THE IDEA OF THE SOUL
In the preceding chapters we have been studying the fundamental
principles of the totemic religion. We have seen that no idea of soul or
spirit or mythical personality is to be found among these. Yet, even if
the idea of spiritual beings is not at the foundation of totemism or,
consequently, of religious thought in general, still, there is no
religion where this notion is not met with. So it is important to see
how it is formed. To make sure that it is the product of a secondary
formation, we must discover the way in which it is derived from the more
essential conceptions which we have just described and explained.
Among the various spiritual beings, there is one which should receive
our attention first of all because it is the prototype after which the
others have been constructed: this is the soul.
I
Just as there is no known society without a religion, so there exist
none, howsoever crudely organized they may be, where we do not find a
whole system of collective representations concerning the soul, its
origin and its destiny. So far as we are able to judge from the data of
ethnology, the idea of the soul seems to have been contemporaneous with
humanity itself, and it seems to have had all of its essential
characteristics so well formulated at the very outset that the work of
the more advanced religions and philosophy has been practically confined
to refining it, while adding nothing that is really fundamental. In
fact, all the Australian societies admit that every human body shelters
an interior being, the principle of the life which animates it: this is
the soul. It sometimes happens, it is true, that women form an exception
to this general rule: there are tribes where they are believed to have
no souls.[739] If Dawson is to be believed, it is the same with young
children in the tribes that he has observed.[740] But these are
exceptional and probably late cases;[741] the last one even seems to be
suspect and may well be due to an erroneous interpretation of the
facts.[742]
It is not easy to determine the idea which the Australian makes of the
soul, because it is so obscure and floating; but we should not be
surprised at this. If someone asked our own contemporaries, or even
those of them who believe most firmly in the existence of the soul, how
they represented it, the replies that he would receive would not have
much more coherence and precision. This is because we are dealing with a
very complex notion, into which a multitude of badly analysed
impressions enter, whose elaboration has been carried on for centuries,
though men have had no clear consciousness of it. Yet from this come the
most essential, though frequently contradictory, characteristics by
which it is defined.
In some cases they tell us that it has the external appearance of the
body.[743] But sometimes it is also represented as having the size of a
grain of sand; its dimensions are so reduced that it can pass through
the smallest crevices or the finest tissues.[744] We shall also see that
it is represented in the appearance of animals. This shows that its form
is essentially inconsistent and undetermined;[745] it varies from one
moment to another with the demands of circumstances or according to the
exigencies of the myth and the rite. The substance out of which it is
made is no less indefinable. It is not without matter, for it has a
form, howsoever vague this may be. And in fact, even during this life,
it has physical needs: it eats, and inversely, it may be eaten.
Sometimes it leaves the body, and in the course of its travels it
occasionally nourishes itself on foreign souls.[746] After it has once
been completely freed from the organism, it is thought to lead a life
absolutely analogous to the one it led in this world; it eats, drinks,
hunts, etc.[747] When it flutters among the branches of trees, it causes
rustlings and crackings which even profane ears hear.[748] But at the
same time, it is believed to be invisible to the vulgar.[749] It is true
that magicians or old men have the faculty of seeing souls; but it is in
virtue of special powers which they owe either to age or to a special
training that they perceive things which escape our senses. According to
Dawson, ordinary individuals enjoy the same privilege at only one moment
of their existence: when they are on the eve of a premature death.
Therefore this quasi-miraculous vision is considered a sinister omen.
Now, invisibility is generally considered one of the signs of
spirituality. So the soul is conceived as being immaterial to a certain
degree, for it does not affect the senses in the way bodies do: it has
no bones, as the tribes of the Tully River say.[750] In order to
conciliate all these opposed characteristics, they represent it as made
of some infinitely rare and subtle matter, like something ethereal,[751]
and comparable to a shadow or breath.[752]
It is distinct and independent of the body, for during this life it can
leave it at any moment. It does leave it during sleep, fainting spells,
etc.[753] It may even remain absent for some time without entailing
death; however, during these absences life is weakened and even stops if
the soul does not return home.[754] But it is especially at death that
this distinction and independence manifest themselves with the greatest
clarity. While the body no longer exists and no visible traces of it
remain, the soul continues to live: it leads an autonomous existence in
another world.
But howsoever real this duality may be, it is in no way absolute. It
would show a grave misunderstanding to represent the body as a sort of
habitat in which the soul resides, but with which it has only external
relations. Quite on the contrary, it is united to it by the closest
bonds; it is separable from it only imperfectly and with difficulty. We
have already seen that it has, or at least is able to have, its external
aspect. Consequently, everything that hurts the one hurts the other;
every wound of the body spreads to the soul.[755] It is so intimately
associated with the life of the organism that it grows with it and
decays with it. This is why a man who has attained a certain age enjoys
privileges refused to young men; it is because the religious principle
within him has acquired greater force and efficacy as he has advanced in
life. But when senility sets in, and the old man is no longer able to
take a useful part in the great religious ceremonies in which the vital
interests of the tribe are concerned, this respect is no longer accorded
to him. It is thought that weakness of the body is communicated to the
soul. Having the same powers no longer, he no longer has a right to the
same prestige.[756]
There is not only a close union of soul and body, but there is also a
partial confusion of the two. Just as there is something of the body in
the soul, since it sometimes reproduces its form, so there is something
of the soul in the body. Certain regions and certain products of the
organism are believed to have a special affinity with it: such is the
case with the heart, the breath, the placenta,[757] the blood,[758] the
shadow,[759] the liver, the fat of the liver, the kidneys,[760] etc.
