hear him cry out +in Gaelic before disappearing over the brink of the precipice. This was +predicted by the mother a month before. Was this simply a coincidence?' + +Dr. Macgregor's remarks on the involuntary and unwelcome nature of the +visions is borne out by what Scheffer, as already quoted, says concerning +the Lapps. + +In addition to visions which thus come unsought, contributing knowledge of +things remote or even future, we may glance at visions which are provoked +by various methods. Drugs (_impepo_) are used, seers whirl in a wild +dance till they fall senseless, or trance is induced by various kinds of +self-suggestion or 'auto-hypnotism.' Fasting is also practised. In modern +life the self-induced trance is common among 'mediums'--a subject to which +we recur later. + +So far, it will be observed, our evidence proves that precisely similar +_beliefs_ as to man's occasional power of opening the gates of distance +have been entertained in a great variety of lands and ages, and by races +in every condition of culture.[23] The alleged experiences are still +said to occur, and have been investigated by physiologists of the eminence +of M. Richet. The question cannot but arise as to the residuum of fact in +these narrations, and it keeps on arising. + +In the following chapter we discuss a mode of inducing hallucinations +which has for anthropologists the interest of universal diffusion. The +width of its range in savage races has not, we believe, been previously +observed. We then add facts of modern experience, about the authenticity +of which we, personally, entertain no doubt; and the provisional +conclusion appears to be that savages have observed a psychological +circumstance which has been ignored by professed psychologists, and which, +certainly, does not fit into the ordinary materialistic hypothesis. + +[Footnote 1: Callaway, _Religion of the Zulus_, p. 232.] + +[Footnote 2: Graham Dalzell, _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 481.] + +[Footnote 3: See good evidence in _Ker of Kersland's Memoirs_.] + +[Footnote 4: Autus Gellius, xv. 18, Dio Cassius, lxvii., Crespet, _De la +Haine du Diable, Procès de Jeanne d'Arc_.] + +[Footnote 5: See 'Shamanism in Siberia,' _J.A.I._, November 1894, +pp. 147-149, and compare Scheffer. The article is very learned and +interesting.] + +[Footnote 6: Williams mentions second sight in Fiji, but gives no +examples.] + +[Footnote 7: _Primitive Culture,_ i. 447. Mr. Tylor cites Dr. Brinton's +_Myths of the New World,_ p. 269. The reference in the recent edition is +p. 289. Carver's case is given under the head 'Possession' later.] + +[Footnote 8: _Journal Historique_ p. 362; _Atlantic Monthly_, July 1866.] + +[Footnote 9: Probably _impepo_, eaten by seers, according to Callaway.] + +[Footnote 10: Callaway's _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 358.] + +[Footnote 11: Oxford, 1674.] + +[Footnote 12: _Voyages_.] + +[Footnote 13: From Charlevoix, _Journal Historique_, p. 362.] + +[Footnote 14: Bastian, _Ueber psych. Beobacht_. p.21.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. p.26.] + +[Footnote 15: Miss Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, p. 460.] + +[Footnote 16: _Primitive Culture_, ii, 181; Mason's _Burmah_, p. 107.] + +[Footnote 17: Schoolcraft, i. 394.] + +[Footnote 18: Brinton's _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, p. 57.] + +[Footnote 19: Purchas, p. 629.] + +[Footnote 20: S.P.R. _Proceedings_, vol. vi. 69.] + +[Footnote 21: Binet and Féré, _Animal Magnetism_, p. 64.] + +[Footnote 22: Vol. vii. Mrs. Sidgwick, pp. 30, 356; vol. vi. p. 66, +Professor Richet, p. 407, Drs. Dufay and Azam.] + +[Footnote 23: The examples in the Old Testament, and in the _Life of St. +Columba_ by Adamnan, need only be alluded to as too familiar for +quotation.] + + + + +V + +CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED + +Among savage methods of provoking hallucinations whence knowledge may be +supernormally obtained, various forms of 'crystal-gazing' are the most +curious. We find the habit of looking into water, usually in a vessel, +preferably a glass vessel, among Red Indians (Lejeune), Romans (Varro, +cited in _Civitas Dei_, iii. 457), Africans of Fez (Leo Africanus); while +Maoris use a drop of blood (Taylor), Egyptians use ink (Lane), and +Australian savages employ a ball of polished stone, into which the seer +'puts himself' to descry the results of an expedition.[1] + +I have already given, in the Introduction, Ellis's record of the +Polynesian case. A hole being dug in the door of his house, and filled +with water, the priest looks for a vision of the thief who has carried off +stolen goods. The Polynesian theory is that the god carries the spirit of +the thief over the water, in which it is reflected. Lejeune's Red Indians +make their patients gaze into the water, in which they will see the +pictures of the things in the way of food or medicine that will do them +good. In modern language, the instinctive knowledge existing implicitly +in the patient's subconsciousness is thus brought into the range of his +ordinary consciousness. + +In 1887 the late Captain J. T. Bourke, of the U.S. Cavalry, an original +and careful observer, visited the Apaches in the interests of the +Ethnological Bureau. He learned that one of the chief duties of the +medicine-men was to find out the whereabouts of lost or stolen property. +Na-a-cha, one of these _jossakeeds_, possessed a magic quartz crystal, +which he greatly valued. Captain Bourke presented him with a still finer +crystal. 'He could not give me an explanation of its magical use, except +that by looking into it he could see everything he wanted to see,' +Captain Bourke appears never to have heard of the modern experiments in +crystal-gazing. Captain Bourke also discovered that the Apaches, like the +Greeks, Australians, Africans, Maoris, and many other, races, use the +bull-roarer, turndun, or _rhombos_--a piece of wood which, being whirled +round, causes a strange windy roar--in their mystic ceremonies. The wide +use of the rhombos was known to Captain Bourke; that of the crystal was +not. + +For the Iroquois, Mrs. Erminie Smith supplies information about the +crystal. 'Placed in a gourd of water, it could render visible the +apparition of a person who has bewitched another.' She gives a case in +European times of a medicine-man who found the witch's habitat, but +got only an indistinct view of her face. On a second trial he was +successful.[2] One may add that treasure-seekers among the Huille-che +'look earnestly' for what they want to find 'into a smooth slab of black +stone, which I suppose to be basalt.'[3] + +The kindness of Monsieur Lefébure enables me to give another example from +Madagascar.[4] Flacourt, describing the Malagasies, says that they +_squillent_ (a word not in Littré), that is, divine by crystals, which +'fall from heaven when it thunders,' Of course the rain reveals the +crystals, as it does the flint instruments called 'thunderbolts' in many +countries. 'Lorsqu'ils squillent, ils ont une de ces pierres au coing de +leurs tablettes, disans qu'elle à la vertu de faire faire operation à leur +figure de geomance.' Probably they used the crystals as do the Apaches. On +July 15 a Malagasy woman viewed, whether in her crystal or otherwise, two +French vessels which, like the Spanish fleet, were 'not in sight,' also +officers, and doctors, and others aboard, whom she had seen, before their +return to France, in Madagascar. The earliest of the ships did not arrive +till August 11. + +Dr. Callaway gives the Zulu practice, where the chief 'sees what will +happen by looking into the vessel.'[5] The Shamans of Siberia and Eastern +Russia employ the same method.[6] The case of the Inca, Yupanqui, is very +curious. 'As he came up to a fountain he saw a piece of crystal fall into +it, within which he beheld a figure of an Indian in the following +shape ... The apparition then vanished, while the crystal remained. The +Inca took care of it, and they say that he afterwards saw everything he +wanted in it.'[7] + +Here, then, we find the belief that hallucinations can be induced by one +or other form of crystal-gazing, in ancient Peru, on the other side of the +continent among the Huille-che, in Fez, in Madagascar, in Siberia, among +Apaches, Hurons, Iroquois, Australian black fellows, Maoris, and in +Polynesia. This is assuredly a wide range of geographical distribution. We +also find the practice in Greece (Pausanias, VII. xxi. 12), in Rome +(Varro), in Egypt, and in India. + +Though anthropologists have paid no attention to the subject, it was of +course familiar to later Europe. 'Miss X' has traced it among early +Christians, in early Councils, in episcopal condemnations of _specularii_, +and so to Dr. Dee, under James VI.; Aubrey; the Regent d'Orléans +in St. Simon's Memoirs; the modern mesmerists (Gregory, Mayo) and the +mid-Victorian spiritualists, who, as usual, explained the phenomena, in +their prehistoric way, by 'spirits[8].' Till this lady examined the +subject, nobody had thought of remarking that a belief so universal had +probably some basis of facts, or nobody if we except two professors of +chemistry and physiology, Drs. Gregory and Mayo. Miss X made experiments, +beginning by accident, like George Sand, when a child. + +The hallucinations which appear to her eyes in ink, or crystal, are: + + 1. Revived memories 'arising thus, and thus only, from the subconscious + strata;' + + '2. Objectivation of ideas or images--(a) consciously or (b) + unconsciously--in the mind of the percipient; + + '3. Visions, possibly telepathic or clairvoyant, implying acquirement of + knowledge by supernormal means.'[9] + +The examples given of the last class, the class which would be so useful +to a priest or medicine-man asked to discover things lost, are of very +slight interest.[10] + +Since Miss X drew attention to this subject, experiments have proved +beyond doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and healthy, can see +vivid landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, in glass balls and +other vehicles. This faculty Dr. Parish attributes to 'dissociation,' +practically to drowsiness. But he speaks by conjecture, and without +having witnessed experiments, as will be shown later. I now offer a series +of experiments with a glass ball, coming under my own observation, in +which knowledge was apparently acquired in no ordinary way. Of the absence +of fraud I am personally convinced, not only by the characters of all +concerned, but by the nature of the circumstances. That adaptive memory +did not later alter the narratives, as originally told, I feel certain, +because they were reported to me, when I was not present, within less than +a week, precisely as they are now given, except in cases specially noted. + +Early in the present year (1897) I met a young lady who told me of three +or four curious hallucinatory experiences of her own, which were +sufficiently corroborated. She was innocent of psychical studies, and +personally was, and is, in perfect health; the pale cast of thought being +remote from her. I got a glass ball, and was present when she first looked +into it. She saw, I remember, the interior of a house, with a full-length +portrait of a person unknown. There were, I think, one or two other fancy +pictures of the familiar kind. But she presently (living as she was, among +strangers) developed a power of 'seeing' persons and places unknown to +her, but familiar to them. These experiences do seem to me to be good +examples of what is called 'thought transference;' indeed, I never before +could get out of a level balance of doubt on that subject, a balance which +now leans considerably to the affirmative side. There may be abundance of +better evidence, but, knowing the persons and circumstances, and being +present once at what seemed to me a crucial example, I was more inclined +to be convinced. This attitude appears, to myself, illogical, but it is +natural and usual. + +We cannot tell what indications may be accidentally given in experiments +in thought transference. But, in these cases of crystal-gazing, the detail +was too copious to be conveyed, by a looker-on, in a wink or a cough. I do +not mean to say that success was invariable. I thought of Dr. W.G. Grace, +and the scryer saw an old man crawling along with a stick. But I doubt if +Dr. Grace is very deeply seated in that mystic entity, my subconscious +self. The 'scries' which came right were sometimes, but not always, those +of which the 'agent' (or person scried for) was consciously thinking. But +the examples will illustrate the various kinds of occurrences. + +Here one should first consider the arguments against accepting recognition +of objects merely described by another person. The crystal-gazer may know +the inquirer so intimately as to have a very good guess at the subject of +his meditation. Again, a man is likely to be thinking of a woman, and a +woman of a man, so the field of conjecture is limited. In answer to the +first objection I may say that the crystal-gazer was among strangers, all +of whom, myself included, she now saw for the first time. Nor could she +have studied their histories beforehand, for she could not know (normally) +when she left home, that she was about to be shown a glass ball, or whom +she would meet. The second objection is met by the circumstance that +ladies were _not_ usually picked out for men, nor men for women. Indeed, +these choices were the exceptions, and in each case were marked by +minutely particular details. A third objection is that credulity, or the +love of strange novelties, or desire to oblige, biases the inquirers, and +makes them anxious to recognise something familiar in the scryer's +descriptions. In the same way we know how people recognise faces +in the most blurred and vague of spiritist photographs, or see family +resemblances in the most rudimentary doughfaced babies. Take descriptions +of persons in a passport, or in a proclamation sketching the personal +appearance of a criminal. These fit the men or women intended, but they +also fit a crowd of other people. The description given by the scryer then +may come right by a fortuitous coincidence, or may be too credulously +recognised. + +The complex of coincidences, however, could not be attributed to chance +selection out of the whole possible field of conjecture. We must remember, +too, that a series of such hits increases, at an enormous rate, the odds +against accidental conjecture. Of such mere luck I may give an example. I +was writing a story of which the hero was George Kelly, one of the 'Seven +Men of Moidart.' A year after composing my tale, I found the Government +description of Mr. Kelly (1736). It exactly tallied with my purely +fanciful sketch, down to eyes, and teeth, and face, except that I made my +hero 'about six feet,' whereas the Government gave him five feet ten. But +I knew beforehand that Mr. Kelly was a clergyman; his curious career +proved him to be a person of great activity and geniality--and he was of +Irish birth. Even a dozen such guesses, equally correct, could not +suggest any powers of 'vision,' when so much was known beforehand about +the person guessed at. I now give cases in the experience of Miss Angus, +as one may call the crystal-gazer. The first occurred the day after she +got the glass ball for the first time. She writes: + +'I.--A lady one day asked me to scry out a friend of whom she would +think. Almost immediately I exclaimed "Here is an old, old lady looking +at me with a triumphant smile on her face. She has a prominent nose and +nut-cracker chin. Her face is very much wrinkled, especially at the +sides of her eyes, as if she were always smiling. She is wearing a +little white shawl with a black edge. _But!_ ... she _can't_ be old as +her hair is quite brown! although her face looks so very very old." The +picture then vanished, and the lady said that I had accurately described +her friend's _mother_ instead of himself; that it was a family joke that +the mother must dye her hair, it was so brown and she was eighty-two +years old. The lady asked me if the vision were distinct enough for me +to recognise a likeness in the son's photograph; next day she laid +several photographs before me, and in a moment, without the slightest +hesitation I picked him out from his wonderful likeness to my vision!' + +The inquirer verbally corroborated all the facts to me, within a week, but +leaned to a theory of 'electricity.' She has read and confirms this +account. + +'II.--One afternoon I was sitting beside a young lady whom I had never +seen or heard of before. She asked if she might look into my crystal, +and while she did so I happened to look over her shoulder and saw a ship +tossing on a very heavy choppy sea, although land was still visible in +the dim distance. That vanished, and, as suddenly, a little house +appeared with five or six (I forget now the exact number I then counted) +steps leading up to the door. On the second step stood an old man +reading a newspaper. In front of the house was a field of thick +stubbly grass where some _lambs_, I was going to say, but they were more +like very small sheep.. were grazing. + +'When the scene vanished, the young lady told me I had vividly described +a spot in Shetland where she and her mother were soon going to spend a +few weeks.' + +I heard of this case from Miss Angus within a day or two of its +occurrence, and it was then confirmed to me, verbally, by the other lady. +She again confirms it (December 21, 1897). Both ladies had hitherto been +perfect strangers to each other. The old man was the schoolmaster, +apparently. In her MS., Miss Angus writes 'Skye,' but at the time both she +and the other lady said Shetland (which I have restored). In Shetland the +sheep, like the ponies, are small. Fortuitous coincidence, of course, may +be invoked. The next account is by another lady, say Miss Rose. + +'III.--Writes Miss Rose--My first experience of crystal gazing was not +a pleasant one, as will be seen from the following which I now relate as +exactly as I can remember. I asked my friend, Miss Angus, to allow me to +look in her crystal, and, after doing so for a short time, gave up, +saying it was very unsatisfactory, as, although I saw a room with a +bright fire in it and a bed all curtained and people coming and going, +I could not make out who they were, so I returned the crystal to Miss +Angus, with the request that she might look for me. She said at once, +"I see a bed with a man in it looking very ill and a lady in black +beside it." Without saying any more Miss Angus still kept looking, and, +after some time, I asked to have one more look, and on her passing the +ball back to me, I received quite a shock, for there, perfectly clearly +in a bright light, I saw stretched out in bed an old man apparently +dead; for a few minutes I could not look, and on doing so once more +there appeared a lady in black and out of dense darkness a long black +object was being carried and it stopped before a dark opening overhung +with rocks. At the time I saw this I was staying with cousins, +and it was a Friday evening. On Sunday we heard of the death of the +father-in-law of one of my cousins; of course I knew the old gentleman +was very ill, but my thoughts were not in the least about him when +looking in the crystal. I may also say I did not recognise in the +features of the dead man those of the old gentleman whose death I +mention. On looking again on Sunday, I once more saw the curtained bed +and some people.' + +I now give Miss Angus's version of this case, as originally received from +her (December 1897). I had previously received an oral version, from a +person present at the scrying. It differed, in one respect, from what Miss +Angus writes. Her version is offered because it is made independently, +without consultation, or attempt to reconcile recollections. + +'At a recent experience of gazing, for the first time I was able to make +another see what _I_ saw in the crystal. Miss Rose called one afternoon, +and begged me to look in the ball for her. I did so, and immediately +exclaimed, "Oh! here is a bed, with a man in it looking very ill [I saw +he was dead, but refrained from saying so], and there is a lady dressed +in black sitting beside the bed." I did not recognise the man to be +anyone I knew, so I told her to look. In a very short time she called +out, "Oh! I see the bed too! But, oh! take it away, the man is _dead_!" +She got quite a shock, and said she would never look in it again. Soon, +however, curiosity prompted her to have one more look, and the scene at +once came back again, and slowly, from a misty object at the side of the +bed, the lady in black became quite distinct. Then she described +several people in the room, and said they were carrying something all +draped in black. When she saw this, she put the ball down and would not +look at it again. She called again on Sunday (this had been on Friday) +with her cousin, and we teased her about being _afraid_ of the crystal, +so she said she would just look in it once more. She took the ball, but +immediately laid it down again, saying, "No, I won't look, as the bed +with the awful man in it is there again!" + +'When they went home, they heard that the cousin's father-in-law had +died that afternoon,[11] but to show he had never been in our thoughts, +although we _all_ knew he had not been well, _no one_ suggested him; his +name was never mentioned in connection with the vision.' + +'Clairvoyance,' of course, is not illustrated here, the corpse being +unrecognised, and the coincidence, doubtless, accidental. + +The next case is attested by a civilian, a slight acquaintance of Miss +Angus's, who now saw him for the second time only, but better known to her +family. + +'IV.--On Thursday, March --? 1897, I was lunching with my friends the +Anguses, and during luncheon the conversation turned upon crystal balls +and the visions that, by some people, can be seen in them. The subject +arose owing to Miss Angus having just been presented with a crystal ball +by Mr. Andrew Lang. I asked her to let me see it, and then to try and +see if she could conjure up a vision of any person of whom I might +think.... I fixed my mind upon a friend, a young trooper in the +[regiment named], as I thought his would be a striking and peculiar +personality, owing to his uniform, and also because I felt sure that +Miss Angus could not possibly know of his existence. I fixed my mind +steadily upon my friend, and presently Miss Angus, who had already seen +two cloudy visions of faces and people, called out, "Now I see a man on +a horse most distinctly; he is dressed most queerly, and glitters all +over--why, it's a soldier! a soldier in uniform, but it's not an +officer." My excitement on hearing this was so great that I ceased to +concentrate my attention upon the thought of my friend, and the vision +faded away and could not afterwards be recalled.--December 2, 1897.' + +The witness gives the name of the trooper, whom he had befriended in a +severe illness. Miss Angus's own account follows: she had told me the +story in June 1897. + +'Shortly after I became the happy possessor of a "crystal" I managed to +convert several very decided "sceptics," and I will here give a short +account of my experiences with two or three of them. + +'One was with a Mr. ----, who was so determined to baffle me, he said he +would think of a friend it would not be _possible_ for me to describe! + +'I had only met Mr. ---- the day before, and knew utmost nothing about +him or his personal friends. + +'I took up the ball, which immediately became misty, and out of this +mist gradually a crowd of people appeared, but too indistinctly for me +to recognise anyone, until suddenly a man on horseback came galloping +along. I remember saying, "I can't describe what he is like, but he is +dressed in a very queer way--in something so bright that the sun shining +on him quite dazzles me, and I cannot make him out!" As he came nearer I +exclaimed. "Why, it's a _soldier_ in shining armour, but it's not an +_officer_, only a soldier!" Two friends who were in the room said +Mr. ----'s excitement was intense, and my attention was drawn from the +ball by hearing him call out, "It's wonderful! it's perfectly true! I +was thinking of a young boy, a son of a crofter, in whom I am deeply +interested, and who is a trooper in the ---- in London, which would +account for the crowd of people round him in the street!"' + +The next case is given, first in the version of the lady who was +unconsciously scried for, and next in that of Miss Angus. The other lady +writes: + +'V.--I met Miss A. for the first time in a friend's house in the south +of England, and one evening mention was made of a crystal ball, and our +hostess asked Miss A. to look in it, and, if possible, tell her what was +happening to a friend of hers. Miss A. took the crystal, and our hostess +put her hand on Miss A.'s forehead to "will her." I, not believing in +this, took up a book and went to the other side of the room. I was +suddenly very much startled to hear Miss A., in quite an agitated way, +describe a scene that had most certainly been very often in my thoughts, +but of which I had never mentioned a word, She accurately described a +race-course in Scotland, and an accident which happened to a friend of +mine only a week or two before, and she was evidently going through the +same doubt and anxiety that I did at the time as to whether he was +actually killed or only very much hurt. It really was a most wonderful +revelation to me, as it was the very first time I had seen a crystal. +Our hostess, of course, was very much annoyed that she had not been able +to influence Miss A., while I, who had appeared so very indifferent, +should have affected her.--November 28, 1897.' + +Miss Angus herself writes: + +'Another case was a rather interesting one, as I somehow got inside the +thoughts of _one_ lady while _another_ was doing her best to influence +me! + +'Miss ----, a friend in Brighton, has strange "magnetic" powers, and +felt quite sure of success with me and the ball. + +'Another lady, Miss H., who was present, laughed at the whole thing, +especially when Miss ---- insisted on holding my hand and patting her +other hand on my forehead! Miss H. in a scornful manner took up a book, +and, crossing to the other side of the room, left us to our folly. + +'In a very short time I felt myself getting excited, which had never +happened before, when I looked in the crystal. I saw a crowd of people, +and in some strange way I felt I was in it, and we all seemed to be +waiting for something. Soon a rider came past, young, dressed for +racing. His horse ambled past, and he smiled and nodded to those he +knew in the crowd, and then was lost to sight. + +'In a moment we all seemed to feel as if something had happened, and I +went through great agony of suspense trying to see what seemed _just_ +beyond my view. Soon, however, two or three men approached, and carried +him past before my eyes, and again my anxiety was intense to discover if +he were only very badly hurt or if life were really extinct. All this +happened in a few moments, but long enough to have left me so agitated +that I could not realise it had only been a vision in a glass ball. + +'By this time Miss H. had laid aside her book, and came forward quite +startled, and told me that I had accurately described a scene on a +race-course in Scotland which she had witnessed just a week or two +before--a scene that had very often been in her thoughts, but, as we +were strangers to each other, she had never mentioned. She also said I +had exactly described her own feelings at the time, and had brought it +all back in a most vivid manner. + +'The other lady was rather disappointed that, after she had concentrated +her thoughts so hard, I should have been influenced instead by one who +had jeered at the whole affair.' + +[This anecdote was also told to me, within a few days of the occurrence, +by Miss Angus. Her version was that she first saw a gentleman rider going +to the post and nodding to his friends. Then she saw him carried on a +stretcher through the crowd. She seemed, she said, to be actually present, +and felt somewhat agitated. The fact of the accident was, later, mentioned +to me in Scotland by another lady, a stranger to all the persons.--A.L.] + +VI.--I may briefly add an experiment of December 21, 1897. A gentleman had +recently come from England to the Scottish town where Miss Angus lives. He +dined with her family, and about 10.15 to 10.30 P.M. she proposed to look +in the glass for a scene or person of whom he was to think. He called up a +mental picture of a ball at which he had recently been, and of a young +lady to whom he had there been introduced. The lady's face, however, he +could not clearly visualise, and Miss Angus reported nothing but a view of +an empty ball-room, with polished floor and many lights. The gentleman +made another effort, and remembered his partner with some distinctness. +Miss Angus then described another room, not a ball-room, comfortably +furnished, in which a girl with brown hair drawn back from her forehead, +and attired in a high-necked white blouse, was reading, or writing +letters, under a bright light in an unshaded glass globe. The description +of the features, figure, and height tallied with Mr. ----'s recollection; +but he had never seen this Geraldine of an hour except in ball dress. He +and Miss Angus noted the time by their watches (it was 10.30), and +Mr. ---- said that on the first opportunity he would ask the young lady +how she had been dressed and how employed at that hour on December 21. On +December 22 he met her at another dance, and her reply corroborated the +crystal picture. She had been writing letters, in a high-necked white +blouse, under an incandescent gas lamp with an unshaded glass globe. She +was entirely unknown to Miss Angus, and had only been seen once by +Mr. ----. Mr. ---- and the lady of the crystal picture corroborated all +this in writing. + +I now suggested an experiment to Miss Angus, which, after all, was clearly +not of a nature to establish a 'test' for sceptics. The inquirer was to +write down, and inclose in an envelope, a statement of his thoughts; Miss +Angus was to do the same with her description of the picture seen by her; +and these documents were to be sent to me, without communication between +the inquirer and the crystal-gazer. Of course, this could in no way prove +absence of collusion, as the two parties might arrange privately +beforehand what the vision was to be. + +Indeed, nobody is apt to be convinced, or shaken, unless he is himself the +inquirer and a stranger to the seeress, as the people in these experiments +were. Evidence interesting to _them_--and, in a secondary degree, to +others who know them--can thus be procured; but strangers are left to the +same choice of doubts as in all reports of psychological experiences, +'chromatic audition,' views of coloured numerals, and the other topics +illustrated by Mr. Galton's interesting researches. + +In this affair of the envelopes the inquirer was a Mr. Pembroke, who had +just made Miss Angus's acquaintance, and was but a sojourner in the land. +He wrote, before knowing what Miss Angus had seen in the ball: + +'VII.--On Sunday, January 23, 1898, whilst Miss Angus was looking in the +crystal ball, I was thinking of my brother, who was, I believe, at that +time, somewhere between Sabathu (Punjab, India) and Egypt. I was anxious +to know what stage of his journey he had reached.' + +Miss Angus saw, and wrote, before telling Mr. Pembroke: + +'A long and very white road, with tall trees at one side; on the other, +a river or lake of greyish water. Blue sky, with a crimson sunset. A +great black ship is anchored near, and on the deck I see a man lying, +apparently very ill. He is a powerful-looking man, fair, and very much +bronzed. Seven or eight Englishmen, in very light clothes, are standing +on the road beside the boat. + +'January 28, 1898.' + +'A great black ship,' anchored in 'a river or lake,' naturally suggests +the Suez Canal, where, in fact, Mr. Pembroke's brother was just arriving, +as was proved by a letter received from him eight days after the +experiment was recorded, on January 31. At that date Mr. Pembroke had not +yet been told the nature of Miss Angus's crystal picture, nor had she any +knowledge of his brother's whereabouts. + +In February 1898, Miss Angus again came to the place where I was residing. +We visited together the scene of an historical crime, and Miss Angus +looked into the glass ball. It was easy for her to 'visualise' the +incidents of the crime (the murder of Cardinal Beaton), for they are +familiar enough to many people. What she did see in the ball was a tall, +pale lady, 'about forty, but looking thirty-five,' with hair drawn +back from the brows, standing beside a high chair, dressed in a wide +farthingale of stiff grey brocade, without a ruff. The costume corresponds +well (as we found) with that of 1546, and I said, 'I suppose it is +Mariotte Ogilvy'--to whom Miss Angus's historical knowledge (and perhaps +that of the general public) did not extend. Mariotte was the Cardinal's +lady-love, and was in the Castle on the night before the murder, +according to Knox. She had been in my mind, whence (on the theory of +thought transference) she may have passed to Miss Angus's mind; but I had +never speculated on Mariotte's costume. Nothing but conjecture, of course, +comes of these apparently 'retrospective' pictures; though a most singular +and picturesque coincidence occurred, which may be told in a very +different connection. + +The next example was noted at the same town. The lady who furnishes it is +well known to me, and it was verbally corroborated by Miss Angus, to whom +the lady, her absent nephew, and all about her, were entirely strange. + +'VIII.--I was very anxious to know whether my nephew would be sent to +India this year, so I told Miss Angus that I had thought of something, +and asked her to look in the glass ball. She did so, but almost +immediately turned round and looked out of the window at the sea, and +said, "I saw a ship so distinctly I thought it must be a reflection." +She looked in the ball again, and said, "It is a large ship, and it is +passing a huge rock with a lighthouse on it. I can't see who are on the +ship, but the sky is very clear and blue. Now I see a large building, +something like a club, and in front there are a great many people +sitting and walking about. I think it must be some place abroad, for the +people are all dressed in very light clothes, and it seems to be very +sunny and warm. I see a young man sitting on a chair, with his feet +straight out before him. He is not talking to anyone, but seems to be +listening to something. He is dark and slight, and not very tall; and +his eyebrows are dark and very distinctly marked." + +'I had not had the pleasure of meeting Miss Angus before, and she knew +nothing whatever about my nephew; but the young man described was +exactly like him, both in his appearance and in the way he was sitting.' + +In this case thought transference may be appealed to. The lady was +thinking of her nephew in connection with India. It is not maintained, of +course, that the picture was of a prophetic character. + +The following examples have some curious and unusual features. On +Wednesday, February 2, 1897, Miss Angus was looking in the crystal, +to amuse six or seven people whose acquaintance she had that day made. +A gentleman, Mr. Bissett, asked her 'what letter was in his pocket,' +She then saw, under a bright sky, and, as it were, a long way off, +a large building, in and out of which many men were coming and going. +Her impression was that the scene must be abroad. In the little company +present, it should be added, was a lady, Mrs. Cockburn, who had +considerable reason to think of her young married daughter, then at a +place about fifty miles away. After Miss Angus had described the large +building and crowds of men, some one asked, 'Is it an exchange?' 'It +might be,' she said. 'Now comes a man in a great hurry. He has a broad +brow, and short, curly hair;[12] hat pressed low down on his eyes. The +face is very serious; but he has a delightful smile.' Mr. and Mrs. +Bissett now both recognised their friend and stockbroker, whose letter was +in Mr. Bissett's pocket. + +The vision, which interested Miss Angus, passed away, and was interrupted +by that of a hospital nurse, and of a lady in a _peignoir_, lying on a +sofa, _with bare feet_.[13] Miss Angus mentioned this vision as a bore, +she being more interested in the stockbroker, who seems to have inherited +what was once in the possession of another stockbroker--'the smile of +Charles Lamb.' Mrs. Cockburn, for whom no pictures appeared, was rather +vexed, and privately expressed with freedom a very sceptical opinion +about the whole affair. But, on Saturday, February 5, 1897, Miss Angus was +again with Mr. and Mrs. Bissett. When Mrs. Bissett announced that she had +'thought of something,' Miss Angus saw a walk in a wood or garden, beside +a river, under a brilliant blue sky. Here was a lady, very well dressed, +twirling a white parasol on her shoulder as she walked, in a curious +'stumpy' way, beside a gentleman in light clothes, such as are worn in +India. He was broad-shouldered, had a short neck and a straight nose, and +seemed to listen, laughing, but indifferent, to his obviously vivacious +companion. The lady had a 'drawn' face, indicative of ill health. Then +followed a scene in which the man, without the lady, was looking on at a +number of Orientals busy in the felling of trees. Mrs. Bissett recognised, +in the lady, her sister, Mrs. Clifton, in India--above all, when Miss +Angus gave a realistic imitation of Mrs. Clifton's walk, the peculiarity +of which was caused by an illness some years ago. Mrs. and Mr. Bissett +also recognised their brother-in-law in the gentleman seen in both +pictures. On being shown a portrait of Mrs. Clifton as a girl, Miss Angus +said it was 'like, but too pretty.' A photograph done recently, however, +showed her 'the drawn face' of the crystal picture.[14] + +Next day, Sunday, February 6, Mrs. Bissett received, what was not +usual--a letter from her sister in India, Mrs. Clifton, dated January 20. +Mrs. Clifton described a place in a native State, where she had been at a +great 'function,' in certain gardens beside a river. She added that they +were going to another place for a certain purpose, 'and then we go into +camp till the end of February.' One of Mr. Clifton's duties is to direct +the clearing of wood preparatory to the formation of the camp, as in Miss +Angus's crystal picture.[15] The sceptical Mrs. Cockburn heard of these +coincidences, and an idea occurred to her. She wrote to her daughter, who +has been mentioned, and asked whether, on Wednesday, February 2, she had +been lying on a sofa in her bed-room, with bare feet. The young lady +confessed that it was indeed so;[16] and, when she heard how the fact came +to be known, expressed herself with some warmth on the abuse of glass +balls, which tend to rob life of its privacy. + +In this case the _prima facie_ aspect of things is that a thought +of Mr. Bissett's about his stockbroker, _dulce ridentem_, somehow +reflected itself into Miss Angus's mind by way of the glass ball, and +was interrupted by a thought of Mrs. Cockburn's, as to her daughter. But +how these thoughts came to display the unknown facts concerning the +garden by the river, the felling of trees for a camp, and the bare feet, +is a question about which it is vain to theorise.[17] + +On the vanishing of the jungle scene there appeared a picture of a man in +a dark undress uniform, beside a great bay, in which were ships of war. +Wooden huts, as in a plague district, were on shore. Mr. Bissett asked, +'What is the man's expression?' 'He looks as if he had been giving a lot +of last orders.' Then appeared 'a place like a hospital, with five or six +beds--no, berths: it is a ship. Here is the man again.' He was minutely +described, one peculiarity being the way in which his hair grew--or, +rather, did not grow--on his temples. + +Miss Angus now asked, 'Where is my little lady?'--meaning the lady of the +twirling parasol and _staccato_ walk. 'Oh, I've left off thinking of her,' +said Mrs. Bissett, who had been thinking of, and recognised in the +officer in undress uniform, her brother, the man with the singular hair, +whose face, in fact, had been scarred in that way by an encounter with a +tiger. He was expected to sail from Bombay, but news of his setting +forth has not been received (February 10) at the moment when this is +written.[18] + +In these Indian cases, 'thought transference' may account for the +correspondence between the figures seen by Miss Angus and the ideas in the +mind of Mr. and Mrs. Bissett. But the hypothesis of thought transference, +while it would cover the wooden huts at Bombay (Mrs. Bissett knowing that +her brother was about to leave that place), can scarcely explain the scene +in the garden by the river and the scene with the trees. The incident of +the bare feet may be regarded as a fortuitous coincidence, since Miss +Angus saw the young lady foreshortened, and could not describe her face. + +In the Introductory Chapter it was observed that the phenomena which +apparently point to some unaccountable supernormal faculty of acquiring +knowledge are 'trivial.' These anecdotes illustrate the triviality; but +the facts certainly left a number of people, wholly unfamiliar with such +experiments, under the impression that Miss Angus's glass ball was like +Prince Ali's magical telescope in the 'Arabian Nights.'[19] These +experiments, however, occasionally touch on intimate personal matters, +and cannot be reported in such instances. + +It will be remarked that the faculty is freakish, and does not always +respond to conscious exertion of thought in the mind of the inquirer. +Thus, in Case I. a connection of the person thought of is discerned; in +another the mind of a stranger present seems to be read. In another +case (not given here) the inquirer tried to visualise a card for a +person present to guess, while Miss Angus was asked to describe an object +which the inquirer was acquainted with, but which he banished from his +conscious thought. The double experiment was a double-barrelled success. + +It seems hardly necessary to point out that chance coincidence will not +cover this set of cases, where in each 'guess' the field of conjecture +is boundless, and is not even narrowed by the crystal-gazer's knowledge +of the persons for whose diversion she makes the experiment. As +'muscle-reading' is not in question (in the one case of contact between +inquirer and crystal-gazer the results were unexpected), and as no +unconsciously made signs could convey, for example, the idea of a cavalry +soldier in uniform, or an accident on a race-course in two _tableaux_, I +do not at present see any more plausible explanation than that of thought +transference, though how that is to account for some of the cases given I +do not precisely understand. + +Any one who can accept the assurance of my personal belief in the +good faith of all concerned will see how very useful this faculty of +crystal-gazing must be to the Apache or Australian medicine-man or +Polynesian priest. Freakish as the faculty is, a few real successes, well +exploited and eked out by fraud, would set up a wizard's reputation. That +a faculty of being thus affected is genuine seems proved, apart from +modern evidence, by the world-wide prevalence of crystal-gazing in the +ethnographic region. But the discovery of this prevalence had not been +made, to my knowledge, before modern instances induced me to notice the +circumstances, sporadically recorded in books of travel. + +The phenomena are certainly of a kind to encourage the savage theory of +the wandering soul. How else, thinkers would say, can the seer visit the +distant place or person, and correctly describe men and scenes which, in +the body, he never saw? Or they would encourage the Polynesian belief +that the 'spirit' of the thing or person looked for is suspended by a god +over the water, crystal, blood, ink, or whatever it may be. Thus, to +anthropologists, the discovery of crystal-gazing as a thing widely +diffused and still flourishing ought to be grateful, however much they +may blame my childish credulity. I may add that I have no ground to +suppose that crystal-gazing will ever be of practical service to the +police or to persons who have lost articles of portable property. But I +have no objection to experiments being made at Scotland Yard.[20] + +[Footnote 1: Information, with a photograph of the stones, from a +correspondent in West Maitland, Australia.] + +[Footnote 2: _Report Ethnol. Bureau_, 1887-88, p. 460; vol. ii. p. 69. +Captain Bourke's volume on _The Medicine Men of the Apaches_ may also be +consulted.] + +[Footnote 3: Fitzroy, _Adventure_, vol. ii. p. 389.] + +[Footnote 4: _L'Histoire de la grand Ile Madagascar_, par le Sieur de +Flacourt. Paris, 1661, ch. 76. Veue de deux Navires de France predite par +les Negres, avant que l'on en peust sçavoir des Nouvelles, &c.] + +[Footnote 5: _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 341.] + +[Footnote 6: _J.A.I_., November 1894, p. 155. Ryckov is cited; _Zhurnal_, +p. 86.] + +[Footnote 7: _Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, Christoval de Molina, p. 12.] + +[Footnote 8: See Miss X's article, S.P.R. _Proceedings_, v. 486.] + +[Footnote 9: Op. cit. v. 505.] + +[Footnote 10: If any reader wishes to make experiments, he, or she, should +not be astonished if the first crystal figure represents 'the sheeted +dead,' or a person ill in bed. For some reason, or no reason, this is +rather a usual prelude, signifying nothing.] + +[Footnote 11: Sunday afternoon. It is not implied that the pictures on +Friday were prophetic. Probably Miss Rose saw what Miss Angus had seen by +aid of 'suggestion.'] + +[Footnote 12: Miss Angus could not be sure of the colour of the hair.] + +[Footnote 13: The position was such that Miss Angus could not see the face +of the lady.] + +[Footnote 14: I saw the photographs.] + +[Footnote 15: I have been shown the letter of January 20, which confirmed +the evidence of the crystal pictures. The camp was formed for official +purposes in which Mr. Clifton was concerned. A letter of February 9 +unconsciously corroborates.] + +[Footnote 16: The incident of the feet occurred at 4.30 to 7.30 P.M. The +crystal picture was about 10 P.M.] + +[Footnote 17: Miss Angus had only within the week made the acquaintance of +Mrs. Cockburn and the Bissetts. Of these relations of theirs at a distance +she had no knowledge.] + +[Footnote 18: I have seen a photograph of this gentleman, Major Hamilton, +which tallies with the full description given by Miss Angus, as reported +by Mrs. Bissett. All the proper names here, as throughout, are altered. + +This account I wrote from the verbal statement of Mrs. Bissett. It +was then read and corroborated by herself, Mr. Bissett, Mr. Cockburn, +Mrs. Cockburn, and Miss Angus, who added dates and signatures.] + +[Footnote 19: The letters attesting each of these experiments are in my +possession. The real names are in no case given in this account, by my own +desire, but (with permission of the persona concerned) can be communicated +privately.] + +[Footnote 20: The faculty of seeing 'fancy pictures' in the glass is +far from uncommon. I have only met with three other persons besides +Miss Angus, two of them men, who had any success in 'telepathic' +crystal-gazing. In correcting 'revises' (March 16), I leant that the +brother of Mr. Pembroke (p. 105) wrote from Cairo on January 27. The +'scry' of January 23 represented his ship in the Suez Canal. He was, as +his letter shows, in quarantine at Suez, at Moses's Wells, from January 25 +to January 26. Major Hamilton (pp. 109, 110), on the other hand, left +Bombay, indeed, but not by sea, as in the crystal-picture. See Appendix C. +Mr. Starr, an American critic, adds Cherokees, Aztecs, and Tonkaways to +the ranks of crystal gazers.] + + + + +VI + +ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS + +We have been examining cases, savage or civilised, in which knowledge is +believed to be acquired through no known channel of sense. All such +instances among savages, whether of the nature of clairvoyance simple, +or by aid of gazing in a smooth surface, or in dreams, or in trance, or +through second sight, would confirm if they did not originate the belief +in the separable soul. The soul, if it is to visit distant places and +collect information, must leave the body, it would be argued, and must so +far be capable of leading an independent life. Perhaps we ought next to +study cases of 'possession,' when knowledge is supposed to be conveyed by +an alien soul, ghost, spirit, or god, taking up its abode in a man, and +speaking out of his lips. But it seems better first to consider the +alleged super-normal phenomena which may have led the savage reasoner to +believe that _he_ was not the only owner of a separable soul: that other +people were equally gifted. + +The sense, as of separation, which a savage dreamer or seer would feel +after a dream or vision in which he visited remote places, would satisfy +him that _his_ soul, at least, was volatile. But some experience of what +he would take to be visits from the spirits of others, would be needed +before he recognised that other men, as well as he, had the faculty of +sending their souls a journeying. + +Now, ordinary dreams, in which the dreamer seemed to see persons who were +really remote; would supply to the savage reasoner a certain amount of +affirmative evidence. It is part of Mr. Tylor's contention that savages +(like some children) are subject to the difficulty which most of us may +have occasionally felt in deciding 'Did this really happen, or did I dream +it?' Thus, ordinary dreams would offer to the early thinker some +evidence that other men's souls could visit his, as he believes that his +can visit them. + +But men, we may assume, were not, at the assumed stage of thought, so +besotted as not to take a great practical distinction between sleeping +and waking experience on the whole. As has been shown, the distinction +is made by the lowest savages of our acquaintance. One clear _waking_ +hallucination, on the other hand, of the presence of a person really +absent, could not but tell more with the early philosopher than a score of +dreams, for to be easily forgotten is of the essence of a dream. Savages, +indeed, oddly enough, have hit on our theory, 'dreams go by contraries.' +Dr. Callaway illustrates this for the Zulus, and Mr. Scott for the +Mang'anza. Thus they _do_ discriminate between sleeping and waking. We +must therefore examine _waking_ hallucinations in the field of actual +experience, and on such recent evidence as may be accessible. If these +hallucinations agree, in a certain ratio, beyond what fortuitous +coincidence can explain, with real but unknown events, then such +hallucinations would greatly strengthen, in the mind of an early +thinker, the savage theory that a man at a distance may, voluntarily or +involuntarily, project his spirit on a journey, and be seen where he is +not present. + +When Mr. Tylor wrote his book, the study of the occasional waking +hallucinations of the sane and healthy was in its infancy. Much, indeed, +had been written about hallucinations, but these were mainly the chronic +false perceptions of maniacs, of drunkards, and of persons in bad +health such as Nicolai and Mrs. A. The hallucinations of persons of +genius--Jeanne d'Arc, Luther, Socrates, Pascal, were by some attributed +to lunacy in these famous people. Scarcely any writers before Mr. Galton +had recognised the occurrence of hallucinations once in a life, perhaps, +among healthy, sober, and mentally sound people. If these were known to +occur, they were dismissed as dreams of an unconscious sleep. This is +still practically the hypothesis of Dr. Parish, as we shall see later. +But in the last twenty years the infrequent hallucinations of the sane +have been recognised by Mr. Galton, and discussed by Professor James, +Mr. Gurney, Dr. Parish, and many other writers. + +Two results have followed. First, 'ghosts' are shown to be, when not +illusions caused by mistaking one object for another, then hallucinations. +As these most frequently represent a living person who is not present, by +parity of reason the appearance of a dead person is on the same level, is +not a space-filling 'ghost,' but merely an hallucination. Such an +appearance can, _prima facie_, suggest no reasonable inference as to the +continued existence of the dead. On the other hand, the new studies have +raised the perhaps insoluble question, 'Do not hallucinations of the sane, +representing the living, coincide more frequently than mere luck can +account for, with the death or other crisis of the person apparently +seen?' If this could be proved, then there would seem to be a causal +_nexus_, a relation of cause and effect between the hallucination and the +coincident crisis. That connection would be provisionally explained by +some not understood action of the mind or brain of the person in the +crisis, on that of the person who has the hallucination. This is no new +idea; only the name, Telepathy, is modern. Of course, if all this were +accepted, it would be the next step to ask whether hallucinations +representing the dead show any signs of being caused by some action on the +side of the departed. That is a topic on which the little that we have to +say must be said later. + +In the meantime the reader who has persevered so far is apt to go no +further. The prejudice against 'wraiths' and 'ghosts' is very strong; but, +then, our innocent phantasms are neither (as we understand their nature) +ghosts nor wraiths. Kant broke the edges of his metaphysical tools +against, not these phantasms, but the logically inconceivable entities +which were at once material and non-material, at once 'spiritual' and +'space-filling.' There is no such difficulty about hallucinations, which, +whatever else may be said about them, are familiar facts of experience. +The only real objections are the statements that hallucinations are +always _morbid_ (which is no longer the universal belief of physiologists +and psychologists), and that the alleged coincidences of a phantasm of a +person with the unknown death of that person at a distance are 'pure +flukes.' That is the question to which we recur later. + +In the meantime, the defenders of the theory, that there is some not +understood connection of cause and effect between the death or other +crisis at one end and the perception representing the person affected by +the crisis at the other end, point out that such hallucinations, or other +effects on the percipient, exist in a regular rising scale of potency and +perceptibility. Suppose that 'A's' death in Yorkshire is to affect the +consciousness of 'B' in Surrey before he knows anything about the fact +(suppose it for the sake of argument), then the effect may take place +(1) on 'B's' emotions, producing a vague _malaise_ and gloom; (2) on his +motor nerves, urging him to some act; (3) or may translate itself into his +senses, as a touch felt, a voice heard, a figure seen; or (4) may render +itself as a phrase or an idea. + +Of these, (1) the emotional effect is, of course, the vaguest. We may all +have had a sudden fit of gloom which we could not explain. People rarely +act on such impressions, and, when they do, are often wrong. Thus a +friend of my own was suddenly so overwhelmed, at golf, with inexplicable +misery (though winning his match) that he apologised to his opponent and +walked home from the ninth hole. Nothing was wrong at home. Probably some +real ground of apprehension had obscurely occurred to his mind and +expressed itself in his emotion. + +But one may illustrate what did look like a coincidence by the experience +of the same friend. He inhabited, as a young married man, a flat in a +house belonging to an acquaintance. The hall was covered by a kind of +glass roof, over part of its extent. He was staying in the country +with his wife, and as they travelled home the lady was beset with an +irresistible conviction that something terrible had occurred, _not_ to her +children. On reaching their house they found that one of their maids had +fallen through the glass roof and killed herself. They also learned that +the girl's sister had arrived at the house, immediately after the +accident, explaining that she was driven to come by a sense that something +dreadful had happened. The lawyer, too, who represented the owner of the +house, had appeared, unsummoned, from a conviction, which he could not +resist, that for some reason unknown he was wanted there.[1] Here, then, +was not an hallucination, but an emotional effect simultaneously reaching +the consciousness of three persons, and coinciding with an unknown +crisis.[2] + +Cases in which a person feels urged to an act (2) are also recorded. +Indeed, the lawyer's in our anecdote is such an instance. Not to trouble +ourselves (3) with 'voices,' hallucinations of sight, coinciding with a +distant unknown crisis, are traced from a mere feeling that somebody is in +the room, followed by a _mental_, or _mind's eye_ picture of a person +dying at a distance, up to a kind of 'vision' of a person or scene, and so +on to hallucinations appealing, at once, to touch, sight, and hearing. As +some hundreds of these narratives of coincidental hallucinations in every +degree have been collected from witnesses at first hand, often personally +known, and usually personally cross-questioned, by the student, it is +difficult to deny that there is a _prima facie_ case for inquiry.[3] + +There is here no question of 'spirits,' with all their physical and +metaphysical difficulties. Nor is there any desire to shirk the fact that +many 'presentiments' and hallucinations of the sane coincide with no +ascertainable fact. We only provisionally posit the possibility of an +influence, in its nature unknown, of one mind on another at a distance, +such influence translating itself into an hallucination. An inquiry into +this subject, in the ethnographic and modern fields, may be new but +involves no 'superstition.' + +We now return to Mr. Tylor, who treats of hallucinations among other +experiences which led early savage thinkers to believe in ghosts or +separable souls, the origin of religion. + +As to the causes of hallucinations in general, Mr. Tylor has something to +say, but it is nothing systematic. 'Sickness, exhaustion, and excitement' +cause savages to behold 'human spectres,' in 'the objective reality' of +which they believe. But if an educated modern, not sick, nor exhausted, +nor excited, has an hallucination of a friend's presence, he, too, +believes that it is 'objective,' is his friend in flesh and blood, till +he finds out his mistake, by examination or reflection. As Professor +William James remarks, in his 'Principles of Psychology,' such solitary +hallucinations of the sane and healthy, once in a life-time, are difficult +to account for, and are by no means rare. 'Sometimes,' Mr. Tylor observes, +'the phantom has the characteristic quality of not being visible to all of +an assembled company,' and he adds 'to assert or imply that they are +visible sometimes, and to some persons, but not always, or to everyone, +is to lay down an explanation of facts which is not, indeed, our usual +modern explanation, but which is a perfectly rational and intelligible +product of early science.' + +It is, indeed, nor has later science produced any rational and +intelligible explanation of collective hallucinations, shared by several +persons at once, and perhaps not perceived by others who are present. Mr. +Tylor, it is true, asserts that 'in civilised countries a rumour of some +one having seen a phantom is enough to bring a sight of it to others whose +minds are in a properly receptive state.' But this is arguing in a circle; +What is 'a properly receptive state'? If illness, overwork, 'expectant +attention,' make 'a properly receptive state,' I should have seen several +phantoms in several 'haunted houses.' But the only thing of the sort I +ever saw occurred when I was thinking of nothing less, when I was in good +health, and when I did not know (nor did I learn till long after) that it +was the right and usual phantom to see. Mr. Podmore remarks that various +members of the Psychical Society have sojourned in various 'haunted +houses,' 'some of them in a state of expectancy and nervous excitement,' +which never caused them to see phantoms, for they saw none.[4] + +Mr. Tylor treats of waking hallucinations in much the same manner as he +deals with 'travelling clairvoyance.' He does not study them 'in the field +of experience.' He is not concerned with the truth of the facts, important +as we think it would be, but with his theory that hallucinations, among +other causes, would naturally give rise to the belief in spirits, and thus +to the early philosophy of Animism. Now, certainly, the hallucination of a +person's presence, say at the moment of his death at a distance, would +suggest to a savage that something of the dying man's, something +symbolised in the word 'shadow,' or 'breath' _(spiritus)_, had come to say +farewell. The modern 'spiritualistic' theory, again, that the dead man's +'spirit' is actually present to the percipient, in space, corresponds to, +and is derived from, the animistic philosophy of the savage. But we may +believe in such 'death-wraiths,' or hallucinatory appearances of +the dying, without being either savages or spiritualists. We may +believe without pretending to explain, or we may advance the theory of +'Telepathy,' Hegel's 'magical tie,' according to which the distant mind +somehow impresses itself, in a more or less perfect hallucination, on the +mind of the person who perceives the wraith. If this be so, or even if no +explanation be offered, the truth of the stories of coincidental +apparitions becomes important, as pointing to a new region of psychical +inquiry. Then the evidence of savages as to hallucinations of their own, +coincident with the death of their absent friends, will confirm, +_quantum valeat_, the evidence of many modern observers in all ranks of +life, and all degrees of culture, from Lord Brougham to an old nurse.[5] + +As to hallucinations coincident with the death of the person apparently +seen, Mr. Tylor says: 'Narratives of this class I can here only specify +without arguing on them, they are abundantly in circulation.'[6] Now, the +modern hallucinations themselves can scarcely, perhaps, be called +'survivals from savagery,' though the opinion that an hallucination of a +person must be his 'spirit' is really such a survival. It is with that +opinion, with Animism in its hallucinatory origins, that Mr. Tylor is +concerned, not with the hallucinations themselves or with the evidence +for their veridical existence. + +Mr. Tylor gives three anecdotes, narrated to him, in two cases, by the +seers, of phantasms of the living beheld by them (and in one case by a +companion also) when the real person was dying at a distance. He adds: 'My +own view is that nothing but dreams and visions could have ever put into +men's minds such an idea as that of souls being ethereal images of +bodies.'[7] The idea may be perfectly erroneous; but if the occurrence +of such coincidental appearances as Mr. Tylor tells us about could be +shown to be too frequent for mere chance to produce, then there would be +a presumption in favour of some unknown faculties in our nature--a proper +theme for anthropology. + +The hallucinations of which we hear most are those in which a person +sees the phantom of another person, who, unknown to him, is in or near +the hour of death. Mr. Tylor, in addition to his three instances in +civilised life, alludes to one in savage life, with references to other +cases.[8] We turn to his savage instance, offering it at full length from +the original.[9] + +'Among the Maoris' (says Mr. Shortland) 'it is always ominous to see the +figure of an absent person. If the figure is very shadowy, and its face is +not seen, death, although he may ere long be expected, has not seized his +prey. If the face of the absent person is seen, the omen forewarns the +beholder that he is already dead.' + +The following statement is from the mouth of an eyewitness: + +'A party of natives left their village, with the intention of being +absent some time, on a pig-hunting expedition. One night, while they +were seated in the open air around a blazing fire, the figure of a +relative who had been left ill at home was seen to approach. The +apparition appeared to two of the party only, and vanished immediately +on their making an exclamation of surprise. When they returned to the +village they inquired for the sick man, and then learnt that he had +died about the time he was said to have been seen.' + +I now give Maori cases, communicated to me by Mr. Tregear, F.R.G.S., +author of a 'Maori Comparative Dictionary.' + +A very intelligent Maori chief said to me, 'I have seen but two ghosts. +I was a boy at school in Auckland, and one morning was asleep in bed +when I found myself aroused by some one shaking me by the shoulder. I +looked up, and saw bending over me the well-known form of my uncle, whom +I supposed to be at the Bay of Islands. I spoke to him, but the form +became dim and vanished. The next mail brought me the news of his +death. Years passed away, and I saw no ghost or spirit--not even when +my father and mother died, and I was absent in each case. Then one day I +was sitting reading, when a dark shadow fell across my book. I looked +up, and saw a man standing between me and the window. His back was +turned towards me. I saw from his figure that he was a Maori, and I +called out to him, "Oh friend!" He turned round, and I saw my other +uncle, Ihaka. The form faded away as the other had done. I had not +expected to hear of my uncle's death, for I had seen him hale and strong +a few hours before. However, he had gone into the house of a missionary, +and he (with several white people) was poisoned by eating of a pie made +from tinned meat, the tin having been opened and the meat left in it all +night. That is all I myself had seen of spirits.' + +One more Maori example may be offered:[10] + +From Mr. Francis Dart Fenton, formerly in the Native Department of the +Government, Auckland, New Zealand. He gave the account in writing to his +friend, Captain J.H. Crosse, of Monkstown, Cork, from whom we received +it. In 1852, when the incident occurred, Mr. Fenton was 'engaged in +forming a settlement on the banks of the Waikato.' + +'March 25, 1860 + +'Two sawyers, Frank Philps and Jack Mulholland, were engaged cutting +timber for the Rev. R. Maunsell at the mouth of the Awaroa creek--a very +lonely place, a vast swamp, no people within miles of them. As usual, +they had a Maori with them to assist in felling trees. He came from +Tihorewam, a village on the other side of the river, about six miles +off. As Frank and the native were cross-cutting a tree, the native +stopped suddenly, and said, "What are you come for?" looking in the +direction of Frank. Frank replied, "What do you mean?" He said, "I am +not speaking to you; I am speaking to my brother." Frank said, "Where is +he?" The native replied, "Behind you. What do you want?" (to the other +Maori), Frank looked round and saw nobody. The native no longer saw +anyone, but bid down the saw and said, "I shall go across the river; my +brother is dead." + +'Frank laughed at him, and reminded him that be had left him quite well +on Sunday (five days before), and there had been no communication since. +The Maori spoke no more, but got into his canoe and pulled across. When +he arrived at the landing-place, he met people coming to fetch him. His +brother had just died. I knew him well.' + +In answer to inquiries as to his authority for this narrative, Mr. Fenton +writes: + +'December 18, 1883. + +'I knew all the parties concerned well, and it is quite true, _valeat +quantum_, as the lawyers say. Incidents of this sort are not infrequent +among the Maoris. + +'F.D. FENTON, + _'Late Chief Judge, Native Law-Court of N.Z.'_ + +Here is a somewhat analogous example from Tierra del Fuego: + +'Jemmy Button was very superstitious' (says Admiral Fitzroy, speaking of +a Fuegian brought to England). 'While at sea, on board the "Beagle," he +said one morning to Mr. Bynoe that in the night some man came to the +side of his hammock and whispered in his ear that his father was dead. +He fully believed that such was the case,' and he was perfectly +right.... 'He reminded Bennett of the dream.'[11] + +Mr. Darwin also mentions this case, a coincidental auditory hallucination. + +I have found no other savage cases quite to the point. This is, +undeniably, 'a puir show for Kirkintilloch,' a meagre collection of savage +death-wraiths, but it may be so meagre by reason of want of research, or +of lack of records, travellers usually pooh-poohing the benighted +superstitions of the heathen, or fearing to seem superstitious if they +chronicle instances. However few the instances, they are, undeniably, +exact parallels to those recorded in civilised life. + +In filling up the lacuna in Mr. Tylor's anthropological work, in asking +questions as to the proportion between phantasms of the living which +coincide with a crisis in the experience of the person seen, and those +which do not, it is obviously necessary to reject all evidence of people +who were ill, or anxious, or overworked, or in poignant grief at the time +of the hallucination. It will be seen later that neither grief nor amatory +passion (dominating the association of our ideas as they do) beget many +phantasms. Our business, however, is with the false perceptions of persons +trustworthy, as far as we know, sane, healthy, not usually visionary, and +in an unperturbed state of mind. + +There remains a normal cause of subjective hallucinations, expectancy. +This appears to be a real cause of hallucination or, at least, of +illusion. Waiting for the sound of a carriage you may hear it often before +it comes, you taking other sounds for that which you desire. Again, in an +inquiry embracing 17,000 people, the S.P.R. collected thirteen cases of an +hallucinatory appearance of one person to another who was _expecting_ his +arrival. Once more, it is very conceivable that a trifle, the accidental +opening of a door, a noise of a familiar kind in an unfamiliar place, may +touch the brain into originating an hallucination of a person passing +through the door, or of the place where the sound now heard used once to +be familiar. Expectancy, again, and nervousness, might doubtless cause an +hallucination to a person who felt uncomfortable in a house with a name to +be 'haunted,' though, as we have seen, the effect is far less common than +the cause. All these sorts of causes are undoubtedly more apt to be +prevalent among superstitious savages than among educated Europeans. +And it stands to reason that savages, where one man 'thinks he sees +something,' will be readier than we are to think they 'see something' too. +Yet collective hallucinations, which are shared by several persons at +once, are especially puzzling. Even if they occur when all are in a +strained condition of expectancy, it is odd that all see them in _the same +way_.[12] Examples will occur later. When there is no excitement, the +mystery is increased. We may note that, among the expectant multitudes who +looked on while Bernadette was viewing the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes, not +one person, however superstitious or hysterical, pretended to share the +vision. Again, only one person, and he on doubtful evidence, is asserted +to have shared, once, the visions of Jeanne d'Arc. In both cases all the +conditions said to produce collective hallucination were present in the +highest degree. Yet no collective hallucination occurred. + +Narratives about hallucinations coincident with a death, narratives well +attested, are abundant in modern times, so abundant that one need only +refer the curious to Messrs. Gurney and Myers's two large volumes, +'Phantasms of the Living,' and to the S.P.R 'Report of Census of +Hallucinations' (1894). Mr. Tylor says: 'The spiritualistic theory +specially insists on cases of apparitions, where the person's death +corresponds more or less nearly with the time when some friend perceives +his phantom.' But visionaries, he remarks truly, often see phantoms of +living persons when nothing occurs. That is the case, and the question +arises whether more such phantoms are viewed (_not_ by 'visionaries') +in connection with the death or other crisis of the person whose +hallucinatory appearance is perceived, than ought to occur, if there be no +connection of some unknown cause between deaths and appearances. As Mr. +Tylor observes, 'Man, as yet in a low intellectual condition, came to +associate in thought those things which he found by experience to be +connected in fact.'[13] Did early man, then, find _in experience_ that +apparitions of his friends were 'connected in fact' with their deaths? +And, if so, was that discovered connection in fact the origin of his +belief that an hallucinatory appearance of an absent person sometimes +announced his death? + +That the belief exists in New Zealand we saw, and find confirmed by this +instance, one of 'many such relations,' says the author. A Maori chief was +long absent on the war-path. One day he entered his wife's hut, and sat +mute by the hearth. She ran to bring witnesses, but on her return the +phantasm was no longer visible. The woman soon afterwards married again. + +Her husband then returned in perfect health, and pardoned the lady, as +she had acted on what, to a Maori mind, seemed good legal evidence of +his decease. Of course, even if she fabled, the story is evidence to the +existence of the belief.[14] + +What, then, is the cause of the belief that a phantom of a man is a token +of his death? On the theory of savage philosophy, as explained by Mr. +Tylor himself, a man's soul may leave his body and become visible to +others, not at death only, but on many other occasions, in dream, trance, +lethargy. All these are much more frequent conditions, in every man's +career, than the fact of dying. Why, then, is the phantasm supposed by +savages to announce death? Is it because, in a sufficient ratio of cases +to provoke remark, early man has found the appearance and the death to be +'things connected in fact'? + +I give an instance in which the philosophy of savages would lead them +_not_ to connect a phantasm of a living man with his death. + +The Woi Worung, an Australian tribe, hold that 'the Murup [wraith] of an +individual could be sent from him by magic, as, for instance, when a +hunter incautiously went to sleep when out hunting.'[15] In this case the +hunter is exposed to the magic of his enemies. But the Murup, or detached +soul, would be visible to people at a distance when its owner is only +asleep--according to the savage philosophy. Why, then, when the wraith is +seen, is the owner believed to be dying? Are the things bound to be +'connected in fact'? + +As is well known, the Society for Psychical Research has attempted a +little census, for the purpose of discovering whether hallucinations +representing persons at a distance coincided, within twelve hours, with +their deaths, in a larger ratio than the laws of chance allow as possible. +If it be so, the Maori might have some ground for his theory that such +hallucinations betoken a decease. I do not believe that any such census +can enable us to reach an affirmative conclusion which science will +accept. In spite of all precautions taken, all warnings before, and +'allowances' made later, collectors of evidence will 'select' affirmative +cases already known, or (which is equally fatal) will be suspected of +doing so. Again, illusions of memory, increasing the closeness of the +coincidence, will come in--or it will be easy to say that they came in. +'Allowances' for them will not be accepted. + +Once more, 17,000 cases, though a larger number than is usual in +biological inquiries, are decidedly not enough for a popular argument on +probabilities; a million, it will be said, would not be too many. +Finally, granting honesty, accurate memory, and non-selection (none of +which will be granted by opponents), it is easy to say that odd things +_must_ occur, and that the large proportion of affirmative answers as to +coincidental hallucinations is just a specimen of these odd things. + +Other objections are put forward by teachers of popular science who have +not examined--or, having examined, misreport--the results of the Census in +detail. I may give an example of their method. + +Mr. Edward Clodd is the author of several handbooks of science--'The Story +of Creation,' 'A Manual of Evolution,' and others. Now, in a signed review +of a book, a critique published in 'The Sketch' (October 13, 1897), Mr. +Clodd wrote about the Census: 'Thousands of persons were asked whether +they had ever seen apparitions, and out of these some hundreds, mostly +unintelligent foreigners, replied in the affirmative. Some eight or ten of +the number--envied mortals--had seen "angels," but the majority, +like the American in the mongoose story, had seen only "snakes."... +In weighing evidence we have to take into account the competency as +well as the integrity of the witnesses.' Mr. Clodd has most frankly and +good-humouredly acknowledged the erroneousness of his remark. Otherwise we +might ask: Does Mr. Clodd prefer to be considered not 'competent' or not +'veracious'? He cannot be both on this occasion, for his signed and +published remarks were absolutely inaccurate. First, thousands of persons +were _not_ asked 'whether they had seen apparitions.' They were asked: +'Have you ever, when believing yourself to be perfectly awake, had a vivid +impression of seeing, or being touched by a living being or inanimate +object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could +discover, was not due to any external physical cause?' Secondly, it is not +the fact that 'some hundreds, _mostly unintelligent foreigners,_ replied +in the affirmative.' Of English-speaking men and women, 1,499 answered the +question quoted above in the affirmative. Of foreigners (naturally +'unintelligent'), 185 returned affirmative answers. Thirdly, when Mr. +Clodd says, 'The majority had seen only "snakes,"' it is not easy to know +what precise sense 'snakes' bears in the terminology of popular science. +If Mr. Clodd means, by 'snakes,' fantastic hallucinations of animals, +these amounted to 25, as against 830 representing human forms of persons +recognised, unrecognised, living or dead. But, if by 'snakes' Mr. Clodd +means purely subjective hallucinations, not known to coincide with any +event--and this _is_ his meaning--his statement agrees with that of the +Census. His observations, of course, were purely accidental errors. + +The number of hallucinations representing living or dying recognised +persons in the answers received, was 352. Of first-hand cases, in which +coincidence of the hallucination with the death of the person apparently +seen was affirmed, there were 80, of which 26 are given. + +The non-coincidental hallucinations were multiplied by four, to allow for +forgetfulness of 'misses.' The results being compared, it was decided that +the hallucinations collected coincided with death 440 more often than +ought to be the case by the law of probabilities. Therefore there was +proof, or presumption, in favour of some relation of cause and effect +between A's death and B's hallucination. + +If we were to attack the opinion of the Committee on Hallucinations, that +'Between deaths and apparitions of the dying a connection exists which is +not due to chance alone,' the assault should be made not only on the +method, but on the details. The events were never of very recent, and +often were of remote occurrence. The remoteness was less than it seems, +however, as the questions were often answered several years before the +publication of the Report (1894). There was scarcely any documentary +evidence, any note or letter written between the hallucination and the +arrival of news of the death. Such letters, the evidence alleged, had in +some cases existed, but had been lost, burnt, eaten by white ants, or +written on a sheet of blotting paper or the whitewashed wall of a barrack +room. If I may judge by my own lifelong success in mislaying, losing, and +casually destroying papers, from cheques to notes made for literary +purposes, from interesting letters of friends to the manuscripts of +novelists, or if I may judge by Sir Walter Scott's triumphs of the same +kind, I should not think much of the disappearance of documentary evidence +to death-wraiths. Nobody supposed, when these notes were written, that +Science would ask for their production; and even if people had guessed at +this, it is human to lose or destroy old papers. + +The remoteness of the occurrences is more remarkable, for, if these things +happen, why were so few recent cases discovered? Again, the seers were +sometimes under anxiety, though such cases were excluded from the final +computation: they frequently knew that the person seen was in bad health: +they were often very familiar with his personal aspect. Now what are +called 'subjective hallucinations,' non-coincidental hallucinations, +usually represent persons very familiar to us, persons much in our minds. +I know seven cases in which such hallucinations occurred. 1, 2, of husband +to wife; 3, son to mother; 4, brother to sister; 5, sister to sister; +6, cousin (living in the same house) to cousin; 7, friend (living a mile +away) to two friends. In no case was there a death-coincidence. Only in +case 4 was there any kind of coincidence, the brother having intended to +do (unknown to the sister) what he was seen doing--driving in a dog-cart +with a lady. But he had _not_ driven. We cannot, of course, _prove_ that +these seven cases were _not_ telepathic, but there is no proof that they +were. Now most of the coincidental cases, on which the Committee relied as +their choicest examples, represented persons familiarly known to the +seers. This looks as if they were casual; but, of course, if telepathy +does exist, it is most likely (as Hegel says) to exist between kinsfolk +and friends.[16] + +The dates might be fresher! + +In case 1, percipient knew that his aunt in England (he being in +Australia) was not very well. No anxiety. + +2. Casual acquaintance. No anxiety. Case of accident or suicide. + +3. Acquaintance who feared to die in childbed, and did. Percipient not +much interested, nor at all anxious. + +4. Father in England to son in India. No anxiety. + +5. Uncle to niece. Sudden death. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +6. Brother-in-law to sister-in-law, and her maid. No anxiety reported. +_Russian_. + +7. Father to son. No anxiety reported. _Russian_. + +8. Friend to friend. No knowledge of illness or anxiety reported. + +9. Grandmother to grandson. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +10. Casual acquaintance, to seven people, and apparently to a dog. Illness +known. _Russian._ + +11. Step-brother to step-brother. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +12. Friend to friend. No anxiety or knowledge of illness. + +13. Casual acquaintance. No anxiety. + +14. Aunt to nephew and to his wife. Illness known. No anxiety. + +15. Sister to brother. Illness known. No anxiety. + +16. Father to daughter. No knowledge of illness. No anxiety. + +17. Father to son. Much anxiety. (Uncounted.) + +18. Sister to sister. Illness known. 'No immediate danger' surmised. + +19. Father to son. Much anxiety. _Russian._ (Uncounted.) + +20. Friend to friend. Illness known. Percipient had been nursing patient. +_Brazilian._ (Very bad case!) + +21 Friend to friend. Illness known. No anxiety. + +22. Brother to brother. Illness known. No anxiety. + +23. Grandfather to grand-daughter. Illness known. No pressing anxiety. + +24. Grandfather to grandson. Illness known. No anxiety. + +25. Father's _hand._ Illness chronic. No anxiety. Percipient a daughter. +_Russian._ + +20. Husband to wife. Anxiety in time of war. + +27. Brother to sister. Slightly anxious from receiving no letter. + +28. Friend to friend. No anxiety. + +Anxiety is only reported, or to be surmised, in two or three cases. In a +dozen the existence of illness was known. + +It may therefore be argued, adversely, that in the selected coincidental +hallucinations, the persons seen were in the class most usually beheld in +non-coincidental and, probably, purely subjective hallucinations +representing real persons; also, that knowledge of their illness, even +when no anxiety existed, kept them in some cases before the mind; also, +that several cases are foreign, and that 'most foreigners are fools.' On +the other hand, affection, familiarity, and knowledge of illness had _not_ +produced hallucinations even in the case of these percipients, till +within the twelve hours (often much less) of the event of death. + +It would have been desirable, of course, to publish all the +_non_-coincidental cases, and show how far, in these not _veridical_ +cases, the recognised phantasms were those of kindred, dear friends, known +to be ill, and subjects of anxiety[17]. + +The Census, in fact, does contain a chapter on 'Mental and Nervous +Conditions in connection with Hallucinations,' such as anxiety, grief, +and overwork. Do these produce, or probably produce, many empty +hallucinations _not_ coincident with death or any great crisis? If they +do, then all cases in which a coincidental hallucination occurred +to a person in anxiety, or overstrained, will seem to be, probably, +fortuitous coincidences like the others. All percipients, of all sorts +of hallucinations, hits or misses, were asked if they were in grief or +anxiety. Now, out of 1,622 cases of hallucination of all known kinds +(coincidental or not), mental strain was reported in 220 instances; of +which 131 were cases of grief about known deaths or anxiety. These mental +conditions, therefore, occur only in twelve per cent. of the instances. On +the whole, it does not seem fair to argue that anxiety produces so much +hallucination that it will account by itself for those which we have +analysed as coincidental. + +The impression left on my own mind by the Census does pretty closely agree +with that of its authors. Fairly well persuaded of the possibility of +telepathy, on other grounds, and even inclined to believe that it does +produce coincidental hallucinations, the evidence of the Census, by +itself, would not convince me nor its authors. We want better records; we +want documentary evidence recording cases before the arrival of news of +the coincidence. Memories are very adaptive. The authors, however, made a +gallant effort, at the cost of much labour, and largely allowed for all +conceivable drawbacks. + +I am, personally, illogical enough to agree with Kant, and to be more +convinced by the cumulative weight of the hundreds of cases in 'Phantasms +of the Living,' in other sources, in my own circle of acquaintance, and +even by the coincident traditions of European and savage peoples, than by +the statistics of the Census. The whole mass, Census and all, is of very +considerable weight, and there exist individual cases which one feels +unable to dispute. Thus while I would never regard the hallucinatory +figure of a friend, perceived by myself, as proof of his death, I +would entertain some slight anxiety till I heard of his well-being. + +On this topic I will offer, in a Kantian spirit, an anecdote of the kind +which, occurring in great quantities, disposes the mind to a sort of +belief. It is not given as evidence to go to a jury, for I only received +it from the lips of a very gallant and distinguished officer and V.C., +whose own part in the affair will be described. + +This gentleman was in command of a small British force in one of the +remotest and least accessible of our dependencies, not connected by +telegraph, at the time of the incident, with the distant mainland. In the +force was a particularly folly young captain. One night he went to a +dance, and, as the sleeping accommodation was exhausted, he passed the +night, like a Homeric hero, on a couch beneath the echoing _loggia_. Next +day, contrary to his wont, he was in the worst of spirits, and, after +moping for some time, asked leave to go a three days' voyage to the +nearest telegraph station. His commanding officer, my informant, was +good-natured, and gave leave. At the end of a week Captain ---- returned, +in his usual high spirits. He now admitted that, while lying awake in the +verandah, after the ball, he had seen a favourite brother of his, then +in, say, Peru. He could not shake off the impression; he had made the long +voyage to the nearest telegraph station, and thence had telegraphed to +another brother in, let us say, Hong Kong, 'Is all well with John?' He +received a reply, 'All well by last mail,' and so returned, relieved in +mind, to his duties. But the next mail bringing letters from Peru brought +news of his Peruvian brother's death on the night of the vision in the +verandah. + +This, of course, is not offered as evidence. For evidence we need +Captain ----'s account, his Hong Kong brother's account, date of the +dance, official date of the Peruvian brother's death, and so on. But the +character of my informant indisposes me to disbelief. The names of places +are intentionally changed, but the places were as remote from each other +as those given in the text. + +We find ourselves able to understand the Master of Ravenswood's +cogitations after he saw the best wraith in fiction: + +'She died expressing her eager desire to see me. Can it be, then--can +strong and earnest wishes, formed during the last agony of nature, +survive its catastrophe, surmount the awful bounds of the spiritual +world, and place before us its inhabitants in the hues and colouring of +life? And why was that manifested to the eye, which could not unfold its +tale to the ear?' ('Her withered lips moved fast, although no sound +issued from them.') 'And wherefore should a breach be made in the laws +of nature, yet its purpose remain unknown?' + +The Master's reasonings are such as, in hearing similar anecdotes, must +have occurred to Scott. They no longer represent our views. The death and +apparition were coincidental almost to the minute: it would be impossible +to prove that life was utterly extinct, when Alice seemed to die, 'as the +clock in the distant village tolled one, just before' Ravenswood's +experience. We do not, like him, postulate 'a breach in the laws of +nature,' only a possible example of a law. The tale was not 'unfolded to +the ear,' as the telepathic impact only affected the sense of sight. + +Here, perhaps, ought to follow a reply to certain scientific criticisms of +the theory that telepathy, or the action of one distant mind, or brain, +upon another, may be the cause of 'coincidental hallucinations,' +whether among savage or civilised races. But, not to delay the argument +by controversy, the Reply to Objections has been relegated to the +Appendix[18]. + +[Footnote 1: The lady, her husband, and the lawyer, all known to me, gave +me the story in writing; the servant's sister has been lost sight of.] + +[Footnote 2: See three other cases in _Proceedings_, S.P.R., ii. 122, 123. +Two others are offered by Mr. Henry James and Mr. J. Neville Maskelyne of +the Egyptian Hall.] + +[Footnote 3: See 'Phantasms of the Living' and 'A Theory of Apparitions,' +_Proceedings_, S.P.R., vol. ii., by Messrs. Gurney and Myers.] + +[Footnote 4: _Studies in Psychical Research,_ p. 388.] + +[Footnote 5: This, at least, scorns to myself a not illogical argument. +Mr. Leaf has argued on the other side, that 'Darwinism may have done +something for Totemism, by proving the existence of a great monkey +kinship. But Totemism can hardly be quoted as evidence for Darwinism.' +True, but Darwinism and Totemism are matters of opinion, not facts of +personal experience. To a believer in coincidental hallucinations, at +least, the alleged parallel experiences of savages must yield some +confirmation to his own. His belief, he thinks, is warranted by human +experience. On what does he suppose that the belief of the savage is +based? Do his experience and their belief coincide by pure chance?] + +[Footnote 6: _Prim. Cult._ i. 449.] + +[Footnote 7: Ibid. i. 450.] + +[Footnote 8: _Prim. Cult._ vol. i. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 9: From Shortland's _Traditions of New Zealand,_ p. 140.] + +[Footnote 10: Gurney and Myers, 'Phantasms of the Living,' vol. ii. +ch. v. p. 557.] + +[Footnote 11: _The 'Adventure' and 'Beagle,'_ iii. 181, cf. 204.] + +[Footnote 12: It will, of course, be said that they worked their stories +into conformity.] + +[Footnote 13: _Prim. Cult._ i. 116.] + +[Footnote 14: Polack's _Manners of the New Zealanders_, i. 268.] + +[Footnote 15: Howitt, op. cit. p. 186.] + +[Footnote 16: On examining the cases, we find, in 1894, these dates of +reported occurrences, in twenty-eight cases: 1890, 1882, 1879, 1870, 1863, +1861, 1888, 1885, 1881, 1880, 1878, 1874, 1869, 1869, 1845, 1887, 1881, +1877, 1874, 1873, 1860 (?), 1864 (?), 1855, 1830 (?!), 1867, 1862, 1888, +1870.] + +[Footnote 17: On this point see _Report_, p. 260. Fifty phantasms out of +the whole occurred during anxiety or presumable anxiety. Of these, +thirty-one coincided (within twelve hours) with the death of the person +apparently seen. In the remaining nineteen, the person seen recovered in +eight cases.] + +[Footnote 18: Appendix A.] + + + + +VII + +DEMONIACAL POSSESSION + +There is a kind of hallucinations--namely, Phantasms of the Dead--about +which it seems better to say nothing in this place. If such phantasms are +seen by savages when awake, they will doubtless greatly corroborate that +belief in the endurance of the soul after death, which is undeniably +suggested to the early reasoner by the phenomena of dreaming. But, while +it is easy enough to produce evidence to recognised phantasms of the dead +in civilised life, it would be very difficult indeed to discover many good +examples in what we know about savages. Some Fijian instances are given by +Mr. Fison in his and Mr. Howitt's 'Kamilaroi and Kurnai,' Others occur in +the narrative of John Tanner, a captive from childhood among the Red +Indians. But the circumstance, already noted, that an Australian lad +became a wizard on the strength of having seen a phantasm of his dead +mother, proves that such experiences are not common; and Australian black +fellows have admitted that they, for their part, never did see a ghost, +but only heard of ghosts from their old men. Mr. David Leslie, previously +cited, gives some first-hand Zulu evidence about a haunted wood, where the +_Esemkofu_, or ghosts of persons killed by a tyrannical chief, were heard +and felt by his native informant; the percipient was also pelted with +stones, as by the European _Poltergeist_. The Zulu who dies commonly +becomes an Ihlozi, and receives his share of sacrifice. The _Esemkofu_ on +the other hand, are disturbed and haunting spirits[1]. + +As a rule, so far as our information goes, it is not recognised phantasms +of the dead, in waking vision, which corroborate the savage belief in the +persistence of the spirit of the departed. The savage reasoner rather +rests his faith on the alleged phenomena of noises and physical movements +of objects apparently untouched, which cause so many houses in civilised +society to be shut up, or shunned, as 'haunted.' Such disturbances the +savage naturally ascribes to 'spirits.' Our evidence, therefore, for +recognised phantasms of the savage dead is very meagre, so it is +unnecessary to examine the much more copious civilised evidence. The facts +attested may, of course, be theoretically explained as the result of +telepathy from a mind no longer incarnate; and, were the evidence as +copious as that for coincidental hallucinations of the living, or dying, +it would be of extreme importance. But it is not so copious, and, granting +even that it is accurate, various explanations not involving anything so +distasteful to science as the action of a discarnate intelligence may be, +and have been, put forward. + +We turn, therefore, from a theme in which civilised testimony is more +bulky than that derived from savage life, to a topic in which savage +evidence is much more full than modern civilised records. This topic is +the so-called Demoniacal Possession. + +In the philosophy of Animism, and in the belief of many peoples, savage +and civilised, spirits of the dead, or spirits at large, can take up their +homes in the bodies of living men. Such men, or women, are spoken of as +'inspired,' or 'possessed.' They speak in voices not their own, they act +in a manner alien to their natural character, they are said to utter +prophecies, and to display knowledge which they could not have normally +acquired, and, in fact, do not consciously possess, in their normal +condition. All these and similar phenomena the savage explains by the +hypothesis that an alien spirit--perhaps a demon, perhaps a ghost, or a +god--has taken possession of the patient. The possessed, being full of the +spirit, delivers sermons, oracles, prophecies, and what the Americans call +'inspirational addresses,' before he returns to his normal consciousness. +Though many such prophets are conscious impostors, others are sincere. Dr. +Mason mentions a prophet who became converted to Christianity. 'He could +not account for his former exercises, but said that it certainly appeared +to him as though a spirit spoke, and he must tell what it communicated.' +Dr. Mason also gives the following anecdote: + +'...Another individual had a familiar spirit that he consulted and with +which he conversed; but, on hearing the Gospel, he professed to become +converted, and had no more communication with his spirit. It had left +him, he said; it spoke to him no more. After a protracted trial I +baptised him. I watched his case with interest, and for several years he +led an unimpeachable Christian life; but, on losing his religious zeal, +and disagreeing with some of the church members, he removed to a distant +village, where he could not attend the services of the Sabbath, and it +was soon after reported that he had communications with his familiar +spirit again. I sent a native preacher to visit him. The man said +he heard the voice which had conversed with him formerly, but it +spoke very differently. Its language was exceedingly pleasant to +hear, and produced great brokenness of heart. It said, "Love each +other; act righteously--act uprightly," with other exhortations such us +he had heard from the teachers. An assistant was placed in the village +near him, when the spirit left him again; and ever since he has +maintained the character of a consistent Christian.'[2] + +This anecdote illustrates what is called by spiritists 'change of +control.' After receiving, and deserting, Christian doctrine, the patient +again spoke unconsciously, but under the influence of the faith which he +had abandoned. In the same way we shall find that a modern American +'Medium,' after being for a time constantly in the society of educated +and psychological observers, obtained new 'controls' of a character more +urbane and civilised than her old 'familiar spirit.'[3] + +It is admitted that the possessed sometimes display an eloquence which +they are incapable of in their normal condition.[4] In China, possessed +women, who never composed a line of poetry in their normal lives, utter +their thoughts in verse, and are said to give evidence of clairvoyant +powers.[5] + +The book--_Demon Possession in China_--of Dr. Nevius, for forty years a +missionary, was violently attacked by the medical journals of his native +country, the United States. The doctor had the audacity to declare that he +could find no better explanation of the phenomena than the theory of the +Apostles--namely, that the patients were possessed. Not having the fear of +man before his eyes, he also remarked that the current scientific +explanations had the fault of not explaining anything. + +For example, 'Mr. Tylor intimates that all cases of supposed demoniacal +possession are identical with hysteria, delirium, and mania, and +suchlike bodily and mental derangements.' Dr. Nevius, however, gave what +he conceived to be the notes of possession, and, in his diagnosis, +distinguished them from hysteria (whatever that may mean), delirium, and +mania. Nor can it honestly be denied that, if the special notes of +possession actually exist, they do mark quite a distinct species of mental +affection. Dr. Nevius then observed that, according to Mr. Tylor, +'scientific physicians now explain the facts on a different principle,' +but, says Dr. Nevius, 'we search in vain to discover what this principle +is.'[6] Dr. Nevius, who had the courage of his opinions, then consulted a +work styled 'Nervous Derangement,' by Dr. Hammond, a Professor in the +Medical School of the University of New York.[7] He found this scientific +physician admitting that we know very little about the matter. He knew, +what is very gratifying, that 'mind is the result of nervous action,' +and that so-called 'possession' is the result of 'material derangements of +the organs or functions of the system.' + +Dr. Nevius was ready to admit this latter doctrine in cases of idiocy, +insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria; but then, said he, these are not what I +call possession. The Chinese have names for all these maladies, 'which +they ascribe to physical causes,' but for possession they have a different +name. He expected Dr. Hammond to account for the abnormal conditions in +so-called possession, but 'he has hardly even attempted to do this.' Dr. +Nevius next perused the works of Dr. Griesinger, Dr. Baelz, Professor +William James, M. Ribot, and, generally, the literature of 'alternating +personality.' He found Mr. James professing his conviction that the +'alternating personality' (in popular phrase, the demon, or familiar +spirit) of Mrs. Piper knew a great deal about things which Mrs. Piper, in +her normal state, did not, and could not know. Thus, after consulting many +physicians, Dr. Nevius was none the better, and came back to his faith in +Diabolical Possession. He was therefore informed that he had written 'one +of the most extraordinarily perverted books of the present day' on the +evidence of 'transparent ghost stories'--which do not occur in his book. + +The attitude of Dr. Nevius cannot be called strictly scientific. Because +pathologists and psychologists are unable to explain, or give the _modus_ +of a set of phenomena, it does not follow that the devil, or a god, or a +ghost, is in it. + +But this, of course, was precisely the natural inference of savages. + +Dr. Nevius catalogues the symptoms of possession thus: + +1. The automatic, persistent and consistent acting out of a new +personality, which calls himself _shieng_ (genius) and calls the patient +_hiang to_ (incense burner, 'medium'). + +2. Possession of knowledge and intellectual power not owned by the patient +(in his normal state), nor explainable on the pathological hypothesis. + +3. Complete change of moral character in the patient. + +Of these notes, the second would, of course, most confirm the savage +belief that a new intelligence had entered into the patient. If he +displayed knowledge of the future, or of the remote, the inference that a +novel and wiser intelligence had taken possession of the patient's body +would be, to the savage, irresistible. But the more cautious modern, _even +if he accepted the facts_, would be reduced to no such extreme conclusion. +He would say that knowledge of the remote in space, or in the past, might +be telepathically communicated to the brain of some living person; while, +for knowledge of the future, he could fly, with Hartmann, to contact with +the Absolute. + +But the question of evidence for the facts is, of course, the only real +question. Now, in Dr. Nevius's book, this evidence rests almost entirely +on the written reports of native Christian teachers, for the Chinese were +strictly reticent when questioned by Europeans. 'My heathen brother, you +have a sister who is a demoniac?' asks the intelligent European. The reply +of the heathen brother is best left in the obscurity of a remarkably +difficult and copious Oriental language. We are thus obliged to fall back +on the reports of Mr. Leng and other native Christian teachers. They are +perfectly modest and rational in style. We learn that Mrs. Sen, a lady in +her normal state incapable of lyrical efforts, lisped in numbers in her +secondary personality, and detected the circumstance that Mr. Leng was on +his way to see her, when she could not have learned the fact in any normal +way.[8] 'They are now crossing the stream, and will be here when the sun +is about so high;' which was correct. The other witnesses were examined, +and corroborated.[9] Dr. Nevius himself examined Mrs. Kwo, when possessed, +talking in verse, and, physically, limp.[10] + +The narratives are of this type; the patient, on recovering consciousness, +knows nothing of what has occurred; Christian prayers are often +efficacious, and there are many anecdotes of movements of objects +untouched.[11] + +By a happy accident, as this chapter was passing through the press, a +scientific account of a demoniac and his cure was published by Dr. Pierre +Janet.[12] Dr. Janet has explained, with complete success, everything in +the matter of possession, except the facts which, in the opinion of Dr. +Nevius, were in need of explanation. These facts did not occur in the case +of the demoniac 'exorcised' by Dr. Janet. Thus the learned essay of that +eminent authority would not have satisfied Dr. Nevius. The facts in which +he was interested did not present themselves in Dr. Janet's patient, and +so Dr. Janet does not explain them. + +The simplest plan, here, is to deny that the facts in which Dr. Nevius +believes ever present themselves at all; but, if they ever do, Dr. Janet's +explanation does not explain them. + +1. His patient, Achille, did _not_ act out a new personality. + +2. Achille displayed _no_ knowledge or intellectual power which he did not +possess in his normal state. + +3. His moral character was _not_ completely changed; he was only more +hypochondriacal and hysterical than usual. + +Achille was a poor devil of a French tradesman who, like Captain Booth, +had infringed the laws of strict chastity and virtue. He brooded on this +till he became deranged, and thought that Satan had him. He was convulsed, +anaesthetic, suicidal, involuntarily blasphemous. He was not 'exorcised' +by a prayer or by a command, but after a long course of mental and +physical treatment. His cure does not explain the cures in which Dr. +Nevius believed. His case did not present the features of which Dr. +Nevius asked science for an explanation. Dr. Janet's essay is the +_dernier cri_ of science, and leaves Dr. Nevius just where it found him. + +Science, therefore, can, and does, tell Dr. Nevius that his evidence for +his facts is worthless, through the lips of Professor W. Romaine Newbold, +in 'Proceedings, S.P.R.,' February 1898 (pp. 602-604). And the same +number of the same periodical shows us Dr. Hodgson accepting facts similar +to those of Dr. Nevius, and explaining them by--possession! (p. 406). + +Dr. Nevius's observations practically cover the whole field of +'possession' in non-European peoples. But other examples from other areas +are here included. + +A rather impressive example of possession may be selected from +Livingstone's 'Missionary Travels' (p. 86). The adventurous Sebituane was +harried by the Matabele in a new land of his choice. He thought of +descending the Zambesi till he was in touch with white men; but Tlapáne, +'who held intercourse with gods,' turned his face west-wards. Tlapáne used +to retire, 'perhaps into some cave, to remain in a hypnotic or mesmeric +state' until the moon was full. Then he would return _en prophète_. +'Stamping, leaping, and shouting in a peculiarly violent manner, or +beating the ground with a club' (to summon those under earth), 'they +induce a kind of fit, and while in it pretend that their utterances are +unknown to themselves,' as they probably are, when the condition is +genuine. Tlapáne, after inducing the 'possessed' state, pointed east: +'There, Sebituane, I behold a fire; shun it, it may scorch thee. The gods +say, Go not thither!' Then, pointing west, he said, 'I see a city and a +nation of black men, men of the water, their cattle are red, thine own +tribe are perishing, thou wilt govern black men, spare thy future tribe.' + +So far, mere advice; then, + +'Thou, Ramosinii, thy village will perish utterly. If Mokari moves first +from the village, he will perish first; and thou, Ramosinii, wilt be the +last to die.' + +Then, + + 'Like some bold seer in a trance, + Seeing all his own mischance,' + + 'The gods have given other men water to drink, but to me they have given + bitter water. They call me away. I go.'[13] + +Tlapáne died, Mokari died, Ramosinii died, their village was destroyed +soon after, and so Sebituane wandered westward, not disobedient to the +voice, was attacked by the Baloiana, conquered, and spared them. + +Such is 'possession' among savages. It is superfluous to multiply +instances of this world-wide belief, so freely illustrated in the New +Testament, and in trials for witchcraft. The scientific study of the +phenomena, as Littré complained, 'had hardly been sketched' forty years +ago. In the intervening years, psychologists and hypnotists have devoted +much attention to the theme of these 'secondary personalities,' which +Animism explains by the theory of possession. The explanations of modern +philosophers differ, and it is not our business to discuss their +physiological and pathological ideas.[14] Our affair is to ask whether, in +the field of experience, there is any evidence that persons thus +'possessed' really evince knowledge which they could not have acquired +through normal channels? If such evidence exists, the facts would +naturally strengthen the conviction that the possessed person was inspired +by an intelligence not his own, that is, by a spirit. Now it is the firm +conviction of several men of science that a certain Mrs. Piper, an +American, does display, in her possessed condition, knowledge which +she could not normally acquire. The case of this lady is precisely on a +level with that of certain savage or barbaric seers. Thus: 'The Fijian +priest sits looking steadily at a whale's tooth ornament, amid dead +silence. In a few minutes he trembles, slight twitchings of face and limbs +come on, which increase to strong convulsions.... Now the god has +entered.'[15] + +In China, 'the professional woman sits at a table in contemplation, till +the soul of a deceased person from whom communication is desired enters +her body and talks through her to the living....'[16] + +The latter account exactly describes Mrs. Piper. When consulted she passes +through convulsions into a trance, after which she talks in a new voice, +assumes a fresh personality, and affects to be possessed by the spirit of +a French doctor (who does not know French)--Dr. Phinuit. She then displays +a varying amount of knowledge of dead and living people connected with her +clients, who are usually strangers, often introduced under feigned names. +Mrs. Piper and her husband have been watched by detectives, and have not +been discovered in any attempts to procure information. She was for some +months in England under the charge of the S.P.R. Other ghosts, besides +Dr. Phinuit, ghosts more civilised than he, now influence her, and her +latest performances are said to exceed her former efforts.[17] + +Volumes of evidence about Mrs. Piper have been published by Dr. Hodgson, +who unmasked Madame Blavatsky and Eusapia Paladino.[18] He was at first +convinced that Mrs. Piper, in her condition of trance, obtains knowledge +not otherwise and normally accessible to her. It was admitted that her +familiar spirit guesses, attempts to extract information from the people +who sit with her, and tries sophistically to conceal his failures. Here +follow the statements of Professor James of Harvard. + +'The most convincing things said about my own immediate household were +either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortunately the former things +cannot well be published. Of the trivial things I have forgotten the +greater number, but the following, _rarae nantes_, may serve as samples +of their class. She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a +waistcoat. (She wrongly accused a person of stealing the rug, which was +afterwards found in the house.) She told of my killing a grey-and-white +cat with ether, and described how it had "spun round and round" before +dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife, +warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing +criticism, full of _traits vifs_, of the excellent woman's character. +(Of course, no one but my wife and I knew the existence of the letter in +question.) She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking +advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain +"tantrums" of our second child--"little Billy-boy," as she called him, +reproducing his nursery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how +a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard +footsteps on a stair, &c. &c. Insignificant as these things sound when +read, the accumulation of them has an irresistible effect; and I repeat +again what I said before, that, taking everything that I know of Mrs. +Piper into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as +I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her +trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, and that +the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be found. The +limitations of her trance information, its discontinuity and fitfulness, +and its apparent inability to develop beyond a certain point, although +they end by arousing one's moral and human impatience with the phenomenon, +yet are, from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting +peculiarities, since where there are limits there are conditions, and the +discovery of them is always the beginning of an explanation. + +'This is all I cam tell you of Mrs. Piper. I wish it were more +"scientific." But _valcat quantum!_ it is the best I can do.' + +Elsewhere Mr. James writes: + +'Mr. Hodgson and others have made prolonged study of this lady's trances, +and are all convinced that supernormal powers of cognition are displayed +therein. They are, _prima facie_, due to "spirit control." But the +conditions are so complex that a dogmatic decision either for or against +the hypothesis must as yet be postponed.'[19] + +Again-- + +'In the trances of this medium I cannot resist the conviction that +knowledge appears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of +her eyes, ears, and wits. + +'The trances have broken down, for my own mind, the limits of the admitted +order of nature.' + +M. Paul Bourget (who is not superstitious), after consulting Mrs. Piper, +concludes: + +'L'esprit a des procédés de connaître non soupçonnés par notre +analyse.'[20] + +In this treatise I may have shown 'the will to believe' in an unusual +degree; but, for me, the interest of Mrs. Piper is purely anthropological. +She exhibits a survival or recrudescence of savage phenomena, real or +feigned, of convulsion and of secondary personality, and entertains a +survival of the animistic explanation. + +Mrs. Piper's honesty and excellent character, in her normal condition, are +vouched for by her friends and observers in England and America; nor do I +impeach her normal character. But 'secondary personalities' have often +more of Mr. Hyde than of Dr. Jekyll in their composition. It used to be +admitted that, when 'possessed,' Mrs. Piper would cheat when she +could--that is to say, she would make guesses, try to worm information out +of her sitter, describe a friend of his, alive or dead, as 'Ed.,' who may +be Edgar, Edmund, Edward, Edith, or anybody. She would shuffle, and repeat +what she had picked up in a former sitting with the same person; and the +vast majority of her answers started from vague references to probable +facts (as that an elderly man is an orphan), and so worked on to more +precise statements. Professor Macalister wrote: + +'She is quite wide-awake enough all through to profit by suggestions. I +let her see a blotch of ink on my finger, and she said that I was a +writer.... Except the guess about my sister Helen, who is alive, there was +not a single guess which was nearly right. Mrs. Piper is not anaesthetic +during the so-called trance, and if you ask my private opinion, it is that +the whole thing is an imposture, and a poor one.'[21] + +Mr. Barkworth said that, as far as his experience went, 'Mrs. Piper's +powers are of the ordinary thought-reading [i.e. muscle-reading] kind, +dependent on her hold of the visitor's hand.' Each of these gentlemen had +only one 'sitting.' M. Paul Bourget also informed me, in conversation, +that Mrs. Piper held his hand while she told the melancholy tale connected +with a key in his possession, and that she did not tell the story promptly +and fluently, but very slowly and hesitatingly. Even so, he declared that +he did not feel able to account for her performance. + +As these pages were passing through the press, Dr. Hodgson's last report +on Mrs. Piper was published.[22] It is quite impossible, within the space +allotted, to criticise this work. It would be necessary to examine +minutely scores of statements, in which many facts are suppressed as too +intimate, while others are remarkably incoherent. Dr. Hodgson deserves the +praise of extraordinary patience and industry, displayed in the very +distasteful task of watching an unfortunate lady in the vagaries of +'trance.' His reasonings are perfectly calm, perfectly unimpassioned, and +his bias has not hitherto seemed to make for credulity. We must, in fact, +regard him as an expert in this branch of psychology. But he himself makes +it clear that, in his opinion, no written reports can convey the +impressions produced by several years of personal experience. The results +of that experience he sums up in these words: + +'At the present time I cannot profess to have any doubt but that the chief +"communicators" to whom I have referred in the foregoing pages are +veritably the personalities that they claim to be, that they have survived +the change we call death, and that they have directly communicated with +us, whom we call living, through Mrs. Piper's entranced organism.'[23] + +This means that Dr. Hodgson, at present, in this case, accepts the +hypothesis of 'possession' as understood by Maoris and Fijians, Chinese +and Karens. + +The published reports do not produce on me any such impression. As a +personal matter of opinion, I am convinced that those whom I have honoured +in this life would no more avail themselves of Mrs. Piper's 'entranced +organism' (if they had the chance) than I would voluntarily find myself in +a 'sitting' with that lady. It is unnecessary to wax eloquent on this +head; and the curious can consult the writings of Dr. Hodgson for +themselves. Meanwhile we have only to notice that an American 'possessed' +woman produces on a highly educated and sceptical modern intelligence +the same impression as the Zulu 'possessed' produce on some Zulu +intelligences. + +The Zulus admit 'possession' and divination, but are not the most +credulous of mankind. The ordinary possessed person is usually consulted +as to the disease of an absent patient. The inquirers do not assist the +diviner by holding his hand, but are expected to smite the ground +violently if the guess made by the diviner is right; gently if it is +wrong. A sceptical Zulu, named John, having a shilling to expend on +psychical research, smote violently at _every_ guess. The diviner was +hopelessly puzzled; John kept his shilling, and laid it out on a much more +meritorious exhibition of animated sticks.[24] + +Uguise gave Dr. Callaway an account of a female possessed person with +whom Mrs. Piper could not compete. Her spirit spoke, not from her mouth, +but from high in the roof. It gave forth a kind of questioning remarks +which were always correct. It then reported correctly a number of singular +circumstances, ordered some remedies for a diseased child, and offered to +return the fee, if ample satisfaction was not given.[25] + +In China and Zululand, as in Mrs. Piper's case, the spirits are fond of +diagnosing and prescribing for absent patients. + +A good example of savage possession is given in his travels by Captain +Jonathan Carver (1763). + +Carver was waiting impatiently for the arrival of traders with provisions, +near the Thousand Lakes. A priest, or jossakeed, offered to interview the +Great Spirit, and obtain information. A large lodge was arranged, and the +covering drawn up (which is unusual), so that what went on within might be +observed. In the centre was a chest-shaped arrangement of stakes, so far +apart from each other 'that whatever lay within them was readily to be +discerned.' The tent was illuminated 'by a great number of torches.' The +priest came in, and was first wrapped in an elk's skin, as Highland seers +were wrapped in a black bull's hide. Forty yards of rope made of elk's +hide were then coiled about him, till he 'was wound up like an Egyptian +mummy.' + +I have elsewhere shown[26] that this custom of binding with bonds the seer +who is to be inspired, existed in Graeco-Egyptian spiritualism, among +Samoyeds, Eskimo, Canadian Hareskin Indians, and among Australian blacks. + +'The head, body, and limbs are wound round with stringy bark cords.'[27] +This is an extraordinary range of diffusion of a ceremony apparently +meaningless. Is the idea that, by loosing the bonds, the seer demonstrates +the agency of spirits, after the manner of the Davenport Brothers?[28] But +the Graeco-Egyptian medium did _not_ undo the swathings of linen, in which +he was rolled, _like a mummy_. They had to be unswathed for him, by +others.[29] Again, a dead body, among the Australians, is corded up tight, +as soon as the breath is out of it, if it is to be buried, or before being +exposed on a platform, if that is the custom.[30] Again, in the Highlands +second-sight was thus acquired: the would-be seer 'must run a Tedder +(tether) of Hair, _which bound a corpse to the Bier_, about his Middle +from end to end,' and then look between his legs till he sees a funeral +cross two marches.[31] The Greenland seer is bound 'with his head between +his legs.'[32] + +Can it be possible, judging from Australia, Scotland, Egypt, that the +binding, as of a corpse or mummy, is a symbolical way of putting the seer +on a level with the dead, who will then communicate with him? In three +remote points, we find seer-binding and corpse-binding; but we need to +prove that corpses are, or have been, bound at the other points where the +seer is tied up--in a reindeer skin among the Samoyeds, an elk skin in +North America, a bull's hide in the Highlands. + +Binding the seer is not a universal Red Indian custom; it seems to cease +in Labrador, and elsewhere, southwards, where the prophet enters a magic +lodge, unbound. Among the Narquapees, he sits cross-legged, and the lodge +begins to answer questions by leaping about.[33] The Eskimo bounds, though +he is tied up. + +It would be decisive, if we could find that, wherever the sorcerer is +bound, the dead are bound also. I note the following examples, but the +Creeks do not, I think, bind the magician. + +Among the Creeks, + +'The corpse is placed in a hole, with a blanket wrapped about it, and the +legs bent under it _and tied together_.'[34] The dead Greenlanders were +'wrapped and sewed up in their best deer-skins.'[35] + +Carver could only learn that, among the Indians he knew, dead bodies were +'wrapped in skins;' that they were also swathed with cords he does not +allege, but he was not permitted to see all the ceremonies. + +My theory is, at least, plausible, for this manner of burying the dead, +tied tightly up, with the head between the legs (as in the practice of +Scottish and Greenland seers), is very old and widely diffused. Ellis +says, of the Tahitians, 'the body of the dead man was ... placed in a +sitting posture, with the knees elevated, _the face pressed down between +the knees_,... and the whole body tied with cord or cinet, wound repeatedly +round.'[36] + +The binding may originally have been meant to keep the corpse, or ghost, +from 'walking.' I do not know that Tahitian prophets were ever tied up, to +await inspiration. But I submit that the frequency of the savage form of +burial with the corpse tied up, or swathed, sometimes with the head +between the legs; and the recurrence of the savage practice of similarly +binding the sorcerer, probably points to a purpose of introducing the +seer to the society of the dead. The custom, as applied to prophets, might +survive, even where the burial rite had altered, or cannot be ascertained, +and might survive, for corpses, where it had gone out of use, for seers. +The Scotch used to justify their practice of putting the head between +the knees when, bound with a corpse's hair tether, they learned to +be second-sighted, by what Elijah did. The prophet, on the peak of +Carmel, 'cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his +knees.'[37] But the cases are not analogous. Elijah had been hearing a +premonitory 'sound of abundance of rain' in a cloudless sky. He was +probably engaged in prayer, not in prophecy. + +Kirk, by the way, notes that if the wind changes, while the Scottish seer +is bound, he is in peril of his life. So children are told, in Scotland, +that, if the wind changes while they are making faces, the grimace will be +permanent. The seer will, in the same way, become what he pretends to be, +a corpse. + +This desertion of Carver's tale may be pardoned for the curiosity of the +topic. He goes on: + +'Being thus bound up like an Egyptian mummy' (Carver unconsciously making +my point), 'the seer was lifted into the chest-like enclosure. I could now +also discern him as plain as I had ever done, and I took care not to turn +my eyes away a moment'--in which effort he probably failed. + +The priest now began to mutter, and finally spoke in a mixed jargon of +scarcely intelligible dialects. He now yelled, prayed, and foamed at the +mouth, till in about three quarters of an hour he was exhausted and +speechless. 'But in an instant he sprang upon his feet, notwithstanding at +the time he was put in it appeared impossible for him to move either his +legs or arms, and shaking off his covering, as quick as if the bands with +which it had been bound were burst asunder,' he prophesied. The Great +Spirit did not say when the traders would arrive, but, just after high +noon, next day, a canoe would arrive, and the people in it would tell when +the traders were to appear. + +Next day, just after high noon, a canoe came round a point of land about a +league away, and the men in it, who had met the traders, said they would +come in two days, which they did. Carver, professing freedom from any +tincture of credulity, leaves us 'to draw what conclusions we please.' + +The natural inference is 'private information,' about which the only +difficulty is that Carver, who knew the topography and the chances of a +secret messenger arriving to prompt the Jossakeed, does not allude to this +theory.[38] He seems to think such successes not uncommon. + +All that psychology can teach anthropology, on this whole topic of +'possession;' is that secondary or alternating personalities are facts +_in rerum natura_, that the man or woman in one personality may have no +conscious memory of what was done or said in the other, and that cases of +knowledge said to be supernormally gained in the secondary state are worth +inquiring about, if there be a chance of getting good evidence. + +A few fairly respectable savage instances are given in Dr. Gibier's 'Le +Fakirisme Occidental' and in Mr. Manning's 'Old New Zealand;' but, while +modern civilised parallels depend on the solitary case of Mrs. Piper (for +no other case has been well observed), no affirmative conclusion can be +drawn from Chinese, Maori, Zulu, or Red Indian practice. + +[Footnote 1: _Among the Zulus_, p. 120.] + +[Footnote 2:_ Burmah_, p. 107.] + +[Footnote 3: Hodgson, _Proceedings_, S.P.E., vol. xiii. pt. xxxiii. Dr. +Hodgson by no means agrees with this view of the case--the case of Mrs. +Piper.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 184.] + +[Footnote 5: Nevius's _Demon Possession in China_, a curious collection of +examples by an American missionary. The reports of Catholic missionaries +abound in cases.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. p. 169.] + +[Footnote 7: Putnam, 1881.] + +[Footnote 8: Nevius, p. 33.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. p. 35.] + +[Footnote 10: Op. cit. p. 38.] + +[Footnote 11: See 'Fetishism and Spiritualism.'] + +[Footnote 12: _Nécroses et Idées Fixes_. Alcan, Paris, 1898. This is the +first of a series of works connected with the Laboratoire de Psychologie, +at the Salpétritère, in Paris.] + +[Footnote 13: 'Macleod shall return, but Macrimmon shall never!'] + +[Footnote 14: See Ribot, _Les Maladies de la Personnalité,_; Bourru +et Burot, _Variations de la Personnalité_; Janet, _L'Automatisme +Psychologique_; James, _Principles of Psychology_; Myers, in _Proceedings_ +of S.P.R., 'The Mechanism of Genius,' 'The Subliminal Self.'] + +[Footnote 15: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 133.] + +[Footnote 16: Doolittle's _Chinese_, i. 143; ii. 110, 320.] + +[Footnote 17: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., pt. xxxiii.] + +[Footnote 18: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., vi. 436-650; viii. 1-167; xiii. +284-582]. + +[Footnote 19: _The Will to Believe_, p. 814.] + +[Footnote 20: _Figaro_, January 14, 1895.] + +[Footnote 21: _Proceedings_, vi. 605, 606.] + +[Footnote 22: _Proceedings_, S.P.R, part xxxiii. vol. xiii.] + +[Footnote 23: Op. cit. part xxxiii. p. 406.] + +[Footnote 24: See 'Fetishism.' Compare Callaway, p. 328.] + +[Footnote 25: Callaway, pp. 361-374.] + +[Footnote 26: _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, p. 66.] + +[Footnote 27: Brough Smyth, i. 475. This point is disputed, but I did not +invent it, and a case appears in Mr. Curr's work on the natives.] + +[Footnote 28: _Prim. Cult_. i. 152.] + +[Footnote 29: Eusebius, _Prap. Evang_. v. 9.] + +[Footnote 30: Brough Smyth, i. 100, 113.] + +[Footnote 31: Kirk, _Secret Commonwealth_ 1691.] + +[Footnote 32: Crantz, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 33: Père Arnaud, in Hind's _Labrador_, ii. 102.] + +[Footnote 34: Major Swan, 1791, official letter on the Creek Indians, +Schoolcraft, v. 270.] + +[Footnote 35: Crantz, p. 237.] + +[Footnote 36: _Polynesian Researches_, i. 519.] + +[Footnote 37: 1 Kings xviii. 42.] + +[Footnote 38: Carver, pp. 123, 184.] + + + + +VIII + +FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM + +It has been shown how the doctrine of souls was developed according to the +anthropological theory. The hypothesis as to how souls of the dead were +later elevated to the rank of gods, or supplied models after which such +gods might be inventively fashioned, will be criticised in a later +chapter. Here it must suffice to say that the conception of a separable +surviving soul of a dead man was not only not essential to the savage's +idea of his supreme god, as it seems to me, but would have been wholly +inconsistent with that conception. There exist, however, numerous forms of +savage religion in addition to the creed in a Supreme Being, and these +contribute their streams to the ocean of faith. Thus among the kinds of +belief which served in the development of Polytheism, was Fetishism, +itself an adaptation and extension of the idea of separable souls. In this +regard, like ancestor-worship, it differs from the belief in a Supreme +Being, which, as we shall try to demonstrate, is not derived from the +theory of ghosts or souls at all. + +_Fetish_ (_fétiche_) seems to come from Portuguese _feitiço_, a talisman +or amulet, applied by the Portuguese to various material objects +regarded by the negroes of the west coast with more or less of religious +reverence. These objects may be held sacred in some degree for a number of +incongruous reasons. They may be tokens, or may be of value in sympathetic +magic, or merely _odd_, and therefore probably endowed with unknown mystic +qualities. Or they may have been pointed out in a dream, or met in a +lucky hour and associated with good fortune, or they may (like a tree with +an unexplained stir in its branches, as reported by Kohl) have seemed to +show signs of life by spontaneous movements; in fact, a thing may be what +Europeans call a fetish for scores of reasons. For our present purpose, as +Mr. Tylor says, 'to class an object as a fetish demands explicit statement +that a spirit is considered as embodied in it, or acting through it, or +communicating by it, or, at least, that the people it belongs to do +habitually think this of such objects; or it must be shown that the object +is treated as having personal consciousness or power, is talked with, +worshipped...' and so forth. The in-dwelling spirit may be human, as when +a fetish is made out of a friend's skull, the spirit in which may even be +asked for oracles, like the Head of Bran in Welsh legend. + +We have tried to show that the belief in human souls may be, in part at +least, based on supernormal phenomena which Materialism disregards. We +shall now endeavour to make it probable that Fetishism (the belief in the +souls tenanting inanimate objects) may also have sources which perhaps are +not normal, or which at all events seemed supernormal to savages. We say +'perhaps not normal' because the phenomena now to be discussed are of the +most puzzling character. We may lean to the belief in a supernormal cause +of certain hallucinations, but the alleged movements of inanimate objects +which probably supply one origin of Fetishism, one suggestion of the +presence of a spirit in things dead, leave the inquiring mind in +perplexity. In following Mr. Tylor's discussion of the subject, it is +necessary to combine what he says about Spiritualism in his fourth with +what he says about Fetishism in his fourteenth and later chapters. For +some reason his book is so arranged that he criticises 'Spiritualism' +long before he puts forward his doctrine of the origin and development of +the belief in spirits. + +We have seen a savage reason for supposing that human spirits inhabit +certain lifeless things, such as skulls and other relics of the dead. But +how did it come to be thought that a spirit dwelt in a lifeless and +motionless piece of stone or stick? Mr. Tylor, perhaps, leads us to a +plausible conjecture by writing: 'Mr. Darwin saw two Malay women in +Keeling Island, who held a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll: +this spoon had been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming +inspired at full moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively, like +a table or a hat at a modern spirit séance.'[1] Now M. Lefébure has +pointed out (in 'Mélusine') that, according to De Brosses, the African +conjurers gave an appearance of independent motion to small objects, which +were then accepted as fetishes, being visibly animated. M. Lefébure +next compares, like Mr. Tylor, the alleged physical phenomena of +spiritualism, the flights and movements of inanimate objects apparently +untouched. + +The question thus arises, Is there any truth whatever in these world-wide +and world-old stories of inanimate objects acting like animated things? +Has fetishism one of its origins in the actual field of supernormal +experience in the X region? This question we do not propose to answer, +as the evidence, though practically universal, may be said to rest on +imposture and illusion. But we can, at least, give a sketch of the nature +of the evidence, beginning with that as to the apparently _voluntary_ +movements of objects, _not_ untouched. Mr. Tylor quotes from John Bell's +'Journey in Asia' (1719) an account of a Mongol Lama who wished to +discover certain stolen pieces of damask. His method was to sit on a +bench, when 'he carried it, or, as was commonly believed, it carried him, +to the very tent' of the thief. Here the bench is innocently believed to +be self-moving. Again, Mr. Rowley tells how in Manganjah the sorcerer, to +find out a criminal, placed, with magical ceremonies, two staffs of wood +in the hands of some young men. 'The sticks whirled and dragged the men +round like mad,' and finally escaped and rolled to the feet of the +wife of a chief, who was then denounced as the guilty person.[2] + +Mr. Duff Macdonald describes the same practice among the Yaos:[3] + +'The sorcerer occasionally makes men take hold of a stick, which, after a +time, begins to move as if endowed with life, and ultimately carries them +off bodily and with great speed to the house of the thief.' + +The process is just that of Jacques Aymard in the celebrated story of the +detection of the Lyons murderer.[4] + +In Melanesia, far enough away, Dr. Codrington found a similar practice, +and here the sticks are explicitly said by the natives to be moved by +_spirits_.[5] The wizard and a friend hold a bamboo stick by each end, and +ask what man's ghost is afflicting a patient. At the mention of the +right ghost 'the stick becomes violently agitated.' In the same way, the +bamboo 'would run about' with a man holding it only on the palms of his +hands. Again, a hut is built with a partition down the middle. Men sit +there with their hands _under_ one end of the bamboo, while the other end +is extended into the empty half of the hut. They then call over the names +of the recently dead, till 'they feel the bamboo moving in their hands.' A +bamboo placed on a sacred tree, 'when the name of a ghost is called, moves +of itself, and will lift and drag people about.' Put up into a tree, it +would lift them from the ground. In other cases the holding of the sticks +produces convulsions and trance.[6] The divining sticks of the Maori are +also 'guided by spirits,'[7] and those of the Zulu sorcerers rise, fall, +and jump about.[8] + +These Zulu performances must be really very curious. In the last chapter +we told how a Zulu named John, having a shilling to lay out in the +interests of psychical research, declined to pay a perplexed diviner, and +reserved his capital far a more meritorious performance. He tried a medium +named Unomantshintshi, who divined by Umabakula, or dancing sticks-- + +'If they say "no," they fall suddenly; if they say "yes," they arise and +jump about very much, and leap on the person who has come to inquire. They +"fix themselves on the place where the sick man is affected; ... if the +head, they leap on his head.... Many believe in Umabakula more than in the +diviner. But there are not many who have the Umabakula."' + +Dr. Callaway's informant only knew two Umabakulists, John was quite +satisfied, paid his shilling, and went home.[9] + +The sticks are about a foot long. It is not reported that they are moved +by spirits, nor do they seem to be regarded as fetishes. + +Mr. Tylor also cites a form of the familiar pendulum experiment. Among the +Karens a ring is suspended by a thread over a metal basin. The relations +of the dead strike the basin, and when he who was dearest to the ghost +touches it the spirit twists the thread till it breaks, and the ring falls +into the basin. With us a ring is held by a thread over a tumbler, and our +unconscious movements swing it till it strikes the hour. How the Karens +manage it is less obvious. These savage devices with animated sticks +clearly correspond to the more modern 'table-turning.' Here, when the +players are honest, the pushing is certainly _unconscious_. + +I have tested this in two ways--first by trying the minimum of _conscious_ +muscular action that would stir a table at which I was alone, and by +comparing the absolute unconsciousness of muscular action when the table +began to move in response to no _voluntary_ push. Again, I tried with a +friend, who said, 'You are pushing,' when I gently removed my hands +altogether, though they seemed to rest on the table, which still revolved. +My friend was himself unconsciously pushing. It is undeniable that, to +a solitary experimenter, the table _seems_ to make little darts of its own +will in a curious way. Thus, the unconsciousness of muscular action on the +part of savages engaged in the experiment with sticks would lead them to +believe that spirits were animating the wood. The same fallacy beset the +table-turners of 1855-65, and was, to some extent, exposed by Faraday. +Of course, savages would be even more convinced by the dancing spoon of +Mr. Darwin's tale, by the dancing sticks of the Zulus, and the rest, +whether the phenomena were supernormal or merely worked by unseen strings. +The same remark applies to modern experimenters, when, as they declare, +various objects move untouched, without physical contact. + +Still more analogous than turning tables to the savage use of inspired +sticks for directing the inquirer to a lost object or to a criminal, is +the modern employment of the divining-rod--a forked twig which, held by +the ends, revolves in the hands of the performer when he reaches the +object of his quest. He, like the savage cited, is occasionally agitated +in a convulsive manner; and cases are quoted in which the twig writhes +when held in a pair of tongs! The best-known modern treatise on the +divining-rod is that of M. Chevreul, 'La Baguette Divinatoire' (1854). We +have also 'L'Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes,' by M. +Figuier (1860). In 1781 Thouvenel published his 600 experiments with +Bleton and others; and Hegel refers to Amoretti's collection of hundreds +of cases. The case of Jacques Aymard, who in the seventeenth century +discovered a murderer by the use of the rod in true savage fashion, is +well known. In modern England the rod is used in the interests of private +individuals and public bodies (such as Trinity College, Cambridge) for the +discovery of water. + +Professor Barrett has lately published a book of 280 pages, in which +evidence of failures and successes is collected.[10] Professor Barrett +gives about one hundred and fifty cases, in which he was only able to +discover, on good authority, twelve failures. He gives a variety of tests +calculated to check frauds and chance coincidence, and he publishes +opinions, hostile or agnostic, by geologists. The evidence, as a general +rule, is what is called first-hand in other inquiries. The actual +spectators, and often the owners of the land, or the persons in whose +interest water was wanted, having been present, give their testimony; and +it is certain that the 'diviner' is called in by people of sense and +education, commonly too practical to have a theory, and content with +getting what they want, especially where scientific experts have +failed.[11] + +In Mr. Barrett's opinion, the subconscious perception of indications of +the presence of water produces an equally unconscious muscular 'spasm,' +which twirls the rod till it often breaks. Yet 'it is almost impossible to +imitate its characteristic movement by any voluntary effort.' I have +myself held the hands of an amateur performer when the twig was moving, +and neither by sight nor touch could I detect any muscular movement on his +part, much less a spasm. The person was bailiff on a large estate, and, +having accidentally discovered that he possessed the gift, used it when he +wanted wells dug for the tenants on the property. + +The whole topic is obscure; nor am I concerned here with the successes or +failures of the divining-rod. But the movements of the twig have never, to +my knowledge, been attributed by modern English performers to the +operation of spirits. They say 'electricity.' Mr. Tylor merely writes: + +'The action of the famous divining-rod, with its curiously versatile +sensibility to water, ore, treasure, and thieves, seems to belong partly +to trickery and partly to more or less conscious direction by honester +operators.' + +As the divining-rod is the only instance in which automatism, whatever its +nature and causes, has been found of practical value by practical men, and +as it is obviously associated with a number of analogous phenomena, both +in civilised and savage life, it certainly deserves the attention of +science. But no advance will be made till scientifically trained inquirers +themselves arrange and test a large number of experiments. Knowledge of +the geological ignorance of the dowsers, examples of fraud on their part, +and cases of failure or reported failure, with a general hostile bias, may +prevent such experiments from being made by scientific experts on an +adequate scale. Such experts ought, of course, to avoid working the +dowsers into a state of irritation. + +It is just worth while to notice cases in which the rod acts like those of +the Melanesians, Africans, and other savages. A Mr. Thomas Welton +published an English translation of 'La Verge de Jacob' (Lyon, 1693). In +1651 he asked his servant to bring into the garden 'a stick that stood +behind the parlour door. In great terror she brought it to the garden, her +hand firmly clutched on it, nor could she let it go.' When Mrs. Welton +took the stick, 'it drew her with very considerable velocity to nearly the +centre of the garden,' where a well was found. Mr. Welton is not likely to +have known of the lately published savage examples. The coincidence with +the African and Melanesian cases is, therefore, probably undesigned. + +Again, in 1694, the rod was used by le Père Menestrier and others, just as +it is by savages, to indicate by its movements answers to all sorts of +questions. Experiments of this kind have not been made by Professor +Barrett, and other modern inquirers, except by M. Richet, as a mode of +detecting automatic action. But it would be just as sensible to use the +twig as to use planchette or any other 'autoscopic' apparatus. If these +elicit knowledge unconsciously present to the mind, mere water-finding +ought not to be the sole province of the rod. In the same class as +these rods is the forked twig which, in China, is held at each end by +two persons, and made to write in the sand. The little apparatus called +_planchette_, or the other, the _ouija_, is of course, consciously or +unconsciously, pushed by the performers. In the case of the twig, as held +by water-seekers, the difficulty of consciously moving it so as to +escape close observation is considerable. + +In the case of the _ouija_ (a little tripod, which, under the operators' +hands, runs about a table inscribed with letters at which it points), I +have known curious successes to be achieved by amateurs. Thus, in the +house of a lady who owned an old _château_ in another county, the _ouija_, +operated on by two ladies known to myself, wrote a number of details about +a visit paid to the _château_ for a certain purpose by Mary Stuart. That +visit, and its object, a purely personal one, are unknown to history, and +the _château_ is not spoken of in Mr. Hay Fleming's careful, but +unavoidably incomplete, itinerary of the Queen's residence in Scotland. +After the communication had been made, the owner of the _château_ +explained that she was already acquainted with the circumstances +described, as she had recently read them in documents in her charter +chest, where they remain. + +Of course, the belief we extend to such narratives is entirely conditioned +by our knowledge of the personal character of the performers. The point +here is merely the civilised and savage practice of _automatism_, the +apparent eliciting of knowledge not otherwise accessible, by the +movements of a stick, or a bit of wood. These movements, made without +conscious exertion or direction, seem, to savage philosophy, to be caused +by in-dwelling spirits, the sources of Fetishism. + +These examples, then, demonstrating unconscious movement of objects by the +operators, make it clear that movements even of touched objects, may be +attributed, by some civilised and by savage amateurs, to 'spirits.' The +objects so moved may, by savages, be regarded in some cases as fetishes, +and their movements may have helped to originate the belief that spirits +can inhabit inanimate objects. When objects apparently quite untouched +become volatile, the mystery is deeper. This apparent animation and +frolicsome behaviour of inanimate objects is reported all through history, +and attested by immense quantities of evidence of every degree. It would +be tedious to give a full account of the antiquity and diffusion of reports +about such occurrences. We find them among Neo-Platonists, in the English +and Continental Middle Ages, among Eskimo, Hurons, Algonkins, Tartars, +Zulus, Malays, Nasquapees, Maoris, in witch trials, in ancient Peru +(immediately after the Spanish Conquest), in China, in modern Russia, in +New England (1680), all through the career of modern spiritualism, in +Hayti (where they are attributed to 'Obeah'), and, sporadically, +everywhere.[12] + +Among all these cases, we must dismiss whatever the modern paid medium +does in the dark. The only thing to be done with the ethnographic and +modern accounts of such marvels is to 'file them for reference.' If a +spontaneous example occurs, under proper inspection, we can then compare +our old tales. Professor James says: 'Their mutual resemblances suggest a +natural type, and I confess that till these records, or others like them, +are positively explained away, I cannot feel (in spite of such vast +amounts of detected frauds) as if the case of physical mediumship itself, +as a freak of nature, were definitely closed.... So long as the stories +multiply in various lands, and so few are positively explained away, it is +bad method to ignore them.'[13] Here they are not ignored, because, +whatever the cause or causes of the phenomena, they would buttress, if +they did not originate, the savage belief in spirits tenanting inanimate +matter, whence came Fetishism. As to facts, we cannot, of course, 'explain +away' events of this kind, which we know only through report. A conjurer +cannot explain a trick merely from a description, especially a description +by a non-conjurer. But, as a rule, nothing so much leads to doubt on this +theme as the 'explanation' given--except, of course, in the case of 'dark +séances' got up and prepared by paid mediums. We know, sometimes, how the +'explanation' arose. + +Thus, the house of a certain M. Zoller, a lawyer and member of the Swiss +Federal Council, a house at Stans, in Unterwalden, was made simply +uninhabitable in 1860-1862. The disturbances, including movements of +objects, were of a truly odious description, and occurred in full +daylight. M. Zoller, deeply attached to his home, which had many +interesting associations with the part his family played in the struggle +against revolutionary France, was obliged to abandon the place. He had +made every conceivable sort of research, and had called in the local +police and _savants_, to no purpose. + +But the affair was explained away thus: While the phenomena could still be +concealed from public curiosity, a client called to see M. Zoller, who was +out. The client, therefore, remained in the drawing-room. Loud and heavy +blows resounded through the room. The client, as it chanced, had once felt +the effects of an electric battery, for some medical reason, apparently. +M. Zoller writes: 'My eldest son was present at the time, and, when my +client asked whether there was such a thing as an electrical machine in +the house (the family having been enjoined to keep the disturbances as +secret as possible), he allowed S. to think that there was.' Consequently, +the phenomena were set down to M. Zoller's singular idea of making +his house untenantable with an 'electric machine'--which he did not +possess.[14] A number of the most respected citizens, including the +Superintendent of Police, and the chief magistrate for law, published a +statement that neither Zoller, nor any of his family, nor any of +themselves, produced or could have produced the phenomena witnessed by +them in August 1862. This declaration they put forth in the 'Schwytzer +Zeitung,' October 5, 1863.[15] No electric machine known to mortals +could have produced the vast variety of alleged effects, none was ever +found; and as M. Zoller changed his servants without escaping his +tribulations, they can hardly be blamed for what, _prima facie_, it seems +that they could not possibly do. However, 'electricity,' like Mesopotamia, +is 'a blessed word.'[16] + +My own position in this matter of 'physical phenomena' is, I hope, clear. +They interest me, for my present purpose, as being, whatever their real +nature and origin, things which would suggest to a savage his theory of +Fetishism. 'An inanimate object may be tenanted by a spirit, as is proved +by its extraordinary movements.' Thus the early thinker might reason, and +go on to revere the object. It is to be wished that competent observers +would pay more attention to such savage practices as crystal-gazing and +automatism as illustrated by the sticks of the Melanesians, Zulus, and +Yaos. Our scanty information we pick up out of stray allusions, but +it has the advantage of being uncontaminated by theory, the European +spectator not knowing the wide range of such practices and their value in +experimental psychology. + +We have now finished our study of the less normal and usual phenomena, +which gave rise to belief in separable, self-existing, conscious, and +powerful souls. We have shown that the supernormal factors which, when +reflected on, probably supported this belief, are represented in civilised +as well as in savage life, while as to their existence among the founders +of religion we can historically know nothing at all. If we may infer from +certain considerations, the supernormal experiences were possibly more +prevalent among the remote ancestors of known savage races than among +their modern descendants. We have suggested that clairvoyance, thought +transference, and telepathy cannot be dismissed as mere fables, by a +cautious inquirer, while even the far more obscure stories of 'physical +manifestations' are but poorly explained away by those who cannot explain +them.[17] Again, these faculties have presented--in the acquisition of +otherwise unattainable knowledge, in coincidental hallucinations, and in +other ways--just the kind of facts on which the savage doctrine of souls +might be based, or by which it might be buttressed. Thus, while the +actuality of the supernormal facts and faculties remains at least an open +question, the prevalent theory of Materialism cannot be admitted as +dogmatically certain in its present shape. No more than any other theory, +nay, less than some other theories, can it account for the psychical facts +which, at the lowest, we may not honestly leave out of the reckoning. + +We have therefore no more to say about the supernormal aspects of the +origins of religion. We are henceforth concerned with matters of +verifiable belief and practice. We have to ask whether, when once the +doctrine of souls was conceived by early men, it took precisely the course +of development usually indicated by anthropological science. + +[Footnote 1: Darwin, _Journal_, p. 458; Tylor, _Prim. Cult_. ii. 152. The +spoon was not untouched.] + +[Footnote 2: Rowley, _Universities' Mission_, p. 217.] + +[Footnote 3: _Africana_, vol. i. p. 161.] + +[Footnote 4: In the author's _Custom and Myth_, 'The Divining Rod.'] + +[Footnote 5: Codrington's _Melanesia_, p. 210.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. pp. 229-325.] + +[Footnote 7: _Prim. Cult_. vol. i. p. 125.] + +[Footnote 8: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 330.] + +[Footnote 9: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 368.] + +[Footnote 10: _The So-called Divining-Rod_, S.P.R. 1897.] + +[Footnote 11: See especially _The Waterford Experiments_, p. 106.] + +[Footnote 12: Authorities and examples are collected in the author's _Cock +Lane and Common Sense_.] + +[Footnote 13: _Proceedings_, xii. 7, 8.] + +[Footnote 14: _Personal Narrative_, by M. Zoller. Hanke, Zurich, 1863.] + +[Footnote 15: Daumer, _Reich des Wundersamen_, Regensburg, 1872, +pp. 265, 266.] + +[Footnote 16: A criticism of modern explanations of the phenomena here +touched upon will be found in Appendix B.] + +[Footnote 17: See Appendix B.] + + + + +IX + +EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD + +To the anthropological philosopher 'a plain man' would naturally put the +question: 'Having got your idea of spirit or soul--your theory of +Animism--out of the idea of ghosts, and having got your idea of ghosts out +of dreams and visions, how do you get at the Idea of God?' Now by 'God' +the proverbial 'plain man' of controversy means a primal eternal Being, +author of all things, the father and friend of man, the invisible, +omniscient guardian of morality. + +The usual though not invariable reply of the anthropologist might be given +in the words of Mr. Im Thurn, author of a most interesting work on the +Indians of British Guiana: + +'From the notion of ghosts,' says Mr. Im Thurn, 'a belief has arisen, but +very gradually, in higher spirits, and eventually in a Highest Spirit, +and, keeping pace with the growth of these beliefs, a habit of reverence +for, and worship of spirits.... The Indians of Guiana know no God.'[1] + +As another example of Mr. Im Thurn's hypothesis that God is a late +development from the idea of spirit may be cited Mr. Payne's learned +'History of the New World,' a work of much research:[2] + +'The lowest savages not only have no gods, but do not even recognise those +lower beings usually called spirits, the conception of which has +invariably preceded that of gods in the human mind.' + +Mr. Payne here differs, _toto caelo_, from Mr. Tylor, who finds no +sufficient proof for wholly non-religious savages, and from Roskoff, who +has disposed of the arguments of Sir John Lubbock. Mr. Payne, then, for +ethnological purposes, defines a god as 'a benevolent spirit, permanently +embodied in some tangible object, usually an image, and to whom food, +drink,' and so on, 'are regularly offered for the purpose of securing +assistance in the affairs of life.' + +On this theory 'the lowest savages' are devoid of the idea of god or of +spirit. Later they develop the idea of spirit, and when they have secured +the spirit, as it were, in a tangible object, and kept it on board wages, +then the spirit has attained to the dignity and the savage to the +conception of a god. But while a god of this kind is, in Mr. Payne's +opinion, relatively a late flower of culture, for the hunting races +generally (with some exceptions) have no gods, yet 'the conception of a +creator or maker of all things ... obviously a great spirit' is 'one of +the earliest efforts of primitive logic.'[3] + +Mr. Payne's own logic is not very clear. The 'primitive logic' of the +savage leads him to seek for a cause or maker of things, which he finds in +a great creative spirit. Yet the lowest savages have no idea even of +spirit, and the hunting races, as a rule, have no god. Does Mr. Payne mean +that a great creative spirit is _not_ a god, while a spirit kept on board +wages in a tangible object is a god? We are unable, by reason of evidence +later to be given, to agree with Mr. Payne's view of the facts, while his +reasoning appears somewhat inconsistent, the lowest savages having, in his +opinion, no idea of spirit, though the idea of a creative spirit is, for +all that, one of the earliest efforts of primitive logic. + +On any such theories as these the belief in a moral Supreme Being is a +very late (or a very early?) result of evolution, due to the action of +advancing thought upon the original conception of ghosts. This opinion of +Mr. Im Thurn's is, roughly stated, the usual theory of anthropologists. +We wish, on the other hand, to show that the idea of God, as he is +conceived of by our inquiring plain man, is shadowed forth (among +contradictory fables) in the lowest-known grades of savagery, and +therefore cannot arise from the later speculation of men, comparatively +civilised and advanced, on the original datum of ghosts. We shall +demonstrate, contrary to the opinion of Mr. Spencer, Mr. Huxley, and even +Mr. Tylor, that the Supreme Being, and, in one case at least, the casual +sprites of savage faith, are active moral influences. What is even more +important, we shall make it undeniable that Anthropology has simplified +her problem by neglecting or ignoring her facts. While the real problem is +to account for the evolution out of ghosts of the eternal, creative moral +god of the 'plain man,' the germ of such a god or being in the creeds of +the lowest savages is by anthropologists denied, or left out of sight, or +accounted for by theories contradicted by facts, or, at best, is explained +away as a result of European or Islamite influences. Now, as the problem +is to account for the evolution of the highest conception of God, as far +as that conception exists among the most backward races, the problem can +never be solved while that highest conception of God is practically +ignored. + +Thus, anthropologists, as a rule, in place of facing and solving their +problem, have merely evaded it--doubtless unwittingly. This, of course, is +not the practice of Mr. Tylor, though even his great work is professedly +much more concerned with the development of the idea of spirit and with +the lower forms of animism than with the real crux--the evolution of the +idea (always obscured by mythology) of a moral, uncreated, undying God +among the lowest savages. This negligence of anthropologists has arisen +from a single circumstance. They take it for granted that God is always +(except where the word for God is applied to a living human being) +regarded as Spirit. Thus, having accounted for the development of the +idea of spirit, they regard God as that idea carried to its highest +power, and as the final step in its evolution. But, if we can show that +the early idea of an undying, moral, creative being does not necessarily +or logically imply the doctrine of spirit (or ghost), then this idea of an +eternal, moral, creative being may have existed even before the doctrine +of spirit was evolved. + +We may admit that Mr. Tylor's account of the process by which Gods were +evolved out of ghosts is a little _touffu_--rather buried in facts. We +'can scarcely see the wood for the trees.' We want to know how Gods, +makers of things (or of most things), fathers in heaven, and friends, +guardians of morality, seeing what is good or bad in the hearts of men, +were evolved, as is supposed, out of ghosts or surviving souls of the +dead. That such moral, practically omniscient Gods are known to the very +lowest savages--Bushmen, Fuegians, Australians--we shall demonstrate. + +Here the inquirer must be careful not to adopt the common opinion that +Gods improve, morally and otherwise, in direct ratio to the rising grades +in the evolution of culture and civilisation. That is not necessarily the +case; usually the reverse occurs. Still less must we take it for granted, +following Mr. Tylor and Mr. Huxley, that the 'alliance [of religion and +morality] belongs almost, or wholly, to religions above the savage +level--not to the earlier and lower creeds;' or that 'among the Australian +savages,' and 'in its simplest condition,' 'theology is wholly independent +of ethics.'[4] These statements can be proved (by such evidence as +anthropology is obliged to rely upon) to be erroneous. And, just because +these statements are put forward, Anthropology has an easier task in +explaining the origin of religion; while, just because these statements +are incorrect, her conclusion, being deduced from premises so far false, +is invalidated. + +Given souls, acquired by thinking on the lines already described, Mr. +Tylor develops Gods out of them. But he is not one of the writers who is +certain about every detail. He 'scarcely attempts to clear away the haze +that covers great parts of the subject.'[5] + +The human soul, he says, has been the model on which man 'framed his +ideas of spiritual beings in general, from the tiniest elf that sports +in the grass up to the heavenly creator and ruler of the world, the +Great Spirit.' Here it is taken for granted that the Heavenly Ruler was +from the first envisaged as a '_spiritual_ being'--which is just the +difficulty. Was He?[6] + +The process of framing these ideas is rather obscure. The savage 'lives +in terror of the souls of the dead as harmful spirits.' This might yield +a Devil; it would not yield a God who 'makes for righteousness.' +Happily, 'deified ancestors are regarded, on the whole, as kindly +spirits.' The dead ancestor is 'now passed into a deity.'[7] Examples of +ancestor-worship follow. But we are no nearer home. For among the Zulus +many Amatongo (ancestral spirits) are sacred. 'Yet their father +[i.e. the father of each actual family] is far before all others when +they worship the Amatongo.... They do not know the ancients who are dead, +nor their laud-giving names, nor their names.'[8] Thus, each new +generation of Zulus must have a new first worshipful object--its own +father's Itongo. This father, and his very name, are, in a generation or +two, forgotten. The name of such a man, therefore, cannot survive as that +of the God or Supreme Being from age to age; and, obviously, such a real +dead man, while known at all, is much too well known to be taken for the +creator and ruler of the world, despite some African flattering titles and +superstitions about kings who control the weather. The Zulus, about +as 'godless' a people as possible, have a mythical first ancestor, +Unkulunkulu, but he is 'beyond the reach of rites,' and is a centre of +myths rather than of worship or of moral ideas.[9] + +After other examples of ancestor-worship, Mr. Tylor branches off into a +long discussion of the theory of 'possession' or inspiration,[10] which +does not assist the argument at the present point. Thence he passes to +fetishism (already discussed by us), and the transitions from the +fetish--(1) to the idol; (2) to the guardian angel ('subliminal self'); +(3) to tree and river spirits, and local spirits which cause volcanoes; +and (4) to polytheism. A fetish may inhabit a tree; trees being +generalised, the fetish of one oak becomes the god of the forest. Or, +again, fetishes rise into 'species gods;' the gods of _all_ bees, owls, +or rabbits are thus evolved. + +Next,[11] + +'As chiefs and kings are among men, so are the great gods among the lesser +spirits.... With little exception, wherever a savage or barbaric system of +religion is thoroughly described, great gods make their appearance in the +spiritual world as distinctly as chiefs in the human tribe.' + +Very good; but whence comes the great God among tribes which have neither +chief nor king and probably never had, as among the Fuegians, Bushmen, and +Australians? The maker and ruler of the world known to _these_ races +cannot be the shadow of king or chief, reflected and magnified on the mist +of thought; for chief or king these peoples have none. This theory +(Hume's) will not work where people have a great God but no king or +chief; nor where they have a king but no Zeus or other supreme King-god, +as (I conceive) among the Aztecs. + +We now reach, in Mr. Tylor's theory, great fetish deities, such as Heaven +and Earth, Sun and Moon, and 'departmental deities,' gods of Agriculture, +War, and so forth, unknown to low savages. + +Next Mr. Tylor introduces an important personage. 'The theory of family +Manes, carried back to tribal Gods, leads to the recognition of superior +deities of the nature of Divine Ancestor, or First Man,' who sometimes +ranks as Lord of the Dead. As an instance, Mr. Tylor gives the Maori Maui, +who, like the Indian Yama, trod first of men the path of death. But +whether Maui and Yama are the Sun, or not, both Maori and Sanskrit +religion regard these heroes as much later than the Original Gods. In +Kamschatka the First Man is the 'son' of the Creator, and it is about the +origin of the idea of the Creator, not of the First Man, that we are +inquiring. Adam is called 'the son of God' in a Biblical genealogy, but, +of course, Adam was made, not begotten. The case of the Zulu belief will +be analysed later. On the whole, we cannot explain away the conception +of the Creator as a form of the conception of an idealised divine +First Ancestor, because the conception of a Creator occurs where +ancestor-worship does not occur; and again, because, supposing that the +idea of a Creator came first, and that ancestor-worship later grew more +popular, the popular idea of Ancestor might be transferred to the waning +idea of Creator. The Creator might be recognised as the First Ancestor, +_après coup_. + +Mr. Tylor next approaches Dualism, the idea of hostile Good and Bad +Beings. We must, as he says, be careful to discount European teaching, +still, he admits, the savage has this dualistic belief in a 'primitive' +form. But the savage conception is not merely that of 'good = friendly +to me,' 'bad = hostile to me.' Ethics, as we shall show, already come into +play in his theology. + +Mr. Tylor arrives, at last, at the Supreme Being of savage creeds. His +words, well weighed, must be cited textually-- + +'To mark off the doctrines of monotheism, closer definition is required +[than the bare idea of a Supreme Creator], assigning the distinctive +attributes of Deity to none save the Almighty Creator. It may be declared +that, in this strict sense, no savage tribe of monotheists has been ever +known.[12] Nor are any fair representatives of the lower culture in a +strict sense pantheists. The doctrine which they do widely hold, and +which opens to them a course tending in one or other of these directions, +is polytheism culminating in the rule of one supreme divinity. High above +the doctrine of souls, of divine Manes, of local nature gods, of the great +gods of class and element, there are to be discerned in barbaric theology, +shadowings, quaint or majestic, of the conception of a Supreme Deity, +henceforth to be traced onward in expanding power and brightening glory +along the history of Religion. It is no unimportant task, partial as it +is, to select and group the typical data which show the nature and +position of the doctrine of supremacy, as it comes into view within the +lower culture.[13] + +We shall show that certain low savages are as monotheistic as some +Christians. They have a Supreme Being, and the 'distinctive attributes of +Deity' are not by them assigned to other beings, further than as +Christianity assigns them to Angels, Saints, the Devil, and, strange as +it appears, among savages, to mediating 'Sons.' + +It is not known that, among the Andamanese and other tribes, this last +notion is due to missionary influence. But, in regard to the whole chapter +of savage Supreme Beings, we must, as Mr. Tylor advises, keep watching for +Christian and Islamite contamination. The savage notions, as Mr. Tylor +says, even when thus contaminated, may have 'to some extent, a native +substratum.' We shall select such savage examples of the idea of a +Supreme Being as are attested by ancient native hymns, or are inculcated +in the most sacred and secret savage institutions, the religious Mysteries +(manifestly the last things to be touched by missionary influence), or are +found among low insular races defended from European contact by the +jealous ferocity and poisonous jungles of people and soil. We also note +cases in which missionaries found such native names as 'Father,' 'Ancient +of Heaven,' 'Maker of All,' ready-made to their hands. + +It is to be remarked that, while this branch of the inquiry is practically +omitted by Mr. Spencer, Mr. Tylor can spare for it but some twenty pages +out of his large work. He arranges the probable germs of the savage +idea of a Supreme Being thus: A god of the polytheistic crowd is simply +raised to the primacy, which, of course, cannot occur where there is no +polytheism. Or the principle of Manes worship may make a Supreme Deity +out of 'a primeval ancestor' say Unkulunkulu, who is so far from being +supreme, that he is abject. Or, again, a great phenomenon or force in +Nature-worship, say Sun, or Heaven, is raised to supremacy. Or speculative +philosophy ascends from the Many to the One by trying to discern through +and beyond the universe a First Cause. Animistic conceptions thus reach +their utmost limit in the notion of the Anima Mundi. He may accumulate all +powers of all polytheistic gods, or he may 'loom vast, shadowy, and +calm ... too benevolent to need human worship ... too merely existent to +concern himself with the petty race of men.'[14] But he is always +animistic. + +Now, in addition to the objections already noted in passing, how can we +tell that the Supreme Being of low savages was, in original conception, +_animistic_ at all? How can we know that he was envisaged, originally, as +_Spirit_? We shall show that he probably was not, that the question +'spirit or not spirit' was not raised at all, that the Maker and Father in +Heaven, prior to Death, was merely regarded as a deathless _Being_, no +question of 'spirit' being raised. If so, Animism was not needed for +the earliest idea of a moral Eternal. This hypothesis will be found to +lead to some very singular conclusions. + +It will be more fully stated and illustrated, presently, but I find that +it had already occurred to Dr. Brinton.[15] He is talking specially of a +heaven-god; he says 'it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to +the heavens _long ere man asked himself, Are the heavens material and God +spiritual_?' Dr. Brinton, however, does not develop his idea, nor am I +aware that it has been developed previously. + +The notion of a God about whose spirituality nobody has inquired is new to +us. To ourselves, and doubtless or probably to barbarians on a certain +level of culture, such a Divine Being _must_ be animistic, _must_ be a +'spirit.' To take only one case, to which we shall return, the Banks +Islanders (Melanesia) believe in ghosts, 'and in the existence of Beings +who were not, and never had been, human. All alike might be called +spirits,' says Dr. Codrington, but, _ex hypothesi_, the Beings 'who +never were human' are only called 'spirits,' by us, because our habits of +thought do not enable us to envisage them _except_ as 'spirits.' They +never were men, 'the natives will always maintain that he (the _Vui_) was +_something different_, and deny to him the fleshly body of a man,' while +resolute that he was not a ghost.[16] + +This point will be amply illustrated later, as we study that strangely +neglected chapter, that essential chapter, the Higher beliefs of the +Lowest savages. Of the existence of a belief in a Supreme Being, not as +merely 'alleged,' there is as good evidence as we possess for any fact in +the ethnographic region. + +It is certain that savages, when first approached by curious travellers, +and missionaries, have again and again recognised our God in theirs. + +The mythical details and fables about the savage God are, indeed, +different; the ethical, benevolent, admonishing, rewarding, and creative +aspects of the Gods are apt to be the same.[17] + +'There is no necessity for beginning to tell even the most degraded of +these people of the existence of God, or of a future state, 'the facts +being universally admitted.'[18] + +'Intelligent men among the Bakwains have scouted the idea of any of them +ever having been without a tolerably clear conception of good and evil, +God and the future state; Nothing we indicate as sin ever appeared to +them as otherwise,' except polygamy, says Livingstone. + +Now we may agree with Mr. Tylor that modern theologians, familiar +with savage creeds, will scarcely argue that 'they are direct or +nearly direct products of revelation' (vol. ii. p. 356). But we may +argue that, considering their nascent ethics (denied or minimised by many +anthropologists) and the distance which separates the high gods of +savagery from the ghosts out of which they are said to have sprung; +considering too, that the relatively pure and lofty element which, _ex +hypothesi_, is most recent in evolution, is also, _not_ the most honoured, +but often just the reverse; remembering, above all, that we know nothing +historically of the mental condition of the founders of religion, we may +hesitate to accept the anthropological hypothesis _en masse_. At best +it is conjectural, and the facts are such that opponents have more +justification than is commonly admitted for regarding the bulk of +savage religion as degenerate, or corrupted, from its own highest +elements. I am by no means, as yet, arguing positively in favour of that +hypothesis, but I see what its advocates mean, or ought to mean, and the +strength of their position. Mr. Tylor, with his unique fairness, says +'the degeneration theory, no doubt in some instances with justice, may +claim such beliefs as mutilated and perverted remains of higher religion' +(vol. ii. p. 336). + +I do not pretend to know how the lowest savages evolved the theory of a +God who reads the heart and 'makes for righteousness,' It is as easy, +almost, for me to believe that they 'were not left without a witness,' +as to believe that this God of theirs was evolved out of the maleficent +ghost of a dirty mischievous medicine-man. + +Here one may repeat that while the 'quaint or majestic foreshadowings' +of a Supreme Being, among very low savages, are only sketched lightly +by Mr. Tylor; in Mr. Herbert Spencer's system they seem to be almost +omitted. In his 'Principles of Sociology' and 'Ecclesiastical +Institutions' one looks in vain for an adequate notice; in vain for almost +any notice, of this part of his topic. The watcher of conduct, the +friendly, creative being of low savage faith, whence was he evolved? The +circumstance of his existence, as far as I can see; the chastity, the +unselfishness, the pitifulness, the loyalty to plighted word, the +prohibition of even extra-tribal homicide, enjoined in various places on +his worshippers, are problems that appear somehow to have escaped +Mr. Spencer's notice. We are puzzled by endless difficulties in his +system: for example as to how savages can forget their great-grandfathers' +very names, and yet remember 'traditional persons from generation to +generation,' so that 'in time any amount of expansion and idealisation can +be reached,'[19] + +Again, Mr. Spencer will argue that it is a strange thing if 'primitive men +had, as some think, the consciousness of a Universal Power whence they and +all other things proceeded,' and yet 'spontaneously performed to that +Power an act like that performed by them to the dead body of a fellow +savage'--by offerings of food.[20] + +Now, first, there would be nothing strange in the matter if the crude idea +of 'Universal Power' came _earliest_, and was superseded, in part, by a +later propitiation of the dead and ghosts. The new religious idea would +soon refract back on, and influence by its ritual, the older conception. +And, secondly, it is precisely this 'Universal Power' that is _not_ +propitiated by offerings of food, in Tonga, (despite Mr. Huxley) +Australia, and Africa, for example. We cannot escape the difficulty by +saying that there the old ghost of Universal Power is regarded as dead, +decrepit, or as a _roi-fainéant_ not worth propitiating, for that is not +true of the punisher of sin, the teacher of generosity, and the solitary +sanction of faith between men and peoples. + +It would appear then, on the whole, that the question of the plain man to +the anthropologist, 'Having got your idea of spirit into the savage's +mind, how does he develop out of it what I call God?' has not been +answered. God cannot be a reflection from human kings where there have +been no kings; nor a president elected out of a polytheistic society of +gods where there is as yet no polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor +where men do not worship their ancestors; while, again, the spirit of a +man who died, real or ideal, does not answer to a common savage conception +of the Creator. All this will become much more obvious as we study in +detail the highest gods of the lowest races. + +Our study, of course, does not pretend to embrace the religion of all the +savages in the world. We are content with typical, and, as a rule, +well-observed examples. We range from the creeds of the most backward and +worst-equipped nomad races, to those of peoples with an aristocracy, +hereditary kings, houses and agriculture, ending with the Supreme Being of +the highly civilised Incas, and with the Jehovah of the Hebrews. + +[Footnote 1: _Journal Anthrop. Inst._ xi. 874. We shall return to this +passage.] + +[Footnote 2: Vol. i. p. 389, 1892.] + +[Footnote 3: Payne, i. 458.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult._ vol. ii. p. 381; _Science and Hebrew +Tradition_, pp. 346, 372.] + +[Footnote 5: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. p. 109.] + +[Footnote 6: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 110.] + +[Footnote 7: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 113.] + +[Footnote 8: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 115, 116, citing Callaway and +others.] + +[Footnote 9: The Zulu religion will be analysed later.] + +[Footnote 10: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 130-144.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 248.] + +[Footnote 12: And very few civilised populations, if any, are monotheistic +in this sense.] + +[Footnote 13: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 332, 333.] + +[Footnote 14: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 335, 336.] + +[Footnote 15: _Myths of the New World_, 1868, p. 47.] + +[Footnote 16: I observed this point in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, while +I did not see the implication, that the idea of 'spirit' was not +necessarily present in the savage conception of the primal Beings, +Creators, or Makers.] + +[Footnote 17: See one or two cases in _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. p. 340.] + +[Footnote 18: Livingstone, speaking of the Bakwain, _Missionary Travels_, +p. 168.] + +[Footnote 19: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 20: Op. cit. vol. i. p. 302.] + + + + +X + +HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES + +To avoid misconception we must repeat the necessary cautions about +accepting evidence as to high gods of low races. The missionary who does +not see in every alien god a devil is apt to welcome traces of an original +supernatural revelation, darkened by all peoples but the Jews. We shall +not, however, rely much on missionary evidence, and, when we do, we must +now be equally on our guard against the anthropological bias in the +missionary himself. Having read Mr. Spencer and Mr. Tylor, and finding +himself among ancestor-worshippers (as he sometimes does), he is apt to +think that ancestor-worship explains any traces of a belief in the Supreme +Being. Against each and every bias of observers we must be watchful. + +It may be needful, too, to point out once again another weak point in all +reasoning about savage religion, namely that we cannot always tell what +may have been borrowed from Europeans. Thus, the Fuegians, in 1830-1840, +were far out of the way, but one tribe, near Magellan's Straits, +worshipped an image called Cristo. Fitzroy attributes this obvious trace +of Catholicism to a Captain Pelippa, who visited the district some time +before his own expedition. It is less probable that Spaniards established +a belief in a moral Deity in regions where they left no material traces of +their faith. The Fuegians are not easily proselytised. 'When discovered by +strangers, the instant impulse of a Fuegian family is to run off into the +woods.' Occasionally they will emerge to barter, but 'sometimes nothing +will induce a single individual of the family to appear.' Fitzroy thought +they had no idea of a future state, because, among other reasons not +given, 'the evil spirit torments them in _this_ world, if they do wrong, +by storms, hail, snow, &c.' Why the evil spirit should punish evil deeds +is not evident. 'A great black man is supposed to be always wandering +about the woods and mountains, who is certain of knowing every word and +every action, who cannot be escaped and who influences the weather +according to men's conduct.'[1] + +There are no traces of propitiation by food, or sacrifice, or anything but +conduct. To regard the Deity as 'a magnified non-natural man' is not +peculiar to Fuegian theologians, and does not imply Animism, but the +reverse. But the point is that this ethical judge of perhaps the lowest +savages 'makes for righteousness' and searches the heart. His morality is +so much above the ordinary savage standard that he regards the slaying of +a stranger and an enemy, caught redhanded in robbery, as a sin. York's +brother (York was a Fuegian brought to England by Fitzroy) killed a 'wild +man' who was stealing his birds. 'Rain come down, snow come down, hail +come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow. Very bad to kill man. Big man +in woods no like it, he very angry.' Here be ethics in savage religion. +The Sixth Commandment is in force. The Being also prohibits the slaying of +flappers before they can fly. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come wind, +come rain, blow, very much blow.'[2] + +Now this big man is not a deified chief, for the Fuegians 'have no +superiority of one over another ... but the doctor-wizard of each party has +much influence.' Mr. Spencer disposes of this moral 'big man' of the +Fuegians as 'evidently a deceased weather-doctor.'[3] But, first, there is +no evidence that the being is regarded as ever having died. Again, it is +not shown that Fuegians are ancestor-worshippers. Next, Fitzroy did not +think that the Fuegians believed in a future life. Lastly, when were +medicine-men such notable moralists? The worst spirits among the +neighbouring Patagonians are those of dead medicine-men. As a rule +everywhere the ghost of a 'doctor-wizard,' shaman, or whatever he may be +called, is the worst and wickedest of all ghosts. How, then, the Fuegians, +who are not proved to be ancestor-worshippers, evolved out of the +malignant ghost of an ancestor a being whose strong point is morality, one +does not easily conceive. The adjacent Chonos 'have great faith in a good +spirit, whom they call Yerri Yuppon, and consider to be the author of all +good; him they invoke in distress or danger.' However starved they do not +touch food till a short prayer has been muttered over each portion, 'the +praying man looking upward.'[4] They have magicians, but no details are +given as to spirits or ghosts. If Fuegian and Chono religion is on this +level, and if this be the earliest, then the theology of many other higher +savages (as of the Zulus) is decidedly degenerate. 'The Bantu gives one +accustomed to the negro the impression that he once had the same set of +ideas, _but has forgotten half of them_,' says Miss Kingsley.[5] + +Of all races now extant, the Australians are probably lowest in culture, +and, like the fauna of the continent, are nearest to the primitive +model. They have neither metals, bows, pottery, agriculture, nor fixed +habitations; and no traces of higher culture have anywhere been found +above or in the soil of the continent. This is important, for in some +respects their religious conceptions are so lofty that it would be natural +to explain them as the result either of European influence, or as relics +of a higher civilisation in the past. The former notion is discredited +by the fact that their best religious ideas are imparted in connection +with their ancient and secret mysteries, while for the second idea, that +they are degenerate from a loftier civilisation, there is absolutely no +evidence. + +It has been suggested, indeed, by Mr. Spencer that the singularly complex +marriage customs of the Australian blacks point to a more polite condition +in their past history. Of this stage, as we said, no material traces have +ever been discovered, nor can degeneration be recent. Our earliest account +of the Australians is that of Dampier, who visited New Holland in the +unhappy year 1688. He found the natives 'the miserablest people in the +world. The Hodmadods, of Mononamatapa, though a nasty people, yet for +wealth are gentlemen to these: who have no houses, sheep, poultry, and +fruits of the earth.... They have no houses, but lie in the open air.' +Curiously enough, Dampier attests their _unselfishness_: the main ethical +feature in their religious teaching. 'Be it little or be it much they get, +every one has his part, as well the young and tender as the old and +feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' Dampier +saw no metals used, nor any bows, merely boomerangs ('wooden cutlasses'), +and lances with points hardened in the fire. 'Their place of dwelling was +only a fire with a few boughs before it' (the _gunyeh_). + +This description remains accurate for most of the unsophisticated +Australian tribes, but Dampier appears only to have seen ichthyophagous +coast blacks. + +There is one more important point. In the _Bora_, or Australian +mysteries, at which knowledge of 'The Maker' and of his commandments is +imparted, the front teeth of the initiated are still knocked out. Now, +Dampier observed 'the two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all +of them, men and women, old and young.' If this is to be taken quite +literally, the Bora rite, in 1688, must have included the women, at least +locally. Dampier was on the north-west coast in latitude 16 degrees, +longitude 122-1/4 degrees east (Dampier Land, West Australia). The natives +had neither boats, canoes, nor bark logs; but it seems that they had their +religious mysteries and their unselfishness, two hundred years ago.[6] + +The Australians have been very carefully studied by many observers, and +the results entirely overthrow Mr. Huxley's bold statement that 'in its +simplest condition, such as may be met with among the Australian savages, +theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers, and dispositions +(usually malignant) of ghost-like entities who may be propitiated or +scared away; but no cult can properly be said to exist. And in this stage +theology is wholly independent of ethics.' + +Remarks more crudely in defiance of known facts could not be made. The +Australians, assuredly, believe in 'spirits,' often malicious, and +probably in most cases regarded as ghosts of men. These aid the wizard, +and occasionally inspire him. That these ghosts are _worshipped_ does not +appear, and is denied by Waitz. Again, in the matter of cult, 'there is +none' in the way of _sacrifice_ to higher gods, as there should be if +these gods were hungry ghosts. The cult among the Australians is the +keeping of certain 'laws,' expressed in moral teaching, supposed to be in +conformity with the institutes of their God. Worship takes the form, as at +Eleusis, of tribal mysteries, originally instituted, as at Eleusis, by +the God. The young men are initiated with many ceremonies, some of which +are cruel and farcical, but the initiation includes ethical instruction, +in conformity with the supposed commands of a God who watches over +conduct. As among ourselves, the ethical ideal, with its theological +sanction, is probably rather above the moral standard of ordinary +practice. What conclusion we should draw from these facts is uncertain, +but the facts, at least, cannot be disputed, and precisely contradict the +statement of Mr. Huxley. He was wholly in the wrong when he said: 'The +moral code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction from +theological dogmas,'[7] It reposes, for its origin and sanction, on such +dogmas. + +The evidence as to Australian religion is abundant, and is being added to +yearly. I shall here content myself with Mr. Howitt's accounts.[8] + +As regards the possible evolution of the Australian God from +ancestor-worship, it must be noted that Mr. Howitt credits the groups with +possessing 'headmen,' a kind of chiefs, whereas some inquirers, in Brough +Smyth's collection, disbelieve in regular chiefs. Mr. Howitt writes:-- + +'The Supreme Spirit, who is believed in by all the tribes I refer to here +[in South-Eastern Australia], either as a benevolent, or more frequently +as a malevolent being, it seems to me represents the defunct headman.' + +Now, the traces of 'headmanship' among the tribes are extremely faint; no +such headman rules large areas of country, none is known to be worshipped +after death, and the malevolence of the Supreme Spirit is not illustrated +by the details of Mr. Howitt's own statement, but the reverse. Indeed, he +goes on at once to remark that '_Darumulun_ was not, it seems to me, +everywhere thought a malevolent being, but he was dreaded as one who could +severely punish the trespasses committed against these tribal ordinances +and customs whose first institution is ascribed to him.' + +To punish transgressions of his law is not the essence of a malevolent +being. Darumulun 'watched the youths from the sky, prompt to punish, by +disease or death, the breach of his ordinances,' moral or ritual. His name +is too sacred to be spoken except in whispers, and the anthropologist will +observe that the names of the human dead are also often tabooed. But the +divine name is not thus tabooed and sacred when the mere folklore about +him is narrated. The informants of Mr. Howitt instinctively distinguished +between the mythology and the religion of Darumulun.[9] This distinction-- +the secrecy about the religion, the candour about the mythology--is +essential, and accounts for our ignorance about the inner religious +beliefs of early races. Mr. Howitt himself knew little till he was +initiated. The grandfather of Mr. Howitt's friend, _before the white men +came to Melbourne_, took him out at night, and, pointing to a star, said: +'You will soon be a man; you see _Bunjil_ [Supreme Being of certain +tribes] up there, and he can see you, and all you do down here.' Mr. +Palmer, speaking of the Mysteries of Northern Australians (mysteries under +divine sanction), mentions the nature of the moral instruction. Each lad +is given, 'by one of the elders, advice so kindly, fatherly, and +impressive, as often to soften the heart, and draw tears from the youth.' +He is to avoid adultery, not to take advantage of a woman if he finds her +alone, he is not to be quarrelsome.[10] + +At the Mysteries Darumulun's real name may be uttered, at other times he +is 'Master' (_Biamban_) or 'Father' (_Papang_), exactly as we say 'Lord' +and 'Father.' + +It is known that all these things are not due to missionaries, whose +instructions would certainly not be conveyed in the _Bora_, or tribal +mysteries, which, again, are partly described by Collins as early as 1798, +and must have been practised in 1688. Mr. Howitt mentions, among moral +lessons divinely sanctioned, respect for old age, abstinence from lawless +love, and avoidance of the sins so popular, poetic, and sanctioned by the +example of Gods, in classical Greece.[11] A representation is made of the +Master, Biamban; and to make such idols, except at the Mysteries, is +forbidden 'under pain of death.' Those which are made are destroyed as +soon as the rites are ended.[12] The future life (apparently) is then +illustrated by the burial of a living elder, who rises from a grave. +This may, however, symbolise the 'new life' of the Mystae, 'Worse have I +fled; better have I found,' as was sung in an Athenian rite. The whole +result is, by what Mr. Howitt calls 'a quasi-religious element,' to +'impress upon the mind of the youth, in an indelible manner, those rules +of conduct which form the moral law of the tribe.'[13] + +Many other authorities could be adduced for the religious sanction of +morals in Australia. A watchful being observes and rewards the conduct or +men; he is named with reverence, if named at all; his abode is the +heavens; he is the Master and Lord of things; his lessons 'soften the +heart,'[14] + + 'What wants this Knave + That a _God_ should have?' + +I shall now demonstrate that the religion patronised by the Australian +Supreme Being, and inculcated in his Mysteries, is actually used to +counteract the immoral character which natives acquire by associating with +Anglo-Saxon Christians.[15] + +Mr. Howitt[16] gives an account of the Jeraeil, or Mysteries of the +Kurnai. The old men deemed that through intercourse with whites 'the lads +had become selfish and no longer inclined to share that which they +obtained by their own exertions, or had given them, with their friends.' +One need not say that selflessness is the very essence of goodness, and +the central moral doctrine of Christianity. So it is in the religious +Mysteries of the African Yao; a selfish man, we shall see, is spoken of as +'uninitiated.' So it is with the Australian Kurnai, whose mysteries and +ethical teaching are under the sanction of their Supreme Being. So much +for the anthropological dogma that early theology has no ethics. + +The Kurnai began by kneading the stomachs of the lads about to be +initiated (that is, if they have been associating with Christians), to +expel selfishness and greed. The chief rite, later, is to blindfold every +lad, with a blanket closely drawn over his head, to make whirring sounds +with the _tundun_, or Greek _rhombos_, then to pluck off the blankets, and +bid the initiate raise their faces to the sky. The initiator points to it, +calling out, 'Look there, look there, look there!' They have seen in this +solemn way the home of the Supreme Being, 'Our Father,' Mungan-ngaur +(Mungan = 'Father,' ngaur = 'our'), whose doctrine is then unfolded by the +old initiator ('headman') 'in an impressive manner.'[17] 'Long ago there +was a great Being, Mungan-ngaur, who lived on the earth.' His son Tundun +is _direct ancestor_ of the Kurnai. Mungan initiated the rites, and +destroyed earth by water when they were impiously revealed. 'Mungan left +the earth, and ascended to the sky, where he still remains.' + +Here Mungan-ngaur, a Being not defined as spirit, but immortal, and +dwelling in heaven, is Father, or rather grandfather, not maker, +of the Kurnai. This _may_ be interpreted as ancestor-worship, but the +opposite myth, of making or creating, is of frequent occurrence in many +widely-severed Australian districts, and co-exists with evolutionary +myths. Mungan-ngaur's precepts are: + + 1. _To listen to and obey the old men_. + 2. _To share everything they have with their friends_. + 3. _To live peaceably with their friends_. + + 4. _Not to interfere with girls or married women_. + + 5. _To obey the food restrictions until they are released from them by + the old men_. + +Mr. Howitt concludes: 'I venture to assert that it can no longer be +maintained that the Australians have no belief which can be called +religious, that is, in the sense of beliefs which govern tribal and +individual morality under a supernatural sanction.' On this topic +Mr. Hewitt's opinion became more affirmative the more deeply he was +initiated.[18] + +The Australians are the lowest, most primitive savages, yet no +propitiation by food is made to their moral Ruler, in heaven, as if he +were a ghost. + +The laws of these Australian divine beings apply to ritual as well as to +ethics, as might naturally be expected. But the moral element is +conspicuous, the reverence is conspicuous: we have here no mere ghost, +propitiated by food or sacrifice, or by purely magical rites. His very +image (modelled on a large scale in earth) is no vulgar idol: to make such +a thing, except on the rare sacred occasions, is a capital offence. +Meanwhile the mythology of the God has often, in or out of the rites, +nothing rational about it. + +On the whole it is evident that Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, +underrates the nature of Australian religion. He cites a case of +addressing the ghost of a man recently dead, which is asked not to bring +sickness, 'or make loud noises in the night,' and says: 'Here we may +recognise the essential elements of a cult.' But Mr. Spencer does not +allude to the much more essentially religious elements which he might have +found in the very authority whom he cites, Mr. Brough Smyth.[19] This +appears, as far as my scrutiny goes, to be Mr. Spencer's solitary +reference to Australia in the work on 'Ecclesiastical Institutions.' Yet +the facts which he and Mr. Huxley ignore throw a light very different from +theirs on what they consider 'the simplest condition of theology.' + +Among the causes of confusion in thought upon religion, Mr. Tylor mentions +'the partial and one-sided application of the historical method of inquiry +into theological doctrines.'[20] Here, perhaps, we have examples. In its +highest aspect that 'simplest theology' of Australia is free from the +faults of popular theology in Greece. The God discourages sin, though, in +myth, he is far from impeccable. He is almost too revered to be named +(except in mythology) and is not to be represented by idols. He is not +moved by sacrifice; he has not the chance; like Death in Greece, 'he only, +of all Gods, loves not gifts.' Thus the status of theology does not +correspond to what we look for in very low culture. It would scarcely be a +paradox to say that the popular Zeus, or Ares, is degenerate from +Mungan-ngaur, or the Fuegian being who forbids the slaying of an enemy, +and almost literally 'marks the sparrow's fall.' + +If we knew all the mythology of Darumulun, we should probably find it +(like much of the myth of Pundjel or Bunjil) on a very different level +from the theology. There are two currents, the religious and the mythical, +flowing together through religion. The former current, religious, even +among very low savages, is pure from the magical ghost-propitiating habit. +The latter current, mythological, is full of magic, mummery, and +scandalous legend. Sometimes the latter stream quite pollutes the +former, sometimes they flow side by side, perfectly distinguishable, as +in Aztec ethical piety, compared with the bloody Aztec ritualism. +Anthropology has mainly kept her eyes fixed on the impure stream, the +lusts, mummeries, conjurings, and frauds of priesthoods, while relatively, +or altogether, neglecting (as we have shown) what is honest and of good +report. + +The worse side of religion is the less sacred, and therefore the more +conspicuous. Both elements are found co-existing, in almost all races, and +nobody, in our total lack of historical information about the beginnings, +can say which, if either, element is the earlier, or which, if either, is +derived from the other. To suppose that propitiation of corpses and then +of ghosts came first is agreeable, and seems logical, to some writers +who are not without a bias against all religion as an unscientific +superstition. But we know so little! The first missionaries in Greenland +supposed that there was not, there, a trace of belief in a Divine Being. +'But when they came to understand their language better, they found quite +the reverse to be true ... and not only so, but they could plainly gather +from a free dialogue they had with some perfectly wild Greenlanders (at +that time avoiding any direct application to their hearts) that their +ancestors must have believed in a Supreme Being, and did render him some +service, which their posterity neglected little by little...'[21] Mr. +Tylor does not refer to this as a trace of Christian Scandinavian +influence on the Eskimo.[22] + +That line, of course, may be taken. But an Eskimo said to a missionary, +'Thou must not imagine that no Greenlander thinks about these things' +(theology). He then stated the argument from design. 'Certainly there +must be some Being who made all these things. He must be very good too... +Ah, did I but know him, how I would love and honour him.' As St. Paul +writes: 'That which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath +showed it unto them ... being understood by the things which are made ... +but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was +darkened.'[23] In fact, mythology submerged religion. St. Paul's theory of +the origin of religion is not that of an 'innate idea,' nor of a direct +revelation. People, he says, reached the belief in a God from the Argument +for Design. Science conceives herself to have annihilated teleological +ideas. But they are among the probable origins of religion, and would lead +to the belief in a Creator, whom the Greenlander thought beneficent, and +after whom he yearned. This is a very different initial step in religious +development, if initial it was, from the feeding of a corpse, or a ghost. + +From all this evidence it does not appear how non-polytheistic, +non-monarchical, non-Manes-worshipping savages evolved the idea of a +relatively supreme, moral, and benevolent Creator, unborn, undying, +watching men's lives. 'He can go everywhere, and do everything.'[24] + +[Footnote 1: Fitzroy, ii. 180. Darwin. _Descent of Man_, p. 67.] + +[Footnote 2: Ibid. We seem to have little information about Fuegian +religion either before or after the cruise of the _Beagle_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Principles of Sociology_, i. 422.] + +[Footnote 4: Fitzroy, ii. 190, 191] + +[Footnote 5: _Travels in West Africa_, p. 442.] + +[Footnote 6: _Early Voyages to Australia_, 102-111 (Hakluyt Society).] + +[Footnote 7: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 846.] + +[Footnote 8: _Journal of the Anthrop. Institute_, 1884. See, for less +dignified accounts, op. cit. xxiv. xxv.] + +[Footnote 9: _Journal_, xiii. 193.] + +[Footnote 10: _Journal_, xiii. 296.] + +[Footnote 11: Op. cit. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 12: P. 453.] + +[Footnote 13: P. 457.] + +[Footnote 14: See Brough Smyth, _Aborigines_, i. 426; Taplin, _Native +Races of Australia_. According to Taplin, Nurrumdere was a deified black +fellow, who died on earth. This is not the case of Baiame, but is said, +rather vaguely, to be true of Daramulun. _J.A.I._, xiii. 194, xxv. 297.] + +[Footnote 15: From a brief account of the Fire Ceremony, or _Engwurra_ of +certain tribes in Central Australia, it seems that religious ceremonies +connected with Totems are the most notable performances. Also 'certain +mythical ancestors,' of the '_alcheringa_, or dream-times,' were +celebrated; these real or ideal human beings appear to 'sink their +identity in that of the object with which they are associated, and from +which they are supposed to have originated.' There appear also to be +places haunted by 'spirit individuals,' in some way mixed up with Totems, +but nothing is said of sacrifice to these Manes. The brief account is by +Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F.J. Gillen, _Proc. Royal Soc. +Victoria_, July 1897. This Fire Ceremony is not for lads--not a kind of +confirmation in the savage church--but is intended for adults.] + +[Footnote 16: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. 1886, p. 310.] + +[Footnote 17: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. 1885, p. 313.] + +[Footnote 18: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. xiii. p. 459.] + +[Footnote 19: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, p. 674.] + +[Footnote 20: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 450.] + +[Footnote 21: Cranz, pp. 198, 199.] + +[Footnote 22: _Journal Anthrop. Inst_. xiii. 348-356.] + +[Footnote 23: Rom. i. 19. Cranz, i. 199.] + +[Footnote 24: In Mr. Carr's work, _The Australian Race_, reports of +'godless' natives are given, for instance, in the Mary River country and +in Gippsland. These reports are usually the result of the ignorance or +contempt of white observers, cf. Tylor, i. 419. The reader is referred to +the Introduction for additional information about Australian beliefs, and +for replies to objections.] + + + + +XI + +SUPREME GODS NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIRITS' + +Before going on to examine the high gods of other low savages, I must here +again insist on and develop the theory, not easily conceived by us, that +the Supreme Being of savages belongs to another branch of faith than +ghosts, or ghost-gods, or fetishes, or Totems, and need not be--probably +is not--essentially derived from these. We must try to get rid of our +theory that a powerful, moral, eternal Being was, from the first, _ex +officio_, conceived as 'spirit;' and so was necessarily derived from a +ghost. + +First, what was the process of development? + +We have examined Mr. Tylor's theory. But, to take a practical case: Here +are the Australians, roaming in small bands, without more formal rulers +than 'headmen' at most; not ancestor worshippers; not polytheists; with +no departmental deities to select and aggrandise; not apt to speculate on +the _Anima Mundi_. How, then, did they bridge the gulf between the ghost +of a soon-forgotten fighting man, and that conception of a Father above, +'all-seeing,' moral, which, under various names, is found all over a huge +continent? I cannot see that this problem has been solved or frankly +faced. + +The distinction between the Australian deity, at his highest power, +unpropitiated by sacrifice, and the ordinary, waning, easily forgotten, +cheaply propitiated ghost of a tribesman, is essential. It is not easy to +show how, in 'the dark backward' of Australian life, the notion of +Mungan-ngaur grew from the idea of the ghost of a warrior. But there is no +logical necessity for the belief in the evolution of this god out +of that ghost. These two factors in religion--ghost and god--seem to +have perfectly different sources, and it appears extraordinary that +anthropologists have not (as far as I am aware) observed this circumstance +before. + +Mr. Spencer, indeed, speaks frequently of living human beings adored as +gods. I do not know that these are found on the lowest levels of savagery, +and Mr. Jevons has pointed out that, before you can hail a man as a god, +you must have the idea of God. The murder of Captain Cook notoriously +resulted from a scientific experiment in theology. 'If he is a god, he +cannot be killed.' So they tried with a dagger, and found that the honest +captain was but a mortal British mariner--no god at all. 'There are +degrees.' Mr. Spencer's men-gods become real gods--after death.[1] + +Now the Supreme Being of savage faith, as a rule, never died at all. He +belonged to a world that knew not Death. + +One cause of our blindness to the point appears to be this: We have from +childhood been taught that 'God is a Spirit.' We, now, can only conceive +of an eternal being as a 'spirit.' We know that legions of savage gods are +now regarded as spirits. And therefore we have never remarked that there +is no reason why we should take it for granted that the earliest deities +of the earliest men were supposed by them to be 'spirits' at all. These +gods might most judiciously be spoken of, not as 'spirits,' but as +'undefined eternal beings.' To us, such a being is necessarily a spirit, +but he was by no means necessarily so to an early thinker, who may not +yet have reached the conception of a ghost. + +A ghost is said, by anthropologists, to have developed into a god. Now, +the very idea of a ghost (apart from a wraith or fetch) implies the +previous _death_ of his proprietor. A ghost is the phantasm of a _dead_ +man. But anthropologists continually tell us, with truth, that the idea +of death as a universal ordinance is unknown to the savage. Diseases and +death are things that once did not exist, and that, normally, ought not to +occur, the savage thinks. They are, in his opinion, supernormally caused +by magicians and spirits. Death came into the world by a blunder, an +accident, an error in ritual, a decision of a god who was before Death +was. Scores of myths are told everywhere on this subject.[2] + +The savage Supreme Being, with added power, omniscience, and morality, is +the idealisation of the savage, as conceived of by himself, _minus_ +fleshly body (as a rule), and _minus_ Death. He is not necessarily a +'spirit,' though that term may now be applied to him. He was not +originally differentiated as 'spirit' or 'not spirit.' He is a Being, +conceived of without the question of 'spirit,' or 'no spirit' being +raised; perhaps he was originally conceived of before that question could +be raised by men. When we call the Supreme Being of savages a 'spirit' we +introduce our own animistic ideas into a conception where it may not have +originally existed. If the God is 'the savage himself raised to the n^th +power' so much the less of a spirit is he. Mr. Matthew Arnold might as +well have said: 'The British Philistine has no knowledge of God. He +believes that the Creator is a magnified non-natural man, living in the +sky.' The Gippsland or Fuegian or Blackfoot Supreme Being is just a +_Being_, anthropomorphic, not a _mrart_, or 'spirit.' The Supreme Being is +a _wesen_, Being, _Vui_; we have hardly a term for an immortal existence +so undefined. If the being is an idealised first ancestor (as among the +Kurnai), he is not, on that account, either man or ghost of man. In the +original conception he is a powerful intelligence who was from the first: +who was already active long before, by a breach of his laws, an error in +the delivery of a message, a breach of ritual, or what not, death entered +the world. He was not affected by the entry of death, he still exists. + +Modern minds need to become familiar with this indeterminate idea of the +savage Supreme Being, which, logically, may be prior to the evolution of +the notion of ghost or spirit. + +But how does it apply when, as by the Kurnai, the Supreme Being is +reckoned an ancestor? + +It can very readily be shown that, when the Supreme Being of a savage +people is thus the idealised First Ancestor, he can never have been +envisaged by his worshippers as at any time a _ghost_; or, at least, +cannot logically have been so envisaged where the nearly universal +belief occurs that death came into the world by accident, or needlessly. + +Adam is the mythical first ancestor of the Hebrews, but he died, [Greek: +uper moron], and was not worshipped. Yama, the first of Aryan men who +died, was worshipped by Vedic Aryans, but _confessedly_ as a ghost-god. +Mr. Tylor gives a list of first ancestors deified. The Ancestor of the +Maudans did not die, consequently is no ghost; _emigravit_, he 'moved +west.' Where the First Ancestor is also the Creator (Dog-rib Indians), he +can hardly be, and is not, regarded as a mortal. Tamoi, of the Guaranis, +was 'the ancient of heaven,' clearly no mortal man. The Maori Maui was the +first who died, but he is not one of the original Maori gods. Haetsh, +among the Kamchadals, precisely answers to Yama. Unkulunkulu will be +described later.[3] + +This is the list: Where the First Ancestor is equivalent to the Creator, +and is supreme, he is--from the first--deathless and immortal. When he +dies he is a confessed ghost-god. + +Now, ghost-worship and dead ancestor-worship are impossible before the +ancestor is dead and is a ghost. But the essential idea of Mungan-ngaur, +and Baiame, and most of the high gods of Australia, and of other low +races, is that _they never died at all_. They belong to the period before +death came into the world, like Qat among the Melanesians. They arise in +an age that knew not death, and had not reflected on phantasms nor evolved +ghosts. They could have been conceived of, in the nature of the case, by a +race of immortals who never dreamed of such a thing as a ghost. For these +gods, the ghost-theory is not required, and is superfluous, even +contradictory. The early thinkers who developed these beings did not need +to know that men die (though, of course, they did know it in practice), +still less did they need to have conceived by abstract speculation the +hypothesis of ghosts. Baiame, Cagn, Bunjil, in their adorers' belief, were +_there_; death later intruded among men, but did not affect these divine +beings in any way. + +The ghost-theory, therefore, by the evidence of anthropology itself, is +not needed for the evolution of the high gods of savages. It is only +needed for the evolution of ghost-propitiation and genuine dead-ancestor +worship. Therefore, the high gods described were not necessarily once +ghosts--were not idealised _mortal_ ancestors. They were, naturally, from +the beginning, from before the coming in of death, immortal Fathers, now +dwelling on high. Between them and apotheosised mortal ancestors there is +a great gulf fixed--the river of death. + +The explicitly stated distinction that the high creative gods never were +mortal men, while other gods are spirits of mortal men, is made in every +quarter. 'Ancestors _known_ to be human were _not_ worshipped as +[original] gods, and ancestors worshipped as [original] gods were not +believed to have been human.'[4] + +Both kinds may have a generic name, such as _kalou_, or _wakan_, but the +specific distinction is universally made by low savages. On one hand, +original gods; on the other, non-original gods that were once ghosts. Now, +this distinction is often calmly ignored; whereas, when any race has +developed (like late Scandinavians) the Euhemeristic hypothesis ('all gods +were once men'), that hypothesis is accepted as an historical statement of +fact by some writers. + +It is part of my theory that the more popular ghost-worship of souls of +people whom men have loved, invaded the possibly older religion of the +Supreme Father. Mighty beings, whether originally conceived of as +'spirits' or not, came, later, under the Animistic theory, to be reckoned +as spirits. They even (but not among the lowest savages) came to be +propitiated by food and sacrifice. The alternative, for a Supreme Being, +when once Animism prevailed, was sacrifice (as to more popular ghost +deities) or neglect. We shall find examples of both alternatives. But +sacrifice does not prove that a God was, in original conception, a ghost, +or even a spirit. 'The common doctrine of the Old Testament is not that +God is spirit, but that the spirit [_rúah_ = 'wind,' 'living breath'] of +Jehovah, going forth from him, works in the world and among men.'[5] + +To resume. The high Gods of savagery--moral, all-seeing directors of +things and of men--are not explicitly envisaged as spirits at all by their +adorers. The notion of soul or spirit is here out of place. We can best +describe Pirnmeheal, and Nápi and Baiame as 'magnified non-natural men,' +or undefined beings who were from the beginning and are undying. They are, +like the easy Epicurean Gods, _nihil indiga nostri_. Not being ghosts, +they crave no food from men, and receive no sacrifice, as do ghosts, or +gods developed out of ghosts, or gods to whom the ghost-ritual has been +transferred. For this very reason, apparently, they seem to be spoken of +by Mr. Grant Allen as 'gods to talk about, not gods to adore; mythological +conceptions rather than religious beings.'[6] All this is rather hard on +the lowest savages. If they sacrifice to a god, then the god is a hungry +ghost; if they don't, then the god is 'a god to talk about, not to adore,' +Luckily, the facts of the Bora ritual and the instruction given there +prove that Mungan-nganr and other names _are_ gods to adore, by ethical +conformity to their will and by solemn ceremony, not merely gods to talk +about. + +Thus, the highest element in the religion of the lowest savages does not +appear to be derived from their theory of ghosts. As far as we can say, in +the inevitable absence of historical evidence, the highest gods of savages +may have been believed in, as Makers and Fathers and Lords of an +indeterminate nature, before the savage had developed the idea of souls +out of dreams and phantasms. It is logically conceivable that savages may +have worshipped deities like Baiame and Darumulun before they had evolved +the notion that Tom, Dick, or Harry has a separable soul, capable of +surviving his bodily decease. Deities of the higher sort, by the very +nature of savage reflections on death and on its non-original casual +character, are prior, or may be prior, or cannot be shown not to be prior, +to the ghost theory--the alleged origin of religion. For their evolution +the ghost theory is not logically demanded; they can do without it. Yet +_they_, and not the spirits, bogles, Mrarts, _Brewin_, and so forth, are +the high gods, the gods who have most analogy--as makers, moral guides, +rewarders, and punishers of conduct (though that duty is also occasionally +assumed by ancestral spirits)--with our civilised conception of the +divine. Our conception of God descends not from ghosts, but from the +Supreme Beings of non-ancestor-worshipping peoples. + +As it seems impossible to point out any method by which low, chiefless, +non-polytheistic, non-metaphysical savages (if any such there be) evolved +out of ghosts the eternal beings who made the world, and watch over +morality: as the people themselves unanimously distinguish such beings +from ghost-gods, I take it that such beings never were ghosts. In this +case the Animistic theory seems to me to break down completely. Yet these +high gods of low savages preserve from dimmest ages of the meanest culture +the sketch of a God which our highest religious thought can but fill up to +its ideal. Come from what germ he may, Jehovah or Allah does not come from +a ghost. + +It may be retorted that this makes no real difference. If savages did not +invent gods in consequence of a fallacious belief in spirit and soul, +still, in some other equally illogical way they came to indulge the +hypothesis that they had a Judge and Father in heaven. But, if the ghost +theory of the high Gods is wrong, as it is conspicuously superfluous, that +_does_ make some difference. It proves that a widely preached scientific +conclusion may be as spectral as Bathybius. On other more important +points, therefore, we may differ from the newest scientific opinion +without too much diffident apprehensiveness. + +[Footnote 1: _Principles of Sociology_, i. 417, 421. 'The medicine men +are treated as gods.... The medicine man becomes a god after death.'] + +[Footnote 2: I have published a chapter on Myths on the Origin of Death in +_Modern Mythology_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 311-316.] + +[Footnote 4: Jevons, _Introduction_, p. 197.] + +[Footnote 5: Robertson Smith. _The Prophets of Israel_, p. 61.] + +[Footnote 6: _Evolution of the Idea of God_, p. 170.] + + + + +XII + +SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS + +It is among 'the lowest savages' that the Supreme Beings are most regarded +as eternal, moral (as the morality of the tribe goes, or above its +habitual practice), and _powerful_. I have elsewhere described the Bushman +god Cagn, as he was portrayed to Mr. Orpen by Qing, who 'had never +before seen a white man except fighting.' Mr. Orpen got the facts from +Qing by inducing him to explain the natives' pictures on the walls of +caves. 'Cagn made all things, and we pray to him,' thus: 'O Cagn, O Cagn, +are we not thy children? Do you not see us hunger? Give us food.' As to +ethics, 'At first Cagn was very good, but he got spoilt through fighting +so many things.' 'How came he into the world?' 'Perhaps with those who +brought the Sun: only the initiated know these things.' It appears that +Qing was not yet initiated in the dance (answering to a high rite of the +Australian _Bora_) in which the most esoteric myths were unfolded.[1] + +In Mr. Spencer's 'Descriptive Sociology' the religion of the Bushmen is +thus disposed of. 'Pray to an insect of the caterpillar kind for success +in the chase.' That is rather meagre. They make arrow-poison out of +caterpillars,[2] though Dr. Bleek, perhaps correctly, identifies Cagn +with i-kaggen, the insect. + +The case of the Andaman Islanders may be especially recommended to +believers in the anthropological science of religion. For long these +natives were the joy of emancipated inquirers as the 'godless Andamanese.' +They only supply Mr. Spencer's 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' with +a few instances of the ghost-belief.[3] Yet when the Andamanese are +scientifically studied _in situ_ by an educated Englishman, Mr. Man, who +knows their language, has lived with them for eleven years, and presided +over our benevolent efforts 'to reclaim them from their savage state,' +the Andamanese turn out to be quite embarrassingly rich in the higher +elements of faith. They have not only a profoundly philosophical +_religion_, but an excessively absurd _mythology_, like the Australian +blacks, the Greeks, and other peoples. If, on the whole, the student of +the Andamanese despairs of the possibility of an ethnological theory of +religion, he is hardly to be blamed. + +The people are probably Negritos, and probably 'the original inhabitants, +whose occupation dates from prehistoric times.'[4] They use the bow, they +make pots, and are considerably above the Australian level. They have +second-sighted men, who obtain status 'by relating an extraordinary dream, +the details of which are declared to have been borne out subsequently by +some unforeseen event, as, for instance, a sudden death or accident.' They +have to produce fresh evidential dreams from time to time. They see +phantasms of the dead, and coincidental hallucinations.[5] All this is as +we should expect it to be. + +Their religion is probably not due to missionaries, as they always shot +all foreigners, and have no traditions of the presence of aliens on the +islands before our recent arrival.[6] Their God, Puluga, is 'like fire,' +but invisible. He was never born, and is immortal. By him were all things +created, except the powers of evil. He knows even the thoughts of the +heart. He is angered by _yubda_ = sin, or wrong-doing, that is falsehood, +theft, grave assault, murder, adultery, bad carving of meat, and (as a +crime of witchcraft) by burning wax.[7] 'To those in pain or distress he +is pitiful, and sometimes deigns to afford relief.' He is Judge of Souls, +and the dread of future punishment 'to _some_ extent is said to affect +their course of action in the present life.'[8] + +This Being could not be evolved out of the ordinary ghost of a +second-sighted man, for I do not find that ancestral ghosts are +worshipped, nor is there a trace of early missionary influence, while +Mr. Man consulted elderly and, in native religion, well-instructed +Andamanese for his facts. + +Yet Puluga lives in a large stone house (clearly derived from ours at Port +Blair), eats and drinks, foraging for himself, and is married to a green +shrimp.[9] There is the usual story of a Deluge caused by the moral wrath +of Puluga. The whole theology was scrupulously collected from natives +unacquainted with other races. + +The account of Andamanese religion does not tally with the anthropological +hypothesis. Foreign influence seems to be more than usually excluded by +insular conditions and the jealousy of the 'original inhabitants.' The +evidence ought to make us reflect on the extreme obscurity of the whole +problem. + +Anthropological study of religion has hitherto almost entirely overlooked +the mysteries of various races, except in so far as they confirm the entry +of the young people into the ranks of the adult. Their esoteric moral and +religious teaching is nearly unknown to us, save in a few instances. It is +certain that the mysteries of Greece were survivals of savage ceremonies, +because we know that they included specific savage rites, such as the use +of the _rhombos_ to make a whirring noise, and the custom of ritual +daubing with dirt; and the sacred _ballets d'action_, in which, as Lucian +and Qing say, mystic facts are 'danced out.'[10] But, while Greece +retained these relics of savagery, there was something taught at Eleusis +which filled minds like Plato's and Pindar's with a happy religious awe. +Now, similar 'softening of the heart' was the result of the teaching in +the Australian _Bora_: the Yao mysteries inculcate the victory over self; +and, till we are admitted to the secrets of all other savage mysteries +throughout the world, we cannot tell whether, among mummeries, +frivolities, and even license, high ethical doctrines are not presented +under the sanction of religion. The New Life, and perhaps the future life, +are undeniably indicated in the Australian mysteries by the simulated +Resurrection. + +I would therefore no longer say, as in 1887, that the Hellenic genius must +have added to 'an old medicine dance' all that the Eleusinian mysteries +possessed of beauty, counsel, and consolation[11]. These elements, as well +as the barbaric factors in the rites, may have been developed out of such +savage doctrine as softens the hearts of Australians and Yaos. That this +kind of doctrine receives religious sanction is certain, where we know the +secret of savage mysteries. It is therefore quite incorrect, and strangely +presumptuous, to deny, with almost all anthropologists, the alliance of +ethics with religion among the most backward races. We must always +remember their secrecy about their inner religion, their frankness about +their mythological tales. These we know: the inner religion we ought to +begin to recognise that we do not know. + +The case of the Andamanese has taught us how vague, even now, is our +knowledge, and how obscure is our problem. The example of the Melanesians +enforces these lessons. It is hard to bring the Melanesians within any +theory. Dr. Codrington has made them the subject of a careful study, and +reports that while the European inquirer can communicate pretty freely on +common subjects 'the vocabulary of ordinary life in almost useless when +the region of mysteries and superstitions is approached.'[12] The Banks +Islanders are most free from an Asiatic element of population on one side, +and a Polynesian element on the other. + +The Banks Islanders 'believe in two orders of intelligent beings different +from living men.' (1) Ghosts of the dead, (2) 'Beings who were not, and +never had been, human.' This, as we have shown, and will continue to show, +is the usual savage doctrine. On the one hand are separable souls of men, +surviving the death of the body. On the other are beings, creators, +who were before men were, and before death entered the world. It is +impossible, logically, to argue that these beings are only ghosts of real +remote ancestors, or of ideal ancestors. These higher beings are not +safely to be defined as 'spirits,' their essence is vague, and, we repeat, +the idea of their existence might have been evolved _before the ghost +theory was attained by men_. Dr. Codrington says, 'the conception can +hardly be that of a purely spiritual being, yet, by whatever name the +natives call them, they are such as in English must be called spirits.' + +That is our point. 'God is a spirit,' these beings are Gods, therefore +'these are spirits.' But to their initial conception our idea of 'spirit' +is lacking. They are beings who existed before death, and still exist. + +The beings which never were human, never died, are _Vui_, the ghosts are +_Tamate_. Dr. Codrington uses 'ghosts' for _Tamate_, 'spirits' for _Vui_. +But as to render _Vui_ 'spirits' is to yield the essential point, we shall +call _Vui_ 'beings,' or, simply, _Vui_. A Vui is not a spirit that has +been a ghost; the story may represent him as if a man, 'but the native +will always maintain that he was something different, and deny to him the +fleshly body of a man.'[13] + +This distinction, ghost on one side--original being, not a man, not a +ghost of a man, on the other--is radical and nearly universal in savage +religion. Anthropology, neglecting the essential distinction insisted on, +in this case, by Dr. Codrington, confuses both kinds under the style of +'spirits,' and derives both from ghosts of the dead. Dr. Codrington, it +should be said, does not generalise, but confines himself to the savages +of whom he has made a special study. But, from the other examples of the +same distinction which we have offered, and the rest which we shall offer, +we think ourselves justified in regarding the distinction between a +primeval, eternal, being or beings, on one hand, and ghosts or spirits +exalted from ghost's estate, on the other, as common, if not universal. + +There are corporeal and incorporeal Vuis, but the body of the corporeal +Vui is '_not_ a human body.'[14] The chief is Qat, 'still at hand to help +and invoked in prayers.' 'Qat, Marawa, look down upon me, smooth the sea +for us two, that I may go safely over the sea!' Qat 'created men and +animals,' though, in a certain district, he is claimed as an _ancestor_ +(p. 268). Two strata of belief have here been confused. + +The myth of Qat is a jungle of facetiae and frolic, with one or two +serious incidents, such as the beginning of Death and the coming of Night. +His mother was, or became, a stone; stones playing a considerable part in +the superstitions. + +The incorporeal Vuis, 'with nothing like a human life, have a much higher +place than Qat and his brothers in the religious system.' They have +neither names, nor shapes, nor legends, they receive sacrifice, and are in +some uncertain way connected with stones; these stones usually bear a +fanciful resemblance to fruits or animals (p. 275). The only sacrifice, in +Banks Islands, is that of shell-money. The mischievous spirits are Tamate, +ghosts of men. There is a belief in _mana_ (magical _rapport_). Dr. +Codrington cannot determine the connection of this belief with that in +spirits. Mana is the uncanny, is X, the unknown. A revived impression of +sense is _nunuai_, as when a tired fisher, half asleep at night, feels the +'draw' of a salmon, and automatically strikes.[15] The common ghost is a +bag of _nunuai_, as living man, in the opinion of some philosophers, is a +bag of 'sensations.' Ghosts are only seen as spiritual lights, which so +commonly attend hallucinations among the civilised. Except in the prayers +to Qat and Marawa, prayer only invokes the dead (p. 285). 'In the western +islands the offerings are made to ghosts, and consumed by fire; in the +eastern (Banks) isles they are made to spirits (beings, _Vui_), and +there is no sacrificial fire.' Now, the worship of ghosts goes, in these +isles, with the higher culture, 'a more considerable advance in the arts +of life;' the worship of non-ghosts, _Vui_, goes with the lower material +culture.[16] This is rather the reverse of what we should expect, in +accordance with the anthropological theory. According, however, to our +theory, Animism and ghost-worship may be of later development, and belong +to a higher level of culture, than worship of a being, or beings, that +never were ghosts. In Leper's Isle, 'ghosts do not appear to have prayers +or sacrifices offered to them,' but cause disease, and work magic.[17] + +The belief in the soul, in Melanesia, does _not_ appear to proceed 'from +their dreams or visions in which deceased or absent persons are presented +to them, for they do not appear to believe that the soul goes out from the +dreamer, or presents itself as an object in his dreams,' nor does belief +in other spirits seem to be founded on 'the appearance of life or motion +in inanimate things.'[18] + +To myself it rather looks as if all impressions had their _nunuai_, real, +bodiless, persistent, after-images; that the soul is the complex of all of +these _nunuai_; that there is in the universe a kind of magical other, +called _mana_, possessed, in different proportions, by different men, +_Vui_, _tamate_, and material objects, and that the _atai_ or _ataro_ of a +man dead, his ghost, retains its old, and acquires new _mana_.[19] It is an +odd kind of metaphysic to find among very backward and isolated savages. +But the lesson of Melanesia teaches us how very little we really know of +the religion of low races, how complex it is, how hardly it can be forced +into our theories, if we take it as given in our knowledge, allow for our +ignorance, and are not content to select facts which suit our hypothesis, +while ignoring the rest. On a higher level of material culture than the +Melanesians are the Fijians. + +Fijian religion, as far as we understand, resembles the others in drawing +an impassable line between ghosts and eternal gods. The word _Kalou_ is +applied to all supernal beings, and mystic or magical things alike. It +seems to answer to _mana_ in New Zealand and Melanesia, to _wakan_ in +North America, and to _fée_ in old French, as when Perrault says, about +Bluebeard's key, 'now the key was _fée_.' All Gods are _Kalou_, but all +things that are _Kalou_ are not Gods. Gods are _Kalou vu_; deified ghosts +are _Kalou yalo_. The former are eternal, without beginning of days or end +of years; the latter are subject to infirmity and even to death.[20] + +The Supreme Being, if we can apply the term to him, is Ndengei, or Degei, +'who seems to be an impersonation of the abstract idea of eternal +existence.' This idea is not easily developed out of the conception of a +human soul which has died into a ghost and may die again. His myth +represents him as a serpent, emblem of eternity, or a body of stone with a +serpent's head. His one manifestation is given by eating. So neglected is +he that a song exists about his lack of worshippers and gifts. 'We made +men,' says Ndengei, 'placed them on earth, and yet they share to us only +the under shell.'[21] Here is an extreme case of the self-existent +creative Eternal, mythically lodged in a serpent's body, and reduced to a +jest. + +It is not easy to see any explanation, if we reject the hypothesis that +this is an old, fallen form of faith, 'with scarcely a temple.' The other +unborn immortals are mythical warriors and adulterers, like the popular +deities of Greece. Yet Ndengei receives prayers through two sons of his, +mediating deities. The priests are possessed, or inspired, by spirits and +gods. One is not quite clear as to whether Ndengei is an inspiring god or +not; but that prayers are made to him is inconsistent with the belief in +his eternal inaction. A priest is represented as speaking for Ndengei, +probably by inspiration. 'My own mind departs from me, and then, when it +is truly gone, my god speaks by me,' is the account of this 'alternating +personality' given by a priest.[22] + +After informing us that Ndengei is starved, Mr. Williams next tells about +offerings to him, in earlier days, of hundreds of hogs.[23] He sends rain +on earth. Animals, men, stones, may all be _Kalou_. There is a Hades as +fantastic as that in the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead,' and second sight +flourishes. + +The mysteries include the sham raising of the dead, and appear to be +directed at propitiatory ghosts rather than at Ndengei. There are scenes +of license; 'particulars of almost incredible indecency have been +privately forwarded to Dr. Tylor.'[24] + +Suppose a religious reformer were to arise in one of the many savage +tribes who, as we shall show, possess, but neglect, an Eternal Creator. +He would do what, in the secular sphere, was done by the Mikado of Japan. +The Mikado was a political Dendid or Ndengei--an awful, withdrawn, +impotent potentate. Power was wielded by the Tycoon. A Mikado of genius +asserted himself; hence arose modern Japan. In the same way, a religious +reformer like Khuen Ahten in Egypt would preach down minor gods, ghosts +and sacred beasts, and proclaim the primal Maker, Ndengei, Dendid, Mtanga. +'The king shall hae his ain again.' Had it not been for the Prophets, +Israel, by the time that Greece and Rome knew Israel, would have been +worshipping a horde of little gods, and even beasts and ghosts, while the +Eternal would have become a mere name--perhaps, like Ndengei and Atahocan +and Unkulunkulu, a jest. The Old Testament is the story of the prolonged +effort to keep Jehovah in His supreme place. To make and to succeed in +that effort was the _differentia_, of Israel. Other peoples, even the +lowest, had, as we prove, the germinal conception of a God--assuredly not +demonstrated to be derived from the ghost theory, logically in no need of +the ghost theory, everywhere explicitly contrasted with the ghost theory. +'But their foolish heart was darkened.' + +It is impossible to prove, historically, which of the two main elements in +belief--the idea of an Eternal Being or Beings, or the idea of surviving +ghosts--came first into the minds of men. The idea of primeval Eternal +Beings, as understood by savages, does not depend on, or require, the +ghost theory. But, as we almost always find ghosts and a Supreme Being +together, where we find either, among the lowest savages, we have no +historical ground for asserting that either is prior to the other. Where +we have no evidence to the belief in the Maker, we must not conclude that +no such belief exists. Our knowledge is confused and scanty; often it is +derived from men who do not know the native language, or the native sacred +language, or have not been trusted with what the savage treasures as his +secret. Moreover, if anywhere ghosts are found without gods, it is an +inference from the argument that an idea familiar to very low savage +tribes, like the Australians, and falling more and more into the +background elsewhere, though still extant and traceable, might, in certain +cases, be lost and forgotten altogether. + +To take an example of half-forgotten deity. Mr. Im Thurn, a good observer, +has written on 'The Animism of the Indians of British Guiana.' Mr. Im +Thurn justly says: 'The man who above all others has made this study +possible is Mr. Tylor.' But it is not unfair to remark that Mr. Im Thurn +naturally sees most distinctly that which Mr. Tylor has taught him to +see--namely, Animism. He has also been persuaded, by Mr. Dorman, that the +Great Spirit of North American tribes is 'almost certainly nothing more +than a figure of European origin, reflected and transmitted almost beyond +recognition on the mirror of the Indian mind,' That is not my opinion: I +conceive that the Red Indians had their native Eternal, like the +Australians, Fijians, Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, and so forth, as will be +shown later. + +Mr. Im Thurn, however, dilates on the dream origin of the ghost theory, +giving examples from his own knowledge of the difficulty with which Guiana +Indians discern the hallucinations of dreams from the facts of waking +life. Their waking hallucinations are also so vivid as to be taken for +realities.[25] Mr. Im Thurn adopts the hypothesis that, from ghosts, 'a +belief has arisen, but very gradually, in higher spirits, and, eventually, +in a Highest Spirit; and, keeping pace with the growth of these beliefs, +a habit of reverence for and worship of spirits.' On this hypothesis, +the spirit latest evolved, and most worshipful, ought, of course, to be +the 'Highest Spirit.' But the reverse, as usual, is the case. The Guiana +Indians believe in the continued, but not in the everlasting, existence of +a man's ghost.[26] They believe in no spirits which were not once tenants +of material bodies.[27] + +The belief in a Supreme Spirit is only attained 'in the highest form of +religion'--Andamanese, for instance--as Mr. Im Thurn uses 'spirit' where +we should say 'being.' 'The Indians of Guiana know no god.'[28] + +'But it is true that various words have been found in all, or nearly all, +the languages of Guiana which have been supposed to be names of a Supreme +Being, God, a Great Spirit, in the sense which those phrases bear in the +language of the higher religions.' + +Being interpreted, these Guiana names mean-- + + _The Ancient One, + The Ancient One in Sky-land, + Our Maker, + Our Father, + Our Great Father._ + +'None of those in any way involves the attributes of a god.' + +The Ancient of Days, Our Father in Sky-land, Our Maker, do rather convoy +the sense of God to a European mind. Mr. Im Thurn, however, decides that +the beings thus designated were supposed ancestors who came into Guiana +from some other country, 'sometimes said to have been that entirely +natural country (?) which is separated from Guiana by the ocean of the +air.'[29] + +Mr. Im Thurn casually observed (having said nothing about morals in +alliance with Animism): + +'The fear of unwittingly offending the countless visible and invisible +beings ... kept the Indians very strictly within their own rights and from +offending against the rights of others.' + +This remark dropped out at a discussion of Mr. Im Thurn's paper, and +clearly demonstrated that even a very low creed 'makes for +righteousness.'[30] + +Probably few who have followed the facts given here will agree with Mr. Im +Thurn's theory that 'Our Maker,' 'Our Father,' 'The Ancient One of the +Heaven,' is merely an idealised human ancestor. He falls naturally into +his place with the other high gods of low savages. But we need much more +information on the subject than Mr. Im Thurn was able to give. + +His evidence is all the better, because he is a loyal follower of Mr. +Tylor. And Mr. Tylor says: 'Savage Animism is almost devoid of that +ethical element which to the educated modern mind is the very mainspring +of practical religion.'[31] 'Yet it keeps the Indians very strictly +within their own rights and from offending the rights of others.' Our own +religion is rarely so successful.[32] + +In the Indians of Guiana we have an alleged case of a people still deep in +the animistic or ghost-worshipping case, who, by the hypothesis, have not +yet evolved the idea of a god at all. + +When the familiar names for God, such as Maker, Father, Ancient of Days, +occur in the Indian language, Mr. Im Thurn explains the neglected Being +who bears these titles as a remote deified ancestor. Of course, when a +Being with similar titles occurs where ancestors are not worshipped, as in +Australia and the Andaman Islands, the explanation suggested by Mr. Im +Thurn for the problem of religion in Guiana, will not fit the facts. + +It is plain that, _a priori_, another explanation is conceivable. If a +people like the Andamanese, or the Australian tribes whom we have studied, +had such a conception as that of Puluga, or Baiame, or Mungan-ngaur and +then, _later_, developed ancestor-worship with its propitiatory sacrifices +and ceremonies, ancestor-worship, as the newest evolved and infinitely the +most practical form of cult, would gradually thrust the belief in a +Puluga, or Mungan-ngaur, or Cagn into the shade. The ancestral spirit, to +speak quite plainly, can be 'squared' by the people in whom he takes a +special interest for family reasons. The equal Father of all men cannot +be 'squared,' and declines (till corrupted by the bad example of ancestral +ghosts) to make himself useful to one man rather than to another. For +these very intelligible, simple, and practical reasons, if the belief in +a Mungan-ngaur came first in evolution, and the belief in a practicable +bribable family ghost came second, the ghost-cult would inevitably crowd +out the God-cult.[33] The name of the Father and Maker would become a +mere survival, _nominis umbra_, worship and sacrifice going to the +ancestral ghost. That explanation would fit the state of religion which +Mr. Im Thurn has found, rightly or wrongly, in British Guiana. + +But, if the idea of a universal Father and Maker came last in evolution, +as a refinement, then, of course, it ought to be the newest, and therefore +the most fashionable and potent of Guianese cults. Precisely the reverse +is said to be the case. Nor can the belief indicated in such names +as Father and Maker be satisfactorily explained as a refinement of +ancestor-worship, because, we repeat, it occurs where ancestors are not +worshipped. + +These considerations, however unpleasant to the devotees of Animism, or +the ghost theory, are not, in themselves, illogical, nor contradictory of +the theory of evolution, which, on the other hand, fits them perfectly +well. That god thrives best who is most suited to his environment. Whether +an easy-going, hungry ghost-god with a liking for his family, or a moral +Creator not to be bribed, is better suited to an environment of not +especially scrupulous savages, any man can decide. Whether a set of not +particularly scrupulous savages will readily evolve a moral unbribable +Creator, when they have a serviceable family ghost-god eager to oblige, is +a question as easily resolved. + +Beyond all doubt, savages who find themselves under the watchful eye of a +moral deity whom they cannot 'square' will desert him as soon as they have +evolved a practicable ghost-god, useful for family purposes, whom they +_can_ square. No less manifestly, savages, who already possess a throng of +serviceable ghost-gods, will not enthusiastically evolve a moral Being who +despises gifts, and only cares for obedience. 'There is a great deal of +human nature in man,' and, if Mr. Im Thurn's description of the Guianese +be correct, everything we know of human nature, and of evolution, assures +us that the Father, or Maker, or Ancient of Days came first; the +ghost-gods, last. What has here been said about the Indians of Guiana +(namely, that they are now more ghost and spirit worshippers, with only a +name surviving to attest a knowledge of a Father and Maker in Heaven) +applies equally well to the Zulus. The Zulus are the great standing type +of an animistic or ghost-worshipping race without a God. But, had they a +God (on the Australian pattern) whom they have forgotten, or have they not +yet evolved a God out of Animism? + +The evidence, collected by Dr. Callaway, is honest, but confused. One +native, among others, put forward the very theory here proposed by us as +an alternative to that of Mr. Im Thurn. 'Unkulunkulu' (the idealised but +despised First Ancestor) 'was not worshipped [by men]. For it is not +worship when people see things, as rain, or food, or corn, and say, +"Yes, these things were made by Unkulunkulu.... Afterwards they [men] +had power to change those things, that they might become the Amatongos" +[might belong to the ancestral spirits]. _They took them away from +Unkulunkulu_.'[34] + +Animism supplanted Theism. Nothing could be more explicit. But, though we +have found an authentic Zulu text to suit our provisional theory, the most +eminent philosophical example must not reduce us into supposing that this +text settles the question. Dr. Callaway collected great masses of Zulu +answers to his inquiries, and it is plain that a respondent, like the +native theologian whom we have cited, may have adapted his reply to what +he had learned of Christian doctrine. Having now the Christian notion of a +Divine Creator, and knowing, too, that the unworshipped Unkulunkulu is +said to have 'made things,' while only ancestral spirits, are worshipped, +the native may have inferred that worship (by Christians given to the +Creator) was at some time transferred by the Zulus from Unkulunkulu to the +Amatongo. The truth is that both the anthropological theory (spirits +first, Gods last), and our theory (Supreme Being first, spirits next) can +find warrant in Dr. Callaway's valuable collections. For that reason, the +problem must be solved after a survey of the whole field of savage and +barbaric religion; it cannot be settled by the ambiguous case of the +Zulus alone. + +Unkulunkulu is represented as 'the First Man, who broke off in the +beginning.' 'They are ancestor-worshippers,' says Dr. Callaway, 'and +believe that their first ancestor, the First Man, was the Creator.'[35] +But they may, like many other peoples, have had a different original +tradition, and have altered it, just because they are now such fervent +ancestor-worshippers. Unkulunkulu was prior to Death, which came among men +in the usual mythical way.[36] Whether Unkulunkulu still exists, is +rather a moot question: Dr. Callaway thinks that he does not.[37] If not, +he is an exception to the rule in Australia, Andaman, among the Bushmen, +the Fuegians, and savages in general, who are less advanced in culture +than the Zulus. The idea, then, of a Maker of things who has ceased to +exist occurs, if at all, not in a relatively primitive, but in a +relatively late religion. On the analogy of pottery, agriculture, the use +of iron, villages, hereditary kings, and so on, the notion of a dead Maker +is late, not early. It occurs where men have iron, cattle, agriculture, +kings, houses, a disciplined army, _not_ where men have none of these +things. The Zulu godless ancestor-worship, then, by parity of reasoning, +is, like their material culture, not an early but a late development. The +Zulus 'hear of a King which is above'--'the heavenly King.'[38] 'We did +not hear of him first from white men.... But he is not like Unkulunkulu, +who, we say, made all things.' + +Here may be dimly descried the ideas of a God, and a subordinate demiurge. +'The King is above, Unkulunkulu is beneath.' The King above punishes sin, +striking the sinner by lightning. Nor do the Zulus know how they have +sinned. 'There remained only that word about the heaven,' 'which,' says +Dr. Callaway, 'implies that there might have been other words which are +now lost.' There is great confusion of thought. Unkulunkulu made the +heaven, where the unknown King reigns, a hard task for a +First Man.[39] + +'In process of time we have come to worship the Amadhlozi (spirits) only, +because we know not what to say about Unkulunkulu.'[40] 'It is on that +account, then, that we seek out for ourselves the Amadhlozi (spirits), +that we may not always be thinking about Unkulunkulu.' + +All this attests a faint lingering shadow of a belief too ethereal, too +remote, for a practical conquering race, which prefers intelligible +serviceable ghosts, with a special regard for their own families. + +Ukoto, a very old Zulu, said: 'When we were children it was said "The Lord +is in heaven." ... They used to point to the Lord on high; we did not hear +his name.' Unkulunkulu was understood, by this patriarch, to refer to +immediate ancestors, whose mimes and genealogies he gave.[41] 'We heard it +said that the Creator of the world was the Lord who is above; people used +always, when I was growing up, to point towards heaven.' + +A very old woman was most reluctant to speak of Unkulunkulu; at last she +said, 'Ah, it is he in fact who is the Creator, who is in heaven, of whom +the ancients spoke.' Then the old woman began to babble humorously of how +the white men made all things. Again, Unkulunkulu is said to have been +created by Utilexo. Utilexo was invisible, Unkulunkulu was visible, and so +got credit not really his due.[42] When the heaven is said to be the +Chief's (the chief being a living Zulu) 'they do not believe what they +say,' the phrase is a mere hyperbolical compliment.[43] + +On this examination of the evidence, it certainly seems as logical to +conjecture that the Zulus had once such an idea of a Supreme Being as +lower races entertain, and then nearly lost it; as to say that Zulus, +though a monarchical race, have not yet developed a King-God out of the +throng of spirits (Amatongo). The Zulus, the Norsemen of the South, so to +speak, are a highly practical military race. A Deity at all abstract was +not to their liking. Serviceable family spirits, who continually provided +an excuse for a dinner of roast beef, were to their liking. The less +developed races do not kill their flocks commonly for food. A sacrifice is +needed as a pretext. To the gods of Andamanese, Bushmen, Australians, no +sacrifice is offered. To the Supreme Being of most African peoples no +sacrifice is offered. There is no festivity in the worship of these +Supreme Beings, no feasting, at all events. They are not to be 'got at' by +gifts or sacrifices. The Amatongo are to be 'got at,' are bribable, supply +an excuse for a good dinner, and thus the practical Amatongo are honoured, +while, in the present generation of Zulus, Unkulunkulu is a joke, and the +Lord in Heaven is the shadow of a name. Clearly this does not point to the +recent but to the remote development of the higher ideas, now superseded +by spirit-worship. + +We shall next see how this view, the opposite of the anthropological +theory, works when applied to other races, especially to other African +races. + +[Footnote 1: When I wrote _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_ (ii. 11-13) I +regarded Cagn as 'only a successful and idealised medicine man.' But I now +think that I confused in my mind the religious and the mythological +aspects of Cagn. One of unknown origin, existing before the sun, a Maker +of all things, prayed to, but not in receipt of sacrifice, is no medicine +man, except in his myth.] + +[Footnote 2: The omissions in Mr. Spencer's system may possibly be +explained by the circumstance that, as he tells us, he collected his +facts 'by proxy.' While we find Waitz much interested in and amazed by the +benevolent Supreme Being of many African tribes, that personage is only +alluded to as 'Alleged Benevolent Supreme Being' in Mr. Spencer's +_Descriptive Sociology_, and is usually left out of sight altogether in +his _Principles of Sociology_ and _Ecclesiastical Institutions_. Yet we +have precisely the same kind of evidence of observers for this 'alleged' +benevolent Supreme Being as we have for the _canaille_ of ghosts and +fetishes. If he is a deity of a rather lofty moral conception, of course +he need not be propitiated by human sacrifices or cold chickens. _That_ +kind of material evidence to the faith in him must be absent by the +nature of the case; but the coincident testimony of travellers to belief +in a Supreme Being cannot be dismissed as 'alleged.'] + +[Footnote 3: Pp. 676, 677.] + +[Footnote 4: Man, _J.A.I_. xii. 70.] + +[Footnote 5: Man, _J.A.I_. xii. 96-98.] + +[Footnote 6: xii. 156, 157.] + +[Footnote 7: xii. 112.] + +[Footnote 8: xii. 158.] + +[Footnote 9: xii. 158.] + +[Footnote 10: _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, i. 281-288.] + +[Footnote 11: Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, 133.] + +[Footnote 12: _J.A.I_. x. 263.] + +[Footnote 13: _J.A.I_. 