The Making of Religion 1898

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THE

MAKING OF RELIGION

BY

ANDEEW LANG M.A., LL.D. St

Akdeews

HONOBABT FELLOW OP MEBTON COLLEGE, OXTOBB SOMETIME elFFOBD LECTUREE IN THE UNIVEESITY OF ST ANDREWS

LONGMANS, ^GEEEN, AND 89

CO.

PATEENOSTBB EOW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1898

All

rights

reaerved

<>s U ''/,^

'i

\\

{\

^^

4"

3<0

TO TEE PBINCIPAL 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,

History of Religion.

these

chapters

on

the

early

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

triumph; and the friends of against Fate

— Patrick

lost causes

who fought

to

bravely

Hamilton, Gargill, and Argyll, Beaton

and Montrose, and Dundee.

Believe

me

Very sincerely yours,

ANDREW LANG.

PBEFACE '

The only begetter

febnre, author of

is

this

of

work

is

Monsieur Le-

Les Yeux d'Horus,' and other

He

in Egyptology.

but

'

'

suggested the writing of the book,

in no way responsible

The author cannot omit Mr. Frederic Myers

studies

for the opinions expressed.

the opportunity of thanking

for his kindness in reading the proof

sheets of the earlier chapters

and suggesting some

Mr. Myers, however,

rections of statement.

is

probably

not in agreement with the author on certain points

example, in the chapter on

'

cor-

;

for

As the second

Possession.'

part of the book differs considerably from the opinions

which have recommended themselves pological writers here, as

how

he says

facts look

St.

later,

that no

:

harm can come

from a new point

them

presents for criticism.

Andrews

most anthro-

on early Religion, the author must say

tainly did not expect

now

to

April

3,

1898.

of view,

of trying

and that he

to fall into the shape

cer-

which he

CONTENTS CHAPTER

PAGE

Introductory Chapter

I.

Science and

II.

Miracles

'

1

...

' .

.

Anthropology and Beligion

III.

IV.

'

Opening the Gates of Distance

43

...

'

...

Crystal Visions, Savage and Civilised

V.

Anthropology and Hallucinations

VI. VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

15

.

.

.

.

72 90 113

Demoniacal Possession

138

Fetishism and Spiritualism

159

Evolution of the Idea of God

173

High Gods of Low Eaobs

187

Supreme Gods not necessarily developed out of

XI.

'Spirits'

...

...

Savage Supreme Beings

XII.

210

More Savage Supreme Beings

XIII.

XIV.

Ahonb.

Ti-ra-wa.

Na-pi.

230

Pachacamac.

Tui Laga.

Taa-Eoa

251

The Old Degeneration Theory

XV. XVI.

278

Theories op Jehovah

XVII.

Conclusion

201

.

...

294 317

APPENDICES. A. Oppositions of Science

B.

The Poltergeist and

his Explainers

337 .

.

.

352

C. Crystal-gazing

367

D. Chiefs in Australia

370

INDEX

371

THE MAKING OF EELIGION I

INTBOBUCTOBY CHAPTEB

The modern

Science of the History of

attained conclusions firmly

established.

stated thus '

soul

'

Man

:

from

Eeligion has

which already possess an air of being These conclusions may be briefly

derived the conception of

his reflections

'

spirit

on the phenomena

'

or

of sleep,

dreams, death, shadow, and from the experiences of trance

Worshipping

and hallucination.

fixst

the departed souls

man later extended the doctrine of many directions. Ghosts, or other

of his kindred,

spiritual

beings in

spiritual

existences fashioned

became gods. cesses,

on the same

lines,

prospered

till

one of these gods became supreme, and,

was regarded

they

Finally, as the result of a variety of pro-

as

the one only God.

retained his belief in the existence of his

at last,

Meanwhile man

own

soul, surviv-

ing 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 desirable-

ness of revising a system at once so simple, so logical,

and apparently so well bottomed on

facts.

But

there can

B

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

2

never be any real

harm

in studying

masses of evidence

of adverse from fresh points of view. At Voorst, the failure assailed. doctrines the criticism must help to establish view from Now, as we shall show, there are two points of

religion in its early stages has not

which the evidence as to

intend to ask, been steadily contemplated. Therefore we ascertained as to the nature first, what, if anything, can be which, according to hallucinations of the 'visions' and Mr. Tylor in his celebrated work 'Primitive Culture,' lent their

Secondly,

which we

aid to the formation of the

we

shall

and compare

collect

possess of the

idea of

High Gods and

'

spirit.'

the accounts creative beings

by the most backward races.

worshipped or believed in, shall then ask whether these relatively Supreme Beings, so conceived of by men in very rudimentary

We

can be, as anthropology declares, mere

social conditions,

developments from the belief in ghosts of the dead. "We shall end by venturing to suggest that the savage

may

be based, at least in part, on experiences which cannot) at present, be made to fit into any

theory of the soul

We

purely materialistic system of the univers e.

shall

also bring evidence tending to p rove that the idea of God in J|s earliest known^ shape, need not l ogically be der ived ,

from, the idea of

spirit,

however that idea

been attained or evolve d. The

itself

not be evol ved out of reflections on dreams and If these cess, it is

'

ghosts.

two positions can be defended with any

'

suc-

obvious that the whole theory of the Science of

Eeligion will need to be reconsidered. evident that our

But

it is

no

two positions do not depend on each

may be

The

first

may

be masked

of the

may have

conception of God, then, need

less

other.

regarded as fantastic, or improbable, or

and left on one side. But the strength second position, derived from evidence of a different '

'

character, will not, therefore, be in

any way impaired

INTEODUCTOEY

Our

first

3

position can only be argued for

dence highly unpopular in character,

by

anfl,

dint of evi-

as a general

condenmed by modern science. The evidence is obtained by what is, at all events, a legitimate anthropo-

rule,

We may foUovs^ Mr. Tylor's example,

logical proceeding.

and

collect savage beliefs

about visions, hallucinations,

and the acquisition

'clairvoyance,'

of

knowledge appa-

normal channels of these savage beliefs with sense. We may then compare attested records of similar experiences among living and attainable through the

rently not

Even

we

no concluor a negative conclusion, as to the actuality and

educated civilised men. sion,

if

attain to

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

The

logical science.

strengthen our tive, if

position,

whether they do or do not

must be curious and

too, is

what we may

concerned

call

the

X region of

Islam

come ;

Lord Himself,

down

have

cer-

forth the great religions, Christianity and

and the great St.

religious innovators

Francis,

to the founder of the

Arapahoe.

Out

our nature.

of that region, out of miracle, prophecy, vision,

tainly

instruc-

human error. with no mean topic, but

only as a chapter in the history of

That chapter, v/ith

first

part, of the function of anthropo-

results,

It cannot, then,

and

leaders,

John Knox, Jeanne

new

faith of the

our

d'Arc,

Sioux and

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.

may

We

conceivably have something to learn (as has been

the case before) from the rough observations and hasty inferences of the most

backward

races. B 2

THE HIAKING OF RELIGION

4

We may illustrate this by an '

The Northern Indians

call

anecdote

the

:

Aurora Borealis "Ed-

Their ideas in this respect are thin," that is "Deer." would not imagine. Experience one principle founded on a 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

So says Hearne (p.

fire.'

'

his

in

Journey,' published in 1795'

346).

This observation of the Eed

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 con-

unknown

clusion, long

to civilised science.

They con-

nected 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

The cosmic pomp and splendour

Derwentwater's Lights.'

shone to welcome the loyal Derwentwater into heaven, when he had given his life for his exiled king.

Now, is

my

purpose in the earlier portion of this essay

to suggest that certain

apparently as

trivial as

hide in a dark night,

phenomena

of

human

nature,

the sparks rubbed out of a deer's

may

indicate,

and may be

force or forces, which, like the Aurora Borealis,

allied to

may

a

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

knovm

to be allied which man could tame and use. But just as the Indians, by a rapid careless inference, attributed the Aurora Borealis to electric in-

to the lightning, or to indicate a force

INTKODUCTORY

5

fluences, so (as anthropology assures us) savages

have inferred the existence

everywhere

of soul or spirit, intelligence that

Does not know the bond of Time, Nor wear the manacles of Space,'

'

from certain apparently trivial phenomena of human

in part

These phenomena, as Mr. Tylor

faculty.

movement

intellectual

the

of

simply thrown aside as worthless.'

says,

'

the great

two centuries has

last

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

coincidentally with

that

is

called

'

unknown

second

of sense, the occur-

prima

rence of hallucinations which,

events

sight,' or

'

facie,

correspond

a distance,

at

clairvoyance,'

all

and other

more obscure. Reasoning on these real or alleged phenomena, and on other quite normal and accepted things even

dream, shadow, sleep, trance, and death, savages

facts of

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

by the rubbing together

Tvere caused

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.

separable souls

of

He

believes in

wandering

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

Primitive Culture,

i.

156.

may

indicate faculties

London, 1891.

THE MAKING OP EELIGION

6

which

science,

laughed It '

at,

and in a few instances, has thrown aside as worthless.'

of late

till

ignored,

'

should be observed that I

word

spiritualism,' a

tricably entangled

Some

credulity.

of

with fraud, bad of

am

not speaking of

the worst associations, inexlogic,

and the blindest

phenomena alluded their own province by

the

however, been claimed as

'

and need to be rescued from them.

to

have,,

spiritists,'

Mr. Tylor writes

:

The issue raised by the comparison of savage, barbaric,, and civilised spiritualism is this Do the Eed 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

my

In

!

That does not seem to

opinion the issue

is

Tatar, the Highland seer, least reputable of the

me

to be the issue..

Have the Eed Indian, the and the Boston medium (the :

'

menagerie) observed, and reasoned

wildly from, and counterfeited, and darkened with imposture, certain genuine by-products of

human

faculty,,

which do noi prima facie deserve to be thrown aside? That, I venture to think, science

may toss

tions of

aside as worthless

the

whole topic

of

is

That

some valuable observaadmitted by people

now universally facts. Among these

savages

who know

the real issue.

is

'

observations

is

the

Hypnotism, with the use of suggestion for healing purposes, and the phenomena, no longer denied,., of

'

alternating personalities.'

ment we may appeal

For the truth

of this state-

to one of the greatest of Continental

anthropologists, Adolf Bastian.' The missionaries, like Livingstone, usually supposed that the savage seer's Ueber psycMsche Gunther, 1890. '

Beobachtungen

bei

Naturvblkern.

Leinzig

— INTRODUCTORY declared ignorance

—

7

after his so-called

what occurred in that nobody now doubts the of

state,

fit

was an

of inspiration iifiposture.

But

what has

similar oblivion of

passed that sometimes follows the analogous hypnotic

Of a remarkable cure, which the school

sleep.

Salpetriere or to

'

Nancy would

with probable

ascribe,

example

suggestion,' a savage

will

be given

the

of

justice,

later.

suggestion,' among the Sioux and Arapahoe, has been thought worthy of a whole volume in the Eeports of the Ethnological Bureau of

Savage hypnotism and

'

the Smithsonian Institute ("Washington, U.S., 1892-93).

Bepublican Governments publish gardless of expense,'

and the

They

been put more shortly.

essential points

In

rapport}

peculiarities of

and throw

brief,

'

re-

might have

illustrate the fact that

certain persons can hypnotise others,

some

matter

scientific

only

light

on

savages antici-

pated us in the modern science of experimental psychology, as

is

frankly acknowledged

Psychology of Berlin. mystical

phenomena

by the Society for Experimental That many of the so-called much more common and pro'

are

minent among savages than among ourselves is familiar to everyone acquainted vdth the subject. The ethnological

demands penetrative

side of our inquiry

study.'

^

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 com'

pare, as I

for

'

have already

savage usages

said,

and

the ethnological evidence

beliefs

analogous to

thought-

transference, coincidental hallucinations, alternating personality,

and so

forth,

with the best attested modern

examples, experimental or spontaneous. '

See especially pp. 922-926.

and, indeed, touching, as

is

This raises the

interesting in other ways,

describes the founding of a

on a basis of Hypnotism and Christianity. Progi'amme of the Society, p. iv.

religion, ^

it

The book

new Eed Indian

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

8

question of our evidence, which

We

all-important.

is

proceed to defend it. The savage accounts are on the they may, that level of much anthropological evidence ;

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 '

is,

evidence from

brought by

When

ages and quarters.'

all

travellers, ancient

the stories

and modern, learned and

we have when

unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, all

the certainty that anthropology can

we

find practically the

Again,

offer.

same strange neglected sparks, not

only rumoured of in European popular superstition, but attested in

many hundreds

modem

hand by respectable sponsible,

we cannot

of depositions

We

witnesses, educated and re-

we

'

survival

'

of savage

and nothing more.

can no longer do

so, it is agreed, in

I hope to

hypnotic phenomena. that

at first

honestly or safely dismiss the coinci-

dence of report as indicating a mere superstitious belief,

made

make

it

the case of

seem

possible

should not do so in the matter of the hallucinations

provoked by gazing in a smooth deep, usually styled '

Ethnologically, this practice

crystal-gazing.'

as old as classical times, distribution.

New

I

and

is

prove

at least

of practically world-wide

its

existence in Australia,

Zealand, North America,

South America, Asia,

shall

Africa, Polynesia,

and among the Incas, not to speak

the middle and recent European ages. is

is

that such visions

Polynesian case,

'

may

be

'

The

clairvoyant.'

of

universal idea

To

take a

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.

god

is

Then he gazes

into the water,

supposed to place the '

spirit of

Tylor, Primitive Culture,

i.

'

the 9, 10.

over which the thief.

.

.

.

The

INTRODUCTORY image

of the thief

9

account, re-

was, according to their

flected in the water,

and being perceived Ky the

he

priest,

named

the individual, or the parties.'' 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

by

confirmed opponents,

'non-mystical writers,'

Munich.^ visions

and so and

balls,

may

correctly reflect, as

it

by

accepted

Dr. Parish

like

I shall bring evidence to

now

forth, is

experiment,

frequent

of

suggest that the

were, persons and places

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 absolutely

be,

and

are, explained

science has

still

by the theory of spirits.' Modem an explanation consistent with '

to find

recognised laws of nature, but

'

spirits

we

'

shall

not

invoke.

In the same way I mean to examine

ihe

'

-fchen

so-called mystical

phenomena

To

fess that I

do not see

To the

:

we adduce

is

how

we.

I

modern

the adverse anthropologist,

your

Some

of

is

own it is

to evade the following

we

anthropologist

say,

tion in favour of that opinion,

As

we

.savage observations of abnormal Polynesian Researches,

Ellis,

Halliicinations

and

evidence

you may argue from it, so evidence to unusual facts, more of

necessarily without foundation.

^

The

If

evidence to singular beliefs, which

'

'

evidence, that of books of travel

in aU lands and countries.

may

life.'

for

of

return to the question of evidence, I con-

psychologist, or popular agnostic

dilemma

most

or

savage

compare them with the better vouched

examples.

it is

of

all

Illusioiis.

ii.

we

raising a

cite

think not

presump-

examples in which

and once rejected

facts,

p. 240.

English edition, pp. 63-70, 297.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

10

to have a large residuum of admitted in some cases may-

now admitted by science truth, we argue that what is are

No

to be admitted in more.

come

a priori

line

can here

be drawn.'

To

the psychologist

who

objects that

our modern

mere anecdotes, we reply by asking, Dear What do you sir, what are your modern instances ? " A.," whom you still persistently cite as know of Mrs. instances are

an example

German

the

learned

'

of

morbid recurrent hallucinations

?

Name

servant girl who, in a fever, talked several

languages, which

she

had heard her former

Where did she live ? who who heard her, who understood her?'

master, a scholar, declaim

vouches for her,

!

is, you know, no evidence at all the anecdote is by Coleridge the phenomena are said by him to have been observed "in a Koman Catholic town in Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Gottingen. Many eminent physiologists and psychologists visited the town." Why do you not name a few out of the distinguished crowd ? This anecdote, a rumour of a rumour

There

;

told

:

.

.

.

'

'

of a Protestant explanation of a Catholic marvel,

by Coleridge

The

at least

twenty years

psychologists copy

it,^

one

was

told

after the possible date. after

the other, as a

jump where their leader has jumped. example by way of anecdote may be permitted. flock of sheep

An

According to the current anthropological theory, the

was suggested to early men by dreams. They seemed, in sleep, to

idea of soul or spirit

experiences in

remote places

;

therefore, they argued,

visit

something vpithin

them was capable

of leaving the body and wandering This something was the soul or spirit. Now it obvious that this opinion of early men would be con-

about. is

their

'

'

Sir William Hamilton's Lecbwres, i. 345. Maudsley, Kerner, Carpenter, Du Prel, Zangwill.

INTRODUCTORY firmed

II

they ever chanced to acquire, in ^dreams, know-

if

ledge of places which they had never visited, and of facts as to which, in their

This

information.

waking

they could have no

state,

experience,

indeed,

would

problems even to Mr. Herbert Spencer,

if

it

suggest occurred

to him.

Conversing on this topic with a friend of acknowledged

my

philosophical eminence, I illustrated story of a dream.

with

whom

rence, and

person, to

discovered.

details, for

this

:

It

was reported

to

am well acquainted, was

me by

the dreamer,

of very recent occur-

was corroborated by the evidence of another whom the dream was narrated, before its fulfil-

ment was was

I

meaning by a

I

am

not at liberty to publish the

good reasons, but the essence

A. and B. (the dreamer) had

of the matter

common

interests.

A. had taken certain steps about which B. had only a

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 unsurmise, and a vague one, that steps

known

facts,

culminating in two definite results, capable

of being stated in figures.

These

results,

known

nature of the case, could not be

by the very

to A., so that,

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. before he

Now

I

am

not asking the reader's belief for this anec-

dote (for that could only be yielded in virtue of knowledge of the veracity of B.

and C), but I

the psychological explanation.

A. had told B.

all

about the

invite his attention to

My friend

affair,

suggested that

that B. had not listened

(though his interests were vitally concerned), and that the

crowd

of curious details, naturally unfamiliar to B.,

had

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

12

reposed in his subconscious memory, and had been revived in the dream.

Now minute

B.'s

details,

to him.

dream was a dream of reading a mass of including names of places entirely unknown

may

It

be admitted, in accordance with the

psychological theory, that B. might have received

all this

information from A., but, by dint of inattention

malady

of

not marking

sciously arfraxe of

— 'the

—

might never have been conwhat he heard. Then B.'s subconscious '

memory of what he did not upon him in his dream.

consciously

know might break

Instances of similar mental

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

phenomena

are not

;

result

for

with perfect accuracy, which cannot be accounted

by the

revival

of

subconscious

Neither asleep nor awake can a impossible for

him

in

sleep.

man remember what

it is

The dream contained

have known.

to

memory

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 dream,

German

my

friend

girl

of psychological explanation of the

Coleridge's legend,

as to the

and her unconscious knowledge

of certain

cited

learned languages.

'

And what

truth of Coleridge's legend ?

none known Coleridge.

the evidence for the

Of course, there

to all the psychologists

Neither,

if

However, psychology narratives,

'

is

and yet

who

is

quote

none, or it

from

true,

was the legend

will

accept such unauthenticated

to the point.

will scoff at first hand, duly corrobo-

rated testimony from living and honourable people, about

recent events.

Only a great force

of prejudice

can explain this accept-

-

INTRODUCTORY ance,

by psychologists,

on no evidence, and marvellous

tale,

of

this

13

one kind of marvellous rejection

v^hen supported by

tale

another class of

of first

hand, signed and

corroborated evidence, of living witnesses.

I see only one

escape for psychologists from this dilemma.

Their marvel-

lous 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

which means that they have with them, from youth upwards, in

that they are impossible,

not been familiar lectures '

and manuals.

But man has no

clear ideas of the possible

a

and impossible,'

right to have like

Faraday,

There are other

priori, except in the exact sciences.

weak evidence which satisfies psychologists. Hamilton has an anecdote, borrowed from Monboddo,who got it from Mr. Hans Stanley, who, about twenty-six instances of

'

of the story, Madame memorandum somewhere in my Mr. Stanley, vaguely. Then we have two

years ago,' heard

de Laval.

'

it

from the subject

I have the

papers,' says

American anecdotes by Dr. Flint and Mr. Eush; and such is Sir William Hamilton's equipment of odd facts for

discussing the unconscious

least credible

and worst attested

or

subconscious.

of these narratives still

appears in popular works on psychology.

Moreover,

psychology, except experimental psychology, anecdotes which people periences.

tell

about their

own

offered rewards in

money

about visualised rows of coloured

for

figures,

as

all

based on

subjective ex-

such narratives

and so on.

prima facie right object to our anecdotes of experiences, which he regards purely subjective. As evidence, we only accept them first hand, and, when possible, the witnesses have been Clearly the psychologist, then, has no

at

is

Mr. Galton, whose original researches are well

known, even

to

The

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

14

Our evidence

cross-examined personally. consists of travellers' tales, satisfies

is

on a

Where

the anthropologist.

then,

where

it

consists of

it

which

level vs^ith that

modern

statements of personal experience, our evidence is often infinitely better

much which

than

As

experimental psychologist.

is

accepted by the non-

for

the agnostic writer

on the Non-Eeligion of the Future, M. Guyau actually illustrates the Eesurrection of our Lord by an American

myth about

whom

a criminal, of

a hallucinatory phantasm

appeared to each of his gaol companions, separately and

For this on a day after his execution reference to authority no hint of is prodigious given.' Yet the evidence appears to satisfy M. Guyau, and successively,

!

fable

is

him

used by

The

to reinforce his argument.

anthropologist and psychologist, then,

admit that their evidence good, or must '

possible

of

what

They thus

possible,

is

either

ours,

as

if

constitute themselves judges

and practically regard themselves as

many

Science has had to accept so

omniscient.

must

no better than

say that they only believe evidence as to

facts.

'

is

things

once scoffed at as impossible,' that this attitude of hers, as '

we

shall

My

show

in chapter

suggestion

is

phenomena vouched

ii.,

ceases to

command

respect.

that the trivial, rejected, or unheeded for

by the evidence here defended

may, not inconceivably, be

of

considerable importance.

But, stating the case at the lowest, cerned with illusions and fables,

it

if

we

are only con-

cannot but be curious to

note their persistent uniformity in savage and civilised

To make

the

first of oiir

two main positions

in part to justify ourselves in asking

such matters, relations

we now

offer

any attention

'

and for

Miraculous

in the past. The Non-Beligion of

life.

an historical sketch of the

between Science and the so-called

'

clear,

the Future, p. 92, 1897.

'

15

II

SCIENCE AND 'MIBACLES' Historical Sketch

Eeseaecti

in the

When

sun.

X

region

is

not a

new thing under the

Saul disguised himself before his conference

with the Witch of Endor, he made an elementary attempt at a scientific test of the supernormal.

went much

further,

when he

Croesus, the king,

tested the clairvoyance of

the oracles of Greece, by sending an embassy to

he was doing

at a given

asli;

what

hour on a given day, and by then

We do not

doing something very bizarre.

know how

the

Delphic oracle found out the right answer, but various easy methods of fraud at once occur to the mind. ever, the procedure of Croesus,

if

How-

he took certain precau-

was relatively scientific. Eelatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphjrry, with whose position our tions,

own

is

not unlikely to be compared.

to accept Christianity,

Porphyry

'

Unable, or reluctant,

sought after a sign

an element of supernormal truth in Paganism.

began

at the

wrong

end,

namely

at

Pagan

'

of

But he

spiritualistic

with the usual accompaniments of darkness and His perplexed letter to Anebo, with the reply attributed to lamblichus, reveal Porphyry wandering puzzled among mediums, floating lights, odd noises, queer dubious physical phenomena.' He did not begin

seances, fraud.

'

with accurate experiments as to the existence of apparently supernormal

human

faculties,

rare, and and he seems to

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

16

have attained no conclusion except that '

'

spirits

are-

'

deceitful.'

(Something more akin to modern research began about the time of the Eeformation, and lasted till about

The fury

1680.

for

burning witches led

men

of sense,

and humanity to ask whether there was any

learning,

in witchcraft, and, generally, in the marvels of

reality

popular

The

belief.

Le

Bodinus, Wierus, others,

Thyrseus, Lavaterus,

inquiries of

Loyer, Eeginald Scot, and

many

tended on the whole to the negative side

regards

the wilder fables about witches, but

where they were Lavaterus

{circ.

before.

may be

It

the

left

problems of ghosts and haunted houses pretty

as

much

observed

that

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

heard in

'

doubted whether the noises

Thyrseus

haunted houses

of the sense of hearing.

were not mere hallucinations

'

But

these early writers, like

all

Cardan, were very careless of

first-hand evidence, and,,

indeed, preferred ghosts vouched for

Glanvil, F.B.S. {circ. 1666), a

came

evidence

of

Glanvil' s

into

and other

use.

by classical authority,

With

Pliny, Plutarch, or Suetonius.

more

the Eev. Joseph

careful examination

Among

the

marvels

of

tracts usually published together in

Sadducismus Triumphatus will be found letters which show that he and his friends, like Henry More and his

'

'

Boyle, laboured to collect first-hand evidence for second sight,

haunted houses, ghosts, and wraiths.

was

fessed object

to procure a

'Whip

The con-

for the Droll,' a

reply to the laughing scepticism of the Eestoration. result '

was

to bring

on Glanvil a throng of bores

See Mr. Myers's paper on the

and the author's Ancient '

'

—he

The was

Ancient Oracles,' in Classical Essays,

Spiritualism,' in

Cock Lane and

Common

Sense.

— SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES'

17

worse haunted than Mr. Mompesson's house,' he says and Mr. Pepys found his arguments 'not^ery convincing.' '

Mr. Pepys, however, was alarmed by our young gib-cftit,' which he mistook for a 'spright.' With Henry More, Baxter, and Glanvil practically died, for the time, the '

attempt to investigate these topics

an impression

doubt was

scientifically,

though

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.

of

Ghost

left

continued to be

stories

but not to

told,

be investigated.

Then one

of the

most acute

of philosophers

that investigation ought never scientific attitude

to

towards

decided

to be attempted.

X phenomena, that of

This

refusing

examine them, and denying them without examina-

tion,

was

fixed

by David

Hume

in his celebrated essay

Miracles.' Hume derided the observation and study 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 knowHis famous argument, the joy of many an honest ledge. breast, is a tissue of fallacies which might be given for

on

'

of

'

exposure to beginners in

logic, as

an elementary

exercise.

Hume

amusingly displays

the self-complacency and the want of

humour with which

In announcing his discovery,

we

Scots are

commonly charged by our

critics

:

I flatter myself that I have discovered an argument if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusions. '

which,

— THE MAKING OF RELIGION

18

and consequently

will

be useful as long as the world

endures.'

He does not expect, however, to convince the Till the

end of the world,

Hume

argues that

He

in reasoning.'

uniformity, not of

of

all

all

sacred

is

our only guide

a

law

'

a violation

'

of nature

'

he means a

experience, but of such experience ;

while he excludes, without

evidence for experience of the absence

such uniformity.

be considered.

By

admit

will deign to

examination,

experience

'

then defines a miracle as

of the laws of nature.'

he

all histories,

Without saying here what he means by a

and profane.'

as

multitude.

accounts of miracles and pro-

suppose, will be found in

digies, I

miracle,

'

'

That kind

of

experience cannot

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

counter to universal experience, therefore no event miracle.

If

miracle

(we

evidence

is

is

a

you produce evidence to what Hume calls a shall see examples) he replies that the

not valid, ujiless

miraculous than the e-vidence

is

can

be

fact.

falsehood would be more

its

Now

no

error

more miraculous than a

of

human

'miracle.'

Therefore there can be no valid evidence for 'miracles.'

Hume now gives miracles.' He says

an example of what he

Fortunately,

means by

'

:

For, first, there is not to he 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 mankiad, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood ; and at '

;

;

'

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES'

19

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 miavoidable all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men.' ;

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

he had

;

indeed, he contradicted himself before

v?ritten 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 usu.al effects of that holy But what is more extraordinary, many of the sepulchre. 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. 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 Where shall we find such a number of cirdetect them. cumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility, oy miraculous nature of the events which they relate ? And this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a suffi'

A

;

cient refutation.'

Thus

Hume first denies

the existence of such evidence,

given in such circumstances as he demands, and then he The italics here are those of Mr. Alfred Eusaell Wallace, in his Miracles and Modem Science. Mr. Huxley, in his exposure of Hume's fallacies (in '

his Life of

was

Hume), did not examine the Jansenist

'

miracles

'

which Hume

criticising.

c 2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

20

kind

produces an example of that very

Having done

he abandons

this,

(as

evidence.

of

Mr. Wallace observes) and

his original assertion that the evidence does not exist,

takes refuge in alleging

'

the absolute impossibility

events vs^hich the evidence supports.

of the

'

Hume poses

Thus

as

a perfect judge of the possible, in a kind of omniscience.

He

takes his stand on the uniformity of

that

is

testimony to other experience, even

all

experience

all

not hostile to his idea of the possible, and dismisses

standard of evidence. position

'

that

when

reaches his

it

He is remote indeed from Virchow's

what we

laws of nature must vary

call the

according to our frequent

new experiences.'

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 '

is

now

somewhere

said to be

his book.'

Many

in a

Hume

lightly,

dungeon on account

of the miracles of the

Abbe

of

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 curds of Paris pressed him to examine '

.

these miracles

.

.

.

But

.

.

Hume

he wisely forbore.'

his testimony to the character of these cures.

adds

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 surprising, of

cases of healing,

cataleptic rigidity,

and of

pain,

among visitors

Had

the cases been judicially examined

to the

tomb

of the

many

of

them

insensibility to

Abbe Paris (all

(1731).

medical evi-

dence 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 '

Moll, Hyp^iotism, p. 357.

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES'

own

of not giving his

The

Hume applauds the wisdom

But

miracles of Christianity.

21

theory this chanCe of a triumph.

were

cataleptic seizures

of the sort

now

familiar to

Thesehave, therefore, emergedfromthemiraculous.

science.

fact, the phenomena which occurred at the tomb of the Abbe Paris have emerged almost too far, and now seem

In

In

in danger of being too readily and too easily accepted.

1887

MM.

Binet and Fere, of the school of the Salp^triere,

published in English a popular manual styled

Magnetism.'

These

'

Animal

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.

Abbe That

as to the

phenomena

Paris, they say that is,

called •

But

'

'

miracles

'

of the '

Binet and Fere the so-

really occurred,

the imagination,' by

tomb

suggestion explains them.'

MM.

in the opinion of

at the

and were worked by

self-suggestion.'

'

The most famous

case

—that

of

Coirin

Mile.

— has

been carefully examined by Dr. Charcot.^ Mile. Coirin

had a dangerous

September 1716, in her details

may

Montgeron.^ left breast,'

fall

thirty-first

from her horse,

in

The medical

year.

be looked for in Dr. Charcot's essay or in '

Her

disease

the nipple

'

was diagnosed as cancer of the Amputation of off bodily.'

fell

the breast was proposed, but

Madame

Coirin, believing

the disease to be radically incurable, refused her consent. Paralysis of the ling up.

left side set in (1718),

On August

9,

the

left

1731, Mile. Coirin

'

leg shriveltried the off

on a shift that had touched the tomb of Paris, and used some earth from the grave. On August 11, Mile. Coirin could turn herself in bed on chance

'

of a miracle, put

;

'

^ ''

Animal Magnetism,

p. 355.

A translation of his work was published in the New Review, January 1893. La ViriU des Miracles, Cologne, 1747, Septitoe Demonstration.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

'2->

the 12th the horrible to close

and

its

up and

heal.'

wound was staunched, and began The paralysed side recovered life '

By September 3, Mile.

natural proportions.

Coirin

could go out for a drive. All her malady, says Dr. Charcot, paralysis,

and

all,

was

'

hysterical

; ' '

'

cancer,'

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

which was due to vaso-motor

The

instantaneously.

the oedema,

trouble, disappeared almost

breast regained

its

normal

size.'

Dr. Charcot generously adds that shrines, like Lourdes,

whom he could not inspire the He certainly cannot explain of the faith cure.'

have cured patients in operation

'

'

everything which claims to be of supernatural origin in

We have to learn

the faith cure. I

am among

the

to

first

words hold good to-day "

the lesson of patience.

recognise that Shakespeare's

:

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

suggestion mentale

call

— suggestion by thought-transference —he could have explained the

(which I think he did not)

healing of the Centurion's servant,

and

my '

Nobody knows. if

But what do we mean by hysterical ? The 'mind,' somehow, causes gan'

not cancers, paralysis,

the mind, somehow,

'mind'? As my

a distance

and by premising that the servant's palsy

hysterical.'

grenes,

Say the word, Lord,

servant shall be healed,' by suggestion

(telepathy),

was

'

cures

them.

shrinking of

And what

object is to give savage parallels to

instances better

vouched

for,

'

tissues; is

the

modern Ked

I quote a singular

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES Indian

cure

Canada

in

affecting the sledge,

'

by

1770,

'

whole

of

'

native

one

side.

who h&d

He was

travelling '

in

dead palsy,'

dragged on a

reduced to a mere skeleton,' and so was placed in

The swallowing by a

the magic lodge. public

Hearne,

suggestion.'

met a

SJS

first

step in his cure

was the

conjurer of a board of wood,

about the size of a barrel-stave,' twice as wide across as

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 Now same conjurer had previously swallowed a cradle bayonet swallowing, which he also did, is possible, though

his mouth.

'

'

!

Hearne denies

The

real

217).

it (p.

object

ever performed,

is,

of

these preliminary feats,

how-

probably, to inspire faith, which Dr.

Charcot might have done by swallowing a cradle.

The

Indians explain that the barrel staves apparently swallowed

by

are merely dematerialised

'

spirits,'

leaving only the

forked end sticking out of the conjurer's mouth.

Hearne caught the conjmrer

in the act of

making

In

fact,

a sepa-

rate forked end.

Faith being thus inspired, the conjurer, for three the poor entire days, blew, sang, and danced round '

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 paralytic,' fasting.

'

the fingers and toes of the side that had been so long dead.

... At the end

his family

'

(p.

and adds, what

219). is

weeks he went a-hunting for Hearne kept up his acquaintance, of six

very curious, that he developed almost

a secondary personality.

'

Before that dreadful paralytic

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

34

he had been distinguished for his good nature and benevolent disposition, was entirely free from every appearstroke,

ance of avarice, ... but after this event he was the most fractious, quarrelsome, discontented, and covetous wretch alive' (p. 220).

Dr. Charcot,

he had been acquainted with

if

this case,

of the nature of those

would probably have said that it is which Professor Eussell Eeynolds has classified under the Unluckily, head of " paralysis dependent on idea." Hearne does not tell us how his hunter, an untutored '

'

'

became paralysed by

Indian,

'

Dr. Charcot adds

' :

idea.'

In every

case, science is a foe to

morrow may cause new triumphs.' The

systematic negation, which the

to melt

away in the light new triumph is

present

'

'

our Lord,

'

Thy

of its

a

faith

mere coincidence with the

not found so great faith, no, not in cures, as there are maladies, caused

we had always wherever friend to

A

it '

understood.

'

agrees with David

There are

Israel.'

by

Hume,

So, in fact,

idea.'

But the point is

is

that science,

not a foe, but a

systematic negation.'

parallel

case of a 'miracle,' the stigmata of St.

Francis, was, of course, regarded

But,

a fraud.

dicta of

hath made thee whole. ... I have

now

by

science as a fable or

that blisters and other lesions can be

produced by suggestion, the fable has become a probable fact, and, therefore,

marks

not a miracle at

all.''

Mr. James

re-

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 enlighten'

See Dr. Rusaell

November 2

Eeynolds's

paper

in

British

Medical

1869.

James, Principles of Psychology,

ii.

612.

Charcot, op.

cit.

Journal,

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES'

ment the moment

it

25

appears that a reputed saint can

thereby be claimed as a case of " hystero-'epilepsy."

'

'

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 time of Christ, mythical

—proved

ments probably false.

If so,

facts?

facts,

say from the

so far proved to be not necessarily

is

to be not incapable of carrying statecorrect,

which once seemed absolutely its power of carrying

where, precisely, ends

Thus

considered, the kinds of marvellous events

recorded in the Gospels, for example, are no longer to be

We cannot

dismissed on a priori grounds as 'mythical.'

now discard

evidence as necessarily false because

acknowledge that the very same evidence

convey to us

what

of

facts

clashes

it

we have to may safely

with our present ideas of the possible, when

which clashed with our fathers' notions but which are now accepted. Our

is possible,

notions of the possible cease to be a criterion of truth or falsehood, and our

contempt

must slowly

'

die, as

miracle

'

for the Gospels as after

'

miracle

within the realm of acknowledged law.

'

is

myths

brought

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. '

I

am

I

Analogous

if

not exactly

do not need to be told that Dr. Maudsley denied the fact in 1886. prepared with the evidence, if it is asked for by some savant who

happens not

to

know

it.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

as

now

similar events

confessedly take place, and are

longer looked upon as miraculous.

But

no

as long as they

were held to be miraculous, not to examine the evidence,

Hume, was

said

The

the policy of

'

reasonable people.'

all

was to deprive Science of the best sort of record of facts which she welcomes as soon as she thinks she can explain them.' 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, EUiotson, and other result

English inquirers of the mid-century, were subjected to such persecutions as official science could inflict. We read

M. Deslon,

of

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 in his

work

'

that Eeligion its services,'

may

The Non-Eeligion is

doomed.

'

be

M. Guyau,

cited.

of the Future,' argues

Poetic genius has withdrawn

witness Tennyson and

Browning

'

!

Among

orthodox Protestant nations miracles do not happen.'* But marvellous facts do happen.^ These marvellous '

facts,' '

'

M. Guyau, are what Hume called and advised the wise and learned to laugh

accepted by

miracles,'

'

without examination.

at,

'

not be, he said.

'

They were not facts, and could Guyau's mind they are facts,

Now to M.

and therefore are not miracles.

He

includes

gestion taking place even at a distance.'

'

mental sug-

A man

'can

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. '

Pp. 353-355.

3

p. 93

SCIENCE

AND 'MIRACLES'

transmit an almost compulsive command,

by a simple tension

adays, if

'

will

'

can

affect

us that they

lished,

Again,

are.

if

this truth is

and won from that region which

may

may

affect

appears now-

be

If this

so,

matter from a distance, obviously the

science forbid us to investigate, facts

it

his will.*

and matter are not what popular science

relations of will tells

of

27

be redeemed from that

Hume and popular

The admission

our views of possibilities?

among

estab-

who knows what other limbo, or how far they

mental action, operative a distance, only to M. Guyau,

now

is,

of

of course, personal

friends of the

new

negative

tradition.

He next argues that the plea"We return to Hmne. sures of wonder make all accounts of miracles worthless. '

He of

dogmatic

but

'

has just given an example of the equivalent pleasures disbelief.

so, manifestly, is

Then Religion is a disturbing force irreligion. The wise and learned ;

'

are content to deride the absurdity, without informing

themselves of the particular

The wise and

facts.'

are applauded for their scientific attitude.

destroy each other, for

but

all religions

all religions

cannot be true.

longer of force with people

'X phenomena,'

who

learned

Again, miracles

have their miracles,

This argument look on

'

miracles

is '

no

as=

not as divine evidences to the truth of

The gazing populace receives, without examination, whatever soothes superstition,' and Hume's whole purpose is to make the wise and learned imitate the

this or that creed.

'

gazing populace by rejecting alleged facts without exami'

The populace

nation.'

investigated

more than

did the

wise and learned.

Hume miracle

is

has an alternative definition of a miracle

—a '

a transgression of a law of nature by a parti-

by the interposition of reply that what Hume calls a

cular volition of the

Deity, or

some

We

invisible agent.'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

28 '

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.

may fairly be said that Hume men who wished to make so-called

is

It

arguing against

miracles

'

'

a test of

the truth of Jansenism, for example, and that he could not be expected to answer, by anticipation, ideas not

But he remains

current in his day.

the investigation of apparent less scientific

men

than

No

attitude can be

more common among many

or

his,

guilty of denouncing

facts.

of science.

According to the humorous wont of things in this world, the whole question of the marvellous had no sooner

been

ever

for

settled

Hume

by David

reopened by Emanuel Swedenborg. familiar with certain of the

works

of

than

it

was

Now, Kant was Hume, whether he

had read his 'Essay on Miracles or not. Far from declining to examine the portentous visions of Swedenborg, Kant '

'

'

As

interested himself deeply in the topic.

he wrote his

first

remarks on the

seer,

early as 1758

containing some

reports of stories or legends about Swedenborg's

In the true

voyance.'

wrote a first it.

letter to

spirit of

'

clair-

psychical research, Kant

Swedenborg, asking for information

hand.

The

Kant,

however,

seer got the letter, but

prints

one or

at

he never answered

two examples

of

Madame

Harteville, widow of 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

Swedenborg's successes.

the

tea,

Dutch envoy

in Stockholm,

or rather a coffee, party.

To

the assembled society

'

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' Swedenborg remarked,

'

29

in a cold-blooded way, that he

The

seen her man, and spoken to him.'

hite

M.

declared to Swedenborg that he had paid the

months before upstairs.

his decease

Madame

:

had

Harteville bill,

seven

the receipt was in a cupboard

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

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 71. But he was disappointed with what he papers.

read,

and in

what

'

Traume

sarcastic

eines Geistersehers,'

attempt

at

made

a metaphysical

a

some-

theory

of

apparitions.

Velut segri 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

tales of second-sight

and bogles.

loved a ghost-story

like Scott

laugh, publicly, at

;

them and

Like

may have Scott,

heard

he dearly

he was canny enough to

at himself for his interest in

Yet both would take trouble to inquire. As Kant vainly wrote to Swedenborg and others as he vainly spent 71. on 'Arcana Ccfilestia,' so Sir Walter was anxious them.

—

to

go to Egypt to examine the

voyance.

Kant

facts of ink-gazing clair-

confesses that each individual ghost-story

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

30

found him

whereas the cumulative mass made a

sceptical,

considerable impression.'

The

seventy pages of the

first

'

Traume

are devoted

'

to a perfectly serious discussion of the metaphysics of

On page

'Spirits.'

73 he pleasantly remarks,

shall understand that

said hitherto

all

who

he will not reproach the reader citizens of

two worlds

is

'Now we

superfluous,' and

regards seers not as

but as candidates for

(Plotinus),

Bedlam. Kant's irony

is

know how

self

He

peculiarly Scottish.

he

far

is

in

does not himsave his

and, to

earnest,

and character for canniness, he 'jocks wi'

self-respect

He

amuses himself with trying how far he can carry speculations on metaphysics (not yet reformed deeficulty.'

by

himself) into the realm of

own tendency

admissions about his

an immaterial .

or

some day

soul,

of

Mysticism

and how

Something on

knew

is

Lavaterus at least

topic

of

it is

'

in his

'

Philosophy

seventy pages of

first

Traume.'

action of spirit, even discar-

alluded to, (p. 52).

'

but the idea

is

Kant has a good

as old as

deal to say,

Demonology,' on the physics of Halluci-

spiritual

He

thinks the whole

being only important as bearing on

life.

As

speculation, all

as in such matters the learned

level of ignorance, science will

repeats the

be,

Kant himself does not know. business, they would trans-

antiquated matter.

hopes of a future

and

may

These admis-

own

their

like telepathy,

spirit,

nation, but

are, or

but they are only part of Kant's joke,

'

like Scott in his

Du Prel

welcomed by

;

and publish Kant's

nate,

to

and that these points

far they are serious,

If spiritualists late

makes think that he has

will be, scientifically solved.

sions are eagerly

He

the ghostly.

Swedenborg '

is

'

in the

not discuss them.

stories,

Traume,

air,'

and unlearned are on a

and thinks

p. 76.

it

He

then

would be

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' useful to posterity

if

some one would

while witnesses are alive and memories

In

fact,

As

for

There

Kant asks

them

investigate arfe

fresh.

for psychical research.

Swedenborg's so costly book, Kant laughs at in

is

31

it

no evidence, only

assertion.

Kant

it.

ends,

having pleased nobody, he says, and as ignorant as when

he began, by citing cultivons notre jardin.

Kant returned

the theme in

to

He discusses the unconscious,

Didaktik.'

WiUiam Hamilton been an absolutely unknown topic which,

'

So

till

ist

'

Sir

Anthropologische or sub-conscious,

lectured,

seems to have

to British psychologists.

das Feld dunkler Vorstellungen das grosste in

He has a chapter on The Divining Faculty He will not hear of presentiments, and,

'

Menschen.'

'

(pp. 89-93).

unlike Hegel, he scouts the Highland second-sight. '

The

possessed of anthropology are epileptic patients. Mystics '

(Swedenborg) are victims of Schwarmerei.

This reference to Swedenborg

is

remarked upon by

Schubert in his preface to the essay of Kant. out that

'

is

it

He

points

compare the circumspection, Kant when he had to deliver a

interesting to

the almost uncertainty of

judgment on the phenomena described by himself and as to

which he had made inquiry

[i.e.

in his letter re

Sweden-

borg to Mile, de Knobloch], and the very decided opinions

he expressed forty years

companions

'

[in the

later

work

on Swedenborg and his

cited,

sections 35-37.

The

opinion in paragraph 85 is a general one as to mystics.

There

On

is

no

other- mention of

the whole Kant

is

Swedenborg].

interested, but despairing.

He

wants facts, and no facts are given to him but the book But, as it happened, a new, or a of the Prophet Emanuel.

was just about to solicit scientific Kant had attention. (1766) heard rumours of healing by magnetism, and of the alleged effect of the magnet on the revived, order of facts

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

32

human frame. The won the attention information.

It

was in the air, and had already Mesmer, about whom Kant had

subject of

were superfluous to

tell

again the familiar

"While Mesmer's was denounced by contemporary science, the discovery of the hypnotic sleep was made by This gentleman was persuaded that his pupil, Puysegur. story of Mesmer's performances at Paris.

theory of

magnetism

'

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 'un-

more sceptical schools of The Eevolution interrupted scienFrance to a great degree, but somnambu-

conscious suggestion

in the

'

pyschological science. tific

study in

lism

'

'

and magnetism were eagerly Modern manuals, for some reason, overlook these German researches and specula-

(the hypnotic sleep)

'

'

examined in Germany. are apt to tions. p. 34.)

(Compare Mr. Vincent's Elements of Hypnotism,' The Schellings were interested Eitter thought he '

;

had detected a new

force,

'

Mr. Wallace, in his

Siderism.'

preface to Hegel's 'Philosophie des Geistes,' speaks as Eitter

had made experiments

have done

so,

but his

'

in

Siderismus

telepathy. '

(Tiibingen, 1808)

Eeport undertaken for the Academy

of

doings of an Italian water-finder, or 'dowser.'

He

is

a

Munich, on the

gives details of seventy-four experiments in

water, metals, or coal.

if

He may

•

Eitter

dowsing

'

for

beheves 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.

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES'

33

Amoretti, at Milan, examined hundreds of cases of the so-called Divining spiritualist

and

'

Eod, and Jung

full- welling

Stilling .became

an early

fountain head of ghost stories. '

Probably the most important philosophical result

German

the early is

of

researches into the hypnotic slumber

to be found in the writings of Hegel.

Owing

to his

peculiar use of a terminology, or scientific language,

all

make Hegel's meaning even moderately clear. Perhaps we may partly elucidate it by a similitude of Mr. Frederic Myers. Suppose we his own,

it is

extremely

difficult to

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

lower or physiological end of course, is

:

healthy,

be imagined a

for our ordinary consciousness,

unaware of many physiological processes which

are eternally going on within us. is

may

is

ment makes

an obvious example. it

Digestion, so long as

But hypnotic

it

experi-

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

sug-

must be raised. Again (granting the hypothetically and merely for the sake of argument),

gested that a blister facts

at the

upper end of the spectrum, beyond the view of

nary everyday consciousness, knowledge

may

ordi-

be acquired

which are out of the view of the consciousness 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. of things

of every day.

Now

Hegel accepted as genuine the

facts

which we

here adduce merely for the sake of argument, and by of illustrations.

But he

did

consciousness (or whatever

we

way

not regard the clairvoyant call

it)

which, ex hypothesi,

D

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

34

untrammelled by space, or even by time, as occupying what we style the upper end of the psychical spectrum. On Hegel's upper the contrary, he placed it at the lower end. is

end

'

loses itself in light

La

de choses, as

; '

the lower end, qui voit tant

shepherd says,

Fontaine's

is

not

'

a

subhme mental phase, and capable of conveying general Time and space do not thwart the consciousness truths.' which springs from the great soul But that lower end, though it may see for

at Hegel's lower end,

of nature.'

Jeanne d'Arc

'

at Valcouleurs a battle at

Eouvray, a hundred

leagues away, does not communicate any lofty philo-

The phenomena of

sophic truths.'

merely indicate that the

opinion, '

ideal,'

them. out

clairvoyance, in Hegel's

which, perhaps, '

is

as

much

The somnambulist and and carry

eyes,

their

'

material

as

'

we can

clairvoyant

is

really

ask from see vdth-

visions directly into regions

where the waking consciousness of orderly intelligence cannot enter (Wallace). Hegel admits, however, that '

'

in

ordinary

traces of

self-possessed

the

'

magic

tie,'

friends of delicate nerves,' to wife,

conscious '

life

there

'

are

between female he adds husband and

especially

whom

and members of the same family.

out date or source) a case of a

girl in

He

gives (v?ith-

Germany who saw Her

her brother lying dead in a hospital at Valladolid. brother was at the time in the hospital, but

man in the next make

bed

who was

dead.

'

it

was another

It is thus impossible

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 to

out whether

'

Hegel accepts the clairvoyance of the Pucelle.

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' remarks

of Dr.

Max

.'i-3

Psychology, he says, has

Dessoir.

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

man, or a dog, and whenever we have before our minds the conception or idea of any of these see a tree, or a

them returns, though of 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 things the original perception of

course more faintly.

visibly present)

if

other memories and

new

sensations did

not compete with them and check their development.

Suppose, to use Mile. Ferrand's metaphor, a body, living, but with

imopened.

Open the

all its

human

channels of sensation hitherto

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 halluci-

nation of green, thus '

Now,

Annihilating all that's made. To a green thought in a green shade.'

in sleep or hypnotic trance the competition of

sensations and other memories

is

new

removed or diminished,

and therefore the idea of a man, dog, or tree once suggested to the hypnotised patient, does become an actual hallucination.

object

which he

The hypnotised is

patient sees the absent

told to see, the sleeper sees things not

really present.

Our primitive

state, before

the enormous competition

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 of other

and new sensations,

is

a suppression of our original,

primitive, natural tendencies.

Hallucination represents D 2

;

THE MAKING OF RELiaiON

36

the main trunk of our psychical existence.' ' Dessoir's theory this condition of hallucination

In Dr.

'

original

and most primitive

higher, rather a lower

condition, but of

state

it

is

man's

is

not a

than

spiritual activity

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 is

and time.

Mr. Myers, as we saw,

of the opposite opinion, as to the relative dignity

original fundamental Self.

self,

nouncing a decided opinion as to whether the primitive, hallucinated self within us does

powers and actions

and

and the old Dr. Dessoir refrains from proeveryday

relative reality of the present

at a distance,'

'

original,

preside over

such as clairvoyance

but he believes in hypnotisation at a distance. His theory, like Hegel's, is that of

some very remote

'

atavism,' or

'

throwing back

ancestral condition.

This

events, believed

the fact of

will

'

to

prove of

interest later.

Hegel, at

all

voyance (though deeming accepted telepathy

change

of

hypnotised

('

in

clair-

of little practical use)

the magic

sensations ;

it

tie

')

;

he accepted

;

he

inter-

between the hypnotiser and the

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.'

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 super-

See Dr. Dessoir, in Das Doppel Ich, as quoted by Mr. Myers, Proceed-

ings, vol. vi. 213. 2 PMlosophie des Oeistes, Werke, vol. vii. 179. Berlin, 1845. The examples and much of the philosophising are in the Zusatze, not translated in Mr. Wallace's version, Oxford, 1894.

.

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES' fluous to those on

whose account

was

it

37

called for, since

they facilitate the inquiry for themselves by declaring the

numerous though they be, and accreby 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 narratives, infinitely

dited

own

seen with their

hands,

and reported under their own

eyes,'

David

Sir

like

Brewster.

Hegel,

be

will

it

them

observed, takes the facts as given, and works

into

his general theory of the Sensitive Soul {fiihlende Seele)

He

does not try to establish the facts

examine them,

at least to

The Hegel's

the

is

Theorising comes

Research.

;

but to establish, or

business of Psychical

first

later.

years which have passed between the date of '

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 Thus the reality and limitations of the phenomena.

Academy

of

Medicine in Paris appointed a Committee to

examine the subject Magnetism,' as

The Academy

was then

it

The Report on

in 1825.

styled,

was presented

lacked the courage to publish

Report was favourable even to certain

Animal

'

it,

in 1831. for the

of the still disputed

phenomena.

At that time, in accordance with a survival Mesmer, the agent in hypnotic cases was be a kind of efflux of a cosmic fluid from the

of the theory of believed to '

magnetiser

'

to

There was

the patient.

'

a magnetic

connection.'

Though no notism

is

distinction

a word implying

unknown

between mesmerism and hyp-

taken in popular language, this

theory

personal influence.

of '

'

'

mesmerism

magnetic

'

'

is

or other

Hypnotism,' as will pre-

sently be seen, implies no such theory.

The Academy's

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

38

Eeport (1831) attested the development, under 'magnetism,' of new faculties,' such as clairvoyance and intui'

tion, also the production of

great changes in the physical

'

economy,' such as insensibility, and sudden increase of The Eeport declared it to be demonstrated strength. '

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 Eeport, which attests the phenomena that Hegel accepted, phenomena still

Six years later (1837), a Committee reported

disputed.

against the pretensions of a certain Berna, a

No

'

magnetiser.'

person acted on both Committees, and this Eeport was Later, a

accepted. in a box,

and

number

failed.

of people tried to read a letter

Mr. Vincent,

This,' says

'

the question with regard to clairvoyance

might be more

logical to say that

sions of the competitors

now

it

; '

'

settled

though

it

settled the preten-

on that occasion.

The Academy

decided that, because certain persons did not satisfy

the expectations raised by their preliminary advertise-

ments, therefore the question of magnetism was definitely closed.

We is

have often to

regret

not always accompanied by

that scientific eminence scientific

logic.

Where

science neglects a subject, charlatans and dupes take

In England

'

animal magnetism

to this class of enthusiasts,

till

'

of

know how

up.

Thackeray's friend. Dr.

He was

EUiotson, devoted himself to the topic. as doctors

it

had been abandoned

to persecute

;

persecuted

but in 1841, Braid,

Manchester, discovered that the so-called 'magnetic

sleep

made

'

could be produced without any

'

magnetism.'

his patients stare fixedly at an object,

He

and encouraged

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES

them

He

to expect to go to sleep.

39

method Seeming

called his

Hypnotism,' a term which begs no question.

'

to

cease to be mysterious, hypnotism became

till

it

but

all

and was being used in surgical operations,

respectable,

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

Wide

in the inquiries of experimental psychology.

ences of opinion

still exist,

differ-

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

—for instance, that the production of anaesthesia and rigidity — are the results merely of suggestion

faculties

and

'

A

expectancy.

hypnotised patient

finger of his left

though how is

hand

will

'

suggestion

number

'

is

'

told that the middle

and incapable

rigid

explained by

'

late

of

suggestion,'

produces the astonishing

The

another problem.

made

become

This occurs, and

sensation.

is

effect

Mr. Gurney, however,

which no suggestion was pronounced, nor did the patients know which of their a

of experiments in

was to become rigid and incapable of pain. The 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 fingers

patient's

'

willing

the result.

'

If

he did not

nor did anything occur

occurred, pointing.

The proximity

no

he did not

effect if

'

if

'

will

nor was his

it,

nothing

he willed without

of the operator's

will,'

'

'

hand produced

willing

'

success-

if he did not bring his hand near that of the patient. Other people's hands, similarly situated, produced no effect.

ful

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

40

Experiments

in transferring taste, as of

sugar,

salt,

cayenne pepper, from operator to subject, were also sucDrs. Janet and Gibert also produced sleep in a cessful. woman at a distance, by willing it, at hours which were '

'

by a system

selected

mesmeric hypothesis

drawing

of

lots.'

an element

course, rather point to

some

of

These

facts, of

of truth in the old

specific influence

in

the

They cannot very well be explained by sugBut these facts and facts of

operator.

and expectancy.

gestion

clairvoyance and thought-transference will be rejected as

by people who have not met them

superstitious delusions

own

in their

This need not prevent us from

experience.

examining them, because

now

impeached by British again and again on

The

rarer

as

of

mode

the

in

scarcely

have been noisily rejected

principles.

Mr. Gurney remarks,

through the hollow form

example

by Continental and

science,

Hume's

facts,

the facts, including those

all

universally accepted

'

still

go

Here is an which these phenomena are Mr. Vincent says that clair-

of taking place.'

by popular science. voyance and phrenology were Elliotson's constant stock (Phrenology was also Braid's stock in trade.) in trade.' treated

'

'

matter of congratulation to have been so soon

It is a

from what Dr. Lloyd Tuckey has well

delivered

"a mass

of

superincumbent rubbish."

'

^

part of a mass of rubbish, on page 57.

Mr. Vincent says

:

'

called

Clairvoyance

On

page

is

67,

There are many interesting questions,

such as telepathy, thought-reading, clairvoyance, upon

which

would be perhaps rash to give any decided

it

...

opinion.

All these strange psychical conditions pre-

sent problems

because

of

great interest,' and are only omitted

they have not a sufficient bearing on the normal

'

'

^

Proceedings, S.P.R., vol.

ii.

Elements of Hypnotism,

pp. 201-207, 390-392.

p. 57.

