Kitabı oku: «Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume I», sayfa 20

Beyond this complication of governmental structure many societies do not progress; but in some, a further development takes place. Our own case best illustrates this further development and its further analogies. To kings and their ministries have been added, in England, other great directive centres, exercising a control which, at first small, has been gradually becoming predominant: as with the great governing ganglia which especially distinguish the highest classes of living beings. Strange as the assertion will be thought, our Houses of Parliament discharge, in the social economy, functions which are in sundry respects comparable to those discharged by the cerebral masses in a vertebrate animal. As it is in the nature of a single ganglion to be affected only by special stimuli from particular parts of the body; so it is in the nature of a single ruler to be swayed in his acts by exclusive personal or class interests. As it is in the nature of a cluster of ganglia, connected with the primary one, to convey to it a greater variety of influences from more numerous organs, and thus to make its acts conform to more numerous requirements; so it is in the nature of the subsidiary controlling powers surrounding a king to adapt his rule to a greater number of public exigencies. And as it is in the nature of those great and latest-developed ganglia which distinguish the higher animals, to interpret and combine the multiplied and varied impressions conveyed to them from all parts of the system, and to regulate the actions in such way as duly to regard them all; so it is in the nature of those great and latest-developed legislative bodies which distinguish the most advanced societies, to interpret and combine the wishes of all classes and localities, and to make laws in harmony with the general wants. We may describe the office of the brain as that of averaging the interests of life, physical, intellectual, moral; and a good brain is one in which the desires answering to these respective interests are so balanced, that the conduct they jointly dictate, sacrifices none of them. Similarly, we may describe the office of a Parliament as that of averaging the interests of the various classes in a community; and a good Parliament is one in which the parties answering to these respective interests are so balanced, that their united legislation allows to each class as much as consists with the claims of the rest. Besides being comparable in their duties, these great directive centres, social and individual, are comparable in the processes by which their duties are discharged. The cerebrum is not occupied with direct impressions from without but with the ideas of such impressions. Instead of the actual sensations produced in the body, and directly appreciated by the sensory ganglia, or primitive nervous centres, the cerebrum receives only the representations of these sensations; and its consciousness is called representative consciousness, to distinguish it from the original or presentative consciousness. Is it not significant that we have hit on the same word to distinguish the function of our House of Commons? We call it a representative body, because the interests with which it deals are not directly presented to it, but represented to it by its various members; and a debate is a conflict of representations of the results likely to follow from a proposed course – a description which applies with equal truth to a debate in the individual consciousness. In both cases, too, these great governing masses take no part in the executive functions. As, after a conflict in the cerebrum, those desires which finally predominate act on the subjacent ganglia, and through their instrumentality determine the bodily actions; so the parties which, after a parliamentary struggle, gain the victory, do not themselves carry out their wishes, but get them carried out by the executive divisions of the Government. The fulfilment of all legislative decisions still devolves on the original directive centres: the impulse passing from the Parliament to the Ministers and from the Ministers to the King, in whose name everything is done; just as those smaller, first-developed ganglia, which in the lowest vertebrata are the chief controlling agents, are still, in the brains of the higher vertebrata, the agents through which the dictates of the cerebrum are worked out. Moreover, in both cases these original centres become increasingly automatic. In the developed vertebrate animal, they have little function beyond that of conveying impressions to, and executing the determinations of, the larger centres. In our highly organized government, the monarch has long been lapsing into a passive agent of Parliament; and now, ministries are rapidly falling into the same position. Nay, between the two cases there is a parallelism even in respect of the exceptions to this automatic action. For in the individual creature it happens that under circumstances of sudden alarm, as from a loud sound close at hand, an unexpected object starting up in front, or a slip from insecure footing, the danger is guarded against by some quick involuntary jump, or adjustment of the limbs, which occurs before there is time to consider the impending evil and take deliberate measures to avoid it: the rationale of which is that these violent impressions produced on the senses, are reflected from the sensory ganglia to the spinal cord and muscles, without, as in ordinary cases, first passing through the cerebrum. In like manner on national emergencies calling for prompt action, the King and Ministry, not having time to lay the matter before the great deliberative bodies, themselves issue commands for the requisite movements or precautions: the primitive, and now almost automatic, directive centres, resume for a moment their original uncontrolled power. And then, strangest of all, observe that in either case there is an after-process of approval or disapproval. The individual on recovering from his automatic start, at once contemplates the cause of his fright; and, according to the case, concludes that it was well he moved as he did, or condemns himself for his groundless alarm. In like manner, the deliberative powers of the State discuss, as soon as may be, the unauthorized acts of the executive powers; and, deciding that the reasons were or were not sufficient, grant or withhold a bill of indemnity.²⁸