267.] + +[Footnote 14: _J.A.I_. x. 267.] + +[Footnote 15: P. 281. This is a _nunuai_ with which I am familiar. Flying +fish, in Banks Island, take the _rôle_ of salmon. The natives think it +real, but without form or substance.] + +[Footnote 16: Codrington, _Melanesia_, p. 122.] + +[Footnote 17: _J.A.I_. x. 294.] + +[Footnote 18: Op. cit. x. 313.] + +[Footnote 19: _J.A.I_. x. 300.] + +[Footnote 20: Williams's _Fiji_, p. 218. See Mr. Thomson's remarks cited +later.] + +[Footnote 21: _Fiji_, p. 217.] + +[Footnote 22: Ibid. p. 228.] + +[Footnote 23: Ibid. p. 230.] + +[Footnote 24: _J.A.I_. xiv. 30.] + +[Footnote 25: _J.A.I_. xi. 361-366.] + +[Footnote 26: Ibid. xi. 374.] + +[Footnote 27: Ibid. xi. 376.] + +[Footnote 28: Ibid. xi. 376] + +[Footnote 29: _J.A.I_. xi. 378.] + +[Footnote 30: Ibid. 382.] + +[Footnote 31: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 360.] + +[Footnote 32: Conceivably, however, the Guiana spirits who have so much +moral influence, exert it by magical charms. 'The belief in the power of +charms for good or evil produces not only honesty, but a great amount of +gentle dealing,' says Livingstone, of the Africans. However they work, the +spirits work for righteousness.] + +[Footnote 33: Obviously there could be no Family God before there was the +institution of the Family.] + +[Footnote 34: Callaway, _Rel. of Amazulu_, p. 17.] + +[Footnote 35: Callaway, p. 1.] + +[Footnote 36: Op. cit. p. 8.] + +[Footnote 37: Op. cit. p. 7.] + +[Footnote 38: Op. cit. p. 19.] + +[Footnote 39: Callaway, pp. 20, 21.] + +[Footnote 40: Pp. 26, 27.] + +[Footnote 41: Pp. 49, 50.] + +[Footnote 42: P. 67.] + +[Footnote 43: P. 122.] + + + + +XIII + +MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS + +If many of the lowest savages known to us entertain ideas of a Supreme +Being such as we find among Fuegians, Australians, Bushmen, and +Andamanese, are there examples, besides the Zulus, of tribes higher in +material culture who seem to have had such notions, but to have partly +forgotten or neglected them? Miss Kingsley, a lively, observant, and +unprejudiced, though rambling writer, gives this very account of the Bantu +races. Oblivion, or neglect, will show itself in leaving the Supreme Being +alone, as he needs no propitiation, while devoting sacrifice and ritual to +fetishes and ghosts. That this should be done is perfectly natural if the +Supreme Being (who wants no sacrifice) were the first evolved in thought, +while venal fetishes and spirits came in as a result of the ghost theory. +But if, as a result of the ghost theory, the Supreme Being came last in +evolution, he ought to be the most fashionable object of worship, the +latest developed, the most powerful, and most to be propitiated. He is the +reverse. + +To take an example: the Dinkas of the Upper Nile ('godless,' says Sir +Samuel Baker) 'pay a very theoretical kind of homage to the all-powerful +Being, dwelling in heaven, whence he sees all things. He is called +"Dendid" (great rain, that is, universal benediction?).' He is omnipotent, +but, being all beneficence, can do no evil; so, not being feared, he is +not addressed in prayer. The evil spirit, on the other hand, receives +sacrifices. The Dinkas have a strange old chant: + + 'At the beginning, when Dendid made all things, + He created the Sun, + And the Sun is born, and dies, and comes again! + He created the Stars, + And the Stars are born, and die, and come again! + He created Man, + And Man is born, and dies, and returns no more!' + +It is like the lament of Moschus.[1] + +Russegger compares the Dinkas, and all the neighbouring peoples who hold +the same beliefs, to modern Deists.[2] They are remote from Atheism and +from cult! Suggestions about an ancient Egyptian influence are made, but +popular Egyptian religion was not monotheistic, and priestly thought could +scarcely influence the ancestors of the Dinkas. M. Lejean says these +peoples are so practical and utilitarian that missionary religion takes no +hold on them. Mr. Spencer does not give the ideas of the Dinkas, but it is +not easy to see how the too beneficent Dendid could be evolved out of +ghost-propitiation, 'the origin of all religions.' Rather the Dinkas, a +practical people, seem to have simply forgotten to be grateful to +their Maker; or have decided, more to the credit of the clearness of their +heads than the warmth of their hearts, that gratitude he does not want. +Like the French philosopher they cultivate _l'indépendance du coeur_, +being in this matter strikingly unlike the Pawnees. + +Let us now take a case in which ancestor-worship, and no other form of +religion (beyond mere superstitions), has been declared to be the practice +of an African people. Mr. Spencer gives the example of natives of the +south-eastern district of Central Africa described by Mr. Macdonald in +'Africana.'[3] The dead man becomes a ghost-god, receives prayer and +sacrifice, is called a Mulungu (= great ancestor or = sky?), is preferred +above older spirits, now forgotten; such old spirits may, however, have a +mountain top for home, a great chief being better remembered; the +mountain god is prayed to for rain; higher gods were probably similar +local gods in an older habitat of the Yao.[4] + +Such is in the main Mr. Spencer's _résumé_ of Mr. Duff Macdonald's report. +He omits whatever Mr. Macdonald says about a Being among the Yaos, +analogous to the Dendid of the Dinkas, or the Darumulun of Australia, or +the Huron Ahone. Yet analysis detects, in Mr. Macdonald's report, +copious traces of such a Being, though Mr. Macdonald himself believes in +ancestor-worship as the Source of the local religion. Thus, Mulungu, +or Mlungu, used as a proper name, 'is said to be the great spirit, +_msimu_, of all men, a spirit formed by adding all the departed spirits +together.[5] This is a singular stretch of savage philosophy, and +indicates (says Mr. Macdonald) 'a grasping after a Being who is the +totality of all individual existence.... If it fell from the lips of +civilised men instead of savages, it would be regarded as philosophy. +Expressions of this kind among the natives are partly traditional, and +partly dictated by the big thoughts of the moment.' Philosophy it is, but +a philosophy dependent on the ghost theory. + +I go on to show that the Wayao have, though Mr. Spencer omits him, a Being +who precisely answers to Darumulun, if stripped (perhaps) of his ethical +aspect. On this point we are left in uncertainty, just because Mr. +Macdonald could not ascertain the secrets of his mysteries, which, in +Australia, have been revealed to a few Europeans. + +Where Mulungu is used as a proper name, it 'certainly points to a personal +Being, by the Wayao sometimes said to be the same as Mtanga. At other +times he is a Being that possesses many powerful servants, but is himself +kept a good deal beyond the scene of earthly affairs, like the gods of +Epicurus.' + +This is, of course, precisely the feature in African theology which +interests us. The Supreme Being, in spite of the potency which his +supposed place as latest evolved out of the ghost-world should naturally +give him, is neglected, either as half forgotten, or for philosophical +reasons. For these reasons Epicurus and Lucretius make their gods +_otiosi_, unconcerned, and the Wayao, with their universal collective +spirit, are no mean philosophers. + +'This Mulungu' or Mtanga, 'in the world beyond the grave, is represented +as assigning to spirits their proper places,' whether for ethical reasons +or not we are not informed.[6] Santos (1586) says 'they acknowledge a God +who, both in this world and the next, measures retribution for the good or +evil done in this.' + +'In the native hypothesis about creation "the people of Mulungu" play a +very important part.' These ministers of his who do his pleasure are, +therefore, as is Mulungu himself, regarded as prior to the existing world. +Therefore they cannot, in Wayao opinion, be ghosts of the dead at all; nor +can we properly call them 'spirits.' They are _beings_, original, +creative, but undefined. The word Mulungu, however, is now applied to +spirits of individuals, but whether it means 'sky' (Salt) or whether it +means 'ancestor' (Bleek), it cannot be made to prove that Mulungu himself +was originally envisaged as 'spirit.' For, manifestly, suppose that the +idea of powerful beings, undefined, came first in evolution, and was +followed by the ghost idea, that idea might then be applied to explaining +the pre-existent creative powers. + +Mtanga is by 'some' localised as the god of Mangochi, an Olympus left +behind by the Yao in their wanderings. Here, some hold, his voice is still +audible. 'Others say that Mtanga never was a man ... he was concerned in +the first introduction of men into the world. He gets credit for ... +making mountains and rivers. He is intimately associated with a year of +plenty. He is called Mchimwene juene, 'a very chief.' He has a kind of +evil opposite, _Chitowe_, but this being, the Satan of the creed, 'is a +child or subject of Mtanga,' an evil angel, in fact.[7] + +The thunder god, Mpambe, in Yao, Njasi (lightning) is also a minister of +the Supreme Being. 'He is sent by Mtanga with rain.' Europeans are +cleverer than natives, because we 'stayed longer with the people of +God (Mulungu).' + +I do not gather that, though associated with good crops, Mtanga or +Mulungu receives any sacrifice or propitiation. 'The chief addresses +his own god;'[8] the chief 'will not trouble himself about his +great-great-grand-father; he will present his offering to his own +immediate predecessor, saying, 'O father, I do not know all your +relatives; you know them all: invite them to feast with you.'[9] + +'All the offerings are supposed to point to some want of the spirit,' +Mtanga, on the other hand, is _nihil indiga nostri_. + +A village god is given beer to drink, as Indra got Soma. A dead chief is +propitiated by human sacrifices. I find no trace of any gift to Mtanga. +His mysteries are really unknown to Mr. Macdonald: they were laughed at +by a travelled and 'emancipated' Yao.[10] + +'These rites are supposed to be inviolably concealed by the initiated, who +often say that they would die if they revealed them.'[11] + +How can we pretend to understand a religion if we do not know its secret? +That secret, in Australia, yields the certainty of the ethical character +of the Supreme Being. Mr. Macdonald says about the initiator (a grotesque +figure):-- + +'He delivers lectures, and is said to give much good advice ... the +lectures condemn selfishness, and a selfish person is called _mwisichana_, +that is, "uninitiated."' + +There could not be better evidence of the presence of the ethical element +in the religious mysteries. Among the Yao, as among the Australian Kurnai, +the central secret lesson of religion is the lesson of unselfishness. + +It is not stated that Mtanga instituted or presides over the mysteries. +Judging from the analogy of Eleusis, the Bora, the Red Indian initiations, +and so on, we may expect this to be the belief; but Mr. Macdonald knows +very little about the matter. + +The legendary tales say 'all things in this world were made by "God."' +'At first there were not people, but "God" and beasts.' 'God' here, +is Mlungu. The other statement is apparently derived from existing +ancestor-worship, people who died became 'God' (Mlungu). But God is prior +to death, for the Yao have a form of the usual myth of the origin of +death, also of sleep: 'death and sleep are one word, they are of one +family.' God dwells on high, while a malevolent 'great one,' who disturbed +the mysteries and slew the initiated, was turned into a mountain.[12] + +In spite of information confessedly defective, I have extracted from Mr. +Spencer's chosen authority a mass of facts, pointing to a Yao belief in a +primal being, maker of mountains and rivers; existent before men were; not +liable to death--which came late among them--beneficent; not propitiated +by sacrifice (as far as the evidence goes); moral (if we may judge by the +analogy of the mysteries), and yet occupying the religious background, +while the foreground is held by the most recent ghosts. To prove Mr. +Spencer's theory, he ought to have given a full account of this being, and +to have shown how he was developed out of ghosts which are forgotten in +inverse ratio to their distance from the actual generation. I conceive +that Mr. Spencer would find a mid-point between a common ghost and Mtanga, +in a ghost of a chief attached to a mountain, the place and place-name +preserving the ghost's name and memory. But it is, I think, a far cry from +such a chief's ghost to the pre-human, angel-served Mtanga. + +Of ancestor worship and ghost worship, we have abundant evidence. But the +position of Mtanga raises one of these delicate and crucial questions +which cannot be solved by ignoring their existence. Is Mtanga evolved +out of an ancestral ghost? If so, why, as greatest of divine beings, 'Very +Chief,' and having powerful ministers under him, is he left unpropitiated, +unless it be by moral discourses at the mysteries? As a much more advanced +idea than that of a real father's ghost, he ought to be much later in +evolution, fresher in conception, and more adored. How do we explain his +lack of adoration? Was he originally envisaged as a ghost at all, and, if +so, by what curious but uniform freak of savage logic is he regarded as +prior to men, and though a ghost, prior to death? Is it not certain that +such a being could be conceived of by men who had never dreamed of ghosts? +Is there any logical reason why Mtanga should not be regarded as +originally on the same footing as Munganngaur, but now half forgotten and +neglected, for practical or philosophical reasons? + +On these problems light is thrown by a successor of Mr. Spencer's +authority, Mr. Duff Macdonald, in the Blantyre Mission. This gentleman, +the Rev. David Clement Scott, has published 'A Cyclopaedic Dictionary +of the Mang'anja Language in British Central Africa.'[13] Looking at +ancestral spirits first, we find _Mzimu_, 'spirits of the departed, +supposed to come in dreams.' Though abiding in the spirit world, they also +haunt thickets, they inspire Mlauli, prophets, and make them rave and +utter predictions. Offerings are made to them. Here is a prayer: 'Watch +over me, my ancestor, who died long ago; tell the great spirit at the head +of my race from whom my mother came.' There are little hut-temples, and +the chief directs the sacrifices of food, or of animals. There are +religious pilgrimages, with sacrifice, to mountains. God, like men in this +region, has various names, as Chiuta, 'God in space and the rainbow sign +across;' Mpambe, 'God Almighty' (or rather 'pre-excellent'); Mlezi, 'God +the Sustainer,' and Mulungu, 'God who is spirit.' Mulungu = God, 'not +spirits or fetish.' 'You can't put the plural, as God is One,' say the +natives. 'There are no idols called gods, and spirits are spirits of +people who have died, not gods.' Idols are _Zitunzi-zitunzi_. 'Spirits +are supposed to be with Mulungu.' God made the world and man. Our author +says 'when the chief or people sacrifice it is to God,' but he also says +that they sacrifice to ancestral spirits. There is some confusion of +ideas here: Mr. Macdonald says nothing of sacrifice to Mtanga. + +Mr. Scott does not seem to know more about the Mysteries than Mr. +Macdonald, and his article on Mulungu does not much enlighten us. Does +Mulungu, as Creative God, receive sacrifice, or not?[14] Mr. Scott gives +no instance of this, under _Nsembe_ (sacrifice), where ancestors, or +hill-dwelling ghosts of chiefs, are offered food; yet, as we have seen, +under _Mulungu_, he avers that the chiefs and people do sacrifice to God. +He appears to be confusing the Creator with spirits, and no reliance can +be placed on this part of his evidence. 'At the back of all this' +(sacrifice to spirits) 'there is God.' If I understand Mr. Scott, +sacrifices are really made only to spirits, but he is trying to argue +that, after all, the theistic conception is at the back of the animistic +practice, thus importing his theory into his facts. His theory would, +really, be in a better way, if sacrifice is _not_ offered to the Creator, +but this had not occurred to Mr. Scott. + +It is plain, in any case, that the religion of the Africans in the +Blantyre region has an element not easily to be derived from ancestral +spirit-worship, an element not observed by Mr. Spencer. + +Nobody who has followed the examples already adduced will be amazed by +what Waitz calls the 'surprising result' of recent inquiries among the +great negro race. Among the branches where foreign influence is least to +be suspected, we discover, behind their more conspicuous fetishisms and +superstitions, something which we cannot exactly call Monotheism, yet +which tends in that direction.[15] Waitz quotes Wilson for the fact that, +their fetishism apart, they adore a Supreme Being as the Creator: and do +not honour him with sacrifice. + +The remarks of Waitz may be cited in full: + +'The religion of the negro may be considered by some as a particularly +rude form of polytheism and may be branded with the special name of +fetishism. It would follow, from a minute examination of it, that--apart +from the extravagant and fantastic traits, which are rooted in the +character of the negro, and which radiate therefrom over all his +creations--in comparison with the religions of other savages it is neither +very specially differentiated nor very specially crude in form. + +'But this opinion can be held to be quite true only while we look at the +_outside_ of the negro's religion, or estimate its significance from +arbitrary pre-suppositions, as is specially the case with Ad. Wuttke. + +'By a deeper insight, which of late several scientific investigators have +succeeded in attaining, we reach, rather, the surprising conclusion that +several of the negro races--on whom we cannot as yet prove, and can hardly +conjecture, the influence of a more civilised people--in the embodying of +their religious conceptions are further advanced than almost all other +savages, so far that, even if we do not call them monotheists, we may +still think of them as standing on the boundary of monotheism, seeing that +their religion is also mixed with a great mass of rude superstition which, +in turn, among other peoples, seems to overrun completely the purer +religious conceptions.' + +This conclusion as to an element of pure faith in negro religion would not +have surprised Waitz, had recent evidence as to the same creed among lower +savages lain before him as he worked. + +This volume of his book was composed in 1860. In 1872 he had become well +aware of the belief in a good Maker among the Australian natives, and of +the absence among them of ancestor worship.[16] + +Waitz's remarks on the Supreme Being of the Negro are well worth noting, +from his unconcealed astonishment at the discovery. + +Wilson's observations on North and South Guinea religion were published in +1856. After commenting on the delicate task of finding out what a savage +religion really is, he writes: 'The belief in one great Supreme Being, +who made and upholds all things, is universal.'[17] The names of the being +are translated 'Maker,' 'Preserver,' 'Benefactor,' 'Great Friend.' Though +compact of all good qualities, the being has allowed the world to 'come +under the control of evil spirits,' who, alone, receive religious worship. +Though he leaves things uncontrolled, yet the chief being (as in Homer) +ratifies the Oath, at a treaty, and is invoked to punish criminals when +ordeal water is to be drunk. So far, then, he has an ethical influence. +'Grossly wicked people' are buried outside of the regular place. Fetishism +prevails, with spiritualism, and Wilson thinks that mediums might pick up +some good tricks in Guinea. He gives no examples. Their inspired men do +things 'that cannot be accounted for,' by the use of narcotics. + +The South Guinea Creator, Anyambia (= good spirit?), is good, but +capricious. He has a good deputy, Ombwiri (spelled 'Mbuiri' by Miss +Kingsley); _he alone has no priests_, but communicates directly with men. +The neighbouring Shekuni have mysteries of the Great Spirit. No details +are given. This great being, Mwetyi, witnesses covenants and punishes +perjury. This people are ancestor-worshippers, but their Supreme Being is +not said to receive sacrifice, as ghosts do, while he is so far from +being powerless, like Unkulunkulu, that, but for fear of his wrath, +'their national treaties would have little or no force.'[18] Having no +information about the mysteries, of course, we know nothing of other moral +influences which are, or may be exercised by these great, powerful, and +not wholly otiose beings. + +The celebrated traveller, Mungo Park, who visited Africa in 1805, had good +opportunities of understanding the natives. He did not hurry through the +land with a large armed force, but alone, or almost alone, paid his way +with his brass buttons. 'I have conversed with all ranks and conditions +upon the subject of their faith,' he says, 'and can pronounce, without the +smallest shadow of doubt, that the belief in one God and in a future state +of reward and punishment is entire and universal among them.' This cannot +strictly be called monotheism, as there are many subordinate spirits who +may be influenced by 'magical ceremonies.' But if monotheism means belief +in One Spirit alone, or religious regard paid to One Spirit alone, it +exists nowhere--no, not in Islam. + +Park thinks it remarkable that 'the Almighty' only receives prayers at the +new moon (of sacrifice to the Almighty he says nothing), and that, being +the creator and preserver of all things, he is 'of so exalted a nature +that it is idle to imagine the feeble supplications of wretched mortals +can reverse the decrees and change the purpose of unerring Wisdom.' The +new moon prayers are mere matters of tradition; 'our fathers did it before +us.' 'Such is the blindness of unassisted nature,' says Park, who is not +satirising, in Swift's manner, the prayers of Presbyterians at home on +Yarrow. + +Thus, the African Supreme Being is unpropitiated, while inferior spirits +are constrained by magic or propitiated with food. + +We meet our old problem: How has this God, in the conception of whom there +is so much philosophy, developed out of these hungry ghosts? The influence +of Islam can scarcely be suspected, Allah being addressed, of course, in +endless prayers, while the African god receives none. Indeed, it would be +more plausible to say that Mahomet borrowed Allah from the widespread +belief which we are studying, than that the negro's Supreme Being was +borrowed from Allah. + +Park had, as we saw, many opportunities of familiar discussion with the +people on whose mercies he threw himself. + +'But it is not often that the negroes make their religious opinions the +subject of conversation; when interrogated, in particular, concerning +their ideas of a future state, they express themselves with great +reverence, but endeavour to shorten the discussion by saying, _"Mo o mo +inta allo_" ("No man knows anything about it").'[19] + +Park himself, in extreme distress, and almost in despair, chanced to +observe the delicate beauty of a small moss-plant, and, reflecting that +the Creator of so frail a thing could not be indifferent to any of His +creatures, plucked up courage and reached safety.[20] He was not of the +negro philosophy, and is the less likely to have invented it. The new moon +prayer, said in a whisper, was reported to Park, 'by many different +people,' to contain 'thanks to God for his kindness during the existence +of the past moon, and to solicit a continuation of his favour during the +new one.' This, of course, may prove Islamite influence, and is at +variance with the general tendency of the religious philosophy as +described. + +We now arrive at a theory of the Supreme Being among a certain African +race which would be entirely fatal to my whole hypothesis on this topic, +if it could be demonstrated correct in fact, and if it could be stretched +so as to apply to the Australians, Fuegians, Andamanese, and other very +backward peoples. It is the hypothesis that the Supreme Being is a +'loan-god,' borrowed from Europeans. + +The theory is very lucidly set forth in Major Ellis's 'Tshi-speaking +Peoples of the Gold Coast.'[21] Major Ellis's opinion coincides with that +of Waitz in his 'Introduction to Anthropology' (an opinion to which Waitz +does not seem bigoted)--namely, that 'the original form of all religion is +a raw, unsystematic polytheism,' nature being peopled by inimical powers +or spirits, and everyone worshipping what he thinks most dangerous or +most serviceable. There are few general, many local or personal, objects +of veneration.[22] Major Ellis only met this passage when he had formed +his own ideas by observation of the Tshi race. We do not pretend to +guess what 'the original form of all religion' may have been; but we have +given, and shall give, abundant evidence for the existence of a loftier +faith than this, among peoples much lower in material culture than the +Tshi races, who have metals and an organised priesthood. They occupy, in +small villages (except Coomassie and Djuabin), the forests of the Gold +Coast. The mere mention of Coomassie shows how vastly superior in +civilisation the Tshis (Ashantis and Fantis) are to the naked, houseless +Australians. Their inland communities, however, are 'mere specks in a vast +tract of impenetrable forest.' The coast people have for centuries been in +touch with Europeans, but the 'Tshi-speaking races are now much in the +same condition, both socially and morally, as they were at the time of the +Portuguese discovery.'[23] + +Nevertheless, Major Ellis explains their Supreme Being as the result of +European influence! _A priori_ this appears highly improbable. That a +belief should sweep over all these specks in impenetrable forest, from +the coast-tribes in contact with Europeans, and that this belief should, +though the most recent, be infinitely the least powerful, cannot be +regarded as a plausible hypothesis. Moreover, on Major Ellis's theory the +Supreme Beings of races which but recently came for the first time in +contact with Europeans, Supreme Beings kept jealously apart from European +ken, and revered in the secrecy of ancient mysteries, must also, by +parity of reason, be the result of European influence. Unfortunately, +Major Ellis gives no evidence for his statements about the past history of +Tshi religion. Authorities he must have, and references would be welcome. + +'With people in the condition in which the natives of the Gold Coast now +are, religion is not in any way allied with moral ideas.'[24] We have given +abundant evidence that among much more backward tribes morals rest on a +religious sanction. If this be not so on the Gold Coast we cannot accept +these relatively advanced Fantis and Ashantis as representing the +'original' state of ethics and religion, any more than those people with +cities, a king, a priesthood, iron, and gold, represent the 'original' +material condition of society. Major Ellis also shows that the Gods exact +chastity from aspirants to the priesthood.[25] The present beliefs +of the Gold Coast are kept up by organised priesthoods as 'lucrative +business.'[26] Where there is no lucre and no priesthood, as among more +backward races, this kind of business cannot be done. On the Gold Coast +men can only approach gods through priests.[27] This is degeneration. + +Obviously, if religion began in a form relatively pure and moral, it +_must_ degenerate, as civilisation advances, under priests who 'exploit' +the lucrative, and can see no money in the pure elements of belief and +practice. That the lucrative elements in Christianity were exploited by +the clergy, to the neglect of ethics, was precisely the complaint of the +Reformers. From these lucrative elements the creed of the Apostles was +free, and a similar freedom marks the religion of Australia or of the +Pawnees. We cannot possibly, then, expect to find the 'original' state +of religion among a people subdued to a money-grubbing priesthood, like +the Tshi races. Let religion begin as pure as snow, it would be corrupted +by priestly trafficking in its lucrative animistic aspect. And priests are +developed relatively late. + +Major Ellis discriminates Tshi gods as-- + + 1. General, worshipped by an entire tribe or more tribes. + 2. Local deities of river, hill, forest, or sea. + 3. Deities of families or corporations. + 4. Tutelary deities of individuals. + +The second class, according to the natives, were appointed by the first +class, who are 'too distant or indifferent to interfere ordinarily in +human affairs.' Thus, the Huron god, Ahone, punishes nobody. He is all +sweetness and light, but has a deputy god, called Okeus. On our hypothesis +this indifference of high gods suggests the crowding out of the great +disinterested God by venal animistic competition. All of class II. 'appear +to have been originally malignant.' Though, in native belief, class I. +was prior to, and 'appointed' class II., Major Ellis thinks that malignant +spirits of class II. were raised to class I. as if to the peerage, while +classes III. and IV. 'are clearly the product of priesthood'--therefore +late. + +Major Ellis then avers that when Europeans reached the Gold Coast, in the +fifteenth century, they 'appear to have found' a Northern God, Tando, and +a Southern God, Bobowissi, still adored. Bobowissi makes thunder and rain, +lives on a hill, and receives, or received, human sacrifices. But, 'after +an intercourse of some years with Europeans,' the villagers near European +forts 'added to their system a new deity, whom they termed Nana Nyankupon. +This was the God of the Christians, borrowed from them, and adapted under +a new designation, meaning 'Lord of the sky.' (This is conjectural. +_Nyankum_ = rain. _Nyansa_ has 'a later meaning, "craft."')[28] + +Now Major Ellis, later, has to contrast Bosman's account of fetishism +(1700) with his own observations. According to Bosman's native source of +information, men then selected their own fetishes. These are _now_ +selected by priests. Bosman's authority was wrong--or priesthood has +extended its field of business. Major Ellis argues that the revolution +from amateur to priestly selection of fetishes could not occur in +190 years, 'over a vast tract of country, amongst peoples living in +semi-isolated communities, in the midst of pathless forests, where there +is but little opportunity for the exchange of ideas, _and where we know +they have been uninfluenced by any higher race_.' + +Yet Major Ellis's theory is that this isolated people _were_ influenced +by a higher race, to the extent of adopting a totally new Supreme Being, +from Europeans, a being whom they in no way sought to propitiate, and who +was of no practical use. And this they did, he says, not under priestly +influence, but in the face of priestly opposition.[29] + +Major Ellis's logic does not appear to be consistent. In any case we ask +for evidence how, in the 'impenetrable forests' did a new Supreme Deity +become universally known? Are we certain that travellers (unquoted) did +not discover a deity with no priests, or ritual, or 'money in the +concern,' later than they discovered the blood-stained, conspicuous, +lucrative Bobowissi? Why was Nyankupon, the supposed new god of a new +powerful set of strangers, left wholly unpropitiated? The reverse was to +be expected. + +Major Ellis writes: 'Almost certainly the addition of one more to an +already numerous family' of gods, 'was strenuously resisted by the +priesthood,' who, confessedly, are adding now lower gods every day! Yet +Nyankupon is universally known, in spite of priestly resistance. +Nyankupon, I presume = Anzambi, Anyambi, Nyambi, Nzambi, Anzam, Nyam, the +Nzam of the Fans, 'and of all Bantu coast races, the creator of man, +plants, animals, and the earth; he takes no further interest in the +affair.'[30] The crowd of _spirits_ take only too much interest; and, +therefore, are the lucrative element in religion. + +It is not very easy to believe that Nyam, under all his names, was picked +up from the Portuguese, and passed apparently from negroes to Bantu all +over West Africa, despite the isolation of the groups, and the resistance +of the priesthood among tribes 'uninfluenced by any higher race.' + +Nyam, like Major Ellis's class I., appoints a subordinate god to do his +work: he is truly good, and governs the malevolent spirits.[31] + +The spread of Nyankupon, as described by Major Ellis, is the more +remarkable, since 'five or six miles from the sea, or even less, the +country was a _terra incognita_ to Europeans,'[32] Nyankupon was, it is +alleged, adopted, because our superiority proved Europeans to be +'protected by a deity of greater power than any of those to which they +themselves' (the Tshi races) 'offered sacrifices.' + +Then, of course, Nyankupon would receive the best sacrifices of all, as +the most powerful deity? Far from that, Nyankupon received no sacrifice, +and had no priests. No priest would have a traditional way of serving him. +As the unlucky man in Voltaire says to his guardian angel, 'It is well +worth while to have a presiding genius,' so the Tshis and Bantu might +ironically remark, 'A useful thing, a new Supreme Being!' A quarter of a +continent or so adopts a new foreign god, and leaves him _planté là_; +unserved, unhonoured, and unsung. He therefore came to be thought too +remote, or too indifferent, 'to interfere directly in the affairs of the +world.' 'This idea was probably caused by the fact that the natives had +not experienced any material improvement in their condition ... although +they also had become followers of the god of the whites.'[33] + +But that was just what they had not done! Even at Magellan's Straits, the +Fuegians picked up from a casual Spanish sea-captain and adored an image +of Cristo. Name and effigy they accepted. The Tshi people took neither +effigy nor name of a deity from the Portuguese settled among them. They +neither imitated Catholic rites nor adapted their own; they prayed not, +nor sacrificed to the 'new' Nyankupon. Only his name and the idea of his +nature are universally diffused in West African belief. He lives in no +definite home, or hill, but 'in Nyankupon's country.' Nyankupon, at the +present day, is 'ignored rather than worshipped,' while Bobowissi has +priests and offerings. + +It is clear that Major Ellis is endeavouring to explain, by a singular +solution (namely, the borrowing of a God from Europeans), and that +a solution improbable and inadequate, a phenomenon of very wide +distribution. Nyankupon cannot be explained apart from Taaroa, Puluga, +Ahone, Ndengei, Dendid, and Ta-li-y-Tochoo, Gods to be later described, +who cannot, by any stretch of probabilities, be regarded as of European +origin. All of these represent the primeval Supreme Being, more or less +or altogether stripped, under advancing conditions of culture, of his +ethical influence, and crowded out by the horde of useful greedy ghosts or +ghost gods, whose business is lucrative. Nyankupon has no pretensions to +be, or to have been a 'spirit.'[34] + +Major Ellis's theory is a natural result of his belief in a tangle of +polytheism as 'the original state of religion.' If so, there was not much +room for the natural development of Nyankupon, in whom 'the missionaries +find a parallel to the Jahveh of the Jews.'[35] On our theory Nyankupon +takes his place in the regular process of the corruption of theism by +animism. + +The parallel case of Nzambi Mpungu, the Creator among the Fiorts (a Bantu +stock), is thus stated by Miss Kingsley: + +'I have no hesitation in saying I fully believe Nzambi Mpungu to be a +purely native god, and that he is a great god over all things, but the +study of him is even more difficult than the study of Nzambi, because the +Jesuit missionaries who gained so great an influence over the Fiorts in +the sixteenth century identified him with Jehovah, and worked on the +native mind from that stand-point. Consequently semi-mythical traces +of Jesuit teaching linger, even now, in the religious ideas of the +Fiorts.'[36] + +Nzambi Mpungu lives 'behind the firmament.' 'He takes next to no interest +in human affairs;' which is not a Jesuit idea of God. + +In all missionary accounts of savage religion, we have to guard against +two kinds of bias. One is the bias which makes the observer deny any +religion to the native race, except devil-worship. The other is the bias +which lends him to look for traces of a pure primitive religious +tradition. Yet we cannot but observe this reciprocal phenomenon: +missionaries often find a native name and idea which answer so nearly to +their conception of God that they adopt the idea and the name, in +teaching. Again, on the other side, the savages, when first they hear the +missionaries' account of God, recognise it, as do the Hurons and Bakwain, +for what has always been familiar to them. This is recorded in very early +pre-missionary travels, as in the book of William Strachey on Virginia +(1612), to which we now turn. The God found by Strachey in Virginia +cannot, by any latitude of conjecture, be regarded as the result of +contact with Europeans. Yet he almost exactly answers to the African +Nyankupon, who is explained away as a 'loan-god.' For the belief in +relatively pure creative beings, whether they are morally adored, without +sacrifice, or merely neglected, is so widely diffused, that Anthropology +must ignore them, or account for them as 'loan-gods'--or give up her +theory! + +[Footnote 1: Lejean, _Rev. des Deux Mondes_, April 1862, p. 760. Citing +for the chant, Beltrame, _Dictionario della lingua denka_, MS.] + +[Footnote 2: Waitz, ii. 74.] + +[Footnote 3: 1882.] + +[Footnote 4: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, 681.] + +[Footnote 5: _Africana_, i. 66.] + +[Footnote 6: _Africana_, i. 67.] + +[Footnote 7: _Africana_, i. 71, 72_] + +[Footnote 8: i 88.] + +[Footnote 9: i. 68.] + +[Footnote 10: i. 130.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 12: _Africana_, i 279-301.] + +[Footnote 13: Edinburgh, 1892.] + +[Footnote 14: Incidentally Mr. Macdonald shows that, contrary to Mr. +Spencer's opinion, these savages have words for dreams and dreaming. They +interpret dreams by a system of symbols, 'a canoe is ill luck,' and 'dreams +go by contraries.'] + +[Footnote 15: Waitz, _Anthropologie_, ii. 167.] + +[Footnote 16: Waitz and Gerland, _Anthropologie_, vi. 796-799 and 809. In +1874 Mr. Howitt's evidence on the moral element in the mysteries was not +published. Waitz scouts the idea that the higher Australian beliefs are of +European origin. 'Wir schen vielmehr uralte Trümmer ähnlicher Mythologenie +in ihnen,' (vi. 798) flotsam from ideas of immemorial antiquity.] + +[Footnote 17: Wilson, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 18: Wilson, p. 392.] + +[Footnote 19: Park's _Journey_, i. 274, 275, 1815.] + +[Footnote 20: P. 245.] + +[Footnote 21: London, 1887.] + +[Footnote 22: Ellis, pp. 20, 21.] + +[Footnote 23: P. 4.] + +[Footnote 24: Ellis, p. 10.] + +[Footnote 25: P. 120.] + +[Footnote 26: P. 15.] + +[Footnote 27: P. 125.] + +[Footnote 28: Ellis, pp. 24, 25.] + +[Footnote 29: Ellis, p. 189.] + +[Footnote 30: Miss Kingsley, p. 442.] + +[Footnote 31: Ellis, p. 229.] + +[Footnote 32: Ibid. p. 25.] + +[Footnote 33: Op. cit. p. 27.] + +[Footnote 34: Ellis, p. 29.] + +[Footnote 35: Op. cit. p. 28.] + +[Footnote 36: 'African Religion and Law,' _National Review_, September +1897, p. 132.] + + + + +XIV + +AHONE. TI-RA-WÁ. NÀ-PI. PACHACAMAC. TUI LAGA. TAA-ROA + +In this chapter it is my object to set certain American Creators beside +the African beings whom we have been examining. We shall range from Hurons +to Pawnees and Blackfeet, and end with Pachacamac, the supreme being of +the old Inca civilisation, with Tui Laga and Taa-roa. It will be seen that +the Hurons have been accidentally deprived of their benevolent Creator by +a bibliographical accident, while that Creator corresponds very well +with the Peruvian Pachucamac, often regarded as a mere philosophical +abstraction. The Pawnees will show us a Creator involved in a sacrificial +ritual, which is not common, while the Blackfeet present a Creator who is +not envisaged as a spirit at all, and, on our theory, represents a very +early stage of the theistic conception. + +To continue the argument from analogy against Major Ellis's theory of the +European origin of Nyankupon, it seems desirable first to produce a +parallel to his case, and to that of his blood-stained subordinate +deity, Bobowissi, from a quarter where European influence is absolutely +out of the question. Virginia was first permanently colonised by +Englishmen in 1607, and the 'Historie of Travaile into Virginia,' by +William Strachey, Gent., first Secretary of the Colony, dates from the +earliest years (1612-1616). It will hardly be suggested, then, that the +natives had already adopted _our_ Supreme Being, especially as Strachey +says that the native priests strenuously opposed the Christian God. +Strachey found a house-inhabiting, agricultural, and settled population, +under chiefs, one of whom, Powhattan, was a kind of Bretwalda. The temples +contained the dried bodies of the _weroances_, or aristocracy, beside +which was their Okeus, or Oki, an image 'ill favouredly carved,' all +black dressed, 'who doth them all the harm they suffer. He is propitiated +by sacrifices of their own children' (probably an error) 'and of +strangers.' + +Mr. Tylor quotes a description of this Oki, or Okeus, with his idol and +bloody rites, from Smith's 'History of Virginia' (1632)[1]. The two books, +Strachey's and Smith's, are here slightly varying copies of one original. +But, after censuring Smith's (and Strachey's) hasty theory that Okeus is +'no other than a devil,' Mr. Tylor did not find in Smith what follows in +Strachey. Okeus has human sacrifices, like Bobowissi, 'whilst the great +God (the priests tell them) who governes all the world, and makes +the son to shine, creatyng the moone and starrs his companyons ... they +calling (_sic_) Ahone. The good and peaceable God requires no such dutyes, +nor needs to be sacrificed unto, for he intendeth all good unto them,' +Okeus, on the contrary, 'looking into all men's accions, and examining the +same according to the severe scheme of justice, punisheth them.... Such is +the misery and thraldome under which Sathan hath bound these wretched +miscreants.' + +As if, in Mr. Strachey's own creed, Satan does not punish, in hell, the +offences of men against God! + +Here, then, in addition to a devil (or rather a divine police magistrate), +and general fetishism and nature worship, we find that the untutored +Virginian is equipped with a merciful Creator, without idol, temple, or +sacrifice, as needing nought of ours. It is by the merest accident, the +use of Smith's book (1632) instead of Strachey's book (1612), that Mr. +Tylor is unaware of these essential facts[2]. + +Dr. Brinton, like Mr. Tylor, cites Smith for the nefarious or severe +Okeus, and omits any mention of Ahone, the benevolent Creator.[3] +Now, Strachey's evidence is early (1612), is that of a well-educated +man, fond of airing his Greek, and not prejudiced in favour of these +worshippers of 'Sathan.' In Virginia he found the unpropitiated loving +Supreme Being, beside a subordinate, like Nyankupon beside Bobowissi in +Africa. + +Each highest deity, in Virginia or on the Gold Coast, is more or less +eclipsed in popular esteem by nascent polytheism and nature worship. This +is precisely what we should expect to find, if Ahone, the Creator, were +earlier in evolution, while Okeus and the rest were of the usual greedy +class of animistic corruptible deities, useful to priests. This could not +be understood while Ahone was left out of the statement.[4] + +Probably Mr. Strachey's narrative justifies, by analogy, our suspicion of +Major Ellis's theory that the African Supreme Being is of European origin. +The purpose in the Ahone-Okeus creed is clear. God (Ahone) is omnipotent +and good, yet calamities beset mankind. How are these to be explained? +Clearly as penalties for men's sins, inflicted, not by Ahone, but by his +lieutenant, Okeus. But that magistrate can be, and is, appeased by +sacrifices, which it would be impious, or, at all events, useless, to +offer to the Supreme Being, Ahone. It is a logical creed, but how was the +Supreme Being evolved out of the ghost of a 'people-devouring king' like +Powhattan? The facts, very fairly attested, do not fit the anthropological +theory. It is to be remarked that Strachey's Ahone is a much less +mythological conception than that which, on very good evidence, he +attributes to the Indians of the Patowemeck River. Their Creator is spoken +of as 'a godly Hare,' who receives their souls into Paradise, whence they +are reborn on earth again, as in Plato's myth. They also regard the four +winds as four Gods. How the god took the mythological form of a hare is +diversely explained.[5] + +Meanwhile the Ahone-Okeus creed corresponds to the Nyankupon-Bobowissi +creed. The American faith is certainly not borrowed from Europe, so it is +less likely that the African creed is borrowed. + +As illustrations of the general theory here presented, we may now take two +tribal religions among the North American Indians. The first is that of +the equestrian Pawnees, who, thirty years ago, were dwelling on the Loup +Fork in Nebraska. The buffaloes have since been destroyed, the lands +seized, and the Pawnees driven into a 'Reservation,' where they are, or +lately were, cheated and oppressed in the usual way. They were originally +known to Europeans in four hordes, the fourth being the Skidi or Wolf +Pawnees. They seem to have come into Kansas and Nebraska, at a date +relatively remote, from Mexico, and are allied with the Lipans and +Tonkaways of that region. The Tonkaways are a tribe who, in a sacred +mystery, are admonished to 'live like the wolves,' in exactly the same way +as were the Hirpi (wolf tribe), of Mount Soracte, who practised the feat +of walking unhurt through fire.[6] The Tonkaways regard the Pawnees, who +also have a wolf tribe, as a long-separated branch of their race. If, +then, they are of Mexican origin, we might expect to find traces of Aztec +ritual among the Pawnees. + +Long after they obtained better weapons they used flint-headed arrows for +slaying the only two beasts which it was lawful to sacrifice, the deer and +the buffalo. They have long been a hunting and also an agricultural +people. The corn was given to them originally by the Ruler: their god, +_Ti-ra-wá_, 'the Spirit Father.' They offer the sacrifice of a deer with +peculiar solemnity, and are a very prayerful people. The priest 'held a +relation to the Pawnees and their deity not unlike that occupied by Moses +to Jehovah and the Israelites.' A feature in ritual is the sacred bundles +of unknown contents, brought from the original home in Mexico. The Pawnees +were created by Ti-ra-wá. They believe in a happy future life, while the +wicked die, and there is an end of them. They cite their dreams of the +dead as an argument for a life beyond the tomb. 'We see ourselves living +with Ti-ra-wá!' An evil earlier race, which knew not Ti-ra-wá, was +destroyed by him in the Deluge; evidence is found in large fossil bones, +and it would be an interesting inquiry whether such fossils are always +found where the story of a 'sin-flood' occurs. If so, fossils must be +universally diffused. + +As is common, the future life is attested, not only by dreams, but in the +experience of men who 'have died' and come back to life, like Secret Pipe +Chief, who told the story to Mr. Grinnell. These visions in a state of +apparent death are not peculiar to savages, and, no doubt, have had much +effect on beliefs about the next world.[7] Ghosts are rarely seen, but +auditory hallucinations, as of a voice giving good advice in time of +peril, are regarded as the speech of ghosts. The beasts are also friendly, +as fellow children with men of Ti-ra-wá. To the Morning Star the Skidi or +Wolf Pawnees offered on rare occasions a captive man. The ceremony was not +unlike that of the Aztecs, though less cruel. Curiously enough, the slayer +of the captive had instantly to make a mock flight, as in the Attic +_Bouphonia_. This, however, was a rite paid to the Morning Star, not to +Ti-ra-wá, 'the power above that moves the universe and controls all +things.' Sacrifice to Ti-ra-wá was made on rare and solemn occasions out +of his two chief gifts, deer and buffalo. 'Through corn, deer, buffalo, +and the sacred bundles, we worship _Ti-ra-wá_.' + +The flesh was burned in the fire, while prayers were made with great +earnestness. In the old Skidi rite the women told the fattened captive +what they desired to gain from the Ruler. It is occasionally said that +the human sacrifice was made to _Ti-ra-wá_ himself. The sacrificer not +only fled, but fasted and mourned. It is possible that, as among the +Aztecs, the victim was regarded as also an embodiment of the God, but this +is not certain, the rite having long been disused. Mr. Grinnell got the +description from a very old Skidi. There was also a festival of thanks to +Ti-ra-wá for corn. During a sacred dance and hymn the corn is held up to +the Ruler by a woman. Corn is ritually called 'The Mother,' as in Peru.[8] +'We are like seed, and we worship through the Corn.' + +Disease is caused by evil spirits, and many American soldiers were healed +by Pawnee doctors, though their hurts had refused to yield to the +treatment of the United States Army Surgeons.[9] + +The miracles wrought by Pawnee medicine men, under the eyes of Major +North, far surpass what is told of Indian jugglery. But this was forty +years ago, and it is probably too late to learn anything of these +astounding performances of naked men on the hard floor of a lodge. +'Major North told me' (Mr. Grinnell) 'that he saw with his own eyes the +doctors make the corn grow,' the doctor not manipulating the plant, as in +the Mango trick, but standing apart and singing. Mr. Grinnell says: 'I +have never found any one who could even suggest an explanation.' + +This art places great power in the hands of the doctors, who exhibit many +other prodigies. It is notable that in this religion we hear nothing of +ancestor-worship; all that is stated as to ghosts has been reported. We +find the cult of an all-powerful being, in whose ritual sacrifice is the +only feature that suggests ghost-worship. The popular tales and historical +reminiscences of the last generation entirely bear out by their allusions +Mr. Grinnell's account of the Pawnee faith, in which the ethical element +chiefly consists in a sense of dependence on and touching gratitude to +Ti-ra-wá, as shown in fervent prayer. Theft he abhors, he applauds valour, +he punishes the wicked by annihilation, the good dwell with him in his +heavenly home. He is addressed as A-ti-us ta-kaw-a, 'Our father in all +places.' + +It is not so easy to see how this Being was developed out of +ancestor-worship, of which we find no traces among Pawnees. For +ancestor-worship among the Sioux, it is usual to quote a remark of one +Prescott, an interpreter: 'Sometimes an Indian will say, "Wah negh on she +wan da," which means, "Spirits of the dead have mercy on me." Then they +will add what they want. That is about the amount of an Indian's +prayer.'[10] Obviously, when we compare Mr. Grinnell's account of Pawnee +religion, based on his own observations, and those of Major North, and +Mr. Dunbar, who has written on the language of the tribe, we are on much +safer ground, than when we follow a contemptuous, half-educated European. + +The religion of the Blackfoot Indians appears to be a ruder form of the +Pawnee faith. Whether the differences arise from tribal character, or from +decadence, or because the Blackfoot belief is in an earlier and more +backward condition than that of the Pawnees, it is not easy to be certain. +As in China, there exists a difficulty in deciding whether the Supreme +Being is identical with the great nature-god; in China the Heaven, among +the Blackfeet the Sun; or is prior to him in conception, or has been, +later, substituted for him, or placed beside him. The Blackfoot mythology +is low, crude, and, except in tales of Creation, is derisive. As in +Australia, there is a specific difference of tone between mythology and +religion. + +The Blackfoot country runs east from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, to +the mouth of the Yellowstone river on the Missouri, then west to the +Yellowstone sources, across the Rocky Mountains to the Beaverhead, thence +to their summit. + +As to spirits, the Blackfeet believe in, or at least tell stories of, +ghosts, which conduct themselves much as in our old-fashioned ghost +stories. They haunt people in a rather sportive and irresponsible way. The +souls or shadows of respectable persons go to the bleak country called the +Sand Hills, where they live in a dull, monotonous kind of Sheol. The +shades of the wicked are 'earth-bound' and mischievous, especially ghosts +of men slain in battle. They cause paralysis and madness, but dread +interiors of lodges; they only 'tap on the lodge-skins.' Like many Indian +tribes, the Blackfeet have the Eurydice legend. A man grieving for his +dead wife finds his way to Hades, is pitied by the dead, and allowed to +carry the woman back with him, under certain ritual prohibitions, one of +which he unhappily infringes. The range of this deeply touching story +among the Red Men, and its close resemblance to the tale of Orpheus, is +one of the most curious facts in mythology. Mr. Grinnell's friend Young +Bear, when lost with his wife in a fog, heard a Voice, 'It is well. Go on, +you are going right.' 'The top of my head seemed to lift up. It seemed as +if a lot of needles were running into it.... This must have been a ghost.' +As the wife also heard the Voice it was probably human, not hallucinatory. + +Animals receive the usual amount of friendly respect from the Blackfeet. +They have also an inchoate polytheism, 'Above Persons, Ground Persons, and +Under Water Persons.' Of the first, Thunder is most important, and is +worshipped. There is the Cold Maker, a white figure on a white horse, the +Wind, and so on. + +The Creator is Nà-pi, Old Man; Dr. Brinton thinks he is a personification +of Light, but Mr. Grinnell reckons it absurd to attribute so abstract a +conception to the Blackfeet. Nà-pi is simply a primal Being, an Immortal +Man,[11] who was before Death came into the world, concerning which one of +the usual tales of the Origin of Death is told. 'All things that he had +made understood him when he spoke to them--birds, animals, and people,' as +in the first chapters of Genesis. With Nà-pi, Creation worked on the lines +of adaptation to environment. He put the bighorn on the prairie. There it +was awkward, so he set it on rocky places, where it skipped about with +ease. The antelope fell on the rocks, so he removed it to the level +prairie. Nà-pi created man and woman, out of clay, but the folly of the +woman introduced Death. Nà-pi, as a Prometheus, gave fire, and taught the +forest arts. He inculcated the duty of prayer; his will should be done by +emissaries in the shape of animals. Then he went to other peoples. The +misfortunes of the Indians arise from disobedience to his laws. + +Chiefs were elective, for conduct, courage, and charity. + +Though weapons and utensils were buried with the dead, or exposed on +platforms, and though great men were left to sleep in their lodges, +henceforth never to be entered by the living, there is no trace known to +me of continued ancestor-worship. As many Blackfeet change their names +yearly, ancestral names are not likely to become those of gods. + +The Sun is by many believed to have taken the previous place of Nà-pi in +religion; or perhaps Nà-pi _is_ the Sun. However, he is still separately +addressed in prayer. The Sun receives presents of furs and so forth; a +finger, when the prayer is for life, has been offered to him. Fetishism +probably shows itself in gifts to a great rock. There is daily prayer, +both to the Sun and to Nà-pi. Women institute Medicine Lodges, praying, +'Pity me, Sun. You have seen my life. You know that I am pure.' 'We look +on the Medicine Lodge woman as you white people do on the Roman Catholic +Sisters.' Being 'virtuous in deed, serious, and clean-minded,' the Medical +Lodge woman is in spiritual _rapport_ with Nà-pi and the Sun. To this +extent, at least, Blackfoot religion is an ethical influence. + +The creed seems to be a nascent polytheism, subordinate to Nà-pi as +supreme Maker, and to the personified Sun. As Blackfoot ghosts are +'vaporous, ineffectual' for good, there seems to be nothing like ancestor +worship. + +These two cults and beliefs, Pawnee and Blackfoot, may be regarded as +fairly well authenticated examples of un-Christianised American religion +among races on the borderland of agriculture and the chase. It would be +difficult to maintain that ghost-worship or ancestor-worship is a potent +factor in the evolution of the deathless Ti-ra-wá or the immortal Creator +Nà-pi, who has nothing of the spirit about him, especially as ghosts are +not worshipped.[12] + +Let us now look at the Supreme Being of a civilised American people. There +are few more interesting accounts of religion than Garcilasso de la Vega's +description of faith in Peru. Garcilasso was of Inca parentage on the +spindle side; he was born in 1540, and his book, taken from the traditions +of an uncle, and aided by the fragmentary collections of Father Blas +Valera, was published in 1609. In Garcilasso's theory the original people +of Peru, Totemists and worshippers of hills and streams, Earth and Sea, +were converted to Sun worship by the first Inca, a child of the Sun. Even +the new religion included ancestor-worship and other superstitions. But +behind Sun worship was the faith in a Being who 'advanced the Sun so far +above all the stars of heaven.'[13] This Being was Pachacamac, 'the +sustainer of the world.' The question then arises, Is Pachacamac a form of +the same creative being whom we find among the lowest savages; or is he +the result of philosophical reflection? The latter was the opinion +of Garcilasso. 'The Incas and their Amautas' (learned class) 'were +philosophers.'[14] + +'Pacha,' he says, = universe, and 'cama' = soul. Pachacamac, then, is +_Anima Mundi_. 'They did not even take the name of Pachacamac into their +mouths,' or but seldom and reverently, as the Australians will not, in +religious matters, mention Darumulun. Pachacamac had no temple, 'but they +worshipped him in their hearts.' That he was the Creator appears in an +earlier writer, cited by Garcilasso, Agustin de Zarate (ii. ch. 5). +Garcilasso, after denying the existence of temples to Pachacamac, mentions +one, but only one. He insists, at length, and with much logic, that He +whom, as a Christian, he worships, is in Quichua styled Pachacamac. +Moreover, the one temple to Pachacamac was not built by an Inca, but by +a race which, having heard of the Inca god, borrowed his name, without +understanding his nature, that of a Being who dwells not in temples made +with hands (ii. 186). In the temple this people, the Yuncas, offered even +human sacrifices. By the Incas to Pachacamac no sacrifice was offered +(ii. 189). This negative custom they also imposed upon the Yuncas, and +they removed idols from the Yunca temple of Pachacamac (ii. 190). Yunca +superstitions, however, infested the temple, and a Voice gave oracles +therein.[15] The Yuncas also had a talking idol, which the Inca, in +accordance with a religious treaty, occasionally consulted. + +While Pachacamac, without temple or rite, was reckoned the Creator, we +must understand that Sun-worship and ancestor-worship were the practical +elements of the Inca cult. This appears to have been distasteful to the +Inca Huayna Ccapac, for at a Sun feast he gazed hard on the Sun, was +remonstrated with by a priest, and replied that the restless Sun 'must +have another Lord more powerful than himself.'[16] + +This remark could not have been necessary if Pachacamac were really an +article of living and universal belief. Perhaps we are to understand that +this Inca, like his father, who seems to have been the original author of +the saying, meant to sneer at the elaborate worship bestowed on the Sun, +while Pachacamac was neglected, as far as ritual went. + +In Garcilasso's book we have to allow for his desire to justify the creed +of his maternal ancestors. His criticism of Spanish versions is acute, and +he often appeals to his knowledge of Quichua, and to the direct traditions +received by him from his uncle. Against his theory of Pachacamac as a +result of philosophical thought, it may be urged that similar conceptions, +or nearly similar, exist among races not civilised like the Incas, and not +provided with colleges of learned priests. In fact, the position of +Pachacamac and the Sun is very nearly that of the Blackfoot Creator Nà-pi, +and the Sun, or of Shang-ti and the Heaven, in China. We have the Creative +Being whose creed is invaded by that of a worshipped aspect of nature, and +whose cult, quite logically, is _nil_, or nearly _nil_. There are also, in +different strata of the Inca empire, ancestor-worship, or mummy-worship, +Totemism and polytheism, with a vague mass of _huaca = Elohim, kalou, +wakan._ + +Perhaps it would not be too rash to conjecture that Pachacamac is not a +merely philosophical abstraction, but a survival of a Being like Nà-pi or +Ahone. Cieza de Leon calls Pachacamac 'a devil,' whose name means +'creator of the world'![17] The name, when it _was_ uttered, was spoken +with genuflexions and signs of reverence. So closely did Pachacamac +resemble the Christian Deity, that Cieza de Leon declares the devil to +have forged and insisted on the resemblance![18] It was open to Spanish +missionaries to use Pachacamac, as to the Jesuits among the Bantu to use +Mpungu, as a fulcrum for the introduction of Christianity. They preferred +to regard Pachacamac as a fraudulent fiend. Now Nzambi Mpungu, among the +Bantu, is assuredly not a creation of a learned priesthood, for the Bantu +have no learned priests, and Mpungu would be useless to the greedy +conjurers whom they do consult, as he is not propitiated. On grounds of +analogy, then, Pachacamac may be said to resemble a savage Supreme +Being, somewhat etherealised either by Garcilasso or by the Amautas, the +learned class among the subjects of the Incas. He does not seem, even so, +much superior to the Ahone of the Virginians. + +We possess, however, a different account of Inca religion, from which +Garcilasso strongly dissents. The best version is that of Christoval de +Molina, who was chaplain of the hospital for natives, and wrote between +1570 and 1584.[19] Christoval assembled a number of old priests and other +natives who had taken part in the ancient services, and collected their +evidence. He calls the Creator ('not born of woman, unchangeable +and eternal') by the name Pachayachachi. 'Teacher of the world' and +'Tecsiviracocha,' which Garcilasso dismisses as meaningless.[20] He also +tells the tale of the Inca Yupanqui and the Lord of the Sun, but +says that the Incas had already knowledge of the Creator. To Yupanqui he +attributes the erection of a gold image of the Creator, utterly denied by +Garcilasso.[21] Christoval declares, again contradicted by Garcilasso, +that sacrifices were offered to the Creator. Unlike the Sun, Christoval +says, the Creator had no woman assigned to him, 'because, as he created +them, they all belonged to him' (p. 26), which, of course, is an idea that +would also make sacrifice superfluous. + +Christoval gives prayers in Quichua, wherein the Creator is addressed as +_Uiracocha_. + +Christoval assigns images, sacrifice, and even human sacrifice, to the +Creator Uiracocha. Garcilasso denies that the Creator Pachacamac had any +of these things, he denies that Uiracocha was the name of the Creator, +and he denies it, knowing that the Spaniards made the assertion.[22] Who +is right? Uiracocha, says Garcilasso, is one thing, with his sacrifices; +the Creator, Pachacamac, without sacrifices, is another, is GOD. + +Mr. Markham thinks that Garcilasso, writing when he did, and not +consciously exaggerating, was yet less trustworthy (though 'wonderfully +accurate') than Christoval. Garcilasso, however, is 'scrupulously +truthful.'[23] 'The excellence of his memory is perhaps best shown in +his topographical details.... He does not make a single mistake,' in the +topography of three hundred and twenty places! A scrupulously truthful +gentleman, endowed with an amazing memory, and a master of his native +language, flatly contradicts the version of a Spanish priest, who also +appears to have been careful and honourable. + +I shall now show that Christoval and Garcilasso have different versions of +the same historical events, and that Garcilasso bases his confutation of +the Spanish theory of the Inca Creator on his form of this historical +tradition, which follows: + +The Inca Yahuarhuaccac, like George II., was at odds with his Prince of +Wales. He therefore banished the Prince to Chita, and made him serve as +shepherd of the llamas of the Sun. Three years later the disgraced +Prince came to Court, with what the Inca regarded as a cock-and-bull story +of an apparition of the kind technically styled 'Borderland.' Asleep or +awake, he knew not, he saw a bearded robed man holding a strange animal. +The appearance declared himself as Uiracocha (Christoval's name for the +Creator), a Child of the Sun; by no means as Pachacamac, the Creator of +the Sun. He announced a distant rebellion, and promised his aid to the +Prince. The Inca, hearing this narrative, replied in the tones of +Charles II., when he said about Monmouth, 'Tell James to go to hell!'[24] +The predicted rebellion, however, broke out, the Inca fled, the Prince +saved the city, dethroned his father, and sent him into the country. He +then adopted, from the apparition, the throne-name _Uiracocha,_ grew a +beard, and dressed like the apparition, to whom he erected a temple, +roofless, and unique in construction. Therein he had an image of the god, +for which he himself gave frequent sittings. When the Spaniards arrived, +bearded men, the Indians called them Uiracochas (as all the Spanish +historians say), and, to flatter them, declared falsely that Uiracocha was +their word for the Creator. Garcilasso explodes the Spanish etymology of +the name, in the language of Cuzco, which he 'sucked in with his mother's +milk.' 'The Indians said that the chief Spaniards were children of the +Sun, to make gods of them, just as they said they were children of the +apparition, Uiracocha.'[25] Moreover, Garcilasso and Cieza de Leon agree +in their descriptions of the image of Uiracocha, which, both assert, +the Spaniards conceived to represent a Christian early missionary, perhaps +St. Bartholomew.[26] Garcilasso had seen the mummy of the Inca Uiracocha, +and relates the whole tale from the oral version of his uncle, adding many +native comments on the Court revolution described. + +To Garcilasso, then, the invocations of Uiracocha, in Christoval's +collection of prayers, are a native adaptation to Spanish prejudice: even +in them Pachacamac occurs.[27] + +Now, Christoval has got hold of a variant of Garcilasso's narrative, +which, in Garcilasso, has plenty of humour and human nature. According to +Christoval it was not the Prince, later Inca Uiracocha, who beheld the +apparition, but the Inca Uiracocha's _son,_ Prince of Wales, as it were, +of the period, later the Inca Yupanqui. + +Garcilasso corrects Christoval. Uiracocha saw the apparition, as Père +Acosta rightly says, and Yupanqui was _not_ the son but the grandson of +this Inca Uiracocha.[28] Uiracocha's own son was Pachacutec, which simply +means 'Revolution,' 'they say, by way of by-word _Pachamcutin,_ which +means "the world changes."' + +Christoval's form of the story is peculiarly gratifying in one way. +Yupanqui saw the apparition _in a piece of crystal_, 'the apparition +vanished, while the piece of crystal remained. The Inca took care of it, +and they say that he afterwards saw everything he wanted in it.' The +apparition, in human form and in Inca dress, gave itself out for the Sun; +and Yupanqui, when he came to the throne, 'ordered a statue of the Sun to +be made, as nearly as possible resembling the figure he had seen in the +crystal.' He bade his subjects to 'reverence the new deity, as they had +heretofore worshipped the Creator,'[29] who, therefore, was prior to +Uiracocha. + +Interesting as a proof of Inca crystal-gazing, this legend of Christoval's +cannot compete as evidence with Acosta and Garcilasso. The reader, +however, must decide as to whether he prefers Garcilasso's unpropitiated +Pachacamac, or Christoval's Uiracocha, human sacrifices, and all.[30] + +Mr. Tylor prefers the version of Christoval, making Pachacamac a title of +Uiracocha.[31] He thinks that we have, in Inca religion, an example of 'a +subordinate god' (the Sun) 'usurping the place of the supreme deity,' 'the +rivalry between the Creator and the divine Sun.' In China, as we shall +see, Mr. Tylor thinks, on the other hand, that Heaven is the elder god, +and that Shang-ti, the Supreme Being, is the usurper. + +The truth in the Uiracocha _versus_ Pachacamac controversy is difficult to +ascertain. I confess a leaning toward Garcilasso, so truthful and so +wonderfully accurate, rather than to the Spanish priest. Christoval, it +will be remarked, says that 'Chanca-Uiracocha was a _huaca_ (sacred place) +in Chuqui-chaca.'[32] Now Chuqui-chaca is the very place where, according +to Garcilasso, the Inca Uiracocha erected a temple to 'his Uncle, the +Apparition.'[33] Uiracocha, then, the deity who receives human sacrifice, +would be a late, royally introduced ancestral god, no real rival of the +Creator, who receives no sacrifice at all, and, as he was bearded, his +name would be easily transferred to the bearded Spaniards, whose arrival +the Inca Uiracocha was said to have predicted. But to call several or all +Spaniards by the name given to the Creator would be absurd. Mr. Tylor and +Mr. Markham do not refer to the passage in which Christoval obviously gets +hold of a wrong version of the story of the apparition. + +There is yet another version of this historical legend, written forty +years after Christoval's date by Don Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti-yamqui +Salcamayhua. He ranks after Garcilasso and Christoval, but before earlier +_Spanish_ writers, such as Acosta, who knew not Quichua. According to +Salcamayhuia, the Inca Uiracocha was like James III., fond of architecture +and averse to war. He gave the realm to his bastard, Urca, who was +defeated and killed by the Chancas. Uiracocha meant to abandon the +contest, but his legitimate son, Yupanqui, saw a fair youth on a rock, who +promised him success in the name of the Creator, and then vanished. The +Prince was victorious, and the Inca Uiracocha retired into private +life. This appears to be a mixture of the stories of Garcilasso and +Christoval.[34] + +It is not, in itself, a point of much importance whether the Creator was +called Uiracocha (which, if it means anything, means 'sea of grease!'), or +whether he was called Pachacamac, maker of the world, or by both names. +The important question is as to whether the Creator received even human +sacrifices (Christoval) or none at all (Garcilasso). As to Pachacamac, we +must consult Mr. Payne, who has the advantage of being a Quichua scholar. +He considers that Pachacamac combines the conception of a general spirit +of living things with that of a Creator or maker of all things. +'Pachacamac and the Creator are one and the same,' but the conception of +Pachayachacic, 'ruler of the world,' 'belongs to the later period of the +Incas.'[35] Mr. Payne appears to prefer Christoval's legend of the Inca +crystal-gazer, to the rival version of Garcilasso. The Yunca form of the +worship of Pachacamac Mr. Payne regards as an example of degradation.[36] +He disbelieves Garcilasso's statement, that human sacrifices were not +made to the Sun. Garcilasso must, if Mr. Payne is right, have been a +deliberate liar, unless, indeed, he was deceived by his Inca kinsfolk. +The reader can now estimate for himself the difficulty of knowing much +about Peruvian religion, or, indeed, of any religion. For, if Mr. Payne +is right about the lowest savages having no conception of God, or even of +spirit, though the idea of a great Creator, a spirit, is one of the +earliest efforts of 'primitive logic,' we, of course, have been merely +fabling throughout. + +Garcilasso's evidence, however, seems untainted by Christian attempts to +find a primitive divine tradition. Garcilasso may possibly be refining on +facts, but he asks for no theory of divine primitive tradition in the case +of Pachacamac, whom he attributes to philosophical reflection. + +In the following chapter we discuss 'the old Degeneration theory,' and +contrast it with the scheme provisionally offered in this book. We have +already observed that the Degeneration theory biasses the accounts of some +missionaries who are obviously anxious to find traces of a Primitive +Tradition, originally revealed to all men, but only preserved in a pure +form by the Jews. To avoid deception by means of this bias we have chosen +examples of savage creative beings from wide areas, from diverse ages, +from non-missionary statements, from the least contaminated backward +peoples, and from their secret mysteries and hymns. + +Thus, still confining ourselves to the American continent, we have the +ancient hymns of the Zuñis, in no way Christianised, and never chanted in +the presence of the Mexican Spanish, These hymns run thus: 'Before the +beginning of the New Making, Awonawilona, the Maker and container of All, +the All-Father, solely had being.' He then evolved all things 'by thinking +himself outward in space.' Hegelian! but so are the dateless hymns of the +Maoris, despite the savage mythology which intrudes into both sets of +traditions. The old fable of Ouranos and Gaia recurs in Zuñi as in +Maori.[37] + +I fail to see how Awonawilona could be developed out of the ghost of chief +or conjurer. That in which all things potentially existed, yet who was +more than all, is not the ghost of a conjurer or chief. He certainly is +not due to missionary influence. No authority can be better than that of +traditional sacred chants found among a populace which will not sing them +before one of their Mexican masters. + +We have tried to escape from the bias of belief in a primitive divine +tradition, but bias of every kind exists, and must exist. At present the +anthropological hypothesis of ancestor-worship as the basis, perhaps (as +in Mr. Spencer's theory) the only basis of religion, affects observers. + +Before treating the theory of Degeneration let us examine a case of the +anthropological bias. The Fijians, as we learned from Williams, have +ancestral gods, and also a singular form of the creative being, Ndengei, +or, as Mr. Basil Thomson calls him, Degei. Mr. Thomson writes: 'It is +clear that the Fijians humanised their gods, because they had once existed +on earth in human form.... Like other primitive people, the Fijians +deified their ancestors.' Yet the Fijians 'may have forgotten the names +of their ancestors three generations back'! How in the world can you deify +a person whom you don't remember? Moreover, only malevolent chiefs were +deified, so apparently a Fijian god is really a well-born human +scoundrel, so considerable that _he_ for one is not forgotten--just as if +we worshipped the wicked Lord Lyttelton! Of course a god like Ahone could +not be made out of such materials as these, and, in fact, we learn from +Mr. Thomson that there are other Fijian gods of a different origin. + +'It is probable that there were here and there, _gods that were the +creation of the priests that ministered to them, and were not the +spirits of dead chiefs_. Such was the god of the Bure Tribe on the Ra +coast, who was called Tui Laga or "Lord of Heaven." When the missionaries +first went to convert this town they found the heathen priest their +staunch ally. He declared that they had come to preach the same god that +he had been preaching, the Tui Laga, and that more had been revealed to +them than to him of the mysteries of the god.' + +Mr. Thomson is reminded of St. Paul at Athens, 'whom then ye ignorantly +worship, him declare I unto you.'[38] + +Mr. Thomson has clearly no bias in favour of a God like our own, known to +savages, and _not_ derived from ghost-worship. He deduces this god, Tui +Laga, from priestly reflection and speculation. But we find such a God +where we find no priests, where a priesthood has not been developed. Such +a God, being usually unpropitiated by sacrifice and lucrative private +practice, is precisely the kind of deity who does not suit a priesthood. +For these reasons--that a priesthood 'sees no money in' a God of this +kind, and that Gods of this kind, ethical and creative, are found where +there are no priesthoods--we cannot look on the conception as a late one +of priestly origin, as Mr. Thomson does, though a learned caste, like the +Peruvian Amantas, may refine on the idea. Least of all can such a God be +'the creation of the priests that minister to him,' when, as in Peru, the +Andaman Isles, and much of Africa, this God is ministered to by no +priests. Nor, lastly, can we regard the absence of sacrifice to the +Creative Being as a mere proof that he is an ancestral ghost who 'had +lived on earth at too remote a time;' for this absence of sacrifice occurs +where ghosts are dreaded, but are not propitiated by offerings of food (as +among Australians, Andamanese, and Blackfoot Indians), while the Creative +Being is not and never was a ghost, according to his worshippers. + +At this point criticism may naturally remark that whether the savage +Supreme Being is fêted, as by the Comanches, who offer puffs of smoke: or +is apparently half forgotten, as by the Algonquins and Zulus: whether +he is propitiated by sacrifice (which is very rare indeed), or only by +conduct, I equally claim him as the probable descendant in evolution of +the primitive, undifferentiated, not necessarily 'spiritual' Being of such +creeds as the Australian. + +One must reply that this pedigree cannot, indeed, be historically traced, +but that it presents none of the logical difficulties inherent in the +animistic pedigree--namely, that the savage Supreme Being is the last and +highest result of evolution on animistic lines out of ghosts. It does not +run counter to the evidence universally offered by savages, that their +Supreme Being never was mortal man. It is consistent, whereas the +animistic hypothesis is, in this case, inconsistent, with the universal +savage theory of Death. Finally, as has been said before, granting my +opinion that there are two streams of religious thought, one rising in the +conception of an undifferentiated Being, eternal, moral, and creative, the +other rising in the ghost-doctrine, it stands to reason that the latter, +as best adapted to everyday needs and experiences, normal and supernormal, +may contaminate the former, and introduce sacrifice and food-propitiation +into the ritual of Beings who, by the original conception, 'need nothing +of ours.' At the same time, the conception of 'spirit,' once attained, +would inevitably come to be attached to the idea of the Supreme Being, +even though he was not at first conceived of as a spirit. We know, by our +own experience, how difficult it has become for us to think of an eternal, +powerful, and immortal being, except as a spirit. Yet this way of looking +at the Supreme Being, merely as _being_, not as spirit, must have existed, +granting that the idea of spirit has ghost for its first expression, as, +by their very definition, the high gods of savages are not ghosts, and +never were ghosts, but are prior to death. + +Here let me introduce, by way of example, a Supreme Being _not_ of the +lowest savage level. Metaphysically he is improved on in statement, +morally he is stained with the worst crimes of the hungry ghost-god, or +god framed on the lines of animism. This very interesting Supreme Being, +in a middle barbaric race, is the Polynesian Taa-roa, as described by +Ellis in that fascinating book 'Polynesian Researches.'[39] 'Several of +their _taata-paari_, or wise men, pretend that, according to other +traditions, Taa-roa was only a man who was deified after death.' +Euhemerism, in fact, is a natural theory of men acquainted with +ancestor-worship, but a Euhemeristic hypothesis by a Polynesian thinker is +not a statement of national belief. Taa-roa was 'uncreated, existing from +the beginning, or from the time he emerges from the _po_, or world of +darkness.' In the Leeward Isles Taa-roa was _Toivi_, fatherless and +motherless from all eternity. In the highest heavens he dwells alone. He +created the gods of polytheism, the gods of war, of peace, and so on. Says +a native hymn, 'He was: he abode in the void. No earth, _no sky_, no men! +He became the universe.' In the Windward Isles he has a wife, Papa the +rock = Papa, Earth, wife of Rangi, Heaven, in Maori mythology. Thus it may +be argued, Taa-roa is no 'primaeval theistic idea,' but merely the +Heaven-God (Ouranos in Greece). But we may distinguish: in the Zuñi hymn +we have the myth of the marriage of Heaven and Earth, but Heaven is not +the Eternal, Awonawilona, who 'thought himself out into the void,' before +which, as in the Polynesian hymn, 'there was no sky.'[40] + +Whence came the idea of Taa-roa? The Euhemeristic theory that he was a +ghost of a dead man is absurd. But as we are now among polytheists it may +be argued that, given a crowd of gods on the animistic model, an origin +had to be found for them, and that origin was Taa-roa. This would be more +plausible if we did not find Supreme Beings where there is no departmental +polytheism to develop them out of. In Tahiti, _Atuas_ are gods, _Oramutuas +tiis_ are spirits; the chief of the spirits were ghosts of warriors. These +were mischievous: they, their images, and the skulls of the dead needed +propitiation, and these ideas (perhaps) were reflected on to Taa-roa, to +whom human victims were sacrificed.[41] + +Now this kind of horror, human sacrifice, is unknown, I think, in early +savage religions of Supreme Beings, as in Australia, among the Bushmen, +the Andamanese, and so on. I therefore suggest that in an advanced +polytheism, such as that of Polynesia, the evil sacrificial rites +unpractised by low savages come to be attached to the worship even of the +Supreme Being. Ghosts and ghost-gods demanded food, and food was therefore +also offered to the Supreme Being. + +It was found difficult, or impossible, to induce Christian converts, in +Polynesia, to repeat the old prayers. They began, trembled, and abstained. +They had a ritual 'for almost every act of their lives,' a thing +unfamiliar to low savages. In fact, beyond all doubt, religious criminal +acts, from human sacrifice to the burning of Jeanne d'Arc, increase as +religion and culture move away from the stage of Bushmen and Andamanese to +the stage of Aztec and Polynesian culture. The Supreme Being is succeeded +in advancing civilisation, and under the influences of animism, by +ruthless and insatiable ghost-gods, full of the worst human qualities. +Thus there is what we may really call degeneration, moral and religious, +inevitably accompanying early progress. + +That this is the case, that the first advances in culture _necessarily_ +introduce religious degeneration, we shall now try to demonstrate. But we +may observe, in passing, that our array of moral or august savage supreme +beings (the first who came to hand) will, for some reason, not be found in +anthropological treatises on the Origin of Religion. They appear, somehow, +to have been overlooked by philosophers. Yet the evidence for them +is sufficiently good. Its excellence is proved by its very uniformity, +assuredly undesigned. An old, nay, an obsolete theory--that of +degeneration in religion--has facts at its basis, which its very +supporters have ignored, which orthodoxy has overlooked. Thus the Rev. +Professor Flint informs the audience in the Cathedral of St. Giles's, +that, in the religions 'at the bottom of the religious scale,' 'it is +always easy to see how wretchedly the divine is conceived of; how little +conscious of his own true wants ... is the poor worshipper.' The poor +worshipper of Baiame wishes to obey His Law, which makes, to some extent, +for righteousness.[42] + +[Footnote 1: In Pinkerton, xiii. pp. 13, 39; _Prim. Cult_. ii. 342.] + +[Footnote 2: See Preface to this edition for corrected statement.] + +[Footnote 3: _Myths of the New World_, p. 47.] + +[Footnote 4: There is a description of Virginia, by W. Strachey, including +Smith's remarks, published in 1612. Strachey interwove some of this work +with his own MS. in the British Museum, dedicated to Bacon (Verulam). This +MS. was edited by Mr. Major, for the Hakluyt Society, in 1849, with a +glossary, by Strachey, of the native language. The remarks on religion are +in Chapter VII. The passage on Ahone occurs in Strachey (1612), but _not_ +in Smith (1682), in Pinkerton. I owe to the kindness of Mr. Edmund Gosse +photographs of the drawings accompanying the MS. Strachey's story of +sacrifice of children (pp. 94, 95) seems to refer to nothing worse than the +initiation into the mysteries.] + +[Footnote 5: See Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, for a philological +theory.] + +[Footnote 6: Compare 'The Fire Walk' in _Modern Mythology_.] + +[Footnote 7: Compare St. Augustine's curious anecdote in _De Cura pro +Mortuis habenda_ about the dead and revived Curio. The founder of the new +Sioux religion, based on hypnotism, 'died' and recovered.] + +[Footnote 8: Cf. Demeter.] + +[Footnote 9: Major North, for long the U.S. Superintendent of the Pawnees.] + +[Footnote 10: Schoolcraft, iii. 237.] + +[Footnote 11: As envisaged here, Nà-pi is not a spirit. The question +of spirit or non-spirit has not arisen. So far, Nà-pi answers to +Marrangarrah, the Creative Being of the Larrakeah tribe of Australians. +'A very good Man called Marrangarrah lives in the sky; he made all living +creatures, except black fellows. He made everything.... He never dies, and +likes all black fellows.' He has a demiurge, Dawed (Mr. Foelsche, _apud_ +Dr. Stirling, _J.A.I_., Nov. 1894, p. 191). It is curious to observe how +savage creeds often shift the responsibility for evil from the Supreme +Creator, entirely beneficent, on to a subordinate deity.] + +[Footnote 12: Grinnell's _Blackfoot Lodge-Tales_ and _Pawnee Hero +Stories_.] + +[Footnote 13: Garcilasso, i. 101.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. i. 106.] + +[Footnote 15: From all this we might conjecture, like Mr. Prescott, that +the Incas borrowed Pachacamac from the Yuncas, and etherealised his +religion. But Mr. Clements Markham points out that 'Pachacamac is a pure +Quichua word.'] + +[Footnote 16: Garcilasso, ii. 446, 447.] + +[Footnote 17: Cieza de Leon. p.253] + +[Footnote 18: Markham's translation, p. 253.] + +[Footnote 19: _Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, Markham's translation, +p. vii.] + +[Footnote 20: _Rites_, p. 6. Garcilasso, i. 109.] + +[Footnote 21: _Rites_, p. 11.] + +[Footnote 22: Compare _Reports on Discovery of Peru,_ Introduction.] + +[Footnote 23: _Rites_, p. xv.] + +[Footnote 24: Lord Ailesbury's _Memoirs_.] + +[Footnote 25: Garcilasso, ii. 68.] + +[Footnote 26: Cieza de Leon, p. 357.] + +[Footnote 27: _Rites,_ pp. 28, 29.] + +[Footnote 28: Acosta, lib. vi. ch. 21: Garcilasso. ii. 88, 89.] + +[Footnote 29: _Rites_, p. 12.] + +[Footnote 30: Ibid. p.54.] + +[Footnote 31: _Prim. Cult_. ii, 337, 338.] + +[Footnote 32: _Rites_, p. 29.] + +[Footnote 33: Garcilasso, ii. 69.] + +[Footnote 34: _Rites and Laws_, p. 91 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 35: Payne, i. 139.] + +[Footnote 36: Op. cit. i. 468. Mr. Payne absolutely rejects +Ixtlilochitl's story of the monotheism of Nezahualcoyotl; 'Torquemada +knows nothing of it,' i. 490.] + +[Footnote 37: Cushing, _Report, Ethnol. Bureau_, 1891-92, p. 379.] + +[Footnote 38: _J.A.I_. May 1895, pp. 341-344.] + +[Footnote 39: ii. 191, 1829.] + +[Footnote 40: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 345, 346. Ellis, ii. 193.] + +[Footnote 41: Ellis, ii. 221.] + +[Footnote 42: _The Faiths of The World_, p. 413.] + + + + +XV + +THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY + +If any partisan of the anthropological theory has read so far into this +argument, he will often have murmured to himself, 'The old degeneration +theory!' On this Dr. Brinton remarked in 1868: + +'The supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened +conditions, before mythology had grown, a monotheism prevailed which +afterwards, at various times, was revived by reformers, is a belief that +should have passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises +of a state of nature ceased to be the theme of philosophers[1].' + +'The old degeneration theory' practically, and fallaciously, resolved +itself, as Mr. Tylor says, into two assumptions--'first, that the history +of culture began with the appearance on earth of a semi-civilised race of +men; and second, that from this stage culture has proceeded in two +ways--backward to produce savages, and forward to produce civilised +men[2].' That hypothesis is false to all our knowledge of evolution. + +The hypothesis here provisionally advocated makes no assumptions +at all. It is a positive fact that among some of the lowest savages +there exists, not a doctrinal and abstract Monotheism, but a belief +in a moral, powerful, kindly, creative Being, while this faith is found +in juxtaposition with belief in unworshipped ghosts, totems, fetishes, +and so on. The powerful creative Being of savage belief sanctions truth, +unselfishness, loyalty, chastity, and other virtues. I have set forth the +difficulties involved in the attempt to derive this Being from ghosts and +other lower forms of belief. + +Now, it is mere matter of fact, and not of assumption, that the Supreme +Being of many rather higher savages differs from the Supreme Being of +certain lower savages by the neglect in which he is left, by the epicurean +repose with which he is credited, and by his comparative lack of moral +control over human conduct. In his place a mob of ghosts and spirits, +supposed to be potent and helpful in everyday life, attract men's regard +and adoration, and get paid by sacrifice--even by human sacrifice. + +Turning to races yet higher in material culture, we find a crowd of hungry +and cruel gods. + +On this point Mr. Jevons remarks, in accordance with my own observation, +that 'human sacrifice appears at a much earlier period in the rites for +the dead than it does in the ritual of the gods.'[3] The dead chief needs +servants and wives in Hades, who are offered to him. The Australians have +some elements of cannibalism, but do not, as a general rule, offer any +human victims. So far, then, ancestor-worship introduced a sadly +'degenerate' rite, compared with the moral faith in unfed gods. + +To gods the human sacrifice was probably extended (in some cases) either +by a cannibal civilised race, like the Aztecs, or by way of _piacula_, the +god being conciliated for man's sin by the offering of what man most +prized, the 'jealousy' of the god being appeased in a similar way. +But these are relatively advanced conceptions, not to be found, to my +knowledge, among the lowest and most backward races. Therefore, advance to +the idea of spirit at one point, meant degeneration at another point, to +the extent of human sacrifice. + +Thus, on looking at relatively advanced races, we find them worshipping +polytheistic deities and ghosts of the kings just dead, who are often +propitiated by terrible massacres of human victims, while, as in the case +of Taa-roa, the blood spurts back even on the uncreated Creator, who was +before earth was, or sea, sun, or sky. + +Undeniably the hungry, cruel gods are degenerate from the Australian +Father in Heaven, who receives no sacrifice but that of men's lusts and +selfishness; who desires obedience, not the fat of kangaroos; who needs +nothing of ours; is unfed and unbribed. Thus, in this particular respect +the degeneration of religion from the Australian or Andamanese to the +Dinka standard--and infinitely more to the Polynesian, or Aztec, or +popular Greek standard--is as undeniable as any fact in human history. + +Anthropology has only escaped the knowledge of this circumstance by laying +down the rule, demonstrably unbased on facts, that 'the divine sanction of +ethical laws ... belongs almost or wholly to religions above the savage +level, not to the earlier and lower creeds;' that 'savage Animism is +almost devoid of that ethical element which to the educated modern mind is +the very mainspring of practical religion.'[4] + +I have argued, indeed, that the God of low savages who imparts the divine +sanction of ethical laws is _not_ of animistic origin. But even where Mr. +Im Thurn finds, in Guiana, nothing but Animism of the lowest conceivable +type, he also finds in that Animism the only or most potent moral +restraint on the conduct of men. + +While Anthropology holds the certainly erroneous idea that the religion of +the most backward races is always non-moral, of course she cannot know +that there has, in fact, been great degeneration in religion (if religion +began on the Australian and Andamanese level, or even higher) wherever +religion is non-moral or immoral. + +Again, Anthropology, while fixing her gaze on totems, on worshipped +mummies, adored ghosts, and treasured fetishes, has not, to my knowledge, +made a comparative study of the higher and purer religious ideas of +savages. These have been passed by, with a word about credulous +missionaries and Christian influences, except in the brief summary for +which Mr. Tylor found room. In this work I only take a handful of cases of +the higher religious opinions of savages, and set them side by side for +purposes of comparison. Much more remains to be done in this field. But +the area covered is wide, the evidence is the best attainable, and it +seems proved beyond doubt that savages have 'felt after' a conception of a +Creator much higher than that for which they commonly get credit. Now, if +that conception is original, or is very early (and nothing in it suggests +lateness of development), then the other elements of their faith and +practice are degenerate. + +'How,' it has been asked, 'could all mankind forget a pure religion?'[5] +That is what I now try to explain. That degeneration I would account for +by the attractions which animism, when once developed, possessed for the +naughty natural man, 'the old Adam.' A moral creator in need of no gifts, +and opposed to lust and mischief, will not help a man with love-spells, or +with malevolent 'sendings' of disease by witchcraft; will not favour one +man above his neighbour, or one tribe above its rivals, as a reward for +sacrifice which he does not accept, or as constrained by charms which do +not touch his omnipotence. Ghosts and ghost-gods, on the other hand, in +need of food and blood, afraid of spells and binding charms,[6] are a +corrupt, but, to man, a useful constituency. Man being what he is, man was +certain to 'go a-whoring' after practically useful ghosts, ghost-gods, and +fetishes which he could keep in his wallet or medicine bag. For these he +was sure, in the long run, first to neglect his idea of his Creator; next, +perhaps, to reckon Him as only one, if the highest, of the venal rabble of +spirits or deities, and to sacrifice to Him, as to them. And this is +exactly what happened! If we are not to call it 'degeneration,' what are +we to call it? It may be an old theory, but facts 'winna ding,' and are on +the side of an old theory. Meanwhile, on the material plane, culture +kept advancing, the crafts and arts arose; departments arose, each needing +a god; thought grew clearer; such admirable ethics as those of the Aztecs +were developed, and while bleeding human hearts smoked on every altar, +Nezahuatl conceived and erected a bloodless fane to 'The Unknown God, +Cause of Causes,' without altar or idol; and the Inca, Yupanqui, or +another, declared that 'Our Father and Master, the Sun, must have a +Lord.'[7] + +But, at this stage of culture, the luck of the state, and the interests of +a rich and powerful clergy, were involved in the maintenance of the old, +animistic, relatively non-moral system, as in Cuzco, Greece, and Rome. +That popular and political regard for the luck of the state, that +priestly self-interest (quite natural), could only be swept away by the +moral monotheism of Christianity or of Islam. Nothing else could do it. In +the case of Christianity, the central and most potent of many combined +influences, apart from the Life and Death of Our Lord, was the moral +Monotheism of the Hebrew religion of Jehovah. + +Now, it is undeniable that Jehovah, at a certain period of Hebrew history, +had become degraded and anthropomorphized, far below Darumulun, and +Puluga, and Pachacamac, and Ahone, as conceived of in their purest form, +and in the high mood of savage mysteries which yet contain so much that is +grotesque. Even the Big Black Man of the Fuegians is on a higher level (as +_we_ reckon morals), when he forbids the slaying of a robber enemy, than +certain examples of early Hebrew conduct. But our knowledge of the +Fuegians is lamentably scanty. + +Again, traces of human sacrifice appear in the ritual of Israel, and it is +only relatively late that the great prophets, justly declaring Jehovah to +be indifferent to the blood of bulls and rams, try to bring back his +service to that of the unpropitiated, unbought Dendid, or Ahone, or +Pundjel. Here is degeneration, even in Israel. How the conception of +Jehovah arose in Israel, whether it was a revival of a half-obliterated +idea, such as we find among low savages; or whether it was borrowed from +some foreign creed; or was the result of meditation on the philosophical +Supreme Being of high Egyptian theology, is another question. The Biblical +statement leans to the first alternative. Jehovah, not by that name, had +been the God of Israel's fathers. The question will be discussed later; +but, unless new facts are discovered, we must accept the version of the +Pentateuch, or take refuge in conjecture. + +Not only is there degeneration from the Australian conception of +Mungan-gnaur, at its best, to the conception of the Semitic gods in +general, but, 'humanly speaking,' if religion began in a pure form among +low savages, degeneration was inevitable. Advancing social conditions +compelled men into degeneration. Mungan-ngaur is, so far, in line with +our own ideas of divinity because he is not localised. He dwelleth not in +temples made with hands; it is not likely that he should, when his +worshippers have neither house, tent, nor tabernacle. As Mr. Robertson +Smith says, 'where the God had a house or a temple, we recognise the work +of men who were no longer pure nomads, but had begun to form fixed homes.' +By the nature of Australian society, a deity could not be tied to a +temple, and temple-ritual, and consequent myths to explain that ritual, +could not arise. Nor could Darumulun be attached to a district, just as +'the nomad Arabs could not assimilate the conception of a god as a +land-owner, and apply it to their own tribal deities, for the simple +reason that in the desert private property in land was unknown.'[8] + +Darumulun is thus not capable of degenerating into 'a local god, as +_Baal_, or lord of the land,' because this 'involves a series of ideas +unknown to the primitive life of the savage huntsman,' like the widely +spread Murring tribes.[9] + +Nor could Darumulun be tied down to a place in Semitic fashion, first by +manifesting himself there, therefore by receiving an altar of sacrifice +there, and in the end a sanctuary, for Darumulun receives no sacrifice +at all. + +Again, the scene of the Bora could not become a permanent home of +Darumulun, because, when the rites are over, the effigy of the god is +scrupulously destroyed. Thus Darumulun, in his own abode 'beyond the sky,' +can 'go everywhere and do everything' (is omnipresent and omnipotent), +dwells in no earthly places, has no temple, nor tabernacle, nor sacred +mount, nor, like Jehovah, any limit of land.[10] + +The early Hebrew conception of Jehovah, then, is infinitely more +conditioned, practically, by space, than the Supreme Being, 'The Master,' +in the conception of some Australian blacks. + +'By a prophet like Isaiah the residence of Jehovah in Zion is almost +wholly dematerialised.... Conceiving Jehovah as the King of Israel, he +necessarily conceives His kingly activity as going forth from the capital +of the nation.'[11] + +But nomad hunter tribes, with no ancestor-worship, no king and no capital, +cannot lower their deity by the conditions, or limit him by the +limitations, of an earthly monarchy. + +In precisely the same way, Major Ellis proves the degeneration of deity in +Africa, so far as being localised in place of being the Universal God, +implies degeneration, as it certainly does to our minds. By being attached +to a given hill or river 'the gods, instead of being regarded as being +interested in the whole of mankind, would eventually come to be regarded +as being interested in separate tribes or nations alone.' + +To us Milton seems nobly Chauvinistic when he talks of what God has done +by 'His English.' But this localised and essentially degenerate conception +was inevitable, as soon as, in advancing civilisation, the god who had +been 'interested in the whole of [known] mankind' was settled on a hill, +river, or lagoon, amidst a nation of worshippers. + +In the course of the education of mankind, this form of degeneration +(abstractly so considered) was to work, as nothing else could have worked, +towards the lofty conception of universal Deity. For that conception +was only brought into practical religion (as apart from philosophic +speculation) by the union between Israel and the God of Sinai and Zion. +The Prophets, recognising in the God of Sinai, their nation's God--One +to whom righteousness was infinitely dearer than even his Chosen +People--freed the conception of God from local ties, and made it +overspread the world. + +Mr. Robertson Smith has pointed out, again, the manner in which the +different political development of East and West affected the religion of +Greece and of the Semites. In Greece, monarchy fell, at an early period, +before the aristocratic houses. The result was 'a divine aristocracy of +many gods, only modified by a weak reminiscence of the old kingship in the +not very effective sovereignty' (or _prytany_) 'of Zeus. In the East the +national god tended to acquire a really monarchic sway.'[12] Australia +escaped polytheistic degeneracy by having no aristocracy, as in Polynesia, +where aristocracy, as in early Greece, had developed polytheism. Ghosts +and spirits the Australians knew, but not polytheistic gods, nor +departmental deities, as of war, agriculture, art. The savage had no +agriculture, and his social condition was not departmental. In yet another +way, political advance produces religious degeneration, if polytheism be +degeneration from the conception of one relatively supreme moral being. +To make a nation, several tribes must unite. Each has its god, and the +nation is apt to receive them all, equally, into its Pantheon. Thus, if +worshippers of Baiame, Pundjel, and Darumulun coalesced into a nation, +we might find all three gods living together in a new polytheism. In fact, +granting a relatively pure starting-point, degeneration from it must +accompany every step of civilisation, to a certain distance. + +Unlike Semitic gods, Darumulun receives no sacrifice. As we have said, he +has no kin with ghosts, and their sacrifices could not be carried on into +his cult, if Waitz-Gerland (vi. 811) are right in saying that the +Australians have no ancestor-worship. The Kurnai ghosts 'were believed to +live upon plants,'[13] which are not offered to them. Chill ghosts, unfed +by men, would come to waning camp-fires and batten on the broken meats. +The Ngarego and Wolgal held, more handsomely, that Tharamulun (Darumulun) +met the just departed spirit 'and conducted it to its future home beyond +the sky.'[14] Ghosts might also accompany relics of the body, such as the +dead hand, carried about by the family, who would wave the black fragment +at the dreaded Aurora Borealis, crying, 'Send it away!' I am unacquainted +with any sacrifices to ancestral ghosts among this people who cannot long +remember their ancestors, consequently the practice has not been refracted +on their supreme Master's cult. In the cult of Darumulun, and of other +highest gods of lowest savages, nothing answers to the Hebrew technical +priestly word for sacrifice, 'food of the deity.'[15] Nobody feeds Puluga, +nobody fed Ahone. We hear of no Fuegian sacrifices. Mr. Robertson Smith +says: 'In all religions in which the gods have been developed out of +totems [worshipped animals and other things regarded as akin to human +stocks] the ritual act of laying food before the deity is perfectly +intelligible.' Pundjel, an Australian Supreme Being, is mixed up with +animals in some myths, but it is not easy to see how such Supreme Beings +as he could be 'developed out of totems'! I am not aware, again, that any +Australian tribe feeds the animals who are its totems, so Darumulun could +not, and did not inherit sacrifice through them. Mr. Robertson Smith had +a celebrated theory that cereal sacrifice is a tribute to a god, while +sacrifice of a beast or man is an act of communion with the god.[16] Men +and gods dined together.[17] 'The god himself was conceived of as a being +of the same stock as his comrades.' Beasts were also of the same stock, +one beast, say a lobster, was of the same blood as a lobster kin, and its +god.[18] Occasionally the sacred beast of the kin, usually not to be slain +or tasted, is 'eaten as a kind of mystic sacrament a most dubious +fact.'[19] + +Now, there is, I believe, some evidence, lately collected if not +published, which makes in favour of the eating of totems by Australians, +at a certain very rare and solemn mystery. It would not even surprise me +('from information received') if a very deeply initiated person were +occasionally slain, as the highest degree of initiation, on certain most +unusual occasions. This remains uncertain, but I have at present no +evidence that, either by one road or another, either from ghost-feeding or +totem-feeding, or feeding on totems, any Australian Supreme Being receives +any sacrifice at all. Much less, as among Pawnees and Semitic peoples (to +judge from certain traces), is the Australian Supreme Being a cause of and +partaker in human sacrifice.[20] The horrible idea of the Man who is the +God, and is eaten in the God's honour, occurs among polytheistic Aztecs, +on a high level of material culture, not among Australians, Andamanese, +Bushmen, or Fuegians.[21] + +Thus, in religion, the Darumulun, or other Supreme Being of the lowest +known savages, men roaming wild, when originally met, on a continent +peopled by older kinds of animals than ours, was (as we regard purity) on +a higher plane by far than the gods of Greeks and Semites in their +earliest known myths. Setting mythology aside and looking only at cult, +the God of the Murring or the Kurnai, whose precepts soften the heart, +who knows the heart's secrets, who inculcates chastity, respect of age, +unselfishness, who is not bound by conditions of space or place, who +receives no blood of slaughtered man or beast, is a conception from which +the ordinary polytheistic gods of infinitely more polite peoples are +frankly degenerate. The animistic superstitions wildly based on the belief +in the soul have not soiled him, and the social conditions of aristocracy, +agriculture, architecture, have not made him one in a polytheistic +crowd of rapacious gods, nor fettered him as a Baal to his estate, nor +localised him in a temple built with hands. He cannot appear as a 'God of +Battles;' no _Te Deum_ can be sung to him for victory in a cause perhaps +unjust, for he is the Supreme Being of a certain group of allied local +tribes. One of these tribes has no more interest with him than another, +and the whole group do not, as a body, wage war on another alien group. +The social conditions of his worshippers, then, preserve Darumulun from +the patent blots on the escutcheon of gods among much more advanced races. + +Once more, the idea of Animism admits of endless expansion. A spirit can +be located anywhere, in any stone, stick, bush, person, hill, or river. A +god made on the animistic model can be assigned to any department of +human activity, down to sports, or lusts, or the province of Cloacina. +Thus religion becomes a mere haunted and pestilential jungle of beliefs. +But the theistic conception, when not yet envisaged as spiritual, cannot +be subdivided and _éparpillé_. Thus, from every point of view, and on +every side, Animism is full of the seeds of religious degeneration, which +do not and cannot exist in what I take to be the earliest known form of +the theistic conception: that of a Being about whose metaphysical +nature--spirit or not spirit--no questions were asked, as Dr. Brinton long +ago remarked. + +That conception alone could neither supply the moral motive of 'a soul to +be saved,' nor satisfy the metaphysical instinct of advancing mankind. To +meet these wants, to supply 'soul,' with its moral stimulus, and to +provide a phrase or idea under which the Deity could be envisaged (i.e. as +a _spirit_) by advancing thought, Animism was necessary. The blending of +the theistic and the animistic beliefs was indispensable to religion. +But, in the process of animistic development under advancing social +conditions, degeneration was necessarily implied. Degeneration of the +theistic conception for a while, therefore, occurred. The facts are the +proofs; and only contradictory facts, in sufficient quantity, can +annihilate the old theory of Degeneration when it is presented in this +form. + +It mast be repeated that on this theory an explanation is given of what +the old Degeneration hypothesis does not explain. Granting a primal +religion relatively pure in its beginnings, why did it degenerate? + +Mr. Max Mullet, looking on religion as the development of the sentiment of +the Infinite, regards fetishism as a secondary and comparatively late form +of belief. We find it, he observes, in various forms of Christianity; +Christianity, therefore, is primary there, relic worship is secondary. +Religion beginning, according to him, in the sense of the infinite, as +awakened in man by tall trees, high hills, and so on, it advances to the +infinite of space and sky, and so to the infinitely divine. This is +primary: fetishism is secondary. Arguing elsewhere against this idea, I +have asked: What was the _modus_ of degeneration which produced similar +results in Christianity, and in African and other religions? How did it +work? I am not aware that Mr. Max Müller has answered this question. +But how degeneration worked--namely, by Animism supplanting Theism--is +conspicuously plain on our theory. + +Take the early chapters of Genesis, or any savage cosmogonic myth you +please. Deathless man is face to face with the Creator. He cannot +degenerate in religion. He cannot offer sacrifice, for the Creator +obviously needs nothing, and again, as there is no death, he cannot slay +animals for the Creator. But, in one way or another, usually by breach of +a taboo, Death enters the world. Then comes, by process of evolution, +belief in hungry spirits, belief in spirits who may inhabit stones or +sticks; again there arise priests who know how to propitiate spirits +and how to tempt them into sticks and stones. These arts become lucrative +and are backed by the cleverest men, and by the apparent evidence of +prophecies by convulsionaries. Thus every known kind of degeneration in +religion is inevitably introduced as a result of the theory of Animism. We +do not need an hypothesis of Original Sin as a cause of degeneration, and, +if Mr. Max Müller's doctrine of the Infinite were _viable_, we have +supplied, in Animism, under advancing social conditions, what he does not +seem to provide, a cause and _modus_ of degeneration. Fetishism would +thus be really 'secondary,' _ex hypothesi_, but as we nowhere find +Fetishism alone, without the other elements of religion, we cannot say, +historically, whether it is secondary or not. Fetishism logically needs, +in some of its aspects, the doctrine of spirits, and Theism, in what we +take to be its earliest known form, does not logically need the doctrine +of spirits as given matter. So far we can go, but not farther, as to the +fact of priority in evolution. Nevertheless we meet, among the most +backward peoples known to us, among men just emerged from the palaeolithic +stage of culture, men who are involved in dread of ghosts, a religious +Idea which certainly is not born of ghost-worship, for by these men, +ancestral ghosts are not worshipped. + +In their hearts, on their lips, in their moral training we find (however +blended with barbarous absurdities, and obscured by rites of another +origin) the faith in a Being who created or constructed the world; who was +from time beyond memory or conjecture; who is primal, who makes for +righteousness, and who loves mankind. This Being has not the notes of +degeneration; his home is 'among the stars,' not in a hill or in a house. +To him no altar smokes, and for him no blood is shed. + +'God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is lord +of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is +worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed any thing ... and hath +made of one blood all nations of men ... that they should seek the Lord, +if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far +from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.' + +That the words of St. Paul are literally true, as to the feeling after a +God who needs not anything at man's hands, the study of anthropology seems +to us to demonstrate. That in this God 'we have our being,' in so far +as somewhat of ours may escape, at moments, from the bonds of Time and the +manacles of Space, the earlier part of this treatise is intended to +suggest, as a thing by no means necessarily beyond a reasonable man's +power to conceive. That these two beliefs, however attained (a point on +which we possess no positive evidence), have commonly been subject to +degeneration in the religions of the world, is only too obvious. + +So far, then, the nature of things and of the reasoning faculty does not +seem to give the lie to the old Degeneration theory. + +To these conclusions, as far as they are matters of scientific opinion, we +have been led by nothing but the study of anthropology. + +[Footnote 1: _Myths of the New World_, p. 44.] + +[Footnote 2: _Prim. Cult_. i. 35.] + +[Footnote 3: _Introduction_, p. 199; also p. 161.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 360,361.] + +[Footnote 5: Prof. Menzies, _History of Religion_, p. 23.] + +[Footnote 6: [Greek: legomenai theion anagchai.] Porphyry.] + +[Footnote 7: Ixtlilochitl. Balboa, _Hist. du Pérou_, p. 62.] + +[Footnote 8: Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, pp. 104, 105.] + +[Footnote 9: Op. cit. p. 106.] + +[Footnote 10: On the Glenelg some caves and mountain tops are haunted or +holy. Waitz, vi. 804, No authority cited.] + +[Footnote 11: _Religion of Semites_, p. 110.] + +[Footnote 12: _Rel. Sem_. p. 71.] + +[Footnote 13: Howitt, _J.A.T_. 1884, p. 187.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. p. 188.] + +[Footnote 15: _Rel. Sem_. p. 207.] + +[Footnote 16: _Rel. Sem_. p. 225.] + +[Footnote 17: Op. cit. p. 247.] + +[Footnote 18: Op. cit. p. 269.] + +[Footnote 19: Op. cit. p. 277.] + +[Footnote 20: Op. cit. p. 343. Citing Gen. xxii 2 Kings xxi. 6, Micah +vi. 7, 2 Kings iii. 27.] + +[Footnote 21: I mean, does not occur to my knowledge. New evidence is +always upsetting anthropological theories.] + + + + +XVI + +THEORIES OF JEHOVAH + +All speculation on the curly history of religion is apt to end in the +endeavour to see how far the conclusions can be made to illustrate the +faith of Israel. Thus, the theorist who believes in ancestor-worship as +the key of all the creeds will see in Jehovah a developed ancestral +ghost, or a kind of fetish-god, attached to a stone--perhaps an ancient +sepulchral stele of some desert sheikh. + +The exclusive admirer of the hypothesis of Totemism will find evidence for +his belief in worship of the golden calf and the bulls. The partisan of +nature-worship will insist on Jehovah's connection with storm, thunder, +and the fire of Sinai. On the other hand, whoever accepts our suggestions +will incline to see, in the early forms of belief in Jehovah, a shape of +the widely diffused conception of a Moral Supreme Being, at first (or, at +least, when our information begins) envisaged in anthropomorphic form, +but gradually purged of all local traits by the unexampled and unique +inspiration of the great Prophets. They, as far as our knowledge extends, +were strangely indifferent to the animistic element in religion, to the +doctrine of surviving human souls, and so, of course, to that element +of Animism which is priceless--the purification of the soul in the light +of the hope of eternal life. Just as the hunger after righteousness of the +Prophets is intense, so their hope of finally sating that hunger +in an eternity of sinless bliss and enjoyment of God is confessedly +inconspicuous. In short, they have carried Theism to its austere +extreme--'though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him'--while unconcerned +about the rewards of Animism. This is certainly a strange result of a +religion which, according to the anthropological theory, has Animism for +its basis. + +We therefore examine certain forms of the animistic hypothesis as applied +to account for the religion of Israel. The topic is one in which special +knowledge of Hebrew and other Oriental languages seems absolutely +indispensable; but anthropological speculators have not been Oriental +scholars (with rare exceptions), while some Oriental scholars have +borrowed from popular anthropology without much critical discrimination. +These circumstances must be our excuse for venturing on to this difficult +ground. + +It is probably impossible for us to trace with accuracy the rise of the +religion of Jehovah. 'The wise and learned' dispute endlessly over dates +of documents, over the amount of later doctrine interpolated into +the earlier texts, over the nature, source, and quantity of foreign +influence--Chaldaean, Accadian, Egyptian, or Assyrian. We know that Israel +had, in an early age, the conception of the moral Eternal; we know that, +at an early age, that conception was contaminated and anthropomorphised; +and we know that it was rescued, in a great degree, from this corruption, +while always retaining its original ethical aspect and sanction. Why +matters went thus in Israel and not elsewhere we know not, except that +such was the will of God in the mysterious education of the world. How +mysterious that education has been is best known to all who have studied +the political and social results of Totemism. On the face of it a +perfectly crazy and degrading belief--on the face of it meant for nothing +but to make the family a hell of internecine hatred--Totemism rendered +possible--nay, inevitable--the union of hostile groups into large and +relatively peaceful tribal societies. Given the materials as we know them, +we never should have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it +should thus have been done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally +ignorant of the conditions of the problem. + +An example of anthropological theory concerning Jehovah was put forth by +Mr. Huxley.[1] Mr. Huxley's general idea of religion as it is on the +lowest known level of material culture--through which the ancestors of +Israel must have passed like other people--has already been criticised. +He denied to the most backward races both cult and religious sanction of +ethics. He was demonstrably, though unconsciously, in error as to the +facts, and therefore could not start from the idea that Israel, in the +lowest historically known condition of savagery, possessed, or, like other +races, might possess, the belief in an Eternal making for righteousness. +'For my part,' he says, 'I see no reason to doubt that, like the +rest of the world, the Israelites had passed through a period of mere +ghost-worship, and had advanced through ancestor-worship and Fetishism and +Totemism to the theological level at which we find them in the Books of +Judges and Samuel.'[2] + +But why does he think the Israelites did all this? The Hebrew ghosts, +abiding, according to Mr. Huxley, in a rather torpid condition in Sheol, +would not be of much practical use to a worshipper. A reference in +Deuteronomy xxvi. 14 (Deuteronomy being, _ex hypothesi_, a late pious +imposture) does not prove much. The Hebrew is there bidden to remind +himself of the stay of his ancestors in Egypt, and to say, 'Of the +hallowed things I have not given aught for the dead'--namely, of the +tithes dedicated to the Levites and the poor. A race which abode for +centuries among the Egyptians, as Israel did--among a people who +elaborately fed the _kas_ of the departed--might pick up a trace of a +custom, the giving of food for the dead, still persevered in by St. Monica +till St. Ambrose admonished her. But Mr. Huxley is hard put to it for +evidence of ancestor-worship or ghost-worship in Israel when he looks for +indications of these rites in 'the singular weight attached to the +veneration of parents in the Fourth Commandment.'[3] The _Fourth_ +Commandment, of course, is a slip of the pen. He adds: 'The Fifth +Commandment, as it stands, would be an excellent compromise between +ancestor-worship and Monotheism.' Long may children practise this +excellent compromise! It is really too far-fetched to reason thus: 'People +were bidden to honour their parents, as a compromise between Monotheism +and ghost-worship.' Hard, hard bestead is he who has to reason in that +fashion! This comes of 'training in the use of the weapons of precision of +science.' + +Mr. Huxley goes on: 'The Ark of the Covenant may have been a relic of +ancestor-worship;' 'there is a good deal to be said for that speculation.' +Possibly there is, by way of the valuable hypothesis that Jehovah was a +fetish stone which had been a grave-stone, or perhaps a _lingam_, and was +kept in the Ark on the plausible pretext that it was the two Tables of +the Law! + +However, Mr. Huxley really finds it safer to suppose that references to +ancestor-worship in the Bible were obliterated by late monotheistic +editors, who, none the less, are so full and minute in their descriptions +of the various heresies into which Israel was eternally lapsing, and must +not be allowed to lapse again. Had ancestor-worship been a _péché mignon_ +of Israel, the Prophets would have let Israel hear their mind on it. + +The Hebrews' indifference to the departed soul is, in fact, a puzzle, +especially when we consider their Egyptian education--so important an +element in Mr. Huxley's theory. + +Mr. Herbert Spencer is not more successful than Mr. Huxley in finding +ancestor-worship among the Hebrews. On the whole subject he writes: + +'Where the levels of mental nature and social progress are lowest, we +usually find, along with an absence of religious ideas generally, an +absence, or very slight development, of ancestor-worship.... Cook +[Captain Cook], telling us what the Fuegians were before contact +with Europeans had introduced foreign ideas, said there were no +appearances of religion among them; and we are not told by him or others +that they were ancestor-worshippers.'[4] + +Probably they are not; but they do possess a Being who reads their hearts, +and who certainly shows no traces of European ideas. If the Fuegians +are not ancestor-worshippers, this Being was not developed out of +ancestor-worship. + +The evidence of Captain Cook, no anthropologist, but a mariner who saw and +knew little of the Fuegians, is precisely of the sort against which Major +Ellis warns us.[5] The more a religion consists in fear of a moral +guardian of conduct, the less does it show itself, by sacrifice or rite, +to the eyes of Captain Cook, of his Majesty's ship _Endeavour_. Mr. +Spencer places the Andamanese on the same level as the Fuegians, 'so far +as the scanty evidence may be trusted.' We have shown that (as known +to Mr. Spencer in 1876) it may not be trusted at all; the Andamanese +possessing a moral Supreme Being, though they are not, apparently, +ancestor-worshippers. The Australians 'show us not much persistence in +ghost-propitiation,' which, if it exists, ceases when the corpses are tied +up and buried, or after they are burned, or after the bones, carried about +for a while, are exposed on platforms. Yet many Australian tribes possess +a moral Supreme Being. + +In fact ghost-worship, in Mr. Spencer's scheme, cannot be fairly well +developed till society reaches the level of 'settled groups whose +burial-places are in their midst.' Hence the development of a moral +Supreme Being among tribes _not_ thus settled, is inconceivable, on +Mr. Spencer's hypothesis.[6] By that hypothesis, 'worshipped ancestors, +according to their remoteness, were regarded as divine, semi-divine, and +human.'[7] Where we find, then, the Divine Being among nomads who do not +remember their great-grandfathers, the Spencerian theory is refuted by +facts. We have the effect, the Divine Being, without the cause, worship of +ancestors. + +Coming to the Hebrews, Mr. Spencer argues that 'the silence of their +legends (as to ancestor-worship) is but a negative fact, which may be as +misleading as negative facts usually are.' They are, indeed; witness +Mr. Spencer's own silence about savage Supreme Beings. But we may fairly +argue that if Israel had been given to ancestor-worship (as might partly +be surmised from the mystery about the grave of Moses) the Prophets would +not have spared them for their crying. The Prophets were unusually +outspoken men, and, as they undeniably do scold Israel for every other +kind of conceivable heresy, they were not likely to be silent about +ancestor-worship, if ancestor-worship existed. Mr. Spencer, then, rather +heedlessly, though correctly, argues that 'nomadic habits are unfavourable +to evolution of the ghost-theory.'[8] Alas, this gives away the whole +case! For, if all men began as nomads, and nomadic habits are unfavourable +even to the ordinary ghost, how did the Australian and other nomads +develop the Supreme Being, who, _ex hypothesi_, is the final fruit of the +ghost-flower? If you cannot have 'an established ancestor-worship' till +you abandon nomadic habits, how, while still nomadic, do you evolve a +Supreme Being? Obviously not out of ancestor-worship. + +Mr. Spencer then assigns, as evidence for ancestor-worship in Israel, +mourning dresses, fasting, the law against self-bleeding and cutting off +the hair for the dead, and the text (Deut. xxvi. 14) about 'I have not +given aught thereof for the dead.' 'Hence, the conclusion must be that +ancestor-worship had developed as far as nomadic habits allowed, before it +was repressed by a higher worship.'[9] But whence came that higher worship +which seems to have intervened immediately after the cessation of nomadic +habits? + +There are obvious traces of grief expressed in a primitive way among the +Hebrews. 'Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your +eyes for the dead' (Deut. xiv. 1). 'Neither shall men lament for them, +nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; neither shall men +tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead' (by +way of counter-irritant to grief); 'neither shall men give them the cup +of consolation to drink for their father or their mother,' because the +Jews were to be removed from their homes.[10] 'Ye shall not make any +cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.'[11] + +It may be usual to regard inflictions, such as cutting, by mourners, as +sacrifices to the ghost of the dead. But one has seen a man strike himself +a heavy blow on receiving news of a loss _not_ by death, and I venture to +fancy that cuttings and gashings at funerals are merely a more violent +form of appeal to a counter-irritant of grief, and, again, a token of +recklessness caused by a sorrow which makes void the world. One of John +Nicholson's native adorers killed himself on news of that warrior's death, +saying, 'What is left worth living for?' This was not a sacrifice to the +Manes of Nicholson. The sacrifice of the mourner's hair, as by Achilles, +argues a similar indifference to personal charm. Once more, the text in +Psalm cvi. 28, 'They joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the +sacrifices of the dead,' is usually taken by commentators as a reference +to the ritual of gods who are no gods. But it rather seems to indicate an +acquiescence in foreign burial rites. All this additional evidence does +not do much to prove ancestor-worship in Israel, though the secrecy of the +burial of Moses, 'in a valley of the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; +but no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day,' may indicate a dread of +a nascent worship of the great leader.[12] The scene of the defection in +Psalm cvi., Beth-peor, is indicated in Numbers xxv., where Israel runs +after the girls and the gods of Moab: 'And Moab called the people unto the +sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their +gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor.' Psalm cvi. is obviously a +later restatement of this addiction to the Moabite gods, and the Psalm +adds 'they ate the sacrifices of the dead.' + +It is plain that, for whatever reason, ancestor-worship among the Hebrews +was, at the utmost, rudimentary. Otherwise it must have been clearly +denounced by the Prophets among the other heresies of Israel. Therefore, +as being at the most rudimentary, ancestor-worship in Israel could not be +developed at once into the worship of Jehovah. + +Though ancestor-worship among the Hebrews could not be fully developed, +according to Mr. Spencer, because of their nomadic habits, it _was_ fully +developed, according to the Rev. A.W. Oxford. 'Every family, like every +old Roman and Greek family, was firmly held together by the worship of its +ancestors, the hearth was the altar, the head of the family the priest.... +The bond which kept together the families of a tribe was its common +religion, the worship of its reputed ancestor. The chief of the tribe was, +of course, the priest of the cult.' Of course; but what a pity that Mr. +Huxley and Mr. Spencer omitted facts so invaluable to their theory! And +how does the Rev. Mr. Oxford know? Well, 'there is no direct proof,' +oddly enough, of so marked a feature in Hebrew religion but we are +referred to 1 Sam. xx. 29 and Judges xviii. 19. 1 Sam. xx. 29 makes +Jonathan say that David wants to go to a family sacrifice, that is, a +family dinner party. This hardly covers the large assertions made by +Mr. Oxford. His second citation is so unlucky as to contradict his +observation that 'of course' the chief of the tribe was the priest of the +cult. Micah, in Judges xvii., xviii., is _not_ the chief of his tribe +(Ephraim), neither is he even the priest in his own house. He 'consecrated +one of his own sons who became his priest,' till he got hold of a casual +young Levite, and said, 'Be unto me a _father_ and a priest,' for ten +shekels _per annum_, a suit of clothes, and board and lodging. + +In place, then, of any remote reference to a chief's being priest of his +ancestral ghosts, we have here a man of one tribe who is paid rather +handsomely to be family chaplain to a member of another tribe. Some +moss-troopers of the tribe of Dan then kidnapped this valuable young +Levite, and seized a few idols which Micah had permitted himself to make. +And all this, according to our clerical authority, is evidence for +ancestor-worship![13] + +All this appears to be derived from some incoherent speculations of Stade. +For example, that learned German cites the story of Micah as a proof that +the different tribes or clans had different religions. This _must_ be so, +because the Danites asked the young Levite whether it was not better to be +priest to a clan than to an individual? It is as if a patron offered a +rich living to somebody's private chaplain, saying that the new position +was more creditable and lucrative. This would hardly prove a difference of +religion between the individual and the parish.[14] + +Mr. Oxford next avers that 'the earliest form of the Israelite religion +was Fetishism or Totemism.' This is another example of Stade's logic. +Finding, as he believes, names suggestive of Totemism in Simeon, Levi, +Rachel, and so on, Stade leaps to the conclusion that Totemism in Israel +was prior to anything resembling monotheism. For monotheism, he argues, +could not give the germs of the clan or tribal organisation, while Totemism +could do so. Certainly it could, but as, in many regions (America, +Australia), we find Totemism and the belief in a benevolent Supreme Being +co-existing among savages, when first observed by Europeans, we cannot +possibly say dogmatically whether a rough monotheism or whether Totemism +came first in order of evolution. This holds as good of Israel (if once +totemistic) as it does of Pawnees or Kurnai. Stade has overlooked these +well-known facts, and his opinion filters into a cheap hand-book, and is +set in examinations![15] + +We also learn from Mr. Oxford's popular manual of German Biblical +conjecture that 'Jehovah was not represented as a loving Father, but as a +Being easily roused to wrath,' a thing most incident to loving fathers. + +Again, Mr. Oxford avers that 'the old Israelites knew no distinction +between physical and moral evil.... The conception of Jehovah's holiness +had nothing moral in it' (p. 90). This rather contradicts Wellhausen: 'In +all ancient primitive peoples ... religion furnishes a motive for law and +morals; in the case of none did it become so with such purity and power as +in that of the Israelites.'[16] + +We began by examining Mr. Huxley's endeavours to find traces of +ancestor-worship (in his opinion the origin of Jehovah-worship) among the +Israelites. We next criticised Mr. Spencer's efforts in the same quest, +and the more dogmatic assertions of Mr. Oxford and Stade. We now return to +Mr. Huxley's account of the evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of +Jehovah. + +From the history of the Witch of Endor, which Mr. Huxley sees no reason to +regard as other than a sincere statement of what really occurred, he +gathers that the Witch cried out, 'I see Elohim.' These Elohim proved to +be the phantasm of the dead Samuel. Moved by this hallucination the Witch +uttered a veridical premonition, totally adverse to her own interests, and +uncommonly dangerous to her life. This is, psychically, interesting. +The point, however, is that _Elohim_ is a term equivalent to Red +Indian _Wakan_, Fijian _Kahu_, Maori or Melanesian _Mana_, meaning the +'supernatural,' the vaguely powerful--in fact X. This particular example +of _Elohim_ was a phantasm of the dead, but _Elohim_ is also used of the +highest Divine Being, therefore the highest Divine Being is of the same +genus as a ghost--so Mr. Huxley reasons. 'The difference which was +supposed to exist between the different Elohim was one of degree, not of +kind.'[17] + +'If Jehovah was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the +undoubtedly zoomorphic or anthropomorphic "gods of the nations," why is it +to be assumed that he also was not thought to have a human shape?' He +_was_ thought to have a human shape, at one time, by some theorists: no +doubt exists on that head. That, however, is not where we demur. We demur +when, because an hallucination of the Witch of Endor (probably still +incompletely developed) is called by her _Elohim_, therefore the highest +_Elohim_ is said by Mr. Huxley to differ from a ghost only in degree, not +in kind. _Elohim_, or _El_, the creative, differs from a ghost in kind, +because he, in Hebrew belief, never was a ghost, he is immortal and +without beginning. + +Mr. Huxley now enforces his theory by a parallel between the religion of +Tonga and the religion of Israel under the Judges. He quotes Mariner,[18] +whose statement avers that there is a supreme Tongan being: 'of his +origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal. His name is +Tá-li-y-Tooboo = "Wait-there-Tooboo."' 'He is a great chief from the top +of the sky down to the bottom of the earth.' He, and other '_original_ +gods' of his making, are carefully and absolutely discriminated from the +_atua_, which are 'the human soul after its separation from the body.' All +Tongan gods are _atua_ (_Elohim_), but all _atua_ are not 'original gods,' +unserved by priests, and unpropitiated by food or libation, like the +highest God, Tá-li-y-Tooboo, the Eternal of Tonga. 'He occasionally +inspires the How' (elective King), but often a How is not inspired at all +by Tá-li-y-Tooboo, any more than Saul, at last, was inspired by Jehovah. + +Surely there is a difference _in kind_ between an eternal, immortal God, +and a ghost, though both are _atua_, or both are _Elohim_--the unknown X. + +Many people call a ghost 'supernatural;' they also call God +'supernatural,' but the difference between a phantasm of a dead man and +the Deity they would admit, I conceive, to be a difference of kind. We +have shown, or tried to show, that the conceptions of 'ghost' and 'Supreme +Being' are different, not only in kind, but in origin. The ghost comes +from, and depends on, the animistic theory; the Supreme Being, as +originally thought of, does not. All Gods are _Elohim, kalou, wakan_; all +_Elohim, kalou, wakan_ are not Gods. + +A ghost-god should receive food or libation. Mr. Huxley says that +Tá-li-y-Tooboo did so. 'If the god, like Tá-li-y-Tooboo, had no priest, +then the chief place was left vacant, and was supposed to be occupied by +the god himself. _When the first cup of Kava was filled_, the mataboole +who acted as master of the ceremonies said, "Give it to your god," and it +was offered, though only as a matter of form.'[19] + +This is incorrect. In the case of Tá-li-y-Tooboo _'there is no cup filled +for the god.'_[20] _'Before any cup is filled_ the man by the side of the +bowl says: "The Kava is in the cup"' (which it is not), 'and the mataboole +answers, "Give it to your god;"' but the Kava is _not_ in the cup, and the +Tongan Eternal receives no oblation. + +The sacrifice, says Mr. Huxley, meant 'that the god was either a deified +ghost, or, at any rate, a being of like nature to these.'[21] But as +Tá-li-y-Tooboo had no sacrifice, contrary to Mr. Huxley's averment, he was +_not_ 'a deified ghost, or a being of like nature to these.' To the lower, +non-ghostly Tongan gods the animistic habit of sacrifice had been +extended, but not yet to the Supreme Being. + +Ah, if Mr. Gladstone, or the Duke of Argyll, or some bishop had made a +misstatement of this kind, how Mr. Huxley would have crushed him! But it +is a mere error of careless reading, such as we all make daily. + +It is manifest that we cannot prove Jehovah to be a ghost by the parallel +of a Tongan god, who, by ritual and by definition, was _not_ a ghost. The +proof therefore rests on the anthropomorphised pre-prophetic accounts, and +on the ritual, of Jehovah. But man naturally 'anthropises' his deities: he +does not thereby demonstrate that they were once ghosts. + +As regards the sacrifices to Jehovah, the sweet savour which he was +supposed to enjoy (contrary to the opinion of the Prophets), these +sacrifices afford the best presumption that Jehovah was a ghost-god, or a +god constructed on ghostly lines. + +But we have shown that among the lowest races neither are ghosts +worshipped by sacrifice, nor does the Supreme Being, Darumulun or Puluga, +receive food offerings. We have also instanced many Supreme Beings +of more advanced races, Ahone, and Dendid, and Nyankupon, who do not sniff +the savour of any offerings. If then (as in the case of Taa-roa), a +Supreme Being _does_ receive sacrifice, we may argue that a piece of +animistic ritual, not connected with the Supreme Being in Australia or +Andaman, not connected with his creed in Virginia or Africa (where +ghost-gods do receive sacrifice), may in other regions be transferred from +ghost-gods to the Supreme Being, who never was a ghost. There seems to +be nothing incredible or illogical in the theory of such transference. + +On a God who never was a ghost men may come to confer sacrifices (which +are not made to Baiame and the rest) because, being in the habit of thus +propitiating one set of bodiless powers, men may not think it civil or +safe to leave another set of powers out. By his very nature, man must +clothe all gods with some human passions and attributes, unless, like a +large number of savages, he leaves his high God severely alone, and is the +slave of fetishes and spectres. But that practice makes against the +ghost-theory. + +In the attempt to account thus, namely by transference, for the sacrifices +to Jehovah, we are met by a difficulty of our own making. If the +Israelites did not sacrifice to ancestors (as we have shown that there is +very scant reason for supposing that they did), how could they transfer to +Jehovah the rite which, by our hypothesis, they are not proved to have +offered to ancestors? + +This is certainly a hard problem, harder (or perhaps easier) because we +know so very little of the early history of the Hebrews. According to +their own traditions, Israel had been in touch with all manner of races +much more advanced than themselves in material culture, and steeped in +highly developed polytheistic Animism. According to their history, the +Israelites 'went a-whoring' incorrigibly after strange gods. It is +impossible, perhaps, to disentangle the foreign and the native elements. + +It may therefore be tentatively suggested that early Israel had its Ahone +in a Being perhaps not yet named Jehovah. Israel entertained, however, +perhaps by reason of 'nomadic habits,' only the scantiest concern about +ancestral ghosts. We then find an historical tradition of secular contact +between Israel and Egypt, from which Israel emerges with Jehovah for God, +and a system of sacrifices. Regarding Jehovah as a revived memory of +the moral Supreme Being whom Israel must have known in extremely remote +ages (unless Israel was less favoured than Australians, Bushmen, or +Andamanese), we might look on the sacrifices to him as an adaptation from +the practices of religion among races more settled than Israel, and more +civilised.[22] + +Speculation on subjects so remote must be conjectural, but our suggestion +would, perhaps, account for sacrifices to Jehovah, paid by a race +which, by reason of 'nomadic habits,' was never much given to +ancestor-worship, but had been in contact with great sacrificing, +polytheistic civilisations. Mr. Huxley, however, while he seems to slur +the essential distinction between ghost-gods and the Eternal, grants, +later, that 'there are very few people(s?) without additional gods, +which cannot, with certainty, be accounted for as deified ancestors.' +Tá-li-y-Tooboo, of course, is one of these gods, as is Jehovah. Mr. Huxley +gives no theory of _how_ these gods came into belief, except the +suggestion that 'the polytheistic theology has become modified by the +selection of the cosmic or tribal god, as the only god to whom worship is +due on the part of that nation,' without prejudice to the right of other +nations to worship other gods.[23] This is 'monolatry,' and 'the ethical +code, often of a very high order, comes into closer relation with the +theological creed,' _why_, we are not informed. Nor do we learn out of +what polytheistic deities Jehovah was selected, nor for what reason. The +hypothesis, as usual, breaks down on the close relation between the +ethical code and the theological creed, among low savages, with a +relatively Supreme Being, but without ancestor-worship, and without +polytheistic gods from whom to select a heavenly chief. + +Whence came the moral element in the idea of Jehovah? Mr. Huxley supposes +that, during their residence in the land of Goshen (and _a fortiori_ +before it), the Israelites 'knew nothing of Jehovah.'[24] They were +polytheistic idolaters. This follows, apparently, from Ezekiel xx. 5: +'In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of +the house of Jacob, _and made myself known unto them_ in the land of +Egypt.' The Biblical account is that the God of Moses's fathers, the God +of Abraham, enlightened Moses in Sinai, giving his name as 'I am that I +am' (Exodus iii. 6, 14; translation uncertain). We are to understand that +Moses, a religious reformer, revived an old, and, in the Egyptian bondage, +a half-obliterated creed of the ancient nomadic Beni-Israel. They were no +longer to 'defile themselves with the idols of Egypt,' as they had +obviously done. We really know no more about the matter. Wellhausen says +that Jehovah was 'originally a family or tribal god, either of the family +of Moses or of the tribe of Joseph.' How a family could develop a Supreme +Being all to itself, we are not informed, and we know of no such analogous +case in the ethnographic field. Again, Jehovah was 'only a special name of +El, current within a powerful circle.' And who was El?[25] 'Moses was not +the first discoverer of the faith.' Probably not, but Mr. Huxley seems to +think that he was. + +Wellhausen's and other German ideas filter into popular traditions, as we +saw, through 'A Short Introduction to the History of Ancient Israel' +(pp. 19, 20), by the Rev. A.W. Oxford, M.A., Vicar of St. Luke's, Soho. +Here follows Mr. Oxford's undeniably 'short way with Jehovah.' 'Moses was +the founder of the Israelite religion. Jehovah, his family or tribal god, +perhaps originally the God of the Kenites, was taken as a tribal god by +all the Israelite tribes.... That Jehovah was not the original god of +Israel' (as the Bible impudently alleges) 'but was the god of the Kenites, +we see mainly from Deut. xxxiii. 2, Judges v. 4, 5, and from the history +of Jethro, who, according to Judges i. 16, was a Kenite.' + +The first text says that, according to Moses, 'the Lord came from Sinai,' +rose up from Seir, and shone from Mount Paran. The second text mentions +Jehovah's going up out of Seir and Sinai. The third text says that Jethro, +Moses's Kenite (or Midianite) father-in-law, dwelt among the people of +Judah; Jethro being a priest of Midian. How all this proves that 'Moses +was a great impostor,' as the poet says, and that Jehovah was not 'the +original God of Israel,' but (1) Moses's family or tribal god, or (2) 'the +god of the Kenites,' I profess my inability to comprehend. + +Wellhausen himself had explained Jehovah as 'a family or tribal god, +either of the family of Moses' (tribe of Levi) 'or of the tribe of +Joseph.' It seems to be all one to Mr. Oxford whether Jehovah was a god +of Moses's tribe or quite the reverse, 'a Kenite god.' Yet it really +makes a good deal of difference! For in a complex of tribes, speaking one +language, it is to the last degree unexampled (within my knowledge) that +one tribe, or family, possesses, all to itself, a family god who is also +the Creator and is later accepted as such by all the other tribes. One may +ask for instances of such a thing in any known race, in any stage of +culture. Peru will not help us--not the Creator, Pachacamac, but the Sun, +is the god of the Inca family. If, on the other hand, Jehovah was a Kenite +god, the Kenites were a half-Arab Semitic people connected with Israel, +and may very well have retained traditions of a Supreme Being which, in +Egypt, were likely to be dimmed, as Exodus asserts, by foreign religions. +The learned Stade, to be sure, may disbelieve in Israel's sojourn in +Egypt, but that revolutionary opinion is not necessarily binding on us and +involves a few difficulties. + +Have critics and manual-makers no knowledge of the science of comparative +religion? Are they unaware that peoples infinitely more backward than +Israel was at the date supposed have already moral Supreme Beings +acknowledged over vast tracts of territory? Have they a tittle of positive +evidence that early Israel was benighted beyond the darkness of Bushmen, +Andamanese, Pawnees, Blackfeet, Hurons, Indians of British Guiana, Dinkas, +Negroes, and so forth? Unless Israel had this rare ill-luck (which Israel +denies) of course Israel must have had a secular tradition, however dim, +of a Supreme Being. We must ask for a single instance of a family or +tribe, in a complex of semi-barbaric but not savage tribes of one +speech, owning a private deity who happened to be the Maker and Ruler of +the world, and, as such, was accepted by all the tribes. Jehovah came out +from Sinai, because, there having been a Theophany at Sinai, that mountain +was regarded as one of his seats.[26] + +We have seen that it seemed to make no difference to Mr. Oxford whether +Jehovah was a god of Moses's family or tribe or a Kenite god. The former +(with the alternative of _Joseph's_ family or tribal god) is Wellhausen's +theory. The latter is Stade's.[27] Each is inconsistent with the other; +Wellhausen's fancy is inconsistent with all that we know of religious +development: Stade's is hopelessly inconsistent with Exodus iv. 24-26, +where Moses's Kenite wife reproaches him for a ceremony of his, not of +her, religion. Therefore the Kenite differed from the Hebrew _sacra_. + +The passage is very extraordinary, and is said by critics to be very +archaic. After the revelation of the Burning Bush, Jehovah met Moses and +his Kenite wife, Zipporah, and their child, at a khan. Jehovah was +anxious to slay Moses, nobody ever knew why, so Zipporah appeased +Jehovah's wrath by circumcising her boy _with a flint_. 'A bloody husband +art thou to me,' she said, 'because of the circumcision'--an Egyptian, +but clearly not a Kenite practice. Whatever all this may mean, it does not +look as if Zipporah expected such rites as circumcision in the faith of a +Kenite husband, nor does it favour the idea that the _sacra_ of Moses were +of Kenite origin. + +Without being a scholar, or an expert in Biblical criticism, one may +protest against the presentation to the manual-reading intellectual middle +classes of a theory so vague, contradictory, and (by all analogy) so +impossible as Mr. Oxford collects from German writers. Of course, the +whole subject, so dogmatically handled, is mere matter of dissentient +opinion among scholars. Thus M. Renan derives the name of Jehovah from +Assyria, from 'Aramaised Chaldaeanism.'[28] In that case the name was long +anterior to the residence in Egypt. But again, perhaps Jehovah was a local +god of Sinai, or a provincial deity in Palestine.[29] He was known to very +ancient sages, who preferred such names as El Shaddai and Elohim. In +short, we have no certainty on the subject.[30] + +I need hardly say, perhaps, that I have no antiquated prejudice against +Biblical criticism. Assuredly the Bible must be studied like any other +collection of documents, linguistically, historically, and in the light of +the comparative method. The leading ideas of Wellhausen, for example, are +conspicuous for acumen: the humblest layman can see that. But one may +protest against criticising the Bible, or Homer, by methods like those +which prove Shakspeare to have been Bacon. One must protest, too, against +the presentation of inconsistent and probably baseless critical hypotheses +in the dogmatic brevity of cheap handbooks. + +Yet again, whence comes the moral element in Jehovah? Mr. Huxley thinks +that it possibly came from the ethical practice and theory of Egypt. In +the Egyptian Book of the Dead, 'a sort of Guide to Spirit Land,' there +are moral chapters; the ghost tells his judges in Amenti what sins he has +_not_ committed. Many of these sins are forbidden in the Ten Commandments. + +They are just as much forbidden in the nascent morality of savage peoples. +Moses did not need the Book of the Dead to teach him elementary morals. +From the mysteries of Mtanga he might have learned, also, had he been +present, the virtue of unselfish generosity. If the creed of Jehovah, or +of El, retained only as much of ethics as is under divine sanction among +the Kurnai, adaptation from the Book of the Dead was superfluous. + +The care for the departed, the ritual of the Ka, the intense +pre-occupation with the future life, which, far more than its morality, +are the essential characteristics of the Book of the Dead--Israel cared +for none of these animistic things, brought none of these, or very little +of these, out of the land of Egypt. Moses was certainly very eclectic; he +took only the morality of Egypt. But as Mr. Huxley advances this opinion +tentatively, as having no secure historical authority about Moses, it +hardly answers our question, Whence came the moral element in Jehovah? One +may surmise that it was the survival of the primitive divinely sanctioned +ethics of the ancient savage ancestors of the Israelite, known to them, +as to the Kurnai, before they had a pot, or a bronze knife, or seed to +sow, or sheep to herd, or even a tent over their heads. In the counsels of +eternity Israel was chosen to keep burning, however obscured with smoke +of sacrifice, that flame which illumines the darkest places of the earth, +'a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel'--a +flame how litten a light whence shining, history cannot inform us, and +anthropology can but conjecture. Here scientific nescience is wiser than +the cocksureness of popular science, with her ghosts and fetish-stones, +and gods that sprang from ghosts, which ghosts, however, could not be +developed, owing to nomadic habits. + +It appears, then, if our general suggestion meets with any acceptance, +that what occurred in the development of Hebrew religion was precisely +what the Bible tells us did occur. This must necessarily seem highly +paradoxical to our generation; but the whole trend of our provisional +system makes in favour of the paradox. If savage nomadic Israel had the +higher religious conceptions proved to exist among several of the lowest +known races, these conceptions might be revived by a leader of genius. +They might, in a crisis of tribal fortunes, become the rallying point of a +new national sentiment. Obscured, in some degree, by acquaintance with +'the idols of Egypt,' and restricted and localised by the very national +sentiment which they fostered, these conceptions were purified and widened +far beyond any local, tribal, or national restrictions--widened far as the +_flammantia moenia mundi_--by the historically unique genius of the +Prophets. Blended with the doctrine of our Lord, and recommended by the +addition of Animism in its pure and priceless form--the reward of faith, +hope, and charity in eternal life--the faith of Israel enlightened the +world. + +All this is precisely what occurred, according to the Old and New +Testaments. All this is just what, on our hypothesis, might be expected to +occur if, out of the many races which, in their most backward culture, had +a rude conception of a Moral Creative Being, relatively supreme, one race +endured the education of Israel, showed the comparative indifference of +Israel to Animism and ghost-gods, listened to the Prophets of Israel, and +gave birth to a greater than Moses and the Prophets. + +To this result the Logos, as Socrates says, has led us, by the path of +anthropology. + +[Footnote 1: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_.] + +[Footnote 2: Op. cit. p. 361.] + +[Footnote 3:_ Science and Hebrew Tradition_. p. 308.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prin. Soc_. p. 306.] + +[Footnote 5: _The Tshi-speaking Races_, p. 183.] + +[Footnote 6: Some Australian tribes have cemeteries, and I have found one +native witness, King Billy, to the celebration of the mysteries near one of +these burying-places. I have not discovered other evidence to this effect, +though I have looked for it. The spot selected is usually 'near the camp,' +and the place for so large a camp in chosen, naturally, where the supply +of food is adequate.] + +[Footnote 7: Cf. the Aryans, _Principles of Sociology_, p. 314.] + +[Footnote 8: _Principles_, p. 316.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. p. 317.] + +[Footnote 10: Jeremiah xvi. 6, 7.] + +[Footnote 11: Leviticus xix. 28.] + +[Footnote 12: Deuteronomy xxxiv. 6.] + +[Footnote 13: _Short Introduction to History of Ancient Israel_, pp. +83, 84.] + +[Footnote 14: Stade i 403.] + +[Footnote 15: Stade, i. 406.] + +[Footnote 16: Wellhausen, _History of Israel_, p. 437. Mr. Oxford's book +is only noticed here because it is meant for a popular manual. As Mr. +Henry Foker says, 'it seems a pity that the clergy should interfere in +these matters.'] + +[Footnote 17: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 299.] + +[Footnote 18: II. 127.] + +[Footnote 19: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 331.] + +[Footnote 20: Mariner, ii. 205.] + +[Footnote 21: Op. cit. p. 335.] + +[Footnote 22: Of course, it in understood that Israel (in the dark +backward and abysm of time) may also have been totemistic, like the +Australians, as texts pointed out by Mr. Robertson Smith seem to hint. +There was also worship of teraphim, respect paid to stones and trees, and +so forth.] + +[Footnote 23: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 349.] + +[Footnote 24: P. 351.] + +[Footnote 25: _History of Israel_, p. 443 note.] + +[Footnote 26: _Religion of Semites_.] + +[Footnote 27: _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_, i. 180.] + +[Footnote 28: _Histoire du Peuple d'Israel_, citing Schrader, p. 23.] + +[Footnote 29: Op. cit. p. 85] + +[Footnote 30: See Professor Robertson's _Early Religion of Israel_ for a +list of these conjectures, and, generally, for criticisms of the +occasional vagaries of critics.] + + + + +XVII + +CONCLUSION + +We may now glance backward at the path which we have tried to cut through +the jungles of early religions. It is not a highway, but the track +of a solitary explorer; and this essay pretends to be no more than a +sketch--not an exhaustive survey of creeds. Its limitations are obvious, +but may here be stated. The higher and even the lower polytheisms are only +alluded to in passing, our object being to keep well in view the +conception of a Supreme, or practically Supreme, Being, from the lowest +stages of human culture up to Christianity. In polytheism that conception +is necessarily obscured, showing itself dimly either in the _Prytanis_, +or President of the Immortals, such as Zeus; or in Fate, behind and above +the Immortals; or in Mr. Max Müller's _Henotheism_, where the god +addressed--Indra, or Soma, or Agni--is, for the moment, envisaged as +supreme, and is adored in something like a monotheistic spirit; or, +finally, in the etherealised deity of advanced philosophic speculation. + +It has not been necessary, for our purpose, to dwell on these civilised +religions. Granting our hypothesis of an early Supreme Being among +savages, obscured later by ancestor-worship and ghost-gods, but not +often absolutely lost to religious tradition, the barbaric and the +civilised polytheisms easily take their position in line, and are easily +intelligible. Space forbids a discussion of all known religions; only +typical specimens have been selected. Thus, nothing has been said of the +religion of the great Chinese empire. It appears to consist, on its +higher plane, of the worship of Heaven as a great fetish-god--a worship +which may well have begun in days, as Dr. Brinton says, 'long ere man had +asked himself, "Are the heavens material and God spiritual?"'--perhaps, +for all we know, before the idea of 'spirit' had been evolved. Thus, if it +contains nothing more august, the Chinese religion is, so far, beneath +that of the Zuñis, or the creed in Taa-roa, in Beings who are eternal, who +were before earth was or sky was. The Chinese religion of Heaven is also +coloured by Chinese political conditions; Heaven (Tien) corresponds to the +Emperor, and tends to be confounded with Shang-ti, the Emperor above. 'Dr. +Legge charges Confucius,' says Mr. Tylor, 'with an inclination to +substitute, in his religious teaching, the name of Tien, Heaven, for that +known to more ancient religion, and used in more ancient books--Shang-ti, +the personal ruling deity.' If so, China too has its ancient Supreme +Being, who is not a divinised aspect of nature. + +But Mr. Tylor's reading, in harmony with his general theory, is different: + +'It seems, rather, that the sage was, in fact, upholding the tradition of +the ancient faith, thus acting according to the character on which he +prided himself--that of a transmitter, not a maker, a preserver of old +knowledge, not a new revealer.'[1] + +This, of course, is purely a question of evidence, to be settled by +Sinologists. If the personal Supreme Being, Shang-ti, occupies in older +documents the situation held by Tien (Heaven) in Confucius's later system, +why are we to say that Confucius, by putting forward Heaven in place of +Shang-ti, was restoring an older conception? Mr. Tylor's affection for his +theory leads him, perhaps, to that opinion; while my affection for my +theory leads me to prefer documentary evidence in its favour. + +The question can only be settled by specialists. As matters stand, it +seems to me probable that ancient China possessed a Supreme Personal +Being, more remote and original than Heaven, just as the Zuñis do. On +the lower plane, Chinese religion is overrun, as everyone knows, by +Animism and ancestor-worship. This is so powerful that it has given rise +to a native theory of Euhemerism. The departmental deities of Chinese +polytheism are explained by the Chinese on Euhemeristic principles: + +'According to legend, the War God, or Military Sage, was once, in human +life, a distinguished soldier; the Swine God was a hog-breeder who lost +his pigs and died of sorrow; the God of Gamblers was _un décavé_.'[2] + +These are not statements of fact, but of Chinese Euhemeristic theory. On +that hypothesis, Confucius should now be a god; but of course he is not; +his spirit is merely localised in his temple, where the Emperor worships +him twice a year as ancestral spirits are worshipped. + +Every theorist will force facts into harmony with his system, but I do not +see that the Chinese facts are contrary to mine. On the highest plane is +either a personal Supreme Being, Shang-ti, or there is Tien, Heaven (with +Earth, parent of men), neither of them necessarily owing, in origin, +anything to Animism. Then there is the political reflection of the Emperor +on Religion (which cannot exist where there is no Emperor, King, or Chief, +and therefore must be late), there is the animistic rabble of spirits +ancestral or not, and there is departmental polytheism. The spirits are, +of course, fed and furnished by men in the usual symbolical way. Nothing +shows or hints that Shang-ti is merely an imaginary idealised first +ancestor. Indeed, about all such explanations of the Supreme Being (say +among the Kurnai) as an idealised imaginary first ancestor, M. Réville +justly observes as follows: 'Not only have we seen that, in wide regions +of the uncivilised world, the worship of ancestors has invaded a domain +previously occupied by "Naturism" and Animism properly so called, that it +is, therefore, posterior to these; but, farther, we do not understand, in +Mr. Spencer's system, why, in so many places, the first ancestor is the +Maker, if not the Creator of the world, Master of life and death, and +possessor of divine powers, not held by any of his descendants. This +proves that it was not the first ancestor who became God, in the belief of +his descendants, but much rather the Divine Maker and Beginner of all, +who, in the creed of his adorers, became the first ancestor.'[3] + +Our task has been limited, in this way, mainly to examination of +the religion of some of the very lowest races, and of the highest +world-religions, such as Judaism. The historical aspect of Christianity, +as arising in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, would demand +a separate treatise. This would, in part, be concerned with the attempts +to find in the narratives concerning our Lord, a large admixture of the +mythology and ritual connected with the sacrificed _Rex Nemorensis_, and +whatever else survives in peasant folk-lore of spring and harvest.[4] + +After these apologies for the limitations of this essay, we may survey the +backward track. We began by showing that savages may stumble, and have +stumbled, on theories not inconsistent with science, but not till +recently discovered by science. The electric origin of the Aurora Borealis +(whether absolutely certain or not) was an example; another was the +efficacy of 'suggestion,' especially for curative purposes. It was, +therefore, hinted that, if savages blundered (if you please) into a belief +in God and the Soul, however obscurely envisaged, these beliefs were not +therefore necessarily and essentially false. We then stated our purpose of +examining the alleged supernormal phenomena, savage or civilised, which, +on Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, help to originate the conception of 'spirits.' +We defended the nature of our evidence, as before anthropologists, by +showing that, for the savage belief in the supernormal phenomena, we have +exactly the kind of evidence on which all anthropological science reposes. +The relative weakness of that evidence, our need of more and better +evidence, we would be the very last to deny, indeed it is part of our +case. Our existing evidence will hardly support any theory of religion. +Anyone who is in doubt on that head has only to read M. Réville's 'Les +Religions des Peuples Non-Civilisés,' under the heads 'Mélanésiens,' +'Mincopies,' 'Les Australiens' (ii. 116-143), when he will observe that +this eminent French authority is ignorant of the facts about these races +here produced. In 1883 they had not come within his ken. Such minute and +careful inquiries by men closely intimate with the peoples concerned, as +Dr. Codrington's, Mr. Hewitt's, Mr. Man's, and the authorities compiled by +Mr. Brough Smyth, were unfamiliar to M. Réville, Thus, in turn, new facts, +or facts unknown to us, may upset my theory. This peril is of the essence +of scientific theorising on the history of religion. + +Having thus justified our evidence for the savage _belief_ in supernormal +phenomena, as before anthropologists, we turned to a court of +psychologists in defence of our evidence for the _fact_ of exactly the +same supernormal phenomena in civilised experience. We pointed out that +for subjective psychological experiences, say of telepathy, we had +precisely the same evidence as all non-experimental psychology must and +does rest upon. Nay, we have even experimental evidence, in experiments in +thought-transference. We have chiefly, however, statements of subjective +experience. For the coincidence of such experience with unknown events we +have such evidence as, in practical life, is admitted by courts of law. + +Experimental psychology, of course, relies on experiments conducted under +the eyes of the expert, for example, by hypnotism or otherwise, under Dr. +Hack Tuke, Professor James, M. Richet, M. Janet. The evidence is +the conduct rather than the statements of the subject. There is +also physiological experiment, by vivisection (I regret to say) and +post-mortem dissection. But non-experimental psychology reposes on the +self-examination of the student, and on the statements of psychological +experiences made to him by persons whom he thinks he can trust. The +psychologist, however, if he be, as Mr. Galton says, 'unimaginative in the +strict but unusual sense of that ambiguous word,' needs Mr. Galton's 'word +of warning.' He is asked 'to resist a too frequent tendency to assume that +the minds of every other sane and healthy person must be like his own. The +psychologist should inquire into the minds of others as he should into +those of animals of different races, and be prepared to find much to which +his own experience can afford little if any clue.'[5] Mr. Galton had to +warn the unimaginative psychologist in this way, because he was about to +unfold his discovery of the faculty which presents numbers to some minds +as visualised coloured numerals, 'so vivid as to be undistinguishable from +reality, except by the aid of accidental circumstances.' + +Mr. Galton also found in his inquiries that occasional hallucinations of +the sane are much more prevalent than he had supposed, or than science had +ever taken into account. All this was entirely new to psychologists, +many of whom still (at least many popular psychologists of the press) +appear to be unacquainted with the circumstances. One of them informed me, +quite gravely, that '_he_ never had an hallucination,' therefore--_his_ +mind being sane and healthy--the inference seemed to be that no sane and +healthy mind was ever hallucinated. Mr. Galton has replied to _that_ +argument! His reply covers, logically, the whole field of psychological +faculties little regarded, for example, by Mr. Sully, who is not exactly +an imaginative psychologist. + +It covers the whole field of automatism (as in automatic writing) perhaps +of the divining rod, certainly of crystal visions and of occasional +hallucinations, as Mr. Galton, in this last case, expressly declares. +Psychologists at least need not be told that such faculties cannot, +any more than other human faculties, be always evoked for study and +experiment. Our evidence for these faculties and experiences, then, is +usually of the class on which the psychologist relies. But, when the +psychologist, following Leibnitz, Sir William Hamilton, and Kant, +discusses the Subconscious (for example, knowledge, often complex and +abundant, unconsciously acquired) we demonstrated by examples that the +psychologist will contentedly repose on evidence which is not evidence at +all. He will swallow an undated, unlocalised legend of Coleridge, reaching +Coleridge on the testimony of rumour, and told at least twenty years after +the unverified occurrences. Nay, the psychologist will never dream of +procuring contemporary evidence for such a monstrous statement as that +an ignorant German wench unconsciously acquired and afterwards +subconsciously reproduced huge cantles of dead languages, by virtue of +having casually heard a former master recite or read aloud from Hebrew and +Greek books. This legend do psychologists accept on no evidence at all, +because it illustrates a theory which is, doubtless, a very good theory, +though, in this case, carried to an extent 'imagination boggles at.' + +Here the psychologist may reply that much less evidence will content him +for a fact to which he possesses, at least, analogies in accredited +experience, than for a fact (say telepathic crystal-gazing) to which _he_ +knows, in experience, nothing analogous. Thus, for the mythical German +handmaid, he has the analogy of languages learned in childhood, or +passages got up by rote, being forgotten and brought back to ordinary +conscious memory, or delirious memory, during an illness, or shortly +before death. Strong in these analogies, the psychologist will venture to +accept a case of language _not_ learned, but reproduced in delirious +memory, on no evidence at all. But, not possessing analogies for +telepathic crystal-gazing, he will probably decline to examine ours. + +I would first draw his attention to the difference between revived memory +of a language once known (Breton and Welsh in known examples), or learned +by rote (as Greek, in an anecdote of Goethe's), and verbal reproduction +of a language _not_ known or learned by rote but overheard--each passage +probably but once--as somebody recited fragments. In this instance (that +of the mythical maid) 'the difficulty ... is that the original impressions +had not the strength--that is, the distinctness--of the reproduction. An +unknown language overheard is a mere sound....'[6] + +The distinction here drawn is so great and obvious that for proof of the +German girl's case we need better evidence than Coleridge's rumour of a +rumour, cited, as it is, by Hamilton, Maudsley, Carpenter, Du Prel, and +the common run of manuals. + +Not that I deny, _a priori_, the possibility of Coleridge's story. As Mr. +Huxley says, 'strictly speaking, I am unaware of anything that has a right +to the title of an "impossibility," except a contradiction in terms.'[7] +To the horror of some of his admirers, Mr. Huxley would not call the +existence of demons and demoniacal possession 'impossible.'[8] Mr. Huxley +was no blind follower of Hume. I, too, do not call Coleridge's tale +'impossible,' but, unlike the psychologists, I refuse to accept it on +'Bardolph's security.' And I contrast their conduct, in swallowing +Coleridge's legend, with their refusal (if they do refuse) to accept the +evidence for the automatic writing of not-consciously-known languages (as +of eleventh-century French poetry and prose by Mr. Schiller), or their +refusal (if they do refuse) to look at the evidence for telepathic +crystal-gazing, or any other supernormal exhibitions of faculty, attested +by living and honourable persons. + +I wish I saw a way for orthodox unimaginative psychology out of its +dilemma. + +After offering to anthropologists and psychologists these considerations, +which I purposely reiterate, we examined historically the relations of +science to 'the marvellous,' showing for example how Hume, following his +_a priori_ theory of the impossible, would have declined to investigate, +because they were 'miraculous,' certain occurrences which, to Charcot, +were ordinary incidents in medical experience. + +We next took up and criticised the anthropological theory of religion as +expounded by Mr. Tylor. We then collected from his work a series of +alleged supernormal phenomena in savage belief, all making for the +foundation of animistic religion. Through several chapters we pursued the +study of these phenomena, choosing savage instances, and setting beside +them civilised testimony to facts of experience. Our conclusion was that +such civilised experiences, if they occurred, as they are universally said +to do, among savages, would help to originate, and would very strongly +support the savage doctrine of souls, the base of religion in the theory +of English anthropologists. But apart from the savage doctrine of +'spirits' (whether they exist or not), the evidence points to the +existence of human faculties not allowed for in the current systems of +materialism. + +We next turned from the subject of supernormal experiences to the admitted +facts about early religion. Granting the belief in souls and ghosts and +spirits, however attained, how was the idea of a Supreme Being to be +evolved out of that belief? We showed that, taking the creed as found in +the lowest races, the processes put forward by anthropologists could +not account for its evolution. The facts would not fit into, but +contradicted, the anthropological theory. The necessary social conditions +postulated were not found in places where the belief is found. Nay, the +necessary social conditions for the evolution even of ancestor-worship +were confessedly not found where the supposed ultimate result of +ancestor-worship, the belief in a Supreme Being, flourished abundantly. + +Again, the belief in a Supreme Being, _ex hypothesi_ the latest in +evolution, therefore the most potent, was often shelved and half +forgotten, or neglected, or ridiculed, where the belief in Animism (_ex +hypothesi_ the earlier) was in full vigour. We demonstrated by facts that +Anthropology had simplified her task by ignoring that essential feature, +_the prevalent alliance of ethics with religion_, in the creed of the +lowest and least developed races. Here, happily, we have not only the +evidence of an earnest animist, Mr. Im Thurn, on our side, but that of a +distinguished Semitic scholar, the late Mr. Robertson Smith. 'We see that +even in its rudest forms Religion was a moral force, the powers that man +reveres were on the side of social order and moral law; and the fear of +the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of society, which were also the +laws of morality.'[9] Wellhausen has already been cited to the same +effect. + +However, the facts proving that truth, and unselfishness, surely a large +element of Christian ethics, are divinely sanctioned in savage religion +are more potent than the most learned opinion on that side. + +Our next step was to examine in detail several religions of the most +remote and backward races, of races least contaminated with Christian or +Islamite teaching. Our evidence, when possible, was derived from ancient +and secret tribal mysteries, and sacred native hymns. We found a +relatively Supreme Being, a Maker, sanctioning morality, and unpropitiated +by sacrifice, among peoples who go in dread of ghosts and wizards, but do +not always worship ancestors. We showed that the anthropological theory of +the evolution of God out of ghosts in no way explains the facts in the +savage conception of a Supreme Being. We then argued that the notion of +'spirit,' derived from ghost-belief, was not logically needed for the +conception of a Supreme Being in its earliest form, was detrimental to +the conception, and, by much evidence, was denied to be part of the +conception. The Supreme Being, thus regarded, may be (though he cannot +historically be shown to be) prior to the first notion of ghost and +separable souls. + +We then traced the idea of such a Supreme Being through the creeds of +races rising in the scale of material culture, demonstrating that he was +thrust aside by the competition of ravenous but serviceable ghosts, +ghost-gods, and shades of kingly ancestors, with their magic and their +bloody rites. These rites and the animistic conception behind them were +next, in rare cases, reflected or refracted back on the Supreme Eternal. +Aristocratic institutions fostered polytheism with the old Supreme Being +obscured, or superseded, or enthroned as Emperor-God, or King-God. We saw +how, and in what sense, the old degeneration theory could be defined and +defended. We observed traces of degeneration in certain archaic aspects of +the faith in Jehovah; and we proved that (given a tolerably pure low +savage belief in a Supreme Being) that belief _must_ degenerate, under +social conditions, as civilisation advanced. Next, studying what we may +call the restoration of Jehovah, under the great Prophets of Israel, we +noted that they, and Israel generally, were strangely indifferent to that +priceless aspect of Animism, the care for the future happiness, as +conditioned by the conduct of the individual soul. That aspect had been +neglected neither by the popular instinct nor the priestly and philosophic +reflection of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Christianity, last, combined what +was good in Animism, the care for the individual soul as an immortal +spirit under eternal responsibilities, with the One righteous Eternal of +prophetic Israel, and so ended the long, intricate, and mysterious +theological education of humanity. Such is our theory, which does +not, to us, appear to lack evidence, nor to be inconsistent (as the +anthropological theory is apparently inconsistent) with the hypothesis of +evolution. + +All this, it must be emphatically insisted on, is propounded 'under all +reserves.' While these four stages, say (1) the Australian unpropitiated +Moral Being, (2) the African neglected Being, still somewhat moral, +(3) the relatively Supreme Being involved in human sacrifice, as in +Polynesia, and (4) the Moral Being reinstated philosophically, as in +Israel, do suggest steps in evolution, we desire to base no hard-and-fast +system of ascending and descending degrees upon our present evidence. +The real object is to show that facts may be regarded in this light, as +well as in the light thrown by the anthropological theory, in the hands +whether of Mr. Tylor, Mr. Spencer, M. Réville, or Mr. Jevons, whose +interesting work comes nearest to our provisional hypothesis. + +We only ask for suspense of judgment, and for hesitation in accepting the +dogmas of modern manual makers. An exception to them certainly appears to +be Mr. Clodd, if we may safely attribute to him a review (signed C.) of +Mr. Grant Allen's 'Evolution of the Idea of God.' + +'We fear that all our speculations will remain summaries of probabilities. +No documents are extant to enlighten us; we have only mobile, complex and +confused ideas, incarnate in eccentric, often contradictory theories. That +this character attaches to such ideas should keep us on guard against +framing theories whose symmetry is sometimes their condemnation' ('Daily +Chronicle,' December 10, 1897). + +Nothing excites my own suspicion of my provisional hypothesis more than +its symmetry. It really seems to fit the facts, as they appear to me, too +neatly. I would suggest, however, that ancient savage sacred hymns, +and practices in the mysteries, are really rather of the nature of +'documents;' more so, at least, than the casual observations of some +travellers, or the gossip extracted from natives much in contact with +Europeans. + +Supposing that the arguments in this essay met with some acceptance, what +effect would they have, if any, on our thoughts about religion? What is +their practical tendency? The least dubious effect would be, I hope, to +prevent us from accepting the anthropological theory of religion, or any +other theory, as a foregone conclusion, I have tried to show how dim is +our knowledge, how weak, often, is our evidence, and that, finding among +the lowest savages all the elements of all religions already developed +in different degrees, we cannot, historically, say that one is earlier +than another. This point of priority we can never historically settle. If +we met savages with ghosts and no gods, we could not be sure but that they +once possessed a God, and forgot him. If we met savages with a God and no +ghosts, we could not be historically certain that a higher had not +obliterated a lower creed. For these reasons dogmatic decisions about the +_origin_ of religion seem unworthy of science. They will appear yet more +futile to any student who goes so far with me as to doubt whether the +highest gods of the lowest races could be developed, or can be shown to +have been developed, by way of the ghost-theory. To him who reaches this +point the whole animistic doctrine of ghosts as the one germ of religion +will appear to be imperilled. The main practical result, then, will be +hesitation about accepting the latest scientific opinion, even when backed +by great names, and published in little primers. + +On the hypothesis here offered to criticism there are two chief sources of +Religion, (1) the belief, how attained we know not,[10] in a powerful, +moral, eternal, omniscient Father and Judge of men; (2) the belief +(probably developed out of experiences normal and supernormal) in +somewhat of man which may survive the grave. This second belief is not, +logically, needed as given material for the first, in its apparently +earliest form. It may, for all we know, be the later of the two beliefs, +chronologically. But this belief, too, was necessary to religion; first, +as finally supplying a formula by which advancing intellects could +conceive of the Mighty Being involved in the former creed; next, as +elevating man's conception of his own nature. By the second belief he +becomes the child of the God in whom, perhaps, he already trusted, and in +whom he has his being, a being not destined to perish with the death of +the body. Man is thus not only the child but the heir of God, a 'nurseling +of immortality,' capable of entering into eternal life. On the moral +influence of this belief it is superfluous to dwell. + +From the most backward races historically known to us, to those of our own +status, all have been more or less washed by the waters of this double +stream of religion. The Hebrews, as far as our information goes, were +chiefly influenced by the first belief, the faith in the Eternal, and had +comparatively slight interest in whatever posthumous fortunes might await +individual souls. Other civilised peoples, say the Greeks, extended the +second, or animistic theory, into forms of beautiful fantasy, the +material of art. Yet both in Greece and Rome, as we learn from the +'Republic' (Books i. iii.) of Plato, and from the whole scope of the poem +of Lucretius, and from the Painted Porch at Delphi, answering to the +frescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo, there existed, among the people, what +was unknown to the Hebrews, an extreme anxiety about the posthumous +fortunes and possible punishment of the individual soul. A kind of +pardoners and indulgence-sellers made a living out of that anxiety in +Greece. For the Greek pardoners, who testify to an interest in the +future happiness of the soul not found in Israel, Mr. Jevons may be cited: + +'The _agyrtes_ professed by means of his rites to purify men from the sins +they had themselves committed ... and so to secure to those whom he +purified an exemption from the evil lot in the next world which awaited +those who were not initiated.' 'A magic mirror' (crystal-gazing) 'was +among his properties.'[11] + +In Egypt a moral life did not suffice to secure immortal reward. There +was also required knowledge of the spells that baffle the demons who, in +Amenti, as in the Red Indian and Polynesian Hades, lie in wait for souls. +That knowledge was contained in copies of the Book of the Dead--the +_gagne-pain_ of priests and scribes. + +Early Israel, having, as far as we know, a singular lack of interest in +the future of the soul, was born to give himself up to developing, +undisturbed, the theistic conception, the belief in a righteous Eternal. + +Polytheism everywhere--in Greece especially--held of the animistic +conception, with its freakish, corruptible deities. Greek philosophy could +hardly restore that Eternal for whom the Prophets battled in Israel; whom +some of the lowest savages know and fear; whom the animistic theory or cult +everywhere obscures with its crowd of hungry, cruel, interested, +food-propitiated ghost-gods. In the religion of our Lord and the Apostles +the two currents of faith in one righteous God and care for the individual +soul were purified and combined. 'God is a Spirit, and they who worship +Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' Man also is a spirit, and, +as such, is in the hands of a God not to be propitiated by man's +sacrifice or monk's ritual. We know how this doctrine was again disturbed +by the Animism, in effect, and by the sacrifice and ritual of the +Mediaeval Church. Too eager 'to be all things to all men,' the august and +beneficent Mother of Christendom readmitted the earlier Animism in new +forms of saint-worship, pilgrimage, and popular ceremonial--things apart +from, but commonly supposed to be substitutes for, righteousness of life +and the selflessness enjoined in savage mysteries. For the softness, no +less than for the hardness of men's hearts, these things were ordained: +such as masses for the beloved dead. + +Modern thought has deanthropomorphised what was left of anthropomorphic +in religion, and, in the end, has left us for God, at most, 'a stream +of tendency making for righteousness,' or an energy unknown and +unknowable--the ghost of a ghost. For the soul, by virtue of his +belief in which man raised himself in his own esteem, and, more or less, +in ethical standing, is left to us a negation or a wistful doubt. + +To this part of modern scientific teaching the earlier position of this +essay suggests a demurrer. By aid of the tradition of and belief in +supernormal phenomena among the low races, by attested phenomena of the +same kinds of experience among the higher races, I have ventured to try to +suggest that 'we are not merely brain;' that man has his part, we know not +how, in we know not what--has faculties and vision scarcely conditioned by +the limits of his normal purview. The evidence of all this deals with +matters often trivial, like the electric sparks rubbed from the deer's +hide, which yet are cognate with an illimitable, essential potency of the +universe. Not being able to explain away these facts, or, in this place, +to offer what would necessarily be a premature theory of them, I regard +them, though they seem shadowy, as grounds of hope, or, at least, as +tokens that men need not yet despair. Not now for the first time have weak +things of the earth been chosen to confound things strong. Nor have men of +this opinion been always the weakest; not among the feeblest are Socrates, +Pascal, Napoleon, Cromwell, Charles Gordon, St. Theresa, and Jeanne d'Arc. + +I am perfectly aware that the 'superstitiousness' of the earlier part of +this essay must injure any effect which the argument of the latter part +might possibly produce on critical opinion. Yet that argument in no way +depends on what we think about the phenomena--normal, supernormal, or +illusory--on which the theory of ghost, soul, or spirit may have been +based. It exhibits religion as probably beginning in a kind of Theism, +which is then superseded, in some degree, or even corrupted, by Animism in +all its varieties. Finally, the exclusive Theism of Israel receives its +complement in a purified Animism, and emerges as Christianity. + +Quite apart, too, from any favourable conclusion which may, by some, be +drawn from the phenomena, and quite apart from the more general opinion +that all modern instances are compact of imposture, malobservation, +mythopoeic memory, and superstitious bias, the systematic comparison of +civilised and savage beliefs and alleged experiences of this kind cannot +wisely be neglected by Anthropology. _Humani nihil a se alienum putat._ + +[Footnote 1: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 352.] + +[Footnote 2: Abridged from _Prim. Cult_. ii. 119.] + +[Footnote 3: _Histoire des Religions_, ii. 237, note. M. Réville's system, +it will be observed, differs from mine in that he finds the first essays +of religion in worship of aspects of nature (_naturisme_) and in 'animism +properly so called,' by which he understands the instinctive, perhaps not +explicitly formulated, sense that all things whatever are animated and +personal. I have not remarked this aspect of belief as much prevalent in +the most backward races, and I do not try to look behind what we know +historically about early religion. I so far agree with M. Réville as to +think the belief in ghosts and spirits (Mr. Tylor's 'Animism') not +necessarily postulated in the original indeterminate conception of +the Supreme Being, or generally, in 'Original Gods.' But M. Réville +says, 'L'objet de la religion humaine est nécessairement un esprit' +(_Prolégoménes_, 107). This does not seem consistent with his own theory.] + +[Footnote 4: Compare Mr. Frazer's _Golden Bough_ with Mr. Grant Allen's +_Evolution of the Idea of God_.] + +[Footnote 5: _J.A.I_. x. 85.] + +[Footnote 6: Massey. Note to Du Prel. _Philosophy of mysticism_, ii 10.] + +[Footnote 7: _Science and Christian Tradition_, p. 197] + +[Footnote 8: Op. cit. p. 195.] + +[Footnote 9: _Religion of the Semites_, p. 53.] + +[Footnote 10: The hypothesis of St. Paul seems not the most +unsatisfactory, Rom. i. 19.] + +[Footnote 11: _Introd. to Hist. of Rel_. p. 333; Aristoph. _Frogs_, 159.] + + + + +APPENDICES + +APPENDIX A + +OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE + +The most elaborate reply to the arguments for telepathy, based on The +Report of the Census of Hallucinations, is that of Herr Parish, in his +'Hallucinations and Illusions.'[1] + +Herr Parish is, at present, opposed to the theory that the Census +establishes a telepathic cause in the so-called 'coincidental' stories, +'put forward,' as he says, 'with due reserve, and based on an astonishing +mass of materials, to some extent critically handled.' + +He first demurs to an allowance of twelve hours for the coincidence of +hallucination and death; but, if we reflect that twelve hours is little +even in a year, coincidences within twelve hours, it may be admitted, +_donnent à penser_, even if we reject the theory that, granted a real +telepathic impact, it may need time and quiet for its development into a +complete hallucination. We need not linger over the very queer cases from +Munich, as these are not in the selected thirty of the Report. Herr Parish +then dwells on that _hallucination of memory_, in which we feel as if +everything that is going on had happened before. It may have occurred to +most of us to be reminded by some association of ideas during the day, of +some dream of the previous night, which we had forgotten. For instance, +looking at a brook from a bridge, and thinking of how I would fish it, I +remembered that I had dreamed, on the previous night, of casting a fly for +practice, on a lawn. Nobody would think of disputing the fact that I +really had such a dream, forgot it and remembered it when reminded of it +by association of ideas. But if the forgotten dream had been 'fulfilled,' +and been recalled to memory only in the moment of fulfilment, science +would deny that I ever had such a dream at all. The alleged dream would be +described as an 'hallucination of memory.' Something occurring, it would +be said, I had the not very unusual sensation, 'This has occurred to me +before,' and the sensation would become a false memory that it _had_ +occurred--in a dream. This theory will be advanced, I think, not when an +ordinary dream is recalled by a waking experience, but only when the dream +coincides with and foreruns that experience, which is a thing that dreams +have no business to do. Such coincidental dreams are necessarily 'false +memories,' scientifically speaking. Now, how does this theory of false +memory bear on coincidental hallucinations? + +The insane, it seems, are apt to have the false memory 'This occurred +before,' and _then_ to say that the event was revealed to them in a +vision.[2] The insane may be recommended to make a note of the vision, and +have it properly attested, _before_ the event. The same remark applies to +the 'presentiments' of the sane. But it does _not_ apply if Jones tells me +'I saw my great aunt last night,' and if news comes _after_ this remark +that Jones's aunt died, on that night, in Timbuctoo. Yet Herr Parish +(p. 282) seems to think that the argument of fallacious memory comes in +part, even when an hallucination has been reported to another person +_before_ its fulfilment. Of course all depends on the veracity of the +narrator and the person to whom he told his tale. To take a case given:[3] +Brown, say, travelling with his wife, dreams that a mad dog bit his boy at +home on the elbow. He tells his wife. Arriving at home Brown finds that it +was so. Herr Parish appears to argue thus: + +Brown dreamed nothing at all, but he gets excited when he hears the bad +news at home; he thinks, by false memory, that he has a recollection of +it, he says to his wife, 'My dear, didn't I tell you, last night, I had +dreamed all this?' and his equally excited wife replies, 'True, my Brown, +you did, and I said it was only one of your dreams.' And both now believe +that the dream occurred. This is very plausible, is it not? only science +would not say anything about it if the dream had _not_ been fulfilled--if +Brown had remarked, 'Egad, my dear, seeing that horse reminds me that I +was dreaming last night of driving in a dog-cart.' For then Brown was not +excited. + +None of this exquisite reasoning as to dreams applies to waking +hallucinations, reported before the alleged coincidence, unless we accept +a collective hallucination of memory in seer or seers, and also in the +persons to whom their story was told. + +But, it is obvious, memory is apt to become mythopoeic, so far as to +exaggerate closeness of coincidence, and to add romantic details. We do +not need Herr Parish to tell us _that_; we meet the circumstance in all +narratives from memory, whatever the topic, even in Herr Parish's own +writings. + +We must admit that the public, in ghostly, as in all narratives on all +topics, is given to 'fanciful addenda.' Therefore, as Herr Parish justly +remarks, we should 'maintain a very sceptical attitude to all accounts' of +veridical hallucinations. 'Not that we should dismiss them as old wives' +fables--an all too common method--or even doubt the narrator's good +faith.' We should treat them like tales of big fish that get away; +sometimes there is good corroborative evidence that they really were +big fish, sometimes not. We shall return to these false memories. + +Was there a coincidence at all in the Society's cases printed in the +Census? Herr Parish thinks three of the selected twenty-six cases very +dubious. In one case is a _possible_ margin of four days, another +(wrongly numbered by the way) does not occur at all among the twenty-six. +In the third, Herr Parish is wrong in his statement.[4] This is a lovely +example of the sceptical slipshod, and, accompanied by the miscitation of +the second case, shows that inexactitude is not all on the side of the +seers. However the case is not very good, the two percipients fancying +that the date of the event was less remote than it really was. Unluckily +Herr Parish only criticises these three cases, how accurately we have +remarked. He had no room for more. + +Herr Parish next censures the probable selection of good cases by +collectors, on which the editors of the Census have already made +observations, as they have also made large allowances for this cause of +error. He then offers the astonishing statement that, 'in the view of the +English authors, a view which is, of course, assumed in all calculations +of the kind, an hallucination persists equally long in the memory and is +equally readily recalled in reply to a question, whether the experience +made but a slight impression on the percipient, or affected him deeply, +as would be the case, for instance, if the hallucination had been found to +coincide with the death of a near relative or friend.'[5] This assertion +of Herr Parish's is so erroneous that the Report expressly says 'as years +recede into the distance,' the proportion of the hallucinations that are +remembered in them to those which are forgotten, or at least ignored, 'is +very large.' Again, 'Hallucinations of the most impressive class will not +only be better remembered than others, but will, we may reasonably +suppose, be more often mentioned by the percipients to their friends.'[6] + +Yet Herr Parish avers that, in all calculations, it is assumed that +hallucinations are equally readily recalled whether impressive or not! +Once more, the Report says (p. 246), '_It is not the case_' that +coincidental (and impressive) hallucinations are as easily subject to +oblivion as non-coincidental, and non-impressive ones. The editors +therefore multiply the non-coincidental cases by four, arguing that no +coincidental cases (hits) are forgotten, while three out of four +non-coincidentals (misses) are forgotten, or may be supposed likely to be +forgotten. Immediately after declaring that the English authors suppose +all hallucinations to be equally well remembered (which is the precise +reverse of what they do say), Herr Parish admits that the authors multiply +the misses by four, 'influenced by other considerations' (p. 289). By what +other considerations? They give their reason (that very reason which they +decline to entertain, says Herr Parish), namely, that misses are four +times as likely to be forgotten as hits. 'To go into the reason for +adopting this plan would lead us too far,' he writes. Why, it is the +very reason which, he says, does _not_ find favour with the English +authors! + +How curiously remote from being 'coincidental' with plain facts, or +'veridical' at all, is this scientific criticism! Herr Parish says that a +'view' (which does not exist) is 'of course assumed in all calculations;' +and, on the very same page, he says that it is _not_ assumed! 'The +witnesses of the report--influenced, it is true, by other considerations' +(which is not the case), 'have sought to turn the point of this objection +by multiplying the whole number of (non-coincidental) cases by four.' Then +the 'view' is _not_ 'assumed in all calculations,' as Herr Parish has just +asserted. + +What led Herr Parish, an honourable and clearheaded critic, into this maze +of incorrect and contradictory assertions? It is interesting to try to +trace the causes of such _non-veridical illusions_, to find the _points +de repère_ of these literary hallucinations. One may suggest that when +Herr Parish 'recast the chapters' of his German edition, as he says in his +preface to the English version, he accidentally left in a passage based +on an earlier paper by Mr. Gurney,[7] not observing that it was no longer +accurate or appropriate. + +After this odd passage, Herr Parish argues that a 'veridical' +hallucination is regarded by the English authors as 'coincidental,' even +when external circumstances have made that very hallucination a probable +occurrence by producing 'tension of the corresponding nerve element +groups.' That is to say, a person is in a condition--a nervous condition-- +likely, _a priori_, to beget an hallucination. An hallucination _is_ +begotten, quite naturally; and so, if it happens to coincide with an +event, the coincidence should not count--it is purely fortuitous.[8] + +Here is an example. A lady, facing an old sideboard, saw a friend, with no +coat on, and in a waistcoat with a back of shiny material. Within an hour +she was taken to where her friend lay dying, without a coat, and in a +waistcoat with a shiny back.[9] Here is the scientific explanation of Herr +Parish: 'The shimmer of a reflecting surface [the sideboard?] formed the +occasion for the hallucinatory emergence of a subconsciously perceived +_shiny black waistcoat_ [quotation incorrect, of course], and an +individual subconsciously associated with that impression.[10] I ask any +lady whether she, consciously or subconsciously, associates the men she +knows with the backs of their waistcoats. Herr Parish's would be a +brilliantly satisfactory explanation if it were only true to the printed +words that lay under his eyes when he wrote. There was no 'shiny black +waistcoat' in the case, but a waistcoat with a shiny _back_. Gentlemen, +and especially old gentlemen who go about in bath-chairs (like the man in +this story), don't habitually take off their coats and show the backs of +their waistcoats to ladies of nineteen in England. And, if Herr Parish had +cared to read his case, he would have found it expressly stated that the +lady 'had never seen the man without his coat' (and so could not associate +him with an impression of a shiny back to his waistcoat) till _after_ the +hallucination, when she saw him coatless on his death-bed. In this +instance Herr Parish had an hallucinatory memory, all wrong, of the page +under his eyes. The case is got rid of, then, by aid of the 'fanciful +addenda,' to which Herr Parish justly objects. He first gives the facts +incorrectly, and then explains an occurrence which, as reported by him, +did not occur, and was not asserted to occur. + +I confess that, if Herr Parish's version were as correct as it is +essentially inaccurate, his explanation would leave me doubtful. For the +circumstances were that the old gentleman of the story lunched daily with +the young lady's mother. Suppose that she was familiar (which she was not) +with the shiny back of his waistcoat, still, she saw him daily, and daily, +too, was in the way of seeing the (hypothetically) shiny surface of the +sideboard. That being the case, she had, every day, the materials, +subjective and objective, of the hallucination. Yet it only occurred +_once_, and then it precisely coincided with the death agony of the old +gentleman, and with his coatless condition. Why only that once? _C'est là +le miracle!_ 'How much for this little veskit?' as the man asked David +Copperfield. + +Herr Parish next invents a cause for an hallucination, which, I myself +think, ought not to have been reckoned, because the percipient had been +sitting up with the sick man. This he would class as a 'suspicious' case. +But, even granting him his own way of handling the statistics, he would +still have far too large a proportion of coincidences for the laws of +chance to allow, if we are to go by these statistics at all. + +His next argument practically is that hallucinations are always only a +kind of dreams.[11] He proves this by the large number of coincidental +hallucinations which occurred in sleepy circumstances. One man went to bed +early, and woke up early; another was 'roused from sleep;' two ladies were +sitting up in bed, giving their babies nourishment; a man was reading a +newspaper on a sofa; a lady was lying awake at seven in the morning; and +there are eight other English cases of people 'awake' in bed during an +hallucination. Now, in Dr. Parish's opinion, we must argue that they were +_not_ awake, or not much; so the hallucinations were mere dreams. +Dreams are so numerous that coincidences in dreams can be got rid of as +pure flukes. People may say, to be sure, 'I am used to dreams, and don't +regard them; _this_ was something solitary in my experience.' But we must +not mind what people say. + +Yet I fear we must mind what they say. At least, we must remember that +sleeping dreams are, of all things, most easily forgotten; while a +full-bodied hallucination, when we, at least, believe ourselves awake, +seems to us on a perfectly different plane of impressiveness, and +(_experto crede_) is really very difficult to forget. Herr Parish cannot +be allowed, therefore, to use the regular eighteenth-century argument-- +'All dreams!' For the two sorts of dreams, in sleep and in apparent +wakefulness, seem, to the subject, to differ in _kind_. And they really +do differ in kind. It is the essence of the every night dream that we are +unconscious of our actual surroundings and conscious of a fantastic +environment. It is the essence of wideawakeness to be conscious of our +actual surroundings. In the ordinary dream, nothing actual competes with +its visions. When we are conscious of our surroundings, everything actual +does compete with any hallucination. Therefore, an hallucination which, +when we are conscious of our material environment, does compete with it in +reality, is different _in kind_ from an ordinary dream. Science gains +nothing by arbitrarily declaring that two experiences so radically +different are identical. Anybody would see this if he were not arguing +under a dominant idea. + +Herr Parish next contends that people who see pictures in crystal balls, +and so on, are not so wide awake as to be in their normal consciousness. +There is 'dissociation' (practically drowsiness), even if only a +little. Herr Moll also speaks of crystal-gazing pictures as 'hypnotic +phenomena.'[12] Possibly neither of these learned men has ever seen a +person attempt crystal-gazing. Herr Parish never asserts any such personal +experience as the basis of his opinion about the non-normal state of the +gazer. He reaches this conclusion from an anecdote reported, as a not +unfamiliar phenomenon, by a friend of Miss X. But the phenomenon occurred +when Miss X. was not crystal-gazing at all! She was looking out of a +window in a brown study. This is a noble example of logic. Some one says +that Miss X. was not in her normal consciousness on a certain occasion +when she was _not_ crystal-gazing, and that this condition is familiar to +the observer. Therefore, argues Herr Parish, nobody is in his normal +consciousness when he is crystal-gazing. + +In vain may 'so good an observer as Miss X. think herself fully awake' (as +she does think herself) when crystal-gazing, because once, when she +happened to have 'her eyes _fixed on the window_,' her expression was +'_associated_' by a friend 'with _something uncanny_,' and she afterwards +spoke '_in a dreamy, far-away tone_' (p. 297). Miss X., though extremely +'wide awake,' may have looked dreamily at a window, and may have seen +mountains and marvels. But the point is that she was not voluntarily +gazing at a crystal for amusement or experiment--perhaps trying to see how +a microscope affected the pictures--or to divert a friend. + +I appeal to the shades of Aristotle and Bacon against scientific logic in +the hands of Herr Parish. Here is his syllogism: + + A. is occasionally dreamy when _not_ crystal-gazing. + A. is human. + Therefore every human being, when crystal-gazing, is more or less + asleep. + +He infers a general affirmative from a single affirmative which happens +not to be to the point. It is exactly as if Herr Parish argued: + + Mrs. B. spends hours in shopping. + Mrs. B. is human. + Therefore every human being is always late for dinner. + +Miss X., I think, uplifted her voice in some review, and maintained that, +when crystal-gazing, she was quite in her normal state, _dans son +assiette_. + +Yet Herr Parish would probably say to any crystal-gazer who argued thus, +'Oh, no; pardon me, you were _not_ wholly awake--you were a-dream. I know +better than you.' But, as he has not seen crystal-gazers, while I have, +many scores of times, I prefer my own opinion. And so, as this assertion +about the percipient's being 'dissociated,' or asleep, or not awake, is +certainly untrue of all crystal-gazers in my considerable experience, I +cannot accept it on the authority of Herr Parish, who makes no claim to +any personal experience at all. + +As to crystal-gazing, when the gazer is talking, laughing, chatting, +making experiments in turning the ball, changing the light, using prisms +and magnifying-glasses, dropping matches into the water-jug, and so on, +how can we possibly say that 'it is impossible to distinguish between +waking hallucinations and those of sleep' (p. 300)? If so, it is +impossible to distinguish between sleeping and waking altogether. We are +all like the dormouse! Herr Parish is reasoning here _a priori_, +without any personal knowledge of the facts; and, above all, he is under +the 'dominant idea' of his own theory--that of _dissociation_. + +Herr Parish next crushes telepathy by an argument which--like one of the +reasons why the bells were not rung for Queen Elizabeth, namely, that +there were no bells to ring--might have come first, and alone. We are +told (in italics--very impressive to the popular mind): _'No matter how +great the number of coincidences, they afford not even the shadow of a +proof for telepathy'_ (p. 301). What, not even if all hallucinations, or +ninety-nine per cent., coincided with the death of the person seen? In +heaven's name, why not? Why, because the 'weightiest' cause of all has +been omitted from our calculations, namely, our good old friend, _the +association of ideas_ (p. 302). Our side cannot prove the _absence_ +(italics) of _the association of ideas_. Certainly we cannot; but ideas in +endless millions are being associated all day long. A hundred thousand +different, unnoticed associations may bring Jones to my mind, or Brown. +But I don't therefore see Brown, or Jones, who is not there. Still less do +I see Dr. Parish, or Nebuchadnezzar, or a monkey, or a salmon, or a golf +ball, or Arthur's Seat (all of which may be brought to my mind by +association of ideas), when they are not present. + +Suppose, then, that once in my life I see the absent Jones, who dies in +that hour (or within twelve hours). I am puzzled. Why did Association +choose that day, of all days in my life, for her solitary freak? And, +if this choice of freaks by Association occurs among other people, say two +hundred times more often than chance allows, the freak begins to suggest +that it may have a cause. + +Not even the circumstance cited by Herr Parish, that a drowsy tailor, +'sewing on in a dream,' poor fellow, saw a client in his shop while the +client was dying, solves the problem. The tailor is not said even once to +have seen a customer who was _not_ dying; yet he writes, 'I was accustomed +to work all night frequently.' The tailor thinks he was asleep, because he +had been making irregular stitches, and perhaps he was. But, out of +all his vigils and all his customers, association only formed _one_ +hallucination, and that was of a dying client whom he supposed to be +perfectly well. Why on earth is association so fond of dying people-- +granting the statistics, which are 'another story'? The explanation +explains nothing. Herr Parish only moves the difficulty back a step, and, +as we cannot live without association of ideas, they are taken for granted +by our side. Association of ideas does not cause hallucinations, as Mrs. +Sidgwick remarks, though it may determine their contents. + +The difficult theme of coincidental collective hallucinations, as when two +or more people at once have, or profess to have, the same false perception +of a person who is really absent and dying, is next disposed of by Herr +Parish. The same _points de repère_, the same sound, or flicker of light, +or arrangement of shadow, may beget the same or a similar false perception +in two or more people at once. Thus two girls, in different rooms, are +looking out on different parts of the hall in their house. 'Both heard, at +the same time, an [objective?] noise' (p. 313). Then, says Herr Parish, +'_the one sister saw her father cross the hall_ after entering; the other +saw the dog (the usual companion of his walks) run past her door.' Father +and dog had not left the dining-room. Herr Parish decides that the same +_point de repère_ (the apparent noise of a key in the lock of the front +door) 'acted by way of suggestion on both sisters,' producing, however, +different hallucinations, 'in virtue of the difference of the connected +associations.' One girl associated the sound with her honoured sire, the +other with his faithful hound; so one saw a dog, and the other saw an +elderly gentleman. Now, first, if so, this should _always_ be occurring, +for we all have different associations of ideas. Thus, we are in a haunted +house; there is a noise of a rattling window; I associate it with a +burglar, Brown with a milkman, Miss Jones with a lady in green, Miss Smith +with a knight in armour. That collection of phantasms should then be +simultaneously on view, like the dog and old gentleman; all our reports +should vary. But this does not occur. Most unluckily for Herr Parish, he +illustrates his theory by telling a story which happens not to be +correctly reported. At first I thought that a fallacy of memory, or an +optical delusion, had betrayed him again, as in his legend of the +waistcoat. But I am now inclined to believe that what really occurred was +this: Herr Parish brought out his book in German, before the Report of the +Census of Hallucinations was published. In his German edition he probably +quoted a story which precisely suited his theory of the origin of +collective hallucinations. This anecdote he had found in Prof. Sidgwick's +Presidential Address of July 1890.[13] As stated by Prof. Sidgwick, the +case just fitted Herr Parish, who refers to it on p. 190, and again on +p. 314. He gives no reference, but his version reads like a traditional +variant of Prof. Sidgwick's. Now Prof. Sidgwick's version was erroneous, +as is proved by the elaborate account of the case in the Report of the +Census, which Herr Parish had before him, but neglected when he prepared +his English edition. The story was wrong, alas! in the very point where, +for Herr Parish's purpose, it ought to have been right. The hallucination +is believed not to have been collective, yet Herr Parish uses it to +explain collective hallucinations. Doubtless he overlooked the accurate +version in the Report.[14] + +The facts, as there reported, were not what he narrates, but as follows: + +Miss C.E. was in the breakfast-room, about 6:30 P.M., in January 1883, and +supposed her father to be taking a walk with his dog. She heard noises, +which may have had any other cause, but which she took to be the sounds +of a key in the door lock, a stick tapping the tiles of the hall, and the +patter of the dog's feet on the tiles. She then saw the dog pass the door. +Miss C.E. next entered the hall, where she found nobody; but in the pantry +she met her sisters--Miss E., Miss H.G.E.--and a working-woman. Miss E. +and the working-woman had been in the hall, and there had heard the sound, +which they, like Miss C.E., took for that of a key in the lock. They were +breaking a little household rule in the hall, so they 'ran straightway +into the pantry, meeting Miss H.G.E. on the way.' Miss C.E. and Miss E. +and the working-woman all heard the noise as of a key in the lock, but +nobody is said to have 'seen the father cross the hall' (as Herr Parish +asserts). 'Miss H.G.E. was of opinion that Miss E. (now dead) saw +_nothing_, and Miss C.E. was inclined to agree with her.' Miss E. and the +work-woman (now dead) were 'emphatic as to the father having entered the +house;' but this the two only _inferred_ from hearing the noise, after +which they fled to the pantry. Now, granting that some other noise was +mistaken for that of the key in the lock, we have here, _not_ (as Herr +Parish declares) a _collective_ yet discrepant hallucination--the +discrepancy being caused 'by the difference of connected associations'-- +but a _solitary_ hallucination. Herr Parish, however, inadvertently +converts a solitary into a collective hallucination, and then uses the +example to explain collective hallucinations in general. He asserts +that Miss E. 'saw her father cross the hall.' Miss E.'s sisters think that +she saw no such matter. Now, suppose that Mr. E. had died at the moment, +and that the case was claimed on our part as a 'collective coincidental +hallucination,' How righteously Herr Parish might exclaim that all the +evidence was against its being collective! The sound in the lock, heard by +three persons, would be, and probably was, another noise misinterpreted. +And, in any case, there is no evidence for its having produced _two_ +hallucinations; the evidence is in exactly the opposite direction. + +Here, then, Herr Parish, with the printed story under his eyes, once more +illustrates want of attention. In one way his errors improve his case. 'If +I, a grave man of science, go on telling distorted legends out of my own +head, while the facts are plain in print before me,' Herr Parish +may reason, 'how much more are the popular tales about coincidental +hallucinations likely to be distorted?' It is really a very strong +argument, but not exactly the argument which Herr Parish conceives +himself to be presenting.[15] + +This unlucky inexactitude is chronic, as we have shown, in Herr Parish's +work, and is probably to be explained by inattention to facts, by +'expectation' of suitable facts, and by 'anxiety' to prove a theory. He +explains the similar or identical reports of witnesses to a collective +hallucination by 'the case with which such appearances adapt themselves +in recollection' (p. 313), especially, of course, after lapse of time. And +then he unconsciously illustrates his case by the case with which +printed facts under his very eyes adapt themselves, quite erroneously, to +his own memory and personal bias as he copies them on to his paper. + +Finally he argues that even if collective hallucinations are also 'with +comparative frequency' coincidental, that is to be explained thus: +'The rarity and the degree of interest compelled by it' (by such an +hallucination) 'will naturally tend to connect itself with some other +prominent event; and, conversely, the occurrence of such an event as the +death or mortal danger of a friend is most calculated to produce memory +illusions of this kind.' + +In the second case, the excitement caused by the death of a friend is +likely, it seems, to make two or more sane people say, and _believe,_ +that they saw him somewhere else, when he was really dying. The only +evidence for this fact is that such illusions occasionally occur, _not_ +collectively, in some lunatic asylums. 'It is not, however, a form of +mnemonic error often observed among the insane.' 'Kraepelin gives two +cases.' 'The process occurs sporadically in certain sane people, under +certain exciting conditions.' No examples are given! What is rare as an +_individual_ folly among lunatics, is supposed by Herr Parish to explain +the theoretically 'false memory' whereby sane people persuade themselves +that they had an hallucination, and persuade others that they were told +of it, when no such thing occurred. + +To return to our old example. Jones tells me that he has just seen his +aunt, whom he knows to be in Timbuctoo. News comes that the lady died when +Jones beheld her in his smoking-room. 'Oh, nonsense,' Herr Parish would +argue, 'you, Jones, saw nothing of the kind, nor did you tell Mr. Lang, +who, I am sorry to find, agrees with you. What happened was _this_: When +the awful news came to-day of your aunt's death, you were naturally, +and even creditably, excited, especially as the poor lady was killed by +being pegged down on an ant-heap. This excitement, rather praiseworthy +than otherwise, made you _believe_ you had seen your aunt, and _believe_ +you had told Mr. Lang. He also is a most excitable person, though I +admit he never saw your dear aunt in his life. He, therefore (by virtue of +his excitement), now _believes_ you told him about seeing your unhappy +kinswoman. This kind of false memory is very common. Two cases are +recorded by Kraepelin, among the insane. Surely you quite understand my +reasoning?' + +I quite understand it, but I don't see how it comes to seem good logic to +Herr Parish. + +The other theory is funnier still. Jones never had an hallucination +before. 'The rarity and the degree of interest compelled by it' made Jones +'connect it with some other prominent event,' say, the death of his aunt, +which, really, occurred, say, nine months afterwards. But this is a mere +case of _evidence_, which it is the affair of the S.P.R. to criticise. + +Herr Parish is in the happy position called in American speculative +circles 'a straddle.' If a man has an hallucination when alone, he was in +circumstances conducive to the sleeping state. So the hallucination is +probably a dream. But, if the seer was in company, who all had the same +hallucination, then they all had the same _points de repère_, and the same +adaptive memories. So Herr Parish kills with both barrels. + +If anything extraneous could encourage a belief in coincidental and +veridical hallucinations, it would be these 'Oppositions of Science.' If a +learned and fair opponent can find no better proofs than logic and +(unconscious) perversions of facts like the logic and the statements of +Herr Parish, the case for telepathic hallucinations may seem strong +indeed. But we must grant him the existence of the adaptive and mythopoeic +powers of memory, which he asserts, and also illustrates. I grant, too, +that a census of 17,000 inquiries may only have 'skimmed the cream off' +(p. 87). Another dip of the net, bringing up 17,000 fresh answers, might +alter the whole aspect of the case, one way or the other. Moreover, we +cannot get scientific evidence in this way of inquiry. If the public were +interested in the question, and understood its nature, and if everybody +who had an hallucination at once recorded it in black and white, duly +attested on oath before a magistrate, by persons to whom he reported, +before the coincidence was known, and if all such records, coincidental or +not, were kept in the British Museum for fifty years, then an examination +of them might teach us something. But all this is quite impossible. +We may form a belief, on this point of veridical hallucinations, for +ourselves, but beyond that it is impossible to advance. Still, Science +might read her brief! + +[Footnote 1: Walter Scott.] + +[Footnote 2: Parish, p. 278.] + +[Footnote 3: Ibid. pp. 282, 283.] + +[Footnote 4: P. 287, Mr. Sims, _Proceedings_, x. 230.] + +[Footnote 5: Parish pp. 288, 289.] + +[Footnote 6: _Report_, p. 68.] + +[Footnote 7: P. 274, note 1.] + +[Footnote 8: Parish, p. 290.] + +[Footnote 9: _Report_, p. 297.] + +[Footnote 10: Parish, p. 290.] + +[Footnote 11: Pp. 291, 292.] + +[Footnote 12: Moll, _Hypnotism_, p. 1.] + +[Footnote 13 _Proceedings_, vol. vi. p. 433.] + +[Footnote 14: Parish, p. 313.] + +[Footnote 15: Compare _Report_, pp. 181-83, with Parish, pp. 190 and +313, 314.] + + + + +APPENDIX B + +THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS. + +In the chapter on 'Fetishism and Spiritualism' it was suggested that the +movements of inanimate objects, apparently without contact, may have been +one of the causes leading to fetishism, to the opinion that a spirit may +inhabit a stick, stone, or what not. We added that, whether such movements +were caused by trickery or not, was inessential as long as the savage did +not discover the imposture. + +The evidence for the genuine supernormal character of such phenomena was +not discussed, that we might preserve the continuity of the general +argument. The history of such phenomena is too long for statement here. +The same reports are found 'from China to Peru,' from Eskimo to the Cape, +from Egyptian magical papyri to yesterday's provincial newspaper.[1] + +About 1850-1870 phenomena, which had previously been reported as of +sporadic and spontaneous occurrence, were domesticated and organised by +Mediums, generally American. These were imitators of the enigmatic David +Dunglas Home, who was certainly a most oddly gifted man, or a most +successful impostor. A good deal of scientific attention was given to +the occurrences; Mr. Darwin, Mr. Tyndall, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Huxley, had +all glanced at the phenomena, and been present at _séances_. In most cases +the exhibitions, in the dark, or in a very bad light, were impudent +impostures, and were so regarded by the _savants_ who looked into them. A +series of exposures culminated in the recent detection of Eusapia +Paladino by Dr. Hodgson and other members of the S.P.R. at Cambridge. + +There was, however, an apparent exception. The arch mystagogue, Home, +though by no means a clever man, was never detected in fraudulent +productions of fetishistic phenomena. This is asserted here because +several third-hand stories of detected frauds by Home are in circulation, +and it is hoped that a well-attested first-hand case of detection may be +elicited. + +Of Home's successes with Sir William Crookes, Lord Crawford, and others, +something remains to be said; but first we shall look into attempted +explanations of alleged physical phenomena occurring _not_ in the presence +of a paid or even of a recognised 'Medium.' It will appear, we think, that +the explanations of evidence so widely diffused, so uniform, so old, and +so new, are far from satisfactory. Our inference would be no more than +that our eyes should be kept on such phenomena, if they are reported to +recur. + +Mr. Tylor says, 'I am well aware that the problem [of these phenomena] is +one to be discussed on its merits, in order to arrive at a distinct +opinion how far it may be connected with facts insufficiently appreciated +and explained by science, and how far with superstition, delusion, and +sheer knavery. Such investigation, pursued by careful observation in a +scientific spirit, would seem apt to throw light on some interesting +psychological questions.' + +Acting on Mr. Tylor's hint, Mr. Podmore puts forward as explanations +(1) fraud; (2) hallucinations caused by excited expectation, and by the +_Schwärmerei_ consequent on sitting in hushed hope of marvels. + +To take fraud first: Mr. Podmore has collected, and analyses, eleven +recent sporadic cases of volatile objects.[2] His first instance (Worksop, +1883) yields no proof of fraud, and can only be dismissed by reason of the +bad character of the other cases, and because Mr. Podmore took the +evidence five weeks after the events. To this example we confine +ourselves. This case appears to have been first reported in the 'Retford +and Gainsborough Times' 'early in March,' 1883 (really March 9). It does +not seem to have struck Mr. Podmore that he should publish these +contemporary reports, to show us how far they agree with evidence +collected by him on the spot five weeks later. To do this was the more +necessary, as he lays so much stress on failure of memory. I have +therefore secured the original newspaper report, by the courtesy of the +editor. To be brief, the phenomena began on February 20 or 21, by the +table voluntarily tipping up, and upsetting a candle, while Mrs. White +only saved the wash tub by alacrity and address. 'The whole incident +struck her as very extraordinary.' It is not in the newspaper report. On +February 26, Mr. White left his home, and a girl, Eliza Rose, 'child of a +half-imbecile mother,' was admitted by the kindness of Mrs. White to share +her bed. The girl was eighteen years of age, was looking for a place as +servant, and nothing is said in the newspaper about her mother. Mr. White +returned on Wednesday night, but left on Thursday morning, returning on +Friday afternoon. On Thursday, in Mr. White's absence, phenomena set in. +On Thursday night, in Mr. White's presence, they increased in vigour. A +doctor was called in, also a policeman. On Saturday, at 8 A.M., the row +recommenced. At 4 P.M. Mr. White sent Eliza Rose away, and peace returned. +We now offer the + +STATEMENT OF POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS. A man of good intelligence, and +believed to be entirely honest.... + +'On the night of Friday, March 2nd, I heard of the disturbances at Joe +White's house from his young brother, Tom. I went round to the house at +11.55 P.M., as near as I can judge, and found Joe White in the kitchen +of his house. There was one candle lighted in the room, and a good fire +burning, so that one could see things pretty clearly. The cupboard doors +were open, and White went and shut them, and then came and stood against +the chest of drawers. I stood near the outer door. No one else was in +the room at the time. White had hardly shut the cupboard doors when they +flew open, and a large glass jar came out past me, and pitched in the +yard outside, smashing itself. I didn't see the jar leave the cupboard, +or fly through the air; it went too quick. But I am quite sure that it +wasn't thrown by White or any one else. White couldn't have done it +without my seeing him. The jar couldn't go in a straight line from the +cupboard out of the door; but it certainly did go. + +'Then White asked me to come and see the things which had been smashed +in the inner room. He led the way and I followed. As I passed the chest +of drawers in the kitchen I noticed a tumbler standing on it. Just +after I passed I heard a crash, and looking round, I saw that the tumbler +had fallen on the ground in the direction of the fireplace, and was +broken. I don't know how it happened. There was no one else in the room. + +'I went into the inner room, and saw the bits of pots and things on the +floor, and then I came back with White into the kitchen. The girl Rose +had come into the kitchen during our absence. She was standing with +her back against the bin near the fire. There was a cup standing on the +bin, rather nearer the door. She said to me, "Cup'll go soon; it has +been down three times already." She then pushed it a little farther on +the bin, and turned round and stood talking to me by the fire. She had +hardly done so, when the cup jumped up suddenly about four or five feet +into the air, and then fell on the floor and smashed itself. White was +sitting on the other side of the fire. + +'Then Mrs. White came in with Dr. Lloyd; also Tom White and Solomon +Wass. After they had been in two or three minutes, something else +happened. Tom White and Wass were standing with their backs to the +fire, just in front of it. Eliza Rose and Dr. Lloyd were near them, with +their backs turned towards the bin, the doctor nearer to the door. I +stood by the drawers, and Mrs. White was by me near the inner door. Then +suddenly a basin, which stood on the end of the bin near the door, got up +into the air, _turning over and over as it went. It went up not very +quickly, not as quickly as if it had been thrown_. When it reached the +ceiling it fell plump and smashed. I called Dr. Lloyd's attention to it, +and we all saw it. No one was near it, and I don't know how it happened. +I stayed about ten minutes more, but saw nothing else. I don't know what +to make of it all. I don't think White or the girl could possibly have +done the things which I saw.' + +This statement was made five weeks after date to Mr. Podmore. We compare +it with the intelligent constable's statement made between March 3 and +March 8, that is, immediately after the events, and reported in the local +paper of March 9. + +STATEMENT BY POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS.--During Friday night, Police +Constable Higgs visited the house, and concerning the visit he makes the +following statement. + +'About ten minutes past [to?] twelve on Friday night, I was met in Bridge +Street by Buck Ford, and Joe's brother, Tom White and Dr. Lloyd. Tom said +to me, "Will you go with us to Joe's, and you will see something you have +never seen before?" I went; and when I got into the house Joe went and +shut the cupboard doors. No sooner had he done so than the doors flew +open again, and an ordinary sized glass jar flew across the kitchen, out +of the door into the yard. A sugar jar also flew out of the cupboard +unseen. In fact, we saw nothing and heard nothing until we heard it smash. +The distance travelled by the articles was about seven yards. I stood +a minute or two, and then the glass which I noticed on the drawers jumped +off the drawers a yard away, and broke in about a hundred bits. The next +thing was a cup, which stood on the flour-bin just beyond the yard +door. It flew upwards, and then fell to the ground and broke. The girl +said that this cup had been on the floor three times, and that she had +picked it up just before it went off the bench. I said, "I suppose the cup +will be the next." The cup fell a distance of two yards away from the +flour-bin. Dr. Lloyd had been in the next house lancing the back of a +little boy who had been removed there. He now came in, and we began +talking, the doctor saying, "It is a most mysterious thing." He turned +with his back to the flour-bin, on which stood a basin. The basin flew up +into the air obliquely, went over the doctor's head, and fell at his feet +in pieces. The doctor then went out. I stood a short time longer, but +saw nothing farther. There were six persons in the room while these things +were going on, and so far as I could see, there was no human agency at +work. I had not the slightest belief in anything appertaining to the +super-natural. I left just before one o'clock, having been in the +house thirty minutes.' + +As the policeman says, there was nothing 'super-natural,' but there was an +appearance of something rather supernormal. On the afternoon of Saturday +White sent the girl Rose away, and a number of people watched in his house +till after midnight. Though the sceptical reporter thought that objects +were placed where they might easily be upset, none were upset. The ghost +was laid. 'Excited expectation' was so false to its function as to beget +no phenomena. + +The newspaper reports contain no theory that will account for White's +breaking his furniture and crockery, nor for Rose's securing her own +dismissal from a house where she was kindly received by wilfully +destroying the property of her hostess. An amateur published a theory +of silken threads attached to light articles, and thick cords to heavy +articles, whereof no trace was found by witnesses who examined the +volatile objects. An elaborate machinery of pulleys fixed in the ceiling, +the presence of a trickster in a locked pantry, apparent errors in the +account of the flight of the objects, and a number of accomplices, were +all involved in this local explanation, the explainer admitting that he +could not imagine _why_ the tricks were played. Six or eight pounds' worth +of goods were destroyed, nor is it singular that poor Mrs. White wept over +her shattered penates. + +The destruction began, of course, in the _absence_ of White. The girl Rose +gave to the newspaper the same account as the other witnesses, but, as +White thought _she_ was the agent, so she suspected White, though she +admitted that he was not at home when the trouble arose. + +Mr. Podmore, reviewing the case, says, 'The phenomena described are quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means.[3] Yet he elsewhere[4] suggests +that Rose herself, 'as the instrument of mysterious agencies, or simply as +a half-witted girl, gifted with abnormal cunning and love of mischief, may +have been directly responsible for all that took place.' That is to say, a +half-witted girl could do (barring 'mysterious agencies') 'what is quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means,' while, according to the +policeman, she was not even present on some occasions. But it is not easy +to make out, in the evidence of White, the other witness, whether this +girl Rose was present or not when the jar flew circuitously out of the +cupboard, a thing easily worked by a half-witted girl. Such discrepancies +are common in all evidence to the most ordinary events. In any case a +half-witted girl, in Mr. Podmore's theory, can do what 'is quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means.' There is not the shadow of +evidence that the girl Rose had the inestimable advantage of being +'half-witted;' she is described by Mr. Podmore as 'the child of an +imbecile mother.' The phenomena began, in an isolated case (the tilted +table), _before_ Rose entered the house. She was admitted in kindness, +acted as a maid, and her interest was _not_ to break the crockery +and upset furniture. The troubles, which began before the girl's arrival, +were apparently active when she was not present, and, if she _was_ +present, she could not have caused them 'by ordinary mechanical means,' +while of extraordinary mechanical means there was confessedly no trace. +The disturbances ceased after she was dismissed--nothing else connects her +with them. + +Mr. Podmore's attempt at a normal explanation by fraud, therefore, is +of no weight. He has to exaggerate the value, as disproof, of such +discrepancies as occur in all human evidence on all subjects. He has to +lay stress on the interval of five weeks between the events and the +collection of testimony by himself. But contemporary accounts appeared in +the local newspapers, and he does not compare the contemporary with the +later evidence, as we have done. There is one discrepancy which looks as +if a witness, not here cited, came to think he had seen what he heard +talked about. Finally, after abandoning the idea that mechanical means can +possibly have produced the effect, Mr. Podmore falls back on the cunning +of a half-witted girl whom nothing shows to have been half-witted. The +alternative is that the girl was 'the instrument of mysterious agencies.' + +So much for the hypothesis of a fraud, which has been identical in results +from China to Peru and from Greenland to the Cape. + +We now turn to the other, and concomitantly active cause, in Mr. Podmore's +theory, hallucination. 'Many of the witnesses described the articles as +moving slowly through the air, or exhibiting some peculiarity of flight.' +(See e.g. the Worksop case.) Mr. Podmore adds another English case, +presently to be noted, and a German one. 'In default of any experimental +evidence' (how about Mr. William Crookes's?) 'that disturbances of this +kind are ever due to abnormal agency, I am disposed to explain the +appearance of moving slowly or flying as a sensory illusion, conditioned +by the excited state of the percipient.' ('Studies,' 157, 158.) + +Before criticising this explanation, let us give the English affair, +alluded to by Mr. Podmore. + +The most curious modern case known to me is not of recent date, but it +occurred in full daylight, in the presence of many witnesses, and the +phenomena continued for weeks. The events were of 1849, and the record is +expanded, by Mr. Bristow, a spectator, from an account written by him in +1854. The scene was Swanland, near Hull, in a carpenter's shop, where Mr. +Bristow was employed with two fellow workmen. To be brief, they were +pelted by odds and ends of wood, about the size of a common matchbox. Each +blamed the others, till this explanation became untenable. The workrooms +and space above were searched to no purpose. The bits of wood sometimes +danced along the floor, more commonly sailed gently along, or "moved as if +borne on gently heaving waves." This sort of thing was repeated during six +weeks. One piece of wood "came from a distant corner of the room towards +me, describing what may be likened to a geometrical square, or corkscrew +of about eighteen inches diameter.... Never was a piece seen to come in +at the doorway." Mr. Bristow deems this period 'the most remarkable +episode in my life.' (June 27, 1891.) The phenomena 'did not depend on the +presence of any one person or number of persons.' + +Going to Swanland, in 1891, Mr. Sidgwick found one surviving witness of +these occurrences, who averred that the objects could not have been thrown +because of the eccentricities of their course, which he described in the +same way as Mr. Bristow. The thrower must certainly have had a native +genius for 'pitching' at base-ball. This witness, named Andrews, was +mentioned by Mr. Bristow in his report, but not referred to by him for +confirmation. Those to whom he referred were found to be dead, or had +emigrated. The villagers had a superstitious theory about the phenomena +being provoked by a dead man, whose affairs had not been settled to his +liking. So Mr. Darwin's spoon danced--on a grave.[5] + +This case has a certain interest _à propos_ of Mr. Podmore's surmise that +all such phenomena arise in trickery, which produces excitement in the +spectators, while excitement begets hallucination, and hallucination +takes the form of seeing the thrown objects move in a non-natural way. +Thus, I keep throwing things about. You, not detecting this stratagem, get +excited, consequently hallucinated, and you believe you see the things +move in spirals, or undulate as if on waves, or hop, or float, or glide +in an impossible way. So close is the uniformity of hallucination +that these phenomena are described, in similar terms, by witnesses +(hallucinated, of course) in times old and new, as in cases cited by +Glanvil, Increase Mather, Telfer (of Rerrick), and, generally, in works of +the seventeenth century. Nor is this uniform hallucination confined to +England. Mr. Podmore quotes a German example, and I received a similar +testimony (to the flight of an object round a corner) from a gentleman who +employed Esther Teed, 'the Amherst Mystery,' in his service. _He_ was not +excited, for he was normally engaged in his normal stable, when the +incident occurred unexpectedly as he was looking after his live stock. One +may add the case of Cideville (1851) and Sir W. Crookes's evidence, and +that of Mr. Schhapoff. + +Mr. Podmore must, therefore, suppose that, in states of excitement, the +same peculiar form of hallucination develops itself uniformly in America, +France, Germany, and England (not to speak of Russia), and persists +through different ages. This is a novel and valuable psychological law. +Moreover, Mr. Podmore must hold that 'excitement' lasted for six weeks +among the carpenters in the shop at Swanland, one of whom writes like a +man of much intelligence, and has thriven to be a master in his craft. +It is difficult to believe that he was excited for six weeks, and we still +marvel that excitement produces the same uniformity of hallucination, +affecting policemen, carpenters, marquises, and a F.R.S. We allude to Sir +W. Crookes's case. + +Strictly scientific examination of these prodigies has been very rare. The +best examples are the experiments of Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., with +Home.[6] He demonstrated, by means of a machine constructed for the +purpose, and automatically registering, that, in Home's presence, a +balance was affected to the extent of two pounds when Home was not in +contact with the table on which the machine was placed. He also saw +objects float in air, with a motion like that of a piece of wood on small +waves of the sea (clearly excitement producing hallucination), while Home +was at a distance, other spectators holding his hands, and his feet being +visibly enclosed in a kind of cage. All present held each other's hands, +and all witnessed the phenomena. Sir W. Crookes being, professionally, +celebrated for the accuracy of his observations, these circumstances are +difficult to explain, and these are but a few cases among multitudes. + +I venture to conceive that, on reflection, Mr. Podmore will doubt whether +he has discovered an universal law of excited malperception, or whether +the remarkable, and certainly undesigned, coincidence of testimony to the +singular flight of objects does not rather point to an 'abnormal agency' +uniform in its effects. Contagious hallucination cannot affect witnesses +ignorant of each other's existence in many lands and ages, nor could they +cook their reports to suit reports of which they never heard. + +We now turn to peculiarities in the so-called Medium, such as floating in +air, change of bulk, and escape from lesion when handling or treading in +fire. Mr. Tylor says nothing of Sir William Crookes's cases (1871), but +speaks of the alleged levitation, or floating in air, of savages and +civilised men. These are recorded in Buddhist and Neoplatonic writings, +and among Red Indians, in Tonquin (where a Jesuit saw and described the +phenomena, 1730), in the 'Acta Sanctorum,' and among modern spiritualists. +In 1760, Lord Elcho, being at Home, was present at the _procès_ for +canonising a Saint (unnamed), and heard witnesses swear to having seen the +holy man levitated. Sir W. Crookes attests having seen Home float in air +on several occasions. In 1871, the Master of Lindsay, now Lord Crawford +and Balcarres, F.R.S., gave the following evidence, which was corroborated +by the two other spectators, Lord Adare and Captain Wynne. + +'I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his. During +the sitting, Mr. Home went into a trance, and in that state was carried +out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was brought in +at our window. The distance between the windows was about seven feet six +inches, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was +there more than a twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as +a ledge to put flowers on. _We heard the window in the next room lifted +up_, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in the air outside +our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my back was to the +light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the window sill, and Home's +feet about six inches above it. He remained in this position for a few +seconds, then raised the window and glided into the room feet foremost +and sat down. + +'Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from which +he had been carried. It was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed +his wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so narrow an aperture. Home +said, still entranced, "I will show you," and then with his back to the +window he leaned back and was shot out of the aperture, head first, with +the body rigid, and then returned quite quietly. The window is about +seventy feet from the ground.' The hypothesis of a mechanical arrangement +of ropes or supports outside has been suggested, but does not cover the +facts as described. + +Mr. Podmore, who quotes this, offers the explanation that the witnesses +were excited, and that Home 'thrust his head and shoulders out of the +window.' But, if he did, they could not see him do it, for he was in the +next room. A brick wall was between them and him. Their first view of Home +was 'floating in the air outside our window.' It is not very easy to hold +that a belief to which the collective evidence is so large and universal, +as the belief in levitation, was caused by a series of saints, sorcerers, +and others thrusting their heads and, shoulders, out of windows where the +observers could not see them. Nor in Lord Crawford's case is it easy +to suppose that three educated men, if hallucinated, would all be +hallucinated in the same way. + +The argument of excited expectation and consequent hallucination does not +apply to Mr. Hamilton Aïdé and M. Alphonse Karr, neither of whom was a man +of science. Both were extremely prejudiced against Home, and at Nice went +to see, and, if possible, to expose him. Home was a guest at a large +villa in Nice, M. Karr and Mr. Aïdé were two of a party in a spacious +brilliantly lighted salon, where Home received them. A large heavy table, +remote from their group, moved towards them. M. Karr then got under a +table which rose in air, and carefully examined the space beneath, while +Mr. Aïdé observed it from above. Neither of them could discover any +explanation of the phenomenon, and they walked away together, disgusted, +disappointed, and reviling Home.[7] + +In this case there was neither excitement nor desire to believe, but a +strong wish to disbelieve and to expose Home. If two such witnesses could +be hallucinated, we must greatly extend our notion of the limits of the +capacity for entertaining hallucinations. + +One singular phenomenon was reported in Home's case, which has, however, +little to do with any conceivable theory of spirits. He was said to become +elongated in trance.[8] Mr. Podmore explains that 'perhaps he really +stretched himself to his full height'--one of the easiest ways conceivable +of working a miracle, Iamblichus reports the same phenomenon in his +possessed men.[9] Iamblichus adds that they were sometimes broadened as +well as lengthened. Now, M. Féré observes that 'any part of the body of an +hysterical patient may change in volume, simply owing to the fact that the +patient's attention is fixed on that part.'[10] Conceivably the elongation +of Home and the ancient Egyptian mediums may have been an extreme case of +this 'change of volume.' Could this be proved by examples, Home's +elongation would cease to be a 'miracle.' But it would follow that in this +case observers were _not_ hallucinated, and the presumption would be +raised that they were not hallucinated in the other cases. Indeed, this +argument is of universal application. + +There is another class of 'physical phenomena,' which has no direct +bearing on our subject. Many persons, in many ages, are said to have +handled or walked through fire, not only without suffering pain, but +without lesion of the skin. Iamblichus mentions this as among the +peculiarities of his 'possessed' men; and in 'Modern Mythology' (1897) I +have collected first-hand evidence for the feat in classical times, and in +India, Fiji, Bulgaria, Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, and many other +places. The evidence is that of travellers, officials, missionaries, and +others, and is backed (for what photographic testimony is worth) by +photographs of the performance. To hold glowing coals in his hand, and to +communicate the power of doing so to others, was in Home's _répertoire_. +Lord Crawford saw it done on eight occasions, and himself received from +Home's hand the glowing coal unharmed. A friend of my own, however, still +bears the blister of the hurt received in the process. Sir W. Crookes's +evidence follows: + +'At Mr. Home's request, whilst he was entranced, I went with him to the +fireplace in the back drawing-room. He said, "We want you to notice +particularly what Dan is doing." Accordingly I stood close to the +fire, and stooped down to it when he put his hands in.... + +'Mr. Home then waved the handkerchief about in the air two or three times, +held it above his head, and then folded it up and laid it on his hand like +a cushion. Putting his other hand into the fire, he took out a large +lump of cinder, red-hot at the lower part, and placed the red part on the +handkerchief. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been in a blaze. +In about half a minute he took it off the handkerchief with his hand, +saying, "As the power is not strong, if we leave the coal longer it will +burn." He then put it on his hand, and brought it to the table in the +front room, where all but myself had remained seated.' + +Mr. Podmore explains that only two candles and the fire gave light on one +occasion, and that 'possibly' Home's hands were protected by some +'non-conducting substance.' He does not explain how this substance was put +on Lord Crawford's hands, nor tell us what this valuable substance may be. +None is known to science, though it seems to be known to Fijians, Tongans, +Klings, and Bulgarians, who walk through fire unhurt. + +It is not necessary to believe Sir W. Crookes's assertions that he saw +Home perform the fire-tricks, for we can fall back on the lack of light +(only two candles and the fire-light), as also on the law of hallucination +caused by excitement. But it _is_ necessary to believe this distinguished +authority's statement about his ignorance of 'some non-conducting +substance:' + +'Schoolboys' books and mediaeval tales describe how this can be done with +alum and other ingredients. It is possible that the skin may be so +hardened and thickened by such preparations that superficial charring +might take place without the pain becoming great; but the surface of the +skin would certainly suffer severely. After Home had recovered from the +trance, I examined his hand with care to see if there were any signs of +burning or of previous preparation. I could detect no trace or injury +to the skin, which was soft and delicate, like a woman's. Neither were +there signs of any preparation having been previously applied. I have +often seen conjurers and others handle red-hot coals and iron, but there +were always palpable signs of burning.'