AND 'MIRACLES'

SCIENCE states of hypnosis.

.

.

41

Thus what was

.'

'

rubbish

one page presents problems of great interest '

later, and, after offering a

ance

decided opinion.

It is rather

opinion, and then to say that

it is

it

We also see that

mena which Hegel

Hume

contempt

so.'

confronted by

is

dismissed as

of the wise

and

the stranger and rarer pheno-

accepted as facts, and interwove with

general philosophy,

his

Admitted by some

rash to give any

rash to do

which, in his time,

incredible miracles, beneath the learned.

in

rash to give a decided

This brief sketch shows that science certain facts,

'

ten pages

decided opinion that clairvoy-

rubbish, Mr. Vincent thinks

is

'

men

are

matters

still

of

dispute.

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

But it is plain that these phenomore ordinary facts of hypnotism, vnay be admitted by science. The scientific world

fables of superstition.

mena,

like the

finally

laughed, not so long ago, at

and

Ogham

inscriptions, meteor-

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 ites,

at palaeolithic

meteorites, or as the It

is

more usual phenomena

only Lord Kelvin

who now

maintained, that in hypnotism there fraud and malobservation.

of hypnotism.

maintains, or lately

is

nothing at

all

but

In years to come it may be that

only some similar belated voice will cry that in thoughttransference there

At present the

is

nothing but malobservation and fraud.

serious attention and careful experiment

Possibly Mr. Vincent only

means

that Elliotson's experiments, little 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. '

more than sober

fooling

'

(p. 57),

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

42

needed for the establishment of the facts are more com-

mon among French

When

than among English

published, these experiments,

affirmative instances, are

if

denomiced as

men

of science.

they contain any '

superstitious,' or

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 criticised after

disputes as to these alleged facts are noticed here, because of their supposed relation to the Origin of Eeligion.

'

43

III

ANTHROPOLOGY AND BELIGION Among and

the various forms of science which are reaching

affecting the

new popular

tradition,

we have reckoned

Anthropology. Pleasantly enough, Anthropology has herself

but recently emerged from that limbo of the un-

recognised in which Psychical Eesearch

is

The

pining.

British Association used to reject anthropological papers as 'vain

dreams based on

No

travellers' tales.'

doubt the

would reject a paper on clairvoyance dream based on old wives' fables, or on hysteUndeniably the study of such themes is rical imposture. 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 British Association as a vain

'

into barbaric customs, rites, traditions,

ondoyant

et

divers,

is

logy and of psychical research.

Man

(especially savage

man) cannot be secluded from disturbing watched, like the materials of a chemical

Nor can man be caught

laboratory. state

:

Man,

and usages.

the subject alike of anthropo-

influences,

and

experiment in a in

a

'

primitive

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 fluctuating

;

the evidence on which

sceptical criticism,

and many

it

rests needs the

is

most

of its conclusions, in the

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

44

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

'

To

outlaws, people of one wild idea.

the scientific mind,

anthropologists or ethnologists were a horde

who

darkly

muttered of serpent worship, phallus worship, Arkite

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 doctrines,

where there was none. of Science,

Bound

The exiled, the

outcast, the pariah

indeed, apt to find himself in odd company.

is,

the camp-fire of Psychical Eesearch too, in the

unofficial,

unstaked waste of Science, hover odd, mena-

cing figures of Esoteric Buddhists, Satanistes, Occultists, Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, and Astrologers, as the Arkites

Lost Tribesmen

and

haunted

the

cradle

of

-anthropology.

But there was found at last to be reason in the 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 thing,

bring Anthropology within the sacred circle of permitted

knowledge. -doctrine of

Her

topic

was

Mr. Darwin.

had been anticipated by the the

eighteenth

century

full

of

Modern

illustrations of

writers

the

on the theme

less systematic students of

—Goguet,

de

Fontenelle, Lafitau, Boulanger, or even

Brosses,

Millar,

Hume and

Voltaire.

As pioneers these writers answer to the early mesmerists and magnetists, Puysegur, Amoretti, Bitter, EUiotson, Mayo,

Gregory, in the history of Psychical Eesearch. They were on the same track, in each case, as Lubbock, Tylor,

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION Spencer,

and

Bastian,

Frazer,

Myers, Janet, Dessoir, and the

Von

or

Gurney, Eichet,

as

But

Schrenck-Notzing.

method and

students were less careful of

earlier

45

evidence.

was the stumbling block of anthroWe still hear, in the later works of Mr. Max pology. Miiller, the echo of the old complaints. Anything you please, Mr. Max Miiller says, you may find among your useful savages, and (in regard to some anthropologists) his You have but to skim a few books of criticism is just. travel, pencil in hand, and pick out what suits your case. Evidence

!

that

Suppose, as regards our present theme, your theory is that

Supreme

savages possess broken lights of the belief in a

Being.

You

want

show

to

Or suppose you all you

can find evidence for that.

that they have no religious ideas at

can find evidence for that

also.

Your testimony

;

is

often

derived from observers ignorant of the language of the

whom

people

who

they talk about, or

prejudiced by one or other theory or

are themselves

bias.

How

can you

pretend to raise a science on such foundations, especially as the savage informants

wish to please or to mystify

answer at random, or deliberately conmost sacred institutions, or have never paid any

inquirers, or they ceal their

attention to the subject ?

To

all

replied.^

in

these perfectly natural objections Mr. Tylor has

Evidence must be

collected,

any other branch of inquiry.

bound

to use his best

A

sifted,

writer,

'

tested, as

of course, is

judgment as to the trustworthi-

authors he quotes, and,

ness of

all

several

accounts to certify each

Mr. Tylor then adduces 'the

if

possible, to obtain

point in each locality.'

test of recurrence,' of

un-

designed coincidence in testimony, as Millar had already

•

Primitive Culture,

i.

9,

10

'

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

46

argued in the

If a mediseval

last century.'

in Tartary, a Jesuit in Brazil, a

may add

Mahommedan

Wesleyan

in Fiji, one

a police magistrate in Australia, a Presbyterian

in Central Africa, a trapper in Canada, agree in describing

myth in these diverse lands and down the coincidence to chance or

some analogous ages, fraud.

rite or

we cannot set Now, the most important

facts of

'

ethnography

are vouched for in this way.'

We may obscure,

add that even when the ideas of savages are

we can

anthropological,

like

must be submitted

evidence, of testing

them by

detect

analysis of the

which they are expressed.^

institutions in

Thus

often

and

other

to conscientious processes

Contradictory instances must be

sifting.

Nothing can be less scientific which makes for our

hunted for sedulously. than to snatch up any

psychical or any

traveller's tale

theory, and to ignore evidence, perhaps earlier, or later, or better observed,

which makes against

it.

Yet

this,

un-

fortunately, in certain instances (which will be adduced) has

been the occasional error of Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer.'

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

that the religious ideas of civilised

(who says they are supports by

'

?),

But

it

'

to

^ '

statement.''

Origin of Banks. may be permitted to refer to

I

my Myth,

Mr. Spencer

this implication

would be well to advise the reader

Mr. Tylor's masterly '

is

among various savages religious Sir John Lubbock has given many

consult Eoskoff's confutation of Sir

^

dumb]

are not innate

proofs that

ideas do not exist.' of these.'

and

men

BitvM, and Religion,

'

Mr. Spencer

Eeply to Objections

vol.

to

John Lubbock, and

'

cited Sir

in the appendix

ii.

Spencer, Ecclesiastical Institutions, pp. 672, 673. i. 417-425. Cf. however Princip. of Sociol. p. 304.

Primitive Culture,

;

ANTHEOPOLOGY AND RELIGION Samuel Baker stition

for savages without even

a ray of super-

'

Mr. Tylot, twelve years

or a trace of worship.

'

47

before Mr. Spencer wrote, had demolished Sir Samuel

many

tribes, and so shaken by Mr. Spencer. The a good deity and heaven-dwelling

Baker's assertion,' as regards it

as regards the Latukas, quoted

godless Dinkas have

'

creator,' carefully recorded years before Sir

We

denial.'

show

Being

;

'

rash

Mr. Spencer, relying on a Brough Smyth, omits all his^^

later that

single isolated sentence in

about

information

essential

Samuel's

while Mr. Huxley

the

Supreme

Australian

— 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 sajdng the precise reverse of

what he

really does say.

If the facts not fitting their theories are little observed

by if

Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer

authorities so popular as

mstantice contradictories are ignored by them, or these things are done in the green tree,

vague

;

easily

imagine what shall be done in the dry.

if

left

we may

But we need

not war with hasty vulgarisateurs and headlong theorists.

Enough has been

said to

show the

position of an-

thropology as regards evidence, and to prove that,

if

he

confines his observations to certain anthropologists, the

censures of Mr.

Max

Miiller are justified.

are strung

on the thread

It is

mainly

arguments presently to follow

for this reason that the

of

Mr. Tylor's truly learned and

accurate book, 'Primitive Culture.'

Though but

recently

quidem, from the

chill

crept

shade of

forth,

scientific

thropology adopts the airs of her elder '

Op.

cit. i.

423, 424.

aut ne vix

vix

disdain,

sisters

among

Anthe

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

48 sciences,

is

as severe as they to the Cinderella of the

Psychical Eesearch.

family, fairies

and

She must murmur

the cinders of the hearth, while they go

among

forth to the ball, and dance with provincial festivities of

of her

This

the British Association.

mayors is

at the

imgenerous,

and unfortunate, as the records of anthropology are rich

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, tJber psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturvolkem.' in

'

We possess, none the on

less,

a mass of scattered information

this topic, the savage side of psychical

works

of travel,

and

in

in

'

Mr. Tylor, however, as we

Culture.'

phenomena,

Mr. Tylor's monumental Primitive shall see, regards

as a matter of indifference, or, at least, as a matter

it

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,

question

this

not otiose.

is

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 Eeligion.

That origin anthropology explains as the result of earlyt 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 and

belief in souls

Now,

spirits.

first,

anthropology has

taken for granted that the Supreme Deities of savages are envisaged

by them

the statement to be '

proved,

may as

as

'

spirits.'

appear,

we

is just

shall show.

This, paradoxical as

what does not seem Next,

if

ithe super-

Published for the Berlin Society of Experimental Psychology, Giinther,

Leipzig, 1890.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION normal phenomena phantasms

of the

thought-transference,

(clairvoyance,

dead,

49

phantasms

of

the dying, and

drawn in some

others) be real matters of experience, the inferences

from them by early savage philosophy may erroneous.

degree, rialists

who

reject

perhaps, be,

let

But the

be,

drawn by matethe supernormal phenomena will also, inferences

Eeligion will have

us say, incomplete.

been, in part, developed out of facts, perhaps inconsistent

with materialism in less trenchantly,

To put

present dogmatic form.

its

it

and perhaps more accurately, the alleged

not merely dramatically strange, they are not

facts 'are

merely extraordinary and striking, but they are " odd " in the sense that they will not easily

in with the views

fit

which physicists and men of science generally give us of the universe in which we live (Mr. A. J. Balfour, President's '

Address,

As of

Proceedings,' S.P.E. vol. x. p. 8, 1894).

'

this is the case,

it

might seem

to

be the business

Anthropology, the Science of Man, to examine,

among

other things, the evidence for the actual existence of those

unusual and supernormal phenomena,

alleged

which

given as one of the origins of religion.

is

To make is

almost a

gists '

belief in

this examination, in the ethnographic field,

new

labour.

As we

shall

see,

anthropolo-

have not hitherto investigated such things as the

Fire-walk

'

of savages, uninjured in the flames, like the

The world-wide savage

Three Holy Children.

practice of

by hallucinations induced through gazing into a smooth deep (crystal-gazing) has been studied, I think, by divining

The veracity of messages uttered when (as they suppose) possessed or

no anthropologist.

by savage '

inspired

'

seers

'

has not been

criticised,

be, for lack of detailed information.

nomena which answer among '

•

divining rod,'

and to

'

'

'

spiritist

'

and probably cannot

The

'

physical phe-

savages to the use of the '

marvels in modern times,

B

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

60

have only been glanced

short, all the savage paral-

In

at.

phenomena' now under discussion in England, America, Germany, Italy, and France, have escaped critical analysis and comparison the so-called 'psychical

lels to

with their

An

civilised counterparts.

among anthropologists

exception

He

Mr. Tylor.

is

has not suppressed the existence of these barbaric parallels

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 to our

'

and when he has displayed the survival of that in later culture. He does not ask Are the phe-

spirits,'

belief

'

nomena

real ?

'

philosophy of

modem way

'

'

he the

is

concerned only with the savage

phenomena and with

spiritism and religion.

My

its

relics

in

is

to do,

by

purpose

only of dbauche, what neither anthropology nor

psychical research nor psychology has done

savage

and

evidence as

modern phenomena

we can

savage

:

to put the

beliefs,

it

Such

side.

modern

give for the actuality of the

experiences will, so far as that the

by

side

goes, raise a presumption

however

however

erroneous,

darkened by fraud and fancy, repose on a basis

of real

observation of actual phenomena.

Anthropology is concerned with man and what

— humani

nihil

a

se

alienum

is

in

man

These researches,

2Jiitcit.

therefore, are within the anthropological province, especially as

they bear on

the

prevalent

theory of the Origin of Eeligion. _ f or

^Y

_'

anthropological

^^lifT'"^

'

'"^'^

mpa.n,

the purpose of this argument, the._bfilieL in

€xia±.ecce_of_an_^telligence, or Intelligences not

the

human,

and nofd-eperrde-nt-on a material.j]g,echanism of TDrim^and nerves, which may, or may not, powerfully control men's additional belief that there

is,

in

We

mean

the

man, an element so

far

fortunes and- the nature of things.

also

ANTHEOPOLOGY AND RELIGION kindred to these Intelligences that

51

can transcend the

it

knowledge obtained through the known bodily

senses,

may

These two

possibly survive the death of the body.

and

(though not necessarily in their origin)

beliefs at present

God and

appear chiefly as the faith in

in the

Immortality

of the Soul. It is important, then, to trace,

these two beliefs.

with Deity

Hebrew

(as

if

possible, the origin of

If they arose in actual

the

Scriptures), or

if

communion

the theory of the

first at least did, in

they could be proved to arise in

an unanalysable sensus nummis, or even in a perception of the Infinite' (Max Miiller), religion would have a '

at least a necessary source.

To

divine,

or

what

inevitable cannot but be divinely ordained, there-

is

fore religion

though not atheist,

But

is

divinely preordained, therefore, in essentials,

in accidental details, religion

is

if

now

religion, as

illusions, if

form only the

form

its

miderstood

—

is

The

among men, be

a blunder,

and

—that nothing actual

logical, for all

our science

sive refinements

corresponds to

The

its

present

but unessential refine-

result of progressive

very easily drawn.

the

of a series of mistakes, fallacies,

germ be

ments on that blunder, the inference that untrue

true.

or non-theist, of course draws no such inferences.

latest evolutionary

and

the Theist,

inference

itself is

upon hypotheses

its

religion

is

hypothesis

is not,

perhaps,

the result of progresoriginally

erroneous,

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, fashioned to explain facts misconceived.

our

religion,

fallacies

and

even granting that false hypotheses,

it

may

arose out of primitive

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 E 2

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

52

both as to facts and their interpretation, I am happy to Opponents will find that he has anticipated me here. urge, he says, that 'if the primitive beHef

'

ghosts)

(in

it must be germ of truth was contained in the primitive conception —the truth, namely, that the power which manifests itself in con'

was absolutely

absolutely

false, all

sciousness

derived beliefs from

Mr. Spencer repKes

false.'

:

'

A

but a differently conditioned form of the

is

power which manifests itself beyond consciousness.' In we find Mr. Spencer, like Faust as described by Marguerite, saying much the same thing as the priests,

fact,

but not quite in the same way.

much

larger

germ

'

of truth

'

Of course, I allow

in the origin of the ghost

But we can both

theory than Mr. Spencer does. '

the ultimate form of the religious consciousness

be ?)

'

for a

is

say (will

'

the final development of a consciousness which at

the outset contained a germ of truth obscured by multitudinous

errors.' '

'

One God, one

And one To which Coming

at last to

law, one element.

far-off divine event.

the whole creation moves.'

Mr. Tylor, we find that he begins by

dismissing the idea that any of religious conceptions.

mouths, the allegations

known

He

race of

men

devoid

own who have made

of several writers

this exploded assertion about 'godless tribes.'

'The thoughts and principles

is

disproves, out of their

of

modem

He

says:

Christianity are

attached to intellectual clues which run back through far

human civilisation, So far we abound in

prse-Christian ages to the very origin of

perhaps even of human existence.' Mr. Tylor's sense. As a minimum definition of religion 7 he gives 'the belief in spiritual beings,' which appeaifs ^

'

'

Ecclesiastical Institutions, 837-839.

2

Prinvitive Culture,

i.

421, chapter

xi.

<

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION "

among

all

whom we

low races with

53

have attained to

The

thoroughly intimate

relations.'

belief at present does

not prove that no races were ever,

at

any time, destitute of demonstrated

age, as a

But

belief.

all

from positing the existence

existence

it

this

of

prevents us

of such creedless races, in any

We

fact.

have thus, in

short,

no

opportunity of observing, historically, man's development

minimum

from blank unbelief into even the

mentary form

more or of

of belief.

We can

human

faith in

God and

To the

earliest faith

Spiritualism

by a form its full

of

'

is still less

modern

the

first

make

rudiments

We

in spiritual beings.

faith, is

find

a tabula rasa.

Mr. Tylor gives the name

Animism, a term not wholly '

most rudi-

only theorise and

less plausible conjectures as to

no race whose mind, as to

or

free

from

desirable,

objection,

of

though

having been usurped

superstitiousness.

This Animism,

'in

development, includes the belief^ in souls and in a

future "state,

m controlling deities and subordinate spirits.'

In Mr. Tyior's opinion, as in Mr. Huxley'sT^Jiimism, in its

lower (and

with

This

ethics. is

earlier) forms,

Its

'

spirits

'

has scarcely any connection

do not

'

make for righteousness.'

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

honour of the gods

instituted

by and are performed in

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 beGiven lief is the theory, and worship is the practice.' '

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.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

54

Tylor does not

mean

the alleged early theory, implicitly

if

and consciously held, that all things whatsoJudging from ever are animated and are personalities.' the behaviour of little children, and from the myths of

not explicitly

man may have

savages, early

own

his

sense

of

half-consciously extended

personal and potent and animated

known

existence to the whole of nature as

Not

to him.

may

only animals, but vegetables and inorganic objects,

have been looked on by him as persons,

The

himself to be.

But

this feeling, rather

conceivably have existed

among

they developed the hypothesis of It

felt

naughty chair, and all objects are persons

to do so) beats the

souls.

what he

child (perhaps merely because taught

in early mythology.

may

like

than

men, before

early

spirits,'

'

theory,,

'

ghosts,' or

the origin of that hypothesis, 'Animism,'

is

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)

living

'

What

is it

that makes the difference between a

body and a dead one and death ?

;

what causes waking,

sleep,

trance, disease, (2)

'

What

are those

dreams and visions

Here

it

?

'

human

shapes which appear in

^

should be noted that Mr. Tylor most properly

takes a distinction between sleeping '

visions,' or

'

'

dreams

'

and waking

The distinction is made even Thus one of the Kurnai an-

clear vision.'

by the blacks of Australia. nounced 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 '

'

'

'

This theory

believe in.

he

calls it the -

is

what Mr. Spencer

What Mr. '

Tylor calls

Ghost Theory.'

Primitive Culture,

i.

428.

'

calls

'

Animism,' and does not believes in, but

Animism Mr. Spencer '

a'

sleep, it

ANTHROPOLOGY AND EBLIGION

55

was only the wizards who were able

to do so in

waking hours.'

A

wizard, in fact,

is

a person susceptible

be susceptible) when awake to hallucinatory perceptions of phantasms of the dead. Among the (or feigning to

'

Kulin of

Wimmera

as a boy,

had seen

These

Eiver a

man became

a wizard who,

his mother's ghost sitting at her grave.'

prove that a race of savages at the bottom do take a formal distinction between

facts

of the scale of culture

normal dreams in sleep and

waking hallucinations—

thing apt to be denied.

Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer

offers the

massive generali-

sation that savages do not possess a language enabling a

man

to say

I dreamed that I saw,' instead of

'

examples

languages, which Mr.

of

'

This could only be

('Principles of Sociology, p. 150).

proved by giving

I saw

'

such

highly deficient

Spencer does not

In

do.^

many

savage speculations there occur ideas as subtly metaphysical as those of Hegel.

Moreover, even the Australian

languages have the verb 'to '

sleep.'

saw

in sleep

We

see,'

Nothing, then, prevents a '

(insomnium,

have shown

sees

'

I

svvirviov).

too, that

the Australians take an

man when awake)

and the

common

halluci-

Anybody can have these the man ghosts when awake is marked out for a

nations of slumber.

who

saying

between waking hallucinations (ghosts

essential distinction

seen by a

and the substantive

man from

;

wizard.

At the same time the vividness of dreams among Mr. Im Thurn's Indians Guiana,' and the consequent confusion of dreaming

certain savages, as recorded in of

'

Howitt, Journal of Anthropological Institute, xiii. 191-195. curious may consult, for savage words for dreams,' Mr. Scott's Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language, s.v. Lota,' or any glossary of any '

'

The

'

'

savage language.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

56

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 I have demonstrated, however, that very low to be. 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

intro-

duced to a crystal just because she had previously been

known

to be

susceptible

waking and

to

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

memorable

experiences

:

(1)

that

He

the soul.

much more

striking and

waking hours, as we and

of

Mr. Tylor agree in holding. Eeflecting on these things, the

would decide

and

life

included in his materials the

man

earliest

has a

'

life

savage reasoners

(which leaves

'

man

him temporarily

in sleep, finally in death)

also possesses a

phantom (which appears to other people and dreams). The savage philosopher

in

'

visions

their

;

(2)

that

'

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,'

or

This creature,

'

soul.'

The

result

would be an apparitional '

ghost-soul.'

ghost-soul 'a vapour,

would be a highly film,

accomplished

or shadow,' yet

conscious,

capable of leaving the body, mostly invisible and impalpable,

'

yet also manifesting physical power,' existing and

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION appearing after

tlie

57

death of the body, able to act on the

bodies of other men, beasts, and things.'

When

the earliest reasoners, in an age and in mental

conditions

which we know nothing

of

had

historically,

evolved the hypothesis of this conscious, powerful, separable soul, capable of surviving the death of the body,

was not as

difficult for

them

A

Mr. Tylor thinks.

might thrive a very

lief

perhaps, to conceive of souls,

that had never been

say, only le

man

original

difficult logical leap,

spirits,

may

to develop the rest of Eeligion,

powerful ghost of a dead

owner being long f orgotteni it Again (souls once given) it would not be its

till,

hecame a God. or

it

human

premier pas qui

at

It

all.

is,

we

coute, the step to the be-

in a surviving separable soul.

Nevertheless,

when we

remember that Mr. Tylor is theorising about savages in the dim backgroimd 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. his

opinion.

In the same way,

were keen reasoners, so

modern cells,

on

bees,

may have

and only an early

the plan,

water at

To

now

be right in

just as primitive

early bees,

more

men

clever than

evolved the system of hexagonal fish of genius could first

hereditary, of killing a fly

have hit

by blowing

it.

this theory of metaphysical genius in very

savages I have no objection to later,

He may

offer.

We

shall

low find,

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 '

Prim. Cult.

i.

429.

a

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

58

savages critics.

now known

By Mr.

or even

to us,

Tylor's hypothesis, they

some

as

first

Biblical

conceived the

extremely abstract idea of Life, 'that which makes the

between a living body and a dead one.' ^ This highly abstract conception must have been, however, the more difficulty to_ early man, as, to him, all things, difference

universally, are

'

animated.'

man by

theory of early

the

^~

Mr. TyloFTHustrates-fchis idea that

little child's

'

chairs,

actuBted^b^^te"^^ as nurses and children and kittens.

sticks,. ,aSL3rwoMeH:liDrffi'S':are"

of personal will

.

,

.

In such matters the savage mind" well represents the ^

childish stage.'

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

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 souls,

But

animated.

he did think

if

corpse, to his mind,

thing

else.

corpse

was

just as

Did he reason

Therefore a corpse

not animated.

is

thing (within the meaning of

How, identified

Life

(1)

my

man

again, did early

dreams

not a

?

with 'that which makes the

animated to his inind) and

A

conceive of Life, before he

which, ex hypothesi, he did not draw,

in

is

General Law)'

ence between a living body and a dead one

which appear

as any-

All things are animated.

'

:

—

animated

all things

much animated

(2)

'

and visions

things being

all

with those '

?

differ-

(a difference

'

human shapes The ancient '

savage philosophers probably reached the obvious inference that every

man had two

and a phantom.'

'

Prim. Cult.

i.

things belonging to him, a

But everything was supposed

428.

^

Ibid.

i.

285.

'

Ibid.

i.

life

to have

285, 286.

'

A_NTHROPOLOaY AND RELIGION 'a

as far as one

life,'

separable soul

makes

was developed,

idea of

the

out, before

at least

59

savagSs arrived at

if

the theory of universal animation as children are said to do.

We

are

with facts

dealing here quite conjecturally

beyond our experience. In any

man

case, early

excogitated (by the hypothesis)

the abstract idea of Life, before he material terms as that

'

breath,' or

'

first

envisaged

'

He

shadow.'

mere breath or shadow was not only

'

it

in

next decided

identical

with

the more abstract conception of Life, but could also take

on forms as cinations

and full-bodied as, to him, are the halludream or waking vision. His reasoning

real

of

appears to have proceeded from the idea of Life) to the

more

more

concrete, to the

abstract (the

life first

shadowy

and vaporous, then clothed in the very aspect of the

real

man.

Mr. Tylor has thus or not) provided

man

(whether

we

with a theory of

follow his logic active, intelligent,

separable souls, which can survive the death of the body.

man

by speculations on the nature of life, and on the causes of phantasms of the dead But our author or living beheld in 'dreams and visions.' of alleged effects by no means leaves out of sight the supernormal phenomena believed in by savages, with These supernormal their parallels in modern civilisation. At

this theory early

phenomena, whether facts in that

mass

arrived

real or illusory,

of

are,

he conceives,

experiences from which savages

constructed their belief in separable, enduring, intelligent souls or ghosts, the foundation of religion.

While we city,

are,

perhaps owing to our

own want

puzzled by what seem to be two kinds

sophy

—

(1)

of capa-

of early philo-

a sort of instinctive or unreasoned belief in

universal animation, which Mr. Spencer calls

'

Animism

—

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

>60

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 call Animism Mr. Tylor may v?e must also note another difficulty. '

'

seem to be taking it for granted that the earliest, remote, unknovpn 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.'

I find evidence that low contemporary

savages are

not great ghost-seers, and, again, I cannot quite accept

Mr. Tylor's psychology such favoured persons

of the

whom

'

modern

I have

unimaginative, unexcitable people,

Lord Tennyson,

experience.

bed

of his recently lost father

decided that ghosts

We

now

'

too,

Most

ghost-seer.'

known were

steady,

with just one after

odd

sleeping in the

on purpose to see his ghost,

are not seen

by imaginative

people.'

examine, at greater length, the psychical

conditions in which, according to Mr. Tylor, contemporary

savages

differ

what may be differences

from

civilised

men.

Later

said as to possible or

we

shall ask

presumable psychical

between modern savages and the datelessly

distant founders

of

the

belief

attributes to the lower races, '

in souls. Mr. Tylor and even to races high

Primitive Culture,

i.

446.

'

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION above their

level,

morbid

'

61

brought on by medita-

ecstasy,

Now, we

tion, fasting, narcotics, excitement, or disease.'

may is

still

meditate

'

— and

how

far the result is

'

morbid

a matter for psychologists and pathologists to deter-

Fasting

mine.

we

'

we do

not practise voluntarily, nor would

evidence from an Englishman as to

accept

easily

the veracity of voluntary fasting visions, like those of

The

Cotton Mather. aside,

visions of disease

a rule, with those of

as

for instance,

by

'devil-dances.'

'

we

should set

excitement,' produced,

Narcotic and alcoholic

For our purpose the induced

visions are not in question.'

trances of savages (in whatever

way

voluntarily brought

on) are analogous to the modern induced hypnotic trance.

Any supernormal induced

acquisitions

among

conditions,

knowledge in these

of

would be

savages,

on

a

par with similar alleged experiences of persons under

hypnotism.

We do not differ from known savages in being bring on non-normal psychological conditions, but

able to

we

pro-

duce these, as a rule, by other methods than thei^, and such experiments are not made on

on aU Eed Indian boys and

all

girls in

of us, as they

the

'

were

medicine-fast,' at

the age of puberty.

Further, in their normal state,

some

of

them, are more

Europeans at

least.^

'

known

suggestible

'

They can be more

savages, or

than educated easily halluci-

nated 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

what is not there than are comfortable educated white men. But Mr. Tylor goes savages

more apt

to

see

' See, however, Dr. Von Sohrenck-Notzing, Die Beobachtung narcotischer MittelfH/r den Hypnotismus, and S.P.K. Proceedings, x. 292-299. ' Primitive Culture, i. 306-315.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

62

too

far

when he

says

phantasms, the civUised with

fancies.'

The

'

'

where the savage could

man

see

has come to amuse himself

civilised

man, beyond

doubt,

all

is

capable of being en/antosmi.

In

all

•condition, differ

that he says on this point, the point of psychical

Mr. Tylor

is

But the

from ourselves.

known savages as they savages who ex hypothesi

writing about

evolved the doctrine of souls

beyond our ken,

lie

whom we

behind the modern savages, among

far

find belief

not only in souls and ghosts, but in moral gods./ About

who worked out and founded religion we necessarily

the psychical condition of the savages the theory of souls

know

nothing.

If there

ance, telepathy,

ours

open

may

be such experiences as clairvoy-

and so on, these unknown ancestors

(for all that

we can

and therefore peculiarly apt to believe

to them,

of

have been peculiarly

tell)

in

when we write about these farwe 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 separable souls.

In

fact,

founders of religion,

off

acquiring and communicating knowledge to each other)

which are mysteries to us. The terror of dogs in haunted 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 '

houses

'

'

before Athene,

'

whom Eumseus could not see, are

'

classical

instances.

is,

The weakness of the anthropological argument here 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. '

i.

315.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION

And

63

the more firmly a philosopher believes in the Dar-

winian hypothesis, the less, he must admit, can he suppose

know about

himself to

the twilight ages, between the

What

lower animal and the fully evolved man. creature

was man when he

first

received the light, of Eeligion ?

We may

kind of

conceived the germs, or All

is

guess-work here

!

just allude to Hegel's theory that clairvoyance

and hypnotic phenomena are produced in a kind of temporary atavism, or throwing back to a remotely ancient '

'

The

condition of the 'sensitive soul' {Fiihlende Seele). '

'

sensitive

'

[unconditioned, clairvoyant] faculty or soul '

when

a disease

becomes a

self-possessed

educated,

Second

sight,'

day and

earlier

'

it

'

is

state of the self-conscious,

human

being of

civilisation.'

Hegel thinks, was a product

of

an

^

earlier

mental condition than ours.

Approaching this almost untouched subject^the early psychical condition of

man

—not

from the

side of

meta-

physical speculations like Hegel, but with the instruments of

modern psychology and physiology. Dr. Max

of Berlin, following, indeed,

M.

saw, at somewhat similar conclusions. scious

life

of the spirit,' in

Dessoir,

Taine, has arrived, as '

we

This fully con-

which we moderns now

live,

upon a substratum of reflex action of a Our actual modern condition is not hallucinatory type.' 'seems to

'

rest

fundamental,' and

its

'

hallucination represents, at least in

nascent condition, the

existence.'

Now, suppose of ours

main trunk

of our

psychical

^

who

first

that the remote and

yet spread far from existence,' far

unknown

ancestors

developed the doctrine of souls had not 'the main trunk of our psychical

from constant hallucination.

In that case

Phil, des Geistes, pp. 406, 408. See also Mr. A. J. Balfour's Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Eesearch, Proceedings, vol. x. See, too, Taine, De V Intelligence, '

^

i.

78, 100, 139.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

64 (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

telepathy

men were

ever in a condition in which

and clairvoyance (granting their

were prevalent, one might expect that

would be developed

possibility)

faculties so useful

in the struggle for existence.

That

they are deliberately cultivated by modern savages

The Indian

know.

when

we

foster-mother of John Tanner used,

food was needed, to suggest herself into an hypnotic

became clairvoyante

that she

condition, so

whereabouts of game.

as

to the

Tanner, an English boy, caught

by the Indians, was sceptical, but came to practise the same art, not unsuccessfully, himself. His reminiscences, which he dictated on his return to civilisation, early

^

were certainly not feigned in the

But the most

telepathic

human

interests of stocks,

any

theories.

may

it

be

said,

ought, ceteris paribus, to have been the most successful in the struggle

We

for existence.

cetera were not paria, the

may

infer that the

clairvoyant state not being

precisely the best for the practical business of

life.

But

we know nothing of the psychical state of the They may have had experiences tendearliest men. spirits,' of which we can tell ing towards a belief in really

'

nothing.

We

are

ignorance of the

obliged

actual

to

guess,

conditions,

ignorance inevitably besets

all

in

and

considerable-

this

historical

anthropological speculation

about the origin of religion.

The knowledge condition of our

of our nescience as to the psychical

first

hesitation as to taking

it

for granted that

on our own or on the modern savage '

may suggest early man was

thinking ancestors

Tanner's Narrative,

New

level in

York, 1830.

'

psychical

'

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION Even savage

experience.

races, as

65

Mr. Tylor justly

says,

knowledge to neighbouring

attribute superior psychical

on a yet lower level of culture than themselves. Finn esteems the Lapp sorcerers above his own the The

tribes

;

Lapp

yields to the superior pretensions of the

may be more ways

There

humility

relative

there

:

We

Mr. Tylor's way. the earhest

Samoyeds.

than one of explaining this

is

way and

Hegel's

there

is

cannot be certain, a priori, that

man knew no more

of

supernormal or ap-

parently supernormal experiences than

we commonly

do,

or that these did not influence his thoughts on religion.

an example of the chameleon-like changes of

It is

science (even of

science falsely so called

when he wrote

that

have

not possibly '

'

Psychical planes

with

its

But

'

his book, in 1871,

anticipated

if

line

this

problems, had not been

was

'

much

flourishing.

you

please)

Mr. Tylor could

had not been invented

'

SpirituaHsm

'

argument.

of ;

hypnotism,

noticed in England.

Mr. Tylor did not

He saw very was beholding the partial rehabilitation of beliefs which were scouted from 1660 to Seventy years ago, as Mr. Tylor says, Dr. Mac1850. culloch, in his 'Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,' wrote of the famous Highland second sight ignore this revival of savage philosophy. well that the end of the century

'

that

ceasing to

'

bfe

believed

it

has ceased to

Dr. Macculloch was mistaken sight

'

exist), '

exist.''

in his facts.

'

Second

has never ceased to exist (or to be believed to

and

Journal

'

it

has

recently

been

investigated

of the Caledonian Medical Society.

himself says that

it

in

the

Mr. Tylor

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 '

Primitive CuUwre,

i.

143.

F

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

66

and peasant

folklore,' a revival

brought about in great

To-day things have The students now interested in this whole class altered. of alleged supernormal phenomena are seldom believers part by the writings of Swedenborg.

in the philosophy of Spiritualism in the

American sense

of the word.'

Mr. Tylor, as we have

seen, attributes the revival of

interest in this obscure class of subjects to the influence

of

Swedenborg.

It

true,

is

has been shown, that

as

But modern interest has chiefly been aroused and kept alive by the phenomena of hypnotism. The interest is now, among Swedenborg attracted the attention

educated students, really

of Kant.

scientific.

Thus Mr. William James, Professor the University of Harvard, writes

of

Psychology in

:

I was attracted to this subject (Psychical Eesearch) some years ago by my love of fair play in Science.' ^ '

Mr. Tylor

not incapable of appreciating this

is

Even the

tude.

so-called

'

spirit

manifestations,' he

atti-

says,

'

should be discussed on their merits,' and the investigation

'

would seem apt to throw

psychological questions.'

from the

The

Hume.

logic of

ideas of

religion are

now

on some most interesting Nothing can be more remote

light

Mr. Tylor on the causes of the origin

of

not from the point of view

of

criticised,

spiritualism, but of experimental psychology.

that very probably there exist

known

scope

;

human

We

hold

faculties of un-

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

• 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. • The Witt to BeKeve, preface, p. xiv '

'

'

'

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION -civilised races,

67

and that they may have confirmed,

did not originate, the doctrine of separable •souls.

do

the circumstance

exist,

modern

fact that

ideas rest

if

they

If

they

important, in view of the

is

on a denial

of their existence.

Mr. Tylor next examines the savage and other names the

for

man

as

shadow {umbra), breath

and he gives cases in which the shadow

regarded as equivalent to his

is

shadow

Of

life.

The

of a

course, the

in the sunlight does not resemble the

a dream.

in

such

ghost-soul,

(spiritus),

phantasm

two, however, were combined and

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. identified

The

confessedly symbolical character of the phrase,

'

it

is

them which makes proves that to the speaker life was not breath,' but that these terms were known

not precisely the heart, but that in

them '

heart

live,'

or

'

'

to be material word-counters for the conception of

"Whether the shadow, with

earliest life,

thinkers identified heart,

life.'

breath,

or whether they consciously used words

of material origin to denote an immaterial conception, of

course

we do

But the word

not know.

would react on the thought,

till

the

in the latter case

Eoman

inhaled (as

his life?) the last breath of his dying kinsman,

knowing that the

Manes

of

he well

the said kinsman were

elsewhere, and not to be inhaled.

Subdivisions and distinctions were then recognised, as of the '

Egyptian Ka, the

personal life-phantom

'

'

double,' the

{wraith),

Karen

on one

side,

helah, or

and the

Karen thah, 'the responsible moral soul,' on the other. The Eoman umbra hovers about the grave, the manes go to Orcus, the spiritus seeks the stars. '

Primitwe

Culty/re,

i.

432, 433.

Citing Oviedo, Hist, de Nicaragua,

pp. 21-51.

p 2

!

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

68

We

crowd

are next presented with a

sickness or lethargy

ascribed by savages to the absence

is

of the patient's spirit, or of of migratory

which

of cases in

one of his

This idea

spirits.

next used by savages to explain

spirit is

certain proceedings of the sorcerer, priest, or seer.

one of his souls

soul, or

is

His

thought to go forth to distant

places in quest of information, while the seer, perhaps,

remains lethargic.

he

Probably, in the struggle for existence,

more by being

lost

lethargic than he gained

by being

clairvoyant

Now, here we touch the theory, where a critic

wandering abroad false in

its

form

point in Mr.

first

may

Was

ask.

normal ?

By

'

this belief in the

of the seer's spirit a theory not only (as

probably

it

is),

unbased on experiences which might in favour of the

Tylor's

existence of

supernormal

human mind

which could not be obtained by

it

presumption

raise a

phenomena experiences

'

such as the acquisition by a channels of sensation.

but also wholly

really super-

I

here mean

of

knowledge

through the recognised

Say, for the sake of argument,

that a person, savage or civilised, obtains in trance infor-

mation about distant places or events, to him unknown, and, through channels of sense, unknowable. will explain this

seer's soul,

The savage shadow, or

wandered out of the body to the distant at present, an unverified theory. But still,

spirit,

This

by saying that the

is,

scene. for the

sake of argument, suppose that the seer did honestly obtain this information in trance, lethargy, or hjrpnotic rsleep,

or any other condition.

(or his

more

gifted ancestors)

his theory of the

If so, the

modern savage

would have other grounds

for

wandering soul than any ground presented

by normal occurrences, ordinary dreams, shadows, and so Again, in human nature there would be (if such

forth.

things occur) a potentiality of experiences other and stranger

ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION xhan materialism intellectu ce

will

admit as possible.

It will (granting

be impossible to aver that there

the facts)

69

is

nihil in

The soul will be not new popular tra-

quod non prius in sensu.

qu'un vain peuple pense under the

and the savage's theory

dition,

least in part,

of the spirit will be, at

based on other than normal and every-day

That condition in which the

facts.

seer acquires in-

formation, not otherwise accessible, about events remote in space, '

what the mesmerists

is

of the mid-century called

travelling clairvoyance.' If

such an experience be in reruin 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

But

death of the body.

will give the

it

savage a better excuse for his theory than normal experiences provide

—

and

will

even raise a presumption that

on mere ordinary experiences

reflection

trance

;

not the

is

— death,

shadow,

For

a savage

sole origin of his theory.

might soul had been

so acute as Mr. Tylor's hypothetical early reasoner

decline to believe that his ovni or a friend's

absent on an expedition, unless

brought back informa-

it

However, we cannot

tion not normally to be acquired.

a priori,

reason,

as to

how

far the logic of a savage

might

or might not go on occasion.

In any to ask

'

:

case, a scientific reasoner

Is

this alleged

through the ordinary channels of natura ? our

list

'

Because,

if

it

is,

we must

rerum

obviously increase :

his reasons include psychical experiences, '

'

and there must be an

X region to investigate.

These considerations did not

fail

to present themselves

with them is But With his unequalled knowledge of the lower

Mr. Tylor.

peculiar.

sense, a thing in

of the savage's reasons for believing in a soul

we must make

to

might be expected

acquisition of knowledge, not

his

manner

of dealing

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

70 races,

was easy

it

about savage seers

him to examine travellers' taleswho beheld distant events in vision,

for

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

among

performances It

the

which are abundant-

civilised,

obvious and undeniable that

is

acquisition of knowledge in trance process,

however

fications

;

rare,

is

if

the supernormal

a vera causa, a real

Mr. Tylor's theory needs modi-

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 at

all,

or, at

least,

examination.

this large

body

of evidence

does not offer us the details of his

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 frietids, have fallen into a swoon, during which they have appeared to the distant objects of their affection.' '

Jung- Stilling (though he wrote before modern tualism

'

came

in) is

not a very valid authority

plenty of better evidence than it

by, merely remarking that

enough to the lines of Europe has indeed done so, if closely

his,

;

'

Spiri-

there

is

but Mr. Tylor passes

modern Europe has kept early philosophy.' Modern '

it

explains the supernormal

acquisition of knowledge, or the hallucinatory appearance of a distant person to his friend '

spirits.'

wrong savages,

But

facts

by

a theory of wandering

do not cease to be facts because

interpretations

have

been

put upon them by

by Jung- Stilling, or by anyone

else.

The

real

' Primitwe Culture, i. 440. Citing Stilling after Dale Owen, and quoting Mr. Alfred Busael 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.

ANTHKOPOLOGY AND EELIGION

71

is, Do such events occur among lower and higher beyond explanation by fraud and f6rtuitous coincidence ? We gladly grant that the belief in Animism,

question races,

when is

it

takes the form of a theory of

probably untenable, as

But we theory

it is

'

wandering

assuredly of savage origin.

not based on actual experiences, not of a normal If so, the

and ordinary kind.

savage philosophy and

supposed survivals in belief will appear in a

mass

'

are not absolutely so sure that in this aspect the

is

And we

spirits,'

new

its

light.

are inclined to hold that an examination of the

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

outrun already the limits of It may appear absurd to surmise

to have

permissible hypothesis.

man, savage or

that there can exist in

civilised,

a faculty

by the known

acquiring information not channels of sense, a faculty attributed by savage philosophers to the wandering soul. But one may be permitted accessible

for

to quote the opinion of

M.

Charles Eichet, Professor of

Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. not cited because

M. Eichet

is

It

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.''

Instances tending to raise a presumption in favour in savage and of M. Eichet's idea may now be sought civilised

life.

Proceedings, S.P.E. v. 167.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

72

IV '

'

OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE

To open

the Gates of Distance

phrase for what This,

is

d

called clairvoyance, or vue

distance.

the result of a faculty of undetermined

if it exists, is

whereby knowledge

nature,

the poetical Zulu

is

'

'

of

may

remote events

be

acquired, not through normal channels of sense.

As the

man

becomes

Zulus say

:

'

Isiyezi

is

which he would not ecstasy

(nasiyesi).'

includes

what

is

a state in which a

He

slightly insensible.

'

awake, but

is

see

if

still

sees things

he were not in a state

The Zulu

description

technically styled

'

of

of isiyezi

dissociation.'

No

psychologist or pathologist will deny that visions of an hallucinatory sort in the petit

mal

may

occur in dissociated

of epilepsy.

The

states, say

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

At the moment

law, exactly illustrates the Zulu theory.

when

the husband of Jonka Dyneis was in danger six

miles from her house in his boat, Jonka

seen standing at her

own house

'

was found, and

wall in a trance, and

being taken, she could not give answer, but stood as bereft of her senses,

'

and when she was asked

Callaway, Religion of the Zulus,

p. 232.

why

she

:

'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE'

73

Tvas so moved, she answered, "If our boat be/iot lost, she

was in great hazard."

The

belief in

'

(October

2, 1616.)'

opening the Gates of Distance

The

course, very widely diffused.

gift

of

attributed to

is

many

Apollonius of Tyana, to Plotinus, to

is,

Saints,

to

Catherine de' Medici, to the Eev. Mr. Peden,^ and to

Jeanne d'Arc, while the faculty savage seers in

The

is

the stock in trade of

all regions.^

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

wandering

the

of

Now,

soul.

to

attested cases of successful clairvoyance

a

White men

difficult task.

afraid of

anything like

find

among

savages

is

either scout the idea, or are

seeming superstitious

if

they give examples,

or, if

they do give examples, are accused of having sunk to the degraded level of Zulus or travellers, like

Scheffer,

Red

Even where about their own ex-

Indians.

have told

periences, the narratives are omitted

on savage researches,

divination.*

and

savage

cessful

it is

We must

by

modem

therefore

writers

make our own

to be noted that the stories of suc-

clairvoyance

are

given

merely, not as evidence to facts, for

as

illustrations

we cannot

cross-

examine the witnesses. Mr. Tylor dismisses the topic in a manner rather xjavalier

'Without discussing on their merits the accounts of what is called " second sight,"' it may be pointed out that '

Graham

Dalzell,

Darker Superstitions of Scotland,

p. 481.

See good evidence in Ker of Kersland's Memoirs. s Aulus Gellius, xv. 18, Dio Caesius, Ixvii., Crespet, De la SaJme du Didble, Prods de Jeanne d'Are. * See Shamanism in Siberia,' J.A,I., November 1894, pp. 147-149, and compare Schefier. The article is very learned and interesting. * Williams mentions second sight in Fiji, but gives no examples. '

'

'

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

74

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 Eiver, 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."

Now,

in our opinion, the

'

merits

sight need discussion, because they raise a

'

of stories of second

may,

foundation than Mr. Tylor supposes.

though Mr. Tylor does not say

whom

if

well attested,

presumption that the savage's theory has a better

so,

he borrows his two anecdotes)

Oddly enough,

Dr. Brinton (from is

more

or less of

our opinion.

There are,' says Dr. Briaton, 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 facts are

We,

is '

:

the alleged

put aside without serious consideration.'

'

Science,

discovered

To

of

at least, are not slaves to the idea that

of exact science

world.

what we complain

exactly

'

the laws

must be the only laws at work in the however exact, does not pretend to have

all 'laws.'

return to actual examples of the alleged super-

normal acquisition of knowledge by savages Dr. Brinton gives an example from Charlevoix and General Mason :

Brown's anecdote.^

In General Mason Brown's instance

Primitive Cultwre, i. 447. Mr. Tylor cites Dr. Brintou's Myths of the World, p. 269. The reference in the recent edition ia p. 289. Carver's case is given under the head Possession later. '

New

'

'

Journal Historique,

p.

362

'

;

Atlantic Monthly, July 1866.

:

'OPENINa THE GATES OF DISTANCE'

75-

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

saw

his

Brown by

two companions.'

the warriors before they

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

such as these, and some will be found in

'

many tales 'Among the '

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, Zulus,'

privately printed, contains

much

interesting matter.

He

writes

I was obliged to proceed to the Zulu country to meet 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 NorthEast 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 '

my

'

'

—

—

'

easily substitute

some news which he may have heard

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

76

" 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,' 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 " This attentively, described the man faithfully, and said 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 iaf ormation 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 '

Probably impepo, eaten by

seers,

according to Callaway.

'

'OPENING THE GATES OF

DISTAJSTCE

77

suggested by friends familiar with the country and the

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 natives

'

the Anthropological Institute,'

where

'

November

private information,' as usual,

1897, p. 320,

would explain the

singular facts.

The Zulus themselves voyance which looks

lay claim to a kind of clair-

like the result of intense visualising

power, combined with the awakening of the subconscious

memory.' '

There

is

among

black

men

When

divination within them.

a something which is anything valuable is lost, they cannot find it, each-

they look for it at once when 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 At length to siich a place it is there, and he will find it. 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 If it is a hidden place he throws himself to the place. into it, as though there was something that impelled him and, in fact, he finds the to go as swiftly as the wind If it thing, if he has not acted by mere head-guessing. has been done by real inner divination, he really sees it. But if it is done by mere head-guessing and Imowledge 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 '

and Fetishism.' To take a Northern people

Possession

Lapps '

'

^

'

'

:

In his

Scheffer describes mechanical

Callaway's Religion of the Amazulu, p. 358.

'

History of the

modes '

of divina-

Oxford, 1674.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

78 tion practised

by that

who

race,

drum and

use a

other

These modes depend on mere

objects for the purpose.

traditional rules for interpreting the accidental combina-

tions

of lots.

But a Lapp

confessed to Scheffer, with

he could not help seeing

tears, that

visions, as

he proved

by giving Scheffer a minute relation of whatever particulars had happened to me in my journey to Lapland. '

And he make use

further complained that he

to

of his eyes, since things altogether distant were

presented to them.'

This Lapp was anxious to become a

and valuable was posed by was Eegnard by a Lapp

Christian, hence his regret at being a

example

knew not how

'

rare

Torfseus also

of clairvoyance.

the clairvoyance of a Samoyed, as seer.'

The next examples,

is

case

is

of old date, and, like the other savage

merely given for purposes of '

'

illustration.

25^ Lettre?

" Suite des Traditions des Sauvages." '

—

Au

Fort de la EiviSre de St. Joseph, ce 14 Septembre 1721.

Vous avez vu a Paris Madame "Des Jongleurs " 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 39^ de cette Dame, qui n'est rien moins qu'un esprit foible. Bile etoit un jour fort inquiette au 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, & I'ayant apprise, lui dit, apres y avoir un peu rev^, de ne plus se chagriner, que son Bpoux reviendroit tel jour et h, telle heure, qu'elle lui marqua, avec un chapeau gris sur la tSte. Comme elle «'apper9ut que la Dame n'ajoutoit point foi a sa prediction, au jour & a I'heure, qu'elle avoit assignee, elle ;

'

'

Voyages.

'

From

Charlevoix, Journal Historique, p. 362.

'

'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE

79

refcourna chez elle, lui demanda si elle ne vouloit pas venir voir arriver son Mari, & la pressa de telle sorte de la suivre, qu'elle I'entralna au bord de la Eiviere. 'A peine y etoient-elles arrivees, que M. de Marson

parut dans un Canot, un chapeau gris sur la tSte; & ayant appris ce qui s'etoit passe, asslira qu'il ne pouvoit pas comprendre comment la Sauvagesse avoit pu s9avoir rheure & le jour de son arrivee.' It

is

unusual for European travellers and missionaries

which might seem to confirm the delusions of benighted savages.' Such anecdotes, again, are among the arcana of these wild philosophers, and are to give anecdotes

'

When

not readily communicated to strangers. cases are reported,

successful

natural to assert that they

it is

come

who have sunk into barbarous superthey may be explained by fraud and

through Europeans stition,

or that It

collusion.

believe

in

is certain,

their

own

however, that savage proficients

powers, though no less certainly

they wiU eke them out by imposture.

Seers are chosen

among Eskimos and Samoyeds, from the Europe supplies the persons who used to

in Zululand, as class

be,

which

in

but are no longer the most favourite hypnotic subjects,

and hysterical. These are and methodical course of training.' subjected to a long StoU, speaking of Guatemala, says that certainly most of '

abnormal

children,' epileptic '

'

the induced and spontaneous are familiar occur observations.^

for

among

phenomena with which we

savages,'

Information

and appeals is

likely to

to travellers

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. •

Bastian, Ueber psych. Beobacht. p. 24.

=

Op.

cit. p.

These 26.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

80

are tested

by

much

like

which have

their skill in finding objects

They then behave

been hidden without their knowledge.

Mr. Stuart Cumberland, but have not the

who knows

advantage of muscular contact with the person

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

They see when he has found all

the things that

all

they have hidden.

that he

(seer)

the things they have con-

No

cealed.'

doubt he

sensitive condition,

a great inyanga

perhaps in a super-

guided,

is

is

by the unconscious

indications of the

excited spectators.

The

point

that, while the savage conjurer will doubt-

is

use fraud wherever he can,

less

races

people

still

the experience of low

in favour of employing as seers

is

who in Europe were,

till

the class of

recently, supposed to

make

Thus, in West Africa,

the best hypnotic subjects.

'

the

presiding elders, during your initiation to the secret society of

your

sight],

tribe, discover this gift [of

and so

select

the Karens, the

'

you

Ebumtupism, or second

as " a witch doctor."

Wees,' or prophets,

'

'

'

Among

are nervous excitable

men, such as would become mediums,'

^

as

mediums

are

diagnosed by Mr. Tylor.

In

short, not to multiply examples, there is

of actual observation

and

trickery of savage practice. selected partly

an element

of hona fides entangled in the

Though the

subjects

may

be

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 Eichet,

Janet, and William James. '

'

Miss Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 460. Primitive Culture, ii. 131 Mason's Bunnah, p. 107. ;

'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE'

The

mew

following example, by no

become Indian

her preliminary

fast, at

Eed

the age of

After six days of abstention from food she was

away

welcomed -the

magic, after they have

Catherine Wabose, a converted

Christians.

seeress, described

puberty. rapt

means unique, shows the

own

taken by savages of their

81

of

gift

unknown

to an

where a radiant being

place,

Later a dark round object promised her

her.

prophecy.

greatly sharpened

by lack

She found her natural senses of food. She first exercised her

powers when her kinsfolk in large numbers were starving.

A

medicine-lodge, or

built for her,

'

tabernacle

and she crawled

as Lafitau calls

'

As

in.

is

was

it,

well known, these

lodges are violently shaken during the magician's stay

within them, which the early Jesuits at

muscular

efforts

by the

first

attributed to

In 1637 Pere Lejeune

seers.

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,

gave the same description of her lodge began

knew

own

Catherine,

experience

' :

The

shaking violently by supernatural means.

by the compressed current of air above, She had been beating a and the noise of motion.' The radiant small drum and singing, now she lay quiet. must go that they informed her spirit then orbicular The westwards for game how short-sighted you are I

this

'

'

'

!

;

advice

'

was taken and crowned by

'

instant success.'

This

was by a dream of her dying son, who beheld a Sacred Figure, and received from Him white raiment.

established her led

up

reputation.'

Catherine's conversion

to

'

Schooloraft,

i.

394.

*

'

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

82

Her magical songs tell how unseen hands shake the lodge. They invoke the Great Spirit that Illumines earth Illumines heaven

'

Ah, say what

What It

is like

!

Body, is this Body, That fills the world around. Speak, man, ah say Spirit, or Body, is this Body ? Spirit, or

'

hymn

a savage

We

knowing of

Acosta, authority,

who

civil wars.'

successes.

has not the best possible repute as an

informs us that Peruvian clairvoyants

tell

'

tell

news can two or three hundred leagues

in the furthest parts before

In the distance

they would

There is no limit

not asked to give other

what she considered her

what hath passed come.

:

of the Self that knows.'

Unluckily Catherine was

examples

the

:

are reminded, too, of

the doctrine of the Sanscrit Upanishads

to the

Seek

to Hegel's filhlende

all-pervading Sensitive Soul. '

magic-

of

what the Spaniards

To Du

did or suffered in their

Pont, in 1606, a sorcerer

'

rendered a

true oracle of the coming of Poutrincourt, saying his

Devil had told

him

so.'

^

We now give a modern tory, of

by

case,

from a

scientific labora-

knowledge apparently acquired in no normal way,

a person of the sort usually chosen to be a prophet, or

wizard, by savages.

Professor Eichet writes

:

On Monday,

July 2, 1888, after having passed all the laboratory, I hypnotised Leonie at 8 p.m., and while she tried to make out a diagram concealed in " What has an envelope I said to her quite suddenly happened to M. Langlois?" Leonie knows M. Langlois from having seen him two or three times some time ago in physiological laboratory, where he acts as my assistant. '

day in

my

:

my

'

'

Brinton's Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 57. » S.P.B. Proceedings, vol. Purchas, p. 629.

vi. 69.

— '

'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE'

83

— "He has

burnt himself," L^onie replied.— " Good," I " and where has he burnt himself ? "-^" On the left hand. It is not fire it is I don't know its name. 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 biirnt 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 arft» 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 said,

—

:

Why

—

—

;

'

—

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 The modem inquirer will spirit had visited M. Langlois. probably say that Leonie became aware of what was This supranormal passing in the mind of M. Eichet. way of acquiring knowledge was observed in the last century by M. de Puysegur in one of his earliest cases MM. Binet and Fere say It is not of somnambulism. '

:

yet admitted that the subject of the magnetiser

is

able to divine the thoughts

without any material communication

while they grant, as

a minimum,

;

that 'research should

They appear to think be continued in this direction.' may have read 'involuntary signs' in the '

that Leonie

aspect of

Here

M.

Eichet.

follows '

This

is

a difficult hypothesis.

a case recorded in his diary

by Mr.