Thus far in comparing the governmental organization of the body-politic with that of an individual body, we have considered only the respective co-ordinating centres. We have yet to consider the channels through which these co-ordinating centres receive information and convey commands. In the simplest societies, as in the simplest organisms, there is no "internuncial apparatus," as Hunter styled the nervous system. Consequently, impressions can be but slowly propagated from unit to unit throughout the whole mass. The same progress, however, which, in animal-organization, shows itself in the establishment of ganglia or directive centres, shows itself also in the establishment of nerve-threads, through which the ganglia receive and convey impressions and so control remote organs. And in societies the like eventually takes place. After a long period during which the directive centres communicate with various parts of the society through other means, there at last comes into existence an "internuncial apparatus," analogous to that found in individual bodies. The comparison of telegraph-wires to nerves is familiar to all. It applies, however, to an extent not commonly supposed. Thus, throughout the vertebrate sub-kingdom, the great nerve-bundles diverge from the vertebrate axis side by side with the great arteries; and similarly, our groups of telegraph-wires are carried along the sides of our railways. The most striking parallelism, however, remains. Into each great bundle of nerves, as it leaves the axis of the body along with an artery, there enters a branch of the sympathetic nerve; which branch, accompanying the artery throughout its ramifications, has the function of regulating its diameter and otherwise controlling the flow of blood through it according to local requirements. Analogously, in the group of telegraph-wires running alongside each railway, there is a wire for the purpose of regulating the traffic – for retarding or expediting the flow of passengers and commodities, as the local conditions demand. Probably, when our now rudimentary telegraph-system is fully developed, other analogies will be traceable.

Such, then, is a general outline of the evidence which justifies the comparison of societies to living organisms. That they gradually increase in mass; that they become little by little more complex; that at the same time their parts grow more mutually dependent; and that they continue to live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of their units appear and disappear; are broad peculiarities which bodies-politic display in common with all living bodies; and in which they and living bodies differ from everything else. And on carrying out the comparison in detail, we find that these major analogies involve many minor analogies, far closer than might have been expected. Others might be added. We had hoped to say something respecting the different types of social organization, and something also on social metamorphoses; but we have reached our assigned limits.

THE ORIGIN OF ANIMAL WORSHIP

[First published in The Fortnightly Review for May, 1870.]

Mr. McLennan's recent essays on the Worship of Animals and Plants have done much to elucidate a very obscure subject. By pursuing in this case, as before in another case, the truly scientific method of comparing the phenomena presented by existing uncivilized races with those which the traditions of civilized races present, he has rendered both of them more comprehensible than they were before.