[11] + +In September 1897 a crew of passengers went from New Zealand to see the +Fijian rites, which, as reported in the 'Fiji Times,' corresponded exactly +with the description published by Mr. Basil Thomson, himself a witness. +The interesting point, historically, is the combination in Home of all the +_répertoire_ of the possessed men in Iamblichus. We certainly cannot get +rid of the fire-trick by aid of a hypothetical 'non-conducting substance.' +Till the 'substance' is tested experimentally it is not a _vera causa_. We +might as well say 'spirits' at once. Both that 'substance' and those +'spirits' are equally 'in the air.' Yet Mr. Podmore's 'explanations' (not +satisfactory to himself) are conceived so thoroughly in the spirit of +popular science--one of them casually discovering a new psychological law, +a second contradicting the facts it seeks to account for, a third +generously inventing an unknown substance--that they ought to be welcomed +by reviewers and lecturers. + +It seems wiser to admit our ignorance and suspend our belief. + +Here closes the futile chapter of explanations. Fraud is a _vera causa_, +but an hypothesis difficult of application when it is admitted that the +effects could not be caused by ordinary mechanical means. Hallucination, +through excitement, is a _vera causa_, but its remarkable uniformity, +as described by witnesses from different lands and ages, knowing nothing +of each other, makes us hesitate to accept a sweeping hypothesis of +hallucination. The case for it is not confirmed, when we have the same +reports from witnesses certainly not excited. + +This extraordinary bundle, then, of reports, practically identical, of +facts paralysing to belief, this bundle made up of statements from so many +ages and countries, can only be 'filed for reference.' But it is manifest +that any savage who shared the experiences of Sir W. Crookes, Lord +Crawford, Mr. Hamilton Aïdé, M. Robert de St. Victor at Cideville, and +Policeman Higgs at Worksop, would believe that a spirit might tenant a +stick or stone--so believing he would be a Fetishist. Thus even of +Fetishism the probable origin is in a region of which we know nothing--the +_X_ region. + +[Footnote 1: A sketch of the history will be found in the author's _Cock +Lane and Common Sense_.] + +[Footnote 2: The best source is his article on 'Poltergeists.' +_Proceedings_ xi. 45-116. See, too, his 'Poltergeists' in _Studies in +Psychical Research_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Studies in Psychical Research_, p. 140.] + +[Footnote 4: See Preface to this edition for correction.] + +[Footnote 5: _Proceedings_, S.P.R. vii. 383-394.] + +[Footnote 6: See Sir W. Crookes's _Researches in Spiritualism_.] + +[Footnote 7: Mr. Aïdé has given me this information. He recorded the +circumstances in his Diary at the time.] + +[Footnote 8: _Report of Dialectical Society_, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 9: See Porphyry, in Parthey's edition (Berlin, 1857), iii. 4.] + +[Footnote 10: _Bulletin de la Société de Biologie_, 1880, p. 399.] + +[Footnote 11: Crookes, _Proceedings_, ix. 308.] + + + + +APPENDIX C + +_CRYSTAL-GAZING_ + +Since the chapter on crystal-gazing was in type, a work by Dr. Pierre +Janet has appeared, styled 'Les Névroses et les Idées Fixes.'[1] It +contains a chapter on crystal-gazing. The opinion of Dr. Janet, as that of +a savant familiar, at the Salpêtrière, with 'neurotic' visionaries, +cannot but be interesting. Unluckily, the essay must be regarded as +seriously impaired in value by Dr. Janet's singular treatment of his +subject. Nothing is more necessary in these researches than accuracy of +statement. Now, Dr. Janet has taken a set of experiences, or experiments, +of Miss X.'s from that lady's interesting essay, already cited; has +attributed them, not to Miss X., but to various people--for example, to +_une jeune fille, une pauvre voyante, une personne un peu mystique_; has +altered the facts in the spirit of romance; and has triumphantly given +that explanation, revival of memory, which was assigned by Miss X. +herself. + +Throughout his paper Dr. Janet appears as the calm man of science +pronouncing judgment on the visionary vagaries of 'haunted' young girls +and disappointed seeresses. No such persons were concerned; no such +hauntings, supposed premonitions, or 'disillusions' occurred; the romantic +and 'marvellous' circumstances are mythopoeic accretions due to Dr. +Janet's own memory or fancy; his scientific explanation is that given by +his trinity of _jeune fille, pauvre voyante_, and _personne un peu +mystique_. + +Being much engaged in the study of 'neurotic' and hysterical patients, Dr. +Janet thinks that they are most apt to see crystal visions. Perhaps they +are; and one doubts if their descriptions are more to be trusted than +the romantic essay of their medical attendant. In citing Miss X.'s paper +(as he did), Dr. Janet ought to have reported her experiments correctly, +ought to have attributed them to herself, and should, decidedly, have +remarked that the explanation he offered was her own hypothesis, verified +by her own exertions. + +Not having any acquaintances in neurotic circles, I am unable to say +whether such persons supply more cases of the faculty of crystal vision +than ordinary people; while their word, one would think, is much less to +be trusted than that of men and women in excellent health. The crystal +visions which I have cited from my own knowledge (and I could cite scores +of others) were beheld by men and women engaged in the ordinary duties +of life. Students, barristers, novelists, lawyers, school-masters, +school-mistresses, golfers--to all of whom the topic was perfectly +new--have all exhibited the faculty. It is curious that an Arabian author +of the thirteenth century, Ibn Khaldoun, cited by M. Lefébure, offers the +same account of _how_ the visions appear as that given by Miss Angus in +the _Journal_ of the S.P.R., April 1898. M. Lefébure's citation was sent +to me in a letter. + +I append M. Lefébure's quotation from Ibn Khaldoun. The original is +translated in 'Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque Impériale,' +I. xix. p. 643-645. + +'Ibn Kaldoun admet que certains hommes ont la faculté de deviner l'avenir. + +'"Ceux, ajoute-t-il, qui regardent dans les corps diaphanes, tels que les +miroirs, les cuvettes remplies d'eau et les liquides; ceux qui inspectent +les coeurs, les foies et les os des animaux, ... tous ces gens-là +appartiennent aussi à la catégorie des devins, mais, à cause de +l'imperfection de leur nature, ils y occupent un rang inférieur. Pour +écarter le voile des sens, le vrai devin n'a pas besoin de grands efforts; +quant aux autres, ils tâchent d'arriver au but en _essayant de concentrer +en un seul sens toutes leurs perceptions_. Comme la vue est le sens le +plus noble, ils lui donnent la préférence; fixant leur regard sur on objet +à superficie unie, ils le considèrent avec attention jusqu'à ce qu'ils y +aperçoivent la chose qu'ils veulent annoncer. Quelques personnes croient +que l'image aperçue de cette manière se dessine sur la surface du miroir; +mais ils se trompent. Le devin regarde fixement cette surface jusqu'à ce +qu'elle disparaisse et qu'un rideau, semblable à un brouillard, +s'interpose entre lui et le miroir. Sur ce rideau se dessinent les choses +_qu'il désira apercevoir_, et cela lui permet de donner des indications +soit affirmatives, soit négatives, sur ce que l'on désire savoir. Il +raconte alors les perceptions telles qu'il les reçoit. Les devins, +pendant qu'ils sont dans cet état, n'aperçoivent pas ce qui se voit +réellement dans le miroir; c'est un autre mode de perception qui naît +chez eux et qui s'opère, non pas au moyen de la vue, mais de l'âme. Il +est vrai que, _pour eux, les perceptions de l'âme ressemblent à celles +des sens au point de les tromper_; fait qui, du reste, est bien connu. La +même chose arrive à ceux qui examinent les coeurs et les foies d'animaux. +Nous avons vu quelques-uns de ces individus _entraver l'opération des +sens_ par l'emploi de simples _fumigations_, puis se servir +d'_incantations_[2] afin de donner à l'âme la disposition requise; ensuite +ils racontent ce qu'ils ont aperçu. Ces formes, disent-ils, se montrent +dans l'air et représentent des personnages: elles leur apprennent, au +moyen d'emblèmes et de signes, les choses qu'ils cherchent à savoir. Les +individus de cette classe se détachent moins de l'influence des sens que +ceux de la classe précédente."' + +[Footnote 1: Lican, Paris, 1898.] + +[Footnote 2: L'auteur arabe avait déjà mentionné (p. 209) l'emploi des +incantations et indiqué qu'elles étuient un simple adjuvant physique +destiné à donner à certains hommes une exaltation dont ils se servaient +pour tâcher de découvrir l'avenir. + +'Pour arriver au plus haut degré d'inspiration dont il est capable, le +devin doit avoir recours à l'emploi de certaines phrases qui se +distinguent par _une cadence et un parallelisme particuliers_. Il +essaye ce moyen _afin de soustraire son âme aux influences des sens_ et +de lui donner assez de force pour se mettre dans un contact imparfait +avec le monde spirituel.[a] Cette agitation d'esprit, jointe à l'emploi +des moyens intrinsèques dont nous avons parlé, excite dans son coeur +des idées que cet organe exprime par le ministère de la langne. Les +paroles qu'il prononce sont tantôt vraies, tantôt fausses. En effet, +le devin, voulant suppléer à l'imperfection de son naturel, se sert de +moyens tout à fait étrangers à sa faculté perceptive et qui ne +s'accordent en aucune façon avec elle. Donc la vérité et l'erreur se +présentent à lui en même temps, aussi ne doit on mettre aucune +confiance en ses paroles. Quelquefois même il a recours à des +suppositions et à des conjectures dans l'espoir de rencontrer la vérité +et de tromper ceux qui l'interrogent.'] + +[Footnote a: Compare Tennyson's way of attaining a state of trance by +repeating to himself his own name.] + + + + +APPENDIX D + +_CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA_ + +In the remarks on Australian religion, it is argued that chiefs in +Australia are, at most, very inconspicuous, and that a dead chief cannot +have thriven into a Supreme Being. Attention should be called, however, to +Mr. Howitt's remarks on Australian 'Head-men,' in his tract on 'The +Organisation of Australian Tribes' (pp. 103-113). + +He attaches more of the idea of power to 'Head-men' than does Mr. Curr in +his work, 'The Australian Race.' The Head-men, as a rule, arrive at such +influence as they possess by seniority, if accompanied by courage, wisdom, +and, in some cases, by magical acquirements. There are traces of a +tendency to keep the office (if it may be called one) in the same kinship. +'But Vich Ian Vohr or Chingahgook are not to be found in Australian +tribes' (p. 113). I do not observe that the manes or ghost of a dead +Head-man receives any worship or service calculated to fix him in the +tribal memory, and so lead to the evolution of a deity, though one +Head-man was potent through the whole Dieyri tribe over three hundred +miles of country. Such a person, if propitiated after death, might +conceivably develop into a hero, if not into a creative being. But we +must await evidence to the effect that any posthumous reverence was paid +to this man, Ialina Piramurane (New Moon). Mr. Howitt's essay is in the +'Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria for 1889.' + + + + +INDEX + +Academy of Medicine, Paris, inquiry into animal magnetism, 34 + +Achille, the case of, 134 + +Acosta, Père, cited, 74, 244, 246 + +Adare, Lord, cited, 335 + +Addison, cited, 16 + +Africans, religious faiths of, 212, 218, 221, 222. + See under separate tribal names. + +Ahone, North-American Indian god, 231-233, 241, 248, 258, 262, 280 + +Aïdé, Hamilton, cited, 336 + +Algonquins, the, 250 + +Allen, Grant, cited, 190 + +American Creators, 230; + parallel with African gods, 230; + savage gods of Virginia, 231; + the Ahone-Okeus creed, 231-233; + Pawnee tribal religions, 233-236; + Ti-ra-wá, the Spirit Father, 234, 235; + rite to the Morning Star, 234; + religion of the Blackfeet, 236; + Nà-pi, 237-239; + one account of the Inca religion, 239-242; + Sun-worship, 239-241; + cult of Pachacamac, the Inca deity, 239-247; + another account of the Inca religion, 242-246; + hymns of the Zuñis, 247; + _Awonawilona_, 247 + +Amoretti, Sig., cited, 30, 152 + +Ancestor, worship, 164-166, 178, 205, 212, 268, 271-277 + +Andamanese, the, religious beliefs of, 167, 194-197, 205, 208, 211, + 249, 252, 256, 272 +'Angus, Miss,' cases in her experience of crystal-gazing, 89-102, 341 + +Animal magnetism, inquiry into, 29, 34, 35 + +Animism, nature and influence of, 48, 49, 53, 58, 63, 129, 168, 190, + 191, 206, 256, 264, 266, 268, 269, 303 + +Anthropology and hallucinations, 105; + sleeping and waking experience, 105, 106; + hallucinations in mentally sound people, 107; + ghosts, 107; + coincidence of hallucinations of the sane with death or other crisis of + person seen, 107; + morbid hallucinations and coincidental 'flukes,' 108; + connection of cause and effect, 108; + the emotional effect, 108; + illustrative coincidence, 108; + hallucinations of sight, 109; + causes of hallucinations, 110; + collective hallucinations, 110; + the properly receptive state, 110; + telepathy, 111; + phantasms of the living, 112; + Maori cases, 113-115; + evidence to be rejected, 116; + subjective hallucination caused by expectancy, 116; + puzzling nature of hallucinations shared by several people at once, 116, + 117; + hallucinations coincident with a death, 117; + apparitions and deaths connected in fact, 117; + Census of the Society for Psychical Research thereupon, 118; + number and character of the instances, 119; + weighing evidence, 119; + opinion of the Committee on Hallucinations, 121; + remoteness of occurrence of instances, 121; + want of documentary evidence, 121 + non-coincidental hallucinations, 121; + telepathy existing between kinsfolk and friends, 122; + influence of anxiety, 123; + existence of illness known, 123; + mental and nervous conditions in connection with hallucinations, 134; + value of the statistics of the Census, 124; + anecdote of an English officer, 125 + +Anthropology and religion, 30; + early scientific prejudice against, 40; + evolution and evidence, 40; + testing of evidence, 41-43; + psychical research, 48; + origin of religion, 44; + inferences drawn from supernormal phenomena, 41, 53; + savage parallels of psychical phenomena, 45; + meanings of religion, 45, 40; + disproof of godless tribes, 47; + Animism, 48, 49; + limits of savage tongues, 49; + waking and sleeping hallucinations, 60; + crystal-gazing, 50; + the ghost-soul, 51; + savage abstract speculation, 52; + analogy of the ideas of children and primitive man, 53; + early man's conception of life, 32; + ghost-seers, 54; + psychical conditions in which savages differ from civilised men, 54; + power of producing non-normal psychological conditions, 55; + faculties of the lower animals, 56; + man's first conception of religion, 56; + the suggested hypnotic state, 57; + second-sight, 68; + savage names for the ghost-soul, 60; + the migratory spirit, 60-64 + +Anynrabia, South Guinea Creator, 220 + +Apaches, crystal-gazing by, 84, 85 + +Apollonius of Tyana, 66 + +Atua, the Tongan Elohim, 279 + +Aurora Borealis, savage ideas of the, 4, 262, 292 + +Australians, religious beliefs of, 50, 83, 118, 128, 165, 175-182, 185, + 188, 190, 205, 208, 211, 215, 219, 224, 240, 249, 253, 266, 261-263 + +Automatism, 155 + +Awonawilona, Zuñi deity, 248, 251 + +Ayinard, Jacques, case of, 150, 182 + +Aztecs, creed of, 104 _note_, 183, 233, 234, 255, 258, 263 + +Bealz, Dr., cited, 132 + +Baiame, deity, 189, 190, 191, 205, 261, 280 + +Baker, Sir Samuel, cited, 42, 211 + +Bakwains, the, 169 + +Balfour, A.J., quoted, 44, 57 _note_ + +Banks Islanders, their gods, 169, 197-198 + +Bantus, religious beliefs of, 176, 211, 220, 248 + +Barkworth, Mr., his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 140 + +Barrett, Professor, on the divining-rod, 162-154 + +Bostian, Adolf, cited, 6, 43 + +Baxter, cited, 15 + +Beaton, Cardinal, his mistress visualized, 97 + +Bell, John, cited, 149 + +Beni-Israel, 282 + +Berna, magnetiser, 34 + +Bernadette, case of, 117 + +Big Black Man, Fuegian deity, 258 + +Binet and Féré, quoted, 20, 76 + +Bissett, Mr. and Mrs., experiences of crystal-gazing, 99-102 + +Blackfeet, beliefs of, 230, 236 + +Blantyre region, religion in the, 217, 218 + +Bleck, Dr., cited, 194 + +Bobowissi, Gold Coast god, 225-227, 230-232 + +Bodinus, cited, 15 + +Book of the Dead, 286, 303 + +Bora, Australian mysteries, 176, 179, 190, 196, 260 + +Bosman, cited, 225 + +Bourget, Paul, his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 139, 140 + +Bourke, Captain J.G., cited, 83 + +Boyle, cited, 15 + +Braid, inventor of the word 'hypnotism,' 24, 35, 36 + +Brewster, Sir David, cited, 33 + +Brinton, Dr., cited, 67, 168, 232, 236, 254, 264, 290 + +Bristow, Mr., cited, 332 + +British Association decline to hear Braid's essay, 24 + rejection of anthropological papers, 89 + +Brasses, de, cited, 149 + +Brown, General Mason, cited, 68, 67 + +Bunjil, deity, 189 + +Bushmen, religious beliefs of, 165, 198, 208, 211, 252 + +Button, Jemmy, the Faegian, case of, 116 + +Caon, Boshmon deity, 189, 193, 205 + +Callawoy, Dr., on Zulu beliefs, 72, 85, 106, 142, 151 207, 208 + +Cardan, cited, 15 + +Carpenter, Dr., cited, 324 + +Carver, Captain Jonathan, his instance of savage possession, 142 + cited, 60, 144, 145 + +Charcot, Dr., on faith cures, 20-23, 24 _note_ + +Chevreul, M., cited, 152 + +Chinese, the, demon possession in, 181, 183 + divining-rod, 154 + religious beliefs, 237, 290, 291 + +Chonos, the, 176 + +Circumcision, 286 + +Clairvoyance (vue à distance), 65 + 'opening the Gates at Distance.' 65, 66 + attested cases among savages, 66 + conflict with the laws of exact science, 67 + instances, 67 + among the Zulus, 68-70 + among the Lapps, 70 + the Llarson case, 71 + seers, 72 + the element of trickery, 73 + a Red Indian seeress, 73 + Peruvian clairvoyants, 75 + Professor Richet's case, 75 + Mr. Dobbie's case, 76 + Scottish tales of second-sight, 78-81 + visions provoked by various methods, 81 + See Crystal visions + +Clodd, Edward, cited, 119, 120, 300 + +'Cockburn, Mrs.,' test of crystal-gazing, 99-101 + +Codrington, Dr., cited, 150, 169, 197-199 + +Coirin, Mlle., her miraculous cure, 20 + +Coleridge, cited, 9, 11, 12 _note_, 295, 296 + +Collins, cited, 179 + +Comanches, the, 250 + +Confucius, religious teaching of, 290, 291 + +Cook, Captain, cited, 271 + +Corpse-binding, 143, 144 + +Crawford, Lord, cited, 325, 334, 330, 387 + +Creeks, the, 143 + +Croesus, tests the Delphic Oracle, 14 + +Crookes, Sir William, cited, 325, 331, 333, 334, 337, 338 + +Crystal visions, 83 + savage instances, 83-85 + in later Europe, 85 + nature of 'Miss X's' experiments, 85 + attributed to 'dissociation,' 86 + examples of 'thought-transference,' 87 + arguments against accepting recognition of objects described by another + person, 87 + coincidence of fact and fiction, 88 + cases in the experience of 'Miss Angus,' 89-102 + 'Miss Rose's' experience, 91, 92 + phenomena suggest the savage theory of the wandering soul, 103 + cited, 7, 44, 50, 314-316, 340 + +Cumberland, Stuart, 72 + +Cures by suggestion, 20, 21 + +Curr, Mr., reports 'godless' savages, 184 _note_ + +Dampier, cited, 176 + +Dancing sticks, 149-131 + +Darumulun, Australian Supreme Being, 178, 179, 183, 186, 191, 213, 240, + 258-264, 280 + +Darwin, cited, 115, 149, 174 _note_, 324, 332 + +Death, savage ideas on, 187 + +Degeneration theory, the, 254 + the powerful creative Being of lowest savages, 254 + differences between the Supreme Being of higher and lower savages, 255 + human sacrifice, 255 + hungry, cruel gods degenerate from the Australian Father in Heaven, 256 + savage Animism, 256 + a pure religion forgotten, 257 + an inconvenient moral Creator, 257 + hankering after useful ghost-gods, 257 + lowering of the ideal of a Creator, 257 + maintenance of an immoral system in the interests of the State and the + clergy, 258 + moral monotheism of the Hebrew religion, 258 + degradation of Jehovah, 258 + human sacrifice in ritual of Israel, 258 + origin of conception of Jehovah, 258 + Semitic gods, 259 + status of Darumulun, 259 + conception of Jehovah conditioned by space, 260 + degeneration of deity in Africa, 260 + political advance produces religious degeneration, 261 + sacrificial ideas, 262 + the savage Supreme Being on a higher plane than the Semitic and + Greek gods, 263 + Animism full of the seeds of religions degeneration, 264 + falling off in the theistic conception, 265 + fetishism, 265 + modus of degeneration by Animism supplanting Theism, 265 + feeling after a God who needs not anything at man's hands, 267 + +Demoniacal possession, 128 + the 'inspired' or 'possessed,' 129 + 'change of control,' 130 + gift of eloquence and poetry, 131 + instances in China, 131 + attempted explanations of the phenomena, 132 + 'alternating personality,' 132 + symptoms of possession, 132 + evidence for, 133 + scientific account of a demoniac and his cure, 134 + inducing the 'possessed' state, 135 + exhibition of abnormal knowledge by the possessed, 136 + Scientific study of the phenomena, 136 + details of the case of Mrs. Piper, 136-141 + diagnosing and prescribing for patients, 142 + Carver's example of savage possession, 142, 157 + custom of binding the seer with bonds, 142, 145 + corpse-binding, 143, 144 + +Dendid, Dinka Supreme Being, 211, 212, 258, 280 + +Deslon, M., disciple of Mesmer, 24 + +Dessoir, Dr. Max, quoted, 32, 33, 57 + +Dinkas, beliefs of the, 42, 211, 212, 256 + +Divining-rod, use of the, 30, 152-155 + +Dobbie, Mr., his case of clairvoyance, 76 + +Dorman, Mr., cited, 203 + +Dunbar, Mr., cited, 236 + +Du Pont, cited, 75 + +Du Prel, cited, 28 + +Dynois, Jonka, trance of, 65 + +Ebumtupism, second sight, 73 + +Egyptians, beliefs of, 83, 302 + +Elcho, Lord, cited, 334 + +Eleusinian mysteries, 196 + +Elliotson, Dr., cited, 24, 35, 37, 40 + +Ellis, Major, on Polynesian and African religions ideas, 83, 144, 222-228, + 232, 251, 260, 272 + +Elohim, savage equivalents to the term, 277 + +Esemkofu, Zulu ghosts, 128, 129 + +Eskimo, religious beliefs of, 72, 113, 184 + +Faith-Cures, 20-22 + +Fenton, Francis Dart, on Maori ghost-seeing, 114 + +Ferrand, Mlle., on hallucinations, 32 + +Fetishism and Spiritualism, 147 + the fetish, 147 + sources super-normal to savages, 148 + independent motion in inanimate objects, 149 + comparison with physical phenomena of spiritualism, 149 + Melanesian belief in sticks moved by spirits, 150 + a sceptical Zulu, 150 + a form of the pendulum experiment, 151 + table-turning, 152 + the divining-rod, 152 + the civilised and savage practice of automatism, 156 + dark room manifestations, 156 + the disturbances in the house of M. Zoller, 156 + consideration of physical phenomena, 158 + instanced, 165, 225, 265, 266, 276, 324-339 + +Figuier, M., cited, 152 + +Fijians, religious beliefs of, 128, 136, 200, 248, 338 + +Finns, the, 58 + +Fire ceremony, the, 180 _note_ + +Fison, Mr., cited, 128 + +Fitzroy, Admiral, cited, 115, 173, 174 + +Flacourt, Sieur de, on crystal-gazing in Madagascar, 84 + +Flint, Professor, cited, 253 + +Francis, St., stigmata of, 22 + +Fuegians, beliefs and customs of, 115, 165, 173-175, 183, 187, 208, + 211, 227, 258, 262, 272 + +Galton, Mr., cited, 12, 96, 107, 294, 295 + +Garcilasso de la Vega, on Inca beliefs, 239-244 + +'Gates of Distance, Opening the,' 65, 66, 68 + +Ghost-seers, 54, 63 + +Ghost-soul, the, 51 + names for the, 60 + +Gibert, Dr., on 'willing' sleep, 36 + +Gibier, Dr., cited, 146 + +Gippsland tribes, 187 + +Glanvil, Rev. Joseph, his scientific investigations, 15 + +God, evolution of the idea of, 160 + anthropological hypothesis, 160 + primitive logic of the savage, 161 + regarded as a spirit, 162 + idea of spiritual beings framed on the human soul, 164 + deified ancestors, 164 + the Zulu first ancestor, 164 + fetishes, 165 + great gods in savage systems of religion, 165 + the Lord of the Dead, 165 + conception of an idealised divine First Ancestor, 188 + hostile Good and Bad Beings, 166 + the Supreme Being of savage creeds, 166 + mediating 'Sons,' 167 + Christian and Islamite influence on savage conceptions, 167 + probable germs of the savage idea of a Supreme Being, 168 + animistic conceptions, 168 + ghosts, and Beings who never were human, 169 + recognition by savages of our God in theirs, 169 + the hypothesis of degeneracy, 170 + the moral, friendly creative Being of low savage faith, 171 + food offerings to a Universal Power, 171 + the High Gods of low races, 173 + intrusion of European ideas into savage religions, 173 + the Fuegian Big Man, 174 + ghosts of dead medicine man, 175 + the Bora, or Australian tribal mysteries, 176, 177, 179 + possible evolution of the Australian god, 178 + mythology and theology of Darumulun, the highest Australian god, 178, + 179, 183 + religious sanction of morals, 179 + selflessness the very essence of goodness, 180 + precepts of Darumulan, 181, 182 + argument from design, 184 + Supreme Gods not necessarily developed out of 'spirits,' 185 + distinction between deities and ghosts, 185 + human beings adored as gods, 186 + deathlessness of the Supreme Being of savage faith, 186, 188 + idealisation of the savage himself, 187 + negation of the ghost-theory, 188, 189 + high creative gods never wore mortal men, 189 + low savage distinction between gods, 189 + propitiation by food and sacrifice, 190 + 'magnified non-natural men,' 190 + gods to talk about, not to adore, 190 + higher gods prior to the ghost theory, 191 + See Supreme Beings; American Creators; Jehovah + +Greeks, the, beliefs of, 302 + +Greenlanders, the, 144, 182 + +Gregory, Dr., cited, 86 + +Griesinger, Dr., cited, 132 + +Grinnell, Mr., on Pawnee beliefs, 234-237 + +Guiana Indians, religious beliefs of, 202-206, 256 + +Guinea, North and South, religious beliefs in, 220 + +Gurney, Mr., his experiments in hypnotism, 85, 86 + cited, 107, 114, 117 + +Guyau, M., cited, 12, 24, 25 + +Hallucinations. See Anthropology and Hallucinations + +Hamilton, Sir William, cited, 12 + +Hammond, Dr., on demoniacal possession, 131 + +Harteville, Madame, case of, 26 + +Hearne, on the Aurora Borealis, 3 + on cure by suggestion, 21, 22 + +Hebrews. See Israelites + +Hegel, cited, 30-34, 50, 56, 58, 78, 111, 152 + +Higgs, Police Constable, statement of, on the disturbances at Mr. + White's house, 326-328 + +Highland second-sight, 143-145 + +Hodgson, Dr., report on Mrs. Piper, 137, 140, 141 + cited, 135, 325 + +Home, David Dunglas, his powers as a medium, 324, 325, 334-339 + +Howitt, Mr., cited, 128, 177-182 + +Hume, David, attitude towards miracles, 16 + definition of a miracle, 16 + self-contradictions, 17 + refuses to examine miracle of the Abbé Paris, 18, 19, 22-25 + alternative definition of a miracle, 25 + cited, 297 + +Huxley, Professor, on savage religious cults, 42, 43, 48, 162, 163, 171, + 176, 177, 182 + on the evolution of Jehovah, 270, 271, 277, 279, 282, 286 + cited, 17 _note_, 296, 324 + +Hypnotism, 6, 24, 29, 32, 34, 35, 37, 75, 76 + +Iamblichus, cited, 14, 336, 337, 339 + +Ibn Khaldoun, cited, 341 + +Im Thurn, on the religious ideas of the Indians of Guiana, 50, 160, + 202-207, 256, 298 + +Incas, the, 85, 240-247, 258 + +Iroquois, the, 84, 85 + +Islam, influence of, on African beliefs, 221 + +Israelites, development of their religious ideas, 258, 260, 268-284, 302 + +James, Professor William, quoted, 23, 59, 73, 107, 110, 132, 137, 156, + 294 + +Janet, Dr. Pierre, on 'willing' sleep, 36 + on demoniacal possession, 134, 135 + cited, 73, 294, 340, 341 + +Jeanne d'Arc, 34, 73, 115, 128, 276 + +Jehovah, theories of, 258, 260, 268 + as a Moral Supreme Being, 268 + anthropological theory of the origin of Jehovah-worship, 270 + absence of ancestor-worship from the Hebrew tradition, 270-273 + alleged evidence for ancestor-worship in Israel, 273-277 + evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of Jehovah, 277 + the term Elohim, 277 + human shape assumed, 278 + considered as a ghost-god, 279 + sacrifices to, 280 + suggestion of a Being not yet named Jehovah, 281 + traditional emergence of Jehovah as the god of Israel, 281 + as a deified ancestor, 282 + moral element in the idea of Jehovah, 282, 286 + a mere tribal god, 283 + a Kenite god, 283, 284 + inconsistencies of theorists concerning, 285 + the moral element a survival of primitive ethics in the savage ancestors + of the Israelites, 287 + verity of the Biblical account, 287 + cited, 299 + +Jeraeil, mysteries of the Kurnai, 180 + +Jevons, Mr., cited, 186, 255, 300, 302 + +Jugglery, Pawnee, 235 + +Jung-Stilling, cited, 30, 63 + +Kaloc, Fijian name for gods, 200, 201 + +Kamschatkans, 166 + +Kant, inquires into Swedenborg's visions, 26, 59 + disappointed with Swedenborg's 'Arcana Coelestia', 26, 27 + on the metaphysics of 'spirits,' 27 + discusses the subconscious, 28 + cited, 125 + +Karens, beliefs of, 60, 73, 151 + +Karr, Alphonse, cited, 336 + +Kelvin, Lord, on hypnotism, 37 + +Kenites, the, 284 + +Kingsley, Miss, cited, 175, 211, 220, 328 + +Kirk, cited, 144 + +Kohl, cited, 148 + +Kulin, Australian tribe, 49 + +Kurnai, Australian tribe, their religious conceptions, 49, 180, 181, 187, + 215, 262, 263, 287, 291 + +Laing, Mr. Samuel, cited, 12 _note_ + +Langlois, M., the case of, 75, 76 + +Lapps, beliefs of, 58, 71, 81 + +Latukas, the, 42 + +Laverterus, telepathic hypothesis of, 15 + +Le Loyer, cited, 15 + +Leaf, Mr., cited, 112 _note_ + +Leeward Isles, ideas of a god in, 251 + +Lefèbure, M., cited, 84, 149, 341 + +Legge, Dr., on the teaching of Confucius, 290 + +Lejean, M., on the Dinkas, 212 + +Lejeaune, Père, cited, 74, 83 + +Leng, Mr., cited, 133 + +Leon, Cieza de, cited, 241, 244 + +Léonie, the case of her hypnotisation, 75, 76 + +Leslie, David, on Zulu clairvoyance, 68 + on ghosts, 128 + +Levitation, 334 + +Littré, M., cited, 136 + +Livingstone, Dr., cited, 6, 135, 170 + +Lloyd, Dr., cited, 327, 328 + +Loan-god, a, Tshi theory of, 222-229 + +Lourdes, cures at, 19 + +Lubbock, Sir John, cited, 42 + +Macalister, Professor, his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 140 + +MacCulloch, Dr., on second-sight, 58 + +Macdonald, Duff, cited, 150, 213, 215, 218 + +Macgregor, Dr. Alastair, gives instances of second-sight, 79-81 + +Madagascar, 84 + +Magnetism, 29, 34, 35 + +Malagasies, beliefs of, 84 + +Malays of Keeling Island, fetishism in, 141 + +Man, Mr., on Andamanese religion and mythology, 194, 195 + +Mans, magical rapport, 199, 200 + +Mandans, the, 188 + +Manganjah, practice of sorcery in, 149 + +Manning, Mr., cited, 146 + +Maoris, religious beliefs of, 83, 113-115, 118, 119, 150, 166, 188 + +Marawa, Banks Islands deity, 198, 199 + +Mariner, cited, 278 + +Markham, Mr., cited, 243, 246 + +Marson, Madame, case of, 71 + +Mason, Dr., on familiar spirits, 130 + +Mather, Cotton, cited, 16, 55 + +Maudsloy, Dr., cited, 23 _note_ + +Mani, Maori deity, 166, 188 + +Mayo, Dr., cited, 86 + +Medici, Catherine de', cited, 66 + +Medicine-men, 84 + +Mediums, 324-339 + +Melanesians, religious beliefs of, 150, 169, 189, 197, 199, 200 + +Menestrier, le Père, uses the divining-rod, 154 + +Menzies, Professor, cited, 257 + +Mesmer, his theory of magnetism, 29, 34 + +Millar, cited, 40, 41 + +Miracles, regarded from the standpoint of science, 14 + early tests, 14 + and more modern research, 15 + witchcraft, 15, 16 + Hume's essay on, 16 + and his definitions of a miracle, 16, 25 + cures at the tomb of the Abbè Paris, 18-20, 23 + Binet and Fèrè's explanation of these cures, 20 + cures by suggestion, 20, 21 + Dr. Charcot's views, 20 + faith cures, 20-22 + science opposed to systematic negation, 22 + refusal to examine evidence, 23-25 + 'marvellous facts,' 24 + suggestion à distance, 24 + Kant's researches, 26-29 + Swedenborg's clairvoyance, 26, 27 + thought-transference and hypnotic sleep, 29, 30, 32, 35 + water-finding, 39 + phenomena of clairvoyance, 31 + Hegel's 'magic tie,' 31 + Dr. Max Dessoir's views, 31, 32 + hallucinations, 32 + animal magnetism, 34 + hypnotism, 35 + 'willing,' 36 + facts and phenomena confronting science, 37 + +'Miss X,' on crystal-gazing, 87, 315, 316, 340, 341 + +Mlungu, Central African deity, 213-218 + +Molina, Christoval de, on Inca beliefs, 242, 243 + +Moll, Herr, cited, 314 + +Montgeron, M., cited, 19, 20 + +More, Henry, cited, 15 + +Moses, founder of the Hebrew religion, 283-286 + +Mtanga, African deity, 213-217 + +Müller, Max, cited, 41, 43, 46, 265, 266, 289 + +Mungan-ngaur, Kurnai Supreme Being, 181, 188, 190, 205, 217, 259 + +Mwetyi, Shekuni Great Spirit, 220 + +Myers, Frederic, on hypnotic slumber, 30, 33 + cited, 15 _note_ + +Nana Nyankupon, Gold Coast Supreme Being, 225-228, 232, 280 + +Nà-pi, American Indian deity, 237-239, 241 + +Ndengei, Fijian Supreme Being, 200-202, 228, 248 + +Nevius, Dr., on demoniacal possession, 131-135 + +Newbold, Professor W. Romaine, 135 + +Nezahuati, erects a bloodless fane to the Unknown God, 258 + +Nicaraguans, the, 60 + +North, Major, on Pawnee jugglery, 235, 236 + +Nzambi Mpungu, Bantu Supreme Being, 226, 228, 242 + +Okeus (Oki), American Indian deity, 231, 232 + +Okey, the sisters, case of, 37 _note_ + +Ombwiri, South Guinea god, 220 + +Orpen, Mr., cited, 193 + +Oxford, Rev. A.W., on ancient Israel, 275-277, 283-285 + +Pachacamac, Inca, Supreme Being, 230, 239-247, 258 + +Pachayachachi, Inca god, 242, 246 + +Paladino, Eusapia, case of, 325 + +Palmer, Mr., cited, 179 + +Paris, Abbè miracles wrought at his tomb, 18-20, 23 + +Parish, Herr, criticism of his reply to the arguments for telepathy, + 307-323 + cited, 8, 86, 107 + +Park, Mungo, on African beliefs, 221, 223 + +Pawnees, religious beliefs and practices of, 212, 224, 230, 233-236, 263 + +Payne, Mr., cited, 160, 161, 246 + +Peden, Rev. Mr., cited, 66 + +Pelippa, Captain, cited, 173 + +Pendulum experiment, a form of the, 151 + +Pepys, cited, 15 + +Peruvians, religious ideas and practices of, 75, 239-247 + +Phantasms of the Dead, 128 + +Phinuit, Dr. See Mrs. Piper + +Piper, Mrs., the case of, 132, 136-141 + +Pliny, cited, 15 + +Plotinus, cited, 66 + +Plutarch, cited, 15 + +Podmore, Mr., on psychical research, 111, 325, 326, 328, 330-336, 338, 339 + +Poltergeist, the, and his explainers, 334-339 + +Polynesians, religious beliefs of, 7, 83, 251, 252, 256 + +Polytheism, 289, 291, 303 + +Porphyry, cited, 14 + +Powhattan, Virginian chief, 231, 232 + +Puluga, Andamanese Supreme Being, 195, 205, 228, 258, 262 + +Pundjel, Australian god, 258, 261, 262 + +Puységur, de, his discovery of hypnotic sleep, 29, + cited, 76 + +Qat, Banks Islands deity, 189, 198, 199 + +Qing, Bushman, his ideas of the god Cang, 193, 196 + +Ravenwood, Master of, instanced, 126 + +Red Indians, beliefs and practices of, 3, 5, 6, 21, 22, 83, 104 _note_, + 128, 142, 143, 203 + +Regnard, M., cited, 71 + +Renan, M., cited, 285 + +Révillo, M., cited, 291, 293 + +Reynolds, Dr. Russell, cited, 22 + +Rhombos, use of the, 84 + +Ribot, M., cited, 132 + +Richet, Professor Charles, hypnotises Léonie, 75, 76 + cited, 64, 73, 82, 154, 294 + +Ritter, Dr., believes in Siderism, 29 + +Romans, religious ideas of, 302 + +'Rose, Miss,' her experience of crystal-gazing, 90,91 + +Rose, Eliza, the case of, 326-330 + +Roskoff, cited, 42 + +Rowley, Mr., cited, 149 + +Russegger, cited, 212 + +Salcamayhua, cited, 246 + +Samoyeds, 58, 72 + +Sand, George, cited, 86 + +Santos, cited, 214 + +Saul and the Witch of Endor, 14 + +Scheffer, cited, 66, 70, 71, 81 + +Schoolcraft, Mr., cited, 236 + +Schrenck-Notzing, von, cited, 55 _note_ + +Scot, Reginald, cited, 15 + +Scott, Rev. David Clement, cited, 49 _note_, 106, 217, 218 + +Scott, Sir Walter, his attitude towards clairvoyance, 27 + cited, 121, 126 + +Sebituane, case of, 135, 136 + +Second-sight, 56, 66, 78-81 + +Seer-binding, 143 + +Seers, 72 + +Shang-ti, Chinese Supreme Being, 245, 290, 291 + +Shortland, Mr., quoted, 113 + +Sidgwick, Professor, cited, 318, 332 + +Sioux, the, 236 + +Skidi or Wolf Pawnees, the, 233, 234 + +Smith, Mrs. Erminie, on crystal-gazing, 84 + +Smith, historian of Virginia, cited, 231, 232 + +Smith, Robertson, cited, 259, 261, 262, 281 _note_, 298 + +Smyth, Brough, cited, 42, 178, 182, 293 + +Society for Psychical Research, 116, 118 + +Spencer, Herbert, on early religious ideas, 42, 43 + ghosts, 47 + Animism, 48 _note_, 53, 54 + limits of savage language, 49 + the Fuegian Big Man, 174 + Australian marriage customs, 175 + Australian religion, 182 + men-gods, 186 + religion of Bushmen, 193 + ancestor-worship, 212, 213, 271-273 + cited, 162, 167, 170, 216, 218, 292 + +Spiritualism, 324-339. + See Fetishism + +Stade, Herr, cited, 276, 284, 285 + +Stanley, Hans, cited, 12 + +Starr, cited, 104 _note_ + +Stoll, cited, 72 + +Strachey, William, cited, 229-232 + +Suetonius, cited, 15 + +Sully, Mr., cited. 295 + +Sun-worship, 238-245 + +Supreme Beings of savages, regarded as eternal, moral, and powerful, 193 + Cagn, the Bushman god, 193 + Puluga, the Andamanese god, 195 + savage mysteries and rites, 196 + alliance of ethics with religion, 196 + the Banks Islanders' belief in Tamate (ghosts) and Vui (Beings who never + had been human), 197 + corporeal and incorporeal Vuis, 198 + sacrificial offerings to ghosts and spirits, 199 + the soul the complex of real bodiless after-images, 200 + Fijian belief, 200 + Ndengei, the Fijian chief god, 200, 201 + the idea of primeval Eternal Beings, 202 + the Great Spirit of North American tribes, 203 + dream origin of the ghost theory, 203 + Guiana Indian names indicating a belief in a Great Spirit, 203-206 + the God-cult abandoned for the Ghost-cult, 205 + Unkulunkulu, the Zulu Creator, 207-210 + the notion of a dead Maker, 208 + preference for serviceable family spirits, 209 + the Dinka Creator, 211 + African ancestor-worship, 212 + Mlungu, a deity formed by aggregation of departed spirits, 213 + ethical element in religious mysteries, 215 + the position of Mtanga, 216 + religious beliefs in the Blantyre region, 217, 218 + negro tendency to monotheism, 218 + beliefs in North and South Guinea, 220 + Mungo Park's observation of African beliefs, 221 + Islamic influence, 221 + the Tshi theory of a loan-god,' borrowed from Europeans, 222-228 + varieties of Tshi gods, 224, 225 + fetishes, 225 + Nana Nyankupon, the 'God of the Christians,' 225-229 + American Creators (see under), 230-252 + the Polynesian cult, 251, 252 + Chinese conceptions, 290-292 + +Swedenborg, Emanuel, visions of, 26 + recovers Mme. Harteville's receipt, 26 + his 'Arcana Coelestia,' 27 + noticed by Kant, 28, 29, 59 + +Taa-Roa, Polynesian deity, 251, 252, 256, 280, 308 + +Table-turning, 151 + +Tahitians, 251 + +Taine, M., cited, 57 + +Ta-li-y-Tooboo, Tongan deity, 278, 279, 282 + +Tamate, Banks Islands ghosts, 197-199 + +Tamoi, the 'ancient of heaven,' 188 + +Tando, Gold Coast god, 225 + +Tanner, John, case of, 57, 128 + +Teed, Esther, the Amherst mystery, 333 + +Telepathy, oppositions of science to, 307 + hallucination of memory, 307 + presentiments, 308 + dreams, 308, 309, 312 + veridical hallucinations, 309, 311 + coincidence in S.P.R.'s Census cases, 310 + non-coincidental cases, 311 + condition to beget hallucination, 312 + hallucinations mere dreams, 312 + crystal-gazing, 314-316 + number of coincidences no proof, 316 + association of ideas, 316 + coincidental collective hallucinations, 317-323 + See Crystal visions + +Thomson, Basil, cited, 200 _note_, 248, 249, 339 + +Thought-transference, 4, 29-32, 35 + illustrative cases, 88-103 + +Thouvenel, M., cited, 152 + +Thyraeus on ghosts, 15 + +Tien, Chinese heaven, 290, 291 + +Ti-ra-wá, American Indian god, 234-236, 239 + +Tlapané, African wizard, 135 + +Tongans, religious beliefs of, 278-280 + +Tonkaways, American tribe, 233 + +Torfaeus, cited, 71 + +Totemism, 239, 241, 262, 263, 269, 270, 276 + +Tregear, Mr., on Maori ghost-seeing, 113 + +Tshi theory of a loan-god, 223-227 + +Tuckey, Dr. Lloyd, cited, 36 + +Tui Laga, Fijian deity, 249 + +Tundun, ancestor of the Kurnai, 181 + +Tylor, Mr., his test of recurrence, 41 + on anthropological origin of religion, 43 + on savage philosophy of super-normal phenomena, 45, 53 + disproves the assertion about 'godless' tribes, 47 + his term Animism, 48, 49 + theory of metaphysical genius in low savages, 51 + ghost-seers, 54 + on psychical conditions of contemporary savages, 54-56 + on the influence of Swedenborg, 59 + savage names for the ghost-soul, 60 + second-sight, 66 + mediums, 73 + dreams, 106 + hallucinations, 110-113, 117, 118 + demoniacal possession, 131 + fetishism, 148, 149, 165 + divining-rod, 153 + evolution of gods from ghosts, 163, 164 + fetish deities, 165 + dualistic idea, 166 + Supreme Being of savage creeds, 166, 167 + the degeneration theory, 170, 254 + confusion of thought upon religion, 182 + list of first ancestors deified, 188 + savage mysteries, 201 + savage Animism, 204 + Okeus and his rites, 231 + Pachacamac, 245 + Confucius's teaching, 290 + the mystagogue Home, 325 + levitation, 334 + cited, 50, 52, 53, 58, 59, 61-63, 78, 151, 161, 162, 170, 173, 184, 185, + 203, 231, 232, 246, 257, 293, 297 + +Tyndall, Professor, cited, 324 + +Uiracocha, Inca Creator, 242-246 + +Umabakulists, diviners by sticks, 151 + +Unkulunkulu, Zulu mythical first ancestor, 164, 168, 188, 202, 207, 220 + +Vincent, Mr., 29 + on clairvoyance, 34, 36, 37 + +Virchow, cited, 19 + +Vui, non-ghost gods, 169, 197-200 + +Wabose, Catherine, Red Indian seeress, experience of, 73, 74 + +Waltz, cited, 177, 194 _note_, 218-220, 222, 243 + +Wallace, Alfred Basset, on Hume's theory of 'miracles,' 17, 18 + on Ritter, 29 + on clairvoyance, 31 + +Wayao, Supreme Being of the, 213, 214 + +Wellhausen, cited, 277, 283, 285, 286, 298 + +Welton, Thomas, on the divining-rod, 154 + +Wesley, John, cited, 16 + +White, Joseph, spirit manifestations at his house, 326-331 + +Wierus, cited, 15 + +Williams, Mr., cited, 201, 248 + +Wilson, Mr., cited, 50, 219, 220 + +Windward Isles, ideas of a God in, 251 + +Witch of Endor, the, 14, 277, 278 + +Witchcraft, 14-16 + +Wodrow, Mr., cited, 16 + +Wolf tribes, 233 + +Wynne, Captain, cited, 335 + +Yama, Vedic-Aryan ghost-god, 188 + +Yaos, religious beliefs of, 150, 213, 214-216 + +Yerri Yuppon, good spirit of the Chonos, 175 + +York, a Fuegian, cited, 174 + +Yuncus, a Peruvian race, worship of, 240, 246 + +Zarate, Augustin de, cited, 240 + +Zoller, M., disturbances in the house of, 156, 157 + +Zulus, religious beliefs and customs of, 65, 66, 68, 70, 72, 85, 128, + 141, 142, 150, 152, 207-210 + +Zuñis, hymns of the, 248, 251 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Making of Religion, by Andrew Lang + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12353 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94c7ceb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12353 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12353) diff --git a/old/12353-8.txt b/old/12353-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02eccf5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12353-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14007 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Making of Religion, by Andrew Lang + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Making of Religion + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: May 14, 2004 [EBook #12353] +[Date last updated: March 30, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAKING OF RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Connal, William A. Pifer-Foote and PG Distributed +Proofreaders. This file was produced from images generously made +available by gallica (Bibliothque nationale de France) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr. + + + + + +THE MAKING OF RELIGION + +BY +ANDREW LANG + +M.A., LL.D. ST ANDREWS + +HONORARY FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE OXFORD +SOMETIME GIFFORD LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS + +SECOND EDITION +1900 + + + + +_TO THE PRINCIPAL +OF THE +UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS + + +DEAR PRINCIPAL DONALDSON, + +I hope you will permit me to lay at the feet of the University of St. +Andrews, in acknowledgment of her life-long kindnesses to her old pupil, +these chapters on the early History of Religion. They may be taken as +representing the Gifford Lectures delivered by me, though in fact they +contain very little that was spoken from Lord Gifford's chair. I wish they +were more worthy of an Alma Mater which fostered in the past the leaders +of forlorn hopes that were destined to triumph; and the friends of lost +causes who fought bravely against Fate--Patrick Hamilton, Cargill, and +Argyll, Beaton and Montrose, and Dundee. + +Believe me + +Very sincerely yours, + +ANDREW LANG_. + + * * * * * + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION + +By the nature of things this book falls under two divisions. The first +eight chapters criticise the current anthropological theory of the origins +of the belief in _spirits._ Chapters ix.-xvii., again, criticise the +current anthropological theory as to how, the notion of _spirit_ once +attained, man arrived at the idea of a Supreme Being. These two branches +of the topic are treated in most modern works concerned with the Origins +of Religion, such as Mr. Tyler's "Primitive Culture," Mr. Herbert +Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," Mr. Jevons's "Introduction to the +History of Religion," the late Mr. Grant Allen's "Evolution of the Idea of +God," and many others. Yet I have been censured for combining, in this +work, the two branches of my subject; and the second part has been +regarded as but faintly connected with the first. + +The reason for this criticism seems to be, that while one small set of +students is interested in, and familiar with the themes examined in the +first part (namely the psychological characteristics of certain mental +states from which, in part, the doctrine of spirits is said to have +arisen), that set of students neither knows nor cares anything about the +matter handled in the second part. This group of students is busied with +"Psychical Research," and the obscure human faculties implied in alleged +cases of hallucination, telepathy, "double personality," human automatism, +clairvoyance, and so on. Meanwhile anthropological readers are equally +indifferent as to that branch of psychology which examines the conditions +of hysteria, hypnotic trance, "double personality," and the like. +Anthropologists have not hitherto applied to the savage mental conditions, +out of which, in part, the doctrine of "spirits" arose, the recent +researches of French, German, and English psychologists of the new school. +As to whether these researches into abnormal psychological conditions do, +or do not, indicate the existence of a transcendental region of human +faculty, anthropologists appear to be unconcerned. The only English +exception known to me is Mr. Tylor, and his great work, "Primitive +Culture," was written thirty years ago, before the modern psychological +studies of Professor William James, Dr. Romaine Newbold, M. Richet, Dr. +Janet, Professor Sidgwick, Mr. Myers, Mr. Gurney, Dr. Parish, and many +others had commenced. + +Anthropologists have gone on discussing the trances, and visions, and +so-called "demoniacal possession" of savages, as if no new researches into +similar facts in the psychology of civilised mankind existed; or, if they +existed, threw any glimmer of light on the abnormal psychology of savages. +I have, on the other hand, thought it desirable to sketch out a study of +savage psychology in the light of recent psychological research. Thanks to +this daring novelty, the book has been virtually taken as two books; +anthropologists have criticised the second part, and one or two Psychical +Researchers have criticised the first part; each school leaving one part +severely alone. Such are the natural results of a too restricted +specialism. + +Even to Psychical Researchers the earlier division is of scant interest, +because witnesses to _successful_ abnormal or supernormal faculty in +savages cannot be brought into court and cross-examined. But I do not give +anecdotes of such savage successes as evidence to _facts;_ they are only +illustrations, and evidence to _beliefs and methods_ (as of crystal gazing +and automatic utterances of "secondary personality"), which, among the +savages, correspond to the supposed facts examined by Psychical Research +among the civilised. I only point out, as Bastian had already pointed out, +the existence of a field that deserves closer study by anthropologists +who can observe savages in their homes. We need persons trained in +the psychological laboratories of Europe and America, as members of +anthropological expeditions. It may be noted that, in his "Letters from +the South Seas," Mr. Louis Stevenson makes some curious observations, +especially on a singular form of hypnotism applied to himself with +fortunate results. The method, used in native medicine, was novel; and +the results were entirely inexplicable to Mr. Stevenson, who had not been +amenable to European hypnotic practice. But he was not a trained expert. + +Anthropology must remain incomplete while it neglects this field, whether +among wild or civilised men. In the course of time this will come to be +acknowledged. It will be seen that we cannot really account for the origin +of the belief in spirits while we neglect the scientific study of those +psychical conditions, as of hallucination and the hypnotic trance, in +which that belief must probably have had some, at least, of its origins. + +As to the second part of the book, I have argued that the first dim +surmises as to a Supreme Being need not have arisen (as on the current +anthropological theory) in the notion of spirits at all. (See chapter xi.) +Here I have been said to draw a mere "verbal distinction" but no +distinction can be more essential. If such a Supreme Being as many savages +acknowledge is _not_ envisaged by them as a "spirit," then the theories +and processes by which he is derived from a ghost of a dead man are +invalid, and remote from the point. As to the origin of a belief in a +kind of germinal Supreme Being (say the Australian Baiame), I do not, in +this book, offer any opinion. I again and again decline to offer an +opinion. Critics, none the less, have said that I attribute the belief to +revelation! I shall therefore here indicate what I think probable in so +obscure a field. + +As soon as man had the idea of "making" things, he might conjecture as to +a Maker of things which he himself had not made, and could not make. He +would regard this unknown Maker as a "magnified non-natural man." These +speculations appear to me to need less reflection than the long and +complicated processes of thought by which Mr. Tylor believes, and probably +believes with justice, the theory of "spirits" to have been evolved. (See +chapter iii.) This conception of a magnified non-natural man, who is a +Maker, being given; his Power would be recognised, and fancy would clothe +one who had made such useful things with certain other moral attributes, +as of Fatherhood, goodness, and regard for the ethics of his children; +these ethics having been developed naturally in the evolution of social +life. In all this there is nothing "mystical," nor anything, as far as I +can see, beyond the limited mental powers of any beings that deserve to be +called human. + +But I hasten to add that another theory may be entertained. Since this +book was written there appeared "The Native Tribes of Central Australia," +by Professor Spencer and Mr. Gillen, a most valuable study.[1] The +authors, closely scrutinising the esoteric rites of the Arunta and other +tribes in Central Australia, found none of the moral precepts and +attributes which (according to Mr. Howitt, to whom their work is +dedicated), prevail in the mysteries of the natives of New South Wales and +Victoria. (See chapter x.) What they found was a belief in 'the great +spirit, _Twanyirika_,' who is believed 'by uninitiated boys and women' +(but, apparently, not by adults) to preside over the cruel rites of tribal +initiation.[2] No more is said, no myths about 'the great spirit' are +given. He is dismissed in a brief note. Now if these ten lines contain +_all_ the native lore of Twanyirika, he is a mere bugbear, not believed in +(apparently) by adults, but invented by them to terrorise the women and +boys. Next, granting that the information of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen is +exhaustive, and granting that (as Mr. J.G. Frazer holds, in his essays in +the 'Fortnightly Review,' April and May, 1899) the Arunta are the most +primitive of mortals, it will seem to follow that the _moral_ attributes +of Baiame and other gods of other Australian regions are later accretions +round the form of an original and confessed bugbear, as among the +primitive Arunta, 'a bogle of the nursery,' in the phrase repudiated by +Maitland of Lethington. Though not otherwise conspicuously more civilised +than the Arunta (except, perhaps, in marriage relations), Mr. Howitt's +South Eastern natives will have improved the Arunta confessed 'bogle' +into a beneficent and moral Father and Maker. Religion will have its +origin in a tribal joke, and will have become not '_diablement_,' but +'_divinement_,' '_change en route_.' Readers of Messrs. Spencer and +Gillen will see that the Arunta philosophy, primitive or not, is of a high +ingenuity, and so artfully composed that it contains no room either for a +Supreme Being or for the doctrine of the survival of the soul, with a +future of rewards and punishments; opinions declared to be extant among +other Australian tribes. There is no creator, and every soul, after death, +is reincarnated in a new member of the tribe. On the other hand (granting +that the brief note on Twanyirika is exhaustive), the Arunta, in their +isolation, may have degenerated in religion, and may have dropped, in the +case of Twanyirika, the moral attributes of Baiame. It may be noticed +that, in South Eastern Australia, the Being who presides, like Twanyirika, +over initiations is _not_ the supreme being, but a son or deputy of his, +such as the Kurnai Tundun. We do not know whether the Arunta have, or have +had and lost, or never possessed, a being superior to Twanyirika. + +With regard, to all such moral, and, in certain versions, creative Beings +as Baiame, criticism has taken various lines. There is the high a priori +line that savage minds are incapable of originating the notion of a moral +Maker. I have already said that the notion, in an early form, seems to be +well within the range of any minds deserving to be called human. Next, the +facts are disputed. I can only refer readers to the authorities cited. +They speak for tribes in many quarters of the world, and the witnesses +are laymen as well as missionaries. I am accused, again, of using a +misleading rhetoric, and of thereby covertly introducing Christian or +philosophical ideas into my account of "savages guiltless of Christian +teaching." As to the latter point, I am also accused of mistaking for +native opinions the results of "Christian teaching." One or other charge +must fall to the ground. As to my rhetoric, in the use of such words as +'Creator,' 'Eternal,' and the like, I shall later qualify and explain it. +For a long discussion between myself and Mr. Sidney Hartland, involving +minute detail, I may refer the reader to _Folk-Lore_, the last number of +1898 and the first of 1899, and to the Introduction to the new edition of +my 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion' (1899). + +Where relatively high moral attributes are assigned to a Being, I have +called the result 'Religion;' where the same Being acts like Zeus in +Greek fable, plays silly or obscene tricks, is lustful and false, I have +spoken of 'Myth.'[3] These distinctions of Myth and Religion may be, and +indeed are, called arbitrary. The whole complex set of statements about +the Being, good or bad, sublime or silly, are equally Myths, it may be +urged. Very well; but one set, the loftier set, is fitter to survive, and +does survive, in what we still commonly call Religion; while the other +set, the puerile set of statements, is fairly near to extinction, and is +usually called Mythology. One set has been the root of a goodly tree: the +other set is being lopped off, like the parasitic mistletoe. + +I am arguing that the two classes of ideas arise from two separate human +moods; moods as different and distinct as lust and love. I am arguing +that, as far as our information goes, the nobler set of ideas is as +ancient as the lower. Personally (though we cannot have direct evidence) +I find it easy to believe that the loftier notions are the earlier. If man +began with the conception of a powerful and beneficent Maker or Father, +then I can see how the humorous savage fancy ran away with the idea of +Power, and attributed to a potent being just such tricks as a waggish and +libidinous savage would like to play if he could. Moreover, I have +actually traced (in 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion') some plausible processes +of mythical accretion. The early mind was not only religious, in its way, +but scientific, in its way. It embraced the idea of Evolution as well as +the idea of Creation. To one mood a Maker seemed to exist. But the +institution of Totemism (whatever its origin) suggested the idea of +Evolution; for men, it was held, developed out of their Totems-animals and +plants. But then, on the other hand, Zeus, or Baiame, or Mungun-ngaur, was +regarded as their Father. How were these contradictions to be reconciled? +Easily, thus: Zeus _was_ the Father, but, in each case, was the Father by +an amour in which he wore the form of the Totem-snake, swan, bull, ant, +dog, or the like. At once a degraded set of secondary erotic myths cluster +around Zeus. + +Again, it is notoriously the nature of man to attribute every institution +to a primal inventor or legislator. Men then, find themselves performing +certain rites, often of a buffooning or scandalous character; and, in +origin, mainly magical, intended for the increase of game, edible plants, +or, later, for the benefit of the crops. _Why_ do they perform these +rites? they ask: and, looking about, as usual, for a primal initiator, +they attribute what they do to a primal being, the Corn Spirit, Demeter, +or to Zeus, or to Baiame, or Manabozho, or Punjel. This is man's usual way +of going back to origins. Instantly, then, a new set of parasitic myths +crystallises round a Being who, perhaps, was originally moral. The savage +mind, in short, has not maintained itself on the high level, any more than +the facetious mediaeval myths maintained themselves, say, on the original +level of the conception of the character of St. Peter, the keeper of the +keys of Heaven. + +All this appears perfectly natural and human, and in this, and in other +ways, what we call low Myth may have invaded the higher realms of +Religion: a lower invaded a higher element. But reverse the hypothesis. +Conceive that Zeus, or Baiame, was _originally_, not a Father and +guardian, but a lewd and tricky ghost of a medicine-man, a dancer of +indecent dances, a wooer of other men's wives, a shape-shifter, a +burlesque droll, a more jocular bugbear, like Twanyirika. By what means +did he come to be accredited later with his loftiest attributes, and with +regard for the tribal ethics, which, in practice, he daily broke and +despised? Students who argue for the possible priority of the lowest, or, +as I call them, mythical attributes of the Being, must advance an +hypothesis of the concretion of the nobler elements around the original +wanton and mischievous ghost. + +Then let us suppose that the Arunta Twanyirika, a confessed bugbear, +discredited by adults, and only invented to keep women and children in +order, was the original germ of the moral and fatherly Baiame, of South +Eastern Australian tribes. How, in that case, did the adults of the tribe +fall into their own trap, come to believe seriously in their invented +bugbear, and credit him with the superintendence of such tribal ethics as +generosity and unselfishness? What were the processes of the conversion of +Twanyirika? I do not deny that this theory may be correct, but I wish to +see an hypothesis of the process of elevation. + +I fail to frame such an hypothesis. Grant that the adults merely chuckle +over Twanyirika, whose 'voice' they themselves produce; by whirling the +wooden tundun, or bull-roarer. Grant that, on initiation, the boys learn +that 'the great spirit' is a mere bogle, invented to mystify the women, +and keep them away from the initiatory rites. How, then, did men come to +believe in _him_ as a terrible, all-seeing, all-knowing, creative, and +potent moral being? For this, undeniably, is the belief of many Australian +tribes, where his 'voice' (or rather that of his subordinate) is produced +by whirling the tundun. That these higher beliefs are of European origin, +Mr. Howitt denies. How were they evolved out of the notion of a confessed +artificial bogle? I am unable to frame a theory. + +From my point of view, namely, that the higher and simple ideas may well +be the earlier, I have, at least, offered a theory of the processes by +which the lower attributes crystallised around a conception supposed +(_argumenti gratia_) to be originally high. Other processes of degradation +would come in, as (on my theory) the creed and practice of Animism, or +worship of human ghosts, often of low character, swamped and invaded the +prior belief in a fairly moral and beneficent, but not originally +spiritual, Being. My theory, at least, _is_ a theory, and, rightly or +wrongly, accounts for the phenomenon, the combination of the highest +divine and the lowest animal qualities in the same Being. But I have yet +to learn how, if the lowest myths are the earliest, the highest attributes +came in time to be conferred on the hero of the lowest myths. Why, or how, +did a silly buffoon, or a confessed 'bogle' arrive at being regarded as a +patron of such morality as had been evolved? An hypothesis of the +processes involved must be indicated. It is not enough to reply, in +general, that the rudimentary human mind is illogical and confused. That +is granted; but there must have been a method in its madness. What that +method was (from my point of view) I have shown, and it must be as easy +for opponents to set forth what, from their point of view, the method was. + +We are here concerned with what, since the time of the earliest Greek +philosophers, has been the _crux_ of mythology: why are infamous myths +told about 'the Father of gods and men'? We can easily explain the nature +of the myths. They are the natural flowers of savage fancy and humour. +But wherefore do they crystallise round Zeus? I have, at least, shown some +probable processes in the evolution. + +Where criticism has not disputed the facts of the moral attributes, now +attached to, say, an Australian Being, it has accounted for them by a +supposed process of borrowing from missionaries and other Europeans. In +this book I deal with that hypothesis as urged by Sir A.B. Ellis, in West +Africa (chapter xiii.). I need not have taken the trouble, as this +distinguished writer had already, in a work which I overlooked, formally +withdrawn, as regards Africa, his theory of 'loan-gods.' Miss Kingsley, +too, is no believer in the borrowing hypothesis for West Africa, in +regard, that is, to the highest divine conception. I was, when I wrote, +unaware that, especially as concerns America and Australia, Mr. Tylor had +recently advocated the theory of borrowing ('Journal of Anthrop. +Institute,' vol. xxi.). To Mr. Tylor's arguments, when I read them, I +replied in the 'Nineteenth Century,' January 1899: 'Are Savage Gods +Borrowed from Missionaries?' I do not here repeat my arguments, but await +the publication of Mr. Tylor's 'Gifford Lectures,' in which his hypothesis +may be reinforced, and may win my adhesion. + +It may here be said, however, that if the Australian higher religious +ideas are of recent and missionary origin, they would necessarily be known +to the native women, from whom, in fact, they are absolutely concealed by +the men, under penalty of death. Again, if the Son, or Sons, of Australian +chief Beings resemble part of the Christian dogma, they much more closely +resemble the Apollo and Hermes of Greece.[4] But nobody will say that the +Australians borrowed them from Greek mythology! + +In chapter xiv., owing to a bibliographical error of my own, I have done +injustice to Mr. Tylor, by supposing him to have overlooked Strachey's +account of the Virginian god Ahone. He did not overlook Ahone, but +mistrusted Strachey. In an excursus on Ahone, in the new edition of 'Myth, +Ritual, and Religion,' I have tried my best to elucidate the bibliography +and other aspects of Strachey's account, which I cannot regard as +baseless. Mr. Tylor's opinion is, doubtless, different, and may prove more +persuasive. As to Australia, Mr. Howitt, our best authority, continues to +disbelieve in the theory of borrowing. + +I have to withdraw in chapters x. xi. the statement that 'Darumulun never +died at all.' Mr. Hartland has corrected me, and pointed out that, among +the Wiraijuri, a myth represents him as having been destroyed, for his +offences, by Baiame. In that tribe, however, Darumulun is not the highest, +but a subordinate Being. Mr. Hartland has also collected a few myths in +which Australian Supreme Beings _do_ (contrary to my statement) 'set the +example of sinning.' Nothing can surprise me less, and I only wonder that, +in so savage a race, the examples, hitherto collected, are so rare, and so +easily to be accounted for on the theory of processes of crystallisation +of myths already suggested. + +As to a remark in Appendix B, Mr. Podmore takes a distinction. I quote his +remark, 'the phenomena described are quite inexplicable by ordinary +mechanical means,' and I contrast this, as illogical, with his opinion +that a girl 'may have been directly responsible for all that took place.' +Mr. Podmore replies that what was 'described' is not necessarily identical +with what _occurred_. Strictly speaking, he is right; but the evidence was +copious, was given by many witnesses, and (as offered by me) was in part +_contemporary_ (being derived from the local newspapers), so that here Mr. +Podmore's theory of illusions of memory on a large scale, developed in the +five weeks which elapsed before he examined the spectators, is out of +court. The evidence was of contemporary published record. + +The handling of fire by Home is accounted for by Mr. Podmore, in the same +chapter, as the result of Home's use of a 'non-conducting substance.' +Asked, 'what substance?' he answered, 'asbestos.' Sir William Crookes, +again repeating his account of the performance which he witnessed, says, +'Home took up a lump of red-hot charcoal about twice the size of an egg +into his hand, on which certainly no asbestos was visible. He blew into +his hands, and the flames could be seen coming out between his fingers, +and he carried the charcoal round the room.'[5] Sir W. Crookes stood close +beside Home. The light was that of the fire and of two candles. Probably +Sir William could see a piece of asbestos, if it was covering Home's +hands, which he was watching. + +What I had to say, by way of withdrawal, qualification, explanation, or +otherwise, I inserted (in order to seize the earliest opportunity) in the +Introduction to the recent edition of my 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion' +(1899). The reader will perhaps make his own kind deductions from my +rhetoric when I talk, for example, about a Creator in the creed of low +savages. They have no business, anthropologists declare, to entertain so +large an idea. But in 'The Journal of the Anthropological Institute,' +N.S. II., Nos. 1, 2, p. 85, Dr. Bennett gives an account of the religion +of the cannibal Fangs of the Congo, first described by Du Chaillu. 'These +anthropophagi have some idea of a God, a superior being, their _Tata_ +("Father"), _a bo mam merere_ ("he made all things"), Anyambi is their +_Tata_ (Father), and ranks above all other Fang gods, because _a'ne yap_ +(literally, "he lives in heaven").' This is inconsiderate in the Fangs. A +set of native cannibals have no business with a creative Father who is in +heaven. I say 'creative' because 'he made all things,' and (as the bowler +said about a 'Yorker') 'what else can you call him?' In all such cases, +where 'creator' and 'creative' are used by me, readers will allow for the +imperfections of the English language. As anthropologists say, the savages +simply cannot have the corresponding ideas; and I must throw the blame on +people who, knowing the savages and their language, assure us that they +_have_. This Fang Father or _Tata_ 'is considered indifferent to the wants +and sufferings of men, women, and children.' Offerings and prayers are +therefore made, not to him, but to the ghosts of parents, who are more +accessible. This additional information precisely illustrates my general +theory, that the chief Being was not evolved out of ghosts, but came to be +neglected as ghost-worship arose. I am not aware that Dr. Bennett is a +missionary. Anthropologists distrust missionaries, and most of my evidence +is from laymen. If the anthropological study of religion is to advance, +the high and usually indolent chief Beings of savage religions must be +carefully examined, not consigned to a casual page or paragraph. I have +found them most potent, and most moral, where ghost-worship has not +been evolved; least potent, or at all events most indifferent, where +ghost-worship is most in vogue. The inferences (granting the facts) are +fatal to the current anthropological theory. + +The phrases 'Creator,' 'creative,' as applied to Anyambi, or Baiame, +have been described, by critics, as rhetorical, covertly introducing +conceptions of which savages are incapable. I have already shown that I +only follow my authorities, and their translations of phrases in various +savage tongues. But the phrase 'eternal,' applied to Anyambi or Baiame, +may be misleading. I do not wish to assert that, if you talked to a savage +about 'eternity,' he would understand what you intend. I merely mean what +Mariner says that the Tongans mean as to the god T-li-y Tooboo. 'Of his +origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal.' The savage +theologians assert no beginning for such beings (as a rule), and no end, +except where Unkulunkulu is by some Zulus thought to be dead, and +where the Wiraijuris declare that their Darumulun (_not_ supreme) was +'destroyed' by Baiame. I do not wish to credit savages with thoughts more +abstract than they possess. But that their thought can be abstract is +proved, even in the case of the absolutely 'primitive Arunta,' by +their myth of the _Ungambikula_, 'a word which means "out of nothing," +or "self-existing,"' say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.[6] Once more, +I find that I have spoken of some savage Beings as 'omnipresent' +and 'omnipotent.' But I have pointed out that this is only a modern +metaphysical rendering of the actual words attributed to the savage: 'He +can go everywhere, and do everything.' As to the phrase, also used, that +Baiame, for example, 'makes for righteousness,' I mean that he sanctions +the morality of his people; for instance, sanctions veracity and +unselfishness, as Mr. Howitt distinctly avers. These are examples of +'righteousness' in conduct. I do not mean that these virtues were +impressed on savages in some supernatural way, as a critic has daringly +averred that I do. The strong reaction of some early men against the +cosmical process by which 'the weakest goes to the wall,' is, indeed, a +curious moral phenomenon, and deserves the attention of moralists. But I +never dreamed of supposing that this reaction (which extends beyond the +limit of the tribe or group) had a 'supernatural' origin! It has been +argued that 'tribal morality' is only a set of regulations based on the +convenience of the elders of the tribe: is, in fact, as the Platonic +Thrasymachus says, 'the interest of the strongest.' That does not appear +to me to be demonstrated; but this is no place for a discussion of the +origin of morals. 'The interest of the strongest,' and of the nomadic +group, would be to knock elderly invalids on the head. But Dampier says, +of the Australians, in 1688, 'Be it little, or be it much they get, every +one has his part, as well the young and tender, and the old and feeble, +who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' The origin of +this fair and generous dealing may be obscure, but it is precisely the +kind of dealing on which, according to Mr. Howitt, the religion of the +Kurnai insists (chapter x.). Thus the Being concerned does 'make for +righteousness.' + +With these explanations I trust that my rhetorical use of such phrases as +'eternal,' 'creative,' 'omniscient,' 'omnipotent,' 'omnipresent,' and +'moral,' may not be found to mislead, or covertly to import modern or +Christian ideas into my account of the religious conceptions of savages. + +As to the evidence throughout, a learned historian has informed me that +'no anthropological evidence is of any value.' If so, there can be no +anthropology (in the realm of institutions). But the evidence that I +adduce is from such sources as anthropologists, at least, accept, and +employ in the construction of theories from which, in some points, I +venture to dissent. + +A.L. + +[Footnote 1: Macmillans, 1899.] + +[Footnote 2: Op. cit. p. 246, note.] + +[Footnote 3: See the new edition of _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, +especially the new Introduction.] + +[Footnote 4: See Introductions to my _Homeric Hymns_. Allen. 1899.] + +[Footnote 5: _Journal S.P.R._, December 1890, p. 147.] + +[Footnote 6: _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 388.] + + + + +PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION + +'The only begetter' of this work is Monsieur Lefbure, author of 'Les +Yeux d'Horus,' and other studies in Egyptology. He suggested the writing +of the book, but is in no way responsible for the opinions expressed. + +The author cannot omit the opportunity of thanking Mr. Frederic Myers for +his kindness in reading the proof sheets of the earlier chapters and +suggesting some corrections of statement. Mr. Myers, however, is probably +not in agreement with the author on certain points; for example, in +the chapter on 'Possession.' As the second part of the book differs +considerably from the opinions which have recommended themselves to most +anthropological writers on early Religion, the author must say here, as he +says later, that no harm can come of trying how facts look from a new +point of view, and that he certainly did not expect them to fall into the +shape which he now presents for criticism. + +ST. ANDREWS: _April 3, 1898._ + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER +II. SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' + +III. ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION +IV. 'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE' +V. CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED +VI. ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS +VII. DEMONIACAL POSSESSION +VIII. FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM +IX. EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD +X. HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES +XI. SUPREME GODS NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIRITS' +XII. SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS +XIII. MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS +XIV. AHONE. TI-RA-W. N-PI. PACHACAMAC. TUI LAGA. TAA-ROA +XV. THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY +XVI. THEORIES OF JEHOVAH +XVII. CONCLUSION + +APPENDICES. + +A. OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE +B. THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS +C. CRYSTAL-GAZING +D. CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA + +INDEX + + * * * * * + +THE MAKING OF RELIGION + +I + +_INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER_ + +The modern Science of the History of Religion has attained conclusions +which already possess an air of being firmly established. These +conclusions may be briefly stated thus: Man derived the conception of +'spirit' or 'soul' from his reflections on the phenomena of sleep, dreams, +death, shadow, and from the experiences of trance and hallucination. +Worshipping first the departed souls of his kindred, man later extended +the doctrine of spiritual beings in many directions. Ghosts, or other +spiritual existences fashioned on the same lines, prospered till they +became gods. Finally, as the result of a variety of processes, one of +these gods became supreme, and, at last, was regarded as the one only God. +Meanwhile man retained his belief in the existence of his own soul, +surviving after the death of the body, and so reached the conception of +immortality. Thus the ideas of God and of the soul are the result of early +fallacious reasonings about misunderstood experiences. + +It may seem almost wanton to suggest the desirableness of revising a +system at once so simple, so logical, and apparently so well bottomed on +facts. But there can never be any real harm in studying masses of evidence +from fresh points of view. At worst, the failure of adverse criticism must +help to establish the doctrines assailed. Now, as we shall show, there are +two points of view from which the evidence as to religion in its early +stages has not been steadily contemplated. Therefore we intend to ask, +first, what, if anything, can be ascertained as to the nature of the +'visions' and hallucinations which, according to Mr. Tylor in his +celebrated work 'Primitive Culture,' lent their aid to the formation of +the idea of 'spirit.' Secondly, we shall collect and compare the accounts +which we possess of the High Gods and creative beings worshipped or +believed in, by the most backward races. We shall then ask whether these +relatively Supreme Beings, so conceived of by men in very rudimentary +social conditions, can be, as anthropology declares, mere developments +from the belief in ghosts of the dead. + +We shall end by venturing to suggest that the savage theory of the soul +may be based, at least in part, on experiences which cannot, at present, +be made to fit into any purely materialistic system of the universe. We +shall also bring evidence tending to prove that the idea of God, in its +earliest known shape, need not logically be derived from the idea of +spirit, however that idea itself may have been attained or evolved. The +conception of God, then, need not be evolved out of reflections on dreams +and 'ghosts.' + +If these two positions can be defended with any success, it is obvious +that the whole theory of the Science of Religion will need to be +reconsidered. But it is no less evident that our two positions do not +depend on each other. The first may be regarded as fantastic, or +improbable, or may be 'masked' and left on one side. But the strength of +the second position, derived from evidence of a different character, will +not, therefore, be in any way impaired. Our first position can only be +argued for by dint of evidence highly unpopular in character, and, as a +general rule, condemned by modern science. The evidence is obtained by +what is, at all events, a legitimate anthropological proceeding. We may +follow Mr. Tylor's example, and collect savage _beliefs_ about visions, +hallucinations, 'clairvoyance,' and the acquisition of knowledge +apparently not attainable through the normal channels of sense. We may +then compare these savage beliefs with attested records of similar +_experiences_ among living and educated civilised men. Even if we attain +to no conclusion, or a negative conclusion, as to the actuality and +supernormal character of the alleged experiences, still to compare data of +savage and civilised psychology, or even of savage and civilised illusions +and fables, is decidedly part, though a neglected part, of the function of +anthropological science. The results, whether they do or do not strengthen +our first position, must be curious and instructive, if only as a chapter +in the history of human error. That chapter, too, is concerned with no +mean topic, but with what we may call the X region of our nature. Out of +that region, out of miracle, prophecy, vision, have certainly come forth +the great religions, Christianity and Islam; and the great religious +innovators and leaders, our Lord Himself, St. Francis, John Knox, Jeanne +d'Arc, down to the founder of the new faith of the Sioux and Arapahoe. It +cannot, then, be unscientific to compare the barbaric with the civilised +beliefs and experiences about a region so dimly understood, and so fertile +in potent influences. Here the topic will be examined rather by the method +of anthropology than of psychology. We may conceivably have something to +learn (as has been the case before) from the rough observations and hasty +inferences of the most backward races. + +We may illustrate this by an anecdote: + +'The Northern Indians call the _Aurora Borealis_ "Edthin," that is "Deer." +Their ideas in this respect are founded on a principle one would not +imagine. Experience has shown them that when a hairy deer-skin is briskly +stroked with the hand on a dark night, it will emit many sparks of +electrical fire.' + +So says Hearne in his 'Journey,' published in 1795 (p. 346). + +This observation of the Red Men is a kind of parable representing a part +of the purport of the following treatise. The Indians, making a hasty +inference from a trivial phenomenon, arrived unawares at a probably +correct conclusion, long unknown to civilised science. They connected the +Aurora Borealis with electricity, supposing that multitudes of deer +in the sky rubbed the sparks out of each other! Meanwhile, even in +the last century, a puzzled populace spoke of the phenomenon as 'Lord +Derwentwater's Lights.' The cosmic pomp and splendour shone to welcome the +loyal Derwentwater into heaven, when he had given his life for his exiled +king. + +Now, my purpose in the earlier portion of this essay is to suggest that +certain phenomena of human nature, apparently as trivial as the sparks +rubbed out of a deer's hide in a dark night, may indicate, and may be +allied to a force or forces, which, like the Aurora Borealis, may shine +from one end of the heavens to the other, strangely illumining the +darkness of our destiny. Such phenomena science has ignored, as it so long +ignored the sparks from the stroked deer-skin, and the attractive power of +rubbed amber. These trivial things were not known to be allied to the +lightning, or to indicate a force which man could tame and use. But just +as the Indians, by a rapid careless inference, attributed the Aurora +Borealis to electric influences, so (as anthropology assures us) savages +everywhere have inferred the existence of soul or spirit, intelligence +that + + 'Does not know the bond of Time, + Nor wear the manacles of Space,' + +in part from certain apparently trivial phenomena of human faculty. These +phenomena, as Mr. Tylor says, 'the great intellectual movement of the last +two centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless.'[1] I refer to alleged +experiences, merely odd, sporadic, and, for commercial purposes, useless, +such as the transference of thought from one mind to another by no known +channel of sense, the occurrence of hallucinations which, _prima facie_, +correspond coincidentally with unknown events at a distance, all that is +called 'second sight,' or 'clairvoyance,' and other things even more +obscure. Reasoning on these real or alleged phenomena, and on other quite +normal and accepted facts of dream, shadow, sleep, trance, and death, +savages have inferred the existence of spirit or soul, exactly as the +Indians arrived at the notion of electricity (not so called by them, of +course) as the cause of the Aurora Borealis. But, just as the Indians +thought that the cosmic lights were caused by the rubbing together of +crowded deer in the heavens (a theory quite childishly absurd), so the +savage has expressed, in rude fantastic ways, his conclusion as to the +existence of spirit. He believes in wandering separable souls of men, +surviving death, and he has peopled with his dreams the whole inanimate +universe. + +My suggestion is that, in spite of his fantasies, the savage had possibly +drawn from his premises an inference not wholly, or not demonstrably +erroneous. As the sparks of the deer-skin indicated electricity, so the +strange lights in the night of human nature may indicate faculties which +science, till of late and in a few instances, has laughed at, ignored, +'thrown aside as worthless.' + +It should be observed that I am not speaking of 'spiritualism,' a word of +the worst associations, inextricably entangled with fraud, bad logic, and +the blindest credulity. Some of the phenomena alluded to have, however, +been claimed as their own province by 'spiritists,' and need to be rescued +from them. Mr. Tylor writes: + +'The issue raised by the comparison of savage, barbaric, and civilised +spiritualism is this: Do the Red Indian medicine-man, the Tatar +necromancer, the Highland ghost-seer, and the Boston medium, share the +possession of belief and knowledge of the highest truth and import, +which, nevertheless, the great intellectual movement of the last two +centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless?' + +_Distinguo!_ That does not seem to me to be the issue. In my opinion the +issue is: 'Have the Red Indian, the Tatar, the Highland seer, and the +Boston medium (the least reputable of the menagerie) observed, and +reasoned wildly from, and counterfeited, and darkened with imposture, +certain genuine by-products of human faculty, which do not _prima facie_ +deserve to be thrown aside?' + +That, I venture to think, is the real issue. That science may toss aside +as worthless some valuable observations of savages is now universally +admitted by people who know the facts. Among these observations is the +whole topic of Hypnotism, with the use of suggestion for healing purposes, +and the phenomena, no longer denied, of 'alternating personalities.' For +the truth of this statement we may appeal to one of the greatest of +Continental anthropologists, Adolf Bastian.[2] The missionaries, like +Livingstone, usually supposed that the savage seer's declared ignorance-- +after his so-called fit of inspiration--of what occurred in that state, +was an imposture. But nobody now doubts the similar oblivion of what has +passed that sometimes follows the analogous hypnotic sleep. Of a +remarkable cure, which the school of the Salptrire or Nancy would +ascribe, with probable justice, to 'suggestion,' a savage example will be +given later. + +Savage hypnotism and 'suggestion,' among the Sioux and Arapahoe, has been +thought worthy of a whole volume in the Reports of the Ethnological Bureau +of the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, U.S., 1892-98). Republican +Governments publish scientific matter 'regardless of expense,' and the +essential points might have been put more shortly. They illustrate the +fact that only certain persons can hypnotise others, and throw light on +some peculiarities of _rapport._[3] In brief, savages anticipated us in +the modern science of experimental psychology, as is frankly acknowledged +by the Society for Experimental Psychology of Berlin. 'That many mystical +phenomena are much more common and prominent among savages than among +ourselves is familiar to everyone acquainted with the subject. The +_ethnological_ side of our inquiry demands penetrative study.'[4] + +That study I am about to try to sketch. My object is to examine some +'superstitious practices' and beliefs of savages by aid of the comparative +method. I shall compare, as I have already said, the ethnological evidence +for savage usages and beliefs analogous to thought-transference, +coincidental hallucinations, alternating personality, and so forth, with +the best attested modern examples, experimental or spontaneous. This +raises the question of our evidence, which is all-important. We proceed to +defend it. The savage accounts are on the level of much anthropological +evidence; they may, that is, be dismissed by adversaries as 'travellers' +tales.' But the best testimony for the truth of the reports as to actual +belief in the facts is the undesigned coincidence of evidence from all +ages and quarters.[5] When the stories brought by travellers, ancient and +modern, learned and unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we +have all the certainty that anthropology can offer. Again, when we find +practically the same strange neglected sparks, not only rumoured of +in European popular superstition, but attested in many hundreds of +depositions made at first hand by respectable modern witnesses, educated +and responsible, we cannot honestly or safely dismiss the coincidence of +report as indicating a mere 'survival' of savage superstitious belief, and +nothing more. + +We can no longer do so, it is agreed, in the case of hypnotic phenomena. I +hope to make it seem possible that we should not do so in the matter of +the hallucinations provoked by gazing in a smooth deep, usually styled +'crystal-gazing.' Ethnologically, this practice is at least as old as +classical times, and is of practically world-wide distribution. I shall +prove its existence in Australia, New Zealand, North America, South +America, Asia, Africa, Polynesia, and among the Incas, not to speak of +the middle and recent European ages. The universal idea is that such +visions may be 'clairvoyant.' To take a Polynesian case, 'resembling the +Hawaiian _wai harru_.' When anyone has been robbed, the priest, after +praying, has a hole dug in the floor of the house, and filled with water. +Then he gazes into the water, 'over which the god is supposed to place the +spirit of the thief.... The image of the thief was, according to their +account, reflected in the water, and being perceived by the priest, he +named the individual, or the parties.'[6] Here the statement about the +'spirit' is a mere savage philosophical explanation. But the fact that +hallucinatory pictures can really be seen by a fair percentage of educated +Europeans, in water, glass balls, and so forth, is now confirmed by +frequent experiment, and accepted by opponents, 'non-mystical writers,' +like Dr. Parish of Munich.[7] I shall bring evidence to suggest that the +visions may correctly reflect, as it were, persons and places absolutely +unknown to the gazer, and that they may even reveal details unknown to +every one present. Such results among savages, or among the superstitious, +would be, and are, explained by the theory of 'spirits.' Modern science +has still to find an explanation consistent with recognised laws of +nature, but 'spirits' we shall not invoke. + +In the same way I mean to examine all or most of the 'so-called mystical +phenomena of savage life.' I then compare them with the better vouched for +modern examples. To return to the question of evidence, I confess that I +do not see how the adverse anthropologist, psychologist, or popular +agnostic is to evade the following dilemma: To the anthropologist we say, +'The evidence we adduce is your own evidence, that of books of travel in +all lands and countries. If _you_ may argue from it, so may we. Some +of it is evidence to unusual facts, more of it is evidence to singular +beliefs, which we think not necessarily without foundation. As raising a +presumption in favour of that opinion, we cite examples in which savage +observations of abnormal and once rejected facts, are now admitted by +science to have a large residuum of truth, we argue that what is admitted +in some cases may come to be admitted in more. No _a priori_ line can here +be drawn.' + +To the psychologist who objects that our modern instances are mere +anecdotes, we reply by asking, 'Dear sir, what are _your_ modern +instances? What do you know of "Mrs. A.," whom you still persistently +cite as an example of morbid recurrent hallucinations? Name the German +servant girl who, in a fever, talked several learned languages, which she +had heard her former master, a scholar, declaim! Where did she live? Who +vouches for her, who heard her, who understood her? There is, you know, no +evidence at all; the anecdote is told by Coleridge: the phenomena are said +by him to have been observed "in a Roman Catholic town in Germany, a year +or two before my arrival at Gttingen.... Many eminent physiologists and +psychologists visited the town." Why do you not name a few out of the +distinguished crowd?'[8] This anecdote, a rumour of a rumour of a +Protestant explanation of a Catholic marvel, was told by Coleridge at +least twenty years after the possible date. The psychologists copy it,[9] +one after the other, as a flock of sheep jump where their leader has +jumped. An example by way of anecdote may be permitted. + +According to the current anthropological theory, the idea of soul or +spirit was suggested to early men by their experiences in dreams. They +seemed, in sleep, to visit remote places; therefore, they argued, +something within them was capable of leaving the body and wandering about. + +This something was the soul or spirit. Now it is obvious that this opinion +of early men would be confirmed if they ever chanced to acquire, in +dreams, knowledge of places which they had never visited, and of facts as +to which, in their waking state, they could have no information. This +experience, indeed, would suggest problems even To Mr. Herbert Spencer, if +it occurred to him. + +Conversing on this topic with a friend of acknowledged philosophical +eminence, I illustrated my meaning by a story of a dream. It was reported +to me by the dreamer, with whom I am well acquainted, was of very recent +occurrence, and was corroborated by the evidence of another person, to +whom the dream was narrated, before its fulfilment was discovered. I am +not at liberty to publish the details, for good reasons, but the essence +of the matter was this: A. and B. (the dreamer) had common interests. A. +had taken certain steps about which B. had only a surmise, and a vague +one, that steps had probably been taken. A. then died, and B. in an +extremely vivid dream (a thing unfamiliar to him) seemed to read a mass of +unknown facts, culminating in two definite results, capable of being +stated in figures. These results, by the very nature of the case, could +not be known to A., so that, before he was placed out of B.'s reach by +death, he could not have stated them to him, and, afterwards, had +assuredly no means of doing so. + +The dream, two days after its occurrence, and after it had been told to +C., proved to be literally correct. Now I am not asking the reader's +belief for this anecdote (for that could only be yielded in virtue of +knowledge of the veracity of B. and C.), but I invite his attention to the +psychological explanation. My friend suggested that A. had told B. all +about the affair, that B. had not listened (though his interests were +vitally concerned), and that the crowd of curious details, naturally +unfamiliar to B., had reposed in his subconscious memory, and had been +revived in the dream. + +Now B.'s dream was a dream of reading a mass of minute details, including +names of places entirely unknown to him. It may be admitted, in accordance +with the psychological theory, that B. might have received all this +information from A., but, by dint of inattention--'the malady of not +marking'--might never have been _consciously_ aware of what he heard. Then +B.'s subconscious memory of what he did not _consciously_ know might break +upon him in his dream. Instances of similar mental phenomena are not +uncommon. But the general result of the combined details was one which +could not possibly be known to A. before his death; nor to B. could it be +known at all. Yet B.'s dream represented this general result with perfect +accuracy, which cannot be accounted for by the revival of subconscious +memory in sleep. Neither asleep nor awake can a man remember what it is +impossible for him to have known. The dream contained no _prediction_ for +the results were now fixed; but (granting the good faith of the narrator) +the dream did contain information not normally accessible. + +However, by way of psychological explanation of the dream, my friend cited +Coleridge's legend, as to the German girl and her unconscious knowledge of +certain learned languages. 'And what is the evidence for the truth of +Coleridge's legend?' Of course, there is none, or none known to all the +psychologists who quote it from Coleridge. Neither, if true, was the +legend to the point. However, psychology will accept such unauthenticated +narratives, and yet will scoff at first baud, duly corroborated testimony +from living and honourable people, about recent events. + +Only a great force of prejudice can explain this acceptance, by +psychologists, of one kind of marvellous tale on no evidence, and this +rejection of another class of marvellous tale, when supported by first +hand, signed and corroborated evidence, of living witnesses. I see only +one escape for psychologists from this dilemma. Their marvellous tales are +_possible_, though unvouched for, because they have always heard them and +repeated them in lectures, and read and repeated them in books. _Our_ +marvellous tales are impossible, because the psychologists know that they +are impossible, which means that they have not been familiar with them, +from youth upwards, in lectures and manuals. But man has no right to have +'clear ideas of the possible and impossible,' like Faraday, _a priori_, +except in the exact sciences. There are other instances of weak evidence +which satisfies psychologists. + +Hamilton has an anecdote, borrowed from Monboddo, who got it from Mr. Hans +Stanley, who, 'about twenty-six years ago,' heard it from the subject of +the story, Madame de Laval. 'I have the memorandum somewhere in my +papers,' says Mr. Stanley, vaguely. Then we have two American anecdotes by +Dr. Flint and Mr. Rush; and such is Sir William Hamilton's equipment of +odd facts for discussing the unconscious or subconscious. The least +credible and worst attested of these narratives still appears in popular +works on psychology. Moreover, all psychology, except experimental +psychology, is based on anecdotes which people tell about their own +subjective experiences. Mr. Galton, whose original researches are well +known, even offered rewards in money for such narratives about visualised +rows of coloured figures, and so on. + +Clearly the psychologist, then, has no _prima facie_ right to object to +our anecdotes of experiences, which he regards as purely subjective. As +evidence, we only accept them at first hand, and, when possible, the +witnesses have been cross-examined personally. Our evidence then, where it +consists of travellers' tales, is on a level with that which satisfies the +anthropologist. Where it consists of modern statements of personal +experience, our evidence is often infinitely better than much which is +accepted by the nonexperimental psychologist. As for the agnostic writer +on the Non-Religion of the Future, M. Guyau actually illustrates the +Resurrection of our Lord by an American myth about a criminal, of whom a +hallucinatory phantasm appeared to each of his gaol companions, separately +and successively, on a day after his execution! For this prodigious fable +no hint of reference to authority is given.[10] Yet the evidence appears +to satisfy M. Guyau, and is used by him to reinforce his argument. + +The anthropologist and psychologist, then, must either admit that their +evidence is no better than ours, if as good, or must say that they only +believe evidence as to 'possible' facts. They thus constitute themselves +judges of what is possible, and practically regard themselves as +omniscient. Science has had to accept so many things once scoffed at as +'impossible,' that this attitude of hers, as we shall show in chapter ii., +ceases to command respect. + +My suggestion is that the trivial, rejected, or unheeded phenomena +vouched for by the evidence here defended may, not inconceivably, be of +considerable importance. But, stating the case at the lowest, if we are +only concerned with illusions and fables, it cannot but be curious to note +their persistent uniformity in savage and civilised life. + +To make the first of our two main positions clear, and in part to justify +ourselves in asking any attention for such matters, we now offer an +historical sketch of the relations between Science and the so-called +'Miraculous' in the past. + +[Footnote 1: _Primitive Culture_, i. 156. London, 1891.] + +[Footnote 2: _Ueber psychische Beobachiungen bei Naiurvlkern_. Leipzig, +Gunther, 1890.] + +[Footnote 3: See especially pp. 922-926. The book is interesting in other +ways, and, indeed, touching, as it describes the founding of a new Red +Indian religion, on a basis of Hypnotism and Christianity.] + +[Footnote 4: Programme of the Society, p. iv.] + +[Footnote 5: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i, 9, 10.] + +[Footnote 6: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, ii. p. 240.] + +[Footnote 7: _Hallucinations and Illusions_, English edition, pp. 69-70, +297.] + +[Footnote 8: Sir William Hamilton's _Lectures_, i. 345.] + +[Footnote 9: Maudsley, Kerner, Carpentor, Du Prel, Zangwill.] + +[Footnote 10: Coleridge's mythical maid (p. 10) is set down by Mr. Samuel +Laing to an experiment of Braid's! No references are given.--Laing: +_Problems of the Future._] + + + + +II + +SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' + +_Historical Sketch_ + +Research in the X region is not a new thing under the sun. When Saul +disguised himself before his conference with the Witch of Endor, he made +an elementary attempt at a scientific test of the supernormal. Croesus, +the king, went much further, when he tested the clairvoyance of the +oracles of Greece, by sending an embassy to ask what he was doing at a +given hour on a given day, and by then doing something very _bizarre_. We +do not know how the Delphic oracle found out the right answer, but various +easy methods of fraud at once occur to the mind. However, the procedure of +Croesus, if he took certain precautions, was relatively scientific. +Relatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphyry, with whose +position our own is not unlikely to be compared. Unable, or reluctant, to +accept Christianity, Porphyry 'sought after a sign' of an element of +supernormal truth in Paganism. But he began at the wrong end, namely at +Pagan spiritualistic _sances_, with the usual accompaniments of darkness +and fraud. His perplexed letter to Anebo, with the reply attributed to +Iamblichus, reveal Porphyry wandering puzzled among mediums, floating +lights, odd noises, queer dubious 'physical phenomena.' He did not begin +with accurate experiments as to the existence of rare, and apparently +supernormal human faculties, and he seems to have attained no conclusion +except that 'spirits' are 'deceitful.'[1] + +Something more akin to modern research began about the time of the +Reformation, and lasted till about 1680. The fury for burning witches led +men of sense, learning, and humanity to ask whether there was any reality +in witchcraft, and, generally, in the marvels of popular belief. The +inquiries of Thyraeus, Lavaterus, Bodinus, Wierus, Le Loyer, Reginald +Scot, and many others, tended on the whole to the negative side as regards +the wilder fables about witches, but left the problems of ghosts and +haunted houses pretty much where they were before. It may be observed that +Lavaterus (circ. 1580) already put forth a form of the hypothesis of +telepathy (that 'ghosts' are hallucinations produced by the direct action +of one mind, or brain, upon another), while Thyraeus doubted whether the +noises heard in 'haunted houses' were not mere hallucinations of the sense +of hearing. But all these early writers, like Cardan, were very careless +of first-hand evidence, and, indeed, preferred ghosts vouched for by +classical authority, Pliny, Plutarch, or Suetonius. With the Rev. Joseph +Glanvil, F.R.S. (circ. 1666), a more careful examination of evidence came +into use. Among the marvels of Glanvil's and other tracts usually +published together in his 'Sadducismus Triumphatus' will be found letters +which show that he and his friends, like Henry More and Boyle, laboured to +collect first-hand evidence for second sight, haunted houses, ghosts, and +wraiths. The confessed object was to procure a 'Whip for the Droll,' a +reply to the laughing scepticism of the Restoration. The result was to +bring on Glanvil a throng of bores--he was 'worse haunted than Mr. +Mompesson's house,' he says-and Mr. Pepys found his arguments 'not very +convincing.' Mr. Pepys, however, was alarmed by 'our young gib-cat,' +which he mistook for a 'spright.' With Henry More, Baxter, and Glanvil +practically died, for the time, the attempt to investigate these topics +scientifically, though an impression of doubt was left on the mind of +Addison. Witchcraft ceased to win belief, and was abolished, as a crime, +in 1736. Some of the Scottish clergy, and John Wesley, clung fondly +to the old faith, but Wodrow, and Cotton Mather (about 1710-1730) were +singularly careless and unlucky in producing anything like evidence for +their narratives. Ghost stories continued to be told, but not to be +investigated. + +Then one of the most acute of philosophers decided that investigation +ought never to be attempted. This scientific attitude towards X phenomena, +that of refusing to examine them, and denying them without examination, +was fixed by David Hume in his celebrated essay on 'Miracles.' Hume +derided the observation and study of what he called 'Miracles,' in the +field of experience, and he looked for an _a priori_ argument which would +for ever settle the question without examination of facts. In an age of +experimental philosophy, which derided _a priori_ methods, this was Hume's +great contribution to knowledge. His famous argument, the joy of many an +honest breast, is a tissue of fallacies which might be given for exposure +to beginners in logic, as an elementary exercise. In announcing his +discovery, Hume amusingly displays the self-complacency and the want of +humour with which we Scots are commonly charged by our critics: + +'I flatter myself that I have discovered an argument which, if just, +will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds +of superstitious delusions, and consequently will be useful as long as +the world endures.' + +He does not expect, however, to convince the multitude. Till the end of +the world, 'accounts of miracles and prodigies, I suppose, will be found +in all histories, sacred and profane.' Without saying here what he +means by a miracle, Hume argues that 'experience is our only guide in +reasoning.' He then defines a miracle as 'a violation of the laws +of nature.' By a 'law of nature' he means a uniformity, not of all +experience, but of each experience as he will deign to admit; while he +excludes, without examination, all evidence for experience of the absence +of such uniformity. That kind of experience cannot be considered. 'There +must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the +event would not merit that appellation.' If there be any experience in +favour of the event, that experience does not count. A miracle is counter +to universal experience, no event is counter to universal experience, +therefore no event is a miracle. If you produce evidence to what Hume +calls a miracle (we shall see examples) he replies that the evidence is +not valid, unless its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact. +Now no error of human evidence can be more miraculous than a 'miracle.' +Therefore there can be no valid evidence for 'miracles.' Fortunately, +Hume now gives an example of what he means by 'miracles.' He says:-- + +'For, first, there is _not to be found_, in _all history_, any miracle +attested by a _sufficient number_ of men, of such unquestioned _good +sense, education_, and _learning_, as to secure us against all delusion +in themselves; of such undoubted _integrity_, as to place them beyond +all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and +reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in +case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time +attesting facts performed in such a _public manner_, and in so +_celebrated a part of the world_, as to render the detection +unavoidable; all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full +assurance in the testimony of men.'[2] + +Hume added a note at the end of his book, in which he contradicted every +assertion which he had made in the passage just cited; indeed, be +contradicted himself before he had written six pages. + +'There surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person +than those which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the +tomb of Abb Paris, the famous Jansenist, with whose sanctity the people +were so long deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, +and sight to the blind, were everywhere talked of as the usual effects of +that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles +were _immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned +integrity_, attested by _witnesses of credit and distinction_, in _a +learned age_, and on the most _eminent theatre_ that is _now in the +world_. Nor is this all. A relation of them was published and dispersed +everywhere; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, supported +by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions, +in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able +_distinctly to refute or detect them_. Where shall we find such a number +of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what +have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute +_impossibility, or miraculous nature_ of the events which they relate? +And this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be +regarded as a sufficient refutation.' + +Thus Hume, first denies the existence of such evidence, given in such +circumstances as he demands, and then he produces an example of that very +kind of evidence. Having done this, he abandons (as Mr. Wallace observes) +his original assertion that the evidence does not exist, and takes refuge +in alleging 'the absolute impossibility' of the events which the evidence +supports. Thus Hume poses as a perfect judge of the possible, in a kind of +omniscience. He takes his stand on the uniformity of all experience that +is not hostile to his idea of the possible, and dismisses all testimony to +other experience, even when it reaches his standard of evidence. He is +remote indeed from Virchow's position 'that what we call the laws of +nature must vary according to our frequent new experiences.'[3] In his +note, Hume buttresses and confirms his evidence for the Jansenist +miracles. They have even a martyr, M. Montgeron, who wrote an account of +the events, and, says Hume lightly, 'is now said to be somewhere in a +dungeon on account of his book.' 'Many of the miracles of the Abb Paris +were proved immediately by witnesses before the Bishop's court at Paris, +under the eye of Cardinal Noailles....' 'His successor was an enemy to the +Jansenists, yet twenty-two _curs_ of Paris ... pressed him to examine +these miracles ... _But he wisely forbore_.' Hume adds his testimony to +the character of these _curs_. Thus it is wisdom, according to Hume, to +dismiss the most public and well-attested 'miracles' without examination. +This is experimental science of an odd kind. + +The phenomena were cases of healing, many of them surprising, of +cataleptic rigidity, and of insensibility to pain, among visitors to the +tomb of the Abb Paris (1731). Had the cases been judicially examined (all +medical evidence was in their favour), and had they been proved false, the +cause of Hume would have profited enormously. A strong presumption would +have been raised against the miracles of Christianity. But Hume applauds +the wisdom of not giving his own theory this chance of a triumph. The +cataleptic seizures were of the sort now familiar to science. These have, +therefore, emerged from the miraculous. In fact, the phenomena which +occurred at the tomb of the Abb Paris have emerged almost too far, and +now seem in danger of being too readily and too easily accepted. In 1887 +MM. Binet and Fr, of the school of the Salptrire, published in English +a popular manual styled 'Animal Magnetism.' These authors write with great +caution about such alleged phenomena as the reading, by the hypnotised +patient, of the thoughts in the mind of the hypnotiser. But as to the +phenomena at the tomb of the Abb Paris, they say that 'suggestion +explains them.'[4] That is, in the opinion of MM. Binet and Fr +the so-called 'miracles' really occurred, and were worked by 'the +imagination,' by 'self-suggestion.' + +The most famous case--that of Mlle. Coirin--has been carefully examined by +Dr. Charcot.[5] + +Mlle. Coirin had a dangerous fall from her horse, in September 1716, in +her thirty-first year. The medical details may be looked for in Dr. +Charcot's essay or in Montgeron.[6] 'Her disease was diagnosed as cancer +of the left breast,' the nipple 'fell off bodily.' Amputation of the +breast was proposed, but Madame Coirin, believing the disease to be +radically incurable, refused her consent. Paralysis of the left side set +in (1718), the left leg shrivelling up. On August 9, 1731, Mlle. Coirin +'tried the off chance' of a miracle, put on a shift that had touched the +tomb of Paris, and used some earth from the grave. On August 11, Mlle. +Coirin could turn herself in bed; on the 12th the horrible wound 'was +staunched, and began to close up and heal.' The paralysed side recovered +life and its natural proportions. By September 3, Mlle. Coirin could go +out for a drive. + +All her malady, says Dr. Charcot, paralysis, 'cancer,' and all, was +'hysterical;' 'hysterical oedema,' for which he quotes many French +authorities and one American. 'Under the physical [psychical?] influence +brought to bear by the application of the shift ... the oedema, which was +due to vaso-motor trouble, disappeared almost instantaneously. The breast +regained its normal size.' + +Dr. Charcot generously adds that shrines, like Lourdes, have cured +patients in whom he could not 'inspire the operation of the faith cure.' +He certainly cannot explain everything which claims to be of supernatural +origin in the faith cure. We have to learn the lesson of patience. I am +among the first to recognise that Shakespeare's words hold good to-day: + + 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, + Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' + +If Dr. Charcot had believed in what the French call _suggestion mentale_-- +suggestion by thought-transference (which I think he did not)--he could +have explained the healing of the Centurion's servant, 'Say the word, +Lord, and my servant shall be healed,' by suggestion & distance +(telepathy), and by premising that the servant's palsy was 'hysterical.' +But what do we mean by 'hysterical'? Nobody knows. The 'mind,' somehow, +causes gangrenes, if not cancers, paralysis, shrinking of tissues; the +mind, somehow, cures them. And what is the 'mind'? As my object is to give +savage parallels to modern instances better vouched for. I quote a +singular Red Indian cure by 'suggestion.' Hearne, travelling in Canada, in +1770, met a native who had 'dead palsy,' affecting the whole of one side. +He was dragged on a sledge, 'reduced to a mere skeleton,' and so was +placed in the magic lodge. The first step in his cure was the public +swallowing by a conjurer of a board of wood, 'about the size of a +barrel-stave,' twice as wide across as his mouth. Hearne stood beside the +man, 'naked as he was born,' 'and, notwithstanding I was all attention, I +could not detect the deceit.' Of course, Hearne believes that this was +mere legerdemain, and (p. 216) mentions a most suspicious circumstance. +The account is amusing, and deserves the attention of Mr. Neville +Maskelyne. The same conjurer had previously swallowed a cradle! Now +bayonet swallowing, which he also did, is possible, though Hearne denies +it (p. 217). + +The real object of these preliminary feats, however performed, is, +probably, to inspire _faith_, which Dr. Charcot might have done by +swallowing a cradle. The Indians explain that the barrel staves apparently +swallowed are merely dematerialised by 'spirits,' leaving only the forked +end sticking out of the conjurer's mouth. In fact, Hearne caught the +conjurer in the act of making a separate forked end. + +Faith being thus inspired, the conjurer, for three entire days, blew, +sang, and danced round 'the poor paralytic, fasting.' 'And it is truly +wonderful, though the strictest truth, that when the poor man was taken +from the conjuring house ... he was able to move all the fingers and toes +of the side that had been so long dead.... At the end of six weeks he went +a-hunting for his family' (p. 219). Hearne kept up his acquaintance, and +adds, what is very curious, that he developed almost a secondary +personality. 'Before that dreadful paralytic stroke, he had been +distinguished for his good nature and benevolent disposition, was entirely +free from every appearance of avarice,... but after this event he was the +most fractious, quarrelsome, discontented, and covetous wretch alive' +(p. 220). + +Dr. Charcot, if he had been acquainted with this case, would probably have +said that it 'is of the nature of those which Professor Russell Reynolds +has classified under the head of "paralysis dependent on idea."'[7] +Unluckily, Hearne does not tell us how his hunter, an untutored Indian, +became 'paralysed by idea.' + +Dr. Charcot adds: 'In every case, science is a foe to systematic negation, +which the morrow may cause to melt away in the light of its new triumphs.' +The present 'new triumph' is a mere coincidence with the dicta of our +Lord, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole.... I have not found so great faith, +no, not in Israel.' There are cures, as there are maladies, caused 'by +idea.' So, in fact, we had always understood. But the point is that +science, wherever it agrees with David Hume, is not a foe, but a friend to +'systematic negation.' + +A parallel case of a 'miracle,' the stigmata of St. Francis, was, of +course, regarded by science as a fable or a fraud. But, now that blisters +and other lesions can be produced by suggestion, the fable has become a +probable fact, and, therefore, not a miracle at all.[8] Mr. James remarks: +'As so often happens, a fact is denied till a welcome interpretation +comes with it. Then it is admitted readily enough, and evidence quite +insufficient to back a claim, so long as the Church had an interest +in making it, proves to be quite sufficient for modern scientific +enlightenment the moment it appears that a reputed saint can thereby be +claimed as a case of "hystero-epilepsy."'[9] + +But the Church continues to have an interest in the matter. As the class +of facts which Hume declined to examine begins to be gradually admitted by +science, the thing becomes clear. The evidence which could safely convey +these now admittedly possible facts, say from the time of Christ, is so +far proved to be not necessarily mythical--proved to be not incapable of +carrying statements probably correct, which once seemed absolutely +false. If so, where, precisely, ends its power of carrying facts? Thus +considered, the kinds of marvellous events recorded in the Gospels, +for example, are no longer to be dismissed on _a priori_ grounds as +'mythical.' We cannot now discard evidence as necessarily false because +it clashes with our present ideas of the possible, when we have to +acknowledge that the very same evidence may safely convey to us facts +which clashed with our fathers' notions of what is possible, but which +are now accepted. Our notions of the possible cease to be a criterion of +truth or falsehood, and our contempt for the Gospels as myths must +slowly die, as 'miracle' after 'miracle' is brought within the realm of +acknowledged law. With each such admission the hypothesis that the Gospel +evidence is mythical must grow weaker, and weaker must grow the negative +certainty of popular science. + +The occurrences which took place at and near the tomb of Paris were +attested, as Hume truly avers, by a great body of excellent evidence. But +the wisdom which declined to make a judicial examination has deprived us +of the best kind of record. Analogous if not exactly similar events now +confessedly take place, and are no longer looked upon as miraculous. But +as long as they were held to be miraculous, not to examine the evidence, +said Hume, was the policy of 'all reasonable people.' The result was to +deprive Science of the best sort of record of facts which she welcomes as +soon as she thinks she can explain them.[10] Examples of the folly of +_a priori_ negation are common. The British Association refused to hear +the essay which Braid, the inventor of the word 'hypnotism,' had written +upon the subject. Braid, Elliotson, and other English inquirers of the +mid-century, were subjected to such persecutions as official science could +inflict. We read of M. Deslon, a disciple of Mesmer, about 1783, that he +was 'condemned by the Faculty of Medicine, without any examination of the +facts.' The Inquisition proceeded more fairly than these scientific +obscurantists. + +Another curious example may be cited. M. Guyau, in his work 'The +Non-Religion of the Future,' argues that Religion is doomed. 'Poetic +genius has withdrawn its services,' witness Tennyson and Browning! 'Among +orthodox Protestant nations miracles do not happen.'[11] But 'marvellous +facts' _do_ happen.[12] These 'marvellous facts,' accepted by M. Guyau, +are what Hume called 'miracles,' and advised the 'wise and learned' to +laugh at, without examination. They were not facts, and could not be, he +said. Now to M. Guyau's mind they _are_ facts, and therefore are not +miracles. He includes 'mental suggestion taking place even at a distance.' +A man 'can transmit an almost compulsive command, it appears nowadays, by +a simple tension of his will.' If this be so, if 'will' can affect matter +from a distance, obviously the relations of will and matter are not what +popular science tells us that they are. Again, if this truth is now +established, and won from that region which Hume and popular science +forbid us to investigate, who knows what other facts may be redeemed from +that limbo, or how far they may affect our views of possibilities? The +admission of mental action, operative _ distance_, is, of course, +personal only to M. Guyau, among friends of the new negative tradition. + +We return to Hume. He next argues that the pleasures of wonder make all +accounts of 'miracles' worthless. He has just given an example of the +equivalent pleasures of dogmatic disbelief. Then Religion is a disturbing +force; but so, manifestly, is irreligion. 'The wise and learned are +content to deride the absurdity, without informing themselves of the +particular facts.' The wise and learned are applauded for their scientific +attitude. Again, miracles destroy each other, for all religions have their +miracles, but all religions cannot be true. This argument is no longer of +force with people who look on 'miracles' as = 'X phenomena,' not as divine +evidences to the truth of this or that creed. 'The gazing populace +receives, without examination, whatever soothes superstition,' and +Hume's whole purpose is to make the wise and learned imitate the gazing +populace by rejecting alleged facts 'without examination.' The populace +investigated more than did the wise and learned. + +Hume has an alternative definition of a miracle--'a miracle is a +transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or +by the interposition of some invisible agent.' We reply that what +Hume calls a 'miracle' may result from the operation of some as yet +unascertained law of nature (say self-suggestion), and that our business, +at present, is to examine such events, not to account for them. + +It may fairly be said that Hume is arguing against men who wished to make +so-called 'miracles' a test of the truth of Jansenism, for example, and +that he could not be expected to answer, by anticipation, ideas not +current in his day. But he remains guilty of denouncing the investigation +of apparent facts. No attitude can be less scientific than his, or more +common among many men of science. + +According to the humorous wont of things in this world, the whole question +of the marvellous had no sooner been settled for ever by David Hume than +it was reopened by Emanuel Swedenborg. Now, Kant was familiar with certain +of the works of Hume, whether he had read his 'Essay on Miracles' or not. +Far from declining to examine the portentous 'visions' of Swedenborg, Kant +interested himself deeply in the topic. As early as 1758 he wrote his +first remarks on the seer, containing some reports of stories or legends +about Swedenborg's 'clairvoyance.' In the true spirit of psychical +research, Kant wrote a letter to Swedenborg, asking for information at +first hand. The seer got the letter, but he never answered it. Kant, +however, prints one or two examples of Swedenborg's successes. Madame +Harteville, widow of the Dutch envoy in Stockholm, was dunned by a +silversmith for a debt of her late husband's. She believed that it had +been paid, but could not find the receipt. She therefore asked Swedenborg +to use his renowned gifts. He promised to see what he could do, and, three +days later, arrived at the lady's house while she was giving a tea, or +rather a coffee, party. To the assembled society Swedenborg remarked, 'in +a cold-blooded way, that he had seen her man, and spoken to him.' The late +M. Harteville declared to Swedenborg that he had paid the bill, seven +months before his decease: the receipt was in a cupboard upstairs. Madame +Harteville replied that the cupboard had been thoroughly searched to no +purpose. Swedenborg answered that, as he learned from the ghost, there was +a secret drawer behind the side-plank within the cupboard. The drawer +contained diplomatic correspondence, and the missing receipt. The whole +company then went upstairs, found the secret drawer, and the receipt among +the other papers. Kant adds Swedenborg's clairvoyant vision, from +Gothenburg, of a great fire at Stockholm (dated September 1756). Kant +pined to see Swedenborg himself, and waited eagerly for his book, 'Arcana +Coelestia.' At last he obtained this work, at the ransom, ruinous to Kant +at that time, of 7. But he was disappointed with what he read, and in +'Trume eines Geistersehers,' made a somewhat sarcastic attempt at a +metaphysical theory of apparitions. + + 'Velut aegri somnia vanae + Finguntur species' + +is his motto. + +Kant's real position about all these matters is, I venture to say, almost +identical with that of Sir Walter Scott. A Scot himself, by descent, Kant +may have heard tales of second-sight and bogles. Like Scott, he dearly +loved a ghost-story; like Scott he was canny enough to laugh, publicly, at +them and at himself for his interest in them. Yet both would take trouble +to inquire. As Kant vainly wrote to Swedenborg and others--as he vainly +spent 7. on 'Arcana Coelestia,' so Sir Walter was anxious to go to Egypt +to examine the facts of ink-gazing clairvoyance. Kant confesses that each +individual ghost-story found him sceptical, whereas the cumulative mass +made a considerable impression.[13] + +The first seventy pages of the 'Tribune' are devoted to a perfectly +serious discussion of the metaphysics of 'Spirits.' On page 73 he +pleasantly remarks, 'Now we shall understand that all said hitherto is +superfluous,' and he will not reproach the reader who regards seers _not_ +as citizens of two worlds (Plotinus), but as candidates for Bedlam. + +Kant's irony is peculiarly Scottish. He does not himself know how far he +is in earnest, and, to save his self-respect and character for canniness, +he 'jocks wi' deeficulty.' He amuses himself with trying how far he can +carry speculations on metaphysics (not yet reformed by himself) into the +realm of the ghostly. He makes admissions about his own tendency to think +that he has an immaterial soul, and that these points are, or may be, or +some day will be, scientifically solved. These admissions are eagerly +welcomed by Du Prel in his 'Philosophy of Mysticism;' but they are only +part of Kant's joke, and how far they are serious, Kant himself does not +know. If spiritualists knew their own business, they would translate and +publish Kant's first seventy pages of 'Trume.' Something like telepathy, +action of spirit, even discarnate, on spirit, is alluded to, but the idea +is as old as Lavaterus at least (p. 52). Kant has a good deal to say, like +Scott in his 'Demonology,' on the physics of Hallucination, but it is +antiquated matter. He thinks the whole topic of spiritual being only +important as bearing on hopes of a future life. As speculation, all is 'in +the air,' and as in such matters the learned and unlearned are on a level +of ignorance, science will not discuss them. He then repeats the +Swedenborg stories, and thinks it would be useful to posterity if some one +would investigate them while witnesses are alive and memories are fresh. + +In fact, Kant asks for psychical research. + +As for Swedenborg's so costly book, Kant laughs at it. There is in it no +evidence, only assertion. Kant ends, having pleased nobody, he says, and +as ignorant as when he began, by citing _cultivons notre jardin_. + +Kant returned to the theme in 'Anthropologische Didaktik.' He discusses +the unconscious, or sub-conscious, which, till Sir William Hamilton +lectured, seems to have been an absolutely unknown topic to British +psychologists. 'So ist das Feld dunkler Vorstellungen das grsste in +Menschen.' He has a chapter on 'The Divining Faculty' (pp. 89-93). He will +not hear of presentiments, and, unlike Hegel, he scouts the Highland +second-sight. The 'possessed' of anthropology are epileptic patients. +Mystics (Swedenborg) are victims of _Schwrmerei_. + +This reference to Swedenborg is remarked upon by Schubert in his preface +to the essay of Kant. He points out that 'it is interesting to compare the +circumspection, the almost uncertainty of Kant when he had to deliver a +judgment on the phenomena described by himself and as to which he had made +inquiry [i.e. in his letter _re_ Swedenborg to Mlle. de Knobloch], and the +very decided opinions he expressed forty years later on Swedenborg and +his companions' [in the work cited, sections 35-37. The opinion in +paragraph 35 is a general one as to mystics. There is no other mention of +Swedenborg]. + +On the whole Kant is interested, but despairing. He wants facts, and no +facts are given to him but the book of the Prophet Emanuel. But, as it +happened, a new, or a revived, order of facts was just about to solicit +scientific attention. Kant had (1766) heard rumours of healing by +magnetism, and of the alleged effect of the magnet on the human frame. The +subject was in the air, and had already won the attention of Mesmer, about +whom Kant had information. It were superfluous to tell again the familiar +story of Mesmer's performances at Paris. While Mesmer's theory of +'magnetism' was denounced by contemporary science, the discovery of the +hypnotic sleep was made by his pupil, Puysgur. This gentleman was +persuaded that instances of 'thought-transference' (not through known +channels of sense) occurred between the patient and the magnetiser, and he +also believed that he had witnessed cases of 'clairvoyance,' 'lucidity,' +_vue distance_, in which the patient apparently beheld places and events +remote in space. These things would now be explained by 'unconscious +suggestion' in the more sceptical schools of psychological science. The +Revolution interrupted scientific study in France to a great degree, but +'somnambulism' (the hypnotic sleep) and 'magnetism' were eagerly examined +in Germany. Modern manuals, for some reason, are apt to overlook these +German researches and speculations. (Compare Mr. Vincent's 'Elements of +Hypnotism,' p. 34.) The Schellings were interested; Ritter thought he had +detected a new force, 'Siderism.' Mr. Wallace, in his preface to Hegel's +'Philosophie des Geistes,' speaks as if Ritter had made experiments in +telepathy. He may have done so, but his 'Siderismus' (Tbingen, 1808) +is a Report undertaken for the Academy of Munich, on the doings of an +Italian water-finder, or 'dowser.' Ritter gives details of seventy-four +experiments in 'dowsing' for water, metals, or coal. He believes in the +faculty, but not in 'psychic' explanations, or the Devil. He talks +about 'electricity' (pp. 170, 190). He describes his precautions to +avoid vulgar fraud, but he took no precautions against unconscious +thought-transference. He reckoned the faculty 'temperamental' and useful. + +Amoretti, at Milan, examined hundreds of cases of the so-called Divining +Rod, and Jung Stilling became an early spiritualist and 'full-welling +fountain head' of ghost stories. + +Probably the most important philosophical result of the early German +researches into the hypnotic slumber is to be found in the writings of +Hegel. Owing to his peculiar use of a terminology, or scientific language, +all his own, it is extremely difficult to make Hegel's meaning even +moderately clear. Perhaps we may partly elucidate it by a similitude of +Mr. Frederic Myers. Suppose we compare the ordinary everyday consciousness +of each of us to a _spectrum_, whose ends towards each extremity fade out +of our view. + +Beyond the range of sight there may be imagined a lower or physiological +end: for our ordinary consciousness, of course, is unaware of many +physiological processes which are eternally going on within us. Digestion, +so long as it is healthy, is an obvious example. But hypnotic experiment +makes it certain that a patient, in the _hypnotic_ condition, can +consciously, or at least purposefully, affect physiological processes to +which the _ordinary_ consciousness is blind--for example, by raising a +blister, when it is suggested that a blister must be raised. Again +(granting the facts hypothetically and merely for the sake of argument), +at the _upper_ end of the spectrum, beyond the view of ordinary everyday +consciousness, knowledge may be acquired of things which are out of the +view of the consciousness of every day. For example (for the sake of +argument let us admit it), unknown and remote people and places may be +seen and described by clairvoyance, or _vue distance_. + +Now Hegel accepted as genuine the facts which we here adduce merely for +the sake of argument, and by way of illustrations. But he did not regard +the clairvoyant consciousness (or whatever we call it) which, _ex +hypothesi_, is untrammelled by space, or even by time, as occupying what +we style the _upper_ end of the psychical spectrum. On the contrary, he +placed it at the _lower_ end. Hegel's upper end 'loses itself in light;' +the lower end, _qui voit tant de choses_, as La Fontaine's shepherd says, +is _not_ 'a sublime mental phase, and capable of conveying general +truths.' Time and space do not thwart the consciousness at Hegel's _lower_ +end, which springs from 'the great soul of nature.' But that lower end, +though it may see for Jeanne d'Arc at Valcouleurs a battle at Rouvray, a +hundred leagues away, does not communicate any lofty philosophic +truths.[14] The phenomena of clairvoyance, in Hegel's opinion, merely +indicate that the 'material' is really 'ideal,' which, perhaps, is as much +as we can ask from them. 'The somnambulist and clairvoyant see without +eyes, and carry their visions directly into regions where the waiting +consciousness of orderly intelligence cannot enter' (Wallace). Hegel +admits, however, that 'in ordinary self-possessed conscious life' there +are traces of the 'magic tie,' 'especially between female friends of +delicate nerves,' to whom he adds husband and wife, and members of the +same family. He gives (without date or source) a case of a girl in Germany +who saw her brother lying dead in a hospital at Valladolid. Her brother +was at the time in the hospital, but it was another man in the nest bed +who was dead. 'It is thus impossible to make out whether what the +clairvoyants really see preponderates over what they deceive themselves +in.' + +As long as the facts which Hegel accepted are not officially welcomed by +science, it may seem superfluous to dispute as to whether they are +attained by the lower or the higher stratum of our consciousness. But +perhaps the question here at issue may be elucidated by some remarks of +Dr. Max Dessoir. Psychology, he says, has proved that in every conception +and idea an image or group of images must be present. These mental images +are the recrudescence or recurrence of perceptions. We see a tree, or a +man, or a dog, and whenever we have before our minds the conception or +idea of any of these things the original perception of them returns, +though of course more faintly. But in Dr. Dessoir's opinion these revived +mental images would reach the height of actual hallucinations (so that the +man, dog, or tree would seem visibly present) if other memories and new +sensations did not compete with them and check their development. + +Suppose, to use Mlle. Ferrand's metaphor, a human body, living, but with +all its channels of sensation hitherto unopened. Open the sense of sight +to receive a flash of green colour, and close it again. Apparently, +whenever the mind informing this body had the conception of green (and it +could have no other) it would also have an hallucination of green, thus + + 'Annihilating all that's made, + To a green thought in a green shade.' + +Now, in sleep or hypnotic trance the competition of new sensations and +other memories is removed or diminished, and therefore the idea of a man, +dog, or tree once suggested to the hypnotised patient, does become an +actual hallucination. The hypnotised patient sees the absent object which +he is told to see, the sleeper sees things not really present. + +Our primitive state, before the enormous competition of other memories and +new sensations set in, would thus be a state of hallucination. Our normal +present condition, in which hallucination is checked by competing memories +and new sensations, is a suppression of our original, primitive, natural +tendencies. Hallucination represents 'the main trunk of our psychical +existence.'[15] In Dr. Dessoir's theory this condition of hallucination +is man's original and most primitive condition, but it is not a _higher_, +rather a lower state of spiritual activity than the everyday practical +unhallucinated consciousness. + +This is also the opinion of Hegel, who supposes our primitive mental +condition to be capable of descrying objects remote in space and time. Mr. +Myers, as we saw, is of the opposite opinion, as to the relative dignity +and relative reality of the present everyday self, and the old original +fundamental Self. Dr. Dessoir refrains from pronouncing a decided opinion +as to whether the original, primitive, hallucinated self within us does +'preside over powers and actions at a distance,' such as clairvoyance; but +he believes in hypnotisation at a distance. His theory, like Hegel's, is +that of 'atavism,' or 'throwing back' to some very remote ancestral +condition. This will prove of interest later. + +Hegel, at all events, believed in the fact of clairvoyance (though deeming +it of little practical use); he accepted telepathy ('the magic tie'); he +accepted interchange of sensations between the hypnotiser and the +hypnotised; he believed in the divining rod, and, unlike Kant, even in +'Scottish second-sight.' 'The intuitive soul oversteps the conditions of +time and space; it beholds things remote, things long past, and things to +come.'[16] + +The pendulum of thought has swung back a long way from the point whither +it was urged by David Hume. Hegel remarks: 'The facts, it might seem, +first of all call for verification. But such verification would be +superfluous to those on whose account it was called for, since they +facilitate the inquiry for themselves by declaring the narratives, +infinitely numerous though they be, and accredited by the education and +character of the witnesses, to be mere deception and imposture. Their _a +priori_ conceptions are so rooted that no testimony can avail against +them, and they have even denied what they have seen with their own eyes,' +and reported under their own hands, like Sir David Brewster. Hegel, it +will be observed, takes the facts as given, and works them into his +general theory of the Sensitive Soul (_fhlende Seele_). He does not try +to establish the facts; but to establish, or at least to examine them, is +the first business of Psychical Research. Theorising comes later. + +The years which have passed between the date of Hegel's 'Philosophy of +Mind' and our own time have witnessed the long dispute over the existence, +the nature, and the causes of the hypnotic condition, and over the reality +and limitations of the phenomena. Thus the Academy of Medicine in Paris +appointed a Committee to examine the subject in 1825. The Report on +'Animal Magnetism,' as it was then styled, was presented in 1831. The +Academy lacked the courage to publish it, for the Report was favourable +even to certain of the still disputed phenomena. At that time, in +accordance with a survival of the theory of Mesmer, the agent in hypnotic +cases was believed to be a kind of efflux of a cosmic fluid from the +'magnetiser' to the patient. There was 'a magnetic connection.' + +Though no distinction between mesmerism and hypnotism is taken in popular +language, 'mesmerism' is a word implying this theory of 'magnetic' or +other unknown personal influence. 'Hypnotism,' as will presently be seen, +implies no such theory. The Academy's Report (1831) attested the +development, under 'magnetism,' of 'new faculties,' such as clairvoyance +and intuition, also the production of 'great changes in the physical +economy,' such as insensibility, and sudden increase of strength. The +Report declared it to be 'demonstrated' that sleep could be produced +'without suggestion,' as we say now, though the term was not then in use. +'Sleep has been produced in circumstances in which the persons could not +see or were ignorant of the means employed to produce it.' + +The Academy did its best to suppress this Report, which attests the +phenomena that Hegel accepted, phenomena still disputed. Six years later +(1837), a Committee reported against the pretensions of a certain Berna, +a 'magnetiser.' No person acted on both Committees, and this Report was +accepted. Later, a number of people tried to read a letter in a box, and +failed. 'This,' says Mr. Vincent, 'settled the question with regard to +clairvoyance;' though it might be more logical to say that it settled the +pretensions of the competitors on that occasion. The Academy now decided +that, because certain persons did not satisfy the expectations raised by +their preliminary advertisements, therefore the question of magnetism was +definitely closed. + +We have often to regret that scientific eminence is not always accompanied +by scientific logic. Where science neglects a subject, charlatans and +dupes take it up. In England 'animal magnetism' had been abandoned to this +class of enthusiasts, till Thackeray's friend, Dr. Elliotson, devoted +himself to the topic. He was persecuted as doctors know how to persecute; +but in 1841, Braid, of Manchester, discovered that the so-called 'magnetic +sleep' could be produced without any 'magnetism,' He made his patients +stare fixedly at an object, and encouraged them to expect to go to sleep. +He called his method 'Hypnotism,' a term which begs no question. Seeming +to cease to be mysterious, hypnotism became all but respectable, and was +being used in surgical operations, till it was superseded by chloroform. +In England, the study has been, and remains, rather _suspect_, while on +The Continent hypnotism is used both for healing purposes and in the +inquiries of experimental psychology. Wide differences of opinion still +exist, as to the nature of the hypnotic sleep, as to its physiological +concomitants, and as to the limits of the faculties exercised in or out of +the slumber. It is not even absolutely certain that the exercise of the +stranger faculties--for instance, that the production of anaesthesia and +rigidity--are the results merely of 'suggestion' and expectancy. A +hypnotised patient is told that the middle finger of his left hand will +become rigid and incapable of sensation. This occurs, and is explained by +'suggestion,' though _how_ 'suggestion' produces the astonishing effect +is another problem. The late Mr. Gurney, however, made a number of +experiments in which no suggestion was pronounced, nor did the patients +know which of their fingers was to become rigid and incapable of pain. The +patient's hands were thrust through a screen; on the other side of which +the hypnotist made passes above the finger which was to become rigid. The +lookers-on selected the finger, and the insensibility was tested by a +strong electric current. The effect was also produced _without_ passes, +the operator merely pointing at the selected finger, and 'willing' the +result. If he did not 'will' it, nothing occurred, nor did anything occur +if he willed without pointing. The proximity of the operator's hand +produced no effect if he did not 'will,' nor was his 'willing' successful +if he did not bring his hand near that of the patient. Other people's +hands, similarly situated, produced no effect. + +Experiments in transferring taste, as of salt, sugar, cayenne pepper, from +operator to subject, were also successful. Drs. Janet and Gibert also +produced sleep in a woman at a distance, by 'willing' it, at hours which +were selected by a system of drawing lots.[17] These facts, of course, +rather point to an element of truth in the old mesmeric hypothesis of some +specific influence in the operator. They cannot very well be explained by +suggestion and expectancy. But these facts and facts of clairvoyance and +thought-transference will be rejected as superstitious delusions by people +who have not met them in their own experience. This need not prevent us +from examining them, because _all_ the facts, including those now +universally accepted by Continental and scarcely impeached by British +science, have been noisily rejected again and again on Hume's principles. + +The rarer facts, as Mr. Gurney remarks, 'still go through the hollow form +of taking place.' Here is an example of the mode in which these phenomena +are treated by popular science. Mr. Vincent says that 'clairvoyance and +phrenology were Elliotson's constant stock in trade.' (Phrenology was +also Braid's stock in trade.) 'It is a matter of congratulation to have +been so soon delivered from what Dr. Lloyd Tuckey has well called "a mass +of superincumbent rubbish."'[18] Clairvoyance is part of a mass of +rubbish, on page 57. On page 67, Mr. Vincent says: 'There are many +interesting questions, such as telepathy, thought-reading, clairvoyance, +upon which it would be perhaps rash to give any decided opinion.... All +these strange psychical conditions present problems of great interest,' +and are only omitted because 'they have not a sufficient bearing on the +normal states of hypnosis....' Thus what was 'rubbish' in one page +'presents problems of great interest' ten pages later, and, after offering +a decided opinion that clairvoyance is rubbish, Mr. Vincent thinks it rash +to give any decided opinion. It is rather rash to give a decided opinion, +and then to say that it is rash to do so.[19] + +This brief sketch shows that science is confronted by certain facts, +which, in his time, Hume dismissed as incredible miracles, beneath the +contempt of the wise and learned. We also see that the stranger and rarer +phenomena which Hegel accepted as facts, and interwove with his general +philosophy, are still matters of dispute. Admitted by some men of science, +they are doubted by others; by others, again, are denied, while most of +the journalists and authors of cheap primers, who inspire popular +tradition, regard the phenomena as frauds or fables of superstition. But +it is plain that these phenomena, like the more ordinary facts of +hypnotism, _may_ finally be admitted by science. The scientific world +laughed, not so long ago, at Ogham inscriptions, meteorites, and at +palaeolithic weapons as impostures, or freaks of nature. Now nobody has +any doubt on these matters, and clairvoyance, thought-transference, and +telepathy may, not inconceivably, be as fortunate in the long run as +meteorites, or as the more usual phenomena of hypnotism. + +It is only Lord Kelvin who now maintains, or lately maintained, that in +hypnotism there is nothing at all but fraud and malobservation. In years +to come it may be that only some similar belated voice will cry that in +thought-transference there is nothing but malobservation and fraud. At +present the serious attention and careful experiment needed for the +establishment of the facts are more common among French than among English +men of science. When published, these experiments, if they contain any +affirmative instances, are denounced as 'superstitious,' or criticized +after what we must charitably deem to be a very hasty glance, by the +guides of popular opinion. Examples of this method will be later quoted. +Meanwhile the disputes as to these alleged facts are noticed here, because +of their supposed relation to the Origin of Religion. + +[Footnote 1: See Mr. Myers's paper on the 'Ancient Oracles,' in _Classical +Essays_, and the author's 'Ancient Spiritualism,' in _Cock Lane and Common +Sense_.] + +[Footnote 2: The italics here are those of Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, in +his _Miracles and Modern Science_. Mr. Huxley, in his exposure of Hume's +fallacies (in his Life of Hume), did not examine the Jansenist 'miracles' +which Hume was criticising.] + +[Footnote 3: Moll, _Hypnotism_, p. 357.] + +[Footnote 4: _Animal Magnetism_, p. 355.] + +[Footnote 5: A translation of his work was published in the _New Review_, +January 1693.] + +[Footnote 6: _La Vrit des Miracles_, Cologne, 1747, Septimo +Dmonstration.] + +[Footnote 7: See Dr. Russell Reynolds's paper in _British Medical +Journal_, November 1869.] + +[Footnote 8: James, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 612. Charcot, +op. cit.] + +[Footnote 9: I do not need to be told that Dr. Maudsley denied the fact in +1886. I am prepared with the evidence, if it is asked for by some savant +who happens not to know it.] + +[Footnote 10: I am not responsible, of course, for the scientific validity +of Dr. Charcot's theory of healing 'by idea.' My point merely is that +certain experts of no slight experience or mean reputation do now admit, +as important certainties within their personal knowledge, exactly the +phenomena which Hume asks the wise and learned to laugh at, indeed, but +never to investigate.] + +[Footnote 11: Pp. 353-356.] + +[Footnote 12: P. 93.] + +[Footnote 13: _Trume_, p. 76.] + +[Footnote 14: Hegel accepts the clairvoyance of the Pucelle.] + +[Footnote 15: See Dr. Dessoir, in _Das Doppel Ich,_ as quoted by Mr. +Myers, _Proceedings_, vol. vi. 213.] + +[Footnote 16: _Philosophie des Geistes, Werke,_ vol. vii. 179. Berlin. +1845. The examples and much of the philosophising are in the _Zustze_, +not translated in Mr. Wallace's version, Oxford, 1894.] + +[Footnote 17: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., vol. ii. pp. 201-207, 390-392.] + +[Footnote 18: _Elements of Hypnotism_, p. 67.] + +[Footnote 19: Possibly Mr. Vincent only means that Elliotson's +experiments, 'little more than sober footing' (p. 57), with the sisters +Okey, were rubbish. But whether the sisters Okey were or were not honest +is a question on which we cannot enter here.] + + + + +III + +ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION + +Among the various forms of science which are reaching and affecting the +new popular tradition, we have reckoned Anthropology. Pleasantly enough, +Anthropology has herself but recently emerged from that limbo of +the unrecognised in which Psychical Research is pining. The British +Association used to reject anthropological papers as 'vain dreams based on +travellers' tales.' No doubt the British Association would reject a paper +on clairvoyance as a vain dream based on old wives' fables, or on +hysterical imposture. Undeniably the study of such themes is hampered by +fable and fraud, just as anthropology has to be ceaselessly on its guard +against 'travellers' tales,' against European misunderstandings of savage +ideas, and against civilised notions and scientific theories unconsciously +read into barbaric customs, rites, traditions, and usages. Man, _ondoyant +et divers_, is the subject alike of anthropology and of psychical +research. Man (especially savage man) cannot be secluded from disturbing +influences, and watched, like the materials of a chemical experiment in a +laboratory. Nor can man be caught in a 'primitive' state: his intellectual +beginnings lie very far behind the stage of culture in which we find the +lowest known races. Consequently the matter on which anthropology works is +fluctuating; the evidence on which it rests needs the most sceptical +criticism, and many of its conclusions, in the necessary absence of +historical testimony as to times far behind the lowest known savages, must +be hypothetical. + +For these sound reasons official science long looked askance on +Anthropology. Her followers were not regarded as genuine scholars, and, +perhaps as a result of this contempt, they were often 'broken men,' +intellectual outlaws, people of one wild idea. To the scientific mind, +anthropologists or ethnologists were a horde who darkly muttered of +serpent worship, phallus worship, Arkite doctrines, and the Ten Lost +Tribes that kept turning up in the most unexpected places. Anthropologists +were said to gloat over dirty rites of dirty savages, and to seek reason +where there was none. The exiled, the outcast, the pariah of Science, is, +indeed, apt to find himself in odd company. Round the camp-fire of +Psychical Research too, in the unofficial, unstaked waste of Science, +hover odd, menacing figures of Esoteric Buddhists, _Satanistes_, +Occultists, Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, and Astrologers, as the +Arkites and Lost Tribesmen haunted the cradle of anthropology. + +But there was found at last to be reason in the thing, and method in the +madness. Evolution was in it. The acceptance, after long ridicule, of +palaeolithic weapons as relics of human culture, probably helped to bring +Anthropology within the sacred circle of permitted knowledge. Her topic +was full of illustrations of the doctrine of Mr. Darwin. Modern writers on +the theme had been anticipated by the less systematic students of the +eighteenth century--Goguet, de Brosses, Millar, Fontenelle, Lafitau, +Boulanger, or even Hume and Voltaire. As pioneers these writers answer to +the early mesmerists and magnetists, Puysgur, Amoretti, Ritter, +Elliotson, Mayo, Gregory, in the history of Psychical Research. They +were on the same track, in each case, as Lubbock, Tylor, Spencer, +Bastian, and Frazer, or as Gurney, Richet, Myers, Janet, Dessoir, and Von +Schrenck-Notzing. But the earlier students were less careful of method and +evidence. + +Evidence! that was the stumbling block of anthropology. We still hear, in +the later works of Mr. Max Mller, the echo of the old complaints. +Anything you please, Mr. Max Mller says, you may find among your useful +savages, and (in regard to some anthropologists) his criticism is just. +You have but to skim a few books of travel, pencil in hand, and pick out +what suits your case. Suppose, as regards our present theme, your theory +is that savages possess broken lights of the belief in a Supreme Being. +You can find evidence for that. Or suppose you want to show that they have +no religious ideas at all; you can find evidence for that also. Your +testimony is often derived from observers ignorant of the language of the +people whom they talk about, or who are themselves prejudiced by one or +other theory or bias. How can you pretend to raise a science on such +foundations, especially as the savage informants wish to please or to +mystify inquirers, or they answer at random, or deliberately conceal their +most sacred institutions, or have never paid any attention to the subject? + +To all these perfectly natural objections Mr. Tylor has replied.[1] +Evidence must be collected, sifted, tested, as in any other branch of +inquiry. A writer, 'of course, is bound to use his best judgment as to +the trustworthiness of all authors he quotes, and, if possible, to obtain +several accounts to certify each point in each locality.' Mr. Tylor then +adduces 'the test of recurrence,' of undesigned coincidence in testimony, +as Millar had already argued in the last century.[2] If a mediaeval +Mahommedan in Tartary, a Jesuit in Brazil, a Wesleyan in Fiji, one may add +a police magistrate in Australia, a Presbyterian in Central Africa, a +trapper in Canada, agree in describing some analogous rite or myth in +these diverse lands and ages, we cannot set down the coincidence to chance +or fraud. 'Now, the most important facts of ethnography are vouched for in +this way.' + +We may add that even when the ideas of savages are obscure, we can +often detect them by analysis of the institutions in which they are +expressed.[3] + +Thus anthropological, like psychical or any other evidence, must be +submitted to conscientious processes of testing and sifting. Contradictory +instances must be hunted for sedulously. Nothing can be less scientific +than to snatch up any traveller's tale which makes for our theory, and to +ignore evidence, perhaps earlier, or later, or better observed, which +makes against it. Yet this, unfortunately, in certain instances (which +will be adduced) has been the occasional error of Mr. Huxley and Mr. +Spencer.[4] Mr. Spencer opens his 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' by the +remark that 'the implication [from the reported absence of the ideas of +belief in persons born deaf and dumb] is that the religious ideas of +civilised men are not innate' (who says they are?), and this implication +Mr. Spencer supports by 'proofs that among various savages religious ideas +do not exist.' 'Sir John Lubbock has given many of these.' But it would be +well to advise the reader to consult Roskoff's confutation of Sir John +Lubbock, and Mr. Tylor's masterly statement.[5] Mr. Spencer cited Sir +Samuel Baker for savages without even 'a ray of superstition' or a trace +of worship. Mr. Tylor, twelve years before Mr. Spencer wrote, had +demolished Sir Samuel Baker's assertion,[6] as regards many tribes, and so +shaken it as regards the Latukas, quoted by Mr. Spencer. The godless +Dinkas have 'a good deity and heaven-dwelling creator,' carefully recorded +years before Sir Samuel's 'rash denial.' We show later that Mr. Spencer, +relying on a single isolated sentence in Brough Smyth, omits all his +essential information about the Australian Supreme Being; while Mr. +Huxley--overlooking the copious and conclusive evidence as to their +ethical religion--charges the Australians with having merely a non-moral +belief in casual spirits. We have also to show that Mr. Huxley, under the +dominance of his theory, and inadvertently, quotes a good authority as +saying the precise reverse of what he really does say. + +If the facts not fitting their theories are little observed by authorities +so popular as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer; if _instantiae contradictoriae_ +are ignored by them, or left vague; if these things are done in the green +tree, we may easily imagine what shall be done in the dry. But we need not +war with hasty _vulgarisateurs_ and headlong theorists. + +Enough has been said to show the position of anthropology as regards +evidence, and to prove that, if he confines his observations to certain +anthropologists, the censures of Mr. Max Mller are justified. It is +mainly for this reason that the arguments presently to follow are strung +on the thread of Mr. Tylor's truly learned and accurate book, 'Primitive +Culture.' + +Though but recently crept forth, _vix aut ne vix quidem_, from the chill +shade of scientific disdain, Anthropology adopts the airs of her elder +sisters among the sciences, and is as severe as they to the Cinderella of +the family, Psychical Research. She must murmur of her fairies among the +cinders of the hearth, while they go forth to the ball, and dance with +provincial mayors at the festivities of the British Association. This is +ungenerous, and unfortunate, as the records of anthropology are rich in +unexamined materials of psychical research. I am unacquainted with any +work devoted by an anthropologist of renown to the hypnotic and kindred +practices of the lower races, except Herr Bastian's very meagre tract, +'ber psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturvlkern.'[7] We possess, none the +less, a mass of scattered information on this topic, the savage side of +psychical phenomena, in works of travel, and in Mr. Tylor's monumental +'Primitive Culture.' Mr. Tylor, however, as we shall see, regards it as a +matter of indifference, or, at least, as a matter beyond the scope of his +essay, to decide whether the parallel supernormal phenomena believed +in by savages, and said to recur in civilisation, are facts of actual +experience, or not. + +Now, this question is not otiose. Mr. Tylor, like other anthropologists, +Mr. Huxley, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and their followers and popularisers, +constructs on anthropological grounds, a theory of the Origin of Religion. + +That origin anthropology explains as the result of early and fallacious +reasonings on a number of biological and psychological phenomena, both +normal and (as is alleged by savages) supernormal. These reasonings led to +the belief in souls and spirits. Now, first, anthropology has taken for +granted that the Supreme Deities of savages are envisaged by them as +'spirits.' This, paradoxical as the statement may appear, is just what +does not seem to be proved, as we shall show. Next, if the supernormal +phenomena (clairvoyance, thought-transference, phantasms of the dead, +phantasms of the dying, and others) be real matters of experience, the +inferences drawn from them by early savage philosophy may be, in some +degree, erroneous. But the inferences drawn by materialists who reject the +supernormal phenomena will also, perhaps, be, let us say, incomplete. +Religion will have been, in part, developed out of facts, perhaps +inconsistent with materialism in its present dogmatic form. To put it less +trenchantly, and perhaps more accurately, the alleged facts 'are not +merely dramatically strange, they are not merely extraordinary and +striking, but they are "odd" in the sense that they will not easily fit in +with the views which physicists and men of science generally give us of +the universe in which we live' (Mr. A.J. Balfour, President's Address, +'Proceedings,' S.P.R. vol. x. p. 8, 1894). + +As this is the case, it might seem to be the business of Anthropology, the +Science of Man, to examine, among other things, the evidence for the +actual existence of those alleged unusual and supernormal phenomena, +belief in which is given as one of the origins of religion. + +To make this examination, in the ethnographic field, is almost a new +labour. As we shall see, anthropologists have not hitherto investigated +such things as the 'Fire-walk' of savages, uninjured in the flames, like +the Three Holy Children. The world-wide savage practice of divining by +hallucinations induced through gazing into a smooth deep (crystal-gazing) +has been studied, I think, by no anthropologist. The veracity of +'messages' uttered by savage seers when (as they suppose) 'possessed' or +'inspired' has not been criticised, and probably cannot be, for lack of +detailed information. The 'physical phenomena' which answer among savages +to the use of the 'divining rod,' and to 'spiritist' marvels in modern +times, have only been glanced at. In short, all the savage parallels +to the so-called 'psychical phenomena' now under discussion in England, +America, Germany, Italy, and France, have escaped critical analysis and +comparison with their civilised counterparts. + +An exception among anthropologists is Mr. Tylor. He has not suppressed the +existence of these barbaric parallels to our modern problems of this kind. +But his interest in them practically ends when he has shown that the +phenomena helped to originate the savage belief in 'spirits,' and when he +has displayed the 'survival' of that belief in later culture. He does not +ask 'Are the phenomena real?' he is concerned only with the savage +philosophy of the phenomena and with its relics in modern spiritism and +religion. My purpose is to do, by way only of _bauche_, what neither +anthropology nor psychical research nor psychology has done: to put the +savage and modern phenomena side by side. Such evidence as we can give for +the actuality of the modern experiences will, so far as it goes, raise a +presumption that the savage beliefs, however erroneous, however darkened +by fraud and fancy, repose on a basis of real observation of actual +phenomena. + +Anthropology is concerned with man and what is in man--_humani nihil +a se alienum putat_. These researches, therefore, are within the +anthropological province, especially as they bear on the prevalent +anthropological theory of the Origin of Religion. By 'religion' we mean, +for the purpose of this argument, the belief in the existence of an +Intelligence, or Intelligences not human, and not dependent on a material +mechanism of brain and nerves, which may, or may not, powerfully control +men's fortunes and the nature of things. We also mean the additional +belief that there is, in man, an element so far kindred to these +Intelligences that it can transcend the knowledge obtained through the +known bodily senses, and may possibly survive the death of the body. These +two beliefs at present (though not necessarily in their origin) appear +chiefly as the faith in God and in the Immortality of the Soul. + +It is important, then, to trace, if possible, the origin of these two +beliefs. If they arose in actual communion with Deity (as the first at +least did, in the theory of the Hebrew Scriptures), or if they could be +proved to arise in an unanalysable _sensus numinis_, or even in 'a +perception of the Infinite' (Max Mller), religion would have a divine, or +at least a necessary source. To the Theist, what is inevitable cannot but +be divinely ordained, therefore religion is divinely preordained, +therefore, in essentials, though not in accidental details, religion is +true. The atheist, or non-theist, of course draws no such inferences. + +But if religion, as now understood among men, be the latest evolutionary +form of a series of mistakes, fallacies, and illusions, if its germ be a +blunder, and its present form only the result of progressive but +unessential refinements on that blunder, the inference that religion is +untrue--that nothing actual corresponds to its hypothesis--is very easily +drawn. The inference is not, perhaps, logical, for all our science itself +is the result of progressive refinements upon hypotheses originally +erroneous, fashioned to explain facts misconceived. Yet our science is +true, within its limits, though very far from being exhaustive of the +truth. In the same way, it might be argued, our religion, even granting +that it arose out of primitive fallacies and false hypotheses, may yet +have been refined, as science has been, through a multitude of causes, +into an approximate truth. + +Frequently as I am compelled to differ from Mr. Spencer both as to facts +and their interpretation, I am happy to find that he has anticipated me +here. Opponents will urge, he says, that 'if the primitive belief' (in +ghosts) 'was absolutely false, all derived beliefs from it must be +absolutely false?' Mr. Spencer replies: 'A germ of truth was contained in +the primitive conception--the truth, namely, that the power which +manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of +the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness.' In fact, we find +Mr. Spencer, like Faust as described by Marguerite, saying much the same +thing as the priests, but not quite in the same way. Of course, I allow +for a much larger 'germ of truth' in the origin of the ghost theory than +Mr. Spencer does. But we can both say 'the ultimate form of the religious +consciousness is' (will be?) 'the final development of a consciousness +which at the outset contained a germ of truth obscured by multitudinous +errors.'[8] + + 'One God, one law, one element, + And one far-off divine event, + To which the whole creation moves.' + +Coming at last to Mr. Tylor, we find that he begins by dismissing the idea +that any known race of men is devoid of religious conceptions. He +disproves, out of their own mouths, the allegations of several writers who +have made this exploded assertion about 'godless tribes.' He says: +'The thoughts and principles of modern Christianity are attached to +intellectual clues which run back through far pre-Christian ages to the +very origin of human civilisation, _perhaps even of human existence_.'[9] +So far we abound in Mr. Tylor's sense. 'As a minimum definition of +religion' he gives 'the belief in spiritual beings,' which appears +'among all low races with whom we have attained to thoroughly intimate +relations.' The existence of this belief at present does not prove that no +races were ever, at any time, destitute of all belief. But it prevents us +from positing the existence of such creedless races, in any age, as a +demonstrated fact. We have thus, in short, no opportunity of observing, +_historically_, man's development from blank unbelief into even the +minimum or most rudimentary form of belief. We can only theorise and make +more or less plausible conjectures as to the first rudiments of human +faith in God and in spiritual beings. We find no race whose mind, as to +faith, is a _tabula rasa_. + +To the earliest faith Mr. Tylor gives the name of _Animism_, a term not +wholly free from objection, though 'Spiritualism' is still less desirable, +having been usurped by a form of modern superstitiousness. This Animism, +'in its full development, includes the belief in souls and in a future +state, in controlling deities and subordinate spirits.' In Mr. Tylor's +opinion, as in Mr. Huxley's, Animism, in its lower (and earlier) forms, +has scarcely any connection with ethics. Its 'spirits' do not 'make for +righteousness.' This is a side issue to be examined later, but we may +provisionally observe, in passing, that the ethical ideas, such as they +are, even of Australian blacks are reported to be inculcated at the +religious mysteries (_Bora_) of the tribes, which were instituted by and +are performed in honour of the gods of their native belief. But this topic +must be reserved for our closing chapters. + +Mr. Tylor, however, is chiefly concerned with Animism as 'an ancient and +world-wide philosophy, of which belief is the theory, and worship is the +practice.' Given Animism, then, or the belief in spiritual beings, as the +earliest form and minimum of religious faith, what is the origin of +Animism? It will be seen that, by Animism, Mr. Tylor does not mean the +alleged early theory, implicitly if not explicitly and consciously held, +that all things whatsoever are animated and are personalities.[10] Judging +from the behaviour of little children, and from the myths of savages, +early man may have half-consciously extended his own sense of personal and +potent and animated existence to the whole of nature as known to him. Not +only animals, but vegetables and inorganic objects, may have been looked +on by him as persons, like what he felt himself to be. The child (perhaps +merely because _taught_ to do so) beats the naughty chair, and all objects +are persons in early mythology. But this _feeling_, rather than theory, +may conceivably have existed among early men, before they developed the +hypothesis of 'spirits,' 'ghosts,' or souls. It is the origin of _that_ +hypothesis, 'Animism,' which Mr. Tylor investigates. + +What, then, is the origin of Animism? It arose in the earliest traceable +speculations on 'two groups of biological problems: + +(1) 'What is it that makes the difference between a living body and a +dead one; what causes waking, sleep, trance, disease, and death?' + +(2) 'What are those human shapes which appear in dreams and +visions?'[11] + +Here it should be noted that Mr. Tylor most properly takes a distinction +between sleeping 'dreams' and waking 'visions,' or 'clear vision.' The +distinction is made even by the blacks of Australia. Thus one of the +Kurnai announced that his _Yambo_, or soul, could 'go out' during sleep, +and see the distant and the dead. But 'while any one might be able to +communicate with the ghosts, _during sleep_, it was only the wizards who +were able to do so in waking hours.' A wizard, in fact, is a person +susceptible (or feigning to be susceptible) when awake to hallucinatory +perceptions of phantasms of the dead. 'Among the Kulin of Wimmera River a +man became a wizard who, as a boy, had seen his mother's ghost sitting at +her grave.'[12] These facts prove that a race of savages at the bottom of +the scale of culture do take a formal distinction between normal dreams in +sleep and waking hallucinations--a thing apt to be denied. + +Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer offers the massive generalisation that savages do +not possess a language enabling a man to say 'I dreamed that I saw,' +instead of 'I saw' ('Principles of Sociology,' p. 150). This could only be +proved by giving examples of such highly deficient languages, which Mr. +Spencer does not do.[13] In many savage speculations there occur ideas as +subtly metaphysical as those of Hegel. Moreover, even the Australian +languages have the verb 'to see,' and the substantive 'sleep.' Nothing, +then, prevents a man from saying 'I saw in sleep' (_insomnium_, +[Greek: enupnion]). + +We have shown too, that the Australians take an essential distinction +between waking hallucinations (ghosts seen by a man when awake) and the +common hallucinations of slumber. Anybody can have these; the man who sees +ghosts when awake is marked out for a wizard. + +At the same time the vividness of dreams among certain savages, as +recorded in Mr. Im Thurn's 'Indians of Guiana,' and the consequent +confusion of dreaming and waking experiences, are certain facts. Wilson +says the same of some negroes, and Mr. Spencer illustrates from the +confusion of mind in dreamy children. They, we know, are much more +addicted to somnambulism than grown-up people. I am unaware that +spontaneous somnambulism among savages has been studied as it ought to be. +I have demonstrated, however, that very low savages can and do draw an +essential distinction between sleeping and waking hallucinations. + +Again, the crystal-gazer, whose apparently telepathic crystal pictures are +discussed later (chap. v.), was introduced to a crystal just because she +had previously been known to be susceptible to waking and occasionally +veracious hallucinations. + +It was not only on the dreams of sleep, so easily forgotten as they are, +that the savage pondered, in his early speculations about the life and the +soul. He included in his materials the much more striking and memorable +experiences of waking hours, as we and Mr. Tylor agree in holding. + +Reflecting on these things, the earliest savage reasoners would decide: +(1) that man has a 'life' (which leaves him temporarily in sleep, finally +in death); (2) that man also possesses a 'phantom' (which appears to +other people in their visions and dreams). The savage philosopher would +then 'combine his information,' like a celebrated writer on Chinese +metaphysics. He would merely 'combine the life and the phantom,' as +'manifestations of one and the same soul.' The result would be 'an +apparitional soul,' or 'ghost-soul.' + +This ghost-soul would be a highly accomplished creature, 'a vapour, film, +or shadow,' yet conscious, capable of leaving the body, mostly invisible +and impalpable, 'yet also manifesting physical power,' existing and +appearing after the death of the body, able to act on the bodies of other +men, beasts, and things.[14] + +When the earliest reasoners, in an age and in mental conditions of which +we know nothing historically, had evolved the hypothesis of this +conscious, powerful, separable soul, capable of surviving the death of the +body, it was not difficult for them to develop the rest of Religion, as +Mr. Tylor thinks. A powerful ghost of a dead man might thrive till, its +original owner being long forgotten, it became a God. Again (souls once +given) it would not be a very difficult logical leap, perhaps, to conceive +of souls, or spirits, that had never been human at all. It is, we may say, +only _le premier pas qui cote_, the step to the belief in a surviving +separable soul. Nevertheless, when we remember that Mr. Tylor is +theorising about savages in the dim background of human evolution, savages +whom we know nothing of by experience, savages far behind Australians and +Bushmen (who possess Gods), we must admit that he credits them with great +ingenuity, and strong powers of abstract reasoning. He may be right in his +opinion. In the same way, just as primitive men were keen reasoners, so +early bees, more clever than modern bees, may have evolved the system of +hexagonal cells, and only an early fish of genius could first have hit +on the plan, now hereditary of killing a fly by blowing water at it. + +To this theory of metaphysical genius in very low savages I have no +objection to offer. We shall find, later, astonishing examples of savage +abstract speculation, certainly not derived from missionary sources, +because wholly out of the missionary's line of duty and reflection. + +As early beasts had genius, so the earliest reasoners appear to have been +as logically gifted as the lowest savages now known to us, or even as some +Biblical critics. By Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, they first conceived the +extremely abstract idea of Life, 'that which makes the difference between +a living body and a dead one.'[15] This highly abstract conception must +have been, however, the more difficult to early man, as, to him, all +things, universally, are 'animated.'[16] Mr. Tylor illustrates this +theory of early man by the little child's idea that 'chairs, sticks, and +wooden horses are actuated by the same sort of personal will as nurses and +children and kittens.... In such matters the savage mind well represents +the childish stage.'[17] + +Now, nothing can be more certain than that, if children think sticks are +animated, they don't think so because they have heard, or discovered, that +they possess souls, and then transfer souls to sticks. We may doubt, then, +if primitive man came, in this way, by reasoning on souls, to suppose +that all things, universally, were animated. But if he did think all +things animated--a corpse, to his mind, was just as much animated as +anything else. Did he reason: 'All things are animated. A corpse is not +animated. Therefore a corpse is not a thing (within the meaning of my +General Law)'? + +How, again, did early man conceive of Life, before he identified Life +(1) with 'that which makes the difference between a living body and a dead +one' (a difference which, _ex hypothesi_, he did not draw, _all_ things +being animated to his mind) and (2) with 'those human shapes which appear +in dreams and visions'? 'The ancient savage philosophers probably reached +the obvious inference that every man had two things belonging to him, a +life and a phantom.' But everything was supposed to have 'a life,' as far +as one makes out, before the idea of separable soul was developed, at +least if savages arrived at the theory of universal animation as children +are said to do. + +We are dealing here quite conjecturally with facts beyond our experience. + +In any case, early man excogitated (by the hypothesis) the abstract idea +of Life, _before_ he first 'envisaged' it in material terms as 'breath,' +or 'shadow.' He next decided that mere breath or shadow was not only +identical with the more abstract conception of Life, but could also take +on forms as real and full-bodied as, to him, are the hallucinations of +dream or waking vision. His reasoning appears to have proceeded from the +more abstract (the idea of Life) to the more concrete, to the life first +shadowy and vaporous, then clothed in the very aspect of the real man. + +Mr. Tylor has thus (whether we follow his logic or not) provided man with +a theory of active, intelligent, separable souls, which can survive the +death of the body. At this theory early man arrived by speculations on the +nature of life, and on the causes of phantasms of the dead or living +beheld in 'dreams and visions.' But our author by no means leaves out of +sight the effects of alleged supernormal phenomena believed in by savages, +with their parallels in modern civilisation. These supernormal phenomena, +whether real or illusory, are, he conceives, facts in that mass of +experiences from which savages constructed their belief in separable, +enduring, intelligent souls or ghosts, the foundation of religion. + +While we are, perhaps owing to our own want of capacity, puzzled by what +seem to be two kinds of early philosophy--(1) a sort of instinctive or +unreasoned belief in universal animation, which Mr. Spencer calls +'Animism' and does not believe in, (2) the reasoned belief in separable +and surviving souls of men (and in things), which Mr. Spencer believes in, +and Mr. Tylor calls 'Animism'--we must also note another difficulty. Mr. +Tylor may seem to be taking it for granted that the earliest, remote, +unknown thinkers on life and the soul were existing on the same psychical +plane as we ourselves, or, at least, as modern savages. Between modern +savages and ourselves, in this regard, he takes certain differences, but +takes none between modern savages and the remote founders of religion. + +Thus Mr. Tylor observes: + +'The condition of the modern ghost-seer, whose imagination passes on +such slight excitement into positive hallucination, is rather the rule +than the exception among uncultured and intensely imaginative tribes, +whose minds may be thrown off their balance by a touch, a word, a +gesture, an unaccustomed noise.'[18] + +I find evidence that low contemporary savages are _not_ great ghost-seers, +and, again, I cannot quite accept Mr. Tylor's psychology of the 'modern +ghost-seer.' Most such favoured persons whom I have known were steady, +unimaginative, unexcitable people, with just one odd experience. Lord +Tennyson, too, after sleeping in the bed of his recently lost father on +purpose to see his ghost, decided that ghosts 'are not seen by imaginative +people.' + +We now examine, at greater length, the psychical conditions in which, +according to Mr. Tylor, contemporary savages differ from civilised men. +Later we shall ask what may be said as to possible or presumable psychical +differences between modern savages and the datelessly distant founders of +the belief in souls. Mr. Tylor attributes to the lower races, and +even to races high above their level, 'morbid ecstasy, brought on by +meditation, fasting, narcotics, excitement, or disease.' Now, we may +still 'meditate'--and how far the result is 'morbid' is a matter for +psychologists and pathologists to determine. Fasting we do not practise +voluntarily, nor would we easily accept evidence from an Englishman as to +the veracity of voluntary fasting visions, like those of Cotton Mather. +The visions of disease we should set aside, as a rule, with those of +'excitement,' produced, for instance, by 'devil-dances.' Narcotic and +alcoholic visions are not in question.[19] For our purpose the _induced_ +trances of savages (in whatever way voluntarily brought on) are analogous +to the modern induced hypnotic trance. Any supernormal acquisitions of +knowledge in these induced conditions, among savages, would be on a par +with similar alleged experiences of persons under hypnotism. + +We do not differ from known savages in being able to bring on non-normal +psychological conditions, but we produce these, as a rule, by other +methods than theirs, and such experiments are not made on _all_ of us, as +they were on all Red Indian boys and girls in the 'medicine-fast,' at +the age of puberty. + +Further, in their normal state, known savages, or some of them, are more +'suggestible' than educated Europeans at least.[20] They can be more +easily hallucinated in their normal waking state by suggestion. Once more, +their intervals of hunger, followed by gorges of food, and their lack of +artificial light, combine to make savages more apt to see what is not +there than are comfortable educated white men. But Mr. Tylor goes too far +when he says 'where the savage could see phantasms, the civilised man has +come to amuse himself with fancies.'[21] The civilised man, beyond all +doubt, is capable of being _enfantosm_. + +In all that he says on this point, the point of psychical condition, Mr. +Tylor is writing about known savages as they differ from ourselves. But +the savages who _ex hypothesi_ evolved the doctrine of souls lie beyond +our ken, far behind the modern savages, among whom we find belief not +only in souls and ghosts, but in moral gods. About the psychical condition +of the savages who worked out the theory of souls and founded religion we +necessarily know nothing. If there be such experiences as clairvoyance, +telepathy, and so on, these unknown ancestors of ours may (for all that we +can tell) have been peculiarly open to them, and therefore peculiarly apt +to believe in separable souls. In fact, when we write about these far-off +founders of religion, we guess in the dark, or by the flickering light of +analogy. The lower animals have faculties (as in their power of finding +their way home through new unknown regions, and in the ants' modes of +acquiring and communicating knowledge to each other) which are mysteries +to us. The terror of dogs in 'haunted houses' and of horses in passing +'haunted' scenes has often been reported, and is alluded to briefly by Mr. +Tylor. Balaam's ass, and the dogs which crouched and whined before Athene, +whom Eumaeus could not see, are 'classical' instances. + +The weakness of the anthropological argument here is, we must repeat, that +we know little more about the mental condition and experiences of the +early thinkers who developed the doctrine of Souls than we know about +the mental condition and experiences of the lower animals. And the more +firmly a philosopher believes in the Darwinian hypothesis, the less, he +must admit, can he suppose himself to know about the twilight ages, +between the lower animal and the fully evolved man. What kind of creature +was man when he first conceived the germs, or received the light, +of Religion? All is guess-work here! We may just allude to Hegel's +theory that clairvoyance and hypnotic phenomena are produced in a +kind of temporary _atavism_, or 'throwing hack' to a remotely ancient +condition of the 'sensitive soul' (_fklende Seele_). The 'sensitive' +[unconditioned, clairvoyant] faculty or 'soul' is 'a disease when it +becomes a state of the self-conscious, educated, self-possessed human +being of civilisation.'[22] 'Second sight,' Hegel thinks, was a product +of an earlier day and earlier mental condition than ours. + +Approaching this almost untouched subject--the early psychical condition +of man--not from the side of metaphysical speculations like Hegel, but +with the instruments of modern psychology and physiology, Dr. Max Dessoir, +of Berlin, following, indeed, M. Taine, has arrived, as we saw, at +somewhat similar conclusions. 'This fully conscious life of the spirit,' +in which we moderns now live, 'seems to rest upon a substratum of reflex +action of a hallucinatory type.' Our actual modern condition is _not_ +'fundamental,' and 'hallucination represents, at least in its nascent +condition, the main trunk of our psychical existence.'[23] + +Now, suppose that the remote and unknown ancestors of ours who first +developed the doctrine of souls had not yet spread far from 'the main +trunk of our psychical existence,' far from constant hallucination. In +that case (at least, according to Dr. Dessoir's theory) their psychical +experiences would be such as we cannot estimate, yet cannot leave, as a +possibility influencing religion, out of our calculations. + +If early men were ever in a condition in which telepathy and clairvoyance +(granting their possibility) were prevalent, one might expect that +faculties so useful would be developed in the struggle for existence. That +they are deliberately cultivated by modern savages we know. The Indian +foster-mother of John Tanner used, when food was needed, to suggest +herself into an hypnotic condition, so that she became _clairvoyante_ as +to the whereabouts of game. Tanner, an English boy, caught early +by the Indians, was sceptical, but came to practise the same art, not +unsuccessfully, himself.[24] His reminiscences, which he dictated on his +return to civilisation, were certainly not feigned in the interests of any +theories. But the most telepathic human stocks, it may be said, ought, +_ceteris paribus_, to have been the most successful in the struggle +for existence. We may infer that the _cetera_ were not _paria_, the +clairvoyant state not being precisely the best for the practical business +of life. But really we know nothing of the psychical state of the earliest +men. They may have had experiences tending towards a belief in 'spirits,' +of which we can tell nothing. We are obliged to guess, in considerable +ignorance of the actual conditions, and this historical ignorance +inevitably besets all anthropological speculation about the origin of +religion. + +The knowledge of our nescience as to the psychical condition of our first +thinking ancestors may suggest hesitation as to taking it for granted that +early man was on our own or on the modern savage level in 'psychical' +experience. Even savage races, as Mr. Tylor justly says, attribute +superior psychical knowledge to neighbouring tribes on a yet lower level +of culture than themselves. The Finn esteems the Lapp sorcerers above his +own; the Lapp yields to the superior pretensions of the Samoyeds. There +may be more ways than one of explaining this relative humility: there is +Hegel's way and there is Mr. Tylor's way. We cannot be certain, _a +priori_, that the earliest man knew no more of supernormal or apparently +supernormal experiences than we commonly do, or that these did not +influence his thoughts on animism. + +It is an example of the chameleon-like changes of science (even of +'science falsely so called' if you please) that when he wrote his book, in +1871, Mr. Tylor could not possibly have anticipated this line of argument. + +'Psychical planes' had not been invented; hypnotism, with its problems, +had not been much noticed in England. But 'Spiritualism' was flourishing. +Mr. Tylor did not ignore this revival of savage philosophy. He saw very +well that the end of the century was beholding the partial rehabilitation +of beliefs which were scouted from 1660 to 1850. Seventy years ago, as Mr. +Tylor says, Dr. Macculloch, in his 'Description of the Western Islands of +Scotland,' wrote of 'the famous Highland second sight' that 'ceasing to be +believed it has ceased to exist.'[25] + +Dr. Macculloch was mistaken in his facts. 'Second sight' has never +ceased to exist (or to be believed to exist), and it has recently been +investigated in the 'Journal' of the Caledonian Medical Society. Mr. Tylor +himself says that it has been 'reinstated in a far larger range of +society, and under far better circumstances of learning and prosperity.' +This fact he ascribes generally to 'a direct revival from the regions of +savage philosophy and peasant folklore,' a revival brought about in great +part by the writings of Swedenborg. To-day things have altered. The +students now interested in this whole class of alleged supernormal +phenomena are seldom believers in the philosophy of Spiritualism in the +American sense of the word.[26] + +Mr. Tylor, as we have seen, attributes the revival of interest in this +obscure class of subjects to the influence of Swedenborg. It is true, as +has been shown, that Swedenborg attracted the attention of Kant. But +modern interest has chiefly been aroused and kept alive by the phenomena +of hypnotism. The interest is now, among educated students, really +scientific. + +Thus Mr. William James, Professor of Psychology in the University of +Harvard, writes: + +'I was attracted to this subject (Psychical Research) some years ago by +my love of fair play in Science.'[27] + +Mr. Tylor is not incapable of appreciating this attitude. Even the +so-called 'spirit manifestations,' he says, 'should be discussed on their +merits,' and the investigation 'would seem apt to throw light on some most +interesting psychological questions.' Nothing can be more remote from the +logic of Hume. + +The ideas of Mr. Tylor on the causes of the origin of religion are +now criticised, not from the point of view of spiritualism, but of +experimental psychology. We hold that very probably there exist human +faculties of unknown scope; that these conceivably were more powerful +and prevalent among our very remote ancestors who founded religion; that +they may still exist in savage as in civilised races, and that they may +have confirmed, if they did not originate, the doctrine of separable +souls. If they _do_ exist, the circumstance is important, in view of the +fact that modern ideas rest on a denial of their existence. + +Mr. Tylor next examines the savage and other _names_ for the ghost-soul, +such as shadow (_umbra_), breath (_spiritus_), and he gives cases in +which the _shadow_ of a man is regarded as equivalent to his _life_. Of +course, the shadow in the sunlight does not resemble the phantasm in a +dream. The two, however, were combined and identified by early thinkers, +while _breath_ and _heart_ were used as symbols of 'that in men which +makes them live,' a phrase found among the natives of Nicaragua in 1528. +The confessedly symbolical character of the phrase, 'it is _not_ +precisely the heart, but that in them which makes them live,' proves that +to the speaker life was _not_ 'heart' or 'breath,' but that these terms +were known to be material word-counters for the conception of life.[1] +Whether the earliest thinkers identified heart, breath, shadow, with life, +or whether they consciously used words of material origin to denote an +immaterial conception, of course we do not know. But the word in the +latter case would react on the thought, till the Roman inhaled (as his +life?) the last breath of his dying kinsman, he well knowing that the +Manes of the said kinsman were elsewhere, and not to be inhaled. + +Subdivisions and distinctions were then recognised, as of the Egyptian +_Ka_, the 'double,' the Karen _kelah_, or 'personal life-phantom' +(_wraith_), on one side, and the Karen _thah_, 'the responsible moral +soul,' on the other. The Roman _umbra_ hovers about the grave, the _manes_ +go to Orcus, the _spiritus_ seeks the stars. + +We are next presented with a crowd of cases in which sickness or lethargy +is ascribed by savages to the absence of the patient's spirit, or of one +of his spirits. This idea of migratory spirit is next used by savages to +explain certain proceedings of the sorcerer, priest, or seer. His soul, +or one of his souls is thought to go forth to distant places in quest of +information, while the seer, perhaps, remains lethargic. Probably, in the +struggle for existence, he lost more by being lethargic than he gained by +being clairvoyant! + +Now, here we touch the first point in Mr. Tylor's theory, where a critic +may ask, Was this belief in the wandering abroad of the seer's spirit a +theory not only false in its form (as probably it is), but also wholly +unbased on experiences which might raise a presumption in favour of the +existence of phenomena really supernormal? By 'supernormal' experiences I +here mean such as the acquisition by a human mind of knowledge which could +not be obtained by it through the recognised channels of sensation. Say, +for the sake of argument, that a person, savage or civilised, obtains in +trance information about distant places or events, to him unknown, and, +through channels of sense, unknowable. The savage will explain this by +saying that the seer's soul, shadow, or spirit, wandered out of the body +to the distant scene. This is, at present, an unverified theory. But +still, for the sake of argument, suppose that the seer did honestly +obtain this information in trance, lethargy, or hypnotic sleep, or any +other condition. If so, the modern savage (or his more gifted ancestors) +would have other grounds for his theory of the wandering soul than any +ground presented by normal occurrences, ordinary dreams, shadows, and so +forth. Again, in human nature there would be (if such things occur) a +potentiality of experiences other and stranger than materialism will admit +as possible. It will (granting the facts) be impossible to aver that there +is _nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu_. The soul will be not +_ce qu'un vain peuple pense_ under the new popular tradition, and the +savage's theory of the spirit will be, at least in part, based on other +than normal and every-day facts. That condition in which the seer acquires +information, not otherwise accessible, about events remote in space, is +what the mesmerists of the mid-century called 'travelling clairvoyance.' + +If such an experience be _in rerum natura_, it will not, of course, +justify the savage's theory that the soul is a separable entity, capable +of voyaging, and also capable of existing after the death of the body. But +it will give the savage a better excuse for his theory than normal +experiences provide; and will even raise a presumption that reflection on +mere ordinary experiences--death, shadow, trance--is not the sole origin +of his theory. For a savage so acute as Mr. Tylor's hypothetical early +reasoner might decline to believe that his own or a friend's soul had been +absent on an expedition, unless it brought back information not normally +to be acquired. However, we cannot reason, _a priori_, as to how far the +logic of a savage might or might not go on occasion. + +In any case, a scientific reasoner might be expected to ask: 'Is this +alleged acquisition of knowledge, _not_ through the ordinary channels of +sense, a thing _in rerum natura_?' Because, if it is, we must obviously +increase our list of the savage's reasons for believing in a soul: we +must make his reasons include 'psychical' experiences, and there must be +an X region to investigate. + +These considerations did not fail to present themselves to Mr. Tylor. But +his manner of dealing with them is peculiar. With his unequalled knowledge +of the lower races, it was easy for him to examine travellers' tales about +savage seers who beheld distant events in vision, and to allow them what +weight he thought proper, after discounting possibilities of falsehood and +collusion. He might then have examined modern narratives of similar +performances among the civilised, which are abundant. It is obvious and +undeniable that if the supernormal acquisition of knowledge in trance is a +_vera causa_, a real process, however rare, Mr. Tylor's theory needs +modifications; while the character of the savage's reasoning becomes more +creditable to the savage, and appears as better bottomed than we had been +asked to suppose. But Mr. Tylor does not examine this large body of +evidence at all, or, at least, does not offer us the details of his +examination. He merely writes in this place: + +'A typical spiritualistic instance may be quoted from Jung-Stilling, who +says that examples have come to his knowledge of sick persons who, +longing to see absent friends, have fallen into a swoon, during which +they have appeared to the distant objects of their affection.'[29] + +Jung-Stilling (though he wrote before modern 'Spiritualism' came in) is +not a very valid authority; there is plenty of better evidence than his, +but Mr. Tylor passes it by, merely remarking that 'modern Europe has kept +closely enough to the lines of early philosophy.' Modern Europe has indeed +done so, if it explains the supernormal acquisition of knowledge, or the +hallucinatory appearance of a distant person to his friend by a theory of +wandering 'spirits.' But facts do not cease to be facts because wrong +interpretations have been put upon them by savages, by Jung-Stilling, or +by anyone else. The real question is, Do such events occur among lower and +higher races, beyond explanation by fraud and fortuitous coincidence? We +gladly grant that the belief in Animism, when it takes the form of a +theory of 'wandering spirits,' is probably untenable, as it is assuredly +of savage origin. But we are not absolutely so sure that in this aspect +the theory is not based on actual experiences, not of a normal and +ordinary kind. If so, the savage philosophy and its supposed survivals in +belief will appear in a new light. And we are inclined to hold that an +examination of the mass of evidence to which Mr. Tylor offers here so +slight an allusion will at least make it wise to suspend our judgment, +not only as to the origins of the savage theory of spirits, but as to the +materialistic hypothesis of the absence of a psychical element in man. + +I may seem to have outrun already the limits of permissible hypothesis. It +may appear absurd to surmise that there can exist in man, savage or +civilised, a faculty for acquiring information not accessible by the known +channels of sense, a faculty attributed by savage philosophers to the +wandering soul. But one may be permitted to quote the opinion of +M. Charles Richet, Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine +in Paris. It is not cited because M. Richet is a professor of physiology, +but because he reached his conclusion after six years of minute +experiment. He says: 'There exists in certain persons, at certain moments, +a faculty of acquiring knowledge which has no _rapport_ with our normal +faculties of that kind.'[30] + +Instances tending to raise a presumption in favour of M. Richet's idea may +now be sought in savage and civilised life. + +[Footnote 1: _Primitive Culture,_ i. 9, 10.] + +[Footnote 2: _Origin of Ranks._] + +[Footnote 3: I may be permitted to refer to 'Reply to Objections' in the +appendix to my _Myth, Ritual, and Religion,_ vol. ii.] + +[Footnote 4: Spencer, _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, pp. 672, 673.] + +[Footnote 5: _Primitive Culture_, i. 417-425. Cf. however _Princip. Of +Sociol._, p. 304.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. i. 423, 424.] + +[Footnote 7: Published for the Berlin Society of Experimental Psychology, +Gnther, Leipzig, 1890.] + +[Footnote 8: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, 837-839.] + +[Footnote 9: _Primitive Culture_, i. 421, chapter xi.] + +[Footnote 10: This theory is what Mr. Spencer calls 'Animism,' and does +not believe in. What Mr. Tylor calls 'Animism' Mr. Spencer believes in, +but he calls it the 'Ghost Theory.'] + +[Footnote 11: _Primitive Culture_, i. 428.] + +[Footnote 12: Howitt, _Journal of Anthropological Institute_, xiii. +191-195.] + +[Footnote 13: The curious may consult, for savage words for 'dreams,' Mr. +Scott's _Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language_, s.v. 'Lots,' or any +glossary of any savage language.] + +[Footnote 14: _Prim. Cult._ i. 429.] + +[Footnote 15: _Prim. Cult._ i. 428.] + +[Footnote 16: Ibid. i. 285.] + +[Footnote 17: Ibid. i. 285, 286.] + +[Footnote 18: _Primitive Culture_, i. 446.] + +[Footnote 19: See, however, Dr. Von Schrenck-Notzing, _Die Beobachtung +narcolischer Mittel fr den Hypnotismus_, and S.P.R. _Proceedings_, x. +292-899.] + +[Footnote 20: _Primitive Culture_, i. 306-316.] + +[Footnote 21: i. 315.] + +[Footnote 22: _Phil. des Geistes_, pp. 406, 408.] + +[Footnote 23: See also Mr. A.J. Balfour's Presidential Address to the +Society for Psychical Research, _Proceedings_, vol. x. See, too, Taine, +_De l'Intelligence_, i. 78, 106, 139.] + +[Footnote 24: Tanner's _Narrative_, New York, 1830.] + +[Footnote 25: _Primitive Culture_, i. 143.] + +[Footnote 26: As 'spiritualism' is often used in opposition to +'materialism,' and with no reference to rapping 'spirits,' the modern +belief in that class of intelligences may here be called spiritism.] + +[Footnote 27: _The Will to Believe_, preface, p. xiv.] + +[Footnote 28: _Primitive Culture_, i. 432,433. Citing Oviedo, _Hist. De +Nicaragua,_ pp. 21-51.] + +[Footnote 29: _Primitive Culture_, i. 440. Citing Stilling after Dale Owen, +and quoting Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace's _Scientific Aspect of the +Supernatural_, p. 43. Mr. Tylor also adds folk-lore practices of +ghost-seeing, as on St. John's Eve. St. Mark's Eve, too, is in point, as +far as folk-lore goes.] + +[Footnote 30: _Proceedings_, S.P.R. v. 167.] + + + + +IV + +'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE' + +'To open the Gates of Distance' is the poetical Zulu phrase for what is +called clairvoyance, or _vue distance_. This, if it exists, is the +result of a faculty of undetermined nature, whereby knowledge of remote +events may be acquired, not through normal channels of sense. As the Zulus +say: '_Isiyezi_ is a state in which a man becomes slightly insensible. He +is awake, but still sees things which he would not see if he were not in a +state of ecstasy (_nasiyesi_).'[1] The Zulu description of _isiyezi_ +includes what is technically styled 'dissociation.' No psychologist or +pathologist will deny that visions of an hallucinatory sort may occur in +dissociated states, say in the _petit mal_ of epilepsy. The question, +however, is whether any such visions convey actual information not +otherwise to be acquired, beyond the reach of chance coincidence to +explain. + +A Scottish example, from the records of a court of law, exactly +illustrates the Zulu theory. At the moment when the husband of Jonka +Dyneis was in danger six miles from her house in his boat, Jonka 'was +found, and seen standing at her own house wall in a trance, and being +taken, she could not give answer, but stood as bereft of her senses, and +when she was asked why she was so moved, she answered, "If our boat be not +lost, she was in great hazard."' (October 2, 1616.)[2] + +The belief in opening the Gates of Distance is, of course, very widely +diffused. The gift is attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, to Plotinus, to +many Saints, to Catherine de' Medici, to the Rev. Mr. Peden,[3] and to +Jeanne d'Arc, while the faculty is the stock in trade of savage seers in +all regions.[4] + +The question, however, on which Mr. Tylor does not touch, is, _Are any of +the stories true?_ If so, of course they would confirm in the mind +of the savage his theory of the wandering soul. Now, to find anything +like attested cases of successful clairvoyance among savages is a +difficult task. White men either scout the idea, or are afraid of seeming +superstitious if they give examples, or, if they do give examples, are +accused of having sunk to the degraded level of Zulus or Red Indians. Even +where travellers, like Scheffer, have told about their own experiences, +the narratives are omitted by modern writers on savage divination.[5] We +must therefore make our own researches, and it is to be noted that +the stories of successful savage clairvoyance are given as illustrations +merely, not as evidence to facts, for we cannot cross-examine the +witnesses. + +Mr. Tylor dismisses the topic in a manner rather cavalier: + +'Without discussing on their merits the accounts of what is called +"second sight,"[6] it may be pointed out that they are related among +savage tribes, as when Captain Jonathan Carver obtained from a Cree +medicine-man a true prophecy of the arrival of a canoe with news next +day at noon; or when Mr. J. Mason Brown, travelling with two _voyageurs_ +on the Copper Mine River, was met by Indians of the very band he was +seeking, these having been sent by their medicine-man, who, on +enquiry, stated that "he saw them coming, and heard them talk on their +journey."'[7] + +Now, in our opinion, the 'merits' of stories of second sight need +discussion, because they may, if well attested, raise a presumption that +the savage's theory has a better foundation than Mr. Tylor supposes. Oddly +enough, though Mr. Tylor does not say so, Dr. Brinton (from whom he +borrows his two anecdotes) is more or less of our opinion. + +'There are,' says Dr. Brinton, 'statements supported by unquestionable +testimony, which ought not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot +but approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of +exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our +lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put +aside without serious consideration?' + +That is exactly what we complain of; the alleged facts are 'put aside +without serious consideration.' + +We, at least, are not slaves to the idea that 'the laws of exact science' +must be the only laws at work in the world. Science, however exact, does +not pretend to have discovered all 'laws.' + +To return to actual examples of the alleged supernormal acquisition of +knowledge by savages: Dr. Brinton gives an example from Charlevoix and +General Mason Brown's anecdote.[8] In General Mason Brown's instance the +medicine-man, at a great distance, bade his emissaries 'seek three whites, +whose horses, arms, attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, +which description was repeated to General Brown by the warriors _before +they saw his two companions.'_ General Brown assured Dr. Brinton of 'the +accuracy of this in every particular.' Mr. Tylor has certainly not +improved the story in his condensed version. Dr. Brinton refers to 'many' +tales such as these, and some will be found in 'Among the Zulus,' by Mr. +David Leslie (1875). + +Mr. Leslie was a Scottish sportsman, brought up from boyhood in +familiarity with the Zulus. His knowledge of their language and customs +was minute, and his book, privately printed, contains much interesting +matter. He writes: + +'I was obliged to proceed to the Zulu country to meet my Kaffir +elephant-hunters, the time for their return having arrived. They were +hunting in a very unhealthy country, and I had agreed to wait for them +on the North-East border, the nearest point I could go to with safety. +I reached the appointed rendezvous, but could not gain the slightest +intelligence of my people at the kraal. + +'After waiting some time, and becoming very uneasy about them, one of +my servants recommended me to go to the doctor, and at last, out of +curiosity and _pour passer le temps_, I did go. + +'I stated what I wanted--information about my hunters--and I was met by +a stern refusal. "I cannot tell anything about white men," said he, "and +I know nothing of their ways." However, after some persuasion and +promise of liberal payment, impressing upon him the fact that it was not +white men but Kaffirs I wanted to know about, he at last consented, +saying "he would _open the Gate of Distance_, and would travel through +it, even although his body should lie before me." + +'His first proceeding was to ask me the number and names of my hunters. +To this I demurred, telling him that if he obtained that information +from me he might easily substitute some news which he may have heard +from others, instead of the "spiritual telegraphic news" which I +expected him to get from his "familiar." + +'To this he answered: "I told you I did not understand white men's ways; +but if I am to do anything for you it must be done in my way--not +yours." On receiving this fillip I felt inclined to give it up, as I +thought I might receive some rambling statement with a considerable +dash of truth, it being easy for anyone who knew anything of hunting to +give a tolerably correct idea of their motions. + +'However, I conceded this point also, and otherwise satisfied him. + +'The doctor then made eight little fires--that being the number of my +hunters; on each he cast some roots,[9] which emitted a curious sickly +odour and thick smoke; into each he cast a small stone, shouting, as he +did so, the name to which the stone was dedicated; then he ate some +"medicine," and fell over in what appeared to be a trance for about ten +minutes, during all which time his limbs kept moving. Then he seemed to +wake, went to one of the fires, raked the ashes about, looked at the +stone attentively, described the man faithfully, and said: "This man has +died of the fever, and your gun is lost." + +'To the next fire as before: "This man" (correctly described) "has +killed four elephants," and then he described the tusks. The next: "This +man" (again describing him) "has been killed by an elephant, but your +gun is coming home," and so on through the whole, the men being minutely +and correctly described; their success or non-success being equally so. +I was told where the survivors were, and what they were doing, and that +in three months they would come out, but as they would not expect to +find me waiting on them there so long after the time appointed, they +would not pass that way. + +'I took a particular note of all this information at the time, and to my +utter amazement _it turned out correct in every particular_. + +'It was scarcely within the bounds of possibility that this man could +have had ordinary intelligence of the hunters; they were scattered about +in a country two hundred miles away.' + +Mr. Leslie could discover no explanation, nor was any suggested by friends +familiar with the country and the natives whom he consulted. He gives +another example, which may be explained by 'suggestion.' A parallel case +from Central Africa will be found in the 'Journal of the Anthropological +Institute,' November 1897, p. 320, where 'private information,' as usual, +would explain the singular facts. + +The Zulus themselves lay claim to a kind of clairvoyance which looks like +the result of intense visualising power, combined with the awakening of +the subconscious memory.[10] + +'There is among black men a something which is divination within them. +When anything valuable is lost, they look for it at once; when they +cannot find it, each one begins to practise this inner divination, +trying to feel where the thing is; for, not being able to see it, he +feels internally a pointing, which tells him if he will go down to such +a place it is there, and he will find it. At length it says he will find +it; at length he sees it, and himself approaching it; before he begins +to move from where he is, he sees it very clearly indeed, and there is +an end of doubt. That sight is so clear that it is as though it was not +an inner sight, but as if he saw the very thing itself, and the place +where it is; so he quickly arises and goes to the place. If it is a +hidden place he throws himself into it, as though there was something +that impelled him to go as swiftly as the wind; and, in fact, he finds +the thing, if he has not acted by mere head-guessing. If it has been +done by real inner divination, he really sees it. But if it is done by +mere head-guessing and knowledge that he has not gone to such a place +and such a place, and that therefore it must be in such another place, +he generally misses the mark.' + +Other Zulu instances will be given under the heads 'Possession' and +'Fetishism.' + +To take a Northern people: In his 'History of the Lapps'[11] Scheffer +describes mechanical modes of divination practised by that race, who use a +drum and other objects for the purpose. These modes depend on more +traditional rules for interpreting the accidental combinations of lots. +But a Lapp confessed to Scheffer, with tears, that he could not help +seeing visions, as he proved by giving Scheffer a minute relation 'of +whatever particulars had happened to me in my journey to Lapland. And he +further complained that he know not how to make use of his eyes, since +things altogether distant were presented to them.' This Lapp was anxious +to become a Christian, hence his regret at being a 'rare and valuable' +example of clairvoyance. Torfaeus also was posed by the clairvoyance of a +Samoyed, as was Regnard by a Lapp seer.[12] + +The next case is of old date, and, like the other savage examples, is +merely given for purposes of illustration. + + '_25e Lettre_.[13] + + '"_Suite des Traditions des Sauvages._" + + 'Au Fort de la Rivire de St. Joseph, ce 14 Septembre 1721. + + '"_Des Jongleurs_"-- ... Vous ayez vu Paris Madame de Marson, & elle + y est encore; voici ce que M. le Marquis de Vaudreuil son Gendre, + actuellement notre Gouverneur Gnral, me raconta cet Hyver, & qu'il a + s de cette Dame, qui n'est rien mons qu'un esprit foible. Elle etoit + un jour fort inquiette an sujet de M. de Marson, son Mari, lequel + commandoit dans un Poste, que nous avions en Accadie; et etoit absent, & + le tems qu'il avoit marqu pour son retour, etoit pass. + + 'Une Femme Sauvage, qui vit Madame de Marson en peine, lui en demanda la + cause, & l'ayant apprise, lui dit, aprs y avoir un peu rv, de ne plus + se chagriner, que son Epoux reviendroit tel jour et telle heure, + qu'elle lui marqua, avec un chapeau gris sur la tte. Comme elle + s'apperut que la Dame n'ajoutoit point foi sa prdiction, au jour & + l'heure, qu'elle avoit assigne, elle rotourna chez elle, lui demanda si + elle ne vouloit pas venir voir arriver son Mari, & la pressa de telle + sorte de la suivre, qu'elle l'entrana au bord de la Rivire. + + 'A peine y etoent-elles arrives, que M. de Marson parut dans un Canot, + un chapeau gris sur la tte; & ayant appris ce qui s'etoit pass, assra + qu'il ne pouvoit pas comprendre comment la Sauvagesse avoit p savoir + l'heure & le jour de son arrive.' + +It is unusual for European travellers and missionaries to give anecdotes +which might seem to 'confirm the delusions of benighted savages.' Such +anecdotes, again, are among the _arcana_ of these wild philosophers, and +are not readily communicated to strangers. When successful cases are +reported, it is natural to assert that they come through Europeans who +have sunk into barbarous superstition, or that they may be explained by +fraud and collusion. It is certain, however, that savage proficients +believe in their own powers, though no less certainly they will eke them +out by imposture. Seers are chosen in Zululand, as among Eskimos and +Samoyeds, from the class which in Europe supplies the persons who used to +be, but are no longer the most favourite hypnotic subjects, 'abnormal +children,' epileptic and hysterical. These are subjected to 'a long and +methodical course of training.'[14] Stoll, speaking of Guatemala, says +that 'certainly most of the induced and spontaneous phenomena with which +we are familiar occur among savages,' and appeals to travellers for +observations.[15] Information is likely to come in, as educated travellers +devote attention to the topic. + +Dr. Callaway translates some Zulu communications which indicate the +amount of belief in this very practical and sceptical people. Amusing +illustrations of their scepticism will be quoted later, under +'Possession,' but they do accept as seers certain hysterical patients. +These are tested by their skill in finding objects which have been +hidden without their knowledge. They then behave much like Mr. Stuart +Cumberland, but have not the advantage of muscular contact with the +person who knows where the hidden objects are concealed. The neighbours +even deny that they have hidden anything at all. 'When they persist in +their denial ... he finds all the things that they have hidden. They see +that he is a great _inyanga_ (seer) when he has found all the things they +have concealed.' No doubt he is guided, perhaps in a super-sensitive +condition, by the unconscious indications of the excited spectators. + +The point is that, while the savage conjurer will doubtless use fraud +wherever he can, still the experience of low races is in favour of +employing as seers the class of people who in Europe were, till recently, +supposed to make the best hypnotic subjects. Thus, in West Africa, 'the +presiding elders, during your initiation to the secret society of your +tribe, discover this gift [of Ebumtupism, or second sight], and so select +you as "a witch doctor."'[15] Among the Karens, the 'Wees,' or prophets, +'are nervous excitable men, such as would become mediums,'[16] as mediums +are diagnosed by Mr. Tylor. + +In short, not to multiply examples, there is an element of actual +observation and of _bona fides_ entangled in the trickery of savage +practice. Though the subjects may be selected partly because of the +physical phenomena of convulsions which they exhibit, and which +favourably impress their clients, they are also such subjects as +occasionally yield that evidence of supernormal faculty which is +investigated by modern psychologists, like Richet, Janet, and William +James. + +The following example, by no means unique, shows the view taken by savages +of their own magic, after they have become Christians. Catherine Wabose, a +converted Red Indian seeress, described her preliminary fast, at the age +of puberty. After six days of abstention from food she was rapt away to an +unknown place, where a radiant being welcomed her. Later a dark round +object promised her the gift of prophecy. She found her natural senses +greatly sharpened by lack of food. She first exercised her powers when her +kinsfolk in large numbers were starving, a medicine-lodge, or 'tabernacle' +as Lufitau calls it, was built for her, and she crawled in. As is well +known, these lodges are violently shaken during the magician's stay within +them, which the early Jesuits at first attributed to muscular efforts by +the seers. In 1637 Pre Lejeune was astonished by the violent motions of a +large lodge, tenanted by a small man. One sorcerer, with an appearance of +candour, vowed that 'a great wind entered boisterously,' and the Father +was assured that, if he went in himself, he would become clairvoyant. He +did not make the experiment. The Methodist convert, Catherine, gave the +same description of her own experience: 'The lodge began shaking violently +by supernatural means. I knew this by the compressed current of air above, +and the noise of motion.' She had been beating a small drum and singing, +now she lay quiet. The radiant 'orbicular' spirit then informed her that +they 'must go westwards for game; how short-sighted you are!' 'The +advice was taken and crowned by instant success.' This established her +reputation.[17] Catherine's conversion was led up to by a dream of her +dying son, who beheld a Sacred Figure, and received from Him white +raiment. Her magical songs tell how unseen hands shake the magic lodge. +They invoke the Great Spirit that + + 'Illumines earth + Illumines heaven! + Ah, say what Spirit, or Body, is this Body, + That fills the world around, + Speak, man, ah say + What Spirit, or Body, is this Body?' + +It is like a savage hymn to Hegel's _fhlende Seele_: the all-pervading +Sensitive Soul. We are reminded, too, of 'the doctrine of the Sanscrit +Upanishads: There is no limit to the knowing of the Self that knows.'[18] + +Unluckily Catherine was not asked to give other examples of what she +considered her successes. + +Acosta, who has not the best possible repute as an authority, informs us +that Peruvian clairvoyants 'tell what hath passed in the furthest parts +before news can come. In the distance of two or three hundred leagues +they would tell what the Spaniards did or suffered in their civil wars.' To +Du Pont, in 1606, a sorcerer 'rendered a true oracle of the coming of +Poutrincourt, saying his Devil had told him so.'[19] + +We now give a modern case, from a scientific laboratory, of knowledge +apparently acquired in no normal way, by a person of the sort usually +chosen to be a prophet, or wizard, by savages. + +Professor Richet writes:[20] + +'On Monday, July 2, 1888, after having passed all the day in my +laboratory, I hypnotised Lonie at 8 P.M., and while she tried to make +out a diagram concealed in an envelope I said to her quite suddenly: +"What has happened to M. Langlois?" Lonie knows M. Langlois from +having seen him two or three times some time ago in my physiological +laboratory, where he acts as my assistant.--"He has burnt himself," +Lonie replied,--"Good," I said, "and where has he burnt himself?"--"On +the left hand. It is not fire: it is--I don't know its name. Why does he +not take care when he pours it out?"--"Of what colour," I asked, "is the +stuff which he pours out?"--"It is not red, it is brown; he has hurt +himself very much--the skin puffed up directly." + +'Now, this description is admirably exact. At 4 P.M. that day M. +Langlois had wished to pour some bromine into a bottle. He had done this +clumsily, so that some of the bromine flowed on to his left hand, which +held the funnel, and at once burnt him severely. Although he at once put +his hand into water, wherever the bromine had touched it a blister was +formed in a few seconds--a blister which one could not better describe +than by saying, "the skin puffed up." I need not say that Lonie had not +left my house, nor seen anyone from my laboratory. Of this I am +_absolutely certain,_ and I am certain that I had not mentioned the +incident of the burn to anyone. Moreover, this was the first time for +nearly a year that M. Langlois had handled bromine, and when Lonie saw +him six months before at the laboratory he was engaged in experiments +of quite another kind.' + +Here the savage reasoner would infer that Lonie's spirit had visited M. +Langlois. The modern inquirer will probably say that Lonie became aware +of what was passing in the mind of M. Richet. This supranormal way of +acquiring knowledge was observed in the last century by M. de Puysgur in +one of his earliest cases of somnambulism. MM. Binet and Fr say: 'It is +not yet admitted that the subject is able to divine the thoughts of the +magnetiser without any material communication;' while they grant, as a +minimum, that 'research should be continued in this direction.'[21] They +appear to think that Lonie may have read 'involuntary signs' in the +aspect of M. Richet. This is a difficult hypothesis. + +Here follows a case recorded in his diary by Mr. Dobbie, of Adelaide, +Australia, who has practised hypnotism for curative purposes. He explains +(June 10, 1884) that he had mesmerised Miss ---- on several occasions to +relieve rheumatic pain and sore throat. He found her to be clairvoyant. + +'The following is a verbatim account of the second time I tested her +powers in this respect, April 12, 1884. There were four persons present +during the _sance_. One of the company wrote down the replies as they +were spoken. + +'Her father was at the time over fifty miles away, but we did not know +exactly where, so I questioned her as follows: "Can you find your father +at the present moment?" At first she replied that she could not see him, +but in a minute or two she said, "Oh, yes; now I can see him, Mr. +Dobbie." "Where is he?" "Sitting at a large table in a large room, and +there are a lot of people going in and out." "What is he doing?" +"Writing a letter, and there is a book in front of him." "Whom is he +writing to?" "To the newspaper." Here she paused and laughingly said, +"Well, I declare, he is writing to the A B" (naming a newspaper). "You +said there was a book there. Can you tell me what book it is?" "It has +gilt letters on it." "Can you read them, or tell me the name of the +author?" She read, or pronounced slowly, "W.L.W." (giving the full +surname of the author). She answered several minor questions _re_ the +furniture in the room, and I then said to her, "Is it any effort or +trouble to you to travel in this way?" "Yes, a little; I have to think." + +'I now stood behind her, holding a half-crown in my hand, and asked her +if she could tell me what I had in my hand, to which she replied, "It is +a shilling." It seemed as though she could see what was happening miles +away easier than she could see what was going on in the room. + +'Her father returned home nearly a week afterwards, and was perfectly +astounded when told by his wife and family what he had been doing on +that particular evening; and, although previous to that date he was a +thorough sceptic as to clairvoyance, he frankly admitted that my +clairvoyant was perfectly correct in every particular. He also informed +us that the book referred to was a new one, which he had purchased after +he had left his home, so that there was no possibility of his daughter +guessing that he had the book before him. I may add that the letter in +due course appeared in the paper; and I saw and handled the book.' + +A number of cases of so-called 'clairvoyance' will be found in the +'Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.'[22] As the authors of +these essays remark, even after discounting, in each case, fraud, +malobservation, and misreporting, the residue of cases can seldom justify +either the savage theory of the wandering soul (which is not here +seriously proposed) or Hegel's theory that the _fhlende Seele_ is +unconditioned by space. For, if thought transference be a fact, the +apparent clairvoyant may only be reading the mind of a person at a +distance. The results, however, when successful, would naturally suggest +to the savage thinker the belief in the wandering soul, or corroborate it +if it had already been suggested by the common phenomena of dreaming. + +To these instances of knowledge acquired otherwise than by the recognised +channels of sense we might add the Scottish tales of 'second sight.' That +phrase is merely a local term covering examples of what is called +'clairvoyance'--views of things remote in space, hallucinations of sight +that coincide with some notable event, premonitions of things future, and +so on. The belief and hallucinatory experiences are still very common in +the Highlands, where I have myself collected many recent instances. Mr. +Tylor observes that the examples 'prove a little too much; they vouch not +only for human apparitions, but for such phantoms as demon dogs, and for +still more fanciful symbolic omens.' This is perfectly true. I have found +no cases of demon dogs; but wandering lights, probably of meteoric or +miasmatic origin, are certainly regarded as tokens of death. This is +obviously a superstitious hypothesis, the lights being real phenomena +misconstrued. Again, funerals are not uncommonly seen where no funeral is +taking place; it is then alleged that a real funeral, similar and +similarly situated, soon afterwards occurred. On the hypothesis of +believers, the percipients somehow behold + + 'Such refraction of events + As often rises ere they rise.' + +Even the savage cannot account for this experience by the wandering of the +soul in space; nor do I suggest any explanation. I give, however, one or +two instances. They are published in the 'Journal of the Caledonian +Medical Society,' 1897, by Dr. Alastair Macgregor, on the authority of the +MSS. of his father, a minister in the island of Skye. + +'He once told me that when he first went to Skye he scoffed at the idea of +such a power as second sight being genuine; but he said that, after having +been there for some years as a clergyman, he had been so often consulted +_beforehand_ by people who said they had seen visions of events which +subsequently occurred, to my father's knowledge, in exact accordance with +the form and details of the vision as foretold, that he was compelled to +confess that some folks had, apparently at least, the unfortunate faculty. + +'As my father expressed it, this faculty was "neither voluntary nor +constant, and was considered rather annoying than agreeable to the +possessors of it. The gift was possessed by individuals of both sexes, and +its fits came on within doors and without, sitting and standing, at night +and by day, and at whatever employment the votary might chance to be +engaged."' + +Here follows a typical example of the vision of a funeral: + +'The session clerk at Dull, a small village in Perthshire, was ill, and +my grandfather, clergyman there at the time, had to do duty for him. One +fine summer evening, about 7 o'clock, a young man and woman came to get +some papers filled up, as they were going to be married. My grandfather +was with the couple in the session clerk's room, no doubt attending to +the papers, when suddenly _all three_ saw through the window a funeral +procession passing along the road. From their dress the bulk of the +mourners seemed to be farm labourers--indeed the young woman recognised +some of them as natives of Dull, who had gone to live and work near +Dunkeld. Remarks were naturally made by my grandfather and the young +couple about the untimely hour for a funeral, and, hastily filling in +the papers, my grandfather went out to get the key of the churchyard, +which was kept in the manse, as, without the key, the procession +could not get into God's acre. Wondering how it was that he had received +no intimation of the funeral, he went to the manse by a short cut, got +the key, and hurried down to the churchyard gate, where, of course, he +expected to find the cortge waiting. _Not a soul was there_ except the +young couple, who were as amazed as my grandfather! + +'Well, at the same hour in the evening of the same day in the following +week the funeral, this time in reality, arrived quite unexpectedly. The +facts were that a boy, a native of Dull, had got gored by a bull at +Dunkeld, and was so shockingly mangled that his remains were picked +up and put into a coffin and taken without delay to Dull. A grave was +dug as quickly as possible--the poor lad having no relatives--and the +remains were interred. My grandfather and the young couple recognised +several of the mourners as being among those whom they had seen out of +the session clerk's room, exactly a week previously, in the phantom +cortge. The young woman knew some of them personally, and related to +them what she had seen, but they of course denied all knowledge of the +affair, having been then in Dunkeld.' + +I give another example, because the experience was auditory, as well as +visual, and the prediction was announced before the event. + +'The parishioners in Skye were evidently largely imbued with the +Romanist-like belief in the powers of intercession vested in their +clergyman; so when they had a "warning" or "vision" they usually consulted +my father as to what they could do to prevent the coming disaster +befalling their relatives or friends. In this way my father had the +opportunity of noting down the minutiae of the "warning" or "vision" +directly it was told him. Having had the advantage of a medical, previous +to his theological, training, he was able to note down sound facts, +unembellished by superadded imagination. Entering into this method of +case-taking with a mind perfectly open, except for a slight touch of +scepticism, he was greatly surprised to discover how very frequently +realisations occurred exactly in conformance with the minutiae of the +vision as detailed in his note-book. Finally, he was compelled to +discard his scepticism, and to admit that some people had undoubtedly +the uncanny gift. Almost the first case he took (Case X.) was that of a +woman who had one day a vision of her son falling over a high rock at Uig, +in Skye, with a sheep or lamb. + +'CASE X.--She heard her son exclaim in Gaelic, "This is a fatal lamb for +me." As her son lived several miles from Uig, and was a fisherman, +realisation seemed to my father very unlikely, but one month afterwards +the realisation occurred only too true. Unknown to his mother, who had +warned him against having anything to do with sheep or lambs, the son +one day, instead of going out in his boat, thought he would take a +holiday inland, and went off to Uig, where a farmer enlisted his +services in separating some lambs from the ewes. One of the lambs ran +away, and the fisher lad ran headlong after it, and not looking where he +was going, on catching the lamb was pulled by it to the edge of one of +the very picturesque but exceedingly dangerous rocks at Uig. Too late +realizing his critical position, he exclaimed, "This is a fatal lamb for +me," but going with such an impetus he was unable to bring himself up in +time, and, along with the lamb, fell over into the ravine below, and +was, of course, killed on the spot. The farmer, when he saw the lad's +danger, ran to his assistance, but was only in time to hear him cry out +in Gaelic before disappearing over the brink of the precipice. This was +predicted by the mother a month before. Was this simply a coincidence?' + +Dr. Macgregor's remarks on the involuntary and unwelcome nature of the +visions is borne out by what Scheffer, as already quoted, says concerning +the Lapps. + +In addition to visions which thus come unsought, contributing knowledge of +things remote or even future, we may glance at visions which are provoked +by various methods. Drugs (_impepo_) are used, seers whirl in a wild +dance till they fall senseless, or trance is induced by various kinds of +self-suggestion or 'auto-hypnotism.' Fasting is also practised. In modern +life the self-induced trance is common among 'mediums'--a subject to which +we recur later. + +So far, it will be observed, our evidence proves that precisely similar +_beliefs_ as to man's occasional power of opening the gates of distance +have been entertained in a great variety of lands and ages, and by races +in every condition of culture.[23] The alleged experiences are still +said to occur, and have been investigated by physiologists of the eminence +of M. Richet. The question cannot but arise as to the residuum of fact in +these narrations, and it keeps on arising. + +In the following chapter we discuss a mode of inducing hallucinations +which has for anthropologists the interest of universal diffusion. The +width of its range in savage races has not, we believe, been previously +observed. We then add facts of modern experience, about the authenticity +of which we, personally, entertain no doubt; and the provisional +conclusion appears to be that savages have observed a psychological +circumstance which has been ignored by professed psychologists, and which, +certainly, does not fit into the ordinary materialistic hypothesis. + +[Footnote 1: Callaway, _Religion of the Zulus_, p. 232.] + +[Footnote 2: Graham Dalzell, _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 481.] + +[Footnote 3: See good evidence in _Ker of Kersland's Memoirs_.] + +[Footnote 4: Autus Gellius, xv. 18, Dio Cassius, lxvii., Crespet, _De la +Haine du Diable, Procs de Jeanne d'Arc_.] + +[Footnote 5: See 'Shamanism in Siberia,' _J.A.I._, November 1894, +pp. 147-149, and compare Scheffer. The article is very learned and +interesting.] + +[Footnote 6: Williams mentions second sight in Fiji, but gives no +examples.] + +[Footnote 7: _Primitive Culture,_ i. 447. Mr. Tylor cites Dr. Brinton's +_Myths of the New World,_ p. 269. The reference in the recent edition is +p. 289. Carver's case is given under the head 'Possession' later.] + +[Footnote 8: _Journal Historique_ p. 362; _Atlantic Monthly_, July 1866.] + +[Footnote 9: Probably _impepo_, eaten by seers, according to Callaway.] + +[Footnote 10: Callaway's _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 358.] + +[Footnote 11: Oxford, 1674.] + +[Footnote 12: _Voyages_.] + +[Footnote 13: From Charlevoix, _Journal Historique_, p. 362.] + +[Footnote 14: Bastian, _Ueber psych. Beobacht_. p.21.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. p.26.] + +[Footnote 15: Miss Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, p. 460.] + +[Footnote 16: _Primitive Culture_, ii, 181; Mason's _Burmah_, p. 107.] + +[Footnote 17: Schoolcraft, i. 394.] + +[Footnote 18: Brinton's _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, p. 57.] + +[Footnote 19: Purchas, p. 629.] + +[Footnote 20: S.P.R. _Proceedings_, vol. vi. 69.] + +[Footnote 21: Binet and Fr, _Animal Magnetism_, p. 64.] + +[Footnote 22: Vol. vii. Mrs. Sidgwick, pp. 30, 356; vol. vi. p. 66, +Professor Richet, p. 407, Drs. Dufay and Azam.] + +[Footnote 23: The examples in the Old Testament, and in the _Life of St. +Columba_ by Adamnan, need only be alluded to as too familiar for +quotation.] + + + + +V + +CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED + +Among savage methods of provoking hallucinations whence knowledge may be +supernormally obtained, various forms of 'crystal-gazing' are the most +curious. We find the habit of looking into water, usually in a vessel, +preferably a glass vessel, among Red Indians (Lejeune), Romans (Varro, +cited in _Civitas Dei_, iii. 457), Africans of Fez (Leo Africanus); while +Maoris use a drop of blood (Taylor), Egyptians use ink (Lane), and +Australian savages employ a ball of polished stone, into which the seer +'puts himself' to descry the results of an expedition.[1] + +I have already given, in the Introduction, Ellis's record of the +Polynesian case. A hole being dug in the door of his house, and filled +with water, the priest looks for a vision of the thief who has carried off +stolen goods. The Polynesian theory is that the god carries the spirit of +the thief over the water, in which it is reflected. Lejeune's Red Indians +make their patients gaze into the water, in which they will see the +pictures of the things in the way of food or medicine that will do them +good. In modern language, the instinctive knowledge existing implicitly +in the patient's subconsciousness is thus brought into the range of his +ordinary consciousness. + +In 1887 the late Captain J. T. Bourke, of the U.S. Cavalry, an original +and careful observer, visited the Apaches in the interests of the +Ethnological Bureau. He learned that one of the chief duties of the +medicine-men was to find out the whereabouts of lost or stolen property. +Na-a-cha, one of these _jossakeeds_, possessed a magic quartz crystal, +which he greatly valued. Captain Bourke presented him with a still finer +crystal. 'He could not give me an explanation of its magical use, except +that by looking into it he could see everything he wanted to see,' +Captain Bourke appears never to have heard of the modern experiments in +crystal-gazing. Captain Bourke also discovered that the Apaches, like the +Greeks, Australians, Africans, Maoris, and many other, races, use the +bull-roarer, turndun, or _rhombos_--a piece of wood which, being whirled +round, causes a strange windy roar--in their mystic ceremonies. The wide +use of the rhombos was known to Captain Bourke; that of the crystal was +not. + +For the Iroquois, Mrs. Erminie Smith supplies information about the +crystal. 'Placed in a gourd of water, it could render visible the +apparition of a person who has bewitched another.' She gives a case in +European times of a medicine-man who found the witch's habitat, but +got only an indistinct view of her face. On a second trial he was +successful.[2] One may add that treasure-seekers among the Huille-che +'look earnestly' for what they want to find 'into a smooth slab of black +stone, which I suppose to be basalt.'[3] + +The kindness of Monsieur Lefbure enables me to give another example from +Madagascar.[4] Flacourt, describing the Malagasies, says that they +_squillent_ (a word not in Littr), that is, divine by crystals, which +'fall from heaven when it thunders,' Of course the rain reveals the +crystals, as it does the flint instruments called 'thunderbolts' in many +countries. 'Lorsqu'ils squillent, ils ont une de ces pierres au coing de +leurs tablettes, disans qu'elle la vertu de faire faire operation leur +figure de geomance.' Probably they used the crystals as do the Apaches. On +July 15 a Malagasy woman viewed, whether in her crystal or otherwise, two +French vessels which, like the Spanish fleet, were 'not in sight,' also +officers, and doctors, and others aboard, whom she had seen, before their +return to France, in Madagascar. The earliest of the ships did not arrive +till August 11. + +Dr. Callaway gives the Zulu practice, where the chief 'sees what will +happen by looking into the vessel.'[5] The Shamans of Siberia and Eastern +Russia employ the same method.[6] The case of the Inca, Yupanqui, is very +curious. 'As he came up to a fountain he saw a piece of crystal fall into +it, within which he beheld a figure of an Indian in the following +shape ... The apparition then vanished, while the crystal remained. The +Inca took care of it, and they say that he afterwards saw everything he +wanted in it.'[7] + +Here, then, we find the belief that hallucinations can be induced by one +or other form of crystal-gazing, in ancient Peru, on the other side of the +continent among the Huille-che, in Fez, in Madagascar, in Siberia, among +Apaches, Hurons, Iroquois, Australian black fellows, Maoris, and in +Polynesia. This is assuredly a wide range of geographical distribution. We +also find the practice in Greece (Pausanias, VII. xxi. 12), in Rome +(Varro), in Egypt, and in India. + +Though anthropologists have paid no attention to the subject, it was of +course familiar to later Europe. 'Miss X' has traced it among early +Christians, in early Councils, in episcopal condemnations of _specularii_, +and so to Dr. Dee, under James VI.; Aubrey; the Regent d'Orlans +in St. Simon's Memoirs; the modern mesmerists (Gregory, Mayo) and the +mid-Victorian spiritualists, who, as usual, explained the phenomena, in +their prehistoric way, by 'spirits[8].' Till this lady examined the +subject, nobody had thought of remarking that a belief so universal had +probably some basis of facts, or nobody if we except two professors of +chemistry and physiology, Drs. Gregory and Mayo. Miss X made experiments, +beginning by accident, like George Sand, when a child. + +The hallucinations which appear to her eyes in ink, or crystal, are: + + 1. Revived memories 'arising thus, and thus only, from the subconscious + strata;' + + '2. Objectivation of ideas or images--(a) consciously or (b) + unconsciously--in the mind of the percipient; + + '3. Visions, possibly telepathic or clairvoyant, implying acquirement of + knowledge by supernormal means.'[9] + +The examples given of the last class, the class which would be so useful +to a priest or medicine-man asked to discover things lost, are of very +slight interest.[10] + +Since Miss X drew attention to this subject, experiments have proved +beyond doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and healthy, can see +vivid landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, in glass balls and +other vehicles. This faculty Dr. Parish attributes to 'dissociation,' +practically to drowsiness. But he speaks by conjecture, and without +having witnessed experiments, as will be shown later. I now offer a series +of experiments with a glass ball, coming under my own observation, in +which knowledge was apparently acquired in no ordinary way. Of the absence +of fraud I am personally convinced, not only by the characters of all +concerned, but by the nature of the circumstances. That adaptive memory +did not later alter the narratives, as originally told, I feel certain, +because they were reported to me, when I was not present, within less than +a week, precisely as they are now given, except in cases specially noted. + +Early in the present year (1897) I met a young lady who told me of three +or four curious hallucinatory experiences of her own, which were +sufficiently corroborated. She was innocent of psychical studies, and +personally was, and is, in perfect health; the pale cast of thought being +remote from her. I got a glass ball, and was present when she first looked +into it. She saw, I remember, the interior of a house, with a full-length +portrait of a person unknown. There were, I think, one or two other fancy +pictures of the familiar kind. But she presently (living as she was, among +strangers) developed a power of 'seeing' persons and places unknown to +her, but familiar to them. These experiences do seem to me to be good +examples of what is called 'thought transference;' indeed, I never before +could get out of a level balance of doubt on that subject, a balance which +now leans considerably to the affirmative side. There may be abundance of +better evidence, but, knowing the persons and circumstances, and being +present once at what seemed to me a crucial example, I was more inclined +to be convinced. This attitude appears, to myself, illogical, but it is +natural and usual. + +We cannot tell what indications may be accidentally given in experiments +in thought transference. But, in these cases of crystal-gazing, the detail +was too copious to be conveyed, by a looker-on, in a wink or a cough. I do +not mean to say that success was invariable. I thought of Dr. W.G. Grace, +and the scryer saw an old man crawling along with a stick. But I doubt if +Dr. Grace is very deeply seated in that mystic entity, my subconscious +self. The 'scries' which came right were sometimes, but not always, those +of which the 'agent' (or person scried for) was consciously thinking. But +the examples will illustrate the various kinds of occurrences. + +Here one should first consider the arguments against accepting recognition +of objects merely described by another person. The crystal-gazer may know +the inquirer so intimately as to have a very good guess at the subject of +his meditation. Again, a man is likely to be thinking of a woman, and a +woman of a man, so the field of conjecture is limited. In answer to the +first objection I may say that the crystal-gazer was among strangers, all +of whom, myself included, she now saw for the first time. Nor could she +have studied their histories beforehand, for she could not know (normally) +when she left home, that she was about to be shown a glass ball, or whom +she would meet. The second objection is met by the circumstance that +ladies were _not_ usually picked out for men, nor men for women. Indeed, +these choices were the exceptions, and in each case were marked by +minutely particular details. A third objection is that credulity, or the +love of strange novelties, or desire to oblige, biases the inquirers, and +makes them anxious to recognise something familiar in the scryer's +descriptions. In the same way we know how people recognise faces +in the most blurred and vague of spiritist photographs, or see family +resemblances in the most rudimentary doughfaced babies. Take descriptions +of persons in a passport, or in a proclamation sketching the personal +appearance of a criminal. These fit the men or women intended, but they +also fit a crowd of other people. The description given by the scryer then +may come right by a fortuitous coincidence, or may be too credulously +recognised. + +The complex of coincidences, however, could not be attributed to chance +selection out of the whole possible field of conjecture. We must remember, +too, that a series of such hits increases, at an enormous rate, the odds +against accidental conjecture. Of such mere luck I may give an example. I +was writing a story of which the hero was George Kelly, one of the 'Seven +Men of Moidart.' A year after composing my tale, I found the Government +description of Mr. Kelly (1736). It exactly tallied with my purely +fanciful sketch, down to eyes, and teeth, and face, except that I made my +hero 'about six feet,' whereas the Government gave him five feet ten. But +I knew beforehand that Mr. Kelly was a clergyman; his curious career +proved him to be a person of great activity and geniality--and he was of +Irish birth. Even a dozen such guesses, equally correct, could not +suggest any powers of 'vision,' when so much was known beforehand about +the person guessed at. I now give cases in the experience of Miss Angus, +as one may call the crystal-gazer. The first occurred the day after she +got the glass ball for the first time. She writes: + +'I.--A lady one day asked me to scry out a friend of whom she would +think. Almost immediately I exclaimed "Here is an old, old lady looking +at me with a triumphant smile on her face. She has a prominent nose and +nut-cracker chin. Her face is very much wrinkled, especially at the +sides of her eyes, as if she were always smiling. She is wearing a +little white shawl with a black edge. _But!_ ... she _can't_ be old as +her hair is quite brown! although her face looks so very very old." The +picture then vanished, and the lady said that I had accurately described +her friend's _mother_ instead of himself; that it was a family joke that +the mother must dye her hair, it was so brown and she was eighty-two +years old. The lady asked me if the vision were distinct enough for me +to recognise a likeness in the son's photograph; next day she laid +several photographs before me, and in a moment, without the slightest +hesitation I picked him out from his wonderful likeness to my vision!' + +The inquirer verbally corroborated all the facts to me, within a week, but +leaned to a theory of 'electricity.' She has read and confirms this +account. + +'II.--One afternoon I was sitting beside a young lady whom I had never +seen or heard of before. She asked if she might look into my crystal, +and while she did so I happened to look over her shoulder and saw a ship +tossing on a very heavy choppy sea, although land was still visible in +the dim distance. That vanished, and, as suddenly, a little house +appeared with five or six (I forget now the exact number I then counted) +steps leading up to the door. On the second step stood an old man +reading a newspaper. In front of the house was a field of thick +stubbly grass where some _lambs_, I was going to say, but they were more +like very small sheep.. were grazing. + +'When the scene vanished, the young lady told me I had vividly described +a spot in Shetland where she and her mother were soon going to spend a +few weeks.' + +I heard of this case from Miss Angus within a day or two of its +occurrence, and it was then confirmed to me, verbally, by the other lady. +She again confirms it (December 21, 1897). Both ladies had hitherto been +perfect strangers to each other. The old man was the schoolmaster, +apparently. In her MS., Miss Angus writes 'Skye,' but at the time both she +and the other lady said Shetland (which I have restored). In Shetland the +sheep, like the ponies, are small. Fortuitous coincidence, of course, may +be invoked. The next account is by another lady, say Miss Rose. + +'III.--Writes Miss Rose--My first experience of crystal gazing was not +a pleasant one, as will be seen from the following which I now relate as +exactly as I can remember. I asked my friend, Miss Angus, to allow me to +look in her crystal, and, after doing so for a short time, gave up, +saying it was very unsatisfactory, as, although I saw a room with a +bright fire in it and a bed all curtained and people coming and going, +I could not make out who they were, so I returned the crystal to Miss +Angus, with the request that she might look for me. She said at once, +"I see a bed with a man in it looking very ill and a lady in black +beside it." Without saying any more Miss Angus still kept looking, and, +after some time, I asked to have one more look, and on her passing the +ball back to me, I received quite a shock, for there, perfectly clearly +in a bright light, I saw stretched out in bed an old man apparently +dead; for a few minutes I could not look, and on doing so once more +there appeared a lady in black and out of dense darkness a long black +object was being carried and it stopped before a dark opening overhung +with rocks. At the time I saw this I was staying with cousins, +and it was a Friday evening. On Sunday we heard of the death of the +father-in-law of one of my cousins; of course I knew the old gentleman +was very ill, but my thoughts were not in the least about him when +looking in the crystal. I may also say I did not recognise in the +features of the dead man those of the old gentleman whose death I +mention. On looking again on Sunday, I once more saw the curtained bed +and some people.' + +I now give Miss Angus's version of this case, as originally received from +her (December 1897). I had previously received an oral version, from a +person present at the scrying. It differed, in one respect, from what Miss +Angus writes. Her version is offered because it is made independently, +without consultation, or attempt to reconcile recollections. + +'At a recent experience of gazing, for the first time I was able to make +another see what _I_ saw in the crystal. Miss Rose called one afternoon, +and begged me to look in the ball for her. I did so, and immediately +exclaimed, "Oh! here is a bed, with a man in it looking very ill [I saw +he was dead, but refrained from saying so], and there is a lady dressed +in black sitting beside the bed." I did not recognise the man to be +anyone I knew, so I told her to look. In a very short time she called +out, "Oh! I see the bed too! But, oh! take it away, the man is _dead_!" +She got quite a shock, and said she would never look in it again. Soon, +however, curiosity prompted her to have one more look, and the scene at +once came back again, and slowly, from a misty object at the side of the +bed, the lady in black became quite distinct. Then she described +several people in the room, and said they were carrying something all +draped in black. When she saw this, she put the ball down and would not +look at it again. She called again on Sunday (this had been on Friday) +with her cousin, and we teased her about being _afraid_ of the crystal, +so she said she would just look in it once more. She took the ball, but +immediately laid it down again, saying, "No, I won't look, as the bed +with the awful man in it is there again!" + +'When they went home, they heard that the cousin's father-in-law had +died that afternoon,[11] but to show he had never been in our thoughts, +although we _all_ knew he had not been well, _no one_ suggested him; his +name was never mentioned in connection with the vision.' + +'Clairvoyance,' of course, is not illustrated here, the corpse being +unrecognised, and the coincidence, doubtless, accidental. + +The next case is attested by a civilian, a slight acquaintance of Miss +Angus's, who now saw him for the second time only, but better known to her +family. + +'IV.