[_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, Joao
(John) and Zephyrino Jabuti: Jabuti, 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 Isanna 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 Mueller 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.
Carrying with us the inferences above drawn, however, it is a corollary
that ideas and practices of these kinds will arise. When tradition
preserves both lines of ancestry--when a chief, nicknamed "the Wolf",
carries away from an adjacent tribe a wife who is remembered either
under the animal name of her tribe, or as a woman; it will happen that
if a son distinguishes himself, the remembrance of him among his
descendants will be that he was born of a wolf and some other animal, or
of a wolf and a woman. Misinterpretation, arising in the way described
from defects of language, will entail belief in a creature uniting the
attributes of the two; and if the tribe grows into a society,
representations of such a creature will become objects of worship. One
of the cases cited by Mr. McLennan may here be repeated in illustration.
"The story of the origin of the Dikokamenni Kirgheez," they say, "from a
red greyhound and a certain queen and her forty handmaidens, is of
ancient date." Now, if "the red greyhound" was the nickname of a man
extremely swift of foot (celebrated runners have been nicknamed
"greyhound" among ourselves), a story of this kind would naturally
arise; and if the metaphorical name was mistaken for the actual name,
there might result, as the idol of the race, a compound form appropriate
to the story. We need not be surprised, then, at finding among the
Egyptians the goddess Pasht represented as a woman with a lion's head,
and the god Har-hat as a man with the head of a hawk. The Babylonian
gods--one having the form of a man with an eagle's tail, and another
uniting a human bust to a fish's body--no longer appear such
unaccountable conceptions. We get feasible explanations, too, of
sculptures representing sphinxes, winged human-headed bulls, etc.; as
well as of the stories about centaurs, satyrs, and the rest.
* * * * *
Ancient myths in general thus acquire meanings considerably different
from those ascribed to them by comparative mythologists. Though these
last may be in part correct, yet if the foregoing argument is valid,
they can scarcely be correct in their main outlines. Indeed, if we read
the facts the other way upward, regarding as secondary or additional,
the elements that are said to be primary, while we regard as primary,
certain elements which are considered as accretions of later times, we
shall, I think, be nearer the truth.
The current theory of the myth is that it has grown out of the habit of
symbolizing natural agents and processes, in terms of human
personalities and actions. Now, it may in the first place be remarked
that, though symbolization of this kind is common among civilized races,
it is not common among races that are the most uncivilized. By existing
savages, surrounding objects, motions, and changes, are habitually used
to convey ideas respecting human transactions. It needs but to read the
speech of an Indian chief to see that just as primitive men name one
another metaphorically after surrounding objects, so do they
metaphorically describe one another's doings as though they were the
doings of natural objects. But assuming a contrary habit of thought to
be the dominant one, ancient myths are explained as results of the
primitive tendency to symbolize inanimate things and their changes, by
human beings and their doings.
A kindred difficulty must be added. The change of verbal meaning from
which the myth is said to arise, is a change opposite in kind to that
which prevails in the earlier stages of linguistic development. It
implies a derivation of the concrete from the abstract; whereas at first
abstracts are derived only from concretes: the concrete of abstracts
being a subsequent process. In the words of Prof. Max Mueller, there are
"dialects spoken at the present day which have no abstract nouns, and
the more we go back in the history of languages, the smaller we find the
number of these useful expressions" (_Chips_, vol. ii., p. 54); or, as
he says more recently--"Ancient words and ancient thoughts, for both go
together, have not yet arrived at that stage of abstraction in which,
for instance, active powers, whether natural or supernatural, can be
represented in any but a personal and more or less human form."
(_Fraser's Magazine_, April, 1870.) Here the concrete is represented as
original, and the abstract as derivative. Immediately afterward,
however, Prof. Max Mueller, having given as examples of abstract nouns,
"day and night, spring and winter, dawn and twilight, storm and
thunder," goes on to argue that, "as long as people thought in language,
it was simply impossible to speak of morning or evening, of spring and
winter, without giving to these conceptions something of an individual,
active, sexual, and at last, personal character." (_Chips_, vol. ii., p.
55.) Here the concrete is derived from the abstract--the personal
conception is represented as coming _after_ the impersonal conception;
and through such transformation of the impersonal into the personal,
Prof. Max Mueller considers ancient myths to have arisen. How are these
propositions reconcilable? One of two things must be said:--If
originally there were none of these abstract nouns, then the earliest
statements respecting the daily course of Nature were made in concrete
terms--the personal elements of the myth were the primitive elements,
and the impersonal expressions which are their equivalents came later.
If this is not admitted, then it must be held that, until after there
arose these abstract nouns, there were no current statements at all
respecting these most conspicuous objects and changes which the heavens
and the earth present; and that the abstract nouns having been somehow
formed, and rightly formed, and used without personal meanings,
afterward became personalized--a process the reverse of that which
characterizes early linguistic progress.