It seems to me, however, that Mr. McLennan gives but an indefinite answer to the essential question – How did the worship of animals and plants arise? Indeed, in his concluding paper, he expressly leaves this problem unsolved; saying that his "is not an hypothesis explanatory of the origin of Totemism, be it remembered, but an hypothesis explanatory of the animal and plant worship of the ancient nations." So that we have still to ask – Why have savage tribes so generally taken animals and plants and other things as totems? What can have induced this tribe to ascribe special sacredness to one creature, and that tribe to another? And if to these questions the reply is, that each tribe considers itself to be descended from the object of its reverence, then there presses for answer the further question – How came so strange a notion into existence? If this notion occurred in one case only, we might set it down to some whim of thought or some illusive occurrence. But appealing, as it does, with multitudinous variations among so many uncivilized races in different parts of the world, and having left numerous marks in the superstitions of extinct civilized races, we cannot assume any special or exceptional cause. Moreover, the general cause, whatever it may be, must be such as does not negative an aboriginal intelligence like in nature to our own. After studying the grotesque beliefs of savages, we are apt to suppose that their reason is not as our reason. But this supposition is inadmissible. Given the amount of knowledge which primitive men possess, and given the imperfect verbal symbols used by them in speech and thought, and the conclusions they habitually reach will be those that are relatively the most rational. This must be our postulate; and, setting out with this postulate, we have to ask how primitive men came so generally, if not universally, to believe themselves the progeny of animals or plants or inanimate bodies. There is, I believe, a satisfactory answer.

The proposition with which Mr. McLennan sets out, that totem-worship preceded the worship of anthropomorphic gods, is one to which I can yield but a qualified assent. It is true in a sense, but not wholly true. If the words "gods" and "worship" carry with them their ordinary definite meanings, the statement is true; but if their meanings are widened so as to comprehend those earliest vague notions out of which the definite ideas of gods and worship are evolved, I think it is not true. The rudimentary form of all religion is the propitiation of dead ancestors, who are supposed to be still existing, and to be capable of working good or evil to their descendants. As a preparation for dealing hereafter with the principles of sociology, I have, for some years past, directed much attention to the modes of thought current in the simpler human societies; and evidence of many kinds, furnished by all varieties of uncivilized men, has forced on me a conclusion harmonizing with that lately expressed in this Review by Prof. Huxley – namely, that the savage, conceiving a corpse to be deserted by the active personality who dwelt in it, conceives this active personality to be still existing, and that his feelings and ideas concerning it form the basis of his superstitions. Everywhere we find expressed Or implied the belief that each person is double; and that when he dies, his other self, whether remaining near at hand or gone far away, may return, and continues capable of injuring his enemies and aiding his friends.²⁹

But how out of the desire to propitiate this second personality of a deceased man (the words "ghost" and "spirit" are somewhat misleading, since the savage believes that the second personality reappears in a form equally tangible with the first), does there grow up the worship of animals, plants, and inanimate objects? Very simply. Savages habitually distinguish individuals by names that are either directly suggestive of some personal trait or fact of personal history, or else express an observed community of character with some well-known object. Such a genesis of individual names, before surnames have arisen, is inevitable; and how easily it arises we shall see on remembering that it still goes on in its original form, even when no longer needful. I do not refer only to the significant fact that in some parts of England, as in the nail-making districts, nicknames are general, and surnames little recognized; but I refer to a common usage among both children and adults. The rude man is apt to be known as "a bear;" a sly fellow, as "an old fox;" a hypocrite, as "the crocodile." Names of plants, too, are used; as when the red-haired boy is called "carrots" by his school-fellows. Nor do we lack nicknames derived from inorganic objects and agents: instance that given by Mr. Carlyle to the elder Sterling – "Captain Whirlwind." Now, in the earliest savage state, this metaphorical naming will in most cases commence afresh in each generation – must do so, indeed, until surnames of some kind have been established. I say in most cases, because there will occur exceptions in the cases of men who have distinguished themselves. If "the Wolf," proving famous in fight, becomes a terror to neighbouring tribes, and a dominant man in his own, his sons, proud of their parentage, will not let fall the fact that they descended from "the Wolf"; nor will this fact be forgotten by the rest of the tribe who hold "the Wolf" in awe, and see reason to dread his sons. In proportion to the power and celebrity of "the Wolf" will this pride and this fear conspire to maintain among his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as among those over whom they dominate, the remembrance of the fact that their ancestor was "the Wolf". And if, as will occasionally happen, this dominant family becomes the root of a new tribe, the members of this tribe will become known to themselves and others as "the Wolves".