--On Thursday, March --? 1897, I was lunching with my friends the +Anguses, and during luncheon the conversation turned upon crystal balls +and the visions that, by some people, can be seen in them. The subject +arose owing to Miss Angus having just been presented with a crystal ball +by Mr. Andrew Lang. I asked her to let me see it, and then to try and +see if she could conjure up a vision of any person of whom I might +think.... I fixed my mind upon a friend, a young trooper in the +[regiment named], as I thought his would be a striking and peculiar +personality, owing to his uniform, and also because I felt sure that +Miss Angus could not possibly know of his existence. I fixed my mind +steadily upon my friend, and presently Miss Angus, who had already seen +two cloudy visions of faces and people, called out, "Now I see a man on +a horse most distinctly; he is dressed most queerly, and glitters all +over--why, it's a soldier! a soldier in uniform, but it's not an +officer." My excitement on hearing this was so great that I ceased to +concentrate my attention upon the thought of my friend, and the vision +faded away and could not afterwards be recalled.--December 2, 1897.' + +The witness gives the name of the trooper, whom he had befriended in a +severe illness. Miss Angus's own account follows: she had told me the +story in June 1897. + +'Shortly after I became the happy possessor of a "crystal" I managed to +convert several very decided "sceptics," and I will here give a short +account of my experiences with two or three of them. + +'One was with a Mr. ----, who was so determined to baffle me, he said he +would think of a friend it would not be _possible_ for me to describe! + +'I had only met Mr. ---- the day before, and knew utmost nothing about +him or his personal friends. + +'I took up the ball, which immediately became misty, and out of this +mist gradually a crowd of people appeared, but too indistinctly for me +to recognise anyone, until suddenly a man on horseback came galloping +along. I remember saying, "I can't describe what he is like, but he is +dressed in a very queer way--in something so bright that the sun shining +on him quite dazzles me, and I cannot make him out!" As he came nearer I +exclaimed. "Why, it's a _soldier_ in shining armour, but it's not an +_officer_, only a soldier!" Two friends who were in the room said +Mr. ----'s excitement was intense, and my attention was drawn from the +ball by hearing him call out, "It's wonderful! it's perfectly true! I +was thinking of a young boy, a son of a crofter, in whom I am deeply +interested, and who is a trooper in the ---- in London, which would +account for the crowd of people round him in the street!"' + +The next case is given, first in the version of the lady who was +unconsciously scried for, and next in that of Miss Angus. The other lady +writes: + +'V.--I met Miss A. for the first time in a friend's house in the south +of England, and one evening mention was made of a crystal ball, and our +hostess asked Miss A. to look in it, and, if possible, tell her what was +happening to a friend of hers. Miss A. took the crystal, and our hostess +put her hand on Miss A.'s forehead to "will her." I, not believing in +this, took up a book and went to the other side of the room. I was +suddenly very much startled to hear Miss A., in quite an agitated way, +describe a scene that had most certainly been very often in my thoughts, +but of which I had never mentioned a word, She accurately described a +race-course in Scotland, and an accident which happened to a friend of +mine only a week or two before, and she was evidently going through the +same doubt and anxiety that I did at the time as to whether he was +actually killed or only very much hurt. It really was a most wonderful +revelation to me, as it was the very first time I had seen a crystal. +Our hostess, of course, was very much annoyed that she had not been able +to influence Miss A., while I, who had appeared so very indifferent, +should have affected her.--November 28, 1897.' + +Miss Angus herself writes: + +'Another case was a rather interesting one, as I somehow got inside the +thoughts of _one_ lady while _another_ was doing her best to influence +me! + +'Miss ----, a friend in Brighton, has strange "magnetic" powers, and +felt quite sure of success with me and the ball. + +'Another lady, Miss H., who was present, laughed at the whole thing, +especially when Miss ---- insisted on holding my hand and patting her +other hand on my forehead! Miss H. in a scornful manner took up a book, +and, crossing to the other side of the room, left us to our folly. + +'In a very short time I felt myself getting excited, which had never +happened before, when I looked in the crystal. I saw a crowd of people, +and in some strange way I felt I was in it, and we all seemed to be +waiting for something. Soon a rider came past, young, dressed for +racing. His horse ambled past, and he smiled and nodded to those he +knew in the crowd, and then was lost to sight. + +'In a moment we all seemed to feel as if something had happened, and I +went through great agony of suspense trying to see what seemed _just_ +beyond my view. Soon, however, two or three men approached, and carried +him past before my eyes, and again my anxiety was intense to discover if +he were only very badly hurt or if life were really extinct. All this +happened in a few moments, but long enough to have left me so agitated +that I could not realise it had only been a vision in a glass ball. + +'By this time Miss H. had laid aside her book, and came forward quite +startled, and told me that I had accurately described a scene on a +race-course in Scotland which she had witnessed just a week or two +before--a scene that had very often been in her thoughts, but, as we +were strangers to each other, she had never mentioned. She also said I +had exactly described her own feelings at the time, and had brought it +all back in a most vivid manner. + +'The other lady was rather disappointed that, after she had concentrated +her thoughts so hard, I should have been influenced instead by one who +had jeered at the whole affair.' + +[This anecdote was also told to me, within a few days of the occurrence, +by Miss Angus. Her version was that she first saw a gentleman rider going +to the post and nodding to his friends. Then she saw him carried on a +stretcher through the crowd. She seemed, she said, to be actually present, +and felt somewhat agitated. The fact of the accident was, later, mentioned +to me in Scotland by another lady, a stranger to all the persons.--A.L.] + +VI.--I may briefly add an experiment of December 21, 1897. A gentleman had +recently come from England to the Scottish town where Miss Angus lives. He +dined with her family, and about 10.15 to 10.30 P.M. she proposed to look +in the glass for a scene or person of whom he was to think. He called up a +mental picture of a ball at which he had recently been, and of a young +lady to whom he had there been introduced. The lady's face, however, he +could not clearly visualise, and Miss Angus reported nothing but a view of +an empty ball-room, with polished floor and many lights. The gentleman +made another effort, and remembered his partner with some distinctness. +Miss Angus then described another room, not a ball-room, comfortably +furnished, in which a girl with brown hair drawn back from her forehead, +and attired in a high-necked white blouse, was reading, or writing +letters, under a bright light in an unshaded glass globe. The description +of the features, figure, and height tallied with Mr. ----'s recollection; +but he had never seen this Geraldine of an hour except in ball dress. He +and Miss Angus noted the time by their watches (it was 10.30), and +Mr. ---- said that on the first opportunity he would ask the young lady +how she had been dressed and how employed at that hour on December 21. On +December 22 he met her at another dance, and her reply corroborated the +crystal picture. She had been writing letters, in a high-necked white +blouse, under an incandescent gas lamp with an unshaded glass globe. She +was entirely unknown to Miss Angus, and had only been seen once by +Mr. ----. Mr. ---- and the lady of the crystal picture corroborated all +this in writing. + +I now suggested an experiment to Miss Angus, which, after all, was clearly +not of a nature to establish a 'test' for sceptics. The inquirer was to +write down, and inclose in an envelope, a statement of his thoughts; Miss +Angus was to do the same with her description of the picture seen by her; +and these documents were to be sent to me, without communication between +the inquirer and the crystal-gazer. Of course, this could in no way prove +absence of collusion, as the two parties might arrange privately +beforehand what the vision was to be. + +Indeed, nobody is apt to be convinced, or shaken, unless he is himself the +inquirer and a stranger to the seeress, as the people in these experiments +were. Evidence interesting to _them_--and, in a secondary degree, to +others who know them--can thus be procured; but strangers are left to the +same choice of doubts as in all reports of psychological experiences, +'chromatic audition,' views of coloured numerals, and the other topics +illustrated by Mr. Galton's interesting researches. + +In this affair of the envelopes the inquirer was a Mr. Pembroke, who had +just made Miss Angus's acquaintance, and was but a sojourner in the land. +He wrote, before knowing what Miss Angus had seen in the ball: + +'VII.--On Sunday, January 23, 1898, whilst Miss Angus was looking in the +crystal ball, I was thinking of my brother, who was, I believe, at that +time, somewhere between Sabathu (Punjab, India) and Egypt. I was anxious +to know what stage of his journey he had reached.' + +Miss Angus saw, and wrote, before telling Mr. Pembroke: + +'A long and very white road, with tall trees at one side; on the other, +a river or lake of greyish water. Blue sky, with a crimson sunset. A +great black ship is anchored near, and on the deck I see a man lying, +apparently very ill. He is a powerful-looking man, fair, and very much +bronzed. Seven or eight Englishmen, in very light clothes, are standing +on the road beside the boat. + +'January 28, 1898.' + +'A great black ship,' anchored in 'a river or lake,' naturally suggests +the Suez Canal, where, in fact, Mr. Pembroke's brother was just arriving, +as was proved by a letter received from him eight days after the +experiment was recorded, on January 31. At that date Mr. Pembroke had not +yet been told the nature of Miss Angus's crystal picture, nor had she any +knowledge of his brother's whereabouts. + +In February 1898, Miss Angus again came to the place where I was residing. +We visited together the scene of an historical crime, and Miss Angus +looked into the glass ball. It was easy for her to 'visualise' the +incidents of the crime (the murder of Cardinal Beaton), for they are +familiar enough to many people. What she did see in the ball was a tall, +pale lady, 'about forty, but looking thirty-five,' with hair drawn +back from the brows, standing beside a high chair, dressed in a wide +farthingale of stiff grey brocade, without a ruff. The costume corresponds +well (as we found) with that of 1546, and I said, 'I suppose it is +Mariotte Ogilvy'--to whom Miss Angus's historical knowledge (and perhaps +that of the general public) did not extend. Mariotte was the Cardinal's +lady-love, and was in the Castle on the night before the murder, +according to Knox. She had been in my mind, whence (on the theory of +thought transference) she may have passed to Miss Angus's mind; but I had +never speculated on Mariotte's costume. Nothing but conjecture, of course, +comes of these apparently 'retrospective' pictures; though a most singular +and picturesque coincidence occurred, which may be told in a very +different connection. + +The next example was noted at the same town. The lady who furnishes it is +well known to me, and it was verbally corroborated by Miss Angus, to whom +the lady, her absent nephew, and all about her, were entirely strange. + +'VIII.--I was very anxious to know whether my nephew would be sent to +India this year, so I told Miss Angus that I had thought of something, +and asked her to look in the glass ball. She did so, but almost +immediately turned round and looked out of the window at the sea, and +said, "I saw a ship so distinctly I thought it must be a reflection." +She looked in the ball again, and said, "It is a large ship, and it is +passing a huge rock with a lighthouse on it. I can't see who are on the +ship, but the sky is very clear and blue. Now I see a large building, +something like a club, and in front there are a great many people +sitting and walking about. I think it must be some place abroad, for the +people are all dressed in very light clothes, and it seems to be very +sunny and warm. I see a young man sitting on a chair, with his feet +straight out before him. He is not talking to anyone, but seems to be +listening to something. He is dark and slight, and not very tall; and +his eyebrows are dark and very distinctly marked." + +'I had not had the pleasure of meeting Miss Angus before, and she knew +nothing whatever about my nephew; but the young man described was +exactly like him, both in his appearance and in the way he was sitting.' + +In this case thought transference may be appealed to. The lady was +thinking of her nephew in connection with India. It is not maintained, of +course, that the picture was of a prophetic character. + +The following examples have some curious and unusual features. On +Wednesday, February 2, 1897, Miss Angus was looking in the crystal, +to amuse six or seven people whose acquaintance she had that day made. +A gentleman, Mr. Bissett, asked her 'what letter was in his pocket,' +She then saw, under a bright sky, and, as it were, a long way off, +a large building, in and out of which many men were coming and going. +Her impression was that the scene must be abroad. In the little company +present, it should be added, was a lady, Mrs. Cockburn, who had +considerable reason to think of her young married daughter, then at a +place about fifty miles away. After Miss Angus had described the large +building and crowds of men, some one asked, 'Is it an exchange?' 'It +might be,' she said. 'Now comes a man in a great hurry. He has a broad +brow, and short, curly hair;[12] hat pressed low down on his eyes. The +face is very serious; but he has a delightful smile.' Mr. and Mrs. +Bissett now both recognised their friend and stockbroker, whose letter was +in Mr. Bissett's pocket. + +The vision, which interested Miss Angus, passed away, and was interrupted +by that of a hospital nurse, and of a lady in a _peignoir_, lying on a +sofa, _with bare feet_.[13] Miss Angus mentioned this vision as a bore, +she being more interested in the stockbroker, who seems to have inherited +what was once in the possession of another stockbroker--'the smile of +Charles Lamb.' Mrs. Cockburn, for whom no pictures appeared, was rather +vexed, and privately expressed with freedom a very sceptical opinion +about the whole affair. But, on Saturday, February 5, 1897, Miss Angus was +again with Mr. and Mrs. Bissett. When Mrs. Bissett announced that she had +'thought of something,' Miss Angus saw a walk in a wood or garden, beside +a river, under a brilliant blue sky. Here was a lady, very well dressed, +twirling a white parasol on her shoulder as she walked, in a curious +'stumpy' way, beside a gentleman in light clothes, such as are worn in +India. He was broad-shouldered, had a short neck and a straight nose, and +seemed to listen, laughing, but indifferent, to his obviously vivacious +companion. The lady had a 'drawn' face, indicative of ill health. Then +followed a scene in which the man, without the lady, was looking on at a +number of Orientals busy in the felling of trees. Mrs. Bissett recognised, +in the lady, her sister, Mrs. Clifton, in India--above all, when Miss +Angus gave a realistic imitation of Mrs. Clifton's walk, the peculiarity +of which was caused by an illness some years ago. Mrs. and Mr. Bissett +also recognised their brother-in-law in the gentleman seen in both +pictures. On being shown a portrait of Mrs. Clifton as a girl, Miss Angus +said it was 'like, but too pretty.' A photograph done recently, however, +showed her 'the drawn face' of the crystal picture.[14] + +Next day, Sunday, February 6, Mrs. Bissett received, what was not +usual--a letter from her sister in India, Mrs. Clifton, dated January 20. +Mrs. Clifton described a place in a native State, where she had been at a +great 'function,' in certain gardens beside a river. She added that they +were going to another place for a certain purpose, 'and then we go into +camp till the end of February.' One of Mr. Clifton's duties is to direct +the clearing of wood preparatory to the formation of the camp, as in Miss +Angus's crystal picture.[15] The sceptical Mrs. Cockburn heard of these +coincidences, and an idea occurred to her. She wrote to her daughter, who +has been mentioned, and asked whether, on Wednesday, February 2, she had +been lying on a sofa in her bed-room, with bare feet. The young lady +confessed that it was indeed so;[16] and, when she heard how the fact came +to be known, expressed herself with some warmth on the abuse of glass +balls, which tend to rob life of its privacy. + +In this case the _prima facie_ aspect of things is that a thought +of Mr. Bissett's about his stockbroker, _dulce ridentem_, somehow +reflected itself into Miss Angus's mind by way of the glass ball, and +was interrupted by a thought of Mrs. Cockburn's, as to her daughter. But +how these thoughts came to display the unknown facts concerning the +garden by the river, the felling of trees for a camp, and the bare feet, +is a question about which it is vain to theorise.[17] + +On the vanishing of the jungle scene there appeared a picture of a man in +a dark undress uniform, beside a great bay, in which were ships of war. +Wooden huts, as in a plague district, were on shore. Mr. Bissett asked, +'What is the man's expression?' 'He looks as if he had been giving a lot +of last orders.' Then appeared 'a place like a hospital, with five or six +beds--no, berths: it is a ship. Here is the man again.' He was minutely +described, one peculiarity being the way in which his hair grew--or, +rather, did not grow--on his temples. + +Miss Angus now asked, 'Where is my little lady?'--meaning the lady of the +twirling parasol and _staccato_ walk. 'Oh, I've left off thinking of her,' +said Mrs. Bissett, who had been thinking of, and recognised in the +officer in undress uniform, her brother, the man with the singular hair, +whose face, in fact, had been scarred in that way by an encounter with a +tiger. He was expected to sail from Bombay, but news of his setting +forth has not been received (February 10) at the moment when this is +written.[18] + +In these Indian cases, 'thought transference' may account for the +correspondence between the figures seen by Miss Angus and the ideas in the +mind of Mr. and Mrs. Bissett. But the hypothesis of thought transference, +while it would cover the wooden huts at Bombay (Mrs. Bissett knowing that +her brother was about to leave that place), can scarcely explain the scene +in the garden by the river and the scene with the trees. The incident of +the bare feet may be regarded as a fortuitous coincidence, since Miss +Angus saw the young lady foreshortened, and could not describe her face. + +In the Introductory Chapter it was observed that the phenomena which +apparently point to some unaccountable supernormal faculty of acquiring +knowledge are 'trivial.' These anecdotes illustrate the triviality; but +the facts certainly left a number of people, wholly unfamiliar with such +experiments, under the impression that Miss Angus's glass ball was like +Prince Ali's magical telescope in the 'Arabian Nights.'[19] These +experiments, however, occasionally touch on intimate personal matters, +and cannot be reported in such instances. + +It will be remarked that the faculty is freakish, and does not always +respond to conscious exertion of thought in the mind of the inquirer. +Thus, in Case I. a connection of the person thought of is discerned; in +another the mind of a stranger present seems to be read. In another +case (not given here) the inquirer tried to visualise a card for a +person present to guess, while Miss Angus was asked to describe an object +which the inquirer was acquainted with, but which he banished from his +conscious thought. The double experiment was a double-barrelled success. + +It seems hardly necessary to point out that chance coincidence will not +cover this set of cases, where in each 'guess' the field of conjecture +is boundless, and is not even narrowed by the crystal-gazer's knowledge +of the persons for whose diversion she makes the experiment. As +'muscle-reading' is not in question (in the one case of contact between +inquirer and crystal-gazer the results were unexpected), and as no +unconsciously made signs could convey, for example, the idea of a cavalry +soldier in uniform, or an accident on a race-course in two _tableaux_, I +do not at present see any more plausible explanation than that of thought +transference, though how that is to account for some of the cases given I +do not precisely understand. + +Any one who can accept the assurance of my personal belief in the +good faith of all concerned will see how very useful this faculty of +crystal-gazing must be to the Apache or Australian medicine-man or +Polynesian priest. Freakish as the faculty is, a few real successes, well +exploited and eked out by fraud, would set up a wizard's reputation. That +a faculty of being thus affected is genuine seems proved, apart from +modern evidence, by the world-wide prevalence of crystal-gazing in the +ethnographic region. But the discovery of this prevalence had not been +made, to my knowledge, before modern instances induced me to notice the +circumstances, sporadically recorded in books of travel. + +The phenomena are certainly of a kind to encourage the savage theory of +the wandering soul. How else, thinkers would say, can the seer visit the +distant place or person, and correctly describe men and scenes which, in +the body, he never saw? Or they would encourage the Polynesian belief +that the 'spirit' of the thing or person looked for is suspended by a god +over the water, crystal, blood, ink, or whatever it may be. Thus, to +anthropologists, the discovery of crystal-gazing as a thing widely +diffused and still flourishing ought to be grateful, however much they +may blame my childish credulity. I may add that I have no ground to +suppose that crystal-gazing will ever be of practical service to the +police or to persons who have lost articles of portable property. But I +have no objection to experiments being made at Scotland Yard.[20] + +[Footnote 1: Information, with a photograph of the stones, from a +correspondent in West Maitland, Australia.] + +[Footnote 2: _Report Ethnol. Bureau_, 1887-88, p. 460; vol. ii. p. 69. +Captain Bourke's volume on _The Medicine Men of the Apaches_ may also be +consulted.] + +[Footnote 3: Fitzroy, _Adventure_, vol. ii. p. 389.] + +[Footnote 4: _L'Histoire de la grand Ile Madagascar_, par le Sieur de +Flacourt. Paris, 1661, ch. 76. Veue de deux Navires de France predite par +les Negres, avant que l'on en peust savoir des Nouvelles, &c.] + +[Footnote 5: _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 341.] + +[Footnote 6: _J.A.I_., November 1894, p. 155. Ryckov is cited; _Zhurnal_, +p. 86.] + +[Footnote 7: _Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, Christoval de Molina, p. 12.] + +[Footnote 8: See Miss X's article, S.P.R. _Proceedings_, v. 486.] + +[Footnote 9: Op. cit. v. 505.] + +[Footnote 10: If any reader wishes to make experiments, he, or she, should +not be astonished if the first crystal figure represents 'the sheeted +dead,' or a person ill in bed. For some reason, or no reason, this is +rather a usual prelude, signifying nothing.] + +[Footnote 11: Sunday afternoon. It is not implied that the pictures on +Friday were prophetic. Probably Miss Rose saw what Miss Angus had seen by +aid of 'suggestion.'] + +[Footnote 12: Miss Angus could not be sure of the colour of the hair.] + +[Footnote 13: The position was such that Miss Angus could not see the face +of the lady.] + +[Footnote 14: I saw the photographs.] + +[Footnote 15: I have been shown the letter of January 20, which confirmed +the evidence of the crystal pictures. The camp was formed for official +purposes in which Mr. Clifton was concerned. A letter of February 9 +unconsciously corroborates.] + +[Footnote 16: The incident of the feet occurred at 4.30 to 7.30 P.M. The +crystal picture was about 10 P.M.] + +[Footnote 17: Miss Angus had only within the week made the acquaintance of +Mrs. Cockburn and the Bissetts. Of these relations of theirs at a distance +she had no knowledge.] + +[Footnote 18: I have seen a photograph of this gentleman, Major Hamilton, +which tallies with the full description given by Miss Angus, as reported +by Mrs. Bissett. All the proper names here, as throughout, are altered. + +This account I wrote from the verbal statement of Mrs. Bissett. It +was then read and corroborated by herself, Mr. Bissett, Mr. Cockburn, +Mrs. Cockburn, and Miss Angus, who added dates and signatures.] + +[Footnote 19: The letters attesting each of these experiments are in my +possession. The real names are in no case given in this account, by my own +desire, but (with permission of the persona concerned) can be communicated +privately.] + +[Footnote 20: The faculty of seeing 'fancy pictures' in the glass is +far from uncommon. I have only met with three other persons besides +Miss Angus, two of them men, who had any success in 'telepathic' +crystal-gazing. In correcting 'revises' (March 16), I leant that the +brother of Mr. Pembroke (p. 105) wrote from Cairo on January 27. The +'scry' of January 23 represented his ship in the Suez Canal. He was, as +his letter shows, in quarantine at Suez, at Moses's Wells, from January 25 +to January 26. Major Hamilton (pp. 109, 110), on the other hand, left +Bombay, indeed, but not by sea, as in the crystal-picture. See Appendix C. +Mr. Starr, an American critic, adds Cherokees, Aztecs, and Tonkaways to +the ranks of crystal gazers.] + + + + +VI + +ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS + +We have been examining cases, savage or civilised, in which knowledge is +believed to be acquired through no known channel of sense. All such +instances among savages, whether of the nature of clairvoyance simple, +or by aid of gazing in a smooth surface, or in dreams, or in trance, or +through second sight, would confirm if they did not originate the belief +in the separable soul. The soul, if it is to visit distant places and +collect information, must leave the body, it would be argued, and must so +far be capable of leading an independent life. Perhaps we ought next to +study cases of 'possession,' when knowledge is supposed to be conveyed by +an alien soul, ghost, spirit, or god, taking up its abode in a man, and +speaking out of his lips. But it seems better first to consider the +alleged super-normal phenomena which may have led the savage reasoner to +believe that _he_ was not the only owner of a separable soul: that other +people were equally gifted. + +The sense, as of separation, which a savage dreamer or seer would feel +after a dream or vision in which he visited remote places, would satisfy +him that _his_ soul, at least, was volatile. But some experience of what +he would take to be visits from the spirits of others, would be needed +before he recognised that other men, as well as he, had the faculty of +sending their souls a journeying. + +Now, ordinary dreams, in which the dreamer seemed to see persons who were +really remote; would supply to the savage reasoner a certain amount of +affirmative evidence. It is part of Mr. Tylor's contention that savages +(like some children) are subject to the difficulty which most of us may +have occasionally felt in deciding 'Did this really happen, or did I dream +it?' Thus, ordinary dreams would offer to the early thinker some +evidence that other men's souls could visit his, as he believes that his +can visit them. + +But men, we may assume, were not, at the assumed stage of thought, so +besotted as not to take a great practical distinction between sleeping +and waking experience on the whole. As has been shown, the distinction +is made by the lowest savages of our acquaintance. One clear _waking_ +hallucination, on the other hand, of the presence of a person really +absent, could not but tell more with the early philosopher than a score of +dreams, for to be easily forgotten is of the essence of a dream. Savages, +indeed, oddly enough, have hit on our theory, 'dreams go by contraries.' +Dr. Callaway illustrates this for the Zulus, and Mr. Scott for the +Mang'anza. Thus they _do_ discriminate between sleeping and waking. We +must therefore examine _waking_ hallucinations in the field of actual +experience, and on such recent evidence as may be accessible. If these +hallucinations agree, in a certain ratio, beyond what fortuitous +coincidence can explain, with real but unknown events, then such +hallucinations would greatly strengthen, in the mind of an early +thinker, the savage theory that a man at a distance may, voluntarily or +involuntarily, project his spirit on a journey, and be seen where he is +not present. + +When Mr. Tylor wrote his book, the study of the occasional waking +hallucinations of the sane and healthy was in its infancy. Much, indeed, +had been written about hallucinations, but these were mainly the chronic +false perceptions of maniacs, of drunkards, and of persons in bad +health such as Nicolai and Mrs. A. The hallucinations of persons of +genius--Jeanne d'Arc, Luther, Socrates, Pascal, were by some attributed +to lunacy in these famous people. Scarcely any writers before Mr. Galton +had recognised the occurrence of hallucinations once in a life, perhaps, +among healthy, sober, and mentally sound people. If these were known to +occur, they were dismissed as dreams of an unconscious sleep. This is +still practically the hypothesis of Dr. Parish, as we shall see later. +But in the last twenty years the infrequent hallucinations of the sane +have been recognised by Mr. Galton, and discussed by Professor James, +Mr. Gurney, Dr. Parish, and many other writers. + +Two results have followed. First, 'ghosts' are shown to be, when not +illusions caused by mistaking one object for another, then hallucinations. +As these most frequently represent a living person who is not present, by +parity of reason the appearance of a dead person is on the same level, is +not a space-filling 'ghost,' but merely an hallucination. Such an +appearance can, _prima facie_, suggest no reasonable inference as to the +continued existence of the dead. On the other hand, the new studies have +raised the perhaps insoluble question, 'Do not hallucinations of the sane, +representing the living, coincide more frequently than mere luck can +account for, with the death or other crisis of the person apparently +seen?' If this could be proved, then there would seem to be a causal +_nexus_, a relation of cause and effect between the hallucination and the +coincident crisis. That connection would be provisionally explained by +some not understood action of the mind or brain of the person in the +crisis, on that of the person who has the hallucination. This is no new +idea; only the name, Telepathy, is modern. Of course, if all this were +accepted, it would be the next step to ask whether hallucinations +representing the dead show any signs of being caused by some action on the +side of the departed. That is a topic on which the little that we have to +say must be said later. + +In the meantime the reader who has persevered so far is apt to go no +further. The prejudice against 'wraiths' and 'ghosts' is very strong; but, +then, our innocent phantasms are neither (as we understand their nature) +ghosts nor wraiths. Kant broke the edges of his metaphysical tools +against, not these phantasms, but the logically inconceivable entities +which were at once material and non-material, at once 'spiritual' and +'space-filling.' There is no such difficulty about hallucinations, which, +whatever else may be said about them, are familiar facts of experience. +The only real objections are the statements that hallucinations are +always _morbid_ (which is no longer the universal belief of physiologists +and psychologists), and that the alleged coincidences of a phantasm of a +person with the unknown death of that person at a distance are 'pure +flukes.' That is the question to which we recur later. + +In the meantime, the defenders of the theory, that there is some not +understood connection of cause and effect between the death or other +crisis at one end and the perception representing the person affected by +the crisis at the other end, point out that such hallucinations, or other +effects on the percipient, exist in a regular rising scale of potency and +perceptibility. Suppose that 'A's' death in Yorkshire is to affect the +consciousness of 'B' in Surrey before he knows anything about the fact +(suppose it for the sake of argument), then the effect may take place +(1) on 'B's' emotions, producing a vague _malaise_ and gloom; (2) on his +motor nerves, urging him to some act; (3) or may translate itself into his +senses, as a touch felt, a voice heard, a figure seen; or (4) may render +itself as a phrase or an idea. + +Of these, (1) the emotional effect is, of course, the vaguest. We may all +have had a sudden fit of gloom which we could not explain. People rarely +act on such impressions, and, when they do, are often wrong. Thus a +friend of my own was suddenly so overwhelmed, at golf, with inexplicable +misery (though winning his match) that he apologised to his opponent and +walked home from the ninth hole. Nothing was wrong at home. Probably some +real ground of apprehension had obscurely occurred to his mind and +expressed itself in his emotion. + +But one may illustrate what did look like a coincidence by the experience +of the same friend. He inhabited, as a young married man, a flat in a +house belonging to an acquaintance. The hall was covered by a kind of +glass roof, over part of its extent. He was staying in the country +with his wife, and as they travelled home the lady was beset with an +irresistible conviction that something terrible had occurred, _not_ to her +children. On reaching their house they found that one of their maids had +fallen through the glass roof and killed herself. They also learned that +the girl's sister had arrived at the house, immediately after the +accident, explaining that she was driven to come by a sense that something +dreadful had happened. The lawyer, too, who represented the owner of the +house, had appeared, unsummoned, from a conviction, which he could not +resist, that for some reason unknown he was wanted there.[1] Here, then, +was not an hallucination, but an emotional effect simultaneously reaching +the consciousness of three persons, and coinciding with an unknown +crisis.[2] + +Cases in which a person feels urged to an act (2) are also recorded. +Indeed, the lawyer's in our anecdote is such an instance. Not to trouble +ourselves (3) with 'voices,' hallucinations of sight, coinciding with a +distant unknown crisis, are traced from a mere feeling that somebody is in +the room, followed by a _mental_, or _mind's eye_ picture of a person +dying at a distance, up to a kind of 'vision' of a person or scene, and so +on to hallucinations appealing, at once, to touch, sight, and hearing. As +some hundreds of these narratives of coincidental hallucinations in every +degree have been collected from witnesses at first hand, often personally +known, and usually personally cross-questioned, by the student, it is +difficult to deny that there is a _prima facie_ case for inquiry.[3] + +There is here no question of 'spirits,' with all their physical and +metaphysical difficulties. Nor is there any desire to shirk the fact that +many 'presentiments' and hallucinations of the sane coincide with no +ascertainable fact. We only provisionally posit the possibility of an +influence, in its nature unknown, of one mind on another at a distance, +such influence translating itself into an hallucination. An inquiry into +this subject, in the ethnographic and modern fields, may be new but +involves no 'superstition.' + +We now return to Mr. Tylor, who treats of hallucinations among other +experiences which led early savage thinkers to believe in ghosts or +separable souls, the origin of religion. + +As to the causes of hallucinations in general, Mr. Tylor has something to +say, but it is nothing systematic. 'Sickness, exhaustion, and excitement' +cause savages to behold 'human spectres,' in 'the objective reality' of +which they believe. But if an educated modern, not sick, nor exhausted, +nor excited, has an hallucination of a friend's presence, he, too, +believes that it is 'objective,' is his friend in flesh and blood, till +he finds out his mistake, by examination or reflection. As Professor +William James remarks, in his 'Principles of Psychology,' such solitary +hallucinations of the sane and healthy, once in a life-time, are difficult +to account for, and are by no means rare. 'Sometimes,' Mr. Tylor observes, +'the phantom has the characteristic quality of not being visible to all of +an assembled company,' and he adds 'to assert or imply that they are +visible sometimes, and to some persons, but not always, or to everyone, +is to lay down an explanation of facts which is not, indeed, our usual +modern explanation, but which is a perfectly rational and intelligible +product of early science.' + +It is, indeed, nor has later science produced any rational and +intelligible explanation of collective hallucinations, shared by several +persons at once, and perhaps not perceived by others who are present. Mr. +Tylor, it is true, asserts that 'in civilised countries a rumour of some +one having seen a phantom is enough to bring a sight of it to others whose +minds are in a properly receptive state.' But this is arguing in a circle; +What is 'a properly receptive state'? If illness, overwork, 'expectant +attention,' make 'a properly receptive state,' I should have seen several +phantoms in several 'haunted houses.' But the only thing of the sort I +ever saw occurred when I was thinking of nothing less, when I was in good +health, and when I did not know (nor did I learn till long after) that it +was the right and usual phantom to see. Mr. Podmore remarks that various +members of the Psychical Society have sojourned in various 'haunted +houses,' 'some of them in a state of expectancy and nervous excitement,' +which never caused them to see phantoms, for they saw none.[4] + +Mr. Tylor treats of waking hallucinations in much the same manner as he +deals with 'travelling clairvoyance.' He does not study them 'in the field +of experience.' He is not concerned with the truth of the facts, important +as we think it would be, but with his theory that hallucinations, among +other causes, would naturally give rise to the belief in spirits, and thus +to the early philosophy of Animism. Now, certainly, the hallucination of a +person's presence, say at the moment of his death at a distance, would +suggest to a savage that something of the dying man's, something +symbolised in the word 'shadow,' or 'breath' _(spiritus)_, had come to say +farewell. The modern 'spiritualistic' theory, again, that the dead man's +'spirit' is actually present to the percipient, in space, corresponds to, +and is derived from, the animistic philosophy of the savage. But we may +believe in such 'death-wraiths,' or hallucinatory appearances of +the dying, without being either savages or spiritualists. We may +believe without pretending to explain, or we may advance the theory of +'Telepathy,' Hegel's 'magical tie,' according to which the distant mind +somehow impresses itself, in a more or less perfect hallucination, on the +mind of the person who perceives the wraith. If this be so, or even if no +explanation be offered, the truth of the stories of coincidental +apparitions becomes important, as pointing to a new region of psychical +inquiry. Then the evidence of savages as to hallucinations of their own, +coincident with the death of their absent friends, will confirm, +_quantum valeat_, the evidence of many modern observers in all ranks of +life, and all degrees of culture, from Lord Brougham to an old nurse.[5] + +As to hallucinations coincident with the death of the person apparently +seen, Mr. Tylor says: 'Narratives of this class I can here only specify +without arguing on them, they are abundantly in circulation.'[6] Now, the +modern hallucinations themselves can scarcely, perhaps, be called +'survivals from savagery,' though the opinion that an hallucination of a +person must be his 'spirit' is really such a survival. It is with that +opinion, with Animism in its hallucinatory origins, that Mr. Tylor is +concerned, not with the hallucinations themselves or with the evidence +for their veridical existence. + +Mr. Tylor gives three anecdotes, narrated to him, in two cases, by the +seers, of phantasms of the living beheld by them (and in one case by a +companion also) when the real person was dying at a distance. He adds: 'My +own view is that nothing but dreams and visions could have ever put into +men's minds such an idea as that of souls being ethereal images of +bodies.'[7] The idea may be perfectly erroneous; but if the occurrence +of such coincidental appearances as Mr. Tylor tells us about could be +shown to be too frequent for mere chance to produce, then there would be +a presumption in favour of some unknown faculties in our nature--a proper +theme for anthropology. + +The hallucinations of which we hear most are those in which a person +sees the phantom of another person, who, unknown to him, is in or near +the hour of death. Mr. Tylor, in addition to his three instances in +civilised life, alludes to one in savage life, with references to other +cases.[8] We turn to his savage instance, offering it at full length from +the original.[9] + +'Among the Maoris' (says Mr. Shortland) 'it is always ominous to see the +figure of an absent person. If the figure is very shadowy, and its face is +not seen, death, although he may ere long be expected, has not seized his +prey. If the face of the absent person is seen, the omen forewarns the +beholder that he is already dead.' + +The following statement is from the mouth of an eyewitness: + +'A party of natives left their village, with the intention of being +absent some time, on a pig-hunting expedition. One night, while they +were seated in the open air around a blazing fire, the figure of a +relative who had been left ill at home was seen to approach. The +apparition appeared to two of the party only, and vanished immediately +on their making an exclamation of surprise. When they returned to the +village they inquired for the sick man, and then learnt that he had +died about the time he was said to have been seen.' + +I now give Maori cases, communicated to me by Mr. Tregear, F.R.G.S., +author of a 'Maori Comparative Dictionary.' + +A very intelligent Maori chief said to me, 'I have seen but two ghosts. +I was a boy at school in Auckland, and one morning was asleep in bed +when I found myself aroused by some one shaking me by the shoulder. I +looked up, and saw bending over me the well-known form of my uncle, whom +I supposed to be at the Bay of Islands. I spoke to him, but the form +became dim and vanished. The next mail brought me the news of his +death. Years passed away, and I saw no ghost or spirit--not even when +my father and mother died, and I was absent in each case. Then one day I +was sitting reading, when a dark shadow fell across my book. I looked +up, and saw a man standing between me and the window. His back was +turned towards me. I saw from his figure that he was a Maori, and I +called out to him, "Oh friend!" He turned round, and I saw my other +uncle, Ihaka. The form faded away as the other had done. I had not +expected to hear of my uncle's death, for I had seen him hale and strong +a few hours before. However, he had gone into the house of a missionary, +and he (with several white people) was poisoned by eating of a pie made +from tinned meat, the tin having been opened and the meat left in it all +night. That is all I myself had seen of spirits.' + +One more Maori example may be offered:[10] + +From Mr. Francis Dart Fenton, formerly in the Native Department of the +Government, Auckland, New Zealand. He gave the account in writing to his +friend, Captain J.H. Crosse, of Monkstown, Cork, from whom we received +it. In 1852, when the incident occurred, Mr. Fenton was 'engaged in +forming a settlement on the banks of the Waikato.' + +'March 25, 1860 + +'Two sawyers, Frank Philps and Jack Mulholland, were engaged cutting +timber for the Rev. R. Maunsell at the mouth of the Awaroa creek--a very +lonely place, a vast swamp, no people within miles of them. As usual, +they had a Maori with them to assist in felling trees. He came from +Tihorewam, a village on the other side of the river, about six miles +off. As Frank and the native were cross-cutting a tree, the native +stopped suddenly, and said, "What are you come for?" looking in the +direction of Frank. Frank replied, "What do you mean?" He said, "I am +not speaking to you; I am speaking to my brother." Frank said, "Where is +he?" The native replied, "Behind you. What do you want?" (to the other +Maori), Frank looked round and saw nobody. The native no longer saw +anyone, but bid down the saw and said, "I shall go across the river; my +brother is dead." + +'Frank laughed at him, and reminded him that be had left him quite well +on Sunday (five days before), and there had been no communication since. +The Maori spoke no more, but got into his canoe and pulled across. When +he arrived at the landing-place, he met people coming to fetch him. His +brother had just died. I knew him well.' + +In answer to inquiries as to his authority for this narrative, Mr. Fenton +writes: + +'December 18, 1883. + +'I knew all the parties concerned well, and it is quite true, _valeat +quantum_, as the lawyers say. Incidents of this sort are not infrequent +among the Maoris. + +'F.D. FENTON, + _'Late Chief Judge, Native Law-Court of N.Z.'_ + +Here is a somewhat analogous example from Tierra del Fuego: + +'Jemmy Button was very superstitious' (says Admiral Fitzroy, speaking of +a Fuegian brought to England). 'While at sea, on board the "Beagle," he +said one morning to Mr. Bynoe that in the night some man came to the +side of his hammock and whispered in his ear that his father was dead. +He fully believed that such was the case,' and he was perfectly +right.... 'He reminded Bennett of the dream.'[11] + +Mr. Darwin also mentions this case, a coincidental auditory hallucination. + +I have found no other savage cases quite to the point. This is, +undeniably, 'a puir show for Kirkintilloch,' a meagre collection of savage +death-wraiths, but it may be so meagre by reason of want of research, or +of lack of records, travellers usually pooh-poohing the benighted +superstitions of the heathen, or fearing to seem superstitious if they +chronicle instances. However few the instances, they are, undeniably, +exact parallels to those recorded in civilised life. + +In filling up the lacuna in Mr. Tylor's anthropological work, in asking +questions as to the proportion between phantasms of the living which +coincide with a crisis in the experience of the person seen, and those +which do not, it is obviously necessary to reject all evidence of people +who were ill, or anxious, or overworked, or in poignant grief at the time +of the hallucination. It will be seen later that neither grief nor amatory +passion (dominating the association of our ideas as they do) beget many +phantasms. Our business, however, is with the false perceptions of persons +trustworthy, as far as we know, sane, healthy, not usually visionary, and +in an unperturbed state of mind. + +There remains a normal cause of subjective hallucinations, expectancy. +This appears to be a real cause of hallucination or, at least, of +illusion. Waiting for the sound of a carriage you may hear it often before +it comes, you taking other sounds for that which you desire. Again, in an +inquiry embracing 17,000 people, the S.P.R. collected thirteen cases of an +hallucinatory appearance of one person to another who was _expecting_ his +arrival. Once more, it is very conceivable that a trifle, the accidental +opening of a door, a noise of a familiar kind in an unfamiliar place, may +touch the brain into originating an hallucination of a person passing +through the door, or of the place where the sound now heard used once to +be familiar. Expectancy, again, and nervousness, might doubtless cause an +hallucination to a person who felt uncomfortable in a house with a name to +be 'haunted,' though, as we have seen, the effect is far less common than +the cause. All these sorts of causes are undoubtedly more apt to be +prevalent among superstitious savages than among educated Europeans. +And it stands to reason that savages, where one man 'thinks he sees +something,' will be readier than we are to think they 'see something' too. +Yet collective hallucinations, which are shared by several persons at +once, are especially puzzling. Even if they occur when all are in a +strained condition of expectancy, it is odd that all see them in _the same +way_.[12] Examples will occur later. When there is no excitement, the +mystery is increased. We may note that, among the expectant multitudes who +looked on while Bernadette was viewing the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes, not +one person, however superstitious or hysterical, pretended to share the +vision. Again, only one person, and he on doubtful evidence, is asserted +to have shared, once, the visions of Jeanne d'Arc. In both cases all the +conditions said to produce collective hallucination were present in the +highest degree. Yet no collective hallucination occurred. + +Narratives about hallucinations coincident with a death, narratives well +attested, are abundant in modern times, so abundant that one need only +refer the curious to Messrs. Gurney and Myers's two large volumes, +'Phantasms of the Living,' and to the S.P.R 'Report of Census of +Hallucinations' (1894). Mr. Tylor says: 'The spiritualistic theory +specially insists on cases of apparitions, where the person's death +corresponds more or less nearly with the time when some friend perceives +his phantom.' But visionaries, he remarks truly, often see phantoms of +living persons when nothing occurs. That is the case, and the question +arises whether more such phantoms are viewed (_not_ by 'visionaries') +in connection with the death or other crisis of the person whose +hallucinatory appearance is perceived, than ought to occur, if there be no +connection of some unknown cause between deaths and appearances. As Mr. +Tylor observes, 'Man, as yet in a low intellectual condition, came to +associate in thought those things which he found by experience to be +connected in fact.'[13] Did early man, then, find _in experience_ that +apparitions of his friends were 'connected in fact' with their deaths? +And, if so, was that discovered connection in fact the origin of his +belief that an hallucinatory appearance of an absent person sometimes +announced his death? + +That the belief exists in New Zealand we saw, and find confirmed by this +instance, one of 'many such relations,' says the author. A Maori chief was +long absent on the war-path. One day he entered his wife's hut, and sat +mute by the hearth. She ran to bring witnesses, but on her return the +phantasm was no longer visible. The woman soon afterwards married again. + +Her husband then returned in perfect health, and pardoned the lady, as +she had acted on what, to a Maori mind, seemed good legal evidence of +his decease. Of course, even if she fabled, the story is evidence to the +existence of the belief.[14] + +What, then, is the cause of the belief that a phantom of a man is a token +of his death? On the theory of savage philosophy, as explained by Mr. +Tylor himself, a man's soul may leave his body and become visible to +others, not at death only, but on many other occasions, in dream, trance, +lethargy. All these are much more frequent conditions, in every man's +career, than the fact of dying. Why, then, is the phantasm supposed by +savages to announce death? Is it because, in a sufficient ratio of cases +to provoke remark, early man has found the appearance and the death to be +'things connected in fact'? + +I give an instance in which the philosophy of savages would lead them +_not_ to connect a phantasm of a living man with his death. + +The Woi Worung, an Australian tribe, hold that 'the Murup [wraith] of an +individual could be sent from him by magic, as, for instance, when a +hunter incautiously went to sleep when out hunting.'[15] In this case the +hunter is exposed to the magic of his enemies. But the Murup, or detached +soul, would be visible to people at a distance when its owner is only +asleep--according to the savage philosophy. Why, then, when the wraith is +seen, is the owner believed to be dying? Are the things bound to be +'connected in fact'? + +As is well known, the Society for Psychical Research has attempted a +little census, for the purpose of discovering whether hallucinations +representing persons at a distance coincided, within twelve hours, with +their deaths, in a larger ratio than the laws of chance allow as possible. +If it be so, the Maori might have some ground for his theory that such +hallucinations betoken a decease. I do not believe that any such census +can enable us to reach an affirmative conclusion which science will +accept. In spite of all precautions taken, all warnings before, and +'allowances' made later, collectors of evidence will 'select' affirmative +cases already known, or (which is equally fatal) will be suspected of +doing so. Again, illusions of memory, increasing the closeness of the +coincidence, will come in--or it will be easy to say that they came in. +'Allowances' for them will not be accepted. + +Once more, 17,000 cases, though a larger number than is usual in +biological inquiries, are decidedly not enough for a popular argument on +probabilities; a million, it will be said, would not be too many. +Finally, granting honesty, accurate memory, and non-selection (none of +which will be granted by opponents), it is easy to say that odd things +_must_ occur, and that the large proportion of affirmative answers as to +coincidental hallucinations is just a specimen of these odd things. + +Other objections are put forward by teachers of popular science who have +not examined--or, having examined, misreport--the results of the Census in +detail. I may give an example of their method. + +Mr. Edward Clodd is the author of several handbooks of science--'The Story +of Creation,' 'A Manual of Evolution,' and others. Now, in a signed review +of a book, a critique published in 'The Sketch' (October 13, 1897), Mr. +Clodd wrote about the Census: 'Thousands of persons were asked whether +they had ever seen apparitions, and out of these some hundreds, mostly +unintelligent foreigners, replied in the affirmative. Some eight or ten of +the number--envied mortals--had seen "angels," but the majority, +like the American in the mongoose story, had seen only "snakes."... +In weighing evidence we have to take into account the competency as +well as the integrity of the witnesses.' Mr. Clodd has most frankly and +good-humouredly acknowledged the erroneousness of his remark. Otherwise we +might ask: Does Mr. Clodd prefer to be considered not 'competent' or not +'veracious'? He cannot be both on this occasion, for his signed and +published remarks were absolutely inaccurate. First, thousands of persons +were _not_ asked 'whether they had seen apparitions.' They were asked: +'Have you ever, when believing yourself to be perfectly awake, had a vivid +impression of seeing, or being touched by a living being or inanimate +object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could +discover, was not due to any external physical cause?' Secondly, it is not +the fact that 'some hundreds, _mostly unintelligent foreigners,_ replied +in the affirmative.' Of English-speaking men and women, 1,499 answered the +question quoted above in the affirmative. Of foreigners (naturally +'unintelligent'), 185 returned affirmative answers. Thirdly, when Mr. +Clodd says, 'The majority had seen only "snakes,"' it is not easy to know +what precise sense 'snakes' bears in the terminology of popular science. +If Mr. Clodd means, by 'snakes,' fantastic hallucinations of animals, +these amounted to 25, as against 830 representing human forms of persons +recognised, unrecognised, living or dead. But, if by 'snakes' Mr. Clodd +means purely subjective hallucinations, not known to coincide with any +event--and this _is_ his meaning--his statement agrees with that of the +Census. His observations, of course, were purely accidental errors. + +The number of hallucinations representing living or dying recognised +persons in the answers received, was 352. Of first-hand cases, in which +coincidence of the hallucination with the death of the person apparently +seen was affirmed, there were 80, of which 26 are given. + +The non-coincidental hallucinations were multiplied by four, to allow for +forgetfulness of 'misses.' The results being compared, it was decided that +the hallucinations collected coincided with death 440 more often than +ought to be the case by the law of probabilities. Therefore there was +proof, or presumption, in favour of some relation of cause and effect +between A's death and B's hallucination. + +If we were to attack the opinion of the Committee on Hallucinations, that +'Between deaths and apparitions of the dying a connection exists which is +not due to chance alone,' the assault should be made not only on the +method, but on the details. The events were never of very recent, and +often were of remote occurrence. The remoteness was less than it seems, +however, as the questions were often answered several years before the +publication of the Report (1894). There was scarcely any documentary +evidence, any note or letter written between the hallucination and the +arrival of news of the death. Such letters, the evidence alleged, had in +some cases existed, but had been lost, burnt, eaten by white ants, or +written on a sheet of blotting paper or the whitewashed wall of a barrack +room. If I may judge by my own lifelong success in mislaying, losing, and +casually destroying papers, from cheques to notes made for literary +purposes, from interesting letters of friends to the manuscripts of +novelists, or if I may judge by Sir Walter Scott's triumphs of the same +kind, I should not think much of the disappearance of documentary evidence +to death-wraiths. Nobody supposed, when these notes were written, that +Science would ask for their production; and even if people had guessed at +this, it is human to lose or destroy old papers. + +The remoteness of the occurrences is more remarkable, for, if these things +happen, why were so few recent cases discovered? Again, the seers were +sometimes under anxiety, though such cases were excluded from the final +computation: they frequently knew that the person seen was in bad health: +they were often very familiar with his personal aspect. Now what are +called 'subjective hallucinations,' non-coincidental hallucinations, +usually represent persons very familiar to us, persons much in our minds. +I know seven cases in which such hallucinations occurred. 1, 2, of husband +to wife; 3, son to mother; 4, brother to sister; 5, sister to sister; +6, cousin (living in the same house) to cousin; 7, friend (living a mile +away) to two friends. In no case was there a death-coincidence. Only in +case 4 was there any kind of coincidence, the brother having intended to +do (unknown to the sister) what he was seen doing--driving in a dog-cart +with a lady. But he had _not_ driven. We cannot, of course, _prove_ that +these seven cases were _not_ telepathic, but there is no proof that they +were. Now most of the coincidental cases, on which the Committee relied as +their choicest examples, represented persons familiarly known to the +seers. This looks as if they were casual; but, of course, if telepathy +does exist, it is most likely (as Hegel says) to exist between kinsfolk +and friends.[16] + +The dates might be fresher! + +In case 1, percipient knew that his aunt in England (he being in +Australia) was not very well. No anxiety. + +2. Casual acquaintance. No anxiety. Case of accident or suicide. + +3. Acquaintance who feared to die in childbed, and did. Percipient not +much interested, nor at all anxious. + +4. Father in England to son in India. No anxiety. + +5. Uncle to niece. Sudden death. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +6. Brother-in-law to sister-in-law, and her maid. No anxiety reported. +_Russian_. + +7. Father to son. No anxiety reported. _Russian_. + +8. Friend to friend. No knowledge of illness or anxiety reported. + +9. Grandmother to grandson. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +10. Casual acquaintance, to seven people, and apparently to a dog. Illness +known. _Russian._ + +11. Step-brother to step-brother. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +12. Friend to friend. No anxiety or knowledge of illness. + +13. Casual acquaintance. No anxiety. + +14. Aunt to nephew and to his wife. Illness known. No anxiety. + +15. Sister to brother. Illness known. No anxiety. + +16. Father to daughter. No knowledge of illness. No anxiety. + +17. Father to son. Much anxiety. (Uncounted.) + +18. Sister to sister. Illness known. 'No immediate danger' surmised. + +19. Father to son. Much anxiety. _Russian._ (Uncounted.) + +20. Friend to friend. Illness known. Percipient had been nursing patient. +_Brazilian._ (Very bad case!) + +21 Friend to friend. Illness known. No anxiety. + +22. Brother to brother. Illness known. No anxiety. + +23. Grandfather to grand-daughter. Illness known. No pressing anxiety. + +24. Grandfather to grandson. Illness known. No anxiety. + +25. Father's _hand._ Illness chronic. No anxiety. Percipient a daughter. +_Russian._ + +20. Husband to wife. Anxiety in time of war. + +27. Brother to sister. Slightly anxious from receiving no letter. + +28. Friend to friend. No anxiety. + +Anxiety is only reported, or to be surmised, in two or three cases. In a +dozen the existence of illness was known. + +It may therefore be argued, adversely, that in the selected coincidental +hallucinations, the persons seen were in the class most usually beheld in +non-coincidental and, probably, purely subjective hallucinations +representing real persons; also, that knowledge of their illness, even +when no anxiety existed, kept them in some cases before the mind; also, +that several cases are foreign, and that 'most foreigners are fools.' On +the other hand, affection, familiarity, and knowledge of illness had _not_ +produced hallucinations even in the case of these percipients, till +within the twelve hours (often much less) of the event of death. + +It would have been desirable, of course, to publish all the +_non_-coincidental cases, and show how far, in these not _veridical_ +cases, the recognised phantasms were those of kindred, dear friends, known +to be ill, and subjects of anxiety[17]. + +The Census, in fact, does contain a chapter on 'Mental and Nervous +Conditions in connection with Hallucinations,' such as anxiety, grief, +and overwork. Do these produce, or probably produce, many empty +hallucinations _not_ coincident with death or any great crisis? If they +do, then all cases in which a coincidental hallucination occurred +to a person in anxiety, or overstrained, will seem to be, probably, +fortuitous coincidences like the others. All percipients, of all sorts +of hallucinations, hits or misses, were asked if they were in grief or +anxiety. Now, out of 1,622 cases of hallucination of all known kinds +(coincidental or not), mental strain was reported in 220 instances; of +which 131 were cases of grief about known deaths or anxiety. These mental +conditions, therefore, occur only in twelve per cent. of the instances. On +the whole, it does not seem fair to argue that anxiety produces so much +hallucination that it will account by itself for those which we have +analysed as coincidental. + +The impression left on my own mind by the Census does pretty closely agree +with that of its authors. Fairly well persuaded of the possibility of +telepathy, on other grounds, and even inclined to believe that it does +produce coincidental hallucinations, the evidence of the Census, by +itself, would not convince me nor its authors. We want better records; we +want documentary evidence recording cases before the arrival of news of +the coincidence. Memories are very adaptive. The authors, however, made a +gallant effort, at the cost of much labour, and largely allowed for all +conceivable drawbacks. + +I am, personally, illogical enough to agree with Kant, and to be more +convinced by the cumulative weight of the hundreds of cases in 'Phantasms +of the Living,' in other sources, in my own circle of acquaintance, and +even by the coincident traditions of European and savage peoples, than by +the statistics of the Census. The whole mass, Census and all, is of very +considerable weight, and there exist individual cases which one feels +unable to dispute. Thus while I would never regard the hallucinatory +figure of a friend, perceived by myself, as proof of his death, I +would entertain some slight anxiety till I heard of his well-being. + +On this topic I will offer, in a Kantian spirit, an anecdote of the kind +which, occurring in great quantities, disposes the mind to a sort of +belief. It is not given as evidence to go to a jury, for I only received +it from the lips of a very gallant and distinguished officer and V.C., +whose own part in the affair will be described. + +This gentleman was in command of a small British force in one of the +remotest and least accessible of our dependencies, not connected by +telegraph, at the time of the incident, with the distant mainland. In the +force was a particularly folly young captain. One night he went to a +dance, and, as the sleeping accommodation was exhausted, he passed the +night, like a Homeric hero, on a couch beneath the echoing _loggia_. Next +day, contrary to his wont, he was in the worst of spirits, and, after +moping for some time, asked leave to go a three days' voyage to the +nearest telegraph station. His commanding officer, my informant, was +good-natured, and gave leave. At the end of a week Captain ---- returned, +in his usual high spirits. He now admitted that, while lying awake in the +verandah, after the ball, he had seen a favourite brother of his, then +in, say, Peru. He could not shake off the impression; he had made the long +voyage to the nearest telegraph station, and thence had telegraphed to +another brother in, let us say, Hong Kong, 'Is all well with John?' He +received a reply, 'All well by last mail,' and so returned, relieved in +mind, to his duties. But the next mail bringing letters from Peru brought +news of his Peruvian brother's death on the night of the vision in the +verandah. + +This, of course, is not offered as evidence. For evidence we need +Captain ----'s account, his Hong Kong brother's account, date of the +dance, official date of the Peruvian brother's death, and so on. But the +character of my informant indisposes me to disbelief. The names of places +are intentionally changed, but the places were as remote from each other +as those given in the text. + +We find ourselves able to understand the Master of Ravenswood's +cogitations after he saw the best wraith in fiction: + +'She died expressing her eager desire to see me. Can it be, then--can +strong and earnest wishes, formed during the last agony of nature, +survive its catastrophe, surmount the awful bounds of the spiritual +world, and place before us its inhabitants in the hues and colouring of +life? And why was that manifested to the eye, which could not unfold its +tale to the ear?' ('Her withered lips moved fast, although no sound +issued from them.') 'And wherefore should a breach be made in the laws +of nature, yet its purpose remain unknown?' + +The Master's reasonings are such as, in hearing similar anecdotes, must +have occurred to Scott. They no longer represent our views. The death and +apparition were coincidental almost to the minute: it would be impossible +to prove that life was utterly extinct, when Alice seemed to die, 'as the +clock in the distant village tolled one, just before' Ravenswood's +experience. We do not, like him, postulate 'a breach in the laws of +nature,' only a possible example of a law. The tale was not 'unfolded to +the ear,' as the telepathic impact only affected the sense of sight. + +Here, perhaps, ought to follow a reply to certain scientific criticisms of +the theory that telepathy, or the action of one distant mind, or brain, +upon another, may be the cause of 'coincidental hallucinations,' +whether among savage or civilised races. But, not to delay the argument +by controversy, the Reply to Objections has been relegated to the +Appendix[18]. + +[Footnote 1: The lady, her husband, and the lawyer, all known to me, gave +me the story in writing; the servant's sister has been lost sight of.] + +[Footnote 2: See three other cases in _Proceedings_, S.P.R., ii. 122, 123. +Two others are offered by Mr. Henry James and Mr. J. Neville Maskelyne of +the Egyptian Hall.] + +[Footnote 3: See 'Phantasms of the Living' and 'A Theory of Apparitions,' +_Proceedings_, S.P.R., vol. ii., by Messrs. Gurney and Myers.] + +[Footnote 4: _Studies in Psychical Research,_ p. 388.] + +[Footnote 5: This, at least, scorns to myself a not illogical argument. +Mr. Leaf has argued on the other side, that 'Darwinism may have done +something for Totemism, by proving the existence of a great monkey +kinship. But Totemism can hardly be quoted as evidence for Darwinism.' +True, but Darwinism and Totemism are matters of opinion, not facts of +personal experience. To a believer in coincidental hallucinations, at +least, the alleged parallel experiences of savages must yield some +confirmation to his own. His belief, he thinks, is warranted by human +experience. On what does he suppose that the belief of the savage is +based? Do his experience and their belief coincide by pure chance?] + +[Footnote 6: _Prim. Cult._ i. 449.] + +[Footnote 7: Ibid. i. 450.] + +[Footnote 8: _Prim. Cult._ vol. i. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 9: From Shortland's _Traditions of New Zealand,_ p. 140.] + +[Footnote 10: Gurney and Myers, 'Phantasms of the Living,' vol. ii. +ch. v. p. 557.] + +[Footnote 11: _The 'Adventure' and 'Beagle,'_ iii. 181, cf. 204.] + +[Footnote 12: It will, of course, be said that they worked their stories +into conformity.] + +[Footnote 13: _Prim. Cult._ i. 116.] + +[Footnote 14: Polack's _Manners of the New Zealanders_, i. 268.] + +[Footnote 15: Howitt, op. cit. p. 186.] + +[Footnote 16: On examining the cases, we find, in 1894, these dates of +reported occurrences, in twenty-eight cases: 1890, 1882, 1879, 1870, 1863, +1861, 1888, 1885, 1881, 1880, 1878, 1874, 1869, 1869, 1845, 1887, 1881, +1877, 1874, 1873, 1860 (?), 1864 (?), 1855, 1830 (?!), 1867, 1862, 1888, +1870.] + +[Footnote 17: On this point see _Report_, p. 260. Fifty phantasms out of +the whole occurred during anxiety or presumable anxiety. Of these, +thirty-one coincided (within twelve hours) with the death of the person +apparently seen. In the remaining nineteen, the person seen recovered in +eight cases.] + +[Footnote 18: Appendix A.] + + + + +VII + +DEMONIACAL POSSESSION + +There is a kind of hallucinations--namely, Phantasms of the Dead--about +which it seems better to say nothing in this place. If such phantasms are +seen by savages when awake, they will doubtless greatly corroborate that +belief in the endurance of the soul after death, which is undeniably +suggested to the early reasoner by the phenomena of dreaming. But, while +it is easy enough to produce evidence to recognised phantasms of the dead +in civilised life, it would be very difficult indeed to discover many good +examples in what we know about savages. Some Fijian instances are given by +Mr. Fison in his and Mr. Howitt's 'Kamilaroi and Kurnai,' Others occur in +the narrative of John Tanner, a captive from childhood among the Red +Indians. But the circumstance, already noted, that an Australian lad +became a wizard on the strength of having seen a phantasm of his dead +mother, proves that such experiences are not common; and Australian black +fellows have admitted that they, for their part, never did see a ghost, +but only heard of ghosts from their old men. Mr. David Leslie, previously +cited, gives some first-hand Zulu evidence about a haunted wood, where the +_Esemkofu_, or ghosts of persons killed by a tyrannical chief, were heard +and felt by his native informant; the percipient was also pelted with +stones, as by the European _Poltergeist_. The Zulu who dies commonly +becomes an Ihlozi, and receives his share of sacrifice. The _Esemkofu_ on +the other hand, are disturbed and haunting spirits[1]. + +As a rule, so far as our information goes, it is not recognised phantasms +of the dead, in waking vision, which corroborate the savage belief in the +persistence of the spirit of the departed. The savage reasoner rather +rests his faith on the alleged phenomena of noises and physical movements +of objects apparently untouched, which cause so many houses in civilised +society to be shut up, or shunned, as 'haunted.' Such disturbances the +savage naturally ascribes to 'spirits.' Our evidence, therefore, for +recognised phantasms of the savage dead is very meagre, so it is +unnecessary to examine the much more copious civilised evidence. The facts +attested may, of course, be theoretically explained as the result of +telepathy from a mind no longer incarnate; and, were the evidence as +copious as that for coincidental hallucinations of the living, or dying, +it would be of extreme importance. But it is not so copious, and, granting +even that it is accurate, various explanations not involving anything so +distasteful to science as the action of a discarnate intelligence may be, +and have been, put forward. + +We turn, therefore, from a theme in which civilised testimony is more +bulky than that derived from savage life, to a topic in which savage +evidence is much more full than modern civilised records. This topic is +the so-called Demoniacal Possession. + +In the philosophy of Animism, and in the belief of many peoples, savage +and civilised, spirits of the dead, or spirits at large, can take up their +homes in the bodies of living men. Such men, or women, are spoken of as +'inspired,' or 'possessed.' They speak in voices not their own, they act +in a manner alien to their natural character, they are said to utter +prophecies, and to display knowledge which they could not have normally +acquired, and, in fact, do not consciously possess, in their normal +condition. All these and similar phenomena the savage explains by the +hypothesis that an alien spirit--perhaps a demon, perhaps a ghost, or a +god--has taken possession of the patient. The possessed, being full of the +spirit, delivers sermons, oracles, prophecies, and what the Americans call +'inspirational addresses,' before he returns to his normal consciousness. +Though many such prophets are conscious impostors, others are sincere. Dr. +Mason mentions a prophet who became converted to Christianity. 'He could +not account for his former exercises, but said that it certainly appeared +to him as though a spirit spoke, and he must tell what it communicated.' +Dr. Mason also gives the following anecdote: + +'...Another individual had a familiar spirit that he consulted and with +which he conversed; but, on hearing the Gospel, he professed to become +converted, and had no more communication with his spirit. It had left +him, he said; it spoke to him no more. After a protracted trial I +baptised him. I watched his case with interest, and for several years he +led an unimpeachable Christian life; but, on losing his religious zeal, +and disagreeing with some of the church members, he removed to a distant +village, where he could not attend the services of the Sabbath, and it +was soon after reported that he had communications with his familiar +spirit again. I sent a native preacher to visit him. The man said +he heard the voice which had conversed with him formerly, but it +spoke very differently. Its language was exceedingly pleasant to +hear, and produced great brokenness of heart. It said, "Love each +other; act righteously--act uprightly," with other exhortations such us +he had heard from the teachers. An assistant was placed in the village +near him, when the spirit left him again; and ever since he has +maintained the character of a consistent Christian.'[2] + +This anecdote illustrates what is called by spiritists 'change of +control.' After receiving, and deserting, Christian doctrine, the patient +again spoke unconsciously, but under the influence of the faith which he +had abandoned. In the same way we shall find that a modern American +'Medium,' after being for a time constantly in the society of educated +and psychological observers, obtained new 'controls' of a character more +urbane and civilised than her old 'familiar spirit.'[3] + +It is admitted that the possessed sometimes display an eloquence which +they are incapable of in their normal condition.[4] In China, possessed +women, who never composed a line of poetry in their normal lives, utter +their thoughts in verse, and are said to give evidence of clairvoyant +powers.[5] + +The book--_Demon Possession in China_--of Dr. Nevius, for forty years a +missionary, was violently attacked by the medical journals of his native +country, the United States. The doctor had the audacity to declare that he +could find no better explanation of the phenomena than the theory of the +Apostles--namely, that the patients were possessed. Not having the fear of +man before his eyes, he also remarked that the current scientific +explanations had the fault of not explaining anything. + +For example, 'Mr. Tylor intimates that all cases of supposed demoniacal +possession are identical with hysteria, delirium, and mania, and +suchlike bodily and mental derangements.' Dr. Nevius, however, gave what +he conceived to be the notes of possession, and, in his diagnosis, +distinguished them from hysteria (whatever that may mean), delirium, and +mania. Nor can it honestly be denied that, if the special notes of +possession actually exist, they do mark quite a distinct species of mental +affection. Dr. Nevius then observed that, according to Mr. Tylor, +'scientific physicians now explain the facts on a different principle,' +but, says Dr. Nevius, 'we search in vain to discover what this principle +is.'[6] Dr. Nevius, who had the courage of his opinions, then consulted a +work styled 'Nervous Derangement,' by Dr. Hammond, a Professor in the +Medical School of the University of New York.[7] He found this scientific +physician admitting that we know very little about the matter. He knew, +what is very gratifying, that 'mind is the result of nervous action,' +and that so-called 'possession' is the result of 'material derangements of +the organs or functions of the system.' + +Dr. Nevius was ready to admit this latter doctrine in cases of idiocy, +insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria; but then, said he, these are not what I +call possession. The Chinese have names for all these maladies, 'which +they ascribe to physical causes,' but for possession they have a different +name. He expected Dr. Hammond to account for the abnormal conditions in +so-called possession, but 'he has hardly even attempted to do this.' Dr. +Nevius next perused the works of Dr. Griesinger, Dr. Baelz, Professor +William James, M. Ribot, and, generally, the literature of 'alternating +personality.' He found Mr. James professing his conviction that the +'alternating personality' (in popular phrase, the demon, or familiar +spirit) of Mrs. Piper knew a great deal about things which Mrs. Piper, in +her normal state, did not, and could not know. Thus, after consulting many +physicians, Dr. Nevius was none the better, and came back to his faith in +Diabolical Possession. He was therefore informed that he had written 'one +of the most extraordinarily perverted books of the present day' on the +evidence of 'transparent ghost stories'--which do not occur in his book. + +The attitude of Dr. Nevius cannot be called strictly scientific. Because +pathologists and psychologists are unable to explain, or give the _modus_ +of a set of phenomena, it does not follow that the devil, or a god, or a +ghost, is in it. + +But this, of course, was precisely the natural inference of savages. + +Dr. Nevius catalogues the symptoms of possession thus: + +1. The automatic, persistent and consistent acting out of a new +personality, which calls himself _shieng_ (genius) and calls the patient +_hiang to_ (incense burner, 'medium'). + +2. Possession of knowledge and intellectual power not owned by the patient +(in his normal state), nor explainable on the pathological hypothesis. + +3. Complete change of moral character in the patient. + +Of these notes, the second would, of course, most confirm the savage +belief that a new intelligence had entered into the patient. If he +displayed knowledge of the future, or of the remote, the inference that a +novel and wiser intelligence had taken possession of the patient's body +would be, to the savage, irresistible. But the more cautious modern, _even +if he accepted the facts_, would be reduced to no such extreme conclusion. +He would say that knowledge of the remote in space, or in the past, might +be telepathically communicated to the brain of some living person; while, +for knowledge of the future, he could fly, with Hartmann, to contact with +the Absolute. + +But the question of evidence for the facts is, of course, the only real +question. Now, in Dr. Nevius's book, this evidence rests almost entirely +on the written reports of native Christian teachers, for the Chinese were +strictly reticent when questioned by Europeans. 'My heathen brother, you +have a sister who is a demoniac?' asks the intelligent European. The reply +of the heathen brother is best left in the obscurity of a remarkably +difficult and copious Oriental language. We are thus obliged to fall back +on the reports of Mr. Leng and other native Christian teachers. They are +perfectly modest and rational in style. We learn that Mrs. Sen, a lady in +her normal state incapable of lyrical efforts, lisped in numbers in her +secondary personality, and detected the circumstance that Mr. Leng was on +his way to see her, when she could not have learned the fact in any normal +way.[8] 'They are now crossing the stream, and will be here when the sun +is about so high;' which was correct. The other witnesses were examined, +and corroborated.[9] Dr. Nevius himself examined Mrs. Kwo, when possessed, +talking in verse, and, physically, limp.[10] + +The narratives are of this type; the patient, on recovering consciousness, +knows nothing of what has occurred; Christian prayers are often +efficacious, and there are many anecdotes of movements of objects +untouched.[11] + +By a happy accident, as this chapter was passing through the press, a +scientific account of a demoniac and his cure was published by Dr. Pierre +Janet.[12] Dr. Janet has explained, with complete success, everything in +the matter of possession, except the facts which, in the opinion of Dr. +Nevius, were in need of explanation. These facts did not occur in the case +of the demoniac 'exorcised' by Dr. Janet. Thus the learned essay of that +eminent authority would not have satisfied Dr. Nevius. The facts in which +he was interested did not present themselves in Dr. Janet's patient, and +so Dr. Janet does not explain them. + +The simplest plan, here, is to deny that the facts in which Dr. Nevius +believes ever present themselves at all; but, if they ever do, Dr. Janet's +explanation does not explain them. + +1. His patient, Achille, did _not_ act out a new personality. + +2. Achille displayed _no_ knowledge or intellectual power which he did not +possess in his normal state. + +3. His moral character was _not_ completely changed; he was only more +hypochondriacal and hysterical than usual. + +Achille was a poor devil of a French tradesman who, like Captain Booth, +had infringed the laws of strict chastity and virtue. He brooded on this +till he became deranged, and thought that Satan had him. He was convulsed, +anaesthetic, suicidal, involuntarily blasphemous. He was not 'exorcised' +by a prayer or by a command, but after a long course of mental and +physical treatment. His cure does not explain the cures in which Dr. +Nevius believed. His case did not present the features of which Dr. +Nevius asked science for an explanation. Dr. Janet's essay is the +_dernier cri_ of science, and leaves Dr. Nevius just where it found him. + +Science, therefore, can, and does, tell Dr. Nevius that his evidence for +his facts is worthless, through the lips of Professor W. Romaine Newbold, +in 'Proceedings, S.P.R.,' February 1898 (pp. 602-604). And the same +number of the same periodical shows us Dr. Hodgson accepting facts similar +to those of Dr. Nevius, and explaining them by--possession! (p. 406). + +Dr. Nevius's observations practically cover the whole field of +'possession' in non-European peoples. But other examples from other areas +are here included. + +A rather impressive example of possession may be selected from +Livingstone's 'Missionary Travels' (p. 86). The adventurous Sebituane was +harried by the Matabele in a new land of his choice. He thought of +descending the Zambesi till he was in touch with white men; but Tlapne, +'who held intercourse with gods,' turned his face west-wards. Tlapne used +to retire, 'perhaps into some cave, to remain in a hypnotic or mesmeric +state' until the moon was full. Then he would return _en prophte_. +'Stamping, leaping, and shouting in a peculiarly violent manner, or +beating the ground with a club' (to summon those under earth), 'they +induce a kind of fit, and while in it pretend that their utterances are +unknown to themselves,' as they probably are, when the condition is +genuine. Tlapne, after inducing the 'possessed' state, pointed east: +'There, Sebituane, I behold a fire; shun it, it may scorch thee. The gods +say, Go not thither!' Then, pointing west, he said, 'I see a city and a +nation of black men, men of the water, their cattle are red, thine own +tribe are perishing, thou wilt govern black men, spare thy future tribe.' + +So far, mere advice; then, + +'Thou, Ramosinii, thy village will perish utterly. If Mokari moves first +from the village, he will perish first; and thou, Ramosinii, wilt be the +last to die.' + +Then, + + 'Like some bold seer in a trance, + Seeing all his own mischance,' + + 'The gods have given other men water to drink, but to me they have given + bitter water. They call me away. I go.'[13] + +Tlapne died, Mokari died, Ramosinii died, their village was destroyed +soon after, and so Sebituane wandered westward, not disobedient to the +voice, was attacked by the Baloiana, conquered, and spared them. + +Such is 'possession' among savages. It is superfluous to multiply +instances of this world-wide belief, so freely illustrated in the New +Testament, and in trials for witchcraft. The scientific study of the +phenomena, as Littr complained, 'had hardly been sketched' forty years +ago. In the intervening years, psychologists and hypnotists have devoted +much attention to the theme of these 'secondary personalities,' which +Animism explains by the theory of possession. The explanations of modern +philosophers differ, and it is not our business to discuss their +physiological and pathological ideas.[14] Our affair is to ask whether, in +the field of experience, there is any evidence that persons thus +'possessed' really evince knowledge which they could not have acquired +through normal channels? If such evidence exists, the facts would +naturally strengthen the conviction that the possessed person was inspired +by an intelligence not his own, that is, by a spirit. Now it is the firm +conviction of several men of science that a certain Mrs. Piper, an +American, does display, in her possessed condition, knowledge which +she could not normally acquire. The case of this lady is precisely on a +level with that of certain savage or barbaric seers. Thus: 'The Fijian +priest sits looking steadily at a whale's tooth ornament, amid dead +silence. In a few minutes he trembles, slight twitchings of face and limbs +come on, which increase to strong convulsions.... Now the god has +entered.'[15] + +In China, 'the professional woman sits at a table in contemplation, till +the soul of a deceased person from whom communication is desired enters +her body and talks through her to the living....'[16] + +The latter account exactly describes Mrs. Piper. When consulted she passes +through convulsions into a trance, after which she talks in a new voice, +assumes a fresh personality, and affects to be possessed by the spirit of +a French doctor (who does not know French)--Dr. Phinuit. She then displays +a varying amount of knowledge of dead and living people connected with her +clients, who are usually strangers, often introduced under feigned names. +Mrs. Piper and her husband have been watched by detectives, and have not +been discovered in any attempts to procure information. She was for some +months in England under the charge of the S.P.R. Other ghosts, besides +Dr. Phinuit, ghosts more civilised than he, now influence her, and her +latest performances are said to exceed her former efforts.[17] + +Volumes of evidence about Mrs. Piper have been published by Dr. Hodgson, +who unmasked Madame Blavatsky and Eusapia Paladino.[18] He was at first +convinced that Mrs. Piper, in her condition of trance, obtains knowledge +not otherwise and normally accessible to her. It was admitted that her +familiar spirit guesses, attempts to extract information from the people +who sit with her, and tries sophistically to conceal his failures. Here +follow the statements of Professor James of Harvard. + +'The most convincing things said about my own immediate household were +either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortunately the former things +cannot well be published. Of the trivial things I have forgotten the +greater number, but the following, _rarae nantes_, may serve as samples +of their class. She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a +waistcoat. (She wrongly accused a person of stealing the rug, which was +afterwards found in the house.) She told of my killing a grey-and-white +cat with ether, and described how it had "spun round and round" before +dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife, +warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing +criticism, full of _traits vifs_, of the excellent woman's character. +(Of course, no one but my wife and I knew the existence of the letter in +question.) She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking +advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain +"tantrums" of our second child--"little Billy-boy," as she called him, +reproducing his nursery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how +a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard +footsteps on a stair, &c. &c. Insignificant as these things sound when +read, the accumulation of them has an irresistible effect; and I repeat +again what I said before, that, taking everything that I know of Mrs. +Piper into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as +I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her +trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, and that +the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be found. The +limitations of her trance information, its discontinuity and fitfulness, +and its apparent inability to develop beyond a certain point, although +they end by arousing one's moral and human impatience with the phenomenon, +yet are, from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting +peculiarities, since where there are limits there are conditions, and the +discovery of them is always the beginning of an explanation. + +'This is all I cam tell you of Mrs. Piper. I wish it were more +"scientific." But _valcat quantum!_ it is the best I can do.' + +Elsewhere Mr. James writes: + +'Mr. Hodgson and others have made prolonged study of this lady's trances, +and are all convinced that supernormal powers of cognition are displayed +therein. They are, _prima facie_, due to "spirit control." But the +conditions are so complex that a dogmatic decision either for or against +the hypothesis must as yet be postponed.'[19] + +Again-- + +'In the trances of this medium I cannot resist the conviction that +knowledge appears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of +her eyes, ears, and wits. + +'The trances have broken down, for my own mind, the limits of the admitted +order of nature.' + +M. Paul Bourget (who is not superstitious), after consulting Mrs. Piper, +concludes: + +'L'esprit a des procds de connatre non souponns par notre +analyse.'[20] + +In this treatise I may have shown 'the will to believe' in an unusual +degree; but, for me, the interest of Mrs. Piper is purely anthropological. +She exhibits a survival or recrudescence of savage phenomena, real or +feigned, of convulsion and of secondary personality, and entertains a +survival of the animistic explanation. + +Mrs. Piper's honesty and excellent character, in her normal condition, are +vouched for by her friends and observers in England and America; nor do I +impeach her normal character. But 'secondary personalities' have often +more of Mr. Hyde than of Dr. Jekyll in their composition. It used to be +admitted that, when 'possessed,' Mrs. Piper would cheat when she +could--that is to say, she would make guesses, try to worm information out +of her sitter, describe a friend of his, alive or dead, as 'Ed.,' who may +be Edgar, Edmund, Edward, Edith, or anybody. She would shuffle, and repeat +what she had picked up in a former sitting with the same person; and the +vast majority of her answers started from vague references to probable +facts (as that an elderly man is an orphan), and so worked on to more +precise statements. Professor Macalister wrote: + +'She is quite wide-awake enough all through to profit by suggestions. I +let her see a blotch of ink on my finger, and she said that I was a +writer.... Except the guess about my sister Helen, who is alive, there was +not a single guess which was nearly right. Mrs. Piper is not anaesthetic +during the so-called trance, and if you ask my private opinion, it is that +the whole thing is an imposture, and a poor one.'[21] + +Mr. Barkworth said that, as far as his experience went, 'Mrs. Piper's +powers are of the ordinary thought-reading [i.e. muscle-reading] kind, +dependent on her hold of the visitor's hand.' Each of these gentlemen had +only one 'sitting.' M. Paul Bourget also informed me, in conversation, +that Mrs. Piper held his hand while she told the melancholy tale connected +with a key in his possession, and that she did not tell the story promptly +and fluently, but very slowly and hesitatingly. Even so, he declared that +he did not feel able to account for her performance. + +As these pages were passing through the press, Dr. Hodgson's last report +on Mrs. Piper was published.[22] It is quite impossible, within the space +allotted, to criticise this work. It would be necessary to examine +minutely scores of statements, in which many facts are suppressed as too +intimate, while others are remarkably incoherent. Dr. Hodgson deserves the +praise of extraordinary patience and industry, displayed in the very +distasteful task of watching an unfortunate lady in the vagaries of +'trance.' His reasonings are perfectly calm, perfectly unimpassioned, and +his bias has not hitherto seemed to make for credulity. We must, in fact, +regard him as an expert in this branch of psychology. But he himself makes +it clear that, in his opinion, no written reports can convey the +impressions produced by several years of personal experience. The results +of that experience he sums up in these words: + +'At the present time I cannot profess to have any doubt but that the chief +"communicators" to whom I have referred in the foregoing pages are +veritably the personalities that they claim to be, that they have survived +the change we call death, and that they have directly communicated with +us, whom we call living, through Mrs. Piper's entranced organism.'[23] + +This means that Dr. Hodgson, at present, in this case, accepts the +hypothesis of 'possession' as understood by Maoris and Fijians, Chinese +and Karens. + +The published reports do not produce on me any such impression. As a +personal matter of opinion, I am convinced that those whom I have honoured +in this life would no more avail themselves of Mrs. Piper's 'entranced +organism' (if they had the chance) than I would voluntarily find myself in +a 'sitting' with that lady. It is unnecessary to wax eloquent on this +head; and the curious can consult the writings of Dr. Hodgson for +themselves. Meanwhile we have only to notice that an American 'possessed' +woman produces on a highly educated and sceptical modern intelligence +the same impression as the Zulu 'possessed' produce on some Zulu +intelligences. + +The Zulus admit 'possession' and divination, but are not the most +credulous of mankind. The ordinary possessed person is usually consulted +as to the disease of an absent patient. The inquirers do not assist the +diviner by holding his hand, but are expected to smite the ground +violently if the guess made by the diviner is right; gently if it is +wrong. A sceptical Zulu, named John, having a shilling to expend on +psychical research, smote violently at _every_ guess. The diviner was +hopelessly puzzled; John kept his shilling, and laid it out on a much more +meritorious exhibition of animated sticks.[24] + +Uguise gave Dr. Callaway an account of a female possessed person with +whom Mrs. Piper could not compete. Her spirit spoke, not from her mouth, +but from high in the roof. It gave forth a kind of questioning remarks +which were always correct. It then reported correctly a number of singular +circumstances, ordered some remedies for a diseased child, and offered to +return the fee, if ample satisfaction was not given.[25] + +In China and Zululand, as in Mrs. Piper's case, the spirits are fond of +diagnosing and prescribing for absent patients. + +A good example of savage possession is given in his travels by Captain +Jonathan Carver (1763). + +Carver was waiting impatiently for the arrival of traders with provisions, +near the Thousand Lakes. A priest, or jossakeed, offered to interview the +Great Spirit, and obtain information. A large lodge was arranged, and the +covering drawn up (which is unusual), so that what went on within might be +observed. In the centre was a chest-shaped arrangement of stakes, so far +apart from each other 'that whatever lay within them was readily to be +discerned.' The tent was illuminated 'by a great number of torches.' The +priest came in, and was first wrapped in an elk's skin, as Highland seers +were wrapped in a black bull's hide. Forty yards of rope made of elk's +hide were then coiled about him, till he 'was wound up like an Egyptian +mummy.' + +I have elsewhere shown[26] that this custom of binding with bonds the seer +who is to be inspired, existed in Graeco-Egyptian spiritualism, among +Samoyeds, Eskimo, Canadian Hareskin Indians, and among Australian blacks. + +'The head, body, and limbs are wound round with stringy bark cords.'[27] +This is an extraordinary range of diffusion of a ceremony apparently +meaningless. Is the idea that, by loosing the bonds, the seer demonstrates +the agency of spirits, after the manner of the Davenport Brothers?[28] But +the Graeco-Egyptian medium did _not_ undo the swathings of linen, in which +he was rolled, _like a mummy_. They had to be unswathed for him, by +others.[29] Again, a dead body, among the Australians, is corded up tight, +as soon as the breath is out of it, if it is to be buried, or before being +exposed on a platform, if that is the custom.[30] Again, in the Highlands +second-sight was thus acquired: the would-be seer 'must run a Tedder +(tether) of Hair, _which bound a corpse to the Bier_, about his Middle +from end to end,' and then look between his legs till he sees a funeral +cross two marches.[31] The Greenland seer is bound 'with his head between +his legs.'[32] + +Can it be possible, judging from Australia, Scotland, Egypt, that the +binding, as of a corpse or mummy, is a symbolical way of putting the seer +on a level with the dead, who will then communicate with him? In three +remote points, we find seer-binding and corpse-binding; but we need to +prove that corpses are, or have been, bound at the other points where the +seer is tied up--in a reindeer skin among the Samoyeds, an elk skin in +North America, a bull's hide in the Highlands. + +Binding the seer is not a universal Red Indian custom; it seems to cease +in Labrador, and elsewhere, southwards, where the prophet enters a magic +lodge, unbound. Among the Narquapees, he sits cross-legged, and the lodge +begins to answer questions by leaping about.[33] The Eskimo bounds, though +he is tied up. + +It would be decisive, if we could find that, wherever the sorcerer is +bound, the dead are bound also. I note the following examples, but the +Creeks do not, I think, bind the magician. + +Among the Creeks, + +'The corpse is placed in a hole, with a blanket wrapped about it, and the +legs bent under it _and tied together_.'[34] The dead Greenlanders were +'wrapped and sewed up in their best deer-skins.'[35] + +Carver could only learn that, among the Indians he knew, dead bodies were +'wrapped in skins;' that they were also swathed with cords he does not +allege, but he was not permitted to see all the ceremonies. + +My theory is, at least, plausible, for this manner of burying the dead, +tied tightly up, with the head between the legs (as in the practice of +Scottish and Greenland seers), is very old and widely diffused. Ellis +says, of the Tahitians, 'the body of the dead man was ... placed in a +sitting posture, with the knees elevated, _the face pressed down between +the knees_,... and the whole body tied with cord or cinet, wound repeatedly +round.'[36] + +The binding may originally have been meant to keep the corpse, or ghost, +from 'walking.' I do not know that Tahitian prophets were ever tied up, to +await inspiration. But I submit that the frequency of the savage form of +burial with the corpse tied up, or swathed, sometimes with the head +between the legs; and the recurrence of the savage practice of similarly +binding the sorcerer, probably points to a purpose of introducing the +seer to the society of the dead. The custom, as applied to prophets, might +survive, even where the burial rite had altered, or cannot be ascertained, +and might survive, for corpses, where it had gone out of use, for seers. +The Scotch used to justify their practice of putting the head between +the knees when, bound with a corpse's hair tether, they learned to +be second-sighted, by what Elijah did. The prophet, on the peak of +Carmel, 'cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his +knees.'[37] But the cases are not analogous. Elijah had been hearing a +premonitory 'sound of abundance of rain' in a cloudless sky. He was +probably engaged in prayer, not in prophecy. + +Kirk, by the way, notes that if the wind changes, while the Scottish seer +is bound, he is in peril of his life. So children are told, in Scotland, +that, if the wind changes while they are making faces, the grimace will be +permanent. The seer will, in the same way, become what he pretends to be, +a corpse. + +This desertion of Carver's tale may be pardoned for the curiosity of the +topic. He goes on: + +'Being thus bound up like an Egyptian mummy' (Carver unconsciously making +my point), 'the seer was lifted into the chest-like enclosure. I could now +also discern him as plain as I had ever done, and I took care not to turn +my eyes away a moment'--in which effort he probably failed. + +The priest now began to mutter, and finally spoke in a mixed jargon of +scarcely intelligible dialects. He now yelled, prayed, and foamed at the +mouth, till in about three quarters of an hour he was exhausted and +speechless. 'But in an instant he sprang upon his feet, notwithstanding at +the time he was put in it appeared impossible for him to move either his +legs or arms, and shaking off his covering, as quick as if the bands with +which it had been bound were burst asunder,' he prophesied. The Great +Spirit did not say when the traders would arrive, but, just after high +noon, next day, a canoe would arrive, and the people in it would tell when +the traders were to appear. + +Next day, just after high noon, a canoe came round a point of land about a +league away, and the men in it, who had met the traders, said they would +come in two days, which they did. Carver, professing freedom from any +tincture of credulity, leaves us 'to draw what conclusions we please.' + +The natural inference is 'private information,' about which the only +difficulty is that Carver, who knew the topography and the chances of a +secret messenger arriving to prompt the Jossakeed, does not allude to this +theory.[38] He seems to think such successes not uncommon. + +All that psychology can teach anthropology, on this whole topic of +'possession;' is that secondary or alternating personalities are facts +_in rerum natura_, that the man or woman in one personality may have no +conscious memory of what was done or said in the other, and that cases of +knowledge said to be supernormally gained in the secondary state are worth +inquiring about, if there be a chance of getting good evidence. + +A few fairly respectable savage instances are given in Dr. Gibier's 'Le +Fakirisme Occidental' and in Mr. Manning's 'Old New Zealand;' but, while +modern civilised parallels depend on the solitary case of Mrs. Piper (for +no other case has been well observed), no affirmative conclusion can be +drawn from Chinese, Maori, Zulu, or Red Indian practice. + +[Footnote 1: _Among the Zulus_, p. 120.] + +[Footnote 2:_ Burmah_, p. 107.] + +[Footnote 3: Hodgson, _Proceedings_, S.P.E., vol. xiii. pt. xxxiii. Dr. +Hodgson by no means agrees with this view of the case--the case of Mrs. +Piper.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 184.] + +[Footnote 5: Nevius's _Demon Possession in China_, a curious collection of +examples by an American missionary. The reports of Catholic missionaries +abound in cases.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. p. 169.] + +[Footnote 7: Putnam, 1881.] + +[Footnote 8: Nevius, p. 33.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. p. 35.] + +[Footnote 10: Op. cit. p. 38.] + +[Footnote 11: See 'Fetishism and Spiritualism.'] + +[Footnote 12: _Ncroses et Ides Fixes_. Alcan, Paris, 1898. This is the +first of a series of works connected with the Laboratoire de Psychologie, +at the Salptritre, in Paris.] + +[Footnote 13: 'Macleod shall return, but Macrimmon shall never!'] + +[Footnote 14: See Ribot, _Les Maladies de la Personnalit,_; Bourru +et Burot, _Variations de la Personnalit_; Janet, _L'Automatisme +Psychologique_; James, _Principles of Psychology_; Myers, in _Proceedings_ +of S.P.R., 'The Mechanism of Genius,' 'The Subliminal Self.'] + +[Footnote 15: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 133.] + +[Footnote 16: Doolittle's _Chinese_, i. 143; ii. 110, 320.] + +[Footnote 17: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., pt. xxxiii.] + +[Footnote 18: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., vi. 436-650; viii. 1-167; xiii. +284-582]. + +[Footnote 19: _The Will to Believe_, p. 814.] + +[Footnote 20: _Figaro_, January 14, 1895.] + +[Footnote 21: _Proceedings_, vi. 605, 606.] + +[Footnote 22: _Proceedings_, S.P.R, part xxxiii. vol. xiii.] + +[Footnote 23: Op. cit. part xxxiii. p. 406.] + +[Footnote 24: See 'Fetishism.' Compare Callaway, p. 328.] + +[Footnote 25: Callaway, pp. 361-374.] + +[Footnote 26: _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, p. 66.] + +[Footnote 27: Brough Smyth, i. 475. This point is disputed, but I did not +invent it, and a case appears in Mr. Curr's work on the natives.] + +[Footnote 28: _Prim. Cult_. i. 152.] + +[Footnote 29: Eusebius, _Prap. Evang_. v. 9.] + +[Footnote 30: Brough Smyth, i. 100, 113.] + +[Footnote 31: Kirk, _Secret Commonwealth_ 1691.] + +[Footnote 32: Crantz, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 33: Pre Arnaud, in Hind's _Labrador_, ii. 102.] + +[Footnote 34: Major Swan, 1791, official letter on the Creek Indians, +Schoolcraft, v. 270.] + +[Footnote 35: Crantz, p. 237.] + +[Footnote 36: _Polynesian Researches_, i. 519.] + +[Footnote 37: 1 Kings xviii. 42.] + +[Footnote 38: Carver, pp. 123, 184.] + + + + +VIII + +FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM + +It has been shown how the doctrine of souls was developed according to the +anthropological theory. The hypothesis as to how souls of the dead were +later elevated to the rank of gods, or supplied models after which such +gods might be inventively fashioned, will be criticised in a later +chapter. Here it must suffice to say that the conception of a separable +surviving soul of a dead man was not only not essential to the savage's +idea of his supreme god, as it seems to me, but would have been wholly +inconsistent with that conception. There exist, however, numerous forms of +savage religion in addition to the creed in a Supreme Being, and these +contribute their streams to the ocean of faith. Thus among the kinds of +belief which served in the development of Polytheism, was Fetishism, +itself an adaptation and extension of the idea of separable souls. In this +regard, like ancestor-worship, it differs from the belief in a Supreme +Being, which, as we shall try to demonstrate, is not derived from the +theory of ghosts or souls at all. + +_Fetish_ (_ftiche_) seems to come from Portuguese _feitio_, a talisman +or amulet, applied by the Portuguese to various material objects +regarded by the negroes of the west coast with more or less of religious +reverence. These objects may be held sacred in some degree for a number of +incongruous reasons. They may be tokens, or may be of value in sympathetic +magic, or merely _odd_, and therefore probably endowed with unknown mystic +qualities. Or they may have been pointed out in a dream, or met in a +lucky hour and associated with good fortune, or they may (like a tree with +an unexplained stir in its branches, as reported by Kohl) have seemed to +show signs of life by spontaneous movements; in fact, a thing may be what +Europeans call a fetish for scores of reasons. For our present purpose, as +Mr. Tylor says, 'to class an object as a fetish demands explicit statement +that a spirit is considered as embodied in it, or acting through it, or +communicating by it, or, at least, that the people it belongs to do +habitually think this of such objects; or it must be shown that the object +is treated as having personal consciousness or power, is talked with, +worshipped...' and so forth. The in-dwelling spirit may be human, as when +a fetish is made out of a friend's skull, the spirit in which may even be +asked for oracles, like the Head of Bran in Welsh legend. + +We have tried to show that the belief in human souls may be, in part at +least, based on supernormal phenomena which Materialism disregards. We +shall now endeavour to make it probable that Fetishism (the belief in the +souls tenanting inanimate objects) may also have sources which perhaps are +not normal, or which at all events seemed supernormal to savages. We say +'perhaps not normal' because the phenomena now to be discussed are of the +most puzzling character. We may lean to the belief in a supernormal cause +of certain hallucinations, but the alleged movements of inanimate objects +which probably supply one origin of Fetishism, one suggestion of the +presence of a spirit in things dead, leave the inquiring mind in +perplexity. In following Mr. Tylor's discussion of the subject, it is +necessary to combine what he says about Spiritualism in his fourth with +what he says about Fetishism in his fourteenth and later chapters. For +some reason his book is so arranged that he criticises 'Spiritualism' +long before he puts forward his doctrine of the origin and development of +the belief in spirits. + +We have seen a savage reason for supposing that human spirits inhabit +certain lifeless things, such as skulls and other relics of the dead. But +how did it come to be thought that a spirit dwelt in a lifeless and +motionless piece of stone or stick? Mr. Tylor, perhaps, leads us to a +plausible conjecture by writing: 'Mr. Darwin saw two Malay women in +Keeling Island, who held a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll: +this spoon had been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming +inspired at full moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively, like +a table or a hat at a modern spirit sance.'[1] Now M. Lefbure has +pointed out (in 'Mlusine') that, according to De Brosses, the African +conjurers gave an appearance of independent motion to small objects, which +were then accepted as fetishes, being visibly animated. M. Lefbure +next compares, like Mr. Tylor, the alleged physical phenomena of +spiritualism, the flights and movements of inanimate objects apparently +untouched. + +The question thus arises, Is there any truth whatever in these world-wide +and world-old stories of inanimate objects acting like animated things? +Has fetishism one of its origins in the actual field of supernormal +experience in the X region? This question we do not propose to answer, +as the evidence, though practically universal, may be said to rest on +imposture and illusion. But we can, at least, give a sketch of the nature +of the evidence, beginning with that as to the apparently _voluntary_ +movements of objects, _not_ untouched. Mr. Tylor quotes from John Bell's +'Journey in Asia' (1719) an account of a Mongol Lama who wished to +discover certain stolen pieces of damask. His method was to sit on a +bench, when 'he carried it, or, as was commonly believed, it carried him, +to the very tent' of the thief. Here the bench is innocently believed to +be self-moving. Again, Mr. Rowley tells how in Manganjah the sorcerer, to +find out a criminal, placed, with magical ceremonies, two staffs of wood +in the hands of some young men. 'The sticks whirled and dragged the men +round like mad,' and finally escaped and rolled to the feet of the +wife of a chief, who was then denounced as the guilty person.[2] + +Mr. Duff Macdonald describes the same practice among the Yaos:[3] + +'The sorcerer occasionally makes men take hold of a stick, which, after a +time, begins to move as if endowed with life, and ultimately carries them +off bodily and with great speed to the house of the thief.' + +The process is just that of Jacques Aymard in the celebrated story of the +detection of the Lyons murderer.[4] + +In Melanesia, far enough away, Dr. Codrington found a similar practice, +and here the sticks are explicitly said by the natives to be moved by +_spirits_.[5] The wizard and a friend hold a bamboo stick by each end, and +ask what man's ghost is afflicting a patient. At the mention of the +right ghost 'the stick becomes violently agitated.' In the same way, the +bamboo 'would run about' with a man holding it only on the palms of his +hands. Again, a hut is built with a partition down the middle. Men sit +there with their hands _under_ one end of the bamboo, while the other end +is extended into the empty half of the hut. They then call over the names +of the recently dead, till 'they feel the bamboo moving in their hands.' A +bamboo placed on a sacred tree, 'when the name of a ghost is called, moves +of itself, and will lift and drag people about.' Put up into a tree, it +would lift them from the ground. In other cases the holding of the sticks +produces convulsions and trance.[6] The divining sticks of the Maori are +also 'guided by spirits,'[7] and those of the Zulu sorcerers rise, fall, +and jump about.[8] + +These Zulu performances must be really very curious. In the last chapter +we told how a Zulu named John, having a shilling to lay out in the +interests of psychical research, declined to pay a perplexed diviner, and +reserved his capital far a more meritorious performance. He tried a medium +named Unomantshintshi, who divined by Umabakula, or dancing sticks-- + +'If they say "no," they fall suddenly; if they say "yes," they arise and +jump about very much, and leap on the person who has come to inquire. They +"fix themselves on the place where the sick man is affected; ... if the +head, they leap on his head.... Many believe in Umabakula more than in the +diviner. But there are not many who have the Umabakula."' + +Dr. Callaway's informant only knew two Umabakulists, John was quite +satisfied, paid his shilling, and went home.[9] + +The sticks are about a foot long. It is not reported that they are moved +by spirits, nor do they seem to be regarded as fetishes. + +Mr. Tylor also cites a form of the familiar pendulum experiment. Among the +Karens a ring is suspended by a thread over a metal basin. The relations +of the dead strike the basin, and when he who was dearest to the ghost +touches it the spirit twists the thread till it breaks, and the ring falls +into the basin. With us a ring is held by a thread over a tumbler, and our +unconscious movements swing it till it strikes the hour. How the Karens +manage it is less obvious. These savage devices with animated sticks +clearly correspond to the more modern 'table-turning.' Here, when the +players are honest, the pushing is certainly _unconscious_. + +I have tested this in two ways--first by trying the minimum of _conscious_ +muscular action that would stir a table at which I was alone, and by +comparing the absolute unconsciousness of muscular action when the table +began to move in response to no _voluntary_ push. Again, I tried with a +friend, who said, 'You are pushing,' when I gently removed my hands +altogether, though they seemed to rest on the table, which still revolved. +My friend was himself unconsciously pushing. It is undeniable that, to +a solitary experimenter, the table _seems_ to make little darts of its own +will in a curious way. Thus, the unconsciousness of muscular action on the +part of savages engaged in the experiment with sticks would lead them to +believe that spirits were animating the wood. The same fallacy beset the +table-turners of 1855-65, and was, to some extent, exposed by Faraday. +Of course, savages would be even more convinced by the dancing spoon of +Mr. Darwin's tale, by the dancing sticks of the Zulus, and the rest, +whether the phenomena were supernormal or merely worked by unseen strings. +The same remark applies to modern experimenters, when, as they declare, +various objects move untouched, without physical contact. + +Still more analogous than turning tables to the savage use of inspired +sticks for directing the inquirer to a lost object or to a criminal, is +the modern employment of the divining-rod--a forked twig which, held by +the ends, revolves in the hands of the performer when he reaches the +object of his quest. He, like the savage cited, is occasionally agitated +in a convulsive manner; and cases are quoted in which the twig writhes +when held in a pair of tongs! The best-known modern treatise on the +divining-rod is that of M. Chevreul, 'La Baguette Divinatoire' (1854). We +have also 'L'Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes,' by M. +Figuier (1860). In 1781 Thouvenel published his 600 experiments with +Bleton and others; and Hegel refers to Amoretti's collection of hundreds +of cases. The case of Jacques Aymard, who in the seventeenth century +discovered a murderer by the use of the rod in true savage fashion, is +well known. In modern England the rod is used in the interests of private +individuals and public bodies (such as Trinity College, Cambridge) for the +discovery of water. + +Professor Barrett has lately published a book of 280 pages, in which +evidence of failures and successes is collected.[10] Professor Barrett +gives about one hundred and fifty cases, in which he was only able to +discover, on good authority, twelve failures. He gives a variety of tests +calculated to check frauds and chance coincidence, and he publishes +opinions, hostile or agnostic, by geologists. The evidence, as a general +rule, is what is called first-hand in other inquiries. The actual +spectators, and often the owners of the land, or the persons in whose +interest water was wanted, having been present, give their testimony; and +it is certain that the 'diviner' is called in by people of sense and +education, commonly too practical to have a theory, and content with +getting what they want, especially where scientific experts have +failed.[11] + +In Mr. Barrett's opinion, the subconscious perception of indications of +the presence of water produces an equally unconscious muscular 'spasm,' +which twirls the rod till it often breaks. Yet 'it is almost impossible to +imitate its characteristic movement by any voluntary effort.' I have +myself held the hands of an amateur performer when the twig was moving, +and neither by sight nor touch could I detect any muscular movement on his +part, much less a spasm. The person was bailiff on a large estate, and, +having accidentally discovered that he possessed the gift, used it when he +wanted wells dug for the tenants on the property. + +The whole topic is obscure; nor am I concerned here with the successes or +failures of the divining-rod. But the movements of the twig have never, to +my knowledge, been attributed by modern English performers to the +operation of spirits. They say 'electricity.' Mr. Tylor merely writes: + +'The action of the famous divining-rod, with its curiously versatile +sensibility to water, ore, treasure, and thieves, seems to belong partly +to trickery and partly to more or less conscious direction by honester +operators.' + +As the divining-rod is the only instance in which automatism, whatever its +nature and causes, has been found of practical value by practical men, and +as it is obviously associated with a number of analogous phenomena, both +in civilised and savage life, it certainly deserves the attention of +science. But no advance will be made till scientifically trained inquirers +themselves arrange and test a large number of experiments. Knowledge of +the geological ignorance of the dowsers, examples of fraud on their part, +and cases of failure or reported failure, with a general hostile bias, may +prevent such experiments from being made by scientific experts on an +adequate scale. Such experts ought, of course, to avoid working the +dowsers into a state of irritation. + +It is just worth while to notice cases in which the rod acts like those of +the Melanesians, Africans, and other savages. A Mr. Thomas Welton +published an English translation of 'La Verge de Jacob' (Lyon, 1693). In +1651 he asked his servant to bring into the garden 'a stick that stood +behind the parlour door. In great terror she brought it to the garden, her +hand firmly clutched on it, nor could she let it go.' When Mrs. Welton +took the stick, 'it drew her with very considerable velocity to nearly the +centre of the garden,' where a well was found. Mr. Welton is not likely to +have known of the lately published savage examples. The coincidence with +the African and Melanesian cases is, therefore, probably undesigned. + +Again, in 1694, the rod was used by le Pre Menestrier and others, just as +it is by savages, to indicate by its movements answers to all sorts of +questions. Experiments of this kind have not been made by Professor +Barrett, and other modern inquirers, except by M. Richet, as a mode of +detecting automatic action. But it would be just as sensible to use the +twig as to use planchette or any other 'autoscopic' apparatus. If these +elicit knowledge unconsciously present to the mind, mere water-finding +ought not to be the sole province of the rod. In the same class as +these rods is the forked twig which, in China, is held at each end by +two persons, and made to write in the sand. The little apparatus called +_planchette_, or the other, the _ouija_, is of course, consciously or +unconsciously, pushed by the performers. In the case of the twig, as held +by water-seekers, the difficulty of consciously moving it so as to +escape close observation is considerable. + +In the case of the _ouija_ (a little tripod, which, under the operators' +hands, runs about a table inscribed with letters at which it points), I +have known curious successes to be achieved by amateurs. Thus, in the +house of a lady who owned an old _chteau_ in another county, the _ouija_, +operated on by two ladies known to myself, wrote a number of details about +a visit paid to the _chteau_ for a certain purpose by Mary Stuart. That +visit, and its object, a purely personal one, are unknown to history, and +the _chteau_ is not spoken of in Mr. Hay Fleming's careful, but +unavoidably incomplete, itinerary of the Queen's residence in Scotland. +After the communication had been made, the owner of the _chteau_ +explained that she was already acquainted with the circumstances +described, as she had recently read them in documents in her charter +chest, where they remain. + +Of course, the belief we extend to such narratives is entirely conditioned +by our knowledge of the personal character of the performers. The point +here is merely the civilised and savage practice of _automatism_, the +apparent eliciting of knowledge not otherwise accessible, by the +movements of a stick, or a bit of wood. These movements, made without +conscious exertion or direction, seem, to savage philosophy, to be caused +by in-dwelling spirits, the sources of Fetishism. + +These examples, then, demonstrating unconscious movement of objects by the +operators, make it clear that movements even of touched objects, may be +attributed, by some civilised and by savage amateurs, to 'spirits.' The +objects so moved may, by savages, be regarded in some cases as fetishes, +and their movements may have helped to originate the belief that spirits +can inhabit inanimate objects. When objects apparently quite untouched +become volatile, the mystery is deeper. This apparent animation and +frolicsome behaviour of inanimate objects is reported all through history, +and attested by immense quantities of evidence of every degree. It would +be tedious to give a full account of the antiquity and diffusion of reports +about such occurrences. We find them among Neo-Platonists, in the English +and Continental Middle Ages, among Eskimo, Hurons, Algonkins, Tartars, +Zulus, Malays, Nasquapees, Maoris, in witch trials, in ancient Peru +(immediately after the Spanish Conquest), in China, in modern Russia, in +New England (1680), all through the career of modern spiritualism, in +Hayti (where they are attributed to 'Obeah'), and, sporadically, +everywhere.[12] + +Among all these cases, we must dismiss whatever the modern paid medium +does in the dark. The only thing to be done with the ethnographic and +modern accounts of such marvels is to 'file them for reference.' If a +spontaneous example occurs, under proper inspection, we can then compare +our old tales. Professor James says: 'Their mutual resemblances suggest a +natural type, and I confess that till these records, or others like them, +are positively explained away, I cannot feel (in spite of such vast +amounts of detected frauds) as if the case of physical mediumship itself, +as a freak of nature, were definitely closed.... So long as the stories +multiply in various lands, and so few are positively explained away, it is +bad method to ignore them.'[13] Here they are not ignored, because, +whatever the cause or causes of the phenomena, they would buttress, if +they did not originate, the savage belief in spirits tenanting inanimate +matter, whence came Fetishism. As to facts, we cannot, of course, 'explain +away' events of this kind, which we know only through report. A conjurer +cannot explain a trick merely from a description, especially a description +by a non-conjurer. But, as a rule, nothing so much leads to doubt on this +theme as the 'explanation' given--except, of course, in the case of 'dark +sances' got up and prepared by paid mediums. We know, sometimes, how the +'explanation' arose. + +Thus, the house of a certain M. Zoller, a lawyer and member of the Swiss +Federal Council, a house at Stans, in Unterwalden, was made simply +uninhabitable in 1860-1862. The disturbances, including movements of +objects, were of a truly odious description, and occurred in full +daylight. M. Zoller, deeply attached to his home, which had many +interesting associations with the part his family played in the struggle +against revolutionary France, was obliged to abandon the place. He had +made every conceivable sort of research, and had called in the local +police and _savants_, to no purpose. + +But the affair was explained away thus: While the phenomena could still be +concealed from public curiosity, a client called to see M. Zoller, who was +out. The client, therefore, remained in the drawing-room. Loud and heavy +blows resounded through the room. The client, as it chanced, had once felt +the effects of an electric battery, for some medical reason, apparently. +M. Zoller writes: 'My eldest son was present at the time, and, when my +client asked whether there was such a thing as an electrical machine in +the house (the family having been enjoined to keep the disturbances as +secret as possible), he allowed S. to think that there was.' Consequently, +the phenomena were set down to M. Zoller's singular idea of making +his house untenantable with an 'electric machine'--which he did not +possess.[14] A number of the most respected citizens, including the +Superintendent of Police, and the chief magistrate for law, published a +statement that neither Zoller, nor any of his family, nor any of +themselves, produced or could have produced the phenomena witnessed by +them in August 1862. This declaration they put forth in the 'Schwytzer +Zeitung,' October 5, 1863.[15] No electric machine known to mortals +could have produced the vast variety of alleged effects, none was ever +found; and as M. Zoller changed his servants without escaping his +tribulations, they can hardly be blamed for what, _prima facie_, it seems +that they could not possibly do. However, 'electricity,' like Mesopotamia, +is 'a blessed word.'[16] + +My own position in this matter of 'physical phenomena' is, I hope, clear. +They interest me, for my present purpose, as being, whatever their real +nature and origin, things which would suggest to a savage his theory of +Fetishism. 'An inanimate object may be tenanted by a spirit, as is proved +by its extraordinary movements.' Thus the early thinker might reason, and +go on to revere the object. It is to be wished that competent observers +would pay more attention to such savage practices as crystal-gazing and +automatism as illustrated by the sticks of the Melanesians, Zulus, and +Yaos. Our scanty information we pick up out of stray allusions, but +it has the advantage of being uncontaminated by theory, the European +spectator not knowing the wide range of such practices and their value in +experimental psychology. + +We have now finished our study of the less normal and usual phenomena, +which gave rise to belief in separable, self-existing, conscious, and +powerful souls. We have shown that the supernormal factors which, when +reflected on, probably supported this belief, are represented in civilised +as well as in savage life, while as to their existence among the founders +of religion we can historically know nothing at all. If we may infer from +certain considerations, the supernormal experiences were possibly more +prevalent among the remote ancestors of known savage races than among +their modern descendants. We have suggested that clairvoyance, thought +transference, and telepathy cannot be dismissed as mere fables, by a +cautious inquirer, while even the far more obscure stories of 'physical +manifestations' are but poorly explained away by those who cannot explain +them.[17] Again, these faculties have presented--in the acquisition of +otherwise unattainable knowledge, in coincidental hallucinations, and in +other ways--just the kind of facts on which the savage doctrine of souls +might be based, or by which it might be buttressed. Thus, while the +actuality of the supernormal facts and faculties remains at least an open +question, the prevalent theory of Materialism cannot be admitted as +dogmatically certain in its present shape. No more than any other theory, +nay, less than some other theories, can it account for the psychical facts +which, at the lowest, we may not honestly leave out of the reckoning. + +We have therefore no more to say about the supernormal aspects of the +origins of religion. We are henceforth concerned with matters of +verifiable belief and practice. We have to ask whether, when once the +doctrine of souls was conceived by early men, it took precisely the course +of development usually indicated by anthropological science. + +[Footnote 1: Darwin, _Journal_, p. 458; Tylor, _Prim. Cult_. ii. 152. The +spoon was not untouched.] + +[Footnote 2: Rowley, _Universities' Mission_, p. 217.] + +[Footnote 3: _Africana_, vol. i. p. 161.] + +[Footnote 4: In the author's _Custom and Myth_, 'The Divining Rod.'] + +[Footnote 5: Codrington's _Melanesia_, p. 210.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. pp. 229-325.] + +[Footnote 7: _Prim. Cult_. vol. i. p. 125.] + +[Footnote 8: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 330.] + +[Footnote 9: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 368.] + +[Footnote 10: _The So-called Divining-Rod_, S.P.R. 1897.] + +[Footnote 11: See especially _The Waterford Experiments_, p. 106.] + +[Footnote 12: Authorities and examples are collected in the author's _Cock +Lane and Common Sense_.] + +[Footnote 13: _Proceedings_, xii. 7, 8.] + +[Footnote 14: _Personal Narrative_, by M. Zoller. Hanke, Zurich, 1863.] + +[Footnote 15: Daumer, _Reich des Wundersamen_, Regensburg, 1872, +pp. 265, 266.] + +[Footnote 16: A criticism of modern explanations of the phenomena here +touched upon will be found in Appendix B.] + +[Footnote 17: See Appendix B.] + + + + +IX + +EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD + +To the anthropological philosopher 'a plain man' would naturally put the +question: 'Having got your idea of spirit or soul--your theory of +Animism--out of the idea of ghosts, and having got your idea of ghosts out +of dreams and visions, how do you get at the Idea of God?' Now by 'God' +the proverbial 'plain man' of controversy means a primal eternal Being, +author of all things, the father and friend of man, the invisible, +omniscient guardian of morality. + +The usual though not invariable reply of the anthropologist might be given +in the words of Mr. Im Thurn, author of a most interesting work on the +Indians of British Guiana: + +'From the notion of ghosts,' says Mr. Im Thurn, 'a belief has arisen, but +very gradually, in higher spirits, and eventually in a Highest Spirit, +and, keeping pace with the growth of these beliefs, a habit of reverence +for, and worship of spirits.... The Indians of Guiana know no God.'[1] + +As another example of Mr. Im Thurn's hypothesis that God is a late +development from the idea of spirit may be cited Mr. Payne's learned +'History of the New World,' a work of much research:[2] + +'The lowest savages not only have no gods, but do not even recognise those +lower beings usually called spirits, the conception of which has +invariably preceded that of gods in the human mind.' + +Mr. Payne here differs, _toto caelo_, from Mr. Tylor, who finds no +sufficient proof for wholly non-religious savages, and from Roskoff, who +has disposed of the arguments of Sir John Lubbock. Mr. Payne, then, for +ethnological purposes, defines a god as 'a benevolent spirit, permanently +embodied in some tangible object, usually an image, and to whom food, +drink,' and so on, 'are regularly offered for the purpose of securing +assistance in the affairs of life.' + +On this theory 'the lowest savages' are devoid of the idea of god or of +spirit. Later they develop the idea of spirit, and when they have secured +the spirit, as it were, in a tangible object, and kept it on board wages, +then the spirit has attained to the dignity and the savage to the +conception of a god. But while a god of this kind is, in Mr. Payne's +opinion, relatively a late flower of culture, for the hunting races +generally (with some exceptions) have no gods, yet 'the conception of a +creator or maker of all things ... obviously a great spirit' is 'one of +the earliest efforts of primitive logic.'[3] + +Mr. Payne's own logic is not very clear. The 'primitive logic' of the +savage leads him to seek for a cause or maker of things, which he finds in +a great creative spirit. Yet the lowest savages have no idea even of +spirit, and the hunting races, as a rule, have no god. Does Mr. Payne mean +that a great creative spirit is _not_ a god, while a spirit kept on board +wages in a tangible object is a god? We are unable, by reason of evidence +later to be given, to agree with Mr. Payne's view of the facts, while his +reasoning appears somewhat inconsistent, the lowest savages having, in his +opinion, no idea of spirit, though the idea of a creative spirit is, for +all that, one of the earliest efforts of primitive logic. + +On any such theories as these the belief in a moral Supreme Being is a +very late (or a very early?) result of evolution, due to the action of +advancing thought upon the original conception of ghosts. This opinion of +Mr. Im Thurn's is, roughly stated, the usual theory of anthropologists. +We wish, on the other hand, to show that the idea of God, as he is +conceived of by our inquiring plain man, is shadowed forth (among +contradictory fables) in the lowest-known grades of savagery, and +therefore cannot arise from the later speculation of men, comparatively +civilised and advanced, on the original datum of ghosts. We shall +demonstrate, contrary to the opinion of Mr. Spencer, Mr. Huxley, and even +Mr. Tylor, that the Supreme Being, and, in one case at least, the casual +sprites of savage faith, are active moral influences. What is even more +important, we shall make it undeniable that Anthropology has simplified +her problem by neglecting or ignoring her facts. While the real problem is +to account for the evolution out of ghosts of the eternal, creative moral +god of the 'plain man,' the germ of such a god or being in the creeds of +the lowest savages is by anthropologists denied, or left out of sight, or +accounted for by theories contradicted by facts, or, at best, is explained +away as a result of European or Islamite influences. Now, as the problem +is to account for the evolution of the highest conception of God, as far +as that conception exists among the most backward races, the problem can +never be solved while that highest conception of God is practically +ignored. + +Thus, anthropologists, as a rule, in place of facing and solving their +problem, have merely evaded it--doubtless unwittingly. This, of course, is +not the practice of Mr. Tylor, though even his great work is professedly +much more concerned with the development of the idea of spirit and with +the lower forms of animism than with the real crux--the evolution of the +idea (always obscured by mythology) of a moral, uncreated, undying God +among the lowest savages. This negligence of anthropologists has arisen +from a single circumstance. They take it for granted that God is always +(except where the word for God is applied to a living human being) +regarded as Spirit. Thus, having accounted for the development of the +idea of spirit, they regard God as that idea carried to its highest +power, and as the final step in its evolution. But, if we can show that +the early idea of an undying, moral, creative being does not necessarily +or logically imply the doctrine of spirit (or ghost), then this idea of an +eternal, moral, creative being may have existed even before the doctrine +of spirit was evolved. + +We may admit that Mr. Tylor's account of the process by which Gods were +evolved out of ghosts is a little _touffu_--rather buried in facts. We +'can scarcely see the wood for the trees.' We want to know how Gods, +makers of things (or of most things), fathers in heaven, and friends, +guardians of morality, seeing what is good or bad in the hearts of men, +were evolved, as is supposed, out of ghosts or surviving souls of the +dead. That such moral, practically omniscient Gods are known to the very +lowest savages--Bushmen, Fuegians, Australians--we shall demonstrate. + +Here the inquirer must be careful not to adopt the common opinion that +Gods improve, morally and otherwise, in direct ratio to the rising grades +in the evolution of culture and civilisation. That is not necessarily the +case; usually the reverse occurs. Still less must we take it for granted, +following Mr. Tylor and Mr. Huxley, that the 'alliance [of religion and +morality] belongs almost, or wholly, to religions above the savage +level--not to the earlier and lower creeds;' or that 'among the Australian +savages,' and 'in its simplest condition,' 'theology is wholly independent +of ethics.'[4] These statements can be proved (by such evidence as +anthropology is obliged to rely upon) to be erroneous. And, just because +these statements are put forward, Anthropology has an easier task in +explaining the origin of religion; while, just because these statements +are incorrect, her conclusion, being deduced from premises so far false, +is invalidated. + +Given souls, acquired by thinking on the lines already described, Mr. +Tylor develops Gods out of them. But he is not one of the writers who is +certain about every detail. He 'scarcely attempts to clear away the haze +that covers great parts of the subject.'[5] + +The human soul, he says, has been the model on which man 'framed his +ideas of spiritual beings in general, from the tiniest elf that sports +in the grass up to the heavenly creator and ruler of the world, the +Great Spirit.' Here it is taken for granted that the Heavenly Ruler was +from the first envisaged as a '_spiritual_ being'--which is just the +difficulty. Was He?[6] + +The process of framing these ideas is rather obscure. The savage 'lives +in terror of the souls of the dead as harmful spirits.' This might yield +a Devil; it would not yield a God who 'makes for righteousness.' +Happily, 'deified ancestors are regarded, on the whole, as kindly +spirits.' The dead ancestor is 'now passed into a deity.'[7] Examples of +ancestor-worship follow. But we are no nearer home. For among the Zulus +many Amatongo (ancestral spirits) are sacred. 'Yet their father +[i.e. the father of each actual family] is far before all others when +they worship the Amatongo.... They do not know the ancients who are dead, +nor their laud-giving names, nor their names.'[8] Thus, each new +generation of Zulus must have a new first worshipful object--its own +father's Itongo. This father, and his very name, are, in a generation or +two, forgotten. The name of such a man, therefore, cannot survive as that +of the God or Supreme Being from age to age; and, obviously, such a real +dead man, while known at all, is much too well known to be taken for the +creator and ruler of the world, despite some African flattering titles and +superstitions about kings who control the weather. The Zulus, about +as 'godless' a people as possible, have a mythical first ancestor, +Unkulunkulu, but he is 'beyond the reach of rites,' and is a centre of +myths rather than of worship or of moral ideas.[9] + +After other examples of ancestor-worship, Mr. Tylor branches off into a +long discussion of the theory of 'possession' or inspiration,[10] which +does not assist the argument at the present point. Thence he passes to +fetishism (already discussed by us), and the transitions from the +fetish--(1) to the idol; (2) to the guardian angel ('subliminal self'); +(3) to tree and river spirits, and local spirits which cause volcanoes; +and (4) to polytheism. A fetish may inhabit a tree; trees being +generalised, the fetish of one oak becomes the god of the forest. Or, +again, fetishes rise into 'species gods;' the gods of _all_ bees, owls, +or rabbits are thus evolved. + +Next,[11] + +'As chiefs and kings are among men, so are the great gods among the lesser +spirits.... With little exception, wherever a savage or barbaric system of +religion is thoroughly described, great gods make their appearance in the +spiritual world as distinctly as chiefs in the human tribe.' + +Very good; but whence comes the great God among tribes which have neither +chief nor king and probably never had, as among the Fuegians, Bushmen, and +Australians? The maker and ruler of the world known to _these_ races +cannot be the shadow of king or chief, reflected and magnified on the mist +of thought; for chief or king these peoples have none. This theory +(Hume's) will not work where people have a great God but no king or +chief; nor where they have a king but no Zeus or other supreme King-god, +as (I conceive) among the Aztecs. + +We now reach, in Mr. Tylor's theory, great fetish deities, such as Heaven +and Earth, Sun and Moon, and 'departmental deities,' gods of Agriculture, +War, and so forth, unknown to low savages. + +Next Mr. Tylor introduces an important personage. 'The theory of family +Manes, carried back to tribal Gods, leads to the recognition of superior +deities of the nature of Divine Ancestor, or First Man,' who sometimes +ranks as Lord of the Dead. As an instance, Mr. Tylor gives the Maori Maui, +who, like the Indian Yama, trod first of men the path of death. But +whether Maui and Yama are the Sun, or not, both Maori and Sanskrit +religion regard these heroes as much later than the Original Gods. In +Kamschatka the First Man is the 'son' of the Creator, and it is about the +origin of the idea of the Creator, not of the First Man, that we are +inquiring. Adam is called 'the son of God' in a Biblical genealogy, but, +of course, Adam was made, not begotten. The case of the Zulu belief will +be analysed later. On the whole, we cannot explain away the conception +of the Creator as a form of the conception of an idealised divine +First Ancestor, because the conception of a Creator occurs where +ancestor-worship does not occur; and again, because, supposing that the +idea of a Creator came first, and that ancestor-worship later grew more +popular, the popular idea of Ancestor might be transferred to the waning +idea of Creator. The Creator might be recognised as the First Ancestor, +_aprs coup_. + +Mr. Tylor next approaches Dualism, the idea of hostile Good and Bad +Beings. We must, as he says, be careful to discount European teaching, +still, he admits, the savage has this dualistic belief in a 'primitive' +form. But the savage conception is not merely that of 'good = friendly +to me,' 'bad = hostile to me.' Ethics, as we shall show, already come into +play in his theology. + +Mr. Tylor arrives, at last, at the Supreme Being of savage creeds. His +words, well weighed, must be cited textually-- + +'To mark off the doctrines of monotheism, closer definition is required +[than the bare idea of a Supreme Creator], assigning the distinctive +attributes of Deity to none save the Almighty Creator. It may be declared +that, in this strict sense, no savage tribe of monotheists has been ever +known.[12] Nor are any fair representatives of the lower culture in a +strict sense pantheists. The doctrine which they do widely hold, and +which opens to them a course tending in one or other of these directions, +is polytheism culminating in the rule of one supreme divinity. High above +the doctrine of souls, of divine Manes, of local nature gods, of the great +gods of class and element, there are to be discerned in barbaric theology, +shadowings, quaint or majestic, of the conception of a Supreme Deity, +henceforth to be traced onward in expanding power and brightening glory +along the history of Religion. It is no unimportant task, partial as it +is, to select and group the typical data which show the nature and +position of the doctrine of supremacy, as it comes into view within the +lower culture.[13] + +We shall show that certain low savages are as monotheistic as some +Christians. They have a Supreme Being, and the 'distinctive attributes of +Deity' are not by them assigned to other beings, further than as +Christianity assigns them to Angels, Saints, the Devil, and, strange as +it appears, among savages, to mediating 'Sons.' + +It is not known that, among the Andamanese and other tribes, this last +notion is due to missionary influence. But, in regard to the whole chapter +of savage Supreme Beings, we must, as Mr. Tylor advises, keep watching for +Christian and Islamite contamination. The savage notions, as Mr. Tylor +says, even when thus contaminated, may have 'to some extent, a native +substratum.' We shall select such savage examples of the idea of a +Supreme Being as are attested by ancient native hymns, or are inculcated +in the most sacred and secret savage institutions, the religious Mysteries +(manifestly the last things to be touched by missionary influence), or are +found among low insular races defended from European contact by the +jealous ferocity and poisonous jungles of people and soil. We also note +cases in which missionaries found such native names as 'Father,' 'Ancient +of Heaven,' 'Maker of All,' ready-made to their hands. + +It is to be remarked that, while this branch of the inquiry is practically +omitted by Mr. Spencer, Mr. Tylor can spare for it but some twenty pages +out of his large work. He arranges the probable germs of the savage +idea of a Supreme Being thus: A god of the polytheistic crowd is simply +raised to the primacy, which, of course, cannot occur where there is no +polytheism. Or the principle of Manes worship may make a Supreme Deity +out of 'a primeval ancestor' say Unkulunkulu, who is so far from being +supreme, that he is abject. Or, again, a great phenomenon or force in +Nature-worship, say Sun, or Heaven, is raised to supremacy. Or speculative +philosophy ascends from the Many to the One by trying to discern through +and beyond the universe a First Cause. Animistic conceptions thus reach +their utmost limit in the notion of the Anima Mundi. He may accumulate all +powers of all polytheistic gods, or he may 'loom vast, shadowy, and +calm ... too benevolent to need human worship ... too merely existent to +concern himself with the petty race of men.'[14] But he is always +animistic. + +Now, in addition to the objections already noted in passing, how can we +tell that the Supreme Being of low savages was, in original conception, +_animistic_ at all? How can we know that he was envisaged, originally, as +_Spirit_? We shall show that he probably was not, that the question +'spirit or not spirit' was not raised at all, that the Maker and Father in +Heaven, prior to Death, was merely regarded as a deathless _Being_, no +question of 'spirit' being raised. If so, Animism was not needed for +the earliest idea of a moral Eternal. This hypothesis will be found to +lead to some very singular conclusions. + +It will be more fully stated and illustrated, presently, but I find that +it had already occurred to Dr. Brinton.[15] He is talking specially of a +heaven-god; he says 'it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to +the heavens _long ere man asked himself, Are the heavens material and God +spiritual_?' Dr. Brinton, however, does not develop his idea, nor am I +aware that it has been developed previously. + +The notion of a God about whose spirituality nobody has inquired is new to +us. To ourselves, and doubtless or probably to barbarians on a certain +level of culture, such a Divine Being _must_ be animistic, _must_ be a +'spirit.' To take only one case, to which we shall return, the Banks +Islanders (Melanesia) believe in ghosts, 'and in the existence of Beings +who were not, and never had been, human. All alike might be called +spirits,' says Dr. Codrington, but, _ex hypothesi_, the Beings 'who +never were human' are only called 'spirits,' by us, because our habits of +thought do not enable us to envisage them _except_ as 'spirits.' They +never were men, 'the natives will always maintain that he (the _Vui_) was +_something different_, and deny to him the fleshly body of a man,' while +resolute that he was not a ghost.[16] + +This point will be amply illustrated later, as we study that strangely +neglected chapter, that essential chapter, the Higher beliefs of the +Lowest savages. Of the existence of a belief in a Supreme Being, not as +merely 'alleged,' there is as good evidence as we possess for any fact in +the ethnographic region. + +It is certain that savages, when first approached by curious travellers, +and missionaries, have again and again recognised our God in theirs. + +The mythical details and fables about the savage God are, indeed, +different; the ethical, benevolent, admonishing, rewarding, and creative +aspects of the Gods are apt to be the same.[17] + +'There is no necessity for beginning to tell even the most degraded of +these people of the existence of God, or of a future state, 'the facts +being universally admitted.'[18] + +'Intelligent men among the Bakwains have scouted the idea of any of them +ever having been without a tolerably clear conception of good and evil, +God and the future state; Nothing we indicate as sin ever appeared to +them as otherwise,' except polygamy, says Livingstone. + +Now we may agree with Mr. Tylor that modern theologians, familiar +with savage creeds, will scarcely argue that 'they are direct or +nearly direct products of revelation' (vol. ii. p. 356). But we may +argue that, considering their nascent ethics (denied or minimised by many +anthropologists) and the distance which separates the high gods of +savagery from the ghosts out of which they are said to have sprung; +considering too, that the relatively pure and lofty element which, _ex +hypothesi_, is most recent in evolution, is also, _not_ the most honoured, +but often just the reverse; remembering, above all, that we know nothing +historically of the mental condition of the founders of religion, we may +hesitate to accept the anthropological hypothesis _en masse_. At best +it is conjectural, and the facts are such that opponents have more +justification than is commonly admitted for regarding the bulk of +savage religion as degenerate, or corrupted, from its own highest +elements. I am by no means, as yet, arguing positively in favour of that +hypothesis, but I see what its advocates mean, or ought to mean, and the +strength of their position. Mr. Tylor, with his unique fairness, says +'the degeneration theory, no doubt in some instances with justice, may +claim such beliefs as mutilated and perverted remains of higher religion' +(vol. ii. p. 336). + +I do not pretend to know how the lowest savages evolved the theory of a +God who reads the heart and 'makes for righteousness,' It is as easy, +almost, for me to believe that they 'were not left without a witness,' +as to believe that this God of theirs was evolved out of the maleficent +ghost of a dirty mischievous medicine-man. + +Here one may repeat that while the 'quaint or majestic foreshadowings' +of a Supreme Being, among very low savages, are only sketched lightly +by Mr. Tylor; in Mr. Herbert Spencer's system they seem to be almost +omitted. In his 'Principles of Sociology' and 'Ecclesiastical +Institutions' one looks in vain for an adequate notice; in vain for almost +any notice, of this part of his topic. The watcher of conduct, the +friendly, creative being of low savage faith, whence was he evolved? The +circumstance of his existence, as far as I can see; the chastity, the +unselfishness, the pitifulness, the loyalty to plighted word, the +prohibition of even extra-tribal homicide, enjoined in various places on +his worshippers, are problems that appear somehow to have escaped +Mr. Spencer's notice. We are puzzled by endless difficulties in his +system: for example as to how savages can forget their great-grandfathers' +very names, and yet remember 'traditional persons from generation to +generation,' so that 'in time any amount of expansion and idealisation can +be reached,'[19] + +Again, Mr. Spencer will argue that it is a strange thing if 'primitive men +had, as some think, the consciousness of a Universal Power whence they and +all other things proceeded,' and yet 'spontaneously performed to that +Power an act like that performed by them to the dead body of a fellow +savage'--by offerings of food.[20] + +Now, first, there would be nothing strange in the matter if the crude idea +of 'Universal Power' came _earliest_, and was superseded, in part, by a +later propitiation of the dead and ghosts. The new religious idea would +soon refract back on, and influence by its ritual, the older conception. +And, secondly, it is precisely this 'Universal Power' that is _not_ +propitiated by offerings of food, in Tonga, (despite Mr. Huxley) +Australia, and Africa, for example. We cannot escape the difficulty by +saying that there the old ghost of Universal Power is regarded as dead, +decrepit, or as a _roi-fainant_ not worth propitiating, for that is not +true of the punisher of sin, the teacher of generosity, and the solitary +sanction of faith between men and peoples. + +It would appear then, on the whole, that the question of the plain man to +the anthropologist, 'Having got your idea of spirit into the savage's +mind, how does he develop out of it what I call God?' has not been +answered. God cannot be a reflection from human kings where there have +been no kings; nor a president elected out of a polytheistic society of +gods where there is as yet no polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor +where men do not worship their ancestors; while, again, the spirit of a +man who died, real or ideal, does not answer to a common savage conception +of the Creator. All this will become much more obvious as we study in +detail the highest gods of the lowest races. + +Our study, of course, does not pretend to embrace the religion of all the +savages in the world. We are content with typical, and, as a rule, +well-observed examples. We range from the creeds of the most backward and +worst-equipped nomad races, to those of peoples with an aristocracy, +hereditary kings, houses and agriculture, ending with the Supreme Being of +the highly civilised Incas, and with the Jehovah of the Hebrews. + +[Footnote 1: _Journal Anthrop. Inst._ xi. 874. We shall return to this +passage.] + +[Footnote 2: Vol. i. p. 389, 1892.] + +[Footnote 3: Payne, i. 458.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult._ vol. ii. p. 381; _Science and Hebrew +Tradition_, pp. 346, 372.] + +[Footnote 5: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. p. 109.] + +[Footnote 6: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 110.] + +[Footnote 7: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 113.] + +[Footnote 8: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 115, 116, citing Callaway and +others.] + +[Footnote 9: The Zulu religion will be analysed later.] + +[Footnote 10: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 130-144.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 248.] + +[Footnote 12: And very few civilised populations, if any, are monotheistic +in this sense.] + +[Footnote 13: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 332, 333.] + +[Footnote 14: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 335, 336.] + +[Footnote 15: _Myths of the New World_, 1868, p. 47.] + +[Footnote 16: I observed this point in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, while +I did not see the implication, that the idea of 'spirit' was not +necessarily present in the savage conception of the primal Beings, +Creators, or Makers.] + +[Footnote 17: See one or two cases in _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. p. 340.] + +[Footnote 18: Livingstone, speaking of the Bakwain, _Missionary Travels_, +p. 168.] + +[Footnote 19: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 20: Op. cit. vol. i. p. 302.] + + + + +X + +HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES + +To avoid misconception we must repeat the necessary cautions about +accepting evidence as to high gods of low races. The missionary who does +not see in every alien god a devil is apt to welcome traces of an original +supernatural revelation, darkened by all peoples but the Jews. We shall +not, however, rely much on missionary evidence, and, when we do, we must +now be equally on our guard against the anthropological bias in the +missionary himself. Having read Mr. Spencer and Mr. Tylor, and finding +himself among ancestor-worshippers (as he sometimes does), he is apt to +think that ancestor-worship explains any traces of a belief in the Supreme +Being. Against each and every bias of observers we must be watchful. + +It may be needful, too, to point out once again another weak point in all +reasoning about savage religion, namely that we cannot always tell what +may have been borrowed from Europeans. Thus, the Fuegians, in 1830-1840, +were far out of the way, but one tribe, near Magellan's Straits, +worshipped an image called Cristo. Fitzroy attributes this obvious trace +of Catholicism to a Captain Pelippa, who visited the district some time +before his own expedition. It is less probable that Spaniards established +a belief in a moral Deity in regions where they left no material traces of +their faith. The Fuegians are not easily proselytised. 'When discovered by +strangers, the instant impulse of a Fuegian family is to run off into the +woods.' Occasionally they will emerge to barter, but 'sometimes nothing +will induce a single individual of the family to appear.' Fitzroy thought +they had no idea of a future state, because, among other reasons not +given, 'the evil spirit torments them in _this_ world, if they do wrong, +by storms, hail, snow, &c.' Why the evil spirit should punish evil deeds +is not evident. 'A great black man is supposed to be always wandering +about the woods and mountains, who is certain of knowing every word and +every action, who cannot be escaped and who influences the weather +according to men's conduct.'[1] + +There are no traces of propitiation by food, or sacrifice, or anything but +conduct. To regard the Deity as 'a magnified non-natural man' is not +peculiar to Fuegian theologians, and does not imply Animism, but the +reverse. But the point is that this ethical judge of perhaps the lowest +savages 'makes for righteousness' and searches the heart. His morality is +so much above the ordinary savage standard that he regards the slaying of +a stranger and an enemy, caught redhanded in robbery, as a sin. York's +brother (York was a Fuegian brought to England by Fitzroy) killed a 'wild +man' who was stealing his birds. 'Rain come down, snow come down, hail +come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow. Very bad to kill man. Big man +in woods no like it, he very angry.' Here be ethics in savage religion. +The Sixth Commandment is in force. The Being also prohibits the slaying of +flappers before they can fly. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come wind, +come rain, blow, very much blow.'[2] + +Now this big man is not a deified chief, for the Fuegians 'have no +superiority of one over another ... but the doctor-wizard of each party has +much influence.' Mr. Spencer disposes of this moral 'big man' of the +Fuegians as 'evidently a deceased weather-doctor.'[3] But, first, there is +no evidence that the being is regarded as ever having died. Again, it is +not shown that Fuegians are ancestor-worshippers. Next, Fitzroy did not +think that the Fuegians believed in a future life. Lastly, when were +medicine-men such notable moralists? The worst spirits among the +neighbouring Patagonians are those of dead medicine-men. As a rule +everywhere the ghost of a 'doctor-wizard,' shaman, or whatever he may be +called, is the worst and wickedest of all ghosts. How, then, the Fuegians, +who are not proved to be ancestor-worshippers, evolved out of the +malignant ghost of an ancestor a being whose strong point is morality, one +does not easily conceive. The adjacent Chonos 'have great faith in a good +spirit, whom they call Yerri Yuppon, and consider to be the author of all +good; him they invoke in distress or danger.' However starved they do not +touch food till a short prayer has been muttered over each portion, 'the +praying man looking upward.'[4] They have magicians, but no details are +given as to spirits or ghosts. If Fuegian and Chono religion is on this +level, and if this be the earliest, then the theology of many other higher +savages (as of the Zulus) is decidedly degenerate. 'The Bantu gives one +accustomed to the negro the impression that he once had the same set of +ideas, _but has forgotten half of them_,' says Miss Kingsley.[5] + +Of all races now extant, the Australians are probably lowest in culture, +and, like the fauna of the continent, are nearest to the primitive +model. They have neither metals, bows, pottery, agriculture, nor fixed +habitations; and no traces of higher culture have anywhere been found +above or in the soil of the continent. This is important, for in some +respects their religious conceptions are so lofty that it would be natural +to explain them as the result either of European influence, or as relics +of a higher civilisation in the past. The former notion is discredited +by the fact that their best religious ideas are imparted in connection +with their ancient and secret mysteries, while for the second idea, that +they are degenerate from a loftier civilisation, there is absolutely no +evidence. + +It has been suggested, indeed, by Mr. Spencer that the singularly complex +marriage customs of the Australian blacks point to a more polite condition +in their past history. Of this stage, as we said, no material traces have +ever been discovered, nor can degeneration be recent. Our earliest account +of the Australians is that of Dampier, who visited New Holland in the +unhappy year 1688. He found the natives 'the miserablest people in the +world. The Hodmadods, of Mononamatapa, though a nasty people, yet for +wealth are gentlemen to these: who have no houses, sheep, poultry, and +fruits of the earth.... They have no houses, but lie in the open air.' +Curiously enough, Dampier attests their _unselfishness_: the main ethical +feature in their religious teaching. 'Be it little or be it much they get, +every one has his part, as well the young and tender as the old and +feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' Dampier +saw no metals used, nor any bows, merely boomerangs ('wooden cutlasses'), +and lances with points hardened in the fire. 'Their place of dwelling was +only a fire with a few boughs before it' (the _gunyeh_). + +This description remains accurate for most of the unsophisticated +Australian tribes, but Dampier appears only to have seen ichthyophagous +coast blacks. + +There is one more important point. In the _Bora_, or Australian +mysteries, at which knowledge of 'The Maker' and of his commandments is +imparted, the front teeth of the initiated are still knocked out. Now, +Dampier observed 'the two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all +of them, men and women, old and young.' If this is to be taken quite +literally, the Bora rite, in 1688, must have included the women, at least +locally. Dampier was on the north-west coast in latitude 16 degrees, +longitude 122-1/4 degrees east (Dampier Land, West Australia). The natives +had neither boats, canoes, nor bark logs; but it seems that they had their +religious mysteries and their unselfishness, two hundred years ago.[6] + +The Australians have been very carefully studied by many observers, and +the results entirely overthrow Mr. Huxley's bold statement that 'in its +simplest condition, such as may be met with among the Australian savages, +theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers, and dispositions +(usually malignant) of ghost-like entities who may be propitiated or +scared away; but no cult can properly be said to exist. And in this stage +theology is wholly independent of ethics.' + +Remarks more crudely in defiance of known facts could not be made. The +Australians, assuredly, believe in 'spirits,' often malicious, and +probably in most cases regarded as ghosts of men. These aid the wizard, +and occasionally inspire him. That these ghosts are _worshipped_ does not +appear, and is denied by Waitz. Again, in the matter of cult, 'there is +none' in the way of _sacrifice_ to higher gods, as there should be if +these gods were hungry ghosts. The cult among the Australians is the +keeping of certain 'laws,' expressed in moral teaching, supposed to be in +conformity with the institutes of their God. Worship takes the form, as at +Eleusis, of tribal mysteries, originally instituted, as at Eleusis, by +the God. The young men are initiated with many ceremonies, some of which +are cruel and farcical, but the initiation includes ethical instruction, +in conformity with the supposed commands of a God who watches over +conduct. As among ourselves, the ethical ideal, with its theological +sanction, is probably rather above the moral standard of ordinary +practice. What conclusion we should draw from these facts is uncertain, +but the facts, at least, cannot be disputed, and precisely contradict the +statement of Mr. Huxley. He was wholly in the wrong when he said: 'The +moral code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction from +theological dogmas,'[7] It reposes, for its origin and sanction, on such +dogmas. + +The evidence as to Australian religion is abundant, and is being added to +yearly. I shall here content myself with Mr. Howitt's accounts.[8] + +As regards the possible evolution of the Australian God from +ancestor-worship, it must be noted that Mr. Howitt credits the groups with +possessing 'headmen,' a kind of chiefs, whereas some inquirers, in Brough +Smyth's collection, disbelieve in regular chiefs. Mr. Howitt writes:-- + +'The Supreme Spirit, who is believed in by all the tribes I refer to here +[in South-Eastern Australia], either as a benevolent, or more frequently +as a malevolent being, it seems to me represents the defunct headman.' + +Now, the traces of 'headmanship' among the tribes are extremely faint; no +such headman rules large areas of country, none is known to be worshipped +after death, and the malevolence of the Supreme Spirit is not illustrated +by the details of Mr. Howitt's own statement, but the reverse. Indeed, he +goes on at once to remark that '_Darumulun_ was not, it seems to me, +everywhere thought a malevolent being, but he was dreaded as one who could +severely punish the trespasses committed against these tribal ordinances +and customs whose first institution is ascribed to him.' + +To punish transgressions of his law is not the essence of a malevolent +being. Darumulun 'watched the youths from the sky, prompt to punish, by +disease or death, the breach of his ordinances,' moral or ritual. His name +is too sacred to be spoken except in whispers, and the anthropologist will +observe that the names of the human dead are also often tabooed. But the +divine name is not thus tabooed and sacred when the mere folklore about +him is narrated. The informants of Mr. Howitt instinctively distinguished +between the mythology and the religion of Darumulun.[9] This distinction-- +the secrecy about the religion, the candour about the mythology--is +essential, and accounts for our ignorance about the inner religious +beliefs of early races. Mr. Howitt himself knew little till he was +initiated. The grandfather of Mr. Howitt's friend, _before the white men +came to Melbourne_, took him out at night, and, pointing to a star, said: +'You will soon be a man; you see _Bunjil_ [Supreme Being of certain +tribes] up there, and he can see you, and all you do down here.' Mr. +Palmer, speaking of the Mysteries of Northern Australians (mysteries under +divine sanction), mentions the nature of the moral instruction. Each lad +is given, 'by one of the elders, advice so kindly, fatherly, and +impressive, as often to soften the heart, and draw tears from the youth.' +He is to avoid adultery, not to take advantage of a woman if he finds her +alone, he is not to be quarrelsome.[10] + +At the Mysteries Darumulun's real name may be uttered, at other times he +is 'Master' (_Biamban_) or 'Father' (_Papang_), exactly as we say 'Lord' +and 'Father.' + +It is known that all these things are not due to missionaries, whose +instructions would certainly not be conveyed in the _Bora_, or tribal +mysteries, which, again, are partly described by Collins as early as 1798, +and must have been practised in 1688. Mr. Howitt mentions, among moral +lessons divinely sanctioned, respect for old age, abstinence from lawless +love, and avoidance of the sins so popular, poetic, and sanctioned by the +example of Gods, in classical Greece.[11] A representation is made of the +Master, Biamban; and to make such idols, except at the Mysteries, is +forbidden 'under pain of death.' Those which are made are destroyed as +soon as the rites are ended.[12] The future life (apparently) is then +illustrated by the burial of a living elder, who rises from a grave. +This may, however, symbolise the 'new life' of the Mystae, 'Worse have I +fled; better have I found,' as was sung in an Athenian rite. The whole +result is, by what Mr. Howitt calls 'a quasi-religious element,' to +'impress upon the mind of the youth, in an indelible manner, those rules +of conduct which form the moral law of the tribe.'[13] + +Many other authorities could be adduced for the religious sanction of +morals in Australia. A watchful being observes and rewards the conduct or +men; he is named with reverence, if named at all; his abode is the +heavens; he is the Master and Lord of things; his lessons 'soften the +heart,'[14] + + 'What wants this Knave + That a _God_ should have?' + +I shall now demonstrate that the religion patronised by the Australian +Supreme Being, and inculcated in his Mysteries, is actually used to +counteract the immoral character which natives acquire by associating with +Anglo-Saxon Christians.[15] + +Mr. Howitt[16] gives an account of the Jeraeil, or Mysteries of the +Kurnai. The old men deemed that through intercourse with whites 'the lads +had become selfish and no longer inclined to share that which they +obtained by their own exertions, or had given them, with their friends.' +One need not say that selflessness is the very essence of goodness, and +the central moral doctrine of Christianity. So it is in the religious +Mysteries of the African Yao; a selfish man, we shall see, is spoken of as +'uninitiated.' So it is with the Australian Kurnai, whose mysteries and +ethical teaching are under the sanction of their Supreme Being. So much +for the anthropological dogma that early theology has no ethics. + +The Kurnai began by kneading the stomachs of the lads about to be +initiated (that is, if they have been associating with Christians), to +expel selfishness and greed. The chief rite, later, is to blindfold every +lad, with a blanket closely drawn over his head, to make whirring sounds +with the _tundun_, or Greek _rhombos_, then to pluck off the blankets, and +bid the initiate raise their faces to the sky. The initiator points to it, +calling out, 'Look there, look there, look there!' They have seen in this +solemn way the home of the Supreme Being, 'Our Father,' Mungan-ngaur +(Mungan = 'Father,' ngaur = 'our'), whose doctrine is then unfolded by the +old initiator ('headman') 'in an impressive manner.'[17] 'Long ago there +was a great Being, Mungan-ngaur, who lived on the earth.' His son Tundun +is _direct ancestor_ of the Kurnai. Mungan initiated the rites, and +destroyed earth by water when they were impiously revealed. 'Mungan left +the earth, and ascended to the sky, where he still remains.' + +Here Mungan-ngaur, a Being not defined as spirit, but immortal, and +dwelling in heaven, is Father, or rather grandfather, not maker, +of the Kurnai. This _may_ be interpreted as ancestor-worship, but the +opposite myth, of making or creating, is of frequent occurrence in many +widely-severed Australian districts, and co-exists with evolutionary +myths. Mungan-ngaur's precepts are: + + 1. _To listen to and obey the old men_. + 2. _To share everything they have with their friends_. + 3. _To live peaceably with their friends_. + + 4. _Not to interfere with girls or married women_. + + 5. _To obey the food restrictions until they are released from them by + the old men_. + +Mr. Howitt concludes: 'I venture to assert that it can no longer be +maintained that the Australians have no belief which can be called +religious, that is, in the sense of beliefs which govern tribal and +individual morality under a supernatural sanction.' On this topic +Mr. Hewitt's opinion became more affirmative the more deeply he was +initiated.[18] + +The Australians are the lowest, most primitive savages, yet no +propitiation by food is made to their moral Ruler, in heaven, as if he +were a ghost. + +The laws of these Australian divine beings apply to ritual as well as to +ethics, as might naturally be expected. But the moral element is +conspicuous, the reverence is conspicuous: we have here no mere ghost, +propitiated by food or sacrifice, or by purely magical rites. His very +image (modelled on a large scale in earth) is no vulgar idol: to make such +a thing, except on the rare sacred occasions, is a capital offence. +Meanwhile the mythology of the God has often, in or out of the rites, +nothing rational about it. + +On the whole it is evident that Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, +underrates the nature of Australian religion. He cites a case of +addressing the ghost of a man recently dead, which is asked not to bring +sickness, 'or make loud noises in the night,' and says: 'Here we may +recognise the essential elements of a cult.' But Mr. Spencer does not +allude to the much more essentially religious elements which he might have +found in the very authority whom he cites, Mr. Brough Smyth.[19] This +appears, as far as my scrutiny goes, to be Mr. Spencer's solitary +reference to Australia in the work on 'Ecclesiastical Institutions.' Yet +the facts which he and Mr. Huxley ignore throw a light very different from +theirs on what they consider 'the simplest condition of theology.' + +Among the causes of confusion in thought upon religion, Mr. Tylor mentions +'the partial and one-sided application of the historical method of inquiry +into theological doctrines.'[20] Here, perhaps, we have examples. In its +highest aspect that 'simplest theology' of Australia is free from the +faults of popular theology in Greece. The God discourages sin, though, in +myth, he is far from impeccable. He is almost too revered to be named +(except in mythology) and is not to be represented by idols. He is not +moved by sacrifice; he has not the chance; like Death in Greece, 'he only, +of all Gods, loves not gifts.' Thus the status of theology does not +correspond to what we look for in very low culture. It would scarcely be a +paradox to say that the popular Zeus, or Ares, is degenerate from +Mungan-ngaur, or the Fuegian being who forbids the slaying of an enemy, +and almost literally 'marks the sparrow's fall.' + +If we knew all the mythology of Darumulun, we should probably find it +(like much of the myth of Pundjel or Bunjil) on a very different level +from the theology. There are two currents, the religious and the mythical, +flowing together through religion. The former current, religious, even +among very low savages, is pure from the magical ghost-propitiating habit. +The latter current, mythological, is full of magic, mummery, and +scandalous legend. Sometimes the latter stream quite pollutes the +former, sometimes they flow side by side, perfectly distinguishable, as +in Aztec ethical piety, compared with the bloody Aztec ritualism. +Anthropology has mainly kept her eyes fixed on the impure stream, the +lusts, mummeries, conjurings, and frauds of priesthoods, while relatively, +or altogether, neglecting (as we have shown) what is honest and of good +report. + +The worse side of religion is the less sacred, and therefore the more +conspicuous. Both elements are found co-existing, in almost all races, and +nobody, in our total lack of historical information about the beginnings, +can say which, if either, element is the earlier, or which, if either, is +derived from the other. To suppose that propitiation of corpses and then +of ghosts came first is agreeable, and seems logical, to some writers +who are not without a bias against all religion as an unscientific +superstition. But we know so little! The first missionaries in Greenland +supposed that there was not, there, a trace of belief in a Divine Being. +'But when they came to understand their language better, they found quite +the reverse to be true ... and not only so, but they could plainly gather +from a free dialogue they had with some perfectly wild Greenlanders (at +that time avoiding any direct application to their hearts) that their +ancestors must have believed in a Supreme Being, and did render him some +service, which their posterity neglected little by little...'[21] Mr. +Tylor does not refer to this as a trace of Christian Scandinavian +influence on the Eskimo.[22] + +That line, of course, may be taken. But an Eskimo said to a missionary, +'Thou must not imagine that no Greenlander thinks about these things' +(theology). He then stated the argument from design. 'Certainly there +must be some Being who made all these things. He must be very good too... +Ah, did I but know him, how I would love and honour him.' As St. Paul +writes: 'That which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath +showed it unto them ... being understood by the things which are made ... +but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was +darkened.'[23] In fact, mythology submerged religion. St. Paul's theory of +the origin of religion is not that of an 'innate idea,' nor of a direct +revelation. People, he says, reached the belief in a God from the Argument +for Design. Science conceives herself to have annihilated teleological +ideas. But they are among the probable origins of religion, and would lead +to the belief in a Creator, whom the Greenlander thought beneficent, and +after whom he yearned. This is a very different initial step in religious +development, if initial it was, from the feeding of a corpse, or a ghost. + +From all this evidence it does not appear how non-polytheistic, +non-monarchical, non-Manes-worshipping savages evolved the idea of a +relatively supreme, moral, and benevolent Creator, unborn, undying, +watching men's lives. 'He can go everywhere, and do everything.'[24] + +[Footnote 1: Fitzroy, ii. 180. Darwin. _Descent of Man_, p. 67.] + +[Footnote 2: Ibid. We seem to have little information about Fuegian +religion either before or after the cruise of the _Beagle_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Principles of Sociology_, i. 422.] + +[Footnote 4: Fitzroy, ii. 190, 191] + +[Footnote 5: _Travels in West Africa_, p. 442.] + +[Footnote 6: _Early Voyages to Australia_, 102-111 (Hakluyt Society).] + +[Footnote 7: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 846.] + +[Footnote 8: _Journal of the Anthrop. Institute_, 1884. See, for less +dignified accounts, op. cit. xxiv. xxv.] + +[Footnote 9: _Journal_, xiii. 193.] + +[Footnote 10: _Journal_, xiii. 296.] + +[Footnote 11: Op. cit. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 12: P. 453.] + +[Footnote 13: P. 457.] + +[Footnote 14: See Brough Smyth, _Aborigines_, i. 426; Taplin, _Native +Races of Australia_. According to Taplin, Nurrumdere was a deified black +fellow, who died on earth. This is not the case of Baiame, but is said, +rather vaguely, to be true of Daramulun. _J.A.I._, xiii. 194, xxv. 297.] + +[Footnote 15: From a brief account of the Fire Ceremony, or _Engwurra_ of +certain tribes in Central Australia, it seems that religious ceremonies +connected with Totems are the most notable performances. Also 'certain +mythical ancestors,' of the '_alcheringa_, or dream-times,' were +celebrated; these real or ideal human beings appear to 'sink their +identity in that of the object with which they are associated, and from +which they are supposed to have originated.' There appear also to be +places haunted by 'spirit individuals,' in some way mixed up with Totems, +but nothing is said of sacrifice to these Manes. The brief account is by +Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F.J. Gillen, _Proc. Royal Soc. +Victoria_, July 1897. This Fire Ceremony is not for lads--not a kind of +confirmation in the savage church--but is intended for adults.] + +[Footnote 16: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. 1886, p. 310.] + +[Footnote 17: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. 1885, p. 313.] + +[Footnote 18: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. xiii. p. 459.] + +[Footnote 19: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, p. 674.] + +[Footnote 20: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 450.] + +[Footnote 21: Cranz, pp. 198, 199.] + +[Footnote 22: _Journal Anthrop. Inst_. xiii. 348-356.] + +[Footnote 23: Rom. i. 19. Cranz, i. 199.] + +[Footnote 24: In Mr. Carr's work, _The Australian Race_, reports of +'godless' natives are given, for instance, in the Mary River country and +in Gippsland. These reports are usually the result of the ignorance or +contempt of white observers, cf. Tylor, i. 419. The reader is referred to +the Introduction for additional information about Australian beliefs, and +for replies to objections.] + + + + +XI + +SUPREME GODS NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIRITS' + +Before going on to examine the high gods of other low savages, I must here +again insist on and develop the theory, not easily conceived by us, that +the Supreme Being of savages belongs to another branch of faith than +ghosts, or ghost-gods, or fetishes, or Totems, and need not be--probably +is not--essentially derived from these. We must try to get rid of our +theory that a powerful, moral, eternal Being was, from the first, _ex +officio_, conceived as 'spirit;' and so was necessarily derived from a +ghost. + +First, what was the process of development? + +We have examined Mr. Tylor's theory. But, to take a practical case: Here +are the Australians, roaming in small bands, without more formal rulers +than 'headmen' at most; not ancestor worshippers; not polytheists; with +no departmental deities to select and aggrandise; not apt to speculate on +the _Anima Mundi_. How, then, did they bridge the gulf between the ghost +of a soon-forgotten fighting man, and that conception of a Father above, +'all-seeing,' moral, which, under various names, is found all over a huge +continent? I cannot see that this problem has been solved or frankly +faced. + +The distinction between the Australian deity, at his highest power, +unpropitiated by sacrifice, and the ordinary, waning, easily forgotten, +cheaply propitiated ghost of a tribesman, is essential. It is not easy to +show how, in 'the dark backward' of Australian life, the notion of +Mungan-ngaur grew from the idea of the ghost of a warrior. But there is no +logical necessity for the belief in the evolution of this god out +of that ghost. These two factors in religion--ghost and god--seem to +have perfectly different sources, and it appears extraordinary that +anthropologists have not (as far as I am aware) observed this circumstance +before. + +Mr. Spencer, indeed, speaks frequently of living human beings adored as +gods. I do not know that these are found on the lowest levels of savagery, +and Mr. Jevons has pointed out that, before you can hail a man as a god, +you must have the idea of God. The murder of Captain Cook notoriously +resulted from a scientific experiment in theology. 'If he is a god, he +cannot be killed.' So they tried with a dagger, and found that the honest +captain was but a mortal British mariner--no god at all. 'There are +degrees.' Mr. Spencer's men-gods become real gods--after death.[1] + +Now the Supreme Being of savage faith, as a rule, never died at all. He +belonged to a world that knew not Death. + +One cause of our blindness to the point appears to be this: We have from +childhood been taught that 'God is a Spirit.' We, now, can only conceive +of an eternal being as a 'spirit.' We know that legions of savage gods are +now regarded as spirits. And therefore we have never remarked that there +is no reason why we should take it for granted that the earliest deities +of the earliest men were supposed by them to be 'spirits' at all. These +gods might most judiciously be spoken of, not as 'spirits,' but as +'undefined eternal beings.' To us, such a being is necessarily a spirit, +but he was by no means necessarily so to an early thinker, who may not +yet have reached the conception of a ghost. + +A ghost is said, by anthropologists, to have developed into a god. Now, +the very idea of a ghost (apart from a wraith or fetch) implies the +previous _death_ of his proprietor. A ghost is the phantasm of a _dead_ +man. But anthropologists continually tell us, with truth, that the idea +of death as a universal ordinance is unknown to the savage. Diseases and +death are things that once did not exist, and that, normally, ought not to +occur, the savage thinks. They are, in his opinion, supernormally caused +by magicians and spirits. Death came into the world by a blunder, an +accident, an error in ritual, a decision of a god who was before Death +was. Scores of myths are told everywhere on this subject.[2] + +The savage Supreme Being, with added power, omniscience, and morality, is +the idealisation of the savage, as conceived of by himself, _minus_ +fleshly body (as a rule), and _minus_ Death. He is not necessarily a +'spirit,' though that term may now be applied to him. He was not +originally differentiated as 'spirit' or 'not spirit.' He is a Being, +conceived of without the question of 'spirit,' or 'no spirit' being +raised; perhaps he was originally conceived of before that question could +be raised by men. When we call the Supreme Being of savages a 'spirit' we +introduce our own animistic ideas into a conception where it may not have +originally existed. If the God is 'the savage himself raised to the n^th +power' so much the less of a spirit is he. Mr. Matthew Arnold might as +well have said: 'The British Philistine has no knowledge of God. He +believes that the Creator is a magnified non-natural man, living in the +sky.' The Gippsland or Fuegian or Blackfoot Supreme Being is just a +_Being_, anthropomorphic, not a _mrart_, or 'spirit.' The Supreme Being is +a _wesen_, Being, _Vui_; we have hardly a term for an immortal existence +so undefined. If the being is an idealised first ancestor (as among the +Kurnai), he is not, on that account, either man or ghost of man. In the +original conception he is a powerful intelligence who was from the first: +who was already active long before, by a breach of his laws, an error in +the delivery of a message, a breach of ritual, or what not, death entered +the world. He was not affected by the entry of death, he still exists. + +Modern minds need to become familiar with this indeterminate idea of the +savage Supreme Being, which, logically, may be prior to the evolution of +the notion of ghost or spirit. + +But how does it apply when, as by the Kurnai, the Supreme Being is +reckoned an ancestor? + +It can very readily be shown that, when the Supreme Being of a savage +people is thus the idealised First Ancestor, he can never have been +envisaged by his worshippers as at any time a _ghost_; or, at least, +cannot logically have been so envisaged where the nearly universal +belief occurs that death came into the world by accident, or needlessly. + +Adam is the mythical first ancestor of the Hebrews, but he died, [Greek: +uper moron], and was not worshipped. Yama, the first of Aryan men who +died, was worshipped by Vedic Aryans, but _confessedly_ as a ghost-god. +Mr. Tylor gives a list of first ancestors deified. The Ancestor of the +Maudans did not die, consequently is no ghost; _emigravit_, he 'moved +west.' Where the First Ancestor is also the Creator (Dog-rib Indians), he +can hardly be, and is not, regarded as a mortal. Tamoi, of the Guaranis, +was 'the ancient of heaven,' clearly no mortal man. The Maori Maui was the +first who died, but he is not one of the original Maori gods. Haetsh, +among the Kamchadals, precisely answers to Yama. Unkulunkulu will be +described later.[3] + +This is the list: Where the First Ancestor is equivalent to the Creator, +and is supreme, he is--from the first--deathless and immortal. When he +dies he is a confessed ghost-god. + +Now, ghost-worship and dead ancestor-worship are impossible before the +ancestor is dead and is a ghost. But the essential idea of Mungan-ngaur, +and Baiame, and most of the high gods of Australia, and of other low +races, is that _they never died at all_. They belong to the period before +death came into the world, like Qat among the Melanesians. They arise in +an age that knew not death, and had not reflected on phantasms nor evolved +ghosts. They could have been conceived of, in the nature of the case, by a +race of immortals who never dreamed of such a thing as a ghost. For these +gods, the ghost-theory is not required, and is superfluous, even +contradictory. The early thinkers who developed these beings did not need +to know that men die (though, of course, they did know it in practice), +still less did they need to have conceived by abstract speculation the +hypothesis of ghosts. Baiame, Cagn, Bunjil, in their adorers' belief, were +_there_; death later intruded among men, but did not affect these divine +beings in any way. + +The ghost-theory, therefore, by the evidence of anthropology itself, is +not needed for the evolution of the high gods of savages. It is only +needed for the evolution of ghost-propitiation and genuine dead-ancestor +worship. Therefore, the high gods described were not necessarily once +ghosts--were not idealised _mortal_ ancestors. They were, naturally, from +the beginning, from before the coming in of death, immortal Fathers, now +dwelling on high. Between them and apotheosised mortal ancestors there is +a great gulf fixed--the river of death. + +The explicitly stated distinction that the high creative gods never were +mortal men, while other gods are spirits of mortal men, is made in every +quarter. 'Ancestors _known_ to be human were _not_ worshipped as +[original] gods, and ancestors worshipped as [original] gods were not +believed to have been human.'[4] + +Both kinds may have a generic name, such as _kalou_, or _wakan_, but the +specific distinction is universally made by low savages. On one hand, +original gods; on the other, non-original gods that were once ghosts. Now, +this distinction is often calmly ignored; whereas, when any race has +developed (like late Scandinavians) the Euhemeristic hypothesis ('all gods +were once men'), that hypothesis is accepted as an historical statement of +fact by some writers. + +It is part of my theory that the more popular ghost-worship of souls of +people whom men have loved, invaded the possibly older religion of the +Supreme Father. Mighty beings, whether originally conceived of as +'spirits' or not, came, later, under the Animistic theory, to be reckoned +as spirits. They even (but not among the lowest savages) came to be +propitiated by food and sacrifice. The alternative, for a Supreme Being, +when once Animism prevailed, was sacrifice (as to more popular ghost +deities) or neglect. We shall find examples of both alternatives. But +sacrifice does not prove that a God was, in original conception, a ghost, +or even a spirit. 'The common doctrine of the Old Testament is not that +God is spirit, but that the spirit [_rah_ = 'wind,' 'living breath'] of +Jehovah, going forth from him, works in the world and among men.'[5] + +To resume. The high Gods of savagery--moral, all-seeing directors of +things and of men--are not explicitly envisaged as spirits at all by their +adorers. The notion of soul or spirit is here out of place. We can best +describe Pirnmeheal, and Npi and Baiame as 'magnified non-natural men,' +or undefined beings who were from the beginning and are undying. They are, +like the easy Epicurean Gods, _nihil indiga nostri_. Not being ghosts, +they crave no food from men, and receive no sacrifice, as do ghosts, or +gods developed out of ghosts, or gods to whom the ghost-ritual has been +transferred. For this very reason, apparently, they seem to be spoken of +by Mr. Grant Allen as 'gods to talk about, not gods to adore; mythological +conceptions rather than religious beings.'[6] All this is rather hard on +the lowest savages. If they sacrifice to a god, then the god is a hungry +ghost; if they don't, then the god is 'a god to talk about, not to adore,' +Luckily, the facts of the Bora ritual and the instruction given there +prove that Mungan-nganr and other names _are_ gods to adore, by ethical +conformity to their will and by solemn ceremony, not merely gods to talk +about. + +Thus, the highest element in the religion of the lowest savages does not +appear to be derived from their theory of ghosts. As far as we can say, in +the inevitable absence of historical evidence, the highest gods of savages +may have been believed in, as Makers and Fathers and Lords of an +indeterminate nature, before the savage had developed the idea of souls +out of dreams and phantasms. It is logically conceivable that savages may +have worshipped deities like Baiame and Darumulun before they had evolved +the notion that Tom, Dick, or Harry has a separable soul, capable of +surviving his bodily decease. Deities of the higher sort, by the very +nature of savage reflections on death and on its non-original casual +character, are prior, or may be prior, or cannot be shown not to be prior, +to the ghost theory--the alleged origin of religion. For their evolution +the ghost theory is not logically demanded; they can do without it. Yet +_they_, and not the spirits, bogles, Mrarts, _Brewin_, and so forth, are +the high gods, the gods who have most analogy--as makers, moral guides, +rewarders, and punishers of conduct (though that duty is also occasionally +assumed by ancestral spirits)--with our civilised conception of the +divine. Our conception of God descends not from ghosts, but from the +Supreme Beings of non-ancestor-worshipping peoples. + +As it seems impossible to point out any method by which low, chiefless, +non-polytheistic, non-metaphysical savages (if any such there be) evolved +out of ghosts the eternal beings who made the world, and watch over +morality: as the people themselves unanimously distinguish such beings +from ghost-gods, I take it that such beings never were ghosts. In this +case the Animistic theory seems to me to break down completely. Yet these +high gods of low savages preserve from dimmest ages of the meanest culture +the sketch of a God which our highest religious thought can but fill up to +its ideal. Come from what germ he may, Jehovah or Allah does not come from +a ghost. + +It may be retorted that this makes no real difference. If savages did not +invent gods in consequence of a fallacious belief in spirit and soul, +still, in some other equally illogical way they came to indulge the +hypothesis that they had a Judge and Father in heaven. But, if the ghost +theory of the high Gods is wrong, as it is conspicuously superfluous, that +_does_ make some difference. It proves that a widely preached scientific +conclusion may be as spectral as Bathybius. On other more important +points, therefore, we may differ from the newest scientific opinion +without too much diffident apprehensiveness. + +[Footnote 1: _Principles of Sociology_, i. 417, 421. 'The medicine men +are treated as gods.... The medicine man becomes a god after death.'] + +[Footnote 2: I have published a chapter on Myths on the Origin of Death in +_Modern Mythology_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 311-316.] + +[Footnote 4: Jevons, _Introduction_, p. 197.] + +[Footnote 5: Robertson Smith. _The Prophets of Israel_, p. 61.] + +[Footnote 6: _Evolution of the Idea of God_, p. 170.] + + + + +XII + +SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS + +It is among 'the lowest savages' that the Supreme Beings are most regarded +as eternal, moral (as the morality of the tribe goes, or above its +habitual practice), and _powerful_. I have elsewhere described the Bushman +god Cagn, as he was portrayed to Mr. Orpen by Qing, who 'had never +before seen a white man except fighting.' Mr. Orpen got the facts from +Qing by inducing him to explain the natives' pictures on the walls of +caves. 'Cagn made all things, and we pray to him,' thus: 'O Cagn, O Cagn, +are we not thy children? Do you not see us hunger? Give us food.' As to +ethics, 'At first Cagn was very good, but he got spoilt through fighting +so many things.' 'How came he into the world?' 'Perhaps with those who +brought the Sun: only the initiated know these things.' It appears that +Qing was not yet initiated in the dance (answering to a high rite of the +Australian _Bora_) in which the most esoteric myths were unfolded.[1] + +In Mr. Spencer's 'Descriptive Sociology' the religion of the Bushmen is +thus disposed of. 'Pray to an insect of the caterpillar kind for success +in the chase.' That is rather meagre. They make arrow-poison out of +caterpillars,[2] though Dr. Bleek, perhaps correctly, identifies Cagn +with i-kaggen, the insect. + +The case of the Andaman Islanders may be especially recommended to +believers in the anthropological science of religion. For long these +natives were the joy of emancipated inquirers as the 'godless Andamanese.' +They only supply Mr. Spencer's 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' with +a few instances of the ghost-belief.[3] Yet when the Andamanese are +scientifically studied _in situ_ by an educated Englishman, Mr. Man, who +knows their language, has lived with them for eleven years, and presided +over our benevolent efforts 'to reclaim them from their savage state,' +the Andamanese turn out to be quite embarrassingly rich in the higher +elements of faith. They have not only a profoundly philosophical +_religion_, but an excessively absurd _mythology_, like the Australian +blacks, the Greeks, and other peoples. If, on the whole, the student of +the Andamanese despairs of the possibility of an ethnological theory of +religion, he is hardly to be blamed. + +The people are probably Negritos, and probably 'the original inhabitants, +whose occupation dates from prehistoric times.'[4] They use the bow, they +make pots, and are considerably above the Australian level. They have +second-sighted men, who obtain status 'by relating an extraordinary dream, +the details of which are declared to have been borne out subsequently by +some unforeseen event, as, for instance, a sudden death or accident.' They +have to produce fresh evidential dreams from time to time. They see +phantasms of the dead, and coincidental hallucinations.[5] All this is as +we should expect it to be. + +Their religion is probably not due to missionaries, as they always shot +all foreigners, and have no traditions of the presence of aliens on the +islands before our recent arrival.[6] Their God, Puluga, is 'like fire,' +but invisible. He was never born, and is immortal. By him were all things +created, except the powers of evil. He knows even the thoughts of the +heart. He is angered by _yubda_ = sin, or wrong-doing, that is falsehood, +theft, grave assault, murder, adultery, bad carving of meat, and (as a +crime of witchcraft) by burning wax.[7] 'To those in pain or distress he +is pitiful, and sometimes deigns to afford relief.' He is Judge of Souls, +and the dread of future punishment 'to _some_ extent is said to affect +their course of action in the present life.'[8] + +This Being could not be evolved out of the ordinary ghost of a +second-sighted man, for I do not find that ancestral ghosts are +worshipped, nor is there a trace of early missionary influence, while +Mr. Man consulted elderly and, in native religion, well-instructed +Andamanese for his facts. + +Yet Puluga lives in a large stone house (clearly derived from ours at Port +Blair), eats and drinks, foraging for himself, and is married to a green +shrimp.[9] There is the usual story of a Deluge caused by the moral wrath +of Puluga. The whole theology was scrupulously collected from natives +unacquainted with other races. + +The account of Andamanese religion does not tally with the anthropological +hypothesis. Foreign influence seems to be more than usually excluded by +insular conditions and the jealousy of the 'original inhabitants.' The +evidence ought to make us reflect on the extreme obscurity of the whole +problem. + +Anthropological study of religion has hitherto almost entirely overlooked +the mysteries of various races, except in so far as they confirm the entry +of the young people into the ranks of the adult. Their esoteric moral and +religious teaching is nearly unknown to us, save in a few instances. It is +certain that the mysteries of Greece were survivals of savage ceremonies, +because we know that they included specific savage rites, such as the use +of the _rhombos_ to make a whirring noise, and the custom of ritual +daubing with dirt; and the sacred _ballets d'action_, in which, as Lucian +and Qing say, mystic facts are 'danced out.'[10] But, while Greece +retained these relics of savagery, there was something taught at Eleusis +which filled minds like Plato's and Pindar's with a happy religious awe. +Now, similar 'softening of the heart' was the result of the teaching in +the Australian _Bora_: the Yao mysteries inculcate the victory over self; +and, till we are admitted to the secrets of all other savage mysteries +throughout the world, we cannot tell whether, among mummeries, +frivolities, and even license, high ethical doctrines are not presented +under the sanction of religion. The New Life, and perhaps the future life, +are undeniably indicated in the Australian mysteries by the simulated +Resurrection. + +I would therefore no longer say, as in 1887, that the Hellenic genius must +have added to 'an old medicine dance' all that the Eleusinian mysteries +possessed of beauty, counsel, and consolation[11]. These elements, as well +as the barbaric factors in the rites, may have been developed out of such +savage doctrine as softens the hearts of Australians and Yaos. That this +kind of doctrine receives religious sanction is certain, where we know the +secret of savage mysteries. It is therefore quite incorrect, and strangely +presumptuous, to deny, with almost all anthropologists, the alliance of +ethics with religion among the most backward races. We must always +remember their secrecy about their inner religion, their frankness about +their mythological tales. These we know: the inner religion we ought to +begin to recognise that we do not know. + +The case of the Andamanese has taught us how vague, even now, is our +knowledge, and how obscure is our problem. The example of the Melanesians +enforces these lessons. It is hard to bring the Melanesians within any +theory. Dr. Codrington has made them the subject of a careful study, and +reports that while the European inquirer can communicate pretty freely on +common subjects 'the vocabulary of ordinary life in almost useless when +the region of mysteries and superstitions is approached.'[12] The Banks +Islanders are most free from an Asiatic element of population on one side, +and a Polynesian element on the other. + +The Banks Islanders 'believe in two orders of intelligent beings different +from living men.' (1) Ghosts of the dead, (2) 'Beings who were not, and +never had been, human.' This, as we have shown, and will continue to show, +is the usual savage doctrine. On the one hand are separable souls of men, +surviving the death of the body. On the other are beings, creators, +who were before men were, and before death entered the world. It is +impossible, logically, to argue that these beings are only ghosts of real +remote ancestors, or of ideal ancestors. These higher beings are not +safely to be defined as 'spirits,' their essence is vague, and, we repeat, +the idea of their existence might have been evolved _before the ghost +theory was attained by men_. Dr. Codrington says, 'the conception can +hardly be that of a purely spiritual being, yet, by whatever name the +natives call them, they are such as in English must be called spirits.' + +That is our point. 'God is a spirit,' these beings are Gods, therefore +'these are spirits.' But to their initial conception our idea of 'spirit' +is lacking. They are beings who existed before death, and still exist. + +The beings which never were human, never died, are _Vui_, the ghosts are +_Tamate_. Dr. Codrington uses 'ghosts' for _Tamate_, 'spirits' for _Vui_. +But as to render _Vui_ 'spirits' is to yield the essential point, we shall +call _Vui_ 'beings,' or, simply, _Vui_. A Vui is not a spirit that has +been a ghost; the story may represent him as if a man, 'but the native +will always maintain that he was something different, and deny to him the +fleshly body of a man.'[13] + +This distinction, ghost on one side--original being, not a man, not a +ghost of a man, on the other--is radical and nearly universal in savage +religion. Anthropology, neglecting the essential distinction insisted on, +in this case, by Dr. Codrington, confuses both kinds under the style of +'spirits,' and derives both from ghosts of the dead. Dr. Codrington, it +should be said, does not generalise, but confines himself to the savages +of whom he has made a special study. But, from the other examples of the +same distinction which we have offered, and the rest which we shall offer, +we think ourselves justified in regarding the distinction between a +primeval, eternal, being or beings, on one hand, and ghosts or spirits +exalted from ghost's estate, on the other, as common, if not universal. + +There are corporeal and incorporeal Vuis, but the body of the corporeal +Vui is '_not_ a human body.'[14] The chief is Qat, 'still at hand to help +and invoked in prayers.' 'Qat, Marawa, look down upon me, smooth the sea +for us two, that I may go safely over the sea!' Qat 'created men and +animals,' though, in a certain district, he is claimed as an _ancestor_ +(p. 268). Two strata of belief have here been confused. + +The myth of Qat is a jungle of facetiae and frolic, with one or two +serious incidents, such as the beginning of Death and the coming of Night. +His mother was, or became, a stone; stones playing a considerable part in +the superstitions. + +The incorporeal Vuis, 'with nothing like a human life, have a much higher +place than Qat and his brothers in the religious system.' They have +neither names, nor shapes, nor legends, they receive sacrifice, and are in +some uncertain way connected with stones; these stones usually bear a +fanciful resemblance to fruits or animals (p. 275). The only sacrifice, in +Banks Islands, is that of shell-money. The mischievous spirits are Tamate, +ghosts of men. There is a belief in _mana_ (magical _rapport_). Dr. +Codrington cannot determine the connection of this belief with that in +spirits. Mana is the uncanny, is X, the unknown. A revived impression of +sense is _nunuai_, as when a tired fisher, half asleep at night, feels the +'draw' of a salmon, and automatically strikes.[15] The common ghost is a +bag of _nunuai_, as living man, in the opinion of some philosophers, is a +bag of 'sensations.' Ghosts are only seen as spiritual lights, which so +commonly attend hallucinations among the civilised. Except in the prayers +to Qat and Marawa, prayer only invokes the dead (p. 285). 'In the western +islands the offerings are made to ghosts, and consumed by fire; in the +eastern (Banks) isles they are made to spirits (beings, _Vui_), and +there is no sacrificial fire.' Now, the worship of ghosts goes, in these +isles, with the higher culture, 'a more considerable advance in the arts +of life;' the worship of non-ghosts, _Vui_, goes with the lower material +culture.[16] This is rather the reverse of what we should expect, in +accordance with the anthropological theory. According, however, to our +theory, Animism and ghost-worship may be of later development, and belong +to a higher level of culture, than worship of a being, or beings, that +never were ghosts. In Leper's Isle, 'ghosts do not appear to have prayers +or sacrifices offered to them,' but cause disease, and work magic.[17] + +The belief in the soul, in Melanesia, does _not_ appear to proceed 'from +their dreams or visions in which deceased or absent persons are presented +to them, for they do not appear to believe that the soul goes out from the +dreamer, or presents itself as an object in his dreams,' nor does belief +in other spirits seem to be founded on 'the appearance of life or motion +in inanimate things.'[18] + +To myself it rather looks as if all impressions had their _nunuai_, real, +bodiless, persistent, after-images; that the soul is the complex of all of +these _nunuai_; that there is in the universe a kind of magical other, +called _mana_, possessed, in different proportions, by different men, +_Vui_, _tamate_, and material objects, and that the _atai_ or _ataro_ of a +man dead, his ghost, retains its old, and acquires new _mana_.[19] It is an +odd kind of metaphysic to find among very backward and isolated savages. +But the lesson of Melanesia teaches us how very little we really know of +the religion of low races, how complex it is, how hardly it can be forced +into our theories, if we take it as given in our knowledge, allow for our +ignorance, and are not content to select facts which suit our hypothesis, +while ignoring the rest. On a higher level of material culture than the +Melanesians are the Fijians. + +Fijian religion, as far as we understand, resembles the others in drawing +an impassable line between ghosts and eternal gods. The word _Kalou_ is +applied to all supernal beings, and mystic or magical things alike. It +seems to answer to _mana_ in New Zealand and Melanesia, to _wakan_ in +North America, and to _fe_ in old French, as when Perrault says, about +Bluebeard's key, 'now the key was _fe_.' All Gods are _Kalou_, but all +things that are _Kalou_ are not Gods. Gods are _Kalou vu_; deified ghosts +are _Kalou yalo_. The former are eternal, without beginning of days or end +of years; the latter are subject to infirmity and even to death.[20] + +The Supreme Being, if we can apply the term to him, is Ndengei, or Degei, +'who seems to be an impersonation of the abstract idea of eternal +existence.' This idea is not easily developed out of the conception of a +human soul which has died into a ghost and may die again. His myth +represents him as a serpent, emblem of eternity, or a body of stone with a +serpent's head. His one manifestation is given by eating. So neglected is +he that a song exists about his lack of worshippers and gifts. 'We made +men,' says Ndengei, 'placed them on earth, and yet they share to us only +the under shell.'[21] Here is an extreme case of the self-existent +creative Eternal, mythically lodged in a serpent's body, and reduced to a +jest. + +It is not easy to see any explanation, if we reject the hypothesis that +this is an old, fallen form of faith, 'with scarcely a temple.' The other +unborn immortals are mythical warriors and adulterers, like the popular +deities of Greece. Yet Ndengei receives prayers through two sons of his, +mediating deities. The priests are possessed, or inspired, by spirits and +gods. One is not quite clear as to whether Ndengei is an inspiring god or +not; but that prayers are made to him is inconsistent with the belief in +his eternal inaction. A priest is represented as speaking for Ndengei, +probably by inspiration. 'My own mind departs from me, and then, when it +is truly gone, my god speaks by me,' is the account of this 'alternating +personality' given by a priest.[22] + +After informing us that Ndengei is starved, Mr. Williams next tells about +offerings to him, in earlier days, of hundreds of hogs.[23] He sends rain +on earth. Animals, men, stones, may all be _Kalou_. There is a Hades as +fantastic as that in the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead,' and second sight +flourishes. + +The mysteries include the sham raising of the dead, and appear to be +directed at propitiatory ghosts rather than at Ndengei. There are scenes +of license; 'particulars of almost incredible indecency have been +privately forwarded to Dr. Tylor.'[24] + +Suppose a religious reformer were to arise in one of the many savage +tribes who, as we shall show, possess, but neglect, an Eternal Creator. +He would do what, in the secular sphere, was done by the Mikado of Japan. +The Mikado was a political Dendid or Ndengei--an awful, withdrawn, +impotent potentate. Power was wielded by the Tycoon. A Mikado of genius +asserted himself; hence arose modern Japan. In the same way, a religious +reformer like Khuen Ahten in Egypt would preach down minor gods, ghosts +and sacred beasts, and proclaim the primal Maker, Ndengei, Dendid, Mtanga. +'The king shall hae his ain again.' Had it not been for the Prophets, +Israel, by the time that Greece and Rome knew Israel, would have been +worshipping a horde of little gods, and even beasts and ghosts, while the +Eternal would have become a mere name--perhaps, like Ndengei and Atahocan +and Unkulunkulu, a jest. The Old Testament is the story of the prolonged +effort to keep Jehovah in His supreme place. To make and to succeed in +that effort was the _differentia_, of Israel. Other peoples, even the +lowest, had, as we prove, the germinal conception of a God--assuredly not +demonstrated to be derived from the ghost theory, logically in no need of +the ghost theory, everywhere explicitly contrasted with the ghost theory. +'But their foolish heart was darkened.' + +It is impossible to prove, historically, which of the two main elements in +belief--the idea of an Eternal Being or Beings, or the idea of surviving +ghosts--came first into the minds of men. The idea of primeval Eternal +Beings, as understood by savages, does not depend on, or require, the +ghost theory. But, as we almost always find ghosts and a Supreme Being +together, where we find either, among the lowest savages, we have no +historical ground for asserting that either is prior to the other. Where +we have no evidence to the belief in the Maker, we must not conclude that +no such belief exists. Our knowledge is confused and scanty; often it is +derived from men who do not know the native language, or the native sacred +language, or have not been trusted with what the savage treasures as his +secret. Moreover, if anywhere ghosts are found without gods, it is an +inference from the argument that an idea familiar to very low savage +tribes, like the Australians, and falling more and more into the +background elsewhere, though still extant and traceable, might, in certain +cases, be lost and forgotten altogether. + +To take an example of half-forgotten deity. Mr. Im Thurn, a good observer, +has written on 'The Animism of the Indians of British Guiana.' Mr. Im +Thurn justly says: 'The man who above all others has made this study +possible is Mr. Tylor.' But it is not unfair to remark that Mr. Im Thurn +naturally sees most distinctly that which Mr. Tylor has taught him to +see--namely, Animism. He has also been persuaded, by Mr. Dorman, that the +Great Spirit of North American tribes is 'almost certainly nothing more +than a figure of European origin, reflected and transmitted almost beyond +recognition on the mirror of the Indian mind,' That is not my opinion: I +conceive that the Red Indians had their native Eternal, like the +Australians, Fijians, Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, and so forth, as will be +shown later. + +Mr. Im Thurn, however, dilates on the dream origin of the ghost theory, +giving examples from his own knowledge of the difficulty with which Guiana +Indians discern the hallucinations of dreams from the facts of waking +life. Their waking hallucinations are also so vivid as to be taken for +realities.[25] Mr. Im Thurn adopts the hypothesis that, from ghosts, 'a +belief has arisen, but very gradually, in higher spirits, and, eventually, +in a Highest Spirit; and, keeping pace with the growth of these beliefs, +a habit of reverence for and worship of spirits.' On this hypothesis, +the spirit latest evolved, and most worshipful, ought, of course, to be +the 'Highest Spirit.' But the reverse, as usual, is the case. The Guiana +Indians believe in the continued, but not in the everlasting, existence of +a man's ghost.[26] They believe in no spirits which were not once tenants +of material bodies.[27] + +The belief in a Supreme Spirit is only attained 'in the highest form of +religion'--Andamanese, for instance--as Mr. Im Thurn uses 'spirit' where +we should say 'being.' 'The Indians of Guiana know no god.'[28] + +'But it is true that various words have been found in all, or nearly all, +the languages of Guiana which have been supposed to be names of a Supreme +Being, God, a Great Spirit, in the sense which those phrases bear in the +language of the higher religions.' + +Being interpreted, these Guiana names mean-- + + _The Ancient One, + The Ancient One in Sky-land, + Our Maker, + Our Father, + Our Great Father._ + +'None of those in any way involves the attributes of a god.' + +The Ancient of Days, Our Father in Sky-land, Our Maker, do rather convoy +the sense of God to a European mind. Mr. Im Thurn, however, decides that +the beings thus designated were supposed ancestors who came into Guiana +from some other country, 'sometimes said to have been that entirely +natural country (?) which is separated from Guiana by the ocean of the +air.'[29] + +Mr. Im Thurn casually observed (having said nothing about morals in +alliance with Animism): + +'The fear of unwittingly offending the countless visible and invisible +beings ... kept the Indians very strictly within their own rights and from +offending against the rights of others.' + +This remark dropped out at a discussion of Mr. Im Thurn's paper, and +clearly demonstrated that even a very low creed 'makes for +righteousness.'[30] + +Probably few who have followed the facts given here will agree with Mr. Im +Thurn's theory that 'Our Maker,' 'Our Father,' 'The Ancient One of the +Heaven,' is merely an idealised human ancestor. He falls naturally into +his place with the other high gods of low savages. But we need much more +information on the subject than Mr. Im Thurn was able to give. + +His evidence is all the better, because he is a loyal follower of Mr. +Tylor. And Mr. Tylor says: 'Savage Animism is almost devoid of that +ethical element which to the educated modern mind is the very mainspring +of practical religion.'[31] 'Yet it keeps the Indians very strictly +within their own rights and from offending the rights of others.' Our own +religion is rarely so successful.[32] + +In the Indians of Guiana we have an alleged case of a people still deep in +the animistic or ghost-worshipping case, who, by the hypothesis, have not +yet evolved the idea of a god at all. + +When the familiar names for God, such as Maker, Father, Ancient of Days, +occur in the Indian language, Mr. Im Thurn explains the neglected Being +who bears these titles as a remote deified ancestor. Of course, when a +Being with similar titles occurs where ancestors are not worshipped, as in +Australia and the Andaman Islands, the explanation suggested by Mr. Im +Thurn for the problem of religion in Guiana, will not fit the facts. + +It is plain that, _a priori_, another explanation is conceivable. If a +people like the Andamanese, or the Australian tribes whom we have studied, +had such a conception as that of Puluga, or Baiame, or Mungan-ngaur and +then, _later_, developed ancestor-worship with its propitiatory sacrifices +and ceremonies, ancestor-worship, as the newest evolved and infinitely the +most practical form of cult, would gradually thrust the belief in a +Puluga, or Mungan-ngaur, or Cagn into the shade. The ancestral spirit, to +speak quite plainly, can be 'squared' by the people in whom he takes a +special interest for family reasons. The equal Father of all men cannot +be 'squared,' and declines (till corrupted by the bad example of ancestral +ghosts) to make himself useful to one man rather than to another. For +these very intelligible, simple, and practical reasons, if the belief in +a Mungan-ngaur came first in evolution, and the belief in a practicable +bribable family ghost came second, the ghost-cult would inevitably crowd +out the God-cult.[33] The name of the Father and Maker would become a +mere survival, _nominis umbra_, worship and sacrifice going to the +ancestral ghost. That explanation would fit the state of religion which +Mr. Im Thurn has found, rightly or wrongly, in British Guiana. + +But, if the idea of a universal Father and Maker came last in evolution, +as a refinement, then, of course, it ought to be the newest, and therefore +the most fashionable and potent of Guianese cults. Precisely the reverse +is said to be the case. Nor can the belief indicated in such names +as Father and Maker be satisfactorily explained as a refinement of +ancestor-worship, because, we repeat, it occurs where ancestors are not +worshipped. + +These considerations, however unpleasant to the devotees of Animism, or +the ghost theory, are not, in themselves, illogical, nor contradictory of +the theory of evolution, which, on the other hand, fits them perfectly +well. That god thrives best who is most suited to his environment. Whether +an easy-going, hungry ghost-god with a liking for his family, or a moral +Creator not to be bribed, is better suited to an environment of not +especially scrupulous savages, any man can decide. Whether a set of not +particularly scrupulous savages will readily evolve a moral unbribable +Creator, when they have a serviceable family ghost-god eager to oblige, is +a question as easily resolved. + +Beyond all doubt, savages who find themselves under the watchful eye of a +moral deity whom they cannot 'square' will desert him as soon as they have +evolved a practicable ghost-god, useful for family purposes, whom they +_can_ square. No less manifestly, savages, who already possess a throng of +serviceable ghost-gods, will not enthusiastically evolve a moral Being who +despises gifts, and only cares for obedience. 'There is a great deal of +human nature in man,' and, if Mr. Im Thurn's description of the Guianese +be correct, everything we know of human nature, and of evolution, assures +us that the Father, or Maker, or Ancient of Days came first; the +ghost-gods, last. What has here been said about the Indians of Guiana +(namely, that they are now more ghost and spirit worshippers, with only a +name surviving to attest a knowledge of a Father and Maker in Heaven) +applies equally well to the Zulus. The Zulus are the great standing type +of an animistic or ghost-worshipping race without a God. But, had they a +God (on the Australian pattern) whom they have forgotten, or have they not +yet evolved a God out of Animism? + +The evidence, collected by Dr. Callaway, is honest, but confused. One +native, among others, put forward the very theory here proposed by us as +an alternative to that of Mr. Im Thurn. 'Unkulunkulu' (the idealised but +despised First Ancestor) 'was not worshipped [by men]. For it is not +worship when people see things, as rain, or food, or corn, and say, +"Yes, these things were made by Unkulunkulu.... Afterwards they [men] +had power to change those things, that they might become the Amatongos" +[might belong to the ancestral spirits]. _They took them away from +Unkulunkulu_.'[34] + +Animism supplanted Theism. Nothing could be more explicit. But, though we +have found an authentic Zulu text to suit our provisional theory, the most +eminent philosophical example must not reduce us into supposing that this +text settles the question. Dr. Callaway collected great masses of Zulu +answers to his inquiries, and it is plain that a respondent, like the +native theologian whom we have cited, may have adapted his reply to what +he had learned of Christian doctrine. Having now the Christian notion of a +Divine Creator, and knowing, too, that the unworshipped Unkulunkulu is +said to have 'made things,' while only ancestral spirits, are worshipped, +the native may have inferred that worship (by Christians given to the +Creator) was at some time transferred by the Zulus from Unkulunkulu to the +Amatongo. The truth is that both the anthropological theory (spirits +first, Gods last), and our theory (Supreme Being first, spirits next) can +find warrant in Dr. Callaway's valuable collections. For that reason, the +problem must be solved after a survey of the whole field of savage and +barbaric religion; it cannot be settled by the ambiguous case of the +Zulus alone. + +Unkulunkulu is represented as 'the First Man, who broke off in the +beginning.' 'They are ancestor-worshippers,' says Dr. Callaway, 'and +believe that their first ancestor, the First Man, was the Creator.'[35] +But they may, like many other peoples, have had a different original +tradition, and have altered it, just because they are now such fervent +ancestor-worshippers. Unkulunkulu was prior to Death, which came among men +in the usual mythical way.[36] Whether Unkulunkulu still exists, is +rather a moot question: Dr. Callaway thinks that he does not.[37] If not, +he is an exception to the rule in Australia, Andaman, among the Bushmen, +the Fuegians, and savages in general, who are less advanced in culture +than the Zulus. The idea, then, of a Maker of things who has ceased to +exist occurs, if at all, not in a relatively primitive, but in a +relatively late religion. On the analogy of pottery, agriculture, the use +of iron, villages, hereditary kings, and so on, the notion of a dead Maker +is late, not early. It occurs where men have iron, cattle, agriculture, +kings, houses, a disciplined army, _not_ where men have none of these +things. The Zulu godless ancestor-worship, then, by parity of reasoning, +is, like their material culture, not an early but a late development. The +Zulus 'hear of a King which is above'--'the heavenly King.'[38] 'We did +not hear of him first from white men.... But he is not like Unkulunkulu, +who, we say, made all things.' + +Here may be dimly descried the ideas of a God, and a subordinate demiurge. +'The King is above, Unkulunkulu is beneath.' The King above punishes sin, +striking the sinner by lightning. Nor do the Zulus know how they have +sinned. 'There remained only that word about the heaven,' 'which,' says +Dr. Callaway, 'implies that there might have been other words which are +now lost.' There is great confusion of thought. Unkulunkulu made the +heaven, where the unknown King reigns, a hard task for a +First Man.[39] + +'In process of time we have come to worship the Amadhlozi (spirits) only, +because we know not what to say about Unkulunkulu.'[40] 'It is on that +account, then, that we seek out for ourselves the Amadhlozi (spirits), +that we may not always be thinking about Unkulunkulu.' + +All this attests a faint lingering shadow of a belief too ethereal, too +remote, for a practical conquering race, which prefers intelligible +serviceable ghosts, with a special regard for their own families. + +Ukoto, a very old Zulu, said: 'When we were children it was said "The Lord +is in heaven." ... They used to point to the Lord on high; we did not hear +his name.' Unkulunkulu was understood, by this patriarch, to refer to +immediate ancestors, whose mimes and genealogies he gave.[41] 'We heard it +said that the Creator of the world was the Lord who is above; people used +always, when I was growing up, to point towards heaven.' + +A very old woman was most reluctant to speak of Unkulunkulu; at last she +said, 'Ah, it is he in fact who is the Creator, who is in heaven, of whom +the ancients spoke.' Then the old woman began to babble humorously of how +the white men made all things. Again, Unkulunkulu is said to have been +created by Utilexo. Utilexo was invisible, Unkulunkulu was visible, and so +got credit not really his due.[42] When the heaven is said to be the +Chief's (the chief being a living Zulu) 'they do not believe what they +say,' the phrase is a mere hyperbolical compliment.[43] + +On this examination of the evidence, it certainly seems as logical to +conjecture that the Zulus had once such an idea of a Supreme Being as +lower races entertain, and then nearly lost it; as to say that Zulus, +though a monarchical race, have not yet developed a King-God out of the +throng of spirits (Amatongo). The Zulus, the Norsemen of the South, so to +speak, are a highly practical military race. A Deity at all abstract was +not to their liking. Serviceable family spirits, who continually provided +an excuse for a dinner of roast beef, were to their liking. The less +developed races do not kill their flocks commonly for food. A sacrifice is +needed as a pretext. To the gods of Andamanese, Bushmen, Australians, no +sacrifice is offered. To the Supreme Being of most African peoples no +sacrifice is offered. There is no festivity in the worship of these +Supreme Beings, no feasting, at all events. They are not to be 'got at' by +gifts or sacrifices. The Amatongo are to be 'got at,' are bribable, supply +an excuse for a good dinner, and thus the practical Amatongo are honoured, +while, in the present generation of Zulus, Unkulunkulu is a joke, and the +Lord in Heaven is the shadow of a name. Clearly this does not point to the +recent but to the remote development of the higher ideas, now superseded +by spirit-worship. + +We shall next see how this view, the opposite of the anthropological +theory, works when applied to other races, especially to other African +races. + +[Footnote 1: When I wrote _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_ (ii. 11-13) I +regarded Cagn as 'only a successful and idealised medicine man.' But I now +think that I confused in my mind the religious and the mythological +aspects of Cagn. One of unknown origin, existing before the sun, a Maker +of all things, prayed to, but not in receipt of sacrifice, is no medicine +man, except in his myth.] + +[Footnote 2: The omissions in Mr. Spencer's system may possibly be +explained by the circumstance that, as he tells us, he collected his +facts 'by proxy.' While we find Waitz much interested in and amazed by the +benevolent Supreme Being of many African tribes, that personage is only +alluded to as 'Alleged Benevolent Supreme Being' in Mr. Spencer's +_Descriptive Sociology_, and is usually left out of sight altogether in +his _Principles of Sociology_ and _Ecclesiastical Institutions_. Yet we +have precisely the same kind of evidence of observers for this 'alleged' +benevolent Supreme Being as we have for the _canaille_ of ghosts and +fetishes. If he is a deity of a rather lofty moral conception, of course +he need not be propitiated by human sacrifices or cold chickens. _That_ +kind of material evidence to the faith in him must be absent by the +nature of the case; but the coincident testimony of travellers to belief +in a Supreme Being cannot be dismissed as 'alleged.'] + +[Footnote 3: Pp. 676, 677.] + +[Footnote 4: Man, _J.A.I_. xii. 70.] + +[Footnote 5: Man, _J.A.I_. xii. 96-98.] + +[Footnote 6: xii. 156, 157.] + +[Footnote 7: xii. 112.] + +[Footnote 8: xii. 158.] + +[Footnote 9: xii. 158.] + +[Footnote 10: _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, i. 281-288.] + +[Footnote 11: Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, 133.] + +[Footnote 12: _J.A.I_. x. 263.] + +[Footnote 13: _J.A.I_. 267.] + +[Footnote 14: _J.A.I_. x. 267.] + +[Footnote 15: P. 281. This is a _nunuai_ with which I am familiar. Flying +fish, in Banks Island, take the _rle_ of salmon. The natives think it +real, but without form or substance.] + +[Footnote 16: Codrington, _Melanesia_, p. 122.] + +[Footnote 17: _J.A.I_. x. 294.] + +[Footnote 18: Op. cit. x. 313.] + +[Footnote 19: _J.A.I_. x. 300.] + +[Footnote 20: Williams's _Fiji_, p. 218. See Mr. Thomson's remarks cited +later.] + +[Footnote 21: _Fiji_, p. 217.] + +[Footnote 22: Ibid. p. 228.] + +[Footnote 23: Ibid. p. 230.] + +[Footnote 24: _J.A.I_. xiv. 30.] + +[Footnote 25: _J.A.I_. xi. 361-366.] + +[Footnote 26: Ibid. xi. 374.] + +[Footnote 27: Ibid. xi. 376.] + +[Footnote 28: Ibid. xi. 376] + +[Footnote 29: _J.A.I_. xi. 378.] + +[Footnote 30: Ibid. 382.] + +[Footnote 31: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 360.] + +[Footnote 32: Conceivably, however, the Guiana spirits who have so much +moral influence, exert it by magical charms. 'The belief in the power of +charms for good or evil produces not only honesty, but a great amount of +gentle dealing,' says Livingstone, of the Africans. However they work, the +spirits work for righteousness.] + +[Footnote 33: Obviously there could be no Family God before there was the +institution of the Family.] + +[Footnote 34: Callaway, _Rel. of Amazulu_, p. 17.] + +[Footnote 35: Callaway, p. 1.] + +[Footnote 36: Op. cit. p. 8.] + +[Footnote 37: Op. cit. p. 7.] + +[Footnote 38: Op. cit. p. 19.] + +[Footnote 39: Callaway, pp. 20, 21.] + +[Footnote 40: Pp. 26, 27.] + +[Footnote 41: Pp. 49, 50.] + +[Footnote 42: P. 67.] + +[Footnote 43: P. 122.] + + + + +XIII + +MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS + +If many of the lowest savages known to us entertain ideas of a Supreme +Being such as we find among Fuegians, Australians, Bushmen, and +Andamanese, are there examples, besides the Zulus, of tribes higher in +material culture who seem to have had such notions, but to have partly +forgotten or neglected them? Miss Kingsley, a lively, observant, and +unprejudiced, though rambling writer, gives this very account of the Bantu +races. Oblivion, or neglect, will show itself in leaving the Supreme Being +alone, as he needs no propitiation, while devoting sacrifice and ritual to +fetishes and ghosts. That this should be done is perfectly natural if the +Supreme Being (who wants no sacrifice) were the first evolved in thought, +while venal fetishes and spirits came in as a result of the ghost theory. +But if, as a result of the ghost theory, the Supreme Being came last in +evolution, he ought to be the most fashionable object of worship, the +latest developed, the most powerful, and most to be propitiated. He is the +reverse. + +To take an example: the Dinkas of the Upper Nile ('godless,' says Sir +Samuel Baker) 'pay a very theoretical kind of homage to the all-powerful +Being, dwelling in heaven, whence he sees all things. He is called +"Dendid" (great rain, that is, universal benediction?).' He is omnipotent, +but, being all beneficence, can do no evil; so, not being feared, he is +not addressed in prayer. The evil spirit, on the other hand, receives +sacrifices. The Dinkas have a strange old chant: + + 'At the beginning, when Dendid made all things, + He created the Sun, + And the Sun is born, and dies, and comes again! + He created the Stars, + And the Stars are born, and die, and come again! + He created Man, + And Man is born, and dies, and returns no more!' + +It is like the lament of Moschus.[1] + +Russegger compares the Dinkas, and all the neighbouring peoples who hold +the same beliefs, to modern Deists.[2] They are remote from Atheism and +from cult! Suggestions about an ancient Egyptian influence are made, but +popular Egyptian religion was not monotheistic, and priestly thought could +scarcely influence the ancestors of the Dinkas. M. Lejean says these +peoples are so practical and utilitarian that missionary religion takes no +hold on them. Mr. Spencer does not give the ideas of the Dinkas, but it is +not easy to see how the too beneficent Dendid could be evolved out of +ghost-propitiation, 'the origin of all religions.' Rather the Dinkas, a +practical people, seem to have simply forgotten to be grateful to +their Maker; or have decided, more to the credit of the clearness of their +heads than the warmth of their hearts, that gratitude he does not want. +Like the French philosopher they cultivate _l'indpendance du coeur_, +being in this matter strikingly unlike the Pawnees. + +Let us now take a case in which ancestor-worship, and no other form of +religion (beyond mere superstitions), has been declared to be the practice +of an African people. Mr. Spencer gives the example of natives of the +south-eastern district of Central Africa described by Mr. Macdonald in +'Africana.'[3] The dead man becomes a ghost-god, receives prayer and +sacrifice, is called a Mulungu (= great ancestor or = sky?), is preferred +above older spirits, now forgotten; such old spirits may, however, have a +mountain top for home, a great chief being better remembered; the +mountain god is prayed to for rain; higher gods were probably similar +local gods in an older habitat of the Yao.[4] + +Such is in the main Mr. Spencer's _rsum_ of Mr. Duff Macdonald's report. +He omits whatever Mr. Macdonald says about a Being among the Yaos, +analogous to the Dendid of the Dinkas, or the Darumulun of Australia, or +the Huron Ahone. Yet analysis detects, in Mr. Macdonald's report, +copious traces of such a Being, though Mr. Macdonald himself believes in +ancestor-worship as the Source of the local religion. Thus, Mulungu, +or Mlungu, used as a proper name, 'is said to be the great spirit, +_msimu_, of all men, a spirit formed by adding all the departed spirits +together.[5] This is a singular stretch of savage philosophy, and +indicates (says Mr. Macdonald) 'a grasping after a Being who is the +totality of all individual existence.... If it fell from the lips of +civilised men instead of savages, it would be regarded as philosophy. +Expressions of this kind among the natives are partly traditional, and +partly dictated by the big thoughts of the moment.' Philosophy it is, but +a philosophy dependent on the ghost theory. + +I go on to show that the Wayao have, though Mr. Spencer omits him, a Being +who precisely answers to Darumulun, if stripped (perhaps) of his ethical +aspect. On this point we are left in uncertainty, just because Mr. +Macdonald could not ascertain the secrets of his mysteries, which, in +Australia, have been revealed to a few Europeans. + +Where Mulungu is used as a proper name, it 'certainly points to a personal +Being, by the Wayao sometimes said to be the same as Mtanga. At other +times he is a Being that possesses many powerful servants, but is himself +kept a good deal beyond the scene of earthly affairs, like the gods of +Epicurus.' + +This is, of course, precisely the feature in African theology which +interests us. The Supreme Being, in spite of the potency which his +supposed place as latest evolved out of the ghost-world should naturally +give him, is neglected, either as half forgotten, or for philosophical +reasons. For these reasons Epicurus and Lucretius make their gods +_otiosi_, unconcerned, and the Wayao, with their universal collective +spirit, are no mean philosophers. + +'This Mulungu' or Mtanga, 'in the world beyond the grave, is represented +as assigning to spirits their proper places,' whether for ethical reasons +or not we are not informed.[6] Santos (1586) says 'they acknowledge a God +who, both in this world and the next, measures retribution for the good or +evil done in this.' + +'In the native hypothesis about creation "the people of Mulungu" play a +very important part.' These ministers of his who do his pleasure are, +therefore, as is Mulungu himself, regarded as prior to the existing world. +Therefore they cannot, in Wayao opinion, be ghosts of the dead at all; nor +can we properly call them 'spirits.' They are _beings_, original, +creative, but undefined. The word Mulungu, however, is now applied to +spirits of individuals, but whether it means 'sky' (Salt) or whether it +means 'ancestor' (Bleek), it cannot be made to prove that Mulungu himself +was originally envisaged as 'spirit.' For, manifestly, suppose that the +idea of powerful beings, undefined, came first in evolution, and was +followed by the ghost idea, that idea might then be applied to explaining +the pre-existent creative powers. + +Mtanga is by 'some' localised as the god of Mangochi, an Olympus left +behind by the Yao in their wanderings. Here, some hold, his voice is still +audible. 'Others say that Mtanga never was a man ... he was concerned in +the first introduction of men into the world. He gets credit for ... +making mountains and rivers. He is intimately associated with a year of +plenty. He is called Mchimwene juene, 'a very chief.' He has a kind of +evil opposite, _Chitowe_, but this being, the Satan of the creed, 'is a +child or subject of Mtanga,' an evil angel, in fact.[7] + +The thunder god, Mpambe, in Yao, Njasi (lightning) is also a minister of +the Supreme Being. 'He is sent by Mtanga with rain.' Europeans are +cleverer than natives, because we 'stayed longer with the people of +God (Mulungu).' + +I do not gather that, though associated with good crops, Mtanga or +Mulungu receives any sacrifice or propitiation. 'The chief addresses +his own god;'[8] the chief 'will not trouble himself about his +great-great-grand-father; he will present his offering to his own +immediate predecessor, saying, 'O father, I do not know all your +relatives; you know them all: invite them to feast with you.'[9] + +'All the offerings are supposed to point to some want of the spirit,' +Mtanga, on the other hand, is _nihil indiga nostri_. + +A village god is given beer to drink, as Indra got Soma. A dead chief is +propitiated by human sacrifices. I find no trace of any gift to Mtanga. +His mysteries are really unknown to Mr. Macdonald: they were laughed at +by a travelled and 'emancipated' Yao.[10] + +'These rites are supposed to be inviolably concealed by the initiated, who +often say that they would die if they revealed them.'[11] + +How can we pretend to understand a religion if we do not know its secret? +That secret, in Australia, yields the certainty of the ethical character +of the Supreme Being. Mr. Macdonald says about the initiator (a grotesque +figure):-- + +'He delivers lectures, and is said to give much good advice ... the +lectures condemn selfishness, and a selfish person is called _mwisichana_, +that is, "uninitiated."' + +There could not be better evidence of the presence of the ethical element +in the religious mysteries. Among the Yao, as among the Australian Kurnai, +the central secret lesson of religion is the lesson of unselfishness. + +It is not stated that Mtanga instituted or presides over the mysteries. +Judging from the analogy of Eleusis, the Bora, the Red Indian initiations, +and so on, we may expect this to be the belief; but Mr. Macdonald knows +very little about the matter. + +The legendary tales say 'all things in this world were made by "God."' +'At first there were not people, but "God" and beasts.' 'God' here, +is Mlungu. The other statement is apparently derived from existing +ancestor-worship, people who died became 'God' (Mlungu). But God is prior +to death, for the Yao have a form of the usual myth of the origin of +death, also of sleep: 'death and sleep are one word, they are of one +family.' God dwells on high, while a malevolent 'great one,' who disturbed +the mysteries and slew the initiated, was turned into a mountain.[12] + +In spite of information confessedly defective, I have extracted from Mr. +Spencer's chosen authority a mass of facts, pointing to a Yao belief in a +primal being, maker of mountains and rivers; existent before men were; not +liable to death--which came late among them--beneficent; not propitiated +by sacrifice (as far as the evidence goes); moral (if we may judge by the +analogy of the mysteries), and yet occupying the religious background, +while the foreground is held by the most recent ghosts. To prove Mr. +Spencer's theory, he ought to have given a full account of this being, and +to have shown how he was developed out of ghosts which are forgotten in +inverse ratio to their distance from the actual generation. I conceive +that Mr. Spencer would find a mid-point between a common ghost and Mtanga, +in a ghost of a chief attached to a mountain, the place and place-name +preserving the ghost's name and memory. But it is, I think, a far cry from +such a chief's ghost to the pre-human, angel-served Mtanga. + +Of ancestor worship and ghost worship, we have abundant evidence. But the +position of Mtanga raises one of these delicate and crucial questions +which cannot be solved by ignoring their existence. Is Mtanga evolved +out of an ancestral ghost? If so, why, as greatest of divine beings, 'Very +Chief,' and having powerful ministers under him, is he left unpropitiated, +unless it be by moral discourses at the mysteries? As a much more advanced +idea than that of a real father's ghost, he ought to be much later in +evolution, fresher in conception, and more adored. How do we explain his +lack of adoration? Was he originally envisaged as a ghost at all, and, if +so, by what curious but uniform freak of savage logic is he regarded as +prior to men, and though a ghost, prior to death? Is it not certain that +such a being could be conceived of by men who had never dreamed of ghosts? +Is there any logical reason why Mtanga should not be regarded as +originally on the same footing as Munganngaur, but now half forgotten and +neglected, for practical or philosophical reasons? + +On these problems light is thrown by a successor of Mr. Spencer's +authority, Mr. Duff Macdonald, in the Blantyre Mission. This gentleman, +the Rev. David Clement Scott, has published 'A Cyclopaedic Dictionary +of the Mang'anja Language in British Central Africa.'[13] Looking at +ancestral spirits first, we find _Mzimu_, 'spirits of the departed, +supposed to come in dreams.' Though abiding in the spirit world, they also +haunt thickets, they inspire Mlauli, prophets, and make them rave and +utter predictions. Offerings are made to them. Here is a prayer: 'Watch +over me, my ancestor, who died long ago; tell the great spirit at the head +of my race from whom my mother came.' There are little hut-temples, and +the chief directs the sacrifices of food, or of animals. There are +religious pilgrimages, with sacrifice, to mountains. God, like men in this +region, has various names, as Chiuta, 'God in space and the rainbow sign +across;' Mpambe, 'God Almighty' (or rather 'pre-excellent'); Mlezi, 'God +the Sustainer,' and Mulungu, 'God who is spirit.' Mulungu = God, 'not +spirits or fetish.' 'You can't put the plural, as God is One,' say the +natives. 'There are no idols called gods, and spirits are spirits of +people who have died, not gods.' Idols are _Zitunzi-zitunzi_. 'Spirits +are supposed to be with Mulungu.' God made the world and man. Our author +says 'when the chief or people sacrifice it is to God,' but he also says +that they sacrifice to ancestral spirits. There is some confusion of +ideas here: Mr. Macdonald says nothing of sacrifice to Mtanga. + +Mr. Scott does not seem to know more about the Mysteries than Mr. +Macdonald, and his article on Mulungu does not much enlighten us. Does +Mulungu, as Creative God, receive sacrifice, or not?[14] Mr. Scott gives +no instance of this, under _Nsembe_ (sacrifice), where ancestors, or +hill-dwelling ghosts of chiefs, are offered food; yet, as we have seen, +under _Mulungu_, he avers that the chiefs and people do sacrifice to God. +He appears to be confusing the Creator with spirits, and no reliance can +be placed on this part of his evidence. 'At the back of all this' +(sacrifice to spirits) 'there is God.' If I understand Mr. Scott, +sacrifices are really made only to spirits, but he is trying to argue +that, after all, the theistic conception is at the back of the animistic +practice, thus importing his theory into his facts. His theory would, +really, be in a better way, if sacrifice is _not_ offered to the Creator, +but this had not occurred to Mr. Scott. + +It is plain, in any case, that the religion of the Africans in the +Blantyre region has an element not easily to be derived from ancestral +spirit-worship, an element not observed by Mr. Spencer. + +Nobody who has followed the examples already adduced will be amazed by +what Waitz calls the 'surprising result' of recent inquiries among the +great negro race. Among the branches where foreign influence is least to +be suspected, we discover, behind their more conspicuous fetishisms and +superstitions, something which we cannot exactly call Monotheism, yet +which tends in that direction.[15] Waitz quotes Wilson for the fact that, +their fetishism apart, they adore a Supreme Being as the Creator: and do +not honour him with sacrifice. + +The remarks of Waitz may be cited in full: + +'The religion of the negro may be considered by some as a particularly +rude form of polytheism and may be branded with the special name of +fetishism. It would follow, from a minute examination of it, that--apart +from the extravagant and fantastic traits, which are rooted in the +character of the negro, and which radiate therefrom over all his +creations--in comparison with the religions of other savages it is neither +very specially differentiated nor very specially crude in form. + +'But this opinion can be held to be quite true only while we look at the +_outside_ of the negro's religion, or estimate its significance from +arbitrary pre-suppositions, as is specially the case with Ad. Wuttke. + +'By a deeper insight, which of late several scientific investigators have +succeeded in attaining, we reach, rather, the surprising conclusion that +several of the negro races--on whom we cannot as yet prove, and can hardly +conjecture, the influence of a more civilised people--in the embodying of +their religious conceptions are further advanced than almost all other +savages, so far that, even if we do not call them monotheists, we may +still think of them as standing on the boundary of monotheism, seeing that +their religion is also mixed with a great mass of rude superstition which, +in turn, among other peoples, seems to overrun completely the purer +religious conceptions.' + +This conclusion as to an element of pure faith in negro religion would not +have surprised Waitz, had recent evidence as to the same creed among lower +savages lain before him as he worked. + +This volume of his book was composed in 1860. In 1872 he had become well +aware of the belief in a good Maker among the Australian natives, and of +the absence among them of ancestor worship.[16] + +Waitz's remarks on the Supreme Being of the Negro are well worth noting, +from his unconcealed astonishment at the discovery. + +Wilson's observations on North and South Guinea religion were published in +1856. After commenting on the delicate task of finding out what a savage +religion really is, he writes: 'The belief in one great Supreme Being, +who made and upholds all things, is universal.'