Binet and F6r6, Animal Magnetism, p. 64.

a 2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

84

Dobbie, of Adelaide, Australia,

notism 1884)

for

that

occasions

He

curative

to

purposes.

who

has practised hyp-

He

explains (June 10,

he had mesmerised Miss relieve

rheumatic pain

on

several

and sore

throat.

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 sSance. One of the company wrote down the replies as they were spoken. '

Her father was at the time over fifty miles away, but did not know exactly where, so I questioned her as " Can you find your father at the present follows 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 '

we

:

;

at a large table in a large room, and there are a lot of people going in and out." " What is he doing ? " " Writing

" Whom is a letter, and there is a book in front of him." 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 " Can you read them, or tell me the name letters on it." She read, or pronounced slowly, "W. of the author ? " 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-crovni 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 •

'

;

;

'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE'

85

thorough sceptic as to clairvoyance, he frankly admitted that my clairvoyant was perfectly correct In every particular. He also informed us that the hook 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

found

Research.' after

of cases of so-called

in the

'

As the authors

'

'

clairvoyance

'

will

be

Proceedings of the Society for Psychical

discounting,

of these essays remark, even

each case, fraud, malobservation,

in

and misreporting, the residue

can seldom justify

of cases

either the savage theory of the

wandering soul (which

is

not here seriously proposed) or Hegel's theory that the

fuhlende Seele

is

unconditioned by space.

For,

if

thought

may

transference be a fact, the apparent clairvoyant

results,

however,

when

successful,

only

The

be reading the mind of a person at a distance.

would naturally suggest

wandering soul, or had already been suggested by the

to the savage thinker the belief in the

corroborate

it

if

it

common phenomena To

of dreaming.

these instances of knowledge acquired otherwise

than by the recognised channels of sense the

Scottish tales

of

'

second

sight.'

we might add

That phrase

merely a local term covering examples of what '

clairvoyance

'

—views

of

is

called

is

things remote in space, hallu-

cinations of sight that coincide with

some notable event, The belief and

premonitions of things future, and so on. hallucinatory experiences are

still

very

common

in the

Highlands, where I have myself collected many recent Mr. Tyler observes that the examples 'prove instances. a

too

little

much;

they vouch not only for

apparitions, but for such '

Vol.

vii.

p. 407, Drs.

phantoms

Mrs. Sidgwick, pp. 30, 356

Dufay and Azam.

;

as

demon

human

dogs,

vol. vi. p. 66, Professor

and

Eichet

:

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

86 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 Again, funerals are not

misconstrued.

where no funeral

is

taking place

;

it

is

uncommonly

a real funeral, similar and similarly situated, soon

wards occurred. percipients

On

the hypothesis of

the

Such refraction of events As often rises ere they rise.'

Even the savage cannot account the wandering of the soul in space

;

for this experience

are published in the Society,' 1897,

'

by

nor do I suggest any

I give, however, one or two instances.

explanation.

MSS.

after-

believers,

somehow behold '

of the

seen

then alleged that

They

Journal of the Caledonian Medical

by Dr. Alastair Macgregor, on the authority

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 '

my

visions of events which subsequently occurred, to 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 funeral

typical

example

of

the vision of a

!

'OPENING TflE GATES OF DISTANCE'

87

The

session clerk at Dull, a small village in Perthill, 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. 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 fimeral procession passing along the road. From their dress the bulk of the mourners seemed to be farm labourers '

shire,

was

My

— indeed

young woman recognised some of them who had gone to live and work near Dunkeld. Bemarks were naturally made by my grandfather and the young couple about the untimely hour for the

as natives of Dull,

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, The facts were that a boy, a arrived quite unexpectedly. 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. grave was dug as quickly as possible the poor lad having no relatives and the remains were interred. grandfather and the young couple recognised several of the mourners as being among those whom they had seen '

A

—

—

My

out of the session clerk's room, exactly a week previously, The young woman knew some in the phantom cortege. 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 auditory, as well as visual, and the prediction

nounced before the event.

was

was an-

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

88

The parishioners in Skye were evidently largely imbued, with the Eomanist-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 Having had the or "vision" directly it was told him. advantage of a medical, previous to his theological, training, he was able to note down sound facts, unemEntering into this bellished by superadded imagination. 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 realising 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 ? '

;

'

—

'

'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE' Macgregor's

Dr.

unwelcome nature

remarks

on

of the visions

89-

the involuntary and borfie out

is

by what

Scheffer, as already quoted, says concerning the

Lapps. In addition to visions which thus come unsoughtrcontributing knowledge of things remote or even future,-

we may glance methods.

at visions which are provoked by various Drugs (impepo) are used, seers whirl in a wild

dance

they

till

fall

various

kinds of

Fasting

is

trance

we

is

senseless,

or trance

self-suggestion

or

In modern

also practised.

common among mediums '

'

'

life

—a

is

induced by

auto-hypnotism.' the self-induced subject to

which

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,

condition of culture.'

The

alleged experiences are

and by races in every still

and have been investigated by physiologists the eminence of M. Eichet. The question cannot but

said to occur, of

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 imiversal

diffusion.

savage races has not,

in

observed.

We

we

The width believe,

then add facts of

of its range

been previously

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. 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. '

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

90

V CBYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED

Among

methods of provoking hallucinations knowledge may be supemormally obtained,

savage

whence

various forms of

We

'

crystal-gazing

are the

'

most

curious.

find the habit of looking into water, usually in a

vessel,

among Eed

preferably a glass vessel,

Eomans

(Lejeune),

Africans of

(Varro, cited in Civitas Dei,

Fez (Leo Africanus)

;

Indians iii.

457),

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.'

I

have already given, in the Introduction,

record of the Polynesian case. floor of his house,

and

filled

for a vision of the thief

The Polynesian theory

with water, the priest looks

who

is

A

has carried

Lejeune's water, in

the

way

Ked Indians make which they

it

is

reflected.

their patients gaze into the

will see the pictures of the things in

of food or medicine that will do

modern language, the plicitly in

off stolen goods.

that the god carries the spirit

the thief over the water, in which

of

Ellis's

hole being dug in the

instinctive

them good.

In

knowledge existing im-

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.

Information, with a photograph of the stones, from a correspondent in

West Maitland,

Australia.

CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED Cavalry,

an original and careful observer,

Apaches in the

He

interests

the

visited

the Ethnological Bureau.

of

learned that one of the chief duties of the medicine-

men

vfas to find out the

whereabouts of

lost or stolen

Na-a-cha, one of these jossakeeds, possessed

property.

a magic quartz crystal, vrhich he greatly valued.

Bourke presented him

me

could not give

a

vsrith

wanted

to

finer

still

an explanation

except that by looking into lie

91

it

of

Captain

crystal.

its

'

He

magical use,

he could see everything

Captain Bourke appears never to

see.'

have heard of the modern experiments in crystal-gazing. Captain Bourke also discovered that the Apaches, like the <3-reeks, Australians, Africans,

races,

Maoris, and

many

use the bull-roarer, turndun, or rhomhos

other

—a

piece

wood which, being whirled round, causes a strange The wide use in their mystic ceremonies. of the rhombos was knovyn to Captain Bourke that of the crystal was not. For the Iroquois, Mrs. Erminie Smith supplies inforof

windy roar

—

;

mation about the it

crystal.

'

Placed in a gourd of water,

could render visible the apparition of a person

bewitched another.' of a medicine-man

She gives a case

who found

among the

One may add

Huille-che

want to find I suppose to be '

into a basalt.'

The kindness

of

'

On

a second

trial

that treasure-seekers

what they black stone, which

look earnestly

smooth

who has

European times

the witch's habitat, but got

only an indistinct view of her face.

he was successful.'

in

slab of

for

'

^

Monsieur Lefebure enables

another example from Madagascar.^

me to

give

Flacourt, describing

' Report Ethnol. Bureau, 1887-88, p. 460; vol. ii. p. 69. Bourke's volume on The Medicine Men of the Apaches may

Captain also

be

consulted. Fitzroy, Adventure, vol. ii. p. 389. ^L'Histovre de la grand He Madagascar, par

*

le

Sieur de Flacourt.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

9a

they squillent

the Malagasies, says that in Littr6), that

heaven when

it

bolts

in

une de

many

ces

qu'elle a

countries.

pierres

la

aU from

'

thunder-

Lorsqu'ils squillent,

au coing de leurs

ont

ils

disans

tablettes,

Probably they used the crystals as do

On

the Apaches.

woman

July 15 a Malagasy

were

fleet,

viewed,

two French

in her crystal or otherwise,

which, like the Spanish officers,

'

f

reveals the

vertu de faire faire operation a leur figure

de geomance.'

whether

'

instruments called

crystals, as it does the flint '

word not

(a

by crystals, which thunders.' Of course the rain divine

is,

'

not in

and doctors, and others aboard,

vessels

sight,' also

whom

she had

seen, before their return to France, in Madagascar. earliest of the ships did

not arrive

August

till

The

11.

Dr. Callaway gives the Zulu practice, where the chief

The sees what will happen by looking into the vessel.' Shamans of Siberia and Eastern Eussia employ the same method.^ The case of the Inca, Yupanqui, is very curious. As he came up to a fountain he saw a '

'

'

piece of crystal of

fall

into

it,

within which he beheld a figure

an Indian in the following shape.

.

.

.

The

apparition

then vanished, while the crystal remained. took care of

it,

and they say that he afterwards saw

everything he wanted in

Here, then,

we

The Inca

it.'

^

find the belief that hallucinations can

be induced by one or other form

of

crystal-gazing,

ancient Peru, on the other side of the continent

the Huille-che, in Fez, in Madagascar, in Siberia,

Apaches, Hurons,

Iroquois,

Maoris, and in Polynesia.

Australian

This

is

black

in

among among fellows,

assuredly a wide range

1661, oh. 76. Veue de deux Navires de France predite par lea Negres, avant que Ton en peust S9avoir des Nouvelles, &o. Paris,

'

' ^

BeUgion of the Amazulu, p. 341. J.A.I., November 1894, p. 155. Byokov Bites

and Laws

is

cited

;

Zhvmal,

of the Yncas, Christoval de Molina, p. 12.

p. 86.

—

:

;

'

CEYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED

We

of geographical distribution.

also find the practice

Eome

in Greece (Pausanias, VII. xxi. 12), in

Egypt, and

93

(Varro), in

in India.

Though anthropologists have paid no attention to the it was of course familiar to later Europe. Miss X has traced it among early Christians, in early Councils, in '

subject,

'

episcopal condemnations of specularii,

under James VI. Simon's Memoirs

Aubrey

;

;

;

and so

to Dr. Dee,

the Eegent d'Orleans in St.-

the modern mesmerists (Gregory, Mayo)

and the mid-Victorian

spiritualists,

who, as usual, explained

by spirits.' Till this lady examined the subject, nobody had thought of remarking that a belief so universal had probably some the phenomena, in

basis of facts, or

prehistoric way,

their

nobody

if

we

'

except two professors

chemistry and physiology, Drs. Gregory and Mayo.

of

X

Miss

made

experiments, beginning by accident, like

George Sand, when a

child.

The hallucinations which appear

to her eyes in ink, or

crystal, are

Eevived memories

1.

the subconscious strata '

or

2.

'

3.

and thus only, from

arising thus,

;

Objectivation of ideas or images

unconsciously

(b)

'

'

—in the mind

(a)

consciously

of the percipient

Visions, possibly telepathic or clairvoyant, implying

acquirement of knowledge by supernormal means.'

The examples given

^

of the last class, the class

would be so useful to a

priest

which

or medicine-man asked to

discover things lost, are of very slight interest.'

X

drew attention to this ments have proved beyond doubt that a Since Miss

See Miss X's

article, S.P.E.

Proceedings,

v.

486.

make

subject, experifair ^

Op.

percentage cit. v.

505.

experiments, he, or she, should not be astonished if the first crystal figure represents the sheeted dead,' or a For some reason, or no reason, this is rather a usual person ill in bed. '

If

any reader wishes

to

'

prelude, signifying nothing.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

94

and healthy, can see vivid landscapes, and balls and other

of people, sane

figures of persons in motion, in glass

This faculty Dr. Parish attributes to

vehicles.

'

dissociation,'

But he speaks by

practically to drowsiness.

conjecture,

and without having witnessed experiments, as

shown

I

later.

now

offer a series of

will

be

experiments with a

coming under my own observation, in which knowledge was apparently acquired in no ordinary way. glass ball,

Of the absence

of fraud I

am

personally convinced, not

only by the characters of

all concerned, but by the nature That adaptive memory did not later

of the circumstances.

alter the narratives, as originally told, I feel certain, be-

cause they were reported to me,

when

I

was not

within less than a week, precisely as they are

present,

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 ex-

periences of her own,

She was innocent was, and

is,

which were sufficiently corroborated. and personally

of psychical studies,

in perfect health

being remote from her. sent

when

she

looked into

first

;

the pale cast of thought

I got a glass ball, and was preit.

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. (living as she '

seeing

'

to them.

was,

among

But she

persons and places

unknown

is

called

'

power

of

to her, but familiar

These experiences do seem to

examples of what

presently

strangers) developed a

me

to be

thought transference

; '

good

indeed,

I never before could get out of a level balance of doubt on

now leans considerably to There may be abundance of better

that subject, a balance which

the affirmative side.

evidence, but, knowing the persons and circumstances, and being present once at what seemed to me a crucial

'

CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED example, I was more inclined to be convinced. attitude appears, to myself, illogical, but

95

This

natural and

it is

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 con-

veyed,

by a

looker-on, in a

wink or a cough.

was invariable.

to say that success

Grace, and the scryer saw an old

But

a stick.

I doubt

if

I thought of Dr.

man

Dr. Grace

mean

W.

very deeply seated

is

The

self.

'

scries

which came right were sometimes, but not always, those which the agent '

thinking.

'

(or

person scried

But the examples

G.

crawling along with

my subconscious

in that mystic entity,

I do not

for)

of

was consciously

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

so intimately as to have a very of his meditation.

conjecture

I

may

is

good guess

man woman of

Again, a

a woman, and a

of

limited.

may know

the inquirer

at the subject

is likely to

be thinking

a man, so the

In answer to the

say that the crystal-gazer was

first

among

field of

objection strangers^

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,, The second objection is met or whom she would meet. all

of

by the circumstance that ladies were not usually picked Indeed, these choices out for men, nor men for women. 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 ta oblige, biases the inquirers,

and makes them anxious to

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

96

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 dough-

Take

faced babies.

descriptions of persons in a passport,

or in a proclamation sketching the personal appearance of

These

a criminal.

men

the

fit

or

women

intended, but

The descripa crowd of other people. by the scryer then may come right by a for-

they also

fit

tion given

may

tuitous coincidence, or

The complex

be too credulously recognised.

of coincidences, however, could not be

attributed to chance selection out of the whole possible

We must remember,

field of conjecture.

of such hits

against accidental

may

at

increases,

I

Of such mere luck I was writing a story of which

the hero was George Kelly, one of the

A

year after composing

the Government description of Mr.

my

exactly tallied with

and

eyes, '

about six

But

clergyman

;

I

face,

my

Seven

Kelly

Men

of

I found

tale,

(1736).

down

It

to

made my hero Government gave him five

except that I

knew beforehand

that Mr. Kelly was a

his curious career proved

of great activity

'

purely fanciful sketch,

whereas the

feet,'

feet ten.

Even

and

teeth,

the odds

rate,

conjecture.

give an example.

Moidart.'

too, that a series

an enormous

and geniality

him

to be a person

—and he was of Irish

birth.

a dozen such guesses, equally correct, could not

suggest any powers of

'

much was known at. I now give Miss Angus, as one may call

vision,'

when

so

beforehand about the person guessed cases in the experience of

the crystal-gazer.

The

got the glass ball for the

—

first first

occurred the day after she 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

CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED on her

97

She has a prominent nose and nut-cracker

face.

very much wrinkled, especially at the She is if she were always smiling. wearing a little white shawl with a black edge. But ! she can't he 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 that it was a family friend's mother instead of himself 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

Her

chin.

face

is

sides of her eyes, as

.

.

.

!

;

;

likeness to

The

my

'

vision

!

inquirer verbally corroborated

all

within a week, but leaned to a theory of

the facts to me,

'electricity.'

She

has read and confirms this account.

— One afternoon I was

sitting beside a young lady 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 That vanished, and, as still visible in the dim distance. '

II.

whom

I

suddenly, a little house appeared with five or six (I forget 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 were grazing. they were more like very small sheep ' 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.'

now

.

I heard of this case of

its

occurrence, and

.

.

from Miss Angus within a day or two was then confirmed to me, verbally,

it

by the other lady. She again confirms it (December 21, Both ladies had hitherto been perfect strangers to 1897). The old man was the schoolmaster, appaother. each In her MS., Miss Angus writes Skye,' but at the rently. '

H

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

98

time both she and the other lady said Shetland (which I

have restored).

In Shetland the sheep,

like the ponies, are

Fortuitous coincidence, of course,

small.

The next account

is

by another

lady, say

may

be invoked.

Miss Eose.

—

—

III. Writes Miss Bose 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

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 originally received

made

independently, without consultation, or attempt to

reconcile recollections.

CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED

99

At a recent experience of gazing, for the first time 1 was able to make another see what I saw in the crystal. Miss Eose 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 In a very short time she called out, " Oh to look. 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,' 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

second time only, but better '

with '

IV.— On

my

a

Thursday, March

friends the Anguses,

slight for the

—

? 1897, I was lunching and during luncheon the

It is not implied that the pictures on Friday were Probably Miss Eose saw what Miss Angus had seen by aid of

Sunday afternoon.

prophetic. '

civilian,

who now saw him known to her family.

acquaintance of Miss Angus's,

suggestion.'

H

2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

100

conversation turned upon crystal balls and the visions The subject that, by some people, can be seen in them. 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 I fixed my mind steadily upon 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

know

my

of his existence.

friend,

—

;

!

recalled.— December

The

2,

1897.'

witness gives the

had befriended account follows

name

of the trooper,

in a severe illness. :

she had told

me

whom

he

Miss Angus's own

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 almost 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 '

,

!

'

'

—

!

CRYST.^ VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED

101

Two friends who were in the excitement was intense, and my from the ball by hearing him call 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 "

officer,

only a soldier!"

room

said Mr. attention was drawn out, " It's wonderful

's

!

!

'

!

The next

who was

case

is

given,

first in

unconsciously scried

Miss Angus.

The

the version of the lady

and next in that

for,

other lady writes

of

:

—I met Miss A. for the

first time in a friend's house 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 Miss A. took the crystal, and our to a friend of hers. 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 I was suddenly very much other side of the room. 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 23, '

V.

in the south of

—

1897.'

Miss Angus herself writes '

how

:

Another case was a rather interesting one, as I somegot inside the thoughts of one lady while another

was doing her best

to influence

me

!

a friend in Brighton, has strange "magnetic" powers, and felt quite sure of success with me and the ball.

'Miss

,

a

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

102

Another lady, Miss H., who was present, laughed at insisted on the whole thing, especially when Miss holding my hand and putting her other hand on my foreMiss H. in a scornful manner took up a book, and,, head 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 Soon a rider came past, young, dressed for something. His horse ambled past, and he smiled and for racing. 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 All this happened in a few life were really extinct. 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

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 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

came forward

—

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 thewhole 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.] '

—

'

CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE VI.

—I may A

1897.

briefly

AI^TD

CIVILISED

add an experiment

of

103

December 21,

gentleman had recently come from England to

the Scottish town where Miss

with her family, and

about

Angus

lives.

He

dined

10.15 to 10.30 p.m.

she

proposed to look in the glass for a scene or person of

whom

He called up a mental picture which he had recently been, and of a young lady to whom he had there been introduced. The lady's he was to think.

of a ball at

however, he could not clearly visualise, and Miss

face,

Angus reported nothing but a view with polished floor and

many

of

an empty ball-room,

lights.

made another effort, and remembered some distinctness. Miss Angus then

The gentleman his

partner with

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

The

globe. tallied

and height but he had never

description of the features, figure,

with Mr.

's

recollection

;

He

seen this Geraldine of an hour except in ball dress.

and Miss Angus noted the time by their watches (it was said that on the first opportunity he 10.30), and Mr. 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. letters,

She had been

vyriting

in a high-necked white blouse, under an incan-

descent gas lamp with an unshaded glass globe. entirely

unknown

once by Mr.

to .

She was

Miss Angus, and had only been seen

Mr.

and the lady

of the crystal

picture corroborated all this in writing.

I after for

now all,

suggested an experiment to Miss Angus, which,

was

sceptics.

clearly not of a nature to establish a

The

inquirer

was

to

'

write down,

test

and

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

104

an envelope, a statement of his thoughts Miss Angus was to do the same with her description of the and these documents were to he picture seen by her inclose in

;

;

sent to me, without communication between the inquirer

and the

no way the two parties might

Of course,

crystal-gazer.

prove absence of collusion, as

this could in

arrange privately beforehand what the vision was to be. Indeed, nobody unless he

is

apt to be convinced, or shaken,

is

himself the inquirer and a stranger to the

seeress, as the people in these

experiments were.

Evi-

—and, in a secondary degree, —can thus be procured but

dence interesting to them

who know them

others

strangers are left to the all

to

;

same choice

reports of psychological experiences,

of doubts '

as

in

chromatic audi-

views of coloured numerals, and the other topics

tion,'

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

ac-

was but a sojourner in the land. He wrote, before knowing what Miss Angus had seen in the quaintance, and

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 I was between Sabathu (Punjab, India) and Egypt. anxious to know what stage of his journey he had

reached.'

Miss

Pembroke

A

Angus saw,

and

wrote,

before

telling

Mr.

:

long and very white road, with tall trees at one 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 '

side

;

CEYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED

105

very light clothes, are standing on the road beside the boat. •

January '

A

23, 1898.'

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

from him eight days after the experiment was recorded, on January 31. At that date Mr. Pem-

letter received

broke 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

We

residing.

of an historical crime, and Miss glass ball.

It

was easy

the scene

visited together

Angus looked

for her to

'

visualise

into the

the inci-

'

dents of the crime (the murder of Cardinal Beaton), for

they are familiar enough to see in the ball

was a

many

tall,

people.

pale lady,

'

What

she did

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,

sponds well '

I suppose

historical lic)

(as

it is

we

without a

ruff.

The costume

corre-

found) with that of 1546, and I said,

Mariotte Ogilvy

'

—to whom Miss Angus's

knowledge (and perhaps that of the general pub-

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

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

106

who

lady

furnishes

it

is

well

known

to me,

by Miss Angus, her absent nephew, and all about

verbally corroborated

to

and

whom were

her,

was

it

the lady, 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 '

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 She looked in the ball again, and said, "It a reflection." 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.'

look in the glass

;

'

;.

In this case thought transference

The

be appealed

to.

lady was thinking of her nephew in connection with

India.

was

may

It is not maintained, of course, that the picture

of a prophetic character.

The

following

unusual features.

examples

some

have

curious

On Wednesday, February

Miss Angus was looking in the

crystal, to

and

2,

1897,

amuse

six or

seven people whose acquaintance she had that day made>

A

gentleman, Mr. Bissett, asked her

his pocket.'

were, a long

'

what

letter

was

in

She then saw, under a bright sky, and, as it off, a large building, in and out of which

way

— '

CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED

107

many men were coming and

going. Her impression was 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 yotmg

that the scene

married daughter, then at a place about

Angus had

After Miss

described the large building and

crowds of men, some one asked, '

might

It

be,'

He

hurry.

she

;

Bissett

'

Now

'

Is

it

comes a

an exchange ?

man

in a great-

has a broad brow, and short, curly hair

hat pressed low serious

said.

miles away.

fifty

down on

his

The

eyes.

but he has a delightful smile.'

now both

face

is

;

very

Mr. and Mrs.

recognised their friend and stockbroker,

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

whose

letter

lady in a peignoir, lying on a sofa, with hare feet}

Miss

Angus mentioned

more

this vision as a bore, she being

interested in the stockbroker,

what was once

who seems

to have inherited

in the possession of another stockbroker

Mrs. Cockburn, for whom no pictures appeared, was rather vexed, and privately '

the smile of Charles Lamb.'

expressed with freedom a very sceptical opinion about the

whole

affair.

But, on Saturday, February

Angus was again with Mr. and Mrs. Mrs. Bissett announced that she had thing,'

Miss Angus saw a walk

in a

a river, under a brilliant blue sky.

'

5,

1897, Miss

Bissett.

When

thought of some-

wood or garden, beside Here was a lady, very

well dressed, twirling a white parasol on her shoulder as

she walked, in a curious 'stumpy

man

in light clothes, such as are

'

way, beside a gentle-

worn

in India.

He was

broad-shouldered, had a short neck and a straight nose, '

"

lady.

Miss Angus could not be sure of the colour of the hah-. The position was such that Miss Angus could not see the face of the

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

108

and seemed to

listen,

laughing, but indifferent, to his

The lady had a drawn Then followed a scene in

obviously vivacious companion. face, indicative of

ill

health.

which the man, without the a

number

of

Orientals

busy

'

was looking on

lady,

the felling of

in

Mrs. Bissett recognised, in the lady, her Clifton, in India

—above

realistic imitation of .

Mrs.

sister,

when Miss Angus gave

all,

at

trees.

a

Mrs. CHfton's walk, the peculiarity

which was caused by an illness some years ago. Mrs. and Mr. Bissett also recognised their brother-in-law in

of

On

the gentleman seen in both pictures. portrait of Mrs. Clifton as a girl, '

like,

but too pretty.'

A

being shown a

Miss Angus said

photograph done

it

was

recently,

however, showed her 'the drawn face' of the crystal picture.'

Next day, Sunday, February 6, Mrs. Bissett received, what was not usual a letter from her sister in India, Mrs. Chfton, dated January 20. Mrs. Clifton described a place in a native State, where she had been at a great

—

'

She added

function,' in certain gardens beside a river.

that they were going to another

purpose,

'

place for a certain

and then we go into camp

February.' clearing of

camp, as in

till

the end of

One of Mr. Clifton's duties is to direct the wood preparatory to the formation of the Miss Angus's crystal picture.^ The sceptical

Mrs. Cockburn heard of these coincidences, and an idea occurred to her.

She wrote

been mentioned, and

February

2,

with bare '

^

I I

asked whether,

on

who

has

Wednesday,

she had been lying on a sofa in her bed-room,

feet.

The young

saw the photographs. have been shown the

lady confessed that

letter of

evidence of the crystal pictures. The in which Mr. Clifton was concerned. corroborates.

to her daughter,

January

20,

letter of

was

which oonfii'med the

camp was formed

A

it

for ofSoial purposes

February 9 unconsciously

— CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED indeed so

;

'

and,

when she heard how

known, expressed of glass balls,

In

herself with

which tend

came

to be

some warmth* on the abuse

to rob life of its privacy.

prima

this case the

the fact

109"

facie aspect of things

that

is

a thought of Mr. Bissett's about his stockbroker, dulce

ridentem,

somehow

by way

of the

Miss Angus's mind and was interrupted by a

reflected itself into

glass

ball,

thought of Mrs. Cockburn's, as to her daughter.

But how came to display the unknown facts concerning the garden by the river, the felling of trees for these thoughts

and the bare

a camp,

question about which

feet, is a

it is

vain to theorise.^

On

the vanishing of the jungle scene there appeared

a picture of a great bay, in

man

in a

dark undress uniform, beside a

which were ships

in a plague district, were '

What

is

lot of last orders.'

like a hospital,

Here

a ship.

on shore.

the man's expression ?

been giving a

with is

five or six

the

man

huts, as

Mr. Bissett

He

' '

looks as

if

Then appeared beds

— no,

way

in

'

asked,.

he had a place

berths

He was

again.'

described, one pecuharity being the

grew

Wooden

of war.

it

:

is

minutely

which

his hair

— or, rather, did not grow— on his temples.

Miss Angus

now

meaning the lady

asked,

Where

is

my

little

of the twirling parasol

Oh, I've

walk.

'

Bissett,

who had been

officer in

'

left

off

of,

'

said

Mrs.

and recognised in the

undress uniform, her brother, the

whose

?

and staccato

thinking of her,'

thinking

lady

man

with the

had been scarred in that with a tiger. He was expected to an encounter way by sail from Bombay, but news of his setting forth has not singular hair,

'

The

face, in fact,

incident of the feet occurred at 4.30 to 7.30 p.m.

The

crystal

was about 10 p.m. ' 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. picture

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

110

moment when

been received (February 10) at the

this is

written.'

In these Indian

cases,

'

thought transference

may

'

account for the correspondence between the figures seen

by Miss Angus and the ideas Bissett.

But

in the

mind

of

Mr. and Mrs.

the hypothesis of thought transference,

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 while

river

it

and the scene with the

may

bare feet since Miss

The

trees.

incident of the

be regarded as a fortuitous coincidence,

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

trivial.'

These anecdotes

the facts certainly

left

a

acquiring

illustrate

number

knowledge

the triviality

;

are

but

of people, wholly un-

familiar vdth such experiments, under the impression that

Miss Angus's glass ball was like Prince All's magical telescope in the 'Arabian Nights.'^ These experiments, however, occasionally touch on intimate personal matters,

and cannot be reported It will be

in

such instances.

remarked that the faculty

is

freakish,

and

does not always respond to conscious exertion of thought have seen a photograph of this gentleman, Major Hamilton, which with the full description given by Miss Angus, as reported by Mrs. All the proper names here, as throughout, are altered. Bissett. It This account I wrote from the verbal statement of Mrs. Bissett. '

I

tallies

was then read and corroborated by herself, Mr. Bissett, Mr. Cockburn, Mrs. Cockburn, and Miss Angus, who added dates and signatures. * 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 persons concerned) can be communicated privately.

CEYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED mind

in the

of the inquirer.

thought of

of the person

miad

of a stranger present

Thus, in Case is

discerned;

I.

111

a connection

in another the

seems to be read.

In another

case (not given here) the inquirer tried to visualise a card for a person present to guess, vs^hile

to describe an object but, for the

much

moment,

in

Miss Angus was asked

present to the inquirer's mind,

—behind

the background

the

The double experiment was a double-

thought of the card. 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

not

is

even narrowed by the crystal-gazer's knowledge of the persons for whose diversion she

As

'

muscle-reading

of contact

makes the experiment.

not in question

(in the one case between inquirer and crystal-gazer the results '

is

were unexpected), and as no unconsciously made signs could convey, for example, the idea of a cavalry soldier in

on a race-course in two present see any more plausible ex-

uniform, or an accident

tableaux, I do not at

planation than that of thought transference, though that

to account for

is

some

how

of the cases given I do not

precisely understand.

Any one who can belief in

useful

the good

this

accept the assurance of

my personal

faith of all concerned will see

faculty of

crystal-gazing

how

must be

to

very 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 ethno-

graphic region.

But the

discovery of this prevalence

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

112

my

had not been made, to instances induced cally recorded in

me

knowledge, before modern

to notice the circumstances, sporadi-

books

of travel.

The phenomena are certainly

of a kind to encourage the

How else,

savage theory of the wandering soul.

would

say,

can the seer

visit

thinkers

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,

whatever

it

may

be.

crystal, blood, ink, or

Thus, to anthropologists, the

dis-

covery of crystal-gazing as a thing widely diffused and still

flourishing ought to be grateful,

however much they

may blame my

childish credulity.

no ground

suppose that crystal-gazing will ever be

to

I

may add

that I have

of practical service to the police or to persons

But

lost articles of portable property.

to experiments being

made

who have

I have no objection

at Scotland Yard.'

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 '

'

'

'

'

(March 16), I learn that the brother of Mr. Pembroke The scry of January 23 repre(p. 105) wrote from Cairo on January 27. sented his ship in the Suez Canal. He was, as his letter shows, in quarantine Major Hamilton at Suez, at Moses's Wells, from January 25 to January 26. (pp. 109, 110), on the other hand, left Bombay, indeed, but not by sea, as in the crystal-picture. See Appendix C. correcting

'

revises

'

'

'

113

VI

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS

We

have been examining

whicli knovyledge

knovm channel

of

sense.

savages, whether of

or

smooth

surface, or in dreams, sight,

they did not originate the belief in

soul.

The

collect

information,

argued, and

dependent

soul,

if

is

it

must

must so

far

to

visit

of 'possession,'

would confirm the

leave the body,

be capable of

when knowledge

is

separable

and would be leading an in-

distant

Perhaps we ought next

life.

no

such instances among

All

through second

in trance, or

civilised, in

the nature of clairvoyance simple,

or by aid of gazing in a

if

savage or

cases,

believed to be acquired through

is

places

it

to study cases

supposed to be con-

veyed 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 supernormal phenomena which may have led the savage reasoner to believe that he was not the only owner of a separable soul

The

would

or seer visited at

:

that other people were equally gifted.

which a savage dreamer a dream or vision in which he

sense, as of separation, feel after

satisfy him that But some experience

remote places, would

least,

was

volatile.

his soul,

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,

journeying.

had the faculty

of sending their souls a

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

114

Now, to

ordinary dreams, in which the dreamer seemed

see persons

who were

really

to the savage reasoner a certain evidence.

savages

It

is

some

(like

part

of

remote, would supply

amount

of affirmative

Mr. Tylor's contention that

children) are subject to the difficulty

which most of us may have occasionally felt in deciding Thus, Did this really happen, or did I dream it ? 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

between sleeping and waking expe-

practical distinction

As has been shown, the

rience on the whole. is

made by the lowest

clear

waking

distinction

One

savages of our acquaintance.

hallucination,

on the other hand,

presence of a person really absent, could not but

of the

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

Dr. Callaway illustrates this for the

go by contraries.'

Zulus, and Mr. Scott for the Mang'anza.

Thus they do

discriminate between sleeping and waking.

waking hallucinations

therefore examine

We

must

in the field of

actual experience, and on such recent evidence as

may

be

If these hallucinations agree, in a certain ratio,

accessible.

beyond what fortuitous coincidence can explain, with

real

but unknown events, then such hallucinations would greatly strengthen, in the

theory that a

mind

man

at

of

a

an early thinker, the savage distance

involuntarily, project his spirit

where he

When

is

may, volimtarily or

on a journey, and be seen

not present.

Mr. Tylor wrote his book, the study of the occasional waking hallucinations of the sane and healthy

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS was

Much,

in its infancy.

hallucinations, but these

indeed,

115

had been written about

were mainly the chronic

false

perceptions of maniacs, of drunkards, and of persons in

The

bad health such as Nicolai and Mrs. A. tions of persons of genius

hallucina-

— Jeanne d'Arc, Luther, Socrates,

by some attributed to lunacy in these famous Scarcely any writers before Mr. Galton had

Pascal, were people.

recognised the occurrence of hallucinations once in a

perhaps,

life,

people.

among

healthy, sober, and mentally sound

were known to occur, they were

If these

missed as dreams of an unconscious sleep. practically the hypothesis of Dr. Parish, as

But

later.

the

in

This

we

is

disstill

shall see

twenty years the infrequent

last

hallucinations of the sane have been recognised

by Mr.

Galton, and discussed by Professor James, Mr.

Gumey,

Dr. Parish, and

many

other writers.

Two results have followed. when not

First, ghosts ' are '

shown to

by mistaking one object for 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, be,

illusions caused

another, then hallucinations.

is

not a space-filling

Such an appearance

'

ghost,'

can,

but merely an hallucination.

prima

facie, suggest

no reason-

able inference as to the continued existence of the dead.

On

the other hand, the

perhaps insoluble question, sane,

new '

Do

studies

have raised the

not hallucinations of the

representing the living, coincide more frequently

than mere luck can account crisis of

for,

with the death or other

the person apparently seen ?

'

If this could

be

would seem to be a causal nexus, a relation of cause and effect between the hallucination and That connection would be prothe coincident crisis. proved, then there

by some not understood action the person in the crisis, on that

of the

visionally explained

mind

or brain of

of the I

2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

116

person

who

This

has the hallucination.

only the name, Telepathy,

no new

is

Of course,

modern.

is

idea if

;

all

were accepted, it would be the next step to ask whether hallucinations representing the dead show any this

by some action on the side of the a topic on which the little that we

signs of being caused

That

departed.

is

have to say must be said

later.

In the meantime the reader who has persevered so is

The

apt to go no further.

and

'

ghosts

'

is

prejudice against

very strong

phantasms are neither ghosts nor wraiths.

(as

;

'

far

wraiths

'

but, then, our innocent

we understand

their nature)

Kant broke the edges

of his meta-

physical tools against, not these phantasms, but the logically

inconceivable entities which were at once material and non-material, at once spiritual '

is

no such

else

difficulty

space-filling.'

There

are familiar facts of experience.

morbid (which

belief of physiologists

unknown death That

is

is

no longer the universal

and psychologists), and that the

alleged coincidences of a

phantasm

of a person

with the

of that person at a distance are 'pure

the question to which

In the meantime, the defenders is

'

real objections are the statements that hallucina-

tions are always

flukes.'

and

about hallucinations, which, whatever

may be said about them,

The only

'

some not understood connection

between the death or other

we

recur

later.

of the theory, that there

crisis at

and

of cause

effect

one end and the per-

ception representing the person affected by the

crisis at

the other end, point out that such hallucinations, or other

on the percipient, exist in a regular potency and perceptibility. Suppose that effects

Yorkshire before he

is

to affect the consciousness of

knows anything about the

sake of argument), then the effect '

B's

'

rising scale of '

'

A's

B

'

'

death in

in Surrey

fact (suppose it for the

may

take place

(1)

on

emotions, producing a vague malaise and gloom

;

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS on his motor nerves, urging him to

<2)

may

soflae act

translate itself into his senses, as a touch

heard, a figure seen

or

;

(4)

may

render

117

(3)

;

felt,

or

a voice

as a phrase

itself

or an idea.

Of these, vaguest.

(1)

We

the emotional effect

may

which we could not

all

of course,

is,

have had a sudden

explain.

fit

the

of gloom,

People rarely act on such

when they do, are often wrong. Thus a my own was suddenly so overwhelmed, at golf,

impressions, and, friend of

with inexplicable misery (though winning his match) that

home from

he apologised to his opponent and walked

Nothing was wrong at home. Probably of apprehension had obscurely occurred

ninth hole.

some

real

the

ground

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 The hall was covered by a kind of glass acquaintance. He was staying in the roof, over part of its extent. country with his wife, and as they travelled home the lady was beset with an irresistible conviction that someOn thing terrible had occurred, not to her children. to his

reaching their house they found that one of their maids

had

fallen

through the glass roof and

also learned that the girl's sister

killed herself.

had arrived

They

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.' Here, then, was not an hallucination, '

but an emotional

The

lady, her husband,

story in writing

;

effect

simultaneously reaching the

and the lawyer,

all

known

to

the servant's sister has been lost sight

me, gave

of.

me

the

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

118

consciousness of three persons, and coinciding with an

unknown

crisis.'

Cases in which a person feels urged to an act also recorded.

Not

an instance.

to trouble ourselves (3) with

hallucinations of sight, coinciding with a distant crisis,

are

(2)

Indeed, the lawyer's in our anecdote is such

are traced

'

voices,'

unknown

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

As some hundreds

once, to touch, sight, and hearing.

these narratives of coincidental

degree have been collected from witnesses at often

personally known,

a

by the student, it is difficult prima facie case for inquiry.^

There

is

here no question of

physical and metaphysical

first hand,,

and usually personally cross-

questioned, is

of

hallucinations in every

'

deny that there

spirits,'

difficulties.

desire to shirk the fact that

to

many

'

with

Nor

is

their-

all

there any

presentiments

'

and

hallucinations of the sane coincide with no ascertainable fact.

We

only provisionally posit the possibility of an

influence, in its nature

of

one mind on another

a distance, such influence translating

at

hallucination.

An

itself into

an

inquiry into this subject, in the ethno-

graphic and modern '

unknown,

fields,

may

be

new but

involves no

superstition.'

We now return to tions

among

Mr. Tylor, who treats

of hallucina-

other experiences which led early savage

thinkers to believe in ghosts or separable souls, the origin of religion. See three other oases in Proceedings, S.P.E., ii. 122, 123. Two others by Mr. Henry James and Mr. J. Neville Maskelyue of the Egyptian Hall. '

are

offered

'*

See

'

Phantasms

Living and A Theory by Messrs. Gurney and Myers.

of the

Proceedings, S.P.R., vol.

ii.,

'

•

of

Apparitions,''

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS As

to the causes of hallucinations in general,

something

has

to

behold

'

human

which they

in

spectres,'

But

believe.

it

'

Mr. Tylor

nothing systematic.

is

and excitement

Sickness, exhaustion,

'

but

say,

119

cause savages to

'

the objective reality

an educated modern, not

if

of

'

sick,

nor exhausted, nor excited, has an hallucination of a friend's presence, he, too, believes that

and blood,

friend in flesh

till

examination or reflection. remarks, in his

'

is

it

objective,'

'

his

is

he finds out his mistake, by As Professor William James

Principles of Psychology,' such solitary

hallucinations of the sane and healthy, once in a life-time, to

are difficult '

account

and are by no means

for,

Sometimes,' Mr. Tylor observes,

the

'

rare.

phantom has the an

quality of not being visible to all of

characteristic

assembled company,' and he adds

'

to assert or imply that

they are visible sometimes, and to some persons, but not always, or to everyone, facts

which

but which

is

to lay

is

down an

explanation of

modern explanation, and intelligible product

not, indeed, our usual

is

a perfectly rational

of early science.'

It

is,

rational tions,

nor

indeed,

and

has later science produced any

intelligible explanation of collective hallucina-

shared by several persons at once, and perhaps not

perceived by others true, asserts that

'

who

in civilised countries a

one having seen a phantom it

to others

state.'

But

is

whose minds this

Mr. Tylor,

are present.

is

enough

state

pectant attention,'

make

?

'

'

But

the

only

some

to bring a sight of

If

circle.

What

overwork,

illness,

a properly receptive

should have seen several phantoms in several houses.'

of

is

are in a properly receptive

arguing in a

properly receptive

rumour

it

thing

of

the

saw occurred when I was when I was in good health, and when thinking

of

sort

is

'a

'

ex-

state,' '

I

haunted I

nothing

I did not

ever less,

know

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

120

(nor did I learn

till

long after) that

it

was the

right and

phantom to see. Mr. Podmore remarks that various members of the Psychical Society have sojourned in some of them in a state of various haunted houses,' usual

'

'

expectancy and nervous excitement,' which never caused

them

to see phantoms, for they

saw

none.'

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

we

think

tions,

it

among

spirits,

Animism.

Now,

and thus to the early philosophy certainly,

person's presence, say at the distance,

important as

other causes, would naturally give rise to

the belief in of

facts,

would be, but with his theory that hallucina-

would suggest

the hallucination of

moment

to a savage that

something

dying man's, something symbolised in the word or 'breath'

modern '

spirit

'

spiritualistic is

'

(spiritus),

corresponds

'

a

of his death at a

had come to say

'

of the

shadow,'

The

farewell.

theory, again, that the dead man's

actually present to the percipient, in space, to,

and

is

sophy of the savage.

derived from, the animistic philo-

But we may believe

in such

'

death-

wraiths,' or hallucinatory appearances of the dying, with-

We may believe we may advance the

out being either savages or spiritualists.

without pretending to explain, or

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 if

who

perceives the wraith.

no explanation be

If this

be

so, or

even

offered, the truth of the stories of

coincidental apparitions becomes important, as pointing to a

new

region of psychical inquiry.

of sava,ges

Then the

evidence

as to hallucinations of their own, coincident '

Studies in Psychical Research, p. 333.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS with the death of

quantum

in all ranks of

Brougham As

absent

their

valeat, the evidence of life,

and

an old

to

confirm,

will

friends,

121

many modern

observers

Lord

degrees of culture, from

all

nurse.'

to hallucinations coincident with the death of the

person apparently seen, Mr. Tylor says class I

Narratives of this

' :

can here only specify vsdthout arguing on them,

they are abundantly in circulation.'

Now, the modern

^

hallucinations themselves can scarcely, perhaps, be called *

survivals

from savagery,' though the opinion that an

hallucination of a person

such a survival.

must be

his

'

hallucinatory origins, that Mr. Tylor

its

spirit

is

'

really

with that opinion, with Animism in

It is

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

real

person was dying at a distance.

view

is

beheld

when the He adds My own

by them (and in one case by a companion

also)

:

'

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.' fectly erroneous

;

but

if

idea

may

be per-

the occurrence of such coincidental

appearances as Mr. Tylor to be too frequent for

The

^

tells

us about could be shown

mere chance

would be a presumption

in

to produce, then there

favour of some

unknown

This, at least, seems 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 ? ^

Prim. Cult.

i.

449.

'

Ib^-

i-

450.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

122 faculties in

our nature

—a

theme

proper

anthro-

for

pology.

The in

hallucinations of

which a person

which we hear most are those

sees the

who, unknown to him,

is

phantom

of another person,

in or near the hour of death.

Mr. Tylor, in addition to his three instances in civihsed life, alludes to one in savage life, with references to other cases.'

We turn to his

savage instance, offering

it

at full

length from the original.^

Among

the Maoris (says Mr. Shortland) it is always 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.' '

'

'

ominous to

:

'

I

now

give Maori cases,

Mr. Tregear, F.E.G.S., author

communicated to me by 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 '

'

Prim. Cult.

*

From

vol.

i.

p. 450.

Shortland's Traditions of

New

Zealand, p. 140.

—

'

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS

12S

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.' Islands.

!

One more Maori example may be

offered

:

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 Eev. E. Maunsell at the mouth of the Awaroa creek a very lonely place, a As usual, vast swamp, no people within miles of them. they had a Maori with them to assist in felling trees. He came from Tihorewam, a village on the other side of the As Frank and the native were river, about six miles off. cross-cutting a tree, the native stopped suddenly, and said, "What are you come for?" looking in the direction of '

—

" What do you mean ? " to you I am speaking to speaking not

Frank.

Frank

said, " I

am

brother." replied, '

replied,

;

He my

Frank said, "Where is he?" The native "Behind you. What do you want?" (to the

Gurney and Myers, Phantasms '

of the Living,' vol.

ii.

oh. v. p. 557.

'

:

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

124

other Maori). Frank looked round and saw nobody. The native no longer saw anyone, but laid down the saw and said, " I shall go across the river my brother is dead." 'Frank laughed at him, and reminded him that he 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 narrative, Mr. Fenton writes

for this

:

'

knew

December

18, 1883.

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. '

I

all

'F. D. Fenton, '

del

Here is Fuego

a

Late Chief Jvdge, Native Law-Court of N.Z.'

somewhat analogous example from

Tierra

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 Bennett of the dream.'

Mr. Darwin also mentions

right.

.

.

.

'He reminded

this case, a coincidental audi-

tory hallucination. I have found

This

is,

meagre so

no other savage cases quite

undeniably,

a puir

show

to the point.

for Kirkintilloch,' a

collection of savage death- wraiths, but

meagre by reason

records,

'

travellers

of

want

The Adventure and '

may

be

usually pooh-poohing the benighted

superstitions of the heathen, or fearing to '

it

of research, or of lack of

'

'

Beagle,'

iii.

181,

cf.

seem super-

204.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS stitious

However few the

they chronicle instances.

if

125

instances, they are, undeniably, exact parallels to those

recorded in civilised

In

filling

life.

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, is

obviously necessary to reject

were

ill,

all

evidence of people

it

who

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

business, however,

with the

is

trustworthy, as far as visionary,

and

in

we know,

sane, healthy, not usually

an unperturbed state of mind.

There remains a normal cause tions,

many phantasms. Our

false perceptions of persons

of subjective hallucina-

This appears to be a real cause of

expectancy.

hallucination or, at least, of illusion. of a carriage

you may hear

taking other sounds for

it

Waiting for the sound

often before

that which you

it

desire.

comes, you Again, in

an inquiry embracing 17,000 people, the S.P.E. collected thirteen cases of to another is

an hallucinatory appearance of one person

who was

expecting his arrival.

very conceivable that a

trifle,

Once more,

it

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

name

who

felt

uncomfortable in a house with a

to be 'haunted,' though, as

is far less

common

we have

than the cause.

All

seen, the effect

these sorts of

causes are undoubtedly more apt to be prevalent

among

superstitious savages than among educated Europeans

THE MAKING OF KELIGION

126

And '

stands to reason that savages, where one

it

thinks he sees something,' will be readier than

think they tions,

'

something

see

'

Even

especially puzzling.

Yet

too.

which are shared by if

When

man

are to

collective hallucina-

several persons at once, are

when

they occur

•strained condition of expectancy,

them

we

odd that

is

it

all

are in a see

all

same way} Examples will occur later. there is no excitement, the mystery is increased.

in

the

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.

the conditions said to

In both cases

all

produce collective hallucination

were present in the highest degree.

Yet no

collective

hallucination occurred.

Narratives about hallucinations

with

coincident

death, narratives well attested, are abundant in

a

modem

times, so abundant that one need only refer the curious to

Messrs. Gurney and Myers's two large volumes, Phantasms '

and to the S.P.E.

of the Living,'

Hallucinations' (1894). istic

'

Eeport of Census

Mr. Tylor says

:

'The

of

spiritual-

theory specially insists on cases of apparitions, where

the person's death corresponds more or less nearly with

when some

the

time

But

visionaries,

living persons

when nothing

and the question

arises

are viewed {not

by

death or other

crisis of

appearance

is

no connection '

friend

perceives

phantom.'

his

he remarks truly, often see phantoms

'

occurs.

whether more

visionaries

')

That

is

of

the case,

such phantoms

in connection with the

the person whose hallucinatory

perceived, than ought to occur,

It will, of course,

of

if

there be

some unknown cause between deaths and

be said that they worked their stories Into conformity.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS

127

As Mr. Tylor observes, Man, as yet in a low came to associate in thought those things which he found by experience to be connected in fact.' Did early man, then, find in experience that

appearances.

'

intellectual condition,

'

apparitions of his friends were

And,

their deaths ?

if so,

'

connected in fact

'

with

was that discovered connection

in fact the origin of his belief that an hallucinatory appear-

ance 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

A

says the author.

Maori

chief

One day he entered

war-path.

'

many such

relations,'

was long absent on the and sat mute

his wife's hut,

She ran to bring witnesses, but on her by the hearth. 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 Of course, even if she fabled, the

evidence of his decease. story

is

evidence to the existence of the

"What, then, of a

man

is

is

belief.^

the cause of the belief that a

a token of his death?

On

phantom

the theory of

savage philosophy, as explained by Mr. Tylor himself, a

may

man's soul

leave his

body and become

others, not at death only, but

in

dream, trance, lethargy.

visible to

on many other occasions, All these are much more

frequent conditions, in every man's career, than the fact of dying.

to

Why,

then,

announce death

?

is

the phantasm supposed by savages

Is

it

because, in a sufficient ratio of

cases to provoke remark, early

pearance and the death to be

'

man

has found the ap-

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.

Prim. Cult.

i.

116.

'

Polaok's Manners of the

New

Zealanders,

i.

268.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

128

The Woi Worung, an Australian magic,

as,

when

sleep

tribe,

hold that

the

'

an individual could be sent from him by for instance, when a hunter incautiously went to

Mttrup [wraith]

of

out hunting.'

In

'

this case the hunter

But the Murup,

exposed to the magic of his enemies.

is

or

detached soul, would be visible to people at a distance

when

its

owner

Why,

philosophy.

owner believed '

only asleep

is

to

then,

when

—according the wraith

to the savage is

seen,

the

is

Are the things bound

be dying ?

to be

connected in fact ? '

As

is

well known, the Society for Psychical Eesearch

has attempted a

little

census, for the purpose of discover-

whether hallucinations

ing

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

the Maori might have some ground for his

so,

theory that such hallucinations betoken a decease.

I do

not believe that any such census can enable us to reach

an

affirmative conclusion

spite of all '

allowances

'

select

'

which science

precautions taken, '

made

affirmative

equally fatal)

will

all

warnings before, and

collectors

later,

In

will accept.

of

evidence

will

already known, or (which

cases

be suspected of doing

is

Again,

so.

memory, increasing the closeness of the coincidence, will come in or it will be easy to say that Allowances for them will not be accepted. they came in. Once more, 17,000 cases, though a larger number than illusions

of

—

'

is

'

usual in biological inquiries, are decidedly not enough for

a popular argument on probabilities said,

would not be too many.

;

a million,

it

will be

Finally, granting honesty,

accurate memory, and non-selection (none of which

be granted by opponents),

mMst

occur,

it is

and that the large proportion '

Howitt, op.

will

easy to say that odd things

cit. p.

186.

of affirmative

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS answers as to coincidental hallucinations

men

of these

odd

129

just a speci-

is

things.

Other objections are put forward by teachers of popular

who have

science

misreport

not examined

—

having examined,

or,

— the results of the Census in

I

detail.

may give

an example of their method.

Mr. Edward Clodd of

science — 'The

and

Evolution,'

book, a critique

the author of several handbooks

is

of Creation,' 'A Manual of Now, in a signed review of a published in The Sketch (October 13,

Story

others.

'

'

Thousands Mr. Clodd wrote about the Census of persons were asked whether they had ever seen apparitions, and out of these some hundreds, mostly un1897),

:

foreigners, replied

intelligent

number

eight or ten of the

in

'

Some

the affirmative.

—envied

mortals

—had

seen

like the American had seen only " snakes." ... In weighing evidence we have to take into account the competency Mr. Clodd as well as the integrity of the witnesses.' has most frankly and good-humouredly acknowledged Otherwise we might the erroneousness of his remark.

in the

"angels," but the majority,

mongoose

ask: '

story,

Does

competent

Clodd

Mr. '

or not

to

prefer

veracious

'

'

?

be

He

not

considered

cannot be both on

and published remarks were First, thousands of persons were

this occasion, for his signed

absolutely inaccurate.

'whether they had seen apparitions.'

twt asked

'Have you ever, when had a vivid impression of living being or inanimate a being touched by which impression, so far of hearing a voice

were asked:

to be perfectly awake,

or

or

could cause ? dreds,

;

discover, '

was not due

Secondly,

mostly

affirmative.'

They

believing yourself

it

is

to

any

not the fact that

English-speaking

object,

as

you

external physical

unintelligent foreigners,

Of

seeing,

'

some hun-

replied

in

the

men and women, K

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

130

1,499 answered the question quoted above in the affirma-

Of foreigners (naturally

tive.

turned affirmative answers.

'

unintelligent

'),

185

when Mr. Clodd

Thirdly,

'The majority had seen only "snakes,"' it easy to know what precise sense snakes bears says,

'

'

terminology of popular science.

by snakes,' amounted to '

fantastic

is

not

in the

Mr. Clodd means,

hallucinations of animals, these

against

as

25,

If

re-

830 representing human

forms of persons recognised, unrecognised, living or dead. But,

if

by

'

snakes

hallucinations, not this is his

'

Mr. Clodd means purely subjective

to coincide with any event — and —his statement agrees with that of the

known

meaning

His observations, of course, were purely accidental

Census. errors.

The number

of hallucinations representing living or

dying recognised persons in the answers received, was

Of first-hand

352.

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

was decided that the hallucinations collected coincided with death 440 more often than ought to be the Therefore there was case by the law of probabilities. compared,

it

proof, or presumption, in favour of

and

effect

If

some

relation of cause

between A's death and B's hallucination.

we were

to attack the opinion of the

Committee on

Hallucinations, that 'Between deaths and apparitions of

the dying a connection exists which alone,'

the

assault

method, but on the

should

is

not due to chance

be made not only on the

The

details.

events were never of

very recent, and often were of remote occurrence.

remoteness questions

was were

less

often

than

it

The

seems, however, as the

answered

several

years

before

;

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS

131

of the Eeport There was (1894). any documentary evidence, any note or letter written between the hallucination and the arrival of news Such letters, the evidence alleged, had in of the death.

ihe

publication

scarcely

some

cases existed, but

had been

lost,

burnt, eaten

by

white ants, or written on a sheet of blotting paper or the

whitewashed wall

by

my own

of a barrack room.

lifelong success

may

If I

mislaying,

in

judge

losing,

made

casually destroying papers, from cheques to notes

from interesting

for literary purposes,

and

letters of friends to

if I may judge by Sir same kind, I should not the disappearance of documentary evidence

the manuscripts of novelists, or

Walter Scott's triumphs think

much

of

of the

Nobody supposed, when

to death-wraiths.

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 able, for,

cases

if

of the occurrences is

why were

these things happen,

Again,

discovered?

the

more remarkso few recent

were sometimes

seers

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

:

Now

familiar with his personal aspect.

'subjective tions,

persons

persons

represent

much

in our minds.

I

such hallucinations occurred. 3,

son to mother

;

4,

are called

non-coincidental

hallucinations,'

usually

what

know 1,

2,

hallucina-

very familiar to us,

seven cases in which of

brother to sister

;

husband

to wife to sister

5, sister

cousin (living in the same house) to cousin 7, friend (living a mile away) to two friends. In no case was there

6,

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

—

K 2

!

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

132

But he had not

dog-cart with a lady.

but there

is

no proof that they

coincidental cases, on

We cannot,

driven.

of course, ^r owe that these seven cases

not telepathic,

vs^ere

w^ere.

Now

which the Committee

most

relied as their

choicest examples, represented persons familiarly

This looks as

the seers. if

telepathy does exist,

exist

if

they were casual

between kinsfolk and

The

most

it is

to

Hegel

says) to

friends.'

dates might be fresher

In case

1,

knew

percipient

(he being in Australia)

that his aunt in England

was not very

No

Casual acquaintance.

2.

known

but, of course,

;

likely (as

of the

well.

anxiety.

No

anxietJ^

Case of

acci-

dent or suicide. 3.

who feared to die in childbed, and much interested, nor at all anxious. England to son in India. No anxiety.

Acquaintance

Percipient not

did. 4.

Father in

5.

Uncle to

6.

No

anxiety.

No

Brother-in-law to sister-in-law, and her maid.