We need not rest satisfied with the inference that this inheritance of nicknames will take place. There is proof that it does take place. As nicknaming after animals, plants, and other objects, still goes on among ourselves, so among ourselves does there go on the descent of nicknames. An instance has come under my own notice on an estate in the West Highlands, belonging to some friends with whom I frequently have the pleasure of spending a few weeks in the autumn. "Take a young Croshek," has more than once been the reply of my host to the inquiry, who should go with me, when I was setting out salmon-fishing. The elder Croshek I knew well; and supposed that this name, borne by him and by all belonging to him, was the family surname. Years passed before I learned that the real surname was Cameron; that the father was called Croshek, after the name of his cottage, to distinguish him from other Camerons employed about the premises; and that his children had come to be similarly distinguished. Though here, as very generally in Scotland, the nickname was derived from the place of residence, yet had it been derived from an animal, the process would have been the same: inheritance of it would have occurred just as naturally. Not even for this small link in the argument, however, need we depend on inference. There is fact to bear us out. Mr. Bates, in his Naturalist on the River Amazons (2d ed., p. 376), describing three half-castes who accompanied him on a hunting trip, says – "Two of them were brothers, namely, João (John) and Zephyrino Jabutí: Jabutí, or tortoise, being a nickname which their father had earned for his slow gait, and which, as is usual in this country, had descended as the surname of the family." Let me add the statement made by Mr. Wallace respecting this same region, that "one of the tribes on the river Isánna is called 'Jurupari' (Devils). Another is called 'Ducks;' a third, 'Stars;' a fourth, 'Mandiocca.'" Putting these two statements together, can there be any doubt about the genesis of these tribal names? Let "the Tortoise" become sufficiently distinguished (not necessarily by superiority – great inferiority may occasionally suffice) and the tradition of descent from him, preserved by his descendants themselves if he was superior, and by their contemptuous neighbours if he was inferior, may become a tribal name.³⁰

"But this," it will be said, "does not amount to an explanation of animal-worship." True: a third factor remains to be specified. Given a belief in the still-existing other self of the deceased ancestor, who must be propitiated; given this survival of his metaphorical name among his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc.; and the further requisite is that the distinction between metaphor and reality shall be forgotten. Let tradition fail to keep clearly in view the fact that the ancestor was a man called "the Wolf" – let him be habitually spoken of as "the Wolf", just as when alive; and the natural mistake of taking the name literally will bring with it, firstly, a belief in descent from an actual wolf, and, secondly, a treatment of the wolf in a manner likely to propitiate him – a manner appropriate to one who may be the other self of the dead ancestor, or one of the kindred, and therefore a friend.