[17] The names of the being +are translated 'Maker,' 'Preserver,' 'Benefactor,' 'Great Friend.' Though +compact of all good qualities, the being has allowed the world to 'come +under the control of evil spirits,' who, alone, receive religious worship. +Though he leaves things uncontrolled, yet the chief being (as in Homer) +ratifies the Oath, at a treaty, and is invoked to punish criminals when +ordeal water is to be drunk. So far, then, he has an ethical influence. +'Grossly wicked people' are buried outside of the regular place. Fetishism +prevails, with spiritualism, and Wilson thinks that mediums might pick up +some good tricks in Guinea. He gives no examples. Their inspired men do +things 'that cannot be accounted for,' by the use of narcotics. + +The South Guinea Creator, Anyambia (= good spirit?), is good, but +capricious. He has a good deputy, Ombwiri (spelled 'Mbuiri' by Miss +Kingsley); _he alone has no priests_, but communicates directly with men. +The neighbouring Shekuni have mysteries of the Great Spirit. No details +are given. This great being, Mwetyi, witnesses covenants and punishes +perjury. This people are ancestor-worshippers, but their Supreme Being is +not said to receive sacrifice, as ghosts do, while he is so far from +being powerless, like Unkulunkulu, that, but for fear of his wrath, +'their national treaties would have little or no force.'[18] Having no +information about the mysteries, of course, we know nothing of other moral +influences which are, or may be exercised by these great, powerful, and +not wholly otiose beings. + +The celebrated traveller, Mungo Park, who visited Africa in 1805, had good +opportunities of understanding the natives. He did not hurry through the +land with a large armed force, but alone, or almost alone, paid his way +with his brass buttons. 'I have conversed with all ranks and conditions +upon the subject of their faith,' he says, 'and can pronounce, without the +smallest shadow of doubt, that the belief in one God and in a future state +of reward and punishment is entire and universal among them.' This cannot +strictly be called monotheism, as there are many subordinate spirits who +may be influenced by 'magical ceremonies.' But if monotheism means belief +in One Spirit alone, or religious regard paid to One Spirit alone, it +exists nowhere--no, not in Islam. + +Park thinks it remarkable that 'the Almighty' only receives prayers at the +new moon (of sacrifice to the Almighty he says nothing), and that, being +the creator and preserver of all things, he is 'of so exalted a nature +that it is idle to imagine the feeble supplications of wretched mortals +can reverse the decrees and change the purpose of unerring Wisdom.' The +new moon prayers are mere matters of tradition; 'our fathers did it before +us.' 'Such is the blindness of unassisted nature,' says Park, who is not +satirising, in Swift's manner, the prayers of Presbyterians at home on +Yarrow. + +Thus, the African Supreme Being is unpropitiated, while inferior spirits +are constrained by magic or propitiated with food. + +We meet our old problem: How has this God, in the conception of whom there +is so much philosophy, developed out of these hungry ghosts? The influence +of Islam can scarcely be suspected, Allah being addressed, of course, in +endless prayers, while the African god receives none. Indeed, it would be +more plausible to say that Mahomet borrowed Allah from the widespread +belief which we are studying, than that the negro's Supreme Being was +borrowed from Allah. + +Park had, as we saw, many opportunities of familiar discussion with the +people on whose mercies he threw himself. + +'But it is not often that the negroes make their religious opinions the +subject of conversation; when interrogated, in particular, concerning +their ideas of a future state, they express themselves with great +reverence, but endeavour to shorten the discussion by saying, _"Mo o mo +inta allo_" ("No man knows anything about it").'[19] + +Park himself, in extreme distress, and almost in despair, chanced to +observe the delicate beauty of a small moss-plant, and, reflecting that +the Creator of so frail a thing could not be indifferent to any of His +creatures, plucked up courage and reached safety.[20] He was not of the +negro philosophy, and is the less likely to have invented it. The new moon +prayer, said in a whisper, was reported to Park, 'by many different +people,' to contain 'thanks to God for his kindness during the existence +of the past moon, and to solicit a continuation of his favour during the +new one.' This, of course, may prove Islamite influence, and is at +variance with the general tendency of the religious philosophy as +described. + +We now arrive at a theory of the Supreme Being among a certain African +race which would be entirely fatal to my whole hypothesis on this topic, +if it could be demonstrated correct in fact, and if it could be stretched +so as to apply to the Australians, Fuegians, Andamanese, and other very +backward peoples. It is the hypothesis that the Supreme Being is a +'loan-god,' borrowed from Europeans. + +The theory is very lucidly set forth in Major Ellis's 'Tshi-speaking +Peoples of the Gold Coast.'[21] Major Ellis's opinion coincides with that +of Waitz in his 'Introduction to Anthropology' (an opinion to which Waitz +does not seem bigoted)--namely, that 'the original form of all religion is +a raw, unsystematic polytheism,' nature being peopled by inimical powers +or spirits, and everyone worshipping what he thinks most dangerous or +most serviceable. There are few general, many local or personal, objects +of veneration.[22] Major Ellis only met this passage when he had formed +his own ideas by observation of the Tshi race. We do not pretend to +guess what 'the original form of all religion' may have been; but we have +given, and shall give, abundant evidence for the existence of a loftier +faith than this, among peoples much lower in material culture than the +Tshi races, who have metals and an organised priesthood. They occupy, in +small villages (except Coomassie and Djuabin), the forests of the Gold +Coast. The mere mention of Coomassie shows how vastly superior in +civilisation the Tshis (Ashantis and Fantis) are to the naked, houseless +Australians. Their inland communities, however, are 'mere specks in a vast +tract of impenetrable forest.' The coast people have for centuries been in +touch with Europeans, but the 'Tshi-speaking races are now much in the +same condition, both socially and morally, as they were at the time of the +Portuguese discovery.'[23] + +Nevertheless, Major Ellis explains their Supreme Being as the result of +European influence! _A priori_ this appears highly improbable. That a +belief should sweep over all these specks in impenetrable forest, from +the coast-tribes in contact with Europeans, and that this belief should, +though the most recent, be infinitely the least powerful, cannot be +regarded as a plausible hypothesis. Moreover, on Major Ellis's theory the +Supreme Beings of races which but recently came for the first time in +contact with Europeans, Supreme Beings kept jealously apart from European +ken, and revered in the secrecy of ancient mysteries, must also, by +parity of reason, be the result of European influence. Unfortunately, +Major Ellis gives no evidence for his statements about the past history of +Tshi religion. Authorities he must have, and references would be welcome. + +'With people in the condition in which the natives of the Gold Coast now +are, religion is not in any way allied with moral ideas.'[24] We have given +abundant evidence that among much more backward tribes morals rest on a +religious sanction. If this be not so on the Gold Coast we cannot accept +these relatively advanced Fantis and Ashantis as representing the +'original' state of ethics and religion, any more than those people with +cities, a king, a priesthood, iron, and gold, represent the 'original' +material condition of society. Major Ellis also shows that the Gods exact +chastity from aspirants to the priesthood.[25] The present beliefs +of the Gold Coast are kept up by organised priesthoods as 'lucrative +business.'[26] Where there is no lucre and no priesthood, as among more +backward races, this kind of business cannot be done. On the Gold Coast +men can only approach gods through priests.[27] This is degeneration. + +Obviously, if religion began in a form relatively pure and moral, it +_must_ degenerate, as civilisation advances, under priests who 'exploit' +the lucrative, and can see no money in the pure elements of belief and +practice. That the lucrative elements in Christianity were exploited by +the clergy, to the neglect of ethics, was precisely the complaint of the +Reformers. From these lucrative elements the creed of the Apostles was +free, and a similar freedom marks the religion of Australia or of the +Pawnees. We cannot possibly, then, expect to find the 'original' state +of religion among a people subdued to a money-grubbing priesthood, like +the Tshi races. Let religion begin as pure as snow, it would be corrupted +by priestly trafficking in its lucrative animistic aspect. And priests are +developed relatively late. + +Major Ellis discriminates Tshi gods as-- + + 1. General, worshipped by an entire tribe or more tribes. + 2. Local deities of river, hill, forest, or sea. + 3. Deities of families or corporations. + 4. Tutelary deities of individuals. + +The second class, according to the natives, were appointed by the first +class, who are 'too distant or indifferent to interfere ordinarily in +human affairs.' Thus, the Huron god, Ahone, punishes nobody. He is all +sweetness and light, but has a deputy god, called Okeus. On our hypothesis +this indifference of high gods suggests the crowding out of the great +disinterested God by venal animistic competition. All of class II. 'appear +to have been originally malignant.' Though, in native belief, class I. +was prior to, and 'appointed' class II., Major Ellis thinks that malignant +spirits of class II. were raised to class I. as if to the peerage, while +classes III. and IV. 'are clearly the product of priesthood'--therefore +late. + +Major Ellis then avers that when Europeans reached the Gold Coast, in the +fifteenth century, they 'appear to have found' a Northern God, Tando, and +a Southern God, Bobowissi, still adored. Bobowissi makes thunder and rain, +lives on a hill, and receives, or received, human sacrifices. But, 'after +an intercourse of some years with Europeans,' the villagers near European +forts 'added to their system a new deity, whom they termed Nana Nyankupon. +This was the God of the Christians, borrowed from them, and adapted under +a new designation, meaning 'Lord of the sky.' (This is conjectural. +_Nyankum_ = rain. _Nyansa_ has 'a later meaning, "craft."')[28] + +Now Major Ellis, later, has to contrast Bosman's account of fetishism +(1700) with his own observations. According to Bosman's native source of +information, men then selected their own fetishes. These are _now_ +selected by priests. Bosman's authority was wrong--or priesthood has +extended its field of business. Major Ellis argues that the revolution +from amateur to priestly selection of fetishes could not occur in +190 years, 'over a vast tract of country, amongst peoples living in +semi-isolated communities, in the midst of pathless forests, where there +is but little opportunity for the exchange of ideas, _and where we know +they have been uninfluenced by any higher race_.' + +Yet Major Ellis's theory is that this isolated people _were_ influenced +by a higher race, to the extent of adopting a totally new Supreme Being, +from Europeans, a being whom they in no way sought to propitiate, and who +was of no practical use. And this they did, he says, not under priestly +influence, but in the face of priestly opposition.[29] + +Major Ellis's logic does not appear to be consistent. In any case we ask +for evidence how, in the 'impenetrable forests' did a new Supreme Deity +become universally known? Are we certain that travellers (unquoted) did +not discover a deity with no priests, or ritual, or 'money in the +concern,' later than they discovered the blood-stained, conspicuous, +lucrative Bobowissi? Why was Nyankupon, the supposed new god of a new +powerful set of strangers, left wholly unpropitiated? The reverse was to +be expected. + +Major Ellis writes: 'Almost certainly the addition of one more to an +already numerous family' of gods, 'was strenuously resisted by the +priesthood,' who, confessedly, are adding now lower gods every day! Yet +Nyankupon is universally known, in spite of priestly resistance. +Nyankupon, I presume = Anzambi, Anyambi, Nyambi, Nzambi, Anzam, Nyam, the +Nzam of the Fans, 'and of all Bantu coast races, the creator of man, +plants, animals, and the earth; he takes no further interest in the +affair.'[30] The crowd of _spirits_ take only too much interest; and, +therefore, are the lucrative element in religion. + +It is not very easy to believe that Nyam, under all his names, was picked +up from the Portuguese, and passed apparently from negroes to Bantu all +over West Africa, despite the isolation of the groups, and the resistance +of the priesthood among tribes 'uninfluenced by any higher race.' + +Nyam, like Major Ellis's class I., appoints a subordinate god to do his +work: he is truly good, and governs the malevolent spirits.[31] + +The spread of Nyankupon, as described by Major Ellis, is the more +remarkable, since 'five or six miles from the sea, or even less, the +country was a _terra incognita_ to Europeans,'[32] Nyankupon was, it is +alleged, adopted, because our superiority proved Europeans to be +'protected by a deity of greater power than any of those to which they +themselves' (the Tshi races) 'offered sacrifices.' + +Then, of course, Nyankupon would receive the best sacrifices of all, as +the most powerful deity? Far from that, Nyankupon received no sacrifice, +and had no priests. No priest would have a traditional way of serving him. +As the unlucky man in Voltaire says to his guardian angel, 'It is well +worth while to have a presiding genius,' so the Tshis and Bantu might +ironically remark, 'A useful thing, a new Supreme Being!' A quarter of a +continent or so adopts a new foreign god, and leaves him _plant l_; +unserved, unhonoured, and unsung. He therefore came to be thought too +remote, or too indifferent, 'to interfere directly in the affairs of the +world.' 'This idea was probably caused by the fact that the natives had +not experienced any material improvement in their condition ... although +they also had become followers of the god of the whites.'[33] + +But that was just what they had not done! Even at Magellan's Straits, the +Fuegians picked up from a casual Spanish sea-captain and adored an image +of Cristo. Name and effigy they accepted. The Tshi people took neither +effigy nor name of a deity from the Portuguese settled among them. They +neither imitated Catholic rites nor adapted their own; they prayed not, +nor sacrificed to the 'new' Nyankupon. Only his name and the idea of his +nature are universally diffused in West African belief. He lives in no +definite home, or hill, but 'in Nyankupon's country.' Nyankupon, at the +present day, is 'ignored rather than worshipped,' while Bobowissi has +priests and offerings. + +It is clear that Major Ellis is endeavouring to explain, by a singular +solution (namely, the borrowing of a God from Europeans), and that +a solution improbable and inadequate, a phenomenon of very wide +distribution. Nyankupon cannot be explained apart from Taaroa, Puluga, +Ahone, Ndengei, Dendid, and Ta-li-y-Tochoo, Gods to be later described, +who cannot, by any stretch of probabilities, be regarded as of European +origin. All of these represent the primeval Supreme Being, more or less +or altogether stripped, under advancing conditions of culture, of his +ethical influence, and crowded out by the horde of useful greedy ghosts or +ghost gods, whose business is lucrative. Nyankupon has no pretensions to +be, or to have been a 'spirit.'[34] + +Major Ellis's theory is a natural result of his belief in a tangle of +polytheism as 'the original state of religion.' If so, there was not much +room for the natural development of Nyankupon, in whom 'the missionaries +find a parallel to the Jahveh of the Jews.'[35] On our theory Nyankupon +takes his place in the regular process of the corruption of theism by +animism. + +The parallel case of Nzambi Mpungu, the Creator among the Fiorts (a Bantu +stock), is thus stated by Miss Kingsley: + +'I have no hesitation in saying I fully believe Nzambi Mpungu to be a +purely native god, and that he is a great god over all things, but the +study of him is even more difficult than the study of Nzambi, because the +Jesuit missionaries who gained so great an influence over the Fiorts in +the sixteenth century identified him with Jehovah, and worked on the +native mind from that stand-point. Consequently semi-mythical traces +of Jesuit teaching linger, even now, in the religious ideas of the +Fiorts.'[36] + +Nzambi Mpungu lives 'behind the firmament.' 'He takes next to no interest +in human affairs;' which is not a Jesuit idea of God. + +In all missionary accounts of savage religion, we have to guard against +two kinds of bias. One is the bias which makes the observer deny any +religion to the native race, except devil-worship. The other is the bias +which lends him to look for traces of a pure primitive religious +tradition. Yet we cannot but observe this reciprocal phenomenon: +missionaries often find a native name and idea which answer so nearly to +their conception of God that they adopt the idea and the name, in +teaching. Again, on the other side, the savages, when first they hear the +missionaries' account of God, recognise it, as do the Hurons and Bakwain, +for what has always been familiar to them. This is recorded in very early +pre-missionary travels, as in the book of William Strachey on Virginia +(1612), to which we now turn. The God found by Strachey in Virginia +cannot, by any latitude of conjecture, be regarded as the result of +contact with Europeans. Yet he almost exactly answers to the African +Nyankupon, who is explained away as a 'loan-god.' For the belief in +relatively pure creative beings, whether they are morally adored, without +sacrifice, or merely neglected, is so widely diffused, that Anthropology +must ignore them, or account for them as 'loan-gods'--or give up her +theory! + +[Footnote 1: Lejean, _Rev. des Deux Mondes_, April 1862, p. 760. Citing +for the chant, Beltrame, _Dictionario della lingua denka_, MS.] + +[Footnote 2: Waitz, ii. 74.] + +[Footnote 3: 1882.] + +[Footnote 4: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, 681.] + +[Footnote 5: _Africana_, i. 66.] + +[Footnote 6: _Africana_, i. 67.] + +[Footnote 7: _Africana_, i. 71, 72_] + +[Footnote 8: i 88.] + +[Footnote 9: i. 68.] + +[Footnote 10: i. 130.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 12: _Africana_, i 279-301.] + +[Footnote 13: Edinburgh, 1892.] + +[Footnote 14: Incidentally Mr. Macdonald shows that, contrary to Mr. +Spencer's opinion, these savages have words for dreams and dreaming. They +interpret dreams by a system of symbols, 'a canoe is ill luck,' and 'dreams +go by contraries.'] + +[Footnote 15: Waitz, _Anthropologie_, ii. 167.] + +[Footnote 16: Waitz and Gerland, _Anthropologie_, vi. 796-799 and 809. In +1874 Mr. Howitt's evidence on the moral element in the mysteries was not +published. Waitz scouts the idea that the higher Australian beliefs are of +European origin. 'Wir schen vielmehr uralte Trmmer hnlicher Mythologenie +in ihnen,' (vi. 798) flotsam from ideas of immemorial antiquity.] + +[Footnote 17: Wilson, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 18: Wilson, p. 392.] + +[Footnote 19: Park's _Journey_, i. 274, 275, 1815.] + +[Footnote 20: P. 245.] + +[Footnote 21: London, 1887.] + +[Footnote 22: Ellis, pp. 20, 21.] + +[Footnote 23: P. 4.] + +[Footnote 24: Ellis, p. 10.] + +[Footnote 25: P. 120.] + +[Footnote 26: P. 15.] + +[Footnote 27: P. 125.] + +[Footnote 28: Ellis, pp. 24, 25.] + +[Footnote 29: Ellis, p. 189.] + +[Footnote 30: Miss Kingsley, p. 442.] + +[Footnote 31: Ellis, p. 229.] + +[Footnote 32: Ibid. p. 25.] + +[Footnote 33: Op. cit. p. 27.] + +[Footnote 34: Ellis, p. 29.] + +[Footnote 35: Op. cit. p. 28.] + +[Footnote 36: 'African Religion and Law,' _National Review_, September +1897, p. 132.] + + + + +XIV + +AHONE. TI-RA-W. N-PI. PACHACAMAC. TUI LAGA. TAA-ROA + +In this chapter it is my object to set certain American Creators beside +the African beings whom we have been examining. We shall range from Hurons +to Pawnees and Blackfeet, and end with Pachacamac, the supreme being of +the old Inca civilisation, with Tui Laga and Taa-roa. It will be seen that +the Hurons have been accidentally deprived of their benevolent Creator by +a bibliographical accident, while that Creator corresponds very well +with the Peruvian Pachucamac, often regarded as a mere philosophical +abstraction. The Pawnees will show us a Creator involved in a sacrificial +ritual, which is not common, while the Blackfeet present a Creator who is +not envisaged as a spirit at all, and, on our theory, represents a very +early stage of the theistic conception. + +To continue the argument from analogy against Major Ellis's theory of the +European origin of Nyankupon, it seems desirable first to produce a +parallel to his case, and to that of his blood-stained subordinate +deity, Bobowissi, from a quarter where European influence is absolutely +out of the question. Virginia was first permanently colonised by +Englishmen in 1607, and the 'Historie of Travaile into Virginia,' by +William Strachey, Gent., first Secretary of the Colony, dates from the +earliest years (1612-1616). It will hardly be suggested, then, that the +natives had already adopted _our_ Supreme Being, especially as Strachey +says that the native priests strenuously opposed the Christian God. +Strachey found a house-inhabiting, agricultural, and settled population, +under chiefs, one of whom, Powhattan, was a kind of Bretwalda. The temples +contained the dried bodies of the _weroances_, or aristocracy, beside +which was their Okeus, or Oki, an image 'ill favouredly carved,' all +black dressed, 'who doth them all the harm they suffer. He is propitiated +by sacrifices of their own children' (probably an error) 'and of +strangers.' + +Mr. Tylor quotes a description of this Oki, or Okeus, with his idol and +bloody rites, from Smith's 'History of Virginia' (1632)[1]. The two books, +Strachey's and Smith's, are here slightly varying copies of one original. +But, after censuring Smith's (and Strachey's) hasty theory that Okeus is +'no other than a devil,' Mr. Tylor did not find in Smith what follows in +Strachey. Okeus has human sacrifices, like Bobowissi, 'whilst the great +God (the priests tell them) who governes all the world, and makes +the son to shine, creatyng the moone and starrs his companyons ... they +calling (_sic_) Ahone. The good and peaceable God requires no such dutyes, +nor needs to be sacrificed unto, for he intendeth all good unto them,' +Okeus, on the contrary, 'looking into all men's accions, and examining the +same according to the severe scheme of justice, punisheth them.... Such is +the misery and thraldome under which Sathan hath bound these wretched +miscreants.' + +As if, in Mr. Strachey's own creed, Satan does not punish, in hell, the +offences of men against God! + +Here, then, in addition to a devil (or rather a divine police magistrate), +and general fetishism and nature worship, we find that the untutored +Virginian is equipped with a merciful Creator, without idol, temple, or +sacrifice, as needing nought of ours. It is by the merest accident, the +use of Smith's book (1632) instead of Strachey's book (1612), that Mr. +Tylor is unaware of these essential facts[2]. + +Dr. Brinton, like Mr. Tylor, cites Smith for the nefarious or severe +Okeus, and omits any mention of Ahone, the benevolent Creator.[3] +Now, Strachey's evidence is early (1612), is that of a well-educated +man, fond of airing his Greek, and not prejudiced in favour of these +worshippers of 'Sathan.' In Virginia he found the unpropitiated loving +Supreme Being, beside a subordinate, like Nyankupon beside Bobowissi in +Africa. + +Each highest deity, in Virginia or on the Gold Coast, is more or less +eclipsed in popular esteem by nascent polytheism and nature worship. This +is precisely what we should expect to find, if Ahone, the Creator, were +earlier in evolution, while Okeus and the rest were of the usual greedy +class of animistic corruptible deities, useful to priests. This could not +be understood while Ahone was left out of the statement.[4] + +Probably Mr. Strachey's narrative justifies, by analogy, our suspicion of +Major Ellis's theory that the African Supreme Being is of European origin. +The purpose in the Ahone-Okeus creed is clear. God (Ahone) is omnipotent +and good, yet calamities beset mankind. How are these to be explained? +Clearly as penalties for men's sins, inflicted, not by Ahone, but by his +lieutenant, Okeus. But that magistrate can be, and is, appeased by +sacrifices, which it would be impious, or, at all events, useless, to +offer to the Supreme Being, Ahone. It is a logical creed, but how was the +Supreme Being evolved out of the ghost of a 'people-devouring king' like +Powhattan? The facts, very fairly attested, do not fit the anthropological +theory. It is to be remarked that Strachey's Ahone is a much less +mythological conception than that which, on very good evidence, he +attributes to the Indians of the Patowemeck River. Their Creator is spoken +of as 'a godly Hare,' who receives their souls into Paradise, whence they +are reborn on earth again, as in Plato's myth. They also regard the four +winds as four Gods. How the god took the mythological form of a hare is +diversely explained.[5] + +Meanwhile the Ahone-Okeus creed corresponds to the Nyankupon-Bobowissi +creed. The American faith is certainly not borrowed from Europe, so it is +less likely that the African creed is borrowed. + +As illustrations of the general theory here presented, we may now take two +tribal religions among the North American Indians. The first is that of +the equestrian Pawnees, who, thirty years ago, were dwelling on the Loup +Fork in Nebraska. The buffaloes have since been destroyed, the lands +seized, and the Pawnees driven into a 'Reservation,' where they are, or +lately were, cheated and oppressed in the usual way. They were originally +known to Europeans in four hordes, the fourth being the Skidi or Wolf +Pawnees. They seem to have come into Kansas and Nebraska, at a date +relatively remote, from Mexico, and are allied with the Lipans and +Tonkaways of that region. The Tonkaways are a tribe who, in a sacred +mystery, are admonished to 'live like the wolves,' in exactly the same way +as were the Hirpi (wolf tribe), of Mount Soracte, who practised the feat +of walking unhurt through fire.[6] The Tonkaways regard the Pawnees, who +also have a wolf tribe, as a long-separated branch of their race. If, +then, they are of Mexican origin, we might expect to find traces of Aztec +ritual among the Pawnees. + +Long after they obtained better weapons they used flint-headed arrows for +slaying the only two beasts which it was lawful to sacrifice, the deer and +the buffalo. They have long been a hunting and also an agricultural +people. The corn was given to them originally by the Ruler: their god, +_Ti-ra-w_, 'the Spirit Father.' They offer the sacrifice of a deer with +peculiar solemnity, and are a very prayerful people. The priest 'held a +relation to the Pawnees and their deity not unlike that occupied by Moses +to Jehovah and the Israelites.' A feature in ritual is the sacred bundles +of unknown contents, brought from the original home in Mexico. The Pawnees +were created by Ti-ra-w. They believe in a happy future life, while the +wicked die, and there is an end of them. They cite their dreams of the +dead as an argument for a life beyond the tomb. 'We see ourselves living +with Ti-ra-w!' An evil earlier race, which knew not Ti-ra-w, was +destroyed by him in the Deluge; evidence is found in large fossil bones, +and it would be an interesting inquiry whether such fossils are always +found where the story of a 'sin-flood' occurs. If so, fossils must be +universally diffused. + +As is common, the future life is attested, not only by dreams, but in the +experience of men who 'have died' and come back to life, like Secret Pipe +Chief, who told the story to Mr. Grinnell. These visions in a state of +apparent death are not peculiar to savages, and, no doubt, have had much +effect on beliefs about the next world.[7] Ghosts are rarely seen, but +auditory hallucinations, as of a voice giving good advice in time of +peril, are regarded as the speech of ghosts. The beasts are also friendly, +as fellow children with men of Ti-ra-w. To the Morning Star the Skidi or +Wolf Pawnees offered on rare occasions a captive man. The ceremony was not +unlike that of the Aztecs, though less cruel. Curiously enough, the slayer +of the captive had instantly to make a mock flight, as in the Attic +_Bouphonia_. This, however, was a rite paid to the Morning Star, not to +Ti-ra-w, 'the power above that moves the universe and controls all +things.' Sacrifice to Ti-ra-w was made on rare and solemn occasions out +of his two chief gifts, deer and buffalo. 'Through corn, deer, buffalo, +and the sacred bundles, we worship _Ti-ra-w_.' + +The flesh was burned in the fire, while prayers were made with great +earnestness. In the old Skidi rite the women told the fattened captive +what they desired to gain from the Ruler. It is occasionally said that +the human sacrifice was made to _Ti-ra-w_ himself. The sacrificer not +only fled, but fasted and mourned. It is possible that, as among the +Aztecs, the victim was regarded as also an embodiment of the God, but this +is not certain, the rite having long been disused. Mr. Grinnell got the +description from a very old Skidi. There was also a festival of thanks to +Ti-ra-w for corn. During a sacred dance and hymn the corn is held up to +the Ruler by a woman. Corn is ritually called 'The Mother,' as in Peru.[8] +'We are like seed, and we worship through the Corn.' + +Disease is caused by evil spirits, and many American soldiers were healed +by Pawnee doctors, though their hurts had refused to yield to the +treatment of the United States Army Surgeons.[9] + +The miracles wrought by Pawnee medicine men, under the eyes of Major +North, far surpass what is told of Indian jugglery. But this was forty +years ago, and it is probably too late to learn anything of these +astounding performances of naked men on the hard floor of a lodge. +'Major North told me' (Mr. Grinnell) 'that he saw with his own eyes the +doctors make the corn grow,' the doctor not manipulating the plant, as in +the Mango trick, but standing apart and singing. Mr. Grinnell says: 'I +have never found any one who could even suggest an explanation.' + +This art places great power in the hands of the doctors, who exhibit many +other prodigies. It is notable that in this religion we hear nothing of +ancestor-worship; all that is stated as to ghosts has been reported. We +find the cult of an all-powerful being, in whose ritual sacrifice is the +only feature that suggests ghost-worship. The popular tales and historical +reminiscences of the last generation entirely bear out by their allusions +Mr. Grinnell's account of the Pawnee faith, in which the ethical element +chiefly consists in a sense of dependence on and touching gratitude to +Ti-ra-w, as shown in fervent prayer. Theft he abhors, he applauds valour, +he punishes the wicked by annihilation, the good dwell with him in his +heavenly home. He is addressed as A-ti-us ta-kaw-a, 'Our father in all +places.' + +It is not so easy to see how this Being was developed out of +ancestor-worship, of which we find no traces among Pawnees. For +ancestor-worship among the Sioux, it is usual to quote a remark of one +Prescott, an interpreter: 'Sometimes an Indian will say, "Wah negh on she +wan da," which means, "Spirits of the dead have mercy on me." Then they +will add what they want. That is about the amount of an Indian's +prayer.'[10] Obviously, when we compare Mr. Grinnell's account of Pawnee +religion, based on his own observations, and those of Major North, and +Mr. Dunbar, who has written on the language of the tribe, we are on much +safer ground, than when we follow a contemptuous, half-educated European. + +The religion of the Blackfoot Indians appears to be a ruder form of the +Pawnee faith. Whether the differences arise from tribal character, or from +decadence, or because the Blackfoot belief is in an earlier and more +backward condition than that of the Pawnees, it is not easy to be certain. +As in China, there exists a difficulty in deciding whether the Supreme +Being is identical with the great nature-god; in China the Heaven, among +the Blackfeet the Sun; or is prior to him in conception, or has been, +later, substituted for him, or placed beside him. The Blackfoot mythology +is low, crude, and, except in tales of Creation, is derisive. As in +Australia, there is a specific difference of tone between mythology and +religion. + +The Blackfoot country runs east from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, to +the mouth of the Yellowstone river on the Missouri, then west to the +Yellowstone sources, across the Rocky Mountains to the Beaverhead, thence +to their summit. + +As to spirits, the Blackfeet believe in, or at least tell stories of, +ghosts, which conduct themselves much as in our old-fashioned ghost +stories. They haunt people in a rather sportive and irresponsible way. The +souls or shadows of respectable persons go to the bleak country called the +Sand Hills, where they live in a dull, monotonous kind of Sheol. The +shades of the wicked are 'earth-bound' and mischievous, especially ghosts +of men slain in battle. They cause paralysis and madness, but dread +interiors of lodges; they only 'tap on the lodge-skins.' Like many Indian +tribes, the Blackfeet have the Eurydice legend. A man grieving for his +dead wife finds his way to Hades, is pitied by the dead, and allowed to +carry the woman back with him, under certain ritual prohibitions, one of +which he unhappily infringes. The range of this deeply touching story +among the Red Men, and its close resemblance to the tale of Orpheus, is +one of the most curious facts in mythology. Mr. Grinnell's friend Young +Bear, when lost with his wife in a fog, heard a Voice, 'It is well. Go on, +you are going right.' 'The top of my head seemed to lift up. It seemed as +if a lot of needles were running into it.... This must have been a ghost.' +As the wife also heard the Voice it was probably human, not hallucinatory. + +Animals receive the usual amount of friendly respect from the Blackfeet. +They have also an inchoate polytheism, 'Above Persons, Ground Persons, and +Under Water Persons.' Of the first, Thunder is most important, and is +worshipped. There is the Cold Maker, a white figure on a white horse, the +Wind, and so on. + +The Creator is N-pi, Old Man; Dr. Brinton thinks he is a personification +of Light, but Mr. Grinnell reckons it absurd to attribute so abstract a +conception to the Blackfeet. N-pi is simply a primal Being, an Immortal +Man,[11] who was before Death came into the world, concerning which one of +the usual tales of the Origin of Death is told. 'All things that he had +made understood him when he spoke to them--birds, animals, and people,' as +in the first chapters of Genesis. With N-pi, Creation worked on the lines +of adaptation to environment. He put the bighorn on the prairie. There it +was awkward, so he set it on rocky places, where it skipped about with +ease. The antelope fell on the rocks, so he removed it to the level +prairie. N-pi created man and woman, out of clay, but the folly of the +woman introduced Death. N-pi, as a Prometheus, gave fire, and taught the +forest arts. He inculcated the duty of prayer; his will should be done by +emissaries in the shape of animals. Then he went to other peoples. The +misfortunes of the Indians arise from disobedience to his laws. + +Chiefs were elective, for conduct, courage, and charity. + +Though weapons and utensils were buried with the dead, or exposed on +platforms, and though great men were left to sleep in their lodges, +henceforth never to be entered by the living, there is no trace known to +me of continued ancestor-worship. As many Blackfeet change their names +yearly, ancestral names are not likely to become those of gods. + +The Sun is by many believed to have taken the previous place of N-pi in +religion; or perhaps N-pi _is_ the Sun. However, he is still separately +addressed in prayer. The Sun receives presents of furs and so forth; a +finger, when the prayer is for life, has been offered to him. Fetishism +probably shows itself in gifts to a great rock. There is daily prayer, +both to the Sun and to N-pi. Women institute Medicine Lodges, praying, +'Pity me, Sun. You have seen my life. You know that I am pure.' 'We look +on the Medicine Lodge woman as you white people do on the Roman Catholic +Sisters.' Being 'virtuous in deed, serious, and clean-minded,' the Medical +Lodge woman is in spiritual _rapport_ with N-pi and the Sun. To this +extent, at least, Blackfoot religion is an ethical influence. + +The creed seems to be a nascent polytheism, subordinate to N-pi as +supreme Maker, and to the personified Sun. As Blackfoot ghosts are +'vaporous, ineffectual' for good, there seems to be nothing like ancestor +worship. + +These two cults and beliefs, Pawnee and Blackfoot, may be regarded as +fairly well authenticated examples of un-Christianised American religion +among races on the borderland of agriculture and the chase. It would be +difficult to maintain that ghost-worship or ancestor-worship is a potent +factor in the evolution of the deathless Ti-ra-w or the immortal Creator +N-pi, who has nothing of the spirit about him, especially as ghosts are +not worshipped.[12] + +Let us now look at the Supreme Being of a civilised American people. There +are few more interesting accounts of religion than Garcilasso de la Vega's +description of faith in Peru. Garcilasso was of Inca parentage on the +spindle side; he was born in 1540, and his book, taken from the traditions +of an uncle, and aided by the fragmentary collections of Father Blas +Valera, was published in 1609. In Garcilasso's theory the original people +of Peru, Totemists and worshippers of hills and streams, Earth and Sea, +were converted to Sun worship by the first Inca, a child of the Sun. Even +the new religion included ancestor-worship and other superstitions. But +behind Sun worship was the faith in a Being who 'advanced the Sun so far +above all the stars of heaven.'[13] This Being was Pachacamac, 'the +sustainer of the world.' The question then arises, Is Pachacamac a form of +the same creative being whom we find among the lowest savages; or is he +the result of philosophical reflection? The latter was the opinion +of Garcilasso. 'The Incas and their Amautas' (learned class) 'were +philosophers.'[14] + +'Pacha,' he says, = universe, and 'cama' = soul. Pachacamac, then, is +_Anima Mundi_. 'They did not even take the name of Pachacamac into their +mouths,' or but seldom and reverently, as the Australians will not, in +religious matters, mention Darumulun. Pachacamac had no temple, 'but they +worshipped him in their hearts.' That he was the Creator appears in an +earlier writer, cited by Garcilasso, Agustin de Zarate (ii. ch. 5). +Garcilasso, after denying the existence of temples to Pachacamac, mentions +one, but only one. He insists, at length, and with much logic, that He +whom, as a Christian, he worships, is in Quichua styled Pachacamac. +Moreover, the one temple to Pachacamac was not built by an Inca, but by +a race which, having heard of the Inca god, borrowed his name, without +understanding his nature, that of a Being who dwells not in temples made +with hands (ii. 186). In the temple this people, the Yuncas, offered even +human sacrifices. By the Incas to Pachacamac no sacrifice was offered +(ii. 189). This negative custom they also imposed upon the Yuncas, and +they removed idols from the Yunca temple of Pachacamac (ii. 190). Yunca +superstitions, however, infested the temple, and a Voice gave oracles +therein.[15] The Yuncas also had a talking idol, which the Inca, in +accordance with a religious treaty, occasionally consulted. + +While Pachacamac, without temple or rite, was reckoned the Creator, we +must understand that Sun-worship and ancestor-worship were the practical +elements of the Inca cult. This appears to have been distasteful to the +Inca Huayna Ccapac, for at a Sun feast he gazed hard on the Sun, was +remonstrated with by a priest, and replied that the restless Sun 'must +have another Lord more powerful than himself.'[16] + +This remark could not have been necessary if Pachacamac were really an +article of living and universal belief. Perhaps we are to understand that +this Inca, like his father, who seems to have been the original author of +the saying, meant to sneer at the elaborate worship bestowed on the Sun, +while Pachacamac was neglected, as far as ritual went. + +In Garcilasso's book we have to allow for his desire to justify the creed +of his maternal ancestors. His criticism of Spanish versions is acute, and +he often appeals to his knowledge of Quichua, and to the direct traditions +received by him from his uncle. Against his theory of Pachacamac as a +result of philosophical thought, it may be urged that similar conceptions, +or nearly similar, exist among races not civilised like the Incas, and not +provided with colleges of learned priests. In fact, the position of +Pachacamac and the Sun is very nearly that of the Blackfoot Creator N-pi, +and the Sun, or of Shang-ti and the Heaven, in China. We have the Creative +Being whose creed is invaded by that of a worshipped aspect of nature, and +whose cult, quite logically, is _nil_, or nearly _nil_. There are also, in +different strata of the Inca empire, ancestor-worship, or mummy-worship, +Totemism and polytheism, with a vague mass of _huaca = Elohim, kalou, +wakan._ + +Perhaps it would not be too rash to conjecture that Pachacamac is not a +merely philosophical abstraction, but a survival of a Being like N-pi or +Ahone. Cieza de Leon calls Pachacamac 'a devil,' whose name means +'creator of the world'![17] The name, when it _was_ uttered, was spoken +with genuflexions and signs of reverence. So closely did Pachacamac +resemble the Christian Deity, that Cieza de Leon declares the devil to +have forged and insisted on the resemblance![18] It was open to Spanish +missionaries to use Pachacamac, as to the Jesuits among the Bantu to use +Mpungu, as a fulcrum for the introduction of Christianity. They preferred +to regard Pachacamac as a fraudulent fiend. Now Nzambi Mpungu, among the +Bantu, is assuredly not a creation of a learned priesthood, for the Bantu +have no learned priests, and Mpungu would be useless to the greedy +conjurers whom they do consult, as he is not propitiated. On grounds of +analogy, then, Pachacamac may be said to resemble a savage Supreme +Being, somewhat etherealised either by Garcilasso or by the Amautas, the +learned class among the subjects of the Incas. He does not seem, even so, +much superior to the Ahone of the Virginians. + +We possess, however, a different account of Inca religion, from which +Garcilasso strongly dissents. The best version is that of Christoval de +Molina, who was chaplain of the hospital for natives, and wrote between +1570 and 1584.[19] Christoval assembled a number of old priests and other +natives who had taken part in the ancient services, and collected their +evidence. He calls the Creator ('not born of woman, unchangeable +and eternal') by the name Pachayachachi. 'Teacher of the world' and +'Tecsiviracocha,' which Garcilasso dismisses as meaningless.[20] He also +tells the tale of the Inca Yupanqui and the Lord of the Sun, but +says that the Incas had already knowledge of the Creator. To Yupanqui he +attributes the erection of a gold image of the Creator, utterly denied by +Garcilasso.[21] Christoval declares, again contradicted by Garcilasso, +that sacrifices were offered to the Creator. Unlike the Sun, Christoval +says, the Creator had no woman assigned to him, 'because, as he created +them, they all belonged to him' (p. 26), which, of course, is an idea that +would also make sacrifice superfluous. + +Christoval gives prayers in Quichua, wherein the Creator is addressed as +_Uiracocha_. + +Christoval assigns images, sacrifice, and even human sacrifice, to the +Creator Uiracocha. Garcilasso denies that the Creator Pachacamac had any +of these things, he denies that Uiracocha was the name of the Creator, +and he denies it, knowing that the Spaniards made the assertion.[22] Who +is right? Uiracocha, says Garcilasso, is one thing, with his sacrifices; +the Creator, Pachacamac, without sacrifices, is another, is GOD. + +Mr. Markham thinks that Garcilasso, writing when he did, and not +consciously exaggerating, was yet less trustworthy (though 'wonderfully +accurate') than Christoval. Garcilasso, however, is 'scrupulously +truthful.'[23] 'The excellence of his memory is perhaps best shown in +his topographical details.... He does not make a single mistake,' in the +topography of three hundred and twenty places! A scrupulously truthful +gentleman, endowed with an amazing memory, and a master of his native +language, flatly contradicts the version of a Spanish priest, who also +appears to have been careful and honourable. + +I shall now show that Christoval and Garcilasso have different versions of +the same historical events, and that Garcilasso bases his confutation of +the Spanish theory of the Inca Creator on his form of this historical +tradition, which follows: + +The Inca Yahuarhuaccac, like George II., was at odds with his Prince of +Wales. He therefore banished the Prince to Chita, and made him serve as +shepherd of the llamas of the Sun. Three years later the disgraced +Prince came to Court, with what the Inca regarded as a cock-and-bull story +of an apparition of the kind technically styled 'Borderland.' Asleep or +awake, he knew not, he saw a bearded robed man holding a strange animal. +The appearance declared himself as Uiracocha (Christoval's name for the +Creator), a Child of the Sun; by no means as Pachacamac, the Creator of +the Sun. He announced a distant rebellion, and promised his aid to the +Prince. The Inca, hearing this narrative, replied in the tones of +Charles II., when he said about Monmouth, 'Tell James to go to hell!'[24] +The predicted rebellion, however, broke out, the Inca fled, the Prince +saved the city, dethroned his father, and sent him into the country. He +then adopted, from the apparition, the throne-name _Uiracocha,_ grew a +beard, and dressed like the apparition, to whom he erected a temple, +roofless, and unique in construction. Therein he had an image of the god, +for which he himself gave frequent sittings. When the Spaniards arrived, +bearded men, the Indians called them Uiracochas (as all the Spanish +historians say), and, to flatter them, declared falsely that Uiracocha was +their word for the Creator. Garcilasso explodes the Spanish etymology of +the name, in the language of Cuzco, which he 'sucked in with his mother's +milk.' 'The Indians said that the chief Spaniards were children of the +Sun, to make gods of them, just as they said they were children of the +apparition, Uiracocha.'[25] Moreover, Garcilasso and Cieza de Leon agree +in their descriptions of the image of Uiracocha, which, both assert, +the Spaniards conceived to represent a Christian early missionary, perhaps +St. Bartholomew.[26] Garcilasso had seen the mummy of the Inca Uiracocha, +and relates the whole tale from the oral version of his uncle, adding many +native comments on the Court revolution described. + +To Garcilasso, then, the invocations of Uiracocha, in Christoval's +collection of prayers, are a native adaptation to Spanish prejudice: even +in them Pachacamac occurs.[27] + +Now, Christoval has got hold of a variant of Garcilasso's narrative, +which, in Garcilasso, has plenty of humour and human nature. According to +Christoval it was not the Prince, later Inca Uiracocha, who beheld the +apparition, but the Inca Uiracocha's _son,_ Prince of Wales, as it were, +of the period, later the Inca Yupanqui. + +Garcilasso corrects Christoval. Uiracocha saw the apparition, as Pre +Acosta rightly says, and Yupanqui was _not_ the son but the grandson of +this Inca Uiracocha.[28] Uiracocha's own son was Pachacutec, which simply +means 'Revolution,' 'they say, by way of by-word _Pachamcutin,_ which +means "the world changes."' + +Christoval's form of the story is peculiarly gratifying in one way. +Yupanqui saw the apparition _in a piece of crystal_, 'the apparition +vanished, while the piece of crystal remained. The Inca took care of it, +and they say that he afterwards saw everything he wanted in it.' The +apparition, in human form and in Inca dress, gave itself out for the Sun; +and Yupanqui, when he came to the throne, 'ordered a statue of the Sun to +be made, as nearly as possible resembling the figure he had seen in the +crystal.' He bade his subjects to 'reverence the new deity, as they had +heretofore worshipped the Creator,'[29] who, therefore, was prior to +Uiracocha. + +Interesting as a proof of Inca crystal-gazing, this legend of Christoval's +cannot compete as evidence with Acosta and Garcilasso. The reader, +however, must decide as to whether he prefers Garcilasso's unpropitiated +Pachacamac, or Christoval's Uiracocha, human sacrifices, and all.[30] + +Mr. Tylor prefers the version of Christoval, making Pachacamac a title of +Uiracocha.[31] He thinks that we have, in Inca religion, an example of 'a +subordinate god' (the Sun) 'usurping the place of the supreme deity,' 'the +rivalry between the Creator and the divine Sun.' In China, as we shall +see, Mr. Tylor thinks, on the other hand, that Heaven is the elder god, +and that Shang-ti, the Supreme Being, is the usurper. + +The truth in the Uiracocha _versus_ Pachacamac controversy is difficult to +ascertain. I confess a leaning toward Garcilasso, so truthful and so +wonderfully accurate, rather than to the Spanish priest. Christoval, it +will be remarked, says that 'Chanca-Uiracocha was a _huaca_ (sacred place) +in Chuqui-chaca.'[32] Now Chuqui-chaca is the very place where, according +to Garcilasso, the Inca Uiracocha erected a temple to 'his Uncle, the +Apparition.'[33] Uiracocha, then, the deity who receives human sacrifice, +would be a late, royally introduced ancestral god, no real rival of the +Creator, who receives no sacrifice at all, and, as he was bearded, his +name would be easily transferred to the bearded Spaniards, whose arrival +the Inca Uiracocha was said to have predicted. But to call several or all +Spaniards by the name given to the Creator would be absurd. Mr. Tylor and +Mr. Markham do not refer to the passage in which Christoval obviously gets +hold of a wrong version of the story of the apparition. + +There is yet another version of this historical legend, written forty +years after Christoval's date by Don Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti-yamqui +Salcamayhua. He ranks after Garcilasso and Christoval, but before earlier +_Spanish_ writers, such as Acosta, who knew not Quichua. According to +Salcamayhuia, the Inca Uiracocha was like James III., fond of architecture +and averse to war. He gave the realm to his bastard, Urca, who was +defeated and killed by the Chancas. Uiracocha meant to abandon the +contest, but his legitimate son, Yupanqui, saw a fair youth on a rock, who +promised him success in the name of the Creator, and then vanished. The +Prince was victorious, and the Inca Uiracocha retired into private +life. This appears to be a mixture of the stories of Garcilasso and +Christoval.[34] + +It is not, in itself, a point of much importance whether the Creator was +called Uiracocha (which, if it means anything, means 'sea of grease!'), or +whether he was called Pachacamac, maker of the world, or by both names. +The important question is as to whether the Creator received even human +sacrifices (Christoval) or none at all (Garcilasso). As to Pachacamac, we +must consult Mr. Payne, who has the advantage of being a Quichua scholar. +He considers that Pachacamac combines the conception of a general spirit +of living things with that of a Creator or maker of all things. +'Pachacamac and the Creator are one and the same,' but the conception of +Pachayachacic, 'ruler of the world,' 'belongs to the later period of the +Incas.'[35] Mr. Payne appears to prefer Christoval's legend of the Inca +crystal-gazer, to the rival version of Garcilasso. The Yunca form of the +worship of Pachacamac Mr. Payne regards as an example of degradation.[36] +He disbelieves Garcilasso's statement, that human sacrifices were not +made to the Sun. Garcilasso must, if Mr. Payne is right, have been a +deliberate liar, unless, indeed, he was deceived by his Inca kinsfolk. +The reader can now estimate for himself the difficulty of knowing much +about Peruvian religion, or, indeed, of any religion. For, if Mr. Payne +is right about the lowest savages having no conception of God, or even of +spirit, though the idea of a great Creator, a spirit, is one of the +earliest efforts of 'primitive logic,' we, of course, have been merely +fabling throughout. + +Garcilasso's evidence, however, seems untainted by Christian attempts to +find a primitive divine tradition. Garcilasso may possibly be refining on +facts, but he asks for no theory of divine primitive tradition in the case +of Pachacamac, whom he attributes to philosophical reflection. + +In the following chapter we discuss 'the old Degeneration theory,' and +contrast it with the scheme provisionally offered in this book. We have +already observed that the Degeneration theory biasses the accounts of some +missionaries who are obviously anxious to find traces of a Primitive +Tradition, originally revealed to all men, but only preserved in a pure +form by the Jews. To avoid deception by means of this bias we have chosen +examples of savage creative beings from wide areas, from diverse ages, +from non-missionary statements, from the least contaminated backward +peoples, and from their secret mysteries and hymns. + +Thus, still confining ourselves to the American continent, we have the +ancient hymns of the Zuis, in no way Christianised, and never chanted in +the presence of the Mexican Spanish, These hymns run thus: 'Before the +beginning of the New Making, Awonawilona, the Maker and container of All, +the All-Father, solely had being.' He then evolved all things 'by thinking +himself outward in space.' Hegelian! but so are the dateless hymns of the +Maoris, despite the savage mythology which intrudes into both sets of +traditions. The old fable of Ouranos and Gaia recurs in Zui as in +Maori.[37] + +I fail to see how Awonawilona could be developed out of the ghost of chief +or conjurer. That in which all things potentially existed, yet who was +more than all, is not the ghost of a conjurer or chief. He certainly is +not due to missionary influence. No authority can be better than that of +traditional sacred chants found among a populace which will not sing them +before one of their Mexican masters. + +We have tried to escape from the bias of belief in a primitive divine +tradition, but bias of every kind exists, and must exist. At present the +anthropological hypothesis of ancestor-worship as the basis, perhaps (as +in Mr. Spencer's theory) the only basis of religion, affects observers. + +Before treating the theory of Degeneration let us examine a case of the +anthropological bias. The Fijians, as we learned from Williams, have +ancestral gods, and also a singular form of the creative being, Ndengei, +or, as Mr. Basil Thomson calls him, Degei. Mr. Thomson writes: 'It is +clear that the Fijians humanised their gods, because they had once existed +on earth in human form.... Like other primitive people, the Fijians +deified their ancestors.' Yet the Fijians 'may have forgotten the names +of their ancestors three generations back'! How in the world can you deify +a person whom you don't remember? Moreover, only malevolent chiefs were +deified, so apparently a Fijian god is really a well-born human +scoundrel, so considerable that _he_ for one is not forgotten--just as if +we worshipped the wicked Lord Lyttelton! Of course a god like Ahone could +not be made out of such materials as these, and, in fact, we learn from +Mr. Thomson that there are other Fijian gods of a different origin. + +'It is probable that there were here and there, _gods that were the +creation of the priests that ministered to them, and were not the +spirits of dead chiefs_. Such was the god of the Bure Tribe on the Ra +coast, who was called Tui Laga or "Lord of Heaven." When the missionaries +first went to convert this town they found the heathen priest their +staunch ally. He declared that they had come to preach the same god that +he had been preaching, the Tui Laga, and that more had been revealed to +them than to him of the mysteries of the god.' + +Mr. Thomson is reminded of St. Paul at Athens, 'whom then ye ignorantly +worship, him declare I unto you.'[38] + +Mr. Thomson has clearly no bias in favour of a God like our own, known to +savages, and _not_ derived from ghost-worship. He deduces this god, Tui +Laga, from priestly reflection and speculation. But we find such a God +where we find no priests, where a priesthood has not been developed. Such +a God, being usually unpropitiated by sacrifice and lucrative private +practice, is precisely the kind of deity who does not suit a priesthood. +For these reasons--that a priesthood 'sees no money in' a God of this +kind, and that Gods of this kind, ethical and creative, are found where +there are no priesthoods--we cannot look on the conception as a late one +of priestly origin, as Mr. Thomson does, though a learned caste, like the +Peruvian Amantas, may refine on the idea. Least of all can such a God be +'the creation of the priests that minister to him,' when, as in Peru, the +Andaman Isles, and much of Africa, this God is ministered to by no +priests. Nor, lastly, can we regard the absence of sacrifice to the +Creative Being as a mere proof that he is an ancestral ghost who 'had +lived on earth at too remote a time;' for this absence of sacrifice occurs +where ghosts are dreaded, but are not propitiated by offerings of food (as +among Australians, Andamanese, and Blackfoot Indians), while the Creative +Being is not and never was a ghost, according to his worshippers. + +At this point criticism may naturally remark that whether the savage +Supreme Being is fted, as by the Comanches, who offer puffs of smoke: or +is apparently half forgotten, as by the Algonquins and Zulus: whether +he is propitiated by sacrifice (which is very rare indeed), or only by +conduct, I equally claim him as the probable descendant in evolution of +the primitive, undifferentiated, not necessarily 'spiritual' Being of such +creeds as the Australian. + +One must reply that this pedigree cannot, indeed, be historically traced, +but that it presents none of the logical difficulties inherent in the +animistic pedigree--namely, that the savage Supreme Being is the last and +highest result of evolution on animistic lines out of ghosts. It does not +run counter to the evidence universally offered by savages, that their +Supreme Being never was mortal man. It is consistent, whereas the +animistic hypothesis is, in this case, inconsistent, with the universal +savage theory of Death. Finally, as has been said before, granting my +opinion that there are two streams of religious thought, one rising in the +conception of an undifferentiated Being, eternal, moral, and creative, the +other rising in the ghost-doctrine, it stands to reason that the latter, +as best adapted to everyday needs and experiences, normal and supernormal, +may contaminate the former, and introduce sacrifice and food-propitiation +into the ritual of Beings who, by the original conception, 'need nothing +of ours.' At the same time, the conception of 'spirit,' once attained, +would inevitably come to be attached to the idea of the Supreme Being, +even though he was not at first conceived of as a spirit. We know, by our +own experience, how difficult it has become for us to think of an eternal, +powerful, and immortal being, except as a spirit. Yet this way of looking +at the Supreme Being, merely as _being_, not as spirit, must have existed, +granting that the idea of spirit has ghost for its first expression, as, +by their very definition, the high gods of savages are not ghosts, and +never were ghosts, but are prior to death. + +Here let me introduce, by way of example, a Supreme Being _not_ of the +lowest savage level. Metaphysically he is improved on in statement, +morally he is stained with the worst crimes of the hungry ghost-god, or +god framed on the lines of animism. This very interesting Supreme Being, +in a middle barbaric race, is the Polynesian Taa-roa, as described by +Ellis in that fascinating book 'Polynesian Researches.'[39] 'Several of +their _taata-paari_, or wise men, pretend that, according to other +traditions, Taa-roa was only a man who was deified after death.' +Euhemerism, in fact, is a natural theory of men acquainted with +ancestor-worship, but a Euhemeristic hypothesis by a Polynesian thinker is +not a statement of national belief. Taa-roa was 'uncreated, existing from +the beginning, or from the time he emerges from the _po_, or world of +darkness.' In the Leeward Isles Taa-roa was _Toivi_, fatherless and +motherless from all eternity. In the highest heavens he dwells alone. He +created the gods of polytheism, the gods of war, of peace, and so on. Says +a native hymn, 'He was: he abode in the void. No earth, _no sky_, no men! +He became the universe.' In the Windward Isles he has a wife, Papa the +rock = Papa, Earth, wife of Rangi, Heaven, in Maori mythology. Thus it may +be argued, Taa-roa is no 'primaeval theistic idea,' but merely the +Heaven-God (Ouranos in Greece). But we may distinguish: in the Zui hymn +we have the myth of the marriage of Heaven and Earth, but Heaven is not +the Eternal, Awonawilona, who 'thought himself out into the void,' before +which, as in the Polynesian hymn, 'there was no sky.'[40] + +Whence came the idea of Taa-roa? The Euhemeristic theory that he was a +ghost of a dead man is absurd. But as we are now among polytheists it may +be argued that, given a crowd of gods on the animistic model, an origin +had to be found for them, and that origin was Taa-roa. This would be more +plausible if we did not find Supreme Beings where there is no departmental +polytheism to develop them out of. In Tahiti, _Atuas_ are gods, _Oramutuas +tiis_ are spirits; the chief of the spirits were ghosts of warriors. These +were mischievous: they, their images, and the skulls of the dead needed +propitiation, and these ideas (perhaps) were reflected on to Taa-roa, to +whom human victims were sacrificed.[41] + +Now this kind of horror, human sacrifice, is unknown, I think, in early +savage religions of Supreme Beings, as in Australia, among the Bushmen, +the Andamanese, and so on. I therefore suggest that in an advanced +polytheism, such as that of Polynesia, the evil sacrificial rites +unpractised by low savages come to be attached to the worship even of the +Supreme Being. Ghosts and ghost-gods demanded food, and food was therefore +also offered to the Supreme Being. + +It was found difficult, or impossible, to induce Christian converts, in +Polynesia, to repeat the old prayers. They began, trembled, and abstained. +They had a ritual 'for almost every act of their lives,' a thing +unfamiliar to low savages. In fact, beyond all doubt, religious criminal +acts, from human sacrifice to the burning of Jeanne d'Arc, increase as +religion and culture move away from the stage of Bushmen and Andamanese to +the stage of Aztec and Polynesian culture. The Supreme Being is succeeded +in advancing civilisation, and under the influences of animism, by +ruthless and insatiable ghost-gods, full of the worst human qualities. +Thus there is what we may really call degeneration, moral and religious, +inevitably accompanying early progress. + +That this is the case, that the first advances in culture _necessarily_ +introduce religious degeneration, we shall now try to demonstrate. But we +may observe, in passing, that our array of moral or august savage supreme +beings (the first who came to hand) will, for some reason, not be found in +anthropological treatises on the Origin of Religion. They appear, somehow, +to have been overlooked by philosophers. Yet the evidence for them +is sufficiently good. Its excellence is proved by its very uniformity, +assuredly undesigned. An old, nay, an obsolete theory--that of +degeneration in religion--has facts at its basis, which its very +supporters have ignored, which orthodoxy has overlooked. Thus the Rev. +Professor Flint informs the audience in the Cathedral of St. Giles's, +that, in the religions 'at the bottom of the religious scale,' 'it is +always easy to see how wretchedly the divine is conceived of; how little +conscious of his own true wants ... is the poor worshipper.' The poor +worshipper of Baiame wishes to obey His Law, which makes, to some extent, +for righteousness.[42] + +[Footnote 1: In Pinkerton, xiii. pp. 13, 39; _Prim. Cult_. ii. 342.] + +[Footnote 2: See Preface to this edition for corrected statement.] + +[Footnote 3: _Myths of the New World_, p. 47.] + +[Footnote 4: There is a description of Virginia, by W. Strachey, including +Smith's remarks, published in 1612. Strachey interwove some of this work +with his own MS. in the British Museum, dedicated to Bacon (Verulam). This +MS. was edited by Mr. Major, for the Hakluyt Society, in 1849, with a +glossary, by Strachey, of the native language. The remarks on religion are +in Chapter VII. The passage on Ahone occurs in Strachey (1612), but _not_ +in Smith (1682), in Pinkerton. I owe to the kindness of Mr. Edmund Gosse +photographs of the drawings accompanying the MS. Strachey's story of +sacrifice of children (pp. 94, 95) seems to refer to nothing worse than the +initiation into the mysteries.] + +[Footnote 5: See Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, for a philological +theory.] + +[Footnote 6: Compare 'The Fire Walk' in _Modern Mythology_.] + +[Footnote 7: Compare St. Augustine's curious anecdote in _De Cura pro +Mortuis habenda_ about the dead and revived Curio. The founder of the new +Sioux religion, based on hypnotism, 'died' and recovered.] + +[Footnote 8: Cf. Demeter.] + +[Footnote 9: Major North, for long the U.S. Superintendent of the Pawnees.] + +[Footnote 10: Schoolcraft, iii. 237.] + +[Footnote 11: As envisaged here, N-pi is not a spirit. The question +of spirit or non-spirit has not arisen. So far, N-pi answers to +Marrangarrah, the Creative Being of the Larrakeah tribe of Australians. +'A very good Man called Marrangarrah lives in the sky; he made all living +creatures, except black fellows. He made everything.... He never dies, and +likes all black fellows.' He has a demiurge, Dawed (Mr. Foelsche, _apud_ +Dr. Stirling, _J.A.I_., Nov. 1894, p. 191). It is curious to observe how +savage creeds often shift the responsibility for evil from the Supreme +Creator, entirely beneficent, on to a subordinate deity.] + +[Footnote 12: Grinnell's _Blackfoot Lodge-Tales_ and _Pawnee Hero +Stories_.] + +[Footnote 13: Garcilasso, i. 101.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. i. 106.] + +[Footnote 15: From all this we might conjecture, like Mr. Prescott, that +the Incas borrowed Pachacamac from the Yuncas, and etherealised his +religion. But Mr. Clements Markham points out that 'Pachacamac is a pure +Quichua word.'] + +[Footnote 16: Garcilasso, ii. 446, 447.] + +[Footnote 17: Cieza de Leon. p.253] + +[Footnote 18: Markham's translation, p. 253.] + +[Footnote 19: _Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, Markham's translation, +p. vii.] + +[Footnote 20: _Rites_, p. 6. Garcilasso, i. 109.] + +[Footnote 21: _Rites_, p. 11.] + +[Footnote 22: Compare _Reports on Discovery of Peru,_ Introduction.] + +[Footnote 23: _Rites_, p. xv.] + +[Footnote 24: Lord Ailesbury's _Memoirs_.] + +[Footnote 25: Garcilasso, ii. 68.] + +[Footnote 26: Cieza de Leon, p. 357.] + +[Footnote 27: _Rites,_ pp. 28, 29.] + +[Footnote 28: Acosta, lib. vi. ch. 21: Garcilasso. ii. 88, 89.] + +[Footnote 29: _Rites_, p. 12.] + +[Footnote 30: Ibid. p.54.] + +[Footnote 31: _Prim. Cult_. ii, 337, 338.] + +[Footnote 32: _Rites_, p. 29.] + +[Footnote 33: Garcilasso, ii. 69.] + +[Footnote 34: _Rites and Laws_, p. 91 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 35: Payne, i. 139.] + +[Footnote 36: Op. cit. i. 468. Mr. Payne absolutely rejects +Ixtlilochitl's story of the monotheism of Nezahualcoyotl; 'Torquemada +knows nothing of it,' i. 490.] + +[Footnote 37: Cushing, _Report, Ethnol. Bureau_, 1891-92, p. 379.] + +[Footnote 38: _J.A.I_. May 1895, pp. 341-344.] + +[Footnote 39: ii. 191, 1829.] + +[Footnote 40: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 345, 346. Ellis, ii. 193.] + +[Footnote 41: Ellis, ii. 221.] + +[Footnote 42: _The Faiths of The World_, p. 413.] + + + + +XV + +THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY + +If any partisan of the anthropological theory has read so far into this +argument, he will often have murmured to himself, 'The old degeneration +theory!' On this Dr. Brinton remarked in 1868: + +'The supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened +conditions, before mythology had grown, a monotheism prevailed which +afterwards, at various times, was revived by reformers, is a belief that +should have passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises +of a state of nature ceased to be the theme of philosophers[1].' + +'The old degeneration theory' practically, and fallaciously, resolved +itself, as Mr. Tylor says, into two assumptions--'first, that the history +of culture began with the appearance on earth of a semi-civilised race of +men; and second, that from this stage culture has proceeded in two +ways--backward to produce savages, and forward to produce civilised +men[2].' That hypothesis is false to all our knowledge of evolution. + +The hypothesis here provisionally advocated makes no assumptions +at all. It is a positive fact that among some of the lowest savages +there exists, not a doctrinal and abstract Monotheism, but a belief +in a moral, powerful, kindly, creative Being, while this faith is found +in juxtaposition with belief in unworshipped ghosts, totems, fetishes, +and so on. The powerful creative Being of savage belief sanctions truth, +unselfishness, loyalty, chastity, and other virtues. I have set forth the +difficulties involved in the attempt to derive this Being from ghosts and +other lower forms of belief. + +Now, it is mere matter of fact, and not of assumption, that the Supreme +Being of many rather higher savages differs from the Supreme Being of +certain lower savages by the neglect in which he is left, by the epicurean +repose with which he is credited, and by his comparative lack of moral +control over human conduct. In his place a mob of ghosts and spirits, +supposed to be potent and helpful in everyday life, attract men's regard +and adoration, and get paid by sacrifice--even by human sacrifice. + +Turning to races yet higher in material culture, we find a crowd of hungry +and cruel gods. + +On this point Mr. Jevons remarks, in accordance with my own observation, +that 'human sacrifice appears at a much earlier period in the rites for +the dead than it does in the ritual of the gods.'[3] The dead chief needs +servants and wives in Hades, who are offered to him. The Australians have +some elements of cannibalism, but do not, as a general rule, offer any +human victims. So far, then, ancestor-worship introduced a sadly +'degenerate' rite, compared with the moral faith in unfed gods. + +To gods the human sacrifice was probably extended (in some cases) either +by a cannibal civilised race, like the Aztecs, or by way of _piacula_, the +god being conciliated for man's sin by the offering of what man most +prized, the 'jealousy' of the god being appeased in a similar way. +But these are relatively advanced conceptions, not to be found, to my +knowledge, among the lowest and most backward races. Therefore, advance to +the idea of spirit at one point, meant degeneration at another point, to +the extent of human sacrifice. + +Thus, on looking at relatively advanced races, we find them worshipping +polytheistic deities and ghosts of the kings just dead, who are often +propitiated by terrible massacres of human victims, while, as in the case +of Taa-roa, the blood spurts back even on the uncreated Creator, who was +before earth was, or sea, sun, or sky. + +Undeniably the hungry, cruel gods are degenerate from the Australian +Father in Heaven, who receives no sacrifice but that of men's lusts and +selfishness; who desires obedience, not the fat of kangaroos; who needs +nothing of ours; is unfed and unbribed. Thus, in this particular respect +the degeneration of religion from the Australian or Andamanese to the +Dinka standard--and infinitely more to the Polynesian, or Aztec, or +popular Greek standard--is as undeniable as any fact in human history. + +Anthropology has only escaped the knowledge of this circumstance by laying +down the rule, demonstrably unbased on facts, that 'the divine sanction of +ethical laws ... belongs almost or wholly to religions above the savage +level, not to the earlier and lower creeds;' that 'savage Animism is +almost devoid of that ethical element which to the educated modern mind is +the very mainspring of practical religion.'[4] + +I have argued, indeed, that the God of low savages who imparts the divine +sanction of ethical laws is _not_ of animistic origin. But even where Mr. +Im Thurn finds, in Guiana, nothing but Animism of the lowest conceivable +type, he also finds in that Animism the only or most potent moral +restraint on the conduct of men. + +While Anthropology holds the certainly erroneous idea that the religion of +the most backward races is always non-moral, of course she cannot know +that there has, in fact, been great degeneration in religion (if religion +began on the Australian and Andamanese level, or even higher) wherever +religion is non-moral or immoral. + +Again, Anthropology, while fixing her gaze on totems, on worshipped +mummies, adored ghosts, and treasured fetishes, has not, to my knowledge, +made a comparative study of the higher and purer religious ideas of +savages. These have been passed by, with a word about credulous +missionaries and Christian influences, except in the brief summary for +which Mr. Tylor found room. In this work I only take a handful of cases of +the higher religious opinions of savages, and set them side by side for +purposes of comparison. Much more remains to be done in this field. But +the area covered is wide, the evidence is the best attainable, and it +seems proved beyond doubt that savages have 'felt after' a conception of a +Creator much higher than that for which they commonly get credit. Now, if +that conception is original, or is very early (and nothing in it suggests +lateness of development), then the other elements of their faith and +practice are degenerate. + +'How,' it has been asked, 'could all mankind forget a pure religion?'[5] +That is what I now try to explain. That degeneration I would account for +by the attractions which animism, when once developed, possessed for the +naughty natural man, 'the old Adam.' A moral creator in need of no gifts, +and opposed to lust and mischief, will not help a man with love-spells, or +with malevolent 'sendings' of disease by witchcraft; will not favour one +man above his neighbour, or one tribe above its rivals, as a reward for +sacrifice which he does not accept, or as constrained by charms which do +not touch his omnipotence. Ghosts and ghost-gods, on the other hand, in +need of food and blood, afraid of spells and binding charms,[6] are a +corrupt, but, to man, a useful constituency. Man being what he is, man was +certain to 'go a-whoring' after practically useful ghosts, ghost-gods, and +fetishes which he could keep in his wallet or medicine bag. For these he +was sure, in the long run, first to neglect his idea of his Creator; next, +perhaps, to reckon Him as only one, if the highest, of the venal rabble of +spirits or deities, and to sacrifice to Him, as to them. And this is +exactly what happened! If we are not to call it 'degeneration,' what are +we to call it? It may be an old theory, but facts 'winna ding,' and are on +the side of an old theory. Meanwhile, on the material plane, culture +kept advancing, the crafts and arts arose; departments arose, each needing +a god; thought grew clearer; such admirable ethics as those of the Aztecs +were developed, and while bleeding human hearts smoked on every altar, +Nezahuatl conceived and erected a bloodless fane to 'The Unknown God, +Cause of Causes,' without altar or idol; and the Inca, Yupanqui, or +another, declared that 'Our Father and Master, the Sun, must have a +Lord.'[7] + +But, at this stage of culture, the luck of the state, and the interests of +a rich and powerful clergy, were involved in the maintenance of the old, +animistic, relatively non-moral system, as in Cuzco, Greece, and Rome. +That popular and political regard for the luck of the state, that +priestly self-interest (quite natural), could only be swept away by the +moral monotheism of Christianity or of Islam. Nothing else could do it. In +the case of Christianity, the central and most potent of many combined +influences, apart from the Life and Death of Our Lord, was the moral +Monotheism of the Hebrew religion of Jehovah. + +Now, it is undeniable that Jehovah, at a certain period of Hebrew history, +had become degraded and anthropomorphized, far below Darumulun, and +Puluga, and Pachacamac, and Ahone, as conceived of in their purest form, +and in the high mood of savage mysteries which yet contain so much that is +grotesque. Even the Big Black Man of the Fuegians is on a higher level (as +_we_ reckon morals), when he forbids the slaying of a robber enemy, than +certain examples of early Hebrew conduct. But our knowledge of the +Fuegians is lamentably scanty. + +Again, traces of human sacrifice appear in the ritual of Israel, and it is +only relatively late that the great prophets, justly declaring Jehovah to +be indifferent to the blood of bulls and rams, try to bring back his +service to that of the unpropitiated, unbought Dendid, or Ahone, or +Pundjel. Here is degeneration, even in Israel. How the conception of +Jehovah arose in Israel, whether it was a revival of a half-obliterated +idea, such as we find among low savages; or whether it was borrowed from +some foreign creed; or was the result of meditation on the philosophical +Supreme Being of high Egyptian theology, is another question. The Biblical +statement leans to the first alternative. Jehovah, not by that name, had +been the God of Israel's fathers. The question will be discussed later; +but, unless new facts are discovered, we must accept the version of the +Pentateuch, or take refuge in conjecture. + +Not only is there degeneration from the Australian conception of +Mungan-gnaur, at its best, to the conception of the Semitic gods in +general, but, 'humanly speaking,' if religion began in a pure form among +low savages, degeneration was inevitable. Advancing social conditions +compelled men into degeneration. Mungan-ngaur is, so far, in line with +our own ideas of divinity because he is not localised. He dwelleth not in +temples made with hands; it is not likely that he should, when his +worshippers have neither house, tent, nor tabernacle. As Mr. Robertson +Smith says, 'where the God had a house or a temple, we recognise the work +of men who were no longer pure nomads, but had begun to form fixed homes.' +By the nature of Australian society, a deity could not be tied to a +temple, and temple-ritual, and consequent myths to explain that ritual, +could not arise. Nor could Darumulun be attached to a district, just as +'the nomad Arabs could not assimilate the conception of a god as a +land-owner, and apply it to their own tribal deities, for the simple +reason that in the desert private property in land was unknown.'[8] + +Darumulun is thus not capable of degenerating into 'a local god, as +_Baal_, or lord of the land,' because this 'involves a series of ideas +unknown to the primitive life of the savage huntsman,' like the widely +spread Murring tribes.[9] + +Nor could Darumulun be tied down to a place in Semitic fashion, first by +manifesting himself there, therefore by receiving an altar of sacrifice +there, and in the end a sanctuary, for Darumulun receives no sacrifice +at all. + +Again, the scene of the Bora could not become a permanent home of +Darumulun, because, when the rites are over, the effigy of the god is +scrupulously destroyed. Thus Darumulun, in his own abode 'beyond the sky,' +can 'go everywhere and do everything' (is omnipresent and omnipotent), +dwells in no earthly places, has no temple, nor tabernacle, nor sacred +mount, nor, like Jehovah, any limit of land.[10] + +The early Hebrew conception of Jehovah, then, is infinitely more +conditioned, practically, by space, than the Supreme Being, 'The Master,' +in the conception of some Australian blacks. + +'By a prophet like Isaiah the residence of Jehovah in Zion is almost +wholly dematerialised.... Conceiving Jehovah as the King of Israel, he +necessarily conceives His kingly activity as going forth from the capital +of the nation.'[11] + +But nomad hunter tribes, with no ancestor-worship, no king and no capital, +cannot lower their deity by the conditions, or limit him by the +limitations, of an earthly monarchy. + +In precisely the same way, Major Ellis proves the degeneration of deity in +Africa, so far as being localised in place of being the Universal God, +implies degeneration, as it certainly does to our minds. By being attached +to a given hill or river 'the gods, instead of being regarded as being +interested in the whole of mankind, would eventually come to be regarded +as being interested in separate tribes or nations alone.' + +To us Milton seems nobly Chauvinistic when he talks of what God has done +by 'His English.' But this localised and essentially degenerate conception +was inevitable, as soon as, in advancing civilisation, the god who had +been 'interested in the whole of [known] mankind' was settled on a hill, +river, or lagoon, amidst a nation of worshippers. + +In the course of the education of mankind, this form of degeneration +(abstractly so considered) was to work, as nothing else could have worked, +towards the lofty conception of universal Deity. For that conception +was only brought into practical religion (as apart from philosophic +speculation) by the union between Israel and the God of Sinai and Zion. +The Prophets, recognising in the God of Sinai, their nation's God--One +to whom righteousness was infinitely dearer than even his Chosen +People--freed the conception of God from local ties, and made it +overspread the world. + +Mr. Robertson Smith has pointed out, again, the manner in which the +different political development of East and West affected the religion of +Greece and of the Semites. In Greece, monarchy fell, at an early period, +before the aristocratic houses. The result was 'a divine aristocracy of +many gods, only modified by a weak reminiscence of the old kingship in the +not very effective sovereignty' (or _prytany_) 'of Zeus. In the East the +national god tended to acquire a really monarchic sway.'[12] Australia +escaped polytheistic degeneracy by having no aristocracy, as in Polynesia, +where aristocracy, as in early Greece, had developed polytheism. Ghosts +and spirits the Australians knew, but not polytheistic gods, nor +departmental deities, as of war, agriculture, art. The savage had no +agriculture, and his social condition was not departmental. In yet another +way, political advance produces religious degeneration, if polytheism be +degeneration from the conception of one relatively supreme moral being. +To make a nation, several tribes must unite. Each has its god, and the +nation is apt to receive them all, equally, into its Pantheon. Thus, if +worshippers of Baiame, Pundjel, and Darumulun coalesced into a nation, +we might find all three gods living together in a new polytheism. In fact, +granting a relatively pure starting-point, degeneration from it must +accompany every step of civilisation, to a certain distance. + +Unlike Semitic gods, Darumulun receives no sacrifice. As we have said, he +has no kin with ghosts, and their sacrifices could not be carried on into +his cult, if Waitz-Gerland (vi. 811) are right in saying that the +Australians have no ancestor-worship. The Kurnai ghosts 'were believed to +live upon plants,'[13] which are not offered to them. Chill ghosts, unfed +by men, would come to waning camp-fires and batten on the broken meats. +The Ngarego and Wolgal held, more handsomely, that Tharamulun (Darumulun) +met the just departed spirit 'and conducted it to its future home beyond +the sky.'[14] Ghosts might also accompany relics of the body, such as the +dead hand, carried about by the family, who would wave the black fragment +at the dreaded Aurora Borealis, crying, 'Send it away!' I am unacquainted +with any sacrifices to ancestral ghosts among this people who cannot long +remember their ancestors, consequently the practice has not been refracted +on their supreme Master's cult. In the cult of Darumulun, and of other +highest gods of lowest savages, nothing answers to the Hebrew technical +priestly word for sacrifice, 'food of the deity.'[15] Nobody feeds Puluga, +nobody fed Ahone. We hear of no Fuegian sacrifices. Mr. Robertson Smith +says: 'In all religions in which the gods have been developed out of +totems [worshipped animals and other things regarded as akin to human +stocks] the ritual act of laying food before the deity is perfectly +intelligible.' Pundjel, an Australian Supreme Being, is mixed up with +animals in some myths, but it is not easy to see how such Supreme Beings +as he could be 'developed out of totems'! I am not aware, again, that any +Australian tribe feeds the animals who are its totems, so Darumulun could +not, and did not inherit sacrifice through them. Mr. Robertson Smith had +a celebrated theory that cereal sacrifice is a tribute to a god, while +sacrifice of a beast or man is an act of communion with the god.[16] Men +and gods dined together.[17] 'The god himself was conceived of as a being +of the same stock as his comrades.' Beasts were also of the same stock, +one beast, say a lobster, was of the same blood as a lobster kin, and its +god.[18] Occasionally the sacred beast of the kin, usually not to be slain +or tasted, is 'eaten as a kind of mystic sacrament a most dubious +fact.'[19] + +Now, there is, I believe, some evidence, lately collected if not +published, which makes in favour of the eating of totems by Australians, +at a certain very rare and solemn mystery. It would not even surprise me +('from information received') if a very deeply initiated person were +occasionally slain, as the highest degree of initiation, on certain most +unusual occasions. This remains uncertain, but I have at present no +evidence that, either by one road or another, either from ghost-feeding or +totem-feeding, or feeding on totems, any Australian Supreme Being receives +any sacrifice at all. Much less, as among Pawnees and Semitic peoples (to +judge from certain traces), is the Australian Supreme Being a cause of and +partaker in human sacrifice.[20] The horrible idea of the Man who is the +God, and is eaten in the God's honour, occurs among polytheistic Aztecs, +on a high level of material culture, not among Australians, Andamanese, +Bushmen, or Fuegians.[21] + +Thus, in religion, the Darumulun, or other Supreme Being of the lowest +known savages, men roaming wild, when originally met, on a continent +peopled by older kinds of animals than ours, was (as we regard purity) on +a higher plane by far than the gods of Greeks and Semites in their +earliest known myths. Setting mythology aside and looking only at cult, +the God of the Murring or the Kurnai, whose precepts soften the heart, +who knows the heart's secrets, who inculcates chastity, respect of age, +unselfishness, who is not bound by conditions of space or place, who +receives no blood of slaughtered man or beast, is a conception from which +the ordinary polytheistic gods of infinitely more polite peoples are +frankly degenerate. The animistic superstitions wildly based on the belief +in the soul have not soiled him, and the social conditions of aristocracy, +agriculture, architecture, have not made him one in a polytheistic +crowd of rapacious gods, nor fettered him as a Baal to his estate, nor +localised him in a temple built with hands. He cannot appear as a 'God of +Battles;' no _Te Deum_ can be sung to him for victory in a cause perhaps +unjust, for he is the Supreme Being of a certain group of allied local +tribes. One of these tribes has no more interest with him than another, +and the whole group do not, as a body, wage war on another alien group. +The social conditions of his worshippers, then, preserve Darumulun from +the patent blots on the escutcheon of gods among much more advanced races. + +Once more, the idea of Animism admits of endless expansion. A spirit can +be located anywhere, in any stone, stick, bush, person, hill, or river. A +god made on the animistic model can be assigned to any department of +human activity, down to sports, or lusts, or the province of Cloacina. +Thus religion becomes a mere haunted and pestilential jungle of beliefs. +But the theistic conception, when not yet envisaged as spiritual, cannot +be subdivided and _parpill_. Thus, from every point of view, and on +every side, Animism is full of the seeds of religious degeneration, which +do not and cannot exist in what I take to be the earliest known form of +the theistic conception: that of a Being about whose metaphysical +nature--spirit or not spirit--no questions were asked, as Dr. Brinton long +ago remarked. + +That conception alone could neither supply the moral motive of 'a soul to +be saved,' nor satisfy the metaphysical instinct of advancing mankind. To +meet these wants, to supply 'soul,' with its moral stimulus, and to +provide a phrase or idea under which the Deity could be envisaged (i.e. as +a _spirit_) by advancing thought, Animism was necessary. The blending of +the theistic and the animistic beliefs was indispensable to religion. +But, in the process of animistic development under advancing social +conditions, degeneration was necessarily implied. Degeneration of the +theistic conception for a while, therefore, occurred. The facts are the +proofs; and only contradictory facts, in sufficient quantity, can +annihilate the old theory of Degeneration when it is presented in this +form. + +It mast be repeated that on this theory an explanation is given of what +the old Degeneration hypothesis does not explain. Granting a primal +religion relatively pure in its beginnings, why did it degenerate? + +Mr. Max Mullet, looking on religion as the development of the sentiment of +the Infinite, regards fetishism as a secondary and comparatively late form +of belief. We find it, he observes, in various forms of Christianity; +Christianity, therefore, is primary there, relic worship is secondary. +Religion beginning, according to him, in the sense of the infinite, as +awakened in man by tall trees, high hills, and so on, it advances to the +infinite of space and sky, and so to the infinitely divine. This is +primary: fetishism is secondary. Arguing elsewhere against this idea, I +have asked: What was the _modus_ of degeneration which produced similar +results in Christianity, and in African and other religions? How did it +work? I am not aware that Mr. Max Mller has answered this question. +But how degeneration worked--namely, by Animism supplanting Theism--is +conspicuously plain on our theory. + +Take the early chapters of Genesis, or any savage cosmogonic myth you +please. Deathless man is face to face with the Creator. He cannot +degenerate in religion. He cannot offer sacrifice, for the Creator +obviously needs nothing, and again, as there is no death, he cannot slay +animals for the Creator. But, in one way or another, usually by breach of +a taboo, Death enters the world. Then comes, by process of evolution, +belief in hungry spirits, belief in spirits who may inhabit stones or +sticks; again there arise priests who know how to propitiate spirits +and how to tempt them into sticks and stones. These arts become lucrative +and are backed by the cleverest men, and by the apparent evidence of +prophecies by convulsionaries. Thus every known kind of degeneration in +religion is inevitably introduced as a result of the theory of Animism. We +do not need an hypothesis of Original Sin as a cause of degeneration, and, +if Mr. Max Mller's doctrine of the Infinite were _viable_, we have +supplied, in Animism, under advancing social conditions, what he does not +seem to provide, a cause and _modus_ of degeneration. Fetishism would +thus be really 'secondary,' _ex hypothesi_, but as we nowhere find +Fetishism alone, without the other elements of religion, we cannot say, +historically, whether it is secondary or not. Fetishism logically needs, +in some of its aspects, the doctrine of spirits, and Theism, in what we +take to be its earliest known form, does not logically need the doctrine +of spirits as given matter. So far we can go, but not farther, as to the +fact of priority in evolution. Nevertheless we meet, among the most +backward peoples known to us, among men just emerged from the palaeolithic +stage of culture, men who are involved in dread of ghosts, a religious +Idea which certainly is not born of ghost-worship, for by these men, +ancestral ghosts are not worshipped. + +In their hearts, on their lips, in their moral training we find (however +blended with barbarous absurdities, and obscured by rites of another +origin) the faith in a Being who created or constructed the world; who was +from time beyond memory or conjecture; who is primal, who makes for +righteousness, and who loves mankind. This Being has not the notes of +degeneration; his home is 'among the stars,' not in a hill or in a house. +To him no altar smokes, and for him no blood is shed. + +'God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is lord +of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is +worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed any thing ... and hath +made of one blood all nations of men ... that they should seek the Lord, +if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far +from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.' + +That the words of St. Paul are literally true, as to the feeling after a +God who needs not anything at man's hands, the study of anthropology seems +to us to demonstrate. That in this God 'we have our being,' in so far +as somewhat of ours may escape, at moments, from the bonds of Time and the +manacles of Space, the earlier part of this treatise is intended to +suggest, as a thing by no means necessarily beyond a reasonable man's +power to conceive. That these two beliefs, however attained (a point on +which we possess no positive evidence), have commonly been subject to +degeneration in the religions of the world, is only too obvious. + +So far, then, the nature of things and of the reasoning faculty does not +seem to give the lie to the old Degeneration theory. + +To these conclusions, as far as they are matters of scientific opinion, we +have been led by nothing but the study of anthropology. + +[Footnote 1: _Myths of the New World_, p. 44.] + +[Footnote 2: _Prim. Cult_. i. 35.] + +[Footnote 3: _Introduction_, p. 199; also p. 161.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 360,361.] + +[Footnote 5: Prof. Menzies, _History of Religion_, p. 23.] + +[Footnote 6: [Greek: legomenai theion anagchai.] Porphyry.] + +[Footnote 7: Ixtlilochitl. Balboa, _Hist. du Prou_, p. 62.] + +[Footnote 8: Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, pp. 104, 105.] + +[Footnote 9: Op. cit. p. 106.] + +[Footnote 10: On the Glenelg some caves and mountain tops are haunted or +holy. Waitz, vi. 804, No authority cited.] + +[Footnote 11: _Religion of Semites_, p. 110.] + +[Footnote 12: _Rel. Sem_. p. 71.] + +[Footnote 13: Howitt, _J.A.T_. 1884, p. 187.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. p. 188.] + +[Footnote 15: _Rel. Sem_. p. 207.] + +[Footnote 16: _Rel. Sem_. p. 225.] + +[Footnote 17: Op. cit. p. 247.] + +[Footnote 18: Op. cit. p. 269.] + +[Footnote 19: Op. cit. p. 277.] + +[Footnote 20: Op. cit. p. 343. Citing Gen. xxii 2 Kings xxi. 6, Micah +vi. 7, 2 Kings iii. 27.] + +[Footnote 21: I mean, does not occur to my knowledge. New evidence is +always upsetting anthropological theories.] + + + + +XVI + +THEORIES OF JEHOVAH + +All speculation on the curly history of religion is apt to end in the +endeavour to see how far the conclusions can be made to illustrate the +faith of Israel. Thus, the theorist who believes in ancestor-worship as +the key of all the creeds will see in Jehovah a developed ancestral +ghost, or a kind of fetish-god, attached to a stone--perhaps an ancient +sepulchral stele of some desert sheikh. + +The exclusive admirer of the hypothesis of Totemism will find evidence for +his belief in worship of the golden calf and the bulls. The partisan of +nature-worship will insist on Jehovah's connection with storm, thunder, +and the fire of Sinai. On the other hand, whoever accepts our suggestions +will incline to see, in the early forms of belief in Jehovah, a shape of +the widely diffused conception of a Moral Supreme Being, at first (or, at +least, when our information begins) envisaged in anthropomorphic form, +but gradually purged of all local traits by the unexampled and unique +inspiration of the great Prophets. They, as far as our knowledge extends, +were strangely indifferent to the animistic element in religion, to the +doctrine of surviving human souls, and so, of course, to that element +of Animism which is priceless--the purification of the soul in the light +of the hope of eternal life. Just as the hunger after righteousness of the +Prophets is intense, so their hope of finally sating that hunger +in an eternity of sinless bliss and enjoyment of God is confessedly +inconspicuous. In short, they have carried Theism to its austere +extreme--'though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him'--while unconcerned +about the rewards of Animism. This is certainly a strange result of a +religion which, according to the anthropological theory, has Animism for +its basis. + +We therefore examine certain forms of the animistic hypothesis as applied +to account for the religion of Israel. The topic is one in which special +knowledge of Hebrew and other Oriental languages seems absolutely +indispensable; but anthropological speculators have not been Oriental +scholars (with rare exceptions), while some Oriental scholars have +borrowed from popular anthropology without much critical discrimination. +These circumstances must be our excuse for venturing on to this difficult +ground. + +It is probably impossible for us to trace with accuracy the rise of the +religion of Jehovah. 'The wise and learned' dispute endlessly over dates +of documents, over the amount of later doctrine interpolated into +the earlier texts, over the nature, source, and quantity of foreign +influence--Chaldaean, Accadian, Egyptian, or Assyrian. We know that Israel +had, in an early age, the conception of the moral Eternal; we know that, +at an early age, that conception was contaminated and anthropomorphised; +and we know that it was rescued, in a great degree, from this corruption, +while always retaining its original ethical aspect and sanction. Why +matters went thus in Israel and not elsewhere we know not, except that +such was the will of God in the mysterious education of the world. How +mysterious that education has been is best known to all who have studied +the political and social results of Totemism. On the face of it a +perfectly crazy and degrading belief--on the face of it meant for nothing +but to make the family a hell of internecine hatred--Totemism rendered +possible--nay, inevitable--the union of hostile groups into large and +relatively peaceful tribal societies. Given the materials as we know them, +we never should have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it +should thus have been done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally +ignorant of the conditions of the problem. + +An example of anthropological theory concerning Jehovah was put forth by +Mr. Huxley.[1] Mr. Huxley's general idea of religion as it is on the +lowest known level of material culture--through which the ancestors of +Israel must have passed like other people--has already been criticised. +He denied to the most backward races both cult and religious sanction of +ethics. He was demonstrably, though unconsciously, in error as to the +facts, and therefore could not start from the idea that Israel, in the +lowest historically known condition of savagery, possessed, or, like other +races, might possess, the belief in an Eternal making for righteousness. +'For my part,' he says, 'I see no reason to doubt that, like the +rest of the world, the Israelites had passed through a period of mere +ghost-worship, and had advanced through ancestor-worship and Fetishism and +Totemism to the theological level at which we find them in the Books of +Judges and Samuel.'[2] + +But why does he think the Israelites did all this? The Hebrew ghosts, +abiding, according to Mr. Huxley, in a rather torpid condition in Sheol, +would not be of much practical use to a worshipper. A reference in +Deuteronomy xxvi. 14 (Deuteronomy being, _ex hypothesi_, a late pious +imposture) does not prove much. The Hebrew is there bidden to remind +himself of the stay of his ancestors in Egypt, and to say, 'Of the +hallowed things I have not given aught for the dead'--namely, of the +tithes dedicated to the Levites and the poor. A race which abode for +centuries among the Egyptians, as Israel did--among a people who +elaborately fed the _kas_ of the departed--might pick up a trace of a +custom, the giving of food for the dead, still persevered in by St. Monica +till St. Ambrose admonished her. But Mr. Huxley is hard put to it for +evidence of ancestor-worship or ghost-worship in Israel when he looks for +indications of these rites in 'the singular weight attached to the +veneration of parents in the Fourth Commandment.'[3] The _Fourth_ +Commandment, of course, is a slip of the pen. He adds: 'The Fifth +Commandment, as it stands, would be an excellent compromise between +ancestor-worship and Monotheism.' Long may children practise this +excellent compromise! It is really too far-fetched to reason thus: 'People +were bidden to honour their parents, as a compromise between Monotheism +and ghost-worship.' Hard, hard bestead is he who has to reason in that +fashion! This comes of 'training in the use of the weapons of precision of +science.' + +Mr. Huxley goes on: 'The Ark of the Covenant may have been a relic of +ancestor-worship;' 'there is a good deal to be said for that speculation.' +Possibly there is, by way of the valuable hypothesis that Jehovah was a +fetish stone which had been a grave-stone, or perhaps a _lingam_, and was +kept in the Ark on the plausible pretext that it was the two Tables of +the Law! + +However, Mr. Huxley really finds it safer to suppose that references to +ancestor-worship in the Bible were obliterated by late monotheistic +editors, who, none the less, are so full and minute in their descriptions +of the various heresies into which Israel was eternally lapsing, and must +not be allowed to lapse again. Had ancestor-worship been a _pch mignon_ +of Israel, the Prophets would have let Israel hear their mind on it. + +The Hebrews' indifference to the departed soul is, in fact, a puzzle, +especially when we consider their Egyptian education--so important an +element in Mr. Huxley's theory. + +Mr. Herbert Spencer is not more successful than Mr. Huxley in finding +ancestor-worship among the Hebrews. On the whole subject he writes: + +'Where the levels of mental nature and social progress are lowest, we +usually find, along with an absence of religious ideas generally, an +absence, or very slight development, of ancestor-worship.... Cook +[Captain Cook], telling us what the Fuegians were before contact +with Europeans had introduced foreign ideas, said there were no +appearances of religion among them; and we are not told by him or others +that they were ancestor-worshippers.'[4] + +Probably they are not; but they do possess a Being who reads their hearts, +and who certainly shows no traces of European ideas. If the Fuegians +are not ancestor-worshippers, this Being was not developed out of +ancestor-worship. + +The evidence of Captain Cook, no anthropologist, but a mariner who saw and +knew little of the Fuegians, is precisely of the sort against which Major +Ellis warns us.[5] The more a religion consists in fear of a moral +guardian of conduct, the less does it show itself, by sacrifice or rite, +to the eyes of Captain Cook, of his Majesty's ship _Endeavour_. Mr. +Spencer places the Andamanese on the same level as the Fuegians, 'so far +as the scanty evidence may be trusted.' We have shown that (as known +to Mr. Spencer in 1876) it may not be trusted at all; the Andamanese +possessing a moral Supreme Being, though they are not, apparently, +ancestor-worshippers. The Australians 'show us not much persistence in +ghost-propitiation,' which, if it exists, ceases when the corpses are tied +up and buried, or after they are burned, or after the bones, carried about +for a while, are exposed on platforms. Yet many Australian tribes possess +a moral Supreme Being. + +In fact ghost-worship, in Mr. Spencer's scheme, cannot be fairly well +developed till society reaches the level of 'settled groups whose +burial-places are in their midst.' Hence the development of a moral +Supreme Being among tribes _not_ thus settled, is inconceivable, on +Mr. Spencer's hypothesis.[6] By that hypothesis, 'worshipped ancestors, +according to their remoteness, were regarded as divine, semi-divine, and +human.'[7] Where we find, then, the Divine Being among nomads who do not +remember their great-grandfathers, the Spencerian theory is refuted by +facts. We have the effect, the Divine Being, without the cause, worship of +ancestors. + +Coming to the Hebrews, Mr. Spencer argues that 'the silence of their +legends (as to ancestor-worship) is but a negative fact, which may be as +misleading as negative facts usually are.' They are, indeed; witness +Mr. Spencer's own silence about savage Supreme Beings. But we may fairly +argue that if Israel had been given to ancestor-worship (as might partly +be surmised from the mystery about the grave of Moses) the Prophets would +not have spared them for their crying. The Prophets were unusually +outspoken men, and, as they undeniably do scold Israel for every other +kind of conceivable heresy, they were not likely to be silent about +ancestor-worship, if ancestor-worship existed. Mr. Spencer, then, rather +heedlessly, though correctly, argues that 'nomadic habits are unfavourable +to evolution of the ghost-theory.'[8] Alas, this gives away the whole +case! For, if all men began as nomads, and nomadic habits are unfavourable +even to the ordinary ghost, how did the Australian and other nomads +develop the Supreme Being, who, _ex hypothesi_, is the final fruit of the +ghost-flower? If you cannot have 'an established ancestor-worship' till +you abandon nomadic habits, how, while still nomadic, do you evolve a +Supreme Being? Obviously not out of ancestor-worship. + +Mr. Spencer then assigns, as evidence for ancestor-worship in Israel, +mourning dresses, fasting, the law against self-bleeding and cutting off +the hair for the dead, and the text (Deut. xxvi. 14) about 'I have not +given aught thereof for the dead.' 'Hence, the conclusion must be that +ancestor-worship had developed as far as nomadic habits allowed, before it +was repressed by a higher worship.'[9] But whence came that higher worship +which seems to have intervened immediately after the cessation of nomadic +habits? + +There are obvious traces of grief expressed in a primitive way among the +Hebrews. 'Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your +eyes for the dead' (Deut. xiv. 1). 'Neither shall men lament for them, +nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; neither shall men +tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead' (by +way of counter-irritant to grief); 'neither shall men give them the cup +of consolation to drink for their father or their mother,' because the +Jews were to be removed from their homes.[10] 'Ye shall not make any +cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.'[11] + +It may be usual to regard inflictions, such as cutting, by mourners, as +sacrifices to the ghost of the dead. But one has seen a man strike himself +a heavy blow on receiving news of a loss _not_ by death, and I venture to +fancy that cuttings and gashings at funerals are merely a more violent +form of appeal to a counter-irritant of grief, and, again, a token of +recklessness caused by a sorrow which makes void the world. One of John +Nicholson's native adorers killed himself on news of that warrior's death, +saying, 'What is left worth living for?' This was not a sacrifice to the +Manes of Nicholson. The sacrifice of the mourner's hair, as by Achilles, +argues a similar indifference to personal charm. Once more, the text in +Psalm cvi. 28, 'They joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the +sacrifices of the dead,' is usually taken by commentators as a reference +to the ritual of gods who are no gods. But it rather seems to indicate an +acquiescence in foreign burial rites. All this additional evidence does +not do much to prove ancestor-worship in Israel, though the secrecy of the +burial of Moses, 'in a valley of the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; +but no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day,' may indicate a dread of +a nascent worship of the great leader.[12] The scene of the defection in +Psalm cvi., Beth-peor, is indicated in Numbers xxv., where Israel runs +after the girls and the gods of Moab: 'And Moab called the people unto the +sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their +gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor.' Psalm cvi. is obviously a +later restatement of this addiction to the Moabite gods, and the Psalm +adds 'they ate the sacrifices of the dead.' + +It is plain that, for whatever reason, ancestor-worship among the Hebrews +was, at the utmost, rudimentary. Otherwise it must have been clearly +denounced by the Prophets among the other heresies of Israel. Therefore, +as being at the most rudimentary, ancestor-worship in Israel could not be +developed at once into the worship of Jehovah. + +Though ancestor-worship among the Hebrews could not be fully developed, +according to Mr. Spencer, because of their nomadic habits, it _was_ fully +developed, according to the Rev. A.W. Oxford. 'Every family, like every +old Roman and Greek family, was firmly held together by the worship of its +ancestors, the hearth was the altar, the head of the family the priest.... +The bond which kept together the families of a tribe was its common +religion, the worship of its reputed ancestor. The chief of the tribe was, +of course, the priest of the cult.' Of course; but what a pity that Mr. +Huxley and Mr. Spencer omitted facts so invaluable to their theory! And +how does the Rev. Mr. Oxford know? Well, 'there is no direct proof,' +oddly enough, of so marked a feature in Hebrew religion but we are +referred to 1 Sam. xx. 29 and Judges xviii. 19. 1 Sam. xx. 29 makes +Jonathan say that David wants to go to a family sacrifice, that is, a +family dinner party. This hardly covers the large assertions made by +Mr. Oxford. His second citation is so unlucky as to contradict his +observation that 'of course' the chief of the tribe was the priest of the +cult. Micah, in Judges xvii., xviii., is _not_ the chief of his tribe +(Ephraim), neither is he even the priest in his own house. He 'consecrated +one of his own sons who became his priest,' till he got hold of a casual +young Levite, and said, 'Be unto me a _father_ and a priest,' for ten +shekels _per annum_, a suit of clothes, and board and lodging. + +In place, then, of any remote reference to a chief's being priest of his +ancestral ghosts, we have here a man of one tribe who is paid rather +handsomely to be family chaplain to a member of another tribe. Some +moss-troopers of the tribe of Dan then kidnapped this valuable young +Levite, and seized a few idols which Micah had permitted himself to make. +And all this, according to our clerical authority, is evidence for +ancestor-worship![13] + +All this appears to be derived from some incoherent speculations of Stade. +For example, that learned German cites the story of Micah as a proof that +the different tribes or clans had different religions. This _must_ be so, +because the Danites asked the young Levite whether it was not better to be +priest to a clan than to an individual? It is as if a patron offered a +rich living to somebody's private chaplain, saying that the new position +was more creditable and lucrative. This would hardly prove a difference of +religion between the individual and the parish.[14] + +Mr. Oxford next avers that 'the earliest form of the Israelite religion +was Fetishism or Totemism.' This is another example of Stade's logic. +Finding, as he believes, names suggestive of Totemism in Simeon, Levi, +Rachel, and so on, Stade leaps to the conclusion that Totemism in Israel +was prior to anything resembling monotheism. For monotheism, he argues, +could not give the germs of the clan or tribal organisation, while Totemism +could do so. Certainly it could, but as, in many regions (America, +Australia), we find Totemism and the belief in a benevolent Supreme Being +co-existing among savages, when first observed by Europeans, we cannot +possibly say dogmatically whether a rough monotheism or whether Totemism +came first in order of evolution. This holds as good of Israel (if once +totemistic) as it does of Pawnees or Kurnai. Stade has overlooked these +well-known facts, and his opinion filters into a cheap hand-book, and is +set in examinations![15] + +We also learn from Mr. Oxford's popular manual of German Biblical +conjecture that 'Jehovah was not represented as a loving Father, but as a +Being easily roused to wrath,' a thing most incident to loving fathers. + +Again, Mr. Oxford avers that 'the old Israelites knew no distinction +between physical and moral evil.... The conception of Jehovah's holiness +had nothing moral in it' (p. 90). This rather contradicts Wellhausen: 'In +all ancient primitive peoples ... religion furnishes a motive for law and +morals; in the case of none did it become so with such purity and power as +in that of the Israelites.'[16] + +We began by examining Mr. Huxley's endeavours to find traces of +ancestor-worship (in his opinion the origin of Jehovah-worship) among the +Israelites. We next criticised Mr. Spencer's efforts in the same quest, +and the more dogmatic assertions of Mr. Oxford and Stade. We now return to +Mr. Huxley's account of the evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of +Jehovah. + +From the history of the Witch of Endor, which Mr. Huxley sees no reason to +regard as other than a sincere statement of what really occurred, he +gathers that the Witch cried out, 'I see Elohim.' These Elohim proved to +be the phantasm of the dead Samuel. Moved by this hallucination the Witch +uttered a veridical premonition, totally adverse to her own interests, and +uncommonly dangerous to her life. This is, psychically, interesting. +The point, however, is that _Elohim_ is a term equivalent to Red +Indian _Wakan_, Fijian _Kahu_, Maori or Melanesian _Mana_, meaning the +'supernatural,' the vaguely powerful--in fact X. This particular example +of _Elohim_ was a phantasm of the dead, but _Elohim_ is also used of the +highest Divine Being, therefore the highest Divine Being is of the same +genus as a ghost--so Mr. Huxley reasons. 'The difference which was +supposed to exist between the different Elohim was one of degree, not of +kind.'[17] + +'If Jehovah was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the +undoubtedly zoomorphic or anthropomorphic "gods of the nations," why is it +to be assumed that he also was not thought to have a human shape?' He +_was_ thought to have a human shape, at one time, by some theorists: no +doubt exists on that head. That, however, is not where we demur. We demur +when, because an hallucination of the Witch of Endor (probably still +incompletely developed) is called by her _Elohim_, therefore the highest +_Elohim_ is said by Mr. Huxley to differ from a ghost only in degree, not +in kind. _Elohim_, or _El_, the creative, differs from a ghost in kind, +because he, in Hebrew belief, never was a ghost, he is immortal and +without beginning. + +Mr. Huxley now enforces his theory by a parallel between the religion of +Tonga and the religion of Israel under the Judges. He quotes Mariner,[18] +whose statement avers that there is a supreme Tongan being: 'of his +origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal. His name is +T-li-y-Tooboo = "Wait-there-Tooboo."' 'He is a great chief from the top +of the sky down to the bottom of the earth.' He, and other '_original_ +gods' of his making, are carefully and absolutely discriminated from the +_atua_, which are 'the human soul after its separation from the body.' All +Tongan gods are _atua_ (_Elohim_), but all _atua_ are not 'original gods,' +unserved by priests, and unpropitiated by food or libation, like the +highest God, T-li-y-Tooboo, the Eternal of Tonga. 'He occasionally +inspires the How' (elective King), but often a How is not inspired at all +by T-li-y-Tooboo, any more than Saul, at last, was inspired by Jehovah. + +Surely there is a difference _in kind_ between an eternal, immortal God, +and a ghost, though both are _atua_, or both are _Elohim_--the unknown X. + +Many people call a ghost 'supernatural;' they also call God +'supernatural,' but the difference between a phantasm of a dead man and +the Deity they would admit, I conceive, to be a difference of kind. We +have shown, or tried to show, that the conceptions of 'ghost' and 'Supreme +Being' are different, not only in kind, but in origin. The ghost comes +from, and depends on, the animistic theory; the Supreme Being, as +originally thought of, does not. All Gods are _Elohim, kalou, wakan_; all +_Elohim, kalou, wakan_ are not Gods. + +A ghost-god should receive food or libation. Mr. Huxley says that +T-li-y-Tooboo did so. 'If the god, like T-li-y-Tooboo, had no priest, +then the chief place was left vacant, and was supposed to be occupied by +the god himself. _When the first cup of Kava was filled_, the mataboole +who acted as master of the ceremonies said, "Give it to your god," and it +was offered, though only as a matter of form.'[19] + +This is incorrect. In the case of T-li-y-Tooboo _'there is no cup filled +for the god.'_[20] _'Before any cup is filled_ the man by the side of the +bowl says: "The Kava is in the cup"' (which it is not), 'and the mataboole +answers, "Give it to your god;"' but the Kava is _not_ in the cup, and the +Tongan Eternal receives no oblation. + +The sacrifice, says Mr. Huxley, meant 'that the god was either a deified +ghost, or, at any rate, a being of like nature to these.'[21] But as +T-li-y-Tooboo had no sacrifice, contrary to Mr. Huxley's averment, he was +_not_ 'a deified ghost, or a being of like nature to these.' To the lower, +non-ghostly Tongan gods the animistic habit of sacrifice had been +extended, but not yet to the Supreme Being. + +Ah, if Mr. Gladstone, or the Duke of Argyll, or some bishop had made a +misstatement of this kind, how Mr. Huxley would have crushed him! But it +is a mere error of careless reading, such as we all make daily. + +It is manifest that we cannot prove Jehovah to be a ghost by the parallel +of a Tongan god, who, by ritual and by definition, was _not_ a ghost. The +proof therefore rests on the anthropomorphised pre-prophetic accounts, and +on the ritual, of Jehovah. But man naturally 'anthropises' his deities: he +does not thereby demonstrate that they were once ghosts. + +As regards the sacrifices to Jehovah, the sweet savour which he was +supposed to enjoy (contrary to the opinion of the Prophets), these +sacrifices afford the best presumption that Jehovah was a ghost-god, or a +god constructed on ghostly lines. + +But we have shown that among the lowest races neither are ghosts +worshipped by sacrifice, nor does the Supreme Being, Darumulun or Puluga, +receive food offerings. We have also instanced many Supreme Beings +of more advanced races, Ahone, and Dendid, and Nyankupon, who do not sniff +the savour of any offerings. If then (as in the case of Taa-roa), a +Supreme Being _does_ receive sacrifice, we may argue that a piece of +animistic ritual, not connected with the Supreme Being in Australia or +Andaman, not connected with his creed in Virginia or Africa (where +ghost-gods do receive sacrifice), may in other regions be transferred from +ghost-gods to the Supreme Being, who never was a ghost. There seems to +be nothing incredible or illogical in the theory of such transference. + +On a God who never was a ghost men may come to confer sacrifices (which +are not made to Baiame and the rest) because, being in the habit of thus +propitiating one set of bodiless powers, men may not think it civil or +safe to leave another set of powers out. By his very nature, man must +clothe all gods with some human passions and attributes, unless, like a +large number of savages, he leaves his high God severely alone, and is the +slave of fetishes and spectres. But that practice makes against the +ghost-theory. + +In the attempt to account thus, namely by transference, for the sacrifices +to Jehovah, we are met by a difficulty of our own making. If the +Israelites did not sacrifice to ancestors (as we have shown that there is +very scant reason for supposing that they did), how could they transfer to +Jehovah the rite which, by our hypothesis, they are not proved to have +offered to ancestors? + +This is certainly a hard problem, harder (or perhaps easier) because we +know so very little of the early history of the Hebrews. According to +their own traditions, Israel had been in touch with all manner of races +much more advanced than themselves in material culture, and steeped in +highly developed polytheistic Animism. According to their history, the +Israelites 'went a-whoring' incorrigibly after strange gods. It is +impossible, perhaps, to disentangle the foreign and the native elements. + +It may therefore be tentatively suggested that early Israel had its Ahone +in a Being perhaps not yet named Jehovah. Israel entertained, however, +perhaps by reason of 'nomadic habits,' only the scantiest concern about +ancestral ghosts. We then find an historical tradition of secular contact +between Israel and Egypt, from which Israel emerges with Jehovah for God, +and a system of sacrifices. Regarding Jehovah as a revived memory of +the moral Supreme Being whom Israel must have known in extremely remote +ages (unless Israel was less favoured than Australians, Bushmen, or +Andamanese), we might look on the sacrifices to him as an adaptation from +the practices of religion among races more settled than Israel, and more +civilised.[22] + +Speculation on subjects so remote must be conjectural, but our suggestion +would, perhaps, account for sacrifices to Jehovah, paid by a race +which, by reason of 'nomadic habits,' was never much given to +ancestor-worship, but had been in contact with great sacrificing, +polytheistic civilisations. Mr. Huxley, however, while he seems to slur +the essential distinction between ghost-gods and the Eternal, grants, +later, that 'there are very few people(s?) without additional gods, +which cannot, with certainty, be accounted for as deified ancestors.' +T-li-y-Tooboo, of course, is one of these gods, as is Jehovah. Mr. Huxley +gives no theory of _how_ these gods came into belief, except the +suggestion that 'the polytheistic theology has become modified by the +selection of the cosmic or tribal god, as the only god to whom worship is +due on the part of that nation,' without prejudice to the right of other +nations to worship other gods.[23] This is 'monolatry,' and 'the ethical +code, often of a very high order, comes into closer relation with the +theological creed,' _why_, we are not informed. Nor do we learn out of +what polytheistic deities Jehovah was selected, nor for what reason. The +hypothesis, as usual, breaks down on the close relation between the +ethical code and the theological creed, among low savages, with a +relatively Supreme Being, but without ancestor-worship, and without +polytheistic gods from whom to select a heavenly chief. + +Whence came the moral element in the idea of Jehovah? Mr. Huxley supposes +that, during their residence in the land of Goshen (and _a fortiori_ +before it), the Israelites 'knew nothing of Jehovah.'[24] They were +polytheistic idolaters. This follows, apparently, from Ezekiel xx. 5: +'In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of +the house of Jacob, _and made myself known unto them_ in the land of +Egypt.' The Biblical account is that the God of Moses's fathers, the God +of Abraham, enlightened Moses in Sinai, giving his name as 'I am that I +am' (Exodus iii. 6, 14; translation uncertain). We are to understand that +Moses, a religious reformer, revived an old, and, in the Egyptian bondage, +a half-obliterated creed of the ancient nomadic Beni-Israel. They were no +longer to 'defile themselves with the idols of Egypt,' as they had +obviously done. We really know no more about the matter. Wellhausen says +that Jehovah was 'originally a family or tribal god, either of the family +of Moses or of the tribe of Joseph.' How a family could develop a Supreme +Being all to itself, we are not informed, and we know of no such analogous +case in the ethnographic field. Again, Jehovah was 'only a special name of +El, current within a powerful circle.' And who was El?[25] 'Moses was not +the first discoverer of the faith.' Probably not, but Mr. Huxley seems to +think that he was. + +Wellhausen's and other German ideas filter into popular traditions, as we +saw, through 'A Short Introduction to the History of Ancient Israel' +(pp. 19, 20), by the Rev. A.W. Oxford, M.A., Vicar of St. Luke's, Soho. +Here follows Mr. Oxford's undeniably 'short way with Jehovah.' 'Moses was +the founder of the Israelite religion. Jehovah, his family or tribal god, +perhaps originally the God of the Kenites, was taken as a tribal god by +all the Israelite tribes.... That Jehovah was not the original god of +Israel' (as the Bible impudently alleges) 'but was the god of the Kenites, +we see mainly from Deut. xxxiii. 2, Judges v. 4, 5, and from the history +of Jethro, who, according to Judges i. 16, was a Kenite.' + +The first text says that, according to Moses, 'the Lord came from Sinai,' +rose up from Seir, and shone from Mount Paran. The second text mentions +Jehovah's going up out of Seir and Sinai. The third text says that Jethro, +Moses's Kenite (or Midianite) father-in-law, dwelt among the people of +Judah; Jethro being a priest of Midian. How all this proves that 'Moses +was a great impostor,' as the poet says, and that Jehovah was not 'the +original God of Israel,' but (1) Moses's family or tribal god, or (2) 'the +god of the Kenites,' I profess my inability to comprehend. + +Wellhausen himself had explained Jehovah as 'a family or tribal god, +either of the family of Moses' (tribe of Levi) 'or of the tribe of +Joseph.' It seems to be all one to Mr. Oxford whether Jehovah was a god +of Moses's tribe or quite the reverse, 'a Kenite god.' Yet it really +makes a good deal of difference! For in a complex of tribes, speaking one +language, it is to the last degree unexampled (within my knowledge) that +one tribe, or family, possesses, all to itself, a family god who is also +the Creator and is later accepted as such by all the other tribes. One may +ask for instances of such a thing in any known race, in any stage of +culture. Peru will not help us--not the Creator, Pachacamac, but the Sun, +is the god of the Inca family. If, on the other hand, Jehovah was a Kenite +god, the Kenites were a half-Arab Semitic people connected with Israel, +and may very well have retained traditions of a Supreme Being which, in +Egypt, were likely to be dimmed, as Exodus asserts, by foreign religions. +The learned Stade, to be sure, may disbelieve in Israel's sojourn in +Egypt, but that revolutionary opinion is not necessarily binding on us and +involves a few difficulties. + +Have critics and manual-makers no knowledge of the science of comparative +religion? Are they unaware that peoples infinitely more backward than +Israel was at the date supposed have already moral Supreme Beings +acknowledged over vast tracts of territory? Have they a tittle of positive +evidence that early Israel was benighted beyond the darkness of Bushmen, +Andamanese, Pawnees, Blackfeet, Hurons, Indians of British Guiana, Dinkas, +Negroes, and so forth? Unless Israel had this rare ill-luck (which Israel +denies) of course Israel must have had a secular tradition, however dim, +of a Supreme Being. We must ask for a single instance of a family or +tribe, in a complex of semi-barbaric but not savage tribes of one +speech, owning a private deity who happened to be the Maker and Ruler of +the world, and, as such, was accepted by all the tribes. Jehovah came out +from Sinai, because, there having been a Theophany at Sinai, that mountain +was regarded as one of his seats.[26] + +We have seen that it seemed to make no difference to Mr. Oxford whether +Jehovah was a god of Moses's family or tribe or a Kenite god. The former +(with the alternative of _Joseph's_ family or tribal god) is Wellhausen's +theory. The latter is Stade's.[27] Each is inconsistent with the other; +Wellhausen's fancy is inconsistent with all that we know of religious +development: Stade's is hopelessly inconsistent with Exodus iv. 24-26, +where Moses's Kenite wife reproaches him for a ceremony of his, not of +her, religion. Therefore the Kenite differed from the Hebrew _sacra_. + +The passage is very extraordinary, and is said by critics to be very +archaic. After the revelation of the Burning Bush, Jehovah met Moses and +his Kenite wife, Zipporah, and their child, at a khan. Jehovah was +anxious to slay Moses, nobody ever knew why, so Zipporah appeased +Jehovah's wrath by circumcising her boy _with a flint_. 'A bloody husband +art thou to me,' she said, 'because of the circumcision'--an Egyptian, +but clearly not a Kenite practice. Whatever all this may mean, it does not +look as if Zipporah expected such rites as circumcision in the faith of a +Kenite husband, nor does it favour the idea that the _sacra_ of Moses were +of Kenite origin. + +Without being a scholar, or an expert in Biblical criticism, one may +protest against the presentation to the manual-reading intellectual middle +classes of a theory so vague, contradictory, and (by all analogy) so +impossible as Mr. Oxford collects from German writers. Of course, the +whole subject, so dogmatically handled, is mere matter of dissentient +opinion among scholars. Thus M. Renan derives the name of Jehovah from +Assyria, from 'Aramaised Chaldaeanism.'[28] In that case the name was long +anterior to the residence in Egypt. But again, perhaps Jehovah was a local +god of Sinai, or a provincial deity in Palestine.[29] He was known to very +ancient sages, who preferred such names as El Shaddai and Elohim. In +short, we have no certainty on the subject.[30] + +I need hardly say, perhaps, that I have no antiquated prejudice against +Biblical criticism. Assuredly the Bible must be studied like any other +collection of documents, linguistically, historically, and in the light of +the comparative method. The leading ideas of Wellhausen, for example, are +conspicuous for acumen: the humblest layman can see that. But one may +protest against criticising the Bible, or Homer, by methods like those +which prove Shakspeare to have been Bacon. One must protest, too, against +the presentation of inconsistent and probably baseless critical hypotheses +in the dogmatic brevity of cheap handbooks. + +Yet again, whence comes the moral element in Jehovah? Mr. Huxley thinks +that it possibly came from the ethical practice and theory of Egypt. In +the Egyptian Book of the Dead, 'a sort of Guide to Spirit Land,' there +are moral chapters; the ghost tells his judges in Amenti what sins he has +_not_ committed. Many of these sins are forbidden in the Ten Commandments. + +They are just as much forbidden in the nascent morality of savage peoples. +Moses did not need the Book of the Dead to teach him elementary morals. +From the mysteries of Mtanga he might have learned, also, had he been +present, the virtue of unselfish generosity. If the creed of Jehovah, or +of El, retained only as much of ethics as is under divine sanction among +the Kurnai, adaptation from the Book of the Dead was superfluous. + +The care for the departed, the ritual of the Ka, the intense +pre-occupation with the future life, which, far more than its morality, +are the essential characteristics of the Book of the Dead--Israel cared +for none of these animistic things, brought none of these, or very little +of these, out of the land of Egypt. Moses was certainly very eclectic; he +took only the morality of Egypt. But as Mr. Huxley advances this opinion +tentatively, as having no secure historical authority about Moses, it +hardly answers our question, Whence came the moral element in Jehovah? One +may surmise that it was the survival of the primitive divinely sanctioned +ethics of the ancient savage ancestors of the Israelite, known to them, +as to the Kurnai, before they had a pot, or a bronze knife, or seed to +sow, or sheep to herd, or even a tent over their heads. In the counsels of +eternity Israel was chosen to keep burning, however obscured with smoke +of sacrifice, that flame which illumines the darkest places of the earth, +'a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel'--a +flame how litten a light whence shining, history cannot inform us, and +anthropology can but conjecture. Here scientific nescience is wiser than +the cocksureness of popular science, with her ghosts and fetish-stones, +and gods that sprang from ghosts, which ghosts, however, could not be +developed, owing to nomadic habits. + +It appears, then, if our general suggestion meets with any acceptance, +that what occurred in the development of Hebrew religion was precisely +what the Bible tells us did occur. This must necessarily seem highly +paradoxical to our generation; but the whole trend of our provisional +system makes in favour of the paradox. If savage nomadic Israel had the +higher religious conceptions proved to exist among several of the lowest +known races, these conceptions might be revived by a leader of genius. +They might, in a crisis of tribal fortunes, become the rallying point of a +new national sentiment. Obscured, in some degree, by acquaintance with +'the idols of Egypt,' and restricted and localised by the very national +sentiment which they fostered, these conceptions were purified and widened +far beyond any local, tribal, or national restrictions--widened far as the +_flammantia moenia mundi_--by the historically unique genius of the +Prophets. Blended with the doctrine of our Lord, and recommended by the +addition of Animism in its pure and priceless form--the reward of faith, +hope, and charity in eternal life--the faith of Israel enlightened the +world. + +All this is precisely what occurred, according to the Old and New +Testaments. All this is just what, on our hypothesis, might be expected to +occur if, out of the many races which, in their most backward culture, had +a rude conception of a Moral Creative Being, relatively supreme, one race +endured the education of Israel, showed the comparative indifference of +Israel to Animism and ghost-gods, listened to the Prophets of Israel, and +gave birth to a greater than Moses and the Prophets. + +To this result the Logos, as Socrates says, has led us, by the path of +anthropology. + +[Footnote 1: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_.] + +[Footnote 2: Op. cit. p. 361.] + +[Footnote 3:_ Science and Hebrew Tradition_. p. 308.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prin. Soc_. p. 306.] + +[Footnote 5: _The Tshi-speaking Races_, p. 183.] + +[Footnote 6: Some Australian tribes have cemeteries, and I have found one +native witness, King Billy, to the celebration of the mysteries near one of +these burying-places. I have not discovered other evidence to this effect, +though I have looked for it. The spot selected is usually 'near the camp,' +and the place for so large a camp in chosen, naturally, where the supply +of food is adequate.] + +[Footnote 7: Cf. the Aryans, _Principles of Sociology_, p. 314.] + +[Footnote 8: _Principles_, p. 316.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. p. 317.] + +[Footnote 10: Jeremiah xvi. 6, 7.] + +[Footnote 11: Leviticus xix. 28.] + +[Footnote 12: Deuteronomy xxxiv. 6.] + +[Footnote 13: _Short Introduction to History of Ancient Israel_, pp. +83, 84.] + +[Footnote 14: Stade i 403.] + +[Footnote 15: Stade, i. 406.] + +[Footnote 16: Wellhausen, _History of Israel_, p. 437. Mr. Oxford's book +is only noticed here because it is meant for a popular manual. As Mr. +Henry Foker says, 'it seems a pity that the clergy should interfere in +these matters.'] + +[Footnote 17: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 299.] + +[Footnote 18: II. 127.] + +[Footnote 19: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 331.] + +[Footnote 20: Mariner, ii. 205.] + +[Footnote 21: Op. cit. p. 335.] + +[Footnote 22: Of course, it in understood that Israel (in the dark +backward and abysm of time) may also have been totemistic, like the +Australians, as texts pointed out by Mr. Robertson Smith seem to hint. +There was also worship of teraphim, respect paid to stones and trees, and +so forth.] + +[Footnote 23: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 349.] + +[Footnote 24: P. 351.] + +[Footnote 25: _History of Israel_, p. 443 note.] + +[Footnote 26: _Religion of Semites_.] + +[Footnote 27: _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_, i. 180.] + +[Footnote 28: _Histoire du Peuple d'Israel_, citing Schrader, p. 23.] + +[Footnote 29: Op. cit. p. 85] + +[Footnote 30: See Professor Robertson's _Early Religion of Israel_ for a +list of these conjectures, and, generally, for criticisms of the +occasional vagaries of critics.] + + + + +XVII + +CONCLUSION + +We may now glance backward at the path which we have tried to cut through +the jungles of early religions. It is not a highway, but the track +of a solitary explorer; and this essay pretends to be no more than a +sketch--not an exhaustive survey of creeds. Its limitations are obvious, +but may here be stated. The higher and even the lower polytheisms are only +alluded to in passing, our object being to keep well in view the +conception of a Supreme, or practically Supreme, Being, from the lowest +stages of human culture up to Christianity. In polytheism that conception +is necessarily obscured, showing itself dimly either in the _Prytanis_, +or President of the Immortals, such as Zeus; or in Fate, behind and above +the Immortals; or in Mr. Max Mller's _Henotheism_, where the god +addressed--Indra, or Soma, or Agni--is, for the moment, envisaged as +supreme, and is adored in something like a monotheistic spirit; or, +finally, in the etherealised deity of advanced philosophic speculation. + +It has not been necessary, for our purpose, to dwell on these civilised +religions. Granting our hypothesis of an early Supreme Being among +savages, obscured later by ancestor-worship and ghost-gods, but not +often absolutely lost to religious tradition, the barbaric and the +civilised polytheisms easily take their position in line, and are easily +intelligible. Space forbids a discussion of all known religions; only +typical specimens have been selected. Thus, nothing has been said of the +religion of the great Chinese empire. It appears to consist, on its +higher plane, of the worship of Heaven as a great fetish-god--a worship +which may well have begun in days, as Dr. Brinton says, 'long ere man had +asked himself, "Are the heavens material and God spiritual?"'--perhaps, +for all we know, before the idea of 'spirit' had been evolved. Thus, if it +contains nothing more august, the Chinese religion is, so far, beneath +that of the Zuis, or the creed in Taa-roa, in Beings who are eternal, who +were before earth was or sky was. The Chinese religion of Heaven is also +coloured by Chinese political conditions; Heaven (Tien) corresponds to the +Emperor, and tends to be confounded with Shang-ti, the Emperor above. 'Dr. +Legge charges Confucius,' says Mr. Tylor, 'with an inclination to +substitute, in his religious teaching, the name of Tien, Heaven, for that +known to more ancient religion, and used in more ancient books--Shang-ti, +the personal ruling deity.' If so, China too has its ancient Supreme +Being, who is not a divinised aspect of nature. + +But Mr. Tylor's reading, in harmony with his general theory, is different: + +'It seems, rather, that the sage was, in fact, upholding the tradition of +the ancient faith, thus acting according to the character on which he +prided himself--that of a transmitter, not a maker, a preserver of old +knowledge, not a new revealer.'[1] + +This, of course, is purely a question of evidence, to be settled by +Sinologists. If the personal Supreme Being, Shang-ti, occupies in older +documents the situation held by Tien (Heaven) in Confucius's later system, +why are we to say that Confucius, by putting forward Heaven in place of +Shang-ti, was restoring an older conception? Mr. Tylor's affection for his +theory leads him, perhaps, to that opinion; while my affection for my +theory leads me to prefer documentary evidence in its favour. + +The question can only be settled by specialists. As matters stand, it +seems to me probable that ancient China possessed a Supreme Personal +Being, more remote and original than Heaven, just as the Zuis do. On +the lower plane, Chinese religion is overrun, as everyone knows, by +Animism and ancestor-worship. This is so powerful that it has given rise +to a native theory of Euhemerism. The departmental deities of Chinese +polytheism are explained by the Chinese on Euhemeristic principles: + +'According to legend, the War God, or Military Sage, was once, in human +life, a distinguished soldier; the Swine God was a hog-breeder who lost +his pigs and died of sorrow; the God of Gamblers was _un dcav_.'[2] + +These are not statements of fact, but of Chinese Euhemeristic theory. On +that hypothesis, Confucius should now be a god; but of course he is not; +his spirit is merely localised in his temple, where the Emperor worships +him twice a year as ancestral spirits are worshipped. + +Every theorist will force facts into harmony with his system, but I do not +see that the Chinese facts are contrary to mine. On the highest plane is +either a personal Supreme Being, Shang-ti, or there is Tien, Heaven (with +Earth, parent of men), neither of them necessarily owing, in origin, +anything to Animism. Then there is the political reflection of the Emperor +on Religion (which cannot exist where there is no Emperor, King, or Chief, +and therefore must be late), there is the animistic rabble of spirits +ancestral or not, and there is departmental polytheism. The spirits are, +of course, fed and furnished by men in the usual symbolical way. Nothing +shows or hints that Shang-ti is merely an imaginary idealised first +ancestor. Indeed, about all such explanations of the Supreme Being (say +among the Kurnai) as an idealised imaginary first ancestor, M. Rville +justly observes as follows: 'Not only have we seen that, in wide regions +of the uncivilised world, the worship of ancestors has invaded a domain +previously occupied by "Naturism" and Animism properly so called, that it +is, therefore, posterior to these; but, farther, we do not understand, in +Mr. Spencer's system, why, in so many places, the first ancestor is the +Maker, if not the Creator of the world, Master of life and death, and +possessor of divine powers, not held by any of his descendants. This +proves that it was not the first ancestor who became God, in the belief of +his descendants, but much rather the Divine Maker and Beginner of all, +who, in the creed of his adorers, became the first ancestor.'[3] + +Our task has been limited, in this way, mainly to examination of +the religion of some of the very lowest races, and of the highest +world-religions, such as Judaism. The historical aspect of Christianity, +as arising in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, would demand +a separate treatise. This would, in part, be concerned with the attempts +to find in the narratives concerning our Lord, a large admixture of the +mythology and ritual connected with the sacrificed _Rex Nemorensis_, and +whatever else survives in peasant folk-lore of spring and harvest.[4] + +After these apologies for the limitations of this essay, we may survey the +backward track. We began by showing that savages may stumble, and have +stumbled, on theories not inconsistent with science, but not till +recently discovered by science. The electric origin of the Aurora Borealis +(whether absolutely certain or not) was an example; another was the +efficacy of 'suggestion,' especially for curative purposes. It was, +therefore, hinted that, if savages blundered (if you please) into a belief +in God and the Soul, however obscurely envisaged, these beliefs were not +therefore necessarily and essentially false. We then stated our purpose of +examining the alleged supernormal phenomena, savage or civilised, which, +on Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, help to originate the conception of 'spirits.' +We defended the nature of our evidence, as before anthropologists, by +showing that, for the savage belief in the supernormal phenomena, we have +exactly the kind of evidence on which all anthropological science reposes. +The relative weakness of that evidence, our need of more and better +evidence, we would be the very last to deny, indeed it is part of our +case. Our existing evidence will hardly support any theory of religion. +Anyone who is in doubt on that head has only to read M. Rville's 'Les +Religions des Peuples Non-Civiliss,' under the heads 'Mlansiens,' +'Mincopies,' 'Les Australiens' (ii. 116-143), when he will observe that +this eminent French authority is ignorant of the facts about these races +here produced. In 1883 they had not come within his ken. Such minute and +careful inquiries by men closely intimate with the peoples concerned, as +Dr. Codrington's, Mr. Hewitt's, Mr. Man's, and the authorities compiled by +Mr. Brough Smyth, were unfamiliar to M. Rville, Thus, in turn, new facts, +or facts unknown to us, may upset my theory. This peril is of the essence +of scientific theorising on the history of religion. + +Having thus justified our evidence for the savage _belief_ in supernormal +phenomena, as before anthropologists, we turned to a court of +psychologists in defence of our evidence for the _fact_ of exactly the +same supernormal phenomena in civilised experience. We pointed out that +for subjective psychological experiences, say of telepathy, we had +precisely the same evidence as all non-experimental psychology must and +does rest upon. Nay, we have even experimental evidence, in experiments in +thought-transference. We have chiefly, however, statements of subjective +experience. For the coincidence of such experience with unknown events we +have such evidence as, in practical life, is admitted by courts of law. + +Experimental psychology, of course, relies on experiments conducted under +the eyes of the expert, for example, by hypnotism or otherwise, under Dr. +Hack Tuke, Professor James, M. Richet, M. Janet. The evidence is +the conduct rather than the statements of the subject. There is +also physiological experiment, by vivisection (I regret to say) and +post-mortem dissection. But non-experimental psychology reposes on the +self-examination of the student, and on the statements of psychological +experiences made to him by persons whom he thinks he can trust. The +psychologist, however, if he be, as Mr. Galton says, 'unimaginative in the +strict but unusual sense of that ambiguous word,' needs Mr. Galton's 'word +of warning.' He is asked 'to resist a too frequent tendency to assume that +the minds of every other sane and healthy person must be like his own. The +psychologist should inquire into the minds of others as he should into +those of animals of different races, and be prepared to find much to which +his own experience can afford little if any clue.'[5] Mr. Galton had to +warn the unimaginative psychologist in this way, because he was about to +unfold his discovery of the faculty which presents numbers to some minds +as visualised coloured numerals, 'so vivid as to be undistinguishable from +reality, except by the aid of accidental circumstances.' + +Mr. Galton also found in his inquiries that occasional hallucinations of +the sane are much more prevalent than he had supposed, or than science had +ever taken into account. All this was entirely new to psychologists, +many of whom still (at least many popular psychologists of the press) +appear to be unacquainted with the circumstances. One of them informed me, +quite gravely, that '_he_ never had an hallucination,' therefore--_his_ +mind being sane and healthy--the inference seemed to be that no sane and +healthy mind was ever hallucinated. Mr. Galton has replied to _that_ +argument! His reply covers, logically, the whole field of psychological +faculties little regarded, for example, by Mr. Sully, who is not exactly +an imaginative psychologist. + +It covers the whole field of automatism (as in automatic writing) perhaps +of the divining rod, certainly of crystal visions and of occasional +hallucinations, as Mr. Galton, in this last case, expressly declares. +Psychologists at least need not be told that such faculties cannot, +any more than other human faculties, be always evoked for study and +experiment. Our evidence for these faculties and experiences, then, is +usually of the class on which the psychologist relies. But, when the +psychologist, following Leibnitz, Sir William Hamilton, and Kant, +discusses the Subconscious (for example, knowledge, often complex and +abundant, unconsciously acquired) we demonstrated by examples that the +psychologist will contentedly repose on evidence which is not evidence at +all. He will swallow an undated, unlocalised legend of Coleridge, reaching +Coleridge on the testimony of rumour, and told at least twenty years after +the unverified occurrences. Nay, the psychologist will never dream of +procuring contemporary evidence for such a monstrous statement as that +an ignorant German wench unconsciously acquired and afterwards +subconsciously reproduced huge cantles of dead languages, by virtue of +having casually heard a former master recite or read aloud from Hebrew and +Greek books. This legend do psychologists accept on no evidence at all, +because it illustrates a theory which is, doubtless, a very good theory, +though, in this case, carried to an extent 'imagination boggles at.' + +Here the psychologist may reply that much less evidence will content him +for a fact to which he possesses, at least, analogies in accredited +experience, than for a fact (say telepathic crystal-gazing) to which _he_ +knows, in experience, nothing analogous. Thus, for the mythical German +handmaid, he has the analogy of languages learned in childhood, or +passages got up by rote, being forgotten and brought back to ordinary +conscious memory, or delirious memory, during an illness, or shortly +before death. Strong in these analogies, the psychologist will venture to +accept a case of language _not_ learned, but reproduced in delirious +memory, on no evidence at all. But, not possessing analogies for +telepathic crystal-gazing, he will probably decline to examine ours. + +I would first draw his attention to the difference between revived memory +of a language once known (Breton and Welsh in known examples), or learned +by rote (as Greek, in an anecdote of Goethe's), and verbal reproduction +of a language _not_ known or learned by rote but overheard--each passage +probably but once--as somebody recited fragments. In this instance (that +of the mythical maid) 'the difficulty ... is that the original impressions +had not the strength--that is, the distinctness--of the reproduction. An +unknown language overheard is a mere sound....'[6] + +The distinction here drawn is so great and obvious that for proof of the +German girl's case we need better evidence than Coleridge's rumour of a +rumour, cited, as it is, by Hamilton, Maudsley, Carpenter, Du Prel, and +the common run of manuals. + +Not that I deny, _a priori_, the possibility of Coleridge's story. As Mr. +Huxley says, 'strictly speaking, I am unaware of anything that has a right +to the title of an "impossibility," except a contradiction in terms.'[7] +To the horror of some of his admirers, Mr. Huxley would not call the +existence of demons and demoniacal possession 'impossible.'[8] Mr. Huxley +was no blind follower of Hume. I, too, do not call Coleridge's tale +'impossible,' but, unlike the psychologists, I refuse to accept it on +'Bardolph's security.' And I contrast their conduct, in swallowing +Coleridge's legend, with their refusal (if they do refuse) to accept the +evidence for the automatic writing of not-consciously-known languages (as +of eleventh-century French poetry and prose by Mr. Schiller), or their +refusal (if they do refuse) to look at the evidence for telepathic +crystal-gazing, or any other supernormal exhibitions of faculty, attested +by living and honourable persons. + +I wish I saw a way for orthodox unimaginative psychology out of its +dilemma. + +After offering to anthropologists and psychologists these considerations, +which I purposely reiterate, we examined historically the relations of +science to 'the marvellous,' showing for example how Hume, following his +_a priori_ theory of the impossible, would have declined to investigate, +because they were 'miraculous,' certain occurrences which, to Charcot, +were ordinary incidents in medical experience. + +We next took up and criticised the anthropological theory of religion as +expounded by Mr. Tylor. We then collected from his work a series of +alleged supernormal phenomena in savage belief, all making for the +foundation of animistic religion. Through several chapters we pursued the +study of these phenomena, choosing savage instances, and setting beside +them civilised testimony to facts of experience. Our conclusion was that +such civilised experiences, if they occurred, as they are universally said +to do, among savages, would help to originate, and would very strongly +support the savage doctrine of souls, the base of religion in the theory +of English anthropologists. But apart from the savage doctrine of +'spirits' (whether they exist or not), the evidence points to the +existence of human faculties not allowed for in the current systems of +materialism. + +We next turned from the subject of supernormal experiences to the admitted +facts about early religion. Granting the belief in souls and ghosts and +spirits, however attained, how was the idea of a Supreme Being to be +evolved out of that belief? We showed that, taking the creed as found in +the lowest races, the processes put forward by anthropologists could +not account for its evolution. The facts would not fit into, but +contradicted, the anthropological theory. The necessary social conditions +postulated were not found in places where the belief is found. Nay, the +necessary social conditions for the evolution even of ancestor-worship +were confessedly not found where the supposed ultimate result of +ancestor-worship, the belief in a Supreme Being, flourished abundantly. + +Again, the belief in a Supreme Being, _ex hypothesi_ the latest in +evolution, therefore the most potent, was often shelved and half +forgotten, or neglected, or ridiculed, where the belief in Animism (_ex +hypothesi_ the earlier) was in full vigour. We demonstrated by facts that +Anthropology had simplified her task by ignoring that essential feature, +_the prevalent alliance of ethics with religion_, in the creed of the +lowest and least developed races. Here, happily, we have not only the +evidence of an earnest animist, Mr. Im Thurn, on our side, but that of a +distinguished Semitic scholar, the late Mr. Robertson Smith. 'We see that +even in its rudest forms Religion was a moral force, the powers that man +reveres were on the side of social order and moral law; and the fear of +the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of society, which were also the +laws of morality.'[9] Wellhausen has already been cited to the same +effect. + +However, the facts proving that truth, and unselfishness, surely a large +element of Christian ethics, are divinely sanctioned in savage religion +are more potent than the most learned opinion on that side. + +Our next step was to examine in detail several religions of the most +remote and backward races, of races least contaminated with Christian or +Islamite teaching. Our evidence, when possible, was derived from ancient +and secret tribal mysteries, and sacred native hymns. We found a +relatively Supreme Being, a Maker, sanctioning morality, and unpropitiated +by sacrifice, among peoples who go in dread of ghosts and wizards, but do +not always worship ancestors. We showed that the anthropological theory of +the evolution of God out of ghosts in no way explains the facts in the +savage conception of a Supreme Being. We then argued that the notion of +'spirit,' derived from ghost-belief, was not logically needed for the +conception of a Supreme Being in its earliest form, was detrimental to +the conception, and, by much evidence, was denied to be part of the +conception. The Supreme Being, thus regarded, may be (though he cannot +historically be shown to be) prior to the first notion of ghost and +separable souls. + +We then traced the idea of such a Supreme Being through the creeds of +races rising in the scale of material culture, demonstrating that he was +thrust aside by the competition of ravenous but serviceable ghosts, +ghost-gods, and shades of kingly ancestors, with their magic and their +bloody rites. These rites and the animistic conception behind them were +next, in rare cases, reflected or refracted back on the Supreme Eternal. +Aristocratic institutions fostered polytheism with the old Supreme Being +obscured, or superseded, or enthroned as Emperor-God, or King-God. We saw +how, and in what sense, the old degeneration theory could be defined and +defended. We observed traces of degeneration in certain archaic aspects of +the faith in Jehovah; and we proved that (given a tolerably pure low +savage belief in a Supreme Being) that belief _must_ degenerate, under +social conditions, as civilisation advanced. Next, studying what we may +call the restoration of Jehovah, under the great Prophets of Israel, we +noted that they, and Israel generally, were strangely indifferent to that +priceless aspect of Animism, the care for the future happiness, as +conditioned by the conduct of the individual soul. That aspect had been +neglected neither by the popular instinct nor the priestly and philosophic +reflection of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Christianity, last, combined what +was good in Animism, the care for the individual soul as an immortal +spirit under eternal responsibilities, with the One righteous Eternal of +prophetic Israel, and so ended the long, intricate, and mysterious +theological education of humanity. Such is our theory, which does +not, to us, appear to lack evidence, nor to be inconsistent (as the +anthropological theory is apparently inconsistent) with the hypothesis of +evolution. + +All this, it must be emphatically insisted on, is propounded 'under all +reserves.' While these four stages, say (1) the Australian unpropitiated +Moral Being, (2) the African neglected Being, still somewhat moral, +(3) the relatively Supreme Being involved in human sacrifice, as in +Polynesia, and (4) the Moral Being reinstated philosophically, as in +Israel, do suggest steps in evolution, we desire to base no hard-and-fast +system of ascending and descending degrees upon our present evidence. +The real object is to show that facts may be regarded in this light, as +well as in the light thrown by the anthropological theory, in the hands +whether of Mr. Tylor, Mr. Spencer, M. Rville, or Mr. Jevons, whose +interesting work comes nearest to our provisional hypothesis. + +We only ask for suspense of judgment, and for hesitation in accepting the +dogmas of modern manual makers. An exception to them certainly appears to +be Mr. Clodd, if we may safely attribute to him a review (signed C.) of +Mr. Grant Allen's 'Evolution of the Idea of God.' + +'We fear that all our speculations will remain summaries of probabilities. +No documents are extant to enlighten us; we have only mobile, complex and +confused ideas, incarnate in eccentric, often contradictory theories. That +this character attaches to such ideas should keep us on guard against +framing theories whose symmetry is sometimes their condemnation' ('Daily +Chronicle,' December 10, 1897). + +Nothing excites my own suspicion of my provisional hypothesis more than +its symmetry. It really seems to fit the facts, as they appear to me, too +neatly. I would suggest, however, that ancient savage sacred hymns, +and practices in the mysteries, are really rather of the nature of +'documents;' more so, at least, than the casual observations of some +travellers, or the gossip extracted from natives much in contact with +Europeans. + +Supposing that the arguments in this essay met with some acceptance, what +effect would they have, if any, on our thoughts about religion? What is +their practical tendency? The least dubious effect would be, I hope, to +prevent us from accepting the anthropological theory of religion, or any +other theory, as a foregone conclusion, I have tried to show how dim is +our knowledge, how weak, often, is our evidence, and that, finding among +the lowest savages all the elements of all religions already developed +in different degrees, we cannot, historically, say that one is earlier +than another. This point of priority we can never historically settle. If +we met savages with ghosts and no gods, we could not be sure but that they +once possessed a God, and forgot him. If we met savages with a God and no +ghosts, we could not be historically certain that a higher had not +obliterated a lower creed. For these reasons dogmatic decisions about the +_origin_ of religion seem unworthy of science. They will appear yet more +futile to any student who goes so far with me as to doubt whether the +highest gods of the lowest races could be developed, or can be shown to +have been developed, by way of the ghost-theory. To him who reaches this +point the whole animistic doctrine of ghosts as the one germ of religion +will appear to be imperilled. The main practical result, then, will be +hesitation about accepting the latest scientific opinion, even when backed +by great names, and published in little primers. + +On the hypothesis here offered to criticism there are two chief sources of +Religion, (1) the belief, how attained we know not,[10] in a powerful, +moral, eternal, omniscient Father and Judge of men; (2) the belief +(probably developed out of experiences normal and supernormal) in +somewhat of man which may survive the grave. This second belief is not, +logically, needed as given material for the first, in its apparently +earliest form. It may, for all we know, be the later of the two beliefs, +chronologically. But this belief, too, was necessary to religion; first, +as finally supplying a formula by which advancing intellects could +conceive of the Mighty Being involved in the former creed; next, as +elevating man's conception of his own nature. By the second belief he +becomes the child of the God in whom, perhaps, he already trusted, and in +whom he has his being, a being not destined to perish with the death of +the body. Man is thus not only the child but the heir of God, a 'nurseling +of immortality,' capable of entering into eternal life. On the moral +influence of this belief it is superfluous to dwell. + +From the most backward races historically known to us, to those of our own +status, all have been more or less washed by the waters of this double +stream of religion. The Hebrews, as far as our information goes, were +chiefly influenced by the first belief, the faith in the Eternal, and had +comparatively slight interest in whatever posthumous fortunes might await +individual souls. Other civilised peoples, say the Greeks, extended the +second, or animistic theory, into forms of beautiful fantasy, the +material of art. Yet both in Greece and Rome, as we learn from the +'Republic' (Books i. iii.) of Plato, and from the whole scope of the poem +of Lucretius, and from the Painted Porch at Delphi, answering to the +frescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo, there existed, among the people, what +was unknown to the Hebrews, an extreme anxiety about the posthumous +fortunes and possible punishment of the individual soul. A kind of +pardoners and indulgence-sellers made a living out of that anxiety in +Greece. For the Greek pardoners, who testify to an interest in the +future happiness of the soul not found in Israel, Mr. Jevons may be cited: + +'The _agyrtes_ professed by means of his rites to purify men from the sins +they had themselves committed ... and so to secure to those whom he +purified an exemption from the evil lot in the next world which awaited +those who were not initiated.' 'A magic mirror' (crystal-gazing) 'was +among his properties.'[11] + +In Egypt a moral life did not suffice to secure immortal reward. There +was also required knowledge of the spells that baffle the demons who, in +Amenti, as in the Red Indian and Polynesian Hades, lie in wait for souls. +That knowledge was contained in copies of the Book of the Dead--the +_gagne-pain_ of priests and scribes. + +Early Israel, having, as far as we know, a singular lack of interest in +the future of the soul, was born to give himself up to developing, +undisturbed, the theistic conception, the belief in a righteous Eternal. + +Polytheism everywhere--in Greece especially--held of the animistic +conception, with its freakish, corruptible deities. Greek philosophy could +hardly restore that Eternal for whom the Prophets battled in Israel; whom +some of the lowest savages know and fear; whom the animistic theory or cult +everywhere obscures with its crowd of hungry, cruel, interested, +food-propitiated ghost-gods. In the religion of our Lord and the Apostles +the two currents of faith in one righteous God and care for the individual +soul were purified and combined. 'God is a Spirit, and they who worship +Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' Man also is a spirit, and, +as such, is in the hands of a God not to be propitiated by man's +sacrifice or monk's ritual. We know how this doctrine was again disturbed +by the Animism, in effect, and by the sacrifice and ritual of the +Mediaeval Church. Too eager 'to be all things to all men,' the august and +beneficent Mother of Christendom readmitted the earlier Animism in new +forms of saint-worship, pilgrimage, and popular ceremonial--things apart +from, but commonly supposed to be substitutes for, righteousness of life +and the selflessness enjoined in savage mysteries. For the softness, no +less than for the hardness of men's hearts, these things were ordained: +such as masses for the beloved dead. + +Modern thought has deanthropomorphised what was left of anthropomorphic +in religion, and, in the end, has left us for God, at most, 'a stream +of tendency making for righteousness,' or an energy unknown and +unknowable--the ghost of a ghost. For the soul, by virtue of his +belief in which man raised himself in his own esteem, and, more or less, +in ethical standing, is left to us a negation or a wistful doubt. + +To this part of modern scientific teaching the earlier position of this +essay suggests a demurrer. By aid of the tradition of and belief in +supernormal phenomena among the low races, by attested phenomena of the +same kinds of experience among the higher races, I have ventured to try to +suggest that 'we are not merely brain;' that man has his part, we know not +how, in we know not what--has faculties and vision scarcely conditioned by +the limits of his normal purview. The evidence of all this deals with +matters often trivial, like the electric sparks rubbed from the deer's +hide, which yet are cognate with an illimitable, essential potency of the +universe. Not being able to explain away these facts, or, in this place, +to offer what would necessarily be a premature theory of them, I regard +them, though they seem shadowy, as grounds of hope, or, at least, as +tokens that men need not yet despair. Not now for the first time have weak +things of the earth been chosen to confound things strong. Nor have men of +this opinion been always the weakest; not among the feeblest are Socrates, +Pascal, Napoleon, Cromwell, Charles Gordon, St. Theresa, and Jeanne d'Arc. + +I am perfectly aware that the 'superstitiousness' of the earlier part of +this essay must injure any effect which the argument of the latter part +might possibly produce on critical opinion. Yet that argument in no way +depends on what we think about the phenomena--normal, supernormal, or +illusory--on which the theory of ghost, soul, or spirit may have been +based. It exhibits religion as probably beginning in a kind of Theism, +which is then superseded, in some degree, or even corrupted, by Animism in +all its varieties. Finally, the exclusive Theism of Israel receives its +complement in a purified Animism, and emerges as Christianity. + +Quite apart, too, from any favourable conclusion which may, by some, be +drawn from the phenomena, and quite apart from the more general opinion +that all modern instances are compact of imposture, malobservation, +mythopoeic memory, and superstitious bias, the systematic comparison of +civilised and savage beliefs and alleged experiences of this kind cannot +wisely be neglected by Anthropology. _Humani nihil a se alienum putat._ + +[Footnote 1: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 352.] + +[Footnote 2: Abridged from _Prim. Cult_. ii. 119.] + +[Footnote 3: _Histoire des Religions_, ii. 237, note. M. Rville's system, +it will be observed, differs from mine in that he finds the first essays +of religion in worship of aspects of nature (_naturisme_) and in 'animism +properly so called,' by which he understands the instinctive, perhaps not +explicitly formulated, sense that all things whatever are animated and +personal. I have not remarked this aspect of belief as much prevalent in +the most backward races, and I do not try to look behind what we know +historically about early religion. I so far agree with M. Rville as to +think the belief in ghosts and spirits (Mr. Tylor's 'Animism') not +necessarily postulated in the original indeterminate conception of +the Supreme Being, or generally, in 'Original Gods.' But M. Rville +says, 'L'objet de la religion humaine est ncessairement un esprit' +(_Prolgomnes_, 107). This does not seem consistent with his own theory.] + +[Footnote 4: Compare Mr. Frazer's _Golden Bough_ with Mr. Grant Allen's +_Evolution of the Idea of God_.] + +[Footnote 5: _J.A.I_. x. 85.] + +[Footnote 6: Massey. Note to Du Prel. _Philosophy of mysticism_, ii 10.] + +[Footnote 7: _Science and Christian Tradition_, p. 197] + +[Footnote 8: Op. cit. p. 195.] + +[Footnote 9: _Religion of the Semites_, p. 53.] + +[Footnote 10: The hypothesis of St. Paul seems not the most +unsatisfactory, Rom. i. 19.] + +[Footnote 11: _Introd. to Hist. of Rel_. p. 333; Aristoph. _Frogs_, 159.] + + + + +APPENDICES + +APPENDIX A + +OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE + +The most elaborate reply to the arguments for telepathy, based on The +Report of the Census of Hallucinations, is that of Herr Parish, in his +'Hallucinations and Illusions.'[1] + +Herr Parish is, at present, opposed to the theory that the Census +establishes a telepathic cause in the so-called 'coincidental' stories, +'put forward,' as he says, 'with due reserve, and based on an astonishing +mass of materials, to some extent critically handled.' + +He first demurs to an allowance of twelve hours for the coincidence of +hallucination and death; but, if we reflect that twelve hours is little +even in a year, coincidences within twelve hours, it may be admitted, +_donnent penser_, even if we reject the theory that, granted a real +telepathic impact, it may need time and quiet for its development into a +complete hallucination. We need not linger over the very queer cases from +Munich, as these are not in the selected thirty of the Report. Herr Parish +then dwells on that _hallucination of memory_, in which we feel as if +everything that is going on had happened before. It may have occurred to +most of us to be reminded by some association of ideas during the day, of +some dream of the previous night, which we had forgotten. For instance, +looking at a brook from a bridge, and thinking of how I would fish it, I +remembered that I had dreamed, on the previous night, of casting a fly for +practice, on a lawn. Nobody would think of disputing the fact that I +really had such a dream, forgot it and remembered it when reminded of it +by association of ideas. But if the forgotten dream had been 'fulfilled,' +and been recalled to memory only in the moment of fulfilment, science +would deny that I ever had such a dream at all. The alleged dream would be +described as an 'hallucination of memory.' Something occurring, it would +be said, I had the not very unusual sensation, 'This has occurred to me +before,' and the sensation would become a false memory that it _had_ +occurred--in a dream. This theory will be advanced, I think, not when an +ordinary dream is recalled by a waking experience, but only when the dream +coincides with and foreruns that experience, which is a thing that dreams +have no business to do. Such coincidental dreams are necessarily 'false +memories,' scientifically speaking. Now, how does this theory of false +memory bear on coincidental hallucinations? + +The insane, it seems, are apt to have the false memory 'This occurred +before,' and _then_ to say that the event was revealed to them in a +vision.[2] The insane may be recommended to make a note of the vision, and +have it properly attested, _before_ the event. The same remark applies to +the 'presentiments' of the sane. But it does _not_ apply if Jones tells me +'I saw my great aunt last night,' and if news comes _after_ this remark +that Jones's aunt died, on that night, in Timbuctoo. Yet Herr Parish +(p. 282) seems to think that the argument of fallacious memory comes in +part, even when an hallucination has been reported to another person +_before_ its fulfilment. Of course all depends on the veracity of the +narrator and the person to whom he told his tale. To take a case given:[3] +Brown, say, travelling with his wife, dreams that a mad dog bit his boy at +home on the elbow. He tells his wife. Arriving at home Brown finds that it +was so. Herr Parish appears to argue thus: + +Brown dreamed nothing at all, but he gets excited when he hears the bad +news at home; he thinks, by false memory, that he has a recollection of +it, he says to his wife, 'My dear, didn't I tell you, last night, I had +dreamed all this?' and his equally excited wife replies, 'True, my Brown, +you did, and I said it was only one of your dreams.' And both now believe +that the dream occurred. This is very plausible, is it not? only science +would not say anything about it if the dream had _not_ been fulfilled--if +Brown had remarked, 'Egad, my dear, seeing that horse reminds me that I +was dreaming last night of driving in a dog-cart.' For then Brown was not +excited. + +None of this exquisite reasoning as to dreams applies to waking +hallucinations, reported before the alleged coincidence, unless we accept +a collective hallucination of memory in seer or seers, and also in the +persons to whom their story was told. + +But, it is obvious, memory is apt to become mythopoeic, so far as to +exaggerate closeness of coincidence, and to add romantic details. We do +not need Herr Parish to tell us _that_; we meet the circumstance in all +narratives from memory, whatever the topic, even in Herr Parish's own +writings. + +We must admit that the public, in ghostly, as in all narratives on all +topics, is given to 'fanciful addenda.' Therefore, as Herr Parish justly +remarks, we should 'maintain a very sceptical attitude to all accounts' of +veridical hallucinations. 'Not that we should dismiss them as old wives' +fables--an all too common method--or even doubt the narrator's good +faith.' We should treat them like tales of big fish that get away; +sometimes there is good corroborative evidence that they really were +big fish, sometimes not. We shall return to these false memories. + +Was there a coincidence at all in the Society's cases printed in the +Census? Herr Parish thinks three of the selected twenty-six cases very +dubious. In one case is a _possible_ margin of four days, another +(wrongly numbered by the way) does not occur at all among the twenty-six. +In the third, Herr Parish is wrong in his statement.[4] This is a lovely +example of the sceptical slipshod, and, accompanied by the miscitation of +the second case, shows that inexactitude is not all on the side of the +seers. However the case is not very good, the two percipients fancying +that the date of the event was less remote than it really was. Unluckily +Herr Parish only criticises these three cases, how accurately we have +remarked. He had no room for more. + +Herr Parish next censures the probable selection of good cases by +collectors, on which the editors of the Census have already made +observations, as they have also made large allowances for this cause of +error. He then offers the astonishing statement that, 'in the view of the +English authors, a view which is, of course, assumed in all calculations +of the kind, an hallucination persists equally long in the memory and is +equally readily recalled in reply to a question, whether the experience +made but a slight impression on the percipient, or affected him deeply, +as would be the case, for instance, if the hallucination had been found to +coincide with the death of a near relative or friend.'[5] This assertion +of Herr Parish's is so erroneous that the Report expressly says 'as years +recede into the distance,' the proportion of the hallucinations that are +remembered in them to those which are forgotten, or at least ignored, 'is +very large.' Again, 'Hallucinations of the most impressive class will not +only be better remembered than others, but will, we may reasonably +suppose, be more often mentioned by the percipients to their friends.'[6] + +Yet Herr Parish avers that, in all calculations, it is assumed that +hallucinations are equally readily recalled whether impressive or not! +Once more, the Report says (p. 246), '_It is not the case_' that +coincidental (and impressive) hallucinations are as easily subject to +oblivion as non-coincidental, and non-impressive ones. The editors +therefore multiply the non-coincidental cases by four, arguing that no +coincidental cases (hits) are forgotten, while three out of four +non-coincidentals (misses) are forgotten, or may be supposed likely to be +forgotten. Immediately after declaring that the English authors suppose +all hallucinations to be equally well remembered (which is the precise +reverse of what they do say), Herr Parish admits that the authors multiply +the misses by four, 'influenced by other considerations' (p. 289). By what +other considerations? They give their reason (that very reason which they +decline to entertain, says Herr Parish), namely, that misses are four +times as likely to be forgotten as hits. 'To go into the reason for +adopting this plan would lead us too far,' he writes. Why, it is the +very reason which, he says, does _not_ find favour with the English +authors! + +How curiously remote from being 'coincidental' with plain facts, or +'veridical' at all, is this scientific criticism! Herr Parish says that a +'view' (which does not exist) is 'of course assumed in all calculations;' +and, on the very same page, he says that it is _not_ assumed! 'The +witnesses of the report--influenced, it is true, by other considerations' +(which is not the case), 'have sought to turn the point of this objection +by multiplying the whole number of (non-coincidental) cases by four.' Then +the 'view' is _not_ 'assumed in all calculations,' as Herr Parish has just +asserted. + +What led Herr Parish, an honourable and clearheaded critic, into this maze +of incorrect and contradictory assertions? It is interesting to try to +trace the causes of such _non-veridical illusions_, to find the _points +de repre_ of these literary hallucinations. One may suggest that when +Herr Parish 'recast the chapters' of his German edition, as he says in his +preface to the English version, he accidentally left in a passage based +on an earlier paper by Mr. Gurney,[7] not observing that it was no longer +accurate or appropriate. + +After this odd passage, Herr Parish argues that a 'veridical' +hallucination is regarded by the English authors as 'coincidental,' even +when external circumstances have made that very hallucination a probable +occurrence by producing 'tension of the corresponding nerve element +groups.' That is to say, a person is in a condition--a nervous condition-- +likely, _a priori_, to beget an hallucination. An hallucination _is_ +begotten, quite naturally; and so, if it happens to coincide with an +event, the coincidence should not count--it is purely fortuitous.[8] + +Here is an example. A lady, facing an old sideboard, saw a friend, with no +coat on, and in a waistcoat with a back of shiny material. Within an hour +she was taken to where her friend lay dying, without a coat, and in a +waistcoat with a shiny back.[9] Here is the scientific explanation of Herr +Parish: 'The shimmer of a reflecting surface [the sideboard?] formed the +occasion for the hallucinatory emergence of a subconsciously perceived +_shiny black waistcoat_ [quotation incorrect, of course], and an +individual subconsciously associated with that impression.[10] I ask any +lady whether she, consciously or subconsciously, associates the men she +knows with the backs of their waistcoats. Herr Parish's would be a +brilliantly satisfactory explanation if it were only true to the printed +words that lay under his eyes when he wrote. There was no 'shiny black +waistcoat' in the case, but a waistcoat with a shiny _back_. Gentlemen, +and especially old gentlemen who go about in bath-chairs (like the man in +this story), don't habitually take off their coats and show the backs of +their waistcoats to ladies of nineteen in England. And, if Herr Parish had +cared to read his case, he would have found it expressly stated that the +lady 'had never seen the man without his coat' (and so could not associate +him with an impression of a shiny back to his waistcoat) till _after_ the +hallucination, when she saw him coatless on his death-bed. In this +instance Herr Parish had an hallucinatory memory, all wrong, of the page +under his eyes. The case is got rid of, then, by aid of the 'fanciful +addenda,' to which Herr Parish justly objects. He first gives the facts +incorrectly, and then explains an occurrence which, as reported by him, +did not occur, and was not asserted to occur. + +I confess that, if Herr Parish's version were as correct as it is +essentially inaccurate, his explanation would leave me doubtful. For the +circumstances were that the old gentleman of the story lunched daily with +the young lady's mother. Suppose that she was familiar (which she was not) +with the shiny back of his waistcoat, still, she saw him daily, and daily, +too, was in the way of seeing the (hypothetically) shiny surface of the +sideboard. That being the case, she had, every day, the materials, +subjective and objective, of the hallucination. Yet it only occurred +_once_, and then it precisely coincided with the death agony of the old +gentleman, and with his coatless condition. Why only that once? _C'est l +le miracle!_ 'How much for this little veskit?' as the man asked David +Copperfield. + +Herr Parish next invents a cause for an hallucination, which, I myself +think, ought not to have been reckoned, because the percipient had been +sitting up with the sick man. This he would class as a 'suspicious' case. +But, even granting him his own way of handling the statistics, he would +still have far too large a proportion of coincidences for the laws of +chance to allow, if we are to go by these statistics at all. + +His next argument practically is that hallucinations are always only a +kind of dreams.[11] He proves this by the large number of coincidental +hallucinations which occurred in sleepy circumstances. One man went to bed +early, and woke up early; another was 'roused from sleep;' two ladies were +sitting up in bed, giving their babies nourishment; a man was reading a +newspaper on a sofa; a lady was lying awake at seven in the morning; and +there are eight other English cases of people 'awake' in bed during an +hallucination. Now, in Dr. Parish's opinion, we must argue that they were +_not_ awake, or not much; so the hallucinations were mere dreams. +Dreams are so numerous that coincidences in dreams can be got rid of as +pure flukes. People may say, to be sure, 'I am used to dreams, and don't +regard them; _this_ was something solitary in my experience.' But we must +not mind what people say. + +Yet I fear we must mind what they say. At least, we must remember that +sleeping dreams are, of all things, most easily forgotten; while a +full-bodied hallucination, when we, at least, believe ourselves awake, +seems to us on a perfectly different plane of impressiveness, and +(_experto crede_) is really very difficult to forget. Herr Parish cannot +be allowed, therefore, to use the regular eighteenth-century argument-- +'All dreams!' For the two sorts of dreams, in sleep and in apparent +wakefulness, seem, to the subject, to differ in _kind_. And they really +do differ in kind. It is the essence of the every night dream that we are +unconscious of our actual surroundings and conscious of a fantastic +environment. It is the essence of wideawakeness to be conscious of our +actual surroundings. In the ordinary dream, nothing actual competes with +its visions. When we are conscious of our surroundings, everything actual +does compete with any hallucination. Therefore, an hallucination which, +when we are conscious of our material environment, does compete with it in +reality, is different _in kind_ from an ordinary dream. Science gains +nothing by arbitrarily declaring that two experiences so radically +different are identical. Anybody would see this if he were not arguing +under a dominant idea. + +Herr Parish next contends that people who see pictures in crystal balls, +and so on, are not so wide awake as to be in their normal consciousness. +There is 'dissociation' (practically drowsiness), even if only a +little. Herr Moll also speaks of crystal-gazing pictures as 'hypnotic +phenomena.'[12] Possibly neither of these learned men has ever seen a +person attempt crystal-gazing. Herr Parish never asserts any such personal +experience as the basis of his opinion about the non-normal state of the +gazer. He reaches this conclusion from an anecdote reported, as a not +unfamiliar phenomenon, by a friend of Miss X. But the phenomenon occurred +when Miss X. was not crystal-gazing at all! She was looking out of a +window in a brown study. This is a noble example of logic. Some one says +that Miss X. was not in her normal consciousness on a certain occasion +when she was _not_ crystal-gazing, and that this condition is familiar to +the observer. Therefore, argues Herr Parish, nobody is in his normal +consciousness when he is crystal-gazing. + +In vain may 'so good an observer as Miss X. think herself fully awake' (as +she does think herself) when crystal-gazing, because once, when she +happened to have 'her eyes _fixed on the window_,' her expression was +'_associated_' by a friend 'with _something uncanny_,' and she afterwards +spoke '_in a dreamy, far-away tone_' (p. 297). Miss X., though extremely +'wide awake,' may have looked dreamily at a window, and may have seen +mountains and marvels. But the point is that she was not voluntarily +gazing at a crystal for amusement or experiment--perhaps trying to see how +a microscope affected the pictures--or to divert a friend. + +I appeal to the shades of Aristotle and Bacon against scientific logic in +the hands of Herr Parish. Here is his syllogism: + + A. is occasionally dreamy when _not_ crystal-gazing. + A. is human. + Therefore every human being, when crystal-gazing, is more or less + asleep. + +He infers a general affirmative from a single affirmative which happens +not to be to the point. It is exactly as if Herr Parish argued: + + Mrs. B. spends hours in shopping. + Mrs. B. is human. + Therefore every human being is always late for dinner. + +Miss X., I think, uplifted her voice in some review, and maintained that, +when crystal-gazing, she was quite in her normal state, _dans son +assiette_. + +Yet Herr Parish would probably say to any crystal-gazer who argued thus, +'Oh, no; pardon me, you were _not_ wholly awake--you were a-dream. I know +better than you.' But, as he has not seen crystal-gazers, while I have, +many scores of times, I prefer my own opinion. And so, as this assertion +about the percipient's being 'dissociated,' or asleep, or not awake, is +certainly untrue of all crystal-gazers in my considerable experience, I +cannot accept it on the authority of Herr Parish, who makes no claim to +any personal experience at all. + +As to crystal-gazing, when the gazer is talking, laughing, chatting, +making experiments in turning the ball, changing the light, using prisms +and magnifying-glasses, dropping matches into the water-jug, and so on, +how can we possibly say that 'it is impossible to distinguish between +waking hallucinations and those of sleep' (p. 300)? If so, it is +impossible to distinguish between sleeping and waking altogether. We are +all like the dormouse! Herr Parish is reasoning here _a priori_, +without any personal knowledge of the facts; and, above all, he is under +the 'dominant idea' of his own theory--that of _dissociation_. + +Herr Parish next crushes telepathy by an argument which--like one of the +reasons why the bells were not rung for Queen Elizabeth, namely, that +there were no bells to ring--might have come first, and alone. We are +told (in italics--very impressive to the popular mind): _'No matter how +great the number of coincidences, they afford not even the shadow of a +proof for telepathy'_ (p. 301). What, not even if all hallucinations, or +ninety-nine per cent., coincided with the death of the person seen? In +heaven's name, why not? Why, because the 'weightiest' cause of all has +been omitted from our calculations, namely, our good old friend, _the +association of ideas_ (p. 302). Our side cannot prove the _absence_ +(italics) of _the association of ideas_. Certainly we cannot; but ideas in +endless millions are being associated all day long. A hundred thousand +different, unnoticed associations may bring Jones to my mind, or Brown. +But I don't therefore see Brown, or Jones, who is not there. Still less do +I see Dr. Parish, or Nebuchadnezzar, or a monkey, or a salmon, or a golf +ball, or Arthur's Seat (all of which may be brought to my mind by +association of ideas), when they are not present. + +Suppose, then, that once in my life I see the absent Jones, who dies in +that hour (or within twelve hours). I am puzzled. Why did Association +choose that day, of all days in my life, for her solitary freak? And, +if this choice of freaks by Association occurs among other people, say two +hundred times more often than chance allows, the freak begins to suggest +that it may have a cause. + +Not even the circumstance cited by Herr Parish, that a drowsy tailor, +'sewing on in a dream,' poor fellow, saw a client in his shop while the +client was dying, solves the problem. The tailor is not said even once to +have seen a customer who was _not_ dying; yet he writes, 'I was accustomed +to work all night frequently.' The tailor thinks he was asleep, because he +had been making irregular stitches, and perhaps he was. But, out of +all his vigils and all his customers, association only formed _one_ +hallucination, and that was of a dying client whom he supposed to be +perfectly well. Why on earth is association so fond of dying people-- +granting the statistics, which are 'another story'? The explanation +explains nothing. Herr Parish only moves the difficulty back a step, and, +as we cannot live without association of ideas, they are taken for granted +by our side. Association of ideas does not cause hallucinations, as Mrs. +Sidgwick remarks, though it may determine their contents. + +The difficult theme of coincidental collective hallucinations, as when two +or more people at once have, or profess to have, the same false perception +of a person who is really absent and dying, is next disposed of by Herr +Parish. The same _points de repre_, the same sound, or flicker of light, +or arrangement of shadow, may beget the same or a similar false perception +in two or more people at once. Thus two girls, in different rooms, are +looking out on different parts of the hall in their house. 'Both heard, at +the same time, an [objective?] noise' (p. 313). Then, says Herr Parish, +'_the one sister saw her father cross the hall_ after entering; the other +saw the dog (the usual companion of his walks) run past her door.' Father +and dog had not left the dining-room. Herr Parish decides that the same +_point de repre_ (the apparent noise of a key in the lock of the front +door) 'acted by way of suggestion on both sisters,' producing, however, +different hallucinations, 'in virtue of the difference of the connected +associations.' One girl associated the sound with her honoured sire, the +other with his faithful hound; so one saw a dog, and the other saw an +elderly gentleman. Now, first, if so, this should _always_ be occurring, +for we all have different associations of ideas. Thus, we are in a haunted +house; there is a noise of a rattling window; I associate it with a +burglar, Brown with a milkman, Miss Jones with a lady in green, Miss Smith +with a knight in armour. That collection of phantasms should then be +simultaneously on view, like the dog and old gentleman; all our reports +should vary. But this does not occur. Most unluckily for Herr Parish, he +illustrates his theory by telling a story which happens not to be +correctly reported. At first I thought that a fallacy of memory, or an +optical delusion, had betrayed him again, as in his legend of the +waistcoat. But I am now inclined to believe that what really occurred was +this: Herr Parish brought out his book in German, before the Report of the +Census of Hallucinations was published. In his German edition he probably +quoted a story which precisely suited his theory of the origin of +collective hallucinations. This anecdote he had found in Prof. Sidgwick's +Presidential Address of July 1890.[13] As stated by Prof. Sidgwick, the +case just fitted Herr Parish, who refers to it on p. 190, and again on +p. 314. He gives no reference, but his version reads like a traditional +variant of Prof. Sidgwick's. Now Prof. Sidgwick's version was erroneous, +as is proved by the elaborate account of the case in the Report of the +Census, which Herr Parish had before him, but neglected when he prepared +his English edition. The story was wrong, alas! in the very point where, +for Herr Parish's purpose, it ought to have been right. The hallucination +is believed not to have been collective, yet Herr Parish uses it to +explain collective hallucinations. Doubtless he overlooked the accurate +version in the Report.[14] + +The facts, as there reported, were not what he narrates, but as follows: + +Miss C.E. was in the breakfast-room, about 6:30 P.M., in January 1883, and +supposed her father to be taking a walk with his dog. She heard noises, +which may have had any other cause, but which she took to be the sounds +of a key in the door lock, a stick tapping the tiles of the hall, and the +patter of the dog's feet on the tiles. She then saw the dog pass the door. +Miss C.E. next entered the hall, where she found nobody; but in the pantry +she met her sisters--Miss E., Miss H.G.E.--and a working-woman. Miss E. +and the working-woman had been in the hall, and there had heard the sound, +which they, like Miss C.E., took for that of a key in the lock. They were +breaking a little household rule in the hall, so they 'ran straightway +into the pantry, meeting Miss H.G.E. on the way.' Miss C.E. and Miss E. +and the working-woman all heard the noise as of a key in the lock, but +nobody is said to have 'seen the father cross the hall' (as Herr Parish +asserts). 'Miss H.G.E. was of opinion that Miss E. (now dead) saw +_nothing_, and Miss C.E. was inclined to agree with her.' Miss E. and the +work-woman (now dead) were 'emphatic as to the father having entered the +house;' but this the two only _inferred_ from hearing the noise, after +which they fled to the pantry. Now, granting that some other noise was +mistaken for that of the key in the lock, we have here, _not_ (as Herr +Parish declares) a _collective_ yet discrepant hallucination--the +discrepancy being caused 'by the difference of connected associations'-- +but a _solitary_ hallucination. Herr Parish, however, inadvertently +converts a solitary into a collective hallucination, and then uses the +example to explain collective hallucinations in general. He asserts +that Miss E. 'saw her father cross the hall.' Miss E.'s sisters think that +she saw no such matter. Now, suppose that Mr. E. had died at the moment, +and that the case was claimed on our part as a 'collective coincidental +hallucination,' How righteously Herr Parish might exclaim that all the +evidence was against its being collective! The sound in the lock, heard by +three persons, would be, and probably was, another noise misinterpreted. +And, in any case, there is no evidence for its having produced _two_ +hallucinations; the evidence is in exactly the opposite direction. + +Here, then, Herr Parish, with the printed story under his eyes, once more +illustrates want of attention. In one way his errors improve his case. 'If +I, a grave man of science, go on telling distorted legends out of my own +head, while the facts are plain in print before me,' Herr Parish +may reason, 'how much more are the popular tales about coincidental +hallucinations likely to be distorted?' It is really a very strong +argument, but not exactly the argument which Herr Parish conceives +himself to be presenting.[15] + +This unlucky inexactitude is chronic, as we have shown, in Herr Parish's +work, and is probably to be explained by inattention to facts, by +'expectation' of suitable facts, and by 'anxiety' to prove a theory. He +explains the similar or identical reports of witnesses to a collective +hallucination by 'the case with which such appearances adapt themselves +in recollection' (p. 313), especially, of course, after lapse of time. And +then he unconsciously illustrates his case by the case with which +printed facts under his very eyes adapt themselves, quite erroneously, to +his own memory and personal bias as he copies them on to his paper. + +Finally he argues that even if collective hallucinations are also 'with +comparative frequency' coincidental, that is to be explained thus: +'The rarity and the degree of interest compelled by it' (by such an +hallucination) 'will naturally tend to connect itself with some other +prominent event; and, conversely, the occurrence of such an event as the +death or mortal danger of a friend is most calculated to produce memory +illusions of this kind.' + +In the second case, the excitement caused by the death of a friend is +likely, it seems, to make two or more sane people say, and _believe,_ +that they saw him somewhere else, when he was really dying. The only +evidence for this fact is that such illusions occasionally occur, _not_ +collectively, in some lunatic asylums. 'It is not, however, a form of +mnemonic error often observed among the insane.' 'Kraepelin gives two +cases.' 'The process occurs sporadically in certain sane people, under +certain exciting conditions.' No examples are given! What is rare as an +_individual_ folly among lunatics, is supposed by Herr Parish to explain +the theoretically 'false memory' whereby sane people persuade themselves +that they had an hallucination, and persuade others that they were told +of it, when no such thing occurred. + +To return to our old example. Jones tells me that he has just seen his +aunt, whom he knows to be in Timbuctoo. News comes that the lady died when +Jones beheld her in his smoking-room. 'Oh, nonsense,' Herr Parish would +argue, 'you, Jones, saw nothing of the kind, nor did you tell Mr. Lang, +who, I am sorry to find, agrees with you. What happened was _this_: When +the awful news came to-day of your aunt's death, you were naturally, +and even creditably, excited, especially as the poor lady was killed by +being pegged down on an ant-heap. This excitement, rather praiseworthy +than otherwise, made you _believe_ you had seen your aunt, and _believe_ +you had told Mr. Lang. He also is a most excitable person, though I +admit he never saw your dear aunt in his life. He, therefore (by virtue of +his excitement), now _believes_ you told him about seeing your unhappy +kinswoman. This kind of false memory is very common. Two cases are +recorded by Kraepelin, among the insane. Surely you quite understand my +reasoning?' + +I quite understand it, but I don't see how it comes to seem good logic to +Herr Parish. + +The other theory is funnier still. Jones never had an hallucination +before. 'The rarity and the degree of interest compelled by it' made Jones +'connect it with some other prominent event,' say, the death of his aunt, +which, really, occurred, say, nine months afterwards. But this is a mere +case of _evidence_, which it is the affair of the S.P.R. to criticise. + +Herr Parish is in the happy position called in American speculative +circles 'a straddle.' If a man has an hallucination when alone, he was in +circumstances conducive to the sleeping state. So the hallucination is +probably a dream. But, if the seer was in company, who all had the same +hallucination, then they all had the same _points de repre_, and the same +adaptive memories. So Herr Parish kills with both barrels. + +If anything extraneous could encourage a belief in coincidental and +veridical hallucinations, it would be these 'Oppositions of Science.' If a +learned and fair opponent can find no better proofs than logic and +(unconscious) perversions of facts like the logic and the statements of +Herr Parish, the case for telepathic hallucinations may seem strong +indeed. But we must grant him the existence of the adaptive and mythopoeic +powers of memory, which he asserts, and also illustrates. I grant, too, +that a census of 17,000 inquiries may only have 'skimmed the cream off' +(p. 87). Another dip of the net, bringing up 17,000 fresh answers, might +alter the whole aspect of the case, one way or the other. Moreover, we +cannot get scientific evidence in this way of inquiry. If the public were +interested in the question, and understood its nature, and if everybody +who had an hallucination at once recorded it in black and white, duly +attested on oath before a magistrate, by persons to whom he reported, +before the coincidence was known, and if all such records, coincidental or +not, were kept in the British Museum for fifty years, then an examination +of them might teach us something. But all this is quite impossible. +We may form a belief, on this point of veridical hallucinations, for +ourselves, but beyond that it is impossible to advance. Still, Science +might read her brief! + +[Footnote 1: Walter Scott.] + +[Footnote 2: Parish, p. 278.] + +[Footnote 3: Ibid. pp. 282, 283.] + +[Footnote 4: P. 287, Mr. Sims, _Proceedings_, x. 230.] + +[Footnote 5: Parish pp. 288, 289.] + +[Footnote 6: _Report_, p. 68.] + +[Footnote 7: P. 274, note 1.] + +[Footnote 8: Parish, p. 290.] + +[Footnote 9: _Report_, p. 297.] + +[Footnote 10: Parish, p. 290.] + +[Footnote 11: Pp. 291, 292.] + +[Footnote 12: Moll, _Hypnotism_, p. 1.] + +[Footnote 13 _Proceedings_, vol. vi. p. 433.] + +[Footnote 14: Parish, p. 313.] + +[Footnote 15: Compare _Report_, pp. 181-83, with Parish, pp. 190 and +313, 314.] + + + + +APPENDIX B + +THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS. + +In the chapter on 'Fetishism and Spiritualism' it was suggested that the +movements of inanimate objects, apparently without contact, may have been +one of the causes leading to fetishism, to the opinion that a spirit may +inhabit a stick, stone, or what not. We added that, whether such movements +were caused by trickery or not, was inessential as long as the savage did +not discover the imposture. + +The evidence for the genuine supernormal character of such phenomena was +not discussed, that we might preserve the continuity of the general +argument. The history of such phenomena is too long for statement here. +The same reports are found 'from China to Peru,' from Eskimo to the Cape, +from Egyptian magical papyri to yesterday's provincial newspaper.[1] + +About 1850-1870 phenomena, which had previously been reported as of +sporadic and spontaneous occurrence, were domesticated and organised by +Mediums, generally American. These were imitators of the enigmatic David +Dunglas Home, who was certainly a most oddly gifted man, or a most +successful impostor. A good deal of scientific attention was given to +the occurrences; Mr. Darwin, Mr. Tyndall, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Huxley, had +all glanced at the phenomena, and been present at _sances_. In most cases +the exhibitions, in the dark, or in a very bad light, were impudent +impostures, and were so regarded by the _savants_ who looked into them. A +series of exposures culminated in the recent detection of Eusapia +Paladino by Dr. Hodgson and other members of the S.P.R. at Cambridge. + +There was, however, an apparent exception. The arch mystagogue, Home, +though by no means a clever man, was never detected in fraudulent +productions of fetishistic phenomena. This is asserted here because +several third-hand stories of detected frauds by Home are in circulation, +and it is hoped that a well-attested first-hand case of detection may be +elicited. + +Of Home's successes with Sir William Crookes, Lord Crawford, and others, +something remains to be said; but first we shall look into attempted +explanations of alleged physical phenomena occurring _not_ in the presence +of a paid or even of a recognised 'Medium.' It will appear, we think, that +the explanations of evidence so widely diffused, so uniform, so old, and +so new, are far from satisfactory. Our inference would be no more than +that our eyes should be kept on such phenomena, if they are reported to +recur. + +Mr. Tylor says, 'I am well aware that the problem [of these phenomena] is +one to be discussed on its merits, in order to arrive at a distinct +opinion how far it may be connected with facts insufficiently appreciated +and explained by science, and how far with superstition, delusion, and +sheer knavery. Such investigation, pursued by careful observation in a +scientific spirit, would seem apt to throw light on some interesting +psychological questions.' + +Acting on Mr. Tylor's hint, Mr. Podmore puts forward as explanations +(1) fraud; (2) hallucinations caused by excited expectation, and by the +_Schwrmerei_ consequent on sitting in hushed hope of marvels. + +To take fraud first: Mr. Podmore has collected, and analyses, eleven +recent sporadic cases of volatile objects.[2] His first instance (Worksop, +1883) yields no proof of fraud, and can only be dismissed by reason of the +bad character of the other cases, and because Mr. Podmore took the +evidence five weeks after the events. To this example we confine +ourselves. This case appears to have been first reported in the 'Retford +and Gainsborough Times' 'early in March,' 1883 (really March 9). It does +not seem to have struck Mr. Podmore that he should publish these +contemporary reports, to show us how far they agree with evidence +collected by him on the spot five weeks later. To do this was the more +necessary, as he lays so much stress on failure of memory. I have +therefore secured the original newspaper report, by the courtesy of the +editor. To be brief, the phenomena began on February 20 or 21, by the +table voluntarily tipping up, and upsetting a candle, while Mrs. White +only saved the wash tub by alacrity and address. 'The whole incident +struck her as very extraordinary.' It is not in the newspaper report. On +February 26, Mr. White left his home, and a girl, Eliza Rose, 'child of a +half-imbecile mother,' was admitted by the kindness of Mrs. White to share +her bed. The girl was eighteen years of age, was looking for a place as +servant, and nothing is said in the newspaper about her mother. Mr. White +returned on Wednesday night, but left on Thursday morning, returning on +Friday afternoon. On Thursday, in Mr. White's absence, phenomena set in. +On Thursday night, in Mr. White's presence, they increased in vigour. A +doctor was called in, also a policeman. On Saturday, at 8 A.M., the row +recommenced. At 4 P.M. Mr. White sent Eliza Rose away, and peace returned. +We now offer the + +STATEMENT OF POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS. A man of good intelligence, and +believed to be entirely honest.... + +'On the night of Friday, March 2nd, I heard of the disturbances at Joe +White's house from his young brother, Tom. I went round to the house at +11.55 P.M., as near as I can judge, and found Joe White in the kitchen +of his house. There was one candle lighted in the room, and a good fire +burning, so that one could see things pretty clearly. The cupboard doors +were open, and White went and shut them, and then came and stood against +the chest of drawers. I stood near the outer door. No one else was in +the room at the time. White had hardly shut the cupboard doors when they +flew open, and a large glass jar came out past me, and pitched in the +yard outside, smashing itself. I didn't see the jar leave the cupboard, +or fly through the air; it went too quick. But I am quite sure that it +wasn't thrown by White or any one else. White couldn't have done it +without my seeing him. The jar couldn't go in a straight line from the +cupboard out of the door; but it certainly did go. + +'Then White asked me to come and see the things which had been smashed +in the inner room. He led the way and I followed. As I passed the chest +of drawers in the kitchen I noticed a tumbler standing on it. Just +after I passed I heard a crash, and looking round, I saw that the tumbler +had fallen on the ground in the direction of the fireplace, and was +broken. I don't know how it happened. There was no one else in the room. + +'I went into the inner room, and saw the bits of pots and things on the +floor, and then I came back with White into the kitchen. The girl Rose +had come into the kitchen during our absence. She was standing with +her back against the bin near the fire. There was a cup standing on the +bin, rather nearer the door. She said to me, "Cup'll go soon; it has +been down three times already." She then pushed it a little farther on +the bin, and turned round and stood talking to me by the fire. She had +hardly done so, when the cup jumped up suddenly about four or five feet +into the air, and then fell on the floor and smashed itself. White was +sitting on the other side of the fire. + +'Then Mrs. White came in with Dr. Lloyd; also Tom White and Solomon +Wass. After they had been in two or three minutes, something else +happened. Tom White and Wass were standing with their backs to the +fire, just in front of it. Eliza Rose and Dr. Lloyd were near them, with +their backs turned towards the bin, the doctor nearer to the door. I +stood by the drawers, and Mrs. White was by me near the inner door. Then +suddenly a basin, which stood on the end of the bin near the door, got up +into the air, _turning over and over as it went. It went up not very +quickly, not as quickly as if it had been thrown_. When it reached the +ceiling it fell plump and smashed. I called Dr. Lloyd's attention to it, +and we all saw it. No one was near it, and I don't know how it happened. +I stayed about ten minutes more, but saw nothing else. I don't know what +to make of it all. I don't think White or the girl could possibly have +done the things which I saw.' + +This statement was made five weeks after date to Mr. Podmore. We compare +it with the intelligent constable's statement made between March 3 and +March 8, that is, immediately after the events, and reported in the local +paper of March 9. + +STATEMENT BY POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS.--During Friday night, Police +Constable Higgs visited the house, and concerning the visit he makes the +following statement. + +'About ten minutes past [to?] twelve on Friday night, I was met in Bridge +Street by Buck Ford, and Joe's brother, Tom White and Dr. Lloyd. Tom said +to me, "Will you go with us to Joe's, and you will see something you have +never seen before?" I went; and when I got into the house Joe went and +shut the cupboard doors. No sooner had he done so than the doors flew +open again, and an ordinary sized glass jar flew across the kitchen, out +of the door into the yard. A sugar jar also flew out of the cupboard +unseen. In fact, we saw nothing and heard nothing until we heard it smash. +The distance travelled by the articles was about seven yards. I stood +a minute or two, and then the glass which I noticed on the drawers jumped +off the drawers a yard away, and broke in about a hundred bits. The next +thing was a cup, which stood on the flour-bin just beyond the yard +door. It flew upwards, and then fell to the ground and broke. The girl +said that this cup had been on the floor three times, and that she had +picked it up just before it went off the bench. I said, "I suppose the cup +will be the next." The cup fell a distance of two yards away from the +flour-bin. Dr. Lloyd had been in the next house lancing the back of a +little boy who had been removed there. He now came in, and we began +talking, the doctor saying, "It is a most mysterious thing." He turned +with his back to the flour-bin, on which stood a basin. The basin flew up +into the air obliquely, went over the doctor's head, and fell at his feet +in pieces. The doctor then went out. I stood a short time longer, but +saw nothing farther. There were six persons in the room while these things +were going on, and so far as I could see, there was no human agency at +work. I had not the slightest belief in anything appertaining to the +super-natural. I left just before one o'clock, having been in the +house thirty minutes.' + +As the policeman says, there was nothing 'super-natural,' but there was an +appearance of something rather supernormal. On the afternoon of Saturday +White sent the girl Rose away, and a number of people watched in his house +till after midnight. Though the sceptical reporter thought that objects +were placed where they might easily be upset, none were upset. The ghost +was laid. 'Excited expectation' was so false to its function as to beget +no phenomena. + +The newspaper reports contain no theory that will account for White's +breaking his furniture and crockery, nor for Rose's securing her own +dismissal from a house where she was kindly received by wilfully +destroying the property of her hostess. An amateur published a theory +of silken threads attached to light articles, and thick cords to heavy +articles, whereof no trace was found by witnesses who examined the +volatile objects. An elaborate machinery of pulleys fixed in the ceiling, +the presence of a trickster in a locked pantry, apparent errors in the +account of the flight of the objects, and a number of accomplices, were +all involved in this local explanation, the explainer admitting that he +could not imagine _why_ the tricks were played. Six or eight pounds' worth +of goods were destroyed, nor is it singular that poor Mrs. White wept over +her shattered penates. + +The destruction began, of course, in the _absence_ of White. The girl Rose +gave to the newspaper the same account as the other witnesses, but, as +White thought _she_ was the agent, so she suspected White, though she +admitted that he was not at home when the trouble arose. + +Mr. Podmore, reviewing the case, says, 'The phenomena described are quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means.[3] Yet he elsewhere[4] suggests +that Rose herself, 'as the instrument of mysterious agencies, or simply as +a half-witted girl, gifted with abnormal cunning and love of mischief, may +have been directly responsible for all that took place.' That is to say, a +half-witted girl could do (barring 'mysterious agencies') 'what is quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means,' while, according to the +policeman, she was not even present on some occasions. But it is not easy +to make out, in the evidence of White, the other witness, whether this +girl Rose was present or not when the jar flew circuitously out of the +cupboard, a thing easily worked by a half-witted girl. Such discrepancies +are common in all evidence to the most ordinary events. In any case a +half-witted girl, in Mr. Podmore's theory, can do what 'is quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means.' There is not the shadow of +evidence that the girl Rose had the inestimable advantage of being +'half-witted;' she is described by Mr. Podmore as 'the child of an +imbecile mother.' The phenomena began, in an isolated case (the tilted +table), _before_ Rose entered the house. She was admitted in kindness, +acted as a maid, and her interest was _not_ to break the crockery +and upset furniture. The troubles, which began before the girl's arrival, +were apparently active when she was not present, and, if she _was_ +present, she could not have caused them 'by ordinary mechanical means,' +while of extraordinary mechanical means there was confessedly no trace. +The disturbances ceased after she was dismissed--nothing else connects her +with them. + +Mr. Podmore's attempt at a normal explanation by fraud, therefore, is +of no weight. He has to exaggerate the value, as disproof, of such +discrepancies as occur in all human evidence on all subjects. He has to +lay stress on the interval of five weeks between the events and the +collection of testimony by himself. But contemporary accounts appeared in +the local newspapers, and he does not compare the contemporary with the +later evidence, as we have done. There is one discrepancy which looks as +if a witness, not here cited, came to think he had seen what he heard +talked about. Finally, after abandoning the idea that mechanical means can +possibly have produced the effect, Mr. Podmore falls back on the cunning +of a half-witted girl whom nothing shows to have been half-witted. The +alternative is that the girl was 'the instrument of mysterious agencies.' + +So much for the hypothesis of a fraud, which has been identical in results +from China to Peru and from Greenland to the Cape. + +We now turn to the other, and concomitantly active cause, in Mr. Podmore's +theory, hallucination. 'Many of the witnesses described the articles as +moving slowly through the air, or exhibiting some peculiarity of flight.' +(See e.g. the Worksop case.) Mr. Podmore adds another English case, +presently to be noted, and a German one. 'In default of any experimental +evidence' (how about Mr. William Crookes's?) 'that disturbances of this +kind are ever due to abnormal agency, I am disposed to explain the +appearance of moving slowly or flying as a sensory illusion, conditioned +by the excited state of the percipient.' ('Studies,' 157, 158.) + +Before criticising this explanation, let us give the English affair, +alluded to by Mr. Podmore. + +The most curious modern case known to me is not of recent date, but it +occurred in full daylight, in the presence of many witnesses, and the +phenomena continued for weeks. The events were of 1849, and the record is +expanded, by Mr. Bristow, a spectator, from an account written by him in +1854. The scene was Swanland, near Hull, in a carpenter's shop, where Mr. +Bristow was employed with two fellow workmen. To be brief, they were +pelted by odds and ends of wood, about the size of a common matchbox. Each +blamed the others, till this explanation became untenable. The workrooms +and space above were searched to no purpose. The bits of wood sometimes +danced along the floor, more commonly sailed gently along, or "moved as if +borne on gently heaving waves." This sort of thing was repeated during six +weeks. One piece of wood "came from a distant corner of the room towards +me, describing what may be likened to a geometrical square, or corkscrew +of about eighteen inches diameter.... Never was a piece seen to come in +at the doorway." Mr. Bristow deems this period 'the most remarkable +episode in my life.' (June 27, 1891.) The phenomena 'did not depend on the +presence of any one person or number of persons.' + +Going to Swanland, in 1891, Mr. Sidgwick found one surviving witness of +these occurrences, who averred that the objects could not have been thrown +because of the eccentricities of their course, which he described in the +same way as Mr. Bristow. The thrower must certainly have had a native +genius for 'pitching' at base-ball. This witness, named Andrews, was +mentioned by Mr. Bristow in his report, but not referred to by him for +confirmation. Those to whom he referred were found to be dead, or had +emigrated. The villagers had a superstitious theory about the phenomena +being provoked by a dead man, whose affairs had not been settled to his +liking. So Mr. Darwin's spoon danced--on a grave.[5] + +This case has a certain interest _ propos_ of Mr. Podmore's surmise that +all such phenomena arise in trickery, which produces excitement in the +spectators, while excitement begets hallucination, and hallucination +takes the form of seeing the thrown objects move in a non-natural way. +Thus, I keep throwing things about. You, not detecting this stratagem, get +excited, consequently hallucinated, and you believe you see the things +move in spirals, or undulate as if on waves, or hop, or float, or glide +in an impossible way. So close is the uniformity of hallucination +that these phenomena are described, in similar terms, by witnesses +(hallucinated, of course) in times old and new, as in cases cited by +Glanvil, Increase Mather, Telfer (of Rerrick), and, generally, in works of +the seventeenth century. Nor is this uniform hallucination confined to +England. Mr. Podmore quotes a German example, and I received a similar +testimony (to the flight of an object round a corner) from a gentleman who +employed Esther Teed, 'the Amherst Mystery,' in his service. _He_ was not +excited, for he was normally engaged in his normal stable, when the +incident occurred unexpectedly as he was looking after his live stock. One +may add the case of Cideville (1851) and Sir W. Crookes's evidence, and +that of Mr. Schhapoff. + +Mr. Podmore must, therefore, suppose that, in states of excitement, the +same peculiar form of hallucination develops itself uniformly in America, +France, Germany, and England (not to speak of Russia), and persists +through different ages. This is a novel and valuable psychological law. +Moreover, Mr. Podmore must hold that 'excitement' lasted for six weeks +among the carpenters in the shop at Swanland, one of whom writes like a +man of much intelligence, and has thriven to be a master in his craft. +It is difficult to believe that he was excited for six weeks, and we still +marvel that excitement produces the same uniformity of hallucination, +affecting policemen, carpenters, marquises, and a F.R.S. We allude to Sir +W. Crookes's case. + +Strictly scientific examination of these prodigies has been very rare. The +best examples are the experiments of Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., with +Home.[6] He demonstrated, by means of a machine constructed for the +purpose, and automatically registering, that, in Home's presence, a +balance was affected to the extent of two pounds when Home was not in +contact with the table on which the machine was placed. He also saw +objects float in air, with a motion like that of a piece of wood on small +waves of the sea (clearly excitement producing hallucination), while Home +was at a distance, other spectators holding his hands, and his feet being +visibly enclosed in a kind of cage. All present held each other's hands, +and all witnessed the phenomena. Sir W. Crookes being, professionally, +celebrated for the accuracy of his observations, these circumstances are +difficult to explain, and these are but a few cases among multitudes. + +I venture to conceive that, on reflection, Mr. Podmore will doubt whether +he has discovered an universal law of excited malperception, or whether +the remarkable, and certainly undesigned, coincidence of testimony to the +singular flight of objects does not rather point to an 'abnormal agency' +uniform in its effects. Contagious hallucination cannot affect witnesses +ignorant of each other's existence in many lands and ages, nor could they +cook their reports to suit reports of which they never heard. + +We now turn to peculiarities in the so-called Medium, such as floating in +air, change of bulk, and escape from lesion when handling or treading in +fire. Mr. Tylor says nothing of Sir William Crookes's cases (1871), but +speaks of the alleged levitation, or floating in air, of savages and +civilised men. These are recorded in Buddhist and Neoplatonic writings, +and among Red Indians, in Tonquin (where a Jesuit saw and described the +phenomena, 1730), in the 'Acta Sanctorum,' and among modern spiritualists. +In 1760, Lord Elcho, being at Home, was present at the _procs_ for +canonising a Saint (unnamed), and heard witnesses swear to having seen the +holy man levitated. Sir W. Crookes attests having seen Home float in air +on several occasions. In 1871, the Master of Lindsay, now Lord Crawford +and Balcarres, F.R.S., gave the following evidence, which was corroborated +by the two other spectators, Lord Adare and Captain Wynne. + +'I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his. During +the sitting, Mr. Home went into a trance, and in that state was carried +out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was brought in +at our window. The distance between the windows was about seven feet six +inches, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was +there more than a twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as +a ledge to put flowers on. _We heard the window in the next room lifted +up_, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in the air outside +our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my back was to the +light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the window sill, and Home's +feet about six inches above it. He remained in this position for a few +seconds, then raised the window and glided into the room feet foremost +and sat down. + +'Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from which +he had been carried. It was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed +his wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so narrow an aperture. Home +said, still entranced, "I will show you," and then with his back to the +window he leaned back and was shot out of the aperture, head first, with +the body rigid, and then returned quite quietly. The window is about +seventy feet from the ground.' The hypothesis of a mechanical arrangement +of ropes or supports outside has been suggested, but does not cover the +facts as described. + +Mr. Podmore, who quotes this, offers the explanation that the witnesses +were excited, and that Home 'thrust his head and shoulders out of the +window.' But, if he did, they could not see him do it, for he was in the +next room. A brick wall was between them and him. Their first view of Home +was 'floating in the air outside our window.' It is not very easy to hold +that a belief to which the collective evidence is so large and universal, +as the belief in levitation, was caused by a series of saints, sorcerers, +and others thrusting their heads and, shoulders, out of windows where the +observers could not see them. Nor in Lord Crawford's case is it easy +to suppose that three educated men, if hallucinated, would all be +hallucinated in the same way. + +The argument of excited expectation and consequent hallucination does not +apply to Mr. Hamilton Ad and M. Alphonse Karr, neither of whom was a man +of science. Both were extremely prejudiced against Home, and at Nice went +to see, and, if possible, to expose him. Home was a guest at a large +villa in Nice, M. Karr and Mr. Ad were two of a party in a spacious +brilliantly lighted salon, where Home received them. A large heavy table, +remote from their group, moved towards them. M. Karr then got under a +table which rose in air, and carefully examined the space beneath, while +Mr. Ad observed it from above. Neither of them could discover any +explanation of the phenomenon, and they walked away together, disgusted, +disappointed, and reviling Home.[7] + +In this case there was neither excitement nor desire to believe, but a +strong wish to disbelieve and to expose Home. If two such witnesses could +be hallucinated, we must greatly extend our notion of the limits of the +capacity for entertaining hallucinations. + +One singular phenomenon was reported in Home's case, which has, however, +little to do with any conceivable theory of spirits. He was said to become +elongated in trance.[8] Mr. Podmore explains that 'perhaps he really +stretched himself to his full height'--one of the easiest ways conceivable +of working a miracle, Iamblichus reports the same phenomenon in his +possessed men.[9] Iamblichus adds that they were sometimes broadened as +well as lengthened. Now, M. Fr observes that 'any part of the body of an +hysterical patient may change in volume, simply owing to the fact that the +patient's attention is fixed on that part.'[10] Conceivably the elongation +of Home and the ancient Egyptian mediums may have been an extreme case of +this 'change of volume.' Could this be proved by examples, Home's +elongation would cease to be a 'miracle.' But it would follow that in this +case observers were _not_ hallucinated, and the presumption would be +raised that they were not hallucinated in the other cases. Indeed, this +argument is of universal application. + +There is another class of 'physical phenomena,' which has no direct +bearing on our subject. Many persons, in many ages, are said to have +handled or walked through fire, not only without suffering pain, but +without lesion of the skin. Iamblichus mentions this as among the +peculiarities of his 'possessed' men; and in 'Modern Mythology' (1897) I +have collected first-hand evidence for the feat in classical times, and in +India, Fiji, Bulgaria, Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, and many other +places. The evidence is that of travellers, officials, missionaries, and +others, and is backed (for what photographic testimony is worth) by +photographs of the performance. To hold glowing coals in his hand, and to +communicate the power of doing so to others, was in Home's _rpertoire_. +Lord Crawford saw it done on eight occasions, and himself received from +Home's hand the glowing coal unharmed. A friend of my own, however, still +bears the blister of the hurt received in the process. Sir W. Crookes's +evidence follows: + +'At Mr. Home's request, whilst he was entranced, I went with him to the +fireplace in the back drawing-room. He said, "We want you to notice +particularly what Dan is doing." Accordingly I stood close to the +fire, and stooped down to it when he put his hands in.... + +'Mr. Home then waved the handkerchief about in the air two or three times, +held it above his head, and then folded it up and laid it on his hand like +a cushion. Putting his other hand into the fire, he took out a large +lump of cinder, red-hot at the lower part, and placed the red part on the +handkerchief. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been in a blaze. +In about half a minute he took it off the handkerchief with his hand, +saying, "As the power is not strong, if we leave the coal longer it will +burn." He then put it on his hand, and brought it to the table in the +front room, where all but myself had remained seated.' + +Mr. Podmore explains that only two candles and the fire gave light on one +occasion, and that 'possibly' Home's hands were protected by some +'non-conducting substance.' He does not explain how this substance was put +on Lord Crawford's hands, nor tell us what this valuable substance may be. +None is known to science, though it seems to be known to Fijians, Tongans, +Klings, and Bulgarians, who walk through fire unhurt. + +It is not necessary to believe Sir W. Crookes's assertions that he saw +Home perform the fire-tricks, for we can fall back on the lack of light +(only two candles and the fire-light), as also on the law of hallucination +caused by excitement. But it _is_ necessary to believe this distinguished +authority's statement about his ignorance of 'some non-conducting +substance:' + +'Schoolboys' books and mediaeval tales describe how this can be done with +alum and other ingredients. It is possible that the skin may be so +hardened and thickened by such preparations that superficial charring +might take place without the pain becoming great; but the surface of the +skin would certainly suffer severely. After Home had recovered from the +trance, I examined his hand with care to see if there were any signs of +burning or of previous preparation. I could detect no trace or injury +to the skin, which was soft and delicate, like a woman's. Neither were +there signs of any preparation having been previously applied. I have +often seen conjurers and others handle red-hot coals and iron, but there +were always palpable signs of burning.'[11] + +In September 1897 a crew of passengers went from New Zealand to see the +Fijian rites, which, as reported in the 'Fiji Times,' corresponded exactly +with the description published by Mr. Basil Thomson, himself a witness. +The interesting point, historically, is the combination in Home of all the +_rpertoire_ of the possessed men in Iamblichus. We certainly cannot get +rid of the fire-trick by aid of a hypothetical 'non-conducting substance.' +Till the 'substance' is tested experimentally it is not a _vera causa_. We +might as well say 'spirits' at once. Both that 'substance' and those +'spirits' are equally 'in the air.' Yet Mr. Podmore's 'explanations' (not +satisfactory to himself) are conceived so thoroughly in the spirit of +popular science--one of them casually discovering a new psychological law, +a second contradicting the facts it seeks to account for, a third +generously inventing an unknown substance--that they ought to be welcomed +by reviewers and lecturers. + +It seems wiser to admit our ignorance and suspend our belief. + +Here closes the futile chapter of explanations. Fraud is a _vera causa_, +but an hypothesis difficult of application when it is admitted that the +effects could not be caused by ordinary mechanical means. Hallucination, +through excitement, is a _vera causa_, but its remarkable uniformity, +as described by witnesses from different lands and ages, knowing nothing +of each other, makes us hesitate to accept a sweeping hypothesis of +hallucination. The case for it is not confirmed, when we have the same +reports from witnesses certainly not excited. + +This extraordinary bundle, then, of reports, practically identical, of +facts paralysing to belief, this bundle made up of statements from so many +ages and countries, can only be 'filed for reference.' But it is manifest +that any savage who shared the experiences of Sir W. Crookes, Lord +Crawford, Mr. Hamilton Ad, M. Robert de St. Victor at Cideville, and +Policeman Higgs at Worksop, would believe that a spirit might tenant a +stick or stone--so believing he would be a Fetishist. Thus even of +Fetishism the probable origin is in a region of which we know nothing--the +_X_ region. + +[Footnote 1: A sketch of the history will be found in the author's _Cock +Lane and Common Sense_.] + +[Footnote 2: The best source is his article on 'Poltergeists.' +_Proceedings_ xi. 45-116. See, too, his 'Poltergeists' in _Studies in +Psychical Research_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Studies in Psychical Research_, p. 140.] + +[Footnote 4: See Preface to this edition for correction.] + +[Footnote 5: _Proceedings_, S.P.R. vii. 383-394.] + +[Footnote 6: See Sir W. Crookes's _Researches in Spiritualism_.] + +[Footnote 7: Mr. Ad has given me this information. He recorded the +circumstances in his Diary at the time.] + +[Footnote 8: _Report of Dialectical Society_, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 9: See Porphyry, in Parthey's edition (Berlin, 1857), iii. 4.] + +[Footnote 10: _Bulletin de la Socit de Biologie_, 1880, p. 399.] + +[Footnote 11: Crookes, _Proceedings_, ix. 308.] + + + + +APPENDIX C + +_CRYSTAL-GAZING_ + +Since the chapter on crystal-gazing was in type, a work by Dr. Pierre +Janet has appeared, styled 'Les Nvroses et les Ides Fixes.'[1] It +contains a chapter on crystal-gazing. The opinion of Dr. Janet, as that of +a savant familiar, at the Salptrire, with 'neurotic' visionaries, +cannot but be interesting. Unluckily, the essay must be regarded as +seriously impaired in value by Dr. Janet's singular treatment of his +subject. Nothing is more necessary in these researches than accuracy of +statement. Now, Dr. Janet has taken a set of experiences, or experiments, +of Miss X.'s from that lady's interesting essay, already cited; has +attributed them, not to Miss X., but to various people--for example, to +_une jeune fille, une pauvre voyante, une personne un peu mystique_; has +altered the facts in the spirit of romance; and has triumphantly given +that explanation, revival of memory, which was assigned by Miss X. +herself. + +Throughout his paper Dr. Janet appears as the calm man of science +pronouncing judgment on the visionary vagaries of 'haunted' young girls +and disappointed seeresses. No such persons were concerned; no such +hauntings, supposed premonitions, or 'disillusions' occurred; the romantic +and 'marvellous' circumstances are mythopoeic accretions due to Dr. +Janet's own memory or fancy; his scientific explanation is that given by +his trinity of _jeune fille, pauvre voyante_, and _personne un peu +mystique_. + +Being much engaged in the study of 'neurotic' and hysterical patients, Dr. +Janet thinks that they are most apt to see crystal visions. Perhaps they +are; and one doubts if their descriptions are more to be trusted than +the romantic essay of their medical attendant. In citing Miss X.'s paper +(as he did), Dr. Janet ought to have reported her experiments correctly, +ought to have attributed them to herself, and should, decidedly, have +remarked that the explanation he offered was her own hypothesis, verified +by her own exertions. + +Not having any acquaintances in neurotic circles, I am unable to say +whether such persons supply more cases of the faculty of crystal vision +than ordinary people; while their word, one would think, is much less to +be trusted than that of men and women in excellent health. The crystal +visions which I have cited from my own knowledge (and I could cite scores +of others) were beheld by men and women engaged in the ordinary duties +of life. Students, barristers, novelists, lawyers, school-masters, +school-mistresses, golfers--to all of whom the topic was perfectly +new--have all exhibited the faculty. It is curious that an Arabian author +of the thirteenth century, Ibn Khaldoun, cited by M. Lefbure, offers the +same account of _how_ the visions appear as that given by Miss Angus in +the _Journal_ of the S.P.R., April 1898. M. Lefbure's citation was sent +to me in a letter. + +I append M. Lefbure's quotation from Ibn Khaldoun. The original is +translated in 'Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothque Impriale,' +I. xix. p. 643-645. + +'Ibn Kaldoun admet que certains hommes ont la facult de deviner l'avenir. + +'"Ceux, ajoute-t-il, qui regardent dans les corps diaphanes, tels que les +miroirs, les cuvettes remplies d'eau et les liquides; ceux qui inspectent +les coeurs, les foies et les os des animaux, ... tous ces gens-l +appartiennent aussi la catgorie des devins, mais, cause de +l'imperfection de leur nature, ils y occupent un rang infrieur. Pour +carter le voile des sens, le vrai devin n'a pas besoin de grands efforts; +quant aux autres, ils tchent d'arriver au but en _essayant de concentrer +en un seul sens toutes leurs perceptions_. Comme la vue est le sens le +plus noble, ils lui donnent la prfrence; fixant leur regard sur on objet + superficie unie, ils le considrent avec attention jusqu' ce qu'ils y +aperoivent la chose qu'ils veulent annoncer. Quelques personnes croient +que l'image aperue de cette manire se dessine sur la surface du miroir; +mais ils se trompent. Le devin regarde fixement cette surface jusqu' ce +qu'elle disparaisse et qu'un rideau, semblable un brouillard, +s'interpose entre lui et le miroir. Sur ce rideau se dessinent les choses +_qu'il dsira apercevoir_, et cela lui permet de donner des indications +soit affirmatives, soit ngatives, sur ce que l'on dsire savoir. Il +raconte alors les perceptions telles qu'il les reoit. Les devins, +pendant qu'ils sont dans cet tat, n'aperoivent pas ce qui se voit +rellement dans le miroir; c'est un autre mode de perception qui nat +chez eux et qui s'opre, non pas au moyen de la vue, mais de l'me. Il +est vrai que, _pour eux, les perceptions de l'me ressemblent celles +des sens au point de les tromper_; fait qui, du reste, est bien connu. La +mme chose arrive ceux qui examinent les coeurs et les foies d'animaux. +Nous avons vu quelques-uns de ces individus _entraver l'opration des +sens_ par l'emploi de simples _fumigations_, puis se servir +d'_incantations_[2] afin de donner l'me la disposition requise; ensuite +ils racontent ce qu'ils ont aperu. Ces formes, disent-ils, se montrent +dans l'air et reprsentent des personnages: elles leur apprennent, au +moyen d'emblmes et de signes, les choses qu'ils cherchent savoir. Les +individus de cette classe se dtachent moins de l'influence des sens que +ceux de la classe prcdente."' + +[Footnote 1: Lican, Paris, 1898.] + +[Footnote 2: L'auteur arabe avait dj mentionn (p. 209) l'emploi des +incantations et indiqu qu'elles tuient un simple adjuvant physique +destin donner certains hommes une exaltation dont ils se servaient +pour tcher de dcouvrir l'avenir. + +'Pour arriver au plus haut degr d'inspiration dont il est capable, le +devin doit avoir recours l'emploi de certaines phrases qui se +distinguent par _une cadence et un parallelisme particuliers_. Il +essaye ce moyen _afin de soustraire son me aux influences des sens_ et +de lui donner assez de force pour se mettre dans un contact imparfait +avec le monde spirituel.[a] Cette agitation d'esprit, jointe l'emploi +des moyens intrinsques dont nous avons parl, excite dans son coeur +des ides que cet organe exprime par le ministre de la langne. Les +paroles qu'il prononce sont tantt vraies, tantt fausses. En effet, +le devin, voulant suppler l'imperfection de son naturel, se sert de +moyens tout fait trangers sa facult perceptive et qui ne +s'accordent en aucune faon avec elle. Donc la vrit et l'erreur se +prsentent lui en mme temps, aussi ne doit on mettre aucune +confiance en ses paroles. Quelquefois mme il a recours des +suppositions et des conjectures dans l'espoir de rencontrer la vrit +et de tromper ceux qui l'interrogent.'] + +[Footnote a: Compare Tennyson's way of attaining a state of trance by +repeating to himself his own name.] + + + + +APPENDIX D + +_CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA_ + +In the remarks on Australian religion, it is argued that chiefs in +Australia are, at most, very inconspicuous, and that a dead chief cannot +have thriven into a Supreme Being. Attention should be called, however, to +Mr. Howitt's remarks on Australian 'Head-men,' in his tract on 'The +Organisation of Australian Tribes' (pp. 103-113). + +He attaches more of the idea of power to 'Head-men' than does Mr. Curr in +his work, 'The Australian Race.' The Head-men, as a rule, arrive at such +influence as they possess by seniority, if accompanied by courage, wisdom, +and, in some cases, by magical acquirements. There are traces of a +tendency to keep the office (if it may be called one) in the same kinship. +'But Vich Ian Vohr or Chingahgook are not to be found in Australian +tribes' (p. 113). I do not observe that the manes or ghost of a dead +Head-man receives any worship or service calculated to fix him in the +tribal memory, and so lead to the evolution of a deity, though one +Head-man was potent through the whole Dieyri tribe over three hundred +miles of country. Such a person, if propitiated after death, might +conceivably develop into a hero, if not into a creative being. But we +must await evidence to the effect that any posthumous reverence was paid +to this man, Ialina Piramurane (New Moon). Mr. Howitt's essay is in the +'Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria for 1889.' + + + + +INDEX + +Academy of Medicine, Paris, inquiry into animal magnetism, 34 + +Achille, the case of, 134 + +Acosta, Pre, cited, 74, 244, 246 + +Adare, Lord, cited, 335 + +Addison, cited, 16 + +Africans, religious faiths of, 212, 218, 221, 222. + See under separate tribal names. + +Ahone, North-American Indian god, 231-233, 241, 248, 258, 262, 280 + +Ad, Hamilton, cited, 336 + +Algonquins, the, 250 + +Allen, Grant, cited, 190 + +American Creators, 230; + parallel with African gods, 230; + savage gods of Virginia, 231; + the Ahone-Okeus creed, 231-233; + Pawnee tribal religions, 233-236; + Ti-ra-w, the Spirit Father, 234, 235; + rite to the Morning Star, 234; + religion of the Blackfeet, 236; + N-pi, 237-239; + one account of the Inca religion, 239-242; + Sun-worship, 239-241; + cult of Pachacamac, the Inca deity, 239-247; + another account of the Inca religion, 242-246; + hymns of the Zuis, 247; + _Awonawilona_, 247 + +Amoretti, Sig., cited, 30, 152 + +Ancestor, worship, 164-166, 178, 205, 212, 268, 271-277 + +Andamanese, the, religious beliefs of, 167, 194-197, 205, 208, 211, + 249, 252, 256, 272 +'Angus, Miss,' cases in her experience of crystal-gazing, 89-102, 341 + +Animal magnetism, inquiry into, 29, 34, 35 + +Animism, nature and influence of, 48, 49, 53, 58, 63, 129, 168, 190, + 191, 206, 256, 264, 266, 268, 269, 303 + +Anthropology and hallucinations, 105; + sleeping and waking experience, 105, 106; + hallucinations in mentally sound people, 107; + ghosts, 107; + coincidence of hallucinations of the sane with death or other crisis of + person seen, 107; + morbid hallucinations and coincidental 'flukes,' 108; + connection of cause and effect, 108; + the emotional effect, 108; + illustrative coincidence, 108; + hallucinations of sight, 109; + causes of hallucinations, 110; + collective hallucinations, 110; + the properly receptive state, 110; + telepathy, 111; + phantasms of the living, 112; + Maori cases, 113-115; + evidence to be rejected, 116; + subjective hallucination caused by expectancy, 116; + puzzling nature of hallucinations shared by several people at once, 116, + 117; + hallucinations coincident with a death, 117; + apparitions and deaths connected in fact, 117; + Census of the Society for Psychical Research thereupon, 118; + number and character of the instances, 119; + weighing evidence, 119; + opinion of the Committee on Hallucinations, 121; + remoteness of occurrence of instances, 121; + want of documentary evidence, 121 + non-coincidental hallucinations, 121; + telepathy existing between kinsfolk and friends, 122; + influence of anxiety, 123; + existence of illness known, 123; + mental and nervous conditions in connection with hallucinations, 134; + value of the statistics of the Census, 124; + anecdote of an English officer, 125 + +Anthropology and religion, 30; + early scientific prejudice against, 40; + evolution and evidence, 40; + testing of evidence, 41-43; + psychical research, 48; + origin of religion, 44; + inferences drawn from supernormal phenomena, 41, 53; + savage parallels of psychical phenomena, 45; + meanings of religion, 45, 40; + disproof of godless tribes, 47; + Animism, 48, 49; + limits of savage tongues, 49; + waking and sleeping hallucinations, 60; + crystal-gazing, 50; + the ghost-soul, 51; + savage abstract speculation, 52; + analogy of the ideas of children and primitive man, 53; + early man's conception of life, 32; + ghost-seers, 54; + psychical conditions in which savages differ from civilised men, 54; + power of producing non-normal psychological conditions, 55; + faculties of the lower animals, 56; + man's first conception of religion, 56; + the suggested hypnotic state, 57; + second-sight, 68; + savage names for the ghost-soul, 60; + the migratory spirit, 60-64 + +Anynrabia, South Guinea Creator, 220 + +Apaches, crystal-gazing by, 84, 85 + +Apollonius of Tyana, 66 + +Atua, the Tongan Elohim, 279 + +Aurora Borealis, savage ideas of the, 4, 262, 292 + +Australians, religious beliefs of, 50, 83, 118, 128, 165, 175-182, 185, + 188, 190, 205, 208, 211, 215, 219, 224, 240, 249, 253, 266, 261-263 + +Automatism, 155 + +Awonawilona, Zui deity, 248, 251 + +Ayinard, Jacques, case of, 150, 182 + +Aztecs, creed of, 104 _note_, 183, 233, 234, 255, 258, 263 + +Bealz, Dr., cited, 132 + +Baiame, deity, 189, 190, 191, 205, 261, 280 + +Baker, Sir Samuel, cited, 42, 211 + +Bakwains, the, 169 + +Balfour, A.J., quoted, 44, 57 _note_ + +Banks Islanders, their gods, 169, 197-198 + +Bantus, religious beliefs of, 176, 211, 220, 248 + +Barkworth, Mr., his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 140 + +Barrett, Professor, on the divining-rod, 162-154 + +Bostian, Adolf, cited, 6, 43 + +Baxter, cited, 15 + +Beaton, Cardinal, his mistress visualized, 97 + +Bell, John, cited, 149 + +Beni-Israel, 282 + +Berna, magnetiser, 34 + +Bernadette, case of, 117 + +Big Black Man, Fuegian deity, 258 + +Binet and Fr, quoted, 20, 76 + +Bissett, Mr. and Mrs., experiences of crystal-gazing, 99-102 + +Blackfeet, beliefs of, 230, 236 + +Blantyre region, religion in the, 217, 218 + +Bleck, Dr., cited, 194 + +Bobowissi, Gold Coast god, 225-227, 230-232 + +Bodinus, cited, 15 + +Book of the Dead, 286, 303 + +Bora, Australian mysteries, 176, 179, 190, 196, 260 + +Bosman, cited, 225 + +Bourget, Paul, his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 139, 140 + +Bourke, Captain J.G., cited, 83 + +Boyle, cited, 15 + +Braid, inventor of the word 'hypnotism,' 24, 35, 36 + +Brewster, Sir David, cited, 33 + +Brinton, Dr., cited, 67, 168, 232, 236, 254, 264, 290 + +Bristow, Mr., cited, 332 + +British Association decline to hear Braid's essay, 24 + rejection of anthropological papers, 89 + +Brasses, de, cited, 149 + +Brown, General Mason, cited, 68, 67 + +Bunjil, deity, 189 + +Bushmen, religious beliefs of, 165, 198, 208, 211, 252 + +Button, Jemmy, the Faegian, case of, 116 + +Caon, Boshmon deity, 189, 193, 205 + +Callawoy, Dr., on Zulu beliefs, 72, 85, 106, 142, 151 207, 208 + +Cardan, cited, 15 + +Carpenter, Dr., cited, 324 + +Carver, Captain Jonathan, his instance of savage possession, 142 + cited, 60, 144, 145 + +Charcot, Dr., on faith cures, 20-23, 24 _note_ + +Chevreul, M., cited, 152 + +Chinese, the, demon possession in, 181, 183 + divining-rod, 154 + religious beliefs, 237, 290, 291 + +Chonos, the, 176 + +Circumcision, 286 + +Clairvoyance (vue distance), 65 + 'opening the Gates at Distance.' 