No

knowledge

niece.

Sudden death.

of illness.

anxiety reported.

Russian,

7.

Father to son.

8.

Friend to

No

anxiety reported.

No knowledge

friend.

Biissian. of

illness

or

anxiety reported. 9.

Gran dmotherlto grandson.

ledge of 10.

No anxiety.

Casual acquaintance, to seven people, and appa-

rently to a dog.

Illness

known.

Russian.

11. Step-brother to step-brother.

knowledge 12.

No know-

illness.

No

anxiety.

No

of illness.

Friend to friend.

No

anxiety or knowledge

of

illness. '

On examining

Jthe cases, |wej find, in 1894, these

occurrences, in twenty-eight oases:

1888, 1885,

dates of reported

1890, 1882, 1879, 1876,

1863, 1861,

1881, 1880, 1878, 1874, 1869, 1869, 1845, 1887, 1881, 1877,

1874, 1873, 1860

(?),

1864

(?),

1855, 1830

(? !),

1867, 1862, 1888, 1879.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS

No

13.

Casual acquaintance.

14.

Aunt

to

nephew and

anxiety.

to his wife.

known.

Illness

anxiety. 15. Sister to brother. 16.

No

No

133

No

Father to daughter.

No

known.

Illness

knowledge

anxiety. of

illness.

anxiety. 17.

Much

Father to son.

18. Sister to sister.

danger 19.

(Uncounted.)

anxiety.

Illness

known.

'

No

immediate

surmised.

'

Much

Father to son.

(Un-

Bussian.

anxiety.

counted.) 20.

Friend to friend.

been nursing patient.

No

Illness

Brazilian.

(Very bad case !) known. No anxiety.

21.

Friend to

22.

Brother to brother.

23.

Grandfather to grand-daughter.

friend.

Illness

Percipient had

known.

Illness

No

known.

anxiety.

known.

Illness

pressing anxiety. 24.

Grandfather to grandson.

Illness

No

known.

anxiety. 25. Father's

hand.

Illness

no

26.

Husband

27.

Brother to

No

anxiety.

to wife. sister.

Anxiety in time of war. Slightly anxious from receiving

letter.

28.

Friend to

Anxiety

is

three cases. It

chronic.

Russian.

Percipient a daughter.

may

friend.

No

anxiety.

only reported, or to be surmised, in two or

In a dozen the existence of

illness

was known.

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

existed, kept

them

of their illness,

in

;

even when no anxiety

some cases before the mincl also, most foreigners

that several cases are foreign, and that

;

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

134

On

are fools.'

knowledge

the other hand, affection, familiarity, and

of illness

had not produced hallucinations even

in the case of these percipients,

hours (often It

much

less) of

would have been

desirable, of course, to publish

show how

the wow-coincidental cases, and

known

far, in

all

these not

phantasms were those

veridical cases, the recognised

kindred, dear friends,

within the twelve

till

the event of death.

to be

ill,

of

and subjects of

anxiety.'

The

Census, in

fact,

does contain a chapter on

'

Mental

and Nervous Conditions in connection with Hallucinations,' such as anxiety,

grief,

or probably produce,

Do

and overwork.

many empty

incident with death or any great crisis ?

If

they do, then

which a coincidental hallucination occurred seem to be,,

cases in

all

these produce,.

hallucinations not co-

to a person in anxiety, or overstrained, will

probably, fortuitous coincidences like the others.

All

percipients, of all sorts of hallucinations, hits or misses,

were asked

(coincidental

or

220 instances

known fore,

;

hallucination

of

cases

1,622

of

Now, out all known kinds was reported in

they were in grief or anxiety.

if

not),

of

mental

of

strain

which 131 were cases

deaths or anxiety.

of grief about

These mental conditions, there-

On

occur only in twelve per cent, of the instances.

the whole,

produces so itself for

it

does not seem fair to argue that anxiety

much

hallucination that

those which

The impression

we have

left

on

it

will account

by

analysed as coincidental.

my own mind

does not wholly agree with that of

its

by the Census Fairly

authors.

well persuaded of the possibility of telepathy, on other

grounds,

and even

inclined

to

believe

that

it

does

On this point see Report, p. 250. 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 In the remaining nineteen, the person seen recovered in eight cases. seen. '

ANTHEOPOLOGV AND HALLUCINATIONS

135

produce coincidental hallucinations, the evidence of the Census, by

We

assuredly would not convince me.

itself,

we want documentary

want better records;

evidence

arrival of news of the coMemories are very adaptive. The authors,

recording cases before the incidence.

however,

made

a gallant effort, at the cost of

and largely allowed for

all

much labour,

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

Census and

statistics of

all, is

exist individual cases

Thus while

I

the Census.

The whole mass, and there

of very considerable weight,

which one

feels

unable to dispute.

would never regard the hallucinatory

figure

of a friend, perceived by myself, as proof of his death, I

would entertain some

slight anxiety

I heard of his

till

well-being.

On

this

topic

I will

offer,

a

in

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 lips of a

very gallant and distinguished

whose own part

in the affair will

This gentleman was in

from the

and V.C,

be described.

command

force in one of the remotest

it

officer

and

of a small British

least accessible of

dependencies, not connected by telegraph,

our

at the time of

In the force was 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

the incident, with the distant mainland. a particularly jolly young captain.

'

:

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

136

moping

some

for

time, asked leave to go a three days'

voyage to the nearest telegraph

my

officer,

At the end high

informant, was good-natured, and gave leave. of a

week Captain

He now

spirits.

returned, in his usual

admitted that, while lying awake

in the verandah, after the ball, he

brother of off the

His commanding

station.

his,

then

impression

;

had seen a favourite

He

Peru.

in, say,

could not shake

he had made the long voyage

to the

had telegraphed to Hong Kong, Is all well

nearest telegraph station, and thence

another brother

with John mail,'

? '

in, let

He

us say,

'

received a reply,

and so returned,

'

All

well

by

last

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,

dence

is

not offered as evidence.

we need Captain

's

For

evi-

Hong Kong

account, his

brother's account, date of the dance, official date of the

But the character The names disbelief.

Peruvian brother's death, and so on. of

my

me

informant indisposes

to

of places are intentionally changed, but the places were

as remote

We

from each other as those given in the

find ourselves able to understand the

Eavenswood's cogitations

after

text.

Master

of

he saw the best wraith

in fiction

She died expressing her eager desire to see me. Can 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 '

it

be,

—

(' Her withered lips moved although no sound issued from them.') And wherefore should a breach be made in the laws of nature, yet its purpose remain unknown?

unfold its tale to the ear ? fast,

'

'

ANTHEOPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS

137

The Master's reasonings are such as, in hearing similar anecdotes, must have occurred to Scott. They no longer The death and apparition were represent our views. coincidental almost to the minute to

prove that

to die,

'

'

:

it

would be impossible when Alice seemed

utterly extinct,

Eavenswood's experience.

him, postulate possible

was

the clock in the distant village tolled one,

as

just before

life

'

We

do not,

like

a breach in the laws of nature,' only a

example of a law.

The

was not unfolded

tale

'

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,

the cause of

'

upon another, may be

coincidental hallucinations,' whether

savage or civilised races.

among

But, not to delay the argument

by controversy, the Eeply to Objections has been relegated to the Appendix.'

Appendix A.

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

138

VII

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION There

is

in this

place.

a kind of hallucinations

of the Dead —^about which

it

—namely,

Phantasms

seems better to say nothing

If

such phantasms are seen by savages

when awake, they

will doubtless greatly corroborate that

belief in the is

endurance of the soul after death, which

undeniably suggested to the early reasoner by the

phenomena

of dreaming.

But, while

to produce evidence to recognised in

civilised

discover savages. in his

life,

it

is

it

easy enough

phantasms

would be very

of the dead

difficult

indeed to

many good examples in what we know Some Fijian instances are given by Mr.

and Mr. Howitt's

'

Kamilaroi and Kurnai.'

about

Fison 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

Mr. David Leslie, previously

from their old men. gives

some

first-hand

wood, where the Esemkqfu, or ghosts of persons a tyrannical chief,

cited,

Zulu evidence about a haunted

were heard and

felt

by

killed

by

his native

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

informant

;

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION The Esemkofu, on

sacrifice.

and haunting

As

139-

the other hand, are disturbed

spirits.'

a rule, so far as our information goes,

recognised phantasms of

the dead,

which corroborate the savage

in

it

waking

not

is

vision,,

belief in the persistence of

The savage reasoner rather on the alleged phenomena of noises and

the spirit of the departed. rests his faith

movements

physical

which cause so

apparently untouched,

objects

of

many

houses in civilised society to be

shut up, or shunned, as 'haunted.' the savage naturally ascribes to

very meagre, so

more copious

of the savage

unnecessary to examine the

civilised evidence.

The

dead

much

facts attested may,,

be theoretically explained as the result of

course,

of

it is

Such disturbances Our evidence,

spirits.'

phantasms

therefore, for recognised is

'

mind no longer incarnate

telepathy from a

and, were

;

the evidence as copious as that for coincidental hallucina-

the living, or dying,

tions of

importance. that

it

is

But

it is

it

would be

of

extreme

not so copious, and, granting even

accurate, various

explanations not involving

anything so distasteful to science as the action of a

camate intelligence

We

turn, therefore,

testimony life,

may

is

dis-

and have been, put forward. from a theme in which civilised be,

more bulky than that derived from savage which savage evidence is much more full

to a topic in

than modern civilised records.

This topic

is

the so-called

Demoniacal Possession. In the philosophy

of

Animism, and

many peoples, savage and

in the belief of

civilised, spirits of

the dead,,

up their homes in the bodies Such men, or women, are spoken of as They speak in voices not their 'inspired,' or 'possessed.' own, they act in a manner alien to their natural character, or spirits at large, can take

of

living

men.

'

Among

the Zulus, p. 120.

'

THE M.UCING OF RELIGION

140

they are said to utter prophecies, and to display knowledge

which they could not have normally acquired, and,

in

do not consciously possess, in their normal condition. All these and similar phenomena the savage

fact,

by the hypothesis that an

explains

a demon, perhaps a ghost, or a god

The

sion of the patient. spirit, delivers

Americans to his

alien spirit

—has

—perhaps

taken posses-

possessed, being full

of the

sermons, oracles, prophecies, and what the

call 'inspirational addresses,' before

he returns

Though many such

normal consciousness.

are conscious impostors, others are sincere.

prophets

Dr.

Mason

mentions a prophet who became converted to Christianity. '

He

that

could not account for his former exercises, but said certainly appeared to

it

and he must

tell

what

it

him

though a

as

communicated.'

gives the following anecdote

Dr.

spirit spoke,

Mason

also

:

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 com'

.

.

.

;

;

munications 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 as 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.'

—

;

;

'

Burmah,

p. 107.

—

'

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION This anecdote illustrates what '

change of

control.'

is

141

called

by

spiritists

After receiving, and deserting, Chris-

tian 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 '

educated and psychological observers, obtained

of '

controls

her old

'

of a character

'

more urbane and

civilised

new than

familiar spirit.'

It is admitted that the possessed

sometimes display an

eloquence which they are incapable of in their normal

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 claircondition.^

voyant powers.^

Demon

The book

Possession in China

for forty years a missionary,

was

— of Dr. Nevius,.

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 the theory of the Apostles

—namely,

Not having the

were possessed.

phenomena than that the patients

fear of

he also remarked that the current

man

before his

scientific

explana-

had the fault of not explaining anything. For example, Mr. Tylor intimates that all

cases of

eyes,

tions

'

supposed demoniacal possession are identical with hysteria, delirium,

and mania, and suchlike bodily and mental Dr. Nevius, however, gave what he con-

derangements.'

ceived to be the notes of possession, and, in his diagnosisr '

Hodgson, Proceedings, S.P.E.,

means agrees with 2

Prim. Cult.

'

Nevius's

ii.

Dr. Hodgson by no

— the case of Mrs. Piper.

134.

Demon

Possession in China, a curious collection of examples The reports of Catholic missionaries abound

by an American missionary. in cases.

vol. xiii. pt. xxxiii.

this view of the case

142

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

distinguished

them from

Nor can

mean), deHrium, and mania. denied that,

may

(whatever that

hysteria

honestly be

it

the special notes of possession actually

if

exist, they do mark quite a distinct species of mental Dr. Nevius then observed that, according to affection.

Mr. Tylor,

'

scientific physicians

now

explain the facts on

a different principle,' but, says Dr. Nevius,

vain to discover what this principle

who had work

is.'

'

'

we

search in

Dr. Nevius,

the courage of his opinions, then consulted a

styled

'

Nervous Derangement,' by Dr. Hammond, a

New

Professor in the Medical School of the University of

He

York.^

we know

found this

very

so-called

derangements

'

physician admitting that

about the matter.

little

very gratifying, that

and that

scientific

'

mind

He

knew, what

is

the result of nervous action,'

is

possession

'

is

the result of

'

material

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 said he, these are not

have names for

He

The Chinese

I call possession. '

but then,

which they

ascribe to

but for possession they have a

physical causes,'

name.

what

these maladies,

all

;

expected Dr.

abnormal conditions

Hammond

in so-called possession, but

hardly even attempted to do

this.'

different

to account for the '

h» has

Dr. Nevius

next

perused the works of Dr. Griesinger, Dr. Baelz, Professor

William James, M. Eibot, and, generally, the literature of He found Mr. James professalternating personality.' '

ing his conviction that the

'

alternating personality

popular phrase, the demon, or familiar

knew

spirit) of

'

(in

Mrs. Piper

a great deal about things which Mrs. Piper, in her

normal

state, did not,

consulting better,

many

and came back '

Op.

cit. p.

and could not know.

physicians, Dr. Nevius

16

Thus,

after

was none the

to his faith in Diabolical Possession. 2

Putnam, 1891.

—

:

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION

He was

therefore informed that he

143

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

Because pathologists and psychologists

scientific.

are

unable to explain, or give the modus of a set of pheno-

mena, is

in

it

does not follow that the devil, or a god, or a ghost,

it.

But

this, of course,

was

precisely the natural inference

of savages.

Dr. Nevius catalogues the

symptoms

possession

of

thus

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 '). 1.

'

2.

Possession of knowledge and intellectual power not

owned by the patient

(in his

normal

state),

nor explainable

on the pathological hypothesis.

Complete change of moral character in the patient. Of these notes, the second would, of course, most 3.

confirm the savage belief that a entered into the patient.

the

futiu:e,

If

new

intelligence

or of the remote, the inference that a novel

wiser intelligence

body would

had

he displayed knowledge of

had taken possession

be, to the savage, irresistible.

cautious modern, even if he accepted the

reduced to no such extreme conclusion.

and

of the patient's

But the more facts, would be He would say

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, that

;

with Hartmann, to contact with the Absolute.

But the question

of evidence for the facts

the only real question.

Now,

is,

of course,

in Dr. Nevius's book, this

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

144

evidence rests almost entirely on the written reports of native Christian teachers, for the Chinese were strictly reticent

when

brother,

you have a

intelligent

'My

questioned by Europeans.

who

sister

The

European.

is

a demoniac ?

'

heathen asks the

reply of the heathen brother

best left in the obscurity of a remarkably difficult and

is

We

copious Oriental language.

fall

Mr. Leng and other native Christian They are perfectly modest and rational in style.

back on the reports teachers.

We

are thus obliged to

of

Mrs. Sen, a lady in her normal

learn that

incapable of lyrical

efforts,

in

lisped

numbers

state

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.'

^They

now

the sun

crossing the stream, and will be here

when

are is

;

which was correct. The other witnesses and corroborated.^ Dr. Nevius himself examined, were examined Mrs. Kwo, when possessed, talking in verse, about so high

'

and, physically, limp.'

The

narratives

are

of

recovering consciousness,

occurred there

;

this

Christian prayers

many

are

type

;

the

knows nothing

anecdotes

movements

on

what has

often efficacious,

are of

patient, of

of

and

objects

untouched.*

By

a

happy

accident, as

through the press, a his cure

scientific

this

chapter was passing

account of a demoniac and

was published by Dr. Pierre

Janet.'

Dr. Janet

has explained, vnth complete success, everything in the matter of possession, except the facts which, in the opinion of Dr. Nevius, were in

need of explanation.

^ Ibid. p. 35. » Op. cit. p. 38. Nevius, p. 33. See ' Fetishism and Spiritualism.' ^ Nivroses etidies Fixes. Aloan, Paris, 1898. This is the first of a series of works connected with the Laboratoire de Psychologie, at the SalpMri^re, in '

*

Paris.

; ;

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION

145

These facts did not occur in the case of the demoniac

by Dr. Janet. Thus the learned essay of that eminent authority would not have satisfied Dr. Neyius. The facts in which he was interested did not '

exorcised

'

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 beHeves ever present themselves but,

if

at all

they ever do, Dr. Janet's explanation does not

explain them. 1.

His patient, Achille, did not act out a new per-

sonaHty. 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.

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 conAchille

yulsed, anaesthetic, suicidal,

He was

involuntarily blasphemous.

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 not

'

exorcised

'

Dr. Nevius asked science for an explanation. essay just

is

Dr. Janet's

the dernier cri of science, and leaves Dr. Nevius

where

it

found him.

Science, therefore, can, and does, tell Dr. Nevius that his evidence for his facts is worthless, of

Professor

W. Eomaine

S.P.E.,'

February 1898

number

of the

same

(pp.

through the

Newbold, in 602-604).

periodical

'

lips

Proceedings,

And

the same

shows us Dr. Hodgson

L

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

146

accepting facts similar to those of Dr. Nevius, and ex-

them by

plaining

—possession

406).

(p.

!

Dr. Nevius's observations practically cover the whole field of

possession

'

'

non-European peoples.

in

But other

examples from other areas are here included.

A

may

rather impressive example of possession

selected

from Livingstone's

'

Missionary Travels

'

be

(p. 86).

The adventurous Sebituane \?as harried by the Matabele in a new land of his choice. He thought of descending the Zambesi

'who

till

he was in touch with white

men

wards.

Tlapdne used to

retire,

full.

leaping,

'

moon

until the

Then he would return en propMte. Stamping, and shouting in a peculiarly violent manner, or '

beating the ground with a club earth), 'they induce a kind of

that their utterances are

probably

are,

when

after inducing the

The gods said,

say, '

Go

'

(to

fire

;

state,

shun

not thither

those under in

it

pretend

to themselves,' as they

the condition '

summon

and while

fit,

unknown

possessed

'

Sebituane, I behold a

he

but Tlapane,

perhaps into some cave, to

'

remain in a hypnotic or mesmeric state

was

;

held intercourse with gods,' turned his face west-

it,

!

genuine.

is

pointed east it

may

Tlapane, ;

'

There,

scorch thee.

Then, pointing west,

'

men

I see a city and a nation of black men,

of the water, their

cattle

are red,

perishing, thou wilt govern black

thine

own

tribe are

men, spare thy

future

tribe.'

So far, mere advice then, Thou, Bamosinii, thy village ;

'

will perish utterly.

Mokari moves first from the village, he will perish and thou, Ramosinii, wilt be the last to die.'

If

first

Then, '

Like some bold Seeing

'

all

his

The gods have given

seer in a trance.

own

mischance,'

other

men water

to drink, but

'

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION to

me

they have given bitter water.

147

They

call

me

away.

I go." Tlapdne

died, Mokari died, Eamosinii died, their vilwas 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

lage

'

'

to multiply instances of this world-wide belief, so freely illustrated in the

The

craft.

New

scientific

complained,

'

Testament, and in

trials for

witch-

study of the phenomena, as Littre

had hardly been sketched

forty years ago.

'

In the intervening years, psychologists and hypnotists

much

have devoted '

The

theory of possession. sophers

and

differ,

it

Animism

these

of

explains

by the

explanations of modern philo-

not our business to discuss their

is

and pathological

physiological

theme

attention to the

secondary personalities,' which

Our

ideas.^

affair is to

ask

any evidence that persons thus possessed really evince knowledge which they could not have acquired through normal whether, in the

such evidence

If

is

'

'

channels?

there

field of experience,

naturally strengthen the

exists,

the

facts

would

conviction that the possessed

person was inspired by an intelligence not his own, that

by a

is,

men

Now

spirit.

it

is

the firm conviction of several

an American,

of science that a certain Mrs. Piper,

does display, in her possessed condition, knowledge which

she could not normally acquire. precisely seers.

on a

Thus

level '

:

The

case of this lady

is

with that of certain savage or barbaric

The

Fijian priest

whale's tooth ornament, amid dead

sits

looking steadily at a

silence.

In a few minutes

Maeleod shall return, but Macrimmon shall never ! See Eibot, Les Maladies de la PersonnaliU Bourru et Burot, Va/riations de la PersonnaliU Janet, L'Automatisme Psychologi^ue James, Principles of Psychology Myers, in Proceedings of S.P.E., The Mechanism of Genius,*^ '

'

^

;

;

;

'

;

'

The SubUminal

Self.'

L 2

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

148

he trembles, slight twitchings of face and limbs come on,, which increase to strong convulsions. Now the god .

.

.

has entered.'

In China,

'

contemplation,

whom

the professional till

communication

through her to the

woman

sits at

a table in

the soul of a deceased person from

body and

desired enters her

is

living.

.

.

.'

talks

^

The latter account exactly describes Mrs.

Piper.

When

consulted she passes through convulsions into a trance,

which she talks personality, and affects

new

in a

after

voice,

to be possessed

assumes a

by the

fresh

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 and have not been discovered in any attempts She was for some months in to procure information. detectives,

England under the charge

of the S.P.E.

besides Dr. Phinuit, ghosts

more

Other ghosts,

than he, now

civilised

influence her, and her latest performances

exceed her former

are said to

efforts.^

Volumes of evidence about Mrs. Piper have been by Dr. Hodgson, who unmasked Madame Blavatsky and Busapia Paladino.^ He was at first conpublished

vinced that Mrs. Piper, in her condition of trance, obtains

knowledge not otherwise and normally accessible to It

was admitted that her

to extract information

and

familiar spirit guesses, attempts

from the people who

tries sophistically to

her.

sit

conceal his failures.

with

her,

Here follow

the statements of Professor James of Harvard. '

' *

Prim. Cult.

ii.

133.

^

Doolittle's Chinese,

Proceedings, S.P.E., pt. xxxiii. Proceedings, S.P.R., vi. 436-650

;

viii.

1-167

;

i.

xiii.

143

;

ii.

284-582.

110, 320.

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION

]49

The most convincing things said about my own inunediate household were either very inttmate or very Unfortunately the former things cannot well be trivial. published. Of the trivial things I have forgotten the greater number, but the following, rarce 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 She told of my killing a grey-and-white in the house.) 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 She was strong on the events of the letter in question.) in our nursery, and gave striking advice during our first " visit to her about the way to deal with certain " tantrums "little Billy-boy," as she called him, of our second child 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, Insignificant as these things sound when read, &c. &c. 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 The limitations of her trance inforis yet to be found. mation, 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 can tell you of Mrs. Piper. I wish it were more " scientific." But valeat quantum ! it is the '

best I can do.'

Elsewhere Mr. James writes Mr. Hodgson and others have made prolonged study :

'

—

:

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

150

of this lady's trances, and are all convinced that supernormal powers of cognition are displayed therein. They But the conare, prima facie, due to " spirit control."

ditions are so complex that a dogmatic decision either for or against the hypothesis must as yet be postponed.'

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.

my own

The trances have broken down, for limits of the admitted order of nature.' '

M. Paul Bourget (who

is

mind,

not superstitious),

the-

after-

consulting Mrs. Piper, concludes '

L'esprit a des procedes de connaitre

par notre analyse.'

In this

may

treatise I

in an unusual degree

Piper

is

non soup9onnes-

^

have shown

but, for

;

the will to believe

'

me, the interest

of Mrs.

She exhibits a survival savage phenomena, real or feigned, of

purely anthropological.

or recrudescence of con-vulsion

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

observers in England and America

;

by her

friends

and

nor do I impeach

her-

normal character. But secondary personalities have often '

more

of

Mr. Hyde than

'

of Dr. Jekyll in their composition.

used to be admitted that,

It

when

would cheat when she could

make

guesses, try to

worm

'

—that

possessed,' Mrs. Piper

to say, she

would

information out of her

sitter,,

is

describe a friend of his, alive or dead, as

'

Ed.,'

who may be

Edgar, Edmund, Edward, Edith, or anybody. shuffle, '

She would and repeat what she had picked up in a former

The Will

to Believe, p.

314.

'

Figaro, January 14, 1895.

'

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION sitting

with the same person

;

151

and the vast majority

of her

answers started from vague references to probable facts

an elderly man is an orphan), and so worked on more precise statements. Professor Macalister wrote

(as that

to

:

She is quite wide-awake enough all through to profit I let her see a blotch of ink on my by suggestions. Except finger, and she said that I was a writer. 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.' '

.

.

.

Mr. Barkworth said that, as far as his experience Mrs. Piper's powers are of the ordinary thoughtreading [i.e. muscle-reading] kind, dependent on her hold went,

'

Each of these gentlemen had only M. Paul Bourget also informed me, in

of the visitor's hand.'

one

'sitting.'

hand while she connected with a key in his

conversation, that Mrs. Piper held his told

the melancholy tale

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

possession,

performance.

As these pages were passing through the press. Dr. Hodgson's last report on Mrs. Piper was published.^ It is

quite impossible, within the space allotted, to criticise

this

work.

It

would be necessary to examine minutely which many facts are suppressed

scores of statements, in

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 wat(?hing an unfortunate lady in the vagaries of 'trance.'

His reasonings are perfectly calm, perfectly unimpassioned, '

Proceedings,

vi.

605, 606.

Proceedings, S.P.E., part xxxiii. vol.

xiii.

'

:

THE MAKING OF EELIGTON

152

seemed to make for regard him as an expert in

his bias has not hitherto

and

We must, in fact,

duHty.

branch that,

But he himself makes

of psychology.

in

no written reports

opinion,

his

can

cre-

this

clear

it

convey

the impressions produced by several years of personal

The

experience.

results of that experience

he sums up

in these vFords

'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.'

This means that Dr. Hodgson, at present, in this accepts the hypothesis of

'

possession

case,

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 con-

whom

vinced that those

I have honoured in this

would no more

avail

tranced organism

'

voluntarily find

myself in a

It is

themselves of Mrs. Piper's

life '

en-

they had the chance) than I would

(if

wax

unnecessary to

'

sitting

'

vsdth that lady.

eloquent on this head

;

and

the curious can consult the writings of Dr. Hodgson for themselves.

Meanwhile we have only

'

cated and sceptical sion as the Zulu

to notice that an

woman produces on a highly edumodem intelligence the same impres-

American possessed

'

'

possessed

'

produce on some Zulu

intelligences.

The Zulus admit

'

possession

'

and divination, but

not the most credulous of mankind. sessed person

is

The

are

ordinary pos-

usually consulted as to the disease of an '

Op.

cit.

part xxxiii. p. 406.

;

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION The

absent patient.

153

inquirers do not assist the diviner

by holding his hand, but are expected to smite the ground violently

the guess

if

A

wrong.

if it is

shilling to

made by

the diviner

sceptical Zulu,

is

right

;

gently

named John, having a

expend on psychical research, smote violently

The

diviner was hopelessly puzzled and laid it out on a much more meritorious exhibition of animated sticks.*

at

every guess.

John kept

his shilling,

Uguise gave Dr. Callaway an account of a female possessed person with

Her

spirit spoke,

It gave forth a kind of questioning remarks

the roof.

which were always

number

whom Mrs. Piper could not compete.

not from her mouth, but from high in

correct.

It then reported correctly a

of singular circumstances, ordered

for a diseased child,

satisfaction

was not

and

some remedies if ample

offered to return the fee,

given.^

In China and Zululand, as in Mrs. Piper's

case, the

are fond of diagnosing and prescribing for absent

spirits

patients.

A

good example

travels

of savage possession is given in his

by Captain Jonathan Carver

Carver was waiting

(1763).

impatiently for the arrival of

iraders with provisions, near the

Thousand Lakes.

A

priest, or jossakeed, oifered to interview the Great Spirit,

A large lodge was arranged, and drawn up (which is unusual), so that what went on within might be observed. In the centre was a

and obtain information. the covering

chest-shaped arrangement of stakes, so far apart from each x)ther

'

that whatever lay within

them was

readily to be

The tent was illuminated by a great number discerned.' The priest came in, and was first Virrapped in of torches.' an elk's skin, as Highland seers were wrapped in a black '

'

See Fetishism.' Compare Callaway, Callaway, pp. 361-374. '

p. 328.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

164

Forty yards

bull's hide.

coiled about him,

then

of rope

he

till

'

made

were

of elk's hide

was wound up

an

like

Egyptian mummy.'

shown

I have elsewhere

with bonds the seer

that this custom of binding

*

who

to be inspired, existed in

is

Grseco-Egyptian spiritualism, among Samoyeds, Eskimo,

Canadian Hareskin Indians, and among Australian blacks*

'The head, body, and limbs stringy bark cords.' diffusion of a

^

This

wound round

are

with

an extraordinary range

is

ceremony apparently meaningless.

of

Is the

idea that, by loosing the bonds, the seer demonstrates the

agency of

manner

after the

spirits,

the Davenport

of

Brothers ? But the Gr^co-Egyptian medium did not undo the swathings of linen, in which he w^as rolled, like a mummy. They had to be unswathed for him, by others.'' ^

Again, a dead body,

up

tight, as

among

the Australians,

soon as the breath

is

buried, or before being exposed

the custom.^

thus acquired

till

he

land seer

Can

it

dead,

who

is if

to be

that is

must run a Tedder

bound

'

to the Bier,

about

and then look between

end,'

two marches.^

his

The Green-

with his head between his

legs.'

^

be possible, judging from Australia, Scotland,,

Egypt, that the binding, as symbolical

'

which bound a corpse

sees a funeral cross

is

on a platform,

the would-be seer

:

Middle from end to

legs

corded

is

it

if

it,

Again, in the Highlands second-sight was

(tether) of Hair,

his

out of

way will

remote points,

of a corpse or

of putting the seer

on a

mummy,

level

then communicate with him?

we

find seer-binding

is

a

with the

In three

and corpse-binding

r

Cock Lane and Common Sense, p. 55. 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. ^ Prim. Cult. i. 152. * Eusebius, Prcep. Evang. v. 9. ' Brough Smyth, i. 100, 113. '

'

"

Kirk, Secret Comrnonwealth 1691.

'

Crantz, p. 209.

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION we need

but

bound

to prove that corpses

at the other points

reindeer skin

among

where the

155-

or have been,,

are,

up

seer is tied

—in a

the Samoyeds, an elk skin in North

America, a bull's hide in the Highlands.

Binding the seer custom;

not a

is

Eed Indian

universal

seems to cease in Labrador, and elsewhere,

it

southwards, where the prophet enters a magic lodge,

Among

unbound.

the Narquapees, he

sits cross-legged,

and the lodge begins to answer questions by leaping

The Eskimo bounds, though he is tied up. decisive, if we could find that, wherever

about.' It

would be

the sorcerer

is

bound, the dead are bound

also.

I note

the foUovidng examples, but the Creeks do not, I think,

bind the magician.

Among '

the Creeks,

The corpse

about

placed in a hole, with a blanket wrapped ^ legs bent under it and tied together.'

is

and the

it,

The dead Greenlanders were in their best deer-skins.'

'

wrapped and sewed up

^

Carver could only learn that,

knew, dead bodies were

'

among

wrapped

the Indians he

in skins

were also swathed with cords he does not

was not permitted

My theory is,

;

'

that they

allege,

but he

to see all the ceremonies. 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),

says,

was

.

elevated,

very

old

the Tahitians,

of .

is

.

and

'the body

the face pressed down between

'

Pire Arnaud, in Hind's Labrador,

Major Swan, 1791,

V 270. '

of

the

Crantz, p. 237.

official letter

ii.

man

dead

placed in a sitting posture, with the

2

Ellis

widely diffused.

knees

the knees,

...

102.

on the Creek Indians, Schoolcraft,

'

:

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

156

and the whole body

tied

with cord

or cinet,

wound

repeatedly round.'

The binding may

have been meant to

originally

keep the corpse, or ghost, from 'walking.'

know

I

do not

that Tahitian prophets were ever tied up, to await

But

inspiration.

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

The custom,

seer to the society of the dead.

as applied to

prophets, might survive, even where the burial rite had altered, or

cannot be ascertained, and might survive,

where

corpses,

it

had gone out

of use, for seers.

for

The

Scotch used to justify their practice of putting the head

between the knees when, bound with a corpse's tether,

The

did.

prophet, on the peak of Carmel,

down upon But the

cases are not analogous.

He was

'

sound

of

cast himself ^

Elijah had been hearing

abundance

of rain

'

in a cloudless

probably engaged in prayer, not in prophecy.

Kirk, by the way, notes that

while the Scottish seer

So children

'

the earth, and put his face between his knees.'

a premonitory sky.

hair

they learned to be second-sighted, by what Elijah

is

bound, he

if

the wind changes,

is

in peril of his

are told, in Scotland, that,

if

life.

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 the curiosity of the topic. '

He

Being thus bound up

tale

may

be pardoned

for

goes on

like

an Egyptian

mummy

(Carver unconsciously making my point), 'the seer was lifted into the chest-like enclosure. I could now also '

Polynesian Researches,

i.

519.

''

1

Kings

xviii. 42.

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION

15T

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

which the only

is

'private information,' about

difficulty is that Carver,

who knew

the

topography and the chances of a secret messenger arriving to

He

prompt the Jossakeed, does not allude to this seems to think such successes not uncommon.

theory.'

All that psychology can teach anthropology,

on this

whole topic

of 'possession,' is that secondary or alter-

nating personalities are facts mi rerum natura, that the in one personality may have no conscious 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

man

or

woman

memory

of

chance of getting good evidence. A few fairly respectable savage instances are given in Dr. Gibier's

'

Le Fakirisme '

Occidental

Carver, pp. 123, 184.

'

and

in

Mr.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

158

Manning's civilised

Piper

'

Old

parallels

(for

New

Zealand

depend on the

'

but,

while

modem

solitary case of

Mrs.

no other case has been well observed), no drawn from Chinese, Maori,

affirmative conclusion can be

Zulu, or

;

Eed Indian

practice.

159

VIII

FETISHISM AND SPIBITVALI8M It has been shown how the doctrine of souls was developed according to the anthropological theory. as to

how

The hypothesis

souls of the dead were later elevated to the rank

of gods, or supplied models after

which such gods might

be inventively

be criticised in a later

Here

chapter.

fashioned, it

must

will

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

from the

this regard,

belief in a

ancestor-worship,

like

Supreme Being, which,

to demonstrate, is not derived

or souls at

as

it

we

from the theory

differs

shall try

of ghosts

all.

Fetish (fStiche) seems to come from Portuguese feiti^o, a talisman or amulet, applied

by the Portuguese

to various

material objects regarded by the negroes of the west coast

with more or

may

less of religious reverence.

These objects

be held sacred in some degree for a number of They may be tokens, or may be of

incongruous reasons.

value in sympathetic magic, or merely odd, and therefore

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

160

unknown mystic

probably endowed with they

may have been

lucky hour and associated with good fortune, or they (like

a tree with an unexplained stir in

spontaneous movements

;

demands it,

'

or acting through

it,

that the people

or, at least,

habitually think this of such objects

that the object or power,

is

is

to class

life

by

be what

For our

an

object as

explicit statement that a spirit is con-

sidered as embodied in

cating by

may

call a fetish for scores of reasons.

present purpose, as Mr. Tylor says, a fetish

signs of

in fact, a thing

may

branches, as

its

show

reported by Kohl) have seemed to

Europeans

Or

qualities.

pointed out in a dream, or met in a

or

;

it,

or

communi-

it

belongs to do

it

must be shown

treated as having personal consciousness

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 Br^n in Welsh legend.

We have tried to show that the belief may

be, in part at least,

which Materialism to

make

it

in

human

souls

based on supernormal phenomena

disregards.

We

shall

now

endeavour

probable that Fetishism (the belief in the souls

tenanting inanimate objects)

may

also

have sources which

perhaps are not normal, or which at

supernormal to savages.

We

because the phenomena

now

'

all

events seemed

perhaps not normal

to be discussed are of the

We may lean to

the belief in a

cause of certain hallucinations,

but the alleged

most puzzling supernormal

say

character.

of inanimate objects which probably supply one origin of Fetishism, one suggestion of the presence of

movements a

spirit

perplexity. subject,

things dead, leave the inquiring mind in

in

it

In following Mr. Tylor's discussion of the is necessary to combine what he says about

Spiritualism

in

his

fourth with what he says about

FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM

161

For

Fetishism in his fourteenth and later chapters.

some reason '

book

his

Spiritualism

is

so arranged that he criticises

long before he puts forward his doctrine of

'

the origin and development of the belief in

We human

have seen a savage reason

spirits.

supposing that

for

such as skulls

spirits inhabit certain lifeless things,

and other

But how

the dead.

relics of

thought that a spirit dwelt in a

did

lifeless

come

it

to be

and motionless

Mr. Tylor, perhaps, leads us to a Mr. Darwin saw two plausible conjecture by writing

piece of stone or stick ?

'

:

Malay women

who held a wooden spoon

in Keeling Island,

dressed in clothes like a doll

:

this

spoon had been carried to

the grave of a dead man, and becoming inspired at in fact lunatic,

has pointed out Brosses,

danced about convulsively,

it

modern

or a hat at a

(in

spirit stance.' '

Mdlusine

the African conjurers

')

full

like a table

Now M.

'

moon,

Lefebure

that, according to

De

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 phe-

nomena

of

spiritualism,

the flights and

movements

of

inanimate objects apparently untouched.

The

question thus arises. Is there any truth whatever

in these world-wide

objects acting

and world-old

hke animated things ?

stories of

Has

inanimate

fetishism one of

origins in the actual field of supernormal experience in

its

the

X region ?

This question we do not propose to answer,

though practically universal, may be said on imposture and illusion. But we can, at least, give

as the evidence, to rest

a sketch of the nature of the evidence, beginning with that as to the apparently voluntary

untouched. •

movements

Mr. Tylor quotes from John

Darwin, Journal,

p.

458

;

Tylor, Prim. Cult.

ii.

of objects, not Bell's

152.

'

Journey

The spoon was

not untouched.

M

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

162

in Asia

Mongol Lama who wished His method certain stolen pieces of damask. on a bench, when 'he carried it, or, as was

(1719) an account of a

'

to discover

was to sit commonly believed, it carried him, to the very tent of the Here the bench is innocently believed to be selfthief. moving. Again, Mr. Eowley tells how in Manganjah the '

out a criminal, placed, with magical

sorcerer, to find

ceremonies, two

men.

'

The

like mad,'

staffs of

wood

sticks whirled

and

finally

wife of a chief,

in the hands of

some young

and dragged the men round

escaped and rolled to the feet of the

who was then denounced

as the guilty

person.'

Mr. Duff Macdonald describes

among '

the Yaos

The

stick,

with

the

same

practice

^ :

makes men take hold of a if endowed and ultimately carries them off bodily and with

sorcerer occasionally

which, after a time, begins to move as life,

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

In Melanesia,

far

Lyons murderer.^

enough away. Dr. Codrington found

a similar practice, and here the sticks are explicitly said

by the natives to be moved by

spirits.*

The wizard and

a friend hold a bamboo stick by each end, and ask what

man's ghost

is afflicting

right ghost

'

holding

a hut

is

built

At the mention

of the

the stick becomes violently agitated.'

the same way, the

man

a patient.

it

bamboo

'

would run about

only on the palms of his hands.

with a partition down the middle.

In

with a

'

Again,

Men

sit

there with their hands under one end of the bamboo,

while the other end '

' *

is

extended into the empty half of the

' Africana, vol. Bowley, Universities' Missiem, p. 217. In the author's Custom and Myth, The Divining Eod.' Codrington's Melanesia, p. 210. '

i.

p. 161.

— FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM

They then

163

over the names of the recently dead, bamhoo moving in their hands.' A bamboo placed on a sacred tree, when the name of a ghost is called, moves of itself, and will hft and drag people about.' Put up into a tree, it would lift them hut.

'they

till

call

the

feel

'

In other cases the holding of the sticks produces convulsions and trance. The divining sticks of

from the ground.

•

the Maori are also

Zulu

sorcerers rise,

'

guided by

last

chapter

and those

of the

and jump about.^

fall,

These Zulu performances must be In the

^

spirits,'

we

how

told

really very curious.

a Zulu

named John,

having a shilling to lay out in the interests of psychical research, declined to capital

his

tried a

for

pay a perplexed

a more

diviner,

and reserved

medium named Unomantshintshi, who

Umabakula, or dancing

He

meritorious performance.

divined by

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 Many believe in Umahead, they leap on his head. But there are not bakula more than in the diviner. many who have the Umabakula." '

;

;

.

.

.

'

Dr. Callaway's informant only

John was

knew two Umabakulists.

paid his shilling, and went

quite satisfied,

home.^

The

sticks are

that they are

about a foot long.

moved by

spirits,

It

is

not reported

nor do they seem to be

regarded as fetishes.

Mr. Tylor experiment.

also cites a

Among

form

thread over a metal basin. strike the basin,

of the familiar

the Karens a ring

The

is

pendulum

suspended by a

relations of

the dead

and when he who was dearest to the

Op. cit. pp. 223-225. •CaUaway, Aviamlu, p. 330.

' '

Prim. Cult.

vol.

i.

p. 125.

Ibid. p. 353.

M

2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

164

ghost touches

and the ring

it

the spirit twists the thread

falls

With us

into the basin.

till it

a ring

breaks,

held

is

by a thread over a tumbler, and our unconscious movements swing it till it strikes the hour. How the Karens

manage

it

animated '

is

less obvious.

sticks clearly correspond to the

table-turning.'

pushing

Here,

when

minimum

of conscious

which

I

two ways

—

first

by trying the

muscular action that would

stir

a

and by comparing the absolute muscular action when the table began

was

unconsciousness of to

more modern

the players are honest, the

certainly unconscious.

is

I have tested this in

table at

These savage devices with

alone,

move in response to no voluntary push. Again, I tried who said, 'You are pushing,' when I gently

with a friend,

rest

my

hands altogether, though they seemed to on the table, which still revolved. My friend was

removed

himself unconsciously pushing.

It is

undeniable that, to

a solitary experimenter, the table seems to darts of its

own

will in a curious

sciousness of muscular action on

engaged in the experiment with

make

little

Thus, the uncon-

way.

the part of savages

sticks

would lead them

to believe that spirits were animating the wood.

The

same fallacy beset the table-turners of 1855-65, and was, Of course, savages to some extent, exposed by Faraday. 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 by unseen strings. The same remark modern experimenters, when, as they declare,! various objects move untouched, without physical contact.(i Still more analogous than turning tables to the savage or merely worked applies to

use of inspired sticks for directing the inquirer to a object or to a criminal,

divining-rod

—a

is

lost

the modern employment of the

forked twig which,

held

bjf

the ends.

FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM

when he

revolves in the hands of the performer

the object of his quest.

He, hke the savage

165

reaches cited, is

manner; and cases which the twig writhes when held in a pair The best -known modern treatise on the

occasionally agitated in a convulsive are quoted in

of tongs!

M. Chevreul,

'La Baguette du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes,' by M. Figuier In 1781 Thouvenel pubhshed his 600 experi{I860). and Hegel refers to ments with Bleton and others 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 divining-rod

Divinatoire

'

is

that of

(1854).

We

have

also

'

L'Histoire

;

rod

used in the interests of private individuals and

is

public bodies (such as Trinity College, Cambridge) for the

discovery of water.

w

Professor Barrett has lately published a book of 280 in

pages,

collected.'

which evidence

of

failures

and successes

is

Professor Barrett gives about one hundred and

fifty cases, in

which he was only able

authority, twelve failures.

He

to discover,

on good

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 hand in other inquiries. The actual spectators, and

first-

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.^ '

''

The So-called DivivAng-Rod, S.P.R. 1897. See especially The Waterford Experiments,

p. 106.

:

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

166

In Mr. Barrett's opinion, the subconscious perception an equally-

of indications of the presence of water produces

unconscious muscular

Yet

often breaks. its

characteristic

'

spasm,' which twirls the rod

'it

is

till it

almost impossible to imitate

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

movement on his part, much less a The person was bailiff on a large estate, and,

I detect any muscular

spasm.

having accidentally discovered that he possessed the used

it

when he wanted

wells

dug

gift,

for the tenants

on

the property.

The whole

topic

is

with the successes or

obscure

;

nor

am

I concerned here

But

failures of the divining-rod.

the movements of the twig have never, to

my

knowledge,

been attributed by modern English performers to the operation of

spirits.

They say

Mr. Tylor

'electricity.'

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 automatism, whatever

is

its

the only instance in which

nature and causes, has been

found of practical value by practical men, and as it is obviously associated with a number of analogous pheno-

mena, both in

civilised

and

savage

life,

it

certainly

deserves the attention of science.

But no advance

be made

inquirers themselves

till

scientifically trained

arrange and test a large number of experiments.

will

Know-

ledge of the geological ignorance of the dowsers, examples of fraud failure,

on

their part,

and cases

with a general hostile

of failure or reported

bias,

experiments from being made by

may

prevent such

scientific experts

on an

FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM adequate

Such experts ought,

scale.

working the dowsers into a state of

167

of course, to avoid

irritatioli.

worth while to notice cases in which the rod those of the Melanesians, Africans, and other A Mr. Thomas Welton published an English

It is just

acts like

savages.

'La Verge de Jacob' (Lyon,

translation of

1693).

In

1851 he asked his servant to bring into the garden 'a stick that stood

she brought it,

it

behind the parlour door.

nor could she

stick,

'

it

In great terror

hand firmly clutched on When Mrs. Welton took the

to the garden, her let it go.'

drew her with very considerable velocity to was found.

nearly the centre of the garden,' where a well

Mr. Welton

is

not likely to have

The

published savage examples. African

and Melanesian cases

known

of the lately

coincidence with the

is,

therefore,

probably

undesigned.

Again, in 1694, the rod was used by others, just as

modem

it

is

by savages,

le

Pere Menestrier

by its movements answers to all sorts of questions. Experiments of this kind have not been made by Professor Barrett, and and

to indicate

by M. Bichet, 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 uncon-

other

inquirers, except

'

'

sciously present to the mind,

mere water-finding ought not In the same class as

to be the sole province of the rod.

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 Uttle apparatus called planchette, or the other, the ouija, is of course, consciously or unconsciously,

the performers.

pushed by

In the case of the twig, as held by watermoving it so as to

seekers, the difficulty of consciously

escape close observation

In the case

is

considerable.

of the ouija (a little tripod, which,

under

MAKING OF RELIGION

TPIE

168

the operators' hands, runs about a table inscribed with

which it points), I have known cxirious successes Thus, in the house of a lady to be achieved by amateurs. who owned an old chdteau in another county, the ouija,

letters at

operated on by two ladies

known to myself, wrote

a number

of details about a visit paid to the chdteau for a certain

purpose by Mary Stuart.

That

purely personal one, are

chdteau

is

not spoken of in Mr.

and

visit,

unknown

object, a

its

to history,

Hay

Fleming's

and the careful,

but unavoidably incomplete, itinerary of the Queen's

After the commimication had been

sidence in Scotland.

made, the owner

re-

of the

chdteau 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

entirely conditioned

we extend

character of the performers. civilised

and savage practice

eliciting of

to such narratives

by our knowledge

The of

point here

made without

is

merely the

automatism, the apparent

knowledge not otherwise

movements of a stick,

is

the personal

of

or a bit of wood.

accessible,

by the

These movements,

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 tile,

objects apparently quite untouched

the mystery

is

deeper.

become

vola-

This apparent animation and

frolicsome behaviour of inanimate objects

is

reported

all

FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM

169

through history, and attested by immense quantities of evidence of every degree. full

would be tedious

It

to give a

account of the antiquity and diffusion of reports about

We

such occurrences.

find

them among

Neo-Platonists,

English and Continental Middle Ages, among Eskimo, Hurons, Algonkins, Tartars, Zulus, Malays, Nasquapees, Maoris, in witch trials, in ancient Peru in the

(immediately after the Spanish Conquest), in China, in

New England (1680), all through the modern spiritualism, in Hayti (where they are attributed to Obeah '), and, sporadically, everywhere.' 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 sponmodem

Eussia, in

career of

'

'

we can

taneous example occurs, under proper inspection,

then compare our old

tales.

Professor James says

:

'

Their

mutual resemblances suggest a natural type, and I confess that

tm

these records, or others like them, are positively

explained away,

amounts

I cannot feel

of detected frauds)

mediumship

itself,

as

(in if

spite

of

such vast

the case of physical

as a freak of nature, were definitely

... So long as the stories multiply in various and so few are positively explained away, it is bad method to ignore them.' ^ Here they are not ignored, closed.

lands,

because, whatever the cause or causes of the phenomena,

they would buttress, belief in spirits

report. '

we

cannot, of course, 'explain

of this kind,

Authorities and examples are collected in the author's Cock

Common ^

A

to facts,

which we know only through conjurer cannot explain a trick merely from a

away events '

they did not originate, the savage

tenanting inanimate matter, whence came

As

Eetishism.

if

Sense.

Proceedings,

xii. 7, 8.

heme and

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

170

especially a description

description,

But, as a

theme

as the

the case of

mediums.

'

explanation

dark seances

'

much

nothing so

rule,

We

'

'

given got

by a non-conjurer. on this

leads to doubt

—except,

of course, in

up and prepared by paid

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

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, had many which interesting associations with the part his Stans, in Unterwalden,

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

and savants, to no purpose.

police

But the affair was explained away thus While the phenomena could still be concealed from public curiosity, The a client called to see M. Zoller, who was out. client, therefore, remained in the drawing-room. Loud and heavy blows resounded through the room. The :

as

client,

chanced, had once

it

felt

the effects of an

some medical reason, apparently. M. My eldest son was present at the time,

electric battery, for

Zoller writes

and,

:

'

when my

asked whether there was such a

client

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.'

Con-

phenomena were set down to M. ZoUer's singular idea of making his house untenantable with an electric machine A which he did not possess.' number of the most respected citizens, including the

sequently, the

'

'

'

—

Personal Narrative, by M. Zoller.

Hanke, Zurich, 1863.

FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM

171

Superintendent of Police, and the chief magistrate for law, published a statement that neither ZoUer, nor any of his

any of themselves, produced or could have produced the phenomena witnessed by them in August 1862. family, nor

This declaration they put forth in the October

5,

No

1863.'

Schwytzer Zeitung,' machine known to mortals

electric

'

could have produced the vast variety of alleged

none was ever found servants without

and

;

escaping

as his

hardly be blamed for what,

Mesopotamia,

My own nomena

'

is

'

in

this

'

it

they

his

can

seems that

electricity,' like

^

matter of

They

I hope, clear.

is,

facie,

However,

a blessed word.'

position

tribulations,

prima

they could not possibly do.

effects,

M. ZoUer changed

'

interest

physical phe-

me,

for

my

present purpose, as being, whatever their real nature and origin, things

which would suggest

of Fetishism.

a

spirit,

Thus the

as

'

is

An

proved by

early thinker

the object.

It

is

to a savage his theory

inanimate object its

may

be tenanted by

extraordinary movements.'

might reason, and go on to revere competent observers

to be wished that

would pay more attention to such savage practices as crystal-gazing and automatism as illustrated by the sticks of the Melanesians,

formation

we

Zulus, and Yaos.

Our scanty

pick up out of stray allusions, but

it

in-

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,

Danmer, Reich des Wundersamen, Eegensburg, 1872, pp. 265, 266. A oritieism of modern explanations of the phenomena here touched upon win be found in Appendix B. '

^

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

172

when

on, probably

reflected

supported this beUef, are

represented in civiHsed as well as in savage to their existence historically

among

life,

while as

we

the founders of religion

know nothing

at

-certain considerations, the

we may

If

all.

can

from

infer

supernormal experiences were

more prevalent among the remote ancestors of races than among their modern descendants.

possibly

known savage

We have suggested that clairvoyance, thought transference, mere fables, by a more obscure stories

and telepathy cannot be dismissed

as

cautious inquirer, while even the far of

'

physical manifestations

away by those who cannot have presented

faculties

unattainable

and

in other

'

are

but poorly explained Again, these

explain them.'

—in the

acquisition of otherwise

knowledge, in coincidental hallucinations,

—just

ways

the kind of facts on which the

savage doctrine of souls might be based, or by which

might be

Thus, while the actuality

buttressed.

supernormal facts and faculties remains at

least

it

of the

an open

question, the prevalent theory of Materialism cannot be

admitted as dogmatically certain in

No more

than any other theory, nay,

theories,

can

at

it

less

present shape.

than some other

account for the psychical facts which,

we may not

the lowest,

its

honestly leave out of the

reckoning.

We

have therefore no more to say about the super-

normal aspects

of

the

origins

of

religion.

henceforth concerned with matters of

and

practice.

We

doctrine of souls

We

verifiable

are

belief

have to ask whether, when once the

was conceived by

early

men,

it

took

precisely the course of development usually indicated by

-anthropological science. '

See Appendix B.

'

'

173

IX

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD To

the anthropological philosopher

naturally put the question spirit or soul

—your

' :

'

a plain

Having got

man would '

yoiu- idea of

Animism— out

theory of

of the idea

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,

of ghosts,

'

'

'

'

the father and friend of man, the invisible, omniscient

guardian of morality.

The pologist

usual though not invariable reply of the anthro-

might be given

in the

words of Mr.

Im

Thurn,

author of a most interesting work on the Indians of British Guiana

:

the notion of ghosts,' says Mr. Im Thurn, a 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 The Indians of Guiana know worship of spirits. '

From

'

belief

.

.

.

.

no God.'

As another example

of

Im

Mr.

Thurn's hypothesis

that

God

may

be cited Mr. Payne's learned 'History of the

is a late

World,' a work of

development from the idea of

much

research

spirit

New

^ :

The lowest savages not only have no gods, but do not even recognise those lower beings usually called spirits, '

'

^

Jc/wmal Anthrop. Inst. Vol.

i.

p. 389, 1892.

xi.

374.

We

shall return to this passage.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

174

the conception of which has invariably preceded that of gods in the human mind.'

Mr. Payne here

who

from Mr. Tylor,

calo,

toto

differs,

no sufficient proof for wholly non-religious and from Eoskoff, who has disposed of the arguments of Sir John Lubbock. Mr. Payne, then, for a benevolent ethnological purposes, defines a god as finds

savages,

'

permanently embodied in some tangible

spirit,

usually an image, and to '

whom

object,

and so

food, drink,'

on,

are regularly offered for the purpose of securing assistance

in the affairs of

On

life.'

theory

this

the idea of god or of

'

the lowest savages

spirit.

'

are

devoid of

Later they develop the idea

and when they have secured the spirit, as it were, and kept it on board wages, then the

•of spirit,

in a tangible object, spirit

has attained to the dignity and the savage to the

conception of a god.

But while

Mr. Payne's opinion,

of this kind

is,

in

hunting races generally (with some exceptions)

for the

have no gods, yet the conception '

all

god

a

relatively a late flower of culture,

things

.

.

.

of a creator or

obviously a great spirit

'

'

is

maker

of

one of the

earliest efforts of primitive logic.''

own

Mr. Payne's '

primitive logic

'

logic

is

not

of the savage leads

cause or maker of things, which he

very

him

clear.

The

to seek for a

finds

in

a great

Yet the lowest savages have no idea even and the hunting races, as a rule, have no god.

creative spirit.

of spirit,

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

the

be given, to agree with Mr. Payne's view

facts,

sistent,

of

while his reasoning appears somewhat incon-

the lowest savages having, in his opinion, no idea '

Payne,

i.

458.

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD of spirit,

one

though the idea

of a creative spirit

for all that,

of the earliest efforts of primitive logic.

On any

such theories as these the

Supreme Being of evolution,

Thurn's

is,

advancing thought upon

of

This opinion of Mr.

roughly stated, the usual theory of anthro-

We wish,

pologists.

idea of God, as he

man, occurs

moral

belief in a

a very late (or a very early?) result

is

due to the action

the original conception of ghosts.

Im

is,

175

on the other hand, to show that the conceived of by our inquiring plain

is

rudely, but recognisably, in the lowest-known

grades of savagery, and therefore cannot arise from the later

speculation of

men, comparatively

civilised

and

We

shall

advanced, on the original datum of ghosts.

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

What

active moral influences.

faith, are

important,

we

shall

make

it

is

even more

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 existence of such a god or being

in the creeds of the lowest savages

by anthropologists by theories explained away as a

is

denied, or left out of sight, or accounted for

contradicted by facts,

or,

at best,

result of

European or Islamite

problem

is

is

Now,

influences.

as the

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

solving their problem, have merely evaded

unwittingly.

This,

of

course,

is

not the

it

and

— doubtless practice of

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

176

Mr. Tylor, though even his great work is professedly the development of the idea

much^more concerned with

and with the lower forms of animism than with

of spirit

the real crux

—the

by mythology)

evolution of the idea (often obscured

of a moral, uncreated,

undying God among

This negligence of anthropologists

the lowest savages.

They take

has arisen from a single circumstance. granted that

God

is

God

it

for

always (except where the word for

is

human

applied to a living

being) regarded as a

Thus, having accounted for the development

Spirit.

of the idea of spirit, they regard

to its highest power,

and

God

as that idea carried

as the final step in its evolution.

we can show

that the early idea of an eternal,

moral, creative being

does not necessarily or logically

But,

if

imply the doctrine

of spirit,

may have

moral, creative being doctrine of spirit

was

then this idea of an

We may admit that

the

for of

Mr. Tylor's account of the process

buried in facts.