No such contradictions occur if we interpret myths after the manner that
has been indicated. Nay, besides escaping contradictions, we meet with
unexpected solutions. The moment we try it, the key unlocks for us with
ease what seems a quite inexplicable fact, which the current hypothesis
takes as one of its postulates. Speaking of such words as sky and earth,
dew and rain, rivers and mountains, as well as of the abstract nouns
above named, Prof. Max Mueller says--"Now in ancient languages every one
of these words had necessarily a termination expressive of gender, and
this naturally produced in the mind the corresponding idea of sex, so
that these names received not only an individual, but a sexual
character. There was no substantive which was not either masculine or
feminine; neuters being of later growth, and distinguishable chiefly in
the nominative." (_Chips_, vol. ii., p. 55.) And this alleged necessity
for a masculine or feminine implication is assigned as a part of the
reason why these abstract nouns and collective nouns became
personalized. But should not a true theory of these first steps in the
evolution of thought and language show us how it happened that men
acquired the seemingly-strange habit of so framing their words for sky,
earth, dew, rain, etc., as to make them indicative of sex? Or, at any
rate, must it not be admitted that an interpretation which, instead of
assuming this habit to be "necessary," shows us how it results, thereby
acquires an additional claim to acceptance? The interpretation I have
indicated does this. If men and women are habitually nicknamed, and if
defects of language lead their descendants to regard themselves as
descendants of the things from which the names were taken, then
masculine or feminine genders will be ascribed to these things according
as the ancestors named after them were men or women. If a beautiful
maiden known metaphorically as "the Dawn," afterwards becomes the
mother of some distinguished chief called "the North Wind," it will
result that when, in course of time, the two have been mistaken for the
actual dawn and the actual north wind, these will, by implication, be
respectively considered as male and female.
Looking, now, at the ancient myths in general, their seemingly most
inexplicable trait is the habitual combination of alleged human ancestry
and adventures, with the possession of personalities otherwise figuring
in the heavens and on the earth, with totally non-human attributes. This
enormous incongruity, not the exception but the rule, the current theory
fails to explain. Suppose it to be granted that the great terrestrial
and celestial objects and agents naturally become personalized; it does
not follow that each of them shall have a specific human biography. To
say of some star that he was the son of this king or that hero, was born
in a particular place, and when grown up carried off the wife of a
neighbouring chief, is a gratuitous multiplication of incongruities
already sufficiently great; and is not accounted for by the alleged
necessary personalization of abstract and collective nouns. As looked at
from our present stand-point, however, such traditions become quite
natural--nay, it is clear that they will necessarily arise. When a
nickname has become a tribal name, it thereby ceases to be individually
distinctive; and, as already said, the process of nicknaming inevitably
continues. It commences afresh with each child; and the nickname of each
child is both an individual name and a potential tribal name, which may
become an actual tribal name if the individual is sufficiently
celebrated. Usually, then, there is a double set of distinctions; under
one of which the individual is known by his ancestral name, and under
the other of which he is known by a name suggestive of something
peculiar to himself: just as we have seen happens among the Scotch
clans. Consider, now, what will result when language has reached a
stage of development such that it can convey the notion of naming, and
is able, therefore, to preserve traditions of human ancestry. It will
result that the individual will be known both as the son of such and
such a man by a mother whose name was so and so, and also as "the Crab",
or "the Bear", or "the Whirlwind"--supposing one of these to be his
nickname. Such joint use of nicknames and proper names occurs in every
school. Now, clearly, in advancing from the early state in which
ancestors become identified with the objects they are nicknamed after,
to the state in which there are proper names that have lost their
metaphorical meanings, there must be passed through a state in which
proper names, partially settled only, may or may not be preserved, and
in which the new nicknames are still liable to be mistaken for actual
names. Under such conditions there will arise (especially in the case of
a distinguished man) this seemingly-impossible combination of human
parentage with the possession of the non-human, or superhuman,
attributes of the thing which gave the nickname. Another anomaly
simultaneously disappears. The warrior may have, and often will have, a
variety of complimentary nicknames--"the powerful one," "the destroyer,"
etc. Supposing his leading nickname has been "the Sun"; then when he
comes to be identified by tradition with the sun, it will happen that
the sun will acquire his alternative descriptive titles--the swift one,
the lion, the wolf--titles not obviously appropriate to the sun, but
quite appropriate to the warrior. Then there comes, too, an explanation
of the remaining trait of such myths. When this identification of
conspicuous persons, male and female, with conspicuous natural agents,
has become settled, there will in due course arise interpretations of
the actions of these agents in anthropomorphic terms. Suppose, for
instance, that Endymion and Selene, metaphorically named, the one after
the setting sun, the other after the moon, have had their human
individualities merged in those of the sun and moon, through
misinterpretation of metaphors; what will happen? The legend of their
loves having to be reconciled with their celestial appearances and
motions, these will be spoken of as results of feeling and will; so that
when the sun is going down in the west, while the moon in mid-heaven is
following him, the fact will be expressed by saying: "Selene loves and
watches Endymion." Thus we obtain a consistent explanation of the myth
without distorting it; and without assuming that it contains gratuitous
fictions. We are enabled to accept the biographical part of it, if not
as literal fact, still as having had fact for its root. We are helped to
see how, by an inevitable misinterpretation, there grew out of a more or
less true tradition, this strange identification of its personages, with
objects and powers totally non-human in their aspects. And then we are
shown how, from the attempt to reconcile in thought these contradictory
elements of the myth, there arose the habit of ascribing the actions of
these non-human things to human motives.