65, 66 + attested cases among savages, 66 + conflict with the laws of exact science, 67 + instances, 67 + among the Zulus, 68-70 + among the Lapps, 70 + the Llarson case, 71 + seers, 72 + the element of trickery, 73 + a Red Indian seeress, 73 + Peruvian clairvoyants, 75 + Professor Richet's case, 75 + Mr. Dobbie's case, 76 + Scottish tales of second-sight, 78-81 + visions provoked by various methods, 81 + See Crystal visions + +Clodd, Edward, cited, 119, 120, 300 + +'Cockburn, Mrs.,' test of crystal-gazing, 99-101 + +Codrington, Dr., cited, 150, 169, 197-199 + +Coirin, Mlle., her miraculous cure, 20 + +Coleridge, cited, 9, 11, 12 _note_, 295, 296 + +Collins, cited, 179 + +Comanches, the, 250 + +Confucius, religious teaching of, 290, 291 + +Cook, Captain, cited, 271 + +Corpse-binding, 143, 144 + +Crawford, Lord, cited, 325, 334, 330, 387 + +Creeks, the, 143 + +Croesus, tests the Delphic Oracle, 14 + +Crookes, Sir William, cited, 325, 331, 333, 334, 337, 338 + +Crystal visions, 83 + savage instances, 83-85 + in later Europe, 85 + nature of 'Miss X's' experiments, 85 + attributed to 'dissociation,' 86 + examples of 'thought-transference,' 87 + arguments against accepting recognition of objects described by another + person, 87 + coincidence of fact and fiction, 88 + cases in the experience of 'Miss Angus,' 89-102 + 'Miss Rose's' experience, 91, 92 + phenomena suggest the savage theory of the wandering soul, 103 + cited, 7, 44, 50, 314-316, 340 + +Cumberland, Stuart, 72 + +Cures by suggestion, 20, 21 + +Curr, Mr., reports 'godless' savages, 184 _note_ + +Dampier, cited, 176 + +Dancing sticks, 149-131 + +Darumulun, Australian Supreme Being, 178, 179, 183, 186, 191, 213, 240, + 258-264, 280 + +Darwin, cited, 115, 149, 174 _note_, 324, 332 + +Death, savage ideas on, 187 + +Degeneration theory, the, 254 + the powerful creative Being of lowest savages, 254 + differences between the Supreme Being of higher and lower savages, 255 + human sacrifice, 255 + hungry, cruel gods degenerate from the Australian Father in Heaven, 256 + savage Animism, 256 + a pure religion forgotten, 257 + an inconvenient moral Creator, 257 + hankering after useful ghost-gods, 257 + lowering of the ideal of a Creator, 257 + maintenance of an immoral system in the interests of the State and the + clergy, 258 + moral monotheism of the Hebrew religion, 258 + degradation of Jehovah, 258 + human sacrifice in ritual of Israel, 258 + origin of conception of Jehovah, 258 + Semitic gods, 259 + status of Darumulun, 259 + conception of Jehovah conditioned by space, 260 + degeneration of deity in Africa, 260 + political advance produces religious degeneration, 261 + sacrificial ideas, 262 + the savage Supreme Being on a higher plane than the Semitic and + Greek gods, 263 + Animism full of the seeds of religions degeneration, 264 + falling off in the theistic conception, 265 + fetishism, 265 + modus of degeneration by Animism supplanting Theism, 265 + feeling after a God who needs not anything at man's hands, 267 + +Demoniacal possession, 128 + the 'inspired' or 'possessed,' 129 + 'change of control,' 130 + gift of eloquence and poetry, 131 + instances in China, 131 + attempted explanations of the phenomena, 132 + 'alternating personality,' 132 + symptoms of possession, 132 + evidence for, 133 + scientific account of a demoniac and his cure, 134 + inducing the 'possessed' state, 135 + exhibition of abnormal knowledge by the possessed, 136 + Scientific study of the phenomena, 136 + details of the case of Mrs. Piper, 136-141 + diagnosing and prescribing for patients, 142 + Carver's example of savage possession, 142, 157 + custom of binding the seer with bonds, 142, 145 + corpse-binding, 143, 144 + +Dendid, Dinka Supreme Being, 211, 212, 258, 280 + +Deslon, M., disciple of Mesmer, 24 + +Dessoir, Dr. Max, quoted, 32, 33, 57 + +Dinkas, beliefs of the, 42, 211, 212, 256 + +Divining-rod, use of the, 30, 152-155 + +Dobbie, Mr., his case of clairvoyance, 76 + +Dorman, Mr., cited, 203 + +Dunbar, Mr., cited, 236 + +Du Pont, cited, 75 + +Du Prel, cited, 28 + +Dynois, Jonka, trance of, 65 + +Ebumtupism, second sight, 73 + +Egyptians, beliefs of, 83, 302 + +Elcho, Lord, cited, 334 + +Eleusinian mysteries, 196 + +Elliotson, Dr., cited, 24, 35, 37, 40 + +Ellis, Major, on Polynesian and African religions ideas, 83, 144, 222-228, + 232, 251, 260, 272 + +Elohim, savage equivalents to the term, 277 + +Esemkofu, Zulu ghosts, 128, 129 + +Eskimo, religious beliefs of, 72, 113, 184 + +Faith-Cures, 20-22 + +Fenton, Francis Dart, on Maori ghost-seeing, 114 + +Ferrand, Mlle., on hallucinations, 32 + +Fetishism and Spiritualism, 147 + the fetish, 147 + sources super-normal to savages, 148 + independent motion in inanimate objects, 149 + comparison with physical phenomena of spiritualism, 149 + Melanesian belief in sticks moved by spirits, 150 + a sceptical Zulu, 150 + a form of the pendulum experiment, 151 + table-turning, 152 + the divining-rod, 152 + the civilised and savage practice of automatism, 156 + dark room manifestations, 156 + the disturbances in the house of M. Zoller, 156 + consideration of physical phenomena, 158 + instanced, 165, 225, 265, 266, 276, 324-339 + +Figuier, M., cited, 152 + +Fijians, religious beliefs of, 128, 136, 200, 248, 338 + +Finns, the, 58 + +Fire ceremony, the, 180 _note_ + +Fison, Mr., cited, 128 + +Fitzroy, Admiral, cited, 115, 173, 174 + +Flacourt, Sieur de, on crystal-gazing in Madagascar, 84 + +Flint, Professor, cited, 253 + +Francis, St., stigmata of, 22 + +Fuegians, beliefs and customs of, 115, 165, 173-175, 183, 187, 208, + 211, 227, 258, 262, 272 + +Galton, Mr., cited, 12, 96, 107, 294, 295 + +Garcilasso de la Vega, on Inca beliefs, 239-244 + +'Gates of Distance, Opening the,' 65, 66, 68 + +Ghost-seers, 54, 63 + +Ghost-soul, the, 51 + names for the, 60 + +Gibert, Dr., on 'willing' sleep, 36 + +Gibier, Dr., cited, 146 + +Gippsland tribes, 187 + +Glanvil, Rev. Joseph, his scientific investigations, 15 + +God, evolution of the idea of, 160 + anthropological hypothesis, 160 + primitive logic of the savage, 161 + regarded as a spirit, 162 + idea of spiritual beings framed on the human soul, 164 + deified ancestors, 164 + the Zulu first ancestor, 164 + fetishes, 165 + great gods in savage systems of religion, 165 + the Lord of the Dead, 165 + conception of an idealised divine First Ancestor, 188 + hostile Good and Bad Beings, 166 + the Supreme Being of savage creeds, 166 + mediating 'Sons,' 167 + Christian and Islamite influence on savage conceptions, 167 + probable germs of the savage idea of a Supreme Being, 168 + animistic conceptions, 168 + ghosts, and Beings who never were human, 169 + recognition by savages of our God in theirs, 169 + the hypothesis of degeneracy, 170 + the moral, friendly creative Being of low savage faith, 171 + food offerings to a Universal Power, 171 + the High Gods of low races, 173 + intrusion of European ideas into savage religions, 173 + the Fuegian Big Man, 174 + ghosts of dead medicine man, 175 + the Bora, or Australian tribal mysteries, 176, 177, 179 + possible evolution of the Australian god, 178 + mythology and theology of Darumulun, the highest Australian god, 178, + 179, 183 + religious sanction of morals, 179 + selflessness the very essence of goodness, 180 + precepts of Darumulan, 181, 182 + argument from design, 184 + Supreme Gods not necessarily developed out of 'spirits,' 185 + distinction between deities and ghosts, 185 + human beings adored as gods, 186 + deathlessness of the Supreme Being of savage faith, 186, 188 + idealisation of the savage himself, 187 + negation of the ghost-theory, 188, 189 + high creative gods never wore mortal men, 189 + low savage distinction between gods, 189 + propitiation by food and sacrifice, 190 + 'magnified non-natural men,' 190 + gods to talk about, not to adore, 190 + higher gods prior to the ghost theory, 191 + See Supreme Beings; American Creators; Jehovah + +Greeks, the, beliefs of, 302 + +Greenlanders, the, 144, 182 + +Gregory, Dr., cited, 86 + +Griesinger, Dr., cited, 132 + +Grinnell, Mr., on Pawnee beliefs, 234-237 + +Guiana Indians, religious beliefs of, 202-206, 256 + +Guinea, North and South, religious beliefs in, 220 + +Gurney, Mr., his experiments in hypnotism, 85, 86 + cited, 107, 114, 117 + +Guyau, M., cited, 12, 24, 25 + +Hallucinations. See Anthropology and Hallucinations + +Hamilton, Sir William, cited, 12 + +Hammond, Dr., on demoniacal possession, 131 + +Harteville, Madame, case of, 26 + +Hearne, on the Aurora Borealis, 3 + on cure by suggestion, 21, 22 + +Hebrews. See Israelites + +Hegel, cited, 30-34, 50, 56, 58, 78, 111, 152 + +Higgs, Police Constable, statement of, on the disturbances at Mr. + White's house, 326-328 + +Highland second-sight, 143-145 + +Hodgson, Dr., report on Mrs. Piper, 137, 140, 141 + cited, 135, 325 + +Home, David Dunglas, his powers as a medium, 324, 325, 334-339 + +Howitt, Mr., cited, 128, 177-182 + +Hume, David, attitude towards miracles, 16 + definition of a miracle, 16 + self-contradictions, 17 + refuses to examine miracle of the Abb Paris, 18, 19, 22-25 + alternative definition of a miracle, 25 + cited, 297 + +Huxley, Professor, on savage religious cults, 42, 43, 48, 162, 163, 171, + 176, 177, 182 + on the evolution of Jehovah, 270, 271, 277, 279, 282, 286 + cited, 17 _note_, 296, 324 + +Hypnotism, 6, 24, 29, 32, 34, 35, 37, 75, 76 + +Iamblichus, cited, 14, 336, 337, 339 + +Ibn Khaldoun, cited, 341 + +Im Thurn, on the religious ideas of the Indians of Guiana, 50, 160, + 202-207, 256, 298 + +Incas, the, 85, 240-247, 258 + +Iroquois, the, 84, 85 + +Islam, influence of, on African beliefs, 221 + +Israelites, development of their religious ideas, 258, 260, 268-284, 302 + +James, Professor William, quoted, 23, 59, 73, 107, 110, 132, 137, 156, + 294 + +Janet, Dr. Pierre, on 'willing' sleep, 36 + on demoniacal possession, 134, 135 + cited, 73, 294, 340, 341 + +Jeanne d'Arc, 34, 73, 115, 128, 276 + +Jehovah, theories of, 258, 260, 268 + as a Moral Supreme Being, 268 + anthropological theory of the origin of Jehovah-worship, 270 + absence of ancestor-worship from the Hebrew tradition, 270-273 + alleged evidence for ancestor-worship in Israel, 273-277 + evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of Jehovah, 277 + the term Elohim, 277 + human shape assumed, 278 + considered as a ghost-god, 279 + sacrifices to, 280 + suggestion of a Being not yet named Jehovah, 281 + traditional emergence of Jehovah as the god of Israel, 281 + as a deified ancestor, 282 + moral element in the idea of Jehovah, 282, 286 + a mere tribal god, 283 + a Kenite god, 283, 284 + inconsistencies of theorists concerning, 285 + the moral element a survival of primitive ethics in the savage ancestors + of the Israelites, 287 + verity of the Biblical account, 287 + cited, 299 + +Jeraeil, mysteries of the Kurnai, 180 + +Jevons, Mr., cited, 186, 255, 300, 302 + +Jugglery, Pawnee, 235 + +Jung-Stilling, cited, 30, 63 + +Kaloc, Fijian name for gods, 200, 201 + +Kamschatkans, 166 + +Kant, inquires into Swedenborg's visions, 26, 59 + disappointed with Swedenborg's 'Arcana Coelestia', 26, 27 + on the metaphysics of 'spirits,' 27 + discusses the subconscious, 28 + cited, 125 + +Karens, beliefs of, 60, 73, 151 + +Karr, Alphonse, cited, 336 + +Kelvin, Lord, on hypnotism, 37 + +Kenites, the, 284 + +Kingsley, Miss, cited, 175, 211, 220, 328 + +Kirk, cited, 144 + +Kohl, cited, 148 + +Kulin, Australian tribe, 49 + +Kurnai, Australian tribe, their religious conceptions, 49, 180, 181, 187, + 215, 262, 263, 287, 291 + +Laing, Mr. Samuel, cited, 12 _note_ + +Langlois, M., the case of, 75, 76 + +Lapps, beliefs of, 58, 71, 81 + +Latukas, the, 42 + +Laverterus, telepathic hypothesis of, 15 + +Le Loyer, cited, 15 + +Leaf, Mr., cited, 112 _note_ + +Leeward Isles, ideas of a god in, 251 + +Lefbure, M., cited, 84, 149, 341 + +Legge, Dr., on the teaching of Confucius, 290 + +Lejean, M., on the Dinkas, 212 + +Lejeaune, Pre, cited, 74, 83 + +Leng, Mr., cited, 133 + +Leon, Cieza de, cited, 241, 244 + +Lonie, the case of her hypnotisation, 75, 76 + +Leslie, David, on Zulu clairvoyance, 68 + on ghosts, 128 + +Levitation, 334 + +Littr, M., cited, 136 + +Livingstone, Dr., cited, 6, 135, 170 + +Lloyd, Dr., cited, 327, 328 + +Loan-god, a, Tshi theory of, 222-229 + +Lourdes, cures at, 19 + +Lubbock, Sir John, cited, 42 + +Macalister, Professor, his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 140 + +MacCulloch, Dr., on second-sight, 58 + +Macdonald, Duff, cited, 150, 213, 215, 218 + +Macgregor, Dr. Alastair, gives instances of second-sight, 79-81 + +Madagascar, 84 + +Magnetism, 29, 34, 35 + +Malagasies, beliefs of, 84 + +Malays of Keeling Island, fetishism in, 141 + +Man, Mr., on Andamanese religion and mythology, 194, 195 + +Mans, magical rapport, 199, 200 + +Mandans, the, 188 + +Manganjah, practice of sorcery in, 149 + +Manning, Mr., cited, 146 + +Maoris, religious beliefs of, 83, 113-115, 118, 119, 150, 166, 188 + +Marawa, Banks Islands deity, 198, 199 + +Mariner, cited, 278 + +Markham, Mr., cited, 243, 246 + +Marson, Madame, case of, 71 + +Mason, Dr., on familiar spirits, 130 + +Mather, Cotton, cited, 16, 55 + +Maudsloy, Dr., cited, 23 _note_ + +Mani, Maori deity, 166, 188 + +Mayo, Dr., cited, 86 + +Medici, Catherine de', cited, 66 + +Medicine-men, 84 + +Mediums, 324-339 + +Melanesians, religious beliefs of, 150, 169, 189, 197, 199, 200 + +Menestrier, le Pre, uses the divining-rod, 154 + +Menzies, Professor, cited, 257 + +Mesmer, his theory of magnetism, 29, 34 + +Millar, cited, 40, 41 + +Miracles, regarded from the standpoint of science, 14 + early tests, 14 + and more modern research, 15 + witchcraft, 15, 16 + Hume's essay on, 16 + and his definitions of a miracle, 16, 25 + cures at the tomb of the Abb Paris, 18-20, 23 + Binet and Fr's explanation of these cures, 20 + cures by suggestion, 20, 21 + Dr. Charcot's views, 20 + faith cures, 20-22 + science opposed to systematic negation, 22 + refusal to examine evidence, 23-25 + 'marvellous facts,' 24 + suggestion distance, 24 + Kant's researches, 26-29 + Swedenborg's clairvoyance, 26, 27 + thought-transference and hypnotic sleep, 29, 30, 32, 35 + water-finding, 39 + phenomena of clairvoyance, 31 + Hegel's 'magic tie,' 31 + Dr. Max Dessoir's views, 31, 32 + hallucinations, 32 + animal magnetism, 34 + hypnotism, 35 + 'willing,' 36 + facts and phenomena confronting science, 37 + +'Miss X,' on crystal-gazing, 87, 315, 316, 340, 341 + +Mlungu, Central African deity, 213-218 + +Molina, Christoval de, on Inca beliefs, 242, 243 + +Moll, Herr, cited, 314 + +Montgeron, M., cited, 19, 20 + +More, Henry, cited, 15 + +Moses, founder of the Hebrew religion, 283-286 + +Mtanga, African deity, 213-217 + +Mller, Max, cited, 41, 43, 46, 265, 266, 289 + +Mungan-ngaur, Kurnai Supreme Being, 181, 188, 190, 205, 217, 259 + +Mwetyi, Shekuni Great Spirit, 220 + +Myers, Frederic, on hypnotic slumber, 30, 33 + cited, 15 _note_ + +Nana Nyankupon, Gold Coast Supreme Being, 225-228, 232, 280 + +N-pi, American Indian deity, 237-239, 241 + +Ndengei, Fijian Supreme Being, 200-202, 228, 248 + +Nevius, Dr., on demoniacal possession, 131-135 + +Newbold, Professor W. Romaine, 135 + +Nezahuati, erects a bloodless fane to the Unknown God, 258 + +Nicaraguans, the, 60 + +North, Major, on Pawnee jugglery, 235, 236 + +Nzambi Mpungu, Bantu Supreme Being, 226, 228, 242 + +Okeus (Oki), American Indian deity, 231, 232 + +Okey, the sisters, case of, 37 _note_ + +Ombwiri, South Guinea god, 220 + +Orpen, Mr., cited, 193 + +Oxford, Rev. A.W., on ancient Israel, 275-277, 283-285 + +Pachacamac, Inca, Supreme Being, 230, 239-247, 258 + +Pachayachachi, Inca god, 242, 246 + +Paladino, Eusapia, case of, 325 + +Palmer, Mr., cited, 179 + +Paris, Abb miracles wrought at his tomb, 18-20, 23 + +Parish, Herr, criticism of his reply to the arguments for telepathy, + 307-323 + cited, 8, 86, 107 + +Park, Mungo, on African beliefs, 221, 223 + +Pawnees, religious beliefs and practices of, 212, 224, 230, 233-236, 263 + +Payne, Mr., cited, 160, 161, 246 + +Peden, Rev. Mr., cited, 66 + +Pelippa, Captain, cited, 173 + +Pendulum experiment, a form of the, 151 + +Pepys, cited, 15 + +Peruvians, religious ideas and practices of, 75, 239-247 + +Phantasms of the Dead, 128 + +Phinuit, Dr. See Mrs. Piper + +Piper, Mrs., the case of, 132, 136-141 + +Pliny, cited, 15 + +Plotinus, cited, 66 + +Plutarch, cited, 15 + +Podmore, Mr., on psychical research, 111, 325, 326, 328, 330-336, 338, 339 + +Poltergeist, the, and his explainers, 334-339 + +Polynesians, religious beliefs of, 7, 83, 251, 252, 256 + +Polytheism, 289, 291, 303 + +Porphyry, cited, 14 + +Powhattan, Virginian chief, 231, 232 + +Puluga, Andamanese Supreme Being, 195, 205, 228, 258, 262 + +Pundjel, Australian god, 258, 261, 262 + +Puysgur, de, his discovery of hypnotic sleep, 29, + cited, 76 + +Qat, Banks Islands deity, 189, 198, 199 + +Qing, Bushman, his ideas of the god Cang, 193, 196 + +Ravenwood, Master of, instanced, 126 + +Red Indians, beliefs and practices of, 3, 5, 6, 21, 22, 83, 104 _note_, + 128, 142, 143, 203 + +Regnard, M., cited, 71 + +Renan, M., cited, 285 + +Rvillo, M., cited, 291, 293 + +Reynolds, Dr. Russell, cited, 22 + +Rhombos, use of the, 84 + +Ribot, M., cited, 132 + +Richet, Professor Charles, hypnotises Lonie, 75, 76 + cited, 64, 73, 82, 154, 294 + +Ritter, Dr., believes in Siderism, 29 + +Romans, religious ideas of, 302 + +'Rose, Miss,' her experience of crystal-gazing, 90,91 + +Rose, Eliza, the case of, 326-330 + +Roskoff, cited, 42 + +Rowley, Mr., cited, 149 + +Russegger, cited, 212 + +Salcamayhua, cited, 246 + +Samoyeds, 58, 72 + +Sand, George, cited, 86 + +Santos, cited, 214 + +Saul and the Witch of Endor, 14 + +Scheffer, cited, 66, 70, 71, 81 + +Schoolcraft, Mr., cited, 236 + +Schrenck-Notzing, von, cited, 55 _note_ + +Scot, Reginald, cited, 15 + +Scott, Rev. David Clement, cited, 49 _note_, 106, 217, 218 + +Scott, Sir Walter, his attitude towards clairvoyance, 27 + cited, 121, 126 + +Sebituane, case of, 135, 136 + +Second-sight, 56, 66, 78-81 + +Seer-binding, 143 + +Seers, 72 + +Shang-ti, Chinese Supreme Being, 245, 290, 291 + +Shortland, Mr., quoted, 113 + +Sidgwick, Professor, cited, 318, 332 + +Sioux, the, 236 + +Skidi or Wolf Pawnees, the, 233, 234 + +Smith, Mrs. Erminie, on crystal-gazing, 84 + +Smith, historian of Virginia, cited, 231, 232 + +Smith, Robertson, cited, 259, 261, 262, 281 _note_, 298 + +Smyth, Brough, cited, 42, 178, 182, 293 + +Society for Psychical Research, 116, 118 + +Spencer, Herbert, on early religious ideas, 42, 43 + ghosts, 47 + Animism, 48 _note_, 53, 54 + limits of savage language, 49 + the Fuegian Big Man, 174 + Australian marriage customs, 175 + Australian religion, 182 + men-gods, 186 + religion of Bushmen, 193 + ancestor-worship, 212, 213, 271-273 + cited, 162, 167, 170, 216, 218, 292 + +Spiritualism, 324-339. + See Fetishism + +Stade, Herr, cited, 276, 284, 285 + +Stanley, Hans, cited, 12 + +Starr, cited, 104 _note_ + +Stoll, cited, 72 + +Strachey, William, cited, 229-232 + +Suetonius, cited, 15 + +Sully, Mr., cited. 295 + +Sun-worship, 238-245 + +Supreme Beings of savages, regarded as eternal, moral, and powerful, 193 + Cagn, the Bushman god, 193 + Puluga, the Andamanese god, 195 + savage mysteries and rites, 196 + alliance of ethics with religion, 196 + the Banks Islanders' belief in Tamate (ghosts) and Vui (Beings who never + had been human), 197 + corporeal and incorporeal Vuis, 198 + sacrificial offerings to ghosts and spirits, 199 + the soul the complex of real bodiless after-images, 200 + Fijian belief, 200 + Ndengei, the Fijian chief god, 200, 201 + the idea of primeval Eternal Beings, 202 + the Great Spirit of North American tribes, 203 + dream origin of the ghost theory, 203 + Guiana Indian names indicating a belief in a Great Spirit, 203-206 + the God-cult abandoned for the Ghost-cult, 205 + Unkulunkulu, the Zulu Creator, 207-210 + the notion of a dead Maker, 208 + preference for serviceable family spirits, 209 + the Dinka Creator, 211 + African ancestor-worship, 212 + Mlungu, a deity formed by aggregation of departed spirits, 213 + ethical element in religious mysteries, 215 + the position of Mtanga, 216 + religious beliefs in the Blantyre region, 217, 218 + negro tendency to monotheism, 218 + beliefs in North and South Guinea, 220 + Mungo Park's observation of African beliefs, 221 + Islamic influence, 221 + the Tshi theory of a loan-god,' borrowed from Europeans, 222-228 + varieties of Tshi gods, 224, 225 + fetishes, 225 + Nana Nyankupon, the 'God of the Christians,' 225-229 + American Creators (see under), 230-252 + the Polynesian cult, 251, 252 + Chinese conceptions, 290-292 + +Swedenborg, Emanuel, visions of, 26 + recovers Mme. Harteville's receipt, 26 + his 'Arcana Coelestia,' 27 + noticed by Kant, 28, 29, 59 + +Taa-Roa, Polynesian deity, 251, 252, 256, 280, 308 + +Table-turning, 151 + +Tahitians, 251 + +Taine, M., cited, 57 + +Ta-li-y-Tooboo, Tongan deity, 278, 279, 282 + +Tamate, Banks Islands ghosts, 197-199 + +Tamoi, the 'ancient of heaven,' 188 + +Tando, Gold Coast god, 225 + +Tanner, John, case of, 57, 128 + +Teed, Esther, the Amherst mystery, 333 + +Telepathy, oppositions of science to, 307 + hallucination of memory, 307 + presentiments, 308 + dreams, 308, 309, 312 + veridical hallucinations, 309, 311 + coincidence in S.P.R.'s Census cases, 310 + non-coincidental cases, 311 + condition to beget hallucination, 312 + hallucinations mere dreams, 312 + crystal-gazing, 314-316 + number of coincidences no proof, 316 + association of ideas, 316 + coincidental collective hallucinations, 317-323 + See Crystal visions + +Thomson, Basil, cited, 200 _note_, 248, 249, 339 + +Thought-transference, 4, 29-32, 35 + illustrative cases, 88-103 + +Thouvenel, M., cited, 152 + +Thyraeus on ghosts, 15 + +Tien, Chinese heaven, 290, 291 + +Ti-ra-w, American Indian god, 234-236, 239 + +Tlapan, African wizard, 135 + +Tongans, religious beliefs of, 278-280 + +Tonkaways, American tribe, 233 + +Torfaeus, cited, 71 + +Totemism, 239, 241, 262, 263, 269, 270, 276 + +Tregear, Mr., on Maori ghost-seeing, 113 + +Tshi theory of a loan-god, 223-227 + +Tuckey, Dr. Lloyd, cited, 36 + +Tui Laga, Fijian deity, 249 + +Tundun, ancestor of the Kurnai, 181 + +Tylor, Mr., his test of recurrence, 41 + on anthropological origin of religion, 43 + on savage philosophy of super-normal phenomena, 45, 53 + disproves the assertion about 'godless' tribes, 47 + his term Animism, 48, 49 + theory of metaphysical genius in low savages, 51 + ghost-seers, 54 + on psychical conditions of contemporary savages, 54-56 + on the influence of Swedenborg, 59 + savage names for the ghost-soul, 60 + second-sight, 66 + mediums, 73 + dreams, 106 + hallucinations, 110-113, 117, 118 + demoniacal possession, 131 + fetishism, 148, 149, 165 + divining-rod, 153 + evolution of gods from ghosts, 163, 164 + fetish deities, 165 + dualistic idea, 166 + Supreme Being of savage creeds, 166, 167 + the degeneration theory, 170, 254 + confusion of thought upon religion, 182 + list of first ancestors deified, 188 + savage mysteries, 201 + savage Animism, 204 + Okeus and his rites, 231 + Pachacamac, 245 + Confucius's teaching, 290 + the mystagogue Home, 325 + levitation, 334 + cited, 50, 52, 53, 58, 59, 61-63, 78, 151, 161, 162, 170, 173, 184, 185, + 203, 231, 232, 246, 257, 293, 297 + +Tyndall, Professor, cited, 324 + +Uiracocha, Inca Creator, 242-246 + +Umabakulists, diviners by sticks, 151 + +Unkulunkulu, Zulu mythical first ancestor, 164, 168, 188, 202, 207, 220 + +Vincent, Mr., 29 + on clairvoyance, 34, 36, 37 + +Virchow, cited, 19 + +Vui, non-ghost gods, 169, 197-200 + +Wabose, Catherine, Red Indian seeress, experience of, 73, 74 + +Waltz, cited, 177, 194 _note_, 218-220, 222, 243 + +Wallace, Alfred Basset, on Hume's theory of 'miracles,' 17, 18 + on Ritter, 29 + on clairvoyance, 31 + +Wayao, Supreme Being of the, 213, 214 + +Wellhausen, cited, 277, 283, 285, 286, 298 + +Welton, Thomas, on the divining-rod, 154 + +Wesley, John, cited, 16 + +White, Joseph, spirit manifestations at his house, 326-331 + +Wierus, cited, 15 + +Williams, Mr., cited, 201, 248 + +Wilson, Mr., cited, 50, 219, 220 + +Windward Isles, ideas of a God in, 251 + +Witch of Endor, the, 14, 277, 278 + +Witchcraft, 14-16 + +Wodrow, Mr., cited, 16 + +Wolf tribes, 233 + +Wynne, Captain, cited, 335 + +Yama, Vedic-Aryan ghost-god, 188 + +Yaos, religious beliefs of, 150, 213, 214-216 + +Yerri Yuppon, good spirit of the Chonos, 175 + +York, a Fuegian, cited, 174 + +Yuncus, a Peruvian race, worship of, 240, 246 + +Zarate, Augustin de, cited, 240 + +Zoller, M., disturbances in the house of, 156, 157 + +Zulus, religious beliefs and customs of, 65, 66, 68, 70, 72, 85, 128, + 141, 142, 150, 152, 207-210 + +Zuis, hymns of the, 248, 251 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Making of Religion, by Andrew Lang + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAKING OF RELIGION *** + +***** This file should be named 12353-8.txt or 12353-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/5/12353/ + +Produced by Robert Connal, William A. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Making of Religion + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: May 14, 2004 [EBook #12353] +[Date last updated: March 30, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAKING OF RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Connal, William A. Pifer-Foote and PG Distributed +Proofreaders. This file was produced from images generously made +available by gallica (Bibliotheque nationale de France) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr. + + + + + +THE MAKING OF RELIGION + +BY +ANDREW LANG + +M.A., LL.D. ST ANDREWS + +HONORARY FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE OXFORD +SOMETIME GIFFORD LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS + +SECOND EDITION +1900 + + + + +_TO THE PRINCIPAL +OF THE +UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS + + +DEAR PRINCIPAL DONALDSON, + +I hope you will permit me to lay at the feet of the University of St. +Andrews, in acknowledgment of her life-long kindnesses to her old pupil, +these chapters on the early History of Religion. They may be taken as +representing the Gifford Lectures delivered by me, though in fact they +contain very little that was spoken from Lord Gifford's chair. I wish they +were more worthy of an Alma Mater which fostered in the past the leaders +of forlorn hopes that were destined to triumph; and the friends of lost +causes who fought bravely against Fate--Patrick Hamilton, Cargill, and +Argyll, Beaton and Montrose, and Dundee. + +Believe me + +Very sincerely yours, + +ANDREW LANG_. + + * * * * * + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION + +By the nature of things this book falls under two divisions. The first +eight chapters criticise the current anthropological theory of the origins +of the belief in _spirits._ Chapters ix.-xvii., again, criticise the +current anthropological theory as to how, the notion of _spirit_ once +attained, man arrived at the idea of a Supreme Being. These two branches +of the topic are treated in most modern works concerned with the Origins +of Religion, such as Mr. Tyler's "Primitive Culture," Mr. Herbert +Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," Mr. Jevons's "Introduction to the +History of Religion," the late Mr. Grant Allen's "Evolution of the Idea of +God," and many others. Yet I have been censured for combining, in this +work, the two branches of my subject; and the second part has been +regarded as but faintly connected with the first. + +The reason for this criticism seems to be, that while one small set of +students is interested in, and familiar with the themes examined in the +first part (namely the psychological characteristics of certain mental +states from which, in part, the doctrine of spirits is said to have +arisen), that set of students neither knows nor cares anything about the +matter handled in the second part. This group of students is busied with +"Psychical Research," and the obscure human faculties implied in alleged +cases of hallucination, telepathy, "double personality," human automatism, +clairvoyance, and so on. Meanwhile anthropological readers are equally +indifferent as to that branch of psychology which examines the conditions +of hysteria, hypnotic trance, "double personality," and the like. +Anthropologists have not hitherto applied to the savage mental conditions, +out of which, in part, the doctrine of "spirits" arose, the recent +researches of French, German, and English psychologists of the new school. +As to whether these researches into abnormal psychological conditions do, +or do not, indicate the existence of a transcendental region of human +faculty, anthropologists appear to be unconcerned. The only English +exception known to me is Mr. Tylor, and his great work, "Primitive +Culture," was written thirty years ago, before the modern psychological +studies of Professor William James, Dr. Romaine Newbold, M. Richet, Dr. +Janet, Professor Sidgwick, Mr. Myers, Mr. Gurney, Dr. Parish, and many +others had commenced. + +Anthropologists have gone on discussing the trances, and visions, and +so-called "demoniacal possession" of savages, as if no new researches into +similar facts in the psychology of civilised mankind existed; or, if they +existed, threw any glimmer of light on the abnormal psychology of savages. +I have, on the other hand, thought it desirable to sketch out a study of +savage psychology in the light of recent psychological research. Thanks to +this daring novelty, the book has been virtually taken as two books; +anthropologists have criticised the second part, and one or two Psychical +Researchers have criticised the first part; each school leaving one part +severely alone. Such are the natural results of a too restricted +specialism. + +Even to Psychical Researchers the earlier division is of scant interest, +because witnesses to _successful_ abnormal or supernormal faculty in +savages cannot be brought into court and cross-examined. But I do not give +anecdotes of such savage successes as evidence to _facts;_ they are only +illustrations, and evidence to _beliefs and methods_ (as of crystal gazing +and automatic utterances of "secondary personality"), which, among the +savages, correspond to the supposed facts examined by Psychical Research +among the civilised. I only point out, as Bastian had already pointed out, +the existence of a field that deserves closer study by anthropologists +who can observe savages in their homes. We need persons trained in +the psychological laboratories of Europe and America, as members of +anthropological expeditions. It may be noted that, in his "Letters from +the South Seas," Mr. Louis Stevenson makes some curious observations, +especially on a singular form of hypnotism applied to himself with +fortunate results. The method, used in native medicine, was novel; and +the results were entirely inexplicable to Mr. Stevenson, who had not been +amenable to European hypnotic practice. But he was not a trained expert. + +Anthropology must remain incomplete while it neglects this field, whether +among wild or civilised men. In the course of time this will come to be +acknowledged. It will be seen that we cannot really account for the origin +of the belief in spirits while we neglect the scientific study of those +psychical conditions, as of hallucination and the hypnotic trance, in +which that belief must probably have had some, at least, of its origins. + +As to the second part of the book, I have argued that the first dim +surmises as to a Supreme Being need not have arisen (as on the current +anthropological theory) in the notion of spirits at all. (See chapter xi.) +Here I have been said to draw a mere "verbal distinction" but no +distinction can be more essential. If such a Supreme Being as many savages +acknowledge is _not_ envisaged by them as a "spirit," then the theories +and processes by which he is derived from a ghost of a dead man are +invalid, and remote from the point. As to the origin of a belief in a +kind of germinal Supreme Being (say the Australian Baiame), I do not, in +this book, offer any opinion. I again and again decline to offer an +opinion. Critics, none the less, have said that I attribute the belief to +revelation! I shall therefore here indicate what I think probable in so +obscure a field. + +As soon as man had the idea of "making" things, he might conjecture as to +a Maker of things which he himself had not made, and could not make. He +would regard this unknown Maker as a "magnified non-natural man." These +speculations appear to me to need less reflection than the long and +complicated processes of thought by which Mr. Tylor believes, and probably +believes with justice, the theory of "spirits" to have been evolved. (See +chapter iii.) This conception of a magnified non-natural man, who is a +Maker, being given; his Power would be recognised, and fancy would clothe +one who had made such useful things with certain other moral attributes, +as of Fatherhood, goodness, and regard for the ethics of his children; +these ethics having been developed naturally in the evolution of social +life. In all this there is nothing "mystical," nor anything, as far as I +can see, beyond the limited mental powers of any beings that deserve to be +called human. + +But I hasten to add that another theory may be entertained. Since this +book was written there appeared "The Native Tribes of Central Australia," +by Professor Spencer and Mr. Gillen, a most valuable study.[1] The +authors, closely scrutinising the esoteric rites of the Arunta and other +tribes in Central Australia, found none of the moral precepts and +attributes which (according to Mr. Howitt, to whom their work is +dedicated), prevail in the mysteries of the natives of New South Wales and +Victoria. (See chapter x.) What they found was a belief in 'the great +spirit, _Twanyirika_,' who is believed 'by uninitiated boys and women' +(but, apparently, not by adults) to preside over the cruel rites of tribal +initiation.[2] No more is said, no myths about 'the great spirit' are +given. He is dismissed in a brief note. Now if these ten lines contain +_all_ the native lore of Twanyirika, he is a mere bugbear, not believed in +(apparently) by adults, but invented by them to terrorise the women and +boys. Next, granting that the information of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen is +exhaustive, and granting that (as Mr. J.G. Frazer holds, in his essays in +the 'Fortnightly Review,' April and May, 1899) the Arunta are the most +primitive of mortals, it will seem to follow that the _moral_ attributes +of Baiame and other gods of other Australian regions are later accretions +round the form of an original and confessed bugbear, as among the +primitive Arunta, 'a bogle of the nursery,' in the phrase repudiated by +Maitland of Lethington. Though not otherwise conspicuously more civilised +than the Arunta (except, perhaps, in marriage relations), Mr. Howitt's +South Eastern natives will have improved the Arunta confessed 'bogle' +into a beneficent and moral Father and Maker. Religion will have its +origin in a tribal joke, and will have become not '_diablement_,' but +'_divinement_,' '_changee en route_.' Readers of Messrs. Spencer and +Gillen will see that the Arunta philosophy, primitive or not, is of a high +ingenuity, and so artfully composed that it contains no room either for a +Supreme Being or for the doctrine of the survival of the soul, with a +future of rewards and punishments; opinions declared to be extant among +other Australian tribes. There is no creator, and every soul, after death, +is reincarnated in a new member of the tribe. On the other hand (granting +that the brief note on Twanyirika is exhaustive), the Arunta, in their +isolation, may have degenerated in religion, and may have dropped, in the +case of Twanyirika, the moral attributes of Baiame. It may be noticed +that, in South Eastern Australia, the Being who presides, like Twanyirika, +over initiations is _not_ the supreme being, but a son or deputy of his, +such as the Kurnai Tundun. We do not know whether the Arunta have, or have +had and lost, or never possessed, a being superior to Twanyirika. + +With regard, to all such moral, and, in certain versions, creative Beings +as Baiame, criticism has taken various lines. There is the high a priori +line that savage minds are incapable of originating the notion of a moral +Maker. I have already said that the notion, in an early form, seems to be +well within the range of any minds deserving to be called human. Next, the +facts are disputed. I can only refer readers to the authorities cited. +They speak for tribes in many quarters of the world, and the witnesses +are laymen as well as missionaries. I am accused, again, of using a +misleading rhetoric, and of thereby covertly introducing Christian or +philosophical ideas into my account of "savages guiltless of Christian +teaching." As to the latter point, I am also accused of mistaking for +native opinions the results of "Christian teaching." One or other charge +must fall to the ground. As to my rhetoric, in the use of such words as +'Creator,' 'Eternal,' and the like, I shall later qualify and explain it. +For a long discussion between myself and Mr. Sidney Hartland, involving +minute detail, I may refer the reader to _Folk-Lore_, the last number of +1898 and the first of 1899, and to the Introduction to the new edition of +my 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion' (1899). + +Where relatively high moral attributes are assigned to a Being, I have +called the result 'Religion;' where the same Being acts like Zeus in +Greek fable, plays silly or obscene tricks, is lustful and false, I have +spoken of 'Myth.'[3] These distinctions of Myth and Religion may be, and +indeed are, called arbitrary. The whole complex set of statements about +the Being, good or bad, sublime or silly, are equally Myths, it may be +urged. Very well; but one set, the loftier set, is fitter to survive, and +does survive, in what we still commonly call Religion; while the other +set, the puerile set of statements, is fairly near to extinction, and is +usually called Mythology. One set has been the root of a goodly tree: the +other set is being lopped off, like the parasitic mistletoe. + +I am arguing that the two classes of ideas arise from two separate human +moods; moods as different and distinct as lust and love. I am arguing +that, as far as our information goes, the nobler set of ideas is as +ancient as the lower. Personally (though we cannot have direct evidence) +I find it easy to believe that the loftier notions are the earlier. If man +began with the conception of a powerful and beneficent Maker or Father, +then I can see how the humorous savage fancy ran away with the idea of +Power, and attributed to a potent being just such tricks as a waggish and +libidinous savage would like to play if he could. Moreover, I have +actually traced (in 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion') some plausible processes +of mythical accretion. The early mind was not only religious, in its way, +but scientific, in its way. It embraced the idea of Evolution as well as +the idea of Creation. To one mood a Maker seemed to exist. But the +institution of Totemism (whatever its origin) suggested the idea of +Evolution; for men, it was held, developed out of their Totems-animals and +plants. But then, on the other hand, Zeus, or Baiame, or Mungun-ngaur, was +regarded as their Father. How were these contradictions to be reconciled? +Easily, thus: Zeus _was_ the Father, but, in each case, was the Father by +an amour in which he wore the form of the Totem-snake, swan, bull, ant, +dog, or the like. At once a degraded set of secondary erotic myths cluster +around Zeus. + +Again, it is notoriously the nature of man to attribute every institution +to a primal inventor or legislator. Men then, find themselves performing +certain rites, often of a buffooning or scandalous character; and, in +origin, mainly magical, intended for the increase of game, edible plants, +or, later, for the benefit of the crops. _Why_ do they perform these +rites? they ask: and, looking about, as usual, for a primal initiator, +they attribute what they do to a primal being, the Corn Spirit, Demeter, +or to Zeus, or to Baiame, or Manabozho, or Punjel. This is man's usual way +of going back to origins. Instantly, then, a new set of parasitic myths +crystallises round a Being who, perhaps, was originally moral. The savage +mind, in short, has not maintained itself on the high level, any more than +the facetious mediaeval myths maintained themselves, say, on the original +level of the conception of the character of St. Peter, the keeper of the +keys of Heaven. + +All this appears perfectly natural and human, and in this, and in other +ways, what we call low Myth may have invaded the higher realms of +Religion: a lower invaded a higher element. But reverse the hypothesis. +Conceive that Zeus, or Baiame, was _originally_, not a Father and +guardian, but a lewd and tricky ghost of a medicine-man, a dancer of +indecent dances, a wooer of other men's wives, a shape-shifter, a +burlesque droll, a more jocular bugbear, like Twanyirika. By what means +did he come to be accredited later with his loftiest attributes, and with +regard for the tribal ethics, which, in practice, he daily broke and +despised? Students who argue for the possible priority of the lowest, or, +as I call them, mythical attributes of the Being, must advance an +hypothesis of the concretion of the nobler elements around the original +wanton and mischievous ghost. + +Then let us suppose that the Arunta Twanyirika, a confessed bugbear, +discredited by adults, and only invented to keep women and children in +order, was the original germ of the moral and fatherly Baiame, of South +Eastern Australian tribes. How, in that case, did the adults of the tribe +fall into their own trap, come to believe seriously in their invented +bugbear, and credit him with the superintendence of such tribal ethics as +generosity and unselfishness? What were the processes of the conversion of +Twanyirika? I do not deny that this theory may be correct, but I wish to +see an hypothesis of the process of elevation. + +I fail to frame such an hypothesis. Grant that the adults merely chuckle +over Twanyirika, whose 'voice' they themselves produce; by whirling the +wooden tundun, or bull-roarer. Grant that, on initiation, the boys learn +that 'the great spirit' is a mere bogle, invented to mystify the women, +and keep them away from the initiatory rites. How, then, did men come to +believe in _him_ as a terrible, all-seeing, all-knowing, creative, and +potent moral being? For this, undeniably, is the belief of many Australian +tribes, where his 'voice' (or rather that of his subordinate) is produced +by whirling the tundun. That these higher beliefs are of European origin, +Mr. Howitt denies. How were they evolved out of the notion of a confessed +artificial bogle? I am unable to frame a theory. + +From my point of view, namely, that the higher and simple ideas may well +be the earlier, I have, at least, offered a theory of the processes by +which the lower attributes crystallised around a conception supposed +(_argumenti gratia_) to be originally high. Other processes of degradation +would come in, as (on my theory) the creed and practice of Animism, or +worship of human ghosts, often of low character, swamped and invaded the +prior belief in a fairly moral and beneficent, but not originally +spiritual, Being. My theory, at least, _is_ a theory, and, rightly or +wrongly, accounts for the phenomenon, the combination of the highest +divine and the lowest animal qualities in the same Being. But I have yet +to learn how, if the lowest myths are the earliest, the highest attributes +came in time to be conferred on the hero of the lowest myths. Why, or how, +did a silly buffoon, or a confessed 'bogle' arrive at being regarded as a +patron of such morality as had been evolved? An hypothesis of the +processes involved must be indicated. It is not enough to reply, in +general, that the rudimentary human mind is illogical and confused. That +is granted; but there must have been a method in its madness. What that +method was (from my point of view) I have shown, and it must be as easy +for opponents to set forth what, from their point of view, the method was. + +We are here concerned with what, since the time of the earliest Greek +philosophers, has been the _crux_ of mythology: why are infamous myths +told about 'the Father of gods and men'? We can easily explain the nature +of the myths. They are the natural flowers of savage fancy and humour. +But wherefore do they crystallise round Zeus? I have, at least, shown some +probable processes in the evolution. + +Where criticism has not disputed the facts of the moral attributes, now +attached to, say, an Australian Being, it has accounted for them by a +supposed process of borrowing from missionaries and other Europeans. In +this book I deal with that hypothesis as urged by Sir A.B. Ellis, in West +Africa (chapter xiii.). I need not have taken the trouble, as this +distinguished writer had already, in a work which I overlooked, formally +withdrawn, as regards Africa, his theory of 'loan-gods.' Miss Kingsley, +too, is no believer in the borrowing hypothesis for West Africa, in +regard, that is, to the highest divine conception. I was, when I wrote, +unaware that, especially as concerns America and Australia, Mr. Tylor had +recently advocated the theory of borrowing ('Journal of Anthrop. +Institute,' vol. xxi.). To Mr. Tylor's arguments, when I read them, I +replied in the 'Nineteenth Century,' January 1899: 'Are Savage Gods +Borrowed from Missionaries?' I do not here repeat my arguments, but await +the publication of Mr. Tylor's 'Gifford Lectures,' in which his hypothesis +may be reinforced, and may win my adhesion. + +It may here be said, however, that if the Australian higher religious +ideas are of recent and missionary origin, they would necessarily be known +to the native women, from whom, in fact, they are absolutely concealed by +the men, under penalty of death. Again, if the Son, or Sons, of Australian +chief Beings resemble part of the Christian dogma, they much more closely +resemble the Apollo and Hermes of Greece.[4] But nobody will say that the +Australians borrowed them from Greek mythology! + +In chapter xiv., owing to a bibliographical error of my own, I have done +injustice to Mr. Tylor, by supposing him to have overlooked Strachey's +account of the Virginian god Ahone. He did not overlook Ahone, but +mistrusted Strachey. In an excursus on Ahone, in the new edition of 'Myth, +Ritual, and Religion,' I have tried my best to elucidate the bibliography +and other aspects of Strachey's account, which I cannot regard as +baseless. Mr. Tylor's opinion is, doubtless, different, and may prove more +persuasive. As to Australia, Mr. Howitt, our best authority, continues to +disbelieve in the theory of borrowing. + +I have to withdraw in chapters x. xi. the statement that 'Darumulun never +died at all.' Mr. Hartland has corrected me, and pointed out that, among +the Wiraijuri, a myth represents him as having been destroyed, for his +offences, by Baiame. In that tribe, however, Darumulun is not the highest, +but a subordinate Being. Mr. Hartland has also collected a few myths in +which Australian Supreme Beings _do_ (contrary to my statement) 'set the +example of sinning.' Nothing can surprise me less, and I only wonder that, +in so savage a race, the examples, hitherto collected, are so rare, and so +easily to be accounted for on the theory of processes of crystallisation +of myths already suggested. + +As to a remark in Appendix B, Mr. Podmore takes a distinction. I quote his +remark, 'the phenomena described are quite inexplicable by ordinary +mechanical means,' and I contrast this, as illogical, with his opinion +that a girl 'may have been directly responsible for all that took place.' +Mr. Podmore replies that what was 'described' is not necessarily identical +with what _occurred_. Strictly speaking, he is right; but the evidence was +copious, was given by many witnesses, and (as offered by me) was in part +_contemporary_ (being derived from the local newspapers), so that here Mr. +Podmore's theory of illusions of memory on a large scale, developed in the +five weeks which elapsed before he examined the spectators, is out of +court. The evidence was of contemporary published record. + +The handling of fire by Home is accounted for by Mr. Podmore, in the same +chapter, as the result of Home's use of a 'non-conducting substance.' +Asked, 'what substance?' he answered, 'asbestos.' Sir William Crookes, +again repeating his account of the performance which he witnessed, says, +'Home took up a lump of red-hot charcoal about twice the size of an egg +into his hand, on which certainly no asbestos was visible. He blew into +his hands, and the flames could be seen coming out between his fingers, +and he carried the charcoal round the room.'[5] Sir W. Crookes stood close +beside Home. The light was that of the fire and of two candles. Probably +Sir William could see a piece of asbestos, if it was covering Home's +hands, which he was watching. + +What I had to say, by way of withdrawal, qualification, explanation, or +otherwise, I inserted (in order to seize the earliest opportunity) in the +Introduction to the recent edition of my 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion' +(1899). The reader will perhaps make his own kind deductions from my +rhetoric when I talk, for example, about a Creator in the creed of low +savages. They have no business, anthropologists declare, to entertain so +large an idea. But in 'The Journal of the Anthropological Institute,' +N.S. II., Nos. 1, 2, p. 85, Dr. Bennett gives an account of the religion +of the cannibal Fangs of the Congo, first described by Du Chaillu. 'These +anthropophagi have some idea of a God, a superior being, their _Tata_ +("Father"), _a bo mam merere_ ("he made all things"), Anyambi is their +_Tata_ (Father), and ranks above all other Fang gods, because _a'ne yap_ +(literally, "he lives in heaven").' This is inconsiderate in the Fangs. A +set of native cannibals have no business with a creative Father who is in +heaven. I say 'creative' because 'he made all things,' and (as the bowler +said about a 'Yorker') 'what else can you call him?' In all such cases, +where 'creator' and 'creative' are used by me, readers will allow for the +imperfections of the English language. As anthropologists say, the savages +simply cannot have the corresponding ideas; and I must throw the blame on +people who, knowing the savages and their language, assure us that they +_have_. This Fang Father or _Tata_ 'is considered indifferent to the wants +and sufferings of men, women, and children.' Offerings and prayers are +therefore made, not to him, but to the ghosts of parents, who are more +accessible. This additional information precisely illustrates my general +theory, that the chief Being was not evolved out of ghosts, but came to be +neglected as ghost-worship arose. I am not aware that Dr. Bennett is a +missionary. Anthropologists distrust missionaries, and most of my evidence +is from laymen. If the anthropological study of religion is to advance, +the high and usually indolent chief Beings of savage religions must be +carefully examined, not consigned to a casual page or paragraph. I have +found them most potent, and most moral, where ghost-worship has not +been evolved; least potent, or at all events most indifferent, where +ghost-worship is most in vogue. The inferences (granting the facts) are +fatal to the current anthropological theory. + +The phrases 'Creator,' 'creative,' as applied to Anyambi, or Baiame, +have been described, by critics, as rhetorical, covertly introducing +conceptions of which savages are incapable. I have already shown that I +only follow my authorities, and their translations of phrases in various +savage tongues. But the phrase 'eternal,' applied to Anyambi or Baiame, +may be misleading. I do not wish to assert that, if you talked to a savage +about 'eternity,' he would understand what you intend. I merely mean what +Mariner says that the Tongans mean as to the god Ta-li-y Tooboo. 'Of his +origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal.' The savage +theologians assert no beginning for such beings (as a rule), and no end, +except where Unkulunkulu is by some Zulus thought to be dead, and +where the Wiraijuris declare that their Darumulun (_not_ supreme) was +'destroyed' by Baiame. I do not wish to credit savages with thoughts more +abstract than they possess. But that their thought can be abstract is +proved, even in the case of the absolutely 'primitive Arunta,' by +their myth of the _Ungambikula_, 'a word which means "out of nothing," +or "self-existing,"' say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.[6] Once more, +I find that I have spoken of some savage Beings as 'omnipresent' +and 'omnipotent.' But I have pointed out that this is only a modern +metaphysical rendering of the actual words attributed to the savage: 'He +can go everywhere, and do everything.' As to the phrase, also used, that +Baiame, for example, 'makes for righteousness,' I mean that he sanctions +the morality of his people; for instance, sanctions veracity and +unselfishness, as Mr. Howitt distinctly avers. These are examples of +'righteousness' in conduct. I do not mean that these virtues were +impressed on savages in some supernatural way, as a critic has daringly +averred that I do. The strong reaction of some early men against the +cosmical process by which 'the weakest goes to the wall,' is, indeed, a +curious moral phenomenon, and deserves the attention of moralists. But I +never dreamed of supposing that this reaction (which extends beyond the +limit of the tribe or group) had a 'supernatural' origin! It has been +argued that 'tribal morality' is only a set of regulations based on the +convenience of the elders of the tribe: is, in fact, as the Platonic +Thrasymachus says, 'the interest of the strongest.' That does not appear +to me to be demonstrated; but this is no place for a discussion of the +origin of morals. 'The interest of the strongest,' and of the nomadic +group, would be to knock elderly invalids on the head. But Dampier says, +of the Australians, in 1688, 'Be it little, or be it much they get, every +one has his part, as well the young and tender, and the old and feeble, +who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' The origin of +this fair and generous dealing may be obscure, but it is precisely the +kind of dealing on which, according to Mr. Howitt, the religion of the +Kurnai insists (chapter x.). Thus the Being concerned does 'make for +righteousness.' + +With these explanations I trust that my rhetorical use of such phrases as +'eternal,' 'creative,' 'omniscient,' 'omnipotent,' 'omnipresent,' and +'moral,' may not be found to mislead, or covertly to import modern or +Christian ideas into my account of the religious conceptions of savages. + +As to the evidence throughout, a learned historian has informed me that +'no anthropological evidence is of any value.' If so, there can be no +anthropology (in the realm of institutions). But the evidence that I +adduce is from such sources as anthropologists, at least, accept, and +employ in the construction of theories from which, in some points, I +venture to dissent. + +A.L. + +[Footnote 1: Macmillans, 1899.] + +[Footnote 2: Op. cit. p. 246, note.] + +[Footnote 3: See the new edition of _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, +especially the new Introduction.] + +[Footnote 4: See Introductions to my _Homeric Hymns_. Allen. 1899.] + +[Footnote 5: _Journal S.P.R._, December 1890, p. 147.] + +[Footnote 6: _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 388.] + + + + +PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION + +'The only begetter' of this work is Monsieur Lefebure, author of 'Les +Yeux d'Horus,' and other studies in Egyptology. He suggested the writing +of the book, but is in no way responsible for the opinions expressed. + +The author cannot omit the opportunity of thanking Mr. Frederic Myers for +his kindness in reading the proof sheets of the earlier chapters and +suggesting some corrections of statement. Mr. Myers, however, is probably +not in agreement with the author on certain points; for example, in +the chapter on 'Possession.' As the second part of the book differs +considerably from the opinions which have recommended themselves to most +anthropological writers on early Religion, the author must say here, as he +says later, that no harm can come of trying how facts look from a new +point of view, and that he certainly did not expect them to fall into the +shape which he now presents for criticism. + +ST. ANDREWS: _April 3, 1898._ + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER +II. SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' + +III. ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION +IV. 'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE' +V. CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED +VI. ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS +VII. DEMONIACAL POSSESSION +VIII. FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM +IX. EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD +X. HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES +XI. SUPREME GODS NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIRITS' +XII. SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS +XIII. MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS +XIV. AHONE. TI-RA-WA. NA-PI. PACHACAMAC. TUI LAGA. TAA-ROA +XV. THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY +XVI. THEORIES OF JEHOVAH +XVII. CONCLUSION + +APPENDICES. + +A. OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE +B. THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS +C. CRYSTAL-GAZING +D. CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA + +INDEX + + * * * * * + +THE MAKING OF RELIGION + +I + +_INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER_ + +The modern Science of the History of Religion has attained conclusions +which already possess an air of being firmly established. These +conclusions may be briefly stated thus: Man derived the conception of +'spirit' or 'soul' from his reflections on the phenomena of sleep, dreams, +death, shadow, and from the experiences of trance and hallucination. +Worshipping first the departed souls of his kindred, man later extended +the doctrine of spiritual beings in many directions. Ghosts, or other +spiritual existences fashioned on the same lines, prospered till they +became gods. Finally, as the result of a variety of processes, one of +these gods became supreme, and, at last, was regarded as the one only God. +Meanwhile man retained his belief in the existence of his own soul, +surviving after the death of the body, and so reached the conception of +immortality. Thus the ideas of God and of the soul are the result of early +fallacious reasonings about misunderstood experiences. + +It may seem almost wanton to suggest the desirableness of revising a +system at once so simple, so logical, and apparently so well bottomed on +facts. But there can never be any real harm in studying masses of evidence +from fresh points of view. At worst, the failure of adverse criticism must +help to establish the doctrines assailed. Now, as we shall show, there are +two points of view from which the evidence as to religion in its early +stages has not been steadily contemplated. Therefore we intend to ask, +first, what, if anything, can be ascertained as to the nature of the +'visions' and hallucinations which, according to Mr. Tylor in his +celebrated work 'Primitive Culture,' lent their aid to the formation of +the idea of 'spirit.' Secondly, we shall collect and compare the accounts +which we possess of the High Gods and creative beings worshipped or +believed in, by the most backward races. We shall then ask whether these +relatively Supreme Beings, so conceived of by men in very rudimentary +social conditions, can be, as anthropology declares, mere developments +from the belief in ghosts of the dead. + +We shall end by venturing to suggest that the savage theory of the soul +may be based, at least in part, on experiences which cannot, at present, +be made to fit into any purely materialistic system of the universe. We +shall also bring evidence tending to prove that the idea of God, in its +earliest known shape, need not logically be derived from the idea of +spirit, however that idea itself may have been attained or evolved. The +conception of God, then, need not be evolved out of reflections on dreams +and 'ghosts.' + +If these two positions can be defended with any success, it is obvious +that the whole theory of the Science of Religion will need to be +reconsidered. But it is no less evident that our two positions do not +depend on each other. The first may be regarded as fantastic, or +improbable, or may be 'masked' and left on one side. But the strength of +the second position, derived from evidence of a different character, will +not, therefore, be in any way impaired. Our first position can only be +argued for by dint of evidence highly unpopular in character, and, as a +general rule, condemned by modern science. The evidence is obtained by +what is, at all events, a legitimate anthropological proceeding. We may +follow Mr. Tylor's example, and collect savage _beliefs_ about visions, +hallucinations, 'clairvoyance,' and the acquisition of knowledge +apparently not attainable through the normal channels of sense. We may +then compare these savage beliefs with attested records of similar +_experiences_ among living and educated civilised men. Even if we attain +to no conclusion, or a negative conclusion, as to the actuality and +supernormal character of the alleged experiences, still to compare data of +savage and civilised psychology, or even of savage and civilised illusions +and fables, is decidedly part, though a neglected part, of the function of +anthropological science. The results, whether they do or do not strengthen +our first position, must be curious and instructive, if only as a chapter +in the history of human error. That chapter, too, is concerned with no +mean topic, but with what we may call the X region of our nature. Out of +that region, out of miracle, prophecy, vision, have certainly come forth +the great religions, Christianity and Islam; and the great religious +innovators and leaders, our Lord Himself, St. Francis, John Knox, Jeanne +d'Arc, down to the founder of the new faith of the Sioux and Arapahoe. It +cannot, then, be unscientific to compare the barbaric with the civilised +beliefs and experiences about a region so dimly understood, and so fertile +in potent influences. Here the topic will be examined rather by the method +of anthropology than of psychology. We may conceivably have something to +learn (as has been the case before) from the rough observations and hasty +inferences of the most backward races. + +We may illustrate this by an anecdote: + +'The Northern Indians call the _Aurora Borealis_ "Edthin," that is "Deer." +Their ideas in this respect are founded on a principle one would not +imagine. Experience has shown them that when a hairy deer-skin is briskly +stroked with the hand on a dark night, it will emit many sparks of +electrical fire.' + +So says Hearne in his 'Journey,' published in 1795 (p. 346). + +This observation of the Red Men is a kind of parable representing a part +of the purport of the following treatise. The Indians, making a hasty +inference from a trivial phenomenon, arrived unawares at a probably +correct conclusion, long unknown to civilised science. They connected the +Aurora Borealis with electricity, supposing that multitudes of deer +in the sky rubbed the sparks out of each other! Meanwhile, even in +the last century, a puzzled populace spoke of the phenomenon as 'Lord +Derwentwater's Lights.' The cosmic pomp and splendour shone to welcome the +loyal Derwentwater into heaven, when he had given his life for his exiled +king. + +Now, my purpose in the earlier portion of this essay is to suggest that +certain phenomena of human nature, apparently as trivial as the sparks +rubbed out of a deer's hide in a dark night, may indicate, and may be +allied to a force or forces, which, like the Aurora Borealis, may shine +from one end of the heavens to the other, strangely illumining the +darkness of our destiny. Such phenomena science has ignored, as it so long +ignored the sparks from the stroked deer-skin, and the attractive power of +rubbed amber. These trivial things were not known to be allied to the +lightning, or to indicate a force which man could tame and use. But just +as the Indians, by a rapid careless inference, attributed the Aurora +Borealis to electric influences, so (as anthropology assures us) savages +everywhere have inferred the existence of soul or spirit, intelligence +that + + 'Does not know the bond of Time, + Nor wear the manacles of Space,' + +in part from certain apparently trivial phenomena of human faculty. These +phenomena, as Mr. Tylor says, 'the great intellectual movement of the last +two centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless.'[1] I refer to alleged +experiences, merely odd, sporadic, and, for commercial purposes, useless, +such as the transference of thought from one mind to another by no known +channel of sense, the occurrence of hallucinations which, _prima facie_, +correspond coincidentally with unknown events at a distance, all that is +called 'second sight,' or 'clairvoyance,' and other things even more +obscure. Reasoning on these real or alleged phenomena, and on other quite +normal and accepted facts of dream, shadow, sleep, trance, and death, +savages have inferred the existence of spirit or soul, exactly as the +Indians arrived at the notion of electricity (not so called by them, of +course) as the cause of the Aurora Borealis. But, just as the Indians +thought that the cosmic lights were caused by the rubbing together of +crowded deer in the heavens (a theory quite childishly absurd), so the +savage has expressed, in rude fantastic ways, his conclusion as to the +existence of spirit. He believes in wandering separable souls of men, +surviving death, and he has peopled with his dreams the whole inanimate +universe. + +My suggestion is that, in spite of his fantasies, the savage had possibly +drawn from his premises an inference not wholly, or not demonstrably +erroneous. As the sparks of the deer-skin indicated electricity, so the +strange lights in the night of human nature may indicate faculties which +science, till of late and in a few instances, has laughed at, ignored, +'thrown aside as worthless.' + +It should be observed that I am not speaking of 'spiritualism,' a word of +the worst associations, inextricably entangled with fraud, bad logic, and +the blindest credulity. Some of the phenomena alluded to have, however, +been claimed as their own province by 'spiritists,' and need to be rescued +from them. Mr. Tylor writes: + +'The issue raised by the comparison of savage, barbaric, and civilised +spiritualism is this: Do the Red Indian medicine-man, the Tatar +necromancer, the Highland ghost-seer, and the Boston medium, share the +possession of belief and knowledge of the highest truth and import, +which, nevertheless, the great intellectual movement of the last two +centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless?' + +_Distinguo!_ That does not seem to me to be the issue. In my opinion the +issue is: 'Have the Red Indian, the Tatar, the Highland seer, and the +Boston medium (the least reputable of the menagerie) observed, and +reasoned wildly from, and counterfeited, and darkened with imposture, +certain genuine by-products of human faculty, which do not _prima facie_ +deserve to be thrown aside?' + +That, I venture to think, is the real issue. That science may toss aside +as worthless some valuable observations of savages is now universally +admitted by people who know the facts. Among these observations is the +whole topic of Hypnotism, with the use of suggestion for healing purposes, +and the phenomena, no longer denied, of 'alternating personalities.' For +the truth of this statement we may appeal to one of the greatest of +Continental anthropologists, Adolf Bastian.[2] The missionaries, like +Livingstone, usually supposed that the savage seer's declared ignorance-- +after his so-called fit of inspiration--of what occurred in that state, +was an imposture. But nobody now doubts the similar oblivion of what has +passed that sometimes follows the analogous hypnotic sleep. Of a +remarkable cure, which the school of the Salpetriere or Nancy would +ascribe, with probable justice, to 'suggestion,' a savage example will be +given later. + +Savage hypnotism and 'suggestion,' among the Sioux and Arapahoe, has been +thought worthy of a whole volume in the Reports of the Ethnological Bureau +of the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, U.S., 1892-98). Republican +Governments publish scientific matter 'regardless of expense,' and the +essential points might have been put more shortly. They illustrate the +fact that only certain persons can hypnotise others, and throw light on +some peculiarities of _rapport._[3] In brief, savages anticipated us in +the modern science of experimental psychology, as is frankly acknowledged +by the Society for Experimental Psychology of Berlin. 'That many mystical +phenomena are much more common and prominent among savages than among +ourselves is familiar to everyone acquainted with the subject. The +_ethnological_ side of our inquiry demands penetrative study.'[4] + +That study I am about to try to sketch. My object is to examine some +'superstitious practices' and beliefs of savages by aid of the comparative +method. I shall compare, as I have already said, the ethnological evidence +for savage usages and beliefs analogous to thought-transference, +coincidental hallucinations, alternating personality, and so forth, with +the best attested modern examples, experimental or spontaneous. This +raises the question of our evidence, which is all-important. We proceed to +defend it. The savage accounts are on the level of much anthropological +evidence; they may, that is, be dismissed by adversaries as 'travellers' +tales.' But the best testimony for the truth of the reports as to actual +belief in the facts is the undesigned coincidence of evidence from all +ages and quarters.[5] When the stories brought by travellers, ancient and +modern, learned and unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we +have all the certainty that anthropology can offer. Again, when we find +practically the same strange neglected sparks, not only rumoured of +in European popular superstition, but attested in many hundreds of +depositions made at first hand by respectable modern witnesses, educated +and responsible, we cannot honestly or safely dismiss the coincidence of +report as indicating a mere 'survival' of savage superstitious belief, and +nothing more. + +We can no longer do so, it is agreed, in the case of hypnotic phenomena. I +hope to make it seem possible that we should not do so in the matter of +the hallucinations provoked by gazing in a smooth deep, usually styled +'crystal-gazing.' Ethnologically, this practice is at least as old as +classical times, and is of practically world-wide distribution. I shall +prove its existence in Australia, New Zealand, North America, South +America, Asia, Africa, Polynesia, and among the Incas, not to speak of +the middle and recent European ages. The universal idea is that such +visions may be 'clairvoyant.' To take a Polynesian case, 'resembling the +Hawaiian _wai harru_.' When anyone has been robbed, the priest, after +praying, has a hole dug in the floor of the house, and filled with water. +Then he gazes into the water, 'over which the god is supposed to place the +spirit of the thief.... The image of the thief was, according to their +account, reflected in the water, and being perceived by the priest, he +named the individual, or the parties.'[6] Here the statement about the +'spirit' is a mere savage philosophical explanation. But the fact that +hallucinatory pictures can really be seen by a fair percentage of educated +Europeans, in water, glass balls, and so forth, is now confirmed by +frequent experiment, and accepted by opponents, 'non-mystical writers,' +like Dr. Parish of Munich.[7] I shall bring evidence to suggest that the +visions may correctly reflect, as it were, persons and places absolutely +unknown to the gazer, and that they may even reveal details unknown to +every one present. Such results among savages, or among the superstitious, +would be, and are, explained by the theory of 'spirits.' Modern science +has still to find an explanation consistent with recognised laws of +nature, but 'spirits' we shall not invoke. + +In the same way I mean to examine all or most of the 'so-called mystical +phenomena of savage life.' I then compare them with the better vouched for +modern examples. To return to the question of evidence, I confess that I +do not see how the adverse anthropologist, psychologist, or popular +agnostic is to evade the following dilemma: To the anthropologist we say, +'The evidence we adduce is your own evidence, that of books of travel in +all lands and countries. If _you_ may argue from it, so may we. Some +of it is evidence to unusual facts, more of it is evidence to singular +beliefs, which we think not necessarily without foundation. As raising a +presumption in favour of that opinion, we cite examples in which savage +observations of abnormal and once rejected facts, are now admitted by +science to have a large residuum of truth, we argue that what is admitted +in some cases may come to be admitted in more. No _a priori_ line can here +be drawn.' + +To the psychologist who objects that our modern instances are mere +anecdotes, we reply by asking, 'Dear sir, what are _your_ modern +instances? What do you know of "Mrs. A.," whom you still persistently +cite as an example of morbid recurrent hallucinations? Name the German +servant girl who, in a fever, talked several learned languages, which she +had heard her former master, a scholar, declaim! Where did she live? Who +vouches for her, who heard her, who understood her? There is, you know, no +evidence at all; the anecdote is told by Coleridge: the phenomena are said +by him to have been observed "in a Roman Catholic town in Germany, a year +or two before my arrival at Goettingen.... Many eminent physiologists and +psychologists visited the town." Why do you not name a few out of the +distinguished crowd?'[8] This anecdote, a rumour of a rumour of a +Protestant explanation of a Catholic marvel, was told by Coleridge at +least twenty years after the possible date. The psychologists copy it,[9] +one after the other, as a flock of sheep jump where their leader has +jumped. An example by way of anecdote may be permitted. + +According to the current anthropological theory, the idea of soul or +spirit was suggested to early men by their experiences in dreams. They +seemed, in sleep, to visit remote places; therefore, they argued, +something within them was capable of leaving the body and wandering about. + +This something was the soul or spirit. Now it is obvious that this opinion +of early men would be confirmed if they ever chanced to acquire, in +dreams, knowledge of places which they had never visited, and of facts as +to which, in their waking state, they could have no information. This +experience, indeed, would suggest problems even To Mr. Herbert Spencer, if +it occurred to him. + +Conversing on this topic with a friend of acknowledged philosophical +eminence, I illustrated my meaning by a story of a dream. It was reported +to me by the dreamer, with whom I am well acquainted, was of very recent +occurrence, and was corroborated by the evidence of another person, to +whom the dream was narrated, before its fulfilment was discovered. I am +not at liberty to publish the details, for good reasons, but the essence +of the matter was this: A. and B. (the dreamer) had common interests. A. +had taken certain steps about which B. had only a surmise, and a vague +one, that steps had probably been taken. A. then died, and B. in an +extremely vivid dream (a thing unfamiliar to him) seemed to read a mass of +unknown facts, culminating in two definite results, capable of being +stated in figures. These results, by the very nature of the case, could +not be known to A., so that, before he was placed out of B.'s reach by +death, he could not have stated them to him, and, afterwards, had +assuredly no means of doing so. + +The dream, two days after its occurrence, and after it had been told to +C., proved to be literally correct. Now I am not asking the reader's +belief for this anecdote (for that could only be yielded in virtue of +knowledge of the veracity of B. and C.), but I invite his attention to the +psychological explanation. My friend suggested that A. had told B. all +about the affair, that B. had not listened (though his interests were +vitally concerned), and that the crowd of curious details, naturally +unfamiliar to B., had reposed in his subconscious memory, and had been +revived in the dream. + +Now B.'s dream was a dream of reading a mass of minute details, including +names of places entirely unknown to him. It may be admitted, in accordance +with the psychological theory, that B. might have received all this +information from A., but, by dint of inattention--'the malady of not +marking'--might never have been _consciously_ aware of what he heard. Then +B.'s subconscious memory of what he did not _consciously_ know might break +upon him in his dream. Instances of similar mental phenomena are not +uncommon. But the general result of the combined details was one which +could not possibly be known to A. before his death; nor to B. could it be +known at all. Yet B.'s dream represented this general result with perfect +accuracy, which cannot be accounted for by the revival of subconscious +memory in sleep. Neither asleep nor awake can a man remember what it is +impossible for him to have known. The dream contained no _prediction_ for +the results were now fixed; but (granting the good faith of the narrator) +the dream did contain information not normally accessible. + +However, by way of psychological explanation of the dream, my friend cited +Coleridge's legend, as to the German girl and her unconscious knowledge of +certain learned languages. 'And what is the evidence for the truth of +Coleridge's legend?' Of course, there is none, or none known to all the +psychologists who quote it from Coleridge. Neither, if true, was the +legend to the point. However, psychology will accept such unauthenticated +narratives, and yet will scoff at first baud, duly corroborated testimony +from living and honourable people, about recent events. + +Only a great force of prejudice can explain this acceptance, by +psychologists, of one kind of marvellous tale on no evidence, and this +rejection of another class of marvellous tale, when supported by first +hand, signed and corroborated evidence, of living witnesses. I see only +one escape for psychologists from this dilemma. Their marvellous tales are +_possible_, though unvouched for, because they have always heard them and +repeated them in lectures, and read and repeated them in books. _Our_ +marvellous tales are impossible, because the psychologists know that they +are impossible, which means that they have not been familiar with them, +from youth upwards, in lectures and manuals. But man has no right to have +'clear ideas of the possible and impossible,' like Faraday, _a priori_, +except in the exact sciences. There are other instances of weak evidence +which satisfies psychologists. + +Hamilton has an anecdote, borrowed from Monboddo, who got it from Mr. Hans +Stanley, who, 'about twenty-six years ago,' heard it from the subject of +the story, Madame de Laval. 'I have the memorandum somewhere in my +papers,' says Mr. Stanley, vaguely. Then we have two American anecdotes by +Dr. Flint and Mr. Rush; and such is Sir William Hamilton's equipment of +odd facts for discussing the unconscious or subconscious. The least +credible and worst attested of these narratives still appears in popular +works on psychology. Moreover, all psychology, except experimental +psychology, is based on anecdotes which people tell about their own +subjective experiences. Mr. Galton, whose original researches are well +known, even offered rewards in money for such narratives about visualised +rows of coloured figures, and so on. + +Clearly the psychologist, then, has no _prima facie_ right to object to +our anecdotes of experiences, which he regards as purely subjective. As +evidence, we only accept them at first hand, and, when possible, the +witnesses have been cross-examined personally. Our evidence then, where it +consists of travellers' tales, is on a level with that which satisfies the +anthropologist. Where it consists of modern statements of personal +experience, our evidence is often infinitely better than much which is +accepted by the nonexperimental psychologist. As for the agnostic writer +on the Non-Religion of the Future, M. Guyau actually illustrates the +Resurrection of our Lord by an American myth about a criminal, of whom a +hallucinatory phantasm appeared to each of his gaol companions, separately +and successively, on a day after his execution! For this prodigious fable +no hint of reference to authority is given.[10] Yet the evidence appears +to satisfy M. Guyau, and is used by him to reinforce his argument. + +The anthropologist and psychologist, then, must either admit that their +evidence is no better than ours, if as good, or must say that they only +believe evidence as to 'possible' facts. They thus constitute themselves +judges of what is possible, and practically regard themselves as +omniscient. Science has had to accept so many things once scoffed at as +'impossible,' that this attitude of hers, as we shall show in chapter ii., +ceases to command respect. + +My suggestion is that the trivial, rejected, or unheeded phenomena +vouched for by the evidence here defended may, not inconceivably, be of +considerable importance. But, stating the case at the lowest, if we are +only concerned with illusions and fables, it cannot but be curious to note +their persistent uniformity in savage and civilised life. + +To make the first of our two main positions clear, and in part to justify +ourselves in asking any attention for such matters, we now offer an +historical sketch of the relations between Science and the so-called +'Miraculous' in the past. + +[Footnote 1: _Primitive Culture_, i. 156. London, 1891.] + +[Footnote 2: _Ueber psychische Beobachiungen bei Naiurvuelkern_. Leipzig, +Gunther, 1890.] + +[Footnote 3: See especially pp. 922-926. The book is interesting in other +ways, and, indeed, touching, as it describes the founding of a new Red +Indian religion, on a basis of Hypnotism and Christianity.] + +[Footnote 4: Programme of the Society, p. iv.] + +[Footnote 5: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i, 9, 10.] + +[Footnote 6: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, ii. p. 240.] + +[Footnote 7: _Hallucinations and Illusions_, English edition, pp. 69-70, +297.] + +[Footnote 8: Sir William Hamilton's _Lectures_, i. 345.] + +[Footnote 9: Maudsley, Kerner, Carpentor, Du Prel, Zangwill.] + +[Footnote 10: Coleridge's mythical maid (p. 10) is set down by Mr. Samuel +Laing to an experiment of Braid's! No references are given.--Laing: +_Problems of the Future._] + + + + +II + +SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' + +_Historical Sketch_ + +Research in the X region is not a new thing under the sun. When Saul +disguised himself before his conference with the Witch of Endor, he made +an elementary attempt at a scientific test of the supernormal. Croesus, +the king, went much further, when he tested the clairvoyance of the +oracles of Greece, by sending an embassy to ask what he was doing at a +given hour on a given day, and by then doing something very _bizarre_. We +do not know how the Delphic oracle found out the right answer, but various +easy methods of fraud at once occur to the mind. However, the procedure of +Croesus, if he took certain precautions, was relatively scientific. +Relatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphyry, with whose +position our own is not unlikely to be compared. Unable, or reluctant, to +accept Christianity, Porphyry 'sought after a sign' of an element of +supernormal truth in Paganism. But he began at the wrong end, namely at +Pagan spiritualistic _seances_, with the usual accompaniments of darkness +and fraud. His perplexed letter to Anebo, with the reply attributed to +Iamblichus, reveal Porphyry wandering puzzled among mediums, floating +lights, odd noises, queer dubious 'physical phenomena.' He did not begin +with accurate experiments as to the existence of rare, and apparently +supernormal human faculties, and he seems to have attained no conclusion +except that 'spirits' are 'deceitful.'[1] + +Something more akin to modern research began about the time of the +Reformation, and lasted till about 1680. The fury for burning witches led +men of sense, learning, and humanity to ask whether there was any reality +in witchcraft, and, generally, in the marvels of popular belief. The +inquiries of Thyraeus, Lavaterus, Bodinus, Wierus, Le Loyer, Reginald +Scot, and many others, tended on the whole to the negative side as regards +the wilder fables about witches, but left the problems of ghosts and +haunted houses pretty much where they were before. It may be observed that +Lavaterus (circ. 1580) already put forth a form of the hypothesis of +telepathy (that 'ghosts' are hallucinations produced by the direct action +of one mind, or brain, upon another), while Thyraeus doubted whether the +noises heard in 'haunted houses' were not mere hallucinations of the sense +of hearing. But all these early writers, like Cardan, were very careless +of first-hand evidence, and, indeed, preferred ghosts vouched for by +classical authority, Pliny, Plutarch, or Suetonius. With the Rev. Joseph +Glanvil, F.R.S. (circ. 1666), a more careful examination of evidence came +into use. Among the marvels of Glanvil's and other tracts usually +published together in his 'Sadducismus Triumphatus' will be found letters +which show that he and his friends, like Henry More and Boyle, laboured to +collect first-hand evidence for second sight, haunted houses, ghosts, and +wraiths. The confessed object was to procure a 'Whip for the Droll,' a +reply to the laughing scepticism of the Restoration. The result was to +bring on Glanvil a throng of bores--he was 'worse haunted than Mr. +Mompesson's house,' he says-and Mr. Pepys found his arguments 'not very +convincing.' Mr. Pepys, however, was alarmed by 'our young gib-cat,' +which he mistook for a 'spright.' With Henry More, Baxter, and Glanvil +practically died, for the time, the attempt to investigate these topics +scientifically, though an impression of doubt was left on the mind of +Addison. Witchcraft ceased to win belief, and was abolished, as a crime, +in 1736. Some of the Scottish clergy, and John Wesley, clung fondly +to the old faith, but Wodrow, and Cotton Mather (about 1710-1730) were +singularly careless and unlucky in producing anything like evidence for +their narratives. Ghost stories continued to be told, but not to be +investigated. + +Then one of the most acute of philosophers decided that investigation +ought never to be attempted. This scientific attitude towards X phenomena, +that of refusing to examine them, and denying them without examination, +was fixed by David Hume in his celebrated essay on 'Miracles.' Hume +derided the observation and study of what he called 'Miracles,' in the +field of experience, and he looked for an _a priori_ argument which would +for ever settle the question without examination of facts. In an age of +experimental philosophy, which derided _a priori_ methods, this was Hume's +great contribution to knowledge. His famous argument, the joy of many an +honest breast, is a tissue of fallacies which might be given for exposure +to beginners in logic, as an elementary exercise. In announcing his +discovery, Hume amusingly displays the self-complacency and the want of +humour with which we Scots are commonly charged by our critics: + +'I flatter myself that I have discovered an argument which, if just, +will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds +of superstitious delusions, and consequently will be useful as long as +the world endures.' + +He does not expect, however, to convince the multitude. Till the end of +the world, 'accounts of miracles and prodigies, I suppose, will be found +in all histories, sacred and profane.' Without saying here what he +means by a miracle, Hume argues that 'experience is our only guide in +reasoning.' He then defines a miracle as 'a violation of the laws +of nature.' By a 'law of nature' he means a uniformity, not of all +experience, but of each experience as he will deign to admit; while he +excludes, without examination, all evidence for experience of the absence +of such uniformity. That kind of experience cannot be considered. 'There +must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the +event would not merit that appellation.' If there be any experience in +favour of the event, that experience does not count. A miracle is counter +to universal experience, no event is counter to universal experience, +therefore no event is a miracle. If you produce evidence to what Hume +calls a miracle (we shall see examples) he replies that the evidence is +not valid, unless its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact. +Now no error of human evidence can be more miraculous than a 'miracle.' +Therefore there can be no valid evidence for 'miracles.' Fortunately, +Hume now gives an example of what he means by 'miracles.' He says:-- + +'For, first, there is _not to be found_, in _all history_, any miracle +attested by a _sufficient number_ of men, of such unquestioned _good +sense, education_, and _learning_, as to secure us against all delusion +in themselves; of such undoubted _integrity_, as to place them beyond +all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and +reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in +case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time +attesting facts performed in such a _public manner_, and in so +_celebrated a part of the world_, as to render the detection +unavoidable; all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full +assurance in the testimony of men.'[2] + +Hume added a note at the end of his book, in which he contradicted every +assertion which he had made in the passage just cited; indeed, be +contradicted himself before he had written six pages. + +'There surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person +than those which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the +tomb of Abbe Paris, the famous Jansenist, with whose sanctity the people +were so long deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, +and sight to the blind, were everywhere talked of as the usual effects of +that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles +were _immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned +integrity_, attested by _witnesses of credit and distinction_, in _a +learned age_, and on the most _eminent theatre_ that is _now in the +world_. Nor is this all. A relation of them was published and dispersed +everywhere; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, supported +by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions, +in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able +_distinctly to refute or detect them_. Where shall we find such a number +of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what +have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute +_impossibility, or miraculous nature_ of the events which they relate? +And this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be +regarded as a sufficient refutation.' + +Thus Hume, first denies the existence of such evidence, given in such +circumstances as he demands, and then he produces an example of that very +kind of evidence. Having done this, he abandons (as Mr. Wallace observes) +his original assertion that the evidence does not exist, and takes refuge +in alleging 'the absolute impossibility' of the events which the evidence +supports. Thus Hume poses as a perfect judge of the possible, in a kind of +omniscience. He takes his stand on the uniformity of all experience that +is not hostile to his idea of the possible, and dismisses all testimony to +other experience, even when it reaches his standard of evidence. He is +remote indeed from Virchow's position 'that what we call the laws of +nature must vary according to our frequent new experiences.'[3] In his +note, Hume buttresses and confirms his evidence for the Jansenist +miracles. They have even a martyr, M. Montgeron, who wrote an account of +the events, and, says Hume lightly, 'is now said to be somewhere in a +dungeon on account of his book.' 'Many of the miracles of the Abbe Paris +were proved immediately by witnesses before the Bishop's court at Paris, +under the eye of Cardinal Noailles....' 'His successor was an enemy to the +Jansenists, yet twenty-two _cures_ of Paris ... pressed him to examine +these miracles ... _But he wisely forbore_.' Hume adds his testimony to +the character of these _cures_. Thus it is wisdom, according to Hume, to +dismiss the most public and well-attested 'miracles' without examination. +This is experimental science of an odd kind. + +The phenomena were cases of healing, many of them surprising, of +cataleptic rigidity, and of insensibility to pain, among visitors to the +tomb of the Abbe Paris (1731). Had the cases been judicially examined (all +medical evidence was in their favour), and had they been proved false, the +cause of Hume would have profited enormously. A strong presumption would +have been raised against the miracles of Christianity. But Hume applauds +the wisdom of not giving his own theory this chance of a triumph. The +cataleptic seizures were of the sort now familiar to science. These have, +therefore, emerged from the miraculous. In fact, the phenomena which +occurred at the tomb of the Abbe Paris have emerged almost too far, and +now seem in danger of being too readily and too easily accepted. In 1887 +MM. Binet and Fere, of the school of the Salpetriere, published in English +a popular manual styled 'Animal Magnetism.' These authors write with great +caution about such alleged phenomena as the reading, by the hypnotised +patient, of the thoughts in the mind of the hypnotiser. But as to the +phenomena at the tomb of the Abbe Paris, they say that 'suggestion +explains them.'[4] That is, in the opinion of MM. Binet and Fere +the so-called 'miracles' really occurred, and were worked by 'the +imagination,' by 'self-suggestion.' + +The most famous case--that of Mlle. Coirin--has been carefully examined by +Dr. Charcot.[5] + +Mlle. Coirin had a dangerous fall from her horse, in September 1716, in +her thirty-first year. The medical details may be looked for in Dr. +Charcot's essay or in Montgeron.[6] 'Her disease was diagnosed as cancer +of the left breast,' the nipple 'fell off bodily.' Amputation of the +breast was proposed, but Madame Coirin, believing the disease to be +radically incurable, refused her consent. Paralysis of the left side set +in (1718), the left leg shrivelling up. On August 9, 1731, Mlle. Coirin +'tried the off chance' of a miracle, put on a shift that had touched the +tomb of Paris, and used some earth from the grave. On August 11, Mlle. +Coirin could turn herself in bed; on the 12th the horrible wound 'was +staunched, and began to close up and heal.' The paralysed side recovered +life and its natural proportions. By September 3, Mlle. Coirin could go +out for a drive. + +All her malady, says Dr. Charcot, paralysis, 'cancer,' and all, was +'hysterical;' 'hysterical oedema,' for which he quotes many French +authorities and one American. 'Under the physical [psychical?] influence +brought to bear by the application of the shift ... the oedema, which was +due to vaso-motor trouble, disappeared almost instantaneously. The breast +regained its normal size.' + +Dr. Charcot generously adds that shrines, like Lourdes, have cured +patients in whom he could not 'inspire the operation of the faith cure.' +He certainly cannot explain everything which claims to be of supernatural +origin in the faith cure. We have to learn the lesson of patience. I am +among the first to recognise that Shakespeare's words hold good to-day: + + 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, + Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' + +If Dr. Charcot had believed in what the French call _suggestion mentale_-- +suggestion by thought-transference (which I think he did not)--he could +have explained the healing of the Centurion's servant, 'Say the word, +Lord, and my servant shall be healed,' by suggestion & distance +(telepathy), and by premising that the servant's palsy was 'hysterical.' +But what do we mean by 'hysterical'? Nobody knows. The 'mind,' somehow, +causes gangrenes, if not cancers, paralysis, shrinking of tissues; the +mind, somehow, cures them. And what is the 'mind'? As my object is to give +savage parallels to modern instances better vouched for. I quote a +singular Red Indian cure by 'suggestion.' Hearne, travelling in Canada, in +1770, met a native who had 'dead palsy,' affecting the whole of one side. +He was dragged on a sledge, 'reduced to a mere skeleton,' and so was +placed in the magic lodge. The first step in his cure was the public +swallowing by a conjurer of a board of wood, 'about the size of a +barrel-stave,' twice as wide across as his mouth. Hearne stood beside the +man, 'naked as he was born,' 'and, notwithstanding I was all attention, I +could not detect the deceit.' Of course, Hearne believes that this was +mere legerdemain, and (p. 216) mentions a most suspicious circumstance. +The account is amusing, and deserves the attention of Mr. Neville +Maskelyne. The same conjurer had previously swallowed a cradle! Now +bayonet swallowing, which he also did, is possible, though Hearne denies +it (p. 217). + +The real object of these preliminary feats, however performed, is, +probably, to inspire _faith_, which Dr. Charcot might have done by +swallowing a cradle. The Indians explain that the barrel staves apparently +swallowed are merely dematerialised by 'spirits,' leaving only the forked +end sticking out of the conjurer's mouth. In fact, Hearne caught the +conjurer in the act of making a separate forked end. + +Faith being thus inspired, the conjurer, for three entire days, blew, +sang, and danced round 'the poor paralytic, fasting.' 'And it is truly +wonderful, though the strictest truth, that when the poor man was taken +from the conjuring house ... he was able to move all the fingers and toes +of the side that had been so long dead.... At the end of six weeks he went +a-hunting for his family' (p. 219). Hearne kept up his acquaintance, and +adds, what is very curious, that he developed almost a secondary +personality. 'Before that dreadful paralytic stroke, he had been +distinguished for his good nature and benevolent disposition, was entirely +free from every appearance of avarice,... but after this event he was the +most fractious, quarrelsome, discontented, and covetous wretch alive' +(p. 220). + +Dr. Charcot, if he had been acquainted with this case, would probably have +said that it 'is of the nature of those which Professor Russell Reynolds +has classified under the head of "paralysis dependent on idea."'[7] +Unluckily, Hearne does not tell us how his hunter, an untutored Indian, +became 'paralysed by idea.' + +Dr. Charcot adds: 'In every case, science is a foe to systematic negation, +which the morrow may cause to melt away in the light of its new triumphs.' +The present 'new triumph' is a mere coincidence with the dicta of our +Lord, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole.... I have not found so great faith, +no, not in Israel.' There are cures, as there are maladies, caused 'by +idea.' So, in fact, we had always understood. But the point is that +science, wherever it agrees with David Hume, is not a foe, but a friend to +'systematic negation.' + +A parallel case of a 'miracle,' the stigmata of St. Francis, was, of +course, regarded by science as a fable or a fraud. But, now that blisters +and other lesions can be produced by suggestion, the fable has become a +probable fact, and, therefore, not a miracle at all.[8] Mr. James remarks: +'As so often happens, a fact is denied till a welcome interpretation +comes with it. Then it is admitted readily enough, and evidence quite +insufficient to back a claim, so long as the Church had an interest +in making it, proves to be quite sufficient for modern scientific +enlightenment the moment it appears that a reputed saint can thereby be +claimed as a case of "hystero-epilepsy."'[9] + +But the Church continues to have an interest in the matter. As the class +of facts which Hume declined to examine begins to be gradually admitted by +science, the thing becomes clear. The evidence which could safely convey +these now admittedly possible facts, say from the time of Christ, is so +far proved to be not necessarily mythical--proved to be not incapable of +carrying statements probably correct, which once seemed absolutely +false. If so, where, precisely, ends its power of carrying facts? Thus +considered, the kinds of marvellous events recorded in the Gospels, +for example, are no longer to be dismissed on _a priori_ grounds as +'mythical.' We cannot now discard evidence as necessarily false because +it clashes with our present ideas of the possible, when we have to +acknowledge that the very same evidence may safely convey to us facts +which clashed with our fathers' notions of what is possible, but which +are now accepted. Our notions of the possible cease to be a criterion of +truth or falsehood, and our contempt for the Gospels as myths must +slowly die, as 'miracle' after 'miracle' is brought within the realm of +acknowledged law. With each such admission the hypothesis that the Gospel +evidence is mythical must grow weaker, and weaker must grow the negative +certainty of popular science. + +The occurrences which took place at and near the tomb of Paris were +attested, as Hume truly avers, by a great body of excellent evidence. But +the wisdom which declined to make a judicial examination has deprived us +of the best kind of record. Analogous if not exactly similar events now +confessedly take place, and are no longer looked upon as miraculous. But +as long as they were held to be miraculous, not to examine the evidence, +said Hume, was the policy of 'all reasonable people.' The result was to +deprive Science of the best sort of record of facts which she welcomes as +soon as she thinks she can explain them.[10] Examples of the folly of +_a priori_ negation are common. The British Association refused to hear +the essay which Braid, the inventor of the word 'hypnotism,' had written +upon the subject. Braid, Elliotson, and other English inquirers of the +mid-century, were subjected to such persecutions as official science could +inflict. We read of M. Deslon, a disciple of Mesmer, about 1783, that he +was 'condemned by the Faculty of Medicine, without any examination of the +facts.' The Inquisition proceeded more fairly than these scientific +obscurantists. + +Another curious example may be cited. M. Guyau, in his work 'The +Non-Religion of the Future,' argues that Religion is doomed. 'Poetic +genius has withdrawn its services,' witness Tennyson and Browning! 'Among +orthodox Protestant nations miracles do not happen.'[11] But 'marvellous +facts' _do_ happen.[12] These 'marvellous facts,' accepted by M. Guyau, +are what Hume called 'miracles,' and advised the 'wise and learned' to +laugh at, without examination. They were not facts, and could not be, he +said. Now to M. Guyau's mind they _are_ facts, and therefore are not +miracles. He includes 'mental suggestion taking place even at a distance.' +A man 'can transmit an almost compulsive command, it appears nowadays, by +a simple tension of his will.' If this be so, if 'will' can affect matter +from a distance, obviously the relations of will and matter are not what +popular science tells us that they are. Again, if this truth is now +established, and won from that region which Hume and popular science +forbid us to investigate, who knows what other facts may be redeemed from +that limbo, or how far they may affect our views of possibilities? The +admission of mental action, operative _a distance_, is, of course, +personal only to M. Guyau, among friends of the new negative tradition. + +We return to Hume. He next argues that the pleasures of wonder make all +accounts of 'miracles' worthless. He has just given an example of the +equivalent pleasures of dogmatic disbelief. Then Religion is a disturbing +force; but so, manifestly, is irreligion. 'The wise and learned are +content to deride the absurdity, without informing themselves of the +particular facts.' The wise and learned are applauded for their scientific +attitude. Again, miracles destroy each other, for all religions have their +miracles, but all religions cannot be true. This argument is no longer of +force with people who look on 'miracles' as = 'X phenomena,' not as divine +evidences to the truth of this or that creed. 'The gazing populace +receives, without examination, whatever soothes superstition,' and +Hume's whole purpose is to make the wise and learned imitate the gazing +populace by rejecting alleged facts 'without examination.' The populace +investigated more than did the wise and learned. + +Hume has an alternative definition of a miracle--'a miracle is a +transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or +by the interposition of some invisible agent.' We reply that what +Hume calls a 'miracle' may result from the operation of some as yet +unascertained law of nature (say self-suggestion), and that our business, +at present, is to examine such events, not to account for them. + +It may fairly be said that Hume is arguing against men who wished to make +so-called 'miracles' a test of the truth of Jansenism, for example, and +that he could not be expected to answer, by anticipation, ideas not +current in his day. But he remains guilty of denouncing the investigation +of apparent facts. No attitude can be less scientific than his, or more +common among many men of science. + +According to the humorous wont of things in this world, the whole question +of the marvellous had no sooner been settled for ever by David Hume than +it was reopened by Emanuel Swedenborg. Now, Kant was familiar with certain +of the works of Hume, whether he had read his 'Essay on Miracles' or not. +Far from declining to examine the portentous 'visions' of Swedenborg, Kant +interested himself deeply in the topic. As early as 1758 he wrote his +first remarks on the seer, containing some reports of stories or legends +about Swedenborg's 'clairvoyance.' In the true spirit of psychical +research, Kant wrote a letter to Swedenborg, asking for information at +first hand. The seer got the letter, but he never answered it. Kant, +however, prints one or two examples of Swedenborg's successes. Madame +Harteville, widow of the Dutch envoy in Stockholm, was dunned by a +silversmith for a debt of her late husband's. She believed that it had +been paid, but could not find the receipt. She therefore asked Swedenborg +to use his renowned gifts. He promised to see what he could do, and, three +days later, arrived at the lady's house while she was giving a tea, or +rather a coffee, party. To the assembled society Swedenborg remarked, 'in +a cold-blooded way, that he had seen her man, and spoken to him.' The late +M. Harteville declared to Swedenborg that he had paid the bill, seven +months before his decease: the receipt was in a cupboard upstairs. Madame +Harteville replied that the cupboard had been thoroughly searched to no +purpose. Swedenborg answered that, as he learned from the ghost, there was +a secret drawer behind the side-plank within the cupboard. The drawer +contained diplomatic correspondence, and the missing receipt. The whole +company then went upstairs, found the secret drawer, and the receipt among +the other papers. Kant adds Swedenborg's clairvoyant vision, from +Gothenburg, of a great fire at Stockholm (dated September 1756). Kant +pined to see Swedenborg himself, and waited eagerly for his book, 'Arcana +Coelestia.' At last he obtained this work, at the ransom, ruinous to Kant +at that time, of 7L. But he was disappointed with what he read, and in +'Traeume eines Geistersehers,' made a somewhat sarcastic attempt at a +metaphysical theory of apparitions. + + 'Velut aegri somnia vanae + Finguntur species' + +is his motto. + +Kant's real position about all these matters is, I venture to say, almost +identical with that of Sir Walter Scott. A Scot himself, by descent, Kant +may have heard tales of second-sight and bogles. Like Scott, he dearly +loved a ghost-story; like Scott he was canny enough to laugh, publicly, at +them and at himself for his interest in them. Yet both would take trouble +to inquire. As Kant vainly wrote to Swedenborg and others--as he vainly +spent 7L. on 'Arcana Coelestia,' so Sir Walter was anxious to go to Egypt +to examine the facts of ink-gazing clairvoyance. Kant confesses that each +individual ghost-story found him sceptical, whereas the cumulative mass +made a considerable impression.[13] + +The first seventy pages of the 'Tribune' are devoted to a perfectly +serious discussion of the metaphysics of 'Spirits.' On page 73 he +pleasantly remarks, 'Now we shall understand that all said hitherto is +superfluous,' and he will not reproach the reader who regards seers _not_ +as citizens of two worlds (Plotinus), but as candidates for Bedlam. + +Kant's irony is peculiarly Scottish. He does not himself know how far he +is in earnest, and, to save his self-respect and character for canniness, +he 'jocks wi' deeficulty.' He amuses himself with trying how far he can +carry speculations on metaphysics (not yet reformed by himself) into the +realm of the ghostly. He makes admissions about his own tendency to think +that he has an immaterial soul, and that these points are, or may be, or +some day will be, scientifically solved. These admissions are eagerly +welcomed by Du Prel in his 'Philosophy of Mysticism;' but they are only +part of Kant's joke, and how far they are serious, Kant himself does not +know. If spiritualists knew their own business, they would translate and +publish Kant's first seventy pages of 'Traeume.' Something like telepathy, +action of spirit, even discarnate, on spirit, is alluded to, but the idea +is as old as Lavaterus at least (p. 52). Kant has a good deal to say, like +Scott in his 'Demonology,' on the physics of Hallucination, but it is +antiquated matter. He thinks the whole topic of spiritual being only +important as bearing on hopes of a future life. As speculation, all is 'in +the air,' and as in such matters the learned and unlearned are on a level +of ignorance, science will not discuss them. He then repeats the +Swedenborg stories, and thinks it would be useful to posterity if some one +would investigate them while witnesses are alive and memories are fresh. + +In fact, Kant asks for psychical research. + +As for Swedenborg's so costly book, Kant laughs at it. There is in it no +evidence, only assertion. Kant ends, having pleased nobody, he says, and +as ignorant as when he began, by citing _cultivons notre jardin_. + +Kant returned to the theme in 'Anthropologische Didaktik.' He discusses +the unconscious, or sub-conscious, which, till Sir William Hamilton +lectured, seems to have been an absolutely unknown topic to British +psychologists. 'So ist das Feld dunkler Vorstellungen das groesste in +Menschen.' He has a chapter on 'The Divining Faculty' (pp. 89-93). He will +not hear of presentiments, and, unlike Hegel, he scouts the Highland +second-sight. The 'possessed' of anthropology are epileptic patients. +Mystics (Swedenborg) are victims of _Schwaermerei_. + +This reference to Swedenborg is remarked upon by Schubert in his preface +to the essay of Kant. He points out that 'it is interesting to compare the +circumspection, the almost uncertainty of Kant when he had to deliver a +judgment on the phenomena described by himself and as to which he had made +inquiry [i.e. in his letter _re_ Swedenborg to Mlle. de Knobloch], and the +very decided opinions he expressed forty years later on Swedenborg and +his companions' [in the work cited, sections 35-37. The opinion in +paragraph 35 is a general one as to mystics. There is no other mention of +Swedenborg]. + +On the whole Kant is interested, but despairing. He wants facts, and no +facts are given to him but the book of the Prophet Emanuel. But, as it +happened, a new, or a revived, order of facts was just about to solicit +scientific attention. Kant had (1766) heard rumours of healing by +magnetism, and of the alleged effect of the magnet on the human frame. The +subject was in the air, and had already won the attention of Mesmer, about +whom Kant had information. It were superfluous to tell again the familiar +story of Mesmer's performances at Paris. While Mesmer's theory of +'magnetism' was denounced by contemporary science, the discovery of the +hypnotic sleep was made by his pupil, Puysegur. This gentleman was +persuaded that instances of 'thought-transference' (not through known +channels of sense) occurred between the patient and the magnetiser, and he +also believed that he had witnessed cases of 'clairvoyance,' 'lucidity,' +_vue a distance_, in which the patient apparently beheld places and events +remote in space. These things would now be explained by 'unconscious +suggestion' in the more sceptical schools of psychological science. The +Revolution interrupted scientific study in France to a great degree, but +'somnambulism' (the hypnotic sleep) and 'magnetism' were eagerly examined +in Germany. Modern manuals, for some reason, are apt to overlook these +German researches and speculations. (Compare Mr. Vincent's 'Elements of +Hypnotism,' p. 34.) The Schellings were interested; Ritter thought he had +detected a new force, 'Siderism.' Mr. Wallace, in his preface to Hegel's +'Philosophie des Geistes,' speaks as if Ritter had made experiments in +telepathy. He may have done so, but his 'Siderismus' (Tuebingen, 1808) +is a Report undertaken for the Academy of Munich, on the doings of an +Italian water-finder, or 'dowser.' Ritter gives details of seventy-four +experiments in 'dowsing' for water, metals, or coal. He believes in the +faculty, but not in 'psychic' explanations, or the Devil. He talks +about 'electricity' (pp. 170, 190). He describes his precautions to +avoid vulgar fraud, but he took no precautions against unconscious +thought-transference. He reckoned the faculty 'temperamental' and useful. + +Amoretti, at Milan, examined hundreds of cases of the so-called Divining +Rod, and Jung Stilling became an early spiritualist and 'full-welling +fountain head' of ghost stories. + +Probably the most important philosophical result of the early German +researches into the hypnotic slumber is to be found in the writings of +Hegel. Owing to his peculiar use of a terminology, or scientific language, +all his own, it is extremely difficult to make Hegel's meaning even +moderately clear. Perhaps we may partly elucidate it by a similitude of +Mr. Frederic Myers. Suppose we compare the ordinary everyday consciousness +of each of us to a _spectrum_, whose ends towards each extremity fade out +of our view. + +Beyond the range of sight there may be imagined a lower or physiological +end: for our ordinary consciousness, of course, is unaware of many +physiological processes which are eternally going on within us. Digestion, +so long as it is healthy, is an obvious example. But hypnotic experiment +makes it certain that a patient, in the _hypnotic_ condition, can +consciously, or at least purposefully, affect physiological processes to +which the _ordinary_ consciousness is blind--for example, by raising a +blister, when it is suggested that a blister must be raised. Again +(granting the facts hypothetically and merely for the sake of argument), +at the _upper_ end of the spectrum, beyond the view of ordinary everyday +consciousness, knowledge may be acquired of things which are out of the +view of the consciousness of every day. For example (for the sake of +argument let us admit it), unknown and remote people and places may be +seen and described by clairvoyance, or _vue a distance_. + +Now Hegel accepted as genuine the facts which we here adduce merely for +the sake of argument, and by way of illustrations. But he did not regard +the clairvoyant consciousness (or whatever we call it) which, _ex +hypothesi_, is untrammelled by space, or even by time, as occupying what +we style the _upper_ end of the psychical spectrum. On the contrary, he +placed it at the _lower_ end. Hegel's upper end 'loses itself in light;' +the lower end, _qui voit tant de choses_, as La Fontaine's shepherd says, +is _not_ 'a sublime mental phase, and capable of conveying general +truths.' Time and space do not thwart the consciousness at Hegel's _lower_ +end, which springs from 'the great soul of nature.' But that lower end, +though it may see for Jeanne d'Arc at Valcouleurs a battle at Rouvray, a +hundred leagues away, does not communicate any lofty philosophic +truths.[14] The phenomena of clairvoyance, in Hegel's opinion, merely +indicate that the 'material' is really 'ideal,' which, perhaps, is as much +as we can ask from them. 'The somnambulist and clairvoyant see without +eyes, and carry their visions directly into regions where the waiting +consciousness of orderly intelligence cannot enter' (Wallace). Hegel +admits, however, that 'in ordinary self-possessed conscious life' there +are traces of the 'magic tie,' 'especially between female friends of +delicate nerves,' to whom he adds husband and wife, and members of the +same family. He gives (without date or source) a case of a girl in Germany +who saw her brother lying dead in a hospital at Valladolid. Her brother +was at the time in the hospital, but it was another man in the nest bed +who was dead. 'It is thus impossible to make out whether what the +clairvoyants really see preponderates over what they deceive themselves +in.' + +As long as the facts which Hegel accepted are not officially welcomed by +science, it may seem superfluous to dispute as to whether they are +attained by the lower or the higher stratum of our consciousness. But +perhaps the question here at issue may be elucidated by some remarks of +Dr. Max Dessoir. Psychology, he says, has proved that in every conception +and idea an image or group of images must be present. These mental images +are the recrudescence or recurrence of perceptions. We see a tree, or a +man, or a dog, and whenever we have before our minds the conception or +idea of any of these things the original perception of them returns, +though of course more faintly. But in Dr. Dessoir's opinion these revived +mental images would reach the height of actual hallucinations (so that the +man, dog, or tree would seem visibly present) if other memories and new +sensations did not compete with them and check their development. + +Suppose, to use Mlle. Ferrand's metaphor, a human body, living, but with +all its channels of sensation hitherto unopened. Open the sense of sight +to receive a flash of green colour, and close it again. Apparently, +whenever the mind informing this body had the conception of green (and it +could have no other) it would also have an hallucination of green, thus + + 'Annihilating all that's made, + To a green thought in a green shade.' + +Now, in sleep or hypnotic trance the competition of new sensations and +other memories is removed or diminished, and therefore the idea of a man, +dog, or tree once suggested to the hypnotised patient, does become an +actual hallucination. The hypnotised patient sees the absent object which +he is told to see, the sleeper sees things not really present. + +Our primitive state, before the enormous competition of other memories and +new sensations set in, would thus be a state of hallucination. Our normal +present condition, in which hallucination is checked by competing memories +and new sensations, is a suppression of our original, primitive, natural +tendencies. Hallucination represents 'the main trunk of our psychical +existence.'[15] In Dr. Dessoir's theory this condition of hallucination +is man's original and most primitive condition, but it is not a _higher_, +rather a lower state of spiritual activity than the everyday practical +unhallucinated consciousness. + +This is also the opinion of Hegel, who supposes our primitive mental +condition to be capable of descrying objects remote in space and time. Mr. +Myers, as we saw, is of the opposite opinion, as to the relative dignity +and relative reality of the present everyday self, and the old original +fundamental Self. Dr. Dessoir refrains from pronouncing a decided opinion +as to whether the original, primitive, hallucinated self within us does +'preside over powers and actions at a distance,' such as clairvoyance; but +he believes in hypnotisation at a distance. His theory, like Hegel's, is +that of 'atavism,' or 'throwing back' to some very remote ancestral +condition. This will prove of interest later. + +Hegel, at all events, believed in the fact of clairvoyance (though deeming +it of little practical use); he accepted telepathy ('the magic tie'); he +accepted interchange of sensations between the hypnotiser and the +hypnotised; he believed in the divining rod, and, unlike Kant, even in +'Scottish second-sight.' 'The intuitive soul oversteps the conditions of +time and space; it beholds things remote, things long past, and things to +come.'[16] + +The pendulum of thought has swung back a long way from the point whither +it was urged by David Hume. Hegel remarks: 'The facts, it might seem, +first of all call for verification. But such verification would be +superfluous to those on whose account it was called for, since they +facilitate the inquiry for themselves by declaring the narratives, +infinitely numerous though they be, and accredited by the education and +character of the witnesses, to be mere deception and imposture. Their _a +priori_ conceptions are so rooted that no testimony can avail against +them, and they have even denied what they have seen with their own eyes,' +and reported under their own hands, like Sir David Brewster. Hegel, it +will be observed, takes the facts as given, and works them into his +general theory of the Sensitive Soul (_fuehlende Seele_). He does not try +to establish the facts; but to establish, or at least to examine them, is +the first business of Psychical Research. Theorising comes later. + +The years which have passed between the date of Hegel's 'Philosophy of +Mind' and our own time have witnessed the long dispute over the existence, +the nature, and the causes of the hypnotic condition, and over the reality +and limitations of the phenomena. Thus the Academy of Medicine in Paris +appointed a Committee to examine the subject in 1825. The Report on +'Animal Magnetism,' as it was then styled, was presented in 1831. The +Academy lacked the courage to publish it, for the Report was favourable +even to certain of the still disputed phenomena. At that time, in +accordance with a survival of the theory of Mesmer, the agent in hypnotic +cases was believed to be a kind of efflux of a cosmic fluid from the +'magnetiser' to the patient. There was 'a magnetic connection.' + +Though no distinction between mesmerism and hypnotism is taken in popular +language, 'mesmerism' is a word implying this theory of 'magnetic' or +other unknown personal influence. 'Hypnotism,' as will presently be seen, +implies no such theory. The Academy's Report (1831) attested the +development, under 'magnetism,' of 'new faculties,' such as clairvoyance +and intuition, also the production of 'great changes in the physical +economy,' such as insensibility, and sudden increase of strength. The +Report declared it to be 'demonstrated' that sleep could be produced +'without suggestion,' as we say now, though the term was not then in use. +'Sleep has been produced in circumstances in which the persons could not +see or were ignorant of the means employed to produce it.' + +The Academy did its best to suppress this Report, which attests the +phenomena that Hegel accepted, phenomena still disputed. Six years later +(1837), a Committee reported against the pretensions of a certain Berna, +a 'magnetiser.' No person acted on both Committees, and this Report was +accepted. Later, a number of people tried to read a letter in a box, and +failed. 'This,' says Mr. Vincent, 'settled the question with regard to +clairvoyance;' though it might be more logical to say that it settled the +pretensions of the competitors on that occasion. The Academy now decided +that, because certain persons did not satisfy the expectations raised by +their preliminary advertisements, therefore the question of magnetism was +definitely closed. + +We have often to regret that scientific eminence is not always accompanied +by scientific logic. Where science neglects a subject, charlatans and +dupes take it up. In England 'animal magnetism' had been abandoned to this +class of enthusiasts, till Thackeray's friend, Dr. Elliotson, devoted +himself to the topic. He was persecuted as doctors know how to persecute; +but in 1841, Braid, of Manchester, discovered that the so-called 'magnetic +sleep' could be produced without any 'magnetism,' He made his patients +stare fixedly at an object, and encouraged them to expect to go to sleep. +He called his method 'Hypnotism,' a term which begs no question. Seeming +to cease to be mysterious, hypnotism became all but respectable, and was +being used in surgical operations, till it was superseded by chloroform. +In England, the study has been, and remains, rather _suspect_, while on +The Continent hypnotism is used both for healing purposes and in the +inquiries of experimental psychology. Wide differences of opinion still +exist, as to the nature of the hypnotic sleep, as to its physiological +concomitants, and as to the limits of the faculties exercised in or out of +the slumber. It is not even absolutely certain that the exercise of the +stranger faculties--for instance, that the production of anaesthesia and +rigidity--are the results merely of 'suggestion' and expectancy. A +hypnotised patient is told that the middle finger of his left hand will +become rigid and incapable of sensation. This occurs, and is explained by +'suggestion,' though _how_ 'suggestion' produces the astonishing effect +is another problem. The late Mr. Gurney, however, made a number of +experiments in which no suggestion was pronounced, nor did the patients +know which of their fingers was to become rigid and incapable of pain. The +patient's hands were thrust through a screen; on the other side of which +the hypnotist made passes above the finger which was to become rigid. The +lookers-on selected the finger, and the insensibility was tested by a +strong electric current. The effect was also produced _without_ passes, +the operator merely pointing at the selected finger, and 'willing' the +result. If he did not 'will' it, nothing occurred, nor did anything occur +if he willed without pointing. The proximity of the operator's hand +produced no effect if he did not 'will,' nor was his 'willing' successful +if he did not bring his hand near that of the patient. Other people's +hands, similarly situated, produced no effect. + +Experiments in transferring taste, as of salt, sugar, cayenne pepper, from +operator to subject, were also successful. Drs. Janet and Gibert also +produced sleep in a woman at a distance, by 'willing' it, at hours which +were selected by a system of drawing lots.[17] These facts, of course, +rather point to an element of truth in the old mesmeric hypothesis of some +specific influence in the operator. They cannot very well be explained by +suggestion and expectancy. But these facts and facts of clairvoyance and +thought-transference will be rejected as superstitious delusions by people +who have not met them in their own experience. This need not prevent us +from examining them, because _all_ the facts, including those now +universally accepted by Continental and scarcely impeached by British +science, have been noisily rejected again and again on Hume's principles. + +The rarer facts, as Mr. Gurney remarks, 'still go through the hollow form +of taking place.' Here is an example of the mode in which these phenomena +are treated by popular science. Mr. Vincent says that 'clairvoyance and +phrenology were Elliotson's constant stock in trade.' (Phrenology was +also Braid's stock in trade.) 'It is a matter of congratulation to have +been so soon delivered from what Dr. Lloyd Tuckey has well called "a mass +of superincumbent rubbish."'[18] Clairvoyance is part of a mass of +rubbish, on page 57. On page 67, Mr. Vincent says: 'There are many +interesting questions, such as telepathy, thought-reading, clairvoyance, +upon which it would be perhaps rash to give any decided opinion.... All +these strange psychical conditions present problems of great interest,' +and are only omitted because 'they have not a sufficient bearing on the +normal states of hypnosis....' Thus what was 'rubbish' in one page +'presents problems of great interest' ten pages later, and, after offering +a decided opinion that clairvoyance is rubbish, Mr. Vincent thinks it rash +to give any decided opinion. It is rather rash to give a decided opinion, +and then to say that it is rash to do so.[19] + +This brief sketch shows that science is confronted by certain facts, +which, in his time, Hume dismissed as incredible miracles, beneath the +contempt of the wise and learned. We also see that the stranger and rarer +phenomena which Hegel accepted as facts, and interwove with his general +philosophy, are still matters of dispute. Admitted by some men of science, +they are doubted by others; by others, again, are denied, while most of +the journalists and authors of cheap primers, who inspire popular +tradition, regard the phenomena as frauds or fables of superstition. But +it is plain that these phenomena, like the more ordinary facts of +hypnotism, _may_ finally be admitted by science. The scientific world +laughed, not so long ago, at Ogham inscriptions, meteorites, and at +palaeolithic weapons as impostures, or freaks of nature. Now nobody has +any doubt on these matters, and clairvoyance, thought-transference, and +telepathy may, not inconceivably, be as fortunate in the long run as +meteorites, or as the more usual phenomena of hypnotism. + +It is only Lord Kelvin who now maintains, or lately maintained, that in +hypnotism there is nothing at all but fraud and malobservation. In years +to come it may be that only some similar belated voice will cry that in +thought-transference there is nothing but malobservation and fraud. At +present the serious attention and careful experiment needed for the +establishment of the facts are more common among French than among English +men of science. When published, these experiments, if they contain any +affirmative instances, are denounced as 'superstitious,' or criticized +after what we must charitably deem to be a very hasty glance, by the +guides of popular opinion. Examples of this method will be later quoted. +Meanwhile the disputes as to these alleged facts are noticed here, because +of their supposed relation to the Origin of Religion. + +[Footnote 1: See Mr. Myers's paper on the 'Ancient Oracles,' in _Classical +Essays_, and the author's 'Ancient Spiritualism,' in _Cock Lane and Common +Sense_.] + +[Footnote 2: The italics here are those of Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, in +his _Miracles and Modern Science_. Mr. Huxley, in his exposure of Hume's +fallacies (in his Life of Hume), did not examine the Jansenist 'miracles' +which Hume was criticising.] + +[Footnote 3: Moll, _Hypnotism_, p. 357.] + +[Footnote 4: _Animal Magnetism_, p. 355.] + +[Footnote 5: A translation of his work was published in the _New Review_, +January 1693.] + +[Footnote 6: _La Verite des Miracles_, Cologne, 1747, Septiemo +Demonstration.] + +[Footnote 7: See Dr. Russell Reynolds's paper in _British Medical +Journal_, November 1869.] + +[Footnote 8: James, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 612. Charcot, +op. cit.] + +[Footnote 9: I do not need to be told that Dr. Maudsley denied the fact in +1886. I am prepared with the evidence, if it is asked for by some savant +who happens not to know it.] + +[Footnote 10: I am not responsible, of course, for the scientific validity +of Dr. Charcot's theory of healing 'by idea.' My point merely is that +certain experts of no slight experience or mean reputation do now admit, +as important certainties within their personal knowledge, exactly the +phenomena which Hume asks the wise and learned to laugh at, indeed, but +never to investigate.] + +[Footnote 11: Pp. 353-356.] + +[Footnote 12: P. 93.] + +[Footnote 13: _Traeume_, p. 76.] + +[Footnote 14: Hegel accepts the clairvoyance of the Pucelle.] + +[Footnote 15: See Dr. Dessoir, in _Das Doppel Ich,_ as quoted by Mr. +Myers, _Proceedings_, vol. vi. 213.] + +[Footnote 16: _Philosophie des Geistes, Werke,_ vol. vii. 179. Berlin. +1845. The examples and much of the philosophising are in the _Zusaetze_, +not translated in Mr. Wallace's version, Oxford, 1894.] + +[Footnote 17: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., vol. ii. pp. 201-207, 390-392.] + +[Footnote 18: _Elements of Hypnotism_, p. 67.] + +[Footnote 19: Possibly Mr. Vincent only means that Elliotson's +experiments, 'little more than sober footing' (p. 57), with the sisters +Okey, were rubbish. But whether the sisters Okey were or were not honest +is a question on which we cannot enter here.] + + + + +III + +ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION + +Among the various forms of science which are reaching and affecting the +new popular tradition, we have reckoned Anthropology. Pleasantly enough, +Anthropology has herself but recently emerged from that limbo of +the unrecognised in which Psychical Research is pining. The British +Association used to reject anthropological papers as 'vain dreams based on +travellers' tales.' No doubt the British Association would reject a paper +on clairvoyance as a vain dream based on old wives' fables, or on +hysterical imposture. Undeniably the study of such themes is hampered by +fable and fraud, just as anthropology has to be ceaselessly on its guard +against 'travellers' tales,' against European misunderstandings of savage +ideas, and against civilised notions and scientific theories unconsciously +read into barbaric customs, rites, traditions, and usages. Man, _ondoyant +et divers_, is the subject alike of anthropology and of psychical +research. Man (especially savage man) cannot be secluded from disturbing +influences, and watched, like the materials of a chemical experiment in a +laboratory. Nor can man be caught in a 'primitive' state: his intellectual +beginnings lie very far behind the stage of culture in which we find the +lowest known races. Consequently the matter on which anthropology works is +fluctuating; the evidence on which it rests needs the most sceptical +criticism, and many of its conclusions, in the necessary absence of +historical testimony as to times far behind the lowest known savages, must +be hypothetical. + +For these sound reasons official science long looked askance on +Anthropology. Her followers were not regarded as genuine scholars, and, +perhaps as a result of this contempt, they were often 'broken men,' +intellectual outlaws, people of one wild idea. To the scientific mind, +anthropologists or ethnologists were a horde who darkly muttered of +serpent worship, phallus worship, Arkite doctrines, and the Ten Lost +Tribes that kept turning up in the most unexpected places. Anthropologists +were said to gloat over dirty rites of dirty savages, and to seek reason +where there was none. The exiled, the outcast, the pariah of Science, is, +indeed, apt to find himself in odd company. Round the camp-fire of +Psychical Research too, in the unofficial, unstaked waste of Science, +hover odd, menacing figures of Esoteric Buddhists, _Satanistes_, +Occultists, Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, and Astrologers, as the +Arkites and Lost Tribesmen haunted the cradle of anthropology. + +But there was found at last to be reason in the thing, and method in the +madness. Evolution was in it. The acceptance, after long ridicule, of +palaeolithic weapons as relics of human culture, probably helped to bring +Anthropology within the sacred circle of permitted knowledge. Her topic +was full of illustrations of the doctrine of Mr. Darwin. Modern writers on +the theme had been anticipated by the less systematic students of the +eighteenth century--Goguet, de Brosses, Millar, Fontenelle, Lafitau, +Boulanger, or even Hume and Voltaire. As pioneers these writers answer to +the early mesmerists and magnetists, Puysegur, Amoretti, Ritter, +Elliotson, Mayo, Gregory, in the history of Psychical Research. They +were on the same track, in each case, as Lubbock, Tylor, Spencer, +Bastian, and Frazer, or as Gurney, Richet, Myers, Janet, Dessoir, and Von +Schrenck-Notzing. But the earlier students were less careful of method and +evidence. + +Evidence! that was the stumbling block of anthropology. We still hear, in +the later works of Mr. Max Mueller, the echo of the old complaints. +Anything you please, Mr. Max Mueller says, you may find among your useful +savages, and (in regard to some anthropologists) his criticism is just. +You have but to skim a few books of travel, pencil in hand, and pick out +what suits your case. Suppose, as regards our present theme, your theory +is that savages possess broken lights of the belief in a Supreme Being. +You can find evidence for that. Or suppose you want to show that they have +no religious ideas at all; you can find evidence for that also. Your +testimony is often derived from observers ignorant of the language of the +people whom they talk about, or who are themselves prejudiced by one or +other theory or bias. How can you pretend to raise a science on such +foundations, especially as the savage informants wish to please or to +mystify inquirers, or they answer at random, or deliberately conceal their +most sacred institutions, or have never paid any attention to the subject? + +To all these perfectly natural objections Mr. Tylor has replied.[1] +Evidence must be collected, sifted, tested, as in any other branch of +inquiry. A writer, 'of course, is bound to use his best judgment as to +the trustworthiness of all authors he quotes, and, if possible, to obtain +several accounts to certify each point in each locality.' Mr. Tylor then +adduces 'the test of recurrence,' of undesigned coincidence in testimony, +as Millar had already argued in the last century.[2] If a mediaeval +Mahommedan in Tartary, a Jesuit in Brazil, a Wesleyan in Fiji, one may add +a police magistrate in Australia, a Presbyterian in Central Africa, a +trapper in Canada, agree in describing some analogous rite or myth in +these diverse lands and ages, we cannot set down the coincidence to chance +or fraud. 'Now, the most important facts of ethnography are vouched for in +this way.' + +We may add that even when the ideas of savages are obscure, we can +often detect them by analysis of the institutions in which they are +expressed.[3] + +Thus anthropological, like psychical or any other evidence, must be +submitted to conscientious processes of testing and sifting. Contradictory +instances must be hunted for sedulously. Nothing can be less scientific +than to snatch up any traveller's tale which makes for our theory, and to +ignore evidence, perhaps earlier, or later, or better observed, which +makes against it. Yet this, unfortunately, in certain instances (which +will be adduced) has been the occasional error of Mr. Huxley and Mr. +Spencer.[4] Mr. Spencer opens his 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' by the +remark that 'the implication [from the reported absence of the ideas of +belief in persons born deaf and dumb] is that the religious ideas of +civilised men are not innate' (who says they are?), and this implication +Mr. Spencer supports by 'proofs that among various savages religious ideas +do not exist.' 'Sir John Lubbock has given many of these.' But it would be +well to advise the reader to consult Roskoff's confutation of Sir John +Lubbock, and Mr. Tylor's masterly statement.[5] Mr. Spencer cited Sir +Samuel Baker for savages without even 'a ray of superstition' or a trace +of worship. Mr. Tylor, twelve years before Mr. Spencer wrote, had +demolished Sir Samuel Baker's assertion,[6] as regards many tribes, and so +shaken it as regards the Latukas, quoted by Mr. Spencer. The godless +Dinkas have 'a good deity and heaven-dwelling creator,' carefully recorded +years before Sir Samuel's 'rash denial.' We show later that Mr. Spencer, +relying on a single isolated sentence in Brough Smyth, omits all his +essential information about the Australian Supreme Being; while Mr. +Huxley--overlooking the copious and conclusive evidence as to their +ethical religion--charges the Australians with having merely a non-moral +belief in casual spirits. We have also to show that Mr. Huxley, under the +dominance of his theory, and inadvertently, quotes a good authority as +saying the precise reverse of what he really does say. + +If the facts not fitting their theories are little observed by authorities +so popular as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer; if _instantiae contradictoriae_ +are ignored by them, or left vague; if these things are done in the green +tree, we may easily imagine what shall be done in the dry. But we need not +war with hasty _vulgarisateurs_ and headlong theorists. + +Enough has been said to show the position of anthropology as regards +evidence, and to prove that, if he confines his observations to certain +anthropologists, the censures of Mr. Max Mueller are justified. It is +mainly for this reason that the arguments presently to follow are strung +on the thread of Mr. Tylor's truly learned and accurate book, 'Primitive +Culture.' + +Though but recently crept forth, _vix aut ne vix quidem_, from the chill +shade of scientific disdain, Anthropology adopts the airs of her elder +sisters among the sciences, and is as severe as they to the Cinderella of +the family, Psychical Research. She must murmur of her fairies among the +cinders of the hearth, while they go forth to the ball, and dance with +provincial mayors at the festivities of the British Association. This is +ungenerous, and unfortunate, as the records of anthropology are rich in +unexamined materials of psychical research. I am unacquainted with any +work devoted by an anthropologist of renown to the hypnotic and kindred +practices of the lower races, except Herr Bastian's very meagre tract, +'Ueber psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturvoelkern.'[7] We possess, none the +less, a mass of scattered information on this topic, the savage side of +psychical phenomena, in works of travel, and in Mr. Tylor's monumental +'Primitive Culture.' Mr. Tylor, however, as we shall see, regards it as a +matter of indifference, or, at least, as a matter beyond the scope of his +essay, to decide whether the parallel supernormal phenomena believed +in by savages, and said to recur in civilisation, are facts of actual +experience, or not. + +Now, this question is not otiose. Mr. Tylor, like other anthropologists, +Mr. Huxley, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and their followers and popularisers, +constructs on anthropological grounds, a theory of the Origin of Religion. + +That origin anthropology explains as the result of early and fallacious +reasonings on a number of biological and psychological phenomena, both +normal and (as is alleged by savages) supernormal. These reasonings led to +the belief in souls and spirits. Now, first, anthropology has taken for +granted that the Supreme Deities of savages are envisaged by them as +'spirits.' This, paradoxical as the statement may appear, is just what +does not seem to be proved, as we shall show. Next, if the supernormal +phenomena (clairvoyance, thought-transference, phantasms of the dead, +phantasms of the dying, and others) be real matters of experience, the +inferences drawn from them by early savage philosophy may be, in some +degree, erroneous. But the inferences drawn by materialists who reject the +supernormal phenomena will also, perhaps, be, let us say, incomplete. +Religion will have been, in part, developed out of facts, perhaps +inconsistent with materialism in its present dogmatic form. To put it less +trenchantly, and perhaps more accurately, the alleged facts 'are not +merely dramatically strange, they are not merely extraordinary and +striking, but they are "odd" in the sense that they will not easily fit in +with the views which physicists and men of science generally give us of +the universe in which we live' (Mr. A.J. Balfour, President's Address, +'Proceedings,' S.P.R. vol. x. p. 8, 1894). + +As this is the case, it might seem to be the business of Anthropology, the +Science of Man, to examine, among other things, the evidence for the +actual existence of those alleged unusual and supernormal phenomena, +belief in which is given as one of the origins of religion. + +To make this examination, in the ethnographic field, is almost a new +labour. As we shall see, anthropologists have not hitherto investigated +such things as the 'Fire-walk' of savages, uninjured in the flames, like +the Three Holy Children. The world-wide savage practice of divining by +hallucinations induced through gazing into a smooth deep (crystal-gazing) +has been studied, I think, by no anthropologist. The veracity of +'messages' uttered by savage seers when (as they suppose) 'possessed' or +'inspired' has not been criticised, and probably cannot be, for lack of +detailed information. The 'physical phenomena' which answer among savages +to the use of the 'divining rod,' and to 'spiritist' marvels in modern +times, have only been glanced at. In short, all the savage parallels +to the so-called 'psychical phenomena' now under discussion in England, +America, Germany, Italy, and France, have escaped critical analysis and +comparison with their civilised counterparts. + +An exception among anthropologists is Mr. Tylor. He has not suppressed the +existence of these barbaric parallels to our modern problems of this kind. +But his interest in them practically ends when he has shown that the +phenomena helped to originate the savage belief in 'spirits,' and when he +has displayed the 'survival' of that belief in later culture. He does not +ask 'Are the phenomena real?' he is concerned only with the savage +philosophy of the phenomena and with its relics in modern spiritism and +religion. My purpose is to do, by way only of _ebauche_, what neither +anthropology nor psychical research nor psychology has done: to put the +savage and modern phenomena side by side. Such evidence as we can give for +the actuality of the modern experiences will, so far as it goes, raise a +presumption that the savage beliefs, however erroneous, however darkened +by fraud and fancy, repose on a basis of real observation of actual +phenomena. + +Anthropology is concerned with man and what is in man--_humani nihil +a se alienum putat_. These researches, therefore, are within the +anthropological province, especially as they bear on the prevalent +anthropological theory of the Origin of Religion. By 'religion' we mean, +for the purpose of this argument, the belief in the existence of an +Intelligence, or Intelligences not human, and not dependent on a material +mechanism of brain and nerves, which may, or may not, powerfully control +men's fortunes and the nature of things. We also mean the additional +belief that there is, in man, an element so far kindred to these +Intelligences that it can transcend the knowledge obtained through the +known bodily senses, and may possibly survive the death of the body. These +two beliefs at present (though not necessarily in their origin) appear +chiefly as the faith in God and in the Immortality of the Soul. + +It is important, then, to trace, if possible, the origin of these two +beliefs. If they arose in actual communion with Deity (as the first at +least did, in the theory of the Hebrew Scriptures), or if they could be +proved to arise in an unanalysable _sensus numinis_, or even in 'a +perception of the Infinite' (Max Mueller), religion would have a divine, or +at least a necessary source. To the Theist, what is inevitable cannot but +be divinely ordained, therefore religion is divinely preordained, +therefore, in essentials, though not in accidental details, religion is +true. The atheist, or non-theist, of course draws no such inferences. + +But if religion, as now understood among men, be the latest evolutionary +form of a series of mistakes, fallacies, and illusions, if its germ be a +blunder, and its present form only the result of progressive but +unessential refinements on that blunder, the inference that religion is +untrue--that nothing actual corresponds to its hypothesis--is very easily +drawn. The inference is not, perhaps, logical, for all our science itself +is the result of progressive refinements upon hypotheses originally +erroneous, fashioned to explain facts misconceived. Yet our science is +true, within its limits, though very far from being exhaustive of the +truth. In the same way, it might be argued, our religion, even granting +that it arose out of primitive fallacies and false hypotheses, may yet +have been refined, as science has been, through a multitude of causes, +into an approximate truth. + +Frequently as I am compelled to differ from Mr. Spencer both as to facts +and their interpretation, I am happy to find that he has anticipated me +here. Opponents will urge, he says, that 'if the primitive belief' (in +ghosts) 'was absolutely false, all derived beliefs from it must be +absolutely false?' Mr. Spencer replies: 'A germ of truth was contained in +the primitive conception--the truth, namely, that the power which +manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of +the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness.' In fact, we find +Mr. Spencer, like Faust as described by Marguerite, saying much the same +thing as the priests, but not quite in the same way. Of course, I allow +for a much larger 'germ of truth' in the origin of the ghost theory than +Mr. Spencer does. But we can both say 'the ultimate form of the religious +consciousness is' (will be?) 'the final development of a consciousness +which at the outset contained a germ of truth obscured by multitudinous +errors.'[8] + + 'One God, one law, one element, + And one far-off divine event, + To which the whole creation moves.' + +Coming at last to Mr. Tylor, we find that he begins by dismissing the idea +that any known race of men is devoid of religious conceptions. He +disproves, out of their own mouths, the allegations of several writers who +have made this exploded assertion about 'godless tribes.' He says: +'The thoughts and principles of modern Christianity are attached to +intellectual clues which run back through far pre-Christian ages to the +very origin of human civilisation, _perhaps even of human existence_.'[9] +So far we abound in Mr. Tylor's sense. 'As a minimum definition of +religion' he gives 'the belief in spiritual beings,' which appears +'among all low races with whom we have attained to thoroughly intimate +relations.' The existence of this belief at present does not prove that no +races were ever, at any time, destitute of all belief. But it prevents us +from positing the existence of such creedless races, in any age, as a +demonstrated fact. We have thus, in short, no opportunity of observing, +_historically_, man's development from blank unbelief into even the +minimum or most rudimentary form of belief. We can only theorise and make +more or less plausible conjectures as to the first rudiments of human +faith in God and in spiritual beings. We find no race whose mind, as to +faith, is a _tabula rasa_. + +To the earliest faith Mr. Tylor gives the name of _Animism_, a term not +wholly free from objection, though 'Spiritualism' is still less desirable, +having been usurped by a form of modern superstitiousness. This Animism, +'in its full development, includes the belief in souls and in a future +state, in controlling deities and subordinate spirits.' In Mr. Tylor's +opinion, as in Mr. Huxley's, Animism, in its lower (and earlier) forms, +has scarcely any connection with ethics. Its 'spirits' do not 'make for +righteousness.' This is a side issue to be examined later, but we may +provisionally observe, in passing, that the ethical ideas, such as they +are, even of Australian blacks are reported to be inculcated at the +religious mysteries (_Bora_) of the tribes, which were instituted by and +are performed in honour of the gods of their native belief. But this topic +must be reserved for our closing chapters. + +Mr. Tylor, however, is chiefly concerned with Animism as 'an ancient and +world-wide philosophy, of which belief is the theory, and worship is the +practice.' Given Animism, then, or the belief in spiritual beings, as the +earliest form and minimum of religious faith, what is the origin of +Animism? It will be seen that, by Animism, Mr. Tylor does not mean the +alleged early theory, implicitly if not explicitly and consciously held, +that all things whatsoever are animated and are personalities.[10] Judging +from the behaviour of little children, and from the myths of savages, +early man may have half-consciously extended his own sense of personal and +potent and animated existence to the whole of nature as known to him. Not +only animals, but vegetables and inorganic objects, may have been looked +on by him as persons, like what he felt himself to be. The child (perhaps +merely because _taught_ to do so) beats the naughty chair, and all objects +are persons in early mythology. But this _feeling_, rather than theory, +may conceivably have existed among early men, before they developed the +hypothesis of 'spirits,' 'ghosts,' or souls. It is the origin of _that_ +hypothesis, 'Animism,' which Mr. Tylor investigates. + +What, then, is the origin of Animism? It arose in the earliest traceable +speculations on 'two groups of biological problems: + +(1) 'What is it that makes the difference between a living body and a +dead one; what causes waking, sleep, trance, disease, and death?' + +(2) 'What are those human shapes which appear in dreams and +visions?'[11] + +Here it should be noted that Mr. Tylor most properly takes a distinction +between sleeping 'dreams' and waking 'visions,' or 'clear vision.' The +distinction is made even by the blacks of Australia. Thus one of the +Kurnai announced that his _Yambo_, or soul, could 'go out' during sleep, +and see the distant and the dead. But 'while any one might be able to +communicate with the ghosts, _during sleep_, it was only the wizards who +were able to do so in waking hours.' A wizard, in fact, is a person +susceptible (or feigning to be susceptible) when awake to hallucinatory +perceptions of phantasms of the dead. 'Among the Kulin of Wimmera River a +man became a wizard who, as a boy, had seen his mother's ghost sitting at +her grave.'[12] These facts prove that a race of savages at the bottom of +the scale of culture do take a formal distinction between normal dreams in +sleep and waking hallucinations--a thing apt to be denied. + +Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer offers the massive generalisation that savages do +not possess a language enabling a man to say 'I dreamed that I saw,' +instead of 'I saw' ('Principles of Sociology,' p. 150). This could only be +proved by giving examples of such highly deficient languages, which Mr. +Spencer does not do.[13] In many savage speculations there occur ideas as +subtly metaphysical as those of Hegel. Moreover, even the Australian +languages have the verb 'to see,' and the substantive 'sleep.' Nothing, +then, prevents a man from saying 'I saw in sleep' (_insomnium_, +[Greek: enupnion]). + +We have shown too, that the Australians take an essential distinction +between waking hallucinations (ghosts seen by a man when awake) and the +common hallucinations of slumber. Anybody can have these; the man who sees +ghosts when awake is marked out for a wizard. + +At the same time the vividness of dreams among certain savages, as +recorded in Mr. Im Thurn's 'Indians of Guiana,' and the consequent +confusion of dreaming and waking experiences, are certain facts. Wilson +says the same of some negroes, and Mr. Spencer illustrates from the +confusion of mind in dreamy children. They, we know, are much more +addicted to somnambulism than grown-up people. I am unaware that +spontaneous somnambulism among savages has been studied as it ought to be. +I have demonstrated, however, that very low savages can and do draw an +essential distinction between sleeping and waking hallucinations. + +Again, the crystal-gazer, whose apparently telepathic crystal pictures are +discussed later (chap. v.), was introduced to a crystal just because she +had previously been known to be susceptible to waking and occasionally +veracious hallucinations. + +It was not only on the dreams of sleep, so easily forgotten as they are, +that the savage pondered, in his early speculations about the life and the +soul. He included in his materials the much more striking and memorable +experiences of waking hours, as we and Mr. Tylor agree in holding. + +Reflecting on these things, the earliest savage reasoners would decide: +(1) that man has a 'life' (which leaves him temporarily in sleep, finally +in death); (2) that man also possesses a 'phantom' (which appears to +other people in their visions and dreams). The savage philosopher would +then 'combine his information,' like a celebrated writer on Chinese +metaphysics. He would merely 'combine the life and the phantom,' as +'manifestations of one and the same soul.' The result would be 'an +apparitional soul,' or 'ghost-soul.' + +This ghost-soul would be a highly accomplished creature, 'a vapour, film, +or shadow,' yet conscious, capable of leaving the body, mostly invisible +and impalpable, 'yet also manifesting physical power,' existing and +appearing after the death of the body, able to act on the bodies of other +men, beasts, and things.[14] + +When the earliest reasoners, in an age and in mental conditions of which +we know nothing historically, had evolved the hypothesis of this +conscious, powerful, separable soul, capable of surviving the death of the +body, it was not difficult for them to develop the rest of Religion, as +Mr. Tylor thinks. A powerful ghost of a dead man might thrive till, its +original owner being long forgotten, it became a God. Again (souls once +given) it would not be a very difficult logical leap, perhaps, to conceive +of souls, or spirits, that had never been human at all. It is, we may say, +only _le premier pas qui coute_, the step to the belief in a surviving +separable soul. Nevertheless, when we remember that Mr. Tylor is +theorising about savages in the dim background of human evolution, savages +whom we know nothing of by experience, savages far behind Australians and +Bushmen (who possess Gods), we must admit that he credits them with great +ingenuity, and strong powers of abstract reasoning. He may be right in his +opinion. In the same way, just as primitive men were keen reasoners, so +early bees, more clever than modern bees, may have evolved the system of +hexagonal cells, and only an early fish of genius could first have hit +on the plan, now hereditary of killing a fly by blowing water at it. + +To this theory of metaphysical genius in very low savages I have no +objection to offer. We shall find, later, astonishing examples of savage +abstract speculation, certainly not derived from missionary sources, +because wholly out of the missionary's line of duty and reflection. + +As early beasts had genius, so the earliest reasoners appear to have been +as logically gifted as the lowest savages now known to us, or even as some +Biblical critics. By Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, they first conceived the +extremely abstract idea of Life, 'that which makes the difference between +a living body and a dead one.'[15] This highly abstract conception must +have been, however, the more difficult to early man, as, to him, all +things, universally, are 'animated.'[16] Mr. Tylor illustrates this +theory of early man by the little child's idea that 'chairs, sticks, and +wooden horses are actuated by the same sort of personal will as nurses and +children and kittens.... In such matters the savage mind well represents +the childish stage.'[17] + +Now, nothing can be more certain than that, if children think sticks are +animated, they don't think so because they have heard, or discovered, that +they possess souls, and then transfer souls to sticks. We may doubt, then, +if primitive man came, in this way, by reasoning on souls, to suppose +that all things, universally, were animated. But if he did think all +things animated--a corpse, to his mind, was just as much animated as +anything else. Did he reason: 'All things are animated. A corpse is not +animated. Therefore a corpse is not a thing (within the meaning of my +General Law)'? + +How, again, did early man conceive of Life, before he identified Life +(1) with 'that which makes the difference between a living body and a dead +one' (a difference which, _ex hypothesi_, he did not draw, _all_ things +being animated to his mind) and (2) with 'those human shapes which appear +in dreams and visions'? 'The ancient savage philosophers probably reached +the obvious inference that every man had two things belonging to him, a +life and a phantom.' But everything was supposed to have 'a life,' as far +as one makes out, before the idea of separable soul was developed, at +least if savages arrived at the theory of universal animation as children +are said to do. + +We are dealing here quite conjecturally with facts beyond our experience. + +In any case, early man excogitated (by the hypothesis) the abstract idea +of Life, _before_ he first 'envisaged' it in material terms as 'breath,' +or 'shadow.' He next decided that mere breath or shadow was not only +identical with the more abstract conception of Life, but could also take +on forms as real and full-bodied as, to him, are the hallucinations of +dream or waking vision. His reasoning appears to have proceeded from the +more abstract (the idea of Life) to the more concrete, to the life first +shadowy and vaporous, then clothed in the very aspect of the real man. + +Mr. Tylor has thus (whether we follow his logic or not) provided man with +a theory of active, intelligent, separable souls, which can survive the +death of the body. At this theory early man arrived by speculations on the +nature of life, and on the causes of phantasms of the dead or living +beheld in 'dreams and visions.' But our author by no means leaves out of +sight the effects of alleged supernormal phenomena believed in by savages, +with their parallels in modern civilisation. These supernormal phenomena, +whether real or illusory, are, he conceives, facts in that mass of +experiences from which savages constructed their belief in separable, +enduring, intelligent souls or ghosts, the foundation of religion. + +While we are, perhaps owing to our own want of capacity, puzzled by what +seem to be two kinds of early philosophy--(1) a sort of instinctive or +unreasoned belief in universal animation, which Mr. Spencer calls +'Animism' and does not believe in, (2) the reasoned belief in separable +and surviving souls of men (and in things), which Mr. Spencer believes in, +and Mr. Tylor calls 'Animism'--we must also note another difficulty. Mr. +Tylor may seem to be taking it for granted that the earliest, remote, +unknown thinkers on life and the soul were existing on the same psychical +plane as we ourselves, or, at least, as modern savages. Between modern +savages and ourselves, in this regard, he takes certain differences, but +takes none between modern savages and the remote founders of religion. + +Thus Mr. Tylor observes: + +'The condition of the modern ghost-seer, whose imagination passes on +such slight excitement into positive hallucination, is rather the rule +than the exception among uncultured and intensely imaginative tribes, +whose minds may be thrown off their balance by a touch, a word, a +gesture, an unaccustomed noise.'[18] + +I find evidence that low contemporary savages are _not_ great ghost-seers, +and, again, I cannot quite accept Mr. Tylor's psychology of the 'modern +ghost-seer.' Most such favoured persons whom I have known were steady, +unimaginative, unexcitable people, with just one odd experience. Lord +Tennyson, too, after sleeping in the bed of his recently lost father on +purpose to see his ghost, decided that ghosts 'are not seen by imaginative +people.' + +We now examine, at greater length, the psychical conditions in which, +according to Mr. Tylor, contemporary savages differ from civilised men. +Later we shall ask what may be said as to possible or presumable psychical +differences between modern savages and the datelessly distant founders of +the belief in souls. Mr. Tylor attributes to the lower races, and +even to races high above their level, 'morbid ecstasy, brought on by +meditation, fasting, narcotics, excitement, or disease.' Now, we may +still 'meditate'--and how far the result is 'morbid' is a matter for +psychologists and pathologists to determine. Fasting we do not practise +voluntarily, nor would we easily accept evidence from an Englishman as to +the veracity of voluntary fasting visions, like those of Cotton Mather. +The visions of disease we should set aside, as a rule, with those of +'excitement,' produced, for instance, by 'devil-dances.' Narcotic and +alcoholic visions are not in question.[19] For our purpose the _induced_ +trances of savages (in whatever way voluntarily brought on) are analogous +to the modern induced hypnotic trance. Any supernormal acquisitions of +knowledge in these induced conditions, among savages, would be on a par +with similar alleged experiences of persons under hypnotism. + +We do not differ from known savages in being able to bring on non-normal +psychological conditions, but we produce these, as a rule, by other +methods than theirs, and such experiments are not made on _all_ of us, as +they were on all Red Indian boys and girls in the 'medicine-fast,' at +the age of puberty. + +Further, in their normal state, known savages, or some of them, are more +'suggestible' than educated Europeans at least.[20] They can be more +easily hallucinated in their normal waking state by suggestion. Once more, +their intervals of hunger, followed by gorges of food, and their lack of +artificial light, combine to make savages more apt to see what is not +there than are comfortable educated white men. But Mr. Tylor goes too far +when he says 'where the savage could see phantasms, the civilised man has +come to amuse himself with fancies.'[21] The civilised man, beyond all +doubt, is capable of being _enfantosme_. + +In all that he says on this point, the point of psychical condition, Mr. +Tylor is writing about known savages as they differ from ourselves. But +the savages who _ex hypothesi_ evolved the doctrine of souls lie beyond +our ken, far behind the modern savages, among whom we find belief not +only in souls and ghosts, but in moral gods. About the psychical condition +of the savages who worked out the theory of souls and founded religion we +necessarily know nothing. If there be such experiences as clairvoyance, +telepathy, and so on, these unknown ancestors of ours may (for all that we +can tell) have been peculiarly open to them, and therefore peculiarly apt +to believe in separable souls. In fact, when we write about these far-off +founders of religion, we guess in the dark, or by the flickering light of +analogy. The lower animals have faculties (as in their power of finding +their way home through new unknown regions, and in the ants' modes of +acquiring and communicating knowledge to each other) which are mysteries +to us. The terror of dogs in 'haunted houses' and of horses in passing +'haunted' scenes has often been reported, and is alluded to briefly by Mr. +Tylor. Balaam's ass, and the dogs which crouched and whined before Athene, +whom Eumaeus could not see, are 'classical' instances. + +The weakness of the anthropological argument here is, we must repeat, that +we know little more about the mental condition and experiences of the +early thinkers who developed the doctrine of Souls than we know about +the mental condition and experiences of the lower animals. And the more +firmly a philosopher believes in the Darwinian hypothesis, the less, he +must admit, can he suppose himself to know about the twilight ages, +between the lower animal and the fully evolved man. What kind of creature +was man when he first conceived the germs, or received the light, +of Religion? All is guess-work here! We may just allude to Hegel's +theory that clairvoyance and hypnotic phenomena are produced in a +kind of temporary _atavism_, or 'throwing hack' to a remotely ancient +condition of the 'sensitive soul' (_fueklende Seele_). The 'sensitive' +[unconditioned, clairvoyant] faculty or 'soul' is 'a disease when it +becomes a state of the self-conscious, educated, self-possessed human +being of civilisation.'[22] 'Second sight,' Hegel thinks, was a product +of an earlier day and earlier mental condition than ours. + +Approaching this almost untouched subject--the early psychical condition +of man--not from the side of metaphysical speculations like Hegel, but +with the instruments of modern psychology and physiology, Dr. Max Dessoir, +of Berlin, following, indeed, M. Taine, has arrived, as we saw, at +somewhat similar conclusions. 'This fully conscious life of the spirit,' +in which we moderns now live, 'seems to rest upon a substratum of reflex +action of a hallucinatory type.' Our actual modern condition is _not_ +'fundamental,' and 'hallucination represents, at least in its nascent +condition, the main trunk of our psychical existence.'[23] + +Now, suppose that the remote and unknown ancestors of ours who first +developed the doctrine of souls had not yet spread far from 'the main +trunk of our psychical existence,' far from constant hallucination. In +that case (at least, according to Dr. Dessoir's theory) their psychical +experiences would be such as we cannot estimate, yet cannot leave, as a +possibility influencing religion, out of our calculations. + +If early men were ever in a condition in which telepathy and clairvoyance +(granting their possibility) were prevalent, one might expect that +faculties so useful would be developed in the struggle for existence. That +they are deliberately cultivated by modern savages we know. The Indian +foster-mother of John Tanner used, when food was needed, to suggest +herself into an hypnotic condition, so that she became _clairvoyante_ as +to the whereabouts of game. Tanner, an English boy, caught early +by the Indians, was sceptical, but came to practise the same art, not +unsuccessfully, himself.[24] His reminiscences, which he dictated on his +return to civilisation, were certainly not feigned in the interests of any +theories. But the most telepathic human stocks, it may be said, ought, +_ceteris paribus_, to have been the most successful in the struggle +for existence. We may infer that the _cetera_ were not _paria_, the +clairvoyant state not being precisely the best for the practical business +of life. But really we know nothing of the psychical state of the earliest +men. They may have had experiences tending towards a belief in 'spirits,' +of which we can tell nothing. We are obliged to guess, in considerable +ignorance of the actual conditions, and this historical ignorance +inevitably besets all anthropological speculation about the origin of +religion. + +The knowledge of our nescience as to the psychical condition of our first +thinking ancestors may suggest hesitation as to taking it for granted that +early man was on our own or on the modern savage level in 'psychical' +experience. Even savage races, as Mr. Tylor justly says, attribute +superior psychical knowledge to neighbouring tribes on a yet lower level +of culture than themselves. The Finn esteems the Lapp sorcerers above his +own; the Lapp yields to the superior pretensions of the Samoyeds. There +may be more ways than one of explaining this relative humility: there is +Hegel's way and there is Mr. Tylor's way. We cannot be certain, _a +priori_, that the earliest man knew no more of supernormal or apparently +supernormal experiences than we commonly do, or that these did not +influence his thoughts on animism. + +It is an example of the chameleon-like changes of science (even of +'science falsely so called' if you please) that when he wrote his book, in +1871, Mr. Tylor could not possibly have anticipated this line of argument. + +'Psychical planes' had not been invented; hypnotism, with its problems, +had not been much noticed in England. But 'Spiritualism' was flourishing. +Mr. Tylor did not ignore this revival of savage philosophy. He saw very +well that the end of the century was beholding the partial rehabilitation +of beliefs which were scouted from 1660 to 1850. Seventy years ago, as Mr. +Tylor says, Dr. Macculloch, in his 'Description of the Western Islands of +Scotland,' wrote of 'the famous Highland second sight' that 'ceasing to be +believed it has ceased to exist.'[25] + +Dr. Macculloch was mistaken in his facts. 'Second sight' has never +ceased to exist (or to be believed to exist), and it has recently been +investigated in the 'Journal' of the Caledonian Medical Society. Mr. Tylor +himself says that it has been 'reinstated in a far larger range of +society, and under far better circumstances of learning and prosperity.' +This fact he ascribes generally to 'a direct revival from the regions of +savage philosophy and peasant folklore,' a revival brought about in great +part by the writings of Swedenborg. To-day things have altered. The +students now interested in this whole class of alleged supernormal +phenomena are seldom believers in the philosophy of Spiritualism in the +American sense of the word.[26] + +Mr. Tylor, as we have seen, attributes the revival of interest in this +obscure class of subjects to the influence of Swedenborg. It is true, as +has been shown, that Swedenborg attracted the attention of Kant. But +modern interest has chiefly been aroused and kept alive by the phenomena +of hypnotism. The interest is now, among educated students, really +scientific. + +Thus Mr. William James, Professor of Psychology in the University of +Harvard, writes: + +'I was attracted to this subject (Psychical Research) some years ago by +my love of fair play in Science.'[27] + +Mr. Tylor is not incapable of appreciating this attitude. Even the +so-called 'spirit manifestations,' he says, 'should be discussed on their +merits,' and the investigation 'would seem apt to throw light on some most +interesting psychological questions.' Nothing can be more remote from the +logic of Hume. + +The ideas of Mr. Tylor on the causes of the origin of religion are +now criticised, not from the point of view of spiritualism, but of +experimental psychology. We hold that very probably there exist human +faculties of unknown scope; that these conceivably were more powerful +and prevalent among our very remote ancestors who founded religion; that +they may still exist in savage as in civilised races, and that they may +have confirmed, if they did not originate, the doctrine of separable +souls. If they _do_ exist, the circumstance is important, in view of the +fact that modern ideas rest on a denial of their existence. + +Mr. Tylor next examines the savage and other _names_ for the ghost-soul, +such as shadow (_umbra_), breath (_spiritus_), and he gives cases in +which the _shadow_ of a man is regarded as equivalent to his _life_. Of +course, the shadow in the sunlight does not resemble the phantasm in a +dream. The two, however, were combined and identified by early thinkers, +while _breath_ and _heart_ were used as symbols of 'that in men which +makes them live,' a phrase found among the natives of Nicaragua in 1528. +The confessedly symbolical character of the phrase, 'it is _not_ +precisely the heart, but that in them which makes them live,' proves that +to the speaker life was _not_ 'heart' or 'breath,' but that these terms +were known to be material word-counters for the conception of life.[1] +Whether the earliest thinkers identified heart, breath, shadow, with life, +or whether they consciously used words of material origin to denote an +immaterial conception, of course we do not know. But the word in the +latter case would react on the thought, till the Roman inhaled (as his +life?) the last breath of his dying kinsman, he well knowing that the +Manes of the said kinsman were elsewhere, and not to be inhaled. + +Subdivisions and distinctions were then recognised, as of the Egyptian +_Ka_, the 'double,' the Karen _kelah_, or 'personal life-phantom' +(_wraith_), on one side, and the Karen _thah_, 'the responsible moral +soul,' on the other. The Roman _umbra_ hovers about the grave, the _manes_ +go to Orcus, the _spiritus_ seeks the stars. + +We are next presented with a crowd of cases in which sickness or lethargy +is ascribed by savages to the absence of the patient's spirit, or of one +of his spirits. This idea of migratory spirit is next used by savages to +explain certain proceedings of the sorcerer, priest, or seer. His soul, +or one of his souls is thought to go forth to distant places in quest of +information, while the seer, perhaps, remains lethargic. Probably, in the +struggle for existence, he lost more by being lethargic than he gained by +being clairvoyant! + +Now, here we touch the first point in Mr. Tylor's theory, where a critic +may ask, Was this belief in the wandering abroad of the seer's spirit a +theory not only false in its form (as probably it is), but also wholly +unbased on experiences which might raise a presumption in favour of the +existence of phenomena really supernormal? By 'supernormal' experiences I +here mean such as the acquisition by a human mind of knowledge which could +not be obtained by it through the recognised channels of sensation. Say, +for the sake of argument, that a person, savage or civilised, obtains in +trance information about distant places or events, to him unknown, and, +through channels of sense, unknowable. The savage will explain this by +saying that the seer's soul, shadow, or spirit, wandered out of the body +to the distant scene. This is, at present, an unverified theory. But +still, for the sake of argument, suppose that the seer did honestly +obtain this information in trance, lethargy, or hypnotic sleep, or any +other condition. If so, the modern savage (or his more gifted ancestors) +would have other grounds for his theory of the wandering soul than any +ground presented by normal occurrences, ordinary dreams, shadows, and so +forth. Again, in human nature there would be (if such things occur) a +potentiality of experiences other and stranger than materialism will admit +as possible. It will (granting the facts) be impossible to aver that there +is _nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu_. The soul will be not +_ce qu'un vain peuple pense_ under the new popular tradition, and the +savage's theory of the spirit will be, at least in part, based on other +than normal and every-day facts. That condition in which the seer acquires +information, not otherwise accessible, about events remote in space, is +what the mesmerists of the mid-century called 'travelling clairvoyance.' + +If such an experience be _in rerum natura_, it will not, of course, +justify the savage's theory that the soul is a separable entity, capable +of voyaging, and also capable of existing after the death of the body. But +it will give the savage a better excuse for his theory than normal +experiences provide; and will even raise a presumption that reflection on +mere ordinary experiences--death, shadow, trance--is not the sole origin +of his theory. For a savage so acute as Mr. Tylor's hypothetical early +reasoner might decline to believe that his own or a friend's soul had been +absent on an expedition, unless it brought back information not normally +to be acquired. However, we cannot reason, _a priori_, as to how far the +logic of a savage might or might not go on occasion. + +In any case, a scientific reasoner might be expected to ask: 'Is this +alleged acquisition of knowledge, _not_ through the ordinary channels of +sense, a thing _in rerum natura_?' Because, if it is, we must obviously +increase our list of the savage's reasons for believing in a soul: we +must make his reasons include 'psychical' experiences, and there must be +an X region to investigate. + +These considerations did not fail to present themselves to Mr. Tylor. But +his manner of dealing with them is peculiar. With his unequalled knowledge +of the lower races, it was easy for him to examine travellers' tales about +savage seers who beheld distant events in vision, and to allow them what +weight he thought proper, after discounting possibilities of falsehood and +collusion. He might then have examined modern narratives of similar +performances among the civilised, which are abundant. It is obvious and +undeniable that if the supernormal acquisition of knowledge in trance is a +_vera causa_, a real process, however rare, Mr. Tylor's theory needs +modifications; while the character of the savage's reasoning becomes more +creditable to the savage, and appears as better bottomed than we had been +asked to suppose. But Mr. Tylor does not examine this large body of +evidence at all, or, at least, does not offer us the details of his +examination. He merely writes in this place: + +'A typical spiritualistic instance may be quoted from Jung-Stilling, who +says that examples have come to his knowledge of sick persons who, +longing to see absent friends, have fallen into a swoon, during which +they have appeared to the distant objects of their affection.'[29] + +Jung-Stilling (though he wrote before modern 'Spiritualism' came in) is +not a very valid authority; there is plenty of better evidence than his, +but Mr. Tylor passes it by, merely remarking that 'modern Europe has kept +closely enough to the lines of early philosophy.' Modern Europe has indeed +done so, if it explains the supernormal acquisition of knowledge, or the +hallucinatory appearance of a distant person to his friend by a theory of +wandering 'spirits.' But facts do not cease to be facts because wrong +interpretations have been put upon them by savages, by Jung-Stilling, or +by anyone else. The real question is, Do such events occur among lower and +higher races, beyond explanation by fraud and fortuitous coincidence? We +gladly grant that the belief in Animism, when it takes the form of a +theory of 'wandering spirits,' is probably untenable, as it is assuredly +of savage origin. But we are not absolutely so sure that in this aspect +the theory is not based on actual experiences, not of a normal and +ordinary kind. If so, the savage philosophy and its supposed survivals in +belief will appear in a new light. And we are inclined to hold that an +examination of the mass of evidence to which Mr. Tylor offers here so +slight an allusion will at least make it wise to suspend our judgment, +not only as to the origins of the savage theory of spirits, but as to the +materialistic hypothesis of the absence of a psychical element in man. + +I may seem to have outrun already the limits of permissible hypothesis. It +may appear absurd to surmise that there can exist in man, savage or +civilised, a faculty for acquiring information not accessible by the known +channels of sense, a faculty attributed by savage philosophers to the +wandering soul. But one may be permitted to quote the opinion of +M. Charles Richet, Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine +in Paris. It is not cited because M. Richet is a professor of physiology, +but because he reached his conclusion after six years of minute +experiment. He says: 'There exists in certain persons, at certain moments, +a faculty of acquiring knowledge which has no _rapport_ with our normal +faculties of that kind.'[30] + +Instances tending to raise a presumption in favour of M. Richet's idea may +now be sought in savage and civilised life. + +[Footnote 1: _Primitive Culture,_ i. 9, 10.] + +[Footnote 2: _Origin of Ranks._] + +[Footnote 3: I may be permitted to refer to 'Reply to Objections' in the +appendix to my _Myth, Ritual, and Religion,_ vol. ii.] + +[Footnote 4: Spencer, _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, pp. 672, 673.] + +[Footnote 5: _Primitive Culture_, i. 417-425. Cf. however _Princip. Of +Sociol._, p. 304.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. i. 423, 424.] + +[Footnote 7: Published for the Berlin Society of Experimental Psychology, +Guenther, Leipzig, 1890.] + +[Footnote 8: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, 837-839.] + +[Footnote 9: _Primitive Culture_, i. 421, chapter xi.] + +[Footnote 10: This theory is what Mr. Spencer calls 'Animism,' and does +not believe in. What Mr. Tylor calls 'Animism' Mr. Spencer believes in, +but he calls it the 'Ghost Theory.'] + +[Footnote 11: _Primitive Culture_, i. 428.] + +[Footnote 12: Howitt, _Journal of Anthropological Institute_, xiii. +191-195.] + +[Footnote 13: The curious may consult, for savage words for 'dreams,' Mr. +Scott's _Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language_, s.v. 'Lots,' or any +glossary of any savage language.] + +[Footnote 14: _Prim. Cult._ i. 429.] + +[Footnote 15: _Prim. Cult._ i. 428.] + +[Footnote 16: Ibid. i. 285.] + +[Footnote 17: Ibid. i. 285, 286.] + +[Footnote 18: _Primitive Culture_, i. 446.] + +[Footnote 19: See, however, Dr. Von Schrenck-Notzing, _Die Beobachtung +narcolischer Mittel fuer den Hypnotismus_, and S.P.R. _Proceedings_, x. +292-899.] + +[Footnote 20: _Primitive Culture_, i. 306-316.] + +[Footnote 21: i. 315.] + +[Footnote 22: _Phil. des Geistes_, pp. 406, 408.] + +[Footnote 23: See also Mr. A.J. Balfour's Presidential Address to the +Society for Psychical Research, _Proceedings_, vol. x. See, too, Taine, +_De l'Intelligence_, i. 78, 106, 139.] + +[Footnote 24: Tanner's _Narrative_, New York, 1830.] + +[Footnote 25: _Primitive Culture_, i. 143.] + +[Footnote 26: As 'spiritualism' is often used in opposition to +'materialism,' and with no reference to rapping 'spirits,' the modern +belief in that class of intelligences may here be called spiritism.] + +[Footnote 27: _The Will to Believe_, preface, p. xiv.] + +[Footnote 28: _Primitive Culture_, i. 432,433. Citing Oviedo, _Hist. De +Nicaragua,_ pp. 21-51.] + +[Footnote 29: _Primitive Culture_, i. 440. Citing Stilling after Dale Owen, +and quoting Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace's _Scientific Aspect of the +Supernatural_, p. 43. Mr. Tylor also adds folk-lore practices of +ghost-seeing, as on St. John's Eve. St. Mark's Eve, too, is in point, as +far as folk-lore goes.] + +[Footnote 30: _Proceedings_, S.P.R. v. 167.] + + + + +IV + +'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE' + +'To open the Gates of Distance' is the poetical Zulu phrase for what is +called clairvoyance, or _vue a distance_. This, if it exists, is the +result of a faculty of undetermined nature, whereby knowledge of remote +events may be acquired, not through normal channels of sense. As the Zulus +say: '_Isiyezi_ is a state in which a man becomes slightly insensible. He +is awake, but still sees things which he would not see if he were not in a +state of ecstasy (_nasiyesi_).'[1] The Zulu description of _isiyezi_ +includes what is technically styled 'dissociation.' No psychologist or +pathologist will deny that visions of an hallucinatory sort may occur in +dissociated states, say in the _petit mal_ of epilepsy. The question, +however, is whether any such visions convey actual information not +otherwise to be acquired, beyond the reach of chance coincidence to +explain. + +A Scottish example, from the records of a court of law, exactly +illustrates the Zulu theory. At the moment when the husband of Jonka +Dyneis was in danger six miles from her house in his boat, Jonka 'was +found, and seen standing at her own house wall in a trance, and being +taken, she could not give answer, but stood as bereft of her senses, and +when she was asked why she was so moved, she answered, "If our boat be not +lost, she was in great hazard."' (October 2, 1616.)[2] + +The belief in opening the Gates of Distance is, of course, very widely +diffused. The gift is attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, to Plotinus, to +many Saints, to Catherine de' Medici, to the Rev. Mr. Peden,[3] and to +Jeanne d'Arc, while the faculty is the stock in trade of savage seers in +all regions.[4] + +The question, however, on which Mr. Tylor does not touch, is, _Are any of +the stories true?_ If so, of course they would confirm in the mind +of the savage his theory of the wandering soul. Now, to find anything +like attested cases of successful clairvoyance among savages is a +difficult task. White men either scout the idea, or are afraid of seeming +superstitious if they give examples, or, if they do give examples, are +accused of having sunk to the degraded level of Zulus or Red Indians. Even +where travellers, like Scheffer, have told about their own experiences, +the narratives are omitted by modern writers on savage divination.[5] We +must therefore make our own researches, and it is to be noted that +the stories of successful savage clairvoyance are given as illustrations +merely, not as evidence to facts, for we cannot cross-examine the +witnesses. + +Mr. Tylor dismisses the topic in a manner rather cavalier: + +'Without discussing on their merits the accounts of what is called +"second sight,"[6] it may be pointed out that they are related among +savage tribes, as when Captain Jonathan Carver obtained from a Cree +medicine-man a true prophecy of the arrival of a canoe with news next +day at noon; or when Mr. J. Mason Brown, travelling with two _voyageurs_ +on the Copper Mine River, was met by Indians of the very band he was +seeking, these having been sent by their medicine-man, who, on +enquiry, stated that "he saw them coming, and heard them talk on their +journey."'[7] + +Now, in our opinion, the 'merits' of stories of second sight need +discussion, because they may, if well attested, raise a presumption that +the savage's theory has a better foundation than Mr. Tylor supposes. Oddly +enough, though Mr. Tylor does not say so, Dr. Brinton (from whom he +borrows his two anecdotes) is more or less of our opinion. + +'There are,' says Dr. Brinton, 'statements supported by unquestionable +testimony, which ought not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot +but approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of +exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our +lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put +aside without serious consideration?' + +That is exactly what we complain of; the alleged facts are 'put aside +without serious consideration.' + +We, at least, are not slaves to the idea that 'the laws of exact science' +must be the only laws at work in the world. Science, however exact, does +not pretend to have discovered all 'laws.' + +To return to actual examples of the alleged supernormal acquisition of +knowledge by savages: Dr. Brinton gives an example from Charlevoix and +General Mason Brown's anecdote.[8] In General Mason Brown's instance the +medicine-man, at a great distance, bade his emissaries 'seek three whites, +whose horses, arms, attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, +which description was repeated to General Brown by the warriors _before +they saw his two companions.'_ General Brown assured Dr. Brinton of 'the +accuracy of this in every particular.' Mr. Tylor has certainly not +improved the story in his condensed version. Dr. Brinton refers to 'many' +tales such as these, and some will be found in 'Among the Zulus,' by Mr. +David Leslie (1875). + +Mr. Leslie was a Scottish sportsman, brought up from boyhood in +familiarity with the Zulus. His knowledge of their language and customs +was minute, and his book, privately printed, contains much interesting +matter. He writes: + +'I was obliged to proceed to the Zulu country to meet my Kaffir +elephant-hunters, the time for their return having arrived. They were +hunting in a very unhealthy country, and I had agreed to wait for them +on the North-East border, the nearest point I could go to with safety. +I reached the appointed rendezvous, but could not gain the slightest +intelligence of my people at the kraal. + +'After waiting some time, and becoming very uneasy about them, one of +my servants recommended me to go to the doctor, and at last, out of +curiosity and _pour passer le temps_, I did go. + +'I stated what I wanted--information about my hunters--and I was met by +a stern refusal. "I cannot tell anything about white men," said he, "and +I know nothing of their ways." However, after some persuasion and +promise of liberal payment, impressing upon him the fact that it was not +white men but Kaffirs I wanted to know about, he at last consented, +saying "he would _open the Gate of Distance_, and would travel through +it, even although his body should lie before me." + +'His first proceeding was to ask me the number and names of my hunters. +To this I demurred, telling him that if he obtained that information +from me he might easily substitute some news which he may have heard +from others, instead of the "spiritual telegraphic news" which I +expected him to get from his "familiar." + +'To this he answered: "I told you I did not understand white men's ways; +but if I am to do anything for you it must be done in my way--not +yours." On receiving this fillip I felt inclined to give it up, as I +thought I might receive some rambling statement with a considerable +dash of truth, it being easy for anyone who knew anything of hunting to +give a tolerably correct idea of their motions. + +'However, I conceded this point also, and otherwise satisfied him. + +'The doctor then made eight little fires--that being the number of my +hunters; on each he cast some roots,[9] which emitted a curious sickly +odour and thick smoke; into each he cast a small stone, shouting, as he +did so, the name to which the stone was dedicated; then he ate some +"medicine," and fell over in what appeared to be a trance for about ten +minutes, during all which time his limbs kept moving. Then he seemed to +wake, went to one of the fires, raked the ashes about, looked at the +stone attentively, described the man faithfully, and said: "This man has +died of the fever, and your gun is lost." + +'To the next fire as before: "This man" (correctly described) "has +killed four elephants," and then he described the tusks. The next: "This +man" (again describing him) "has been killed by an elephant, but your +gun is coming home," and so on through the whole, the men being minutely +and correctly described; their success or non-success being equally so. +I was told where the survivors were, and what they were doing, and that +in three months they would come out, but as they would not expect to +find me waiting on them there so long after the time appointed, they +would not pass that way. + +'I took a particular note of all this information at the time, and to my +utter amazement _it turned out correct in every particular_. + +'It was scarcely within the bounds of possibility that this man could +have had ordinary intelligence of the hunters; they were scattered about +in a country two hundred miles away.' + +Mr. Leslie could discover no explanation, nor was any suggested by friends +familiar with the country and the natives whom he consulted. He gives +another example, which may be explained by 'suggestion.' A parallel case +from Central Africa will be found in the 'Journal of the Anthropological +Institute,' November 1897, p. 320, where 'private information,' as usual, +would explain the singular facts. + +The Zulus themselves lay claim to a kind of clairvoyance which looks like +the result of intense visualising power, combined with the awakening of +the subconscious memory.[10] + +'There is among black men a something which is divination within them. +When anything valuable is lost, they look for it at once; when they +cannot find it, each one begins to practise this inner divination, +trying to feel where the thing is; for, not being able to see it, he +feels internally a pointing, which tells him if he will go down to such +a place it is there, and he will find it. At length it says he will find +it; at length he sees it, and himself approaching it; before he begins +to move from where he is, he sees it very clearly indeed, and there is +an end of doubt. That sight is so clear that it is as though it was not +an inner sight, but as if he saw the very thing itself, and the place +where it is; so he quickly arises and goes to the place. If it is a +hidden place he throws himself into it, as though there was something +that impelled him to go as swiftly as the wind; and, in fact, he finds +the thing, if he has not acted by mere head-guessing. If it has been +done by real inner divination, he really sees it. But if it is done by +mere head-guessing and knowledge that he has not gone to such a place +and such a place, and that therefore it must be in such another place, +he generally misses the mark.' + +Other Zulu instances will be given under the heads 'Possession' and +'Fetishism.' + +To take a Northern people: In his 'History of the Lapps'[11] Scheffer +describes mechanical modes of divination practised by that race, who use a +drum and other objects for the purpose. These modes depend on more +traditional rules for interpreting the accidental combinations of lots. +But a Lapp confessed to Scheffer, with tears, that he could not help +seeing visions, as he proved by giving Scheffer a minute relation 'of +whatever particulars had happened to me in my journey to Lapland. And he +further complained that he know not how to make use of his eyes, since +things altogether distant were presented to them.' This Lapp was anxious +to become a Christian, hence his regret at being a 'rare and valuable' +example of clairvoyance. Torfaeus also was posed by the clairvoyance of a +Samoyed, as was Regnard by a Lapp seer.[12] + +The next case is of old date, and, like the other savage examples, is +merely given for purposes of illustration. + + '_25e Lettre_.[13] + + '"_Suite des Traditions des Sauvages._" + + 'Au Fort de la Riviere de St. Joseph, ce 14 Septembre 1721. + + '"_Des Jongleurs_"-- ... Vous ayez vu a Paris Madame de Marson, & elle + y est encore; voici ce que M. le Marquis de Vaudreuil son Gendre, + actuellement notre Gouverneur General, me raconta cet Hyver, & qu'il a + scu de cette Dame, qui n'est rien moins qu'un esprit foible. Elle etoit + un jour fort inquiette an sujet de M. de Marson, son Mari, lequel + commandoit dans un Poste, que nous avions en Accadie; et etoit absent, & + le tems qu'il avoit marque pour son retour, etoit passe. + + 'Une Femme Sauvage, qui vit Madame de Marson en peine, lui en demanda la + cause, & l'ayant apprise, lui dit, apres y avoir un peu reve, de ne plus + se chagriner, que son Epoux reviendroit tel jour et a telle heure, + qu'elle lui marqua, avec un chapeau gris sur la tete. Comme elle + s'appercut que la Dame n'ajoutoit point foi a sa prediction, au jour & a + l'heure, qu'elle avoit assignee, elle rotourna chez elle, lui demanda si + elle ne vouloit pas venir voir arriver son Mari, & la pressa de telle + sorte de la suivre, qu'elle l'entraina au bord de la Riviere. + + 'A peine y etoient-elles arrivees, que M. de Marson parut dans un Canot, + un chapeau gris sur la tete; & ayant appris ce qui s'etoit passe, assura + qu'il ne pouvoit pas comprendre comment la Sauvagesse avoit pu scavoir + l'heure & le jour de son arrivee.' + +It is unusual for European travellers and missionaries to give anecdotes +which might seem to 'confirm the delusions of benighted savages.' Such +anecdotes, again, are among the _arcana_ of these wild philosophers, and +are not readily communicated to strangers. When successful cases are +reported, it is natural to assert that they come through Europeans who +have sunk into barbarous superstition, or that they may be explained by +fraud and collusion. It is certain, however, that savage proficients +believe in their own powers, though no less certainly they will eke them +out by imposture. Seers are chosen in Zululand, as among Eskimos and +Samoyeds, from the class which in Europe supplies the persons who used to +be, but are no longer the most favourite hypnotic subjects, 'abnormal +children,' epileptic and hysterical. These are subjected to 'a long and +methodical course of training.'[14] Stoll, speaking of Guatemala, says +that 'certainly most of the induced and spontaneous phenomena with which +we are familiar occur among savages,' and appeals to travellers for +observations.[15] Information is likely to come in, as educated travellers +devote attention to the topic. + +Dr. Callaway translates some Zulu communications which indicate the +amount of belief in this very practical and sceptical people. Amusing +illustrations of their scepticism will be quoted later, under +'Possession,' but they do accept as seers certain hysterical patients. +These are tested by their skill in finding objects which have been +hidden without their knowledge. They then behave much like Mr. Stuart +Cumberland, but have not the advantage of muscular contact with the +person who knows where the hidden objects are concealed. The neighbours +even deny that they have hidden anything at all. 'When they persist in +their denial ... he finds all the things that they have hidden. They see +that he is a great _inyanga_ (seer) when he has found all the things they +have concealed.' No doubt he is guided, perhaps in a super-sensitive +condition, by the unconscious indications of the excited spectators. + +The point is that, while the savage conjurer will doubtless use fraud +wherever he can, still the experience of low races is in favour of +employing as seers the class of people who in Europe were, till recently, +supposed to make the best hypnotic subjects. Thus, in West Africa, 'the +presiding elders, during your initiation to the secret society of your +tribe, discover this gift [of Ebumtupism, or second sight], and so select +you as "a witch doctor."'[15] Among the Karens, the 'Wees,' or prophets, +'are nervous excitable men, such as would become mediums,'[16] as mediums +are diagnosed by Mr. Tylor. + +In short, not to multiply examples, there is an element of actual +observation and of _bona fides_ entangled in the trickery of savage +practice. Though the subjects may be selected partly because of the +physical phenomena of convulsions which they exhibit, and which +favourably impress their clients, they are also such subjects as +occasionally yield that evidence of supernormal faculty which is +investigated by modern psychologists, like Richet, Janet, and William +James. + +The following example, by no means unique, shows the view taken by savages +of their own magic, after they have become Christians. Catherine Wabose, a +converted Red Indian seeress, described her preliminary fast, at the age +of puberty. After six days of abstention from food she was rapt away to an +unknown place, where a radiant being welcomed her. Later a dark round +object promised her the gift of prophecy. She found her natural senses +greatly sharpened by lack of food. She first exercised her powers when her +kinsfolk in large numbers were starving, a medicine-lodge, or 'tabernacle' +as Lufitau calls it, was built for her, and she crawled in. As is well +known, these lodges are violently shaken during the magician's stay within +them, which the early Jesuits at first attributed to muscular efforts by +the seers. In 1637 Pere Lejeune was astonished by the violent motions of a +large lodge, tenanted by a small man. One sorcerer, with an appearance of +candour, vowed that 'a great wind entered boisterously,' and the Father +was assured that, if he went in himself, he would become clairvoyant. He +did not make the experiment. The Methodist convert, Catherine, gave the +same description of her own experience: 'The lodge began shaking violently +by supernatural means. I knew this by the compressed current of air above, +and the noise of motion.' She had been beating a small drum and singing, +now she lay quiet. The radiant 'orbicular' spirit then informed her that +they 'must go westwards for game; how short-sighted you are!' 'The +advice was taken and crowned by instant success.' This established her +reputation.[17] Catherine's conversion was led up to by a dream of her +dying son, who beheld a Sacred Figure, and received from Him white +raiment. Her magical songs tell how unseen hands shake the magic lodge. +They invoke the Great Spirit that + + 'Illumines earth + Illumines heaven! + Ah, say what Spirit, or Body, is this Body, + That fills the world around, + Speak, man, ah say + What Spirit, or Body, is this Body?' + +It is like a savage hymn to Hegel's _fuehlende Seele_: the all-pervading +Sensitive Soul. We are reminded, too, of 'the doctrine of the Sanscrit +Upanishads: There is no limit to the knowing of the Self that knows.'[18] + +Unluckily Catherine was not asked to give other examples of what she +considered her successes. + +Acosta, who has not the best possible repute as an authority, informs us +that Peruvian clairvoyants 'tell what hath passed in the furthest parts +before news can come. In the distance of two or three hundred leagues +they would tell what the Spaniards did or suffered in their civil wars.' To +Du Pont, in 1606, a sorcerer 'rendered a true oracle of the coming of +Poutrincourt, saying his Devil had told him so.'[19] + +We now give a modern case, from a scientific laboratory, of knowledge +apparently acquired in no normal way, by a person of the sort usually +chosen to be a prophet, or wizard, by savages. + +Professor Richet writes:[20] + +'On Monday, July 2, 1888, after having passed all the day in my +laboratory, I hypnotised Leonie at 8 P.M., and while she tried to make +out a diagram concealed in an envelope I said to her quite suddenly: +"What has happened to M. Langlois?" Leonie knows M. Langlois from +having seen him two or three times some time ago in my physiological +laboratory, where he acts as my assistant.--"He has burnt himself," +Leonie replied,--"Good," I said, "and where has he burnt himself?"--"On +the left hand. It is not fire: it is--I don't know its name. Why does he +not take care when he pours it out?"--"Of what colour," I asked, "is the +stuff which he pours out?"--"It is not red, it is brown; he has hurt +himself very much--the skin puffed up directly." + +'Now, this description is admirably exact. At 4 P.M. that day M. +Langlois had wished to pour some bromine into a bottle. He had done this +clumsily, so that some of the bromine flowed on to his left hand, which +held the funnel, and at once burnt him severely. Although he at once put +his hand into water, wherever the bromine had touched it a blister was +formed in a few seconds--a blister which one could not better describe +than by saying, "the skin puffed up." I need not say that Leonie had not +left my house, nor seen anyone from my laboratory. Of this I am +_absolutely certain,_ and I am certain that I had not mentioned the +incident of the burn to anyone. Moreover, this was the first time for +nearly a year that M. Langlois had handled bromine, and when Leonie saw +him six months before at the laboratory he was engaged in experiments +of quite another kind.' + +Here the savage reasoner would infer that Leonie's spirit had visited M. +Langlois. The modern inquirer will probably say that Leonie became aware +of what was passing in the mind of M. Richet. This supranormal way of +acquiring knowledge was observed in the last century by M. de Puysegur in +one of his earliest cases of somnambulism. MM. Binet and Fere say: 'It is +not yet admitted that the subject is able to divine the thoughts of the +magnetiser without any material communication;' while they grant, as a +minimum, that 'research should be continued in this direction.'[21] They +appear to think that Leonie may have read 'involuntary signs' in the +aspect of M. Richet. This is a difficult hypothesis. + +Here follows a case recorded in his diary by Mr. Dobbie, of Adelaide, +Australia, who has practised hypnotism for curative purposes. He explains +(June 10, 1884) that he had mesmerised Miss ---- on several occasions to +relieve rheumatic pain and sore throat. He found her to be clairvoyant. + +'The following is a verbatim account of the second time I tested her +powers in this respect, April 12, 1884. There were four persons present +during the _seance_. One of the company wrote down the replies as they +were spoken. + +'Her father was at the time over fifty miles away, but we did not know +exactly where, so I questioned her as follows: "Can you find your father +at the present moment?" At first she replied that she could not see him, +but in a minute or two she said, "Oh, yes; now I can see him, Mr. +Dobbie." "Where is he?" "Sitting at a large table in a large room, and +there are a lot of people going in and out." "What is he doing?" +"Writing a letter, and there is a book in front of him." "Whom is he +writing to?" "To the newspaper." Here she paused and laughingly said, +"Well, I declare, he is writing to the A B" (naming a newspaper). "You +said there was a book there. Can you tell me what book it is?" "It has +gilt letters on it." "Can you read them, or tell me the name of the +author?" She read, or pronounced slowly, "W.L.W." (giving the full +surname of the author). She answered several minor questions _re_ the +furniture in the room, and I then said to her, "Is it any effort or +trouble to you to travel in this way?" "Yes, a little; I have to think." + +'I now stood behind her, holding a half-crown in my hand, and asked her +if she could tell me what I had in my hand, to which she replied, "It is +a shilling." It seemed as though she could see what was happening miles +away easier than she could see what was going on in the room. + +'Her father returned home nearly a week afterwards, and was perfectly +astounded when told by his wife and family what he had been doing on +that particular evening; and, although previous to that date he was a +thorough sceptic as to clairvoyance, he frankly admitted that my +clairvoyant was perfectly correct in every particular. He also informed +us that the book referred to was a new one, which he had purchased after +he had left his home, so that there was no possibility of his daughter +guessing that he had the book before him. I may add that the letter in +due course appeared in the paper; and I saw and handled the book.' + +A number of cases of so-called 'clairvoyance' will be found in the +'Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.'[22] As the authors of +these essays remark, even after discounting, in each case, fraud, +malobservation, and misreporting, the residue of cases can seldom justify +either the savage theory of the wandering soul (which is not here +seriously proposed) or Hegel's theory that the _fuehlende Seele_ is +unconditioned by space. For, if thought transference be a fact, the +apparent clairvoyant may only be reading the mind of a person at a +distance. The results, however, when successful, would naturally suggest +to the savage thinker the belief in the wandering soul, or corroborate it +if it had already been suggested by the common phenomena of dreaming. + +To these instances of knowledge acquired otherwise than by the recognised +channels of sense we might add the Scottish tales of 'second sight.' That +phrase is merely a local term covering examples of what is called +'clairvoyance'--views of things remote in space, hallucinations of sight +that coincide with some notable event, premonitions of things future, and +so on. The belief and hallucinatory experiences are still very common in +the Highlands, where I have myself collected many recent instances. Mr. +Tylor observes that the examples 'prove a little too much; they vouch not +only for human apparitions, but for such phantoms as demon dogs, and for +still more fanciful symbolic omens.' This is perfectly true. I have found +no cases of demon dogs; but wandering lights, probably of meteoric or +miasmatic origin, are certainly regarded as tokens of death. This is +obviously a superstitious hypothesis, the lights being real phenomena +misconstrued. Again, funerals are not uncommonly seen where no funeral is +taking place; it is then alleged that a real funeral, similar and +similarly situated, soon afterwards occurred. On the hypothesis of +believers, the percipients somehow behold + + 'Such refraction of events + As often rises ere they rise.' + +Even the savage cannot account for this experience by the wandering of the +soul in space; nor do I suggest any explanation. I give, however, one or +two instances. They are published in the 'Journal of the Caledonian +Medical Society,' 1897, by Dr. Alastair Macgregor, on the authority of the +MSS. of his father, a minister in the island of Skye. + +'He once told me that when he first went to Skye he scoffed at the idea of +such a power as second sight being genuine; but he said that, after having +been there for some years as a clergyman, he had been so often consulted +_beforehand_ by people who said they had seen visions of events which +subsequently occurred, to my father's knowledge, in exact accordance with +the form and details of the vision as foretold, that he was compelled to +confess that some folks had, apparently at least, the unfortunate faculty. + +'As my father expressed it, this faculty was "neither voluntary nor +constant, and was considered rather annoying than agreeable to the +possessors of it. The gift was possessed by individuals of both sexes, and +its fits came on within doors and without, sitting and standing, at night +and by day, and at whatever employment the votary might chance to be +engaged."' + +Here follows a typical example of the vision of a funeral: + +'The session clerk at Dull, a small village in Perthshire, was ill, and +my grandfather, clergyman there at the time, had to do duty for him. One +fine summer evening, about 7 o'clock, a young man and woman came to get +some papers filled up, as they were going to be married. My grandfather +was with the couple in the session clerk's room, no doubt attending to +the papers, when suddenly _all three_ saw through the window a funeral +procession passing along the road. From their dress the bulk of the +mourners seemed to be farm labourers--indeed the young woman recognised +some of them as natives of Dull, who had gone to live and work near +Dunkeld. Remarks were naturally made by my grandfather and the young +couple about the untimely hour for a funeral, and, hastily filling in +the papers, my grandfather went out to get the key of the churchyard, +which was kept in the manse, as, without the key, the procession +could not get into God's acre. Wondering how it was that he had received +no intimation of the funeral, he went to the manse by a short cut, got +the key, and hurried down to the churchyard gate, where, of course, he +expected to find the cortege waiting. _Not a soul was there_ except the +young couple, who were as amazed as my grandfather! + +'Well, at the same hour in the evening of the same day in the following +week the funeral, this time in reality, arrived quite unexpectedly. The +facts were that a boy, a native of Dull, had got gored by a bull at +Dunkeld, and was so shockingly mangled that his remains were picked +up and put into a coffin and taken without delay to Dull. A grave was +dug as quickly as possible--the poor lad having no relatives--and the +remains were interred. My grandfather and the young couple recognised +several of the mourners as being among those whom they had seen out of +the session clerk's room, exactly a week previously, in the phantom +cortege. The young woman knew some of them personally, and related to +them what she had seen, but they of course denied all knowledge of the +affair, having been then in Dunkeld.' + +I give another example, because the experience was auditory, as well as +visual, and the prediction was announced before the event. + +'The parishioners in Skye were evidently largely imbued with the +Romanist-like belief in the powers of intercession vested in their +clergyman; so when they had a "warning" or "vision" they usually consulted +my father as to what they could do to prevent the coming disaster +befalling their relatives or friends. In this way my father had the +opportunity of noting down the minutiae of the "warning" or "vision" +directly it was told him. Having had the advantage of a medical, previous +to his theological, training, he was able to note down sound facts, +unembellished by superadded imagination. Entering into this method of +case-taking with a mind perfectly open, except for a slight touch of +scepticism, he was greatly surprised to discover how very frequently +realisations occurred exactly in conformance with the minutiae of the +vision as detailed in his note-book. Finally, he was compelled to +discard his scepticism, and to admit that some people had undoubtedly +the uncanny gift. Almost the first case he took (Case X.) was that of a +woman who had one day a vision of her son falling over a high rock at Uig, +in Skye, with a sheep or lamb. + +'CASE X.--She heard her son exclaim in Gaelic, "This is a fatal lamb for +me." As her son lived several miles from Uig, and was a fisherman, +realisation seemed to my father very unlikely, but one month afterwards +the realisation occurred only too true. Unknown to his mother, who had +warned him against having anything to do with sheep or lambs, the son +one day, instead of going out in his boat, thought he would take a +holiday inland, and went off to Uig, where a farmer enlisted his +services in separating some lambs from the ewes. One of the lambs ran +away, and the fisher lad ran headlong after it, and not looking where he +was going, on catching the lamb was pulled by it to the edge of one of +the very picturesque but exceedingly dangerous rocks at Uig. Too late +realizing his critical position, he exclaimed, "This is a fatal lamb for +me," but going with such an impetus he was unable to bring himself up in +time, and, along with the lamb, fell over into the ravine below, and +was, of course, killed on the spot. The farmer, when he saw the lad's +danger, ran to his assistance, but was only in time to hear him cry out +in Gaelic before disappearing over the brink of the precipice. This was +predicted by the mother a month before. Was this simply a coincidence?' + +Dr. Macgregor's remarks on the involuntary and unwelcome nature of the +visions is borne out by what Scheffer, as already quoted, says concerning +the Lapps. + +In addition to visions which thus come unsought, contributing knowledge of +things remote or even future, we may glance at visions which are provoked +by various methods. Drugs (_impepo_) are used, seers whirl in a wild +dance till they fall senseless, or trance is induced by various kinds of +self-suggestion or 'auto-hypnotism.' Fasting is also practised. In modern +life the self-induced trance is common among 'mediums'--a subject to which +we recur later. + +So far, it will be observed, our evidence proves that precisely similar +_beliefs_ as to man's occasional power of opening the gates of distance +have been entertained in a great variety of lands and ages, and by races +in every condition of culture.[23] The alleged experiences are still +said to occur, and have been investigated by physiologists of the eminence +of M. Richet. The question cannot but arise as to the residuum of fact in +these narrations, and it keeps on arising. + +In the following chapter we discuss a mode of inducing hallucinations +which has for anthropologists the interest of universal diffusion. The +width of its range in savage races has not, we believe, been previously +observed. We then add facts of modern experience, about the authenticity +of which we, personally, entertain no doubt; and the provisional +conclusion appears to be that savages have observed a psychological +circumstance which has been ignored by professed psychologists, and which, +certainly, does not fit into the ordinary materialistic hypothesis. + +[Footnote 1: Callaway, _Religion of the Zulus_, p. 232.] + +[Footnote 2: Graham Dalzell, _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 481.] + +[Footnote 3: See good evidence in _Ker of Kersland's Memoirs_.] + +[Footnote 4: Autus Gellius, xv. 18, Dio Cassius, lxvii., Crespet, _De la +Haine du Diable, Proces de Jeanne d'Arc_.] + +[Footnote 5: See 'Shamanism in Siberia,' _J.A.I._, November 1894, +pp. 147-149, and compare Scheffer. The article is very learned and +interesting.] + +[Footnote 6: Williams mentions second sight in Fiji, but gives no +examples.] + +[Footnote 7: _Primitive Culture,_ i. 447. Mr. Tylor cites Dr. Brinton's +_Myths of the New World,_ p. 269. The reference in the recent edition is +p. 289. Carver's case is given under the head 'Possession' later.] + +[Footnote 8: _Journal Historique_ p. 362; _Atlantic Monthly_, July 1866.] + +[Footnote 9: Probably _impepo_, eaten by seers, according to Callaway.] + +[Footnote 10: Callaway's _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 358.] + +[Footnote 11: Oxford, 1674.] + +[Footnote 12: _Voyages_.] + +[Footnote 13: From Charlevoix, _Journal Historique_, p. 362.] + +[Footnote 14: Bastian, _Ueber psych. Beobacht_. p.21.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. p.26.] + +[Footnote 15: Miss Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, p. 460.] + +[Footnote 16: _Primitive Culture_, ii, 181; Mason's _Burmah_, p. 107.] + +[Footnote 17: Schoolcraft, i. 394.] + +[Footnote 18: Brinton's _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, p. 57.] + +[Footnote 19: Purchas, p. 629.] + +[Footnote 20: S.P.R. _Proceedings_, vol. vi. 69.] + +[Footnote 21: Binet and Fere, _Animal Magnetism_, p. 64.] + +[Footnote 22: Vol. vii. Mrs. Sidgwick, pp. 30, 356; vol. vi. p. 66, +Professor Richet, p. 407, Drs. Dufay and Azam.] + +[Footnote 23: The examples in the Old Testament, and in the _Life of St. +Columba_ by Adamnan, need only be alluded to as too familiar for +quotation.] + + + + +V + +CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED + +Among savage methods of provoking hallucinations whence knowledge may be +supernormally obtained, various forms of 'crystal-gazing' are the most +curious. We find the habit of looking into water, usually in a vessel, +preferably a glass vessel, among Red Indians (Lejeune), Romans (Varro, +cited in _Civitas Dei_, iii. 457), Africans of Fez (Leo Africanus); while +Maoris use a drop of blood (Taylor), Egyptians use ink (Lane), and +Australian savages employ a ball of polished stone, into which the seer +'puts himself' to descry the results of an expedition.[1] + +I have already given, in the Introduction, Ellis's record of the +Polynesian case. A hole being dug in the door of his house, and filled +with water, the priest looks for a vision of the thief who has carried off +stolen goods. The Polynesian theory is that the god carries the spirit of +the thief over the water, in which it is reflected. Lejeune's Red Indians +make their patients gaze into the water, in which they will see the +pictures of the things in the way of food or medicine that will do them +good. In modern language, the instinctive knowledge existing implicitly +in the patient's subconsciousness is thus brought into the range of his +ordinary consciousness. + +In 1887 the late Captain J. T. Bourke, of the U.S. Cavalry, an original +and careful observer, visited the Apaches in the interests of the +Ethnological Bureau. He learned that one of the chief duties of the +medicine-men was to find out the whereabouts of lost or stolen property. +Na-a-cha, one of these _jossakeeds_, possessed a magic quartz crystal, +which he greatly valued. Captain Bourke presented him with a still finer +crystal. 'He could not give me an explanation of its magical use, except +that by looking into it he could see everything he wanted to see,' +Captain Bourke appears never to have heard of the modern experiments in +crystal-gazing. Captain Bourke also discovered that the Apaches, like the +Greeks, Australians, Africans, Maoris, and many other, races, use the +bull-roarer, turndun, or _rhombos_--a piece of wood which, being whirled +round, causes a strange windy roar--in their mystic ceremonies. The wide +use of the rhombos was known to Captain Bourke; that of the crystal was +not. + +For the Iroquois, Mrs. Erminie Smith supplies information about the +crystal. 'Placed in a gourd of water, it could render visible the +apparition of a person who has bewitched another.' She gives a case in +European times of a medicine-man who found the witch's habitat, but +got only an indistinct view of her face. On a second trial he was +successful.[2] One may add that treasure-seekers among the Huille-che +'look earnestly' for what they want to find 'into a smooth slab of black +stone, which I suppose to be basalt.'[3] + +The kindness of Monsieur Lefebure enables me to give another example from +Madagascar.[4] Flacourt, describing the Malagasies, says that they +_squillent_ (a word not in Littre), that is, divine by crystals, which +'fall from heaven when it thunders,' Of course the rain reveals the +crystals, as it does the flint instruments called 'thunderbolts' in many +countries. 'Lorsqu'ils squillent, ils ont une de ces pierres au coing de +leurs tablettes, disans qu'elle a la vertu de faire faire operation a leur +figure de geomance.' Probably they used the crystals as do the Apaches. On +July 15 a Malagasy woman viewed, whether in her crystal or otherwise, two +French vessels which, like the Spanish fleet, were 'not in sight,' also +officers, and doctors, and others aboard, whom she had seen, before their +return to France, in Madagascar. The earliest of the ships did not arrive +till August 11. + +Dr. Callaway gives the Zulu practice, where the chief 'sees what will +happen by looking into the vessel.'[5] The Shamans of Siberia and Eastern +Russia employ the same method.[6] The case of the Inca, Yupanqui, is very +curious. 'As he came up to a fountain he saw a piece of crystal fall into +it, within which he beheld a figure of an Indian in the following +shape ... The apparition then vanished, while the crystal remained. The +Inca took care of it, and they say that he afterwards saw everything he +wanted in it.'[7] + +Here, then, we find the belief that hallucinations can be induced by one +or other form of crystal-gazing, in ancient Peru, on the other side of the +continent among the Huille-che, in Fez, in Madagascar, in Siberia, among +Apaches, Hurons, Iroquois, Australian black fellows, Maoris, and in +Polynesia. This is assuredly a wide range of geographical distribution. We +also find the practice in Greece (Pausanias, VII. xxi. 12), in Rome +(Varro), in Egypt, and in India. + +Though anthropologists have paid no attention to the subject, it was of +course familiar to later Europe. 'Miss X' has traced it among early +Christians, in early Councils, in episcopal condemnations of _specularii_, +and so to Dr. Dee, under James VI.; Aubrey; the Regent d'Orleans +in St. Simon's Memoirs; the modern mesmerists (Gregory, Mayo) and the +mid-Victorian spiritualists, who, as usual, explained the phenomena, in +their prehistoric way, by 'spirits[8].' Till this lady examined the +subject, nobody had thought of remarking that a belief so universal had +probably some basis of facts, or nobody if we except two professors of +chemistry and physiology, Drs. Gregory and Mayo. Miss X made experiments, +beginning by accident, like George Sand, when a child. + +The hallucinations which appear to her eyes in ink, or crystal, are: + + 1. Revived memories 'arising thus, and thus only, from the subconscious + strata;' + + '2. Objectivation of ideas or images--(a) consciously or (b) + unconsciously--in the mind of the percipient; + + '3. Visions, possibly telepathic or clairvoyant, implying acquirement of + knowledge by supernormal means.'[9] + +The examples given of the last class, the class which would be so useful +to a priest or medicine-man asked to discover things lost, are of very +slight interest.[10] + +Since Miss X drew attention to this subject, experiments have proved +beyond doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and healthy, can see +vivid landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, in glass balls and +other vehicles. This faculty Dr. Parish attributes to 'dissociation,' +practically to drowsiness. But he speaks by conjecture, and without +having witnessed experiments, as will be shown later. I now offer a series +of experiments with a glass ball, coming under my own observation, in +which knowledge was apparently acquired in no ordinary way. Of the absence +of fraud I am personally convinced, not only by the characters of all +concerned, but by the nature of the circumstances. That adaptive memory +did not later alter the narratives, as originally told, I feel certain, +because they were reported to me, when I was not present, within less than +a week, precisely as they are now given, except in cases specially noted. + +Early in the present year (1897) I met a young lady who told me of three +or four curious hallucinatory experiences of her own, which were +sufficiently corroborated. She was innocent of psychical studies, and +personally was, and is, in perfect health; the pale cast of thought being +remote from her. I got a glass ball, and was present when she first looked +into it. She saw, I remember, the interior of a house, with a full-length +portrait of a person unknown. There were, I think, one or two other fancy +pictures of the familiar kind. But she presently (living as she was, among +strangers) developed a power of 'seeing' persons and places unknown to +her, but familiar to them. These experiences do seem to me to be good +examples of what is called 'thought transference;' indeed, I never before +could get out of a level balance of doubt on that subject, a balance which +now leans considerably to the affirmative side. There may be abundance of +better evidence, but, knowing the persons and circumstances, and being +present once at what seemed to me a crucial example, I was more inclined +to be convinced. This attitude appears, to myself, illogical, but it is +natural and usual. + +We cannot tell what indications may be accidentally given in experiments +in thought transference. But, in these cases of crystal-gazing, the detail +was too copious to be conveyed, by a looker-on, in a wink or a cough. I do +not mean to say that success was invariable. I thought of Dr. W.G. Grace, +and the scryer saw an old man crawling along with a stick. But I doubt if +Dr. Grace is very deeply seated in that mystic entity, my subconscious +self. The 'scries' which came right were sometimes, but not always, those +of which the 'agent' (or person scried for) was consciously thinking. But +the examples will illustrate the various kinds of occurrences. + +Here one should first consider the arguments against accepting recognition +of objects merely described by another person. The crystal-gazer may know +the inquirer so intimately as to have a very good guess at the subject of +his meditation. Again, a man is likely to be thinking of a woman, and a +woman of a man, so the field of conjecture is limited. In answer to the +first objection I may say that the crystal-gazer was among strangers, all +of whom, myself included, she now saw for the first time. Nor could she +have studied their histories beforehand, for she could not know (normally) +when she left home, that she was about to be shown a glass ball, or whom +she would meet. The second objection is met by the circumstance that +ladies were _not_ usually picked out for men, nor men for women. Indeed, +these choices were the exceptions, and in each case were marked by +minutely particular details. A third objection is that credulity, or the +love of strange novelties, or desire to oblige, biases the inquirers, and +makes them anxious to recognise something familiar in the scryer's +descriptions. In the same way we know how people recognise faces +in the most blurred and vague of spiritist photographs, or see family +resemblances in the most rudimentary doughfaced babies. Take descriptions +of persons in a passport, or in a proclamation sketching the personal +appearance of a criminal. These fit the men or women intended, but they +also fit a crowd of other people. The description given by the scryer then +may come right by a fortuitous coincidence, or may be too credulously +recognised. + +The complex of coincidences, however, could not be attributed to chance +selection out of the whole possible field of conjecture. We must remember, +too, that a series of such hits increases, at an enormous rate, the odds +against accidental conjecture. Of such mere luck I may give an example. I +was writing a story of which the hero was George Kelly, one of the 'Seven +Men of Moidart.' A year after composing my tale, I found the Government +description of Mr. Kelly (1736). It exactly tallied with my purely +fanciful sketch, down to eyes, and teeth, and face, except that I made my +hero 'about six feet,' whereas the Government gave him five feet ten. But +I knew beforehand that Mr. Kelly was a clergyman; his curious career +proved him to be a person of great activity and geniality--and he was of +Irish birth. Even a dozen such guesses, equally correct, could not +suggest any powers of 'vision,' when so much was known beforehand about +the person guessed at. I now give cases in the experience of Miss Angus, +as one may call the crystal-gazer. The first occurred the day after she +got the glass ball for the first time. She writes: + +'I.--A lady one day asked me to scry out a friend of whom she would +think. Almost immediately I exclaimed "Here is an old, old lady looking +at me with a triumphant smile on her face. She has a prominent nose and +nut-cracker chin. Her face is very much wrinkled, especially at the +sides of her eyes, as if she were always smiling. She is wearing a +little white shawl with a black edge. _But!_ ... she _can't_ be old as +her hair is quite brown! although her face looks so very very old." The +picture then vanished, and the lady said that I had accurately described +her friend's _mother_ instead of himself; that it was a family joke that +the mother must dye her hair, it was so brown and she was eighty-two +years old. The lady asked me if the vision were distinct enough for me +to recognise a likeness in the son's photograph; next day she laid +several photographs before me, and in a moment, without the slightest +hesitation I picked him out from his wonderful likeness to my vision!' + +The inquirer verbally corroborated all the facts to me, within a week, but +leaned to a theory of 'electricity.' She has read and confirms this +account. + +'II.--One afternoon I was sitting beside a young lady whom I had never +seen or heard of before. She asked if she might look into my crystal, +and while she did so I happened to look over her shoulder and saw a ship +tossing on a very heavy choppy sea, although land was still visible in +the dim distance. That vanished, and, as suddenly, a little house +appeared with five or six (I forget now the exact number I then counted) +steps leading up to the door. On the second step stood an old man +reading a newspaper. In front of the house was a field of thick +stubbly grass where some _lambs_, I was going to say, but they were more +like very small sheep.. were grazing. + +'When the scene vanished, the young lady told me I had vividly described +a spot in Shetland where she and her mother were soon going to spend a +few weeks.' + +I heard of this case from Miss Angus within a day or two of its +occurrence, and it was then confirmed to me, verbally, by the other lady. +She again confirms it (December 21, 1897). Both ladies had hitherto been +perfect strangers to each other. The old man was the schoolmaster, +apparently. In her MS., Miss Angus writes 'Skye,' but at the time both she +and the other lady said Shetland (which I have restored). In Shetland the +sheep, like the ponies, are small. Fortuitous coincidence, of course, may +be invoked. The next account is by another lady, say Miss Rose. + +'III.--Writes Miss Rose--My first experience of crystal gazing was not +a pleasant one, as will be seen from the following which I now relate as +exactly as I can remember. I asked my friend, Miss Angus, to allow me to +look in her crystal, and, after doing so for a short time, gave up, +saying it was very unsatisfactory, as, although I saw a room with a +bright fire in it and a bed all curtained and people coming and going, +I could not make out who they were, so I returned the crystal to Miss +Angus, with the request that she might look for me. She said at once, +"I see a bed with a man in it looking very ill and a lady in black +beside it." Without saying any more Miss Angus still kept looking, and, +after some time, I asked to have one more look, and on her passing the +ball back to me, I received quite a shock, for there, perfectly clearly +in a bright light, I saw stretched out in bed an old man apparently +dead; for a few minutes I could not look, and on doing so once more +there appeared a lady in black and out of dense darkness a long black +object was being carried and it stopped before a dark opening overhung +with rocks. At the time I saw this I was staying with cousins, +and it was a Friday evening. On Sunday we heard of the death of the +father-in-law of one of my cousins; of course I knew the old gentleman +was very ill, but my thoughts were not in the least about him when +looking in the crystal. I may also say I did not recognise in the +features of the dead man those of the old gentleman whose death I +mention. On looking again on Sunday, I once more saw the curtained bed +and some people.' + +I now give Miss Angus's version of this case, as originally received from +her (December 1897). I had previously received an oral version, from a +person present at the scrying. It differed, in one respect, from what Miss +Angus writes. Her version is offered because it is made independently, +without consultation, or attempt to reconcile recollections. + +'At a recent experience of gazing, for the first time I was able to make +another see what _I_ saw in the crystal. Miss Rose called one afternoon, +and begged me to look in the ball for her. I did so, and immediately +exclaimed, "Oh! here is a bed, with a man in it looking very ill [I saw +he was dead, but refrained from saying so], and there is a lady dressed +in black sitting beside the bed." I did not recognise the man to be +anyone I knew, so I told her to look. In a very short time she called +out, "Oh! I see the bed too! But, oh! take it away, the man is _dead_!" +She got quite a shock, and said she would never look in it again. Soon, +however, curiosity prompted her to have one more look, and the scene at +once came back again, and slowly, from a misty object at the side of the +bed, the lady in black became quite distinct. Then she described +several people in the room, and said they were carrying something all +draped in black. When she saw this, she put the ball down and would not +look at it again. She called again on Sunday (this had been on Friday) +with her cousin, and we teased her about being _afraid_ of the crystal, +so she said she would just look in it once more. She took the ball, but +immediately laid it down again, saying, "No, I won't look, as the bed +with the awful man in it is there again!" + +'When they went home, they heard that the cousin's father-in-law had +died that afternoon,[11] but to show he had never been in our thoughts, +although we _all_ knew he had not been well, _no one_ suggested him; his +name was never mentioned in connection with the vision.' + +'Clairvoyance,' of course, is not illustrated here, the corpse being +unrecognised, and the coincidence, doubtless, accidental. + +The next case is attested by a civilian, a slight acquaintance of Miss +Angus's, who now saw him for the second time only, but better known to her +family. + +'IV.--On Thursday, March --? 1897, I was lunching with my friends the +Anguses, and during luncheon the conversation turned upon crystal balls +and the visions that, by some people, can be seen in them. The subject +arose owing to Miss Angus having just been presented with a crystal ball +by Mr. Andrew Lang. I asked her to let me see it, and then to try and +see if she could conjure up a vision of any person of whom I might +think.... I fixed my mind upon a friend, a young trooper in the +[regiment named], as I thought his would be a striking and peculiar +personality, owing to his uniform, and also because I felt sure that +Miss Angus could not possibly know of his existence. I fixed my mind +steadily upon my friend, and presently Miss Angus, who had already seen +two cloudy visions of faces and people, called out, "Now I see a man on +a horse most distinctly; he is dressed most queerly, and glitters all +over--why, it's a soldier! a soldier in uniform, but it's not an +officer." My excitement on hearing this was so great that I ceased to +concentrate my attention upon the thought of my friend, and the vision +faded away and could not afterwards be recalled.--December 2, 1897.' + +The witness gives the name of the trooper, whom he had befriended in a +severe illness. Miss Angus's own account follows: she had told me the +story in June 1897. + +'Shortly after I became the happy possessor of a "crystal" I managed to +convert several very decided "sceptics," and I will here give a short +account of my experiences with two or three of them. + +'One was with a Mr. ----, who was so determined to baffle me, he said he +would think of a friend it would not be _possible_ for me to describe! + +'I had only met Mr. ---- the day before, and knew utmost nothing about +him or his personal friends. + +'I took up the ball, which immediately became misty, and out of this +mist gradually a crowd of people appeared, but too indistinctly for me +to recognise anyone, until suddenly a man on horseback came galloping +along. I remember saying, "I can't describe what he is like, but he is +dressed in a very queer way--in something so bright that the sun shining +on him quite dazzles me, and I cannot make him out!" As he came nearer I +exclaimed. "Why, it's a _soldier_ in shining armour, but it's not an +_officer_, only a soldier!" Two friends who were in the room said +Mr. ----'s excitement was intense, and my attention was drawn from the +ball by hearing him call out, "It's wonderful! it's perfectly true! I +was thinking of a young boy, a son of a crofter, in whom I am deeply +interested, and who is a trooper in the ---- in London, which would +account for the crowd of people round him in the street!"' + +The next case is given, first in the version of the lady who was +unconsciously scried for, and next in that of Miss Angus. The other lady +writes: + +'V.--I met Miss A. for the first time in a friend's house in the south +of England, and one evening mention was made of a crystal ball, and our +hostess asked Miss A. to look in it, and, if possible, tell her what was +happening to a friend of hers. Miss A. took the crystal, and our hostess +put her hand on Miss A.'s forehead to "will her." I, not believing in +this, took up a book and went to the other side of the room. I was +suddenly very much startled to hear Miss A., in quite an agitated way, +describe a scene that had most certainly been very often in my thoughts, +but of which I had never mentioned a word, She accurately described a +race-course in Scotland, and an accident which happened to a friend of +mine only a week or two before, and she was evidently going through the +same doubt and anxiety that I did at the time as to whether he was +actually killed or only very much hurt. It really was a most wonderful +revelation to me, as it was the very first time I had seen a crystal. +Our hostess, of course, was very much annoyed that she had not been able +to influence Miss A., while I, who had appeared so very indifferent, +should have affected her.--November 28, 1897.' + +Miss Angus herself writes: + +'Another case was a rather interesting one, as I somehow got inside the +thoughts of _one_ lady while _another_ was doing her best to influence +me! + +'Miss ----, a friend in Brighton, has strange "magnetic" powers, and +felt quite sure of success with me and the ball. + +'Another lady, Miss H., who was present, laughed at the whole thing, +especially when Miss ---- insisted on holding my hand and patting her +other hand on my forehead! Miss H. in a scornful manner took up a book, +and, crossing to the other side of the room, left us to our folly. + +'In a very short time I felt myself getting excited, which had never +happened before, when I looked in the crystal. I saw a crowd of people, +and in some strange way I felt I was in it, and we all seemed to be +waiting for something. Soon a rider came past, young, dressed for +racing. His horse ambled past, and he smiled and nodded to those he +knew in the crowd, and then was lost to sight. + +'In a moment we all seemed to feel as if something had happened, and I +went through great agony of suspense trying to see what seemed _just_ +beyond my view. Soon, however, two or three men approached, and carried +him past before my eyes, and again my anxiety was intense to discover if +he were only very badly hurt or if life were really extinct. All this +happened in a few moments, but long enough to have left me so agitated +that I could not realise it had only been a vision in a glass ball. + +'By this time Miss H. had laid aside her book, and came forward quite +startled, and told me that I had accurately described a scene on a +race-course in Scotland which she had witnessed just a week or two +before--a scene that had very often been in her thoughts, but, as we +were strangers to each other, she had never mentioned. She also said I +had exactly described her own feelings at the time, and had brought it +all back in a most vivid manner. + +'The other lady was rather disappointed that, after she had concentrated +her thoughts so hard, I should have been influenced instead by one who +had jeered at the whole affair.' + +[This anecdote was also told to me, within a few days of the occurrence, +by Miss Angus. Her version was that she first saw a gentleman rider going +to the post and nodding to his friends. Then she saw him carried on a +stretcher through the crowd. She seemed, she said, to be actually present, +and felt somewhat agitated. The fact of the accident was, later, mentioned +to me in Scotland by another lady, a stranger to all the persons.--A.L.] + +VI.--I may briefly add an experiment of December 21, 1897. A gentleman had +recently come from England to the Scottish town where Miss Angus lives. He +dined with her family, and about 10.15 to 10.30 P.M. she proposed to look +in the glass for a scene or person of whom he was to think. He called up a +mental picture of a ball at which he had recently been, and of a young +lady to whom he had there been introduced. The lady's face, however, he +could not clearly visualise, and Miss Angus reported nothing but a view of +an empty ball-room, with polished floor and many lights. The gentleman +made another effort, and remembered his partner with some distinctness. +Miss Angus then described another room, not a ball-room, comfortably +furnished, in which a girl with brown hair drawn back from her forehead, +and attired in a high-necked white blouse, was reading, or writing +letters, under a bright light in an unshaded glass globe. The description +of the features, figure, and height tallied with Mr. ----'s recollection; +but he had never seen this Geraldine of an hour except in ball dress. He +and Miss Angus noted the time by their watches (it was 10.30), and +Mr. ---- said that on the first opportunity he would ask the young lady +how she had been dressed and how employed at that hour on December 21. On +December 22 he met her at another dance, and her reply corroborated the +crystal picture. She had been writing letters, in a high-necked white +blouse, under an incandescent gas lamp with an unshaded glass globe. She +was entirely unknown to Miss Angus, and had only been seen once by +Mr. ----. Mr. ---- and the lady of the crystal picture corroborated all +this in writing. + +I now suggested an experiment to Miss Angus, which, after all, was clearly +not of a nature to establish a 'test' for sceptics. The inquirer was to +write down, and inclose in an envelope, a statement of his thoughts; Miss +Angus was to do the same with her description of the picture seen by her; +and these documents were to be sent to me, without communication between +the inquirer and the crystal-gazer. Of course, this could in no way prove +absence of collusion, as the two parties might arrange privately +beforehand what the vision was to be. + +Indeed, nobody is apt to be convinced, or shaken, unless he is himself the +inquirer and a stranger to the seeress, as the people in these experiments +were. Evidence interesting to _them_--and, in a secondary degree, to +others who know them--can thus be procured; but strangers are left to the +same choice of doubts as in all reports of psychological experiences, +'chromatic audition,' views of coloured numerals, and the other topics +illustrated by Mr. Galton's interesting researches. + +In this affair of the envelopes the inquirer was a Mr. Pembroke, who had +just made Miss Angus's acquaintance, and was but a sojourner in the land. +He wrote, before knowing what Miss Angus had seen in the ball: + +'VII.--On Sunday, January 23, 1898, whilst Miss Angus was looking in the +crystal ball, I was thinking of my brother, who was, I believe, at that +time, somewhere between Sabathu (Punjab, India) and Egypt. I was anxious +to know what stage of his journey he had reached.' + +Miss Angus saw, and wrote, before telling Mr. Pembroke: + +'A long and very white road, with tall trees at one side; on the other, +a river or lake of greyish water. Blue sky, with a crimson sunset. A +great black ship is anchored near, and on the deck I see a man lying, +apparently very ill. He is a powerful-looking man, fair, and very much +bronzed. Seven or eight Englishmen, in very light clothes, are standing +on the road beside the boat. + +'January 28, 1898.' + +'A great black ship,' anchored in 'a river or lake,' naturally suggests +the Suez Canal, where, in fact, Mr. Pembroke's brother was just arriving, +as was proved by a letter received from him eight days after the +experiment was recorded, on January 31. At that date Mr. Pembroke had not +yet been told the nature of Miss Angus's crystal picture, nor had she any +knowledge of his brother's whereabouts. + +In February 1898, Miss Angus again came to the place where I was residing. +We visited together the scene of an historical crime, and Miss Angus +looked into the glass ball. It was easy for her to 'visualise' the +incidents of the crime (the murder of Cardinal Beaton), for they are +familiar enough to many people. What she did see in the ball was a tall, +pale lady, 'about forty, but looking thirty-five,' with hair drawn +back from the brows, standing beside a high chair, dressed in a wide +farthingale of stiff grey brocade, without a ruff. The costume corresponds +well (as we found) with that of 1546, and I said, 'I suppose it is +Mariotte Ogilvy'--to whom Miss Angus's historical knowledge (and perhaps +that of the general public) did not extend. Mariotte was the Cardinal's +lady-love, and was in the Castle on the night before the murder, +according to Knox. She had been in my mind, whence (on the theory of +thought transference) she may have passed to Miss Angus's mind; but I had +never speculated on Mariotte's costume. Nothing but conjecture, of course, +comes of these apparently 'retrospective' pictures; though a most singular +and picturesque coincidence occurred, which may be told in a very +different connection. + +The next example was noted at the same town. The lady who furnishes it is +well known to me, and it was verbally corroborated by Miss Angus, to whom +the lady, her absent nephew, and all about her, were entirely strange. + +'VIII.--I was very anxious to know whether my nephew would be sent to +India this year, so I told Miss Angus that I had thought of something, +and asked her to look in the glass ball. She did so, but almost +immediately turned round and looked out of the window at the sea, and +said, "I saw a ship so distinctly I thought it must be a reflection." +She looked in the ball again, and said, "It is a large ship, and it is +passing a huge rock with a lighthouse on it. I can't see who are on the +ship, but the sky is very clear and blue. Now I see a large building, +something like a club, and in front there are a great many people +sitting and walking about. I think it must be some place abroad, for the +people are all dressed in very light clothes, and it seems to be very +sunny and warm. I see a young man sitting on a chair, with his feet +straight out before him. He is not talking to anyone, but seems to be +listening to something. He is dark and slight, and not very tall; and +his eyebrows are dark and very distinctly marked." + +'I had not had the pleasure of meeting Miss Angus before, and she knew +nothing whatever about my nephew; but the young man described was +exactly like him, both in his appearance and in the way he was sitting.' + +In this case thought transference may be appealed to. The lady was +thinking of her nephew in connection with India. It is not maintained, of +course, that the picture was of a prophetic character. + +The following examples have some curious and unusual features. On +Wednesday, February 2, 1897, Miss Angus was looking in the crystal, +to amuse six or seven people whose acquaintance she had that day made. +A gentleman, Mr. Bissett, asked her 'what letter was in his pocket,' +She then saw, under a bright sky, and, as it were, a long way off, +a large building, in and out of which many men were coming and going. +Her impression was that the scene must be abroad. In the little company +present, it should be added, was a lady, Mrs. Cockburn, who had +considerable reason to think of her young married daughter, then at a +place about fifty miles away. After Miss Angus had described the large +building and crowds of men, some one asked, 'Is it an exchange?' 'It +might be,' she said. 'Now comes a man in a great hurry. He has a broad +brow, and short, curly hair;[12] hat pressed low down on his eyes. The +face is very serious; but he has a delightful smile.' Mr. and Mrs. +Bissett now both recognised their friend and stockbroker, whose letter was +in Mr. Bissett's pocket. + +The vision, which interested Miss Angus, passed away, and was interrupted +by that of a hospital nurse, and of a lady in a _peignoir_, lying on a +sofa, _with bare feet_.[13] Miss Angus mentioned this vision as a bore, +she being more interested in the stockbroker, who seems to have inherited +what was once in the possession of another stockbroker--'the smile of +Charles Lamb.' Mrs. Cockburn, for whom no pictures appeared, was rather +vexed, and privately expressed with freedom a very sceptical opinion +about the whole affair. But, on Saturday, February 5, 1897, Miss Angus was +again with Mr. and Mrs. Bissett. When Mrs. Bissett announced that she had +'thought of something,' Miss Angus saw a walk in a wood or garden, beside +a river, under a brilliant blue sky. Here was a lady, very well dressed, +twirling a white parasol on her shoulder as she walked, in a curious +'stumpy' way, beside a gentleman in light clothes, such as are worn in +India. He was broad-shouldered, had a short neck and a straight nose, and +seemed to listen, laughing, but indifferent, to his obviously vivacious +companion. The lady had a 'drawn' face, indicative of ill health. Then +followed a scene in which the man, without the lady, was looking on at a +number of Orientals busy in the felling of trees. Mrs. Bissett recognised, +in the lady, her sister, Mrs. Clifton, in India--above all, when Miss +Angus gave a realistic imitation of Mrs. Clifton's walk, the peculiarity +of which was caused by an illness some years ago. Mrs. and Mr. Bissett +also recognised their brother-in-law in the gentleman seen in both +pictures. On being shown a portrait of Mrs. Clifton as a girl, Miss Angus +said it was 'like, but too pretty.' A photograph done recently, however, +showed her 'the drawn face' of the crystal picture.[14] + +Next day, Sunday, February 6, Mrs. Bissett received, what was not +usual--a letter from her sister in India, Mrs. Clifton, dated January 20. +Mrs. Clifton described a place in a native State, where she had been at a +great 'function,' in certain gardens beside a river. She added that they +were going to another place for a certain purpose, 'and then we go into +camp till the end of February.' One of Mr. Clifton's duties is to direct +the clearing of wood preparatory to the formation of the camp, as in Miss +Angus's crystal picture.[15] The sceptical Mrs. Cockburn heard of these +coincidences, and an idea occurred to her. She wrote to her daughter, who +has been mentioned, and asked whether, on Wednesday, February 2, she had +been lying on a sofa in her bed-room, with bare feet. The young lady +confessed that it was indeed so;[16] and, when she heard how the fact came +to be known, expressed herself with some warmth on the abuse of glass +balls, which tend to rob life of its privacy. + +In this case the _prima facie_ aspect of things is that a thought +of Mr. Bissett's about his stockbroker, _dulce ridentem_, somehow +reflected itself into Miss Angus's mind by way of the glass ball, and +was interrupted by a thought of Mrs. Cockburn's, as to her daughter. But +how these thoughts came to display the unknown facts concerning the +garden by the river, the felling of trees for a camp, and the bare feet, +is a question about which it is vain to theorise.[17] + +On the vanishing of the jungle scene there appeared a picture of a man in +a dark undress uniform, beside a great bay, in which were ships of war. +Wooden huts, as in a plague district, were on shore. Mr. Bissett asked, +'What is the man's expression?' 'He looks as if he had been giving a lot +of last orders.' Then appeared 'a place like a hospital, with five or six +beds--no, berths: it is a ship. Here is the man again.' He was minutely +described, one peculiarity being the way in which his hair grew--or, +rather, did not grow--on his temples. + +Miss Angus now asked, 'Where is my little lady?'--meaning the lady of the +twirling parasol and _staccato_ walk. 'Oh, I've left off thinking of her,' +said Mrs. Bissett, who had been thinking of, and recognised in the +officer in undress uniform, her brother, the man with the singular hair, +whose face, in fact, had been scarred in that way by an encounter with a +tiger. He was expected to sail from Bombay, but news of his setting +forth has not been received (February 10) at the moment when this is +written.[18] + +In these Indian cases, 'thought transference' may account for the +correspondence between the figures seen by Miss Angus and the ideas in the +mind of Mr. and Mrs. Bissett. But the hypothesis of thought transference, +while it would cover the wooden huts at Bombay (Mrs. Bissett knowing that +her brother was about to leave that place), can scarcely explain the scene +in the garden by the river and the scene with the trees. The incident of +the bare feet may be regarded as a fortuitous coincidence, since Miss +Angus saw the young lady foreshortened, and could not describe her face. + +In the Introductory Chapter it was observed that the phenomena which +apparently point to some unaccountable supernormal faculty of acquiring +knowledge are 'trivial.' These anecdotes illustrate the triviality; but +the facts certainly left a number of people, wholly unfamiliar with such +experiments, under the impression that Miss Angus's glass ball was like +Prince Ali's magical telescope in the 'Arabian Nights.'