We

trees.'

existed even before the

evolved.

by which Gods were evolved out

—rather

We

want

'

to

of ghosts

is

a

little touffu

can scarcely see the wood

know how Gods, makers

things (or of most things), fathers in heaven, and

friends, guardians of morality, seeing

in the hearts of of

eternal,

what

men, were evolved, as

is

is

That such

ghosts or surviving souls of the dead.

moral, practically omniscient

lowest savages

— Bushmen,

Gods

are

good or bad

supposed, out

known

to the very

Fuegians, Australians

— we

shall demonstrate.

must be careful not to adopt the common opinion that Gods improve, morally and otherHere the

inquirer

wise, in direct ratio to the rising grades in the evolution of culture

case it

;

and

civilisation.

That

usually the reverse occurs.

for granted, following

is

not necessarily the

Still less

must we

take

Mr. Tylor and Mr. Huxley, that

*'

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD the

and morality] belongs almost, or

alliance [of religion

'

wholly, to religions above the savage level earlier

and

vsrholly

;

lovyer creeds

and

savages,'

in its

'

independent of

'

or that

simplest ethics.'

among

'

to

—not

to the

the Australian

condition,'

'

theology

is

These statements can be

'

proved (by such evidence as anthropology rely upon)

177

And,

be erroneous.

obliged to

is

because these

just

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

Given described,

not one of the writers

is

He

'

who

great parts of the subject.'

The human which man

up

soul,

'framed

from the

certain about every detail.

is

scarcely attempts to clear

general,

false, is invalidated.

by thinking on the lines already Mr. Tylor develops Gods out of them. But he souls, acquired

away the haze

that covers

^

he says, has been the model on ideas

his

tiniest

elf

to the heavenly creator

of

that

spiritual

sports

and ruler

in

beings in

the grass

of the world, the

Here it is taken for granted that the Heavenly Euler was from the first envisaged as a which is just the difficulty. Was He ? spiritual being Great

Spirit.'

'

'

—

The process of framing these ideas is The savage lives in terror of the souls '

of the dead as

This might yield a Devil

harmful

spirits.'

yield a

God who 'makes

'

rather obscure.

for

deified ancestors are regarded,

;

it

would not Happily,

righteousness.'

on the whole, as kindly

The dead ancestor is 'now passed into a deity.' spirits.' Examples of' ancestor-worship follow. But we are no For among the Zulus many Amatongo nearer home. '

Prim. Cult.

vol.

ii.

372. 3

Ibid. vol.

ii.

p. 110.

p.

381

;

Science

and Hebrew

Tradition, pp. 346,

^

Prim. Cvlt.

vol.

*

Ibid. vol.

p. 113.

ii.

ii.

p. 109.

N

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

17S

(ancestral spirits) are sacred.

'

they worship the Amatongo.

who

ancients

their names.'

first

.

worshipful object

The name

known

at

;

—

African flattering

its

own

father's

are, in a genera-

man, thereSupreme Being

of such a

God

or

and, obviously, such a real dead man,

all,

is

much

the creator and ruler

who

.

cannot survive as that of the

from age to age for

.

Thus, each new generation of Zulus

'

tion or two, forgotten.

while

the

when They do not know the

This father, and his very name,

Itongo.

{i.e.

are dead, nor their laud-giving names, nor

must have a new

fore,

Yet their father

is far before all others

father of each actual family]

known

too well

to be taken

of the world, despite some

and superstitions about kings

titles

The

control the weather.

Zulus, about as

'

godless

'

a people as possible, have a mythical

first

Unkulunkulu, but he

of rites,'

and is

worship or of moral

ideas.'^

a cetitre of

is

'

beyond the reach

myths rather than

of

ancestor,

After other examples of ancestor-worship, Mr. Tylor

branches

off

into

a long discussion

of

the theory of

which does not assist the Thence he passes to discussed by us), and the transitions fetishism (already '

possession

'

or inspiration,*

argument

at the present point.

from the

fetish

angel

and

('

—

(1)

to the

subliminal self

local

spirits

polytheism.

A

')

;

idol

forest.

(2)

to the

and

which cause volcanoes

fetish

may

inhabit a tree

generalised, the fetish of one oak

gods of

;

(3) to tree

guardian

river spirits, ;

and

;

trees being

becomes the god

Or, again, fetishes rise into all bees, owls, or rabbits are

'

species gods

to

(4)

of the ; '

the

thus evolved.

Next,-* '

'

'

As

chiefs

and kings are among men, so are the great

Prim. Cult. vol. ii. pp. 115, 116, citing Callaway and others. The Zulu religion will be analysed later. " Ibid. vol. ii. Prim. Cult. vol. ii. pp. 130-144. p. 248.

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD

179

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 vforld as distinctly as chiefs in the

hmnan

tribe.'

Very good but whence comes the great God among which have neither chief nor king nor any distinction of rank, as among the Fuegians, B ashmen, and ;

tribes

The maker and

Austrahans ?

to these races cannot be the

and magnified on the mist

reflected

known

ruler of the world

shadow of

of king or chief,

thought

;

for chief

This theory (Hume's)

or king these peoples have none.

work where people have a great God but no king nor where they have a king but no Zeus or chief

will not

or

;

other supreme King-god, as

We deities, '

now

among

the Aztecs.

reach, in Mr. Tylor's theory, great fetish

such as Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon, and deities,' gods of Agriculture, War, and so

departmental

forth,

unknown

to

low savages.

Next Mr. Tylor introduces an important personage. '

The theory

of family

Manes, carried back to

Gods,

tribal

leads to the recognition of superior deities of the nature of

Divine Ancestor, or First Man,'

Dead.

As an

Maori Maui, who,

like the

Lord

of the

who sometimes

ranks as

instance, Mr. Tylor gives the

Indian Yama, trod

first of

But whether Maui and Yama

the path of death.

men

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

son of

Man,

God

that '

we

are inquiring.

Adam

is

called

in a Biblical genealogy, but, of course,

'

the

Adam

was made, not begotten. The case of the Zulu belief win be analysed later. On the whole, we caimot explain away the conception of the Creator as a form of the N 2

— THE MAKING OF RELIGION

180

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

came

of a Creator

first,

and that ancestor-worship

later

grew more popular, the popular idea of Ancestor might be The Creator transferred to the waning idea of Creator. might be recognised as the First Ancestor, apHs coup. Mr. hostile

Tylor

next

approaches

Good and Bad Beings.

Dualism, the idea

We

be careful to discount European teaching, the savage has this dualistic belief in a

But the savage conception friendly

to

me,'

savage creeds. textually

'

come

still,

he admits,

primitive

'

form.

good= Ethics, as we

not merely that of

'bad=hostile to me.'

shall show, already

Mr. Tylor

is

of

must, as he says,

'

into play in his theology.

Supreme Being of His words, well weighed, must be cited

arrives, at last, at the

:

To mark

off the doctrines of monotheism, closer 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 '

definition

is

that, in this strict sense, no savage tribe of monotheists has been ever known.' Nor are any fair representatives The of the lower culture in a strict sense pantheists. 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 High above the doctrine of souls, of divine divinity. 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 Eeligion. It is no unimportant task, partial as it is, to select and group the typical data which show the nature '

And

this sense.

very

few civilised populations,

if

any, are monotheistic

in

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD and position of the doctrine of supremacy, as * into view within the lower culture.''

We

show that

shall

Being, and the

by them

'

'

it

other

them

Christianity assigns

and, strange as

They have a Supreme

distinctive attributes of Deity

assigned to

appears,

comes

it

low savages are as

certain

monotheistic as some Christians.

181

beings,

further

'

are not

than

as

to Angels, Saints, the Devil,

among

savages, to mediating

among

the

Sons.' It

known

not

is

other

this

tribes,

that,

notion

last

is

Andamanese and

due

to

missionary

But, in regard to the whole chapter of savage

influence.

Supreme Beings, we must,

as

Mr. Tylor

advises,

watching for Christian and Islamite contamination. savage notions, as Mr. Tylor says, even taminated,

We

may have

to

some

The con-

extent, a native substratum.'

such savage examples of the idea of a

shall select

Supreme Being

'

when thus

keep

by ancient native hymns, the most sacred and secret savage

as are attested

or are inculcated in

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

We

soil.

sionaries found such native of Heaven,'

Master

'

note cases in which mis-

also

names as Maker

of Earth,'

'

'Father,' 'Ancient of All,'

ready-made

to their hands. It is to be

inquiry

is

can spare idea of a

crowd

for

He

work.

is

remarked

that, while this

practically omitted

branch of the

by Mr. Spencer, Mr. Tylor

but some twenty pages out of his large

it

arranges the probable germs of the savage

Supreme Being thus

:

A

god

of the polytheistic

simply raised to the primacy, which, of course, '

Prim. Cult.

vol.

ii.

pp. 332, 833.

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

182

cannot occur where there principle of Manes worship out of

a primeval ancestor,' say

'

great

phenomenon

or Heaven,

so

is

Or, again, a

abject.

is

or force in Nature-worship, say Sun,

Or speculative philoOne by trying to

raised to supremacy.

is

a

Unkulunkulu, who

from being supreme, that he

far

Or the Supreme Deity

no polytheism.

is

may make

Many

sophy ascends from the

to the

and beyond the universe a First Cause.

discern through

Animistic conceptions thus reach their utmost limit in the notion of the

powers of

He may

Anima Mundi.

accumulate

he may 'loom

polytheistic gods, or

all

all

vast,

shadowy, and calm .... too benevolent to need human

....

worship with

the

too merely existent to concern himself

petty

race

of

But

men.''

he

always

is

animistic.

Now, passing,

in addition to the objections already noted in

how

can

we

tell

Supreme Being

that the

of low

savages was, in original conception, animistic at

How

can we

Spirit ?

We

the question

that he was envisaged, originally, as

shall

show that he probably was not, that not spirit was not raised at all,

spirit or

'

all ?

know

'

that the Maker and Father in Heaven, prior to Death, was merely regarded as a deathless Being, no question of If so. Animism was not needed for spirit being raised. '

'

the earliest idea of a moral Eternal. will

It will

be more fully stated and illustrated, presently, but

I find that is

it

had already occurred

talking specially of a heaven-god

pass that the idea of ere

This hypothesis

be found to lead to some very singular conclusions.

man

spiritual

God was

to Dr. Brinton.^ ;

he says

'

it

came

He to

linked to the heavens long

ashed himself, Are the heavens material and God ?

Dr. Brinton, however, does not develop

'

'

2

Prim. Cult. vol. ii. pp. 335, 336. Myths of the New World, 1868, p.

47.

his.

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD nor

idea,

am

aware that

I

has been developed pre-

it

»

viously.

The

183

God about whose spirituality nobody To ourselves, and doubtless

notion of a

has inquired

is

new

to us.

or probably to barbarians on a certain level of culture,

such a Divine Being must he animistic, must be a

To

Banks Islanders (Melanesia) the existence of Beings been,

Dr.

we

take only one case, to which

human.

'spirit.'

shall return, the

believe in ghosts, 'and in

who were

and never had

not,

All alike might be called

never were

human

are only

'

called

'

says

spirits,'

Codrington, but, ex hypothesi, the Beings

'

by

spirits,'

who us,

because our habits of thought do not enable us to envisage '

them

the natives

except as vsdll

'

They never were men,

spirits.'

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}

This point will be amply illustrated

later, as

we

study

that strangely neglected chapter, that essential chapter,

the Higher beHefs of the Lowest savages.

ence of a belief '

a

in

alleged,' there is as

Of the

Supreme Being, not

exist-

as merely

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

The mythical

in theirs.

details

are, indeed, different

ing, rewarding,

;

and

fables about the savage

God

the ethical, benevolent, admonish-

and creative aspects

of the

Gods

are apt

to be the same.^

' I observed this point in Myth, BittMl, see the implication, that the idea of ' spirit

and '

Beligion, while I did not

was not necessarily present

in the savage conception of the primal Beings, Creators, or Makers. -'

See one or two cases in Prim. Cult.

vol.

ii.

p. 340.

'

.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

184

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.'

men among

Intelligent

'

the Bakwains have scouted

them ever having been

the idea of any of

good and

tolerably clear conception of

Nothing we indicate as

future state. to

them

v?ithout a

God and

evil,

the

sin ever appeared

as otherwise,' except polygamy, says Livingstone.

Now we may argue that revelation

'

'

agree with Mr. Tylor that modern

familiar with

theologians,

savage creeds, will scarcely

they are direct or nearly direct products of

(vol.

ii.

But we may argue

p. 356).

that, con-

sidering their ethical factors (denied or minimised

by many

and the distance which separates the

anthropologists)

high gods of savagery from the ghosts out of which they are said to have sprung tively pure

and

also,

is

often just the reverse

know nothing

considering too, that the rela-

element which, ex hypothesi,

lofty

recent in evolution,

;

;

remembering, above

we may hesitate

pological hypothesis en masse.

and the

facts are

tion than

is

At best

it

is

conjectural,

such that opponents have more

commonly admitted I

am by no

we

of the

to accept the anthro-

justifica-

for regarding the bulk of

savage religion as degenerate, or corrupted, from highest elements.

most

that

all,

mental condition

historically of the

founders of religion,

is

not the most honoured, but

means, as

yet,

positively in favour of that hypothesis, but I see

its

own

arguing

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

with

justice,

may

claim such beliefs as

verted remains of higher religion I do not pretend to '

'

(vol.

know how

some instances mutilated and perii.

p. 336)

the lowest savages

Livingstone, speaking of the Bakwain, Missiona/ry Travels, p. 158.

'

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD evolved the theory of '

makes

a

God who

for righteousness.'

It

is

186

reads the heart and

me

as easy, almost, for

that they 'v^ere not left without a witness,'

to believe

God

as to believe that this

was evolved out

of theirs

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 Eccle'

'

;

'

siastical Institutions

notice

The

topic.

of

one looks in vain for an adequate

'

in vain for almost

;

any

notice, of this part of his

moral, heart-reading, friendly, creative being

low savage

cumstance

'

'

as

existence, as far

bis

of

The

whence was he evolved ?

faith,

I

can see

;

cir-

the

the unselfishness, the pitifulness, the loyalty

chastity,

to plighted word, the prohibition of

even extra-tribal

homicide, enjoined in various places on his worshippers,

problems

are

that

system

culties in his

somehow

appear

We

Mr. Spencer's notice. :

for

to have

escaped

by endless

are puzzled

diffi-

example as to how savages

can forget their great-grandfathers' very names, and yet

remember

from generation to generation,' so that 'in time any amount of expansion and ideahsation can be reached.' '

traditional persons

Again, Mr. Spencer will argue that thing

if

'

primitive

Power an

'

spontaneously performed to

'

act like that performed

of a fellow savage

2

a strange

had, as some think, the consciousPower whence they and all other

things proceeded,' and yet that

is

men

ness of a Universal

dead body

it

'

by them to the

—by offerings of

Principles of Sociology, vol. Op. cit. vol. i. p. 302.

i.

p.

450.

food.^

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

186

Now, matter

the crude idea of

if

of

would soon Universal

food, in

Power

Universal

Power

'

And, secondly,

that

is

it

'

came

later propitia-

religious idea

back on, and influence by

refract

the older conception. '

'

and was superseded, in part, by a The new the dead and ghosts.

earliest,

tion

there would be nothing strange in the

first,

its ritual,

precisely this

not propitiated by offerings of

is

Tonga, (despite Mr. Huxley) Australia, and Africa,

We cannot

for example.

escape the difficulty by saying

that there the old ghost of Universal

Power

is

regarded as

dead, decrepit, or as a roi fainSant not worth propitiating, for that is not true of the

of disregard

between

of

self,

men and

punisher of

and the

sin,

the teacher

solitary sanction

of

faith

peoples.

Vlt would appear then, on the whole, that the question of the plain

man

to the anthropologist,

idea of spirit into the savage's mind,

out of

it

what I

call

'

how

God ? has not been '

cannot be a reflection from hu man kings

no

does he develop

God

answered.

where

there are

liings ;.„nor a president elected out of a polytheistic

society of gods

an

Having got your

where there ?s- as ^^iio^|S^Jieism

ideal first ancestor_ where

ancestp.rs

;

men

nor

not worship- their

do

while, again, the spiriioFa

;

man who

died, real

or ideal, does not answer to the usual savage conception of the Creator.

as

we

All this will

become much more obvious

study in detail the highest gods of the lowest racesA

Our

study, of course, does not pretend to embrace tne

religion of all the savages in the world.

with

We

are content

typical, and, as a rule, well-observed examples.

We

range from the creeds of the most backward and worstequipped

nomad

aristocracy,

races,

to

those of

hereditary kings, houses

peoples

and

agriculture,

ending with the Supreme Being of the highly Incas, and with the

Jehovah

of the

Hebrews.

with an

civilised

87

X HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES To

avoid misconception

we must

repeat the necessary

cautions about accepting evidence as to high gods of low

The missionary who

races.

god a devil

does not see in every aUen

apt to welcome traces of an original super-

is

natural revelation, darkened by

We

all

peoples but the Jews.

much on missionary evidence,, we must now be equally on our guard

shall not, however, rely

and,

when we

do,

against the anthropological bias in the missionary himself.

Having read Mr. Spencer and Mr. himself does),

he

among is

Tylor,

ancestor-worshippers

(as

and finding

he sometimes

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

weak that

may

be needful,

point in

all

we cannot

always

from Europeans. were

far out of the

Straits,

too, to point out

once again another

reasoning about savage religion, namely tell

what may have been borrowed

Thus, the Fuegians, in 1830-1840,

way, but one

tribe,

worshipped an image called

near Magellan's

Cristo.

Fitzroy

attributes this obvious trace of Catholicism to a Captain

Pehppa, who visited the expedition.

district

some time before his own

It is less probable that Spaniards established

a belief in a moral Deity in regions where they left no

material traces of their faith. easily proselytised.

'

When

The Fuegians

are not

discovered by strangers, the

instant impulse of a Fuegian family

is

to run off into the

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

188

Occasionally they will emerge to barter, but

woods.' '

sometimes nothing

will induce a single individual of the

Fitzroy thought they had no idea of a

family to appear.'

among

future state, because, evil spirit

other reasons not

torments them in this world,

by storms,

hail,

punish

deeds

evil

Why

snow, &c.'

not evident.

is

'

given,, 'the

they do vprong,

if

the evil spirit should

A

great black

man

is

supposed to be always wandering about the woods and

who is certain of knowing every word and who cannot be escaped and who influences

mountains,

every action,

the weather according to men's conduct.'

There are no traces

of propitiation

To

anything but conduct.

or

But the point lowest savages heart.

sacrifice, '

a

man is not peculiar to Fuegian and does not imply Animism, but the reverse.

magnified non-natural theologians,

by food, or

regard the Deity as

that this ethical judge of perhaps the

is '

'

makes

His morality

for righteousness

so

is

much above

'

and searches the

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.

Eain 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

The

ethics in savage religion. force.

The Being

before they can

fly.

'

Very bad

wind, come rain, blow, very

Now

this

Fuegians '

'

'have

Fitzroy, Ibid.

big

ii.

sixth

commandment

is

in

also prohibits the slaying of flappers

man

is

to shoot little duck,

much

blow.'

come

^

not a deified chief, for the

no superiority of one over another

180.

We seem

to have little information about

before or after the cruise of the Beagle.

Fuegian religion either

'

HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES .

.

of the

Mr. Spencer disposes

Fuegians as

first,

there

is

'

of this mflral 'big

no evidence that the being Again,

it is

that the Fuegians beheved in a future Hfe.

As a

rule everywhere the ghost of a

doctor- wizard,' shaman, or whatever he

the worst and wickedest of

Fuegians,

when The worst

?

the neighbouring Patagonians are those of

dead medicine-men.

is

regarded

Lastly,

were medicine-men such notable moralists

among

is

not shown that Fuegians

Next, Fitzroy did not think

are ancestor-worshippers.

spirits

man'

evidently a deceased weather-doctor.'

as ever having died.

'

much

but the doctor-wizard of each party has

.

influence.'

But,

189'

who

all

ghosts.

may How,

be

called,

then, the

are not proved to be ancestor-worshippers,

evolved out of the malignant ghost of an ancestor a being

whose strong point ceive.

The

spirit,

whom

is

morality, one does not easily con-

adjacent Chonos

they

'

have great

faith in a

good

Yerri Yuppon, and consider to be

call

him they invoke in distress or all good However starved they do not touch food till a

the author of danger.'

;

short prayer has been muttered over each portion,

praying

man

looking upward.'

-

'

the

They have magicians,

If but no details are given as to spirits or ghosts. level, and if this is on this religion Fuegian and Chono

be the

earliest,

savages

Bantu

(as of

many

then the theology of

the Zulus)

is

other higher

decidedly degenerate.

'

The

gives one accustomed to the negro the impression

that he once had the

same

set of ideas, hut

has forgotten

half of them,' says Miss Kingsley.^

Of

all

races

now

extant, the Australians are probably

lowest in culture, and, like the fauna of the continent,

They have neither

are nearest to the primitive model.

metals, bows, pottery, agriculture, nor fixed habitations '

'

Principles of Sociology, i. 422. Travels in West Africa, p. 442.

-

Fitzroy,

ii.

190, 191.

-^

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

190

and no

traces of higher culture

above or in the for in

soil of

have anywhere been found This

the continent.

important,

is

some respects their religious conceptions are so it would be natural to explain them as the either of European influence, or as relics of a higher

lofty that

result

civilisation in the past.

by the

The former

notion

is

fact that their best religious ideas are

discredited

imparted

in

connection with their ancient and secret mysteries, while for the second idea, that they are degenerate

from a loftier 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

civilisation, there is absolutely

Of this stage, as we said, no material traces have ever been discovered, nor can degeneration be recent. history.

Our

earliest

account of the Australians

who

visited

New

is that of Dampier, Holland in the unhappy year 1688. He

found the natives

The Hodmadods,

'

of

the miserablest people in the world.

Monomatapa, though a nasty

yet for wealth are gentlemen to these

:

who have no

houses, sheep, poultry, and fruits of the earth.

have no houses, but

lie

in

the open

much

they

'

.

.

.

They

Curiously

air.'

enough, Dampier attests their unselfishness ethical feature in their religious teaching.

people,

:

Be

the main it little

or

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

be

it

get,

metals used, nor any bows, merely boomerangs

(' wooden and lances with points hardened in the fire. Their place of dwelling was only a fire with a few boughs

cutlasses '

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.

HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES There

one more important point.

is

In the Bora, or

Australian mysteries, at which knowledge of

and

commandments

of his

of the

initiated

observed ing in

'

are

'

The Maker

imparted, the front teeth

is

knocked

out.

men and women,

Now, Dampier

old and young.'

this is to be taken quite literally, the

must have included the women, was on the north-west coast

Bora

rite,

in

The

logs

;

but

it

had neither

natives

If

in 1688,

Dampier

at least locally.

16 degrees,

latitude

West Aus-

longitude 122^ degrees east (Dampier Land, tralia).

'

the two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wantof them,

all

still

191

boats, canoes, nor bark

seems that they had their religious mysteries

and their unselfishness, two hundred years

ago.'

The Australians have been very carefully studied by many observers, and the results entirely overthrow Mr. Huxley's bold statement that such as

may

theology

is

be met with

'

in its simplest condition,

among

the Australian savages,

a mere belief in the existence, powers, and

dispositions (usually malignant) of ghost-like entities

may

be propitiated or scared away

properly be said to exist.

wholly independent of

And

could not be made, '

spirits,'

regarded as

in this stage theology

^he

in

known

defiance of

ghosts of men.

Again, in the matter of

facts

most cases

wizard, These That these ghosts are

the

aid

and occasionally inspire him.

appear, and

is

denied by Waitz.

there

is

none

cult,

'

'

in the

of sacrifice to higher gods, as there should be

gods were hungry ghosts. ( The cult the worship of the heart,

is

is

Australians, assuredly, beUeve

often malicious, and probably in

tvorshipped does not

lians

who

but no cult can

ethics.'

Remarks more crudely in

;

among

if

way these

the Austra-

expressed in moral

teaching, supposed to be in conformity with the institutes '

Early Voyages

to

Australia, 102-111 (Hakluyt Society).

— THE MAKING OF RELIGION

192

of their

Worship takes the form,

God.

as at Eleusis, of

by

tribal mysteries, originally instituted, as at Eleusis,

The young men are initiated with many ceremonies, some of which are cruel and farcical, but the God.

the initiation includes ethical instruction, in conformity

with the supposed commands of a

As among

heart.

its

probably rather above the moral

is

ordinary

of

reads the

ourselves, the ethical ideal, with

theological sanction,

standard

God who

What

practice.

should draw from these facts

conclusion

we

uncertain, but the facts,

is

and precisely contradict the He was wholly in the wrong

at least, cannot be disputed,

statement of Mr. Huxley.

when he

said

The moral

'

:

code, such

as

is

implied

by public opinion, derives no sanction from theological dogmas.'' It reposes, for its origin and sanction, on such dogmas.

The evidence and

is

as to Australian religion is abundant,

being added to yearly.

I

shall

here content

myself with Mr. Howitt's accounts.^

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, Howitt writes

disbelieve

in

regular

chiefs.

Mr.

:

'

The Supreme

Spirit,

tribes I refer to here [in

who

is

believed in by

all

the

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

are extremely faint of country,

none '

''

is

;

'

headmanship

no such headman

known

Science

among

'

to be

rules large areas

worshipped

and Hebrew Tradition,

the tribes

p. 346.

Journal of the Anthrop. Institute, 1884.

after death,

— HIGH GODS OF LOW EACES

193

and the malevolence of the Supreme Spirit is not illustrated by the details of Mr. Howitt's own' statement, but Indeed, he goes on at once to remark that

the reverse. '

Darumulun was

not,

seems to me, everywhere thought

it

was dreaded as one who could severely punish the trespasses committed against these tribal ordinances and customs whose first institution is a malevolent being, but he

ascribed to him.'

To punish

transgressions of his law

from the

not the essence

'

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 sky,

prompt

is

Darumulun watched the youths

of a malevolent being.

to punish,

But the divine name is not when the mere folklore about

dead are also often tabooed. thus tabooed and sacred

him

is

The informants

narrated.

stinctively distinguished religion of

Mr. Howitt

of

in-

between the mythology and the This distinction

Darumulun.'

—the

secrecy

about the religion, the candour about the mythology is

essential,

and accounts

for our ignorance about the

Mr. Howitt him-

inner reUgious beliefs of early races. self

of

knew

little

he was

till

Mr. Howitt's

Melbourne, took

You

the

friend, before

him out

The grandfather white men came to

initiated.

at night, and, pointing to 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 star, said

'

:

will soon

be a

;

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 Journal,

tears xiii.

from the youth.'

193.

He

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

194 is

woman

to avoid adultery, not to take advantage of a

if lie finds

her alone, he

not to be quarrelsome.'

is

At the Mysteries Darumulun's real name may be (Biamban) or Master at other times he is 'Father' (Papang), exactly as we say 'Lord' and '

uttered,

'

'

Father.'

known

It is

that

these things are not due to

all

whose instructions would

missionaries,

conveyed in the Bora, or

certainly not be

tribal mysteries,

which, again,

are partly described by Collins as early as 1798, and must

Mr. Howitt mentions,

have been practised in 1688.

among moral

lessons divinely sanctioned, respect for old

from lawless

age, abstinence

sins so popular, poetic,

A

Gods, in classical Greece.^

Biamban

the Master,

the Mysteries,

is

love,

representation

and to make such

;

forbidden

'

The

future

by the burial

life

'

sung in an Athenian Mr. Howitt

calls

upon the mind

'

I fled rite.

;

Those

who

is

then

rises

illustrated

from a

The whole

result

'

An

being observes and rewards the conduct of

heavens '

;

he

is

soften the heart.' '

=

named at Maker and Lord

the

impress

an indelible manner, those

religious sanction of morals in Australia.

reverence,

the

was

by what

is,

a quasi-religious element,' to

which form the moral law of the other authorities could be adduced

named with

grave.

of

life'

rules of conduct

Many

of

except at

better have I found,' as

of the youth, in

of

as soon as the rites are

(apparently)

of a living elder,

Worse have

made

is

idols,

This may, however, symbolise the 'new Mystse,

of the

under pain of death.'

which are made are destroyed ended.'

and avoidance

and sanctioned by the example

if

all

;

tribe.'

for the

all-knowing

men

;

his abode

of things

*

;

he is

is

the

his lessons

*

' Op. cit. p. 450. Journal, xiii. 296. See Brough Smyth, Aborigines, i. 428;

'

P. 453.

<

P. 457.

Taplin, Native Baces of

HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES '

What wants

this knave That a God should have

now demonstrate

1 shall

195

"

?

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.^ Mr. Howitt^ gives an account of the Jeraeil, or

The

Mysteries of the Kurnai.

old

through intercourse with whites

'

men deemed

that

the lads had become

and no longer inclined to share that which they own exertions, or had given them,

selfish

obtained by their

with their is

One need not say

friends.'

that selflessness

the very essence of goodness, and the central moral

doctrine

Mysteries of the African see,

is

So

Christianity.

of

spoken of as

'

Yao

;

is

it

a

in

selfish

uninitiated.'

So

the

religious

man, we it

is

shall

with the

Australian Kurnai, whose mysteries and ethical teaching are under the sanction of their for the anthropological

dogma

Supreme Being.

So much

that early theology has no

ethics.

The Kurnai began by kneading the stomachs

of

According to Taplin, Nurrumdere was a deified black fellow, This is not the case of Baiame and Daramulun. From a brief account of the Fire Ceremony, or Engvmrra 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 Australia.

who

died on earth.

'

'

'

;

sink their identity in that of the object with which they are associated, and from which they are supposed to have There appear also to be places haunted by ' spirit individuals,' originated.' or ideal

human

beings appear to

'

some way mixed up with Totems, but nothing is said of sacrifice to The brief account is by Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F. J. Gillen, Proc. Royal Soc. Victoria, July 1897. This Fire Ceremony in

these Manes.

—

—

not a kind of confirmation in the savage church but is is not for lads intended for adults. Details have not yet been published, but, as far as already sketched, the rites are neither moral nor theistic. 2

J.

Anthrop. Inst. 1885,

p. 301.

o 2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

196

the lads about to

be initiated

(that

if

is,

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

the blankets,

off

The

initiate raise their faces to the sky.

to

it,

calling out,

'

Look

and bid the

initiator points

there, look there, look there

' !

They have seen in this solemn way the home of the Supreme Being, Our Father,' Mungun-ngaur (Mungun= Father,' ngaur=' our '), whose doctrine is then unfolded headman in an impressive by the old initiator manner.' Long ago there was a great Being, MungunHis son Tundun is ngaur, who lived on the earth.' '

'

'

('

'

'

direct ancestor rites,

')

the Kurnai.

of

Mungun

initiated

the

and destroyed earth by water when they were im-

piously revealed.

'

Mungun

left

the earth, and ascended

where he still remains.' Here Mungun-ngaur, a Being not defined

to the sky,

but immortal, and dwelling in heaven,

is

as spirit,

Father, or rather

grandfather, not maker, of the Kurnai.

This

may

be

interpreted as ancestor-worship, but the opposite myth, of

making

or creating,

the Wolgal, Ngarego,

is

told

by Narrinyeri, Boonorong,

Theddora, Coast Murring,

and

Darumulun. His precepts are (Fifth Commandment.) 1. To obey the old. 2. To share all with their friends. (Do to others as you would have others do to you.) Wiraijuri, worshippers of

:

To live peaceably with their friends. girls or married women. 4. Not to interfere with (Seventh Commandment.) 5. To obey the food restKi^tions. (Leviticus, passim) 3.

Mr. Howitt concludes '

J.

:\/I venture to assert that

Anthrop. Inst. 1885,

p. 313.

it

can

HIGH GODS OF LOW EACES

197

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 .Mid individual morality under a supernatural Howitt's opinion

sanction/)

became more

On

this

affirmative

Mr.

topic

more

the

deeply he was initiated.^

The

Australians are the lowest, most primitive savages,

yet no propitiation by food

m heaven, as

moral Euler,

to their

of these Australian divine beings apply to

might naturally be expected.

ritual as well as to ethics, as

But the moral element conspicuous

made

he were a ghost.

if

The laws

is

we have

:

is

conspicuous, the reverence

is

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,

On

Meanwhile the mythology

a capital offence.

is

God

of the

is

a kind of joke, with no sacredness about

the whole

it is

it.

evident that Mr. Herbert Spencer,

for example, underrates the nature of Australian religion.

He

the ghost of a

cites a case of addressing

dead,

which

is

asked not to bring sickness,

noises in the night,' and says

:

'

essential elements of a cult.'

allude to the

much more

'

man

recently

or .make loud

Here we may recognise the But Mr. Spencer does not

essentially religious elements

which he might have found in the very authority he cites, Mr. Brough Smyth.^ This appears, as far

whom 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.' '

3.

Anthrop. Inst.

xiii. p. '

459.

See also Journal,

May

Ecclesiastical Institutions, p. 674.

1895, pp. 423, 424.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

198

Among

the causes

application

confusion in thought upon

highest

its

Australia

free

is

'

the partial and one-sided

the historical method of

of

theological doctrines.'

In

of

Mr. Tylor mentions

religion,

The God

example

of sinning.

'simplest theology' of

aspect that

from the

Greece.

inquiry into

we have examples.

Here, perhaps,

^

faults of popular theology in

discourages sin, he does not set the

He is almost

too sacred to be

named

(except in mythology) and far too sacred to be represented

by

chance not

He

idols. ;

like

gifts.'

is not moved by sacrifice he has not the Death in Greece, he only, of all Gods, loves Thus the status of theology does not corre;

'

spond to the status in material and

intellectual culture.

would scarcely be a paradox to say that the popular Zeus, or Ares, is degenerate from Darumulun, or the

It

Fuegian being who forbids the slaying almost If

marks the sparrow's we knew all the mythology literally

'

should probably find or Bunjil) on

it

(Uke

much

of

an enemy, and

fall.'

of

of the

Darumulun, we myth of Pundjel

a very different level from the theology.

There are two currents, the religious and the mythical, flowing together through religion.

among very low

religious,

even

magical

ghost-propitiating habit.

mythological, legend.

of

is full

The former

savages,

is

cmrent,.

pure from the

The latter current,, magic, mummery, and scandalous

Sometimes the

latter

stream quite pollutes the

former, sometimes they flow side by side, perfectly distinguishable, as in Aztec ethical piety,

bloody Aztec ritualism.

compared with the

Anthropology has mainly kept

her eyes fixed on the impure stream, the lusts, mummeries, conjuriags, and frauds of priesthoods, while relatively, or altogether, neglecting (as

and

of

good

we have shown) what

report. '

Prim. Cult.

ii.

450.

is

honest

HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES

199

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,

element

either,

if

from the

either, is derived

the

is

of

To

other.

agreeable,

and seems

without a bias against

came

writers

so

little

The

!

first

who

is

are not

an unscientific

as

religion

all

But we know

superstition.

some

logical, to

if

suppose that pro-

corpses and then of ghosts

pitiation

or which,

earlier,

first

mission-

Greenland supposed that there was not, there, a

aries in

trace of belief in a Divine Being.

'

But when they came

to understand their language better, they found quite the

reverse to be true plainly gather

.

.

from a

perfectly wild

and not only

so,

but they could

free dialogue they

had with some

.

Greenlanders

direct application to their

that time avoiding any

(at

hearts)

that their ancestors

must have believed in a Supreme Being, and did render him some service, which their posterity neglected little by little Mr. Tylor does not refer to this as a trace of Christian Scandinavian influence on the Eskimo.^ That line, of course, may be taken. But an Eskimo Thou must not imagine that no said to a missionary, .'

.

.

'

'

Greenlander thinks about these things

then stated the argument from design.

must be some Being who made

all

'

(theology). '

He

Certainly there

these things.

He must

Ah, did I but know him, how I That him.' As St. Paul writes and honour would love which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God be very good too

.

.

.

:

hath showed

it

unto them

things which are

made

.

.

.

.

.

.

being understood by the

but they became vain in their

imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.' '

"

Cranz, pp. 198, 199. Cranz, i. 199. i. 19.

Eom.

''

'

Journal Anthrop. Inst.

xiii.

^

In

348-356.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

200 fact,

mythology submerged

the origin of religion a direct revelation. a

God from

herself to

are

is

religion.

not that of an

St. '

innate idea,' nor of

People, he says, reached the belief in

the Argument for Design.

have annihilated teleological

among

Paul's theory of

Science conceives ideas.

But they

the probable origins of religion, and would

whom the Greenlander whom he yearned. This is

lead to the belief in a Creator,

thought beneficent, and after

a very different initial step in religious development, initial it

if

was, from the feeding of a corpse, or a ghost.

From

all this

evidence

it

does not appear

non- monarchical,

polytheistic,

how

non-

non-Manes-worshipping

savages evolved the idea of a relatively supreme, moral,

and benevolent Creator, unborn, undying, omniscient, and omnipresent. He can go everywhere, and do everything.' ^ '

In Mr. Curr's work, The Australian Bace, reports of godless' natives Mary Eiver country and in Gippsland. These reports are usually the result of the ignorance or contempt of white observers, cf. Tylor, i. 419 '

are given, for instance, in the

'

'

201

XI

SUPBEME GODS NOT NECESSABILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIBITS' Before going on

to

examine the high gods of other

low savages, I must here again

insist

the theory, not easily conceived by us,

Being

on and develop that the Supreme

branch of faith than

of savages belongs to another

and need

ghosts, or ghost-gods, or fetishes, or Totems,

not be

We

—probably

must

is

not

—essentially

moral, eternal Being was, from the ceived as

derived from these.

try to get rid of our theory that a powerful,

'

spirit

'

;

first,

ex

officio,

con-

and so was necessarily derived from a

ghost. First,

what was the process

We have examined Mr.

development

of

?

But, to take

Tylor's theory.

Here are the Australians, roaming in small bands, without more formal rulers than headmen

a practical case

:

'

at

most

;

not ancestor worshippers

no departmental to speculate

deities to select

;

not polytheists

and aggrandise

on the Anima Mundi.

How,

;

;

with

not apt

then, did they

bridge the gulf between the ghost of a soon-forgotten fighting

man, and that conception

of a

Father in Heaven,

omniscient, moral, which, under various names, all

is

found

over a huge continent ? I cannot see that this problem

has been solved or frankly faced.

The

distinction

between the

creative, all-seeing,

decaying Australian deity, unpropitiated by

sacrifice,

un-

and

the ordinary, waning, easily forgotten, cheaply propitiated

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

202

ghost of a tribesman,

It is not easy to

is essential.

how, in the dark backward of Austrahan '

life,

'

Darumulun grew from the idea of the ghost But there is no logical necessity for the

of

warrior.

in the eYolution of this factors in religion

—

different sources,

god out

and

it

a

of

belief

These two

of that ghost.

ghost and god

show

the notion

— seem to have perfectly

appears extraordinary that an-

thropologists have not (as far as I

am

aware) observed

this circumstance before.

Mr.

Spencer,

human

indeed,

speaks

beings adored as gods.

frequently I do not

of

living

know

that

these are found on the lowest levels of savagery, and

Mr. Jevons has pointed out that, before you can man as a god, you must have the idea of God. murder of Captain Cook notoriously resulted a scientific experiment in theology.

he cannot be

killed.'

So they

'If

tried

he

is

hail a

The from a god,

with a dagger,

and found that the honest captain was but a mortal British mariner

— no

god at

Mr. Spencer's men-gods become

Now

'There are

all.

real gods

degrees.'

—after death.'

the Supreme Being of savage faith, as a rule,

never died at

all.

He

belonged to a world that knew not

Death.

One cause be '

this

God

is

:

We

of our blindness to the point appears to

have

from childhood been taught that only conceive of an

We, now, can

a Spirit.'

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 i. 417, 421. The medicine men The medicine man becomes a god after death.'

Principles of Sociology,

as gods

'

of,

are treated

SUPREME GODS not as

spirits,'

'

such a being

means

but as

is

'

203

To

undefined eternal beings.'

necessarily a spirit, but "he

who may

necessarily so to an early thinker,

us,

was by no not

yet have reached the conception of a ghost.

A

ghost

is said,

by anthropologists,

Now, the very

into a god.

vnraith or fetch) implies the previous

A

ghost

is

to

have developed

idea of a ghost (apart from a

death of his proprietor.

the phantasm of a dead man.

logists continually tell us,

But anthropo-

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,

cians

and

supernormally caused by magiDeath 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.^ \Tbe 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 DeathrjHe is not necessarily a spirit,' though that term may now be applied to him. He was not origispirits.

'

nally differentiated as

spirit

'

'

or

'

not

spirit.'

Being, conceived of without the question of spirit

'

being raised

;

spirit,'

be raised by men.

call

the Supreme Being of savages a

our

own

'

spirit

1

no knowledge

of

a gigantic black,

is

or

'

a

no

we

When we introduce

animistic ideas into a conception where

it

may

The Gippsland tribes have They believe the Creator was God. Hving among the stars.' ^ Mr. Matthew

not have originally existed.

I

[He

perhaps he was origin§Jly conceived

of before that question could

'

'

have published

.

u.

.

'

.

chapter on Myths on the Origin of Death in

Modern Mythology. ^ Curr, The Australian Bace.

;

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

^04

Arnold might as well have said

He

has no knowledge of God. is

man,

a magnified non-natural

:

'

The

British Philistine

believes that the Creator

Supreme Being

a Being, anthropomorphic, not a mrart, or

Supreme Being term is

for

a wesen, Being, Vui

first

ancestor (as

on that account, either

original conception

from the

first

he

is

who was

:

man

among

is just

The

'spirit.'

we have

;

an immortal existence so undefined.

an idealised

not,

is

The

living in the sky.'

Gippsland or Fuegian or Blackfoot

hardly a

If the

being

the Kurnai), he

or ghost of

man.

a powerful intelligence

is

In the

who was

already active long before, by a

breach of his laws, an error in the delivery of a message, ritual, or what not, death entered the world. affected by the entry of death, he stiU exists. was not He Modern minds need to become familiar with this indeterminate idea of the savage Supreme Being, which,

a breach of

logically,

may

ghost or

spirit.

be prior to the evolution of the notion of

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

Ancestor,

a savage people

he

can

never

is

thus the

idealised First

have been envisaged by

worshippers as at any time a ghost

;

or, at least,

his

can-

not logically have been so envisaged where the nearly universal belief occurs that death

by

into the world

accident, or needlessly.

Adam but

came

he

is

the mythical

died,

virsp

first

/xopov,

ancestor of the Hebrews,

and was not worshipped.

Yama, the first of Aryan men who by Vedic Aryans, but confessedly

died,

was worshipped

as a ghost-god.

Mr.

The Ancestor list of first ancestors deified. Mandans did not die, consequently is no ghost emigravit, he moved west.' Where the First Ancestor is Tylor gives a

of the

'

SUPREME GODS also the Creator (Dog-rib Indians), is

not, regarded as a mortal.

'the ancient of heaven,'

Maori Maui was the

first

answers

precisely

to

he can hardly

be,

and

Tamoi, of thS Guaranis, was

no mortal man. The but he is not one of

clearly

who

the original Maori gods.

20&

died,

among the Kamchadals,

Haetsh,

Yama.

Unkulunkulu

be

will

described later. ^

This

is

the

list

:

Where

valent to the Creator, and first

—deathless

the First Ancestor

supreme, he

is

When

and immortal.

is

equi-

is

—from

he dies he

the is

a

confessed ghost-god.

Now, ghost-worship and dead ancestor-worship impossible before the ancestor

dead and

is

are

a ghost.

is

But the

essential idea of

most

the high gods of Australia, and of other low

of

Darumulun, and Baiame, and

races, is that they never died at all.

They belong

to the

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 period before death

case,

by a race

a thing as a ghost.

not required, and

who

immortals

of

is

who men die

never dreamed of such

For these gods, the ghost-theory is The

superfluous, even contradictory.

early thinkers

developed these beings did not need to

know

(though, of course, they did

that

practice), still less did they

abstract speculation the hypothesis of ghosts.

Cagn, Bunjil, in their adorers' later intruded

know it

in

need to have conceived by

among men, but

belief,

Baiame,

were there

;

death

did not affect these divine

beings in any way. ghost-theory, therefore, by the evidence of anthro-

The pology

itself, is

not needed for the evolution of the high

gods of savages.

It is only •

Prim. Cult.

needed for the evolution of ii.

311-316.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

206

ghost -propitiation and genuine dead -ancestor worship. Therefore, the high gods described were not necessarily

—were

They were, naturally, from the beginning, from before the coming Between them in of death, immortal Fathers in Heaven. and apotheosised mortal ancestors there is a great gulf

once ghosts

fixed

not ideahsed mortal ancestors.

—the river of death.

The

explicitly stated distinction that the

high creative

gods never were mortal men, while other gods are

men,

of mortal

known

to be

is

made

in

human were

every quarter.

spirits

'Ancestors

not worshipped as [original]

gods, and ancestors worshipped as [original] gods were

not believed to have been human.'

Both kinds may have a

^

generic name, such as kalou,

or wakan, but the specific distinction

by low savages.

On

is

universally

one hand, original gods

;

on the

made other,

Now, this when any Scandinavians) the Euheme-

non-original gods "that were once ghosts. distinction is often calmly ignored

race has developed (like late ristic

thesis

some

hypothesis is

('

all

gods were once

men '),

that hypo-

accepted as an historical statement of fact by

part of

is

my

theory that

ghost- worship of souls of people

invaded the Father. '

whereas,

writers.

It

as

;

spirits

possibly

Mighty '

older

the

more popular

whom men

religion

of

have loved,

the

Supreme

beings, whether originally conceived of

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

The alternative, for a Supreme Being, when once Animism prevailed, was sacrifice (as to more popular sacrifice.

ghost

deities) or neglect.

alternatives.

We shall find

examples of both

But sacrifice does not prove '

Jevons, Introduction, p. 197.

that a

God was,

;

SUPREME GODS

207

in original conception, a ghost, or even a spirit.

common

but that the

among men.' ^ To resume.

that

The God is

spirit

The high Gods

seeing directors of things

envisaged as spirits at of

is ifot

[ruah=' wind.,' 'hving breath'] Jehovah, going forth from him, works in the world and

spirit,

of

doctrine of the Old Testament

'

soul

describe

or spirit

all

—moral,

of savagery

—

and of men are not explicitly by their adorers. The notion

We

here out of place.

is

all-

Darumulun and Napi and Baiame

non-natural men,' or undefined beings

They

the beginning and are eternal.

as

'

can best magnified

who were from the easy

are, like

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 For this the ghost-ritual has been transferred.

whom

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.' All this

is

rather hard on the lowest savages.

sacrifice to a god,

don't,

then the god

then the god

is

'

is

If

a hungry ghost

;

if

^

they they

a god to talk about, not to adore.'

Bora ritual and the instruction given there prove that Darumulun and other names are gods to adore, by ethical conformity to their will and by

Luckily, the facts of the

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

As

of ghosts.

far as

we can

say, in the inevitable absence

of historical evidence, the highest gods of savages

may have

Makers and Fathers and Lords of an been believed indeterminate nature, before the savage had developed the in, as

'

2

Bobertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, Evolution of the Idea of God, p. 176.

p. 61.

—

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

208

idea of souls out of dreams

conceivable that savages

and phantasms.

It is logically

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

by the very nature of savage reflections on death and on its non-original casual character, are prior,

higher

or

sort,

may

be

cannot be shown not to be

prior, or

the ghost theory

—the

alleged

their evolution the ghost theory is not logically

Yet bogles, Mrarts, Brewin, and so they can do without

it.

who have most

the gods

prior, to

For demanded

origin of religion.

and not the

they,

forth, are the

analogy

—as

spirits,

high gods,

creators,

moral

and punishers of conduct (though that occasionally assumed by ancestral spirits)

guides, rewarders,

duty

is

also

with our

civilised

Our concep-

conception of the divine.

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

tion

morality

:

as the people themselves

unanimously

guish such beings from ghost-gods, I take beings never were ghosts.

theory seems to

me

to break

In

it

distin-

that such

this case the Animistic

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

Come from what germ he may, Jehovah come from It

may

up

to

its

ideal.

or Allah does not

a ghost.

be retorted that this makes no real

difference.

If savages did not invent gods in consequence of a fal-

lacious belief in spirit

and

soul,

still,

in

some other equally

SUPKEME GODS illogical

way

209

they came to indulge the hypothesis that

they had a Judge and Father in heaven.

-But,

theory of the high Gods

is

superfluous, that does

is

wrong, as

make some

it

therefore,

we may

without too

much

differ

On

other

the ghost

conspicuously

difference.

that a widely preached scientific conclusion spectral as Bathybius.

if

may

more important

from the newest

scientific

diffident apprehensiveness.

proves

It

be as points,

opinion

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

210

XII

SAVAGE SUPBEME BEINGS It

is

are

among

'

the lowest savages that the Supreme Beings '

most regarded as

eternal,

moral

on a higher

tribe goes, or even

the morahty of the

(as

level),

and powerful.

I

have elsewhere described the Bushman god Cagn, as he

was portrayed

to Mr.

before seen a white

Orpen by Qing, who 'had never

man

him

on the walls of caves. and we pray to him,' thus

natives' pictures

things,

are

we

not thy children ?

As

food.'

Do you

to ethics,

'

At

Cagn made

'

Cagn,

How

came he

who brought

into the world ?

the

Sun

:

It appears that

things.'

'

Cagn was very

'

many

Qing was not yet rite of

things.'

Perhaps with those

know

only the initiated

dance (answering to a high

all

Cagn,

not see us hunger ? first

good, but he got spoilt through fighting so '

explain the

to

'

:

Give us

Mr. Orpen got

except fighting.'

the facts from Qing by inducing

these

initiated in the

the Australian Bora) in

which the most esoteric myths were unfolded.' In Mr. Spencer's Descriptive Sociology the religion Pray to an insect of the Bushmen is thus disposed of. That is of the caterpillar kind for success in the chase.' '

'

'

'

as

'

When

I wrote

I confused in

One

Myth, Ritual, attd Religion

(ii.

only a successful and idealised medicine man.' of

11-13)

But

I

I

regarded Cagn

now

thinls that

my mind

unknown

the religious and the mythological aspects of Cagn. origin, existing before the sun, a Maker of all things,

prayed to, but not in receipt of his myth.

sacrifice, is

no medicine man, except

in

8A"VAGE SUPREME BEINGS rather meagre.

They make

211

arrow-poisoji out of cater-

pillars.'

The case of the Andaman Islanders may be esperecommended to believers in the anthropological

cially

For long these natives were the joy

science of religion.

of emancipated inquirers

as

the

'

They only supply Mr. Spencer's tutions

'

godless Andamanese.' '

Ecclesiastical

Insti-

with a few instances of the ghost-belief.'

Yet

when the Andamanese are scientifically studied in situ by an educated EngHshman, 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

The people

hardly to be blamed.

are probably Negritos,

original inhabitants,

and probably

whose occupation dates from

'

the

pre-

They use the bow, they make pots, and considerably above the Austrahan level. They have

historic times.''

are

who

second-sighted men, '

obtain status 'by relating an

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 If he is a deity of a rather lofty for the canaille of ghosts and fetishes. philosophic conception, of course he cannot be propitiated by human That kind of material evidence to the faith in sacrifices or cold chickens. 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.' " = Man, J. A. I. xii. Pp. 676, 677. 70. '

'

'

'

'

;

'

P o

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

212

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 All this

nations.^

Their religion

is

is

they always shot

as

we

should expect

it

halluci-

to be.

probably not due to missionaries, as

all foreigners,

and have no traditions of

the presence of aliens on the islands before our recent arrival.^

He was

Their God, Puluga, never born, and

is

is

like

'

He

the thoughts of the heart. or wrong-doing, that

is

angered by ijuhda=

is

falsehood, theft, grave assault,

murder, adultery, bad carving of meat, and

by burning wax.'

of witchcraft) distress

He '

is

he

is pitiful,

Judge

to some extent

the present

is

'

and the dread

(as a

To those

and sometimes deigns to

of Souls,

invisible.

By him were all evil. He knows even

things created, except the powers of

sin,

but

fire,'

immortal.

of future

crime

in pain or

afford relief.'

punishment

said to affect their course of action in

*•

life.'

This Being could not be evolved out of the ordinary ghost of a second-sighted man, for I do not find that ancestral ghosts of

are worshipped,

nor

there a trace

is

early missionary influence, while Mr.

Man

elderly and, in native religion, well-instructed

consulted

Andamanese

for his facts.

Yet Puluga lives in a large stone house (clearly derived from ours at Port Blair), eats and drinks, foraging for There is the himself, and is married to a green shrimp.^ usual story of a Deluge caused by the moral wrath of Puluga.

The whole theology was

scrupulously collected

from natives unacquainted with other >

Man, J.AJ.

=

xii.

112.

xii.

96-98.

'^

'

races.

xii.

156, 157.

xii.

158.

=

xii.

158.

SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS The account

Andamanese

of

213

religion does not

with the anthropological hj^pothesis.

tallj^

Fcfreign influence

seems to be more than usually excluded by insular conditions and the jealousy of the original inhabitants.' '

The evidence ought

make us

to

on the extreme

reflect

obscurity of the whole problem.

Anthropological study of religion has hitherto almost entirely overlooked the mysteries of various races, except

young people

in so far as they confirm the entry of the into the ranks of the adult.

teaching

religious

few instances.

is

nearly

Their esoteric moral and

unknown

to

us,

were survivals of savage ceremonies, because that they included specific savage

the rliombos to ritual

in '

make

daubing with

and the sacred

;

we know

and the custom of

a whirring noise,

dirt

say,

ballets d'action,

mystic facts are

But, while Greece retained these

out.'^

Greece

such as the use of

rites,

which, as Lucian and Qing

danced

save in a

It is certain that the mysteries of

relics of

was something taught at Bleusis 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 savagery, there

'

'

:

;

we

are admitted to the secrets of

throughout the world,

mummeries,

frivolities,

-doctrines are

The New

all

other savage mysteries

we cannot and

even

whether,

tell

among

high ethical

license,

not presented under the sanction of religion.

Life,

and perhaps the future

life,

are undeniably

indicated in the Australian mysteries by the simulated

Eesurrection.

would therefore no longer say, the Hellenic genius must have added to I

dance

'

all

as '

in 1887,

that

an old medicine

that the Eleusinian mysteries possessed of Myth,

Bitiial,

and Religion,

i.

281-288.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

214

These elements, asthe rites, may have been

beauty, counsel, and consolation.' well as the barbaric factors in

out of such savage doctrine as softens the

developed

hearts of Australians and

That

Yaos.

doctrine receives religious sanction

know

the secret of savage mysteries.

and

incorrect,

almost religion

among

is

of

where we

therefore quite

presumptuous, to deny, with

strangely

anthropologists,

all

It

kind

this

certain,

is

the alliance of ethics with

We

the most backward races.

always remember their secrecy about their inner

must

religion,,

These we

their frankness about their mythological tales.

know the inner religion we ought to begin to recognise 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 :

that

lessons.

It is

hard to bring the Melanesians within any

Dr. Codrington has

theory.

careful study,

quirer can '

made them

the subject of a

and reports that while the European

communicate pretty

the vocabulary of ordinary

freely

almost useless when

life is

the region of mysteries and superstitions

The Banks

in-

on common subjects is

approached.'

^

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

gent beings different from living men.' dead,

(2)

human.' show,

is

'

Beings

This, as

who were

not,

Ghosts of the

and never had

we have shown, and

the usual savage doctrine.

(1)

of intelli-

On

been,,

will continue to

the one hand are

separable souls of men, surviving the death of the body.

On

the other are beings, creators,

who were

were, and before death entered the world. '

Lobeok, Aglaophamus, 133.

before

men

It is impossible^ ^

J.

A.

I. x.

263.

'

SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS

argue that these beings are only ghosts of real

logically, to

remote ancestors, or of ideal ancestors.

'

These higher

beings are not safely to be defined as essence

is

215

vague, and,

we

their

'spirits,'

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

Enghsh must be That

is

'

God

'

these are

conception our idea of beings

who

The

'

is

spirit

these beings are

spirit,'

But

to their initial

They

lacking.

is

'

existed before death, and

are

still exist.

beings which never were human, never died, are

Tamate,

'

spirits

'

beings,' or, simply, Vui.

is

But

Vui.

been a ghost

;

A

Vui

may

the story

represent

ghosts

'

shall call

Vui Vui

spirit that

has

we

not a

is

'

as to render

to yield the essential point,

spirits

'

'

Dr. Codrington uses

for

'

'

a

spirits.'

Vui, the ghosts are Tamate. for

them, they are such as in

called spirits.'

our point.

Gods, therefore

call

him

as

if

a

man,

but the native will always maintain that he was some-

thing different, and deny to

him the

fleshly

body

of a

man.'

This distinction, ghost on one side

—eternal being, not — radical and

a man, not a ghost of a man, on the other nearly universal in savage religion.

is

Anthropology, neglect-

ing the essential distinction insisted on, in this case, by Dr. Codrington, confuses both kinds under the style of '

spirits,'

and derives both from

Dr. Codrington,

it

should be

said,

confines himself to the savages of special study.

distinction

we

of

the

dead.

does not generalise, but

whom

he has made a

But, from the other examples of the same

which we have

shall offer,

ghosts

we

offered,

and the

rest

which

think ourselves justified in regarding the '

J.A.I. 267.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

216

between a primeval,

distinction

on one hand, and ghosts or

eternal, being or beings,

spirits exalted

from ghost's

on the other, as common, if not universal. There are corporeal and incorporeal Vuis, but the

estate,

body

of the corporeal

chief

is

'

Qat,

Qat,

'

at

still

Vui

is

hand

'

human

not a

to help

body.'

and invoked

'

Marawa, look down upon me, smooth the sea

two, that I

men and

may

go safely over the sea

animals,'

!

though, in a certain

claimed as an ancestor

(p.