One further verification may be drawn from facts which are obstacles to
the converse hypothesis. These objects and powers, celestial and
terrestrial, which force themselves most on men's attention, have some
of them several proper names, identified with those of different
individuals, born at different places, and having different sets of
adventures. Thus we have the sun variously known as Apollo, Endymion,
Helios, Tithonos, etc.--personages having irreconcilable genealogies.
Such anomalies Prof. Max Mueller apparently ascribes to the
untrustworthiness of traditions, which are "careless about
contradictions, or ready to solve them sometimes by the most atrocious
expedients." (_Chips_, vol. ii., p. 84.) But if the evolution of the
myth has been that above indicated, there exists no anomalies to be got
rid of: these diverse genealogies become parts of the evidence. For we
have abundant proof that the same objects furnish metaphorical names of
men in different tribes. There are Duck tribes in Australia, in South
America, in North America. The eagle is still a totem among the North
Americans, as Mr. McLennan shows reason to conclude that it was among
the Egyptians, among the Jews, and among the Romans. Obviously, for
reasons already assigned, it naturally happened in the early stages of
the ancient races, that complimentary comparisons of their heroes to the
Sun were frequently made. What resulted? The Sun having furnished names
for sundry chiefs and early founders of tribes, and local traditions
having severally identified them with the Sun, these tribes, when they
grew, spread, conquered, or came otherwise into partial union,
originated a combined mythology, which necessarily contained conflicting
stories about the Sun-god, as about its other leading personages. If the
North-American tribes, among several of which there are traditions of a
Sun-god, had developed a combined civilization, there would similarly
have arisen among them a mythology which ascribed to the Sun several
different proper names and genealogies.
* * * * *
Let me briefly set down the leading characters of this hypothesis which
give it probability.
True interpretations of all the natural processes, organic and
inorganic, that have gone on in past times, habitually trace them to
causes still in action. It is thus in Geology; it is thus in Biology; it
is thus in Philology. Here we find this characteristic repeated.
Nicknaming, the inheritance of nicknames, and to some extent, the
misinterpretation of nicknames, go on among us still; and were surnames
absent, language imperfect, and knowledge as rudimentary as of old, it
is tolerably manifest that results would arise like those we have
contemplated.
A further characteristic of a true cause is that it accounts not only
for the particular group of phenomena to be interpreted, but also for
other groups. The cause here alleged does this. It equally well explains
the worship of animals, of plants, of mountains, of winds, of celestial
bodies, and even of appearances too vague to be considered entities. It
gives us an intelligible genesis of fetichistic conceptions in general.
It furnishes us with a reason for the practice, otherwise so
unaccountable, of moulding the words applied to inanimate objects in
such ways as to imply masculine and feminine genders. It shows us how
there naturally arose the worship of compound animals, and of monsters
half man, half brute. And it shows us why the worship of purely
anthropomorphic deities came later, when language had so far developed
that it could preserve in tradition the distinction between proper names
and nicknames.
A further verification of this view is, that it conforms to the general
law of evolution: showing us how, out of one simple, vague, aboriginal
form of belief, there have arisen, by continuous differentiations, the
many heterogeneous forms of belief which have existed and do exist. The
desire to propitiate the other self of the dead ancestor, displayed
among savage tribes, dominantly manifested by the early historic races,
by the Peruvians and Mexicans, by the Chinese at the present time, and
to a considerable degree by ourselves (for what else is the wish to do
that which a lately-deceased parent was known to have desired?) has been
the universal first form of religious belief; and from it have grown up
the many divergent beliefs which have been referred to.
Let me add, as a further reason for adopting this view, that it
immensely diminishes the apparently-great contrast between early modes
of thought and our own mode of thought. Doubtless the aboriginal man
differs considerably from us, both in intellect and feeling. But such an
interpretation of the facts as helps us to bridge over the gap, derives
additional likelihood from doing this. The hypothesis I have sketched
out enables us to see that primitive ideas are not so gratuitously
absurd as we suppose, and also enables us to rehabilitate the ancient
myth with far less distortion than at first sight appears possible.
These views I hope to develop in the first part of _The Principles of
Sociology_. The large mass of evidence which I shall be able to give in
support of the hypothesis, joined with the solutions it will be shown to
yield of many minor problems which I have passed over, will, I think,
then give to it a still greater probability than it seems now to have.