That a misunderstanding of this kind is likely to grow up, becomes obvious when we bear in mind the great indefiniteness of primitive language. As Prof. Max Müller says, respecting certain misinterpretations of an opposite kind: "These metaphors … would become mere names handed down in the conversation of a family, understood perhaps by the grandfather, familiar to the father, but strange to the son, and misunderstood by the grandson." We have ample reason, then, for supposing such misinterpretations. Nay, we may go further. We are justified in saying that they are certain to occur. For undeveloped languages contain no words capable of indicating the distinction to be kept in view. In the tongues of existing inferior races, only concrete objects and acts are expressible. The Australians have a name for each kind of tree, but no name for tree irrespective of kind. And though some witnesses allege that their vocabulary is not absolutely destitute of generic names, its extreme poverty in such is unquestionable. Similarly with the Tasmanians. Dr. Milligan says they "had acquired very limited powers of abstraction or generalization. They possessed no words representing abstract ideas; for each variety of gum-tree and wattle-tree, etc., etc., they had a name, but they had no equivalent for the expression, 'a tree;' neither could they express abstract qualities, such as hard, soft, warm, cold, long, short, round, etc.; for 'hard,' they would say 'like a stone;' for 'tall,' they would say 'long legs,' etc.; and for 'round,' they said 'like a ball,' 'like the moon,' and so on, usually suiting the action to the word, and confirming, by some sign, the meaning to be understood."³¹ Now, even making allowance for over-statement here (which seems needful, since the word "long," said to be inexpressible in the abstract, subsequently occurs as qualifying a concrete in the expression, "long legs"), it is manifest that so imperfect a language must fail to convey the idea of a name, as something separate from a thing; and that still less can it be capable of indicating the act of naming. Familiar use of such partially-abstract words as are applicable to all objects of a class, is needful before there can be reached the conception of a name – a word symbolizing the symbolic character of other words; and the conception of a name, with its answering abstract term, must be long current before the verb to name can arise. Hence, men with speech so rude, cannot transmit the tradition of an ancestor named "the Wolf", as distinguished from the actual wolf. The children and grandchildren who saw him will not be led into error; but in later generations, descent from "the Wolf" will inevitably come to mean descent from the animal known by that name. And the ideas and sentiments which, as above shown, naturally grow up round the belief that the dead parents and grandparents are still alive, and ready, if propitiated, to befriend their descendants, will be extended to the wolf species.

Before passing to other developments of this general view, let me point out how not simply animal-worship is thus accounted for, but also the conception, so variously illustrated in ancient legends, that animals are capable of displaying human powers of speech and thought and action. Mythologies are full of stories of beasts and birds and fishes that have played intelligent parts in human affairs – creatures that have befriended particular persons by giving them information, by guiding them, by yielding them help; or else that have deceived them, verbally or otherwise. Evidently all these traditions, as well as those about abductions of women by animals and fostering of children by them, fall naturally into their places as results of the habitual misinterpretation I have described.

The probability of the hypothesis will appear still greater when we observe how readily it applies to the worship of other orders of objects. Belief in actual descent from an animal, strange as we may think it, is one by no means incongruous with the unanalyzed experiences of the savage; for there come under his notice many metamorphoses, vegetal and animal, which are apparently of like character. But how could he possibly arrive at so grotesque a conception as that the progenitor of his tribe was the sun, or the moon, or a particular star? No observation of surrounding phenomena affords the slightest suggestion of any such possibility. But by the inheritance of nicknames that are eventually mistaken for the names of the objects from which they were derived, the belief readily arises – is sure to arise. That the names of heavenly bodies will furnish metaphorical names to the uncivilized, is manifest. Do we not ourselves call a distinguished singer or actor a star? And have we not in poems numerous comparisons of men and women to the sun and moon; as in Love's Labour's Lost, where the princess is called "a gracious moon," and as in Henry VII., where we read – "Those suns of glory, those two lights of men?" Clearly, primitive peoples will be not unlikely thus to speak of the chief hero of a successful battle. When we remember how the arrival of a triumphant warrior must affect the feelings of his tribe, dissipating clouds of anxiety and brightening all faces with joy, we shall see that the comparison of him to the sun is quite natural; and in early speech this comparison can be made only by calling him the sun. As before, then, it will happen that, through a confounding of the metaphorical name with the actual name, his progeny, after a few generations, will be regarded by themselves and others as descendants of the sun. And, as a consequence, partly of actual inheritance of the ancestral character, and partly of maintenance of the traditions respecting the ancestor's achievements, it will also naturally happen that the solar race will be considered a superior race, as we find it habitually is.