Two

268).

Qat

'

The

in prayers.'

'

for us

created

district,

he

is

strata of belief

have here been confused.

The myth

Qat

of

is

a jungle of facetiae and froUc, with

one or two serious incidents, such as the beginning of

Death and the coming became, a stone

His mother was, or

of Night.

stones playing a considerable part in the

;

superstitions.

The have a

incorporeal Vuis,

much

with nothing

'

like a

higher place than Qat and his brothers in

They have

the religious system.'

neither names, nor

shapes, nor legends, they receive sacrifice,

uncertain

human life,

way connected with

stones

and are

The only sacrifice, in Banks Islands, is that The mischievous spirits are Tamate,

money.

There

a

is

belief

in

some

these stones usually

;

bear a fanciful resemblance to fruits or animals

men.

in

mana

(p.

275). shell-

of

ghosts of

(magical rapport).

Dr. Codrington cannot determine the connection of this belief

with that in

the unknown.

when

as '

draw

'

A revived

Mana

the uncanny,

is

impression of sense

a tired fisher, half asleep a

of

common '

J.A.I. 2&7. p. 281.

This

at

is

is

a

is

X,

nunuai,

is

night, feels the

salmon, and automatically

ghost

'

Banks

spirits.

strikes.^

The

a bag of nunuai, as living man, in the

mmuai

with which I

Island, take the r6le of salmon.

without form or substance.

am

The

familiar.

Flying

natives think

it

fish, in

real,

but

'

SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS some philosophers,

opinion of

Ghosts are only seen as

the dead

made

are

(Banks) there

is

no

which

com-

so

Except

the civilised.

'In the western islands the offerings

to ghosts,

isles

among

sensations.'

'

Qat and Marawa, prayer only invokes

285).

(p.

bag of

a

spiritual lights,

monly attend hallucinations in the prayers to

is

217

and consumed by

they are made to

Now,

sacrificial fire.'

fire

in the eastern

;

and

spirits (beings, Vui),

the worship of ghosts

goes, in these isles, with the higher culture, siderable advance in the arts of life

; '

'

a more con-

the worship of non-

ghosts, Vui, goes with the lower material culture.^

This

what we should

expect, in accord-

ance with the anthropological theory.

According, how-

is

rather the reverse of

ever, to our theory.

Animism and ghost-worship may be

later

development, and belong to a higher level of

culture,

than worship of a being, or beings, that never

of

In Leper's

were ghosts.

have prayers or

Isle,

'

ghosts do not appear to

offered

sacrifices

to

but cause

them,'

and work magic.^

disease,

The

belief in the soul, in Melanesia, does not

proceed

'

from

their

appear to

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

behef in other spirits seem to be founded on

ance of

'

the appear-

or motion in inanimate things.'

life

To myself

it

rather looks as

if

all

impressions had

their nunuai, real, bodiless, persistent, after-images

the soul is in

is

the complex of

all of

these nunuai

;

;

that

that there

the universe a kind of magical ether, called mana,

possessed, in different proportions,

by

different

men, Vui,

tamate, and material objects, and that the atai or ataro '

3

Codrington, Melanesia, p. 122.

Op.

cit. X.

313.

^

J.

A.

I. x.

294.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

318 of a

man

mana}

dead, his ghost, retains It

and acquires new

its old,

an odd kind of metaphysic to find among

is

very backward and isolated savages.

Melanesia teaches us

But the lesson we really know

of

how very little of how complex it is, how hardly our theories, if we take it as given

the religion of low races, it

can be forced into

and are not

in our knowledge, allow for our ignorance,

content to select facts which suit our hypothesis, while ignoring the

On

rest.

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

The word Kalou is applied to and mystic or magical things alike.

eternal gods.

beings,

answer to mana in in

New

Gods

It seems to

to fSe in old French, as

Perrault says, about Bluebeard's key, All

supernal

Zealand and Melanesia, to wakan

North America, and

fee.'

all

are Kalou, but

'

now

when

the key was

things that are Kalou

all

Gods are Kalou vu; deified ghosts are The former are eternal, without beginning

are not Gods.

Kalou

yalo.

of days or

end of years

;

the latter are subject to infirmity

and even to death.^

is

The Supreme Being, if we can apply the term to him, Ndengei, or Degei, who seems to be an impersonation '

of the abstract idea of eternal existence.'

This idea

easily developed out of the conception of a

which has died

into a ghost

and may

represents

or a

body of stone with a serpent's head.

manifestation

is

as a serpent,

given by eating.

emblem

We

made men,' '

^

says Ndengei,

So neglected

A. I. X. 300. Williams's Fiji, p. 218.

'

placed

His

of eternity,

His one is

he that

a song exists about his lack of worshippers and '

soul

die again.

myth

him

not

is

human

them on

gifts.

earth,

J.

See Mr. Fison's remarks cited

later.

SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS

219'

and yet they share to us only the under shell.' Here is an extreme case of the self-existent creative Eternal, '

mythically lodged in a serpent's body, and reduced to a jest.

any explanation,

It is not easy to see

hypothesis that this a temple.'

scarcely

if

we

reject the

form of faith, with The other unborn immortals are an

is

old, fallen

'

mythical warriors and adulterers, like the popular deities

Yet Ndengei receives prayers through two

of Greece.

sons of his, mediating

by

or inspired,

spirits

The priests are possessed, and gods. One is not quite clear deities.

as to whether Ndengei

is

an inspiring god or not

made

to

him

that prayers are

is

A priest

belief in his eternal inaction.

my

god speaks by me,'

personality

After

'

when

'

the account of this

My own

truly gone,

is

it

'

alternating

given by a priest.^

informing

Williams next of

is

then,

but

represented as

is

speaking for Ndengei, probably by inspiration.

mind departs from me, and

;

inconsistent with the

tells

us

may

is

He

all

fantastic as that in the

sends rain on earth.

There

be Kalou.

Egyptian

'

Book

Mr-

starved,

about offerings to him, in earlier

hundreds of hogs.'

men, stones,

Ndengei

that

a

is

days,,

Animals,

Hades

of the Dead,'

as

and

second sight flourishes.

The mysteries

include the

sham

raising of the dead,,

and appear to be directed at propitiatory ghosts rather particulars There are scenes of license of almost incredible indecency have been privately for-

than to Ndengei.

warded

to Dr. Tylor.'

Suppose a

many

;

*

religious reformer

savage tribes who, as

an Eternal Creator.

neglect, '

"

'

we

were to

arise in

one of the

shall show, possess, but

He would

do what, in the

F'^i, p. 217.

'

lb. p. 228.

lb. p. 230.

*

J- A.. I. xiv. 30.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

220

was done by the Mikado of Japan. The 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,

secular sphere,

Mikado was

—

a political

;

ghosts and sacred beasts, and proclaim the Eternal Creator,

Ndengei, Dendid, Mtanga.

Had

again.'

it

Eome knew

worshipping a horde of -ghosts, while the

—perhaps, effort to

shall

hae his ain

little

Israel,

would have been

gods, and even beasts and

Eternal would have become a mere name

Ndengei and Atahocan and Unkulunkulu,

like

The Old Testament

jest.

The king

not been for the Prophets, Israel, by the

time that Greece and

a

'

is

the story of the prolonged

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 ger-

God

minal conception of a

— 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.' which of the

It is impossible to prove, historically,

—the idea of an Eternal Being or Beings, or the idea of surviving ghosts — came into

two main elements in

belief

first

the minds of men. as understood

The

idea of primeval Eternal Beings,

by savages, does not depend

the ghost theory.

But, as

we

on, or require,

almost always find ghosts

and a Supreme Being together, where we find

among

the lowest savages,

we have no

historical

either,

ground

Where we Eternal, we must

for asserting that either is prior to the other.

have no evidence, to the

belief in the

not conclude that no such belief is

confused and scanty

;

often

exists.

it is

Our knowledge

derived from

do not know the native language,

men who

or the native sacred

SAVAGE SUPEEME BEINGS

221

language, or have not been trusted with what the savage

Moreover,

treasures as his secret.

found without gods,

it is

if

anywhere ghosts are

an inference from the argument

that an idea famihar to very low savage tribes, like the Australians,

and

more and more

falling

ground elsewhere, though in certain cases,

To

still

into the back-

extant and traceable, might,,

be lost and forgotten altogether.

take an example of half -forgotten deity.

Mr.

Im

The Animism of British Guiana.' Mr. Im Thurn justly says the Indians of The man who above all others has made this study But it is not unfair to remark that possible is Mr. Tylor.' 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 Thurn, a good observer, has written on

'

:

'

—

of

North American

tribes is

'

almost certainly nothing

European origin, reflected and transmitted almost beyond recognition on the mirror of the Indian mind.' That is not my opinion I conceive that the Eed 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 ovsti knowledge of the difficulty with which Guiana Indians discern the hallucinations of dreams from the facts of waking life. more than a

figure of

:

Their waking hallucinations are also so vivid as to be taken for that,

Mr.

realities.'

from ghosts,

'

Im Thurn

adopts the hypothesis

a beHef has arisen, but very gradually,

in higher spirits, and, eventually, in a Highest Spirit

keeping pace with the growth of these of reverence for and worship of spirits.' thesis, the spirit latest evolved, '

J.

A.

I. xi.

beliefs,

On

;

and,

a habit

this

hypo-

and most worshipful, ought, 361-366.

—

:

THE MAKING OF RELI«ION

222

of course, to be the usual,

is

'

Spirit.' But the reverse, as The Guiana Indians beheve in the

Highest

the case.

continued, but not in the everlasting, existence of a man's

They

ghost.'

no

believe in

spirits

which were not once

tenants of material bodies.^

The

belief in a

Supreme

highest form of religion

Im Thurn

Mr. '

The Indians But

'

'

in the

—Andamanese, for instance—as

where we should say Guiana know no god.' *

uses

of

'

Spirit is only attained

spirit

'

'being.'

true that various words have been found in 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 '

it is

or nearly

all,

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 these in any way

involves the attributes

'

of a god.'

The Ancient

of Days,

Our Father

in

Heaven, Our

Maker, do rather convey the sense of God to a European

Mr.

mind.

Im

Thurn, however, decides that the beings

thus designated were supposed ancestors

who came

Guiana from some other country, sometimes been that entirely natural country (?) which from Guiana by the ocean of the air.' '

into

said to have is

separated

''

Mr.

Im Thurn

casually observed (having said nothing

about morals in alliance with Animism) '

The

visible >

J.

A.

fear

of

unwittingly offending the countless kept the Indians very

and invisible beings I. xi.

374.

2

jj. xi. 376.

.

.

.

»

16. xi. 376.

'

li. xi. 378.

'

SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS strictly

within

their

own

rights

22S

and from offending

against the rights of others.'

This remark dropped out at a discussion of Mr.

Thum's

low creed

'

makes

Probably few will agree '

Im

paper, and clearly demonstrated that even a very for righteousness.'

who have

with Mr.

Our Father,'

'

Im

followed the facts given here

Thurn's theory that

The Ancient One

merely an idealised

human

of

ancestor.

'

Our Maker,'

the Heaven,'

He

is

naturally

falls

into his place with the other high gods of

low savages.

But we need much more information on the Mr. Im Thurn was able to give.

subject than

His evidence

is

all

follower of Mr. Tylor.

Animism

is

the better, because he

And Mr. Tylor

says

a loyal

is ' :

Savage

almost devoid of that ethical element which

modern mind is the very mainspring of Yet it keeps the Indians very strictly religion.' ^

to the educated

practical

'

own rights and from offending the rights Our own religion is rarely so successful.^ others.' In the Indians of Guiana we have an alleged case within their

a people case,

still

of

of

deep in the animistic or ghost-worshipping

who, by the hypothesis, have not yet evolved the

idea of a

god

When

at

all.

the familiar

names

for

God, such as Maker,

Father, Ancient of Days, occur in the Indian language,

Mr.

Im Thurn

explains the neglected Being

these titles as a remote

deified ancestor.

who

bears

Of course, when

a Being with similar titles occurs where ancestors are not worshipped, as in AustraUa and the Andaman Islands, Prim. Cult. ii. 360. J. 4. J. xi. 382. Conceivably, however, the Guiana spirits who have so much moral The belief in the power of charms influence, exert it by magical charms. '^

1

'

'

produces not only honesty, but a great amount of gentle However they work, the spirits dealing,' says Livingstone, of the Africans.

for

good or

work

evil

for righteousness.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

224

the explanation suggested by Mr. Im Thurn for the problem of religion in Guiana, will not fit the facts.

a priori, another explanation is conpeople like the Andamanese, or the

It is plain that, If

ceivable.

a

whom we

Australian tribes

conception as that of

and then,

have studied, had such a Puluga, or Baiame, or Darumulun,

developed ancestor- worship

later,

with

its

propitiatory sacrifices and ceremonies, ancestor-worship,

and

as the newest evolved

form

of

would

cult,

most

infinitely the

practical

gradually thrust the belief in a

Puluga, or Durumulun, or Cagn into the shade. ancestral spirit, to speak quite plainly, can be

by the people in family reasons.

be

squared,'

'

man

one

he takes a special interest for The equal Father of all men canwoi

and declines

corrupted by the bad

(till

make

rather than to another.

and

simple,

The

squared

whom

example of ancestral ghosts) to

ligible,

'

Darumulun came

For these very

practical reasons, first

a practicable bribable

himself useful to

in evolution,

if

intel-

the belief in a

and the

belief

in

family ghost came second, the

ghost-cult

would

inevitably crowd out the God-cult.'

The name

of the

Father and Maker would become a

mere

survival,

nominis umbra, worship and

sacrifice

That explanation would which Mr. Im Thurn has found,

going the

to the ancestral ghost.

fit

state of religion

rightly

or wrongly, in British Guiana.

But,

came it

the idea of a universal Father and Maker

ought to be the newest, and therefore the most fashion-

able is

if

last in evolution, as a refinement, then, of course,

and potent

of

Guianese

said to be the case.

Nor

cults.

Precisely the reverse

can the belief indicated in

such names as Father and Maker be satisfactorily ex'

Obviously there could be no Family

tion of the Family.

God

before there

was the

institu-

SAVAGE SUPKEME BEINGS

US.-J

plained as a refinement of ancestor-worship, because, repeat,

we

occurs where ancestors are not worshipped.

it

These

however unpleasant

considerations,

devotees of Animism, or

the

to

the ghost theory, are not, in

themselves, illogical, nor contradictory of the theory of evolution, which,

on the other hand,

fits

them

perfectly

That god thrives best who is most suited to his environment. Whether an easy-going, hungry ghost-god well.

vpith a liking for his family, or a

bribed,

moral Creator not to be

better suited to an environment of not especially

is

scrupulous savages, any

man

can decide.

"Whether a set

of not particularly scrupulous savages will readily evolve

a moral unbribable Creator,

when they have

family ghost-god eager to oblige,

a serviceable

a question as easily

is

resolved.

Beyond

all

doubt, savages

who

find themselves

whom

the watchful eye of a moral deity '

square

'

him

will desert

as soon as they have evolved a

practicable ghost-god, useful for family purposes,

they can square.

No

under

they cannot

less manifestly, savages,

who

whom

already

possess a throng of serviceable ghost-gods, will not enthu-

moral Creator who despises

siastically evolve a

only cares for obedience.

human

nature in man,' and,

'

There if

Mr.

is

Im

nature,

and

of evolution,

ghost-gods,

last.

What

of

we know

assures us that

Father, or Maker, or Ancient of Days

and

deal

Thurn's descrip-

tion of the Guianese be correct, everything

human

gifts,

a great

came

first

;

of

the

the

has here been said about the

now mere ghost name surviving to

Indians of Guiana (namely, that they are

and

spirit

attest a

worshippers, with only 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

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

226

Australian pattern)

whom

they not yet evolved a

The

they have forgotten, or have

God

out of

Animism ?

evidence, collected by Dr. Callaway,

One

but confused.

among

native,

honest,

is

others, put

forward

the very theory here proposed by us as an alternative to

Im

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.' 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 of Mr.

Thurn.

'

'

'

that this text settles the question.

Dr. Callaway collected

great masses of Zulu answers to his inquiries, and plain that a respondent, like the native theologian

we have

cited,

had learned

may have

adapted his reply to what he

Having now the

Christian doctrine.

of

it is

whom

Christian notion of a Divine Creator, and knowing, too, /

that Unkulunkulu

is

said to

only Amatongos, or ancestral

may have

native

have 'made spirits,

things,' while

are worshipped, the

inferred that worship

(by Christians

given to the Creator) was at some time transferred by

The

the Zulus from Unkulunkulu to the Amatongo. that both the anthropological theory (spirits

truth

is

Gods

last),

and our theory (Supreme Being first, next) can find warrant in Dr. Callaway's valuable tions.

For that

reason,

after a survey of the '

the problem

whole

field of

must be

first,

spirits

collec-

solved

savage and barbaric

Callaway, Bel. of Amazulu, p. 17.

SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS religion

cannot be settled by the ambiguous case of

it

;

227

the Zulus alone.

Unkulunkulu broke

the

in

off

represented as

is

beginning.'

'

worshippers,' says Dr. Callaway, first

ancestor, the First

may,

like

many

such fervent

They

and

Man, was the

are

ancestor-

believe that their

Creator.'

'

But they

other peoples, have had a different original

and have

tradition,

'

who

the First Man,

'

altered

it,

just because they are

now

Unkulunkulu was

ancestor-worshippers.

which came among men in the usual mythical way.* Whether Unkulunkulu still exists, is

prior to Death,

moot question

rather a

does not.' tralia,

If not,

he

he

Andaman, among the Bushmen, the Fuegians, and

savages in general,

The

the Zulus.

who

are less advanced in culture than

idea, then, of a

ceased to exist occurs, tive,

Dr. Callaway thinks that

:

an exception to the rule in Aus-

is

if

at

but in a relatively

all,

Maker

of things

who has

not in a relatively primi-

On

late religion.

the analogy

of pottery, agriculture, the use of iron, villages, hereditary

kings, early.

and so on, the notion of a dead Maker It occurs

where men have

kings, houses, a disciplined army, not

none of these things.

The Zulu

is late,

not

iron, cattle, agriculture,

where men have

godless ancestor- worship,

by parity of reasoning, is, like their material culture, not an early but a late development. The Zulus hear of then,

'

a

King which

above

—

'

the heavenly King.'

from white men. Unkulunkulu, who, we say, made

not hear of like

is

him

'

first

.

.

.

''

'

We did

But he

is

not

all things.'

Here may be dimly descried the ideas of a God, and a The King is above, Unkulunkulu subordinate demiurge. '

is

beneath.'

sinner

by

The King above punishes sin, striking the Nor do the Zulus know how they

lightning.

>

Callaway,

"

Op.

p. 1.

cit. p. 7.

' '

Op. Op.

cit. p. 3. cit. p.

19.

o 2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

-J26

have sinned. heaven,'

'

There remained only that word about

which,' says Dr. Callaway,

'

the-

implies that there

'

might have been other words which are now lost.' There Unkulunkulu made the great confusion of thought.

is

heaven, where the First Man.'

'

the Amadhlozi

unknown King

(spirits) only,

that

we

hard task

we know

because

to say about Unkulunkulu.'

then, that

reigns, a

for a

In process of time we have come to worship ^

'

not what

on that

It is

seek out for ourselves the Amadhlozi

we may not always be

account,, (spirits),,

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,

regard for their

own

Ukoto, a very old Zulu, said it

said "

was

with a special

families.

The Lord

is

' :

When we were children

in heaven."

point to the Lord on high

;

we

.

.

.

They used

to

did not hear his name.'

Unkulunkulu was understood, by this patriarch, to refer to immediate ancestors, whose names and genealogies he gave.^

'

We heard

said that the Creator of the world

it

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 ;

'

;

who is in heaven, of whom the ancients spoke.' woman began to babble humorously of how white men made all things. Again, Unkulunkulu is

the Creator,

Then the the

old

said to

have been created by Utilexo.

visible,

Unkulunkulu was

really his due.''

When

visible,

the heaven

(the chief being a living Zulu)

they

say,' '

"

the phrase

is

Callaway, pp. 20, 21. Pp. 49, 50.

'

Utilexo was in-

and so got is

credit not

said to be the Chief's

they do not believe what

a mere hyperbolical compliment.*

*

P. 67.

'

Pp. 26, 27.

»

P. 122.

SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS

On

this examination of the evidence,

as logical to conjecture that the

idea of a

Supreme Being

certainly

it

hafl

seems

once such an

as lower races entertain,

and then

though a monarchical have not yet developed a King-God out of the throng

nearly lost race,

Zulus

229

it

;

as to say that Zulus,

The

(Amatongo).

of spirits

Zulus, the

Norsemen

of the

South, so to speak, are a highly practical military race.

A Deity

at all abstract

able family spirits, for a

to their liking.

sacrifice

is

Service-

continually provided an excuse

dinner of roast beef, were to their liking.

developed races do not

A

was not

who

kill

their flocks

needed as a pretext.

The

less

commonly for food. 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

Supreme Beings, no feasting, at all to be got at by gifts or sacrifices. '

to be

'

'

dinner,

got

at,'

They are not The Amatongo are

events.

are bribable, supply an excuse for a good

and thus the practical Amatongo are honoured,

while, in the present generation of Zulus,

a

joke,

worship of these

and the Lord in Heaven

is

Unkulunkulu

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

especially to other African races.

applied to other races,

THE MAKING OF UELIGION

230

XIII

MOBE SAVAGE SUPBEME BEINGS If

many

the lowest savages

of

known

to us entertain

Supreme Being such as we find among FueAustraHans, Bushmen, and Andamanese, are there

ideas of a gians,

examples, besides the Zulus, of tribes higher in material culture

who seem

to

have had such notions, but to have

them?

Miss Kingsley, a

observant,

and unprejudiced,

though rambling

gives

very account of

partly forgotten or neglected lively,

writer,

Oblivion,

this

or neglect,

Supreme Being

show

will

the

itself

Bantu

races.

leaving the

in

he needs no propitiation, while

alone, as

That

devoting sacrifice and ritual to fetishes and ghosts. this should

be done

Being (who wants no

is

perfectly natural

sacrifice)

were the

if

the Supreme

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 ('

godless,' says Sir

:

the Dinkas of the Upper Nile

Samuel Baker)

'

pay a very theoretical

kind of homage to the all-powerful Being, dwelling in heaven, whence he sees (great rain, that

is,

"^

all

He is called " Dendid benediction ?).' He is omni-

things.

universal

potent, but, being all beneficence, can do

being feared, he

is

no

evil

not addressed in prayer.

;

so,

The

not evil

:

'

!

MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS spirit,

on the other hand, receives

231

The Dinkas

sacrifices.

have a strange old chant

At the beginning, when Dendid made

'

all

things,

He

And And And

created the Sun, the Sun is born, and dies, and comes again He created the Stars, the Stars are born, and die, and come again He created Man, Man is bom, and dies, and returns no more

!

!

!

lament of Moschus.'

It is like the

Eussegger compares the Dinkas, and

who

bouring peoples

They

Deists.^

hold the same

are remote

all

beliefs,

the neighto

modern

from Atheism and from

cult

about an ancient Egyptian influence are

Suggestions

made, but popular Egyptian reUgion 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

hold on them.

Dinkas, but

no

Mr. Spencer does not give the ideas of the

it is

not easy to see

how

the too beneficent

Dendid could be evolved out of ghost-propitiation, the origin of all rehgions.' Eather the Dinkas, a practical '

people, their

seem

Maker

to ;

have simply forgotten to be grateful to

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 philo-

sopher they cultivate Vindipendance du cceur, being in

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. this

Mr. Spencer gives the example

of natives of the south-

' Lejean, Rev. des Deitx Mondes, April 1862, p. 760. chant, Beltrame, Diiionario delta lingtia denka, MS.

'

Waitz,

ii.

74.

Citing for the

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

232

by Mr. MacThe dead man becomes a ghost-god, receives prayer and sacrifice, is called a Mulungu (= great ancestor or =sky ?), is preferred above older spirits, now eastern district of Central Africa described

donald in Airicana.' ' '

such old spirits may, however, have a mountain home, a great chief being better remembered the

forgotten

top for

;

;

mountain god

prayed to for rain

is

;

higher gods were

probably similar local gods in an older habitat of the Yao.^

Such

is

main Mr. Spencer's resume

in the

He

Macdonald's report. says about a Being

of

Mr. Duff

omits whatever Mr. Macdonald

among the Yaos, analogous to the Dendid Darumulun of Australia, or the Huron

of the Dinkas, or the

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

Thus, Mulungu, or Mlungu, used as a

religion.

proper name,

men, a

said to be the great spirit,

is

'

formed by adding

spirit

This

together.'^

is

all

msimu,

the departed

a Being

existence.

...

who

is

the

If it fell

instead of savages,

spirits

a singular stretch of savage philo-

sophy, and indicates (says Mr. Macdonald) after

of all

it

totality

from the

of

'

all

a grasping individual

men

lips of civilised

would be regarded as philosophy.

Expressions of this kind

among the

natives are partly

and partly dictated by the big thoughts Philosophy it is, but a philosophy the moment.'

traditional,

of

dependent on the ghost theory. I go

on to show that the Wayao have, though Mr.

Spencer omits him, a Being

Darumulun,

On

if

this point

who

precisely answers to

stripped (perhaps) of his ethical aspect.

we

are left in uncertainty, just because

Mr. Macdonald could not ascertain the secrets '

1882.

2

Ecclesiastical Institutions, 681.

'

of

Africana,

i.

his 66.

MORE SAVAGE SUPEEME BEINGS

233

mysteries, which, in Australia, have been revealed to a

few Europeans.

Where Mulungu

used as a proper name,

is

points to a personal Being, to

be the same as Mtanga.

many

that possesses

it

certainly

'

by the Wayao sometimes said At other times he is a Being

powerful servants, but

kept a good deal beyond the scene of earthly

himself

is

affairs, like

the gods of Epicurus.'

This

course, precisely the

of

is,

spite of the

feature in African

The Supreme Being,

theology which interests us.

in

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

For these reasons Epicurus and Lucretius make gods otiosi, unconcerned, and the Wayao, with their

reasons. their

mean

universal collective spirit, are no '

This Mulungu

grave,

is

places,'

or Mtanga,

'

'

philosophers.

in the world beyond the

represented as assigning to spirits their proper

whether

informed.'

for ethical reasons or not

Santos (1586) says

'

we

are not

they acknowledge a

God

who, both in this world and the next, measures retribution for the '

good or

this.'

In the native hypothesis about creation " the people

Mulungu"

of

done in

evil

play

ministers of his

Mulungu

a

who do

very

important

These

part.'

his pleasure are, therefore, as is

himself, regarded as prior to the existing world.

Wayao opinion, be ghosts of nor can we properly call them spirits.'

Therefore they cannot, in the dead at

They

all

;

'

are beings, eternal, 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 Mulungu himself was originally envisaged as spirit.' '

'

that

'

'

Africana,

i.

67.

THE MAKING OF KELIGION

234

For, manifestly, suppose that the idea of powerful beings, undefined,

came

in evolution,

first

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

men

introduction of

first

credit for

...

into the world.

making mountains and

.

rivers.

He

intimately associated with a year of plenty.

Mchimwene

juene,

'

a very

chief.'

He

He gets He is is called

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

The thunder is

god,

Mpambe, in Yao, Njasi (lightning) Supreme Being. He is sent

also a minister of the

by Mtanga with natives, because

God

'

Europeans are cleverer than

rain.'

we

fact.'

stayed longer with the people of

'

(Mulungu).'

I do not gather that, though associated with good

Mtanga or Mulungu receives any sacrifice or propitiation. The chief addresses his own god ^ the chief crops,

'

'

will not

father

;

;

trouble himself

he will present his offering to his own immediate saying,

predecessor, relatives

;

father, I

'

you know them

all

:

do not know

invite

them

all

your

to feast with

^

you.' '

'

about his great-great-grand-

All the offerings are supposed to point to

Mtanga, on the other hand,

of the spirit.'

is

some want nihil indiga

nostri.

A Soma. I find '

god

village

A

is

dead chief

no trace

Africana,

i.

of

any

71, 72.

given beer to drink, as Indra got is

propitiated by

gift to

Mtanga. '

i.

88.

human

sacrifices.

His mysteries are ^

i.

68.

—

'

MOKE SAVAGE SUPKEME BEINGS

235-

unknown to Mr. Macdonald they were laughed at by a travelled and emancipated Yao.' These rites are supposed to be inviolably concealed by the initiated, who often say that they would die if they

really

:

'

•

'

revealed them.'

How

can

know

not

^

we

pretend to understand a religion

That

its secret ?

certainty of the ethical character of the

Macdonald says about the

Mr.

figure) '

dO'

the

Supreme Being.

initiator

(a

grotesque

:

He

advice

person

we

if

secret, in Australia, yields

.

much good

delivers lectures, and is said to give the lectures condemn selfishness, .

and a

.

is called

mwisichana, that

is,

"uninitiated."

selfish '

There could not be better evidence of the presence of the ethical

element in the religious mysteries.

Yao, as

among

It is not stated that

Mtanga

Our Lord.

instituted or presides over

Judging from the analogy

the mysteries.

Eed Indian

initiations,

expect this to be the belief

very

the

the Australian Kurnai, the central secret

lesson of religion is the lesson of

Bora, the

Among

of Eleusis,

and so on, we

the

may

but Mr. Macdonald knows

;

about the matter.

little

The legendary tales say all things in this world were made by " God." At first there were not " " God here, is Mlungu. people, but God and beasts.' The other statement is apparently derived from exist'

'

'

'

ing ancestor- worship, people

(Mlungu).

But God

is

who

prior

to

'

died death,

became for

'

the

God Yao

have a form of the usual myth of the origin of death, death and sleep are one word, they are also of sleep :

'

God dwells on high, while a malevolent who disturbed the mysteries and slew the

of one family.' '

great one,'

initiated, '

was turned

Africana,

i.

130.

into a mountain.* "

Ibid.

'

i.

279-301.

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

236

In spite of information confessedly defective, I have extracted from Mr. Spencer's chosen authority a

pointing to a

facts,

of

momitains and

liable to

death

Yao behef

rivers

—which came

(if

we may is

of

men

were

not

;

among them — beneficent; the evidence goes)

(as far as

judge by the analogy of the mysteries),

and yet occupying the foreground

late

mass

an eternal being, maker

existent before

;

not propitiated by sacrifice

moral

in

religious background, while the

To

held by the most recent ghosts.

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

distance from the

their

actual generation.

I

conceive that Mr. Spencer would find a mid-point between a

common

attached

ghost and Mtanga, in a ghost of a chief

to

mountain,

a

the

place

and

place-name

name and memory. But it from such a chief's ghost to the human, angel-served Mtanga.

preserving the ghost's

is,

think, a far cry

pre-

I

Of ancestor worship and ghost worship, we have

But the

abundant evidence.

Mtanga

position of

raises

one of these delicate and crucial questions which cannot be solved by ignoring their existence. out of an ancestral ghost ? divine beings, ters

Very

'

under him,

is

Chief,'

he

left

If so,

Is

to be

much

of

and having powerful minis-

unpropitiated, unless

moral discourses at the mysteries? advanced idea than that

Mtanga evolved

why, as greatest it

be by

As a much more

of a real father's ghost,

he ought and

later in evolution, fresher in conception,

How

we

more

adored.

Was

he originally envisaged as a ghost at

do

explain his lack of adoration ? all,

by what curious but uniform freak of savage

and,

if

so,

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 con-

;''

MORE SAVAGE SUPEEME BEINGS

237

men who had never dreamed of ghosts ?' any logical reason why Mtanga should not be

ceived of by Is there

regarded as originally on the same footing as Darumulun,

now

but

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 Eev. David

Clement Scott, has published

'

A

Cyclopaedic Dictionary

Mang'anja Language in British Central Africa.' Looking at ancestral spirits first, we find Mzimu, spiritsof the

'

of the departed,

supposed to come in dreams.'

Though

they also haunt

abiding in the spirit world,

thickets,,

make them rave and made to them. Here me, my ancestor, who died long

they inspire Mlauli, prophets, and utter predictions. is

a prayer

ago

;

tell

:

'

Offerings

Watch

over

are

the great spirit at the head of

whom my mother

There are

came.'

and the chief directs the God,

like

men

race from

hut-temples,

sacrifices of food, or of animals.

There are religious pilgrimages, with tains.

my

little

sacrifice, to

in this region, has various

mounnames,

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. as Chiuta,

'

;

'

'

'

')

'

'

There are no

people '

'

idols called gods,

who have died, not

Spirits are

gods.'

and

spirits are spirits of

Idols are Zitunzi-zitunzi..

supposed to be vdth Mulungu.'

the world and man. people sacrifice

it is

God made

Our author says when the '

chief or

to God,' but he also says that they

sacrifice to ancestral spirits.

'

There

Edinburgh, 1892.

is

some confusion of

;

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

238

ideas here

:

Mr. Macdonald says nothing of

sacrifice to

Mtanga.

Mr. Scott does not seem to know more about the than Mr. Macdonald, and his article on Mulungu does not much enlighten us. Does Mulungu, as Mysteries

-Creative

God, receive

no instance

of this,

tors, or hill-dwelling

we have

yet, as

chiefs

sacrifice, or

not

under Nsembe

sacrifice to

(sacrifice to spirits)

Mr. Scott, at the

argue that, after

back

a better way,

if

It

is

easily

plain,

in

to

appears to be

and no reliance can be '

At the back

God.'

is

all,

in

to

any

of all

understand

If I

made only to

spirits,

but he

the theistic conception

His theory would,

sacrifice is not offered to

had not occurred

Africans

where ances-

of the animistic practice, thus

his theory into his facts.

this

there

sacrifices are really

is trying to is

'

He

God.

spirits,

placed on this part of his evidence. this

Mr. Scott gives

ghosts of chiefs, are offered food

confusing the Creator with

'

'

under Mulungu, he avers that the

seen,

and people do

?

(sacrifice),

importing

really,

be in

the Creator, but

Mr. Scott. case,

that the religion of the

the Blantyre region has an element not

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

least to

the branches where foreign influence

be suspected, we discover, behind their more con-

spicuous fetishisms

we cannot '

and superstitions, something which

exactly call Monotheism, yet which tends in

Incidentally Mr. Macdonald shows that, contrary to Mr. Spencer's

opinion, these savages have words for dreams pret dreams by a system of symbols,

by

is

contraries.'

'

a canoe

and dreaming. They interand dreams go

is ill luck,'

'

:

MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS

239

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 that direction.'

:

religion of the negro may be considered by 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

some

—

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 vyith 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 in the conjecture, the influence of a more civilised people 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 before

him

as

among

lower savages lain

he worked.

This volume of his book was composed in 1860.

In

1872 he had become well aware of the belief in a good among the Australian natives, and of the absence

Creator

among them '

^

of ancestor worship.^

Waitz, Anthropologie,

ii.

167.

Waitz und Gerland, Anthropologie,

vi.

796-799 and 809.

In 1874

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

240

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 After commenting on what a savage religion the delicate task of finding out The belief in one great Supreme Being, really is, he writes The who made and upholds all things, is universal.' names of the being are translated Maker,' Preserver,' Though compact of all Benefactor," Great Friend.' good qualities, the being has allowed the world to come

were published in 1856.

religion

:

'

'

'

'

'

'

"

under the control of

evil

spirits,'

who, alone, receive

Though he leaves things uncontrolled, chief being (as in Homer) ratifies the Oath, at a and is invoked to punish criminals when ordeal

religious worship.

yet the treaty,

water

is

So

to be drunk.

influence.

'

far,

then, he has an ethical

Grossly v?icked people

'

are buried outside of

Fetishism prevails, with spiritualism,

the regular place.

and Wilson thinks that mediums might pick up some good

tricks

inspired

men

in Guinea.

do things

'

He

gives

no examples.

that cannot be accounted

Their for,'

by

the use of narcotics.

The South Guinea Creator, Anyambia (=good is

good, but capricious.

He

spirit?),

has a good deputy, Ombwiri

by Miss Kingsley) he alone has no The priests, but communicates directly with men. neighbouring Shekuni have mysteries of the Great Spirit. No details are given. This great being, Mwetyi, witnesses covenants and punishes perjury. This people are ancestorworshippers, but their Supreme Being is not said to receive (spelled

'

Mbuiri

'

;

Mr. Howitt'a 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 sehen vielmehr uralte Triimmer ahnlicher Mythologenie in ihnen,' (vi. 798) flotsam from ideas of immemorial antiquity. ' Wilson, p. 209. '

MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS as

sacrifice,

powerless,

wrath, force.'

is

so far

that, but

for

from being fear of his

national treaties would have little or no Having no information about the mysteries, of

'

are, or

Unkulunkulu,

their

'

sourse,

ghosts do, while he

like

241

we know nothing of may be, exercised by

other moral influences which these great, powerful, and not

wholly otiose beings.

The

celebrated traveller,

Mungo

Park,

who

visited

Africa in 1805, had good opportunities of understanding

He

the natives.

armed

large

way with

did not hurry through the land with a

force,

but alone, or almost alone, paid his

his brass buttons.

'

I have conversed with

ranks and conditions upon the subject of their says,

'

faith,'

all

he

and can pronounce, without the smallest shadow one God and in a future state

of doubt, that the belief in of

reward and punishment there

as

cannot

This

them.'

many

are

influenced by

•

is

entire

and universal among

be

strictly

monotheism,

called

subordinate spirits

But

magical ceremonies.'

who may be if

monotheism

means belief in One Spirit alone, or rehgious regard paid no, not in Islam. to One Spirit alone, it exists nowhere Almighty only the that remarkable Park thinks it

—

'

'

receives prayers at the

new moon

Almighty he says nothing), and and preserver of all things, he is that

it

is

idle

to

(of

sacrifice

to the

that, being the creator '

of so exalted a nature

imagine the feeble supplications of

wretched mortals can reverse the decrees and change the

The new moon prayers

purpose of unerring Wisdom.' are us.'

our fathers did it before mere matters of tradition 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. Supreme Being

Thus, the African '

Wilson,

p. 392.

is

unpropitiated,

THE MA.KING OF RELIGION

242

while inferior spirits are constrained by magic or propitiated with food.

We

problem

naeet our old

the conception of

whom

there

How

:

is

hungry ghosts

developed out of these

has this God, in

so

much

philosophy,

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. is not often that the negroes make their opinions the subject of conversation when

'But

it

religious

;

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 alio "

{"

No man knows

Park himself, despair,

in

extreme

anything about distress,

and

it ").'

•

almost

chanced to observe the delicate beauty

in

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.^ the negro philosophy, and

invented

it.

is

The new moon

'

not of

the less likely to have

prayer, said in a whisper,

was reported to Park, 'by many contain

He was

different

people,'

to

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.'

Islamite influence, and

is

This, of course,

at variance

may prove

with the general

tendency of the religious philosophy as described. '

Park's Jowrney,

i.

274, 275, 1815.

«

p. 245.

MOEE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS AVe now arrive

among

at a

243

theory of the Sv^reme Being

a certain African race which would be entirely

my

fatal to

whole hypothesis on

demonstrated correct in

fact,

this topic,

and

if

so as to apply to the Australians, Fuegians,

and other very backward peoples. that the

Supreme Being

is

a

'

if

it

could be

could be stretched

it

Andamanese,

It is the hypothesis

loan-god,'

borrowed from

Europeans.

The theory '

Ellis's '

is

very lucidly set forth in Major Ellis's

Tshi-speaking Peoples of

Gold

the

Coast.'

with that of

opinion coincides

Introduction to Anthropology

(an

'

Major

'

Waitz

his

in

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

Major

personal, objects of veneration.^ this

met

passage when he had formed his own ideas by

We

observation of the Tshi race.

guess what

been

local or

Ellis only

;

'

the original form of

all

but we have given, and

do not pretend to religion

shall

evidence for the existence of a loftier faith

among peoples much lower

who

Tshi races,

They occupy,

in small villages (except

Coomassie and

the Gold Coast. vastly

The mere superior

in

the Tshis (Ashantis and Fantis) are to the

naked, houseless Australians.

however, are forest.'

abundant than this,

in material culture than the

Coomassie shows how

mention of

may have

have metals and an organised priesthood.

Djuabin), the forests of

civilisation

'

give,

The

'

mere specks

Their inland communities,

in a vast tract of impenetrable

coast people have for centuries been in toucli

with Europeans, but the London, 1887.

'

Tshi-speaking races are "

Ellis, pp. 20,- 21.

n 2

now

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

244

much

as they

were

condition, both socially and morally,

same

in the

at the time of the

Portuguese discovery.'

^

Major Ellis explains their Supreme A priori this Being as the result of European influence appears highly improbable. That a belief should sweep Nevertheless,

!

over

all

these specks in impenetrable forest, from the in

coast-tribes belief should,

contact with Europeans, and that this

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 mysteries,

must

European

influence.

also,

by parity

in the secrecy of ancient

of reason, be the result of

Unfortunately, Major Ellis gives no

evidence for his statements about the past history of Tshi Authorities he

religion.

must have, and

references would

be welcome. '

With

people in the condition in which the natives of

the Gold Coast

with moral

now

ideas.'

are, religion is

among much more backward

that

religious sanction.

we cannot

If this

tribes morals rest on a

accept these relatively advanced Fantis and '

original

'

state of ethics

any more than those people with

material condition of society.

hood.^

Major

and

cities, a king,

a priesthood, iron, and gold, represent the

that the

alUed

be not so on the Gold Coast

Ashantis as representing the religion,

way

not in any

"We have given abundant evidence

^

'

original

Ellis also

shows

Gods exact chastity from aspirants to the priestpresent beliefs of the Gold Coast are kept up

The

by organised priesthoods as lucrative business.' "Where there is no lucre and no priesthood, as among more back'

ward '

races, this kind of business Ellis, p. 4.

^

P. 10.

"*

cannot be done. »

P. 120.

'

On

P. 15.

the

— MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS

245

Gold Coast men can only approach gods through This is degeneration. Obviously,

and moral,

began in a form relatively pure

religion

miist degenerate, as civilisation advances,

it

who

under priests

money

if

priests.'

'

exploit

'

the lucrative, and can see no

in the pure elements of belief

and

That

practice.

the lucrative elements in Christianity were exploited

the clergy,

complaint

the

of

by

the neglect of ethics, was precisely the

to

Prom

Beformers.

elements the creed of the Apostles was

these

free,

lucrative

and a similar

freedom marks the religion of Australia or of the Pawnees.

We cannot possibly, then, expect to find the of rehgion

among it

original

'

state

a people subdued to a money-grubbing

Let

religion begin as

would be corrupted by

priestly trafficking

priesthood, like the Tshi races.

pure as snow,

'

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

2.

Local

3.

Deities of families or corporations.

4.

Tutelary deities of individuals.

more tribes.

deities of river, hill, forest, or sea.

The second

class,

appointed by the

according

to

who

are

first class,

the '

human

different to interfere ordinarily in

light,

but

'

Thus,

affairs.'

He

the Huron god, Ahone, punishes nobody. sweetness and

were

natives,

too distant or in-

is

all

has a partner, Mr. Jorkins,' called

On

our hypothesis this indifference of high gods

•suggests the

crowding out of the great disinterested God

Okeus.

by venal animistic competition.

All of class II.

to have been originally malignant.' belief, class

Major

I.

was

prior to,

and

malignant

Ellis thinks that 1

EUis, p. 125.

'

'

appear

Though, in native appointed

'

class II.,

spirits of class II.

were

1346

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

raised to class

I.

and IV.

as

to the peerage, while classes III,

if

are clearly the product of priesthood

'

'

— therefore

late.

Major

then avers that when Europeans reached

Ellis

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

sacrifices.

But,

'

hill,

and

after

an intercourse

receives, or received,

of

human

some years with

Europeans,' the villagers near European forts 'added to their system a

new

deity,

whom

they termed

Nana Nyan-

This was the God of the Christians, borrowed from them, and adapted under a new designation, meaning kupon.

Lord of the sky.' (This is conjectural. Nyankum=ra,m. Nyansa has a later meaning, " craft."') '

^

•

Now

Major

later,

Ellis,

has to contrast Bosman's

account of fetishism (1700) with his

own

observations.

According to Bosman's native source of information,

men

own fetishes. These are now selected Bosman's authority was wrong or priestliood has extended its field of business. Major Ellis argues that the revolution from amateur to priestly

then selected their

by

—

priests.

selection of fetishes could not occur in 190 years,

amongst peoples

vast tract of country, isolated

communities, in the midst of pathless

where there

is

but

little

'

over a

living in semiforests,

opportunity for the exchange of

and where we know they have been uninfluenced by any higher race.'

ideas,

Yet Major

theory

Ellis's

is

that this isolated people

were influenced by a higher race, to the extent of adopting

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 a totally

'

Ellis, pp. 24, 25.

'

MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS under priestly influence, but in

the

247

face of

priestly

opposition.'

Major

Ellis's logic does not

In any case

we

appear to be consistent.

ask for evidence how, in the

trable forests,' did a

'

impene-

new Supreme Deity become universally

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-

known

?

'

stained,

conspicuous,

Bobowissi

lucrative

Nyankupon, the supposed new god of strangers, left

of a

wholly unpropitiated

?

Why

?

was

new powerful set 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,

new lower gods

every day Yet Nyankupon is 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, are adding

!

universally

'

and the earth

The crowd

;

he takes no further

interest in the affair.'

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

despite the isolation of the groups,

over

West

Africa,

and the resistance of

the priesthood.

Nyam,

like

Major

ordinate god to do his

Ellis's

work

:

class

he

is

I.,

appoints a sub-

truly good, and governs

the malevolent spirits.^

The spread of Nyankupon, the more remarkable,

since

Miss Kingsley,

442.

Ellis, is '

Ellis, p. 189.

"

as described

p.

'

by Major

five or six '

miles

Ellia, p. 229.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

248

from the

even

sea, or

less,

incognita to Europeans.'

^

the country was a

Nyankupon was,

terra

alleged,

it is

adopted, because our superiority proved Europeans to be '

protected by a deity of greater power than any of those

which they themselves

to

'

(the

Tshi

races)

'

offered

sacrifices.'

Then, of course, Nyankupon would receive the best sacrifices of

that,

No

all,

as the

Nyankupon

most powerful deity ? Far from had no priests.

received no sacrifice, and

would have a traditional way of serving him. As the unlucky man in Voltaire says to his guardian priest

angel,

so the

'

It is well

worth while to have a presiding

useful thing, a new Supreme Being

continent or so adopts a

plants Id fore

genius,'

Tshis and Bantu might ironically remark,

new

! '

A

foreign god, and leaves

He

unserved, unhonoured, and unsung.

;

came

'

A

quarter of a

him

there-

to be thought too remote, or too indifferent,

interfere directly in the affairs of the world.'

'

'

to

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.'^

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.

But that was

Name

and

effigy

just

!

they accepted.

The Tshi people

took

name of a deity from the Portuguese among them. They neither imitated Catholic they prayed not, nor sacrirites nor adapted their own ficed to the new Nyankupon. Only his name and the idea of his nature are universally diffused in West African neither effigy nor settled

;

'

belief.

He

lives

'

in

no

Nyankupon's country.' '

Ellis, p. 25.

definite

home, or

Nyankupon,

hill,

but

'

in

at the present day, "

Op.

cit.

p. 27.

'

:

MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS is

'

249

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 a phenomenon of very wide distribution. Nyankupon cannot be explained apart from Taaroa, inadequate,

Dendid, and Ta-li-y-Tooboo,

Puluga, Ahone, Ndengei,

Gods

to be later described,

who

cannot, by any stretch

of probabilities, be regarded as of of these represent the primeval

origin.

All

Supreme Being, more

or

altogether stripped, under advancing conditions

or

less

European

and crowded out by useful greedy ghosts or ghost gods, whose

of culture, of his ethical influence,

the horde of

Nyankupon has no

business

is

be, or to

have been a

Major

lucrative.

Ellis's

'

pretensions to

spirit.'

theory

is

a tangle of polytheism as

a natural result of his belief in '

the original state of religion.'

much room

for the natural developwas not ment of Nyankupon, in whom the missionaries find a On our theory parallel to the Jahveh of the Jews.'^ 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 If so, there

'

Miss Kingsley I have no hesitation in saying I fully believe Nzambi 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 '

Mpungu

'

EUis, p. 29.

'

Op.

cit. p.

28.

!

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

350

teaching linger, even now, in the religious ideas of the Fiorts.'

i

Nzambi Mpungu

lives

'He

'behind the firmament.'

takes next to no interest in

human

affairs

; '

v^hich

is

not

a Jesuit idea of God.

In

missionary accounts of savage religion,

all

guard against two kinds of

to

which makes the observer deny any

The

race, except devil-worship.

leads

him

we have the bias

is

religion to the native

other

is

the bias which

to look for traces of a pure primitive religious

Yet we cannot but observe

tradition.

nomenon

One

bias.

this reciprocal phe-

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.

when

on the other

side,

missionaries'

account of God, recognise

the savages,

Hurons and Bakwain, This

to them.

is

travels, as in the

(1612), to

for

first

Again,

they hear the as

do the

what has always been

familiar

it,

recorded in very early pre-missionary

book

of

William Strachey on Virginia

which we now turn.

The God found by

Strachey in Virginia cannot, by any latitude of conjecture, be regarded as the result of contact v^ith Europeans.

Yet he almost exactly answers to the African Nyankupon,

who

is

explained

away

as a

'

For the belief in whether they are morally

loan-god.'

relatively pure creative beings,

adored, without sacrifice, or merely neglected, diffused, that

them

for '

'

as

'

is

so widely

Anthropology must ignore them, or account loan-gods

'

—or give up her theory

African Religion and Law,' National Review, September 1897, p. 132.

/

251

XIV AHONE. TI-BA-WA. NA-PI. PACEACAMAC. rUI LAQA. TAA-BOA In this chapter

it

is

my

object to set certain

Creators beside the African beings

We

examining.

shall

whom we

American have been

range from Hurons to Pawnees

and Blackfeet, and end with Pachacamac, the supreme being of the old Inca civilisation, with Tui Taa-roa.

It will be

seen that the

accidentally deprived

their

of

Laga and

Hurons have been

benevolent Creator by a

bibliographical accident, while that Creator corresponds

very well with the Peruvian Pachacamac, 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, re-

presents a very early stage of the theistic conception.

To continue Major kupon, liis

Ellis's it

case,

deity,

the

argument from analogy against

theory of the European origin of Nyanto produce a parallel to

seems desirable

first

and to that

his blood-stained

Bobowissi, from

of

fluence is absolutely out of the question. first

the

subordinate

a quarter where European inVirginia was

permanently colonised by Englishmen in 1607, and Historic of Travaile into Virginia,' by William

'

Strachey,

from the

Gent.,

first

earliest years

Secretary of (1612-1616).

the

Colony, dates

It will hardly

be

!

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

252

suggested,

that the natives had

then,

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

whom, Powhattan, was

population, under chiefs, one of

The temples contained

kind of Bretwalda.

a

the dried

bodies of the weroances, or aristocracy, beside which was their Okeus, or Oki,

black dressed,

He

is

'

an image

'

who doth them

propitiated

(probably an error)

favouredly carved,'

ill

all

idol

rites,

The two

this Oki, or Okeus,

from Smith's

History of

'

books, Strachey's and Smith's,

are here slightly varying copies of one original.

Smith's

after censuring

that Okeus

not find in

'

is

'

'

and bloody

Virginia' (1632).'

suffer.

by sacrifices of their own children and of strangers.'

Mr. Tylor quotes a description of with his

harm they

the

all

(and

Smith what follows

has

human

God

(the priests tell

sacrifices, like

hasty theory

Strachey's)

no other than a

Mr. Tylor did

devil,'

Strachey.

in

Bobowissi,

But,

Okeus

whilst the great

'

them) who governes

the world,

all

and makes the sun

to shine, creatyng the moone and 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 Starrs

his

.

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

bound these wretched miscreants.' As if, in Mr. Strachey's own punish, in

hell,

'

.

the offences of

men

creed, Satan does not

against

Here, then, in addition to a devil

God

(or rather a divine

In Pinkerton, xiii. pp. 13, 39 Prim. Cult. ii. 342. In his Dictionarie,' Strachey gives God = Ahone, not God = Okeus. ;

'

.

thraldome under which Sathan hath

'

AMERICAN CREATOKS police

magistrate),

worship,

we

and

general fetishism

and nature

find that the untutored Virginian is equipped

with a merciful Creator, without

needing nought of ours.

as

253

idol,

It is

temple, or

by the merest

sacrifice,,

accident,

the use of Smith's book (1632) instead of Strachey's book (1612), that

Mr. Tylor

is

unaware

of

these essential

facts.

Dr. Brinton, like

Mr.

Tylor,

nefarious or severe Okeus, and

cites

Smith

for

the

omits any mention of

Ahone, the benevolent Creator.' Now, Strachey's evidence is

early (1612),

is

that of a well-educated man, fond of

and not prejudiced in favour of these Sathan.' In Virginia he found the un-

airing his Greek,

worshippers of

'

Supreme Being, beside a subordinate,^ Nyankupon beside Bobowissi in Africa. Each highest deity, in Virginia or on the Gold Coast,,

propitiated loving like

more or

is

less

eclipsed in popular esteem

polytheism and nature worship.

This

is

by nascent

precisely

what

Ahone, the Creator, were we should earlier in evolution, while Okeus and the rest were of the expect to find,

if

usual greedy class of animistic corruptible deities, useful to priests.

was

left

This could not be understood while Ahone

out of the statement.^

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

Myths of the New World, p. 47. There is a description of Virginia, by W. Strachey, including Smith's remarks, published in 1612. Strachey interwove some of this work with This his own MS. in the British Museum, dedicated to Bacon (Verulam). MS. was edited by Mr. Major, for the Hakluyt Society, in 1849, with a, The remarks on religion are glossary, by Strachey, of the native language. in Chapter VII. The passage on Ahone occurs in Strachey (1612), but not I owe to the kindness of Mr. Edmund in Smith (1632), in Pinkerton. Strachey's Gosse photographs of the drawings accompanying the MS. story of sacrifice of children (pp. 94, 95) seems to refer to nothing worse'

2

than the initiation into the mysteries.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

254

Ahone-Okeus creed

God (Ahone)

is clear.

be explained?

inflicted,

which

it

are these

Clearly as penalties for men's sins,

not by Ahone, but by his lieutenant, Okeus.

that magistrate can be, and

But

omnipotent

How

and good, yet calamities beset mankind. to

is

would be impious,

appeased by

is,

sacrifices,

or, at all events, useless, to

Supreme Being, Ahone. It is a logical creed, the Supreme Being evolved out of the ghost a people-devouring king like Powhattan ? The facts,

offer to the

how was

but of

'

'

very fairly attested, do not It

is

to be remarked that Strachey's Ahone

is

a

much

mythological conception than that which, on very

less

good

evidence,

Patowemeck '

the anthropological theory.

fit

How

Their

Biver.

a godly Hare,'

whence they myth. They

he attributes

who

Indians

the

to

Creator

is

spoken

the

of

as

of

receives their souls into Paradise,

on earth again, as in Plato's

are reborn

also regard the four

winds as four Gods.

the god took the mythological form of a hare

is

diversely explained.^

Meanwhile the Ahone-Okens 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

As

is

borrowed.

illustrations of the general theory here presented,

we may now American

take two tribal religions

Indians.

The

first

is

among

the North

that of the equestrian

Pawnees, who, thirty years ago, were dwelling on the

Loup Fork

in Nebraska.

The

buffaloes

destroyed, the lands seized, and the

a

'

Reservation,'

where they

have since been

Pawnees driven

are, or lately

into

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 '

See Brinton, Myths of the

New

World, for a philological theory.

'

AMERICAN CREATORS

:

265

Kansas and Nebraska, at a date relatively remote, from Mexico, and are allied with the Lipans and Tonkaways of

The Tonkaways

that region.

sacred mystery, are admonished to in exactly the

Mount

Soracte,

through also

same way

fire.'

tribe, as

the wolves,'

like

tribe), of

a long-separated branch of their

Mexican

expect to find traces of Aztec ritual

Long

hve

were the Hirpi (wolf

then, they are of

If,

'

who practised the feat of walking imhurt The Tonkaways regard the Pawnees, who

have a wolf

race.

as

a tribe who, in a

are

we might

origin,

among

the Pawnees.

they obtained better weapons they used

after

two beasts which was lawful to sacrifice, the deer and the buffalo. They have long been a hunting and also an agricultural people. flint-headed arrows for slaying the only

it

The corn was given their god, Ti-ra-wd, sacrifice of a

'

them

to

originally

the Spirit Father.'

by the Ruler

They

offer

the

deer with peculiar solemnity, and are a very

The

prayerful people.

'held

priest

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

home

the original

They

by Ti-ra-wa.

unknown contents, brought from The Pawnees were created

in Mexico.

the wicked die, and there

dreams

their

the tomb.

'

of the

We

evil earlier race,

bones,

flood

and

it

As

occurs.

cite

beyond

An

! '

which knew not Ti-ra-wa, was destroyed ;

evidence

is

found in large

always found where the story of a

If so, fossils

must be universally

future

life is

dreams, but in the experience of '

They life

see ourselves living with Ti-ra-wa

common, the

is

while

fossil

would be an interesting inquiry whether

fossils are '

life,

an end of them.

is

dead as an argument for a

by him in the Deluge such

happy future

believe in a

Compare The Fire Walk '

'

in

'

attested, not only

men who

'

sin-

diffused.

by

have died

Modern Mytfwlogy.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

356

and come back to

like Secret

life,

who

Pipe Chief,

These visions in a

the story to Mr. Grinnell.

told

state of

apparent death are not peculiar to savages, and, no doubt,

have had much

effect

on

beliefs

about the next world.'