[19] These +experiments, however, occasionally touch on intimate personal matters, +and cannot be reported in such instances. + +It will be remarked that the faculty is freakish, and does not always +respond to conscious exertion of thought in the mind of the inquirer. +Thus, in Case I. a connection of the person thought of is discerned; in +another the mind of a stranger present seems to be read. In another +case (not given here) the inquirer tried to visualise a card for a +person present to guess, while Miss Angus was asked to describe an object +which the inquirer was acquainted with, but which he banished from his +conscious thought. The double experiment was a double-barrelled success. + +It seems hardly necessary to point out that chance coincidence will not +cover this set of cases, where in each 'guess' the field of conjecture +is boundless, and is not even narrowed by the crystal-gazer's knowledge +of the persons for whose diversion she makes the experiment. As +'muscle-reading' is not in question (in the one case of contact between +inquirer and crystal-gazer the results were unexpected), and as no +unconsciously made signs could convey, for example, the idea of a cavalry +soldier in uniform, or an accident on a race-course in two _tableaux_, I +do not at present see any more plausible explanation than that of thought +transference, though how that is to account for some of the cases given I +do not precisely understand. + +Any one who can accept the assurance of my personal belief in the +good faith of all concerned will see how very useful this faculty of +crystal-gazing must be to the Apache or Australian medicine-man or +Polynesian priest. Freakish as the faculty is, a few real successes, well +exploited and eked out by fraud, would set up a wizard's reputation. That +a faculty of being thus affected is genuine seems proved, apart from +modern evidence, by the world-wide prevalence of crystal-gazing in the +ethnographic region. But the discovery of this prevalence had not been +made, to my knowledge, before modern instances induced me to notice the +circumstances, sporadically recorded in books of travel. + +The phenomena are certainly of a kind to encourage the savage theory of +the wandering soul. How else, thinkers would say, can the seer visit the +distant place or person, and correctly describe men and scenes which, in +the body, he never saw? Or they would encourage the Polynesian belief +that the 'spirit' of the thing or person looked for is suspended by a god +over the water, crystal, blood, ink, or whatever it may be. Thus, to +anthropologists, the discovery of crystal-gazing as a thing widely +diffused and still flourishing ought to be grateful, however much they +may blame my childish credulity. I may add that I have no ground to +suppose that crystal-gazing will ever be of practical service to the +police or to persons who have lost articles of portable property. But I +have no objection to experiments being made at Scotland Yard.[20] + +[Footnote 1: Information, with a photograph of the stones, from a +correspondent in West Maitland, Australia.] + +[Footnote 2: _Report Ethnol. Bureau_, 1887-88, p. 460; vol. ii. p. 69. +Captain Bourke's volume on _The Medicine Men of the Apaches_ may also be +consulted.] + +[Footnote 3: Fitzroy, _Adventure_, vol. ii. p. 389.] + +[Footnote 4: _L'Histoire de la grand Ile Madagascar_, par le Sieur de +Flacourt. Paris, 1661, ch. 76. Veue de deux Navires de France predite par +les Negres, avant que l'on en peust scavoir des Nouvelles, &c.] + +[Footnote 5: _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 341.] + +[Footnote 6: _J.A.I_., November 1894, p. 155. Ryckov is cited; _Zhurnal_, +p. 86.] + +[Footnote 7: _Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, Christoval de Molina, p. 12.] + +[Footnote 8: See Miss X's article, S.P.R. _Proceedings_, v. 486.] + +[Footnote 9: Op. cit. v. 505.] + +[Footnote 10: If any reader wishes to make experiments, he, or she, should +not be astonished if the first crystal figure represents 'the sheeted +dead,' or a person ill in bed. For some reason, or no reason, this is +rather a usual prelude, signifying nothing.] + +[Footnote 11: Sunday afternoon. It is not implied that the pictures on +Friday were prophetic. Probably Miss Rose saw what Miss Angus had seen by +aid of 'suggestion.'] + +[Footnote 12: Miss Angus could not be sure of the colour of the hair.] + +[Footnote 13: The position was such that Miss Angus could not see the face +of the lady.] + +[Footnote 14: I saw the photographs.] + +[Footnote 15: I have been shown the letter of January 20, which confirmed +the evidence of the crystal pictures. The camp was formed for official +purposes in which Mr. Clifton was concerned. A letter of February 9 +unconsciously corroborates.] + +[Footnote 16: The incident of the feet occurred at 4.30 to 7.30 P.M. The +crystal picture was about 10 P.M.] + +[Footnote 17: Miss Angus had only within the week made the acquaintance of +Mrs. Cockburn and the Bissetts. Of these relations of theirs at a distance +she had no knowledge.] + +[Footnote 18: I have seen a photograph of this gentleman, Major Hamilton, +which tallies with the full description given by Miss Angus, as reported +by Mrs. Bissett. All the proper names here, as throughout, are altered. + +This account I wrote from the verbal statement of Mrs. Bissett. It +was then read and corroborated by herself, Mr. Bissett, Mr. Cockburn, +Mrs. Cockburn, and Miss Angus, who added dates and signatures.] + +[Footnote 19: The letters attesting each of these experiments are in my +possession. The real names are in no case given in this account, by my own +desire, but (with permission of the persona concerned) can be communicated +privately.] + +[Footnote 20: The faculty of seeing 'fancy pictures' in the glass is +far from uncommon. I have only met with three other persons besides +Miss Angus, two of them men, who had any success in 'telepathic' +crystal-gazing. In correcting 'revises' (March 16), I leant that the +brother of Mr. Pembroke (p. 105) wrote from Cairo on January 27. The +'scry' of January 23 represented his ship in the Suez Canal. He was, as +his letter shows, in quarantine at Suez, at Moses's Wells, from January 25 +to January 26. Major Hamilton (pp. 109, 110), on the other hand, left +Bombay, indeed, but not by sea, as in the crystal-picture. See Appendix C. +Mr. Starr, an American critic, adds Cherokees, Aztecs, and Tonkaways to +the ranks of crystal gazers.] + + + + +VI + +ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS + +We have been examining cases, savage or civilised, in which knowledge is +believed to be acquired through no known channel of sense. All such +instances among savages, whether of the nature of clairvoyance simple, +or by aid of gazing in a smooth surface, or in dreams, or in trance, or +through second sight, would confirm if they did not originate the belief +in the separable soul. The soul, if it is to visit distant places and +collect information, must leave the body, it would be argued, and must so +far be capable of leading an independent life. Perhaps we ought next to +study cases of 'possession,' when knowledge is supposed to be conveyed by +an alien soul, ghost, spirit, or god, taking up its abode in a man, and +speaking out of his lips. But it seems better first to consider the +alleged super-normal phenomena which may have led the savage reasoner to +believe that _he_ was not the only owner of a separable soul: that other +people were equally gifted. + +The sense, as of separation, which a savage dreamer or seer would feel +after a dream or vision in which he visited remote places, would satisfy +him that _his_ soul, at least, was volatile. But some experience of what +he would take to be visits from the spirits of others, would be needed +before he recognised that other men, as well as he, had the faculty of +sending their souls a journeying. + +Now, ordinary dreams, in which the dreamer seemed to see persons who were +really remote; would supply to the savage reasoner a certain amount of +affirmative evidence. It is part of Mr. Tylor's contention that savages +(like some children) are subject to the difficulty which most of us may +have occasionally felt in deciding 'Did this really happen, or did I dream +it?' Thus, ordinary dreams would offer to the early thinker some +evidence that other men's souls could visit his, as he believes that his +can visit them. + +But men, we may assume, were not, at the assumed stage of thought, so +besotted as not to take a great practical distinction between sleeping +and waking experience on the whole. As has been shown, the distinction +is made by the lowest savages of our acquaintance. One clear _waking_ +hallucination, on the other hand, of the presence of a person really +absent, could not but tell more with the early philosopher than a score of +dreams, for to be easily forgotten is of the essence of a dream. Savages, +indeed, oddly enough, have hit on our theory, 'dreams go by contraries.' +Dr. Callaway illustrates this for the Zulus, and Mr. Scott for the +Mang'anza. Thus they _do_ discriminate between sleeping and waking. We +must therefore examine _waking_ hallucinations in the field of actual +experience, and on such recent evidence as may be accessible. If these +hallucinations agree, in a certain ratio, beyond what fortuitous +coincidence can explain, with real but unknown events, then such +hallucinations would greatly strengthen, in the mind of an early +thinker, the savage theory that a man at a distance may, voluntarily or +involuntarily, project his spirit on a journey, and be seen where he is +not present. + +When Mr. Tylor wrote his book, the study of the occasional waking +hallucinations of the sane and healthy was in its infancy. Much, indeed, +had been written about hallucinations, but these were mainly the chronic +false perceptions of maniacs, of drunkards, and of persons in bad +health such as Nicolai and Mrs. A. The hallucinations of persons of +genius--Jeanne d'Arc, Luther, Socrates, Pascal, were by some attributed +to lunacy in these famous people. Scarcely any writers before Mr. Galton +had recognised the occurrence of hallucinations once in a life, perhaps, +among healthy, sober, and mentally sound people. If these were known to +occur, they were dismissed as dreams of an unconscious sleep. This is +still practically the hypothesis of Dr. Parish, as we shall see later. +But in the last twenty years the infrequent hallucinations of the sane +have been recognised by Mr. Galton, and discussed by Professor James, +Mr. Gurney, Dr. Parish, and many other writers. + +Two results have followed. First, 'ghosts' are shown to be, when not +illusions caused by mistaking one object for another, then hallucinations. +As these most frequently represent a living person who is not present, by +parity of reason the appearance of a dead person is on the same level, is +not a space-filling 'ghost,' but merely an hallucination. Such an +appearance can, _prima facie_, suggest no reasonable inference as to the +continued existence of the dead. On the other hand, the new studies have +raised the perhaps insoluble question, 'Do not hallucinations of the sane, +representing the living, coincide more frequently than mere luck can +account for, with the death or other crisis of the person apparently +seen?' If this could be proved, then there would seem to be a causal +_nexus_, a relation of cause and effect between the hallucination and the +coincident crisis. That connection would be provisionally explained by +some not understood action of the mind or brain of the person in the +crisis, on that of the person who has the hallucination. This is no new +idea; only the name, Telepathy, is modern. Of course, if all this were +accepted, it would be the next step to ask whether hallucinations +representing the dead show any signs of being caused by some action on the +side of the departed. That is a topic on which the little that we have to +say must be said later. + +In the meantime the reader who has persevered so far is apt to go no +further. The prejudice against 'wraiths' and 'ghosts' is very strong; but, +then, our innocent phantasms are neither (as we understand their nature) +ghosts nor wraiths. Kant broke the edges of his metaphysical tools +against, not these phantasms, but the logically inconceivable entities +which were at once material and non-material, at once 'spiritual' and +'space-filling.' There is no such difficulty about hallucinations, which, +whatever else may be said about them, are familiar facts of experience. +The only real objections are the statements that hallucinations are +always _morbid_ (which is no longer the universal belief of physiologists +and psychologists), and that the alleged coincidences of a phantasm of a +person with the unknown death of that person at a distance are 'pure +flukes.' That is the question to which we recur later. + +In the meantime, the defenders of the theory, that there is some not +understood connection of cause and effect between the death or other +crisis at one end and the perception representing the person affected by +the crisis at the other end, point out that such hallucinations, or other +effects on the percipient, exist in a regular rising scale of potency and +perceptibility. Suppose that 'A's' death in Yorkshire is to affect the +consciousness of 'B' in Surrey before he knows anything about the fact +(suppose it for the sake of argument), then the effect may take place +(1) on 'B's' emotions, producing a vague _malaise_ and gloom; (2) on his +motor nerves, urging him to some act; (3) or may translate itself into his +senses, as a touch felt, a voice heard, a figure seen; or (4) may render +itself as a phrase or an idea. + +Of these, (1) the emotional effect is, of course, the vaguest. We may all +have had a sudden fit of gloom which we could not explain. People rarely +act on such impressions, and, when they do, are often wrong. Thus a +friend of my own was suddenly so overwhelmed, at golf, with inexplicable +misery (though winning his match) that he apologised to his opponent and +walked home from the ninth hole. Nothing was wrong at home. Probably some +real ground of apprehension had obscurely occurred to his mind and +expressed itself in his emotion. + +But one may illustrate what did look like a coincidence by the experience +of the same friend. He inhabited, as a young married man, a flat in a +house belonging to an acquaintance. The hall was covered by a kind of +glass roof, over part of its extent. He was staying in the country +with his wife, and as they travelled home the lady was beset with an +irresistible conviction that something terrible had occurred, _not_ to her +children. On reaching their house they found that one of their maids had +fallen through the glass roof and killed herself. They also learned that +the girl's sister had arrived at the house, immediately after the +accident, explaining that she was driven to come by a sense that something +dreadful had happened. The lawyer, too, who represented the owner of the +house, had appeared, unsummoned, from a conviction, which he could not +resist, that for some reason unknown he was wanted there.[1] Here, then, +was not an hallucination, but an emotional effect simultaneously reaching +the consciousness of three persons, and coinciding with an unknown +crisis.[2] + +Cases in which a person feels urged to an act (2) are also recorded. +Indeed, the lawyer's in our anecdote is such an instance. Not to trouble +ourselves (3) with 'voices,' hallucinations of sight, coinciding with a +distant unknown crisis, are traced from a mere feeling that somebody is in +the room, followed by a _mental_, or _mind's eye_ picture of a person +dying at a distance, up to a kind of 'vision' of a person or scene, and so +on to hallucinations appealing, at once, to touch, sight, and hearing. As +some hundreds of these narratives of coincidental hallucinations in every +degree have been collected from witnesses at first hand, often personally +known, and usually personally cross-questioned, by the student, it is +difficult to deny that there is a _prima facie_ case for inquiry.[3] + +There is here no question of 'spirits,' with all their physical and +metaphysical difficulties. Nor is there any desire to shirk the fact that +many 'presentiments' and hallucinations of the sane coincide with no +ascertainable fact. We only provisionally posit the possibility of an +influence, in its nature unknown, of one mind on another at a distance, +such influence translating itself into an hallucination. An inquiry into +this subject, in the ethnographic and modern fields, may be new but +involves no 'superstition.' + +We now return to Mr. Tylor, who treats of hallucinations among other +experiences which led early savage thinkers to believe in ghosts or +separable souls, the origin of religion. + +As to the causes of hallucinations in general, Mr. Tylor has something to +say, but it is nothing systematic. 'Sickness, exhaustion, and excitement' +cause savages to behold 'human spectres,' in 'the objective reality' of +which they believe. But if an educated modern, not sick, nor exhausted, +nor excited, has an hallucination of a friend's presence, he, too, +believes that it is 'objective,' is his friend in flesh and blood, till +he finds out his mistake, by examination or reflection. As Professor +William James remarks, in his 'Principles of Psychology,' such solitary +hallucinations of the sane and healthy, once in a life-time, are difficult +to account for, and are by no means rare. 'Sometimes,' Mr. Tylor observes, +'the phantom has the characteristic quality of not being visible to all of +an assembled company,' and he adds 'to assert or imply that they are +visible sometimes, and to some persons, but not always, or to everyone, +is to lay down an explanation of facts which is not, indeed, our usual +modern explanation, but which is a perfectly rational and intelligible +product of early science.' + +It is, indeed, nor has later science produced any rational and +intelligible explanation of collective hallucinations, shared by several +persons at once, and perhaps not perceived by others who are present. Mr. +Tylor, it is true, asserts that 'in civilised countries a rumour of some +one having seen a phantom is enough to bring a sight of it to others whose +minds are in a properly receptive state.' But this is arguing in a circle; +What is 'a properly receptive state'? If illness, overwork, 'expectant +attention,' make 'a properly receptive state,' I should have seen several +phantoms in several 'haunted houses.' But the only thing of the sort I +ever saw occurred when I was thinking of nothing less, when I was in good +health, and when I did not know (nor did I learn till long after) that it +was the right and usual phantom to see. Mr. Podmore remarks that various +members of the Psychical Society have sojourned in various 'haunted +houses,' 'some of them in a state of expectancy and nervous excitement,' +which never caused them to see phantoms, for they saw none.[4] + +Mr. Tylor treats of waking hallucinations in much the same manner as he +deals with 'travelling clairvoyance.' He does not study them 'in the field +of experience.' He is not concerned with the truth of the facts, important +as we think it would be, but with his theory that hallucinations, among +other causes, would naturally give rise to the belief in spirits, and thus +to the early philosophy of Animism. Now, certainly, the hallucination of a +person's presence, say at the moment of his death at a distance, would +suggest to a savage that something of the dying man's, something +symbolised in the word 'shadow,' or 'breath' _(spiritus)_, had come to say +farewell. The modern 'spiritualistic' theory, again, that the dead man's +'spirit' is actually present to the percipient, in space, corresponds to, +and is derived from, the animistic philosophy of the savage. But we may +believe in such 'death-wraiths,' or hallucinatory appearances of +the dying, without being either savages or spiritualists. We may +believe without pretending to explain, or we may advance the theory of +'Telepathy,' Hegel's 'magical tie,' according to which the distant mind +somehow impresses itself, in a more or less perfect hallucination, on the +mind of the person who perceives the wraith. If this be so, or even if no +explanation be offered, the truth of the stories of coincidental +apparitions becomes important, as pointing to a new region of psychical +inquiry. Then the evidence of savages as to hallucinations of their own, +coincident with the death of their absent friends, will confirm, +_quantum valeat_, the evidence of many modern observers in all ranks of +life, and all degrees of culture, from Lord Brougham to an old nurse.[5] + +As to hallucinations coincident with the death of the person apparently +seen, Mr. Tylor says: 'Narratives of this class I can here only specify +without arguing on them, they are abundantly in circulation.'[6] Now, the +modern hallucinations themselves can scarcely, perhaps, be called +'survivals from savagery,' though the opinion that an hallucination of a +person must be his 'spirit' is really such a survival. It is with that +opinion, with Animism in its hallucinatory origins, that Mr. Tylor is +concerned, not with the hallucinations themselves or with the evidence +for their veridical existence. + +Mr. Tylor gives three anecdotes, narrated to him, in two cases, by the +seers, of phantasms of the living beheld by them (and in one case by a +companion also) when the real person was dying at a distance. He adds: 'My +own view is that nothing but dreams and visions could have ever put into +men's minds such an idea as that of souls being ethereal images of +bodies.'[7] The idea may be perfectly erroneous; but if the occurrence +of such coincidental appearances as Mr. Tylor tells us about could be +shown to be too frequent for mere chance to produce, then there would be +a presumption in favour of some unknown faculties in our nature--a proper +theme for anthropology. + +The hallucinations of which we hear most are those in which a person +sees the phantom of another person, who, unknown to him, is in or near +the hour of death. Mr. Tylor, in addition to his three instances in +civilised life, alludes to one in savage life, with references to other +cases.[8] We turn to his savage instance, offering it at full length from +the original.[9] + +'Among the Maoris' (says Mr. Shortland) 'it is always ominous to see the +figure of an absent person. If the figure is very shadowy, and its face is +not seen, death, although he may ere long be expected, has not seized his +prey. If the face of the absent person is seen, the omen forewarns the +beholder that he is already dead.' + +The following statement is from the mouth of an eyewitness: + +'A party of natives left their village, with the intention of being +absent some time, on a pig-hunting expedition. One night, while they +were seated in the open air around a blazing fire, the figure of a +relative who had been left ill at home was seen to approach. The +apparition appeared to two of the party only, and vanished immediately +on their making an exclamation of surprise. When they returned to the +village they inquired for the sick man, and then learnt that he had +died about the time he was said to have been seen.' + +I now give Maori cases, communicated to me by Mr. Tregear, F.R.G.S., +author of a 'Maori Comparative Dictionary.' + +A very intelligent Maori chief said to me, 'I have seen but two ghosts. +I was a boy at school in Auckland, and one morning was asleep in bed +when I found myself aroused by some one shaking me by the shoulder. I +looked up, and saw bending over me the well-known form of my uncle, whom +I supposed to be at the Bay of Islands. I spoke to him, but the form +became dim and vanished. The next mail brought me the news of his +death. Years passed away, and I saw no ghost or spirit--not even when +my father and mother died, and I was absent in each case. Then one day I +was sitting reading, when a dark shadow fell across my book. I looked +up, and saw a man standing between me and the window. His back was +turned towards me. I saw from his figure that he was a Maori, and I +called out to him, "Oh friend!" He turned round, and I saw my other +uncle, Ihaka. The form faded away as the other had done. I had not +expected to hear of my uncle's death, for I had seen him hale and strong +a few hours before. However, he had gone into the house of a missionary, +and he (with several white people) was poisoned by eating of a pie made +from tinned meat, the tin having been opened and the meat left in it all +night. That is all I myself had seen of spirits.' + +One more Maori example may be offered:[10] + +From Mr. Francis Dart Fenton, formerly in the Native Department of the +Government, Auckland, New Zealand. He gave the account in writing to his +friend, Captain J.H. Crosse, of Monkstown, Cork, from whom we received +it. In 1852, when the incident occurred, Mr. Fenton was 'engaged in +forming a settlement on the banks of the Waikato.' + +'March 25, 1860 + +'Two sawyers, Frank Philps and Jack Mulholland, were engaged cutting +timber for the Rev. R. Maunsell at the mouth of the Awaroa creek--a very +lonely place, a vast swamp, no people within miles of them. As usual, +they had a Maori with them to assist in felling trees. He came from +Tihorewam, a village on the other side of the river, about six miles +off. As Frank and the native were cross-cutting a tree, the native +stopped suddenly, and said, "What are you come for?" looking in the +direction of Frank. Frank replied, "What do you mean?" He said, "I am +not speaking to you; I am speaking to my brother." Frank said, "Where is +he?" The native replied, "Behind you. What do you want?" (to the other +Maori), Frank looked round and saw nobody. The native no longer saw +anyone, but bid down the saw and said, "I shall go across the river; my +brother is dead." + +'Frank laughed at him, and reminded him that be had left him quite well +on Sunday (five days before), and there had been no communication since. +The Maori spoke no more, but got into his canoe and pulled across. When +he arrived at the landing-place, he met people coming to fetch him. His +brother had just died. I knew him well.' + +In answer to inquiries as to his authority for this narrative, Mr. Fenton +writes: + +'December 18, 1883. + +'I knew all the parties concerned well, and it is quite true, _valeat +quantum_, as the lawyers say. Incidents of this sort are not infrequent +among the Maoris. + +'F.D. FENTON, + _'Late Chief Judge, Native Law-Court of N.Z.'_ + +Here is a somewhat analogous example from Tierra del Fuego: + +'Jemmy Button was very superstitious' (says Admiral Fitzroy, speaking of +a Fuegian brought to England). 'While at sea, on board the "Beagle," he +said one morning to Mr. Bynoe that in the night some man came to the +side of his hammock and whispered in his ear that his father was dead. +He fully believed that such was the case,' and he was perfectly +right.... 'He reminded Bennett of the dream.'[11] + +Mr. Darwin also mentions this case, a coincidental auditory hallucination. + +I have found no other savage cases quite to the point. This is, +undeniably, 'a puir show for Kirkintilloch,' a meagre collection of savage +death-wraiths, but it may be so meagre by reason of want of research, or +of lack of records, travellers usually pooh-poohing the benighted +superstitions of the heathen, or fearing to seem superstitious if they +chronicle instances. However few the instances, they are, undeniably, +exact parallels to those recorded in civilised life. + +In filling up the lacuna in Mr. Tylor's anthropological work, in asking +questions as to the proportion between phantasms of the living which +coincide with a crisis in the experience of the person seen, and those +which do not, it is obviously necessary to reject all evidence of people +who were ill, or anxious, or overworked, or in poignant grief at the time +of the hallucination. It will be seen later that neither grief nor amatory +passion (dominating the association of our ideas as they do) beget many +phantasms. Our business, however, is with the false perceptions of persons +trustworthy, as far as we know, sane, healthy, not usually visionary, and +in an unperturbed state of mind. + +There remains a normal cause of subjective hallucinations, expectancy. +This appears to be a real cause of hallucination or, at least, of +illusion. Waiting for the sound of a carriage you may hear it often before +it comes, you taking other sounds for that which you desire. Again, in an +inquiry embracing 17,000 people, the S.P.R. collected thirteen cases of an +hallucinatory appearance of one person to another who was _expecting_ his +arrival. Once more, it is very conceivable that a trifle, the accidental +opening of a door, a noise of a familiar kind in an unfamiliar place, may +touch the brain into originating an hallucination of a person passing +through the door, or of the place where the sound now heard used once to +be familiar. Expectancy, again, and nervousness, might doubtless cause an +hallucination to a person who felt uncomfortable in a house with a name to +be 'haunted,' though, as we have seen, the effect is far less common than +the cause. All these sorts of causes are undoubtedly more apt to be +prevalent among superstitious savages than among educated Europeans. +And it stands to reason that savages, where one man 'thinks he sees +something,' will be readier than we are to think they 'see something' too. +Yet collective hallucinations, which are shared by several persons at +once, are especially puzzling. Even if they occur when all are in a +strained condition of expectancy, it is odd that all see them in _the same +way_.[12] Examples will occur later. When there is no excitement, the +mystery is increased. We may note that, among the expectant multitudes who +looked on while Bernadette was viewing the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes, not +one person, however superstitious or hysterical, pretended to share the +vision. Again, only one person, and he on doubtful evidence, is asserted +to have shared, once, the visions of Jeanne d'Arc. In both cases all the +conditions said to produce collective hallucination were present in the +highest degree. Yet no collective hallucination occurred. + +Narratives about hallucinations coincident with a death, narratives well +attested, are abundant in modern times, so abundant that one need only +refer the curious to Messrs. Gurney and Myers's two large volumes, +'Phantasms of the Living,' and to the S.P.R 'Report of Census of +Hallucinations' (1894). Mr. Tylor says: 'The spiritualistic theory +specially insists on cases of apparitions, where the person's death +corresponds more or less nearly with the time when some friend perceives +his phantom.' But visionaries, he remarks truly, often see phantoms of +living persons when nothing occurs. That is the case, and the question +arises whether more such phantoms are viewed (_not_ by 'visionaries') +in connection with the death or other crisis of the person whose +hallucinatory appearance is perceived, than ought to occur, if there be no +connection of some unknown cause between deaths and appearances. As Mr. +Tylor observes, 'Man, as yet in a low intellectual condition, came to +associate in thought those things which he found by experience to be +connected in fact.'[13] Did early man, then, find _in experience_ that +apparitions of his friends were 'connected in fact' with their deaths? +And, if so, was that discovered connection in fact the origin of his +belief that an hallucinatory appearance of an absent person sometimes +announced his death? + +That the belief exists in New Zealand we saw, and find confirmed by this +instance, one of 'many such relations,' says the author. A Maori chief was +long absent on the war-path. One day he entered his wife's hut, and sat +mute by the hearth. She ran to bring witnesses, but on her return the +phantasm was no longer visible. The woman soon afterwards married again. + +Her husband then returned in perfect health, and pardoned the lady, as +she had acted on what, to a Maori mind, seemed good legal evidence of +his decease. Of course, even if she fabled, the story is evidence to the +existence of the belief.[14] + +What, then, is the cause of the belief that a phantom of a man is a token +of his death? On the theory of savage philosophy, as explained by Mr. +Tylor himself, a man's soul may leave his body and become visible to +others, not at death only, but on many other occasions, in dream, trance, +lethargy. All these are much more frequent conditions, in every man's +career, than the fact of dying. Why, then, is the phantasm supposed by +savages to announce death? Is it because, in a sufficient ratio of cases +to provoke remark, early man has found the appearance and the death to be +'things connected in fact'? + +I give an instance in which the philosophy of savages would lead them +_not_ to connect a phantasm of a living man with his death. + +The Woi Worung, an Australian tribe, hold that 'the Murup [wraith] of an +individual could be sent from him by magic, as, for instance, when a +hunter incautiously went to sleep when out hunting.'[15] In this case the +hunter is exposed to the magic of his enemies. But the Murup, or detached +soul, would be visible to people at a distance when its owner is only +asleep--according to the savage philosophy. Why, then, when the wraith is +seen, is the owner believed to be dying? Are the things bound to be +'connected in fact'? + +As is well known, the Society for Psychical Research has attempted a +little census, for the purpose of discovering whether hallucinations +representing persons at a distance coincided, within twelve hours, with +their deaths, in a larger ratio than the laws of chance allow as possible. +If it be so, the Maori might have some ground for his theory that such +hallucinations betoken a decease. I do not believe that any such census +can enable us to reach an affirmative conclusion which science will +accept. In spite of all precautions taken, all warnings before, and +'allowances' made later, collectors of evidence will 'select' affirmative +cases already known, or (which is equally fatal) will be suspected of +doing so. Again, illusions of memory, increasing the closeness of the +coincidence, will come in--or it will be easy to say that they came in. +'Allowances' for them will not be accepted. + +Once more, 17,000 cases, though a larger number than is usual in +biological inquiries, are decidedly not enough for a popular argument on +probabilities; a million, it will be said, would not be too many. +Finally, granting honesty, accurate memory, and non-selection (none of +which will be granted by opponents), it is easy to say that odd things +_must_ occur, and that the large proportion of affirmative answers as to +coincidental hallucinations is just a specimen of these odd things. + +Other objections are put forward by teachers of popular science who have +not examined--or, having examined, misreport--the results of the Census in +detail. I may give an example of their method. + +Mr. Edward Clodd is the author of several handbooks of science--'The Story +of Creation,' 'A Manual of Evolution,' and others. Now, in a signed review +of a book, a critique published in 'The Sketch' (October 13, 1897), Mr. +Clodd wrote about the Census: 'Thousands of persons were asked whether +they had ever seen apparitions, and out of these some hundreds, mostly +unintelligent foreigners, replied in the affirmative. Some eight or ten of +the number--envied mortals--had seen "angels," but the majority, +like the American in the mongoose story, had seen only "snakes."... +In weighing evidence we have to take into account the competency as +well as the integrity of the witnesses.' Mr. Clodd has most frankly and +good-humouredly acknowledged the erroneousness of his remark. Otherwise we +might ask: Does Mr. Clodd prefer to be considered not 'competent' or not +'veracious'? He cannot be both on this occasion, for his signed and +published remarks were absolutely inaccurate. First, thousands of persons +were _not_ asked 'whether they had seen apparitions.' They were asked: +'Have you ever, when believing yourself to be perfectly awake, had a vivid +impression of seeing, or being touched by a living being or inanimate +object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could +discover, was not due to any external physical cause?' Secondly, it is not +the fact that 'some hundreds, _mostly unintelligent foreigners,_ replied +in the affirmative.' Of English-speaking men and women, 1,499 answered the +question quoted above in the affirmative. Of foreigners (naturally +'unintelligent'), 185 returned affirmative answers. Thirdly, when Mr. +Clodd says, 'The majority had seen only "snakes,"' it is not easy to know +what precise sense 'snakes' bears in the terminology of popular science. +If Mr. Clodd means, by 'snakes,' fantastic hallucinations of animals, +these amounted to 25, as against 830 representing human forms of persons +recognised, unrecognised, living or dead. But, if by 'snakes' Mr. Clodd +means purely subjective hallucinations, not known to coincide with any +event--and this _is_ his meaning--his statement agrees with that of the +Census. His observations, of course, were purely accidental errors. + +The number of hallucinations representing living or dying recognised +persons in the answers received, was 352. Of first-hand cases, in which +coincidence of the hallucination with the death of the person apparently +seen was affirmed, there were 80, of which 26 are given. + +The non-coincidental hallucinations were multiplied by four, to allow for +forgetfulness of 'misses.' The results being compared, it was decided that +the hallucinations collected coincided with death 440 more often than +ought to be the case by the law of probabilities. Therefore there was +proof, or presumption, in favour of some relation of cause and effect +between A's death and B's hallucination. + +If we were to attack the opinion of the Committee on Hallucinations, that +'Between deaths and apparitions of the dying a connection exists which is +not due to chance alone,' the assault should be made not only on the +method, but on the details. The events were never of very recent, and +often were of remote occurrence. The remoteness was less than it seems, +however, as the questions were often answered several years before the +publication of the Report (1894). There was scarcely any documentary +evidence, any note or letter written between the hallucination and the +arrival of news of the death. Such letters, the evidence alleged, had in +some cases existed, but had been lost, burnt, eaten by white ants, or +written on a sheet of blotting paper or the whitewashed wall of a barrack +room. If I may judge by my own lifelong success in mislaying, losing, and +casually destroying papers, from cheques to notes made for literary +purposes, from interesting letters of friends to the manuscripts of +novelists, or if I may judge by Sir Walter Scott's triumphs of the same +kind, I should not think much of the disappearance of documentary evidence +to death-wraiths. Nobody supposed, when these notes were written, that +Science would ask for their production; and even if people had guessed at +this, it is human to lose or destroy old papers. + +The remoteness of the occurrences is more remarkable, for, if these things +happen, why were so few recent cases discovered? Again, the seers were +sometimes under anxiety, though such cases were excluded from the final +computation: they frequently knew that the person seen was in bad health: +they were often very familiar with his personal aspect. Now what are +called 'subjective hallucinations,' non-coincidental hallucinations, +usually represent persons very familiar to us, persons much in our minds. +I know seven cases in which such hallucinations occurred. 1, 2, of husband +to wife; 3, son to mother; 4, brother to sister; 5, sister to sister; +6, cousin (living in the same house) to cousin; 7, friend (living a mile +away) to two friends. In no case was there a death-coincidence. Only in +case 4 was there any kind of coincidence, the brother having intended to +do (unknown to the sister) what he was seen doing--driving in a dog-cart +with a lady. But he had _not_ driven. We cannot, of course, _prove_ that +these seven cases were _not_ telepathic, but there is no proof that they +were. Now most of the coincidental cases, on which the Committee relied as +their choicest examples, represented persons familiarly known to the +seers. This looks as if they were casual; but, of course, if telepathy +does exist, it is most likely (as Hegel says) to exist between kinsfolk +and friends.[16] + +The dates might be fresher! + +In case 1, percipient knew that his aunt in England (he being in +Australia) was not very well. No anxiety. + +2. Casual acquaintance. No anxiety. Case of accident or suicide. + +3. Acquaintance who feared to die in childbed, and did. Percipient not +much interested, nor at all anxious. + +4. Father in England to son in India. No anxiety. + +5. Uncle to niece. Sudden death. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +6. Brother-in-law to sister-in-law, and her maid. No anxiety reported. +_Russian_. + +7. Father to son. No anxiety reported. _Russian_. + +8. Friend to friend. No knowledge of illness or anxiety reported. + +9. Grandmother to grandson. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +10. Casual acquaintance, to seven people, and apparently to a dog. Illness +known. _Russian._ + +11. Step-brother to step-brother. No anxiety. No knowledge of illness. + +12. Friend to friend. No anxiety or knowledge of illness. + +13. Casual acquaintance. No anxiety. + +14. Aunt to nephew and to his wife. Illness known. No anxiety. + +15. Sister to brother. Illness known. No anxiety. + +16. Father to daughter. No knowledge of illness. No anxiety. + +17. Father to son. Much anxiety. (Uncounted.) + +18. Sister to sister. Illness known. 'No immediate danger' surmised. + +19. Father to son. Much anxiety. _Russian._ (Uncounted.) + +20. Friend to friend. Illness known. Percipient had been nursing patient. +_Brazilian._ (Very bad case!) + +21 Friend to friend. Illness known. No anxiety. + +22. Brother to brother. Illness known. No anxiety. + +23. Grandfather to grand-daughter. Illness known. No pressing anxiety. + +24. Grandfather to grandson. Illness known. No anxiety. + +25. Father's _hand._ Illness chronic. No anxiety. Percipient a daughter. +_Russian._ + +20. Husband to wife. Anxiety in time of war. + +27. Brother to sister. Slightly anxious from receiving no letter. + +28. Friend to friend. No anxiety. + +Anxiety is only reported, or to be surmised, in two or three cases. In a +dozen the existence of illness was known. + +It may therefore be argued, adversely, that in the selected coincidental +hallucinations, the persons seen were in the class most usually beheld in +non-coincidental and, probably, purely subjective hallucinations +representing real persons; also, that knowledge of their illness, even +when no anxiety existed, kept them in some cases before the mind; also, +that several cases are foreign, and that 'most foreigners are fools.' On +the other hand, affection, familiarity, and knowledge of illness had _not_ +produced hallucinations even in the case of these percipients, till +within the twelve hours (often much less) of the event of death. + +It would have been desirable, of course, to publish all the +_non_-coincidental cases, and show how far, in these not _veridical_ +cases, the recognised phantasms were those of kindred, dear friends, known +to be ill, and subjects of anxiety[17]. + +The Census, in fact, does contain a chapter on 'Mental and Nervous +Conditions in connection with Hallucinations,' such as anxiety, grief, +and overwork. Do these produce, or probably produce, many empty +hallucinations _not_ coincident with death or any great crisis? If they +do, then all cases in which a coincidental hallucination occurred +to a person in anxiety, or overstrained, will seem to be, probably, +fortuitous coincidences like the others. All percipients, of all sorts +of hallucinations, hits or misses, were asked if they were in grief or +anxiety. Now, out of 1,622 cases of hallucination of all known kinds +(coincidental or not), mental strain was reported in 220 instances; of +which 131 were cases of grief about known deaths or anxiety. These mental +conditions, therefore, occur only in twelve per cent. of the instances. On +the whole, it does not seem fair to argue that anxiety produces so much +hallucination that it will account by itself for those which we have +analysed as coincidental. + +The impression left on my own mind by the Census does pretty closely agree +with that of its authors. Fairly well persuaded of the possibility of +telepathy, on other grounds, and even inclined to believe that it does +produce coincidental hallucinations, the evidence of the Census, by +itself, would not convince me nor its authors. We want better records; we +want documentary evidence recording cases before the arrival of news of +the coincidence. Memories are very adaptive. The authors, however, made a +gallant effort, at the cost of much labour, and largely allowed for all +conceivable drawbacks. + +I am, personally, illogical enough to agree with Kant, and to be more +convinced by the cumulative weight of the hundreds of cases in 'Phantasms +of the Living,' in other sources, in my own circle of acquaintance, and +even by the coincident traditions of European and savage peoples, than by +the statistics of the Census. The whole mass, Census and all, is of very +considerable weight, and there exist individual cases which one feels +unable to dispute. Thus while I would never regard the hallucinatory +figure of a friend, perceived by myself, as proof of his death, I +would entertain some slight anxiety till I heard of his well-being. + +On this topic I will offer, in a Kantian spirit, an anecdote of the kind +which, occurring in great quantities, disposes the mind to a sort of +belief. It is not given as evidence to go to a jury, for I only received +it from the lips of a very gallant and distinguished officer and V.C., +whose own part in the affair will be described. + +This gentleman was in command of a small British force in one of the +remotest and least accessible of our dependencies, not connected by +telegraph, at the time of the incident, with the distant mainland. In the +force was a particularly folly young captain. One night he went to a +dance, and, as the sleeping accommodation was exhausted, he passed the +night, like a Homeric hero, on a couch beneath the echoing _loggia_. Next +day, contrary to his wont, he was in the worst of spirits, and, after +moping for some time, asked leave to go a three days' voyage to the +nearest telegraph station. His commanding officer, my informant, was +good-natured, and gave leave. At the end of a week Captain ---- returned, +in his usual high spirits. He now admitted that, while lying awake in the +verandah, after the ball, he had seen a favourite brother of his, then +in, say, Peru. He could not shake off the impression; he had made the long +voyage to the nearest telegraph station, and thence had telegraphed to +another brother in, let us say, Hong Kong, 'Is all well with John?' He +received a reply, 'All well by last mail,' and so returned, relieved in +mind, to his duties. But the next mail bringing letters from Peru brought +news of his Peruvian brother's death on the night of the vision in the +verandah. + +This, of course, is not offered as evidence. For evidence we need +Captain ----'s account, his Hong Kong brother's account, date of the +dance, official date of the Peruvian brother's death, and so on. But the +character of my informant indisposes me to disbelief. The names of places +are intentionally changed, but the places were as remote from each other +as those given in the text. + +We find ourselves able to understand the Master of Ravenswood's +cogitations after he saw the best wraith in fiction: + +'She died expressing her eager desire to see me. Can it be, then--can +strong and earnest wishes, formed during the last agony of nature, +survive its catastrophe, surmount the awful bounds of the spiritual +world, and place before us its inhabitants in the hues and colouring of +life? And why was that manifested to the eye, which could not unfold its +tale to the ear?' ('Her withered lips moved fast, although no sound +issued from them.') 'And wherefore should a breach be made in the laws +of nature, yet its purpose remain unknown?' + +The Master's reasonings are such as, in hearing similar anecdotes, must +have occurred to Scott. They no longer represent our views. The death and +apparition were coincidental almost to the minute: it would be impossible +to prove that life was utterly extinct, when Alice seemed to die, 'as the +clock in the distant village tolled one, just before' Ravenswood's +experience. We do not, like him, postulate 'a breach in the laws of +nature,' only a possible example of a law. The tale was not 'unfolded to +the ear,' as the telepathic impact only affected the sense of sight. + +Here, perhaps, ought to follow a reply to certain scientific criticisms of +the theory that telepathy, or the action of one distant mind, or brain, +upon another, may be the cause of 'coincidental hallucinations,' +whether among savage or civilised races. But, not to delay the argument +by controversy, the Reply to Objections has been relegated to the +Appendix[18]. + +[Footnote 1: The lady, her husband, and the lawyer, all known to me, gave +me the story in writing; the servant's sister has been lost sight of.] + +[Footnote 2: See three other cases in _Proceedings_, S.P.R., ii. 122, 123. +Two others are offered by Mr. Henry James and Mr. J. Neville Maskelyne of +the Egyptian Hall.] + +[Footnote 3: See 'Phantasms of the Living' and 'A Theory of Apparitions,' +_Proceedings_, S.P.R., vol. ii., by Messrs. Gurney and Myers.] + +[Footnote 4: _Studies in Psychical Research,_ p. 388.] + +[Footnote 5: This, at least, scorns to myself a not illogical argument. +Mr. Leaf has argued on the other side, that 'Darwinism may have done +something for Totemism, by proving the existence of a great monkey +kinship. But Totemism can hardly be quoted as evidence for Darwinism.' +True, but Darwinism and Totemism are matters of opinion, not facts of +personal experience. To a believer in coincidental hallucinations, at +least, the alleged parallel experiences of savages must yield some +confirmation to his own. His belief, he thinks, is warranted by human +experience. On what does he suppose that the belief of the savage is +based? Do his experience and their belief coincide by pure chance?] + +[Footnote 6: _Prim. Cult._ i. 449.] + +[Footnote 7: Ibid. i. 450.] + +[Footnote 8: _Prim. Cult._ vol. i. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 9: From Shortland's _Traditions of New Zealand,_ p. 140.] + +[Footnote 10: Gurney and Myers, 'Phantasms of the Living,' vol. ii. +ch. v. p. 557.] + +[Footnote 11: _The 'Adventure' and 'Beagle,'_ iii. 181, cf. 204.] + +[Footnote 12: It will, of course, be said that they worked their stories +into conformity.] + +[Footnote 13: _Prim. Cult._ i. 116.] + +[Footnote 14: Polack's _Manners of the New Zealanders_, i. 268.] + +[Footnote 15: Howitt, op. cit. p. 186.] + +[Footnote 16: On examining the cases, we find, in 1894, these dates of +reported occurrences, in twenty-eight cases: 1890, 1882, 1879, 1870, 1863, +1861, 1888, 1885, 1881, 1880, 1878, 1874, 1869, 1869, 1845, 1887, 1881, +1877, 1874, 1873, 1860 (?), 1864 (?), 1855, 1830 (?!), 1867, 1862, 1888, +1870.] + +[Footnote 17: On this point see _Report_, p. 260. Fifty phantasms out of +the whole occurred during anxiety or presumable anxiety. Of these, +thirty-one coincided (within twelve hours) with the death of the person +apparently seen. In the remaining nineteen, the person seen recovered in +eight cases.] + +[Footnote 18: Appendix A.] + + + + +VII + +DEMONIACAL POSSESSION + +There is a kind of hallucinations--namely, Phantasms of the Dead--about +which it seems better to say nothing in this place. If such phantasms are +seen by savages when awake, they will doubtless greatly corroborate that +belief in the endurance of the soul after death, which is undeniably +suggested to the early reasoner by the phenomena of dreaming. But, while +it is easy enough to produce evidence to recognised phantasms of the dead +in civilised life, it would be very difficult indeed to discover many good +examples in what we know about savages. Some Fijian instances are given by +Mr. Fison in his and Mr. Howitt's 'Kamilaroi and Kurnai,' Others occur in +the narrative of John Tanner, a captive from childhood among the Red +Indians. But the circumstance, already noted, that an Australian lad +became a wizard on the strength of having seen a phantasm of his dead +mother, proves that such experiences are not common; and Australian black +fellows have admitted that they, for their part, never did see a ghost, +but only heard of ghosts from their old men. Mr. David Leslie, previously +cited, gives some first-hand Zulu evidence about a haunted wood, where the +_Esemkofu_, or ghosts of persons killed by a tyrannical chief, were heard +and felt by his native informant; the percipient was also pelted with +stones, as by the European _Poltergeist_. The Zulu who dies commonly +becomes an Ihlozi, and receives his share of sacrifice. The _Esemkofu_ on +the other hand, are disturbed and haunting spirits[1]. + +As a rule, so far as our information goes, it is not recognised phantasms +of the dead, in waking vision, which corroborate the savage belief in the +persistence of the spirit of the departed. The savage reasoner rather +rests his faith on the alleged phenomena of noises and physical movements +of objects apparently untouched, which cause so many houses in civilised +society to be shut up, or shunned, as 'haunted.' Such disturbances the +savage naturally ascribes to 'spirits.' Our evidence, therefore, for +recognised phantasms of the savage dead is very meagre, so it is +unnecessary to examine the much more copious civilised evidence. The facts +attested may, of course, be theoretically explained as the result of +telepathy from a mind no longer incarnate; and, were the evidence as +copious as that for coincidental hallucinations of the living, or dying, +it would be of extreme importance. But it is not so copious, and, granting +even that it is accurate, various explanations not involving anything so +distasteful to science as the action of a discarnate intelligence may be, +and have been, put forward. + +We turn, therefore, from a theme in which civilised testimony is more +bulky than that derived from savage life, to a topic in which savage +evidence is much more full than modern civilised records. This topic is +the so-called Demoniacal Possession. + +In the philosophy of Animism, and in the belief of many peoples, savage +and civilised, spirits of the dead, or spirits at large, can take up their +homes in the bodies of living men. Such men, or women, are spoken of as +'inspired,' or 'possessed.' They speak in voices not their own, they act +in a manner alien to their natural character, they are said to utter +prophecies, and to display knowledge which they could not have normally +acquired, and, in fact, do not consciously possess, in their normal +condition. All these and similar phenomena the savage explains by the +hypothesis that an alien spirit--perhaps a demon, perhaps a ghost, or a +god--has taken possession of the patient. The possessed, being full of the +spirit, delivers sermons, oracles, prophecies, and what the Americans call +'inspirational addresses,' before he returns to his normal consciousness. +Though many such prophets are conscious impostors, others are sincere. Dr. +Mason mentions a prophet who became converted to Christianity. 'He could +not account for his former exercises, but said that it certainly appeared +to him as though a spirit spoke, and he must tell what it communicated.' +Dr. Mason also gives the following anecdote: + +'...Another individual had a familiar spirit that he consulted and with +which he conversed; but, on hearing the Gospel, he professed to become +converted, and had no more communication with his spirit. It had left +him, he said; it spoke to him no more. After a protracted trial I +baptised him. I watched his case with interest, and for several years he +led an unimpeachable Christian life; but, on losing his religious zeal, +and disagreeing with some of the church members, he removed to a distant +village, where he could not attend the services of the Sabbath, and it +was soon after reported that he had communications with his familiar +spirit again. I sent a native preacher to visit him. The man said +he heard the voice which had conversed with him formerly, but it +spoke very differently. Its language was exceedingly pleasant to +hear, and produced great brokenness of heart. It said, "Love each +other; act righteously--act uprightly," with other exhortations such us +he had heard from the teachers. An assistant was placed in the village +near him, when the spirit left him again; and ever since he has +maintained the character of a consistent Christian.'[2] + +This anecdote illustrates what is called by spiritists 'change of +control.' After receiving, and deserting, Christian doctrine, the patient +again spoke unconsciously, but under the influence of the faith which he +had abandoned. In the same way we shall find that a modern American +'Medium,' after being for a time constantly in the society of educated +and psychological observers, obtained new 'controls' of a character more +urbane and civilised than her old 'familiar spirit.'[3] + +It is admitted that the possessed sometimes display an eloquence which +they are incapable of in their normal condition.[4] In China, possessed +women, who never composed a line of poetry in their normal lives, utter +their thoughts in verse, and are said to give evidence of clairvoyant +powers.[5] + +The book--_Demon Possession in China_--of Dr. Nevius, for forty years a +missionary, was violently attacked by the medical journals of his native +country, the United States. The doctor had the audacity to declare that he +could find no better explanation of the phenomena than the theory of the +Apostles--namely, that the patients were possessed. Not having the fear of +man before his eyes, he also remarked that the current scientific +explanations had the fault of not explaining anything. + +For example, 'Mr. Tylor intimates that all cases of supposed demoniacal +possession are identical with hysteria, delirium, and mania, and +suchlike bodily and mental derangements.' Dr. Nevius, however, gave what +he conceived to be the notes of possession, and, in his diagnosis, +distinguished them from hysteria (whatever that may mean), delirium, and +mania. Nor can it honestly be denied that, if the special notes of +possession actually exist, they do mark quite a distinct species of mental +affection. Dr. Nevius then observed that, according to Mr. Tylor, +'scientific physicians now explain the facts on a different principle,' +but, says Dr. Nevius, 'we search in vain to discover what this principle +is.'[6] Dr. Nevius, who had the courage of his opinions, then consulted a +work styled 'Nervous Derangement,' by Dr. Hammond, a Professor in the +Medical School of the University of New York.[7] He found this scientific +physician admitting that we know very little about the matter. He knew, +what is very gratifying, that 'mind is the result of nervous action,' +and that so-called 'possession' is the result of 'material derangements of +the organs or functions of the system.' + +Dr. Nevius was ready to admit this latter doctrine in cases of idiocy, +insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria; but then, said he, these are not what I +call possession. The Chinese have names for all these maladies, 'which +they ascribe to physical causes,' but for possession they have a different +name. He expected Dr. Hammond to account for the abnormal conditions in +so-called possession, but 'he has hardly even attempted to do this.' Dr. +Nevius next perused the works of Dr. Griesinger, Dr. Baelz, Professor +William James, M. Ribot, and, generally, the literature of 'alternating +personality.' He found Mr. James professing his conviction that the +'alternating personality' (in popular phrase, the demon, or familiar +spirit) of Mrs. Piper knew a great deal about things which Mrs. Piper, in +her normal state, did not, and could not know. Thus, after consulting many +physicians, Dr. Nevius was none the better, and came back to his faith in +Diabolical Possession. He was therefore informed that he had written 'one +of the most extraordinarily perverted books of the present day' on the +evidence of 'transparent ghost stories'--which do not occur in his book. + +The attitude of Dr. Nevius cannot be called strictly scientific. Because +pathologists and psychologists are unable to explain, or give the _modus_ +of a set of phenomena, it does not follow that the devil, or a god, or a +ghost, is in it. + +But this, of course, was precisely the natural inference of savages. + +Dr. Nevius catalogues the symptoms of possession thus: + +1. The automatic, persistent and consistent acting out of a new +personality, which calls himself _shieng_ (genius) and calls the patient +_hiang to_ (incense burner, 'medium'). + +2. Possession of knowledge and intellectual power not owned by the patient +(in his normal state), nor explainable on the pathological hypothesis. + +3. Complete change of moral character in the patient. + +Of these notes, the second would, of course, most confirm the savage +belief that a new intelligence had entered into the patient. If he +displayed knowledge of the future, or of the remote, the inference that a +novel and wiser intelligence had taken possession of the patient's body +would be, to the savage, irresistible. But the more cautious modern, _even +if he accepted the facts_, would be reduced to no such extreme conclusion. +He would say that knowledge of the remote in space, or in the past, might +be telepathically communicated to the brain of some living person; while, +for knowledge of the future, he could fly, with Hartmann, to contact with +the Absolute. + +But the question of evidence for the facts is, of course, the only real +question. Now, in Dr. Nevius's book, this evidence rests almost entirely +on the written reports of native Christian teachers, for the Chinese were +strictly reticent when questioned by Europeans. 'My heathen brother, you +have a sister who is a demoniac?' asks the intelligent European. The reply +of the heathen brother is best left in the obscurity of a remarkably +difficult and copious Oriental language. We are thus obliged to fall back +on the reports of Mr. Leng and other native Christian teachers. They are +perfectly modest and rational in style. We learn that Mrs. Sen, a lady in +her normal state incapable of lyrical efforts, lisped in numbers in her +secondary personality, and detected the circumstance that Mr. Leng was on +his way to see her, when she could not have learned the fact in any normal +way.[8] 'They are now crossing the stream, and will be here when the sun +is about so high;' which was correct. The other witnesses were examined, +and corroborated.[9] Dr. Nevius himself examined Mrs. Kwo, when possessed, +talking in verse, and, physically, limp.[10] + +The narratives are of this type; the patient, on recovering consciousness, +knows nothing of what has occurred; Christian prayers are often +efficacious, and there are many anecdotes of movements of objects +untouched.[11] + +By a happy accident, as this chapter was passing through the press, a +scientific account of a demoniac and his cure was published by Dr. Pierre +Janet.[12] Dr. Janet has explained, with complete success, everything in +the matter of possession, except the facts which, in the opinion of Dr. +Nevius, were in need of explanation. These facts did not occur in the case +of the demoniac 'exorcised' by Dr. Janet. Thus the learned essay of that +eminent authority would not have satisfied Dr. Nevius. The facts in which +he was interested did not present themselves in Dr. Janet's patient, and +so Dr. Janet does not explain them. + +The simplest plan, here, is to deny that the facts in which Dr. Nevius +believes ever present themselves at all; but, if they ever do, Dr. Janet's +explanation does not explain them. + +1. His patient, Achille, did _not_ act out a new personality. + +2. Achille displayed _no_ knowledge or intellectual power which he did not +possess in his normal state. + +3. His moral character was _not_ completely changed; he was only more +hypochondriacal and hysterical than usual. + +Achille was a poor devil of a French tradesman who, like Captain Booth, +had infringed the laws of strict chastity and virtue. He brooded on this +till he became deranged, and thought that Satan had him. He was convulsed, +anaesthetic, suicidal, involuntarily blasphemous. He was not 'exorcised' +by a prayer or by a command, but after a long course of mental and +physical treatment. His cure does not explain the cures in which Dr. +Nevius believed. His case did not present the features of which Dr. +Nevius asked science for an explanation. Dr. Janet's essay is the +_dernier cri_ of science, and leaves Dr. Nevius just where it found him. + +Science, therefore, can, and does, tell Dr. Nevius that his evidence for +his facts is worthless, through the lips of Professor W. Romaine Newbold, +in 'Proceedings, S.P.R.,' February 1898 (pp. 602-604). And the same +number of the same periodical shows us Dr. Hodgson accepting facts similar +to those of Dr. Nevius, and explaining them by--possession! (p. 406). + +Dr. Nevius's observations practically cover the whole field of +'possession' in non-European peoples. But other examples from other areas +are here included. + +A rather impressive example of possession may be selected from +Livingstone's 'Missionary Travels' (p. 86). The adventurous Sebituane was +harried by the Matabele in a new land of his choice. He thought of +descending the Zambesi till he was in touch with white men; but Tlapane, +'who held intercourse with gods,' turned his face west-wards. Tlapane used +to retire, 'perhaps into some cave, to remain in a hypnotic or mesmeric +state' until the moon was full. Then he would return _en prophete_. +'Stamping, leaping, and shouting in a peculiarly violent manner, or +beating the ground with a club' (to summon those under earth), 'they +induce a kind of fit, and while in it pretend that their utterances are +unknown to themselves,' as they probably are, when the condition is +genuine. Tlapane, after inducing the 'possessed' state, pointed east: +'There, Sebituane, I behold a fire; shun it, it may scorch thee. The gods +say, Go not thither!' Then, pointing west, he said, 'I see a city and a +nation of black men, men of the water, their cattle are red, thine own +tribe are perishing, thou wilt govern black men, spare thy future tribe.' + +So far, mere advice; then, + +'Thou, Ramosinii, thy village will perish utterly. If Mokari moves first +from the village, he will perish first; and thou, Ramosinii, wilt be the +last to die.' + +Then, + + 'Like some bold seer in a trance, + Seeing all his own mischance,' + + 'The gods have given other men water to drink, but to me they have given + bitter water. They call me away. I go.'[13] + +Tlapane died, Mokari died, Ramosinii died, their village was destroyed +soon after, and so Sebituane wandered westward, not disobedient to the +voice, was attacked by the Baloiana, conquered, and spared them. + +Such is 'possession' among savages. It is superfluous to multiply +instances of this world-wide belief, so freely illustrated in the New +Testament, and in trials for witchcraft. The scientific study of the +phenomena, as Littre complained, 'had hardly been sketched' forty years +ago. In the intervening years, psychologists and hypnotists have devoted +much attention to the theme of these 'secondary personalities,' which +Animism explains by the theory of possession. The explanations of modern +philosophers differ, and it is not our business to discuss their +physiological and pathological ideas.[14] Our affair is to ask whether, in +the field of experience, there is any evidence that persons thus +'possessed' really evince knowledge which they could not have acquired +through normal channels? If such evidence exists, the facts would +naturally strengthen the conviction that the possessed person was inspired +by an intelligence not his own, that is, by a spirit. Now it is the firm +conviction of several men of science that a certain Mrs. Piper, an +American, does display, in her possessed condition, knowledge which +she could not normally acquire. The case of this lady is precisely on a +level with that of certain savage or barbaric seers. Thus: 'The Fijian +priest sits looking steadily at a whale's tooth ornament, amid dead +silence. In a few minutes he trembles, slight twitchings of face and limbs +come on, which increase to strong convulsions.... Now the god has +entered.'[15] + +In China, 'the professional woman sits at a table in contemplation, till +the soul of a deceased person from whom communication is desired enters +her body and talks through her to the living....'[16] + +The latter account exactly describes Mrs. Piper. When consulted she passes +through convulsions into a trance, after which she talks in a new voice, +assumes a fresh personality, and affects to be possessed by the spirit of +a French doctor (who does not know French)--Dr. Phinuit. She then displays +a varying amount of knowledge of dead and living people connected with her +clients, who are usually strangers, often introduced under feigned names. +Mrs. Piper and her husband have been watched by detectives, and have not +been discovered in any attempts to procure information. She was for some +months in England under the charge of the S.P.R. Other ghosts, besides +Dr. Phinuit, ghosts more civilised than he, now influence her, and her +latest performances are said to exceed her former efforts.[17] + +Volumes of evidence about Mrs. Piper have been published by Dr. Hodgson, +who unmasked Madame Blavatsky and Eusapia Paladino.[18] He was at first +convinced that Mrs. Piper, in her condition of trance, obtains knowledge +not otherwise and normally accessible to her. It was admitted that her +familiar spirit guesses, attempts to extract information from the people +who sit with her, and tries sophistically to conceal his failures. Here +follow the statements of Professor James of Harvard. + +'The most convincing things said about my own immediate household were +either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortunately the former things +cannot well be published. Of the trivial things I have forgotten the +greater number, but the following, _rarae nantes_, may serve as samples +of their class. She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a +waistcoat. (She wrongly accused a person of stealing the rug, which was +afterwards found in the house.) She told of my killing a grey-and-white +cat with ether, and described how it had "spun round and round" before +dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife, +warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing +criticism, full of _traits vifs_, of the excellent woman's character. +(Of course, no one but my wife and I knew the existence of the letter in +question.) She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking +advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain +"tantrums" of our second child--"little Billy-boy," as she called him, +reproducing his nursery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how +a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard +footsteps on a stair, &c. &c. Insignificant as these things sound when +read, the accumulation of them has an irresistible effect; and I repeat +again what I said before, that, taking everything that I know of Mrs. +Piper into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as +I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her +trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, and that +the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be found. The +limitations of her trance information, its discontinuity and fitfulness, +and its apparent inability to develop beyond a certain point, although +they end by arousing one's moral and human impatience with the phenomenon, +yet are, from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting +peculiarities, since where there are limits there are conditions, and the +discovery of them is always the beginning of an explanation. + +'This is all I cam tell you of Mrs. Piper. I wish it were more +"scientific." But _valcat quantum!_ it is the best I can do.' + +Elsewhere Mr. James writes: + +'Mr. Hodgson and others have made prolonged study of this lady's trances, +and are all convinced that supernormal powers of cognition are displayed +therein. They are, _prima facie_, due to "spirit control." But the +conditions are so complex that a dogmatic decision either for or against +the hypothesis must as yet be postponed.'[19] + +Again-- + +'In the trances of this medium I cannot resist the conviction that +knowledge appears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of +her eyes, ears, and wits. + +'The trances have broken down, for my own mind, the limits of the admitted +order of nature.' + +M. Paul Bourget (who is not superstitious), after consulting Mrs. Piper, +concludes: + +'L'esprit a des procedes de connaitre non soupconnes par notre +analyse.'[20] + +In this treatise I may have shown 'the will to believe' in an unusual +degree; but, for me, the interest of Mrs. Piper is purely anthropological. +She exhibits a survival or recrudescence of savage phenomena, real or +feigned, of convulsion and of secondary personality, and entertains a +survival of the animistic explanation. + +Mrs. Piper's honesty and excellent character, in her normal condition, are +vouched for by her friends and observers in England and America; nor do I +impeach her normal character. But 'secondary personalities' have often +more of Mr. Hyde than of Dr. Jekyll in their composition. It used to be +admitted that, when 'possessed,' Mrs. Piper would cheat when she +could--that is to say, she would make guesses, try to worm information out +of her sitter, describe a friend of his, alive or dead, as 'Ed.,' who may +be Edgar, Edmund, Edward, Edith, or anybody. She would shuffle, and repeat +what she had picked up in a former sitting with the same person; and the +vast majority of her answers started from vague references to probable +facts (as that an elderly man is an orphan), and so worked on to more +precise statements. Professor Macalister wrote: + +'She is quite wide-awake enough all through to profit by suggestions. I +let her see a blotch of ink on my finger, and she said that I was a +writer.... Except the guess about my sister Helen, who is alive, there was +not a single guess which was nearly right. Mrs. Piper is not anaesthetic +during the so-called trance, and if you ask my private opinion, it is that +the whole thing is an imposture, and a poor one.'[21] + +Mr. Barkworth said that, as far as his experience went, 'Mrs. Piper's +powers are of the ordinary thought-reading [i.e. muscle-reading] kind, +dependent on her hold of the visitor's hand.' Each of these gentlemen had +only one 'sitting.' M. Paul Bourget also informed me, in conversation, +that Mrs. Piper held his hand while she told the melancholy tale connected +with a key in his possession, and that she did not tell the story promptly +and fluently, but very slowly and hesitatingly. Even so, he declared that +he did not feel able to account for her performance. + +As these pages were passing through the press, Dr. Hodgson's last report +on Mrs. Piper was published.[22] It is quite impossible, within the space +allotted, to criticise this work. It would be necessary to examine +minutely scores of statements, in which many facts are suppressed as too +intimate, while others are remarkably incoherent. Dr. Hodgson deserves the +praise of extraordinary patience and industry, displayed in the very +distasteful task of watching an unfortunate lady in the vagaries of +'trance.' His reasonings are perfectly calm, perfectly unimpassioned, and +his bias has not hitherto seemed to make for credulity. We must, in fact, +regard him as an expert in this branch of psychology. But he himself makes +it clear that, in his opinion, no written reports can convey the +impressions produced by several years of personal experience. The results +of that experience he sums up in these words: + +'At the present time I cannot profess to have any doubt but that the chief +"communicators" to whom I have referred in the foregoing pages are +veritably the personalities that they claim to be, that they have survived +the change we call death, and that they have directly communicated with +us, whom we call living, through Mrs. Piper's entranced organism.'[23] + +This means that Dr. Hodgson, at present, in this case, accepts the +hypothesis of 'possession' as understood by Maoris and Fijians, Chinese +and Karens. + +The published reports do not produce on me any such impression. As a +personal matter of opinion, I am convinced that those whom I have honoured +in this life would no more avail themselves of Mrs. Piper's 'entranced +organism' (if they had the chance) than I would voluntarily find myself in +a 'sitting' with that lady. It is unnecessary to wax eloquent on this +head; and the curious can consult the writings of Dr. Hodgson for +themselves. Meanwhile we have only to notice that an American 'possessed' +woman produces on a highly educated and sceptical modern intelligence +the same impression as the Zulu 'possessed' produce on some Zulu +intelligences. + +The Zulus admit 'possession' and divination, but are not the most +credulous of mankind. The ordinary possessed person is usually consulted +as to the disease of an absent patient. The inquirers do not assist the +diviner by holding his hand, but are expected to smite the ground +violently if the guess made by the diviner is right; gently if it is +wrong. A sceptical Zulu, named John, having a shilling to expend on +psychical research, smote violently at _every_ guess. The diviner was +hopelessly puzzled; John kept his shilling, and laid it out on a much more +meritorious exhibition of animated sticks.[24] + +Uguise gave Dr. Callaway an account of a female possessed person with +whom Mrs. Piper could not compete. Her spirit spoke, not from her mouth, +but from high in the roof. It gave forth a kind of questioning remarks +which were always correct. It then reported correctly a number of singular +circumstances, ordered some remedies for a diseased child, and offered to +return the fee, if ample satisfaction was not given.[25] + +In China and Zululand, as in Mrs. Piper's case, the spirits are fond of +diagnosing and prescribing for absent patients. + +A good example of savage possession is given in his travels by Captain +Jonathan Carver (1763). + +Carver was waiting impatiently for the arrival of traders with provisions, +near the Thousand Lakes. A priest, or jossakeed, offered to interview the +Great Spirit, and obtain information. A large lodge was arranged, and the +covering drawn up (which is unusual), so that what went on within might be +observed. In the centre was a chest-shaped arrangement of stakes, so far +apart from each other 'that whatever lay within them was readily to be +discerned.' The tent was illuminated 'by a great number of torches.' The +priest came in, and was first wrapped in an elk's skin, as Highland seers +were wrapped in a black bull's hide. Forty yards of rope made of elk's +hide were then coiled about him, till he 'was wound up like an Egyptian +mummy.' + +I have elsewhere shown[26] that this custom of binding with bonds the seer +who is to be inspired, existed in Graeco-Egyptian spiritualism, among +Samoyeds, Eskimo, Canadian Hareskin Indians, and among Australian blacks. + +'The head, body, and limbs are wound round with stringy bark cords.'[27] +This is an extraordinary range of diffusion of a ceremony apparently +meaningless. Is the idea that, by loosing the bonds, the seer demonstrates +the agency of spirits, after the manner of the Davenport Brothers?[28] But +the Graeco-Egyptian medium did _not_ undo the swathings of linen, in which +he was rolled, _like a mummy_. They had to be unswathed for him, by +others.[29] Again, a dead body, among the Australians, is corded up tight, +as soon as the breath is out of it, if it is to be buried, or before being +exposed on a platform, if that is the custom.[30] Again, in the Highlands +second-sight was thus acquired: the would-be seer 'must run a Tedder +(tether) of Hair, _which bound a corpse to the Bier_, about his Middle +from end to end,' and then look between his legs till he sees a funeral +cross two marches.[31] The Greenland seer is bound 'with his head between +his legs.'[32] + +Can it be possible, judging from Australia, Scotland, Egypt, that the +binding, as of a corpse or mummy, is a symbolical way of putting the seer +on a level with the dead, who will then communicate with him? In three +remote points, we find seer-binding and corpse-binding; but we need to +prove that corpses are, or have been, bound at the other points where the +seer is tied up--in a reindeer skin among the Samoyeds, an elk skin in +North America, a bull's hide in the Highlands. + +Binding the seer is not a universal Red Indian custom; it seems to cease +in Labrador, and elsewhere, southwards, where the prophet enters a magic +lodge, unbound. Among the Narquapees, he sits cross-legged, and the lodge +begins to answer questions by leaping about.[33] The Eskimo bounds, though +he is tied up. + +It would be decisive, if we could find that, wherever the sorcerer is +bound, the dead are bound also. I note the following examples, but the +Creeks do not, I think, bind the magician. + +Among the Creeks, + +'The corpse is placed in a hole, with a blanket wrapped about it, and the +legs bent under it _and tied together_.'[34] The dead Greenlanders were +'wrapped and sewed up in their best deer-skins.'[35] + +Carver could only learn that, among the Indians he knew, dead bodies were +'wrapped in skins;' that they were also swathed with cords he does not +allege, but he was not permitted to see all the ceremonies. + +My theory is, at least, plausible, for this manner of burying the dead, +tied tightly up, with the head between the legs (as in the practice of +Scottish and Greenland seers), is very old and widely diffused. Ellis +says, of the Tahitians, 'the body of the dead man was ... placed in a +sitting posture, with the knees elevated, _the face pressed down between +the knees_,... and the whole body tied with cord or cinet, wound repeatedly +round.'[36] + +The binding may originally have been meant to keep the corpse, or ghost, +from 'walking.' I do not know that Tahitian prophets were ever tied up, to +await inspiration. But I submit that the frequency of the savage form of +burial with the corpse tied up, or swathed, sometimes with the head +between the legs; and the recurrence of the savage practice of similarly +binding the sorcerer, probably points to a purpose of introducing the +seer to the society of the dead. The custom, as applied to prophets, might +survive, even where the burial rite had altered, or cannot be ascertained, +and might survive, for corpses, where it had gone out of use, for seers. +The Scotch used to justify their practice of putting the head between +the knees when, bound with a corpse's hair tether, they learned to +be second-sighted, by what Elijah did. The prophet, on the peak of +Carmel, 'cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his +knees.'[37] But the cases are not analogous. Elijah had been hearing a +premonitory 'sound of abundance of rain' in a cloudless sky. He was +probably engaged in prayer, not in prophecy. + +Kirk, by the way, notes that if the wind changes, while the Scottish seer +is bound, he is in peril of his life. So children are told, in Scotland, +that, if the wind changes while they are making faces, the grimace will be +permanent. The seer will, in the same way, become what he pretends to be, +a corpse. + +This desertion of Carver's tale may be pardoned for the curiosity of the +topic. He goes on: + +'Being thus bound up like an Egyptian mummy' (Carver unconsciously making +my point), 'the seer was lifted into the chest-like enclosure. I could now +also discern him as plain as I had ever done, and I took care not to turn +my eyes away a moment'--in which effort he probably failed. + +The priest now began to mutter, and finally spoke in a mixed jargon of +scarcely intelligible dialects. He now yelled, prayed, and foamed at the +mouth, till in about three quarters of an hour he was exhausted and +speechless. 'But in an instant he sprang upon his feet, notwithstanding at +the time he was put in it appeared impossible for him to move either his +legs or arms, and shaking off his covering, as quick as if the bands with +which it had been bound were burst asunder,' he prophesied. The Great +Spirit did not say when the traders would arrive, but, just after high +noon, next day, a canoe would arrive, and the people in it would tell when +the traders were to appear. + +Next day, just after high noon, a canoe came round a point of land about a +league away, and the men in it, who had met the traders, said they would +come in two days, which they did. Carver, professing freedom from any +tincture of credulity, leaves us 'to draw what conclusions we please.' + +The natural inference is 'private information,' about which the only +difficulty is that Carver, who knew the topography and the chances of a +secret messenger arriving to prompt the Jossakeed, does not allude to this +theory.[38] He seems to think such successes not uncommon. + +All that psychology can teach anthropology, on this whole topic of +'possession;' is that secondary or alternating personalities are facts +_in rerum natura_, that the man or woman in one personality may have no +conscious memory of what was done or said in the other, and that cases of +knowledge said to be supernormally gained in the secondary state are worth +inquiring about, if there be a chance of getting good evidence. + +A few fairly respectable savage instances are given in Dr. Gibier's 'Le +Fakirisme Occidental' and in Mr. Manning's 'Old New Zealand;' but, while +modern civilised parallels depend on the solitary case of Mrs. Piper (for +no other case has been well observed), no affirmative conclusion can be +drawn from Chinese, Maori, Zulu, or Red Indian practice. + +[Footnote 1: _Among the Zulus_, p. 120.] + +[Footnote 2:_ Burmah_, p. 107.] + +[Footnote 3: Hodgson, _Proceedings_, S.P.E., vol. xiii. pt. xxxiii. Dr. +Hodgson by no means agrees with this view of the case--the case of Mrs. +Piper.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 184.] + +[Footnote 5: Nevius's _Demon Possession in China_, a curious collection of +examples by an American missionary. The reports of Catholic missionaries +abound in cases.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. p. 169.] + +[Footnote 7: Putnam, 1881.] + +[Footnote 8: Nevius, p. 33.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. p. 35.] + +[Footnote 10: Op. cit. p. 38.] + +[Footnote 11: See 'Fetishism and Spiritualism.'] + +[Footnote 12: _Necroses et Idees Fixes_. Alcan, Paris, 1898. This is the +first of a series of works connected with the Laboratoire de Psychologie, +at the Salpetritere, in Paris.] + +[Footnote 13: 'Macleod shall return, but Macrimmon shall never!'] + +[Footnote 14: See Ribot, _Les Maladies de la Personnalite,_; Bourru +et Burot, _Variations de la Personnalite_; Janet, _L'Automatisme +Psychologique_; James, _Principles of Psychology_; Myers, in _Proceedings_ +of S.P.R., 'The Mechanism of Genius,' 'The Subliminal Self.'] + +[Footnote 15: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 133.] + +[Footnote 16: Doolittle's _Chinese_, i. 143; ii. 110, 320.] + +[Footnote 17: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., pt. xxxiii.] + +[Footnote 18: _Proceedings_, S.P.R., vi. 436-650; viii. 1-167; xiii. +284-582]. + +[Footnote 19: _The Will to Believe_, p. 814.] + +[Footnote 20: _Figaro_, January 14, 1895.] + +[Footnote 21: _Proceedings_, vi. 605, 606.] + +[Footnote 22: _Proceedings_, S.P.R, part xxxiii. vol. xiii.] + +[Footnote 23: Op. cit. part xxxiii. p. 406.] + +[Footnote 24: See 'Fetishism.' Compare Callaway, p. 328.] + +[Footnote 25: Callaway, pp. 361-374.] + +[Footnote 26: _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, p. 66.] + +[Footnote 27: Brough Smyth, i. 475. This point is disputed, but I did not +invent it, and a case appears in Mr. Curr's work on the natives.] + +[Footnote 28: _Prim. Cult_. i. 152.] + +[Footnote 29: Eusebius, _Prap. Evang_. v. 9.] + +[Footnote 30: Brough Smyth, i. 100, 113.] + +[Footnote 31: Kirk, _Secret Commonwealth_ 1691.] + +[Footnote 32: Crantz, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 33: Pere Arnaud, in Hind's _Labrador_, ii. 102.] + +[Footnote 34: Major Swan, 1791, official letter on the Creek Indians, +Schoolcraft, v. 270.] + +[Footnote 35: Crantz, p. 237.] + +[Footnote 36: _Polynesian Researches_, i. 519.] + +[Footnote 37: 1 Kings xviii. 42.] + +[Footnote 38: Carver, pp. 123, 184.] + + + + +VIII + +FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM + +It has been shown how the doctrine of souls was developed according to the +anthropological theory. The hypothesis as to how souls of the dead were +later elevated to the rank of gods, or supplied models after which such +gods might be inventively fashioned, will be criticised in a later +chapter. Here it must suffice to say that the conception of a separable +surviving soul of a dead man was not only not essential to the savage's +idea of his supreme god, as it seems to me, but would have been wholly +inconsistent with that conception. There exist, however, numerous forms of +savage religion in addition to the creed in a Supreme Being, and these +contribute their streams to the ocean of faith. Thus among the kinds of +belief which served in the development of Polytheism, was Fetishism, +itself an adaptation and extension of the idea of separable souls. In this +regard, like ancestor-worship, it differs from the belief in a Supreme +Being, which, as we shall try to demonstrate, is not derived from the +theory of ghosts or souls at all. + +_Fetish_ (_fetiche_) seems to come from Portuguese _feitico_, a talisman +or amulet, applied by the Portuguese to various material objects +regarded by the negroes of the west coast with more or less of religious +reverence. These objects may be held sacred in some degree for a number of +incongruous reasons. They may be tokens, or may be of value in sympathetic +magic, or merely _odd_, and therefore probably endowed with unknown mystic +qualities. Or they may have been pointed out in a dream, or met in a +lucky hour and associated with good fortune, or they may (like a tree with +an unexplained stir in its branches, as reported by Kohl) have seemed to +show signs of life by spontaneous movements; in fact, a thing may be what +Europeans call a fetish for scores of reasons. For our present purpose, as +Mr. Tylor says, 'to class an object as a fetish demands explicit statement +that a spirit is considered as embodied in it, or acting through it, or +communicating by it, or, at least, that the people it belongs to do +habitually think this of such objects; or it must be shown that the object +is treated as having personal consciousness or power, is talked with, +worshipped...' and so forth. The in-dwelling spirit may be human, as when +a fetish is made out of a friend's skull, the spirit in which may even be +asked for oracles, like the Head of Bran in Welsh legend. + +We have tried to show that the belief in human souls may be, in part at +least, based on supernormal phenomena which Materialism disregards. We +shall now endeavour to make it probable that Fetishism (the belief in the +souls tenanting inanimate objects) may also have sources which perhaps are +not normal, or which at all events seemed supernormal to savages. We say +'perhaps not normal' because the phenomena now to be discussed are of the +most puzzling character. We may lean to the belief in a supernormal cause +of certain hallucinations, but the alleged movements of inanimate objects +which probably supply one origin of Fetishism, one suggestion of the +presence of a spirit in things dead, leave the inquiring mind in +perplexity. In following Mr. Tylor's discussion of the subject, it is +necessary to combine what he says about Spiritualism in his fourth with +what he says about Fetishism in his fourteenth and later chapters. For +some reason his book is so arranged that he criticises 'Spiritualism' +long before he puts forward his doctrine of the origin and development of +the belief in spirits. + +We have seen a savage reason for supposing that human spirits inhabit +certain lifeless things, such as skulls and other relics of the dead. But +how did it come to be thought that a spirit dwelt in a lifeless and +motionless piece of stone or stick? Mr. Tylor, perhaps, leads us to a +plausible conjecture by writing: 'Mr. Darwin saw two Malay women in +Keeling Island, who held a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll: +this spoon had been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming +inspired at full moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively, like +a table or a hat at a modern spirit seance.'[1] Now M. Lefebure has +pointed out (in 'Melusine') that, according to De Brosses, the African +conjurers gave an appearance of independent motion to small objects, which +were then accepted as fetishes, being visibly animated. M. Lefebure +next compares, like Mr. Tylor, the alleged physical phenomena of +spiritualism, the flights and movements of inanimate objects apparently +untouched. + +The question thus arises, Is there any truth whatever in these world-wide +and world-old stories of inanimate objects acting like animated things? +Has fetishism one of its origins in the actual field of supernormal +experience in the X region? This question we do not propose to answer, +as the evidence, though practically universal, may be said to rest on +imposture and illusion. But we can, at least, give a sketch of the nature +of the evidence, beginning with that as to the apparently _voluntary_ +movements of objects, _not_ untouched. Mr. Tylor quotes from John Bell's +'Journey in Asia' (1719) an account of a Mongol Lama who wished to +discover certain stolen pieces of damask. His method was to sit on a +bench, when 'he carried it, or, as was commonly believed, it carried him, +to the very tent' of the thief. Here the bench is innocently believed to +be self-moving. Again, Mr. Rowley tells how in Manganjah the sorcerer, to +find out a criminal, placed, with magical ceremonies, two staffs of wood +in the hands of some young men. 'The sticks whirled and dragged the men +round like mad,' and finally escaped and rolled to the feet of the +wife of a chief, who was then denounced as the guilty person.[2] + +Mr. Duff Macdonald describes the same practice among the Yaos:[3] + +'The sorcerer occasionally makes men take hold of a stick, which, after a +time, begins to move as if endowed with life, and ultimately carries them +off bodily and with great speed to the house of the thief.' + +The process is just that of Jacques Aymard in the celebrated story of the +detection of the Lyons murderer.[4] + +In Melanesia, far enough away, Dr. Codrington found a similar practice, +and here the sticks are explicitly said by the natives to be moved by +_spirits_.[5] The wizard and a friend hold a bamboo stick by each end, and +ask what man's ghost is afflicting a patient. At the mention of the +right ghost 'the stick becomes violently agitated.' In the same way, the +bamboo 'would run about' with a man holding it only on the palms of his +hands. Again, a hut is built with a partition down the middle. Men sit +there with their hands _under_ one end of the bamboo, while the other end +is extended into the empty half of the hut. They then call over the names +of the recently dead, till 'they feel the bamboo moving in their hands.' A +bamboo placed on a sacred tree, 'when the name of a ghost is called, moves +of itself, and will lift and drag people about.' Put up into a tree, it +would lift them from the ground. In other cases the holding of the sticks +produces convulsions and trance.[6] The divining sticks of the Maori are +also 'guided by spirits,'[7] and those of the Zulu sorcerers rise, fall, +and jump about.[8] + +These Zulu performances must be really very curious. In the last chapter +we told how a Zulu named John, having a shilling to lay out in the +interests of psychical research, declined to pay a perplexed diviner, and +reserved his capital far a more meritorious performance. He tried a medium +named Unomantshintshi, who divined by Umabakula, or dancing sticks-- + +'If they say "no," they fall suddenly; if they say "yes," they arise and +jump about very much, and leap on the person who has come to inquire. They +"fix themselves on the place where the sick man is affected; ... if the +head, they leap on his head.... Many believe in Umabakula more than in the +diviner. But there are not many who have the Umabakula."' + +Dr. Callaway's informant only knew two Umabakulists, John was quite +satisfied, paid his shilling, and went home.[9] + +The sticks are about a foot long. It is not reported that they are moved +by spirits, nor do they seem to be regarded as fetishes. + +Mr. Tylor also cites a form of the familiar pendulum experiment. Among the +Karens a ring is suspended by a thread over a metal basin. The relations +of the dead strike the basin, and when he who was dearest to the ghost +touches it the spirit twists the thread till it breaks, and the ring falls +into the basin. With us a ring is held by a thread over a tumbler, and our +unconscious movements swing it till it strikes the hour. How the Karens +manage it is less obvious. These savage devices with animated sticks +clearly correspond to the more modern 'table-turning.' Here, when the +players are honest, the pushing is certainly _unconscious_. + +I have tested this in two ways--first by trying the minimum of _conscious_ +muscular action that would stir a table at which I was alone, and by +comparing the absolute unconsciousness of muscular action when the table +began to move in response to no _voluntary_ push. Again, I tried with a +friend, who said, 'You are pushing,' when I gently removed my hands +altogether, though they seemed to rest on the table, which still revolved. +My friend was himself unconsciously pushing. It is undeniable that, to +a solitary experimenter, the table _seems_ to make little darts of its own +will in a curious way. Thus, the unconsciousness of muscular action on the +part of savages engaged in the experiment with sticks would lead them to +believe that spirits were animating the wood. The same fallacy beset the +table-turners of 1855-65, and was, to some extent, exposed by Faraday. +Of course, savages would be even more convinced by the dancing spoon of +Mr. Darwin's tale, by the dancing sticks of the Zulus, and the rest, +whether the phenomena were supernormal or merely worked by unseen strings. +The same remark applies to modern experimenters, when, as they declare, +various objects move untouched, without physical contact. + +Still more analogous than turning tables to the savage use of inspired +sticks for directing the inquirer to a lost object or to a criminal, is +the modern employment of the divining-rod--a forked twig which, held by +the ends, revolves in the hands of the performer when he reaches the +object of his quest. He, like the savage cited, is occasionally agitated +in a convulsive manner; and cases are quoted in which the twig writhes +when held in a pair of tongs! The best-known modern treatise on the +divining-rod is that of M. Chevreul, 'La Baguette Divinatoire' (1854). We +have also 'L'Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes,' by M. +Figuier (1860). In 1781 Thouvenel published his 600 experiments with +Bleton and others; and Hegel refers to Amoretti's collection of hundreds +of cases. The case of Jacques Aymard, who in the seventeenth century +discovered a murderer by the use of the rod in true savage fashion, is +well known. In modern England the rod is used in the interests of private +individuals and public bodies (such as Trinity College, Cambridge) for the +discovery of water. + +Professor Barrett has lately published a book of 280 pages, in which +evidence of failures and successes is collected.[10] Professor Barrett +gives about one hundred and fifty cases, in which he was only able to +discover, on good authority, twelve failures. He gives a variety of tests +calculated to check frauds and chance coincidence, and he publishes +opinions, hostile or agnostic, by geologists. The evidence, as a general +rule, is what is called first-hand in other inquiries. The actual +spectators, and often the owners of the land, or the persons in whose +interest water was wanted, having been present, give their testimony; and +it is certain that the 'diviner' is called in by people of sense and +education, commonly too practical to have a theory, and content with +getting what they want, especially where scientific experts have +failed.[11] + +In Mr. Barrett's opinion, the subconscious perception of indications of +the presence of water produces an equally unconscious muscular 'spasm,' +which twirls the rod till it often breaks. Yet 'it is almost impossible to +imitate its characteristic movement by any voluntary effort.' I have +myself held the hands of an amateur performer when the twig was moving, +and neither by sight nor touch could I detect any muscular movement on his +part, much less a spasm. The person was bailiff on a large estate, and, +having accidentally discovered that he possessed the gift, used it when he +wanted wells dug for the tenants on the property. + +The whole topic is obscure; nor am I concerned here with the successes or +failures of the divining-rod. But the movements of the twig have never, to +my knowledge, been attributed by modern English performers to the +operation of spirits. They say 'electricity.' Mr. Tylor merely writes: + +'The action of the famous divining-rod, with its curiously versatile +sensibility to water, ore, treasure, and thieves, seems to belong partly +to trickery and partly to more or less conscious direction by honester +operators.' + +As the divining-rod is the only instance in which automatism, whatever its +nature and causes, has been found of practical value by practical men, and +as it is obviously associated with a number of analogous phenomena, both +in civilised and savage life, it certainly deserves the attention of +science. But no advance will be made till scientifically trained inquirers +themselves arrange and test a large number of experiments. Knowledge of +the geological ignorance of the dowsers, examples of fraud on their part, +and cases of failure or reported failure, with a general hostile bias, may +prevent such experiments from being made by scientific experts on an +adequate scale. Such experts ought, of course, to avoid working the +dowsers into a state of irritation. + +It is just worth while to notice cases in which the rod acts like those of +the Melanesians, Africans, and other savages. A Mr. Thomas Welton +published an English translation of 'La Verge de Jacob' (Lyon, 1693). In +1651 he asked his servant to bring into the garden 'a stick that stood +behind the parlour door. In great terror she brought it to the garden, her +hand firmly clutched on it, nor could she let it go.' When Mrs. Welton +took the stick, 'it drew her with very considerable velocity to nearly the +centre of the garden,' where a well was found. Mr. Welton is not likely to +have known of the lately published savage examples. The coincidence with +the African and Melanesian cases is, therefore, probably undesigned. + +Again, in 1694, the rod was used by le Pere Menestrier and others, just as +it is by savages, to indicate by its movements answers to all sorts of +questions. Experiments of this kind have not been made by Professor +Barrett, and other modern inquirers, except by M. Richet, as a mode of +detecting automatic action. But it would be just as sensible to use the +twig as to use planchette or any other 'autoscopic' apparatus. If these +elicit knowledge unconsciously present to the mind, mere water-finding +ought not to be the sole province of the rod. In the same class as +these rods is the forked twig which, in China, is held at each end by +two persons, and made to write in the sand. The little apparatus called +_planchette_, or the other, the _ouija_, is of course, consciously or +unconsciously, pushed by the performers. In the case of the twig, as held +by water-seekers, the difficulty of consciously moving it so as to +escape close observation is considerable. + +In the case of the _ouija_ (a little tripod, which, under the operators' +hands, runs about a table inscribed with letters at which it points), I +have known curious successes to be achieved by amateurs. Thus, in the +house of a lady who owned an old _chateau_ in another county, the _ouija_, +operated on by two ladies known to myself, wrote a number of details about +a visit paid to the _chateau_ for a certain purpose by Mary Stuart. That +visit, and its object, a purely personal one, are unknown to history, and +the _chateau_ is not spoken of in Mr. Hay Fleming's careful, but +unavoidably incomplete, itinerary of the Queen's residence in Scotland. +After the communication had been made, the owner of the _chateau_ +explained that she was already acquainted with the circumstances +described, as she had recently read them in documents in her charter +chest, where they remain. + +Of course, the belief we extend to such narratives is entirely conditioned +by our knowledge of the personal character of the performers. The point +here is merely the civilised and savage practice of _automatism_, the +apparent eliciting of knowledge not otherwise accessible, by the +movements of a stick, or a bit of wood. These movements, made without +conscious exertion or direction, seem, to savage philosophy, to be caused +by in-dwelling spirits, the sources of Fetishism. + +These examples, then, demonstrating unconscious movement of objects by the +operators, make it clear that movements even of touched objects, may be +attributed, by some civilised and by savage amateurs, to 'spirits.' The +objects so moved may, by savages, be regarded in some cases as fetishes, +and their movements may have helped to originate the belief that spirits +can inhabit inanimate objects. When objects apparently quite untouched +become volatile, the mystery is deeper. This apparent animation and +frolicsome behaviour of inanimate objects is reported all through history, +and attested by immense quantities of evidence of every degree. It would +be tedious to give a full account of the antiquity and diffusion of reports +about such occurrences. We find them among Neo-Platonists, in the English +and Continental Middle Ages, among Eskimo, Hurons, Algonkins, Tartars, +Zulus, Malays, Nasquapees, Maoris, in witch trials, in ancient Peru +(immediately after the Spanish Conquest), in China, in modern Russia, in +New England (1680), all through the career of modern spiritualism, in +Hayti (where they are attributed to 'Obeah'), and, sporadically, +everywhere.[12] + +Among all these cases, we must dismiss whatever the modern paid medium +does in the dark. The only thing to be done with the ethnographic and +modern accounts of such marvels is to 'file them for reference.' If a +spontaneous example occurs, under proper inspection, we can then compare +our old tales. Professor James says: 'Their mutual resemblances suggest a +natural type, and I confess that till these records, or others like them, +are positively explained away, I cannot feel (in spite of such vast +amounts of detected frauds) as if the case of physical mediumship itself, +as a freak of nature, were definitely closed.... So long as the stories +multiply in various lands, and so few are positively explained away, it is +bad method to ignore them.'[13] Here they are not ignored, because, +whatever the cause or causes of the phenomena, they would buttress, if +they did not originate, the savage belief in spirits tenanting inanimate +matter, whence came Fetishism. As to facts, we cannot, of course, 'explain +away' events of this kind, which we know only through report. A conjurer +cannot explain a trick merely from a description, especially a description +by a non-conjurer. But, as a rule, nothing so much leads to doubt on this +theme as the 'explanation' given--except, of course, in the case of 'dark +seances' got up and prepared by paid mediums. We know, sometimes, how the +'explanation' arose. + +Thus, the house of a certain M. Zoller, a lawyer and member of the Swiss +Federal Council, a house at Stans, in Unterwalden, was made simply +uninhabitable in 1860-1862. The disturbances, including movements of +objects, were of a truly odious description, and occurred in full +daylight. M. Zoller, deeply attached to his home, which had many +interesting associations with the part his family played in the struggle +against revolutionary France, was obliged to abandon the place. He had +made every conceivable sort of research, and had called in the local +police and _savants_, to no purpose. + +But the affair was explained away thus: While the phenomena could still be +concealed from public curiosity, a client called to see M. Zoller, who was +out. The client, therefore, remained in the drawing-room. Loud and heavy +blows resounded through the room. The client, as it chanced, had once felt +the effects of an electric battery, for some medical reason, apparently. +M. Zoller writes: 'My eldest son was present at the time, and, when my +client asked whether there was such a thing as an electrical machine in +the house (the family having been enjoined to keep the disturbances as +secret as possible), he allowed S. to think that there was.' Consequently, +the phenomena were set down to M. Zoller's singular idea of making +his house untenantable with an 'electric machine'--which he did not +possess.[14] A number of the most respected citizens, including the +Superintendent of Police, and the chief magistrate for law, published a +statement that neither Zoller, nor any of his family, nor any of +themselves, produced or could have produced the phenomena witnessed by +them in August 1862. This declaration they put forth in the 'Schwytzer +Zeitung,' October 5, 1863.[15] No electric machine known to mortals +could have produced the vast variety of alleged effects, none was ever +found; and as M. Zoller changed his servants without escaping his +tribulations, they can hardly be blamed for what, _prima facie_, it seems +that they could not possibly do. However, 'electricity,' like Mesopotamia, +is 'a blessed word.'[16] + +My own position in this matter of 'physical phenomena' is, I hope, clear. +They interest me, for my present purpose, as being, whatever their real +nature and origin, things which would suggest to a savage his theory of +Fetishism. 'An inanimate object may be tenanted by a spirit, as is proved +by its extraordinary movements.' Thus the early thinker might reason, and +go on to revere the object. It is to be wished that competent observers +would pay more attention to such savage practices as crystal-gazing and +automatism as illustrated by the sticks of the Melanesians, Zulus, and +Yaos. Our scanty information we pick up out of stray allusions, but +it has the advantage of being uncontaminated by theory, the European +spectator not knowing the wide range of such practices and their value in +experimental psychology. + +We have now finished our study of the less normal and usual phenomena, +which gave rise to belief in separable, self-existing, conscious, and +powerful souls. We have shown that the supernormal factors which, when +reflected on, probably supported this belief, are represented in civilised +as well as in savage life, while as to their existence among the founders +of religion we can historically know nothing at all. If we may infer from +certain considerations, the supernormal experiences were possibly more +prevalent among the remote ancestors of known savage races than among +their modern descendants. We have suggested that clairvoyance, thought +transference, and telepathy cannot be dismissed as mere fables, by a +cautious inquirer, while even the far more obscure stories of 'physical +manifestations' are but poorly explained away by those who cannot explain +them.[17] Again, these faculties have presented--in the acquisition of +otherwise unattainable knowledge, in coincidental hallucinations, and in +other ways--just the kind of facts on which the savage doctrine of souls +might be based, or by which it might be buttressed. Thus, while the +actuality of the supernormal facts and faculties remains at least an open +question, the prevalent theory of Materialism cannot be admitted as +dogmatically certain in its present shape. No more than any other theory, +nay, less than some other theories, can it account for the psychical facts +which, at the lowest, we may not honestly leave out of the reckoning. + +We have therefore no more to say about the supernormal aspects of the +origins of religion. We are henceforth concerned with matters of +verifiable belief and practice. We have to ask whether, when once the +doctrine of souls was conceived by early men, it took precisely the course +of development usually indicated by anthropological science. + +[Footnote 1: Darwin, _Journal_, p. 458; Tylor, _Prim. Cult_. ii. 152. The +spoon was not untouched.] + +[Footnote 2: Rowley, _Universities' Mission_, p. 217.] + +[Footnote 3: _Africana_, vol. i. p. 161.] + +[Footnote 4: In the author's _Custom and Myth_, 'The Divining Rod.'] + +[Footnote 5: Codrington's _Melanesia_, p. 210.] + +[Footnote 6: Op. cit. pp. 229-325.] + +[Footnote 7: _Prim. Cult_. vol. i. p. 125.] + +[Footnote 8: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 330.] + +[Footnote 9: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 368.] + +[Footnote 10: _The So-called Divining-Rod_, S.P.R. 1897.] + +[Footnote 11: See especially _The Waterford Experiments_, p. 106.] + +[Footnote 12: Authorities and examples are collected in the author's _Cock +Lane and Common Sense_.] + +[Footnote 13: _Proceedings_, xii. 7, 8.] + +[Footnote 14: _Personal Narrative_, by M. Zoller. Hanke, Zurich, 1863.] + +[Footnote 15: Daumer, _Reich des Wundersamen_, Regensburg, 1872, +pp. 265, 266.] + +[Footnote 16: A criticism of modern explanations of the phenomena here +touched upon will be found in Appendix B.] + +[Footnote 17: See Appendix B.] + + + + +IX + +EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD + +To the anthropological philosopher 'a plain man' would naturally put the +question: 'Having got your idea of spirit or soul--your theory of +Animism--out of the idea of ghosts, and having got your idea of ghosts out +of dreams and visions, how do you get at the Idea of God?' Now by 'God' +the proverbial 'plain man' of controversy means a primal eternal Being, +author of all things, the father and friend of man, the invisible, +omniscient guardian of morality. + +The usual though not invariable reply of the anthropologist might be given +in the words of Mr. Im Thurn, author of a most interesting work on the +Indians of British Guiana: + +'From the notion of ghosts,' says Mr. Im Thurn, 'a belief has arisen, but +very gradually, in higher spirits, and eventually in a Highest Spirit, +and, keeping pace with the growth of these beliefs, a habit of reverence +for, and worship of spirits.... The Indians of Guiana know no God.'[1] + +As another example of Mr. Im Thurn's hypothesis that God is a late +development from the idea of spirit may be cited Mr. Payne's learned +'History of the New World,' a work of much research:[2] + +'The lowest savages not only have no gods, but do not even recognise those +lower beings usually called spirits, the conception of which has +invariably preceded that of gods in the human mind.' + +Mr. Payne here differs, _toto caelo_, from Mr. Tylor, who finds no +sufficient proof for wholly non-religious savages, and from Roskoff, who +has disposed of the arguments of Sir John Lubbock. Mr. Payne, then, for +ethnological purposes, defines a god as 'a benevolent spirit, permanently +embodied in some tangible object, usually an image, and to whom food, +drink,' and so on, 'are regularly offered for the purpose of securing +assistance in the affairs of life.' + +On this theory 'the lowest savages' are devoid of the idea of god or of +spirit. Later they develop the idea of spirit, and when they have secured +the spirit, as it were, in a tangible object, and kept it on board wages, +then the spirit has attained to the dignity and the savage to the +conception of a god. But while a god of this kind is, in Mr. Payne's +opinion, relatively a late flower of culture, for the hunting races +generally (with some exceptions) have no gods, yet 'the conception of a +creator or maker of all things ... obviously a great spirit' is 'one of +the earliest efforts of primitive logic.'[3] + +Mr. Payne's own logic is not very clear. The 'primitive logic' of the +savage leads him to seek for a cause or maker of things, which he finds in +a great creative spirit. Yet the lowest savages have no idea even of +spirit, and the hunting races, as a rule, have no god. Does Mr. Payne mean +that a great creative spirit is _not_ a god, while a spirit kept on board +wages in a tangible object is a god? We are unable, by reason of evidence +later to be given, to agree with Mr. Payne's view of the facts, while his +reasoning appears somewhat inconsistent, the lowest savages having, in his +opinion, no idea of spirit, though the idea of a creative spirit is, for +all that, one of the earliest efforts of primitive logic. + +On any such theories as these the belief in a moral Supreme Being is a +very late (or a very early?) result of evolution, due to the action of +advancing thought upon the original conception of ghosts. This opinion of +Mr. Im Thurn's is, roughly stated, the usual theory of anthropologists. +We wish, on the other hand, to show that the idea of God, as he is +conceived of by our inquiring plain man, is shadowed forth (among +contradictory fables) in the lowest-known grades of savagery, and +therefore cannot arise from the later speculation of men, comparatively +civilised and advanced, on the original datum of ghosts. We shall +demonstrate, contrary to the opinion of Mr. Spencer, Mr. Huxley, and even +Mr. Tylor, that the Supreme Being, and, in one case at least, the casual +sprites of savage faith, are active moral influences. What is even more +important, we shall make it undeniable that Anthropology has simplified +her problem by neglecting or ignoring her facts. While the real problem is +to account for the evolution out of ghosts of the eternal, creative moral +god of the 'plain man,' the germ of such a god or being in the creeds of +the lowest savages is by anthropologists denied, or left out of sight, or +accounted for by theories contradicted by facts, or, at best, is explained +away as a result of European or Islamite influences. Now, as the problem +is to account for the evolution of the highest conception of God, as far +as that conception exists among the most backward races, the problem can +never be solved while that highest conception of God is practically +ignored. + +Thus, anthropologists, as a rule, in place of facing and solving their +problem, have merely evaded it--doubtless unwittingly. This, of course, is +not the practice of Mr. Tylor, though even his great work is professedly +much more concerned with the development of the idea of spirit and with +the lower forms of animism than with the real crux--the evolution of the +idea (always obscured by mythology) of a moral, uncreated, undying God +among the lowest savages. This negligence of anthropologists has arisen +from a single circumstance. They take it for granted that God is always +(except where the word for God is applied to a living human being) +regarded as Spirit. Thus, having accounted for the development of the +idea of spirit, they regard God as that idea carried to its highest +power, and as the final step in its evolution. But, if we can show that +the early idea of an undying, moral, creative being does not necessarily +or logically imply the doctrine of spirit (or ghost), then this idea of an +eternal, moral, creative being may have existed even before the doctrine +of spirit was evolved. + +We may admit that Mr. Tylor's account of the process by which Gods were +evolved out of ghosts is a little _touffu_--rather buried in facts. We +'can scarcely see the wood for the trees.' We want to know how Gods, +makers of things (or of most things), fathers in heaven, and friends, +guardians of morality, seeing what is good or bad in the hearts of men, +were evolved, as is supposed, out of ghosts or surviving souls of the +dead. That such moral, practically omniscient Gods are known to the very +lowest savages--Bushmen, Fuegians, Australians--we shall demonstrate. + +Here the inquirer must be careful not to adopt the common opinion that +Gods improve, morally and otherwise, in direct ratio to the rising grades +in the evolution of culture and civilisation. That is not necessarily the +case; usually the reverse occurs. Still less must we take it for granted, +following Mr. Tylor and Mr. Huxley, that the 'alliance [of religion and +morality] belongs almost, or wholly, to religions above the savage +level--not to the earlier and lower creeds;' or that 'among the Australian +savages,' and 'in its simplest condition,' 'theology is wholly independent +of ethics.'[4] These statements can be proved (by such evidence as +anthropology is obliged to rely upon) to be erroneous. And, just because +these statements are put forward, Anthropology has an easier task in +explaining the origin of religion; while, just because these statements +are incorrect, her conclusion, being deduced from premises so far false, +is invalidated. + +Given souls, acquired by thinking on the lines already described, Mr. +Tylor develops Gods out of them. But he is not one of the writers who is +certain about every detail. He 'scarcely attempts to clear away the haze +that covers great parts of the subject.'[5] + +The human soul, he says, has been the model on which man 'framed his +ideas of spiritual beings in general, from the tiniest elf that sports +in the grass up to the heavenly creator and ruler of the world, the +Great Spirit.' Here it is taken for granted that the Heavenly Ruler was +from the first envisaged as a '_spiritual_ being'--which is just the +difficulty. Was He?[6] + +The process of framing these ideas is rather obscure. The savage 'lives +in terror of the souls of the dead as harmful spirits.' This might yield +a Devil; it would not yield a God who 'makes for righteousness.' +Happily, 'deified ancestors are regarded, on the whole, as kindly +spirits.' The dead ancestor is 'now passed into a deity.'[7] Examples of +ancestor-worship follow. But we are no nearer home. For among the Zulus +many Amatongo (ancestral spirits) are sacred. 'Yet their father +[i.e. the father of each actual family] is far before all others when +they worship the Amatongo.... They do not know the ancients who are dead, +nor their laud-giving names, nor their names.'[8] Thus, each new +generation of Zulus must have a new first worshipful object--its own +father's Itongo. This father, and his very name, are, in a generation or +two, forgotten. The name of such a man, therefore, cannot survive as that +of the God or Supreme Being from age to age; and, obviously, such a real +dead man, while known at all, is much too well known to be taken for the +creator and ruler of the world, despite some African flattering titles and +superstitions about kings who control the weather. The Zulus, about +as 'godless' a people as possible, have a mythical first ancestor, +Unkulunkulu, but he is 'beyond the reach of rites,' and is a centre of +myths rather than of worship or of moral ideas.[9] + +After other examples of ancestor-worship, Mr. Tylor branches off into a +long discussion of the theory of 'possession' or inspiration,[10] which +does not assist the argument at the present point. Thence he passes to +fetishism (already discussed by us), and the transitions from the +fetish--(1) to the idol; (2) to the guardian angel ('subliminal self'); +(3) to tree and river spirits, and local spirits which cause volcanoes; +and (4) to polytheism. A fetish may inhabit a tree; trees being +generalised, the fetish of one oak becomes the god of the forest. Or, +again, fetishes rise into 'species gods;' the gods of _all_ bees, owls, +or rabbits are thus evolved. + +Next,[11] + +'As chiefs and kings are among men, so are the great gods among the lesser +spirits.... With little exception, wherever a savage or barbaric system of +religion is thoroughly described, great gods make their appearance in the +spiritual world as distinctly as chiefs in the human tribe.' + +Very good; but whence comes the great God among tribes which have neither +chief nor king and probably never had, as among the Fuegians, Bushmen, and +Australians? The maker and ruler of the world known to _these_ races +cannot be the shadow of king or chief, reflected and magnified on the mist +of thought; for chief or king these peoples have none. This theory +(Hume's) will not work where people have a great God but no king or +chief; nor where they have a king but no Zeus or other supreme King-god, +as (I conceive) among the Aztecs. + +We now reach, in Mr. Tylor's theory, great fetish deities, such as Heaven +and Earth, Sun and Moon, and 'departmental deities,' gods of Agriculture, +War, and so forth, unknown to low savages. + +Next Mr. Tylor introduces an important personage. 'The theory of family +Manes, carried back to tribal Gods, leads to the recognition of superior +deities of the nature of Divine Ancestor, or First Man,' who sometimes +ranks as Lord of the Dead. As an instance, Mr. Tylor gives the Maori Maui, +who, like the Indian Yama, trod first of men the path of death. But +whether Maui and Yama are the Sun, or not, both Maori and Sanskrit +religion regard these heroes as much later than the Original Gods. In +Kamschatka the First Man is the 'son' of the Creator, and it is about the +origin of the idea of the Creator, not of the First Man, that we are +inquiring. Adam is called 'the son of God' in a Biblical genealogy, but, +of course, Adam was made, not begotten. The case of the Zulu belief will +be analysed later. On the whole, we cannot explain away the conception +of the Creator as a form of the conception of an idealised divine +First Ancestor, because the conception of a Creator occurs where +ancestor-worship does not occur; and again, because, supposing that the +idea of a Creator came first, and that ancestor-worship later grew more +popular, the popular idea of Ancestor might be transferred to the waning +idea of Creator. The Creator might be recognised as the First Ancestor, +_apres coup_. + +Mr. Tylor next approaches Dualism, the idea of hostile Good and Bad +Beings. We must, as he says, be careful to discount European teaching, +still, he admits, the savage has this dualistic belief in a 'primitive' +form. But the savage conception is not merely that of 'good = friendly +to me,' 'bad = hostile to me.' Ethics, as we shall show, already come into +play in his theology. + +Mr. Tylor arrives, at last, at the Supreme Being of savage creeds. His +words, well weighed, must be cited textually-- + +'To mark off the doctrines of monotheism, closer definition is required +[than the bare idea of a Supreme Creator], assigning the distinctive +attributes of Deity to none save the Almighty Creator. It may be declared +that, in this strict sense, no savage tribe of monotheists has been ever +known.[12] Nor are any fair representatives of the lower culture in a +strict sense pantheists. The doctrine which they do widely hold, and +which opens to them a course tending in one or other of these directions, +is polytheism culminating in the rule of one supreme divinity. High above +the doctrine of souls, of divine Manes, of local nature gods, of the great +gods of class and element, there are to be discerned in barbaric theology, +shadowings, quaint or majestic, of the conception of a Supreme Deity, +henceforth to be traced onward in expanding power and brightening glory +along the history of Religion. It is no unimportant task, partial as it +is, to select and group the typical data which show the nature and +position of the doctrine of supremacy, as it comes into view within the +lower culture.[13] + +We shall show that certain low savages are as monotheistic as some +Christians. They have a Supreme Being, and the 'distinctive attributes of +Deity' are not by them assigned to other beings, further than as +Christianity assigns them to Angels, Saints, the Devil, and, strange as +it appears, among savages, to mediating 'Sons.' + +It is not known that, among the Andamanese and other tribes, this last +notion is due to missionary influence. But, in regard to the whole chapter +of savage Supreme Beings, we must, as Mr. Tylor advises, keep watching for +Christian and Islamite contamination. The savage notions, as Mr. Tylor +says, even when thus contaminated, may have 'to some extent, a native +substratum.' We shall select such savage examples of the idea of a +Supreme Being as are attested by ancient native hymns, or are inculcated +in the most sacred and secret savage institutions, the religious Mysteries +(manifestly the last things to be touched by missionary influence), or are +found among low insular races defended from European contact by the +jealous ferocity and poisonous jungles of people and soil. We also note +cases in which missionaries found such native names as 'Father,' 'Ancient +of Heaven,' 'Maker of All,' ready-made to their hands. + +It is to be remarked that, while this branch of the inquiry is practically +omitted by Mr. Spencer, Mr. Tylor can spare for it but some twenty pages +out of his large work. He arranges the probable germs of the savage +idea of a Supreme Being thus: A god of the polytheistic crowd is simply +raised to the primacy, which, of course, cannot occur where there is no +polytheism. Or the principle of Manes worship may make a Supreme Deity +out of 'a primeval ancestor' say Unkulunkulu, who is so far from being +supreme, that he is abject. Or, again, a great phenomenon or force in +Nature-worship, say Sun, or Heaven, is raised to supremacy. Or speculative +philosophy ascends from the Many to the One by trying to discern through +and beyond the universe a First Cause. Animistic conceptions thus reach +their utmost limit in the notion of the Anima Mundi. He may accumulate all +powers of all polytheistic gods, or he may 'loom vast, shadowy, and +calm ... too benevolent to need human worship ... too merely existent to +concern himself with the petty race of men.'[14] But he is always +animistic. + +Now, in addition to the objections already noted in passing, how can we +tell that the Supreme Being of low savages was, in original conception, +_animistic_ at all? How can we know that he was envisaged, originally, as +_Spirit_? We shall show that he probably was not, that the question +'spirit or not spirit' was not raised at all, that the Maker and Father in +Heaven, prior to Death, was merely regarded as a deathless _Being_, no +question of 'spirit' being raised. If so, Animism was not needed for +the earliest idea of a moral Eternal. This hypothesis will be found to +lead to some very singular conclusions. + +It will be more fully stated and illustrated, presently, but I find that +it had already occurred to Dr. Brinton.[15] He is talking specially of a +heaven-god; he says 'it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to +the heavens _long ere man asked himself, Are the heavens material and God +spiritual_?' Dr. Brinton, however, does not develop his idea, nor am I +aware that it has been developed previously. + +The notion of a God about whose spirituality nobody has inquired is new to +us. To ourselves, and doubtless or probably to barbarians on a certain +level of culture, such a Divine Being _must_ be animistic, _must_ be a +'spirit.' To take only one case, to which we shall return, the Banks +Islanders (Melanesia) believe in ghosts, 'and in the existence of Beings +who were not, and never had been, human. All alike might be called +spirits,' says Dr. Codrington, but, _ex hypothesi_, the Beings 'who +never were human' are only called 'spirits,' by us, because our habits of +thought do not enable us to envisage them _except_ as 'spirits.' They +never were men, 'the natives will always maintain that he (the _Vui_) was +_something different_, and deny to him the fleshly body of a man,' while +resolute that he was not a ghost.[16] + +This point will be amply illustrated later, as we study that strangely +neglected chapter, that essential chapter, the Higher beliefs of the +Lowest savages. Of the existence of a belief in a Supreme Being, not as +merely 'alleged,' there is as good evidence as we possess for any fact in +the ethnographic region. + +It is certain that savages, when first approached by curious travellers, +and missionaries, have again and again recognised our God in theirs. + +The mythical details and fables about the savage God are, indeed, +different; the ethical, benevolent, admonishing, rewarding, and creative +aspects of the Gods are apt to be the same.[17] + +'There is no necessity for beginning to tell even the most degraded of +these people of the existence of God, or of a future state, 'the facts +being universally admitted.'[18] + +'Intelligent men among the Bakwains have scouted the idea of any of them +ever having been without a tolerably clear conception of good and evil, +God and the future state; Nothing we indicate as sin ever appeared to +them as otherwise,' except polygamy, says Livingstone. + +Now we may agree with Mr. Tylor that modern theologians, familiar +with savage creeds, will scarcely argue that 'they are direct or +nearly direct products of revelation' (vol. ii. p. 356). But we may +argue that, considering their nascent ethics (denied or minimised by many +anthropologists) and the distance which separates the high gods of +savagery from the ghosts out of which they are said to have sprung; +considering too, that the relatively pure and lofty element which, _ex +hypothesi_, is most recent in evolution, is also, _not_ the most honoured, +but often just the reverse; remembering, above all, that we know nothing +historically of the mental condition of the founders of religion, we may +hesitate to accept the anthropological hypothesis _en masse_. At best +it is conjectural, and the facts are such that opponents have more +justification than is commonly admitted for regarding the bulk of +savage religion as degenerate, or corrupted, from its own highest +elements. I am by no means, as yet, arguing positively in favour of that +hypothesis, but I see what its advocates mean, or ought to mean, and the +strength of their position. Mr. Tylor, with his unique fairness, says +'the degeneration theory, no doubt in some instances with justice, may +claim such beliefs as mutilated and perverted remains of higher religion' +(vol. ii. p. 336). + +I do not pretend to know how the lowest savages evolved the theory of a +God who reads the heart and 'makes for righteousness,' It is as easy, +almost, for me to believe that they 'were not left without a witness,' +as to believe that this God of theirs was evolved out of the maleficent +ghost of a dirty mischievous medicine-man. + +Here one may repeat that while the 'quaint or majestic foreshadowings' +of a Supreme Being, among very low savages, are only sketched lightly +by Mr. Tylor; in Mr. Herbert Spencer's system they seem to be almost +omitted. In his 'Principles of Sociology' and 'Ecclesiastical +Institutions' one looks in vain for an adequate notice; in vain for almost +any notice, of this part of his topic. The watcher of conduct, the +friendly, creative being of low savage faith, whence was he evolved? The +circumstance of his existence, as far as I can see; the chastity, the +unselfishness, the pitifulness, the loyalty to plighted word, the +prohibition of even extra-tribal homicide, enjoined in various places on +his worshippers, are problems that appear somehow to have escaped +Mr. Spencer's notice. We are puzzled by endless difficulties in his +system: for example as to how savages can forget their great-grandfathers' +very names, and yet remember 'traditional persons from generation to +generation,' so that 'in time any amount of expansion and idealisation can +be reached,'[19] + +Again, Mr. Spencer will argue that it is a strange thing if 'primitive men +had, as some think, the consciousness of a Universal Power whence they and +all other things proceeded,' and yet 'spontaneously performed to that +Power an act like that performed by them to the dead body of a fellow +savage'--by offerings of food.[20] + +Now, first, there would be nothing strange in the matter if the crude idea +of 'Universal Power' came _earliest_, and was superseded, in part, by a +later propitiation of the dead and ghosts. The new religious idea would +soon refract back on, and influence by its ritual, the older conception. +And, secondly, it is precisely this 'Universal Power' that is _not_ +propitiated by offerings of food, in Tonga, (despite Mr. Huxley) +Australia, and Africa, for example. We cannot escape the difficulty by +saying that there the old ghost of Universal Power is regarded as dead, +decrepit, or as a _roi-faineant_ not worth propitiating, for that is not +true of the punisher of sin, the teacher of generosity, and the solitary +sanction of faith between men and peoples. + +It would appear then, on the whole, that the question of the plain man to +the anthropologist, 'Having got your idea of spirit into the savage's +mind, how does he develop out of it what I call God?' has not been +answered. God cannot be a reflection from human kings where there have +been no kings; nor a president elected out of a polytheistic society of +gods where there is as yet no polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor +where men do not worship their ancestors; while, again, the spirit of a +man who died, real or ideal, does not answer to a common savage conception +of the Creator. All this will become much more obvious as we study in +detail the highest gods of the lowest races. + +Our study, of course, does not pretend to embrace the religion of all the +savages in the world. We are content with typical, and, as a rule, +well-observed examples. We range from the creeds of the most backward and +worst-equipped nomad races, to those of peoples with an aristocracy, +hereditary kings, houses and agriculture, ending with the Supreme Being of +the highly civilised Incas, and with the Jehovah of the Hebrews. + +[Footnote 1: _Journal Anthrop. Inst._ xi. 874. We shall return to this +passage.] + +[Footnote 2: Vol. i. p. 389, 1892.] + +[Footnote 3: Payne, i. 458.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult._ vol. ii. p. 381; _Science and Hebrew +Tradition_, pp. 346, 372.] + +[Footnote 5: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. p. 109.] + +[Footnote 6: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 110.] + +[Footnote 7: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 113.] + +[Footnote 8: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 115, 116, citing Callaway and +others.] + +[Footnote 9: The Zulu religion will be analysed later.] + +[Footnote 10: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 130-144.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 248.] + +[Footnote 12: And very few civilised populations, if any, are monotheistic +in this sense.] + +[Footnote 13: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 332, 333.] + +[Footnote 14: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 335, 336.] + +[Footnote 15: _Myths of the New World_, 1868, p. 47.] + +[Footnote 16: I observed this point in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, while +I did not see the implication, that the idea of 'spirit' was not +necessarily present in the savage conception of the primal Beings, +Creators, or Makers.] + +[Footnote 17: See one or two cases in _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. p. 340.] + +[Footnote 18: Livingstone, speaking of the Bakwain, _Missionary Travels_, +p. 168.] + +[Footnote 19: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 20: Op. cit. vol. i. p. 302.] + + + + +X + +HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES + +To avoid misconception we must repeat the necessary cautions about +accepting evidence as to high gods of low races. The missionary who does +not see in every alien god a devil is apt to welcome traces of an original +supernatural revelation, darkened by all peoples but the Jews. We shall +not, however, rely much on missionary evidence, and, when we do, we must +now be equally on our guard against the anthropological bias in the +missionary himself. Having read Mr. Spencer and Mr. Tylor, and finding +himself among ancestor-worshippers (as he sometimes does), he is apt to +think that ancestor-worship explains any traces of a belief in the Supreme +Being. Against each and every bias of observers we must be watchful. + +It may be needful, too, to point out once again another weak point in all +reasoning about savage religion, namely that we cannot always tell what +may have been borrowed from Europeans. Thus, the Fuegians, in 1830-1840, +were far out of the way, but one tribe, near Magellan's Straits, +worshipped an image called Cristo. Fitzroy attributes this obvious trace +of Catholicism to a Captain Pelippa, who visited the district some time +before his own expedition. It is less probable that Spaniards established +a belief in a moral Deity in regions where they left no material traces of +their faith. The Fuegians are not easily proselytised. 'When discovered by +strangers, the instant impulse of a Fuegian family is to run off into the +woods.' Occasionally they will emerge to barter, but 'sometimes nothing +will induce a single individual of the family to appear.' Fitzroy thought +they had no idea of a future state, because, among other reasons not +given, 'the evil spirit torments them in _this_ world, if they do wrong, +by storms, hail, snow, &c.' Why the evil spirit should punish evil deeds +is not evident. 'A great black man is supposed to be always wandering +about the woods and mountains, who is certain of knowing every word and +every action, who cannot be escaped and who influences the weather +according to men's conduct.'[1] + +There are no traces of propitiation by food, or sacrifice, or anything but +conduct. To regard the Deity as 'a magnified non-natural man' is not +peculiar to Fuegian theologians, and does not imply Animism, but the +reverse. But the point is that this ethical judge of perhaps the lowest +savages 'makes for righteousness' and searches the heart. His morality is +so much above the ordinary savage standard that he regards the slaying of +a stranger and an enemy, caught redhanded in robbery, as a sin. York's +brother (York was a Fuegian brought to England by Fitzroy) killed a 'wild +man' who was stealing his birds. 'Rain come down, snow come down, hail +come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow. Very bad to kill man. Big man +in woods no like it, he very angry.' Here be ethics in savage religion. +The Sixth Commandment is in force. The Being also prohibits the slaying of +flappers before they can fly. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come wind, +come rain, blow, very much blow.'[2] + +Now this big man is not a deified chief, for the Fuegians 'have no +superiority of one over another ... but the doctor-wizard of each party has +much influence.' Mr. Spencer disposes of this moral 'big man' of the +Fuegians as 'evidently a deceased weather-doctor.'[3] But, first, there is +no evidence that the being is regarded as ever having died. Again, it is +not shown that Fuegians are ancestor-worshippers. Next, Fitzroy did not +think that the Fuegians believed in a future life. Lastly, when were +medicine-men such notable moralists? The worst spirits among the +neighbouring Patagonians are those of dead medicine-men. As a rule +everywhere the ghost of a 'doctor-wizard,' shaman, or whatever he may be +called, is the worst and wickedest of all ghosts. How, then, the Fuegians, +who are not proved to be ancestor-worshippers, evolved out of the +malignant ghost of an ancestor a being whose strong point is morality, one +does not easily conceive. The adjacent Chonos 'have great faith in a good +spirit, whom they call Yerri Yuppon, and consider to be the author of all +good; him they invoke in distress or danger.' However starved they do not +touch food till a short prayer has been muttered over each portion, 'the +praying man looking upward.'[4] They have magicians, but no details are +given as to spirits or ghosts. If Fuegian and Chono religion is on this +level, and if this be the earliest, then the theology of many other higher +savages (as of the Zulus) is decidedly degenerate. 'The Bantu gives one +accustomed to the negro the impression that he once had the same set of +ideas, _but has forgotten half of them_,' says Miss Kingsley.[5] + +Of all races now extant, the Australians are probably lowest in culture, +and, like the fauna of the continent, are nearest to the primitive +model. They have neither metals, bows, pottery, agriculture, nor fixed +habitations; and no traces of higher culture have anywhere been found +above or in the soil of the continent. This is important, for in some +respects their religious conceptions are so lofty that it would be natural +to explain them as the result either of European influence, or as relics +of a higher civilisation in the past. The former notion is discredited +by the fact that their best religious ideas are imparted in connection +with their ancient and secret mysteries, while for the second idea, that +they are degenerate from a loftier civilisation, there is absolutely no +evidence. + +It has been suggested, indeed, by Mr. Spencer that the singularly complex +marriage customs of the Australian blacks point to a more polite condition +in their past history. Of this stage, as we said, no material traces have +ever been discovered, nor can degeneration be recent. Our earliest account +of the Australians is that of Dampier, who visited New Holland in the +unhappy year 1688. He found the natives 'the miserablest people in the +world. The Hodmadods, of Mononamatapa, though a nasty people, yet for +wealth are gentlemen to these: who have no houses, sheep, poultry, and +fruits of the earth.... They have no houses, but lie in the open air.' +Curiously enough, Dampier attests their _unselfishness_: the main ethical +feature in their religious teaching. 'Be it little or be it much they get, +every one has his part, as well the young and tender as the old and +feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' Dampier +saw no metals used, nor any bows, merely boomerangs ('wooden cutlasses'), +and lances with points hardened in the fire. 'Their place of dwelling was +only a fire with a few boughs before it' (the _gunyeh_). + +This description remains accurate for most of the unsophisticated +Australian tribes, but Dampier appears only to have seen ichthyophagous +coast blacks. + +There is one more important point. In the _Bora_, or Australian +mysteries, at which knowledge of 'The Maker' and of his commandments is +imparted, the front teeth of the initiated are still knocked out. Now, +Dampier observed 'the two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all +of them, men and women, old and young.' If this is to be taken quite +literally, the Bora rite, in 1688, must have included the women, at least +locally. Dampier was on the north-west coast in latitude 16 degrees, +longitude 122-1/4 degrees east (Dampier Land, West Australia). The natives +had neither boats, canoes, nor bark logs; but it seems that they had their +religious mysteries and their unselfishness, two hundred years ago.[6] + +The Australians have been very carefully studied by many observers, and +the results entirely overthrow Mr. Huxley's bold statement that 'in its +simplest condition, such as may be met with among the Australian savages, +theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers, and dispositions +(usually malignant) of ghost-like entities who may be propitiated or +scared away; but no cult can properly be said to exist. And in this stage +theology is wholly independent of ethics.' + +Remarks more crudely in defiance of known facts could not be made. The +Australians, assuredly, believe in 'spirits,' often malicious, and +probably in most cases regarded as ghosts of men. These aid the wizard, +and occasionally inspire him. That these ghosts are _worshipped_ does not +appear, and is denied by Waitz. Again, in the matter of cult, 'there is +none' in the way of _sacrifice_ to higher gods, as there should be if +these gods were hungry ghosts. The cult among the Australians is the +keeping of certain 'laws,' expressed in moral teaching, supposed to be in +conformity with the institutes of their God. Worship takes the form, as at +Eleusis, of tribal mysteries, originally instituted, as at Eleusis, by +the God. The young men are initiated with many ceremonies, some of which +are cruel and farcical, but the initiation includes ethical instruction, +in conformity with the supposed commands of a God who watches over +conduct. As among ourselves, the ethical ideal, with its theological +sanction, is probably rather above the moral standard of ordinary +practice. What conclusion we should draw from these facts is uncertain, +but the facts, at least, cannot be disputed, and precisely contradict the +statement of Mr. Huxley. He was wholly in the wrong when he said: 'The +moral code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction from +theological dogmas,'[7] It reposes, for its origin and sanction, on such +dogmas. + +The evidence as to Australian religion is abundant, and is being added to +yearly. I shall here content myself with Mr. Howitt's accounts.[8] + +As regards the possible evolution of the Australian God from +ancestor-worship, it must be noted that Mr. Howitt credits the groups with +possessing 'headmen,' a kind of chiefs, whereas some inquirers, in Brough +Smyth's collection, disbelieve in regular chiefs. Mr. Howitt writes:-- + +'The Supreme Spirit, who is believed in by all the tribes I refer to here +[in South-Eastern Australia], either as a benevolent, or more frequently +as a malevolent being, it seems to me represents the defunct headman.' + +Now, the traces of 'headmanship' among the tribes are extremely faint; no +such headman rules large areas of country, none is known to be worshipped +after death, and the malevolence of the Supreme Spirit is not illustrated +by the details of Mr. Howitt's own statement, but the reverse. Indeed, he +goes on at once to remark that '_Darumulun_ was not, it seems to me, +everywhere thought a malevolent being, but he was dreaded as one who could +severely punish the trespasses committed against these tribal ordinances +and customs whose first institution is ascribed to him.' + +To punish transgressions of his law is not the essence of a malevolent +being. Darumulun 'watched the youths from the sky, prompt to punish, by +disease or death, the breach of his ordinances,' moral or ritual. His name +is too sacred to be spoken except in whispers, and the anthropologist will +observe that the names of the human dead are also often tabooed. But the +divine name is not thus tabooed and sacred when the mere folklore about +him is narrated. The informants of Mr. Howitt instinctively distinguished +between the mythology and the religion of Darumulun.[9] This distinction-- +the secrecy about the religion, the candour about the mythology--is +essential, and accounts for our ignorance about the inner religious +beliefs of early races. Mr. Howitt himself knew little till he was +initiated. The grandfather of Mr. Howitt's friend, _before the white men +came to Melbourne_, took him out at night, and, pointing to a star, said: +'You will soon be a man; you see _Bunjil_ [Supreme Being of certain +tribes] up there, and he can see you, and all you do down here.' Mr. +Palmer, speaking of the Mysteries of Northern Australians (mysteries under +divine sanction), mentions the nature of the moral instruction. Each lad +is given, 'by one of the elders, advice so kindly, fatherly, and +impressive, as often to soften the heart, and draw tears from the youth.' +He is to avoid adultery, not to take advantage of a woman if he finds her +alone, he is not to be quarrelsome.[10] + +At the Mysteries Darumulun's real name may be uttered, at other times he +is 'Master' (_Biamban_) or 'Father' (_Papang_), exactly as we say 'Lord' +and 'Father.' + +It is known that all these things are not due to missionaries, whose +instructions would certainly not be conveyed in the _Bora_, or tribal +mysteries, which, again, are partly described by Collins as early as 1798, +and must have been practised in 1688. Mr. Howitt mentions, among moral +lessons divinely sanctioned, respect for old age, abstinence from lawless +love, and avoidance of the sins so popular, poetic, and sanctioned by the +example of Gods, in classical Greece.[11] A representation is made of the +Master, Biamban; and to make such idols, except at the Mysteries, is +forbidden 'under pain of death.' Those which are made are destroyed as +soon as the rites are ended.[12] The future life (apparently) is then +illustrated by the burial of a living elder, who rises from a grave. +This may, however, symbolise the 'new life' of the Mystae, 'Worse have I +fled; better have I found,' as was sung in an Athenian rite. The whole +result is, by what Mr. Howitt calls 'a quasi-religious element,' to +'impress upon the mind of the youth, in an indelible manner, those rules +of conduct which form the moral law of the tribe.'[13] + +Many other authorities could be adduced for the religious sanction of +morals in Australia. A watchful being observes and rewards the conduct or +men; he is named with reverence, if named at all; his abode is the +heavens; he is the Master and Lord of things; his lessons 'soften the +heart,'[14] + + 'What wants this Knave + That a _God_ should have?' + +I shall now demonstrate that the religion patronised by the Australian +Supreme Being, and inculcated in his Mysteries, is actually used to +counteract the immoral character which natives acquire by associating with +Anglo-Saxon Christians.[15] + +Mr. Howitt[16] gives an account of the Jeraeil, or Mysteries of the +Kurnai. The old men deemed that through intercourse with whites 'the lads +had become selfish and no longer inclined to share that which they +obtained by their own exertions, or had given them, with their friends.' +One need not say that selflessness is the very essence of goodness, and +the central moral doctrine of Christianity. So it is in the religious +Mysteries of the African Yao; a selfish man, we shall see, is spoken of as +'uninitiated.' So it is with the Australian Kurnai, whose mysteries and +ethical teaching are under the sanction of their Supreme Being. So much +for the anthropological dogma that early theology has no ethics. + +The Kurnai began by kneading the stomachs of the lads about to be +initiated (that is, if they have been associating with Christians), to +expel selfishness and greed. The chief rite, later, is to blindfold every +lad, with a blanket closely drawn over his head, to make whirring sounds +with the _tundun_, or Greek _rhombos_, then to pluck off the blankets, and +bid the initiate raise their faces to the sky. The initiator points to it, +calling out, 'Look there, look there, look there!' They have seen in this +solemn way the home of the Supreme Being, 'Our Father,' Mungan-ngaur +(Mungan = 'Father,' ngaur = 'our'), whose doctrine is then unfolded by the +old initiator ('headman') 'in an impressive manner.'[17] 'Long ago there +was a great Being, Mungan-ngaur, who lived on the earth.' His son Tundun +is _direct ancestor_ of the Kurnai. Mungan initiated the rites, and +destroyed earth by water when they were impiously revealed. 'Mungan left +the earth, and ascended to the sky, where he still remains.' + +Here Mungan-ngaur, a Being not defined as spirit, but immortal, and +dwelling in heaven, is Father, or rather grandfather, not maker, +of the Kurnai. This _may_ be interpreted as ancestor-worship, but the +opposite myth, of making or creating, is of frequent occurrence in many +widely-severed Australian districts, and co-exists with evolutionary +myths. Mungan-ngaur's precepts are: + + 1. _To listen to and obey the old men_. + 2. _To share everything they have with their friends_. + 3. _To live peaceably with their friends_. + + 4. _Not to interfere with girls or married women_. + + 5. _To obey the food restrictions until they are released from them by + the old men_. + +Mr. Howitt concludes: 'I venture to assert that it can no longer be +maintained that the Australians have no belief which can be called +religious, that is, in the sense of beliefs which govern tribal and +individual morality under a supernatural sanction.' On this topic +Mr. Hewitt's opinion became more affirmative the more deeply he was +initiated.[18] + +The Australians are the lowest, most primitive savages, yet no +propitiation by food is made to their moral Ruler, in heaven, as if he +were a ghost. + +The laws of these Australian divine beings apply to ritual as well as to +ethics, as might naturally be expected. But the moral element is +conspicuous, the reverence is conspicuous: we have here no mere ghost, +propitiated by food or sacrifice, or by purely magical rites. His very +image (modelled on a large scale in earth) is no vulgar idol: to make such +a thing, except on the rare sacred occasions, is a capital offence. +Meanwhile the mythology of the God has often, in or out of the rites, +nothing rational about it. + +On the whole it is evident that Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, +underrates the nature of Australian religion. He cites a case of +addressing the ghost of a man recently dead, which is asked not to bring +sickness, 'or make loud noises in the night,' and says: 'Here we may +recognise the essential elements of a cult.' But Mr. Spencer does not +allude to the much more essentially religious elements which he might have +found in the very authority whom he cites, Mr. Brough Smyth.[19] This +appears, as far as my scrutiny goes, to be Mr. Spencer's solitary +reference to Australia in the work on 'Ecclesiastical Institutions.' Yet +the facts which he and Mr. Huxley ignore throw a light very different from +theirs on what they consider 'the simplest condition of theology.' + +Among the causes of confusion in thought upon religion, Mr. Tylor mentions +'the partial and one-sided application of the historical method of inquiry +into theological doctrines.'[20] Here, perhaps, we have examples. In its +highest aspect that 'simplest theology' of Australia is free from the +faults of popular theology in Greece. The God discourages sin, though, in +myth, he is far from impeccable. He is almost too revered to be named +(except in mythology) and is not to be represented by idols. He is not +moved by sacrifice; he has not the chance; like Death in Greece, 'he only, +of all Gods, loves not gifts.' Thus the status of theology does not +correspond to what we look for in very low culture. It would scarcely be a +paradox to say that the popular Zeus, or Ares, is degenerate from +Mungan-ngaur, or the Fuegian being who forbids the slaying of an enemy, +and almost literally 'marks the sparrow's fall.' + +If we knew all the mythology of Darumulun, we should probably find it +(like much of the myth of Pundjel or Bunjil) on a very different level +from the theology. There are two currents, the religious and the mythical, +flowing together through religion. The former current, religious, even +among very low savages, is pure from the magical ghost-propitiating habit. +The latter current, mythological, is full of magic, mummery, and +scandalous legend. Sometimes the latter stream quite pollutes the +former, sometimes they flow side by side, perfectly distinguishable, as +in Aztec ethical piety, compared with the bloody Aztec ritualism. +Anthropology has mainly kept her eyes fixed on the impure stream, the +lusts, mummeries, conjurings, and frauds of priesthoods, while relatively, +or altogether, neglecting (as we have shown) what is honest and of good +report. + +The worse side of religion is the less sacred, and therefore the more +conspicuous. Both elements are found co-existing, in almost all races, and +nobody, in our total lack of historical information about the beginnings, +can say which, if either, element is the earlier, or which, if either, is +derived from the other. To suppose that propitiation of corpses and then +of ghosts came first is agreeable, and seems logical, to some writers +who are not without a bias against all religion as an unscientific +superstition. But we know so little! The first missionaries in Greenland +supposed that there was not, there, a trace of belief in a Divine Being. +'But when they came to understand their language better, they found quite +the reverse to be true ... and not only so, but they could plainly gather +from a free dialogue they had with some perfectly wild Greenlanders (at +that time avoiding any direct application to their hearts) that their +ancestors must have believed in a Supreme Being, and did render him some +service, which their posterity neglected little by little...'[21] Mr. +Tylor does not refer to this as a trace of Christian Scandinavian +influence on the Eskimo.[22] + +That line, of course, may be taken. But an Eskimo said to a missionary, +'Thou must not imagine that no Greenlander thinks about these things' +(theology). He then stated the argument from design. 'Certainly there +must be some Being who made all these things. He must be very good too... +Ah, did I but know him, how I would love and honour him.' As St. Paul +writes: 'That which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath +showed it unto them ... being understood by the things which are made ... +but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was +darkened.'[23] In fact, mythology submerged religion. St. Paul's theory of +the origin of religion is not that of an 'innate idea,' nor of a direct +revelation. People, he says, reached the belief in a God from the Argument +for Design. Science conceives herself to have annihilated teleological +ideas. But they are among the probable origins of religion, and would lead +to the belief in a Creator, whom the Greenlander thought beneficent, and +after whom he yearned. This is a very different initial step in religious +development, if initial it was, from the feeding of a corpse, or a ghost. + +From all this evidence it does not appear how non-polytheistic, +non-monarchical, non-Manes-worshipping savages evolved the idea of a +relatively supreme, moral, and benevolent Creator, unborn, undying, +watching men's lives. 'He can go everywhere, and do everything.'[24] + +[Footnote 1: Fitzroy, ii. 180. Darwin. _Descent of Man_, p. 67.] + +[Footnote 2: Ibid. We seem to have little information about Fuegian +religion either before or after the cruise of the _Beagle_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Principles of Sociology_, i. 422.] + +[Footnote 4: Fitzroy, ii. 190, 191] + +[Footnote 5: _Travels in West Africa_, p. 442.] + +[Footnote 6: _Early Voyages to Australia_, 102-111 (Hakluyt Society).] + +[Footnote 7: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 846.] + +[Footnote 8: _Journal of the Anthrop. Institute_, 1884. See, for less +dignified accounts, op. cit. xxiv. xxv.] + +[Footnote 9: _Journal_, xiii. 193.] + +[Footnote 10: _Journal_, xiii. 296.] + +[Footnote 11: Op. cit. p. 450.] + +[Footnote 12: P. 453.] + +[Footnote 13: P. 457.] + +[Footnote 14: See Brough Smyth, _Aborigines_, i. 426; Taplin, _Native +Races of Australia_. According to Taplin, Nurrumdere was a deified black +fellow, who died on earth. This is not the case of Baiame, but is said, +rather vaguely, to be true of Daramulun. _J.A.I._, xiii. 194, xxv. 297.] + +[Footnote 15: From a brief account of the Fire Ceremony, or _Engwurra_ of +certain tribes in Central Australia, it seems that religious ceremonies +connected with Totems are the most notable performances. Also 'certain +mythical ancestors,' of the '_alcheringa_, or dream-times,' were +celebrated; these real or ideal human beings appear to 'sink their +identity in that of the object with which they are associated, and from +which they are supposed to have originated.' There appear also to be +places haunted by 'spirit individuals,' in some way mixed up with Totems, +but nothing is said of sacrifice to these Manes. The brief account is by +Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F.J. Gillen, _Proc. Royal Soc. +Victoria_, July 1897. This Fire Ceremony is not for lads--not a kind of +confirmation in the savage church--but is intended for adults.] + +[Footnote 16: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. 1886, p. 310.] + +[Footnote 17: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. 1885, p. 313.] + +[Footnote 18: _J. Anthrop. Inst_. xiii. p. 459.] + +[Footnote 19: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, p. 674.] + +[Footnote 20: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 450.] + +[Footnote 21: Cranz, pp. 198, 199.] + +[Footnote 22: _Journal Anthrop. Inst_. xiii. 348-356.] + +[Footnote 23: Rom. i. 19. Cranz, i. 199.] + +[Footnote 24: In Mr. Carr's work, _The Australian Race_, reports of +'godless' natives are given, for instance, in the Mary River country and +in Gippsland. These reports are usually the result of the ignorance or +contempt of white observers, cf. Tylor, i. 419. The reader is referred to +the Introduction for additional information about Australian beliefs, and +for replies to objections.] + + + + +XI + +SUPREME GODS NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIRITS' + +Before going on to examine the high gods of other low savages, I must here +again insist on and develop the theory, not easily conceived by us, that +the Supreme Being of savages belongs to another branch of faith than +ghosts, or ghost-gods, or fetishes, or Totems, and need not be--probably +is not--essentially derived from these. We must try to get rid of our +theory that a powerful, moral, eternal Being was, from the first, _ex +officio_, conceived as 'spirit;' and so was necessarily derived from a +ghost. + +First, what was the process of development? + +We have examined Mr. Tylor's theory. But, to take a practical case: Here +are the Australians, roaming in small bands, without more formal rulers +than 'headmen' at most; not ancestor worshippers; not polytheists; with +no departmental deities to select and aggrandise; not apt to speculate on +the _Anima Mundi_. How, then, did they bridge the gulf between the ghost +of a soon-forgotten fighting man, and that conception of a Father above, +'all-seeing,' moral, which, under various names, is found all over a huge +continent? I cannot see that this problem has been solved or frankly +faced. + +The distinction between the Australian deity, at his highest power, +unpropitiated by sacrifice, and the ordinary, waning, easily forgotten, +cheaply propitiated ghost of a tribesman, is essential. It is not easy to +show how, in 'the dark backward' of Australian life, the notion of +Mungan-ngaur grew from the idea of the ghost of a warrior. But there is no +logical necessity for the belief in the evolution of this god out +of that ghost. These two factors in religion--ghost and god--seem to +have perfectly different sources, and it appears extraordinary that +anthropologists have not (as far as I am aware) observed this circumstance +before. + +Mr. Spencer, indeed, speaks frequently of living human beings adored as +gods. I do not know that these are found on the lowest levels of savagery, +and Mr. Jevons has pointed out that, before you can hail a man as a god, +you must have the idea of God. The murder of Captain Cook notoriously +resulted from a scientific experiment in theology. 'If he is a god, he +cannot be killed.' So they tried with a dagger, and found that the honest +captain was but a mortal British mariner--no god at all. 'There are +degrees.' Mr. Spencer's men-gods become real gods--after death.[1] + +Now the Supreme Being of savage faith, as a rule, never died at all. He +belonged to a world that knew not Death. + +One cause of our blindness to the point appears to be this: We have from +childhood been taught that 'God is a Spirit.' We, now, can only conceive +of an eternal being as a 'spirit.' We know that legions of savage gods are +now regarded as spirits. And therefore we have never remarked that there +is no reason why we should take it for granted that the earliest deities +of the earliest men were supposed by them to be 'spirits' at all. These +gods might most judiciously be spoken of, not as 'spirits,' but as +'undefined eternal beings.' To us, such a being is necessarily a spirit, +but he was by no means necessarily so to an early thinker, who may not +yet have reached the conception of a ghost. + +A ghost is said, by anthropologists, to have developed into a god. Now, +the very idea of a ghost (apart from a wraith or fetch) implies the +previous _death_ of his proprietor. A ghost is the phantasm of a _dead_ +man. But anthropologists continually tell us, with truth, that the idea +of death as a universal ordinance is unknown to the savage. Diseases and +death are things that once did not exist, and that, normally, ought not to +occur, the savage thinks. They are, in his opinion, supernormally caused +by magicians and spirits. Death came into the world by a blunder, an +accident, an error in ritual, a decision of a god who was before Death +was. Scores of myths are told everywhere on this subject.[2] + +The savage Supreme Being, with added power, omniscience, and morality, is +the idealisation of the savage, as conceived of by himself, _minus_ +fleshly body (as a rule), and _minus_ Death. He is not necessarily a +'spirit,' though that term may now be applied to him. He was not +originally differentiated as 'spirit' or 'not spirit.' He is a Being, +conceived of without the question of 'spirit,' or 'no spirit' being +raised; perhaps he was originally conceived of before that question could +be raised by men. When we call the Supreme Being of savages a 'spirit' we +introduce our own animistic ideas into a conception where it may not have +originally existed. If the God is 'the savage himself raised to the n^th +power' so much the less of a spirit is he. Mr. Matthew Arnold might as +well have said: 'The British Philistine has no knowledge of God. He +believes that the Creator is a magnified non-natural man, living in the +sky.' The Gippsland or Fuegian or Blackfoot Supreme Being is just a +_Being_, anthropomorphic, not a _mrart_, or 'spirit.' The Supreme Being is +a _wesen_, Being, _Vui_; we have hardly a term for an immortal existence +so undefined. If the being is an idealised first ancestor (as among the +Kurnai), he is not, on that account, either man or ghost of man. In the +original conception he is a powerful intelligence who was from the first: +who was already active long before, by a breach of his laws, an error in +the delivery of a message, a breach of ritual, or what not, death entered +the world. He was not affected by the entry of death, he still exists. + +Modern minds need to become familiar with this indeterminate idea of the +savage Supreme Being, which, logically, may be prior to the evolution of +the notion of ghost or spirit. + +But how does it apply when, as by the Kurnai, the Supreme Being is +reckoned an ancestor? + +It can very readily be shown that, when the Supreme Being of a savage +people is thus the idealised First Ancestor, he can never have been +envisaged by his worshippers as at any time a _ghost_; or, at least, +cannot logically have been so envisaged where the nearly universal +belief occurs that death came into the world by accident, or needlessly. + +Adam is the mythical first ancestor of the Hebrews, but he died, [Greek: +uper moron], and was not worshipped. Yama, the first of Aryan men who +died, was worshipped by Vedic Aryans, but _confessedly_ as a ghost-god. +Mr. Tylor gives a list of first ancestors deified. The Ancestor of the +Maudans did not die, consequently is no ghost; _emigravit_, he 'moved +west.' Where the First Ancestor is also the Creator (Dog-rib Indians), he +can hardly be, and is not, regarded as a mortal. Tamoi, of the Guaranis, +was 'the ancient of heaven,' clearly no mortal man. The Maori Maui was the +first who died, but he is not one of the original Maori gods. Haetsh, +among the Kamchadals, precisely answers to Yama. Unkulunkulu will be +described later.[3] + +This is the list: Where the First Ancestor is equivalent to the Creator, +and is supreme, he is--from the first--deathless and immortal. When he +dies he is a confessed ghost-god. + +Now, ghost-worship and dead ancestor-worship are impossible before the +ancestor is dead and is a ghost. But the essential idea of Mungan-ngaur, +and Baiame, and most of the high gods of Australia, and of other low +races, is that _they never died at all_. They belong to the period before +death came into the world, like Qat among the Melanesians. They arise in +an age that knew not death, and had not reflected on phantasms nor evolved +ghosts. They could have been conceived of, in the nature of the case, by a +race of immortals who never dreamed of such a thing as a ghost. For these +gods, the ghost-theory is not required, and is superfluous, even +contradictory. The early thinkers who developed these beings did not need +to know that men die (though, of course, they did know it in practice), +still less did they need to have conceived by abstract speculation the +hypothesis of ghosts. Baiame, Cagn, Bunjil, in their adorers' belief, were +_there_; death later intruded among men, but did not affect these divine +beings in any way. + +The ghost-theory, therefore, by the evidence of anthropology itself, is +not needed for the evolution of the high gods of savages. It is only +needed for the evolution of ghost-propitiation and genuine dead-ancestor +worship. Therefore, the high gods described were not necessarily once +ghosts--were not idealised _mortal_ ancestors. They were, naturally, from +the beginning, from before the coming in of death, immortal Fathers, now +dwelling on high. Between them and apotheosised mortal ancestors there is +a great gulf fixed--the river of death. + +The explicitly stated distinction that the high creative gods never were +mortal men, while other gods are spirits of mortal men, is made in every +quarter. 'Ancestors _known_ to be human were _not_ worshipped as +[original] gods, and ancestors worshipped as [original] gods were not +believed to have been human.'[4] + +Both kinds may have a generic name, such as _kalou_, or _wakan_, but the +specific distinction is universally made by low savages. On one hand, +original gods; on the other, non-original gods that were once ghosts. Now, +this distinction is often calmly ignored; whereas, when any race has +developed (like late Scandinavians) the Euhemeristic hypothesis ('all gods +were once men'), that hypothesis is accepted as an historical statement of +fact by some writers. + +It is part of my theory that the more popular ghost-worship of souls of +people whom men have loved, invaded the possibly older religion of the +Supreme Father. Mighty beings, whether originally conceived of as +'spirits' or not, came, later, under the Animistic theory, to be reckoned +as spirits. They even (but not among the lowest savages) came to be +propitiated by food and sacrifice. The alternative, for a Supreme Being, +when once Animism prevailed, was sacrifice (as to more popular ghost +deities) or neglect. We shall find examples of both alternatives. But +sacrifice does not prove that a God was, in original conception, a ghost, +or even a spirit. 'The common doctrine of the Old Testament is not that +God is spirit, but that the spirit [_ruah_ = 'wind,' 'living breath'] of +Jehovah, going forth from him, works in the world and among men.'[5] + +To resume. The high Gods of savagery--moral, all-seeing directors of +things and of men--are not explicitly envisaged as spirits at all by their +adorers. The notion of soul or spirit is here out of place. We can best +describe Pirnmeheal, and Napi and Baiame as 'magnified non-natural men,' +or undefined beings who were from the beginning and are undying. They are, +like the easy Epicurean Gods, _nihil indiga nostri_. Not being ghosts, +they crave no food from men, and receive no sacrifice, as do ghosts, or +gods developed out of ghosts, or gods to whom the ghost-ritual has been +transferred. For this very reason, apparently, they seem to be spoken of +by Mr. Grant Allen as 'gods to talk about, not gods to adore; mythological +conceptions rather than religious beings.'[6] All this is rather hard on +the lowest savages. If they sacrifice to a god, then the god is a hungry +ghost; if they don't, then the god is 'a god to talk about, not to adore,' +Luckily, the facts of the Bora ritual and the instruction given there +prove that Mungan-nganr and other names _are_ gods to adore, by ethical +conformity to their will and by solemn ceremony, not merely gods to talk +about. + +Thus, the highest element in the religion of the lowest savages does not +appear to be derived from their theory of ghosts. As far as we can say, in +the inevitable absence of historical evidence, the highest gods of savages +may have been believed in, as Makers and Fathers and Lords of an +indeterminate nature, before the savage had developed the idea of souls +out of dreams and phantasms. It is logically conceivable that savages may +have worshipped deities like Baiame and Darumulun before they had evolved +the notion that Tom, Dick, or Harry has a separable soul, capable of +surviving his bodily decease. Deities of the higher sort, by the very +nature of savage reflections on death and on its non-original casual +character, are prior, or may be prior, or cannot be shown not to be prior, +to the ghost theory--the alleged origin of religion. For their evolution +the ghost theory is not logically demanded; they can do without it. Yet +_they_, and not the spirits, bogles, Mrarts, _Brewin_, and so forth, are +the high gods, the gods who have most analogy--as makers, moral guides, +rewarders, and punishers of conduct (though that duty is also occasionally +assumed by ancestral spirits)--with our civilised conception of the +divine. Our conception of God descends not from ghosts, but from the +Supreme Beings of non-ancestor-worshipping peoples. + +As it seems impossible to point out any method by which low, chiefless, +non-polytheistic, non-metaphysical savages (if any such there be) evolved +out of ghosts the eternal beings who made the world, and watch over +morality: as the people themselves unanimously distinguish such beings +from ghost-gods, I take it that such beings never were ghosts. In this +case the Animistic theory seems to me to break down completely. Yet these +high gods of low savages preserve from dimmest ages of the meanest culture +the sketch of a God which our highest religious thought can but fill up to +its ideal. Come from what germ he may, Jehovah or Allah does not come from +a ghost. + +It may be retorted that this makes no real difference. If savages did not +invent gods in consequence of a fallacious belief in spirit and soul, +still, in some other equally illogical way they came to indulge the +hypothesis that they had a Judge and Father in heaven. But, if the ghost +theory of the high Gods is wrong, as it is conspicuously superfluous, that +_does_ make some difference. It proves that a widely preached scientific +conclusion may be as spectral as Bathybius. On other more important +points, therefore, we may differ from the newest scientific opinion +without too much diffident apprehensiveness. + +[Footnote 1: _Principles of Sociology_, i. 417, 421. 'The medicine men +are treated as gods.... The medicine man becomes a god after death.'] + +[Footnote 2: I have published a chapter on Myths on the Origin of Death in +_Modern Mythology_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 311-316.] + +[Footnote 4: Jevons, _Introduction_, p. 197.] + +[Footnote 5: Robertson Smith. _The Prophets of Israel_, p. 61.] + +[Footnote 6: _Evolution of the Idea of God_, p. 170.] + + + + +XII + +SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS + +It is among 'the lowest savages' that the Supreme Beings are most regarded +as eternal, moral (as the morality of the tribe goes, or above its +habitual practice), and _powerful_. I have elsewhere described the Bushman +god Cagn, as he was portrayed to Mr. Orpen by Qing, who 'had never +before seen a white man except fighting.' Mr. Orpen got the facts from +Qing by inducing him to explain the natives' pictures on the walls of +caves. 'Cagn made all things, and we pray to him,' thus: 'O Cagn, O Cagn, +are we not thy children? Do you not see us hunger? Give us food.' As to +ethics, 'At first Cagn was very good, but he got spoilt through fighting +so many things.' 'How came he into the world?' 'Perhaps with those who +brought the Sun: only the initiated know these things.' It appears that +Qing was not yet initiated in the dance (answering to a high rite of the +Australian _Bora_) in which the most esoteric myths were unfolded.[1] + +In Mr. Spencer's 'Descriptive Sociology' the religion of the Bushmen is +thus disposed of. 'Pray to an insect of the caterpillar kind for success +in the chase.' That is rather meagre. They make arrow-poison out of +caterpillars,[2] though Dr. Bleek, perhaps correctly, identifies Cagn +with i-kaggen, the insect. + +The case of the Andaman Islanders may be especially recommended to +believers in the anthropological science of religion. For long these +natives were the joy of emancipated inquirers as the 'godless Andamanese.' +They only supply Mr. Spencer's 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' with +a few instances of the ghost-belief.[3] Yet when the Andamanese are +scientifically studied _in situ_ by an educated Englishman, Mr. Man, who +knows their language, has lived with them for eleven years, and presided +over our benevolent efforts 'to reclaim them from their savage state,' +the Andamanese turn out to be quite embarrassingly rich in the higher +elements of faith. They have not only a profoundly philosophical +_religion_, but an excessively absurd _mythology_, like the Australian +blacks, the Greeks, and other peoples. If, on the whole, the student of +the Andamanese despairs of the possibility of an ethnological theory of +religion, he is hardly to be blamed. + +The people are probably Negritos, and probably 'the original inhabitants, +whose occupation dates from prehistoric times.'[4] They use the bow, they +make pots, and are considerably above the Australian level. They have +second-sighted men, who obtain status 'by relating an extraordinary dream, +the details of which are declared to have been borne out subsequently by +some unforeseen event, as, for instance, a sudden death or accident.' They +have to produce fresh evidential dreams from time to time. They see +phantasms of the dead, and coincidental hallucinations.[5] All this is as +we should expect it to be. + +Their religion is probably not due to missionaries, as they always shot +all foreigners, and have no traditions of the presence of aliens on the +islands before our recent arrival.[6] Their God, Puluga, is 'like fire,' +but invisible. He was never born, and is immortal. By him were all things +created, except the powers of evil. He knows even the thoughts of the +heart. He is angered by _yubda_ = sin, or wrong-doing, that is falsehood, +theft, grave assault, murder, adultery, bad carving of meat, and (as a +crime of witchcraft) by burning wax.[7] 'To those in pain or distress he +is pitiful, and sometimes deigns to afford relief.' He is Judge of Souls, +and the dread of future punishment 'to _some_ extent is said to affect +their course of action in the present life.'[8] + +This Being could not be evolved out of the ordinary ghost of a +second-sighted man, for I do not find that ancestral ghosts are +worshipped, nor is there a trace of early missionary influence, while +Mr. Man consulted elderly and, in native religion, well-instructed +Andamanese for his facts. + +Yet Puluga lives in a large stone house (clearly derived from ours at Port +Blair), eats and drinks, foraging for himself, and is married to a green +shrimp.[9] There is the usual story of a Deluge caused by the moral wrath +of Puluga. The whole theology was scrupulously collected from natives +unacquainted with other races. + +The account of Andamanese religion does not tally with the anthropological +hypothesis. Foreign influence seems to be more than usually excluded by +insular conditions and the jealousy of the 'original inhabitants.' The +evidence ought to make us reflect on the extreme obscurity of the whole +problem. + +Anthropological study of religion has hitherto almost entirely overlooked +the mysteries of various races, except in so far as they confirm the entry +of the young people into the ranks of the adult. Their esoteric moral and +religious teaching is nearly unknown to us, save in a few instances. It is +certain that the mysteries of Greece were survivals of savage ceremonies, +because we know that they included specific savage rites, such as the use +of the _rhombos_ to make a whirring noise, and the custom of ritual +daubing with dirt; and the sacred _ballets d'action_, in which, as Lucian +and Qing say, mystic facts are 'danced out.'[10] But, while Greece +retained these relics of savagery, there was something taught at Eleusis +which filled minds like Plato's and Pindar's with a happy religious awe. +Now, similar 'softening of the heart' was the result of the teaching in +the Australian _Bora_: the Yao mysteries inculcate the victory over self; +and, till we are admitted to the secrets of all other savage mysteries +throughout the world, we cannot tell whether, among mummeries, +frivolities, and even license, high ethical doctrines are not presented +under the sanction of religion. The New Life, and perhaps the future life, +are undeniably indicated in the Australian mysteries by the simulated +Resurrection. + +I would therefore no longer say, as in 1887, that the Hellenic genius must +have added to 'an old medicine dance' all that the Eleusinian mysteries +possessed of beauty, counsel, and consolation[11]. These elements, as well +as the barbaric factors in the rites, may have been developed out of such +savage doctrine as softens the hearts of Australians and Yaos. That this +kind of doctrine receives religious sanction is certain, where we know the +secret of savage mysteries. It is therefore quite incorrect, and strangely +presumptuous, to deny, with almost all anthropologists, the alliance of +ethics with religion among the most backward races. We must always +remember their secrecy about their inner religion, their frankness about +their mythological tales. These we know: the inner religion we ought to +begin to recognise that we do not know. + +The case of the Andamanese has taught us how vague, even now, is our +knowledge, and how obscure is our problem. The example of the Melanesians +enforces these lessons. It is hard to bring the Melanesians within any +theory. Dr. Codrington has made them the subject of a careful study, and +reports that while the European inquirer can communicate pretty freely on +common subjects 'the vocabulary of ordinary life in almost useless when +the region of mysteries and superstitions is approached.'[12] The Banks +Islanders are most free from an Asiatic element of population on one side, +and a Polynesian element on the other. + +The Banks Islanders 'believe in two orders of intelligent beings different +from living men.' (1) Ghosts of the dead, (2) 'Beings who were not, and +never had been, human.' This, as we have shown, and will continue to show, +is the usual savage doctrine. On the one hand are separable souls of men, +surviving the death of the body. On the other are beings, creators, +who were before men were, and before death entered the world. It is +impossible, logically, to argue that these beings are only ghosts of real +remote ancestors, or of ideal ancestors. These higher beings are not +safely to be defined as 'spirits,' their essence is vague, and, we repeat, +the idea of their existence might have been evolved _before the ghost +theory was attained by men_. Dr. Codrington says, 'the conception can +hardly be that of a purely spiritual being, yet, by whatever name the +natives call them, they are such as in English must be called spirits.' + +That is our point. 'God is a spirit,' these beings are Gods, therefore +'these are spirits.' But to their initial conception our idea of 'spirit' +is lacking. They are beings who existed before death, and still exist. + +The beings which never were human, never died, are _Vui_, the ghosts are +_Tamate_. Dr. Codrington uses 'ghosts' for _Tamate_, 'spirits' for _Vui_. +But as to render _Vui_ 'spirits' is to yield the essential point, we shall +call _Vui_ 'beings,' or, simply, _Vui_. A Vui is not a spirit that has +been a ghost; the story may represent him as if a man, 'but the native +will always maintain that he was something different, and deny to him the +fleshly body of a man.'[13] + +This distinction, ghost on one side--original being, not a man, not a +ghost of a man, on the other--is radical and nearly universal in savage +religion. Anthropology, neglecting the essential distinction insisted on, +in this case, by Dr. Codrington, confuses both kinds under the style of +'spirits,' and derives both from ghosts of the dead. Dr. Codrington, it +should be said, does not generalise, but confines himself to the savages +of whom he has made a special study. But, from the other examples of the +same distinction which we have offered, and the rest which we shall offer, +we think ourselves justified in regarding the distinction between a +primeval, eternal, being or beings, on one hand, and ghosts or spirits +exalted from ghost's estate, on the other, as common, if not universal. + +There are corporeal and incorporeal Vuis, but the body of the corporeal +Vui is '_not_ a human body.'[14] The chief is Qat, 'still at hand to help +and invoked in prayers.' 'Qat, Marawa, look down upon me, smooth the sea +for us two, that I may go safely over the sea!' Qat 'created men and +animals,' though, in a certain district, he is claimed as an _ancestor_ +(p. 268). Two strata of belief have here been confused. + +The myth of Qat is a jungle of facetiae and frolic, with one or two +serious incidents, such as the beginning of Death and the coming of Night. +His mother was, or became, a stone; stones playing a considerable part in +the superstitions. + +The incorporeal Vuis, 'with nothing like a human life, have a much higher +place than Qat and his brothers in the religious system.' They have +neither names, nor shapes, nor legends, they receive sacrifice, and are in +some uncertain way connected with stones; these stones usually bear a +fanciful resemblance to fruits or animals (p. 275). The only sacrifice, in +Banks Islands, is that of shell-money. The mischievous spirits are Tamate, +ghosts of men. There is a belief in _mana_ (magical _rapport_). Dr. +Codrington cannot determine the connection of this belief with that in +spirits. Mana is the uncanny, is X, the unknown. A revived impression of +sense is _nunuai_, as when a tired fisher, half asleep at night, feels the +'draw' of a salmon, and automatically strikes.[15] The common ghost is a +bag of _nunuai_, as living man, in the opinion of some philosophers, is a +bag of 'sensations.' Ghosts are only seen as spiritual lights, which so +commonly attend hallucinations among the civilised. Except in the prayers +to Qat and Marawa, prayer only invokes the dead (p. 285). 'In the western +islands the offerings are made to ghosts, and consumed by fire; in the +eastern (Banks) isles they are made to spirits (beings, _Vui_), and +there is no sacrificial fire.' Now, the worship of ghosts goes, in these +isles, with the higher culture, 'a more considerable advance in the arts +of life;' the worship of non-ghosts, _Vui_, goes with the lower material +culture.[16] This is rather the reverse of what we should expect, in +accordance with the anthropological theory. According, however, to our +theory, Animism and ghost-worship may be of later development, and belong +to a higher level of culture, than worship of a being, or beings, that +never were ghosts. In Leper's Isle, 'ghosts do not appear to have prayers +or sacrifices offered to them,' but cause disease, and work magic.[17] + +The belief in the soul, in Melanesia, does _not_ appear to proceed 'from +their dreams or visions in which deceased or absent persons are presented +to them, for they do not appear to believe that the soul goes out from the +dreamer, or presents itself as an object in his dreams,' nor does belief +in other spirits seem to be founded on 'the appearance of life or motion +in inanimate things.'[18] + +To myself it rather looks as if all impressions had their _nunuai_, real, +bodiless, persistent, after-images; that the soul is the complex of all of +these _nunuai_; that there is in the universe a kind of magical other, +called _mana_, possessed, in different proportions, by different men, +_Vui_, _tamate_, and material objects, and that the _atai_ or _ataro_ of a +man dead, his ghost, retains its old, and acquires new _mana_.[19] It is an +odd kind of metaphysic to find among very backward and isolated savages. +But the lesson of Melanesia teaches us how very little we really know of +the religion of low races, how complex it is, how hardly it can be forced +into our theories, if we take it as given in our knowledge, allow for our +ignorance, and are not content to select facts which suit our hypothesis, +while ignoring the rest. On a higher level of material culture than the +Melanesians are the Fijians. + +Fijian religion, as far as we understand, resembles the others in drawing +an impassable line between ghosts and eternal gods. The word _Kalou_ is +applied to all supernal beings, and mystic or magical things alike. It +seems to answer to _mana_ in New Zealand and Melanesia, to _wakan_ in +North America, and to _fee_ in old French, as when Perrault says, about +Bluebeard's key, 'now the key was _fee_.' All Gods are _Kalou_, but all +things that are _Kalou_ are not Gods. Gods are _Kalou vu_; deified ghosts +are _Kalou yalo_. The former are eternal, without beginning of days or end +of years; the latter are subject to infirmity and even to death.[20] + +The Supreme Being, if we can apply the term to him, is Ndengei, or Degei, +'who seems to be an impersonation of the abstract idea of eternal +existence.' This idea is not easily developed out of the conception of a +human soul which has died into a ghost and may die again. His myth +represents him as a serpent, emblem of eternity, or a body of stone with a +serpent's head. His one manifestation is given by eating. So neglected is +he that a song exists about his lack of worshippers and gifts. 'We made +men,' says Ndengei, 'placed them on earth, and yet they share to us only +the under shell.'[21] Here is an extreme case of the self-existent +creative Eternal, mythically lodged in a serpent's body, and reduced to a +jest. + +It is not easy to see any explanation, if we reject the hypothesis that +this is an old, fallen form of faith, 'with scarcely a temple.' The other +unborn immortals are mythical warriors and adulterers, like the popular +deities of Greece. Yet Ndengei receives prayers through two sons of his, +mediating deities. The priests are possessed, or inspired, by spirits and +gods. One is not quite clear as to whether Ndengei is an inspiring god or +not; but that prayers are made to him is inconsistent with the belief in +his eternal inaction. A priest is represented as speaking for Ndengei, +probably by inspiration. 'My own mind departs from me, and then, when it +is truly gone, my god speaks by me,' is the account of this 'alternating +personality' given by a priest.[22] + +After informing us that Ndengei is starved, Mr. Williams next tells about +offerings to him, in earlier days, of hundreds of hogs.[23] He sends rain +on earth. Animals, men, stones, may all be _Kalou_. There is a Hades as +fantastic as that in the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead,' and second sight +flourishes. + +The mysteries include the sham raising of the dead, and appear to be +directed at propitiatory ghosts rather than at Ndengei. There are scenes +of license; 'particulars of almost incredible indecency have been +privately forwarded to Dr. Tylor.'[24] + +Suppose a religious reformer were to arise in one of the many savage +tribes who, as we shall show, possess, but neglect, an Eternal Creator. +He would do what, in the secular sphere, was done by the Mikado of Japan. +The Mikado was a political Dendid or Ndengei--an awful, withdrawn, +impotent potentate. Power was wielded by the Tycoon. A Mikado of genius +asserted himself; hence arose modern Japan. In the same way, a religious +reformer like Khuen Ahten in Egypt would preach down minor gods, ghosts +and sacred beasts, and proclaim the primal Maker, Ndengei, Dendid, Mtanga. +'The king shall hae his ain again.' Had it not been for the Prophets, +Israel, by the time that Greece and Rome knew Israel, would have been +worshipping a horde of little gods, and even beasts and ghosts, while the +Eternal would have become a mere name--perhaps, like Ndengei and Atahocan +and Unkulunkulu, a jest. The Old Testament is the story of the prolonged +effort to keep Jehovah in His supreme place. To make and to succeed in +that effort was the _differentia_, of Israel. Other peoples, even the +lowest, had, as we prove, the germinal conception of a God--assuredly not +demonstrated to be derived from the ghost theory, logically in no need of +the ghost theory, everywhere explicitly contrasted with the ghost theory. +'But their foolish heart was darkened.' + +It is impossible to prove, historically, which of the two main elements in +belief--the idea of an Eternal Being or Beings, or the idea of surviving +ghosts--came first into the minds of men. The idea of primeval Eternal +Beings, as understood by savages, does not depend on, or require, the +ghost theory. But, as we almost always find ghosts and a Supreme Being +together, where we find either, among the lowest savages, we have no +historical ground for asserting that either is prior to the other. Where +we have no evidence to the belief in the Maker, we must not conclude that +no such belief exists. Our knowledge is confused and scanty; often it is +derived from men who do not know the native language, or the native sacred +language, or have not been trusted with what the savage treasures as his +secret. Moreover, if anywhere ghosts are found without gods, it is an +inference from the argument that an idea familiar to very low savage +tribes, like the Australians, and falling more and more into the +background elsewhere, though still extant and traceable, might, in certain +cases, be lost and forgotten altogether. + +To take an example of half-forgotten deity. Mr. Im Thurn, a good observer, +has written on 'The Animism of the Indians of British Guiana.' Mr. Im +Thurn justly says: 'The man who above all others has made this study +possible is Mr. Tylor.' But it is not unfair to remark that Mr. Im Thurn +naturally sees most distinctly that which Mr. Tylor has taught him to +see--namely, Animism. He has also been persuaded, by Mr. Dorman, that the +Great Spirit of North American tribes is 'almost certainly nothing more +than a figure of European origin, reflected and transmitted almost beyond +recognition on the mirror of the Indian mind,' That is not my opinion: I +conceive that the Red Indians had their native Eternal, like the +Australians, Fijians, Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, and so forth, as will be +shown later. + +Mr. Im Thurn, however, dilates on the dream origin of the ghost theory, +giving examples from his own knowledge of the difficulty with which Guiana +Indians discern the hallucinations of dreams from the facts of waking +life. Their waking hallucinations are also so vivid as to be taken for +realities.[25] Mr. Im Thurn adopts the hypothesis that, from ghosts, 'a +belief has arisen, but very gradually, in higher spirits, and, eventually, +in a Highest Spirit; and, keeping pace with the growth of these beliefs, +a habit of reverence for and worship of spirits.' On this hypothesis, +the spirit latest evolved, and most worshipful, ought, of course, to be +the 'Highest Spirit.' But the reverse, as usual, is the case. The Guiana +Indians believe in the continued, but not in the everlasting, existence of +a man's ghost.[26] They believe in no spirits which were not once tenants +of material bodies.[27] + +The belief in a Supreme Spirit is only attained 'in the highest form of +religion'--Andamanese, for instance--as Mr. Im Thurn uses 'spirit' where +we should say 'being.' 'The Indians of Guiana know no god.'[28] + +'But it is true that various words have been found in all, or nearly all, +the languages of Guiana which have been supposed to be names of a Supreme +Being, God, a Great Spirit, in the sense which those phrases bear in the +language of the higher religions.' + +Being interpreted, these Guiana names mean-- + + _The Ancient One, + The Ancient One in Sky-land, + Our Maker, + Our Father, + Our Great Father._ + +'None of those in any way involves the attributes of a god.' + +The Ancient of Days, Our Father in Sky-land, Our Maker, do rather convoy +the sense of God to a European mind. Mr. Im Thurn, however, decides that +the beings thus designated were supposed ancestors who came into Guiana +from some other country, 'sometimes said to have been that entirely +natural country (?) which is separated from Guiana by the ocean of the +air.'[29] + +Mr. Im Thurn casually observed (having said nothing about morals in +alliance with Animism): + +'The fear of unwittingly offending the countless visible and invisible +beings ... kept the Indians very strictly within their own rights and from +offending against the rights of others.' + +This remark dropped out at a discussion of Mr. Im Thurn's paper, and +clearly demonstrated that even a very low creed 'makes for +righteousness.'[30] + +Probably few who have followed the facts given here will agree with Mr. Im +Thurn's theory that 'Our Maker,' 'Our Father,' 'The Ancient One of the +Heaven,' is merely an idealised human ancestor. He falls naturally into +his place with the other high gods of low savages. But we need much more +information on the subject than Mr. Im Thurn was able to give. + +His evidence is all the better, because he is a loyal follower of Mr. +Tylor. And Mr. Tylor says: 'Savage Animism is almost devoid of that +ethical element which to the educated modern mind is the very mainspring +of practical religion.'[31] 'Yet it keeps the Indians very strictly +within their own rights and from offending the rights of others.' Our own +religion is rarely so successful.[32] + +In the Indians of Guiana we have an alleged case of a people still deep in +the animistic or ghost-worshipping case, who, by the hypothesis, have not +yet evolved the idea of a god at all. + +When the familiar names for God, such as Maker, Father, Ancient of Days, +occur in the Indian language, Mr. Im Thurn explains the neglected Being +who bears these titles as a remote deified ancestor. Of course, when a +Being with similar titles occurs where ancestors are not worshipped, as in +Australia and the Andaman Islands, the explanation suggested by Mr. Im +Thurn for the problem of religion in Guiana, will not fit the facts. + +It is plain that, _a priori_, another explanation is conceivable. If a +people like the Andamanese, or the Australian tribes whom we have studied, +had such a conception as that of Puluga, or Baiame, or Mungan-ngaur and +then, _later_, developed ancestor-worship with its propitiatory sacrifices +and ceremonies, ancestor-worship, as the newest evolved and infinitely the +most practical form of cult, would gradually thrust the belief in a +Puluga, or Mungan-ngaur, or Cagn into the shade. The ancestral spirit, to +speak quite plainly, can be 'squared' by the people in whom he takes a +special interest for family reasons. The equal Father of all men cannot +be 'squared,' and declines (till corrupted by the bad example of ancestral +ghosts) to make himself useful to one man rather than to another. For +these very intelligible, simple, and practical reasons, if the belief in +a Mungan-ngaur came first in evolution, and the belief in a practicable +bribable family ghost came second, the ghost-cult would inevitably crowd +out the God-cult.[33] The name of the Father and Maker would become a +mere survival, _nominis umbra_, worship and sacrifice going to the +ancestral ghost. That explanation would fit the state of religion which +Mr. Im Thurn has found, rightly or wrongly, in British Guiana. + +But, if the idea of a universal Father and Maker came last in evolution, +as a refinement, then, of course, it ought to be the newest, and therefore +the most fashionable and potent of Guianese cults. Precisely the reverse +is said to be the case. Nor can the belief indicated in such names +as Father and Maker be satisfactorily explained as a refinement of +ancestor-worship, because, we repeat, it occurs where ancestors are not +worshipped. + +These considerations, however unpleasant to the devotees of Animism, or +the ghost theory, are not, in themselves, illogical, nor contradictory of +the theory of evolution, which, on the other hand, fits them perfectly +well. That god thrives best who is most suited to his environment. Whether +an easy-going, hungry ghost-god with a liking for his family, or a moral +Creator not to be bribed, is better suited to an environment of not +especially scrupulous savages, any man can decide. Whether a set of not +particularly scrupulous savages will readily evolve a moral unbribable +Creator, when they have a serviceable family ghost-god eager to oblige, is +a question as easily resolved. + +Beyond all doubt, savages who find themselves under the watchful eye of a +moral deity whom they cannot 'square' will desert him as soon as they have +evolved a practicable ghost-god, useful for family purposes, whom they +_can_ square. No less manifestly, savages, who already possess a throng of +serviceable ghost-gods, will not enthusiastically evolve a moral Being who +despises gifts, and only cares for obedience. 'There is a great deal of +human nature in man,' and, if Mr. Im Thurn's description of the Guianese +be correct, everything we know of human nature, and of evolution, assures +us that the Father, or Maker, or Ancient of Days came first; the +ghost-gods, last. What has here been said about the Indians of Guiana +(namely, that they are now more ghost and spirit worshippers, with only a +name surviving to attest a knowledge of a Father and Maker in Heaven) +applies equally well to the Zulus. The Zulus are the great standing type +of an animistic or ghost-worshipping race without a God. But, had they a +God (on the Australian pattern) whom they have forgotten, or have they not +yet evolved a God out of Animism? + +The evidence, collected by Dr. Callaway, is honest, but confused. One +native, among others, put forward the very theory here proposed by us as +an alternative to that of Mr. Im Thurn. 'Unkulunkulu' (the idealised but +despised First Ancestor) 'was not worshipped [by men]. For it is not +worship when people see things, as rain, or food, or corn, and say, +"Yes, these things were made by Unkulunkulu.... Afterwards they [men] +had power to change those things, that they might become the Amatongos" +[might belong to the ancestral spirits]. _They took them away from +Unkulunkulu_.'[34] + +Animism supplanted Theism. Nothing could be more explicit. But, though we +have found an authentic Zulu text to suit our provisional theory, the most +eminent philosophical example must not reduce us into supposing that this +text settles the question. Dr. Callaway collected great masses of Zulu +answers to his inquiries, and it is plain that a respondent, like the +native theologian whom we have cited, may have adapted his reply to what +he had learned of Christian doctrine. Having now the Christian notion of a +Divine Creator, and knowing, too, that the unworshipped Unkulunkulu is +said to have 'made things,' while only ancestral spirits, are worshipped, +the native may have inferred that worship (by Christians given to the +Creator) was at some time transferred by the Zulus from Unkulunkulu to the +Amatongo. The truth is that both the anthropological theory (spirits +first, Gods last), and our theory (Supreme Being first, spirits next) can +find warrant in Dr. Callaway's valuable collections. For that reason, the +problem must be solved after a survey of the whole field of savage and +barbaric religion; it cannot be settled by the ambiguous case of the +Zulus alone. + +Unkulunkulu is represented as 'the First Man, who broke off in the +beginning.' 'They are ancestor-worshippers,' says Dr. Callaway, 'and +believe that their first ancestor, the First Man, was the Creator.'[35] +But they may, like many other peoples, have had a different original +tradition, and have altered it, just because they are now such fervent +ancestor-worshippers. Unkulunkulu was prior to Death, which came among men +in the usual mythical way.[36] Whether Unkulunkulu still exists, is +rather a moot question: Dr. Callaway thinks that he does not.[37] If not, +he is an exception to the rule in Australia, Andaman, among the Bushmen, +the Fuegians, and savages in general, who are less advanced in culture +than the Zulus. The idea, then, of a Maker of things who has ceased to +exist occurs, if at all, not in a relatively primitive, but in a +relatively late religion. On the analogy of pottery, agriculture, the use +of iron, villages, hereditary kings, and so on, the notion of a dead Maker +is late, not early. It occurs where men have iron, cattle, agriculture, +kings, houses, a disciplined army, _not_ where men have none of these +things. The Zulu godless ancestor-worship, then, by parity of reasoning, +is, like their material culture, not an early but a late development. The +Zulus 'hear of a King which is above'--'the heavenly King.'[38] 'We did +not hear of him first from white men.... But he is not like Unkulunkulu, +who, we say, made all things.' + +Here may be dimly descried the ideas of a God, and a subordinate demiurge. +'The King is above, Unkulunkulu is beneath.' The King above punishes sin, +striking the sinner by lightning. Nor do the Zulus know how they have +sinned. 'There remained only that word about the heaven,' 'which,' says +Dr. Callaway, 'implies that there might have been other words which are +now lost.' There is great confusion of thought. Unkulunkulu made the +heaven, where the unknown King reigns, a hard task for a +First Man.[39] + +'In process of time we have come to worship the Amadhlozi (spirits) only, +because we know not what to say about Unkulunkulu.'[40] 'It is on that +account, then, that we seek out for ourselves the Amadhlozi (spirits), +that we may not always be thinking about Unkulunkulu.' + +All this attests a faint lingering shadow of a belief too ethereal, too +remote, for a practical conquering race, which prefers intelligible +serviceable ghosts, with a special regard for their own families. + +Ukoto, a very old Zulu, said: 'When we were children it was said "The Lord +is in heaven." ... They used to point to the Lord on high; we did not hear +his name.' Unkulunkulu was understood, by this patriarch, to refer to +immediate ancestors, whose mimes and genealogies he gave.[41] 'We heard it +said that the Creator of the world was the Lord who is above; people used +always, when I was growing up, to point towards heaven.' + +A very old woman was most reluctant to speak of Unkulunkulu; at last she +said, 'Ah, it is he in fact who is the Creator, who is in heaven, of whom +the ancients spoke.' Then the old woman began to babble humorously of how +the white men made all things. Again, Unkulunkulu is said to have been +created by Utilexo. Utilexo was invisible, Unkulunkulu was visible, and so +got credit not really his due.[42] When the heaven is said to be the +Chief's (the chief being a living Zulu) 'they do not believe what they +say,' the phrase is a mere hyperbolical compliment.[43] + +On this examination of the evidence, it certainly seems as logical to +conjecture that the Zulus had once such an idea of a Supreme Being as +lower races entertain, and then nearly lost it; as to say that Zulus, +though a monarchical race, have not yet developed a King-God out of the +throng of spirits (Amatongo). The Zulus, the Norsemen of the South, so to +speak, are a highly practical military race. A Deity at all abstract was +not to their liking. Serviceable family spirits, who continually provided +an excuse for a dinner of roast beef, were to their liking. The less +developed races do not kill their flocks commonly for food. A sacrifice is +needed as a pretext. To the gods of Andamanese, Bushmen, Australians, no +sacrifice is offered. To the Supreme Being of most African peoples no +sacrifice is offered. There is no festivity in the worship of these +Supreme Beings, no feasting, at all events. They are not to be 'got at' by +gifts or sacrifices. The Amatongo are to be 'got at,' are bribable, supply +an excuse for a good dinner, and thus the practical Amatongo are honoured, +while, in the present generation of Zulus, Unkulunkulu is a joke, and the +Lord in Heaven is the shadow of a name. Clearly this does not point to the +recent but to the remote development of the higher ideas, now superseded +by spirit-worship. + +We shall next see how this view, the opposite of the anthropological +theory, works when applied to other races, especially to other African +races. + +[Footnote 1: When I wrote _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_ (ii. 11-13) I +regarded Cagn as 'only a successful and idealised medicine man.' But I now +think that I confused in my mind the religious and the mythological +aspects of Cagn. One of unknown origin, existing before the sun, a Maker +of all things, prayed to, but not in receipt of sacrifice, is no medicine +man, except in his myth.] + +[Footnote 2: The omissions in Mr. Spencer's system may possibly be +explained by the circumstance that, as he tells us, he collected his +facts 'by proxy.' While we find Waitz much interested in and amazed by the +benevolent Supreme Being of many African tribes, that personage is only +alluded to as 'Alleged Benevolent Supreme Being' in Mr. Spencer's +_Descriptive Sociology_, and is usually left out of sight altogether in +his _Principles of Sociology_ and _Ecclesiastical Institutions_. Yet we +have precisely the same kind of evidence of observers for this 'alleged' +benevolent Supreme Being as we have for the _canaille_ of ghosts and +fetishes. If he is a deity of a rather lofty moral conception, of course +he need not be propitiated by human sacrifices or cold chickens. _That_ +kind of material evidence to the faith in him must be absent by the +nature of the case; but the coincident testimony of travellers to belief +in a Supreme Being cannot be dismissed as 'alleged.'] + +[Footnote 3: Pp. 676, 677.] + +[Footnote 4: Man, _J.A.I_. xii. 70.] + +[Footnote 5: Man, _J.A.I_. xii. 96-98.] + +[Footnote 6: xii. 156, 157.] + +[Footnote 7: xii. 112.] + +[Footnote 8: xii. 158.] + +[Footnote 9: xii. 158.] + +[Footnote 10: _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, i. 281-288.] + +[Footnote 11: Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, 133.] + +[Footnote 12: _J.A.I_. x. 263.] + +[Footnote 13: _J.A.I_. 267.] + +[Footnote 14: _J.A.I_. x. 267.] + +[Footnote 15: P. 281. This is a _nunuai_ with which I am familiar. Flying +fish, in Banks Island, take the _role_ of salmon. The natives think it +real, but without form or substance.] + +[Footnote 16: Codrington, _Melanesia_, p. 122.] + +[Footnote 17: _J.A.I_. x. 294.] + +[Footnote 18: Op. cit. x. 313.] + +[Footnote 19: _J.A.I_. x. 300.] + +[Footnote 20: Williams's _Fiji_, p. 218. See Mr. Thomson's remarks cited +later.] + +[Footnote 21: _Fiji_, p. 217.] + +[Footnote 22: Ibid. p. 228.] + +[Footnote 23: Ibid. p. 230.] + +[Footnote 24: _J.A.I_. xiv. 30.] + +[Footnote 25: _J.A.I_. xi. 361-366.] + +[Footnote 26: Ibid. xi. 374.] + +[Footnote 27: Ibid. xi. 376.] + +[Footnote 28: Ibid. xi. 376] + +[Footnote 29: _J.A.I_. xi. 378.] + +[Footnote 30: Ibid. 382.] + +[Footnote 31: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 360.] + +[Footnote 32: Conceivably, however, the Guiana spirits who have so much +moral influence, exert it by magical charms. 'The belief in the power of +charms for good or evil produces not only honesty, but a great amount of +gentle dealing,' says Livingstone, of the Africans. However they work, the +spirits work for righteousness.] + +[Footnote 33: Obviously there could be no Family God before there was the +institution of the Family.] + +[Footnote 34: Callaway, _Rel. of Amazulu_, p. 17.] + +[Footnote 35: Callaway, p. 1.] + +[Footnote 36: Op. cit. p. 8.] + +[Footnote 37: Op. cit. p. 7.] + +[Footnote 38: Op. cit. p. 19.] + +[Footnote 39: Callaway, pp. 20, 21.] + +[Footnote 40: Pp. 26, 27.] + +[Footnote 41: Pp. 49, 50.] + +[Footnote 42: P. 67.] + +[Footnote 43: P. 122.] + + + + +XIII + +MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS + +If many of the lowest savages known to us entertain ideas of a Supreme +Being such as we find among Fuegians, Australians, Bushmen, and +Andamanese, are there examples, besides the Zulus, of tribes higher in +material culture who seem to have had such notions, but to have partly +forgotten or neglected them? Miss Kingsley, a lively, observant, and +unprejudiced, though rambling writer, gives this very account of the Bantu +races. Oblivion, or neglect, will show itself in leaving the Supreme Being +alone, as he needs no propitiation, while devoting sacrifice and ritual to +fetishes and ghosts. That this should be done is perfectly natural if the +Supreme Being (who wants no sacrifice) were the first evolved in thought, +while venal fetishes and spirits came in as a result of the ghost theory. +But if, as a result of the ghost theory, the Supreme Being came last in +evolution, he ought to be the most fashionable object of worship, the +latest developed, the most powerful, and most to be propitiated. He is the +reverse. + +To take an example: the Dinkas of the Upper Nile ('godless,' says Sir +Samuel Baker) 'pay a very theoretical kind of homage to the all-powerful +Being, dwelling in heaven, whence he sees all things. He is called +"Dendid" (great rain, that is, universal benediction?).' He is omnipotent, +but, being all beneficence, can do no evil; so, not being feared, he is +not addressed in prayer. The evil spirit, on the other hand, receives +sacrifices. The Dinkas have a strange old chant: + + 'At the beginning, when Dendid made all things, + He created the Sun, + And the Sun is born, and dies, and comes again! + He created the Stars, + And the Stars are born, and die, and come again! + He created Man, + And Man is born, and dies, and returns no more!' + +It is like the lament of Moschus.[1] + +Russegger compares the Dinkas, and all the neighbouring peoples who hold +the same beliefs, to modern Deists.[2] They are remote from Atheism and +from cult! Suggestions about an ancient Egyptian influence are made, but +popular Egyptian religion was not monotheistic, and priestly thought could +scarcely influence the ancestors of the Dinkas. M. Lejean says these +peoples are so practical and utilitarian that missionary religion takes no +hold on them. Mr. Spencer does not give the ideas of the Dinkas, but it is +not easy to see how the too beneficent Dendid could be evolved out of +ghost-propitiation, 'the origin of all religions.' Rather the Dinkas, a +practical people, seem to have simply forgotten to be grateful to +their Maker; or have decided, more to the credit of the clearness of their +heads than the warmth of their hearts, that gratitude he does not want. +Like the French philosopher they cultivate _l'independance du coeur_, +being in this matter strikingly unlike the Pawnees. + +Let us now take a case in which ancestor-worship, and no other form of +religion (beyond mere superstitions), has been declared to be the practice +of an African people. Mr. Spencer gives the example of natives of the +south-eastern district of Central Africa described by Mr. Macdonald in +'Africana.'[3] The dead man becomes a ghost-god, receives prayer and +sacrifice, is called a Mulungu (= great ancestor or = sky?), is preferred +above older spirits, now forgotten; such old spirits may, however, have a +mountain top for home, a great chief being better remembered; the +mountain god is prayed to for rain; higher gods were probably similar +local gods in an older habitat of the Yao.[4] + +Such is in the main Mr. Spencer's _resume_ of Mr. Duff Macdonald's report. +He omits whatever Mr. Macdonald says about a Being among the Yaos, +analogous to the Dendid of the Dinkas, or the Darumulun of Australia, or +the Huron Ahone. Yet analysis detects, in Mr. Macdonald's report, +copious traces of such a Being, though Mr. Macdonald himself believes in +ancestor-worship as the Source of the local religion. Thus, Mulungu, +or Mlungu, used as a proper name, 'is said to be the great spirit, +_msimu_, of all men, a spirit formed by adding all the departed spirits +together.[5] This is a singular stretch of savage philosophy, and +indicates (says Mr. Macdonald) 'a grasping after a Being who is the +totality of all individual existence.... If it fell from the lips of +civilised men instead of savages, it would be regarded as philosophy. +Expressions of this kind among the natives are partly traditional, and +partly dictated by the big thoughts of the moment.' Philosophy it is, but +a philosophy dependent on the ghost theory. + +I go on to show that the Wayao have, though Mr. Spencer omits him, a Being +who precisely answers to Darumulun, if stripped (perhaps) of his ethical +aspect. On this point we are left in uncertainty, just because Mr. +Macdonald could not ascertain the secrets of his mysteries, which, in +Australia, have been revealed to a few Europeans. + +Where Mulungu is used as a proper name, it 'certainly points to a personal +Being, by the Wayao sometimes said to be the same as Mtanga. At other +times he is a Being that possesses many powerful servants, but is himself +kept a good deal beyond the scene of earthly affairs, like the gods of +Epicurus.' + +This is, of course, precisely the feature in African theology which +interests us. The Supreme Being, in spite of the potency which his +supposed place as latest evolved out of the ghost-world should naturally +give him, is neglected, either as half forgotten, or for philosophical +reasons. For these reasons Epicurus and Lucretius make their gods +_otiosi_, unconcerned, and the Wayao, with their universal collective +spirit, are no mean philosophers. + +'This Mulungu' or Mtanga, 'in the world beyond the grave, is represented +as assigning to spirits their proper places,' whether for ethical reasons +or not we are not informed.[6] Santos (1586) says 'they acknowledge a God +who, both in this world and the next, measures retribution for the good or +evil done in this.' + +'In the native hypothesis about creation "the people of Mulungu" play a +very important part.' These ministers of his who do his pleasure are, +therefore, as is Mulungu himself, regarded as prior to the existing world. +Therefore they cannot, in Wayao opinion, be ghosts of the dead at all; nor +can we properly call them 'spirits.' They are _beings_, original, +creative, but undefined. The word Mulungu, however, is now applied to +spirits of individuals, but whether it means 'sky' (Salt) or whether it +means 'ancestor' (Bleek), it cannot be made to prove that Mulungu himself +was originally envisaged as 'spirit.' For, manifestly, suppose that the +idea of powerful beings, undefined, came first in evolution, and was +followed by the ghost idea, that idea might then be applied to explaining +the pre-existent creative powers. + +Mtanga is by 'some' localised as the god of Mangochi, an Olympus left +behind by the Yao in their wanderings. Here, some hold, his voice is still +audible. 'Others say that Mtanga never was a man ... he was concerned in +the first introduction of men into the world. He gets credit for ... +making mountains and rivers. He is intimately associated with a year of +plenty. He is called Mchimwene juene, 'a very chief.' He has a kind of +evil opposite, _Chitowe_, but this being, the Satan of the creed, 'is a +child or subject of Mtanga,' an evil angel, in fact.[7] + +The thunder god, Mpambe, in Yao, Njasi (lightning) is also a minister of +the Supreme Being. 'He is sent by Mtanga with rain.' Europeans are +cleverer than natives, because we 'stayed longer with the people of +God (Mulungu).' + +I do not gather that, though associated with good crops, Mtanga or +Mulungu receives any sacrifice or propitiation. 'The chief addresses +his own god;'[8] the chief 'will not trouble himself about his +great-great-grand-father; he will present his offering to his own +immediate predecessor, saying, 'O father, I do not know all your +relatives; you know them all: invite them to feast with you.'[9] + +'All the offerings are supposed to point to some want of the spirit,' +Mtanga, on the other hand, is _nihil indiga nostri_. + +A village god is given beer to drink, as Indra got Soma. A dead chief is +propitiated by human sacrifices. I find no trace of any gift to Mtanga. +His mysteries are really unknown to Mr. Macdonald: they were laughed at +by a travelled and 'emancipated' Yao.[10] + +'These rites are supposed to be inviolably concealed by the initiated, who +often say that they would die if they revealed them.'[11] + +How can we pretend to understand a religion if we do not know its secret? +That secret, in Australia, yields the certainty of the ethical character +of the Supreme Being. Mr. Macdonald says about the initiator (a grotesque +figure):-- + +'He delivers lectures, and is said to give much good advice ... the +lectures condemn selfishness, and a selfish person is called _mwisichana_, +that is, "uninitiated."' + +There could not be better evidence of the presence of the ethical element +in the religious mysteries. Among the Yao, as among the Australian Kurnai, +the central secret lesson of religion is the lesson of unselfishness. + +It is not stated that Mtanga instituted or presides over the mysteries. +Judging from the analogy of Eleusis, the Bora, the Red Indian initiations, +and so on, we may expect this to be the belief; but Mr. Macdonald knows +very little about the matter. + +The legendary tales say 'all things in this world were made by "God."' +'At first there were not people, but "God" and beasts.' 'God' here, +is Mlungu. The other statement is apparently derived from existing +ancestor-worship, people who died became 'God' (Mlungu). But God is prior +to death, for the Yao have a form of the usual myth of the origin of +death, also of sleep: 'death and sleep are one word, they are of one +family.' God dwells on high, while a malevolent 'great one,' who disturbed +the mysteries and slew the initiated, was turned into a mountain.[12] + +In spite of information confessedly defective, I have extracted from Mr. +Spencer's chosen authority a mass of facts, pointing to a Yao belief in a +primal being, maker of mountains and rivers; existent before men were; not +liable to death--which came late among them--beneficent; not propitiated +by sacrifice (as far as the evidence goes); moral (if we may judge by the +analogy of the mysteries), and yet occupying the religious background, +while the foreground is held by the most recent ghosts. To prove Mr. +Spencer's theory, he ought to have given a full account of this being, and +to have shown how he was developed out of ghosts which are forgotten in +inverse ratio to their distance from the actual generation. I conceive +that Mr. Spencer would find a mid-point between a common ghost and Mtanga, +in a ghost of a chief attached to a mountain, the place and place-name +preserving the ghost's name and memory. But it is, I think, a far cry from +such a chief's ghost to the pre-human, angel-served Mtanga. + +Of ancestor worship and ghost worship, we have abundant evidence. But the +position of Mtanga raises one of these delicate and crucial questions +which cannot be solved by ignoring their existence. Is Mtanga evolved +out of an ancestral ghost? If so, why, as greatest of divine beings, 'Very +Chief,' and having powerful ministers under him, is he left unpropitiated, +unless it be by moral discourses at the mysteries? As a much more advanced +idea than that of a real father's ghost, he ought to be much later in +evolution, fresher in conception, and more adored. How do we explain his +lack of adoration? Was he originally envisaged as a ghost at all, and, if +so, by what curious but uniform freak of savage logic is he regarded as +prior to men, and though a ghost, prior to death? Is it not certain that +such a being could be conceived of by men who had never dreamed of ghosts? +Is there any logical reason why Mtanga should not be regarded as +originally on the same footing as Munganngaur, but now half forgotten and +neglected, for practical or philosophical reasons? + +On these problems light is thrown by a successor of Mr. Spencer's +authority, Mr. Duff Macdonald, in the Blantyre Mission. This gentleman, +the Rev. David Clement Scott, has published 'A Cyclopaedic Dictionary +of the Mang'anja Language in British Central Africa.'[13] Looking at +ancestral spirits first, we find _Mzimu_, 'spirits of the departed, +supposed to come in dreams.' Though abiding in the spirit world, they also +haunt thickets, they inspire Mlauli, prophets, and make them rave and +utter predictions. Offerings are made to them. Here is a prayer: 'Watch +over me, my ancestor, who died long ago; tell the great spirit at the head +of my race from whom my mother came.' There are little hut-temples, and +the chief directs the sacrifices of food, or of animals. There are +religious pilgrimages, with sacrifice, to mountains. God, like men in this +region, has various names, as Chiuta, 'God in space and the rainbow sign +across;' Mpambe, 'God Almighty' (or rather 'pre-excellent'); Mlezi, 'God +the Sustainer,' and Mulungu, 'God who is spirit.' Mulungu = God, 'not +spirits or fetish.' 'You can't put the plural, as God is One,' say the +natives. 'There are no idols called gods, and spirits are spirits of +people who have died, not gods.' Idols are _Zitunzi-zitunzi_. 'Spirits +are supposed to be with Mulungu.' God made the world and man. Our author +says 'when the chief or people sacrifice it is to God,' but he also says +that they sacrifice to ancestral spirits. There is some confusion of +ideas here: Mr. Macdonald says nothing of sacrifice to Mtanga. + +Mr. Scott does not seem to know more about the Mysteries than Mr. +Macdonald, and his article on Mulungu does not much enlighten us. Does +Mulungu, as Creative God, receive sacrifice, or not?[14] Mr. Scott gives +no instance of this, under _Nsembe_ (sacrifice), where ancestors, or +hill-dwelling ghosts of chiefs, are offered food; yet, as we have seen, +under _Mulungu_, he avers that the chiefs and people do sacrifice to God. +He appears to be confusing the Creator with spirits, and no reliance can +be placed on this part of his evidence. 'At the back of all this' +(sacrifice to spirits) 'there is God.' If I understand Mr. Scott, +sacrifices are really made only to spirits, but he is trying to argue +that, after all, the theistic conception is at the back of the animistic +practice, thus importing his theory into his facts. His theory would, +really, be in a better way, if sacrifice is _not_ offered to the Creator, +but this had not occurred to Mr. Scott. + +It is plain, in any case, that the religion of the Africans in the +Blantyre region has an element not easily to be derived from ancestral +spirit-worship, an element not observed by Mr. Spencer. + +Nobody who has followed the examples already adduced will be amazed by +what Waitz calls the 'surprising result' of recent inquiries among the +great negro race. Among the branches where foreign influence is least to +be suspected, we discover, behind their more conspicuous fetishisms and +superstitions, something which we cannot exactly call Monotheism, yet +which tends in that direction.[15] Waitz quotes Wilson for the fact that, +their fetishism apart, they adore a Supreme Being as the Creator: and do +not honour him with sacrifice. + +The remarks of Waitz may be cited in full: + +'The religion of the negro may be considered by some as a particularly +rude form of polytheism and may be branded with the special name of +fetishism. It would follow, from a minute examination of it, that--apart +from the extravagant and fantastic traits, which are rooted in the +character of the negro, and which radiate therefrom over all his +creations--in comparison with the religions of other savages it is neither +very specially differentiated nor very specially crude in form. + +'But this opinion can be held to be quite true only while we look at the +_outside_ of the negro's religion, or estimate its significance from +arbitrary pre-suppositions, as is specially the case with Ad. Wuttke. + +'By a deeper insight, which of late several scientific investigators have +succeeded in attaining, we reach, rather, the surprising conclusion that +several of the negro races--on whom we cannot as yet prove, and can hardly +conjecture, the influence of a more civilised people--in the embodying of +their religious conceptions are further advanced than almost all other +savages, so far that, even if we do not call them monotheists, we may +still think of them as standing on the boundary of monotheism, seeing that +their religion is also mixed with a great mass of rude superstition which, +in turn, among other peoples, seems to overrun completely the purer +religious conceptions.' + +This conclusion as to an element of pure faith in negro religion would not +have surprised Waitz, had recent evidence as to the same creed among lower +savages lain before him as he worked. + +This volume of his book was composed in 1860. In 1872 he had become well +aware of the belief in a good Maker among the Australian natives, and of +the absence among them of ancestor worship.[16] + +Waitz's remarks on the Supreme Being of the Negro are well worth noting, +from his unconcealed astonishment at the discovery. + +Wilson's observations on North and South Guinea religion were published in +1856. After commenting on the delicate task of finding out what a savage +religion really is, he writes: 'The belief in one great Supreme Being, +who made and upholds all things, is universal.'[17] The names of the being +are translated 'Maker,' 'Preserver,' 'Benefactor,' 'Great Friend.' Though +compact of all good qualities, the being has allowed the world to 'come +under the control of evil spirits,' who, alone, receive religious worship. +Though he leaves things uncontrolled, yet the chief being (as in Homer) +ratifies the Oath, at a treaty, and is invoked to punish criminals when +ordeal water is to be drunk. So far, then, he has an ethical influence. +'Grossly wicked people' are buried outside of the regular place. Fetishism +prevails, with spiritualism, and Wilson thinks that mediums might pick up +some good tricks in Guinea. He gives no examples. Their inspired men do +things 'that cannot be accounted for,' by the use of narcotics. + +The South Guinea Creator, Anyambia (= good spirit?), is good, but +capricious. He has a good deputy, Ombwiri (spelled 'Mbuiri' by Miss +Kingsley); _he alone has no priests_, but communicates directly with men. +The neighbouring Shekuni have mysteries of the Great Spirit. No details +are given. This great being, Mwetyi, witnesses covenants and punishes +perjury. This people are ancestor-worshippers, but their Supreme Being is +not said to receive sacrifice, as ghosts do, while he is so far from +being powerless, like Unkulunkulu, that, but for fear of his wrath, +'their national treaties would have little or no force.'[18] Having no +information about the mysteries, of course, we know nothing of other moral +influences which are, or may be exercised by these great, powerful, and +not wholly otiose beings. + +The celebrated traveller, Mungo Park, who visited Africa in 1805, had good +opportunities of understanding the natives. He did not hurry through the +land with a large armed force, but alone, or almost alone, paid his way +with his brass buttons. 'I have conversed with all ranks and conditions +upon the subject of their faith,' he says, 'and can pronounce, without the +smallest shadow of doubt, that the belief in one God and in a future state +of reward and punishment is entire and universal among them.' This cannot +strictly be called monotheism, as there are many subordinate spirits who +may be influenced by 'magical ceremonies.' But if monotheism means belief +in One Spirit alone, or religious regard paid to One Spirit alone, it +exists nowhere--no, not in Islam. + +Park thinks it remarkable that 'the Almighty' only receives prayers at the +new moon (of sacrifice to the Almighty he says nothing), and that, being +the creator and preserver of all things, he is 'of so exalted a nature +that it is idle to imagine the feeble supplications of wretched mortals +can reverse the decrees and change the purpose of unerring Wisdom.' The +new moon prayers are mere matters of tradition; 'our fathers did it before +us.' 'Such is the blindness of unassisted nature,' says Park, who is not +satirising, in Swift's manner, the prayers of Presbyterians at home on +Yarrow. + +Thus, the African Supreme Being is unpropitiated, while inferior spirits +are constrained by magic or propitiated with food. + +We meet our old problem: How has this God, in the conception of whom there +is so much philosophy, developed out of these hungry ghosts? The influence +of Islam can scarcely be suspected, Allah being addressed, of course, in +endless prayers, while the African god receives none. Indeed, it would be +more plausible to say that Mahomet borrowed Allah from the widespread +belief which we are studying, than that the negro's Supreme Being was +borrowed from Allah. + +Park had, as we saw, many opportunities of familiar discussion with the +people on whose mercies he threw himself. + +'But it is not often that the negroes make their religious opinions the +subject of conversation; when interrogated, in particular, concerning +their ideas of a future state, they express themselves with great +reverence, but endeavour to shorten the discussion by saying, _"Mo o mo +inta allo_" ("No man knows anything about it").'[19] + +Park himself, in extreme distress, and almost in despair, chanced to +observe the delicate beauty of a small moss-plant, and, reflecting that +the Creator of so frail a thing could not be indifferent to any of His +creatures, plucked up courage and reached safety.[20] He was not of the +negro philosophy, and is the less likely to have invented it. The new moon +prayer, said in a whisper, was reported to Park, 'by many different +people,' to contain 'thanks to God for his kindness during the existence +of the past moon, and to solicit a continuation of his favour during the +new one.' This, of course, may prove Islamite influence, and is at +variance with the general tendency of the religious philosophy as +described. + +We now arrive at a theory of the Supreme Being among a certain African +race which would be entirely fatal to my whole hypothesis on this topic, +if it could be demonstrated correct in fact, and if it could be stretched +so as to apply to the Australians, Fuegians, Andamanese, and other very +backward peoples. It is the hypothesis that the Supreme Being is a +'loan-god,' borrowed from Europeans. + +The theory is very lucidly set forth in Major Ellis's 'Tshi-speaking +Peoples of the Gold Coast.'[21] Major Ellis's opinion coincides with that +of Waitz in his 'Introduction to Anthropology' (an opinion to which Waitz +does not seem bigoted)--namely, that 'the original form of all religion is +a raw, unsystematic polytheism,' nature being peopled by inimical powers +or spirits, and everyone worshipping what he thinks most dangerous or +most serviceable. There are few general, many local or personal, objects +of veneration.[22] Major Ellis only met this passage when he had formed +his own ideas by observation of the Tshi race. We do not pretend to +guess what 'the original form of all religion' may have been; but we have +given, and shall give, abundant evidence for the existence of a loftier +faith than this, among peoples much lower in material culture than the +Tshi races, who have metals and an organised priesthood. They occupy, in +small villages (except Coomassie and Djuabin), the forests of the Gold +Coast. The mere mention of Coomassie shows how vastly superior in +civilisation the Tshis (Ashantis and Fantis) are to the naked, houseless +Australians. Their inland communities, however, are 'mere specks in a vast +tract of impenetrable forest.' The coast people have for centuries been in +touch with Europeans, but the 'Tshi-speaking races are now much in the +same condition, both socially and morally, as they were at the time of the +Portuguese discovery.'[23] + +Nevertheless, Major Ellis explains their Supreme Being as the result of +European influence! _A priori_ this appears highly improbable. That a +belief should sweep over all these specks in impenetrable forest, from +the coast-tribes in contact with Europeans, and that this belief should, +though the most recent, be infinitely the least powerful, cannot be +regarded as a plausible hypothesis. Moreover, on Major Ellis's theory the +Supreme Beings of races which but recently came for the first time in +contact with Europeans, Supreme Beings kept jealously apart from European +ken, and revered in the secrecy of ancient mysteries, must also, by +parity of reason, be the result of European influence. Unfortunately, +Major Ellis gives no evidence for his statements about the past history of +Tshi religion. Authorities he must have, and references would be welcome. + +'With people in the condition in which the natives of the Gold Coast now +are, religion is not in any way allied with moral ideas.'[24] We have given +abundant evidence that among much more backward tribes morals rest on a +religious sanction. If this be not so on the Gold Coast we cannot accept +these relatively advanced Fantis and Ashantis as representing the +'original' state of ethics and religion, any more than those people with +cities, a king, a priesthood, iron, and gold, represent the 'original' +material condition of society. Major Ellis also shows that the Gods exact +chastity from aspirants to the priesthood.[25] The present beliefs +of the Gold Coast are kept up by organised priesthoods as 'lucrative +business.'[26] Where there is no lucre and no priesthood, as among more +backward races, this kind of business cannot be done. On the Gold Coast +men can only approach gods through priests.[27] This is degeneration. + +Obviously, if religion began in a form relatively pure and moral, it +_must_ degenerate, as civilisation advances, under priests who 'exploit' +the lucrative, and can see no money in the pure elements of belief and +practice. That the lucrative elements in Christianity were exploited by +the clergy, to the neglect of ethics, was precisely the complaint of the +Reformers. From these lucrative elements the creed of the Apostles was +free, and a similar freedom marks the religion of Australia or of the +Pawnees. We cannot possibly, then, expect to find the 'original' state +of religion among a people subdued to a money-grubbing priesthood, like +the Tshi races. Let religion begin as pure as snow, it would be corrupted +by priestly trafficking in its lucrative animistic aspect. And priests are +developed relatively late. + +Major Ellis discriminates Tshi gods as-- + + 1. General, worshipped by an entire tribe or more tribes. + 2. Local deities of river, hill, forest, or sea. + 3. Deities of families or corporations. + 4. Tutelary deities of individuals. + +The second class, according to the natives, were appointed by the first +class, who are 'too distant or indifferent to interfere ordinarily in +human affairs.' Thus, the Huron god, Ahone, punishes nobody. He is all +sweetness and light, but has a deputy god, called Okeus. On our hypothesis +this indifference of high gods suggests the crowding out of the great +disinterested God by venal animistic competition. All of class II. 'appear +to have been originally malignant.' Though, in native belief, class I. +was prior to, and 'appointed' class II., Major Ellis thinks that malignant +spirits of class II. were raised to class I. as if to the peerage, while +classes III. and IV. 'are clearly the product of priesthood'--therefore +late. + +Major Ellis then avers that when Europeans reached the Gold Coast, in the +fifteenth century, they 'appear to have found' a Northern God, Tando, and +a Southern God, Bobowissi, still adored. Bobowissi makes thunder and rain, +lives on a hill, and receives, or received, human sacrifices. But, 'after +an intercourse of some years with Europeans,' the villagers near European +forts 'added to their system a new deity, whom they termed Nana Nyankupon. +This was the God of the Christians, borrowed from them, and adapted under +a new designation, meaning 'Lord of the sky.' (This is conjectural. +_Nyankum_ = rain. _Nyansa_ has 'a later meaning, "craft."')[28] + +Now Major Ellis, later, has to contrast Bosman's account of fetishism +(1700) with his own observations. According to Bosman's native source of +information, men then selected their own fetishes. These are _now_ +selected by priests. Bosman's authority was wrong--or priesthood has +extended its field of business. Major Ellis argues that the revolution +from amateur to priestly selection of fetishes could not occur in +190 years, 'over a vast tract of country, amongst peoples living in +semi-isolated communities, in the midst of pathless forests, where there +is but little opportunity for the exchange of ideas, _and where we know +they have been uninfluenced by any higher race_.' + +Yet Major Ellis's theory is that this isolated people _were_ influenced +by a higher race, to the extent of adopting a totally new Supreme Being, +from Europeans, a being whom they in no way sought to propitiate, and who +was of no practical use. And this they did, he says, not under priestly +influence, but in the face of priestly opposition.[29] + +Major Ellis's logic does not appear to be consistent. In any case we ask +for evidence how, in the 'impenetrable forests' did a new Supreme Deity +become universally known? Are we certain that travellers (unquoted) did +not discover a deity with no priests, or ritual, or 'money in the +concern,' later than they discovered the blood-stained, conspicuous, +lucrative Bobowissi? Why was Nyankupon, the supposed new god of a new +powerful set of strangers, left wholly unpropitiated? The reverse was to +be expected. + +Major Ellis writes: 'Almost certainly the addition of one more to an +already numerous family' of gods, 'was strenuously resisted by the +priesthood,' who, confessedly, are adding now lower gods every day! Yet +Nyankupon is universally known, in spite of priestly resistance. +Nyankupon, I presume = Anzambi, Anyambi, Nyambi, Nzambi, Anzam, Nyam, the +Nzam of the Fans, 'and of all Bantu coast races, the creator of man, +plants, animals, and the earth; he takes no further interest in the +affair.'[30] The crowd of _spirits_ take only too much interest; and, +therefore, are the lucrative element in religion. + +It is not very easy to believe that Nyam, under all his names, was picked +up from the Portuguese, and passed apparently from negroes to Bantu all +over West Africa, despite the isolation of the groups, and the resistance +of the priesthood among tribes 'uninfluenced by any higher race.' + +Nyam, like Major Ellis's class I., appoints a subordinate god to do his +work: he is truly good, and governs the malevolent spirits.[31] + +The spread of Nyankupon, as described by Major Ellis, is the more +remarkable, since 'five or six miles from the sea, or even less, the +country was a _terra incognita_ to Europeans,'[32] Nyankupon was, it is +alleged, adopted, because our superiority proved Europeans to be +'protected by a deity of greater power than any of those to which they +themselves' (the Tshi races) 'offered sacrifices.' + +Then, of course, Nyankupon would receive the best sacrifices of all, as +the most powerful deity? Far from that, Nyankupon received no sacrifice, +and had no priests. No priest would have a traditional way of serving him. +As the unlucky man in Voltaire says to his guardian angel, 'It is well +worth while to have a presiding genius,' so the Tshis and Bantu might +ironically remark, 'A useful thing, a new Supreme Being!' A quarter of a +continent or so adopts a new foreign god, and leaves him _plante la_; +unserved, unhonoured, and unsung. He therefore came to be thought too +remote, or too indifferent, 'to interfere directly in the affairs of the +world.' 'This idea was probably caused by the fact that the natives had +not experienced any material improvement in their condition ... although +they also had become followers of the god of the whites.'[33] + +But that was just what they had not done! Even at Magellan's Straits, the +Fuegians picked up from a casual Spanish sea-captain and adored an image +of Cristo. Name and effigy they accepted. The Tshi people took neither +effigy nor name of a deity from the Portuguese settled among them. They +neither imitated Catholic rites nor adapted their own; they prayed not, +nor sacrificed to the 'new' Nyankupon. Only his name and the idea of his +nature are universally diffused in West African belief. He lives in no +definite home, or hill, but 'in Nyankupon's country.' Nyankupon, at the +present day, is 'ignored rather than worshipped,' while Bobowissi has +priests and offerings. + +It is clear that Major Ellis is endeavouring to explain, by a singular +solution (namely, the borrowing of a God from Europeans), and that +a solution improbable and inadequate, a phenomenon of very wide +distribution. Nyankupon cannot be explained apart from Taaroa, Puluga, +Ahone, Ndengei, Dendid, and Ta-li-y-Tochoo, Gods to be later described, +who cannot, by any stretch of probabilities, be regarded as of European +origin. All of these represent the primeval Supreme Being, more or less +or altogether stripped, under advancing conditions of culture, of his +ethical influence, and crowded out by the horde of useful greedy ghosts or +ghost gods, whose business is lucrative. Nyankupon has no pretensions to +be, or to have been a 'spirit.'[34] + +Major Ellis's theory is a natural result of his belief in a tangle of +polytheism as 'the original state of religion.' If so, there was not much +room for the natural development of Nyankupon, in whom 'the missionaries +find a parallel to the Jahveh of the Jews.'[35] On our theory Nyankupon +takes his place in the regular process of the corruption of theism by +animism. + +The parallel case of Nzambi Mpungu, the Creator among the Fiorts (a Bantu +stock), is thus stated by Miss Kingsley: + +'I have no hesitation in saying I fully believe Nzambi Mpungu to be a +purely native god, and that he is a great god over all things, but the +study of him is even more difficult than the study of Nzambi, because the +Jesuit missionaries who gained so great an influence over the Fiorts in +the sixteenth century identified him with Jehovah, and worked on the +native mind from that stand-point. Consequently semi-mythical traces +of Jesuit teaching linger, even now, in the religious ideas of the +Fiorts.'[36] + +Nzambi Mpungu lives 'behind the firmament.' 'He takes next to no interest +in human affairs;' which is not a Jesuit idea of God. + +In all missionary accounts of savage religion, we have to guard against +two kinds of bias. One is the bias which makes the observer deny any +religion to the native race, except devil-worship. The other is the bias +which lends him to look for traces of a pure primitive religious +tradition. Yet we cannot but observe this reciprocal phenomenon: +missionaries often find a native name and idea which answer so nearly to +their conception of God that they adopt the idea and the name, in +teaching. Again, on the other side, the savages, when first they hear the +missionaries' account of God, recognise it, as do the Hurons and Bakwain, +for what has always been familiar to them. This is recorded in very early +pre-missionary travels, as in the book of William Strachey on Virginia +(1612), to which we now turn. The God found by Strachey in Virginia +cannot, by any latitude of conjecture, be regarded as the result of +contact with Europeans. Yet he almost exactly answers to the African +Nyankupon, who is explained away as a 'loan-god.' For the belief in +relatively pure creative beings, whether they are morally adored, without +sacrifice, or merely neglected, is so widely diffused, that Anthropology +must ignore them, or account for them as 'loan-gods'--or give up her +theory! + +[Footnote 1: Lejean, _Rev. des Deux Mondes_, April 1862, p. 760. Citing +for the chant, Beltrame, _Dictionario della lingua denka_, MS.] + +[Footnote 2: Waitz, ii. 74.] + +[Footnote 3: 1882.] + +[Footnote 4: _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, 681.] + +[Footnote 5: _Africana_, i. 66.] + +[Footnote 6: _Africana_, i. 67.] + +[Footnote 7: _Africana_, i. 71, 72_] + +[Footnote 8: i 88.] + +[Footnote 9: i. 68.] + +[Footnote 10: i. 130.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 12: _Africana_, i 279-301.] + +[Footnote 13: Edinburgh, 1892.] + +[Footnote 14: Incidentally Mr. Macdonald shows that, contrary to Mr. +Spencer's opinion, these savages have words for dreams and dreaming. They +interpret dreams by a system of symbols, 'a canoe is ill luck,' and 'dreams +go by contraries.'] + +[Footnote 15: Waitz, _Anthropologie_, ii. 167.] + +[Footnote 16: Waitz and Gerland, _Anthropologie_, vi. 796-799 and 809. In +1874 Mr. Howitt's evidence on the moral element in the mysteries was not +published. Waitz scouts the idea that the higher Australian beliefs are of +European origin. 