The origin of other totems, equally strange, if not even stranger, is similarly accounted for, though otherwise unaccountable. One of the New-Zealand chiefs claimed as his progenitor the neighbouring great mountain, Tongariro. This seemingly-whimsical belief becomes intelligible when we observe how easily it may have arisen from a nickname. Do we not ourselves sometimes speak figuratively of a tall, fat man as a mountain of flesh? And, among a people prone to speak in still more concrete terms, would it not happen that a chief, remarkable for his great bulk, would be nicknamed after the highest mountain within sight, because he towered above other men as this did above surrounding hills? Such an occurrence is not simply possible, but probable. And, if so, the confusion of metaphor with fact would originate this surprising genealogy. A notion perhaps yet more grotesque, thus receives a satisfactory interpretation. What could have put it into the imagination of any one that he was descended from the dawn? Given the extremest credulity, joined with the wildest fancy, it would still seem requisite that the ancestor should be conceived as an entity; and the dawn is entirely without that definiteness and comparative constancy which enter into the conception of an entity. But when we remember that "the Dawn" is a natural complimentary name for a beautiful girl opening into womanhood, the genesis of the idea becomes, on the above hypothesis, quite obvious.³²

Another indirect verification is that we thus get a clear conception of Fetichism in general. Under the fetichistic mode of thought, surrounding objects and agents are regarded as having powers more or less definitely personal in their natures; and the current interpretation is, that human intelligence, in its early stages, is obliged to conceive of their powers under this form. I have myself hitherto accepted this interpretation; though always with a sense of dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction was, I think, well grounded. The theory is scarcely a theory properly so-called; but rather, a restatement in other words. Uncivilized men do habitually form anthropomorphic conceptions of surrounding things; and this observed general fact is transformed into the theory that at first they must so conceive them – a theory for which the psychological justification attempted, seems to me inadequate. From our present stand-point, it becomes manifest that Fetichism is not primary but secondary. What has been said above almost of itself shows this. Let us, however, follow out the steps of its genesis. Respecting the Tasmanians, Dr. Milligan says: – "The names of men and women were taken from natural objects and occurrences around, as, for instance, a kangaroo, a gum tree, snow, hail, thunder, the wind," flowers in blossom, etc. Surrounding objects, then, giving origin to names of persons, and being, in the way shown, eventually mistaken for the actual progenitors of those who descend from persons nicknamed after them, it results that these surrounding objects come to be regarded as in some manner possessed of personalities like the human. He whose family tradition is that his ancestor was "the Crab," will conceive the crab as having a disguised inner power like his own; an alleged descent from "the Palm-tree" will entail belief in some kind of consciousness dwelling in the palm-tree. Hence, in proportion as the animals, plants, and inanimate objects or agents that originate names of persons, become numerous (which they will do in proportion as a tribe becomes large and the number of persons to be distinguished from one another increases), multitudinous things around will acquire imaginary personalities. And so it will happen that, as Mr. McLennan says of the Feejeeans, "Vegetables and stones, nay, even tools and weapons, pots and canoes, have souls that are immortal, and that, like the souls of men, pass on at last to Mbulu, the abode of departed spirits." Setting out, then, with a belief in the still-living other self of the dead ancestor, the alleged general cause of misapprehension affords us an intelligible origin of the fetichistic conception; and we are enabled to see how it tends to become a general, if not a universal, conception.

Other apparently inexplicable phenomena are at the same time divested of their strangeness. I refer to the beliefs in, and worship of, compound monsters – impossible hybrid animals, and forms that are half human, half brutal. The theory of a primordial Fetichism, supposing it otherwise adequate, yields no feasible solutions of these. Grant the alleged original tendency to think of all natural agencies as in some way personal. Grant, too, that hence may arise a worship of animals, plants, and even inanimate bodies. Still the obvious implication is that the worship so derived will be limited to things that are, or have been, perceived. Why should this mode of thought lead the savage to imagine a combination of bird and mammal; and not only to imagine it, but to worship it as a god? If even we admit that some illusion may have suggested the belief in a creature half man, half fish, we cannot thus explain the prevalence among Eastern races of idols representing bird-headed men, and men having their legs replaced by the legs of a cock, and men with the heads of elephants.