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. children with

The

men

beasts are also friendly, as fellow

of Ti-ra-wa.

To the Morning

Star

Wolf Pawnees offered on rare occasions a man. The ceremony was not unlike that of the

the Skidi or captive

Aztecs, though less cruel.

the Attic Bouphonia. the Morning

Curiously enough, the slayer

had instantly

of the captive

I

to

make

mock

a

Star, not

to Ti-ra-wa,

flight, as in

was a rite paid to the power above

This, however, '

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 that

'

Ti-ra-wd.''

The flesh was burned in the fire, while prayers were made with great earnestness. In the old Skidi rite the

women

sacrifice

also

to gain

human

was made

not only that, as

what they desired

It is occasionally said that the

told the fattened captive

from the Euler. fled,

to

Ti-ra-wd himself.

but fasted and mourned.

among

God, but

of the

description from a very old Skidi.

Mr. Grinnell got the

There was

thanks to Ti-ra-wa for corn.

dance and

hymn St.

It is possible

this is not certain,

festival of

Compare

sacrificer

the Aztecs, the victim was regarded as

an embodiment

the rite having long been disused.

'

The

the corn

is

Augustine's curious anecdote in '

a

During a sacred

held up to the Euler by a De Cura pro

habenda about the dead and revived Curio. The founder religion, based on hypnotism, died and recovered. '

also

of the

Mortuis

new Sioux

'

AMERICAN CREATORS woman.

'We

Corn is

ritually called

are like seed, and

'

257

The Mother,'

we worship

as in Peru.

through, the Corn.'

Disease

is caused by evil spirits, and many American were healed by Pawnee doctors, though their hurts had refused to yield to the treatment of the United

soldiers

Army

States

The

Surgeons.^

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

miracles

probably too late to learn anything of these astounding

performances of naked '

Major North told

his

own

me

men on '

the hard floor of a lodge.

(Mr. Grinnell)

make

eyes the doctors

'

not manipulating the plant, as in the

standing apart and singing.

never found any one

who

that he saw with

the corn grow,' the doctor

Mango

trick,

Mr. Grinnell says

' :

I

but

have

could even suggest an explana-

tion.'

This art places great power in the hands of the doctors,

who

that in this religion all

that

is

many other prodigies. It is notable we hear nothing of ancestor- worship

exhibit

;

stated as to ghosts has been reported.

the cult of an all-powerful being, in fice is

whose

We find

ritual sacri-

The

the only feature that suggests ghost-worship.

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 prayer.

Ti-ra-wd,

as

shown

in

fervent

Theft he abhors, he applauds valour, he punishes

by annihilation, the good dwell wdth him in his heavenly home. He is addressed as A-ti-us ta-kaw-a, Our father in all places.' the wicked

'

Demeter.

'

Cf.

^

Major North,

for long the U.S. Superintendent of the Pawnees.

S

:

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

258 It is

not so easy to see

how

this

For ancestor-worship

Pawnees.

Being was developed

we find no traces among among the Sioux, it is

out of ancestor- worship, of which

usual to quote a remark of one Prescott, an interpreter Sometimes an Indian will say, " Wah negh on she wan '

which means,

da,"

" Spirits of the dead have

mercy on me."

Then they will add what they want. That is about the Obviously, when we amount of an Indian's prayer.' compare Mr. Grinnell's account of Pawnee religion, based on his own observations, and those of Major North, and '

Mr. Dunbar, tribe,

we

are

who has written on the language of the 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 arise

from

Pawnee

the Blackfoot belief

is

condition than that of

As

certain.

Whether the

faith.

differences

from decadence, or because in an earlier and more backward the Pawnees, it is not easy to be

tribal character, or

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

him

prior to

in conception, or has been,

later, substituted for him, or placed beside him.

Blackfoot mythology of

Creation,

specific

is

derisive.

difference

of

The

low, crude, and, except in tales

is

As

tone

in

Australia,

between

there

mythology

is

a

and

religion.

The Blackfoot country runs east from the summit of mouth of the Yellowstone

the Eocky Mountains, to the river

on the Missouri, then west to the Yellowstone

sources, across the

Eocky Mountains

thence to their summit.

'

Schoolcraft,

iii.

237.

to the Beaverhead,

AMERICAN CREATORS As

269

to spirits, the Blackfeet believe in, or at least tell

which conduct themselVfes much as in They haunt people in a sportive and irresponsible way. The souls or

stories of, ghosts,

our old-fashioned ghost stories. rather

shadows

of respectable persons

called the

Sand

Hills,

where they

tonous kind of Sheol. '

earth-bound

'

They cause

dread interiors of lodges

A man

Eurydice legend.

way

his

woman

prohibitions,

its close

tap on the lodge-

by the dead, and allowed

back with him, under certain

heard a Voice, '

The top

of

The

among the Eed Men,

resemblance to the tale of Orpheus,

Young Bear, when

my

'

lost

Go

on, lift

It is well.

is

one of

Mr. Grinnell's

with his wife in a

head seemed to

to

ritual

one of which he unhappily infringes.

the most curious facts in mythology. friend

have the

grieving for his dead wife finds

range of this deeply touching story

and

'

men

and madness, but

paralysis

tribes, the Blackfeet

to Hades, is pitied

carry the

mono-

the wicked are

of

especially ghosts of

they only

;

Like many Indian

skins.'

live in a dull,

The shades

and mischievous,

slain in battle.

go to the bleak country

fog,

you are going right.' up. It seemed as if

a lot of needles were running into

it.

.

.

.

This must

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 polyhave been a ghost.'

'Above Persons, Ground Persons, and Under Of the first. Thunder is most important, "Water Persons.' and is worshipped. There is the Cold Maker, a white theism,

on a white horse, the Wind, and so on. The Creator is Na-pi, Old Man Dr. Brinton thinks

figure

;

he

is

a personification of Light, but Mr. Grinnell reckons

absurd to attribute so abstract a conception to the Na-pi is simply a primal Being, an Immortal Blackfeet. it

9

2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

260

Man,^

who was before Death came into

the world, concern-

ing which one of the usual tales of the Origin of Death told.

All things that he

'

he spoke to them

birds,

With

chapters of Genesis.

first

on the

N^-pi, Creation worked

He

lines of adaptation to environment.

bighorn on the it

—

There

prairie.

on rocky places, where

it

was awkward,

it

fell

prairie.

Na-pi created

Prometheus, gave

and taught the

fire,

inculcated the duty of prayer

by emissaries in the shape

;

The

of clay, but

Na-pi, as a

He

forest arts.

his will should be done

of animals.

The misfortunes

other peoples.

so he set

to the level

it

man and woman out woman introduced Death.

the folly of the

put the

skipped about with ease.

on the rocks, so he removed

antelope

is

had made understood him when animals, and people,' as in the

Then he went

of the Indians arise

to

from

disobedience to his laws. Chiefs

were

elective,

for

conduct,

courage,

and

charity.

Though weapons and utensils were bmried with the dead, or exposed

on platforms, and though great men were

left

to sleep in their lodges, henceforth never to be entered

the living, there

by

no trace known to me of continued As many Blackfeet change their names names are not likely to become those of is

ancestor-worship. yearly, ancestral

gods.

The Sun

is

by many believed to have taken the

previous place of Na-pi in religion As envisaged

or perhaps Na-pi

;

is

is not a spirit. The question of spirit or 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 '

here, N^-pi

non-spirit has not arisen.

'

;

black fellows. fellows.' J.

A.

I.,

He

He made everything. ... He never dies, and likes has a demiurge, Dawed (Mr. Foelsche, apud Dr.

Nov. 1894,

p. 191).

It is curious to

observe

often shift the responsibility for evil from the beneficent,

on to a subordinate

deity.

how

Supreme

all

black

Stirling,

savage creeds

Creator, entirely

AMERICAN CREATORS However, he

Sun.

the

is

261

separately addressed in

still

The Sun receives presents of furs Etnd so forth when the prayer is for life, has been offered

prayer. finger,

him.

Fetishism probably shows

rock.

There

is

itself in gifts to

daily prayer, both to the

;

a to

a great

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 '

'

Lodge woman

look on the Medicine

do on the

Boman

in deed, serious,

woman To

Catholic

as

Sisters.'

you white people Being virtuous '

and clean-minded,' the Medical Lodge and the Sun.

in spiritual rapport with Na-pi

is

an ethical

this extent, at least, Blackfoot religion is

influence.

The creed seems

to

be a nascent polytheism, sub-

ordinate to Na-pi as supreme Creator, and to the personified Sun. effectual

'

As Blackfoot ghosts

are

'

vaporous, in-

for good, there seems to be nothing

like ancestor

worship.

These two

may be

cults

regarded

and

Pawnee and

beliefs.

as fairly well authenticated

im-Christianised American religion

among

borderland of agriculture and the chase. difficult

worship less

to is

maintain

that

Blackfoot,

examples of

races on the It

would be

ghost-worship or ancestor-

a potent factor in the evolution of the death-

Tir-a-wa or the immortal Creator Na-pi,

nothing of the

spirit

who has

about him, especially as ghosts are

not worshipped.'

Let us now look at the Supreme Being of a civilised American people. There are few more interesting accounts of religion

in Peru.

side

than Garcilasso de la Vega's description of faith Garcilasso was of Inca parentage on the spindle

he was born in 1540, and his book, taken from the an uncle, and aided by the fragmentary

;

traditions of '

Grinnell's Blackfoot Lodge-Tales

and Pawnee Hero

Stories.

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

262

collections of

In

Father Bias Valera, was published in 1609. the

theory

Garcilasso's

Totemists and worshippers of

original

people of

Peru,,

and streams, Earth

hills

Sun worship by the first Inca, Even the new religion included a child of the Sun. ancestor-worship and other superstitions. But behind faith in a Being who advanced the Sun worship was the This Being Sun so far above all the stars of heaven.' 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.' ^ Pacha,' he says, = universe, and cama = soul. They did not. Pachacamac, then, is Anima Mundi. even take the name of Pachacamac into their mouths,' and Sea, were converted

to

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

or but seldom and reverently, as the Australians in religious matters,

had no temple, but they worshipped him in '

That he was the Creator appears

vrall

not,

Pachacamac

mention Darumulun.

their hearts.'

in an earlier writer^

by Garcilasso, Agustin de Zarate (ii. ch. 5). Garcilasso, after denying the existence of temples to Pachacited

camac, mentions one, but only one.

and with much worships,

is

in

logic, that

He insists,

He whom,

at length,

as a Christian, he

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 (ii.

Being who dwells not in temples made with hands In the temple this people, the Yuncas, offered sacrifices. By the Incas to Pachacamac no

186).

even

human

sacrifice

was '

offered

Garcilasso,

i.

(ii.

101.

189).

This negative custom they '

Op.

cit.

i.

106.

AMERICAN CEEATORS

263

imposed upon the Yuncas, and they removed

also

from the Yunca temple of Pachacamac

idols

Yunca

190).

(ii.

superstitions, however, infested the temple,

and a Voice had a talking

The Yuncas also which the Inca, in accordance with a

gave oracles therein.' idol,

religious

treaty, occasionally consulted.

While Pachacamac, without temple

or

was

rite,

rec-

koned 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 must have another Lord more that the restless Sun '

powerful than himself.'

^

This remark could not have been necessary

camac were

really

an

article of living

if

Pacha-

and universal

belief.

we are to understand that this Inca, like who seems to have been the original author of

Perhaps father,

saying,

meant

his

the

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 His to justify the creed of his maternal ancestors. 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

exist

among

that similar conceptions, or nearly similar,

races not civilised like the Incas, and not

provided with colleges of learned priests.

In

fact,

the

From all this we might conjecture, hke 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.' 2

Garcilasso,

ii.

446, 447.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

264

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 position of

There are

nil.

the Inca empire,

also, in different strata of

ancestor-worship,

mummy- worship, Totemism

or

and

polytheism, with a vague mass of huaca=Elohim, kalo'u,

wakan. Perhaps

it

Pachacamac

would not he too rash

to conjecture that

not a merely philosophical abstraction,

is

but a survival of a Being like Na-pi or Ahone.

Cieza

whose name means The name, when it was uttered, creator of the world was spoken with genuflexions and signs of reverence. So closely did Pachacamac resemble the Christian Deity, that

de

Leon

calls

Pachacamac a

devil,'

'

!

'

'

Leon

Cieza de

'

declares the devil

on the resemblance

insisted

!

^

It

to

have forged and

was open

to Spanish

missionaries to use Pachacamac, as to the Jesuits

Mpungu, as a fulcrum for the introduction They preferred to regard Pachacamac fraudulent fiend. Now Nzambi Mpungu, among the

the

Bantu

of

Christianity.

as a

among

to use

Bantu,

is

for the

Bantu have no learned

assuredly not a creation of a learned priesthood, priests,

be useless to the greedy conjurers as he is not propitiated.

Pachacamac may be

On

and Mpungu would

whom

they do consult,

grounds of analogy, then,

said to resemble a savage

Supreme

Being, somewhat etherealised either by Garcilasso or by

among the subjects even so, much superior

the Amautas, the learned class the Incas. the

Ahone

We religion, '

He

does not seem,

of

to

of the Virginians.

possess,

however,

a

different

account of Inca

from which Garcilasso strongly

Cieza de Leon,

p. 253.

'

Markham's

dissents.

The

translation, p. 253.

AMERICAN CREATORS

265

best version is that of Christoval de Molina,

who was

chaplain of the hospital for natives, and wrote between

1570 and 1584.'

Christoval assembled a

number

and other natives who had taken part

priests

ancient services, and collected their evidence. the Creator

('not

of old in

He

the calls

born of woman, unchangeable and

by the name Pachayachachi, Teacher of the world and Tecsiviracocha,' which Garcilasso dismisses as meaningless.^ He also tells the tale of the Inca Yupanqui eternal

'

')

'

'

and the Lord of the Sun, but says that the Incas had already knowledge of

the

Creator.

To Yupanqui he

image of the Creator,

attributes the erection of a gold

by Garcilasso.' Christoval declares, again contradicted by Garcilasso, that sacrifices were offered to utterly denied

Unlike the Sun, Christoval says, the Creator

the Creator.

woman

had no

them, they is

all

assigned to him,

an idea that would also

*

him make

belonged to

'

because, as he created 26) , which, of course,

(p.

sacrifice superfluous.

.

.

Christoval gives prayers

Creator

'

is

Quichua, wherein the

in

addressed as Uiracocha.

Christoval assigns images, sacrifice, and even sacrifice, to

the Creator Uiracocha.

that the Creator

Pachacamac had any

he denies that Uiracocha was the

and he denies assertion.'' is

it,

Who

Mr.

is

right?

of these things,

of the Creator,

Uiracocha, says Garcilasso,

sacrifices

;

sacrifices, is another, is

Markham

name

knovdng that the Spaniards made the

one thing, with his

without

human

Garcilasso denies

the Creator, Pachacamac,

God.

thinks that Garcilasso, vsriting

when he

and not consciously exaggerating, was yet less trustworthy (though 'wonderfully accurate') than Christoval.

did,

of the Yncas, Markham's translation, p. vii. ' Bites, p. 11. Garcilasso, i. 109.

and Laws

'

Bites

'

Rites, p. 6.

'

Compare Beports on Discovery of Peru,

Introduction.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

•266

however,

Garcilassoj

excellence of his

is

'

scrupulously truthful.'

memory

topographical details.

.

.

is

A

!

make

does not

mistake,' in the topography of three

places

The

perhaps best shown in his

He

.

'

'

a single

hundred and twenty

scrupulously truthful gentleman, endowed with

an amazing memory, and a master flatly contradicts

of his native language,

the version of a Spanish priest,

who

also

appears to have been careful and honourable.

now show

I shall

that Christoval and Garcilasso have

different versions of the

same

historical events,

and that

Garcilasso bases his confutation of the Spanish theory

on his form

of the Inca Creator tion,

which follows

:

The Inca Yahuarhuaccac, with his Prince

of this historical tradi-

of

Wales.

was

at odds

like

George

He

therefore banished the

II.,

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.'

knew

Asleep or awake, he

not,

saw a bearded robed man holding a strange animal.

he

The

appearance declared himself as Uiracocha (Christoval's

name

Pachacamac, the Creator rebellion,

distant

The

Sun; by no means as the Sun. He announced a

for the Creator), a Child of the

of

and promised his aid to the Prince.

Inca, hearing this narrative, replied in the tones of

to go to

when he said about Monmouth, Tell James ^ hell The predicted rebellion, however, broke

out, the

Inca

Charles

II.,

'

!

'

fled,

the Prince saved the

city,

dethroned

He then his father, and sent him into the country. 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 '

Rites, p. XV.

^

construction,

Lord Ailesbury's Memoirs.

'

AMERICAN CREATORS

267"

Therein he had an image of the god, for which he himself

When

gave frequent sittings.

Spaniards arrived,

the

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,

mother's milk.'

'

which he

'

sucked in with his

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.'

Moreover, Garcilasso and Cieza de descriptions of the

Leon

agree in their

image of Uiracocha, which, both

assert,

the Spaniards conceived to represent a Christian early missionary, perhaps

seen the

mummy

Bartholomew.^

St.

from the

whole

tale

native

comments on the Court

To

Garcilasso had

Inca Uiracocha, and relates the

of the

many

oral version of his uncle, adding

revolution described.

Garcilasso, then, the invocations of Uiracocha, in

Christoval's collection of prayers, are a native adaptation to Spanish prejudice

Now, lasso's

even in them Pachacamac occurs.^

:

Christoval has got hold of a variant of Garci-

narrative,

which, in Garcilasso, has

humour and human

nature.

was not the Prince,

later

plenty of

According to Christoval

Inca Uiracocha,

who

it

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.''

own

Uiracocha's

son was

Pachacutec, which simply

means Eevolution,' they say, by way of by- word Pachamcutin, which means " the world changes." '

'

'

'

Garcilasso,

'

Rites, pp. 28, 29.

ii.

^

68. '

Cieza de Leon, p. 357.

Aoosta,

lib. vi.

ch. 21

;

Garcilasso,

ii.

88, 89.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

268

Christoval's form of the story in

peculiarly gratifying

Yupanqui saw the apparition in a piece of

one way.

crystal,

is

the apparition vanished, while the piece of crystal

'

The Inca took

remained.

care of

it,

and they say that he

afterwards saw everything he wanted in tion, in

human form and

The

it.'

appari-

in Inca dress, gave itself out for

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.'

Sun

the

;

-'

He

bade his subjects to

reverence the

'

had heretofore worshipped the

was

new

Creator,'

'

they

deity, as

who, therefore,

prior to Uiracocha.

Interesting as a proof of Inca crystal-gazing, this legend

compete as evidence with Acosta

of Christoval's cannot

and

Garcilasso.

The

reader, however,

must decide

as to

whether he prefers Garcilasso's unpropitiated Pachacamac, Christoval's Uiracocha, human sacrifices, and all.''^

or

Mr. Tylor prefers the version of Christoval, making

Pachacamac a

title

(the Sun)

rivalry

He

of Uiracocha.'

have, in Inca religion, an

example

of

'

usurping the place of the supreme

'

we

thinks that

a subordinate god deity,'

'

the

between the Creator and the divine Sun.'

China, as

we

In

Mr. Tylor thinks, on the other

shall see,

hand, that Heaven

is

the elder god, and that Shang-ti,

the Supreme Being,

is

the usurper.

The

Pachacamac con-

truth in the Uiracocha versus

troversy

is

difficult to

I confess

ascertain.

a leaning

toward Garcilasso, so truthful and so wonderfully accurate, rather than to the Spanish priest.

be remarked, says that

'

Christoval,

it

will

Chanca-Uiracocha was a huaca

(sacred place) in Chuqui-chaca.'

*

Now

Chuqui-chaca

is

the very place where, according to Garcilasso, the Inca '

Rites, p. 12.

^

Prim, Cult.

ii.

337, 338.

2

lb. p. 54.

*

Bites, p. 29.

'

AMERICAN CREATORS

269'

Uiracocha erected a temple to his Uncle, the Apparition.' '

Uiracocha, then, the deity

would be a rival of

as

late, royally

receives hijman sacrifice,,

who receives no his name would be

the Creator,

he was bearded,

the bearded Spaniards,

was

who

introduced ancestral god, no real

said to

whose

easily transferred to

Inca Uiracocha

arrival the

But

have predicted.

Spaniards by the

name given

to call several or all

would be

to the Creator

Markham

Mr. Tylor and Mr.

absurd.

sacrifice at all, and,

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

He ranks

de Santa Cruz Pachacuti-yamqui Salcamayhua.

and Christoval, but before

after Garcilasso

writers,

to

such as Acosta,

earlier

who knew not Quichua. According

Salcamayhua, the Inca Uiracocha was

realm to his bastard. Urea,

who was

James

like

fond of architecture and averse to war.

He

defeated and killed

but his legitimate son, Yupanqui, saw a

on a rock, Creator,

who promised him

and then vanished.

success in the

fair

name

The Prince was

the Inca Uiracocha retired into private

and

III.,

gave the

Uiracocha meant to abandon the con-

by the Chancas. test,

Spanish

youth of the

victorious,

This

life.

appears to be a mixture of the stories of Garcilasso and Christoval.^

much importance whether

It is not, in itself, a point of

the Creator was called Uiracocha

(which,

of the world, or

The important question

is

received all

even

human As

(Garcilasso). •

Garcilasao,

ii.

69.

as to

sacrifices

to

if

it

means was

grease!'), or whether he

anything, means 'sea of called Pachacamac, maker

by both names. whether the Creator

(Christoval) or

none

at

Pachacamac, we must consult '

^ites

and Laws,

p.

91

et seg.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

270

Mr. Payne, who has the advantage of being a Quichua He considers that Pachacamac combines the

scholar.

conception of a general

maker

of a Creator or

spirit of

Hving things with that

of all things.

'

Pachacamac and

the Creator are one and the same,' but the conception of

Pachayachacic, 'ruler of the world,' period of the Incas.'

'

belongs to the later

Mr. Payne appears to prefer

'

Christoval's legend of the Inca crystal-gazer, to the rival

The Yunca form of the worship of Pachacamac Mr. Payne regards as an example of de-

version of Garcilasso.

He

gradation.^

human must,

The

were not made to the Sun.

Mr. Payne

if

indeed, he

unless,

reader can

Garcilasso's statement

disbelieves

sacrifices

now

is right,

have been a deliberate

was deceived by

his

that

Garcilasso liar,

Inca kinsfolk.

estimate for himself the difficulty of

knowing much about Peruvian religion, or, indeed, of any For, if Mr. Payne is right about the lowest savages having no conception of God, or even of spirit,

religion.

though the idea

of a great Creator, a spirit, is

efforts of 'primitive logic,'

earliest

one of the

we, of course, have

been merely fabling throughout. Garcilasso's evidence, however, seems •Christian attempts

may

•Garcilasso for

no theory

Pachacamac,

untainted by

to find a primitive divine tradition.

possibly be refining on facts, but he asks

of divine primitive tradition in the case of

whom

he attributes to philosophical

reflec-

tion.

In the following chapter we discuss the old Degenera'

tion theory,' and contrast offered in this book.

it

with the scheme provisionally

We have

already observed that the

Degeneration theory biasses the accounts of some mis•

Payne

^

Op.

i.

cit.

monotheism

459.

i.

of

Mr. Payne absolutely rejects Ixtlilochitl's story of the Nezahualcoyotl Torquemada knows nothing of it,' i. 490.

463.

'

AMERICAN CREATORS who

sionaries

271

are obviously anxious to find traces of a

Primitive Tradition, originally revealed to

men, but

all

To

only preserved in a pure form by the Jews. deception by

means

we have chosen examples

of this bias

of 'savage creative beings

avoid

from wide

from diverse

areas,

ages, from non-missionary statements, from the least

contaminated backward peoples, and from their secret mysteries and hymns.

Thus, tinent,

way

still

confining ourselves to the American con-

we have

the ancient

Christianised,

hymns

of the Zunis, in

and never chanted

These hymns run thus Before the New Making, Awonawilona, the

the Mexican Spanish. the beginning of

'

:

Maker and container

He

being.'

outward in

hymns

no

in the presence of

of All, the All-Father, solely

then evolved

all

things

Hegelian

space.'

!

'

by thinking himself

but so are the dateless

of the Maoris, despite the savage

intrudes into both sets of traditions.

Ouranos and Gaia recurs

had

mythology which

The

old fable of

Zuni as in Maori.' 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 in

ghost of a conjurer or chief.

missionary influence.

No

He

certainly

that of traditional sacred chants found

which

will not sing

them

is

not due to

authority can be better than

among

a populace

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 hypo-

thesis of ancestor-worship as the basis,

Mr. Spencer's theory) the only basis observers. '

perhaps

(as

in

of rehgion, affects

Before treating the theory of Degeneration Gushing, Report, Etlmol. Bureau, 1891-92,

p. 379.

'

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

272

we

Fijians, as

and

gods,

Ndengei,

from Williams, have ancestral form of the creative being, as Mr. Lorimer Fison calls him, Degei. learned

also a singular or,

Mr. Fison writes

' :

It

form.

.

Like other primitive people, the Fijians deified Yet the Fijians may have forgotten the

.

.

clear that the Fijians humanised had once existed on earth in human

is

their gods, because they

their ancestors.'

names in

The

us examine a case of the anthropological bias.

let

'

of their ancestors three generations

the world can you deify a person

back

whom

How

'

!

you don't

remember ? fied,

Moreover, only malevolent chiefs were deiso apparently a Fijian god is really a well-bom

human

scoundrel, so considerable that he for one

forgotten

—

Lyttelton

made out

!

is

not

just as we worshipped the wicked Lord Of course a god like Ahone could not be

of

if

such materials as these, and, in

fact,

we

learn from Mr. Fison 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 Ea coast, who was called Tui Laga or " Lord of Heaven." When the missionaries first went to convert this town they found the heathen priest He declared that they had come to their staunch ally. 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. Fison

is

reminded of

then ye ignorantly worship,

St.

him

Paul

at Athens,

'

whom

declare I unto you.'

Mr. Fison has clearly no bias in favour of a God like known to savages, and not derived from ghostworship. He deduces this god, Tui Laga, from priestly reflection and speculation. But we find such a God where our own,

'

J.A.I.

May

189S, pp. 341-344.

— — ,

AMERICAN CREATORS we

find

veloped. fice

no priests, where a priesthood has not been deSuch a God, being usually unpropitiated by sacri-

and lucrative private

deity

273

who

practice, is precisely the kind of

does not suit a priesthood.

that a priesthood

and that Gods

'

sees

For these reasons

no money in

where there are no priesthoods

God

a

'

and

of this kind, ethical

of this kind,

creative, are

—

we cannot

found

look on the

conception as a late one of priestly origin, as Mr. Fison does,

may '

though a learned refine

on the

idea.

caste, like the

Least of

Peruvian Amautas, can such a God be

all

the creation of the priests that minister to him,' when,

Andaman

as in Peru, the

God

is

Isles,

and much

ministered to by no priests.

of Africa, this

Nor,

lastly,

can

we

regard the absence of sacrifice to the Creative Being as a

mere proof that he

is

an ancestral ghost who

on earth at too remote a time

for

'

;

had

'

lived

this absence

of

where ghosts are dreaded, but are not

sacrifice occurs

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

propitiated

worshippers.

At

this point

criticism

may

naturally remark that

whether the savage Supreme Being

is feted, as by the smoke or is apparently whether half forgotten, as by the Algonquins and Zulus he is propitiated by sacrifice (which is very rare indeed) or only by conduct, I equally claim him as the probable

Comanches, who

offer puffs of

:

:

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 logical difficulties inherent in

it

the

presents none of the animistic

namely, that the savage Supreme Being

is

pedigree

the last and

T

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

274

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,

ing

with the universal savage

in this case, inconsistent,

Finally, as has been said before, grant-

theory of Death.

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

has become for us to think of an eternal,

difficult it

powerful, and immortal being, except this

way

hei7ig,

of looking at the

not as

spirit,

must have

idea of spirit has ghost for

as a spirit.

Yet

Supreme Being, merely

as

existed, granting that the

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 loAvest 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

animism.

lines of

This very interesting Supreme

Being, in a middle barbaric race, as described

by

Eesearches.'

'

is

the Polynesian Taa-roa,

Ellis in that fascinating

book Polynesian '

Several of their taata-paari, or wise men, '

ii.

191, 1829.

'

AMERICAN CREATORS

275

pretend that, according to other traditions, Taa-roa was only a in

man who was

fact,

Euhemerism,

deified after death.'

men

a natural theory of

is

acquainted with

ancestor-worship, but a Euhemeristic hypothesis by a

Polynesian thinker

Taa-roa was

'

is

not a statement of national

uncreated, existing from the beginning, or

from the time he emerges from the

In the Leeward

ness.'

and motherless from

'po,

He was he abode men He became :

!

or world of dark-

Taa-roa was Toivi, fatherless

In the highest heavens

created the gods of polytheism, the

Says a native hymn,

war, of peace, and so on.

of'

'

Isles

Isles

all eternity.

He

he dwells alone. gods

belief.

No

in the void.

earth, no sky,

no

In the Windward

the universe.'

he has a wife, Papa the rock=Papa, Earth, wife of

Thus

Eangi, Heaven, in Maori mythology. argued, Taa-roa

is

no 'primaeval

it

may

theistic idea,' but

be

merely

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 the

:

Eternal, Awonawilona,

'

out into the

which, as in the Polynesian hymn, 'there

void,' before

was no

who thought himself

sky.'

The Euhemeristic dead man is absurd. But

Whence came the idea of Taa-roa ? theory that he was a ghost of a as

we

are

now among

polytheists

may

it

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,

A tuas are gods, Oranmtuas

His are spirits; the chief of the spirits warriors.

and the

were ghosts of

they, their images,

These were mischievous needed propitiation, and these ;

skulls of the dead '

Prim. Cult.

ii.

345, 346.

Ellis,

ii.

198.

T 2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

276

were reflected on to Taa.roa, to

(perhaps)

ideas

human

whom

victims were sacrificed.'

Now

human

unknown, Supreme Beings, as among the Bushmen, the Andamanese, and

this kind of horror,

sacrifice, is

I think, in early savage rehgions of in Australia,

I therefore suggest that in an advanced poly-

so on.

theism, such as that of Polynesia, the evil sacrificial rites

come

unpractised by low savages

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 It

Supreme Being. was found

difficult,

or impossible, to induce Christian

They

converts, in Polynesia, to repeat the old prayers.

They had

began, trembled, and abstained.

almost every act of their

In

savages.

fact,

from human

beyond

lives,'

a ritual

'

for

a thing unfamiliar to low

doubt, religious criminal acts,

all

burning of Jeanne d'Arc,

sacrifice to the

move away from the stage Bushmen and Andamanese to the stage of Aztec and Polynesian culture. The Supreme Being is succeeded

increase as religion and culture of

in

advancing

civilisation,

and under the influences

animism, by ruthless and insatiable ghost-gods, the worst

human

Thus there

qualities.

really call degeneration,

moral and

is

full

of of

what we may

religious, inevitably

accompanying early progress.

That

this

is

the case, that the

first

advances in culture

necessarily introduce religious degeneration, try to demonstrate.

But we may observe, in

we

shall

now

passing, that

our array of moral or august savage supreme beings (the first

who came

to hand) will, for

found in anthropological Eeligion.

They

appear,

'

treatises

somehow,

Ellis,

ii.

221.

some reason, not be on the Origin of to

have been over-

AMERICAN CREATORS looked by philosophers. sufficiently good.

Yet the evidence for them

Its excellence is

at

theory

its

—that of

basis,

which

its

religious scale,'

the divine

is

very

nay, an obso-

—has

facts

very supporters have ignored,

Thus the Eev. Pro-

in the religions

is

'

it

is

'

at the

always easy to see

conceived of

;

how

little

worshipper of

bottom of the

how

wretchedly

conscious of his

... is the poor worshipper.' The poor Baiame wishes to obey His Law, which

true wants

makes

its

Flint informs the audience in the Cathedral of

St. Giles's, that,

own

old,

degeneration in religion

which orthodoxy has overlooked. fessor

proved by

An

uniformity, assuredly undesigned. lete

277

for righteousness.' '

The Faiths of

the World, p. 413.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

278

XV TBE OLD BEGENEBATION THEORY If any partisan of the anthropological theory has read so far into this argument, he will often have to himself,

'

The

old

degeneration theory

Dr. Brinton remarked in 1868

murmured

On

! '

this

:

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.' '

The

ciously,

old degeneration theory

resolved

assumptions—

'first,

with the appearance on earth

men

;

'

practically,

Mr. Tylor

and

falla-

two that the history of culture began as

itself,

says,

into

of a semi-civilised race of

and second, that from this stage culture has probackward to produce savages, and

ceeded in two ways

—

forward to produce

civilised

false to all

men.'

^

That hypothesis

is

our knowledge of evolution.

The hypothesis here assumptions at

makes no that among some

provisionally advocated

It is a positive fact

all.

of the lowest savages there exists, not a doctrinal

and

abstract Monotheism, but a behef in a moral, powerful, kindly, creative Being, while this faith is found in juxta-

position '

with

Myths of

the

belief

New

in

unworshipped

World, p. 44.

^

ghosts, p^yn. Cult.

totems, i.

35.

THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY fetishes,

279

and so on. The powerful creative Being of savage

belief sanctions truth, unselfishness, loyalty, chastity,

other virtues.

have

I

and

set forth the difficulties involved in

the attempt to derive this Being from ghosts and other

lower forms of

Now,

belief.

mere matter of fact, and not of assumption, 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 it is

that the

moral control over

and

of ghosts

in everyday

human

life,

mob

supposed to be potent and helpful

spirits,

attract

get paid by sacrifice

In his place a

conduct.

men's regard and adoration, and

— even by human

sacrifice.

Turning to races yet higher in material culture, we

On

this

my own much

hungry and cruel gods. point Mr. Jevons remarks, in accordance with

crowd

find a

of

observation, that

'

human

sacrifice

appears at a

earher period in the rites for the dead than

in the ritual of the gods.'

and wives in Hades,

^

who

The dead are

it

does

chief needs servants

offered

him.

to

The

some elements of cannibalism, but do general rule, offer any human victims. So far,

Australians have not, as a

then, ancestor- worship

introduced a sadly

compared with the moral

rite,

'

degenerate

'

faith in unfed gods.

To gods the human (in

some

cases) either

sacrifice was probably extended by a cannibal civilised race, like the

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 Aztecs, or

'

backward

'

races. '

Therefore, advance to the idea of spirit Introduction, p. 109

;

also p. 161.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

280 at

one point, meant degeneration at another point, to the

extent of

human

sacrifice.

we

Thus, on looking at relatively advanced races,

them worshipping

polytheistic deities

and ghosts

who are often propitiated by human victims, while, as in the

find

of the

kings just dead,

terrible

massacres of

case of

spurts back even on the uncreated

Taa-roa, the blood

who was

Creator,

before earth was, or sea, sun, or sky.

Undeniably the hungry, cruel gods are degenerate from

who

the Australian Father in Heaven, fice

receives

but that of men's lusts and selfishness

obedience, not the fat of kangaroos

ours

is

;

unfed and unbribed.

;

who

;

no

who

sacri-

desires

needs nothing of

Thus, in this particular

respect the degeneration of religion from the Australian

Andamanese to the Dinka standard — and infinitely more to the Polynesian, or Aztec, or popular Greek or

standard

—

as undeniable as

is

any

fact in

human

history.

Anthropology has only escaped the knowledge of

by laying down

circumstance

unbased on laws

.

savage '

.

.

facts, that

the rule,

demonstrably

the divine sanction of ethical

belongs almost or wholly to religions above the

level,

not to the earlier and lower creeds

savage Animism

which

'

this

is

'

;

that

almost devoid of that ethical element

to the educated

modern mind

is

the very main-

spring of practical religion.' I have argued, indeed, that the

who

God

of

low savages

imparts the divine sanction of ethical laws

is

not of

But even where Mr. Im Thum finds, in Guiana, nothing but Animism of the lowest conceivable type, he also finds in that Animism the only or most animistic origin.

potent moral restraint on the conduct of men.

While Anthropology holds idea

the certainly erroneous

that the religion of the most backward races '

Prim. Cult.

ii.

360, 361.

is

THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY

281

know

that there

always non-moral, of course she cannot

been great degeneration in religfon

has, in fact,

began on the Australian and Andamanese higher) wherever religion

is

religion

(if

level, or

even

non-moral or immoral.

Again, Anthropology, while fixing her gaze on totems,

on worshipped mummies, adored ghosts, and treasured

my

has not, to

fetishes,

knowledge, made a comparative

study of the higher and purer religious ideas of savages.

These have been passed by, with a word about credulous

and Christian

missionaries brief

summary

for

in

the

which Mr. Tylor found room.

In

influences,

work I only take a handful religious opinions of savages, and this

evidence

doubt that savages have Creator

much

if

felt

it

side

is

the

wide,

seems proved beyond

it

after

that conception

nothing in

early (and

'

by

side

remains to be

a conception of a

'

higher than that for which they

Now,

get credit.

them

set

But the area covered

field.

the best attainable, and

is

of cases of the higher

Much more

for purposes of comparison.

done in this

except

is original,

commonly or

is

very

suggests lateness of development),

then the other elements of their faith and practice are degenerate. '

pure

How,'

it

has been asked,

religion ?

'

^

That

is

'

could

all

mankind

what I now

forget a

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

will not help a '

sendings

man

'

and opposed to

gifts,

man

lust

and mischief,

with love-spells, or with malevolent

of disease

by witchcraft

;

will not favour

above his neighbour, or one tribe above

one

its rivals,

as

a reward for sacrifice which he does not accept, or

as-

constrained by charms which do not touch his omni'

Prof. Menzies, History of Religimi, p. 23.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

282

Ghosts and ghost-gods, on the other hand, in food and blood, afraid of spells and binding

potence.

need of

charms,^ are a corrupt, but, to man, a useful constituency.

Man

what

being

whoring

'

he

is,

man was

to

'

go a

and

after practically useful ghosts, ghost-gods,

fetishes which he could keep For these he was sure, bag.

in his wallet or medicine

in the long run,

neglect his idea of his Creator

Him

certain

as only one,

spirits or deities,

if

and

;

first

to

next, perhaps, to reckon

the highest, of the venal rabble of

to sacrifice to

Him,

as to them.

And

If we are not to call it what happened degeneration,' what are we to call it ? It may be an old winna ding,' and are on the side of theory, but facts an old theory. Meanwhile, on the material plane, culture kept advancing, the crafts and arts arose departments thought grew clearer such ;arose, each needing a god

this is exactly

!

•

'

;

;

;

admirable ethics as those of the Aztecs were developed, ,and while bleeding

human

hearts

smoked on every

Nezahuatl conceived and erected a bloodless '

The Unknown God, Cause

that

Lord.'

Causes,'

fane to

without altar

and the Inca, Yupanqui, or another, declared Our Father and Master, the Sim, must have a

or idol '

of

altar,

;

2

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 Home. popular and political regard for the luck of the

That

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, *

\ey6fi€vat 6cuv avdyKai.

"

Ixtliloohitl.

Porphyry. du Perou,

Balboa, 3ist.

p. 62.

THE OLD DEGENEHATION THEORY

and Death of Our Lord, was the moral

apart from the Life

monotheism

Now,

is

it

religion of Jehovah.

mideniable that Jehovah, at a certain

Hebrew

of

period

Hebrew

of the

283

history,

anthropomorphised, far

had become degraded and

below Darumulun, and Puluga,

and Pachacamac, and Ahone, as conceived of in their purest form, and in the high mood of savage mysteries

much

which yet contain so

Man

Big Black

of the

that

is

Fuegians

grotesque. is

Even the

on a higher

level (as

when he forbids the slaying of a robber enemy, than Jehovah is when He commands the massacre The Black Man of shivering communistic of Agag. we reckon morals),

nearer the morality of our Lord than the

savages

is

Jehovah

of Judges.

human

Again, traces of of

Israel,

and

is

it

sacrifice

appear in the ritual

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, or Pundjel.

Here

is

unbought Dendid, or Ahone,

degeneration, even in Israel.

How

the conception of Jehovah arose in Israel, whether

was a

revival of a half-obliterated idea, such as

among low savages

;

or whether

it

we

it

find

was borrowed from

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, The question will had been the God of Israel's fathers. some foreign creed

be discussed later

we must

;

;

or

but, unless

new

facts are discovered,

accept the version of the Pentateuch, or take

refuge in conjecture.

Not only conception of

is

there degeneration from the Australian

Darumulun

to the conception of the Semitic

gods in general, but, 'humanly speaking,'

if

religion

THE MAKING OF BELTGION

284

began in a pure form among low savages, degeneration Advancing social conditions compelled was inevitable.

men

with our

He

Darumulun

into degeneration.

own

is,

ideas of divinity because he

dwelleth not in temples

so far, in line is

not localised.

made with hands

;

it is not-

he should, when his worshippers have neither nor tabernacle. As Mr. Kobertson Smith where the God had a house or a temple, we recog-

likely that

house, tent, says,

'

nise the

work

men who were no

of

longer pure nomads,

but had begun to form fixed homes.'

By

the nature of

Australian society, Darumulun could not be tied to a temple,

and

temple-ritual,

and consequent myths

explain that ritual, could not arise.

lun be attached to a district, just as

to

Nor could Darumuthe 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.' Darumulun

'

thus not capable of degenerating into

is

'

a local god, as Baal, or lord of the land,' because this

'

involves a series of ideas

of the savage

unknown

to the primitive

life

huntsman,' like the widely spread Murring

tribes.^

Nor could Darumulun be Semitic fashion, fore

first

by receiving an

down

tied

to a

by manifesting himself altar of sacrifice there,

end a sanctuary, for Darumulun receives no

place in

there, there-

and in the

sacrifice at all.

Again, the scene of the Bora could not become a per-

manent home over,

of

Darumulun, because, when the

the ef&gy of the god

Thus Darumulun, '

in his

is

rites are

scrupulously destroyed.

own abode beyond

go everywhere and do everything

'

'

(is

the sky,' can

omnipresent and

r '

"

Bobertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 104, 105. Op. cit. p. 106.

THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY

285

omnipotent), dwells in no earthly places, has no temple,

nor tabernacle, nor sacred mount, nor, like Jehovah, any limit of land.^

The

early

Hebrew conception

of

Jehovah, then,

is

more conditioned, practically, by space, than Supreme Being, The Master,' in the conception of

infinitely

the

'

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.'

.

.

^

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 place of

in

ration,

as

being the Universal God, implies degene-

it

certainly

By

does to our minds.

being

attached to a given hill or river 'the gods, instead of

being regarded as being interested in the whole of

man-

would eventually come to be regarded as being

kind,

interested in separate tribes or nations alone.'

To us Milton seems nobly Chauvinistic when he talks 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 of

'

'

interested in the

on a

hill, river,

whole of [known] mankind

'

was

settled

or lagoon, amidst a nation of worshippers.

In the course of the education of mankind, this form of degeneration (abstractly so considered) '

holy. *

was

to work,

the Glenelg some holy caves and mountain tops are haunted cr Waitz, vi. 804. No authority cited.

On

Religion of Semites, p. 110.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

286

as nothing else could have worked, towards the lofty con-

For that conception was only (as apart from philosophic by the union between Israel and the God of

ception of universal Deity.

brought into practical religion speculation)

The Prophets, recognising in the God of God One to whom righteousness

Sinai and Zion. Sinai,

was

—

nation's

their

than even his Chosen People

infinitely dearer

the conception of

God from

and made

local ties,

—freed

it

over-

spread the world.

Mr. Eobertson Smith has pointed out, again, the

manner

in

which the

East and "West

an early

at

period,

was a divine many gods, only modified by a weak remiresult

'

the old kingship in the not very effective

niscence of sovereignty

fell,

The

before the aristocratic houses. aristocracy of

Greece and of the

affected the religion of

In Greece, monarchy

Semites.

development of

different political

'

(or

prytany)

In the Bast the

of Zeus.

'

national god tended to acquire a really monarchic sway.' Australia escaped polytheistic degeneracy by having no aristocracy, as in Polynesia,

where

aristocracy, as in early

Greece, had developed polytheism.

the Australians knew,

departmental

deities, as

Ghosts and

but not polytheistic of

war, agricultiire,

spirits

gods, art.

nor

The

savage had no agriculture, and his social condition was

In yet another way,

not departmental.

produces religious degeneration, tion

from the conception

being.

To make

Each has all,

its

of

a nation,

if

advance

one relatively supreme moral several

god, and the nation

equally, into its

political

polytheism be degenera-

Pantheon.

is

tribes

must

unite.

apt to receive them

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

granting a relatively pure starting-

fact, '

Bel. Sem. p. 74

THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY from

point, degeneration

287

must accompany every step

it

of

civilisation, to a certain distance.

Unlike Semitic gods, Darumulun receives no

As we have Gerland

he has no kin with ghosts, and their

said,

could not be carried on into his cult,

sacrifices

(vi.

sacrifice.

Waitz-

if

811) are right in saying that the Australians

The Kurnai ghosts

have no ancestor-worship.

were which are not offered Chill ghosts, unfed by men, would come to to them. waning camp-fires and batten on the broken meats. The to

believed

upon

live

plants,'

'

^

Ngarego and Wolgal held, more handsomely, that Thara-

mulun (Darumulun) met the conducted

it

home beyond

to its future

might also accompany

just departed spirit

relics of

the sky.'

fragment

black

crying,

'

Send

it

who would wave

sacrifices to ancestral

long

remember

the dreaded Aurora Borealis,

at

away

and

Ghosts-

the body, such as the

dead hand, carried about by the family, the

^

'

I

'

!

ghosts

am

unacquainted with any

among this people who cannot

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 priestly

word

for sacrifice,

'

Hebrew

food of the

deity.'

*

technical

Nobody

nobody fed Ahone. We hear of no Fuegian In all religions sacrifices. Mr. Eobertson Smith says in which the gods have been developed out of totems [worshipped animals and other things regarded as akin to feeds Puluga,

'

:

human

stocks] the ritual act of laying food before the

deity is perfectly intelligible.'

'

'

it is

Howitt,

There

is

is

' Op. cit. p. 188. A. I. 1884, p. 187. a story of sacrifices of girls biennially in Queensland. Lang,

J.

Queensland, pp. 374-380 •

an Australian

mixed up with animals in some myths, not easy to see how such Supreme Beings as he

Supreme Being, but

Pundjel,

Bel. Sem. p. 207.

;

K^ville,

i.

153.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

•288

could be

'

developed out of totems

its

totems,

so

Darumulun could

had a celebrated theory that

not,

who

and did not

Mr. Eobertson Smith

them.

inherit sacrifice through

not aware,

tribe feeds the animals

any Australian

again, that

are

am

I

!

'

cereal sacrifice is a tribute

man

to a god, while sacrifice of a beast or

is

an act

of

communion with the god.' Men and gods dined together.^ The god himself was conceived of as a being of the same '

Beasts were also of the same

istock as his comrades.'

stock, one beast, say a lobster, lobster kin,

and

was

of the

same blood

as a

Occasionally the sacred beast

its god.^

of the kin (say the lobster), usually not to be slain or tasted, is

'

eaten as a kind of mystic sacrament.'

Now, lected

if

there

is,

*

some evidence,

I believe,

lately col-

not published, which makes in favour of the

eating of totems by Australians, at a certain very rare

and solemn mystery. ('

would not even

It

from information received

person were occasionally

')

surprise

me

a very deeply initiated

if

the highest degree

as

slain,

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 of initiation, on certain

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.'

the God, and

is

The

horrible idea of the

Man who

eaten in the God's honour, occurs

is

among

polytheistic Aztecs,

on a high level

among

Andamanese, Bushmen, or Euegians.^

Australians,

'

Hex. Sem. p. 225.

»

'

Op.

*

'

Op.

cit. p. cit.

269.

p.

343.

Citing Gen. xxii.,

2 Kings iii. 27. " I mean, does not occur

to

my

upsetting anthropological theories.

of material culture, not

Op. Op.

cit.

p. 247.

cit.

p. 277.

2 Kings xxi. 6,

knowledge.

New

Micah

evidence

is

vi.

7,

always

THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY

289

Thus, on the whole, the Darumulun, or other Supreme

Being of the lowest known savages,

when

by

Semites in

their

wild,

on a continent peopled by older

originally met,

kinds of animals than ours, was (as a higher plane

men roaming

we

regard purity) on

than the gods of Greeks and

far

earliest

known

mythology aside and looking only

Setting

characters. at cult, the

God

of

the Murring or the Kurnai, whose precepts soften the

who knows

heart,

by conditions slaughtered

of space or place,

man

who who is

the heart's secrets,

chastity, respect of age, unselfishness,

or beast,

is

who

inculcates

not bound

no blood

receives

of

a conception from which the

ordinary polytheistic gods of infinitely more polite peoples frankly

are

The

degenerate.

animistic

superstitions

wildly based on the beHef in the soul have not soiled

him, and the social conditions of aristocracy, agriculture, architecture,

crowd

have not made him one in a polytheistic

of rapacious gods,

nor fettered him as a Baal to

him in a God

his estate, nor localised

He

cannot appear as

'

a temple built with hands. 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 scutcheon of gods among much more

advanced races.

Once more, the idea expansion.

A

spirit

of

Animism admits

of endless

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 depart-

ment

of

human

activity,

province of Cloacina.

down Thus

to sports, or lusts, or the religion

becomes a mere IT

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

290

haunted and pestilential jungle of

when

conception,

side.

Thus, from every point of view,

Animism

of the seeds of religious

is full

degeneration, which do not and cannot exist in

known form

take to be the earliest ception

nature

that

:

—

spirit

theistic

not yet envisaged as spiritual, cannot be

subdivided and iparpilU.

and on every

But the

beliefs.

a Being

of

or not

what

I

of the theistic con-

about whose metaphysical

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 meta-

To meet

physical instinct of advancing mankind.

with

these

moral stimulus, and to provide a phrase or idea under which the Deity could wants, to supply

be envisaged

Animism was

soul,'

'

as

{i.e.

the

in

spirit)

of the theistic

was indispensable

beliefs

process

by advancing thought,

The blending

necessary.

and the animistic But,

a

its

to religion.

animistic development under

of

advancing social conditions, degeneration was necessarily Degeneration of the theistic conception for a

implied.

therefore,

while,

occurred.

and only contradictory annihilate the old

The

facts, in

facts

are

the proofs

sufficient quantity,

theory of Degeneration

when

can it

is

presented in this form. It is

must be repeated that on

this theory

an explanation

given of what the old Degeneration hypothesis does

not explain.

Granting a primal religion relatively pure

in its beginnings,

Mr.

ment as

We

Max

of the

why

did

it

Miiller, looking

degenerate ?

on religion as the develop-

sentiment of the Infinite, regards fetishism

a secondary and comparatively late form of

he observes, in various forms Christianity, therefore, is primary there, find

it,

secondary.

belief.

of Christianity relic

worship

is

Eeligion beginning, according to him, in the

THE OLD DEGENEKATION THEOKy

291

awakened in man by tall trees, and so on, it advances to the infinite of space and so to the infinitely divine. This is primary

-sense of the infinite, as

high

and

hills,

sky,

fetishism

:

is

Arguing elsewhere against

secondary.

What was

the modus of degeneration

idea, I

have asked

which

produced similar results in Christianity,

:

How

African and other religions ? «,ware that Mr.

Max

Miiller has

But how degeneration worked planting Theism

—

is

iace with the Creator.

cannot

He

it

work

answered

and in

I

?

am not

this question.

—namely, by Animism supDeathless

any savage

man

is

face to

the Creator obviously needs

offer sacrifice, for

animals for the Creator.

of Genesis, or

cannot degenerate in religion.

nothing, and again, as there

is

no death, he cannot slay

But, in one

usually by breach of a taboo.

Then comes, by

did

conspicuously plain on our theory.

Take the early chapters cosmogonic m3rth you please.

He

way

or another,

Death enters the world.

process of evolution, belief in hungry

who may inhabit stones or sticks arise priests who know how to propitiate spirits

spirits, belief in spirits

again there

this

;

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, of the Infinite

were

xmder advancing

we nowhere

and modus

is

Max

Miiller's doctrine

have supplied, in

Animism,

what he does not seem

of degeneration.

really 'secondary,' ex

find

Fetishism

hypothesi, but as

Fetishism alone, without the other

elements of religion, it

we

Mr.

social conditions,

to provide, a cause

would thus be

viable,

if

we cannot

secondary or not.

say, historically,

whether

Fetishism logically needs, in u 2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

292

some of its aspects, the doctrine of spirits, and Theism, in what we take to be its earliest known form, does not So logically need the doctrine of spirits as given matter.

we can

far

go,

in evolution.

but not farther, as to the fact of priority Nevertheless

backward peoples known to from the

meet, among the most among men just emerged culture, men who are in-

we us,

palaeolithic stage of

volved 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

we

lips, in their

moral training

find (however blended with barbarous absurdities,

obscured by

of

rites

Being who created or constructed the world from time beyond memory or conjecture

who makes

for righteousness,

;

who

no

'

among altar

the

stars,'

not in a

a

who was

;

is eternal,

and who loves mankind.

This Being has not the notes of degeneration is

and

another origin) the faith in

hill or in

smokes, and for him no blood

;

a house. is

home To him

his

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 the feeling after a

Paul are

of St.

literally true, as to

God who needs not anything

at

man's

hands, the study of anthropology seems to us to demon-

That in this God we have our being,' in so far somewhat of ours may escape, at moments, from the bonds of Time and the manacles of Space, the earlier strate.

'

as

part of this treatise

is

intended to suggest, as a thing by

THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY

293

no means necessarily beyond a reasonable man's power to (a

That these two beliefs, however attained point on which we possess no positive evidence), have conceive.

commonly been of the world,

So

far,

is

subject to degeneration in the religions

only too obvious.

then, the nature of things and of the reasoning

faculty does not

seem

to give the lie to the old Degenera-

tion theory.

To

these conclusions, as far as they are matters of

scientific opinion,

we have been

study of anthropology.

led

by nothing but the

—

THE MAKING OF EELIGION

294

XVI TEE0BIE8 OF JEHOVAH All to

speculation on the early history of religion

end in the endeavour to see

can be made to theorist

who

how

is

apt.

far the conclusions

Thus, the

illustrate the faith of Israel.

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.

Totemism

will

find evidence for his belief in worship of the golden calf

and

The

exclusive admirer of the hypothesis of

The

the bulls.

partisan of nature-worship will insist on

Jehovah's connection with storm, thunder, and the

On

Sinai.

fire of

the other hand, whoever accepts our sugges-

tions 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,

when

at least,

our

information begins) envisaged in anthropomorphic form,

but gradually purged of

by the unexampled

of the great Prophets.

They, as

knowledge extends, were strangely

indifferent

and unique inspiration far as our

all local traits

to the animistic element in religion, to the doctrine of

surviving of

human

souls,

Animism which

is

and

—the

purification of the

soul in the light of the hope of eternal

hunger their of

after righteousness of the

hope

sinless

of finally sating that bliss

that element

so, of course, to

priceless

and enjoyment

Just as the

life.

Prophets

is

intense, so

hunger in an eternity of

God

is

confessedly

;

THEOKIES OP JEHOVAH inconspicuous. austere extreme

Him

'

This

—

295

In short, they have carried Theism to its though He slay me, ye't will I trust in

—

'

while unconcerned about the rewards of Animism. a religion which,

certainly a strange result of

is

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

have not been

but anthropological speculators

;

(with rare

scholars

Oriental

while

exceptions),

some

Oriental scholars have borrowed from popular anthropo-

logy without

much critical

These circum-

discrimination.

stances

must be our excuse

difficult

ground.

for venturing

It is probably impossible for us to trace

the rise of the religion of Jehovah.

learned

'

on to this

with accuracy

The wise and

dispute endlessly over dates of documents, over

'

the amount of later doctrine interpolated into the earlier

over the nature, source, and quantity of foreign

texts,

influence

— Chaldsean,

We know that of the

Accadian, Egyptian, or Assyrian.

Israel had, in

moral Eternal

;

an early age, the conception

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

aspect and sanction.

Why matters

and not elsewhere we know will of

How

God

its original ethical

went thus in Israel was the

not, except that such

in the mysterious

education of the world.

mysterious that education has been

who have On Totemism.

to all

degrading belief

is

best

known

studied the political and social results of

the face of

—on

it

the face of

a perfectly crazy and it

meant

for

nothing

—

THE MAKING OF KELIGION

296

make

but to

the family a hell of internecine hatred

Totemism rendered

possible

— nay,

of hostile groups into large

and

—the

inevitable

union

relatively peaceful tribal

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 societies.

;

very anthropomorphic, and totally ignorant of the conditions of the problem.

An example

anthropological

of

theory

concerning

Mr. Huxley's Jehovah was put forth by Mr. Huxley.' general idea of religion as it is on the lowest known level of material culture

must have passed

—through which the ancestors of Israel 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

possessed, or, like other races,

condition of savagery,

might possess, the

an Eternal making for righteousness. says,

'

'

For

belief in

my part,'

he

I see no reason to doubt that, like the rest of the

world, the Israelites

ghost -worship,

had passed through a period of mere had advanced through ancestor-

and

worship and Fetishism and Totemism to the theological level at

which we

Samuel.'

find

them

in the

Books

of

Judges and

^

But why does he think the Israehtes did all this ? The Hebrew ghosts, abiding, according to Mr. Huxley, in a rather torpid condition in Sheol, would not be of practical use to a worshipper.

much

A reference in Deuteronomy

(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 xxvi. 14

'

Science

and Hebrew

Tradition.

'

Op.

cit. p.

361.