'Wir schen vielmehr uralte Truemmer aehnlicher Mythologenie +in ihnen,' (vi. 798) flotsam from ideas of immemorial antiquity.] + +[Footnote 17: Wilson, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 18: Wilson, p. 392.] + +[Footnote 19: Park's _Journey_, i. 274, 275, 1815.] + +[Footnote 20: P. 245.] + +[Footnote 21: London, 1887.] + +[Footnote 22: Ellis, pp. 20, 21.] + +[Footnote 23: P. 4.] + +[Footnote 24: Ellis, p. 10.] + +[Footnote 25: P. 120.] + +[Footnote 26: P. 15.] + +[Footnote 27: P. 125.] + +[Footnote 28: Ellis, pp. 24, 25.] + +[Footnote 29: Ellis, p. 189.] + +[Footnote 30: Miss Kingsley, p. 442.] + +[Footnote 31: Ellis, p. 229.] + +[Footnote 32: Ibid. p. 25.] + +[Footnote 33: Op. cit. p. 27.] + +[Footnote 34: Ellis, p. 29.] + +[Footnote 35: Op. cit. p. 28.] + +[Footnote 36: 'African Religion and Law,' _National Review_, September +1897, p. 132.] + + + + +XIV + +AHONE. TI-RA-WA. NA-PI. PACHACAMAC. TUI LAGA. TAA-ROA + +In this chapter it is my object to set certain American Creators beside +the African beings whom we have been examining. We shall range from Hurons +to Pawnees and Blackfeet, and end with Pachacamac, the supreme being of +the old Inca civilisation, with Tui Laga and Taa-roa. It will be seen that +the Hurons have been accidentally deprived of their benevolent Creator by +a bibliographical accident, while that Creator corresponds very well +with the Peruvian Pachucamac, often regarded as a mere philosophical +abstraction. The Pawnees will show us a Creator involved in a sacrificial +ritual, which is not common, while the Blackfeet present a Creator who is +not envisaged as a spirit at all, and, on our theory, represents a very +early stage of the theistic conception. + +To continue the argument from analogy against Major Ellis's theory of the +European origin of Nyankupon, it seems desirable first to produce a +parallel to his case, and to that of his blood-stained subordinate +deity, Bobowissi, from a quarter where European influence is absolutely +out of the question. Virginia was first permanently colonised by +Englishmen in 1607, and the 'Historie of Travaile into Virginia,' by +William Strachey, Gent., first Secretary of the Colony, dates from the +earliest years (1612-1616). It will hardly be suggested, then, that the +natives had already adopted _our_ Supreme Being, especially as Strachey +says that the native priests strenuously opposed the Christian God. +Strachey found a house-inhabiting, agricultural, and settled population, +under chiefs, one of whom, Powhattan, was a kind of Bretwalda. The temples +contained the dried bodies of the _weroances_, or aristocracy, beside +which was their Okeus, or Oki, an image 'ill favouredly carved,' all +black dressed, 'who doth them all the harm they suffer. He is propitiated +by sacrifices of their own children' (probably an error) 'and of +strangers.' + +Mr. Tylor quotes a description of this Oki, or Okeus, with his idol and +bloody rites, from Smith's 'History of Virginia' (1632)[1]. The two books, +Strachey's and Smith's, are here slightly varying copies of one original. +But, after censuring Smith's (and Strachey's) hasty theory that Okeus is +'no other than a devil,' Mr. Tylor did not find in Smith what follows in +Strachey. Okeus has human sacrifices, like Bobowissi, 'whilst the great +God (the priests tell them) who governes all the world, and makes +the son to shine, creatyng the moone and starrs his companyons ... they +calling (_sic_) Ahone. The good and peaceable God requires no such dutyes, +nor needs to be sacrificed unto, for he intendeth all good unto them,' +Okeus, on the contrary, 'looking into all men's accions, and examining the +same according to the severe scheme of justice, punisheth them.... Such is +the misery and thraldome under which Sathan hath bound these wretched +miscreants.' + +As if, in Mr. Strachey's own creed, Satan does not punish, in hell, the +offences of men against God! + +Here, then, in addition to a devil (or rather a divine police magistrate), +and general fetishism and nature worship, we find that the untutored +Virginian is equipped with a merciful Creator, without idol, temple, or +sacrifice, as needing nought of ours. It is by the merest accident, the +use of Smith's book (1632) instead of Strachey's book (1612), that Mr. +Tylor is unaware of these essential facts[2]. + +Dr. Brinton, like Mr. Tylor, cites Smith for the nefarious or severe +Okeus, and omits any mention of Ahone, the benevolent Creator.[3] +Now, Strachey's evidence is early (1612), is that of a well-educated +man, fond of airing his Greek, and not prejudiced in favour of these +worshippers of 'Sathan.' In Virginia he found the unpropitiated loving +Supreme Being, beside a subordinate, like Nyankupon beside Bobowissi in +Africa. + +Each highest deity, in Virginia or on the Gold Coast, is more or less +eclipsed in popular esteem by nascent polytheism and nature worship. This +is precisely what we should expect to find, if Ahone, the Creator, were +earlier in evolution, while Okeus and the rest were of the usual greedy +class of animistic corruptible deities, useful to priests. This could not +be understood while Ahone was left out of the statement.[4] + +Probably Mr. Strachey's narrative justifies, by analogy, our suspicion of +Major Ellis's theory that the African Supreme Being is of European origin. +The purpose in the Ahone-Okeus creed is clear. God (Ahone) is omnipotent +and good, yet calamities beset mankind. How are these to be explained? +Clearly as penalties for men's sins, inflicted, not by Ahone, but by his +lieutenant, Okeus. But that magistrate can be, and is, appeased by +sacrifices, which it would be impious, or, at all events, useless, to +offer to the Supreme Being, Ahone. It is a logical creed, but how was the +Supreme Being evolved out of the ghost of a 'people-devouring king' like +Powhattan? The facts, very fairly attested, do not fit the anthropological +theory. It is to be remarked that Strachey's Ahone is a much less +mythological conception than that which, on very good evidence, he +attributes to the Indians of the Patowemeck River. Their Creator is spoken +of as 'a godly Hare,' who receives their souls into Paradise, whence they +are reborn on earth again, as in Plato's myth. They also regard the four +winds as four Gods. How the god took the mythological form of a hare is +diversely explained.[5] + +Meanwhile the Ahone-Okeus creed corresponds to the Nyankupon-Bobowissi +creed. The American faith is certainly not borrowed from Europe, so it is +less likely that the African creed is borrowed. + +As illustrations of the general theory here presented, we may now take two +tribal religions among the North American Indians. The first is that of +the equestrian Pawnees, who, thirty years ago, were dwelling on the Loup +Fork in Nebraska. The buffaloes have since been destroyed, the lands +seized, and the Pawnees driven into a 'Reservation,' where they are, or +lately were, cheated and oppressed in the usual way. They were originally +known to Europeans in four hordes, the fourth being the Skidi or Wolf +Pawnees. They seem to have come into Kansas and Nebraska, at a date +relatively remote, from Mexico, and are allied with the Lipans and +Tonkaways of that region. The Tonkaways are a tribe who, in a sacred +mystery, are admonished to 'live like the wolves,' in exactly the same way +as were the Hirpi (wolf tribe), of Mount Soracte, who practised the feat +of walking unhurt through fire.[6] The Tonkaways regard the Pawnees, who +also have a wolf tribe, as a long-separated branch of their race. If, +then, they are of Mexican origin, we might expect to find traces of Aztec +ritual among the Pawnees. + +Long after they obtained better weapons they used flint-headed arrows for +slaying the only two beasts which it was lawful to sacrifice, the deer and +the buffalo. They have long been a hunting and also an agricultural +people. The corn was given to them originally by the Ruler: their god, +_Ti-ra-wa_, 'the Spirit Father.' They offer the sacrifice of a deer with +peculiar solemnity, and are a very prayerful people. The priest 'held a +relation to the Pawnees and their deity not unlike that occupied by Moses +to Jehovah and the Israelites.' A feature in ritual is the sacred bundles +of unknown contents, brought from the original home in Mexico. The Pawnees +were created by Ti-ra-wa. They believe in a happy future life, while the +wicked die, and there is an end of them. They cite their dreams of the +dead as an argument for a life beyond the tomb. 'We see ourselves living +with Ti-ra-wa!' An evil earlier race, which knew not Ti-ra-wa, was +destroyed by him in the Deluge; evidence is found in large fossil bones, +and it would be an interesting inquiry whether such fossils are always +found where the story of a 'sin-flood' occurs. If so, fossils must be +universally diffused. + +As is common, the future life is attested, not only by dreams, but in the +experience of men who 'have died' and come back to life, like Secret Pipe +Chief, who told the story to Mr. Grinnell. These visions in a state of +apparent death are not peculiar to savages, and, no doubt, have had much +effect on beliefs about the next world.[7] Ghosts are rarely seen, but +auditory hallucinations, as of a voice giving good advice in time of +peril, are regarded as the speech of ghosts. The beasts are also friendly, +as fellow children with men of Ti-ra-wa. To the Morning Star the Skidi or +Wolf Pawnees offered on rare occasions a captive man. The ceremony was not +unlike that of the Aztecs, though less cruel. Curiously enough, the slayer +of the captive had instantly to make a mock flight, as in the Attic +_Bouphonia_. This, however, was a rite paid to the Morning Star, not to +Ti-ra-wa, 'the power above that moves the universe and controls all +things.' Sacrifice to Ti-ra-wa was made on rare and solemn occasions out +of his two chief gifts, deer and buffalo. 'Through corn, deer, buffalo, +and the sacred bundles, we worship _Ti-ra-wa_.' + +The flesh was burned in the fire, while prayers were made with great +earnestness. In the old Skidi rite the women told the fattened captive +what they desired to gain from the Ruler. It is occasionally said that +the human sacrifice was made to _Ti-ra-wa_ himself. The sacrificer not +only fled, but fasted and mourned. It is possible that, as among the +Aztecs, the victim was regarded as also an embodiment of the God, but this +is not certain, the rite having long been disused. Mr. Grinnell got the +description from a very old Skidi. There was also a festival of thanks to +Ti-ra-wa for corn. During a sacred dance and hymn the corn is held up to +the Ruler by a woman. Corn is ritually called 'The Mother,' as in Peru.[8] +'We are like seed, and we worship through the Corn.' + +Disease is caused by evil spirits, and many American soldiers were healed +by Pawnee doctors, though their hurts had refused to yield to the +treatment of the United States Army Surgeons.[9] + +The miracles wrought by Pawnee medicine men, under the eyes of Major +North, far surpass what is told of Indian jugglery. But this was forty +years ago, and it is probably too late to learn anything of these +astounding performances of naked men on the hard floor of a lodge. +'Major North told me' (Mr. Grinnell) 'that he saw with his own eyes the +doctors make the corn grow,' the doctor not manipulating the plant, as in +the Mango trick, but standing apart and singing. Mr. Grinnell says: 'I +have never found any one who could even suggest an explanation.' + +This art places great power in the hands of the doctors, who exhibit many +other prodigies. It is notable that in this religion we hear nothing of +ancestor-worship; all that is stated as to ghosts has been reported. We +find the cult of an all-powerful being, in whose ritual sacrifice is the +only feature that suggests ghost-worship. The popular tales and historical +reminiscences of the last generation entirely bear out by their allusions +Mr. Grinnell's account of the Pawnee faith, in which the ethical element +chiefly consists in a sense of dependence on and touching gratitude to +Ti-ra-wa, as shown in fervent prayer. Theft he abhors, he applauds valour, +he punishes the wicked by annihilation, the good dwell with him in his +heavenly home. He is addressed as A-ti-us ta-kaw-a, 'Our father in all +places.' + +It is not so easy to see how this Being was developed out of +ancestor-worship, of which we find no traces among Pawnees. For +ancestor-worship among the Sioux, it is usual to quote a remark of one +Prescott, an interpreter: 'Sometimes an Indian will say, "Wah negh on she +wan da," which means, "Spirits of the dead have mercy on me." Then they +will add what they want. That is about the amount of an Indian's +prayer.'[10] Obviously, when we compare Mr. Grinnell's account of Pawnee +religion, based on his own observations, and those of Major North, and +Mr. Dunbar, who has written on the language of the tribe, we are on much +safer ground, than when we follow a contemptuous, half-educated European. + +The religion of the Blackfoot Indians appears to be a ruder form of the +Pawnee faith. Whether the differences arise from tribal character, or from +decadence, or because the Blackfoot belief is in an earlier and more +backward condition than that of the Pawnees, it is not easy to be certain. +As in China, there exists a difficulty in deciding whether the Supreme +Being is identical with the great nature-god; in China the Heaven, among +the Blackfeet the Sun; or is prior to him in conception, or has been, +later, substituted for him, or placed beside him. The Blackfoot mythology +is low, crude, and, except in tales of Creation, is derisive. As in +Australia, there is a specific difference of tone between mythology and +religion. + +The Blackfoot country runs east from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, to +the mouth of the Yellowstone river on the Missouri, then west to the +Yellowstone sources, across the Rocky Mountains to the Beaverhead, thence +to their summit. + +As to spirits, the Blackfeet believe in, or at least tell stories of, +ghosts, which conduct themselves much as in our old-fashioned ghost +stories. They haunt people in a rather sportive and irresponsible way. The +souls or shadows of respectable persons go to the bleak country called the +Sand Hills, where they live in a dull, monotonous kind of Sheol. The +shades of the wicked are 'earth-bound' and mischievous, especially ghosts +of men slain in battle. They cause paralysis and madness, but dread +interiors of lodges; they only 'tap on the lodge-skins.' Like many Indian +tribes, the Blackfeet have the Eurydice legend. A man grieving for his +dead wife finds his way to Hades, is pitied by the dead, and allowed to +carry the woman back with him, under certain ritual prohibitions, one of +which he unhappily infringes. The range of this deeply touching story +among the Red Men, and its close resemblance to the tale of Orpheus, is +one of the most curious facts in mythology. Mr. Grinnell's friend Young +Bear, when lost with his wife in a fog, heard a Voice, 'It is well. Go on, +you are going right.' 'The top of my head seemed to lift up. It seemed as +if a lot of needles were running into it.... This must have been a ghost.' +As the wife also heard the Voice it was probably human, not hallucinatory. + +Animals receive the usual amount of friendly respect from the Blackfeet. +They have also an inchoate polytheism, 'Above Persons, Ground Persons, and +Under Water Persons.' Of the first, Thunder is most important, and is +worshipped. There is the Cold Maker, a white figure on a white horse, the +Wind, and so on. + +The Creator is Na-pi, Old Man; Dr. Brinton thinks he is a personification +of Light, but Mr. Grinnell reckons it absurd to attribute so abstract a +conception to the Blackfeet. Na-pi is simply a primal Being, an Immortal +Man,[11] who was before Death came into the world, concerning which one of +the usual tales of the Origin of Death is told. 'All things that he had +made understood him when he spoke to them--birds, animals, and people,' as +in the first chapters of Genesis. With Na-pi, Creation worked on the lines +of adaptation to environment. He put the bighorn on the prairie. There it +was awkward, so he set it on rocky places, where it skipped about with +ease. The antelope fell on the rocks, so he removed it to the level +prairie. Na-pi created man and woman, out of clay, but the folly of the +woman introduced Death. Na-pi, as a Prometheus, gave fire, and taught the +forest arts. He inculcated the duty of prayer; his will should be done by +emissaries in the shape of animals. Then he went to other peoples. The +misfortunes of the Indians arise from disobedience to his laws. + +Chiefs were elective, for conduct, courage, and charity. + +Though weapons and utensils were buried with the dead, or exposed on +platforms, and though great men were left to sleep in their lodges, +henceforth never to be entered by the living, there is no trace known to +me of continued ancestor-worship. As many Blackfeet change their names +yearly, ancestral names are not likely to become those of gods. + +The Sun is by many believed to have taken the previous place of Na-pi in +religion; or perhaps Na-pi _is_ the Sun. However, he is still separately +addressed in prayer. The Sun receives presents of furs and so forth; a +finger, when the prayer is for life, has been offered to him. Fetishism +probably shows itself in gifts to a great rock. There is daily prayer, +both to the Sun and to Na-pi. Women institute Medicine Lodges, praying, +'Pity me, Sun. You have seen my life. You know that I am pure.' 'We look +on the Medicine Lodge woman as you white people do on the Roman Catholic +Sisters.' Being 'virtuous in deed, serious, and clean-minded,' the Medical +Lodge woman is in spiritual _rapport_ with Na-pi and the Sun. To this +extent, at least, Blackfoot religion is an ethical influence. + +The creed seems to be a nascent polytheism, subordinate to Na-pi as +supreme Maker, and to the personified Sun. As Blackfoot ghosts are +'vaporous, ineffectual' for good, there seems to be nothing like ancestor +worship. + +These two cults and beliefs, Pawnee and Blackfoot, may be regarded as +fairly well authenticated examples of un-Christianised American religion +among races on the borderland of agriculture and the chase. It would be +difficult to maintain that ghost-worship or ancestor-worship is a potent +factor in the evolution of the deathless Ti-ra-wa or the immortal Creator +Na-pi, who has nothing of the spirit about him, especially as ghosts are +not worshipped.[12] + +Let us now look at the Supreme Being of a civilised American people. There +are few more interesting accounts of religion than Garcilasso de la Vega's +description of faith in Peru. Garcilasso was of Inca parentage on the +spindle side; he was born in 1540, and his book, taken from the traditions +of an uncle, and aided by the fragmentary collections of Father Blas +Valera, was published in 1609. In Garcilasso's theory the original people +of Peru, Totemists and worshippers of hills and streams, Earth and Sea, +were converted to Sun worship by the first Inca, a child of the Sun. Even +the new religion included ancestor-worship and other superstitions. But +behind Sun worship was the faith in a Being who 'advanced the Sun so far +above all the stars of heaven.'[13] This Being was Pachacamac, 'the +sustainer of the world.' The question then arises, Is Pachacamac a form of +the same creative being whom we find among the lowest savages; or is he +the result of philosophical reflection? The latter was the opinion +of Garcilasso. 'The Incas and their Amautas' (learned class) 'were +philosophers.'[14] + +'Pacha,' he says, = universe, and 'cama' = soul. Pachacamac, then, is +_Anima Mundi_. 'They did not even take the name of Pachacamac into their +mouths,' or but seldom and reverently, as the Australians will not, in +religious matters, mention Darumulun. Pachacamac had no temple, 'but they +worshipped him in their hearts.' That he was the Creator appears in an +earlier writer, cited by Garcilasso, Agustin de Zarate (ii. ch. 5). +Garcilasso, after denying the existence of temples to Pachacamac, mentions +one, but only one. He insists, at length, and with much logic, that He +whom, as a Christian, he worships, is in Quichua styled Pachacamac. +Moreover, the one temple to Pachacamac was not built by an Inca, but by +a race which, having heard of the Inca god, borrowed his name, without +understanding his nature, that of a Being who dwells not in temples made +with hands (ii. 186). In the temple this people, the Yuncas, offered even +human sacrifices. By the Incas to Pachacamac no sacrifice was offered +(ii. 189). This negative custom they also imposed upon the Yuncas, and +they removed idols from the Yunca temple of Pachacamac (ii. 190). Yunca +superstitions, however, infested the temple, and a Voice gave oracles +therein.[15] The Yuncas also had a talking idol, which the Inca, in +accordance with a religious treaty, occasionally consulted. + +While Pachacamac, without temple or rite, was reckoned the Creator, we +must understand that Sun-worship and ancestor-worship were the practical +elements of the Inca cult. This appears to have been distasteful to the +Inca Huayna Ccapac, for at a Sun feast he gazed hard on the Sun, was +remonstrated with by a priest, and replied that the restless Sun 'must +have another Lord more powerful than himself.'[16] + +This remark could not have been necessary if Pachacamac were really an +article of living and universal belief. Perhaps we are to understand that +this Inca, like his father, who seems to have been the original author of +the saying, meant to sneer at the elaborate worship bestowed on the Sun, +while Pachacamac was neglected, as far as ritual went. + +In Garcilasso's book we have to allow for his desire to justify the creed +of his maternal ancestors. His criticism of Spanish versions is acute, and +he often appeals to his knowledge of Quichua, and to the direct traditions +received by him from his uncle. Against his theory of Pachacamac as a +result of philosophical thought, it may be urged that similar conceptions, +or nearly similar, exist among races not civilised like the Incas, and not +provided with colleges of learned priests. In fact, the position of +Pachacamac and the Sun is very nearly that of the Blackfoot Creator Na-pi, +and the Sun, or of Shang-ti and the Heaven, in China. We have the Creative +Being whose creed is invaded by that of a worshipped aspect of nature, and +whose cult, quite logically, is _nil_, or nearly _nil_. There are also, in +different strata of the Inca empire, ancestor-worship, or mummy-worship, +Totemism and polytheism, with a vague mass of _huaca = Elohim, kalou, +wakan._ + +Perhaps it would not be too rash to conjecture that Pachacamac is not a +merely philosophical abstraction, but a survival of a Being like Na-pi or +Ahone. Cieza de Leon calls Pachacamac 'a devil,' whose name means +'creator of the world'![17] The name, when it _was_ uttered, was spoken +with genuflexions and signs of reverence. So closely did Pachacamac +resemble the Christian Deity, that Cieza de Leon declares the devil to +have forged and insisted on the resemblance![18] It was open to Spanish +missionaries to use Pachacamac, as to the Jesuits among the Bantu to use +Mpungu, as a fulcrum for the introduction of Christianity. They preferred +to regard Pachacamac as a fraudulent fiend. Now Nzambi Mpungu, among the +Bantu, is assuredly not a creation of a learned priesthood, for the Bantu +have no learned priests, and Mpungu would be useless to the greedy +conjurers whom they do consult, as he is not propitiated. On grounds of +analogy, then, Pachacamac may be said to resemble a savage Supreme +Being, somewhat etherealised either by Garcilasso or by the Amautas, the +learned class among the subjects of the Incas. He does not seem, even so, +much superior to the Ahone of the Virginians. + +We possess, however, a different account of Inca religion, from which +Garcilasso strongly dissents. The best version is that of Christoval de +Molina, who was chaplain of the hospital for natives, and wrote between +1570 and 1584.[19] Christoval assembled a number of old priests and other +natives who had taken part in the ancient services, and collected their +evidence. He calls the Creator ('not born of woman, unchangeable +and eternal') by the name Pachayachachi. 'Teacher of the world' and +'Tecsiviracocha,' which Garcilasso dismisses as meaningless.[20] He also +tells the tale of the Inca Yupanqui and the Lord of the Sun, but +says that the Incas had already knowledge of the Creator. To Yupanqui he +attributes the erection of a gold image of the Creator, utterly denied by +Garcilasso.[21] Christoval declares, again contradicted by Garcilasso, +that sacrifices were offered to the Creator. Unlike the Sun, Christoval +says, the Creator had no woman assigned to him, 'because, as he created +them, they all belonged to him' (p. 26), which, of course, is an idea that +would also make sacrifice superfluous. + +Christoval gives prayers in Quichua, wherein the Creator is addressed as +_Uiracocha_. + +Christoval assigns images, sacrifice, and even human sacrifice, to the +Creator Uiracocha. Garcilasso denies that the Creator Pachacamac had any +of these things, he denies that Uiracocha was the name of the Creator, +and he denies it, knowing that the Spaniards made the assertion.[22] Who +is right? Uiracocha, says Garcilasso, is one thing, with his sacrifices; +the Creator, Pachacamac, without sacrifices, is another, is GOD. + +Mr. Markham thinks that Garcilasso, writing when he did, and not +consciously exaggerating, was yet less trustworthy (though 'wonderfully +accurate') than Christoval. Garcilasso, however, is 'scrupulously +truthful.'[23] 'The excellence of his memory is perhaps best shown in +his topographical details.... He does not make a single mistake,' in the +topography of three hundred and twenty places! A scrupulously truthful +gentleman, endowed with an amazing memory, and a master of his native +language, flatly contradicts the version of a Spanish priest, who also +appears to have been careful and honourable. + +I shall now show that Christoval and Garcilasso have different versions of +the same historical events, and that Garcilasso bases his confutation of +the Spanish theory of the Inca Creator on his form of this historical +tradition, which follows: + +The Inca Yahuarhuaccac, like George II., was at odds with his Prince of +Wales. He therefore banished the Prince to Chita, and made him serve as +shepherd of the llamas of the Sun. Three years later the disgraced +Prince came to Court, with what the Inca regarded as a cock-and-bull story +of an apparition of the kind technically styled 'Borderland.' Asleep or +awake, he knew not, he saw a bearded robed man holding a strange animal. +The appearance declared himself as Uiracocha (Christoval's name for the +Creator), a Child of the Sun; by no means as Pachacamac, the Creator of +the Sun. He announced a distant rebellion, and promised his aid to the +Prince. The Inca, hearing this narrative, replied in the tones of +Charles II., when he said about Monmouth, 'Tell James to go to hell!'[24] +The predicted rebellion, however, broke out, the Inca fled, the Prince +saved the city, dethroned his father, and sent him into the country. He +then adopted, from the apparition, the throne-name _Uiracocha,_ grew a +beard, and dressed like the apparition, to whom he erected a temple, +roofless, and unique in construction. Therein he had an image of the god, +for which he himself gave frequent sittings. When the Spaniards arrived, +bearded men, the Indians called them Uiracochas (as all the Spanish +historians say), and, to flatter them, declared falsely that Uiracocha was +their word for the Creator. Garcilasso explodes the Spanish etymology of +the name, in the language of Cuzco, which he 'sucked in with his mother's +milk.' 'The Indians said that the chief Spaniards were children of the +Sun, to make gods of them, just as they said they were children of the +apparition, Uiracocha.'[25] Moreover, Garcilasso and Cieza de Leon agree +in their descriptions of the image of Uiracocha, which, both assert, +the Spaniards conceived to represent a Christian early missionary, perhaps +St. Bartholomew.[26] Garcilasso had seen the mummy of the Inca Uiracocha, +and relates the whole tale from the oral version of his uncle, adding many +native comments on the Court revolution described. + +To Garcilasso, then, the invocations of Uiracocha, in Christoval's +collection of prayers, are a native adaptation to Spanish prejudice: even +in them Pachacamac occurs.[27] + +Now, Christoval has got hold of a variant of Garcilasso's narrative, +which, in Garcilasso, has plenty of humour and human nature. According to +Christoval it was not the Prince, later Inca Uiracocha, who beheld the +apparition, but the Inca Uiracocha's _son,_ Prince of Wales, as it were, +of the period, later the Inca Yupanqui. + +Garcilasso corrects Christoval. Uiracocha saw the apparition, as Pere +Acosta rightly says, and Yupanqui was _not_ the son but the grandson of +this Inca Uiracocha.[28] Uiracocha's own son was Pachacutec, which simply +means 'Revolution,' 'they say, by way of by-word _Pachamcutin,_ which +means "the world changes."' + +Christoval's form of the story is peculiarly gratifying in one way. +Yupanqui saw the apparition _in a piece of crystal_, 'the apparition +vanished, while the piece of crystal remained. The Inca took care of it, +and they say that he afterwards saw everything he wanted in it.' The +apparition, in human form and in Inca dress, gave itself out for the Sun; +and Yupanqui, when he came to the throne, 'ordered a statue of the Sun to +be made, as nearly as possible resembling the figure he had seen in the +crystal.' He bade his subjects to 'reverence the new deity, as they had +heretofore worshipped the Creator,'[29] who, therefore, was prior to +Uiracocha. + +Interesting as a proof of Inca crystal-gazing, this legend of Christoval's +cannot compete as evidence with Acosta and Garcilasso. The reader, +however, must decide as to whether he prefers Garcilasso's unpropitiated +Pachacamac, or Christoval's Uiracocha, human sacrifices, and all.[30] + +Mr. Tylor prefers the version of Christoval, making Pachacamac a title of +Uiracocha.[31] He thinks that we have, in Inca religion, an example of 'a +subordinate god' (the Sun) 'usurping the place of the supreme deity,' 'the +rivalry between the Creator and the divine Sun.' In China, as we shall +see, Mr. Tylor thinks, on the other hand, that Heaven is the elder god, +and that Shang-ti, the Supreme Being, is the usurper. + +The truth in the Uiracocha _versus_ Pachacamac controversy is difficult to +ascertain. I confess a leaning toward Garcilasso, so truthful and so +wonderfully accurate, rather than to the Spanish priest. Christoval, it +will be remarked, says that 'Chanca-Uiracocha was a _huaca_ (sacred place) +in Chuqui-chaca.'[32] Now Chuqui-chaca is the very place where, according +to Garcilasso, the Inca Uiracocha erected a temple to 'his Uncle, the +Apparition.'[33] Uiracocha, then, the deity who receives human sacrifice, +would be a late, royally introduced ancestral god, no real rival of the +Creator, who receives no sacrifice at all, and, as he was bearded, his +name would be easily transferred to the bearded Spaniards, whose arrival +the Inca Uiracocha was said to have predicted. But to call several or all +Spaniards by the name given to the Creator would be absurd. Mr. Tylor and +Mr. Markham do not refer to the passage in which Christoval obviously gets +hold of a wrong version of the story of the apparition. + +There is yet another version of this historical legend, written forty +years after Christoval's date by Don Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti-yamqui +Salcamayhua. He ranks after Garcilasso and Christoval, but before earlier +_Spanish_ writers, such as Acosta, who knew not Quichua. According to +Salcamayhuia, the Inca Uiracocha was like James III., fond of architecture +and averse to war. He gave the realm to his bastard, Urca, who was +defeated and killed by the Chancas. Uiracocha meant to abandon the +contest, but his legitimate son, Yupanqui, saw a fair youth on a rock, who +promised him success in the name of the Creator, and then vanished. The +Prince was victorious, and the Inca Uiracocha retired into private +life. This appears to be a mixture of the stories of Garcilasso and +Christoval.[34] + +It is not, in itself, a point of much importance whether the Creator was +called Uiracocha (which, if it means anything, means 'sea of grease!'), or +whether he was called Pachacamac, maker of the world, or by both names. +The important question is as to whether the Creator received even human +sacrifices (Christoval) or none at all (Garcilasso). As to Pachacamac, we +must consult Mr. Payne, who has the advantage of being a Quichua scholar. +He considers that Pachacamac combines the conception of a general spirit +of living things with that of a Creator or maker of all things. +'Pachacamac and the Creator are one and the same,' but the conception of +Pachayachacic, 'ruler of the world,' 'belongs to the later period of the +Incas.'[35] Mr. Payne appears to prefer Christoval's legend of the Inca +crystal-gazer, to the rival version of Garcilasso. The Yunca form of the +worship of Pachacamac Mr. Payne regards as an example of degradation.[36] +He disbelieves Garcilasso's statement, that human sacrifices were not +made to the Sun. Garcilasso must, if Mr. Payne is right, have been a +deliberate liar, unless, indeed, he was deceived by his Inca kinsfolk. +The reader can now estimate for himself the difficulty of knowing much +about Peruvian religion, or, indeed, of any religion. For, if Mr. Payne +is right about the lowest savages having no conception of God, or even of +spirit, though the idea of a great Creator, a spirit, is one of the +earliest efforts of 'primitive logic,' we, of course, have been merely +fabling throughout. + +Garcilasso's evidence, however, seems untainted by Christian attempts to +find a primitive divine tradition. Garcilasso may possibly be refining on +facts, but he asks for no theory of divine primitive tradition in the case +of Pachacamac, whom he attributes to philosophical reflection. + +In the following chapter we discuss 'the old Degeneration theory,' and +contrast it with the scheme provisionally offered in this book. We have +already observed that the Degeneration theory biasses the accounts of some +missionaries who are obviously anxious to find traces of a Primitive +Tradition, originally revealed to all men, but only preserved in a pure +form by the Jews. To avoid deception by means of this bias we have chosen +examples of savage creative beings from wide areas, from diverse ages, +from non-missionary statements, from the least contaminated backward +peoples, and from their secret mysteries and hymns. + +Thus, still confining ourselves to the American continent, we have the +ancient hymns of the Zunis, in no way Christianised, and never chanted in +the presence of the Mexican Spanish, These hymns run thus: 'Before the +beginning of the New Making, Awonawilona, the Maker and container of All, +the All-Father, solely had being.' He then evolved all things 'by thinking +himself outward in space.' Hegelian! but so are the dateless hymns of the +Maoris, despite the savage mythology which intrudes into both sets of +traditions. The old fable of Ouranos and Gaia recurs in Zuni as in +Maori.[37] + +I fail to see how Awonawilona could be developed out of the ghost of chief +or conjurer. That in which all things potentially existed, yet who was +more than all, is not the ghost of a conjurer or chief. He certainly is +not due to missionary influence. No authority can be better than that of +traditional sacred chants found among a populace which will not sing them +before one of their Mexican masters. + +We have tried to escape from the bias of belief in a primitive divine +tradition, but bias of every kind exists, and must exist. At present the +anthropological hypothesis of ancestor-worship as the basis, perhaps (as +in Mr. Spencer's theory) the only basis of religion, affects observers. + +Before treating the theory of Degeneration let us examine a case of the +anthropological bias. The Fijians, as we learned from Williams, have +ancestral gods, and also a singular form of the creative being, Ndengei, +or, as Mr. Basil Thomson calls him, Degei. Mr. Thomson writes: 'It is +clear that the Fijians humanised their gods, because they had once existed +on earth in human form.... Like other primitive people, the Fijians +deified their ancestors.' Yet the Fijians 'may have forgotten the names +of their ancestors three generations back'! How in the world can you deify +a person whom you don't remember? Moreover, only malevolent chiefs were +deified, so apparently a Fijian god is really a well-born human +scoundrel, so considerable that _he_ for one is not forgotten--just as if +we worshipped the wicked Lord Lyttelton! Of course a god like Ahone could +not be made out of such materials as these, and, in fact, we learn from +Mr. Thomson that there are other Fijian gods of a different origin. + +'It is probable that there were here and there, _gods that were the +creation of the priests that ministered to them, and were not the +spirits of dead chiefs_. Such was the god of the Bure Tribe on the Ra +coast, who was called Tui Laga or "Lord of Heaven." When the missionaries +first went to convert this town they found the heathen priest their +staunch ally. He declared that they had come to preach the same god that +he had been preaching, the Tui Laga, and that more had been revealed to +them than to him of the mysteries of the god.' + +Mr. Thomson is reminded of St. Paul at Athens, 'whom then ye ignorantly +worship, him declare I unto you.'[38] + +Mr. Thomson has clearly no bias in favour of a God like our own, known to +savages, and _not_ derived from ghost-worship. He deduces this god, Tui +Laga, from priestly reflection and speculation. But we find such a God +where we find no priests, where a priesthood has not been developed. Such +a God, being usually unpropitiated by sacrifice and lucrative private +practice, is precisely the kind of deity who does not suit a priesthood. +For these reasons--that a priesthood 'sees no money in' a God of this +kind, and that Gods of this kind, ethical and creative, are found where +there are no priesthoods--we cannot look on the conception as a late one +of priestly origin, as Mr. Thomson does, though a learned caste, like the +Peruvian Amantas, may refine on the idea. Least of all can such a God be +'the creation of the priests that minister to him,' when, as in Peru, the +Andaman Isles, and much of Africa, this God is ministered to by no +priests. Nor, lastly, can we regard the absence of sacrifice to the +Creative Being as a mere proof that he is an ancestral ghost who 'had +lived on earth at too remote a time;' for this absence of sacrifice occurs +where ghosts are dreaded, but are not propitiated by offerings of food (as +among Australians, Andamanese, and Blackfoot Indians), while the Creative +Being is not and never was a ghost, according to his worshippers. + +At this point criticism may naturally remark that whether the savage +Supreme Being is feted, as by the Comanches, who offer puffs of smoke: or +is apparently half forgotten, as by the Algonquins and Zulus: whether +he is propitiated by sacrifice (which is very rare indeed), or only by +conduct, I equally claim him as the probable descendant in evolution of +the primitive, undifferentiated, not necessarily 'spiritual' Being of such +creeds as the Australian. + +One must reply that this pedigree cannot, indeed, be historically traced, +but that it presents none of the logical difficulties inherent in the +animistic pedigree--namely, that the savage Supreme Being is the last and +highest result of evolution on animistic lines out of ghosts. It does not +run counter to the evidence universally offered by savages, that their +Supreme Being never was mortal man. It is consistent, whereas the +animistic hypothesis is, in this case, inconsistent, with the universal +savage theory of Death. Finally, as has been said before, granting my +opinion that there are two streams of religious thought, one rising in the +conception of an undifferentiated Being, eternal, moral, and creative, the +other rising in the ghost-doctrine, it stands to reason that the latter, +as best adapted to everyday needs and experiences, normal and supernormal, +may contaminate the former, and introduce sacrifice and food-propitiation +into the ritual of Beings who, by the original conception, 'need nothing +of ours.' At the same time, the conception of 'spirit,' once attained, +would inevitably come to be attached to the idea of the Supreme Being, +even though he was not at first conceived of as a spirit. We know, by our +own experience, how difficult it has become for us to think of an eternal, +powerful, and immortal being, except as a spirit. Yet this way of looking +at the Supreme Being, merely as _being_, not as spirit, must have existed, +granting that the idea of spirit has ghost for its first expression, as, +by their very definition, the high gods of savages are not ghosts, and +never were ghosts, but are prior to death. + +Here let me introduce, by way of example, a Supreme Being _not_ of the +lowest savage level. Metaphysically he is improved on in statement, +morally he is stained with the worst crimes of the hungry ghost-god, or +god framed on the lines of animism. This very interesting Supreme Being, +in a middle barbaric race, is the Polynesian Taa-roa, as described by +Ellis in that fascinating book 'Polynesian Researches.'[39] 'Several of +their _taata-paari_, or wise men, pretend that, according to other +traditions, Taa-roa was only a man who was deified after death.' +Euhemerism, in fact, is a natural theory of men acquainted with +ancestor-worship, but a Euhemeristic hypothesis by a Polynesian thinker is +not a statement of national belief. Taa-roa was 'uncreated, existing from +the beginning, or from the time he emerges from the _po_, or world of +darkness.' In the Leeward Isles Taa-roa was _Toivi_, fatherless and +motherless from all eternity. In the highest heavens he dwells alone. He +created the gods of polytheism, the gods of war, of peace, and so on. Says +a native hymn, 'He was: he abode in the void. No earth, _no sky_, no men! +He became the universe.' In the Windward Isles he has a wife, Papa the +rock = Papa, Earth, wife of Rangi, Heaven, in Maori mythology. Thus it may +be argued, Taa-roa is no 'primaeval theistic idea,' but merely the +Heaven-God (Ouranos in Greece). But we may distinguish: in the Zuni hymn +we have the myth of the marriage of Heaven and Earth, but Heaven is not +the Eternal, Awonawilona, who 'thought himself out into the void,' before +which, as in the Polynesian hymn, 'there was no sky.'[40] + +Whence came the idea of Taa-roa? The Euhemeristic theory that he was a +ghost of a dead man is absurd. But as we are now among polytheists it may +be argued that, given a crowd of gods on the animistic model, an origin +had to be found for them, and that origin was Taa-roa. This would be more +plausible if we did not find Supreme Beings where there is no departmental +polytheism to develop them out of. In Tahiti, _Atuas_ are gods, _Oramutuas +tiis_ are spirits; the chief of the spirits were ghosts of warriors. These +were mischievous: they, their images, and the skulls of the dead needed +propitiation, and these ideas (perhaps) were reflected on to Taa-roa, to +whom human victims were sacrificed.[41] + +Now this kind of horror, human sacrifice, is unknown, I think, in early +savage religions of Supreme Beings, as in Australia, among the Bushmen, +the Andamanese, and so on. I therefore suggest that in an advanced +polytheism, such as that of Polynesia, the evil sacrificial rites +unpractised by low savages come to be attached to the worship even of the +Supreme Being. Ghosts and ghost-gods demanded food, and food was therefore +also offered to the Supreme Being. + +It was found difficult, or impossible, to induce Christian converts, in +Polynesia, to repeat the old prayers. They began, trembled, and abstained. +They had a ritual 'for almost every act of their lives,' a thing +unfamiliar to low savages. In fact, beyond all doubt, religious criminal +acts, from human sacrifice to the burning of Jeanne d'Arc, increase as +religion and culture move away from the stage of Bushmen and Andamanese to +the stage of Aztec and Polynesian culture. The Supreme Being is succeeded +in advancing civilisation, and under the influences of animism, by +ruthless and insatiable ghost-gods, full of the worst human qualities. +Thus there is what we may really call degeneration, moral and religious, +inevitably accompanying early progress. + +That this is the case, that the first advances in culture _necessarily_ +introduce religious degeneration, we shall now try to demonstrate. But we +may observe, in passing, that our array of moral or august savage supreme +beings (the first who came to hand) will, for some reason, not be found in +anthropological treatises on the Origin of Religion. They appear, somehow, +to have been overlooked by philosophers. Yet the evidence for them +is sufficiently good. Its excellence is proved by its very uniformity, +assuredly undesigned. An old, nay, an obsolete theory--that of +degeneration in religion--has facts at its basis, which its very +supporters have ignored, which orthodoxy has overlooked. Thus the Rev. +Professor Flint informs the audience in the Cathedral of St. Giles's, +that, in the religions 'at the bottom of the religious scale,' 'it is +always easy to see how wretchedly the divine is conceived of; how little +conscious of his own true wants ... is the poor worshipper.' The poor +worshipper of Baiame wishes to obey His Law, which makes, to some extent, +for righteousness.[42] + +[Footnote 1: In Pinkerton, xiii. pp. 13, 39; _Prim. Cult_. ii. 342.] + +[Footnote 2: See Preface to this edition for corrected statement.] + +[Footnote 3: _Myths of the New World_, p. 47.] + +[Footnote 4: There is a description of Virginia, by W. Strachey, including +Smith's remarks, published in 1612. Strachey interwove some of this work +with his own MS. in the British Museum, dedicated to Bacon (Verulam). This +MS. was edited by Mr. Major, for the Hakluyt Society, in 1849, with a +glossary, by Strachey, of the native language. The remarks on religion are +in Chapter VII. The passage on Ahone occurs in Strachey (1612), but _not_ +in Smith (1682), in Pinkerton. I owe to the kindness of Mr. Edmund Gosse +photographs of the drawings accompanying the MS. Strachey's story of +sacrifice of children (pp. 94, 95) seems to refer to nothing worse than the +initiation into the mysteries.] + +[Footnote 5: See Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, for a philological +theory.] + +[Footnote 6: Compare 'The Fire Walk' in _Modern Mythology_.] + +[Footnote 7: Compare St. Augustine's curious anecdote in _De Cura pro +Mortuis habenda_ about the dead and revived Curio. The founder of the new +Sioux religion, based on hypnotism, 'died' and recovered.] + +[Footnote 8: Cf. Demeter.] + +[Footnote 9: Major North, for long the U.S. Superintendent of the Pawnees.] + +[Footnote 10: Schoolcraft, iii. 237.] + +[Footnote 11: As envisaged here, Na-pi is not a spirit. The question +of spirit or non-spirit has not arisen. So far, Na-pi answers to +Marrangarrah, the Creative Being of the Larrakeah tribe of Australians. +'A very good Man called Marrangarrah lives in the sky; he made all living +creatures, except black fellows. He made everything.... He never dies, and +likes all black fellows.' He has a demiurge, Dawed (Mr. Foelsche, _apud_ +Dr. Stirling, _J.A.I_., Nov. 1894, p. 191). It is curious to observe how +savage creeds often shift the responsibility for evil from the Supreme +Creator, entirely beneficent, on to a subordinate deity.] + +[Footnote 12: Grinnell's _Blackfoot Lodge-Tales_ and _Pawnee Hero +Stories_.] + +[Footnote 13: Garcilasso, i. 101.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. i. 106.] + +[Footnote 15: From all this we might conjecture, like Mr. Prescott, that +the Incas borrowed Pachacamac from the Yuncas, and etherealised his +religion. But Mr. Clements Markham points out that 'Pachacamac is a pure +Quichua word.'] + +[Footnote 16: Garcilasso, ii. 446, 447.] + +[Footnote 17: Cieza de Leon. p.253] + +[Footnote 18: Markham's translation, p. 253.] + +[Footnote 19: _Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, Markham's translation, +p. vii.] + +[Footnote 20: _Rites_, p. 6. Garcilasso, i. 109.] + +[Footnote 21: _Rites_, p. 11.] + +[Footnote 22: Compare _Reports on Discovery of Peru,_ Introduction.] + +[Footnote 23: _Rites_, p. xv.] + +[Footnote 24: Lord Ailesbury's _Memoirs_.] + +[Footnote 25: Garcilasso, ii. 68.] + +[Footnote 26: Cieza de Leon, p. 357.] + +[Footnote 27: _Rites,_ pp. 28, 29.] + +[Footnote 28: Acosta, lib. vi. ch. 21: Garcilasso. ii. 88, 89.] + +[Footnote 29: _Rites_, p. 12.] + +[Footnote 30: Ibid. p.54.] + +[Footnote 31: _Prim. Cult_. ii, 337, 338.] + +[Footnote 32: _Rites_, p. 29.] + +[Footnote 33: Garcilasso, ii. 69.] + +[Footnote 34: _Rites and Laws_, p. 91 _et seq_.] + +[Footnote 35: Payne, i. 139.] + +[Footnote 36: Op. cit. i. 468. Mr. Payne absolutely rejects +Ixtlilochitl's story of the monotheism of Nezahualcoyotl; 'Torquemada +knows nothing of it,' i. 490.] + +[Footnote 37: Cushing, _Report, Ethnol. Bureau_, 1891-92, p. 379.] + +[Footnote 38: _J.A.I_. May 1895, pp. 341-344.] + +[Footnote 39: ii. 191, 1829.] + +[Footnote 40: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 345, 346. Ellis, ii. 193.] + +[Footnote 41: Ellis, ii. 221.] + +[Footnote 42: _The Faiths of The World_, p. 413.] + + + + +XV + +THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY + +If any partisan of the anthropological theory has read so far into this +argument, he will often have murmured to himself, 'The old degeneration +theory!' On this Dr. Brinton remarked in 1868: + +'The supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened +conditions, before mythology had grown, a monotheism prevailed which +afterwards, at various times, was revived by reformers, is a belief that +should have passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises +of a state of nature ceased to be the theme of philosophers[1].' + +'The old degeneration theory' practically, and fallaciously, resolved +itself, as Mr. Tylor says, into two assumptions--'first, that the history +of culture began with the appearance on earth of a semi-civilised race of +men; and second, that from this stage culture has proceeded in two +ways--backward to produce savages, and forward to produce civilised +men[2].' That hypothesis is false to all our knowledge of evolution. + +The hypothesis here provisionally advocated makes no assumptions +at all. It is a positive fact that among some of the lowest savages +there exists, not a doctrinal and abstract Monotheism, but a belief +in a moral, powerful, kindly, creative Being, while this faith is found +in juxtaposition with belief in unworshipped ghosts, totems, fetishes, +and so on. The powerful creative Being of savage belief sanctions truth, +unselfishness, loyalty, chastity, and other virtues. I have set forth the +difficulties involved in the attempt to derive this Being from ghosts and +other lower forms of belief. + +Now, it is mere matter of fact, and not of assumption, that the Supreme +Being of many rather higher savages differs from the Supreme Being of +certain lower savages by the neglect in which he is left, by the epicurean +repose with which he is credited, and by his comparative lack of moral +control over human conduct. In his place a mob of ghosts and spirits, +supposed to be potent and helpful in everyday life, attract men's regard +and adoration, and get paid by sacrifice--even by human sacrifice. + +Turning to races yet higher in material culture, we find a crowd of hungry +and cruel gods. + +On this point Mr. Jevons remarks, in accordance with my own observation, +that 'human sacrifice appears at a much earlier period in the rites for +the dead than it does in the ritual of the gods.'[3] The dead chief needs +servants and wives in Hades, who are offered to him. The Australians have +some elements of cannibalism, but do not, as a general rule, offer any +human victims. So far, then, ancestor-worship introduced a sadly +'degenerate' rite, compared with the moral faith in unfed gods. + +To gods the human sacrifice was probably extended (in some cases) either +by a cannibal civilised race, like the Aztecs, or by way of _piacula_, the +god being conciliated for man's sin by the offering of what man most +prized, the 'jealousy' of the god being appeased in a similar way. +But these are relatively advanced conceptions, not to be found, to my +knowledge, among the lowest and most backward races. Therefore, advance to +the idea of spirit at one point, meant degeneration at another point, to +the extent of human sacrifice. + +Thus, on looking at relatively advanced races, we find them worshipping +polytheistic deities and ghosts of the kings just dead, who are often +propitiated by terrible massacres of human victims, while, as in the case +of Taa-roa, the blood spurts back even on the uncreated Creator, who was +before earth was, or sea, sun, or sky. + +Undeniably the hungry, cruel gods are degenerate from the Australian +Father in Heaven, who receives no sacrifice but that of men's lusts and +selfishness; who desires obedience, not the fat of kangaroos; who needs +nothing of ours; is unfed and unbribed. Thus, in this particular respect +the degeneration of religion from the Australian or Andamanese to the +Dinka standard--and infinitely more to the Polynesian, or Aztec, or +popular Greek standard--is as undeniable as any fact in human history. + +Anthropology has only escaped the knowledge of this circumstance by laying +down the rule, demonstrably unbased on facts, that 'the divine sanction of +ethical laws ... belongs almost or wholly to religions above the savage +level, not to the earlier and lower creeds;' that 'savage Animism is +almost devoid of that ethical element which to the educated modern mind is +the very mainspring of practical religion.'[4] + +I have argued, indeed, that the God of low savages who imparts the divine +sanction of ethical laws is _not_ of animistic origin. But even where Mr. +Im Thurn finds, in Guiana, nothing but Animism of the lowest conceivable +type, he also finds in that Animism the only or most potent moral +restraint on the conduct of men. + +While Anthropology holds the certainly erroneous idea that the religion of +the most backward races is always non-moral, of course she cannot know +that there has, in fact, been great degeneration in religion (if religion +began on the Australian and Andamanese level, or even higher) wherever +religion is non-moral or immoral. + +Again, Anthropology, while fixing her gaze on totems, on worshipped +mummies, adored ghosts, and treasured fetishes, has not, to my knowledge, +made a comparative study of the higher and purer religious ideas of +savages. These have been passed by, with a word about credulous +missionaries and Christian influences, except in the brief summary for +which Mr. Tylor found room. In this work I only take a handful of cases of +the higher religious opinions of savages, and set them side by side for +purposes of comparison. Much more remains to be done in this field. But +the area covered is wide, the evidence is the best attainable, and it +seems proved beyond doubt that savages have 'felt after' a conception of a +Creator much higher than that for which they commonly get credit. Now, if +that conception is original, or is very early (and nothing in it suggests +lateness of development), then the other elements of their faith and +practice are degenerate. + +'How,' it has been asked, 'could all mankind forget a pure religion?'[5] +That is what I now try to explain. That degeneration I would account for +by the attractions which animism, when once developed, possessed for the +naughty natural man, 'the old Adam.' A moral creator in need of no gifts, +and opposed to lust and mischief, will not help a man with love-spells, or +with malevolent 'sendings' of disease by witchcraft; will not favour one +man above his neighbour, or one tribe above its rivals, as a reward for +sacrifice which he does not accept, or as constrained by charms which do +not touch his omnipotence. Ghosts and ghost-gods, on the other hand, in +need of food and blood, afraid of spells and binding charms,[6] are a +corrupt, but, to man, a useful constituency. Man being what he is, man was +certain to 'go a-whoring' after practically useful ghosts, ghost-gods, and +fetishes which he could keep in his wallet or medicine bag. For these he +was sure, in the long run, first to neglect his idea of his Creator; next, +perhaps, to reckon Him as only one, if the highest, of the venal rabble of +spirits or deities, and to sacrifice to Him, as to them. And this is +exactly what happened! If we are not to call it 'degeneration,' what are +we to call it? It may be an old theory, but facts 'winna ding,' and are on +the side of an old theory. Meanwhile, on the material plane, culture +kept advancing, the crafts and arts arose; departments arose, each needing +a god; thought grew clearer; such admirable ethics as those of the Aztecs +were developed, and while bleeding human hearts smoked on every altar, +Nezahuatl conceived and erected a bloodless fane to 'The Unknown God, +Cause of Causes,' without altar or idol; and the Inca, Yupanqui, or +another, declared that 'Our Father and Master, the Sun, must have a +Lord.'[7] + +But, at this stage of culture, the luck of the state, and the interests of +a rich and powerful clergy, were involved in the maintenance of the old, +animistic, relatively non-moral system, as in Cuzco, Greece, and Rome. +That popular and political regard for the luck of the state, that +priestly self-interest (quite natural), could only be swept away by the +moral monotheism of Christianity or of Islam. Nothing else could do it. In +the case of Christianity, the central and most potent of many combined +influences, apart from the Life and Death of Our Lord, was the moral +Monotheism of the Hebrew religion of Jehovah. + +Now, it is undeniable that Jehovah, at a certain period of Hebrew history, +had become degraded and anthropomorphized, far below Darumulun, and +Puluga, and Pachacamac, and Ahone, as conceived of in their purest form, +and in the high mood of savage mysteries which yet contain so much that is +grotesque. Even the Big Black Man of the Fuegians is on a higher level (as +_we_ reckon morals), when he forbids the slaying of a robber enemy, than +certain examples of early Hebrew conduct. But our knowledge of the +Fuegians is lamentably scanty. + +Again, traces of human sacrifice appear in the ritual of Israel, and it is +only relatively late that the great prophets, justly declaring Jehovah to +be indifferent to the blood of bulls and rams, try to bring back his +service to that of the unpropitiated, unbought Dendid, or Ahone, or +Pundjel. Here is degeneration, even in Israel. How the conception of +Jehovah arose in Israel, whether it was a revival of a half-obliterated +idea, such as we find among low savages; or whether it was borrowed from +some foreign creed; or was the result of meditation on the philosophical +Supreme Being of high Egyptian theology, is another question. The Biblical +statement leans to the first alternative. Jehovah, not by that name, had +been the God of Israel's fathers. The question will be discussed later; +but, unless new facts are discovered, we must accept the version of the +Pentateuch, or take refuge in conjecture. + +Not only is there degeneration from the Australian conception of +Mungan-gnaur, at its best, to the conception of the Semitic gods in +general, but, 'humanly speaking,' if religion began in a pure form among +low savages, degeneration was inevitable. Advancing social conditions +compelled men into degeneration. Mungan-ngaur is, so far, in line with +our own ideas of divinity because he is not localised. He dwelleth not in +temples made with hands; it is not likely that he should, when his +worshippers have neither house, tent, nor tabernacle. As Mr. Robertson +Smith says, 'where the God had a house or a temple, we recognise the work +of men who were no longer pure nomads, but had begun to form fixed homes.' +By the nature of Australian society, a deity could not be tied to a +temple, and temple-ritual, and consequent myths to explain that ritual, +could not arise. Nor could Darumulun be attached to a district, just as +'the nomad Arabs could not assimilate the conception of a god as a +land-owner, and apply it to their own tribal deities, for the simple +reason that in the desert private property in land was unknown.'[8] + +Darumulun is thus not capable of degenerating into 'a local god, as +_Baal_, or lord of the land,' because this 'involves a series of ideas +unknown to the primitive life of the savage huntsman,' like the widely +spread Murring tribes.[9] + +Nor could Darumulun be tied down to a place in Semitic fashion, first by +manifesting himself there, therefore by receiving an altar of sacrifice +there, and in the end a sanctuary, for Darumulun receives no sacrifice +at all. + +Again, the scene of the Bora could not become a permanent home of +Darumulun, because, when the rites are over, the effigy of the god is +scrupulously destroyed. Thus Darumulun, in his own abode 'beyond the sky,' +can 'go everywhere and do everything' (is omnipresent and omnipotent), +dwells in no earthly places, has no temple, nor tabernacle, nor sacred +mount, nor, like Jehovah, any limit of land.[10] + +The early Hebrew conception of Jehovah, then, is infinitely more +conditioned, practically, by space, than the Supreme Being, 'The Master,' +in the conception of some Australian blacks. + +'By a prophet like Isaiah the residence of Jehovah in Zion is almost +wholly dematerialised.... Conceiving Jehovah as the King of Israel, he +necessarily conceives His kingly activity as going forth from the capital +of the nation.'[11] + +But nomad hunter tribes, with no ancestor-worship, no king and no capital, +cannot lower their deity by the conditions, or limit him by the +limitations, of an earthly monarchy. + +In precisely the same way, Major Ellis proves the degeneration of deity in +Africa, so far as being localised in place of being the Universal God, +implies degeneration, as it certainly does to our minds. By being attached +to a given hill or river 'the gods, instead of being regarded as being +interested in the whole of mankind, would eventually come to be regarded +as being interested in separate tribes or nations alone.' + +To us Milton seems nobly Chauvinistic when he talks of what God has done +by 'His English.' But this localised and essentially degenerate conception +was inevitable, as soon as, in advancing civilisation, the god who had +been 'interested in the whole of [known] mankind' was settled on a hill, +river, or lagoon, amidst a nation of worshippers. + +In the course of the education of mankind, this form of degeneration +(abstractly so considered) was to work, as nothing else could have worked, +towards the lofty conception of universal Deity. For that conception +was only brought into practical religion (as apart from philosophic +speculation) by the union between Israel and the God of Sinai and Zion. +The Prophets, recognising in the God of Sinai, their nation's God--One +to whom righteousness was infinitely dearer than even his Chosen +People--freed the conception of God from local ties, and made it +overspread the world. + +Mr. Robertson Smith has pointed out, again, the manner in which the +different political development of East and West affected the religion of +Greece and of the Semites. In Greece, monarchy fell, at an early period, +before the aristocratic houses. The result was 'a divine aristocracy of +many gods, only modified by a weak reminiscence of the old kingship in the +not very effective sovereignty' (or _prytany_) 'of Zeus. In the East the +national god tended to acquire a really monarchic sway.'[12] Australia +escaped polytheistic degeneracy by having no aristocracy, as in Polynesia, +where aristocracy, as in early Greece, had developed polytheism. Ghosts +and spirits the Australians knew, but not polytheistic gods, nor +departmental deities, as of war, agriculture, art. The savage had no +agriculture, and his social condition was not departmental. In yet another +way, political advance produces religious degeneration, if polytheism be +degeneration from the conception of one relatively supreme moral being. +To make a nation, several tribes must unite. Each has its god, and the +nation is apt to receive them all, equally, into its Pantheon. Thus, if +worshippers of Baiame, Pundjel, and Darumulun coalesced into a nation, +we might find all three gods living together in a new polytheism. In fact, +granting a relatively pure starting-point, degeneration from it must +accompany every step of civilisation, to a certain distance. + +Unlike Semitic gods, Darumulun receives no sacrifice. As we have said, he +has no kin with ghosts, and their sacrifices could not be carried on into +his cult, if Waitz-Gerland (vi. 811) are right in saying that the +Australians have no ancestor-worship. The Kurnai ghosts 'were believed to +live upon plants,'[13] which are not offered to them. Chill ghosts, unfed +by men, would come to waning camp-fires and batten on the broken meats. +The Ngarego and Wolgal held, more handsomely, that Tharamulun (Darumulun) +met the just departed spirit 'and conducted it to its future home beyond +the sky.'[14] Ghosts might also accompany relics of the body, such as the +dead hand, carried about by the family, who would wave the black fragment +at the dreaded Aurora Borealis, crying, 'Send it away!' I am unacquainted +with any sacrifices to ancestral ghosts among this people who cannot long +remember their ancestors, consequently the practice has not been refracted +on their supreme Master's cult. In the cult of Darumulun, and of other +highest gods of lowest savages, nothing answers to the Hebrew technical +priestly word for sacrifice, 'food of the deity.'[15] Nobody feeds Puluga, +nobody fed Ahone. We hear of no Fuegian sacrifices. Mr. Robertson Smith +says: 'In all religions in which the gods have been developed out of +totems [worshipped animals and other things regarded as akin to human +stocks] the ritual act of laying food before the deity is perfectly +intelligible.' Pundjel, an Australian Supreme Being, is mixed up with +animals in some myths, but it is not easy to see how such Supreme Beings +as he could be 'developed out of totems'! I am not aware, again, that any +Australian tribe feeds the animals who are its totems, so Darumulun could +not, and did not inherit sacrifice through them. Mr. Robertson Smith had +a celebrated theory that cereal sacrifice is a tribute to a god, while +sacrifice of a beast or man is an act of communion with the god.[16] Men +and gods dined together.[17] 'The god himself was conceived of as a being +of the same stock as his comrades.' Beasts were also of the same stock, +one beast, say a lobster, was of the same blood as a lobster kin, and its +god.[18] Occasionally the sacred beast of the kin, usually not to be slain +or tasted, is 'eaten as a kind of mystic sacrament a most dubious +fact.'[19] + +Now, there is, I believe, some evidence, lately collected if not +published, which makes in favour of the eating of totems by Australians, +at a certain very rare and solemn mystery. It would not even surprise me +('from information received') if a very deeply initiated person were +occasionally slain, as the highest degree of initiation, on certain most +unusual occasions. This remains uncertain, but I have at present no +evidence that, either by one road or another, either from ghost-feeding or +totem-feeding, or feeding on totems, any Australian Supreme Being receives +any sacrifice at all. Much less, as among Pawnees and Semitic peoples (to +judge from certain traces), is the Australian Supreme Being a cause of and +partaker in human sacrifice.[20] The horrible idea of the Man who is the +God, and is eaten in the God's honour, occurs among polytheistic Aztecs, +on a high level of material culture, not among Australians, Andamanese, +Bushmen, or Fuegians.[21] + +Thus, in religion, the Darumulun, or other Supreme Being of the lowest +known savages, men roaming wild, when originally met, on a continent +peopled by older kinds of animals than ours, was (as we regard purity) on +a higher plane by far than the gods of Greeks and Semites in their +earliest known myths. Setting mythology aside and looking only at cult, +the God of the Murring or the Kurnai, whose precepts soften the heart, +who knows the heart's secrets, who inculcates chastity, respect of age, +unselfishness, who is not bound by conditions of space or place, who +receives no blood of slaughtered man or beast, is a conception from which +the ordinary polytheistic gods of infinitely more polite peoples are +frankly degenerate. The animistic superstitions wildly based on the belief +in the soul have not soiled him, and the social conditions of aristocracy, +agriculture, architecture, have not made him one in a polytheistic +crowd of rapacious gods, nor fettered him as a Baal to his estate, nor +localised him in a temple built with hands. He cannot appear as a 'God of +Battles;' no _Te Deum_ can be sung to him for victory in a cause perhaps +unjust, for he is the Supreme Being of a certain group of allied local +tribes. One of these tribes has no more interest with him than another, +and the whole group do not, as a body, wage war on another alien group. +The social conditions of his worshippers, then, preserve Darumulun from +the patent blots on the escutcheon of gods among much more advanced races. + +Once more, the idea of Animism admits of endless expansion. A spirit can +be located anywhere, in any stone, stick, bush, person, hill, or river. A +god made on the animistic model can be assigned to any department of +human activity, down to sports, or lusts, or the province of Cloacina. +Thus religion becomes a mere haunted and pestilential jungle of beliefs. +But the theistic conception, when not yet envisaged as spiritual, cannot +be subdivided and _eparpille_. Thus, from every point of view, and on +every side, Animism is full of the seeds of religious degeneration, which +do not and cannot exist in what I take to be the earliest known form of +the theistic conception: that of a Being about whose metaphysical +nature--spirit or not spirit--no questions were asked, as Dr. Brinton long +ago remarked. + +That conception alone could neither supply the moral motive of 'a soul to +be saved,' nor satisfy the metaphysical instinct of advancing mankind. To +meet these wants, to supply 'soul,' with its moral stimulus, and to +provide a phrase or idea under which the Deity could be envisaged (i.e. as +a _spirit_) by advancing thought, Animism was necessary. The blending of +the theistic and the animistic beliefs was indispensable to religion. +But, in the process of animistic development under advancing social +conditions, degeneration was necessarily implied. Degeneration of the +theistic conception for a while, therefore, occurred. The facts are the +proofs; and only contradictory facts, in sufficient quantity, can +annihilate the old theory of Degeneration when it is presented in this +form. + +It mast be repeated that on this theory an explanation is given of what +the old Degeneration hypothesis does not explain. Granting a primal +religion relatively pure in its beginnings, why did it degenerate? + +Mr. Max Mullet, looking on religion as the development of the sentiment of +the Infinite, regards fetishism as a secondary and comparatively late form +of belief. We find it, he observes, in various forms of Christianity; +Christianity, therefore, is primary there, relic worship is secondary. +Religion beginning, according to him, in the sense of the infinite, as +awakened in man by tall trees, high hills, and so on, it advances to the +infinite of space and sky, and so to the infinitely divine. This is +primary: fetishism is secondary. Arguing elsewhere against this idea, I +have asked: What was the _modus_ of degeneration which produced similar +results in Christianity, and in African and other religions? How did it +work? I am not aware that Mr. Max Mueller has answered this question. +But how degeneration worked--namely, by Animism supplanting Theism--is +conspicuously plain on our theory. + +Take the early chapters of Genesis, or any savage cosmogonic myth you +please. Deathless man is face to face with the Creator. He cannot +degenerate in religion. He cannot offer sacrifice, for the Creator +obviously needs nothing, and again, as there is no death, he cannot slay +animals for the Creator. But, in one way or another, usually by breach of +a taboo, Death enters the world. Then comes, by process of evolution, +belief in hungry spirits, belief in spirits who may inhabit stones or +sticks; again there arise priests who know how to propitiate spirits +and how to tempt them into sticks and stones. These arts become lucrative +and are backed by the cleverest men, and by the apparent evidence of +prophecies by convulsionaries. Thus every known kind of degeneration in +religion is inevitably introduced as a result of the theory of Animism. We +do not need an hypothesis of Original Sin as a cause of degeneration, and, +if Mr. Max Mueller's doctrine of the Infinite were _viable_, we have +supplied, in Animism, under advancing social conditions, what he does not +seem to provide, a cause and _modus_ of degeneration. Fetishism would +thus be really 'secondary,' _ex hypothesi_, but as we nowhere find +Fetishism alone, without the other elements of religion, we cannot say, +historically, whether it is secondary or not. Fetishism logically needs, +in some of its aspects, the doctrine of spirits, and Theism, in what we +take to be its earliest known form, does not logically need the doctrine +of spirits as given matter. So far we can go, but not farther, as to the +fact of priority in evolution. Nevertheless we meet, among the most +backward peoples known to us, among men just emerged from the palaeolithic +stage of culture, men who are involved in dread of ghosts, a religious +Idea which certainly is not born of ghost-worship, for by these men, +ancestral ghosts are not worshipped. + +In their hearts, on their lips, in their moral training we find (however +blended with barbarous absurdities, and obscured by rites of another +origin) the faith in a Being who created or constructed the world; who was +from time beyond memory or conjecture; who is primal, who makes for +righteousness, and who loves mankind. This Being has not the notes of +degeneration; his home is 'among the stars,' not in a hill or in a house. +To him no altar smokes, and for him no blood is shed. + +'God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is lord +of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is +worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed any thing ... and hath +made of one blood all nations of men ... that they should seek the Lord, +if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far +from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.' + +That the words of St. Paul are literally true, as to the feeling after a +God who needs not anything at man's hands, the study of anthropology seems +to us to demonstrate. That in this God 'we have our being,' in so far +as somewhat of ours may escape, at moments, from the bonds of Time and the +manacles of Space, the earlier part of this treatise is intended to +suggest, as a thing by no means necessarily beyond a reasonable man's +power to conceive. That these two beliefs, however attained (a point on +which we possess no positive evidence), have commonly been subject to +degeneration in the religions of the world, is only too obvious. + +So far, then, the nature of things and of the reasoning faculty does not +seem to give the lie to the old Degeneration theory. + +To these conclusions, as far as they are matters of scientific opinion, we +have been led by nothing but the study of anthropology. + +[Footnote 1: _Myths of the New World_, p. 44.] + +[Footnote 2: _Prim. Cult_. i. 35.] + +[Footnote 3: _Introduction_, p. 199; also p. 161.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 360,361.] + +[Footnote 5: Prof. Menzies, _History of Religion_, p. 23.] + +[Footnote 6: [Greek: legomenai theion anagchai.] Porphyry.] + +[Footnote 7: Ixtlilochitl. Balboa, _Hist. du Perou_, p. 62.] + +[Footnote 8: Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, pp. 104, 105.] + +[Footnote 9: Op. cit. p. 106.] + +[Footnote 10: On the Glenelg some caves and mountain tops are haunted or +holy. Waitz, vi. 804, No authority cited.] + +[Footnote 11: _Religion of Semites_, p. 110.] + +[Footnote 12: _Rel. Sem_. p. 71.] + +[Footnote 13: Howitt, _J.A.T_. 1884, p. 187.] + +[Footnote 14: Op. cit. p. 188.] + +[Footnote 15: _Rel. Sem_. p. 207.] + +[Footnote 16: _Rel. Sem_. p. 225.] + +[Footnote 17: Op. cit. p. 247.] + +[Footnote 18: Op. cit. p. 269.] + +[Footnote 19: Op. cit. p. 277.] + +[Footnote 20: Op. cit. p. 343. Citing Gen. xxii 2 Kings xxi. 6, Micah +vi. 7, 2 Kings iii. 27.] + +[Footnote 21: I mean, does not occur to my knowledge. New evidence is +always upsetting anthropological theories.] + + + + +XVI + +THEORIES OF JEHOVAH + +All speculation on the curly history of religion is apt to end in the +endeavour to see how far the conclusions can be made to illustrate the +faith of Israel. Thus, the theorist who believes in ancestor-worship as +the key of all the creeds will see in Jehovah a developed ancestral +ghost, or a kind of fetish-god, attached to a stone--perhaps an ancient +sepulchral stele of some desert sheikh. + +The exclusive admirer of the hypothesis of Totemism will find evidence for +his belief in worship of the golden calf and the bulls. The partisan of +nature-worship will insist on Jehovah's connection with storm, thunder, +and the fire of Sinai. On the other hand, whoever accepts our suggestions +will incline to see, in the early forms of belief in Jehovah, a shape of +the widely diffused conception of a Moral Supreme Being, at first (or, at +least, when our information begins) envisaged in anthropomorphic form, +but gradually purged of all local traits by the unexampled and unique +inspiration of the great Prophets. They, as far as our knowledge extends, +were strangely indifferent to the animistic element in religion, to the +doctrine of surviving human souls, and so, of course, to that element +of Animism which is priceless--the purification of the soul in the light +of the hope of eternal life. Just as the hunger after righteousness of the +Prophets is intense, so their hope of finally sating that hunger +in an eternity of sinless bliss and enjoyment of God is confessedly +inconspicuous. In short, they have carried Theism to its austere +extreme--'though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him'--while unconcerned +about the rewards of Animism. This is certainly a strange result of a +religion which, according to the anthropological theory, has Animism for +its basis. + +We therefore examine certain forms of the animistic hypothesis as applied +to account for the religion of Israel. The topic is one in which special +knowledge of Hebrew and other Oriental languages seems absolutely +indispensable; but anthropological speculators have not been Oriental +scholars (with rare exceptions), while some Oriental scholars have +borrowed from popular anthropology without much critical discrimination. +These circumstances must be our excuse for venturing on to this difficult +ground. + +It is probably impossible for us to trace with accuracy the rise of the +religion of Jehovah. 'The wise and learned' dispute endlessly over dates +of documents, over the amount of later doctrine interpolated into +the earlier texts, over the nature, source, and quantity of foreign +influence--Chaldaean, Accadian, Egyptian, or Assyrian. We know that Israel +had, in an early age, the conception of the moral Eternal; we know that, +at an early age, that conception was contaminated and anthropomorphised; +and we know that it was rescued, in a great degree, from this corruption, +while always retaining its original ethical aspect and sanction. Why +matters went thus in Israel and not elsewhere we know not, except that +such was the will of God in the mysterious education of the world. How +mysterious that education has been is best known to all who have studied +the political and social results of Totemism. On the face of it a +perfectly crazy and degrading belief--on the face of it meant for nothing +but to make the family a hell of internecine hatred--Totemism rendered +possible--nay, inevitable--the union of hostile groups into large and +relatively peaceful tribal societies. Given the materials as we know them, +we never should have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it +should thus have been done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally +ignorant of the conditions of the problem. + +An example of anthropological theory concerning Jehovah was put forth by +Mr. Huxley.[1] Mr. Huxley's general idea of religion as it is on the +lowest known level of material culture--through which the ancestors of +Israel must have passed like other people--has already been criticised. +He denied to the most backward races both cult and religious sanction of +ethics. He was demonstrably, though unconsciously, in error as to the +facts, and therefore could not start from the idea that Israel, in the +lowest historically known condition of savagery, possessed, or, like other +races, might possess, the belief in an Eternal making for righteousness. +'For my part,' he says, 'I see no reason to doubt that, like the +rest of the world, the Israelites had passed through a period of mere +ghost-worship, and had advanced through ancestor-worship and Fetishism and +Totemism to the theological level at which we find them in the Books of +Judges and Samuel.'[2] + +But why does he think the Israelites did all this? The Hebrew ghosts, +abiding, according to Mr. Huxley, in a rather torpid condition in Sheol, +would not be of much practical use to a worshipper. A reference in +Deuteronomy xxvi. 14 (Deuteronomy being, _ex hypothesi_, a late pious +imposture) does not prove much. The Hebrew is there bidden to remind +himself of the stay of his ancestors in Egypt, and to say, 'Of the +hallowed things I have not given aught for the dead'--namely, of the +tithes dedicated to the Levites and the poor. A race which abode for +centuries among the Egyptians, as Israel did--among a people who +elaborately fed the _kas_ of the departed--might pick up a trace of a +custom, the giving of food for the dead, still persevered in by St. Monica +till St. Ambrose admonished her. But Mr. Huxley is hard put to it for +evidence of ancestor-worship or ghost-worship in Israel when he looks for +indications of these rites in 'the singular weight attached to the +veneration of parents in the Fourth Commandment.'[3] The _Fourth_ +Commandment, of course, is a slip of the pen. He adds: 'The Fifth +Commandment, as it stands, would be an excellent compromise between +ancestor-worship and Monotheism.' Long may children practise this +excellent compromise! It is really too far-fetched to reason thus: 'People +were bidden to honour their parents, as a compromise between Monotheism +and ghost-worship.' Hard, hard bestead is he who has to reason in that +fashion! This comes of 'training in the use of the weapons of precision of +science.' + +Mr. Huxley goes on: 'The Ark of the Covenant may have been a relic of +ancestor-worship;' 'there is a good deal to be said for that speculation.' +Possibly there is, by way of the valuable hypothesis that Jehovah was a +fetish stone which had been a grave-stone, or perhaps a _lingam_, and was +kept in the Ark on the plausible pretext that it was the two Tables of +the Law! + +However, Mr. Huxley really finds it safer to suppose that references to +ancestor-worship in the Bible were obliterated by late monotheistic +editors, who, none the less, are so full and minute in their descriptions +of the various heresies into which Israel was eternally lapsing, and must +not be allowed to lapse again. Had ancestor-worship been a _peche mignon_ +of Israel, the Prophets would have let Israel hear their mind on it. + +The Hebrews' indifference to the departed soul is, in fact, a puzzle, +especially when we consider their Egyptian education--so important an +element in Mr. Huxley's theory. + +Mr. Herbert Spencer is not more successful than Mr. Huxley in finding +ancestor-worship among the Hebrews. On the whole subject he writes: + +'Where the levels of mental nature and social progress are lowest, we +usually find, along with an absence of religious ideas generally, an +absence, or very slight development, of ancestor-worship.... Cook +[Captain Cook], telling us what the Fuegians were before contact +with Europeans had introduced foreign ideas, said there were no +appearances of religion among them; and we are not told by him or others +that they were ancestor-worshippers.'[4] + +Probably they are not; but they do possess a Being who reads their hearts, +and who certainly shows no traces of European ideas. If the Fuegians +are not ancestor-worshippers, this Being was not developed out of +ancestor-worship. + +The evidence of Captain Cook, no anthropologist, but a mariner who saw and +knew little of the Fuegians, is precisely of the sort against which Major +Ellis warns us.[5] The more a religion consists in fear of a moral +guardian of conduct, the less does it show itself, by sacrifice or rite, +to the eyes of Captain Cook, of his Majesty's ship _Endeavour_. Mr. +Spencer places the Andamanese on the same level as the Fuegians, 'so far +as the scanty evidence may be trusted.' We have shown that (as known +to Mr. Spencer in 1876) it may not be trusted at all; the Andamanese +possessing a moral Supreme Being, though they are not, apparently, +ancestor-worshippers. The Australians 'show us not much persistence in +ghost-propitiation,' which, if it exists, ceases when the corpses are tied +up and buried, or after they are burned, or after the bones, carried about +for a while, are exposed on platforms. Yet many Australian tribes possess +a moral Supreme Being. + +In fact ghost-worship, in Mr. Spencer's scheme, cannot be fairly well +developed till society reaches the level of 'settled groups whose +burial-places are in their midst.' Hence the development of a moral +Supreme Being among tribes _not_ thus settled, is inconceivable, on +Mr. Spencer's hypothesis.[6] By that hypothesis, 'worshipped ancestors, +according to their remoteness, were regarded as divine, semi-divine, and +human.'[7] Where we find, then, the Divine Being among nomads who do not +remember their great-grandfathers, the Spencerian theory is refuted by +facts. We have the effect, the Divine Being, without the cause, worship of +ancestors. + +Coming to the Hebrews, Mr. Spencer argues that 'the silence of their +legends (as to ancestor-worship) is but a negative fact, which may be as +misleading as negative facts usually are.' They are, indeed; witness +Mr. Spencer's own silence about savage Supreme Beings. But we may fairly +argue that if Israel had been given to ancestor-worship (as might partly +be surmised from the mystery about the grave of Moses) the Prophets would +not have spared them for their crying. The Prophets were unusually +outspoken men, and, as they undeniably do scold Israel for every other +kind of conceivable heresy, they were not likely to be silent about +ancestor-worship, if ancestor-worship existed. Mr. Spencer, then, rather +heedlessly, though correctly, argues that 'nomadic habits are unfavourable +to evolution of the ghost-theory.'[8] Alas, this gives away the whole +case! For, if all men began as nomads, and nomadic habits are unfavourable +even to the ordinary ghost, how did the Australian and other nomads +develop the Supreme Being, who, _ex hypothesi_, is the final fruit of the +ghost-flower? If you cannot have 'an established ancestor-worship' till +you abandon nomadic habits, how, while still nomadic, do you evolve a +Supreme Being? Obviously not out of ancestor-worship. + +Mr. Spencer then assigns, as evidence for ancestor-worship in Israel, +mourning dresses, fasting, the law against self-bleeding and cutting off +the hair for the dead, and the text (Deut. xxvi. 14) about 'I have not +given aught thereof for the dead.' 'Hence, the conclusion must be that +ancestor-worship had developed as far as nomadic habits allowed, before it +was repressed by a higher worship.'[9] But whence came that higher worship +which seems to have intervened immediately after the cessation of nomadic +habits? + +There are obvious traces of grief expressed in a primitive way among the +Hebrews. 'Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your +eyes for the dead' (Deut. xiv. 1). 'Neither shall men lament for them, +nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; neither shall men +tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead' (by +way of counter-irritant to grief); 'neither shall men give them the cup +of consolation to drink for their father or their mother,' because the +Jews were to be removed from their homes.[10] 'Ye shall not make any +cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.'[11] + +It may be usual to regard inflictions, such as cutting, by mourners, as +sacrifices to the ghost of the dead. But one has seen a man strike himself +a heavy blow on receiving news of a loss _not_ by death, and I venture to +fancy that cuttings and gashings at funerals are merely a more violent +form of appeal to a counter-irritant of grief, and, again, a token of +recklessness caused by a sorrow which makes void the world. One of John +Nicholson's native adorers killed himself on news of that warrior's death, +saying, 'What is left worth living for?' This was not a sacrifice to the +Manes of Nicholson. The sacrifice of the mourner's hair, as by Achilles, +argues a similar indifference to personal charm. Once more, the text in +Psalm cvi. 28, 'They joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the +sacrifices of the dead,' is usually taken by commentators as a reference +to the ritual of gods who are no gods. But it rather seems to indicate an +acquiescence in foreign burial rites. All this additional evidence does +not do much to prove ancestor-worship in Israel, though the secrecy of the +burial of Moses, 'in a valley of the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; +but no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day,' may indicate a dread of +a nascent worship of the great leader.[12] The scene of the defection in +Psalm cvi., Beth-peor, is indicated in Numbers xxv., where Israel runs +after the girls and the gods of Moab: 'And Moab called the people unto the +sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their +gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor.' Psalm cvi. is obviously a +later restatement of this addiction to the Moabite gods, and the Psalm +adds 'they ate the sacrifices of the dead.' + +It is plain that, for whatever reason, ancestor-worship among the Hebrews +was, at the utmost, rudimentary. Otherwise it must have been clearly +denounced by the Prophets among the other heresies of Israel. Therefore, +as being at the most rudimentary, ancestor-worship in Israel could not be +developed at once into the worship of Jehovah. + +Though ancestor-worship among the Hebrews could not be fully developed, +according to Mr. Spencer, because of their nomadic habits, it _was_ fully +developed, according to the Rev. A.W. Oxford. 'Every family, like every +old Roman and Greek family, was firmly held together by the worship of its +ancestors, the hearth was the altar, the head of the family the priest.... +The bond which kept together the families of a tribe was its common +religion, the worship of its reputed ancestor. The chief of the tribe was, +of course, the priest of the cult.' Of course; but what a pity that Mr. +Huxley and Mr. Spencer omitted facts so invaluable to their theory! And +how does the Rev. Mr. Oxford know? Well, 'there is no direct proof,' +oddly enough, of so marked a feature in Hebrew religion but we are +referred to 1 Sam. xx. 29 and Judges xviii. 19. 1 Sam. xx. 29 makes +Jonathan say that David wants to go to a family sacrifice, that is, a +family dinner party. This hardly covers the large assertions made by +Mr. Oxford. His second citation is so unlucky as to contradict his +observation that 'of course' the chief of the tribe was the priest of the +cult. Micah, in Judges xvii., xviii., is _not_ the chief of his tribe +(Ephraim), neither is he even the priest in his own house. He 'consecrated +one of his own sons who became his priest,' till he got hold of a casual +young Levite, and said, 'Be unto me a _father_ and a priest,' for ten +shekels _per annum_, a suit of clothes, and board and lodging. + +In place, then, of any remote reference to a chief's being priest of his +ancestral ghosts, we have here a man of one tribe who is paid rather +handsomely to be family chaplain to a member of another tribe. Some +moss-troopers of the tribe of Dan then kidnapped this valuable young +Levite, and seized a few idols which Micah had permitted himself to make. +And all this, according to our clerical authority, is evidence for +ancestor-worship![13] + +All this appears to be derived from some incoherent speculations of Stade. +For example, that learned German cites the story of Micah as a proof that +the different tribes or clans had different religions. This _must_ be so, +because the Danites asked the young Levite whether it was not better to be +priest to a clan than to an individual? It is as if a patron offered a +rich living to somebody's private chaplain, saying that the new position +was more creditable and lucrative. This would hardly prove a difference of +religion between the individual and the parish.[14] + +Mr. Oxford next avers that 'the earliest form of the Israelite religion +was Fetishism or Totemism.' This is another example of Stade's logic. +Finding, as he believes, names suggestive of Totemism in Simeon, Levi, +Rachel, and so on, Stade leaps to the conclusion that Totemism in Israel +was prior to anything resembling monotheism. For monotheism, he argues, +could not give the germs of the clan or tribal organisation, while Totemism +could do so. Certainly it could, but as, in many regions (America, +Australia), we find Totemism and the belief in a benevolent Supreme Being +co-existing among savages, when first observed by Europeans, we cannot +possibly say dogmatically whether a rough monotheism or whether Totemism +came first in order of evolution. This holds as good of Israel (if once +totemistic) as it does of Pawnees or Kurnai. Stade has overlooked these +well-known facts, and his opinion filters into a cheap hand-book, and is +set in examinations![15] + +We also learn from Mr. Oxford's popular manual of German Biblical +conjecture that 'Jehovah was not represented as a loving Father, but as a +Being easily roused to wrath,' a thing most incident to loving fathers. + +Again, Mr. Oxford avers that 'the old Israelites knew no distinction +between physical and moral evil.... The conception of Jehovah's holiness +had nothing moral in it' (p. 90). This rather contradicts Wellhausen: 'In +all ancient primitive peoples ... religion furnishes a motive for law and +morals; in the case of none did it become so with such purity and power as +in that of the Israelites.'[16] + +We began by examining Mr. Huxley's endeavours to find traces of +ancestor-worship (in his opinion the origin of Jehovah-worship) among the +Israelites. We next criticised Mr. Spencer's efforts in the same quest, +and the more dogmatic assertions of Mr. Oxford and Stade. We now return to +Mr. Huxley's account of the evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of +Jehovah. + +From the history of the Witch of Endor, which Mr. Huxley sees no reason to +regard as other than a sincere statement of what really occurred, he +gathers that the Witch cried out, 'I see Elohim.' These Elohim proved to +be the phantasm of the dead Samuel. Moved by this hallucination the Witch +uttered a veridical premonition, totally adverse to her own interests, and +uncommonly dangerous to her life. This is, psychically, interesting. +The point, however, is that _Elohim_ is a term equivalent to Red +Indian _Wakan_, Fijian _Kahu_, Maori or Melanesian _Mana_, meaning the +'supernatural,' the vaguely powerful--in fact X. This particular example +of _Elohim_ was a phantasm of the dead, but _Elohim_ is also used of the +highest Divine Being, therefore the highest Divine Being is of the same +genus as a ghost--so Mr. Huxley reasons. 'The difference which was +supposed to exist between the different Elohim was one of degree, not of +kind.'[17] + +'If Jehovah was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the +undoubtedly zoomorphic or anthropomorphic "gods of the nations," why is it +to be assumed that he also was not thought to have a human shape?' He +_was_ thought to have a human shape, at one time, by some theorists: no +doubt exists on that head. That, however, is not where we demur. We demur +when, because an hallucination of the Witch of Endor (probably still +incompletely developed) is called by her _Elohim_, therefore the highest +_Elohim_ is said by Mr. Huxley to differ from a ghost only in degree, not +in kind. _Elohim_, or _El_, the creative, differs from a ghost in kind, +because he, in Hebrew belief, never was a ghost, he is immortal and +without beginning. + +Mr. Huxley now enforces his theory by a parallel between the religion of +Tonga and the religion of Israel under the Judges. He quotes Mariner,[18] +whose statement avers that there is a supreme Tongan being: 'of his +origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal. His name is +Ta-li-y-Tooboo = "Wait-there-Tooboo."' 'He is a great chief from the top +of the sky down to the bottom of the earth.' He, and other '_original_ +gods' of his making, are carefully and absolutely discriminated from the +_atua_, which are 'the human soul after its separation from the body.' All +Tongan gods are _atua_ (_Elohim_), but all _atua_ are not 'original gods,' +unserved by priests, and unpropitiated by food or libation, like the +highest God, Ta-li-y-Tooboo, the Eternal of Tonga. 'He occasionally +inspires the How' (elective King), but often a How is not inspired at all +by Ta-li-y-Tooboo, any more than Saul, at last, was inspired by Jehovah. + +Surely there is a difference _in kind_ between an eternal, immortal God, +and a ghost, though both are _atua_, or both are _Elohim_--the unknown X. + +Many people call a ghost 'supernatural;' they also call God +'supernatural,' but the difference between a phantasm of a dead man and +the Deity they would admit, I conceive, to be a difference of kind. We +have shown, or tried to show, that the conceptions of 'ghost' and 'Supreme +Being' are different, not only in kind, but in origin. The ghost comes +from, and depends on, the animistic theory; the Supreme Being, as +originally thought of, does not. All Gods are _Elohim, kalou, wakan_; all +_Elohim, kalou, wakan_ are not Gods. + +A ghost-god should receive food or libation. Mr. Huxley says that +Ta-li-y-Tooboo did so. 'If the god, like Ta-li-y-Tooboo, had no priest, +then the chief place was left vacant, and was supposed to be occupied by +the god himself. _When the first cup of Kava was filled_, the mataboole +who acted as master of the ceremonies said, "Give it to your god," and it +was offered, though only as a matter of form.'[19] + +This is incorrect. In the case of Ta-li-y-Tooboo _'there is no cup filled +for the god.'_[20] _'Before any cup is filled_ the man by the side of the +bowl says: "The Kava is in the cup"' (which it is not), 'and the mataboole +answers, "Give it to your god;"' but the Kava is _not_ in the cup, and the +Tongan Eternal receives no oblation. + +The sacrifice, says Mr. Huxley, meant 'that the god was either a deified +ghost, or, at any rate, a being of like nature to these.'[21] But as +Ta-li-y-Tooboo had no sacrifice, contrary to Mr. Huxley's averment, he was +_not_ 'a deified ghost, or a being of like nature to these.' To the lower, +non-ghostly Tongan gods the animistic habit of sacrifice had been +extended, but not yet to the Supreme Being. + +Ah, if Mr. Gladstone, or the Duke of Argyll, or some bishop had made a +misstatement of this kind, how Mr. Huxley would have crushed him! But it +is a mere error of careless reading, such as we all make daily. + +It is manifest that we cannot prove Jehovah to be a ghost by the parallel +of a Tongan god, who, by ritual and by definition, was _not_ a ghost. The +proof therefore rests on the anthropomorphised pre-prophetic accounts, and +on the ritual, of Jehovah. But man naturally 'anthropises' his deities: he +does not thereby demonstrate that they were once ghosts. + +As regards the sacrifices to Jehovah, the sweet savour which he was +supposed to enjoy (contrary to the opinion of the Prophets), these +sacrifices afford the best presumption that Jehovah was a ghost-god, or a +god constructed on ghostly lines. + +But we have shown that among the lowest races neither are ghosts +worshipped by sacrifice, nor does the Supreme Being, Darumulun or Puluga, +receive food offerings. We have also instanced many Supreme Beings +of more advanced races, Ahone, and Dendid, and Nyankupon, who do not sniff +the savour of any offerings. If then (as in the case of Taa-roa), a +Supreme Being _does_ receive sacrifice, we may argue that a piece of +animistic ritual, not connected with the Supreme Being in Australia or +Andaman, not connected with his creed in Virginia or Africa (where +ghost-gods do receive sacrifice), may in other regions be transferred from +ghost-gods to the Supreme Being, who never was a ghost. There seems to +be nothing incredible or illogical in the theory of such transference. + +On a God who never was a ghost men may come to confer sacrifices (which +are not made to Baiame and the rest) because, being in the habit of thus +propitiating one set of bodiless powers, men may not think it civil or +safe to leave another set of powers out. By his very nature, man must +clothe all gods with some human passions and attributes, unless, like a +large number of savages, he leaves his high God severely alone, and is the +slave of fetishes and spectres. But that practice makes against the +ghost-theory. + +In the attempt to account thus, namely by transference, for the sacrifices +to Jehovah, we are met by a difficulty of our own making. If the +Israelites did not sacrifice to ancestors (as we have shown that there is +very scant reason for supposing that they did), how could they transfer to +Jehovah the rite which, by our hypothesis, they are not proved to have +offered to ancestors? + +This is certainly a hard problem, harder (or perhaps easier) because we +know so very little of the early history of the Hebrews. According to +their own traditions, Israel had been in touch with all manner of races +much more advanced than themselves in material culture, and steeped in +highly developed polytheistic Animism. According to their history, the +Israelites 'went a-whoring' incorrigibly after strange gods. It is +impossible, perhaps, to disentangle the foreign and the native elements. + +It may therefore be tentatively suggested that early Israel had its Ahone +in a Being perhaps not yet named Jehovah. Israel entertained, however, +perhaps by reason of 'nomadic habits,' only the scantiest concern about +ancestral ghosts. We then find an historical tradition of secular contact +between Israel and Egypt, from which Israel emerges with Jehovah for God, +and a system of sacrifices. Regarding Jehovah as a revived memory of +the moral Supreme Being whom Israel must have known in extremely remote +ages (unless Israel was less favoured than Australians, Bushmen, or +Andamanese), we might look on the sacrifices to him as an adaptation from +the practices of religion among races more settled than Israel, and more +civilised.[22] + +Speculation on subjects so remote must be conjectural, but our suggestion +would, perhaps, account for sacrifices to Jehovah, paid by a race +which, by reason of 'nomadic habits,' was never much given to +ancestor-worship, but had been in contact with great sacrificing, +polytheistic civilisations. Mr. Huxley, however, while he seems to slur +the essential distinction between ghost-gods and the Eternal, grants, +later, that 'there are very few people(s?) without additional gods, +which cannot, with certainty, be accounted for as deified ancestors.' +Ta-li-y-Tooboo, of course, is one of these gods, as is Jehovah. Mr. Huxley +gives no theory of _how_ these gods came into belief, except the +suggestion that 'the polytheistic theology has become modified by the +selection of the cosmic or tribal god, as the only god to whom worship is +due on the part of that nation,' without prejudice to the right of other +nations to worship other gods.[23] This is 'monolatry,' and 'the ethical +code, often of a very high order, comes into closer relation with the +theological creed,' _why_, we are not informed. Nor do we learn out of +what polytheistic deities Jehovah was selected, nor for what reason. The +hypothesis, as usual, breaks down on the close relation between the +ethical code and the theological creed, among low savages, with a +relatively Supreme Being, but without ancestor-worship, and without +polytheistic gods from whom to select a heavenly chief. + +Whence came the moral element in the idea of Jehovah? Mr. Huxley supposes +that, during their residence in the land of Goshen (and _a fortiori_ +before it), the Israelites 'knew nothing of Jehovah.'[24] They were +polytheistic idolaters. This follows, apparently, from Ezekiel xx. 5: +'In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of +the house of Jacob, _and made myself known unto them_ in the land of +Egypt.' The Biblical account is that the God of Moses's fathers, the God +of Abraham, enlightened Moses in Sinai, giving his name as 'I am that I +am' (Exodus iii. 6, 14; translation uncertain). We are to understand that +Moses, a religious reformer, revived an old, and, in the Egyptian bondage, +a half-obliterated creed of the ancient nomadic Beni-Israel. They were no +longer to 'defile themselves with the idols of Egypt,' as they had +obviously done. We really know no more about the matter. Wellhausen says +that Jehovah was 'originally a family or tribal god, either of the family +of Moses or of the tribe of Joseph.' How a family could develop a Supreme +Being all to itself, we are not informed, and we know of no such analogous +case in the ethnographic field. Again, Jehovah was 'only a special name of +El, current within a powerful circle.' And who was El?[25] 'Moses was not +the first discoverer of the faith.' Probably not, but Mr. Huxley seems to +think that he was. + +Wellhausen's and other German ideas filter into popular traditions, as we +saw, through 'A Short Introduction to the History of Ancient Israel' +(pp. 19, 20), by the Rev. A.W. Oxford, M.A., Vicar of St. Luke's, Soho. +Here follows Mr. Oxford's undeniably 'short way with Jehovah.' 'Moses was +the founder of the Israelite religion. Jehovah, his family or tribal god, +perhaps originally the God of the Kenites, was taken as a tribal god by +all the Israelite tribes.... That Jehovah was not the original god of +Israel' (as the Bible impudently alleges) 'but was the god of the Kenites, +we see mainly from Deut. xxxiii. 2, Judges v. 4, 5, and from the history +of Jethro, who, according to Judges i. 16, was a Kenite.' + +The first text says that, according to Moses, 'the Lord came from Sinai,' +rose up from Seir, and shone from Mount Paran. The second text mentions +Jehovah's going up out of Seir and Sinai. The third text says that Jethro, +Moses's Kenite (or Midianite) father-in-law, dwelt among the people of +Judah; Jethro being a priest of Midian. How all this proves that 'Moses +was a great impostor,' as the poet says, and that Jehovah was not 'the +original God of Israel,' but (1) Moses's family or tribal god, or (2) 'the +god of the Kenites,' I profess my inability to comprehend. + +Wellhausen himself had explained Jehovah as 'a family or tribal god, +either of the family of Moses' (tribe of Levi) 'or of the tribe of +Joseph.' It seems to be all one to Mr. Oxford whether Jehovah was a god +of Moses's tribe or quite the reverse, 'a Kenite god.' Yet it really +makes a good deal of difference! For in a complex of tribes, speaking one +language, it is to the last degree unexampled (within my knowledge) that +one tribe, or family, possesses, all to itself, a family god who is also +the Creator and is later accepted as such by all the other tribes. One may +ask for instances of such a thing in any known race, in any stage of +culture. Peru will not help us--not the Creator, Pachacamac, but the Sun, +is the god of the Inca family. If, on the other hand, Jehovah was a Kenite +god, the Kenites were a half-Arab Semitic people connected with Israel, +and may very well have retained traditions of a Supreme Being which, in +Egypt, were likely to be dimmed, as Exodus asserts, by foreign religions. +The learned Stade, to be sure, may disbelieve in Israel's sojourn in +Egypt, but that revolutionary opinion is not necessarily binding on us and +involves a few difficulties. + +Have critics and manual-makers no knowledge of the science of comparative +religion? Are they unaware that peoples infinitely more backward than +Israel was at the date supposed have already moral Supreme Beings +acknowledged over vast tracts of territory? Have they a tittle of positive +evidence that early Israel was benighted beyond the darkness of Bushmen, +Andamanese, Pawnees, Blackfeet, Hurons, Indians of British Guiana, Dinkas, +Negroes, and so forth? Unless Israel had this rare ill-luck (which Israel +denies) of course Israel must have had a secular tradition, however dim, +of a Supreme Being. We must ask for a single instance of a family or +tribe, in a complex of semi-barbaric but not savage tribes of one +speech, owning a private deity who happened to be the Maker and Ruler of +the world, and, as such, was accepted by all the tribes. Jehovah came out +from Sinai, because, there having been a Theophany at Sinai, that mountain +was regarded as one of his seats.[26] + +We have seen that it seemed to make no difference to Mr. Oxford whether +Jehovah was a god of Moses's family or tribe or a Kenite god. The former +(with the alternative of _Joseph's_ family or tribal god) is Wellhausen's +theory. The latter is Stade's.[27] Each is inconsistent with the other; +Wellhausen's fancy is inconsistent with all that we know of religious +development: Stade's is hopelessly inconsistent with Exodus iv. 24-26, +where Moses's Kenite wife reproaches him for a ceremony of his, not of +her, religion. Therefore the Kenite differed from the Hebrew _sacra_. + +The passage is very extraordinary, and is said by critics to be very +archaic. After the revelation of the Burning Bush, Jehovah met Moses and +his Kenite wife, Zipporah, and their child, at a khan. Jehovah was +anxious to slay Moses, nobody ever knew why, so Zipporah appeased +Jehovah's wrath by circumcising her boy _with a flint_. 'A bloody husband +art thou to me,' she said, 'because of the circumcision'--an Egyptian, +but clearly not a Kenite practice. Whatever all this may mean, it does not +look as if Zipporah expected such rites as circumcision in the faith of a +Kenite husband, nor does it favour the idea that the _sacra_ of Moses were +of Kenite origin. + +Without being a scholar, or an expert in Biblical criticism, one may +protest against the presentation to the manual-reading intellectual middle +classes of a theory so vague, contradictory, and (by all analogy) so +impossible as Mr. Oxford collects from German writers. Of course, the +whole subject, so dogmatically handled, is mere matter of dissentient +opinion among scholars. Thus M. Renan derives the name of Jehovah from +Assyria, from 'Aramaised Chaldaeanism.'[28] In that case the name was long +anterior to the residence in Egypt. But again, perhaps Jehovah was a local +god of Sinai, or a provincial deity in Palestine.[29] He was known to very +ancient sages, who preferred such names as El Shaddai and Elohim. In +short, we have no certainty on the subject.[30] + +I need hardly say, perhaps, that I have no antiquated prejudice against +Biblical criticism. Assuredly the Bible must be studied like any other +collection of documents, linguistically, historically, and in the light of +the comparative method. The leading ideas of Wellhausen, for example, are +conspicuous for acumen: the humblest layman can see that. But one may +protest against criticising the Bible, or Homer, by methods like those +which prove Shakspeare to have been Bacon. One must protest, too, against +the presentation of inconsistent and probably baseless critical hypotheses +in the dogmatic brevity of cheap handbooks. + +Yet again, whence comes the moral element in Jehovah? Mr. Huxley thinks +that it possibly came from the ethical practice and theory of Egypt. In +the Egyptian Book of the Dead, 'a sort of Guide to Spirit Land,' there +are moral chapters; the ghost tells his judges in Amenti what sins he has +_not_ committed. Many of these sins are forbidden in the Ten Commandments. + +They are just as much forbidden in the nascent morality of savage peoples. +Moses did not need the Book of the Dead to teach him elementary morals. +From the mysteries of Mtanga he might have learned, also, had he been +present, the virtue of unselfish generosity. If the creed of Jehovah, or +of El, retained only as much of ethics as is under divine sanction among +the Kurnai, adaptation from the Book of the Dead was superfluous. + +The care for the departed, the ritual of the Ka, the intense +pre-occupation with the future life, which, far more than its morality, +are the essential characteristics of the Book of the Dead--Israel cared +for none of these animistic things, brought none of these, or very little +of these, out of the land of Egypt. Moses was certainly very eclectic; he +took only the morality of Egypt. But as Mr. Huxley advances this opinion +tentatively, as having no secure historical authority about Moses, it +hardly answers our question, Whence came the moral element in Jehovah? One +may surmise that it was the survival of the primitive divinely sanctioned +ethics of the ancient savage ancestors of the Israelite, known to them, +as to the Kurnai, before they had a pot, or a bronze knife, or seed to +sow, or sheep to herd, or even a tent over their heads. In the counsels of +eternity Israel was chosen to keep burning, however obscured with smoke +of sacrifice, that flame which illumines the darkest places of the earth, +'a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel'--a +flame how litten a light whence shining, history cannot inform us, and +anthropology can but conjecture. Here scientific nescience is wiser than +the cocksureness of popular science, with her ghosts and fetish-stones, +and gods that sprang from ghosts, which ghosts, however, could not be +developed, owing to nomadic habits. + +It appears, then, if our general suggestion meets with any acceptance, +that what occurred in the development of Hebrew religion was precisely +what the Bible tells us did occur. This must necessarily seem highly +paradoxical to our generation; but the whole trend of our provisional +system makes in favour of the paradox. If savage nomadic Israel had the +higher religious conceptions proved to exist among several of the lowest +known races, these conceptions might be revived by a leader of genius. +They might, in a crisis of tribal fortunes, become the rallying point of a +new national sentiment. Obscured, in some degree, by acquaintance with +'the idols of Egypt,' and restricted and localised by the very national +sentiment which they fostered, these conceptions were purified and widened +far beyond any local, tribal, or national restrictions--widened far as the +_flammantia moenia mundi_--by the historically unique genius of the +Prophets. Blended with the doctrine of our Lord, and recommended by the +addition of Animism in its pure and priceless form--the reward of faith, +hope, and charity in eternal life--the faith of Israel enlightened the +world. + +All this is precisely what occurred, according to the Old and New +Testaments. All this is just what, on our hypothesis, might be expected to +occur if, out of the many races which, in their most backward culture, had +a rude conception of a Moral Creative Being, relatively supreme, one race +endured the education of Israel, showed the comparative indifference of +Israel to Animism and ghost-gods, listened to the Prophets of Israel, and +gave birth to a greater than Moses and the Prophets. + +To this result the Logos, as Socrates says, has led us, by the path of +anthropology. + +[Footnote 1: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_.] + +[Footnote 2: Op. cit. p. 361.] + +[Footnote 3:_ Science and Hebrew Tradition_. p. 308.] + +[Footnote 4: _Prin. Soc_. p. 306.] + +[Footnote 5: _The Tshi-speaking Races_, p. 183.] + +[Footnote 6: Some Australian tribes have cemeteries, and I have found one +native witness, King Billy, to the celebration of the mysteries near one of +these burying-places. I have not discovered other evidence to this effect, +though I have looked for it. The spot selected is usually 'near the camp,' +and the place for so large a camp in chosen, naturally, where the supply +of food is adequate.] + +[Footnote 7: Cf. the Aryans, _Principles of Sociology_, p. 314.] + +[Footnote 8: _Principles_, p. 316.] + +[Footnote 9: Ibid. p. 317.] + +[Footnote 10: Jeremiah xvi. 6, 7.] + +[Footnote 11: Leviticus xix. 28.] + +[Footnote 12: Deuteronomy xxxiv. 6.] + +[Footnote 13: _Short Introduction to History of Ancient Israel_, pp. +83, 84.] + +[Footnote 14: Stade i 403.] + +[Footnote 15: Stade, i. 406.] + +[Footnote 16: Wellhausen, _History of Israel_, p. 437. Mr. Oxford's book +is only noticed here because it is meant for a popular manual. As Mr. +Henry Foker says, 'it seems a pity that the clergy should interfere in +these matters.'] + +[Footnote 17: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 299.] + +[Footnote 18: II. 127.] + +[Footnote 19: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 331.] + +[Footnote 20: Mariner, ii. 205.] + +[Footnote 21: Op. cit. p. 335.] + +[Footnote 22: Of course, it in understood that Israel (in the dark +backward and abysm of time) may also have been totemistic, like the +Australians, as texts pointed out by Mr. Robertson Smith seem to hint. +There was also worship of teraphim, respect paid to stones and trees, and +so forth.] + +[Footnote 23: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 349.] + +[Footnote 24: P. 351.] + +[Footnote 25: _History of Israel_, p. 443 note.] + +[Footnote 26: _Religion of Semites_.] + +[Footnote 27: _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_, i. 180.] + +[Footnote 28: _Histoire du Peuple d'Israel_, citing Schrader, p. 23.] + +[Footnote 29: Op. cit. p. 85] + +[Footnote 30: See Professor Robertson's _Early Religion of Israel_ for a +list of these conjectures, and, generally, for criticisms of the +occasional vagaries of critics.] + + + + +XVII + +CONCLUSION + +We may now glance backward at the path which we have tried to cut through +the jungles of early religions. It is not a highway, but the track +of a solitary explorer; and this essay pretends to be no more than a +sketch--not an exhaustive survey of creeds. Its limitations are obvious, +but may here be stated. The higher and even the lower polytheisms are only +alluded to in passing, our object being to keep well in view the +conception of a Supreme, or practically Supreme, Being, from the lowest +stages of human culture up to Christianity. In polytheism that conception +is necessarily obscured, showing itself dimly either in the _Prytanis_, +or President of the Immortals, such as Zeus; or in Fate, behind and above +the Immortals; or in Mr. Max Mueller's _Henotheism_, where the god +addressed--Indra, or Soma, or Agni--is, for the moment, envisaged as +supreme, and is adored in something like a monotheistic spirit; or, +finally, in the etherealised deity of advanced philosophic speculation. + +It has not been necessary, for our purpose, to dwell on these civilised +religions. Granting our hypothesis of an early Supreme Being among +savages, obscured later by ancestor-worship and ghost-gods, but not +often absolutely lost to religious tradition, the barbaric and the +civilised polytheisms easily take their position in line, and are easily +intelligible. Space forbids a discussion of all known religions; only +typical specimens have been selected. Thus, nothing has been said of the +religion of the great Chinese empire. It appears to consist, on its +higher plane, of the worship of Heaven as a great fetish-god--a worship +which may well have begun in days, as Dr. Brinton says, 'long ere man had +asked himself, "Are the heavens material and God spiritual?"'--perhaps, +for all we know, before the idea of 'spirit' had been evolved. Thus, if it +contains nothing more august, the Chinese religion is, so far, beneath +that of the Zunis, or the creed in Taa-roa, in Beings who are eternal, who +were before earth was or sky was. The Chinese religion of Heaven is also +coloured by Chinese political conditions; Heaven (Tien) corresponds to the +Emperor, and tends to be confounded with Shang-ti, the Emperor above. 'Dr. +Legge charges Confucius,' says Mr. Tylor, 'with an inclination to +substitute, in his religious teaching, the name of Tien, Heaven, for that +known to more ancient religion, and used in more ancient books--Shang-ti, +the personal ruling deity.' If so, China too has its ancient Supreme +Being, who is not a divinised aspect of nature. + +But Mr. Tylor's reading, in harmony with his general theory, is different: + +'It seems, rather, that the sage was, in fact, upholding the tradition of +the ancient faith, thus acting according to the character on which he +prided himself--that of a transmitter, not a maker, a preserver of old +knowledge, not a new revealer.'[1] + +This, of course, is purely a question of evidence, to be settled by +Sinologists. If the personal Supreme Being, Shang-ti, occupies in older +documents the situation held by Tien (Heaven) in Confucius's later system, +why are we to say that Confucius, by putting forward Heaven in place of +Shang-ti, was restoring an older conception? Mr. Tylor's affection for his +theory leads him, perhaps, to that opinion; while my affection for my +theory leads me to prefer documentary evidence in its favour. + +The question can only be settled by specialists. As matters stand, it +seems to me probable that ancient China possessed a Supreme Personal +Being, more remote and original than Heaven, just as the Zunis do. On +the lower plane, Chinese religion is overrun, as everyone knows, by +Animism and ancestor-worship. This is so powerful that it has given rise +to a native theory of Euhemerism. The departmental deities of Chinese +polytheism are explained by the Chinese on Euhemeristic principles: + +'According to legend, the War God, or Military Sage, was once, in human +life, a distinguished soldier; the Swine God was a hog-breeder who lost +his pigs and died of sorrow; the God of Gamblers was _un decave_.'[2] + +These are not statements of fact, but of Chinese Euhemeristic theory. On +that hypothesis, Confucius should now be a god; but of course he is not; +his spirit is merely localised in his temple, where the Emperor worships +him twice a year as ancestral spirits are worshipped. + +Every theorist will force facts into harmony with his system, but I do not +see that the Chinese facts are contrary to mine. On the highest plane is +either a personal Supreme Being, Shang-ti, or there is Tien, Heaven (with +Earth, parent of men), neither of them necessarily owing, in origin, +anything to Animism. Then there is the political reflection of the Emperor +on Religion (which cannot exist where there is no Emperor, King, or Chief, +and therefore must be late), there is the animistic rabble of spirits +ancestral or not, and there is departmental polytheism. The spirits are, +of course, fed and furnished by men in the usual symbolical way. Nothing +shows or hints that Shang-ti is merely an imaginary idealised first +ancestor. Indeed, about all such explanations of the Supreme Being (say +among the Kurnai) as an idealised imaginary first ancestor, M. Reville +justly observes as follows: 'Not only have we seen that, in wide regions +of the uncivilised world, the worship of ancestors has invaded a domain +previously occupied by "Naturism" and Animism properly so called, that it +is, therefore, posterior to these; but, farther, we do not understand, in +Mr. Spencer's system, why, in so many places, the first ancestor is the +Maker, if not the Creator of the world, Master of life and death, and +possessor of divine powers, not held by any of his descendants. This +proves that it was not the first ancestor who became God, in the belief of +his descendants, but much rather the Divine Maker and Beginner of all, +who, in the creed of his adorers, became the first ancestor.'[3] + +Our task has been limited, in this way, mainly to examination of +the religion of some of the very lowest races, and of the highest +world-religions, such as Judaism. The historical aspect of Christianity, +as arising in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, would demand +a separate treatise. This would, in part, be concerned with the attempts +to find in the narratives concerning our Lord, a large admixture of the +mythology and ritual connected with the sacrificed _Rex Nemorensis_, and +whatever else survives in peasant folk-lore of spring and harvest.[4] + +After these apologies for the limitations of this essay, we may survey the +backward track. We began by showing that savages may stumble, and have +stumbled, on theories not inconsistent with science, but not till +recently discovered by science. The electric origin of the Aurora Borealis +(whether absolutely certain or not) was an example; another was the +efficacy of 'suggestion,' especially for curative purposes. It was, +therefore, hinted that, if savages blundered (if you please) into a belief +in God and the Soul, however obscurely envisaged, these beliefs were not +therefore necessarily and essentially false. We then stated our purpose of +examining the alleged supernormal phenomena, savage or civilised, which, +on Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, help to originate the conception of 'spirits.' +We defended the nature of our evidence, as before anthropologists, by +showing that, for the savage belief in the supernormal phenomena, we have +exactly the kind of evidence on which all anthropological science reposes. +The relative weakness of that evidence, our need of more and better +evidence, we would be the very last to deny, indeed it is part of our +case. Our existing evidence will hardly support any theory of religion. +Anyone who is in doubt on that head has only to read M. Reville's 'Les +Religions des Peuples Non-Civilises,' under the heads 'Melanesiens,' +'Mincopies,' 'Les Australiens' (ii. 116-143), when he will observe that +this eminent French authority is ignorant of the facts about these races +here produced. In 1883 they had not come within his ken. Such minute and +careful inquiries by men closely intimate with the peoples concerned, as +Dr. Codrington's, Mr. Hewitt's, Mr. Man's, and the authorities compiled by +Mr. Brough Smyth, were unfamiliar to M. Reville, Thus, in turn, new facts, +or facts unknown to us, may upset my theory. This peril is of the essence +of scientific theorising on the history of religion. + +Having thus justified our evidence for the savage _belief_ in supernormal +phenomena, as before anthropologists, we turned to a court of +psychologists in defence of our evidence for the _fact_ of exactly the +same supernormal phenomena in civilised experience. We pointed out that +for subjective psychological experiences, say of telepathy, we had +precisely the same evidence as all non-experimental psychology must and +does rest upon. Nay, we have even experimental evidence, in experiments in +thought-transference. We have chiefly, however, statements of subjective +experience. For the coincidence of such experience with unknown events we +have such evidence as, in practical life, is admitted by courts of law. + +Experimental psychology, of course, relies on experiments conducted under +the eyes of the expert, for example, by hypnotism or otherwise, under Dr. +Hack Tuke, Professor James, M. Richet, M. Janet. The evidence is +the conduct rather than the statements of the subject. There is +also physiological experiment, by vivisection (I regret to say) and +post-mortem dissection. But non-experimental psychology reposes on the +self-examination of the student, and on the statements of psychological +experiences made to him by persons whom he thinks he can trust. The +psychologist, however, if he be, as Mr. Galton says, 'unimaginative in the +strict but unusual sense of that ambiguous word,' needs Mr. Galton's 'word +of warning.' He is asked 'to resist a too frequent tendency to assume that +the minds of every other sane and healthy person must be like his own. The +psychologist should inquire into the minds of others as he should into +those of animals of different races, and be prepared to find much to which +his own experience can afford little if any clue.'[5] Mr. Galton had to +warn the unimaginative psychologist in this way, because he was about to +unfold his discovery of the faculty which presents numbers to some minds +as visualised coloured numerals, 'so vivid as to be undistinguishable from +reality, except by the aid of accidental circumstances.' + +Mr. Galton also found in his inquiries that occasional hallucinations of +the sane are much more prevalent than he had supposed, or than science had +ever taken into account. All this was entirely new to psychologists, +many of whom still (at least many popular psychologists of the press) +appear to be unacquainted with the circumstances. One of them informed me, +quite gravely, that '_he_ never had an hallucination,' therefore--_his_ +mind being sane and healthy--the inference seemed to be that no sane and +healthy mind was ever hallucinated. Mr. Galton has replied to _that_ +argument! His reply covers, logically, the whole field of psychological +faculties little regarded, for example, by Mr. Sully, who is not exactly +an imaginative psychologist. + +It covers the whole field of automatism (as in automatic writing) perhaps +of the divining rod, certainly of crystal visions and of occasional +hallucinations, as Mr. Galton, in this last case, expressly declares. +Psychologists at least need not be told that such faculties cannot, +any more than other human faculties, be always evoked for study and +experiment. Our evidence for these faculties and experiences, then, is +usually of the class on which the psychologist relies. But, when the +psychologist, following Leibnitz, Sir William Hamilton, and Kant, +discusses the Subconscious (for example, knowledge, often complex and +abundant, unconsciously acquired) we demonstrated by examples that the +psychologist will contentedly repose on evidence which is not evidence at +all. He will swallow an undated, unlocalised legend of Coleridge, reaching +Coleridge on the testimony of rumour, and told at least twenty years after +the unverified occurrences. Nay, the psychologist will never dream of +procuring contemporary evidence for such a monstrous statement as that +an ignorant German wench unconsciously acquired and afterwards +subconsciously reproduced huge cantles of dead languages, by virtue of +having casually heard a former master recite or read aloud from Hebrew and +Greek books. This legend do psychologists accept on no evidence at all, +because it illustrates a theory which is, doubtless, a very good theory, +though, in this case, carried to an extent 'imagination boggles at.' + +Here the psychologist may reply that much less evidence will content him +for a fact to which he possesses, at least, analogies in accredited +experience, than for a fact (say telepathic crystal-gazing) to which _he_ +knows, in experience, nothing analogous. Thus, for the mythical German +handmaid, he has the analogy of languages learned in childhood, or +passages got up by rote, being forgotten and brought back to ordinary +conscious memory, or delirious memory, during an illness, or shortly +before death. Strong in these analogies, the psychologist will venture to +accept a case of language _not_ learned, but reproduced in delirious +memory, on no evidence at all. But, not possessing analogies for +telepathic crystal-gazing, he will probably decline to examine ours. + +I would first draw his attention to the difference between revived memory +of a language once known (Breton and Welsh in known examples), or learned +by rote (as Greek, in an anecdote of Goethe's), and verbal reproduction +of a language _not_ known or learned by rote but overheard--each passage +probably but once--as somebody recited fragments. In this instance (that +of the mythical maid) 'the difficulty ... is that the original impressions +had not the strength--that is, the distinctness--of the reproduction. An +unknown language overheard is a mere sound....'[6] + +The distinction here drawn is so great and obvious that for proof of the +German girl's case we need better evidence than Coleridge's rumour of a +rumour, cited, as it is, by Hamilton, Maudsley, Carpenter, Du Prel, and +the common run of manuals. + +Not that I deny, _a priori_, the possibility of Coleridge's story. As Mr. +Huxley says, 'strictly speaking, I am unaware of anything that has a right +to the title of an "impossibility," except a contradiction in terms.'[7] +To the horror of some of his admirers, Mr. Huxley would not call the +existence of demons and demoniacal possession 'impossible.'[8] Mr. Huxley +was no blind follower of Hume. I, too, do not call Coleridge's tale +'impossible,' but, unlike the psychologists, I refuse to accept it on +'Bardolph's security.' And I contrast their conduct, in swallowing +Coleridge's legend, with their refusal (if they do refuse) to accept the +evidence for the automatic writing of not-consciously-known languages (as +of eleventh-century French poetry and prose by Mr. Schiller), or their +refusal (if they do refuse) to look at the evidence for telepathic +crystal-gazing, or any other supernormal exhibitions of faculty, attested +by living and honourable persons. + +I wish I saw a way for orthodox unimaginative psychology out of its +dilemma. + +After offering to anthropologists and psychologists these considerations, +which I purposely reiterate, we examined historically the relations of +science to 'the marvellous,' showing for example how Hume, following his +_a priori_ theory of the impossible, would have declined to investigate, +because they were 'miraculous,' certain occurrences which, to Charcot, +were ordinary incidents in medical experience. + +We next took up and criticised the anthropological theory of religion as +expounded by Mr. Tylor. We then collected from his work a series of +alleged supernormal phenomena in savage belief, all making for the +foundation of animistic religion. Through several chapters we pursued the +study of these phenomena, choosing savage instances, and setting beside +them civilised testimony to facts of experience. Our conclusion was that +such civilised experiences, if they occurred, as they are universally said +to do, among savages, would help to originate, and would very strongly +support the savage doctrine of souls, the base of religion in the theory +of English anthropologists. But apart from the savage doctrine of +'spirits' (whether they exist or not), the evidence points to the +existence of human faculties not allowed for in the current systems of +materialism. + +We next turned from the subject of supernormal experiences to the admitted +facts about early religion. Granting the belief in souls and ghosts and +spirits, however attained, how was the idea of a Supreme Being to be +evolved out of that belief? We showed that, taking the creed as found in +the lowest races, the processes put forward by anthropologists could +not account for its evolution. The facts would not fit into, but +contradicted, the anthropological theory. The necessary social conditions +postulated were not found in places where the belief is found. Nay, the +necessary social conditions for the evolution even of ancestor-worship +were confessedly not found where the supposed ultimate result of +ancestor-worship, the belief in a Supreme Being, flourished abundantly. + +Again, the belief in a Supreme Being, _ex hypothesi_ the latest in +evolution, therefore the most potent, was often shelved and half +forgotten, or neglected, or ridiculed, where the belief in Animism (_ex +hypothesi_ the earlier) was in full vigour. We demonstrated by facts that +Anthropology had simplified her task by ignoring that essential feature, +_the prevalent alliance of ethics with religion_, in the creed of the +lowest and least developed races. Here, happily, we have not only the +evidence of an earnest animist, Mr. Im Thurn, on our side, but that of a +distinguished Semitic scholar, the late Mr. Robertson Smith. 'We see that +even in its rudest forms Religion was a moral force, the powers that man +reveres were on the side of social order and moral law; and the fear of +the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of society, which were also the +laws of morality.'[9] Wellhausen has already been cited to the same +effect. + +However, the facts proving that truth, and unselfishness, surely a large +element of Christian ethics, are divinely sanctioned in savage religion +are more potent than the most learned opinion on that side. + +Our next step was to examine in detail several religions of the most +remote and backward races, of races least contaminated with Christian or +Islamite teaching. Our evidence, when possible, was derived from ancient +and secret tribal mysteries, and sacred native hymns. We found a +relatively Supreme Being, a Maker, sanctioning morality, and unpropitiated +by sacrifice, among peoples who go in dread of ghosts and wizards, but do +not always worship ancestors. We showed that the anthropological theory of +the evolution of God out of ghosts in no way explains the facts in the +savage conception of a Supreme Being. We then argued that the notion of +'spirit,' derived from ghost-belief, was not logically needed for the +conception of a Supreme Being in its earliest form, was detrimental to +the conception, and, by much evidence, was denied to be part of the +conception. The Supreme Being, thus regarded, may be (though he cannot +historically be shown to be) prior to the first notion of ghost and +separable souls. + +We then traced the idea of such a Supreme Being through the creeds of +races rising in the scale of material culture, demonstrating that he was +thrust aside by the competition of ravenous but serviceable ghosts, +ghost-gods, and shades of kingly ancestors, with their magic and their +bloody rites. These rites and the animistic conception behind them were +next, in rare cases, reflected or refracted back on the Supreme Eternal. +Aristocratic institutions fostered polytheism with the old Supreme Being +obscured, or superseded, or enthroned as Emperor-God, or King-God. We saw +how, and in what sense, the old degeneration theory could be defined and +defended. We observed traces of degeneration in certain archaic aspects of +the faith in Jehovah; and we proved that (given a tolerably pure low +savage belief in a Supreme Being) that belief _must_ degenerate, under +social conditions, as civilisation advanced. Next, studying what we may +call the restoration of Jehovah, under the great Prophets of Israel, we +noted that they, and Israel generally, were strangely indifferent to that +priceless aspect of Animism, the care for the future happiness, as +conditioned by the conduct of the individual soul. That aspect had been +neglected neither by the popular instinct nor the priestly and philosophic +reflection of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Christianity, last, combined what +was good in Animism, the care for the individual soul as an immortal +spirit under eternal responsibilities, with the One righteous Eternal of +prophetic Israel, and so ended the long, intricate, and mysterious +theological education of humanity. Such is our theory, which does +not, to us, appear to lack evidence, nor to be inconsistent (as the +anthropological theory is apparently inconsistent) with the hypothesis of +evolution. + +All this, it must be emphatically insisted on, is propounded 'under all +reserves.' While these four stages, say (1) the Australian unpropitiated +Moral Being, (2) the African neglected Being, still somewhat moral, +(3) the relatively Supreme Being involved in human sacrifice, as in +Polynesia, and (4) the Moral Being reinstated philosophically, as in +Israel, do suggest steps in evolution, we desire to base no hard-and-fast +system of ascending and descending degrees upon our present evidence. +The real object is to show that facts may be regarded in this light, as +well as in the light thrown by the anthropological theory, in the hands +whether of Mr. Tylor, Mr. Spencer, M. Reville, or Mr. Jevons, whose +interesting work comes nearest to our provisional hypothesis. + +We only ask for suspense of judgment, and for hesitation in accepting the +dogmas of modern manual makers. An exception to them certainly appears to +be Mr. Clodd, if we may safely attribute to him a review (signed C.) of +Mr. Grant Allen's 'Evolution of the Idea of God.' + +'We fear that all our speculations will remain summaries of probabilities. +No documents are extant to enlighten us; we have only mobile, complex and +confused ideas, incarnate in eccentric, often contradictory theories. That +this character attaches to such ideas should keep us on guard against +framing theories whose symmetry is sometimes their condemnation' ('Daily +Chronicle,' December 10, 1897). + +Nothing excites my own suspicion of my provisional hypothesis more than +its symmetry. It really seems to fit the facts, as they appear to me, too +neatly. I would suggest, however, that ancient savage sacred hymns, +and practices in the mysteries, are really rather of the nature of +'documents;' more so, at least, than the casual observations of some +travellers, or the gossip extracted from natives much in contact with +Europeans. + +Supposing that the arguments in this essay met with some acceptance, what +effect would they have, if any, on our thoughts about religion? What is +their practical tendency? The least dubious effect would be, I hope, to +prevent us from accepting the anthropological theory of religion, or any +other theory, as a foregone conclusion, I have tried to show how dim is +our knowledge, how weak, often, is our evidence, and that, finding among +the lowest savages all the elements of all religions already developed +in different degrees, we cannot, historically, say that one is earlier +than another. This point of priority we can never historically settle. If +we met savages with ghosts and no gods, we could not be sure but that they +once possessed a God, and forgot him. If we met savages with a God and no +ghosts, we could not be historically certain that a higher had not +obliterated a lower creed. For these reasons dogmatic decisions about the +_origin_ of religion seem unworthy of science. They will appear yet more +futile to any student who goes so far with me as to doubt whether the +highest gods of the lowest races could be developed, or can be shown to +have been developed, by way of the ghost-theory. To him who reaches this +point the whole animistic doctrine of ghosts as the one germ of religion +will appear to be imperilled. The main practical result, then, will be +hesitation about accepting the latest scientific opinion, even when backed +by great names, and published in little primers. + +On the hypothesis here offered to criticism there are two chief sources of +Religion, (1) the belief, how attained we know not,[10] in a powerful, +moral, eternal, omniscient Father and Judge of men; (2) the belief +(probably developed out of experiences normal and supernormal) in +somewhat of man which may survive the grave. This second belief is not, +logically, needed as given material for the first, in its apparently +earliest form. It may, for all we know, be the later of the two beliefs, +chronologically. But this belief, too, was necessary to religion; first, +as finally supplying a formula by which advancing intellects could +conceive of the Mighty Being involved in the former creed; next, as +elevating man's conception of his own nature. By the second belief he +becomes the child of the God in whom, perhaps, he already trusted, and in +whom he has his being, a being not destined to perish with the death of +the body. Man is thus not only the child but the heir of God, a 'nurseling +of immortality,' capable of entering into eternal life. On the moral +influence of this belief it is superfluous to dwell. + +From the most backward races historically known to us, to those of our own +status, all have been more or less washed by the waters of this double +stream of religion. The Hebrews, as far as our information goes, were +chiefly influenced by the first belief, the faith in the Eternal, and had +comparatively slight interest in whatever posthumous fortunes might await +individual souls. Other civilised peoples, say the Greeks, extended the +second, or animistic theory, into forms of beautiful fantasy, the +material of art. Yet both in Greece and Rome, as we learn from the +'Republic' (Books i. iii.) of Plato, and from the whole scope of the poem +of Lucretius, and from the Painted Porch at Delphi, answering to the +frescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo, there existed, among the people, what +was unknown to the Hebrews, an extreme anxiety about the posthumous +fortunes and possible punishment of the individual soul. A kind of +pardoners and indulgence-sellers made a living out of that anxiety in +Greece. For the Greek pardoners, who testify to an interest in the +future happiness of the soul not found in Israel, Mr. Jevons may be cited: + +'The _agyrtes_ professed by means of his rites to purify men from the sins +they had themselves committed ... and so to secure to those whom he +purified an exemption from the evil lot in the next world which awaited +those who were not initiated.' 'A magic mirror' (crystal-gazing) 'was +among his properties.'[11] + +In Egypt a moral life did not suffice to secure immortal reward. There +was also required knowledge of the spells that baffle the demons who, in +Amenti, as in the Red Indian and Polynesian Hades, lie in wait for souls. +That knowledge was contained in copies of the Book of the Dead--the +_gagne-pain_ of priests and scribes. + +Early Israel, having, as far as we know, a singular lack of interest in +the future of the soul, was born to give himself up to developing, +undisturbed, the theistic conception, the belief in a righteous Eternal. + +Polytheism everywhere--in Greece especially--held of the animistic +conception, with its freakish, corruptible deities. Greek philosophy could +hardly restore that Eternal for whom the Prophets battled in Israel; whom +some of the lowest savages know and fear; whom the animistic theory or cult +everywhere obscures with its crowd of hungry, cruel, interested, +food-propitiated ghost-gods. In the religion of our Lord and the Apostles +the two currents of faith in one righteous God and care for the individual +soul were purified and combined. 'God is a Spirit, and they who worship +Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' Man also is a spirit, and, +as such, is in the hands of a God not to be propitiated by man's +sacrifice or monk's ritual. We know how this doctrine was again disturbed +by the Animism, in effect, and by the sacrifice and ritual of the +Mediaeval Church. Too eager 'to be all things to all men,' the august and +beneficent Mother of Christendom readmitted the earlier Animism in new +forms of saint-worship, pilgrimage, and popular ceremonial--things apart +from, but commonly supposed to be substitutes for, righteousness of life +and the selflessness enjoined in savage mysteries. For the softness, no +less than for the hardness of men's hearts, these things were ordained: +such as masses for the beloved dead. + +Modern thought has deanthropomorphised what was left of anthropomorphic +in religion, and, in the end, has left us for God, at most, 'a stream +of tendency making for righteousness,' or an energy unknown and +unknowable--the ghost of a ghost. For the soul, by virtue of his +belief in which man raised himself in his own esteem, and, more or less, +in ethical standing, is left to us a negation or a wistful doubt. + +To this part of modern scientific teaching the earlier position of this +essay suggests a demurrer. By aid of the tradition of and belief in +supernormal phenomena among the low races, by attested phenomena of the +same kinds of experience among the higher races, I have ventured to try to +suggest that 'we are not merely brain;' that man has his part, we know not +how, in we know not what--has faculties and vision scarcely conditioned by +the limits of his normal purview. The evidence of all this deals with +matters often trivial, like the electric sparks rubbed from the deer's +hide, which yet are cognate with an illimitable, essential potency of the +universe. Not being able to explain away these facts, or, in this place, +to offer what would necessarily be a premature theory of them, I regard +them, though they seem shadowy, as grounds of hope, or, at least, as +tokens that men need not yet despair. Not now for the first time have weak +things of the earth been chosen to confound things strong. Nor have men of +this opinion been always the weakest; not among the feeblest are Socrates, +Pascal, Napoleon, Cromwell, Charles Gordon, St. Theresa, and Jeanne d'Arc. + +I am perfectly aware that the 'superstitiousness' of the earlier part of +this essay must injure any effect which the argument of the latter part +might possibly produce on critical opinion. Yet that argument in no way +depends on what we think about the phenomena--normal, supernormal, or +illusory--on which the theory of ghost, soul, or spirit may have been +based. It exhibits religion as probably beginning in a kind of Theism, +which is then superseded, in some degree, or even corrupted, by Animism in +all its varieties. Finally, the exclusive Theism of Israel receives its +complement in a purified Animism, and emerges as Christianity. + +Quite apart, too, from any favourable conclusion which may, by some, be +drawn from the phenomena, and quite apart from the more general opinion +that all modern instances are compact of imposture, malobservation, +mythopoeic memory, and superstitious bias, the systematic comparison of +civilised and savage beliefs and alleged experiences of this kind cannot +wisely be neglected by Anthropology. _Humani nihil a se alienum putat._ + +[Footnote 1: _Prim. Cult_. ii. 352.] + +[Footnote 2: Abridged from _Prim. Cult_. ii. 119.] + +[Footnote 3: _Histoire des Religions_, ii. 237, note. M. Reville's system, +it will be observed, differs from mine in that he finds the first essays +of religion in worship of aspects of nature (_naturisme_) and in 'animism +properly so called,' by which he understands the instinctive, perhaps not +explicitly formulated, sense that all things whatever are animated and +personal. I have not remarked this aspect of belief as much prevalent in +the most backward races, and I do not try to look behind what we know +historically about early religion. I so far agree with M. Reville as to +think the belief in ghosts and spirits (Mr. Tylor's 'Animism') not +necessarily postulated in the original indeterminate conception of +the Supreme Being, or generally, in 'Original Gods.' But M. Reville +says, 'L'objet de la religion humaine est necessairement un esprit' +(_Prolegomenes_, 107). This does not seem consistent with his own theory.] + +[Footnote 4: Compare Mr. Frazer's _Golden Bough_ with Mr. Grant Allen's +_Evolution of the Idea of God_.] + +[Footnote 5: _J.A.I_. x. 85.] + +[Footnote 6: Massey. Note to Du Prel. _Philosophy of mysticism_, ii 10.] + +[Footnote 7: _Science and Christian Tradition_, p. 197] + +[Footnote 8: Op. cit. p. 195.] + +[Footnote 9: _Religion of the Semites_, p. 53.] + +[Footnote 10: The hypothesis of St. Paul seems not the most +unsatisfactory, Rom. i. 19.] + +[Footnote 11: _Introd. to Hist. of Rel_. p. 333; Aristoph. _Frogs_, 159.] + + + + +APPENDICES + +APPENDIX A + +OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE + +The most elaborate reply to the arguments for telepathy, based on The +Report of the Census of Hallucinations, is that of Herr Parish, in his +'Hallucinations and Illusions.'[1] + +Herr Parish is, at present, opposed to the theory that the Census +establishes a telepathic cause in the so-called 'coincidental' stories, +'put forward,' as he says, 'with due reserve, and based on an astonishing +mass of materials, to some extent critically handled.' + +He first demurs to an allowance of twelve hours for the coincidence of +hallucination and death; but, if we reflect that twelve hours is little +even in a year, coincidences within twelve hours, it may be admitted, +_donnent a penser_, even if we reject the theory that, granted a real +telepathic impact, it may need time and quiet for its development into a +complete hallucination. We need not linger over the very queer cases from +Munich, as these are not in the selected thirty of the Report. Herr Parish +then dwells on that _hallucination of memory_, in which we feel as if +everything that is going on had happened before. It may have occurred to +most of us to be reminded by some association of ideas during the day, of +some dream of the previous night, which we had forgotten. For instance, +looking at a brook from a bridge, and thinking of how I would fish it, I +remembered that I had dreamed, on the previous night, of casting a fly for +practice, on a lawn. Nobody would think of disputing the fact that I +really had such a dream, forgot it and remembered it when reminded of it +by association of ideas. But if the forgotten dream had been 'fulfilled,' +and been recalled to memory only in the moment of fulfilment, science +would deny that I ever had such a dream at all. The alleged dream would be +described as an 'hallucination of memory.' Something occurring, it would +be said, I had the not very unusual sensation, 'This has occurred to me +before,' and the sensation would become a false memory that it _had_ +occurred--in a dream. This theory will be advanced, I think, not when an +ordinary dream is recalled by a waking experience, but only when the dream +coincides with and foreruns that experience, which is a thing that dreams +have no business to do. Such coincidental dreams are necessarily 'false +memories,' scientifically speaking. Now, how does this theory of false +memory bear on coincidental hallucinations? + +The insane, it seems, are apt to have the false memory 'This occurred +before,' and _then_ to say that the event was revealed to them in a +vision.[2] The insane may be recommended to make a note of the vision, and +have it properly attested, _before_ the event. The same remark applies to +the 'presentiments' of the sane. But it does _not_ apply if Jones tells me +'I saw my great aunt last night,' and if news comes _after_ this remark +that Jones's aunt died, on that night, in Timbuctoo. Yet Herr Parish +(p. 282) seems to think that the argument of fallacious memory comes in +part, even when an hallucination has been reported to another person +_before_ its fulfilment. Of course all depends on the veracity of the +narrator and the person to whom he told his tale. To take a case given:[3] +Brown, say, travelling with his wife, dreams that a mad dog bit his boy at +home on the elbow. He tells his wife. Arriving at home Brown finds that it +was so. Herr Parish appears to argue thus: + +Brown dreamed nothing at all, but he gets excited when he hears the bad +news at home; he thinks, by false memory, that he has a recollection of +it, he says to his wife, 'My dear, didn't I tell you, last night, I had +dreamed all this?' and his equally excited wife replies, 'True, my Brown, +you did, and I said it was only one of your dreams.' And both now believe +that the dream occurred. This is very plausible, is it not? only science +would not say anything about it if the dream had _not_ been fulfilled--if +Brown had remarked, 'Egad, my dear, seeing that horse reminds me that I +was dreaming last night of driving in a dog-cart.' For then Brown was not +excited. + +None of this exquisite reasoning as to dreams applies to waking +hallucinations, reported before the alleged coincidence, unless we accept +a collective hallucination of memory in seer or seers, and also in the +persons to whom their story was told. + +But, it is obvious, memory is apt to become mythopoeic, so far as to +exaggerate closeness of coincidence, and to add romantic details. We do +not need Herr Parish to tell us _that_; we meet the circumstance in all +narratives from memory, whatever the topic, even in Herr Parish's own +writings. + +We must admit that the public, in ghostly, as in all narratives on all +topics, is given to 'fanciful addenda.' Therefore, as Herr Parish justly +remarks, we should 'maintain a very sceptical attitude to all accounts' of +veridical hallucinations. 'Not that we should dismiss them as old wives' +fables--an all too common method--or even doubt the narrator's good +faith.' We should treat them like tales of big fish that get away; +sometimes there is good corroborative evidence that they really were +big fish, sometimes not. We shall return to these false memories. + +Was there a coincidence at all in the Society's cases printed in the +Census? Herr Parish thinks three of the selected twenty-six cases very +dubious. In one case is a _possible_ margin of four days, another +(wrongly numbered by the way) does not occur at all among the twenty-six. +In the third, Herr Parish is wrong in his statement.[4] This is a lovely +example of the sceptical slipshod, and, accompanied by the miscitation of +the second case, shows that inexactitude is not all on the side of the +seers. However the case is not very good, the two percipients fancying +that the date of the event was less remote than it really was. Unluckily +Herr Parish only criticises these three cases, how accurately we have +remarked. He had no room for more. + +Herr Parish next censures the probable selection of good cases by +collectors, on which the editors of the Census have already made +observations, as they have also made large allowances for this cause of +error. He then offers the astonishing statement that, 'in the view of the +English authors, a view which is, of course, assumed in all calculations +of the kind, an hallucination persists equally long in the memory and is +equally readily recalled in reply to a question, whether the experience +made but a slight impression on the percipient, or affected him deeply, +as would be the case, for instance, if the hallucination had been found to +coincide with the death of a near relative or friend.'[5] This assertion +of Herr Parish's is so erroneous that the Report expressly says 'as years +recede into the distance,' the proportion of the hallucinations that are +remembered in them to those which are forgotten, or at least ignored, 'is +very large.' Again, 'Hallucinations of the most impressive class will not +only be better remembered than others, but will, we may reasonably +suppose, be more often mentioned by the percipients to their friends.'[6] + +Yet Herr Parish avers that, in all calculations, it is assumed that +hallucinations are equally readily recalled whether impressive or not! +Once more, the Report says (p. 246), '_It is not the case_' that +coincidental (and impressive) hallucinations are as easily subject to +oblivion as non-coincidental, and non-impressive ones. The editors +therefore multiply the non-coincidental cases by four, arguing that no +coincidental cases (hits) are forgotten, while three out of four +non-coincidentals (misses) are forgotten, or may be supposed likely to be +forgotten. Immediately after declaring that the English authors suppose +all hallucinations to be equally well remembered (which is the precise +reverse of what they do say), Herr Parish admits that the authors multiply +the misses by four, 'influenced by other considerations' (p. 289). By what +other considerations? They give their reason (that very reason which they +decline to entertain, says Herr Parish), namely, that misses are four +times as likely to be forgotten as hits. 'To go into the reason for +adopting this plan would lead us too far,' he writes. Why, it is the +very reason which, he says, does _not_ find favour with the English +authors! + +How curiously remote from being 'coincidental' with plain facts, or +'veridical' at all, is this scientific criticism! Herr Parish says that a +'view' (which does not exist) is 'of course assumed in all calculations;' +and, on the very same page, he says that it is _not_ assumed! 'The +witnesses of the report--influenced, it is true, by other considerations' +(which is not the case), 'have sought to turn the point of this objection +by multiplying the whole number of (non-coincidental) cases by four.' Then +the 'view' is _not_ 'assumed in all calculations,' as Herr Parish has just +asserted. + +What led Herr Parish, an honourable and clearheaded critic, into this maze +of incorrect and contradictory assertions? It is interesting to try to +trace the causes of such _non-veridical illusions_, to find the _points +de repere_ of these literary hallucinations. One may suggest that when +Herr Parish 'recast the chapters' of his German edition, as he says in his +preface to the English version, he accidentally left in a passage based +on an earlier paper by Mr. Gurney,[7] not observing that it was no longer +accurate or appropriate. + +After this odd passage, Herr Parish argues that a 'veridical' +hallucination is regarded by the English authors as 'coincidental,' even +when external circumstances have made that very hallucination a probable +occurrence by producing 'tension of the corresponding nerve element +groups.' That is to say, a person is in a condition--a nervous condition-- +likely, _a priori_, to beget an hallucination. An hallucination _is_ +begotten, quite naturally; and so, if it happens to coincide with an +event, the coincidence should not count--it is purely fortuitous.[8] + +Here is an example. A lady, facing an old sideboard, saw a friend, with no +coat on, and in a waistcoat with a back of shiny material. Within an hour +she was taken to where her friend lay dying, without a coat, and in a +waistcoat with a shiny back.[9] Here is the scientific explanation of Herr +Parish: 'The shimmer of a reflecting surface [the sideboard?] formed the +occasion for the hallucinatory emergence of a subconsciously perceived +_shiny black waistcoat_ [quotation incorrect, of course], and an +individual subconsciously associated with that impression.[10] I ask any +lady whether she, consciously or subconsciously, associates the men she +knows with the backs of their waistcoats. Herr Parish's would be a +brilliantly satisfactory explanation if it were only true to the printed +words that lay under his eyes when he wrote. There was no 'shiny black +waistcoat' in the case, but a waistcoat with a shiny _back_. Gentlemen, +and especially old gentlemen who go about in bath-chairs (like the man in +this story), don't habitually take off their coats and show the backs of +their waistcoats to ladies of nineteen in England. And, if Herr Parish had +cared to read his case, he would have found it expressly stated that the +lady 'had never seen the man without his coat' (and so could not associate +him with an impression of a shiny back to his waistcoat) till _after_ the +hallucination, when she saw him coatless on his death-bed. In this +instance Herr Parish had an hallucinatory memory, all wrong, of the page +under his eyes. The case is got rid of, then, by aid of the 'fanciful +addenda,' to which Herr Parish justly objects. He first gives the facts +incorrectly, and then explains an occurrence which, as reported by him, +did not occur, and was not asserted to occur. + +I confess that, if Herr Parish's version were as correct as it is +essentially inaccurate, his explanation would leave me doubtful. For the +circumstances were that the old gentleman of the story lunched daily with +the young lady's mother. Suppose that she was familiar (which she was not) +with the shiny back of his waistcoat, still, she saw him daily, and daily, +too, was in the way of seeing the (hypothetically) shiny surface of the +sideboard. That being the case, she had, every day, the materials, +subjective and objective, of the hallucination. Yet it only occurred +_once_, and then it precisely coincided with the death agony of the old +gentleman, and with his coatless condition. Why only that once? _C'est la +le miracle!_ 'How much for this little veskit?' as the man asked David +Copperfield. + +Herr Parish next invents a cause for an hallucination, which, I myself +think, ought not to have been reckoned, because the percipient had been +sitting up with the sick man. This he would class as a 'suspicious' case. +But, even granting him his own way of handling the statistics, he would +still have far too large a proportion of coincidences for the laws of +chance to allow, if we are to go by these statistics at all. + +His next argument practically is that hallucinations are always only a +kind of dreams.[11] He proves this by the large number of coincidental +hallucinations which occurred in sleepy circumstances. One man went to bed +early, and woke up early; another was 'roused from sleep;' two ladies were +sitting up in bed, giving their babies nourishment; a man was reading a +newspaper on a sofa; a lady was lying awake at seven in the morning; and +there are eight other English cases of people 'awake' in bed during an +hallucination. Now, in Dr. Parish's opinion, we must argue that they were +_not_ awake, or not much; so the hallucinations were mere dreams. +Dreams are so numerous that coincidences in dreams can be got rid of as +pure flukes. People may say, to be sure, 'I am used to dreams, and don't +regard them; _this_ was something solitary in my experience.' But we must +not mind what people say. + +Yet I fear we must mind what they say. At least, we must remember that +sleeping dreams are, of all things, most easily forgotten; while a +full-bodied hallucination, when we, at least, believe ourselves awake, +seems to us on a perfectly different plane of impressiveness, and +(_experto crede_) is really very difficult to forget. Herr Parish cannot +be allowed, therefore, to use the regular eighteenth-century argument-- +'All dreams!' For the two sorts of dreams, in sleep and in apparent +wakefulness, seem, to the subject, to differ in _kind_. And they really +do differ in kind. It is the essence of the every night dream that we are +unconscious of our actual surroundings and conscious of a fantastic +environment. It is the essence of wideawakeness to be conscious of our +actual surroundings. In the ordinary dream, nothing actual competes with +its visions. When we are conscious of our surroundings, everything actual +does compete with any hallucination. Therefore, an hallucination which, +when we are conscious of our material environment, does compete with it in +reality, is different _in kind_ from an ordinary dream. Science gains +nothing by arbitrarily declaring that two experiences so radically +different are identical. Anybody would see this if he were not arguing +under a dominant idea. + +Herr Parish next contends that people who see pictures in crystal balls, +and so on, are not so wide awake as to be in their normal consciousness. +There is 'dissociation' (practically drowsiness), even if only a +little. Herr Moll also speaks of crystal-gazing pictures as 'hypnotic +phenomena.'[12] Possibly neither of these learned men has ever seen a +person attempt crystal-gazing. Herr Parish never asserts any such personal +experience as the basis of his opinion about the non-normal state of the +gazer. He reaches this conclusion from an anecdote reported, as a not +unfamiliar phenomenon, by a friend of Miss X. But the phenomenon occurred +when Miss X. was not crystal-gazing at all! She was looking out of a +window in a brown study. This is a noble example of logic. Some one says +that Miss X. was not in her normal consciousness on a certain occasion +when she was _not_ crystal-gazing, and that this condition is familiar to +the observer. Therefore, argues Herr Parish, nobody is in his normal +consciousness when he is crystal-gazing. + +In vain may 'so good an observer as Miss X. think herself fully awake' (as +she does think herself) when crystal-gazing, because once, when she +happened to have 'her eyes _fixed on the window_,' her expression was +'_associated_' by a friend 'with _something uncanny_,' and she afterwards +spoke '_in a dreamy, far-away tone_' (p. 297). Miss X., though extremely +'wide awake,' may have looked dreamily at a window, and may have seen +mountains and marvels. But the point is that she was not voluntarily +gazing at a crystal for amusement or experiment--perhaps trying to see how +a microscope affected the pictures--or to divert a friend. + +I appeal to the shades of Aristotle and Bacon against scientific logic in +the hands of Herr Parish. Here is his syllogism: + + A. is occasionally dreamy when _not_ crystal-gazing. + A. is human. + Therefore every human being, when crystal-gazing, is more or less + asleep. + +He infers a general affirmative from a single affirmative which happens +not to be to the point. It is exactly as if Herr Parish argued: + + Mrs. B. spends hours in shopping. + Mrs. B. is human. + Therefore every human being is always late for dinner. + +Miss X., I think, uplifted her voice in some review, and maintained that, +when crystal-gazing, she was quite in her normal state, _dans son +assiette_. + +Yet Herr Parish would probably say to any crystal-gazer who argued thus, +'Oh, no; pardon me, you were _not_ wholly awake--you were a-dream. I know +better than you.' But, as he has not seen crystal-gazers, while I have, +many scores of times, I prefer my own opinion. And so, as this assertion +about the percipient's being 'dissociated,' or asleep, or not awake, is +certainly untrue of all crystal-gazers in my considerable experience, I +cannot accept it on the authority of Herr Parish, who makes no claim to +any personal experience at all. + +As to crystal-gazing, when the gazer is talking, laughing, chatting, +making experiments in turning the ball, changing the light, using prisms +and magnifying-glasses, dropping matches into the water-jug, and so on, +how can we possibly say that 'it is impossible to distinguish between +waking hallucinations and those of sleep' (p. 300)? If so, it is +impossible to distinguish between sleeping and waking altogether. We are +all like the dormouse! Herr Parish is reasoning here _a priori_, +without any personal knowledge of the facts; and, above all, he is under +the 'dominant idea' of his own theory--that of _dissociation_. + +Herr Parish next crushes telepathy by an argument which--like one of the +reasons why the bells were not rung for Queen Elizabeth, namely, that +there were no bells to ring--might have come first, and alone. We are +told (in italics--very impressive to the popular mind): _'No matter how +great the number of coincidences, they afford not even the shadow of a +proof for telepathy'_ (p. 301). What, not even if all hallucinations, or +ninety-nine per cent., coincided with the death of the person seen? In +heaven's name, why not? Why, because the 'weightiest' cause of all has +been omitted from our calculations, namely, our good old friend, _the +association of ideas_ (p. 302). Our side cannot prove the _absence_ +(italics) of _the association of ideas_. Certainly we cannot; but ideas in +endless millions are being associated all day long. A hundred thousand +different, unnoticed associations may bring Jones to my mind, or Brown. +But I don't therefore see Brown, or Jones, who is not there. Still less do +I see Dr. Parish, or Nebuchadnezzar, or a monkey, or a salmon, or a golf +ball, or Arthur's Seat (all of which may be brought to my mind by +association of ideas), when they are not present. + +Suppose, then, that once in my life I see the absent Jones, who dies in +that hour (or within twelve hours). I am puzzled. Why did Association +choose that day, of all days in my life, for her solitary freak? And, +if this choice of freaks by Association occurs among other people, say two +hundred times more often than chance allows, the freak begins to suggest +that it may have a cause. + +Not even the circumstance cited by Herr Parish, that a drowsy tailor, +'sewing on in a dream,' poor fellow, saw a client in his shop while the +client was dying, solves the problem. The tailor is not said even once to +have seen a customer who was _not_ dying; yet he writes, 'I was accustomed +to work all night frequently.' The tailor thinks he was asleep, because he +had been making irregular stitches, and perhaps he was. But, out of +all his vigils and all his customers, association only formed _one_ +hallucination, and that was of a dying client whom he supposed to be +perfectly well. Why on earth is association so fond of dying people-- +granting the statistics, which are 'another story'? The explanation +explains nothing. Herr Parish only moves the difficulty back a step, and, +as we cannot live without association of ideas, they are taken for granted +by our side. Association of ideas does not cause hallucinations, as Mrs. +Sidgwick remarks, though it may determine their contents. + +The difficult theme of coincidental collective hallucinations, as when two +or more people at once have, or profess to have, the same false perception +of a person who is really absent and dying, is next disposed of by Herr +Parish. The same _points de repere_, the same sound, or flicker of light, +or arrangement of shadow, may beget the same or a similar false perception +in two or more people at once. Thus two girls, in different rooms, are +looking out on different parts of the hall in their house. 'Both heard, at +the same time, an [objective?] noise' (p. 313). Then, says Herr Parish, +'_the one sister saw her father cross the hall_ after entering; the other +saw the dog (the usual companion of his walks) run past her door.' Father +and dog had not left the dining-room. Herr Parish decides that the same +_point de repere_ (the apparent noise of a key in the lock of the front +door) 'acted by way of suggestion on both sisters,' producing, however, +different hallucinations, 'in virtue of the difference of the connected +associations.' One girl associated the sound with her honoured sire, the +other with his faithful hound; so one saw a dog, and the other saw an +elderly gentleman. Now, first, if so, this should _always_ be occurring, +for we all have different associations of ideas. Thus, we are in a haunted +house; there is a noise of a rattling window; I associate it with a +burglar, Brown with a milkman, Miss Jones with a lady in green, Miss Smith +with a knight in armour. That collection of phantasms should then be +simultaneously on view, like the dog and old gentleman; all our reports +should vary. But this does not occur. Most unluckily for Herr Parish, he +illustrates his theory by telling a story which happens not to be +correctly reported. At first I thought that a fallacy of memory, or an +optical delusion, had betrayed him again, as in his legend of the +waistcoat. But I am now inclined to believe that what really occurred was +this: Herr Parish brought out his book in German, before the Report of the +Census of Hallucinations was published. In his German edition he probably +quoted a story which precisely suited his theory of the origin of +collective hallucinations. This anecdote he had found in Prof. Sidgwick's +Presidential Address of July 1890.[13] As stated by Prof. Sidgwick, the +case just fitted Herr Parish, who refers to it on p. 190, and again on +p. 314. He gives no reference, but his version reads like a traditional +variant of Prof. Sidgwick's. Now Prof. Sidgwick's version was erroneous, +as is proved by the elaborate account of the case in the Report of the +Census, which Herr Parish had before him, but neglected when he prepared +his English edition. The story was wrong, alas! in the very point where, +for Herr Parish's purpose, it ought to have been right. The hallucination +is believed not to have been collective, yet Herr Parish uses it to +explain collective hallucinations. Doubtless he overlooked the accurate +version in the Report.[14] + +The facts, as there reported, were not what he narrates, but as follows: + +Miss C.E. was in the breakfast-room, about 6:30 P.M., in January 1883, and +supposed her father to be taking a walk with his dog. She heard noises, +which may have had any other cause, but which she took to be the sounds +of a key in the door lock, a stick tapping the tiles of the hall, and the +patter of the dog's feet on the tiles. She then saw the dog pass the door. +Miss C.E. next entered the hall, where she found nobody; but in the pantry +she met her sisters--Miss E., Miss H.G.E.--and a working-woman. Miss E. +and the working-woman had been in the hall, and there had heard the sound, +which they, like Miss C.E., took for that of a key in the lock. They were +breaking a little household rule in the hall, so they 'ran straightway +into the pantry, meeting Miss H.G.E. on the way.' Miss C.E. and Miss E. +and the working-woman all heard the noise as of a key in the lock, but +nobody is said to have 'seen the father cross the hall' (as Herr Parish +asserts). 'Miss H.G.E. was of opinion that Miss E. (now dead) saw +_nothing_, and Miss C.E. was inclined to agree with her.' Miss E. and the +work-woman (now dead) were 'emphatic as to the father having entered the +house;' but this the two only _inferred_ from hearing the noise, after +which they fled to the pantry. Now, granting that some other noise was +mistaken for that of the key in the lock, we have here, _not_ (as Herr +Parish declares) a _collective_ yet discrepant hallucination--the +discrepancy being caused 'by the difference of connected associations'-- +but a _solitary_ hallucination. Herr Parish, however, inadvertently +converts a solitary into a collective hallucination, and then uses the +example to explain collective hallucinations in general. He asserts +that Miss E. 'saw her father cross the hall.' Miss E.'s sisters think that +she saw no such matter. Now, suppose that Mr. E. had died at the moment, +and that the case was claimed on our part as a 'collective coincidental +hallucination,' How righteously Herr Parish might exclaim that all the +evidence was against its being collective! The sound in the lock, heard by +three persons, would be, and probably was, another noise misinterpreted. +And, in any case, there is no evidence for its having produced _two_ +hallucinations; the evidence is in exactly the opposite direction. + +Here, then, Herr Parish, with the printed story under his eyes, once more +illustrates want of attention. In one way his errors improve his case. 'If +I, a grave man of science, go on telling distorted legends out of my own +head, while the facts are plain in print before me,' Herr Parish +may reason, 'how much more are the popular tales about coincidental +hallucinations likely to be distorted?' It is really a very strong +argument, but not exactly the argument which Herr Parish conceives +himself to be presenting.[15] + +This unlucky inexactitude is chronic, as we have shown, in Herr Parish's +work, and is probably to be explained by inattention to facts, by +'expectation' of suitable facts, and by 'anxiety' to prove a theory. He +explains the similar or identical reports of witnesses to a collective +hallucination by 'the case with which such appearances adapt themselves +in recollection' (p. 313), especially, of course, after lapse of time. And +then he unconsciously illustrates his case by the case with which +printed facts under his very eyes adapt themselves, quite erroneously, to +his own memory and personal bias as he copies them on to his paper. + +Finally he argues that even if collective hallucinations are also 'with +comparative frequency' coincidental, that is to be explained thus: +'The rarity and the degree of interest compelled by it' (by such an +hallucination) 'will naturally tend to connect itself with some other +prominent event; and, conversely, the occurrence of such an event as the +death or mortal danger of a friend is most calculated to produce memory +illusions of this kind.' + +In the second case, the excitement caused by the death of a friend is +likely, it seems, to make two or more sane people say, and _believe,_ +that they saw him somewhere else, when he was really dying. The only +evidence for this fact is that such illusions occasionally occur, _not_ +collectively, in some lunatic asylums. 'It is not, however, a form of +mnemonic error often observed among the insane.' 'Kraepelin gives two +cases.' 'The process occurs sporadically in certain sane people, under +certain exciting conditions.' No examples are given! What is rare as an +_individual_ folly among lunatics, is supposed by Herr Parish to explain +the theoretically 'false memory' whereby sane people persuade themselves +that they had an hallucination, and persuade others that they were told +of it, when no such thing occurred. + +To return to our old example. Jones tells me that he has just seen his +aunt, whom he knows to be in Timbuctoo. News comes that the lady died when +Jones beheld her in his smoking-room. 'Oh, nonsense,' Herr Parish would +argue, 'you, Jones, saw nothing of the kind, nor did you tell Mr. Lang, +who, I am sorry to find, agrees with you. What happened was _this_: When +the awful news came to-day of your aunt's death, you were naturally, +and even creditably, excited, especially as the poor lady was killed by +being pegged down on an ant-heap. This excitement, rather praiseworthy +than otherwise, made you _believe_ you had seen your aunt, and _believe_ +you had told Mr. Lang. He also is a most excitable person, though I +admit he never saw your dear aunt in his life. He, therefore (by virtue of +his excitement), now _believes_ you told him about seeing your unhappy +kinswoman. This kind of false memory is very common. Two cases are +recorded by Kraepelin, among the insane. Surely you quite understand my +reasoning?' + +I quite understand it, but I don't see how it comes to seem good logic to +Herr Parish. + +The other theory is funnier still. Jones never had an hallucination +before. 'The rarity and the degree of interest compelled by it' made Jones +'connect it with some other prominent event,' say, the death of his aunt, +which, really, occurred, say, nine months afterwards. But this is a mere +case of _evidence_, which it is the affair of the S.P.R. to criticise. + +Herr Parish is in the happy position called in American speculative +circles 'a straddle.' If a man has an hallucination when alone, he was in +circumstances conducive to the sleeping state. So the hallucination is +probably a dream. But, if the seer was in company, who all had the same +hallucination, then they all had the same _points de repere_, and the same +adaptive memories. So Herr Parish kills with both barrels. + +If anything extraneous could encourage a belief in coincidental and +veridical hallucinations, it would be these 'Oppositions of Science.' If a +learned and fair opponent can find no better proofs than logic and +(unconscious) perversions of facts like the logic and the statements of +Herr Parish, the case for telepathic hallucinations may seem strong +indeed. But we must grant him the existence of the adaptive and mythopoeic +powers of memory, which he asserts, and also illustrates. I grant, too, +that a census of 17,000 inquiries may only have 'skimmed the cream off' +(p. 87). Another dip of the net, bringing up 17,000 fresh answers, might +alter the whole aspect of the case, one way or the other. Moreover, we +cannot get scientific evidence in this way of inquiry. If the public were +interested in the question, and understood its nature, and if everybody +who had an hallucination at once recorded it in black and white, duly +attested on oath before a magistrate, by persons to whom he reported, +before the coincidence was known, and if all such records, coincidental or +not, were kept in the British Museum for fifty years, then an examination +of them might teach us something. But all this is quite impossible. +We may form a belief, on this point of veridical hallucinations, for +ourselves, but beyond that it is impossible to advance. Still, Science +might read her brief! + +[Footnote 1: Walter Scott.] + +[Footnote 2: Parish, p. 278.] + +[Footnote 3: Ibid. pp. 282, 283.] + +[Footnote 4: P. 287, Mr. Sims, _Proceedings_, x. 230.] + +[Footnote 5: Parish pp. 288, 289.] + +[Footnote 6: _Report_, p. 68.] + +[Footnote 7: P. 274, note 1.] + +[Footnote 8: Parish, p. 290.] + +[Footnote 9: _Report_, p. 297.] + +[Footnote 10: Parish, p. 290.] + +[Footnote 11: Pp. 291, 292.] + +[Footnote 12: Moll, _Hypnotism_, p. 1.] + +[Footnote 13 _Proceedings_, vol. vi. p. 433.] + +[Footnote 14: Parish, p. 313.] + +[Footnote 15: Compare _Report_, pp. 181-83, with Parish, pp. 190 and +313, 314.] + + + + +APPENDIX B + +THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS. + +In the chapter on 'Fetishism and Spiritualism' it was suggested that the +movements of inanimate objects, apparently without contact, may have been +one of the causes leading to fetishism, to the opinion that a spirit may +inhabit a stick, stone, or what not. We added that, whether such movements +were caused by trickery or not, was inessential as long as the savage did +not discover the imposture. + +The evidence for the genuine supernormal character of such phenomena was +not discussed, that we might preserve the continuity of the general +argument. The history of such phenomena is too long for statement here. +The same reports are found 'from China to Peru,' from Eskimo to the Cape, +from Egyptian magical papyri to yesterday's provincial newspaper.[1] + +About 1850-1870 phenomena, which had previously been reported as of +sporadic and spontaneous occurrence, were domesticated and organised by +Mediums, generally American. These were imitators of the enigmatic David +Dunglas Home, who was certainly a most oddly gifted man, or a most +successful impostor. A good deal of scientific attention was given to +the occurrences; Mr. Darwin, Mr. Tyndall, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Huxley, had +all glanced at the phenomena, and been present at _seances_. In most cases +the exhibitions, in the dark, or in a very bad light, were impudent +impostures, and were so regarded by the _savants_ who looked into them. A +series of exposures culminated in the recent detection of Eusapia +Paladino by Dr. Hodgson and other members of the S.P.R. at Cambridge. + +There was, however, an apparent exception. The arch mystagogue, Home, +though by no means a clever man, was never detected in fraudulent +productions of fetishistic phenomena. This is asserted here because +several third-hand stories of detected frauds by Home are in circulation, +and it is hoped that a well-attested first-hand case of detection may be +elicited. + +Of Home's successes with Sir William Crookes, Lord Crawford, and others, +something remains to be said; but first we shall look into attempted +explanations of alleged physical phenomena occurring _not_ in the presence +of a paid or even of a recognised 'Medium.' It will appear, we think, that +the explanations of evidence so widely diffused, so uniform, so old, and +so new, are far from satisfactory. Our inference would be no more than +that our eyes should be kept on such phenomena, if they are reported to +recur. + +Mr. Tylor says, 'I am well aware that the problem [of these phenomena] is +one to be discussed on its merits, in order to arrive at a distinct +opinion how far it may be connected with facts insufficiently appreciated +and explained by science, and how far with superstition, delusion, and +sheer knavery. Such investigation, pursued by careful observation in a +scientific spirit, would seem apt to throw light on some interesting +psychological questions.' + +Acting on Mr. Tylor's hint, Mr. Podmore puts forward as explanations +(1) fraud; (2) hallucinations caused by excited expectation, and by the +_Schwaermerei_ consequent on sitting in hushed hope of marvels. + +To take fraud first: Mr. Podmore has collected, and analyses, eleven +recent sporadic cases of volatile objects.[2] His first instance (Worksop, +1883) yields no proof of fraud, and can only be dismissed by reason of the +bad character of the other cases, and because Mr. Podmore took the +evidence five weeks after the events. To this example we confine +ourselves. This case appears to have been first reported in the 'Retford +and Gainsborough Times' 'early in March,' 1883 (really March 9). It does +not seem to have struck Mr. Podmore that he should publish these +contemporary reports, to show us how far they agree with evidence +collected by him on the spot five weeks later. To do this was the more +necessary, as he lays so much stress on failure of memory. I have +therefore secured the original newspaper report, by the courtesy of the +editor. To be brief, the phenomena began on February 20 or 21, by the +table voluntarily tipping up, and upsetting a candle, while Mrs. White +only saved the wash tub by alacrity and address. 'The whole incident +struck her as very extraordinary.' It is not in the newspaper report. On +February 26, Mr. White left his home, and a girl, Eliza Rose, 'child of a +half-imbecile mother,' was admitted by the kindness of Mrs. White to share +her bed. The girl was eighteen years of age, was looking for a place as +servant, and nothing is said in the newspaper about her mother. Mr. White +returned on Wednesday night, but left on Thursday morning, returning on +Friday afternoon. On Thursday, in Mr. White's absence, phenomena set in. +On Thursday night, in Mr. White's presence, they increased in vigour. A +doctor was called in, also a policeman. On Saturday, at 8 A.M., the row +recommenced. At 4 P.M. Mr. White sent Eliza Rose away, and peace returned. +We now offer the + +STATEMENT OF POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS. A man of good intelligence, and +believed to be entirely honest.... + +'On the night of Friday, March 2nd, I heard of the disturbances at Joe +White's house from his young brother, Tom. I went round to the house at +11.55 P.M., as near as I can judge, and found Joe White in the kitchen +of his house. There was one candle lighted in the room, and a good fire +burning, so that one could see things pretty clearly. The cupboard doors +were open, and White went and shut them, and then came and stood against +the chest of drawers. I stood near the outer door. No one else was in +the room at the time. White had hardly shut the cupboard doors when they +flew open, and a large glass jar came out past me, and pitched in the +yard outside, smashing itself. I didn't see the jar leave the cupboard, +or fly through the air; it went too quick. But I am quite sure that it +wasn't thrown by White or any one else. White couldn't have done it +without my seeing him. The jar couldn't go in a straight line from the +cupboard out of the door; but it certainly did go. + +'Then White asked me to come and see the things which had been smashed +in the inner room. He led the way and I followed. As I passed the chest +of drawers in the kitchen I noticed a tumbler standing on it. Just +after I passed I heard a crash, and looking round, I saw that the tumbler +had fallen on the ground in the direction of the fireplace, and was +broken. I don't know how it happened. There was no one else in the room. + +'I went into the inner room, and saw the bits of pots and things on the +floor, and then I came back with White into the kitchen. The girl Rose +had come into the kitchen during our absence. She was standing with +her back against the bin near the fire. There was a cup standing on the +bin, rather nearer the door. She said to me, "Cup'll go soon; it has +been down three times already." She then pushed it a little farther on +the bin, and turned round and stood talking to me by the fire. She had +hardly done so, when the cup jumped up suddenly about four or five feet +into the air, and then fell on the floor and smashed itself. White was +sitting on the other side of the fire. + +'Then Mrs. White came in with Dr. Lloyd; also Tom White and Solomon +Wass. After they had been in two or three minutes, something else +happened. Tom White and Wass were standing with their backs to the +fire, just in front of it. Eliza Rose and Dr. Lloyd were near them, with +their backs turned towards the bin, the doctor nearer to the door. I +stood by the drawers, and Mrs. White was by me near the inner door. Then +suddenly a basin, which stood on the end of the bin near the door, got up +into the air, _turning over and over as it went. It went up not very +quickly, not as quickly as if it had been thrown_. When it reached the +ceiling it fell plump and smashed. I called Dr. Lloyd's attention to it, +and we all saw it. No one was near it, and I don't know how it happened. +I stayed about ten minutes more, but saw nothing else. I don't know what +to make of it all. I don't think White or the girl could possibly have +done the things which I saw.' + +This statement was made five weeks after date to Mr. Podmore. We compare +it with the intelligent constable's statement made between March 3 and +March 8, that is, immediately after the events, and reported in the local +paper of March 9. + +STATEMENT BY POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS.--During Friday night, Police +Constable Higgs visited the house, and concerning the visit he makes the +following statement. + +'About ten minutes past [to?] twelve on Friday night, I was met in Bridge +Street by Buck Ford, and Joe's brother, Tom White and Dr. Lloyd. Tom said +to me, "Will you go with us to Joe's, and you will see something you have +never seen before?" I went; and when I got into the house Joe went and +shut the cupboard doors. No sooner had he done so than the doors flew +open again, and an ordinary sized glass jar flew across the kitchen, out +of the door into the yard. A sugar jar also flew out of the cupboard +unseen. In fact, we saw nothing and heard nothing until we heard it smash. +The distance travelled by the articles was about seven yards. I stood +a minute or two, and then the glass which I noticed on the drawers jumped +off the drawers a yard away, and broke in about a hundred bits. The next +thing was a cup, which stood on the flour-bin just beyond the yard +door. It flew upwards, and then fell to the ground and broke. The girl +said that this cup had been on the floor three times, and that she had +picked it up just before it went off the bench. I said, "I suppose the cup +will be the next." The cup fell a distance of two yards away from the +flour-bin. Dr. Lloyd had been in the next house lancing the back of a +little boy who had been removed there. He now came in, and we began +talking, the doctor saying, "It is a most mysterious thing." He turned +with his back to the flour-bin, on which stood a basin. The basin flew up +into the air obliquely, went over the doctor's head, and fell at his feet +in pieces. The doctor then went out. I stood a short time longer, but +saw nothing farther. There were six persons in the room while these things +were going on, and so far as I could see, there was no human agency at +work. I had not the slightest belief in anything appertaining to the +super-natural. I left just before one o'clock, having been in the +house thirty minutes.' + +As the policeman says, there was nothing 'super-natural,' but there was an +appearance of something rather supernormal. On the afternoon of Saturday +White sent the girl Rose away, and a number of people watched in his house +till after midnight. Though the sceptical reporter thought that objects +were placed where they might easily be upset, none were upset. The ghost +was laid. 'Excited expectation' was so false to its function as to beget +no phenomena. + +The newspaper reports contain no theory that will account for White's +breaking his furniture and crockery, nor for Rose's securing her own +dismissal from a house where she was kindly received by wilfully +destroying the property of her hostess. An amateur published a theory +of silken threads attached to light articles, and thick cords to heavy +articles, whereof no trace was found by witnesses who examined the +volatile objects. An elaborate machinery of pulleys fixed in the ceiling, +the presence of a trickster in a locked pantry, apparent errors in the +account of the flight of the objects, and a number of accomplices, were +all involved in this local explanation, the explainer admitting that he +could not imagine _why_ the tricks were played. Six or eight pounds' worth +of goods were destroyed, nor is it singular that poor Mrs. White wept over +her shattered penates. + +The destruction began, of course, in the _absence_ of White. The girl Rose +gave to the newspaper the same account as the other witnesses, but, as +White thought _she_ was the agent, so she suspected White, though she +admitted that he was not at home when the trouble arose. + +Mr. Podmore, reviewing the case, says, 'The phenomena described are quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means.[3] Yet he elsewhere[4] suggests +that Rose herself, 'as the instrument of mysterious agencies, or simply as +a half-witted girl, gifted with abnormal cunning and love of mischief, may +have been directly responsible for all that took place.' That is to say, a +half-witted girl could do (barring 'mysterious agencies') 'what is quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means,' while, according to the +policeman, she was not even present on some occasions. But it is not easy +to make out, in the evidence of White, the other witness, whether this +girl Rose was present or not when the jar flew circuitously out of the +cupboard, a thing easily worked by a half-witted girl. Such discrepancies +are common in all evidence to the most ordinary events. In any case a +half-witted girl, in Mr. Podmore's theory, can do what 'is quite +inexplicable by ordinary mechanical means.' There is not the shadow of +evidence that the girl Rose had the inestimable advantage of being +'half-witted;' she is described by Mr. Podmore as 'the child of an +imbecile mother.' The phenomena began, in an isolated case (the tilted +table), _before_ Rose entered the house. She was admitted in kindness, +acted as a maid, and her interest was _not_ to break the crockery +and upset furniture. The troubles, which began before the girl's arrival, +were apparently active when she was not present, and, if she _was_ +present, she could not have caused them 'by ordinary mechanical means,' +while of extraordinary mechanical means there was confessedly no trace. +The disturbances ceased after she was dismissed--nothing else connects her +with them. + +Mr. Podmore's attempt at a normal explanation by fraud, therefore, is +of no weight. He has to exaggerate the value, as disproof, of such +discrepancies as occur in all human evidence on all subjects. He has to +lay stress on the interval of five weeks between the events and the +collection of testimony by himself. But contemporary accounts appeared in +the local newspapers, and he does not compare the contemporary with the +later evidence, as we have done. There is one discrepancy which looks as +if a witness, not here cited, came to think he had seen what he heard +talked about. Finally, after abandoning the idea that mechanical means can +possibly have produced the effect, Mr. Podmore falls back on the cunning +of a half-witted girl whom nothing shows to have been half-witted. The +alternative is that the girl was 'the instrument of mysterious agencies.' + +So much for the hypothesis of a fraud, which has been identical in results +from China to Peru and from Greenland to the Cape. + +We now turn to the other, and concomitantly active cause, in Mr. Podmore's +theory, hallucination. 'Many of the witnesses described the articles as +moving slowly through the air, or exhibiting some peculiarity of flight.' +(See e.g. the Worksop case.) Mr. Podmore adds another English case, +presently to be noted, and a German one. 'In default of any experimental +evidence' (how about Mr. William Crookes's?) 'that disturbances of this +kind are ever due to abnormal agency, I am disposed to explain the +appearance of moving slowly or flying as a sensory illusion, conditioned +by the excited state of the percipient.' ('Studies,' 157, 158.) + +Before criticising this explanation, let us give the English affair, +alluded to by Mr. Podmore. + +The most curious modern case known to me is not of recent date, but it +occurred in full daylight, in the presence of many witnesses, and the +phenomena continued for weeks. The events were of 1849, and the record is +expanded, by Mr. Bristow, a spectator, from an account written by him in +1854. The scene was Swanland, near Hull, in a carpenter's shop, where Mr. +Bristow was employed with two fellow workmen. To be brief, they were +pelted by odds and ends of wood, about the size of a common matchbox. Each +blamed the others, till this explanation became untenable. The workrooms +and space above were searched to no purpose. The bits of wood sometimes +danced along the floor, more commonly sailed gently along, or "moved as if +borne on gently heaving waves." This sort of thing was repeated during six +weeks. One piece of wood "came from a distant corner of the room towards +me, describing what may be likened to a geometrical square, or corkscrew +of about eighteen inches diameter.... Never was a piece seen to come in +at the doorway." Mr. Bristow deems this period 'the most remarkable +episode in my life.' (June 27, 1891.) The phenomena 'did not depend on the +presence of any one person or number of persons.' + +Going to Swanland, in 1891, Mr. Sidgwick found one surviving witness of +these occurrences, who averred that the objects could not have been thrown +because of the eccentricities of their course, which he described in the +same way as Mr. Bristow. The thrower must certainly have had a native +genius for 'pitching' at base-ball. This witness, named Andrews, was +mentioned by Mr. Bristow in his report, but not referred to by him for +confirmation. Those to whom he referred were found to be dead, or had +emigrated. The villagers had a superstitious theory about the phenomena +being provoked by a dead man, whose affairs had not been settled to his +liking. So Mr. Darwin's spoon danced--on a grave.[5] + +This case has a certain interest _a propos_ of Mr. Podmore's surmise that +all such phenomena arise in trickery, which produces excitement in the +spectators, while excitement begets hallucination, and hallucination +takes the form of seeing the thrown objects move in a non-natural way. +Thus, I keep throwing things about. You, not detecting this stratagem, get +excited, consequently hallucinated, and you believe you see the things +move in spirals, or undulate as if on waves, or hop, or float, or glide +in an impossible way. So close is the uniformity of hallucination +that these phenomena are described, in similar terms, by witnesses +(hallucinated, of course) in times old and new, as in cases cited by +Glanvil, Increase Mather, Telfer (of Rerrick), and, generally, in works of +the seventeenth century. Nor is this uniform hallucination confined to +England. Mr. Podmore quotes a German example, and I received a similar +testimony (to the flight of an object round a corner) from a gentleman who +employed Esther Teed, 'the Amherst Mystery,' in his service. _He_ was not +excited, for he was normally engaged in his normal stable, when the +incident occurred unexpectedly as he was looking after his live stock. One +may add the case of Cideville (1851) and Sir W. Crookes's evidence, and +that of Mr. Schhapoff. + +Mr. Podmore must, therefore, suppose that, in states of excitement, the +same peculiar form of hallucination develops itself uniformly in America, +France, Germany, and England (not to speak of Russia), and persists +through different ages. This is a novel and valuable psychological law. +Moreover, Mr. Podmore must hold that 'excitement' lasted for six weeks +among the carpenters in the shop at Swanland, one of whom writes like a +man of much intelligence, and has thriven to be a master in his craft. +It is difficult to believe that he was excited for six weeks, and we still +marvel that excitement produces the same uniformity of hallucination, +affecting policemen, carpenters, marquises, and a F.R.S. We allude to Sir +W. Crookes's case. + +Strictly scientific examination of these prodigies has been very rare. The +best examples are the experiments of Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., with +Home.[6] He demonstrated, by means of a machine constructed for the +purpose, and automatically registering, that, in Home's presence, a +balance was affected to the extent of two pounds when Home was not in +contact with the table on which the machine was placed. He also saw +objects float in air, with a motion like that of a piece of wood on small +waves of the sea (clearly excitement producing hallucination), while Home +was at a distance, other spectators holding his hands, and his feet being +visibly enclosed in a kind of cage. All present held each other's hands, +and all witnessed the phenomena. Sir W. Crookes being, professionally, +celebrated for the accuracy of his observations, these circumstances are +difficult to explain, and these are but a few cases among multitudes. + +I venture to conceive that, on reflection, Mr. Podmore will doubt whether +he has discovered an universal law of excited malperception, or whether +the remarkable, and certainly undesigned, coincidence of testimony to the +singular flight of objects does not rather point to an 'abnormal agency' +uniform in its effects. Contagious hallucination cannot affect witnesses +ignorant of each other's existence in many lands and ages, nor could they +cook their reports to suit reports of which they never heard. + +We now turn to peculiarities in the so-called Medium, such as floating in +air, change of bulk, and escape from lesion when handling or treading in +fire. Mr. Tylor says nothing of Sir William Crookes's cases (1871), but +speaks of the alleged levitation, or floating in air, of savages and +civilised men. These are recorded in Buddhist and Neoplatonic writings, +and among Red Indians, in Tonquin (where a Jesuit saw and described the +phenomena, 1730), in the 'Acta Sanctorum,' and among modern spiritualists. +In 1760, Lord Elcho, being at Home, was present at the _proces_ for +canonising a Saint (unnamed), and heard witnesses swear to having seen the +holy man levitated. Sir W. Crookes attests having seen Home float in air +on several occasions. In 1871, the Master of Lindsay, now Lord Crawford +and Balcarres, F.R.S., gave the following evidence, which was corroborated +by the two other spectators, Lord Adare and Captain Wynne. + +'I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his. During +the sitting, Mr. Home went into a trance, and in that state was carried +out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was brought in +at our window. The distance between the windows was about seven feet six +inches, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was +there more than a twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as +a ledge to put flowers on. _We heard the window in the next room lifted +up_, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in the air outside +our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my back was to the +light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the window sill, and Home's +feet about six inches above it. He remained in this position for a few +seconds, then raised the window and glided into the room feet foremost +and sat down. + +'Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from which +he had been carried. It was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed +his wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so narrow an aperture. Home +said, still entranced, "I will show you," and then with his back to the +window he leaned back and was shot out of the aperture, head first, with +the body rigid, and then returned quite quietly. The window is about +seventy feet from the ground.' The hypothesis of a mechanical arrangement +of ropes or supports outside has been suggested, but does not cover the +facts as described. + +Mr. Podmore, who quotes this, offers the explanation that the witnesses +were excited, and that Home 'thrust his head and shoulders out of the +window.' But, if he did, they could not see him do it, for he was in the +next room. A brick wall was between them and him. Their first view of Home +was 'floating in the air outside our window.' It is not very easy to hold +that a belief to which the collective evidence is so large and universal, +as the belief in levitation, was caused by a series of saints, sorcerers, +and others thrusting their heads and, shoulders, out of windows where the +observers could not see them. Nor in Lord Crawford's case is it easy +to suppose that three educated men, if hallucinated, would all be +hallucinated in the same way. + +The argument of excited expectation and consequent hallucination does not +apply to Mr. Hamilton Aide and M. Alphonse Karr, neither of whom was a man +of science. Both were extremely prejudiced against Home, and at Nice went +to see, and, if possible, to expose him. Home was a guest at a large +villa in Nice, M. Karr and Mr. Aide were two of a party in a spacious +brilliantly lighted salon, where Home received them. A large heavy table, +remote from their group, moved towards them. M. Karr then got under a +table which rose in air, and carefully examined the space beneath, while +Mr. Aide observed it from above. Neither of them could discover any +explanation of the phenomenon, and they walked away together, disgusted, +disappointed, and reviling Home.[7] + +In this case there was neither excitement nor desire to believe, but a +strong wish to disbelieve and to expose Home. If two such witnesses could +be hallucinated, we must greatly extend our notion of the limits of the +capacity for entertaining hallucinations. + +One singular phenomenon was reported in Home's case, which has, however, +little to do with any conceivable theory of spirits. He was said to become +elongated in trance.[8] Mr. Podmore explains that 'perhaps he really +stretched himself to his full height'--one of the easiest ways conceivable +of working a miracle, Iamblichus reports the same phenomenon in his +possessed men.[9] Iamblichus adds that they were sometimes broadened as +well as lengthened. Now, M. Fere observes that 'any part of the body of an +hysterical patient may change in volume, simply owing to the fact that the +patient's attention is fixed on that part.'[10] Conceivably the elongation +of Home and the ancient Egyptian mediums may have been an extreme case of +this 'change of volume.' Could this be proved by examples, Home's +elongation would cease to be a 'miracle.' But it would follow that in this +case observers were _not_ hallucinated, and the presumption would be +raised that they were not hallucinated in the other cases. Indeed, this +argument is of universal application. + +There is another class of 'physical phenomena,' which has no direct +bearing on our subject. Many persons, in many ages, are said to have +handled or walked through fire, not only without suffering pain, but +without lesion of the skin. Iamblichus mentions this as among the +peculiarities of his 'possessed' men; and in 'Modern Mythology' (1897) I +have collected first-hand evidence for the feat in classical times, and in +India, Fiji, Bulgaria, Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, and many other +places. The evidence is that of travellers, officials, missionaries, and +others, and is backed (for what photographic testimony is worth) by +photographs of the performance. To hold glowing coals in his hand, and to +communicate the power of doing so to others, was in Home's _repertoire_. +Lord Crawford saw it done on eight occasions, and himself received from +Home's hand the glowing coal unharmed. A friend of my own, however, still +bears the blister of the hurt received in the process. Sir W. Crookes's +evidence follows: + +'At Mr. Home's request, whilst he was entranced, I went with him to the +fireplace in the back drawing-room. He said, "We want you to notice +particularly what Dan is doing." Accordingly I stood close to the +fire, and stooped down to it when he put his hands in.... + +'Mr. Home then waved the handkerchief about in the air two or three times, +held it above his head, and then folded it up and laid it on his hand like +a cushion. Putting his other hand into the fire, he took out a large +lump of cinder, red-hot at the lower part, and placed the red part on the +handkerchief. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been in a blaze. +In about half a minute he took it off the handkerchief with his hand, +saying, "As the power is not strong, if we leave the coal longer it will +burn." He then put it on his hand, and brought it to the table in the +front room, where all but myself had remained seated.' + +Mr. Podmore explains that only two candles and the fire gave light on one +occasion, and that 'possibly' Home's hands were protected by some +'non-conducting substance.' He does not explain how this substance was put +on Lord Crawford's hands, nor tell us what this valuable substance may be. +None is known to science, though it seems to be known to Fijians, Tongans, +Klings, and Bulgarians, who walk through fire unhurt. + +It is not necessary to believe Sir W. Crookes's assertions that he saw +Home perform the fire-tricks, for we can fall back on the lack of light +(only two candles and the fire-light), as also on the law of hallucination +caused by excitement. But it _is_ necessary to believe this distinguished +authority's statement about his ignorance of 'some non-conducting +substance:' + +'Schoolboys' books and mediaeval tales describe how this can be done with +alum and other ingredients. It is possible that the skin may be so +hardened and thickened by such preparations that superficial charring +might take place without the pain becoming great; but the surface of the +skin would certainly suffer severely. After Home had recovered from the +trance, I examined his hand with care to see if there were any signs of +burning or of previous preparation. I could detect no trace or injury +to the skin, which was soft and delicate, like a woman's. Neither were +there signs of any preparation having been previously applied. I have +often seen conjurers and others handle red-hot coals and iron, but there +were always palpable signs of burning.'[11] + +In September 1897 a crew of passengers went from New Zealand to see the +Fijian rites, which, as reported in the 'Fiji Times,' corresponded exactly +with the description published by Mr. Basil Thomson, himself a witness. +The interesting point, historically, is the combination in Home of all the +_repertoire_ of the possessed men in Iamblichus. We certainly cannot get +rid of the fire-trick by aid of a hypothetical 'non-conducting substance.' +Till the 'substance' is tested experimentally it is not a _vera causa_. We +might as well say 'spirits' at once. Both that 'substance' and those +'spirits' are equally 'in the air.' Yet Mr. Podmore's 'explanations' (not +satisfactory to himself) are conceived so thoroughly in the spirit of +popular science--one of them casually discovering a new psychological law, +a second contradicting the facts it seeks to account for, a third +generously inventing an unknown substance--that they ought to be welcomed +by reviewers and lecturers. + +It seems wiser to admit our ignorance and suspend our belief. + +Here closes the futile chapter of explanations. Fraud is a _vera causa_, +but an hypothesis difficult of application when it is admitted that the +effects could not be caused by ordinary mechanical means. Hallucination, +through excitement, is a _vera causa_, but its remarkable uniformity, +as described by witnesses from different lands and ages, knowing nothing +of each other, makes us hesitate to accept a sweeping hypothesis of +hallucination. The case for it is not confirmed, when we have the same +reports from witnesses certainly not excited. + +This extraordinary bundle, then, of reports, practically identical, of +facts paralysing to belief, this bundle made up of statements from so many +ages and countries, can only be 'filed for reference.' But it is manifest +that any savage who shared the experiences of Sir W. Crookes, Lord +Crawford, Mr. Hamilton Aide, M. Robert de St. Victor at Cideville, and +Policeman Higgs at Worksop, would believe that a spirit might tenant a +stick or stone--so believing he would be a Fetishist. Thus even of +Fetishism the probable origin is in a region of which we know nothing--the +_X_ region. + +[Footnote 1: A sketch of the history will be found in the author's _Cock +Lane and Common Sense_.] + +[Footnote 2: The best source is his article on 'Poltergeists.' +_Proceedings_ xi. 45-116. See, too, his 'Poltergeists' in _Studies in +Psychical Research_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Studies in Psychical Research_, p. 140.] + +[Footnote 4: See Preface to this edition for correction.] + +[Footnote 5: _Proceedings_, S.P.R. vii. 383-394.] + +[Footnote 6: See Sir W. Crookes's _Researches in Spiritualism_.] + +[Footnote 7: Mr. Aide has given me this information. He recorded the +circumstances in his Diary at the time.] + +[Footnote 8: _Report of Dialectical Society_, p. 209.] + +[Footnote 9: See Porphyry, in Parthey's edition (Berlin, 1857), iii. 4.] + +[Footnote 10: _Bulletin de la Societe de Biologie_, 1880, p. 399.] + +[Footnote 11: Crookes, _Proceedings_, ix. 308.] + + + + +APPENDIX C + +_CRYSTAL-GAZING_ + +Since the chapter on crystal-gazing was in type, a work by Dr. Pierre +Janet has appeared, styled 'Les Nevroses et les Idees Fixes.'[1] It +contains a chapter on crystal-gazing. The opinion of Dr. Janet, as that of +a savant familiar, at the Salpetriere, with 'neurotic' visionaries, +cannot but be interesting. Unluckily, the essay must be regarded as +seriously impaired in value by Dr. Janet's singular treatment of his +subject. Nothing is more necessary in these researches than accuracy of +statement. Now, Dr. Janet has taken a set of experiences, or experiments, +of Miss X.'s from that lady's interesting essay, already cited; has +attributed them, not to Miss X., but to various people--for example, to +_une jeune fille, une pauvre voyante, une personne un peu mystique_; has +altered the facts in the spirit of romance; and has triumphantly given +that explanation, revival of memory, which was assigned by Miss X. +herself. + +Throughout his paper Dr. Janet appears as the calm man of science +pronouncing judgment on the visionary vagaries of 'haunted' young girls +and disappointed seeresses. No such persons were concerned; no such +hauntings, supposed premonitions, or 'disillusions' occurred; the romantic +and 'marvellous' circumstances are mythopoeic accretions due to Dr. +Janet's own memory or fancy; his scientific explanation is that given by +his trinity of _jeune fille, pauvre voyante_, and _personne un peu +mystique_. + +Being much engaged in the study of 'neurotic' and hysterical patients, Dr. +Janet thinks that they are most apt to see crystal visions. Perhaps they +are; and one doubts if their descriptions are more to be trusted than +the romantic essay of their medical attendant. In citing Miss X.'s paper +(as he did), Dr. Janet ought to have reported her experiments correctly, +ought to have attributed them to herself, and should, decidedly, have +remarked that the explanation he offered was her own hypothesis, verified +by her own exertions. + +Not having any acquaintances in neurotic circles, I am unable to say +whether such persons supply more cases of the faculty of crystal vision +than ordinary people; while their word, one would think, is much less to +be trusted than that of men and women in excellent health. The crystal +visions which I have cited from my own knowledge (and I could cite scores +of others) were beheld by men and women engaged in the ordinary duties +of life. Students, barristers, novelists, lawyers, school-masters, +school-mistresses, golfers--to all of whom the topic was perfectly +new--have all exhibited the faculty. It is curious that an Arabian author +of the thirteenth century, Ibn Khaldoun, cited by M. Lefebure, offers the +same account of _how_ the visions appear as that given by Miss Angus in +the _Journal_ of the S.P.R., April 1898. M. Lefebure's citation was sent +to me in a letter. + +I append M. Lefebure's quotation from Ibn Khaldoun. The original is +translated in 'Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliotheque Imperiale,' +I. xix. p. 643-645. + +'Ibn Kaldoun admet que certains hommes ont la faculte de deviner l'avenir. + +'"Ceux, ajoute-t-il, qui regardent dans les corps diaphanes, tels que les +miroirs, les cuvettes remplies d'eau et les liquides; ceux qui inspectent +les coeurs, les foies et les os des animaux, ... tous ces gens-la +appartiennent aussi a la categorie des devins, mais, a cause de +l'imperfection de leur nature, ils y occupent un rang inferieur. Pour +ecarter le voile des sens, le vrai devin n'a pas besoin de grands efforts; +quant aux autres, ils tachent d'arriver au but en _essayant de concentrer +en un seul sens toutes leurs perceptions_. Comme la vue est le sens le +plus noble, ils lui donnent la preference; fixant leur regard sur on objet +a superficie unie, ils le considerent avec attention jusqu'a ce qu'ils y +apercoivent la chose qu'ils veulent annoncer. Quelques personnes croient +que l'image apercue de cette maniere se dessine sur la surface du miroir; +mais ils se trompent. Le devin regarde fixement cette surface jusqu'a ce +qu'elle disparaisse et qu'un rideau, semblable a un brouillard, +s'interpose entre lui et le miroir. Sur ce rideau se dessinent les choses +_qu'il desira apercevoir_, et cela lui permet de donner des indications +soit affirmatives, soit negatives, sur ce que l'on desire savoir. Il +raconte alors les perceptions telles qu'il les recoit. Les devins, +pendant qu'ils sont dans cet etat, n'apercoivent pas ce qui se voit +reellement dans le miroir; c'est un autre mode de perception qui nait +chez eux et qui s'opere, non pas au moyen de la vue, mais de l'ame. Il +est vrai que, _pour eux, les perceptions de l'ame ressemblent a celles +des sens au point de les tromper_; fait qui, du reste, est bien connu. La +meme chose arrive a ceux qui examinent les coeurs et les foies d'animaux. +Nous avons vu quelques-uns de ces individus _entraver l'operation des +sens_ par l'emploi de simples _fumigations_, puis se servir +d'_incantations_[2] afin de donner a l'ame la disposition requise; ensuite +ils racontent ce qu'ils ont apercu. Ces formes, disent-ils, se montrent +dans l'air et representent des personnages: elles leur apprennent, au +moyen d'emblemes et de signes, les choses qu'ils cherchent a savoir. Les +individus de cette classe se detachent moins de l'influence des sens que +ceux de la classe precedente."' + +[Footnote 1: Lican, Paris, 1898.] + +[Footnote 2: L'auteur arabe avait deja mentionne (p. 209) l'emploi des +incantations et indique qu'elles etuient un simple adjuvant physique +destine a donner a certains hommes une exaltation dont ils se servaient +pour tacher de decouvrir l'avenir. + +'Pour arriver au plus haut degre d'inspiration dont il est capable, le +devin doit avoir recours a l'emploi de certaines phrases qui se +distinguent par _une cadence et un parallelisme particuliers_. Il +essaye ce moyen _afin de soustraire son ame aux influences des sens_ et +de lui donner assez de force pour se mettre dans un contact imparfait +avec le monde spirituel.[a] Cette agitation d'esprit, jointe a l'emploi +des moyens intrinseques dont nous avons parle, excite dans son coeur +des idees que cet organe exprime par le ministere de la langne. Les +paroles qu'il prononce sont tantot vraies, tantot fausses. En effet, +le devin, voulant suppleer a l'imperfection de son naturel, se sert de +moyens tout a fait etrangers a sa faculte perceptive et qui ne +s'accordent en aucune facon avec elle. Donc la verite et l'erreur se +presentent a lui en meme temps, aussi ne doit on mettre aucune +confiance en ses paroles. Quelquefois meme il a recours a des +suppositions et a des conjectures dans l'espoir de rencontrer la verite +et de tromper ceux qui l'interrogent.'] + +[Footnote a: Compare Tennyson's way of attaining a state of trance by +repeating to himself his own name.] + + + + +APPENDIX D + +_CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA_ + +In the remarks on Australian religion, it is argued that chiefs in +Australia are, at most, very inconspicuous, and that a dead chief cannot +have thriven into a Supreme Being. Attention should be called, however, to +Mr. Howitt's remarks on Australian 'Head-men,' in his tract on 'The +Organisation of Australian Tribes' (pp. 103-113). + +He attaches more of the idea of power to 'Head-men' than does Mr. Curr in +his work, 'The Australian Race.' The Head-men, as a rule, arrive at such +influence as they possess by seniority, if accompanied by courage, wisdom, +and, in some cases, by magical acquirements. There are traces of a +tendency to keep the office (if it may be called one) in the same kinship. +'But Vich Ian Vohr or Chingahgook are not to be found in Australian +tribes' (p. 113). I do not observe that the manes or ghost of a dead +Head-man receives any worship or service calculated to fix him in the +tribal memory, and so lead to the evolution of a deity, though one +Head-man was potent through the whole Dieyri tribe over three hundred +miles of country. Such a person, if propitiated after death, might +conceivably develop into a hero, if not into a creative being. But we +must await evidence to the effect that any posthumous reverence was paid +to this man, Ialina Piramurane (New Moon). Mr. Howitt's essay is in the +'Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria for 1889.' + + + + +INDEX + +Academy of Medicine, Paris, inquiry into animal magnetism, 34 + +Achille, the case of, 134 + +Acosta, Pere, cited, 74, 244, 246 + +Adare, Lord, cited, 335 + +Addison, cited, 16 + +Africans, religious faiths of, 212, 218, 221, 222. + See under separate tribal names. + +Ahone, North-American Indian god, 231-233, 241, 248, 258, 262, 280 + +Aide, Hamilton, cited, 336 + +Algonquins, the, 250 + +Allen, Grant, cited, 190 + +American Creators, 230; + parallel with African gods, 230; + savage gods of Virginia, 231; + the Ahone-Okeus creed, 231-233; + Pawnee tribal religions, 233-236; + Ti-ra-wa, the Spirit Father, 234, 235; + rite to the Morning Star, 234; + religion of the Blackfeet, 236; + Na-pi, 237-239; + one account of the Inca religion, 239-242; + Sun-worship, 239-241; + cult of Pachacamac, the Inca deity, 239-247; + another account of the Inca religion, 242-246; + hymns of the Zunis, 247; + _Awonawilona_, 247 + +Amoretti, Sig., cited, 30, 152 + +Ancestor, worship, 164-166, 178, 205, 212, 268, 271-277 + +Andamanese, the, religious beliefs of, 167, 194-197, 205, 208, 211, + 249, 252, 256, 272 +'Angus, Miss,' cases in her experience of crystal-gazing, 89-102, 341 + +Animal magnetism, inquiry into, 29, 34, 35 + +Animism, nature and influence of, 48, 49, 53, 58, 63, 129, 168, 190, + 191, 206, 256, 264, 266, 268, 269, 303 + +Anthropology and hallucinations, 105; + sleeping and waking experience, 105, 106; + hallucinations in mentally sound people, 107; + ghosts, 107; + coincidence of hallucinations of the sane with death or other crisis of + person seen, 107; + morbid hallucinations and coincidental 'flukes,' 108; + connection of cause and effect, 108; + the emotional effect, 108; + illustrative coincidence, 108; + hallucinations of sight, 109; + causes of hallucinations, 110; + collective hallucinations, 110; + the properly receptive state, 110; + telepathy, 111; + phantasms of the living, 112; + Maori cases, 113-115; + evidence to be rejected, 116; + subjective hallucination caused by expectancy, 116; + puzzling nature of hallucinations shared by several people at once, 116, + 117; + hallucinations coincident with a death, 117; + apparitions and deaths connected in fact, 117; + Census of the Society for Psychical Research thereupon, 118; + number and character of the instances, 119; + weighing evidence, 119; + opinion of the Committee on Hallucinations, 121; + remoteness of occurrence of instances, 121; + want of documentary evidence, 121 + non-coincidental hallucinations, 121; + telepathy existing between kinsfolk and friends, 122; + influence of anxiety, 123; + existence of illness known, 123; + mental and nervous conditions in connection with hallucinations, 134; + value of the statistics of the Census, 124; + anecdote of an English officer, 125 + +Anthropology and religion, 30; + early scientific prejudice against, 40; + evolution and evidence, 40; + testing of evidence, 41-43; + psychical research, 48; + origin of religion, 44; + inferences drawn from supernormal phenomena, 41, 53; + savage parallels of psychical phenomena, 45; + meanings of religion, 45, 40; + disproof of godless tribes, 47; + Animism, 48, 49; + limits of savage tongues, 49; + waking and sleeping hallucinations, 60; + crystal-gazing, 50; + the ghost-soul, 51; + savage abstract speculation, 52; + analogy of the ideas of children and primitive man, 53; + early man's conception of life, 32; + ghost-seers, 54; + psychical conditions in which savages differ from civilised men, 54; + power of producing non-normal psychological conditions, 55; + faculties of the lower animals, 56; + man's first conception of religion, 56; + the suggested hypnotic state, 57; + second-sight, 68; + savage names for the ghost-soul, 60; + the migratory spirit, 60-64 + +Anynrabia, South Guinea Creator, 220 + +Apaches, crystal-gazing by, 84, 85 + +Apollonius of Tyana, 66 + +Atua, the Tongan Elohim, 279 + +Aurora Borealis, savage ideas of the, 4, 262, 292 + +Australians, religious beliefs of, 50, 83, 118, 128, 165, 175-182, 185, + 188, 190, 205, 208, 211, 215, 219, 224, 240, 249, 253, 266, 261-263 + +Automatism, 155 + +Awonawilona, Zuni deity, 248, 251 + +Ayinard, Jacques, case of, 150, 182 + +Aztecs, creed of, 104 _note_, 183, 233, 234, 255, 258, 263 + +Bealz, Dr., cited, 132 + +Baiame, deity, 189, 190, 191, 205, 261, 280 + +Baker, Sir Samuel, cited, 42, 211 + +Bakwains, the, 169 + +Balfour, A.J., quoted, 44, 57 _note_ + +Banks Islanders, their gods, 169, 197-198 + +Bantus, religious beliefs of, 176, 211, 220, 248 + +Barkworth, Mr., his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 140 + +Barrett, Professor, on the divining-rod, 162-154 + +Bostian, Adolf, cited, 6, 43 + +Baxter, cited, 15 + +Beaton, Cardinal, his mistress visualized, 97 + +Bell, John, cited, 149 + +Beni-Israel, 282 + +Berna, magnetiser, 34 + +Bernadette, case of, 117 + +Big Black Man, Fuegian deity, 258 + +Binet and Fere, quoted, 20, 76 + +Bissett, Mr. and Mrs., experiences of crystal-gazing, 99-102 + +Blackfeet, beliefs of, 230, 236 + +Blantyre region, religion in the, 217, 218 + +Bleck, Dr., cited, 194 + +Bobowissi, Gold Coast god, 225-227, 230-232 + +Bodinus, cited, 15 + +Book of the Dead, 286, 303 + +Bora, Australian mysteries, 176, 179, 190, 196, 260 + +Bosman, cited, 225 + +Bourget, Paul, his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 139, 140 + +Bourke, Captain J.G., cited, 83 + +Boyle, cited, 15 + +Braid, inventor of the word 'hypnotism,' 24, 35, 36 + +Brewster, Sir David, cited, 33 + +Brinton, Dr., cited, 67, 168, 232, 236, 254, 264, 290 + +Bristow, Mr., cited, 332 + +British Association decline to hear Braid's essay, 24 + rejection of anthropological papers, 89 + +Brasses, de, cited, 149 + +Brown, General Mason, cited, 68, 67 + +Bunjil, deity, 189 + +Bushmen, religious beliefs of, 165, 198, 208, 211, 252 + +Button, Jemmy, the Faegian, case of, 116 + +Caon, Boshmon deity, 189, 193, 205 + +Callawoy, Dr., on Zulu beliefs, 72, 85, 106, 142, 151 207, 208 + +Cardan, cited, 15 + +Carpenter, Dr., cited, 324 + +Carver, Captain Jonathan, his instance of savage possession, 142 + cited, 60, 144, 145 + +Charcot, Dr., on faith cures, 20-23, 24 _note_ + +Chevreul, M., cited, 152 + +Chinese, the, demon possession in, 181, 183 + divining-rod, 154 + religious beliefs, 237, 290, 291 + +Chonos, the, 176 + +Circumcision, 286 + +Clairvoyance (vue a distance), 65 + 'opening the Gates at Distance.' 65, 66 + attested cases among savages, 66 + conflict with the laws of exact science, 67 + instances, 67 + among the Zulus, 68-70 + among the Lapps, 70 + the Llarson case, 71 + seers, 72 + the element of trickery, 73 + a Red Indian seeress, 73 + Peruvian clairvoyants, 75 + Professor Richet's case, 75 + Mr. Dobbie's case, 76 + Scottish tales of second-sight, 78-81 + visions provoked by various methods, 81 + See Crystal visions + +Clodd, Edward, cited, 119, 120, 300 + +'Cockburn, Mrs.,' test of crystal-gazing, 99-101 + +Codrington, Dr., cited, 150, 169, 197-199 + +Coirin, Mlle., her miraculous cure, 20 + +Coleridge, cited, 9, 11, 12 _note_, 295, 296 + +Collins, cited, 179 + +Comanches, the, 250 + +Confucius, religious teaching of, 290, 291 + +Cook, Captain, cited, 271 + +Corpse-binding, 143, 144 + +Crawford, Lord, cited, 325, 334, 330, 387 + +Creeks, the, 143 + +Croesus, tests the Delphic Oracle, 14 + +Crookes, Sir William, cited, 325, 331, 333, 334, 337, 338 + +Crystal visions, 83 + savage instances, 83-85 + in later Europe, 85 + nature of 'Miss X's' experiments, 85 + attributed to 'dissociation,' 86 + examples of 'thought-transference,' 87 + arguments against accepting recognition of objects described by another + person, 87 + coincidence of fact and fiction, 88 + cases in the experience of 'Miss Angus,' 89-102 + 'Miss Rose's' experience, 91, 92 + phenomena suggest the savage theory of the wandering soul, 103 + cited, 7, 44, 50, 314-316, 340 + +Cumberland, Stuart, 72 + +Cures by suggestion, 20, 21 + +Curr, Mr., reports 'godless' savages, 184 _note_ + +Dampier, cited, 176 + +Dancing sticks, 149-131 + +Darumulun, Australian Supreme Being, 178, 179, 183, 186, 191, 213, 240, + 258-264, 280 + +Darwin, cited, 115, 149, 174 _note_, 324, 332 + +Death, savage ideas on, 187 + +Degeneration theory, the, 254 + the powerful creative Being of lowest savages, 254 + differences between the Supreme Being of higher and lower savages, 255 + human sacrifice, 255 + hungry, cruel gods degenerate from the Australian Father in Heaven, 256 + savage Animism, 256 + a pure religion forgotten, 257 + an inconvenient moral Creator, 257 + hankering after useful ghost-gods, 257 + lowering of the ideal of a Creator, 257 + maintenance of an immoral system in the interests of the State and the + clergy, 258 + moral monotheism of the Hebrew religion, 258 + degradation of Jehovah, 258 + human sacrifice in ritual of Israel, 258 + origin of conception of Jehovah, 258 + Semitic gods, 259 + status of Darumulun, 259 + conception of Jehovah conditioned by space, 260 + degeneration of deity in Africa, 260 + political advance produces religious degeneration, 261 + sacrificial ideas, 262 + the savage Supreme Being on a higher plane than the Semitic and + Greek gods, 263 + Animism full of the seeds of religions degeneration, 264 + falling off in the theistic conception, 265 + fetishism, 265 + modus of degeneration by Animism supplanting Theism, 265 + feeling after a God who needs not anything at man's hands, 267 + +Demoniacal possession, 128 + the 'inspired' or 'possessed,' 129 + 'change of control,' 130 + gift of eloquence and poetry, 131 + instances in China, 131 + attempted explanations of the phenomena, 132 + 'alternating personality,' 132 + symptoms of possession, 132 + evidence for, 133 + scientific account of a demoniac and his cure, 134 + inducing the 'possessed' state, 135 + exhibition of abnormal knowledge by the possessed, 136 + Scientific study of the phenomena, 136 + details of the case of Mrs. Piper, 136-141 + diagnosing and prescribing for patients, 142 + Carver's example of savage possession, 142, 157 + custom of binding the seer with bonds, 142, 145 + corpse-binding, 143, 144 + +Dendid, Dinka Supreme Being, 211, 212, 258, 280 + +Deslon, M., disciple of Mesmer, 24 + +Dessoir, Dr. Max, quoted, 32, 33, 57 + +Dinkas, beliefs of the, 42, 211, 212, 256 + +Divining-rod, use of the, 30, 152-155 + +Dobbie, Mr., his case of clairvoyance, 76 + +Dorman, Mr., cited, 203 + +Dunbar, Mr., cited, 236 + +Du Pont, cited, 75 + +Du Prel, cited, 28 + +Dynois, Jonka, trance of, 65 + +Ebumtupism, second sight, 73 + +Egyptians, beliefs of, 83, 302 + +Elcho, Lord, cited, 334 + +Eleusinian mysteries, 196 + +Elliotson, Dr., cited, 24, 35, 37, 40 + +Ellis, Major, on Polynesian and African religions ideas, 83, 144, 222-228, + 232, 251, 260, 272 + +Elohim, savage equivalents to the term, 277 + +Esemkofu, Zulu ghosts, 128, 129 + +Eskimo, religious beliefs of, 72, 113, 184 + +Faith-Cures, 20-22 + +Fenton, Francis Dart, on Maori ghost-seeing, 114 + +Ferrand, Mlle., on hallucinations, 32 + +Fetishism and Spiritualism, 147 + the fetish, 147 + sources super-normal to savages, 148 + independent motion in inanimate objects, 149 + comparison with physical phenomena of spiritualism, 149 + Melanesian belief in sticks moved by spirits, 150 + a sceptical Zulu, 150 + a form of the pendulum experiment, 151 + table-turning, 152 + the divining-rod, 152 + the civilised and savage practice of automatism, 156 + dark room manifestations, 156 + the disturbances in the house of M. Zoller, 156 + consideration of physical phenomena, 158 + instanced, 165, 225, 265, 266, 276, 324-339 + +Figuier, M., cited, 152 + +Fijians, religious beliefs of, 128, 136, 200, 248, 338 + +Finns, the, 58 + +Fire ceremony, the, 180 _note_ + +Fison, Mr., cited, 128 + +Fitzroy, Admiral, cited, 115, 173, 174 + +Flacourt, Sieur de, on crystal-gazing in Madagascar, 84 + +Flint, Professor, cited, 253 + +Francis, St., stigmata of, 22 + +Fuegians, beliefs and customs of, 115, 165, 173-175, 183, 187, 208, + 211, 227, 258, 262, 272 + +Galton, Mr., cited, 12, 96, 107, 294, 295 + +Garcilasso de la Vega, on Inca beliefs, 239-244 + +'Gates of Distance, Opening the,' 65, 66, 68 + +Ghost-seers, 54, 63 + +Ghost-soul, the, 51 + names for the, 60 + +Gibert, Dr., on 'willing' sleep, 36 + +Gibier, Dr., cited, 146 + +Gippsland tribes, 187 + +Glanvil, Rev. Joseph, his scientific investigations, 15 + +God, evolution of the idea of, 160 + anthropological hypothesis, 160 + primitive logic of the savage, 161 + regarded as a spirit, 162 + idea of spiritual beings framed on the human soul, 164 + deified ancestors, 164 + the Zulu first ancestor, 164 + fetishes, 165 + great gods in savage systems of religion, 165 + the Lord of the Dead, 165 + conception of an idealised divine First Ancestor, 188 + hostile Good and Bad Beings, 166 + the Supreme Being of savage creeds, 166 + mediating 'Sons,' 167 + Christian and Islamite influence on savage conceptions, 167 + probable germs of the savage idea of a Supreme Being, 168 + animistic conceptions, 168 + ghosts, and Beings who never were human, 169 + recognition by savages of our God in theirs, 169 + the hypothesis of degeneracy, 170 + the moral, friendly creative Being of low savage faith, 171 + food offerings to a Universal Power, 171 + the High Gods of low races, 173 + intrusion of European ideas into savage religions, 173 + the Fuegian Big Man, 174 + ghosts of dead medicine man, 175 + the Bora, or Australian tribal mysteries, 176, 177, 179 + possible evolution of the Australian god, 178 + mythology and theology of Darumulun, the highest Australian god, 178, + 179, 183 + religious sanction of morals, 179 + selflessness the very essence of goodness, 180 + precepts of Darumulan, 181, 182 + argument from design, 184 + Supreme Gods not necessarily developed out of 'spirits,' 185 + distinction between deities and ghosts, 185 + human beings adored as gods, 186 + deathlessness of the Supreme Being of savage faith, 186, 188 + idealisation of the savage himself, 187 + negation of the ghost-theory, 188, 189 + high creative gods never wore mortal men, 189 + low savage distinction between gods, 189 + propitiation by food and sacrifice, 190 + 'magnified non-natural men,' 190 + gods to talk about, not to adore, 190 + higher gods prior to the ghost theory, 191 + See Supreme Beings; American Creators; Jehovah + +Greeks, the, beliefs of, 302 + +Greenlanders, the, 144, 182 + +Gregory, Dr., cited, 86 + +Griesinger, Dr., cited, 132 + +Grinnell, Mr., on Pawnee beliefs, 234-237 + +Guiana Indians, religious beliefs of, 202-206, 256 + +Guinea, North and South, religious beliefs in, 220 + +Gurney, Mr., his experiments in hypnotism, 85, 86 + cited, 107, 114, 117 + +Guyau, M., cited, 12, 24, 25 + +Hallucinations. See Anthropology and Hallucinations + +Hamilton, Sir William, cited, 12 + +Hammond, Dr., on demoniacal possession, 131 + +Harteville, Madame, case of, 26 + +Hearne, on the Aurora Borealis, 3 + on cure by suggestion, 21, 22 + +Hebrews. See Israelites + +Hegel, cited, 30-34, 50, 56, 58, 78, 111, 152 + +Higgs, Police Constable, statement of, on the disturbances at Mr. + White's house, 326-328 + +Highland second-sight, 143-145 + +Hodgson, Dr., report on Mrs. Piper, 137, 140, 141 + cited, 135, 325 + +Home, David Dunglas, his powers as a medium, 324, 325, 334-339 + +Howitt, Mr., cited, 128, 177-182 + +Hume, David, attitude towards miracles, 16 + definition of a miracle, 16 + self-contradictions, 17 + refuses to examine miracle of the Abbe Paris, 18, 19, 22-25 + alternative definition of a miracle, 25 + cited, 297 + +Huxley, Professor, on savage religious cults, 42, 43, 48, 162, 163, 171, + 176, 177, 182 + on the evolution of Jehovah, 270, 271, 277, 279, 282, 286 + cited, 17 _note_, 296, 324 + +Hypnotism, 6, 24, 29, 32, 34, 35, 37, 75, 76 + +Iamblichus, cited, 14, 336, 337, 339 + +Ibn Khaldoun, cited, 341 + +Im Thurn, on the religious ideas of the Indians of Guiana, 50, 160, + 202-207, 256, 298 + +Incas, the, 85, 240-247, 258 + +Iroquois, the, 84, 85 + +Islam, influence of, on African beliefs, 221 + +Israelites, development of their religious ideas, 258, 260, 268-284, 302 + +James, Professor William, quoted, 23, 59, 73, 107, 110, 132, 137, 156, + 294 + +Janet, Dr. Pierre, on 'willing' sleep, 36 + on demoniacal possession, 134, 135 + cited, 73, 294, 340, 341 + +Jeanne d'Arc, 34, 73, 115, 128, 276 + +Jehovah, theories of, 258, 260, 268 + as a Moral Supreme Being, 268 + anthropological theory of the origin of Jehovah-worship, 270 + absence of ancestor-worship from the Hebrew tradition, 270-273 + alleged evidence for ancestor-worship in Israel, 273-277 + evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of Jehovah, 277 + the term Elohim, 277 + human shape assumed, 278 + considered as a ghost-god, 279 + sacrifices to, 280 + suggestion of a Being not yet named Jehovah, 281 + traditional emergence of Jehovah as the god of Israel, 281 + as a deified ancestor, 282 + moral element in the idea of Jehovah, 282, 286 + a mere tribal god, 283 + a Kenite god, 283, 284 + inconsistencies of theorists concerning, 285 + the moral element a survival of primitive ethics in the savage ancestors + of the Israelites, 287 + verity of the Biblical account, 287 + cited, 299 + +Jeraeil, mysteries of the Kurnai, 180 + +Jevons, Mr., cited, 186, 255, 300, 302 + +Jugglery, Pawnee, 235 + +Jung-Stilling, cited, 30, 63 + +Kaloc, Fijian name for gods, 200, 201 + +Kamschatkans, 166 + +Kant, inquires into Swedenborg's visions, 26, 59 + disappointed with Swedenborg's 'Arcana Coelestia', 26, 27 + on the metaphysics of 'spirits,' 27 + discusses the subconscious, 28 + cited, 125 + +Karens, beliefs of, 60, 73, 151 + +Karr, Alphonse, cited, 336 + +Kelvin, Lord, on hypnotism, 37 + +Kenites, the, 284 + +Kingsley, Miss, cited, 175, 211, 220, 328 + +Kirk, cited, 144 + +Kohl, cited, 148 + +Kulin, Australian tribe, 49 + +Kurnai, Australian tribe, their religious conceptions, 49, 180, 181, 187, + 215, 262, 263, 287, 291 + +Laing, Mr. Samuel, cited, 12 _note_ + +Langlois, M., the case of, 75, 76 + +Lapps, beliefs of, 58, 71, 81 + +Latukas, the, 42 + +Laverterus, telepathic hypothesis of, 15 + +Le Loyer, cited, 15 + +Leaf, Mr., cited, 112 _note_ + +Leeward Isles, ideas of a god in, 251 + +Lefebure, M., cited, 84, 149, 341 + +Legge, Dr., on the teaching of Confucius, 290 + +Lejean, M., on the Dinkas, 212 + +Lejeaune, Pere, cited, 74, 83 + +Leng, Mr., cited, 133 + +Leon, Cieza de, cited, 241, 244 + +Leonie, the case of her hypnotisation, 75, 76 + +Leslie, David, on Zulu clairvoyance, 68 + on ghosts, 128 + +Levitation, 334 + +Littre, M., cited, 136 + +Livingstone, Dr., cited, 6, 135, 170 + +Lloyd, Dr., cited, 327, 328 + +Loan-god, a, Tshi theory of, 222-229 + +Lourdes, cures at, 19 + +Lubbock, Sir John, cited, 42 + +Macalister, Professor, his opinion of Mrs. Piper, 140 + +MacCulloch, Dr., on second-sight, 58 + +Macdonald, Duff, cited, 150, 213, 215, 218 + +Macgregor, Dr. Alastair, gives instances of second-sight, 79-81 + +Madagascar, 84 + +Magnetism, 29, 34, 35 + +Malagasies, beliefs of, 84 + +Malays of Keeling Island, fetishism in, 141 + +Man, Mr., on Andamanese religion and mythology, 194, 195 + +Mans, magical rapport, 199, 200 + +Mandans, the, 188 + +Manganjah, practice of sorcery in, 149 + +Manning, Mr., cited, 146 + +Maoris, religious beliefs of, 83, 113-115, 118, 119, 150, 166, 188 + +Marawa, Banks Islands deity, 198, 199 + +Mariner, cited, 278 + +Markham, Mr., cited, 243, 246 + +Marson, Madame, case of, 71 + +Mason, Dr., on familiar spirits, 130 + +Mather, Cotton, cited, 16, 55 + +Maudsloy, Dr., cited, 23 _note_ + +Mani, Maori deity, 166, 188 + +Mayo, Dr., cited, 86 + +Medici, Catherine de', cited, 66 + +Medicine-men, 84 + +Mediums, 324-339 + +Melanesians, religious beliefs of, 150, 169, 189, 197, 199, 200 + +Menestrier, le Pere, uses the divining-rod, 154 + +Menzies, Professor, cited, 257 + +Mesmer, his theory of magnetism, 29, 34 + +Millar, cited, 40, 41 + +Miracles, regarded from the standpoint of science, 14 + early tests, 14 + and more modern research, 15 + witchcraft, 15, 16 + Hume's essay on, 16 + and his definitions of a miracle, 16, 25 + cures at the tomb of the Abbe Paris, 18-20, 23 + Binet and Fere's explanation of these cures, 20 + cures by suggestion, 20, 21 + Dr. Charcot's views, 20 + faith cures, 20-22 + science opposed to systematic negation, 22 + refusal to examine evidence, 23-25 + 'marvellous facts,' 24 + suggestion a distance, 24 + Kant's researches, 26-29 + Swedenborg's clairvoyance, 26, 27 + thought-transference and hypnotic sleep, 29, 30, 32, 35 + water-finding, 39 + phenomena of clairvoyance, 31 + Hegel's 'magic tie,' 31 + Dr. Max Dessoir's views, 31, 32 + hallucinations, 32 + animal magnetism, 34 + hypnotism, 35 + 'willing,' 36 + facts and phenomena confronting science, 37 + +'Miss X,' on crystal-gazing, 87, 315, 316, 340, 341 + +Mlungu, Central African deity, 213-218 + +Molina, Christoval de, on Inca beliefs, 242, 243 + +Moll, Herr, cited, 314 + +Montgeron, M., cited, 19, 20 + +More, Henry, cited, 15 + +Moses, founder of the Hebrew religion, 283-286 + +Mtanga, African deity, 213-217 + +Mueller, Max, cited, 41, 43, 46, 265, 266, 289 + +Mungan-ngaur, Kurnai Supreme Being, 181, 188, 190, 205, 217, 259 + +Mwetyi, Shekuni Great Spirit, 220 + +Myers, Frederic, on hypnotic slumber, 30, 33 + cited, 15 _note_ + +Nana Nyankupon, Gold Coast Supreme Being, 225-228, 232, 280 + +Na-pi, American Indian deity, 237-239, 241 + +Ndengei, Fijian Supreme Being, 200-202, 228, 248 + +Nevius, Dr., on demoniacal possession, 131-135 + +Newbold, Professor W. Romaine, 135 + +Nezahuati, erects a bloodless fane to the Unknown God, 258 + +Nicaraguans, the, 60 + +North, Major, on Pawnee jugglery, 235, 236 + +Nzambi Mpungu, Bantu Supreme Being, 226, 228, 242 + +Okeus (Oki), American Indian deity, 231, 232 + +Okey, the sisters, case of, 37 _note_ + +Ombwiri, South Guinea god, 220 + +Orpen, Mr., cited, 193 + +Oxford, Rev. A.W., on ancient Israel, 275-277, 283-285 + +Pachacamac, Inca, Supreme Being, 230, 239-247, 258 + +Pachayachachi, Inca god, 242, 246 + +Paladino, Eusapia, case of, 325 + +Palmer, Mr., cited, 179 + +Paris, Abbe miracles wrought at his tomb, 18-20, 23 + +Parish, Herr, criticism of his reply to the arguments for telepathy, + 307-323 + cited, 8, 86, 107 + +Park, Mungo, on African beliefs, 221, 223 + +Pawnees, religious beliefs and practices of, 212, 224, 230, 233-236, 263 + +Payne, Mr., cited, 160, 161, 246 + +Peden, Rev. Mr., cited, 66 + +Pelippa, Captain, cited, 173 + +Pendulum experiment, a form of the, 151 + +Pepys, cited, 15 + +Peruvians, religious ideas and practices of, 75, 239-247 + +Phantasms of the Dead, 128 + +Phinuit, Dr. See Mrs. Piper + +Piper, Mrs., the case of, 132, 136-141 + +Pliny, cited, 15 + +Plotinus, cited, 66 + +Plutarch, cited, 15 + +Podmore, Mr., on psychical research, 111, 325, 326, 328, 330-336, 338, 339 + +Poltergeist, the, and his explainers, 334-339 + +Polynesians, religious beliefs of, 7, 83, 251, 252, 256 + +Polytheism, 289, 291, 303 + +Porphyry, cited, 14 + +Powhattan, Virginian chief, 231, 232 + +Puluga, Andamanese Supreme Being, 195, 205, 228, 258, 262 + +Pundjel, Australian god, 258, 261, 262 + +Puysegur, de, his discovery of hypnotic sleep, 29, + cited, 76 + +Qat, Banks Islands deity, 189, 198, 199 + +Qing, Bushman, his ideas of the god Cang, 193, 196 + +Ravenwood, Master of, instanced, 126 + +Red Indians, beliefs and practices of, 3, 5, 6, 21, 22, 83, 104 _note_, + 128, 142, 143, 203 + +Regnard, M., cited, 71 + +Renan, M., cited, 285 + +Revillo, M., cited, 291, 293 + +Reynolds, Dr. Russell, cited, 22 + +Rhombos, use of the, 84 + +Ribot, M., cited, 132 + +Richet, Professor Charles, hypnotises Leonie, 75, 76 + cited, 64, 73, 82, 154, 294 + +Ritter, Dr., believes in Siderism, 29 + +Romans, religious ideas of, 302 + +'Rose, Miss,' her experience of crystal-gazing, 90,91 + +Rose, Eliza, the case of, 326-330 + +Roskoff, cited, 42 + +Rowley, Mr., cited, 149 + +Russegger, cited, 212 + +Salcamayhua, cited, 246 + +Samoyeds, 58, 72 + +Sand, George, cited, 86 + +Santos, cited, 214 + +Saul and the Witch of Endor, 14 + +Scheffer, cited, 66, 70, 71, 81 + +Schoolcraft, Mr., cited, 236 + +Schrenck-Notzing, von, cited, 55 _note_ + +Scot, Reginald, cited, 15 + +Scott, Rev. David Clement, cited, 49 _note_, 106, 217, 218 + +Scott, Sir Walter, his attitude towards clairvoyance, 27 + cited, 121, 126 + +Sebituane, case of, 135, 136 + +Second-sight, 56, 66, 78-81 + +Seer-binding, 143 + +Seers, 72 + +Shang-ti, Chinese Supreme Being, 245, 290, 291 + +Shortland, Mr., quoted, 113 + +Sidgwick, Professor, cited, 318, 332 + +Sioux, the, 236 + +Skidi or Wolf Pawnees, the, 233, 234 + +Smith, Mrs. Erminie, on crystal-gazing, 84 + +Smith, historian of Virginia, cited, 231, 232 + +Smith, Robertson, cited, 259, 261, 262, 281 _note_, 298 + +Smyth, Brough, cited, 42, 178, 182, 293 + +Society for Psychical Research, 116, 118 + +Spencer, Herbert, on early religious ideas, 42, 43 + ghosts, 47 + Animism, 48 _note_, 53, 54 + limits of savage language, 49 + the Fuegian Big Man, 174 + Australian marriage customs, 175 + Australian religion, 182 + men-gods, 186 + religion of Bushmen, 193 + ancestor-worship, 212, 213, 271-273 + cited, 162, 167, 170, 216, 218, 292 + +Spiritualism, 324-339. + See Fetishism + +Stade, Herr, cited, 276, 284, 285 + +Stanley, Hans, cited, 12 + +Starr, cited, 104 _note_ + +Stoll, cited, 72 + +Strachey, William, cited, 229-232 + +Suetonius, cited, 15 + +Sully, Mr., cited. 295 + +Sun-worship, 238-245 + +Supreme Beings of savages, regarded as eternal, moral, and powerful, 193 + Cagn, the Bushman god, 193 + Puluga, the Andamanese god, 195 + savage mysteries and rites, 196 + alliance of ethics with religion, 196 + the Banks Islanders' belief in Tamate (ghosts) and Vui (Beings who never + had been human), 197 + corporeal and incorporeal Vuis, 198 + sacrificial offerings to ghosts and spirits, 199 + the soul the complex of real bodiless after-images, 200 + Fijian belief, 200 + Ndengei, the Fijian chief god, 200, 201 + the idea of primeval Eternal Beings, 202 + the Great Spirit of North American tribes, 203 + dream origin of the ghost theory, 203 + Guiana Indian names indicating a belief in a Great Spirit, 203-206 + the God-cult abandoned for the Ghost-cult, 205 + Unkulunkulu, the Zulu Creator, 207-210 + the notion of a dead Maker, 208 + preference for serviceable family spirits, 209 + the Dinka Creator, 211 + African ancestor-worship, 212 + Mlungu, a deity formed by aggregation of departed spirits, 213 + ethical element in religious mysteries, 215 + the position of Mtanga, 216 + religious beliefs in the Blantyre region, 217, 218 + negro tendency to monotheism, 218 + beliefs in North and South Guinea, 220 + Mungo Park's observation of African beliefs, 221 + Islamic influence, 221 + the Tshi theory of a loan-god,' borrowed from Europeans, 222-228 + varieties of Tshi gods, 224, 225 + fetishes, 225 + Nana Nyankupon, the 'God of the Christians,' 225-229 + American Creators (see under), 230-252 + the Polynesian cult, 251, 252 + Chinese conceptions, 290-292 + +Swedenborg, Emanuel, visions of, 26 + recovers Mme. Harteville's receipt, 26 + his 'Arcana Coelestia,' 27 + noticed by Kant, 28, 29, 59 + +Taa-Roa, Polynesian deity, 251, 252, 256, 280, 308 + +Table-turning, 151 + +Tahitians, 251 + +Taine, M., cited, 57 + +Ta-li-y-Tooboo, Tongan deity, 278, 279, 282 + +Tamate, Banks Islands ghosts, 197-199 + +Tamoi, the 'ancient of heaven,' 188 + +Tando, Gold Coast god, 225 + +Tanner, John, case of, 57, 128 + +Teed, Esther, the Amherst mystery, 333 + +Telepathy, oppositions of science to, 307 + hallucination of memory, 307 + presentiments, 308 + dreams, 308, 309, 312 + veridical hallucinations, 309, 311 + coincidence in S.P.R.'s Census cases, 310 + non-coincidental cases, 311 + condition to beget hallucination, 312 + hallucinations mere dreams, 312 + crystal-gazing, 314-316 + number of coincidences no proof, 316 + association of ideas, 316 + coincidental collective hallucinations, 317-323 + See Crystal visions + +Thomson, Basil, cited, 200 _note_, 248, 249, 339 + +Thought-transference, 4, 29-32, 35 + illustrative cases, 88-103 + +Thouvenel, M., cited, 152 + +Thyraeus on ghosts, 15 + +Tien, Chinese heaven, 290, 291 + +Ti-ra-wa, American Indian god, 234-236, 239 + +Tlapane, African wizard, 135 + +Tongans, religious beliefs of, 278-280 + +Tonkaways, American tribe, 233 + +Torfaeus, cited, 71 + +Totemism, 239, 241, 262, 263, 269, 270, 276 + +Tregear, Mr., on Maori ghost-seeing, 113 + +Tshi theory of a loan-god, 223-227 + +Tuckey, Dr. Lloyd, cited, 36 + +Tui Laga, Fijian deity, 249 + +Tundun, ancestor of the Kurnai, 181 + +Tylor, Mr., his test of recurrence, 41 + on anthropological origin of religion, 43 + on savage philosophy of super-normal phenomena, 45, 53 + disproves the assertion about 'godless' tribes, 47 + his term Animism, 48, 49 + theory of metaphysical genius in low savages, 51 + ghost-seers, 54 + on psychical conditions of contemporary savages, 54-56 + on the influence of Swedenborg, 59 + savage names for the ghost-soul, 60 + second-sight, 66 + mediums, 73 + dreams, 106 + hallucinations, 110-113, 117, 118 + demoniacal possession, 131 + fetishism, 148, 149, 165 + divining-rod, 153 + evolution of gods from ghosts, 163, 164 + fetish deities, 165 + dualistic idea, 166 + Supreme Being of savage creeds, 166, 167 + the degeneration theory, 170, 254 + confusion of thought upon religion, 182 + list of first ancestors deified, 188 + savage mysteries, 201 + savage Animism, 204 + Okeus and his rites, 231 + Pachacamac, 245 + Confucius's teaching, 290 + the mystagogue Home, 325 + levitation, 334 + cited, 50, 52, 53, 58, 59, 61-63, 78, 151, 161, 162, 170, 173, 184, 185, + 203, 231, 232, 246, 257, 293, 297 + +Tyndall, Professor, cited, 324 + +Uiracocha, Inca Creator, 242-246 + +Umabakulists, diviners by sticks, 151 + +Unkulunkulu, Zulu mythical first ancestor, 164, 168, 188, 202, 207, 220 + +Vincent, Mr., 29 + on clairvoyance, 34, 36, 37 + +Virchow, cited, 19 + +Vui, non-ghost gods, 169, 197-200 + +Wabose, Catherine, Red Indian seeress, experience of, 73, 74 + +Waltz, cited, 177, 194 _note_, 218-220, 222, 243 + +Wallace, Alfred Basset, on Hume's theory of 'miracles,' 17, 18 + on Ritter, 29 + on clairvoyance, 31 + +Wayao, Supreme Being of the, 213, 214 + +Wellhausen, cited, 277, 283, 285, 286, 298 + +Welton, Thomas, on the divining-rod, 154 + +Wesley, John, cited, 16 + +White, Joseph, spirit manifestations at his house, 326-331 + +Wierus, cited, 15 + +Williams, Mr., cited, 201, 248 + +Wilson, Mr., cited, 50, 219, 220 + +Windward Isles, ideas of a God in, 251 + +Witch of Endor, the, 14, 277, 278 + +Witchcraft, 14-16 + +Wodrow, Mr., cited, 16 + +Wolf tribes, 233 + +Wynne, Captain, cited, 335 + +Yama, Vedic-Aryan ghost-god, 188 + +Yaos, religious beliefs of, 150, 213, 214-216 + +Yerri Yuppon, good spirit of the Chonos, 175 + +York, a Fuegian, cited, 174 + +Yuncus, a Peruvian race, worship of, 240, 246 + +Zarate, Augustin de, cited, 240 + +Zoller, M., disturbances in the house of, 156, 157 + +Zulus, religious beliefs and customs of, 65, 66, 68, 70, 72, 85, 128, + 141, 142, 150, 152, 207-210 + +Zunis, hymns of the, 248, 251 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Making of Religion, by Andrew Lang + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAKING OF RELIGION *** + +***** This file should be named 12353.txt or 12353.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/5/12353/ + +Produced by Robert Connal, William A. 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