— THEORIES OF JEHOVAH Egypt, and to say,

'

297

Of the hallowed things I have not

given aught for the dead

'

—namely,

of the tithes dedi-

A race

cated to the Levites and the poor.

among the Egyptians, as who elaborately fed the has

which abode

—among

for centuries

Israel did

a people

of the departed

might pick up a trace of a custom, the giving of food for the dead,

persevered in by St. Monica till St. Ambrose

still

But Mr. Huxley

admonished her.

hard put to

is

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.' is

as

^

a slip of the pen. it

stands,

The Fourth Commandment, of course, He adds The Fifth Commandment, :

'

would be an excellent compromise between

Long may

ancestor-worship and Monotheism.' practise this excellent

compromise

fetched to reason thus their parents, as a

ghost-worship.'

'

:

children

It is really too far-

!

People were bidden to honour

compromise between Monotheism and is he who has to

Hard, hard bestead

reason in that fashion

This comes of

!

training in the

'

use of the weapons of precision of science.'

Mr. Huxley goes on have been a

:

'

The Ark

of the

relic of ancestor- worship

; '

'

Covenant

there

is

may

a good

Possibly there

deal to be said for that speculation.'

is,

by way of the valuable h3rpothesis 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

was the two Tables of the Law However, Mr. Huxley really finds it

that

it

!

safer to suppose

that references to ancestor-worship in the Bible were

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 obliterated

'

Science

and Hebrew

Tradition, p. 308.

.

THE BIASING OF EELIGION

298

not be allowed to lapse again.

been a

pecU mignon

let Israel

hear their mind on

The Hebrews' in

fact,

Had

of Israel, the

ancestor-worship

Prophets would have

it.

indifference to the departed

a puzzle,

especially

Egyptian education

— so

when we

soul

is,

consider their

important an element in Mr.

Huxley's theory.

Mr. Herbert Spencer is not more successful than Mr. Huxley in findihg ancestor - worship among the Hebrews. On the whole subject he writes :

'

"Where the levels of mental nature and social pro-

gress are lowest, we usually find, along with an absence of religious ideas generally, an absence, or very slight Cook [Captain development, of ancestor -worship. 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 ancestorworshippers.' ' .

Probably they are not

;

reads their hearts, and of

European

worshippers,

ideas.

this

.

.

but they do possess a Being

who

certainly

shows no

who

traces

Fuegians are not ancestor-

If the

Being was

not

developed

out

of

ancestor- worship

The evidence a mariner

of

Captain Cook, no anthropologist, but

who saw and knew

precisely of the sort against

The more

which Major

the Fuegians, Ellis

warns

is

us.^

a religion consists in fear of a moral guardian

of conduct, the less does

it

show

itself,

by

sacrifice or

to the eyes of Captain Cook, of his Majesty's ship

rite,

Endeavour.

Mr. Spencer places the Andamanese on the

same

level as the Fuegians,

may

be trusted.'

'

little of

Prin. Soc. p. 306.

We

'

so far as the scanty evidence

have shown that '

(as

known

The TsM-speaking Races,

p. 182.

to

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH Mi. Spencer in 1876)

it

Andamanese possessing they are not,

not be trusted at

apparently,

which,

propitiation,'

up and

the bones,

if it exists,

tribes possess a

ghost-worship, in Mr.

cannot be fairly well developed '

settled

till

moral

scheme,

Spencer's

society reaches the

groups whose burial-places are in their

Hence the development

midst.'

the corpses

about for a while, are exposed on

Yet many Australian Supreme Being.

level of

when

ceases

in ghost-

buried, or after they are burned, or after

carried

fact

the

;

The

ancestor-worshippers.

platforms.

In

all

Supreme Being, though

a moral

'show us not much persistence

Australians

are tied

may

299

Being among tribes not thus

a

of

moral Supreme

settled, is inconceivable,

By

Mr. Spencer's hypothesis.^

that hypothesis,

'

on

wor-

shipped ancestors, according to their remoteness, were ^ Where we among nomads who do not

regarded as divine, semi-divine, and himian.' find, then,

the Divine Being

remember

their great-grandfathers, the Spencerian theory

is

by

refuted

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

which may be

fact,

negative facts usually

are.'

They

are,

as misleading as

indeed

;

witness

Mr. Spencer's own silence about savage Supreme Beings.

But we may

fairly

if Israel had been given to might partly be surmised from the

argue that

ancestor- worship (as

mystery about the grave of Moses) the Prophets would '

Some

witness,

Australian tribes have cemeteries, and I have found one native Billy, to the celebration of the mysteries near one of these

King

burying-plaoes. I

have looked

for

place for so large

I

have not discovered other evidence to this '

adequate. '

Cf. the

effect,

though

The spot selected is usually near the camp,' and the a camp is chosen, naturally, where the supply of food is-

it.

Aryans, Principles of Sociology, p. 314.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

300

The Prophets

not have spared them for their crying.

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.

heedlessly,

though

Mr. Spencer, then, rather

correctly, argues that

'

nomadic habits

are unfavourable to evolution of the ghost-theory.' this gives

away the whole case

!

For,

if

'

Alas,

men began

all

as nomads, and nomadic habits are unfavourable even to

how

the ordinary ghost,

did the Australian and other

nomads develop the Supreme Being, who, ex hypothesi, 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.

is '

'

Mr. Spencer then assigns, as evidence for ancestorworship in

Israel,

mourning dresses, fasting, the law and cutting off the hair for the

against self-bleeding

dead, and the text (Deut. xxvi. 14)

given aught thereof for the dead.'

'

about

'

I have not

Hence, the conclusion

must be that ancestor-worship had developed as far as nomadic habits allowed, before it was repressed by a higher worship.' ^ But whence came that higher worship which seems to have intervened immediately after the cessation of nomadic habits ? There are obvious traces of

expressed

grief

in

a

way among the Hebrews. 'Ye shall not yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes

cut

men lament

for

primitive

the dead' (Deut. xiv.

'Neither shall

1).

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); '

Prmcijples, p. 316.

'

neither shall

men give them the '

Ibid. p. 317.

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH

301

cup of consolation to drink for their father or their

Jews were to be removed from their not make any cuttings in your flesh

mother,' because the

homes.^ for

'

Ye

shall

the dead, nor print any marks upon you.' It

may

be usual to regard

by mourners, as has seen a

man

news

a

of

^

such as cutting,

inflictions,

sacrifices to the ghost of the dead.

strike himself a

not by death, and I venture to fancy and gashings at funerals are merely a m.ore

loss

that cuttings

form of appeal to a counter-irritant of

violent

But one

heavy blow on receiving

again, a token of recklessness caused

and,

grief,

by a sorrow which

One of John Nicholson's native adorers killed himself on news of that warrior's death, This was not a saying, What is left worth living for ? The sacrifice of the sacrifice to the Manes of Nicholson.

makes void the world.

'

'

mourner's hair, as by Achilles, argues a similar indifference

Once more, the

to personal charm. '

They

text in

Psalm

cvi. 28,

joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacri-

fices of

the dead,'

usually taken by commentators as a

is

reference to the ritual of gods

who

are

But

no gods.

it

rather seems to indicate an acquiescence in foreign burial All this additional evidence does not do much to rites.

prove ancestor-worship in Israel, though the secrecy of the burial of Moses,

'

against Beth-peor to this day,' of

may

in a valley of the land of ;

but no

cvi.,

Moab, over

of his sepulchre

indicate a dread of a nascent worship

The

the great leader.'

Psalm

man knoweth

Beth-peor,

is

scene of the defection in

indicated in

Numbers

Israel runs after the girls and the gods of

xxv.,

Moab

where

:

'

And

called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods

Moab

;

and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor.' Psalm cvi. is '

Jeremiah

^

xvi. 6, 7. "

Deuteronomy xxxiv.

6.

Leviticus xix. 28.

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

502

obviously a later restatement

addiction to the

this

of

Moabite gods, and the Psalm adds

they ate the sacrifices

'

of the dead.' It is plain that, for

among

whatever reason, ancestor- worship

the Hebrews was, at the utmost, rudimentary.

Otherwise

it

must have been

denounced by the

clearly

Prophets among the other heresies of

Therefore,

Israel.

the most rudimentary, ancestor-worship in

as being at

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

W.

Oxford.

Eoman and Greek

family,

to the Eev. A.

worship of

head

its

was fully developed, according Every family, like every old was firmly held together by the '

ancestors, the hearth

of the family the priest.

.

.

.

together the families of a tribe was

the worship of

its

was the

the

altar,

The bond which kept

common

its

The

reputed ancestor.

tribe was, of course, the priest of the cult.'

religion,

chief of the

Of course

but what a pity that Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer omitted facts so invaluable to their theory

Eev. Mr. Oxford

know ?

"Well,

'

!

And how

there

oddly enough, of so marked a feature in

but 1

we

Sam.

are referred to 1 XX. 29

Sam.

xx. 29

no

is

does the

direct proof,'

Hebrew

and Judges

religion, xviii. 19.

makes Jonathan say that David wants

to go to a family sacrifice, that

is, a family dinner This hardly covers the large assertions made by

party.

Mr. Oxford.

His second citation

tradict his observation that tribe

was the

xviii., is

is

so unlucky as to con-

of course

'

the chief of the

Micah, in Judges the not chief of his tribe (Ephraim), neither priest of the cult.

even the priest in his of his

'

own

sons

own

who became

house.

He

his priest,'

'

xvii., is

he

consecrated one

till

he got hold

of

'

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH a casual young Levite, and said, a priest,' for ten shekels ^er

303

Be unto me

'

and

suit pi clothes,

and

annum, a

a father

board and lodging.

In place, then, of any remote reference to a chief's

man

who

one tribe

of

we have

his ancestral ghosts,

being priest of

is

member

family chaplain to a

here a

paid rather handsomely to be

moss-troopers of the tribe of

of another tribe.

Dan

Some

then kidnapped this

young Levite, and seized a few idols which Micah had permitted himself to make. And all this,

valuable

according

our

to

ancestor-worship

clerical

authority,

is

evidence

for

!

from some incoherent For example, that learned German cites the story of Micah as a proof that the different This must be so, tribes or clans had different rehgions. young Levite whether it asked the Danites because the All this appears to be derived

speculations of Stade.

to be priest to a clan than to an individual ?

was not better It is as

if

a patron offered a rich living to somebody's

private chaplain, saying that the creditable

and

difference

of

lucrative.

religion

new

position

was more

This would hardly prove a

between the individual and

the

parish.^

Mr. Oxford next avers that the earliest form of the This is Israelite religion was Fetishism or Totemism.' '

another example of Stade's logic.

Finding, as he beheves,

Totemism

in Simeon, Levi, Eachel,

names suggestive

of

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

could, but as,

it

'

Shmt Introdmtion

2

Stade,

i.

403.

to

in

many

regions

(America,

History of AncUnt Israel, pp. 83, 84.

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

304

we find Totemism and the belief in a benevoSupreme Being co-existing among savages, when first observed by Europeans, we cannot possibly say dogmatically whether a rough monotheism or whether Totemism

Australia),

lent

came

first

Israel

(if

Kurnai.

in order of evolution.

This holds as good of

once totemistic)

does of Pawnees or facts, is set

filters

in examinations

^ !

learn

also

German

of

it

into a cheap hand-book, and

and his opinion

We

as

Stade has overlooked these well-known

from Mr. Oxford's popular manual 'Jehovah was not

Biblical conjecture that

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

no

'

the old Israelites

between physical and moral

distinction

evil.

.

.

.

knew The

conception of Jehovah's holiness had nothing moral in (p. 90).

This rather contradicts Wellhausen

ancient primitive peoples

law and morals

for

;

.

.

.

:

'In

it

all

religion furnishes a motive

in the case of

so with such purity and power

none did

as

in

it

that

become of

the

^

Israelites.'

We began

by examining Mr. Huxley's endeavours to

find traces of ancestor-worship (in his opinion the origin of Jehovah-worship) criticised

more dogmatic

now

among

Mr. Spencer's

the Israelites.

efforts in

We

next

the same quest, and the

assertions of Mr. Oxford

and Stade.

We

return to Mr. Huxley's account of the evolution from

ghost-cult to the cult of Jehovah.

From '

Stade,

the Witch of Endor, which no reason to regard as other than a

the history of

Mr. Huxley

sees

406.

i.

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.'

'

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH

305

sincere

statement of what really occurred, he gathers

that the

Witch

Elohim." These Blohim

cried out, 'I see

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,

The

interesting.

however,

point,

is

that Elohim

term equivalent to Eed Indian

Wakan, Melanesian Mana, meaning the

Maori or

is

a

Fijian Kalou, '

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

genus as a ghost

— so Mr. Huxley reasons.

which was supposed to

is '

of the

The

same

difference

Elohim was one of degree, not of kind.' If Jehovah was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the undoubtedly zoomorphic or anthropomorphic exist

between the

why

is it

different

'

" gods of the nations," also

was not thought

have a

to

to be

assumed that he

human shape ?

He

'

teas

human shape, at one time, by some no doubt exists on that head. That, however, not where we demur. We demur when, because an

thought to have a theorists is

:

completely developed) the highest

Elohim

Endor (probably still inby her Elohim, therefore by Mr. Huxley to differ from

Witch

hallucination of the

is

is

of

called

said

a ghost only in degree, not in kind. creative,

Hebrew

differs belief,

Elohim, or El, the

from a ghost in kind, because he, in 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. '

Science

He

and Hebrew

quotes Mariner,^ whose statement

Tradition, p. 299.

''

ii.

127.

X

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

306

avers that there

had no

origin they

Tooboo."

down gods

'

'

idea,

name

His

eternal.

He

Tongan being rather supposing him

a supreme

is

:

atua

but

(Elohim),

unserved by

all

original dis-

human

soul

the

'

All

Tongan gods

atua are not 'original

and unpropitiated by food or

priests,

are

gods,' liba-

the highest God, Ta-li-y-Tooboo, the Eternal of

tion, like

Tonga,

from the body.'

'

and absolutely

criminated from the atua, which are after its separation

to be

a great chief from the top of the sky

is

his making, are carefully

of

of his

Ta-H-y-Tooboo = " Wait-there-

is

to the bottom of the earth.' He, and other

'

'

'

He

occasionally

King), but often a

inspires

How is not

How

the

inspired at

Tooboo, any more than Saul, at

last,

(elective

'

by

all

was

Td-li-y-

inspired by

Jehovah. Surely eternal,

there

difference

in

kind between an

immortal God, and a ghost, though both are

atua, or both are

Many God

call

a

is

phantasm

Elohim

—the unknown X.

people call a ghost '

supernatural,' but of

a dead

'

supernatural

; '

they also

the difference between a

man and

the Deity they would

admit, I conceive, to be a difference of kind.

shown, or tried to show, that the conceptions

We of

'

have

ghost

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 and

'

'

;

Elohim, kalou, wakan are not Gods.

A

ghost-god should receive food or libation.

Mr.

Huxley says that Ti-li-y-Tooboo did so. If the god, 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 '

like Td-li-y-Tooboo,

mataboole who acted as master of the ceremonies

said.

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH " Give

to your god,"

it

a matter of form.'

This '

and

was

offered,

^

though only as

•

In the case

incorrect.

is

it

307

TA-H-y-Tooboo

of

'Before any cup is by the side of the bowl says " The Kava

there is no civp filled for the god.'^

filled the is

man

:

cup"' (which

in the

answers, " Give

it

it

to your

is

'and the mataboole

not),

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.'

'

But

as Ta-li-y-Tooboo

had no

contrary to Mr. Huxley's averment, he was not ghost, or a being of like nature to these.'

'

sacrifice,

a deified

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. But it is a mere error Huxley would have crushed him !

of careless reading, such as It is manifest that

we

all

make

daily.

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. his deities

:

But man

naturally

'

anthropises

'

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 presumpJehovah was a ghost-god, or a god constructed

of the Prophets), these sacrifices afford the best

tion that

on ghostly

lines.

But we have shown that among the lowest and Hebrew

'

Science

2

Mariner,

ii.

205.

races

Tradition, p. 331. '

Op.

cit. p.

335.

X 2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

308

neither are ghosts worshipped by sacrifice, nor does the

Supreme Being, Darumulun

We have

offerings.

of

more advanced

who do not

kupon, then

also instanced

races, sniff

food

Puluga, receive

or

many Supreme Beings

Ahone, and Dendid, and Nyanthe savour of any offerings.

If

the case of Taa-roa), a Supreme Being does

(as in

we may argue

receive sacrifice,

that a piece of animistic

not connected with the Supreme Being in Australia Andaman, not connected with his creed in Virginia or

ritual,

or

(where ghost-gods do receive

Africa

regions

other

be

Supreme Being, who never was a be nothing incredible or

may

sacrifice)

in

from ghost-gods to the

transferred

There seems to

ghost.

illogical in

the theory of such

transference.

On

a

God who never was

the

one

rest)

a ghost

men may come

to

(which are not made to Baiame and

confer sacrifices

because, being in the habit of thus propitiating

set of bodiless powers,

men may

or safe to leave another set

very nature,

man must

clothe

of

all

not think

savages, he leaves his high slave of fetishes

and

God

spectres.

severely alone,

But that

civil

his

human

gods with some

passions and attributes, unless, like a large

it

By

powers out.

number and

practice

is

of

the

makes

against the ghost-theory.

In the attempt to account thus, namely by transference, for the sacrifices to Jehovah, difficulty of

to

sacrifice

our

we

are

met by a

own making. If the Israelites we have shown that

ancestors (as

did not

there

very scant reason for supposing that they did),

is

how

could they transfer to Jehovah the rite which, by our hypothesis, they

are

not proved

to

have

offered

to

ancestors ?

This easier)

,

is

certainly a hard problem, harder (or perhaps

because we

know

so very little of the early history

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH the Hebrews.

of

According to their

309

own

traditions,

had been in touch with all manner of races much more advanced than themselves in material culture, and

Israel

steeped in highly developed polytheistic Animism.

cording to their history, the Israelites incorrigibly after strange gods.

'

It is

went

Ac-

a- whoring

'

impossible, per-

haps, to disentangle the foreign and the native elements. It

Israel

may had

Jehovah. of

'

therefore be tentatively suggested that early its

Ahone

nomadic

habits,'

We

ancestral ghosts. of secular contact

Israel

in a

Being perhaps not yet named

Israel entertained, however, perhaps

by reason

only the scantiest concern about

then find an historical tradition

between Israel and Egypt, from which

emerges with Jehovah for God, and a system of

Eegarding Jehovah as a revived memory

sacrifices.

the moral

Supreme Being

whom

of

must have known was less favoured Andamanese), we might Israel

in extremely remote ages (unless Israel

than Australians, Bushmen, or

him as an adaptation from the among races more settled than Israel,

look on the sacrifices to practices of religion

and more

civilised.'

Speculation on subjects so remote must be conjectural,

but our suggestion would, perhaps, account for sacrifices to Jehovah, paid habits,'

by a race which, by reason

was never much given

of

'

nomadic

to ancestor- worship, but

had been in contact with great sacrificing, polytheistic Mr. Huxley, however, while he seems to civilisations. 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 '

Of course,

abysm

of time)

it

is

may

understood tliat Israel (in the dark backward and have been totemistic, like the Australians, as

also

There was also texts pointed out by Mr. Eobertson Smith seem to hint. worship of teraphim, respect paid to stones and trees, and so forth.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

310

Ta-li-y-Tooboo, of

accounted for as deified ancestors.' course,

one of these gods, as

is

no theory

gives

of

is

how these gods came

the suggestion that

Mr. Huxley

Jehovah.

into belief, except

the polytheistic theology has be-

'

come 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-

This

nations to worship other gods.' '

is

'

monolatry,' and

the ethical code, often of a very high order, comes into

why, we are Nor do we learn out of what polytheistia 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 closer relation with the theological creed,'

not informed.

ancestor-worship,

whom

and without polytheistic gods

to select a heavenly chief.

Whence came Jehovah

the

moral element in the idea

Mr. Huxley supposes

?

Israelites

'

knew nothing

theistic idolaters. :

'

of Jehovah.'

In the day when I chose

of

as

is

God

that the

of

I

am

uncertain).

that I

am

'

up mine Jacob, and made myand

lifted

of Egypt.'

The

Israel,

of

Biblical

Moses's fathers, the

Abraham, enlightened Moses '

the

it),

They were poly-

^

This follows, apparently, from Ezekiel

hand unto the seed of the house self known unto them in the land account

of

that, during their resi-

dence in the land of Goshen (and a fortiori before

XX. 5

frora

in Sinai, giving his

(Exodus

iii.

14

6,

We are to understand that

;

God name

translation

Moses, a religious

reformer, revived an old, and, in the Egyptian bondage,,

a half-obliterated creed of the ancient nomadic BeniIsrael.

They were no longer

to

'

defile

themselves with

the idols of Egypt,' as they had obviously done. '

Scieiice

and Hebrew

Tradition, p. 349.

^

We

P. 351.

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH really

know no more about

says that

Jehovah was

'

311

Wellhausen

the matter.

originally a family or tribal god,

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 either of the family of

'

name of El, And who was El ? ^ a special

current within a powerful '

Moses was not the

circle.'

dis-

first

Probably not, but Mr. Huxley

coverer of the faith.'

seems to think that he was. Wellhausen's and other

we

popular traditions, as

German

ideas

duction to the History of Ancient Israel

W.

the Eev. A.

'

into

filter

'A Short

saw, through

Intro-

(pp. 19, 20),

by

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 reli'

'

gion.

Jehovah, his family or tribal god, perhaps

nally the

by

all

God

the original god of alleges)

'

was taken

as a tribal

god

.... That Jehovah was

not

of the Kenites,

the Israelite tribes

Israel'

the Bible impudently

(as

but was the god of the Kenites,

from Deut.

xxxiii.

2,

origi-

Judges

v.

4,

5,

we

see mainly

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 The second text mentions Jehovah's Mount Paran. going up out of Seir and Sinai. The third text says '

that Jethro, Moses's Kenite (or Midianite) father-in-law,

dwelt

among

of Midian.

the people of Judah

How

all this

impostor,' as the poet says, original

God

;

Jethro being a priest

Moses was a great and that Jehovah was not the

proves that

'

'

of Israel,' but (1) Moses's family or tribal '

History of Israel, p. 443 note.

THE MAKING OF EBLIGION

312

god, or

'

(2)

my inability

the god of the Kenites,' I profess

to comprehend. Wellhausen himself

had explained Jehovah as 'a family or tribal god, either of the family of Moses (tribe It seems to be all of Levi) or of the tribe of Joseph.' one to Mr. Oxford whether Jehovah v^as a god of Moses's a Kenite god.' Yet it really tribe or quite the reverse, '

'

'

makes a good tribes,

deal of difference

speaking one language,

unexampled (within

my

family, possesses, all to

the Creator and

One may ask

tribes.

known

is later

!

For

it

is

in a

one

a family god

accepted as such by

for instances of

of

to the last degree

knowledge) that

itself,

complex tribe,

who all

is

or

also

the other

such a thing in any

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 haU-Arab Semitic race, in

—

people connected with Israel, and

may

very well have

Supreme Being which, in Egypt, likely dimmed, as Exodus asserts, by foreign were to be The learned Stade, to be sure, may disbeUeve religions.

retained traditions of a

in

Israel's

opinion

few

is

sojourn

in Egypt,

but that revolutionary

not necessarily binding on us and involves a

difficulties.

Have

critics

and manual-makers no knowledge

science of comparative religion ?

of the

Are they unaware that

peoples infinitely more backward than

Israel

was

at

the date supposed have already moral Supreme Beings

acknowledged over vast tracts tittle of positive

of territory ?

Have they

a

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 iU-

luck (which Israel denies) of course Israel must have had

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH

313

a secular tradition, however dim, of a Supreme Being.

We must ask for a single

instance of a faniily or tribe, in

a complex of semi-barbaric but not savage tribes of one

owning a private deity who happened to be the Maker and Euler of the world, and, as such, was accepted speech,

by

all

Jehovah came out from

the tribes.

there having been a

was regarded

Theophany

Sinai, because,

mountain

at Sinai, that

as one of his seats."

"We have seen that

seemed

it

to

make no

difference to

Mr. Oxford whether Jehovah was a god of Moses's family

The former

or tribe or a Kenite god.

native of Joseph's family or tribal god)

The

theory.

vpith the other all

that

latter ;

Wellhausen's fancy

we know

of religious

hopelessly inconsistent

is

not of her, religion.

Wellhausen's inconsistent

is

inconsistent with

development

with Exodus

Moses's Kenite wife reproaches his,

Each

Stade's.^

is

(with the alteris

him

:

Stade's

is

24-26, where

iv.

for a

ceremony

of

Therefore the Kenite differed

from the Hebrew sacra.

The passage critics to

is

very extraordinary, and

be very archaic.

said

is

by

After the revelation of the

Burning Bush, Jehovah met Moses and his Kenite

wife,

Jehovah was anxious to slay Moses, nobody ever knew why, so Zipporah appeased Jehovah's wrath by circumcising her boy with a Zipporah, and their child, at a khan.

fiint. '

'A bloody husband

art

because of the circumcision

not a Kenite practice. does not

look as

if

'

thou to me,' she

— an Egyptian, but

Whatever

all

this

said,

clearly

may mean,

Zipporah expected such

rites

it

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 Bel. of Semites.

scholar, or *

an expert in Biblical

Oeschichte des Volkes Israel,

i.

130.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

314

one

criticism,

may

protest

manual - reading

the

middle classes of

and (by

theory so vague, contradictory,

impossible as Mr. Oxford collects from

Of course, the whole

mere matter

M. Eenan

a

analogy) so

all

German

writers.

subject, so dogmatically handled, is

of dissentient opinion

derives the

name

of

from Aramaised Chaldseanism.' '

was long anterior

presentation to

against the

intellectual

•

among scholars.

Thus

Jehovah from Assyria, In that case the name

But

to the residence in Egypt.

again,

perhaps Jehovah was a local god of Sinai, or a provincial deity in Palestine.^

He was known

who

names

to very ancient sages,

El Shaddai and Elohim. In short, we have no certainty on the subject.' I need hardly say, perhaps, that I have no antiquated preferred such

as

Assuredly the Bible

prejudice against Biblical criticism.

must be studied linguistically,

like

any other collection

and in the

historically,

The

parative method.

documents,

com-

leading ideas of Wellhausen, for

example, are conspicuous for acumen

man

of

light of the

the humblest lay-

:

But one may protest against criticising the Bible, or Homer, by methods like those which prove Shakspeare to have been Bacon. One must protest, can see that.

and probably

too, against the presentation of inconsistent

baseless

critical

hypotheses in the dogmatic brevity of

cheap handbooks.

whence

Yet again,

Jehovah

?

comes

the moral

Mr. Huxley thinks that

it

the ethical practice and theory of Egypt. tian

Book

of the

Dead,

'

sins

du Peuple

in

came from In the Egyp-

a sort of Guide to Spirit Land,'

there are moral chapters

Amenti what

element

possibly

;

the ghost

tells his

judges in

Many

he has not committed.

of

'

Histoire

'

See Professor Eobertson's Early Religion of Israel for a list of these the occasional vagaries of

d'lsraSl, citing Sohrader, p. 23.

conjectures, and, generally, for criticisms of critics.

''

Op.

cit. p.

85.

THEORIES OF JEHOVAH

315

sins are forbidden in the Ten Commandments. They are just as much forbidden in the precepts of Darumulun or Pundjel. Moses did not need the Book of the Dead to teach him elementary morals. From the mysteries of Mtanga or Pundjel he might have learned,

these

also,

had he been present, to love his neighbour as himJehovah, or of El, retained only as

If the creed of

self.

much

ethics as

of

is

under divine sanction among the

Kurnai, adaptation from the

Book of the Dead was

super-

fluous.

The

care for the departed,

the ritual of the Ka, the

intense pre-occupation v?ith the future

more than the

Book

of the

Dead

cared for none of these

none

of these, or very httle of

Egypt.

these, out of the land of

But as it

as

which, far

—Israel

animistic things, brought

very eclectic

life,

morality, are the essential characteristics of

its

he took

;

only the

Moses was certainly morality of

Egypt.

Mr. Huxley advances this opinion tentatively,

having no secure historical authority about Moses,

Whence came the moral One may surmise that it was the

hardly answers our question.

element in Jehovah

?

survival of the primitive divinely sanctioned ethics of the

ancient savage ancestors of the Israelite, as to the Kurnai, before they knife, or seed to sow, or

over their heads.

had a

known or

pot,

to them,

a bronze

sheep to herd, or even a tent

In the counsels of eternity Israel wa&

chosen to keep burning, however obscured with smoke of sacrifice, that

of

the earth,

'

flame which illumines the darkest placesa light to lighten the Gentiles, and the

glory of thy people Israel

whence

'

—a

flame

how

litten

shining, history cannot inform us,

pology can but conjecture.

Here

a light

and anthro-

scientific nescience is

wiser than the cocksureness of popular science, with her

ghosts and fetish -stones,

and gods that sprang from

'

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

316

which ghosts, however, could not be developed, owing to nomadic habits. It appears, then, if our general suggestion meets with

ghosts,

any acceptance, that what occurred in the development of Hebrew religion was precisely what the Bible tells us This must necessarily seem highly paradid occur. but the whole trend of our doxical to our generation provisional system makes in favour of the paradox. If savage nomadic Israel had the higher religious concep;

tions proved to exist

among

races, these conceptions

genius.

They might,

several of the lowest

known

might be revived by a leader

in a crisis of tribal fortunes,

of

become

new national sentiment. Obsome 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 fiammantia mcenia 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 the rallying point of a scured, in

'

—

—

—

eternal

life

—the faith of Israel enlightened the world.

what occurred, according to the Old and New Testaments. All this is just what, on our hjrpothesis, 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 All this

is

precisely

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

To

Moses and the Prophets.

this result the Logos, as Socrates says, has led us,

by the path

of anthropology.

— 317

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

not an exhaustive survey of creeds. obvious, but

may

;

be no more than a sketch

here be stated.

Its limitations are

The higher and even

the lower polytheisms are only alluded to in passing, our

view the conception of a

object being to keep well in

Supreme, or practically Supreme, Being, from the lowest

human

stages of

culture

theism that conception itself

up

to Christianity.

'

In poly-

necessarily obscured, showing

is

dimly either in the Prytanis, or President of the

Immortals, such as Zeus

;

the Immortals

Mr.

;

or in

where the god addressed for the

or in Fate, behind and above

moment, envisaged

something

like a

Max

—Indra,

Miiller's

or

as supreme,

monotheistic

spirit

Henotheism,

Soma, or Agni

;

and

or,

is

—

is,

adored in the

finally, in

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

and are all

polytheisms easily take their position in easily intelligible.

known

religions;

line,

Space forbids a discussion of

only typical specimens have been

»

:

'

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

318 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

Dr. Brinton says,

may

long ere

'

well have begun in days, as

man had

the heavens material and

we know,

for all

evolved.

Thus,

Chinese religion

if

God

asked himself, " Are

spiritual?"'

before the idea of

'

contains nothing

it

spirit

—perhaps,

'

had been

more august, the

so far, beneath that of the Zunis, or

is,

the creed in Taa-roa, in Beings

were before earth was or sky was.

who are eternal, who 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

name

Heaven,

of Tien,

his religious teaching, the

for that

known

to

more ancient

and used in more ancient books— Shang-ti, the personal ruling deity.' If so, China too has its ancient religion,

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.' '

—

This, of course, settled

by

is

Sinologists.

purely a question of evidence, to be If the personal

Supreme Being,

Shang-ti, occupies in older documents the situation held

by Tien (Heaven) in Confucius's later system, why are to say that Confucius, by putting forward Heaven in place of Shang-ti, was restoring an older conception?

we

'

Prim. Cult.

ii.

352.

:

CONCLUSION

319

Mr. Tylor's affection for his theory leads him, perhaps, to that opinion

The

;

while

my

my theory

affection for

documentary evidence in

to prefer

leads

me

its favour.

As

question can only be settled by specialists.

matters stand,

seems to

it

me

probable that ancient

China possessed a Supreme Personal Being, more remote and original than Heaven, just as the Zunis do. On the lovfer

plane,

Chinese religion

overrun, as everyone

is

knows, by Animism and ancestor- worship. powerful that

it

has given

so

is

a native theory of

to

rise

The departmental

Buhemerism.

This

deities of

Chinese poly-

theism 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 the God of Gamblers was un dScave.' ^ of sorrow ;

;

These are not statements

On

Euhemeristic theory. should is

now

be a god

;

of

fact,

but of Chinese Confucius

that hypothesis,

but of course he

is

not

;

his spirit

merely localised in his temple, where the Emperor him twice a year as ancestral spirits are

worships

worshipped.

Every

theorist will force facts into

contrary to mine.

On

his

Chinese facts are

see that the

system, but I do not

harmony with

the highest plane

is

either

a

Supreme Being, Shang-ti, or there is Tien, Heaven them necessarily Then there is Animism. to anything owing, in origin, Eeligion (which the political reflection of the Emperor on personal

(with Earth, parent of men), neither of

cannot exist where there

and therefore must be of spirits

is

ancestral or not, '

no Emperor, King, or Chief,

late),

there

is

the animistic rabble

and there

Abridged from Prim. Cult,

ii.

is

119.

departmental

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

320

polytheism.

by men

The

and furnished Nothing shows or

spirits are, of course, fed

in the usual symbolical way.

hints that Shang-ti

merely an imaginary ideahsed

is

first

Indeed, about all such explanations of the Being (say among the Kurnai) as an idealised Supreme

ancestor.

imaginary follows

:

'

first ancestor, M. EeYille justly observes Not only have we seen that, in wide regions

as of

the uncivilised world, the worship of ancestors has invaded a domain previously occupied by " Naturism " and

properly so called, that it further,

but,

is,

Animism

therefore, posterior to these

we do not understand, in Mr. Spencer's many places, the first ancestor is the

system, why, in so

Maker,

if

not the Creator of the world. Master of Ufe and

death, and possessor of divine powers, not held by any of

This proves that

his descendants.

it

was not the

first

who became God, in the belief of his descendants, but much rather the Divine Maker and Beginner of all, ancestor

who,

in

ancestor.'

the

creed of

his adorers,

became the

first

'

Our task has been

limited, in this way,

mainly to

examination of the religion of some of the very lowest races,

The

and

such as Judaism.

of the highest world-religions,

historical aspect of Christianity, as arising in the Life,

Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, would demand a '

Histoire des Beligions,

observed, differs from

ii.

237, note.

mine in that he

M.

E6ville's system,

it

will be

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. ESville 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, '

'

est n^oessairement

But M. E^ville says, L'objet de la religion humaiue nn esprit' (ProUgomines, 107). This does not seem

consistent with his

own

in

'

Original Gods.'

'

theory.

'

CONCLUSION

32]

This would, in part, be concerned with

separate treatise.

the attempts to find in the narratives

concerning our

Lord, a large admixture of the mythology and ritual

connected with the sacrificed Bex Nemorensis, and whatever else survives in our rural Jack-in-the-Green.^

After these apologies for the limitations of this essay,

we may survey the backward showing that savages

may

We

track.

began

stumble, and have stumbled,

on theories not inconsistent with science, but not recently discovered

by

by

The

science.

till

electric origin of the

Amrora Borealis (whether absolutely certain or not) was an example another was the ef&cacy of suggestion,' '

;

especially for curative purposes. that,

if

savages blundered

God and false.

We

please) into a belief in

not therefore necessarily and essentially

then stated our purpose of examining the

supernormal

alleged

you

the Soul, however obscurely envisaged, these

were

beliefs

(if

It was, therefore, hinted

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, exactly the kind of evidence

on which

all

we have

anthropological

The relative weakness of that evidence, more and better evidence, we would be the Our deny, indeed it is part of our case.

science reposes.

our need of

very last to

existing evidence will hardly support

Anyone who M. Eeville's

is '

tralians

(ii.

'

Mdlanesiens,'

116-143),

when he

eminent French authority '

religion.

in doubt on that head has only to read

Les Eehgions des Peuples

under the heads '

any theory of

is

'

Non-Civilis^s,

Mincopies,' will

'

Les Aus-

observe that this

ignorant of the facts about

Compare Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough with Mr. Grant

Allen's Evolution

of the Idea of Ood.

T

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

322

In 1883 they had not come

these races here produced.

Such minute and

within his ken.

men

by

careful inquiries

closely intimate with the peoples concerned, as Dr.

Codrington's, Mr. Howitt's, Mr. Man's, and the authori-

compiled by Mr. Brough Smyth, were unfamiliar to

ties

M.

to us,

may

new

Thus, in turn,

Eeville.

my

upset

of scientific theorising

Having thus

on the history

justified

is

of the essence

of religion.

our evidence for the savage

in supernormal phenomena,

we turned

unknown

facts, or facts

This peril

theory.

as before

belief

anthropologists,

to a court of psychologists in defence of our

evidence for the fact of exactly the same supernormal

phenomena

in civilised experience.

subjective

for

we had

pathy,

We

pointed out that say of

psychological

experiences,

precisely the

same evidence

tele-

as all non-

experimental psychology must and does rest upon.

we have even experimental thought-transference.

ments

We

evidence, in experiments in

have

of subjective experience.

chiefly,

as, in practical life,

is

however,

state-

For the coincidence

such experience with imknown events evidence

Nay,

we have

of

such

admitted by courts

of

law.

Experimental psychology,

ments

conducted

under

of course, relies

the eyes of

on experi-

the expert, for

example, by hypnotism or otherwise, under Dr. Hack

Tuke, Professor James, M. Eichet, M. Janet. dence

is

subject.

section

The

evi-

the conduct rather than the statements of the

There (I

is

regret

also physiological experiment, to

say)

and post-mortem

by

vivi-

dissection.

But non-experimental psychology reposes on the

self-

examination of the student, and on the statements

of

made to him by persons whom The psychologist, however, if he

psychological experiences

he thinks he can be, as

trust.

Mr. Galton says,

'

unimaginative in the

strict

but

— CONCLUSION

323

unusual sense of that ambiguous word,' needs JVTr. Galton's

"word

of warning.'

He

asked

is

'

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 which his own experience can afford little Mr. Galton had to warn the unimaginative if any clue.' 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 find

much

to '

'

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.

many

of

All

whom

this

was

still (at

new to psychologists, many popular psychologists

entirely

least

of the press) appear to be unacquainted with the circum-

One of them informed me, quite gravely, that never had an hallucination,' therefore his mind

stances. '

he

being sane and healthy

—the inference seemed

no sane and healthy mind was ever Galton has replied to that argument logically,

the whole

field of

to be that

hallucinated. !

His reply

covers,

psychological faculties

by Mr. Sully, who is an imaginative psychologist. It covers the whole field of automatism regarded, for example,

Mr. little

not exactly

(as in auto-

matic writing) perhaps of the divining rod, certainly of crystal visions

and

of occasional hallucinations,

Galton, in this last case, expressly declares. at least

need not be told that such

more than other human

faculties, '

/.

A.

as

Mr.

Psychologists

faculties cannot,

any

be always evoked for

I. X. 85.

Y 2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

324

Our evidence

study and experiment.

and experiences, then, psychologist

is

usually of the class on which the-

But,

relies.

for these faculties-

when the psychologist, following-

Leibnitz, Sir William Hamilton, and Kant, discusses the

Subconscious

(for

example, knowledge, often complex and

we demonstrated by

abundant, unconsciously acquired)

examples that the psychologist will contentedly repose on evidence which

is

not evidence at

an undated, unlocalised legend

all.

of

He

vdll

Coleridge,

swallow 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. at

all,

This legend do psychologists accept on no evidence 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 him for a fact to which he

evidence will content possesses,

at

least,

analogies in

accredited experience,

than for a fact (say telepathic crystal-gazing) to which he knows, in experience, nothing analogous.

the mythical

German handmaid, he has

Thus, for

the analogy of

languages learned in childhood, or passages got up by rote,

being forgotten and brought back to ordinary con-

scious

memory,

or delirious

or shortly before death.

memory, during an

illness,

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 tele-

CONCLUSION

325

pathic crystal-gazing, he will probably decline to examine ours.

would

I

between

first

revived

draw

his

attention to the difference

memory of in known

rote (as Greek, in

but overheard

examples), or learned by

an anecdote

reproduction of a language not

mythical maid)

'

In

the difficulty

....

drawn

distinction here

that for proof of the

the distinct-

is,

language over-

German

so great

is

girl's

rumour

case

of a

and obvious

we need

rumour,

by Hamilton, Maudsley, Carpenter,

common run

rote,

....''

a mere sound

evidence than Coleridge's is,

by

that the original

is

—that

An unknown

ness—of the reproduction.

The

or learned

this instance (that of the

impressions had not the strength

is

and verbal

of Goethe's),

known

— each passage probably but once— as some-

body recited fragments.

heard

known

a language once

Welsh

(Breton and

Du

better

cited, as it

Prel,

and the

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

" impossibility," except a contradiction in terms.'

an

To

^

the horror of some of his admirers, Mr. Huxley would not the existence of demons and demoniacal possession

call *

impossible.'

Hume. but, '

Mr. Huxley was no blind follower

*

do not

I, too,

call Coleridge's tale 'impossible,'

unlike the psychologists, I refuse to accept

Bardolph's security.'

in swallowing

And

Coleridge's

they do refuse)

of

I contrast

legend,

their

it

on

conduct,

with their refusal

(if

to accept the evidence for the auto-

matic writing of not-consciously-known languages

(as

eleventh-century French poetry and prose by Mr.

-of '

"

Massey.

Note to

Du

Prel,

Philosophy of Mysticism, ii. ' Op. p. 197.

Science mid. Christian Tradition,

19. cit. p.

195.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

326

Schiller), or their refusal

(if

the evidence for telepathic

supernormal

exhibitions

they do refuse) to look at

crystal-gazing, or faculty,

of

attested

any

other-

by

living,

and honourable persons. I wish I saw a way for orthodox unimaginative psychology out of

its

dilemma.

After offering to anthropologists and these

considerations,

examined

which

I

the relations of science to

historically

marvellous,' showing for example his

a priori theory

to investigate,

psychologists

purposely reiterate,

how Hume,

of the impossible,

because they were

'

we 'the

following

would have declined 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.

from his work a

collected

phenomena

series of alleged

We

then

supernormal

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 in savage belief, all

experiences,

civilised

originate,

they

if

among

occurred,

as

they

are

would help to and would very strongly support the savage

universally said to do,

savages,

doctrine of souls, the base of religion in the theory of

But

English anthropologists. doctrine of

'

spirits

'

apart from the

savage

(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

however

the

belief

attained,

in

souls

how was

and ghosts and

spirits,

the idea of a Supreme Being

CONCLUSION to be evolved out of that belief ?

327

We

showed

that, taking

the creed as found in the lowest races, the' processes put

by anthropologists could not account for its The facts would not fit into, but contradicted, evolution.

forward

The necessary

the anthropological theory. ditions

social con-

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-

Supreme Being,

worship, the belief in a

flourished abun-

dantly.

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

was in

belief in

Animism

We

full vigour.

{ex

hypothesi the earlier)

by

demonstrated

facts

that

Anthropology had simplified her task by ignoring that essential feature,

the prevalent

alliance

of ethics with

and

least developed

religion, in the creed of the lowest races.

Here, happily,

we have

an earnest animist, Mr.

Im

not only the evidence of

Thurn, on our

of a distinguished Semitic scholar, the late

Smith.

'

We

was a moral

but that

Mr. Robertson

see that even in its rudest forms Eeligion force, the

powers that

man

the side of social order and moral law the gods

side,

was a motive

to

;

reveres were on

and the fear of

enforce the laws of society,

Wellhausen has which were also the laws of morality.' already been cited to the same effect. However, the facts proving that much of the Deca'

logue and 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 reli-

Eeligion of the Semites, p. 53.

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

328

gions of the most remote and backward races, of races least contaminated with Christian or Islamite teaching.

was derived from ancient secret tribal mysteries, and sacred native hymns. We found a relatively Supreme Being, a Creator, 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

Our and

when

evidence,

possible,

anthropological theory of the evolution of

God

out of

ghosts in no vray explains the facts in the savage conception of a

Supreme Being.

notion of

spirit,'

logically

'

needed

We

then argued that the

was not Supreme Being

derived from ghost-belief,

for the conception of a

was detrimental to the conception, was denied to be part of the The Supreme Being, thus regarded, may be

in its earliest form,

and, by

much

conception.

evidence,

(though he cannot historically be shovra to be) prior to the

first

We

notion of ghost and separable souls.

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, ghostgods, 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

tocratic

back on the Supreme Eternal.

institutions

fostered polytheism with

Aris-

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

defended.

We observed

and

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 rrmst degenerate, under social condi-

CONCLUSION iions, as civilisation advanced.

may

Next, studying what

we

the restoration of Jehovah, under the great

call

Prophets of Israel, rally,

329

we noted

were strangely

that they, and Israel gene-

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 Eome.

combined what was good in Animism, the individual soul as an immortal spirit

Christianity, last,

the care for

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

apparently inconsistent) with the hypothesis of

is

evolution.

must be emphatically insisted on, under all reserves.' While these four

All this,

pounded say

'

it

the

(1)

Australian

unpropitiated

Moral

(2)

(3)

the relatively Supreme Being involved in

and

sacrifice, as in Polynesia,

(4)

pro-

stages,

Being,

somewhat moral,

the African neglected Being,

still

is

human

the Moral Being rein-

stated philosophically, or 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 Hght thrown by

the anthropological theory, in the hands whether of Mr. Tylor, Mr. Spencer, interesting thesis.

M.

E^ville, or

work comes nearest

We An

to our provisional hypo-

only ask for suspense of judgment, and for

dogmas of modern manualthem certainly appears to be

hesitation in accepting the

makers.

Mr. Jevons, whose

exception to

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

330

Mr. Clodd, (signed C.)

if

we may

safely attribute to

him

a review

of Mr. Grant Allen's Evolution of the Idea '

of

God.'

We

fear that all our speculations vdll remain summaries of probabilities. No documents are extant to enlighten us we have only mobile, complex and confused ideas, incarnate in eccentric, often contradictory That this character attaches to such ideas theories. should keep us on guard against framing theories whose '

;

symmetry

is

Chronicle,'

December

sometimes

Nothing excites

my own

hypothesis more than fit

their

condemnation' ('Daily

10, 1897).

suspicion of

symmetry.

its

my

provisional

It really

seems to

the facts, as they appear to me, too neatly.

suggest, however, that ancient savage sacred

I

would

hymns, and

practices in the mysteries, are really rather of the nature of

documents

'

observations of

more so, at least, than the casual 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,

our thoughts about religion?

tendency

The

?

What

least dubious effect

if

is their

would

any, on

practical

be, I hope, to

prevent us from accepting the anthropological theory of religion, or

have

any other theory, as a foregone conclusion. I show how dim is our knowledge, how weak,

tried to

often, is our evidence,

savages

all

in different degrees, is earlier

and

that, finding

the elements of

we

all

among

the lowest

religions already developed

cannot, historically, say that one

than another.

This point of priority

we can

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

never historically

a

God and no

settle.

ghosts,

we

could not be historically certain

that a higher had not obliterated a lower creed.

For

;

CONCLUSION

331-

these reasons dogmatic decisions

about the origin of

reUgion seem unworthy of science.

They

more

any student who goes so

futile to

appear yet

will

me

with

far

as to

doubt whether the highest gods of the lowest races could be developed, or can be shown to have been developed, by

way

To him who reaches

of the ghost-theory.

this point

the whole animistic doctrine of ghosts as the one

The main

religion will appear to be imperilled.

of

practical

be hesitation about accepting the latest

result, then, will

when backed by

scientific opinion,

even

published in

primers.

On

germ

little

great names, and

the hypothesis here offered to criticism there are

two chief sources of Beligion,

we know

the

(1)

how

belief,

men

Father and Judge of

the belief

(2)

;

attained

omniscient

not,' in a powerful, moral, eternal,

(probably

developed out of experiences normal and supernormal) in

somewhat

man which may

of

second belief

is not,

survive the grave.

needed as given material

logically,

for the first, in its apparently earliest form. all

we know, be

logically.

But

It

may,

for

the later of the two beliefs, chrono-

was necessary to religion by which advancing the Mighty Being involved in

this belief, too,

as finally supplying a formula

first,

intellects could conceive of

the former creed his

This

own

child of the

and in

God

whom

next, as elevating man's conception of

;

nature.

By in

the second belief he becomes the

whom,

perhaps, he already trusted,

he has his being, a being not destined to

perish with the death of the body.

the child but the heir of God, a

'

capable of entering into eternal fluence of this belief

From

thus not only

life.

On

the moral in-

superfluous to dwell.

the most backward races historically

us, to those of '

it is

Man is

nurseling of immortality,'

our

The hypothesis

own

of St.

status, all

known

have been more or

Paul seems not the most unsatisfactory.

to

less-

;

:

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

332

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

whatever pos-

slight interest in

thimious fortunes might await individual

extended the second, or

civilised peoples, say the Greeks,

animistic theory, into forms

Other

souls.

beautiful

of

fantasy, the

material of art. Yet both in Greece and Eome, as we learn from the Eepublic (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

Campo Santo, there existed, among the people, what was unknown to the Hebrews, an extreme anxiety about Pisan

the posthumous fortunes and possible punishment of the individual sellers

A

soul.

made

kind of pardoners and indulgence-

For

a living out of that anxiety in Greece.

the Greek pardoners,

who

an

testify to

interest in the

iuture happiness of the soul not found in Israel, Mr. Jevons

may '

be cited

The

agyrtes professed by

men from the

means

of his rites to purify

and had themselves committed so to secure to those whom he purified an exemption from the evil lot in the next world which awaited those who were A magic mirror (crystal-gazing) was not initiated.' sins they

.

'

among

'

In Egypt a moral Ufe did immortal reward.

There was

of the spells that baffle the

in

the

not

souls.

the

Book

to

suffice

secure

knowledge

also required

demons who,

in Amenti, as

Eed Indian and Polynesian Hades,

for

.

'

'

his properties.'

.

lie

in wait

That knowledge was contained in copies of

the

Dead

—the

of

gagne-pain of priests and

scribes.

Early '

Israel,

having, as far as

Introd. to Hist, of Bel. p. 333

;

we know,

a singular

Aristoph. Frogs, 159.

CONCLUSION

333

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

Greek

deities.

Eternal for

some

freakish, corruptible

philosophy could hardly restore that

whom

whom whom the

the Prophets battled in Israel

know and

of the lowest savages

animistic theory or

crowd

its

fear

;

;

everywhere obscures with

cult

its

hungry, cruel, interested, food-propitiated ghost-

of

In the rehgion of our Lord and the Apostles the two currents of faith in one righteous God and care for God is the individual soul were purified and combined. a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him gods.

'

in spirit is

and in

in the

hands

sacrifice or

Man

truth.'

of a

monk's

God

also is a spirit, and, as such,

not to be propitiated by man's

We

ritual.

know how

this doctrine

was again disturbed by the Animism, in effect, and by Too the sacrifice and ritual of the Mediaeval Church. eager to be all things to all men,' the august and bene'

ficent

Mother

Animism

in

of

Christendom

new forms

popular ceremonial

readmitted the earlier

of saint-worship, pilgrimage,

—things

apart from, but

commonly

supposed to be substitutes for, righteousness of Hfe the selflessness enjoined in savage mysteries. softness,

no

less

than

and

For the

men's hearts,

for the hardness of

these things were ordained:

and

such as masses for the

beloved dead.

Modern thought has deanthropomorphised what was left of left

anthropomorphic in

us for God, at most,

'

religion, and, in the end,

a stream of tendency

for righteousness,' or an energy

able

—the ghost of a ghost.

belief in

which

man

has

making

unknown and unknow-

Eor the

soul,

by virtue

raised himself in his

own

of his

esteem.

— '

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

334

and,

more

ethical standing, is left to us a

or less, in

negation or a wistful doubt.

To

modern

this part of

scientific

teaching the earlier

By

position of this essay suggests a demurrer. tradition of

and

belief in

the low races, by attested

among

of experience

phenomena

of the

same kinds

the higher races, I have ventured to

we are not merely brain that man we know not how, in we know not what— ;

try to suggest that

has his part,

aid of the

supernormal phenomena among

'

'

has faculties and vision scarcely conditioned by the limits

The evidence

normal purview.

of his

with matters often

from the deer's

trivial, like

what would

which yet are cognate with an potency of the universe. Not being

hide,

illimitable, essential

away these

able to explain

of all this deals

the electric sparks rubbed

facts, or, in this place, to offer

necessarily be a premature theory of them,

I regard them, though they seem shadowy, as grounds of hope, or, at least, as tokens that

Not now

despair.

men

need not yet

time have weak things

for the first

of the earth been chosen to confound things strong.

have

men

among

of this opinion been always the weakest

the

are

feeblest

Socrates,

Cromwell, Charles Gordon,

St.

Pascal,

Theresa,

Nor ;

not

Napoleon,

and

Jeanne

d'Arc. I

am

perfectly

aware that

the

of the earlier part of this essay

which the argument produce on

must

superstitiousness injure

of the latter part

critical opinion.

way depends on what we

effect

Yet that argument in no

—on which the theory of

may have

been based.

religion as probably beginning in a kind of is

any

might possibly

think about the phenomena

normal, supernormal, or illusory ghost, soul, or spirit

'

It exhibits

Theism, which

then superseded, in some degree, or even corrupted,

by Animism

in

all its

varieties.

Finally, the exclusive

CONCLUSION Theism

of Israel receives its

Animism, and emerges

335

complement

in a purified

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

comparison of

civilised

and savage

bias, the systematic

beliefs

and alleged

experiences of this kind cannot wisely be neglected by

Anthropology.

Humani

nihil

a

se

alienum putat.

'

APPENDICES APPENDIX A OPPOSITIONS OP 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.' Herr Parish is, at present, opposed to the theory that the Census estabhshes a telepathic cause in the so-called '

'

stories, put forward,' as he says, with due and based on an astonishing mass of materials,

coincidental

reserve,

to

'

'

'

some extent critically handled.' He first demurs to an allowance

of twelve hours and death but, if we reflect that twelve hours is little even in a year, coincidences within twelve hours, it may be admitted, donnent d, 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 Eeport. 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 Nobody would casting a fly for practice, on a lawn. think of disputing the fact that I really had such a dream, for the coincidence of hallucination

'

Walter Scott.

;

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

338

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 Such coincidental dreams are necessarily 'false do. 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.' 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 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 pat, 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 ^ 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, 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. '

—

'

'

'

my

:

:

'

My '

•

Parish, p. 278.

2

JUd. pp. 282, 283.

— APPENDIX A

339

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 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. 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. 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

memory

We

We

'

'

'

veridical hallucinations. them as old wives' fables

Not that we should dismiss an all too common method or '

—

even doubt the narrator's good

—

We

should treat them like tales of big fish that get away sometimes there is good corroborative evidence that they really were big shall return to these false fish, sometimes not. memories. Was there a coincidence at all in the Society's cases printed in the Census ? Herr Parish thinks three of the In one case is a selected twenty-six cases very dubious. possible margin of four days, another (wrongly numbered by the way) does not occur at all among the twentysix. In the third, Herr Parish is wrong in his statement.^ 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 Unluckily Herr Parish only criticises it really was. these three cases, how accurately we have remarked. He had no room for more. Herr Parish next censures the probable selection of faith.'

;

We

•

P. 287, Mr. Sims, Proceedings, x. 230. z

2

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

340

good cases by collectors, on which the editors of the Census have already made observations, as they have alsomade 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 This assertion of Herr Parish's near relative or friend.' as years is so erroneous that the Eeport expressly says '

'

'

recede into the distance,' the proportion of the hallucinations that are remembered in them to those which are Again, is very large.' forgotten, or at least ignored, 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.'^ Yet Herr Parish avers that, in all calculations, it is assumed that hallucinations are equally readily recalled Once more, the Eeport says whether impressive or not It is not the case that coincidental (and im(p. 246), pressive) hallucinations are as easily subject to oblivion The as non-coincidental, and non-impressive ones. 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 By (p. 289) 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 '

'

!

'

'

'

'

.

!

'

Parish pp. 288, 289.

'

Beport, p. 68.

APPENDIX A

How

341

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 influenced, it is true, by other considera•of the report (which is not the case), 'have sought to turn the tions 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

Herr Parish, an honourable and clearinto this maze of incorrect and contradictory assertions? It is interesting to try to trace the causes of such iion-veridical illusions, to find the points One may de rep&re of these literary hallucinations. 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,' not observing that it was no longer accurate or appropriate. After this odd passage, Herr Parish argues that a hallucination is regarded by the English veridical coincidental,' even when external circumauthors as stances 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 hkely, a priori, to beget An hallucination is begotten, quite an hallucination. naturally; and so, if it happens to coincide with an headed

led

critic,

'

'

'

'

'

'

—

—

event,

the coincidence should not count

—

it

is

purely

fortuitous.^

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 Here is the scientific waistcoat with a shiny back.^ The shimmer of a reflectexplanation of Herr Parish '

:

ing 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 impres'

p. 274, note 1.

^

Parish, p. 290.

'

Beport, p. 297.

'

342

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

' I ask any lady whether she, .consciously or subconsciously, associates the men she knows with theHerr Parish's would be a backs of their waistcoats. brilhantly 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 Gentlemen, and' case, but a waistcoat with a shiny bach. especially old gentlemen who go about in bath-chairs(like the man in this story), don't habitually take off theircoats and show the backs of their waistcoats to ladies of nineteen in England. And, if Herr Parish had cared toread 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 thisinstance 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 Parisli'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 famihar (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 f 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-

sion.'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

"

Parish p. 290.

'

;

APPENDIX A statistics,

he would

343

have far too large a proportion laws of chance to Allow, if we are

still

of coincidences for the

by these statistics His next argument

to go

at all. practically

is

that hallucinations

are always only a kind of dreams.' 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