These various material substrata are not mere habitations of the soul;
they are the soul itself seen from without. When blood flows, the soul
escapes with it. The soul is not in the breath; it is the breath. It and
the part of the body where it resides are only one. Hence comes the
conception according to which a man has a number of souls. Being
dispersed in various parts of the organism, the soul is differentiated
and broken up into fragments. Each organ has individualized, as it were,
the portion of the soul which it contains, and which has thus become a
distinct entity. The soul of the heart could not be that of the breath
or the shadow or the placenta. While they are all related, still they
are to be distinguished, and even have different names.[761]
Moreover, even if the soul is localized especially in certain parts of
the organism, it is not absent from the others. In varying degrees, it
is diffused through the whole body, as is well shown by the funeral
rites. After the last breath has been expired and the soul is believed
to be gone, it seems as though it should profit by the liberty thus
regained, to move about at will and to return as quickly as possible to
its real home, which is elsewhere. Nevertheless, it remains near to the
corpse; the bond uniting them has been loosened, but not broken. A whole
series of special rites are necessary to induce it to depart definitely.
It is invited to go by gestures and significant movements.[762] The way
is laid open for it, and outlets are arranged so that it can go more
easily.[763] This is because it has not left the body entirely; it was
too closely united to it to break away all at once. Hence comes the very
frequent rite of funeral anthropophagy; the flesh of the dead is eaten
because it is thought to contain a sacred principle, which is really
nothing more than the soul.[764] In order to drive it out definitely,
the flesh is melted, either by submitting it to the heat of the
sun,[765] or to that of an artificial fire.[766] The soul departs with
the liquids which result. But even the dry bones still retain some part
of it. Therefore they can be used as sacred objects or instruments of
magic;[767] or if someone wishes to give complete liberty to the
principle which they contain, he breaks these.[768]
But a moment does arrive when the final separation is accomplished; the
liberated soul takes flight. But by nature it is so intimately
associated with the body that this removal cannot take place without a
profound change in its condition. So it takes a new name also.[769]
Although keeping all the distinctive traits of the individual whom it
animated, his humours and his good and bad qualities,[770] still it has
become a new being. From that moment a new existence commences for it.
It goes to the land of souls. This land is conceived differently by
different tribes; sometimes different conceptions are found existing
side by side in the same society. For some, it is situated under the
earth, where each totemic group has its part. This is at the spot where
the first ancestors, the founders of the clan, entered the ground at a
certain time, and where they live since their death. In the subterranean
world there is a geographical disposition of the dead corresponding to
that of the living. There, the sun always shines and rivers flow which
never run dry. Such is the conception which Spencer and Gillen attribute
to the central tribes, Arunta,[771] Warramunga,[772] etc. It is found
again among the Wotjobaluk.[773] In other places, all the dead, no
matter what their totems may have been, are believed to live together in
the same place, which is more or less vaguely localized as beyond the
sea, in an island,[774] or on the shores of a lake.[775] Sometimes,
finally, it is into the sky, beyond the clouds, that the souls are
thought to go. "There," says Dawson, "there is a delectable land,
abounding in kangaroos and game of every sort, where men lead a happy
life. Souls meet again there and recognize one another."[776] It is
probable that certain of the features of this picture have been taken
from the paradise of the Christian missionaries;[777] but the idea that
souls, or at least some souls, enter the skies after death appears to be
quite indigenous; for it is found again in other parts of the
continent.[778]
In general, all the souls meet the same fate and lead the same life.
However, a different treatment is sometimes accorded them based on the
way they have conducted themselves upon earth, and we can see the first
outlines of these two distinct and even opposed compartments into which
the world to come will later be divided. The souls of those who have
excelled, during life, as hunters, warriors, dancers, etc., are not
confounded with the common horde of the others; a special place is
granted to them.[779] Sometimes, this is the sky.[780] Strehlow even
says that according to one myth, the souls of the wicked are devoured by
dreadful spirits, and destroyed.[781] Nevertheless, these conceptions
always remain very vague in Australia;[782] they begin to have a clarity
and determination only in the more advanced societies, such as those of
America.[783]
II
Such are the beliefs relative to the soul and its destiny, in their most
primitive form, and reduced to their most essential traits. We must now
attempt to explain them. What is it that has been able to lead men into
thinking that there are two beings in them, one of which possesses these
very special characteristics which we have just enumerated? To find the
reply to this question, let us begin by seeking the origin attributed to
this spiritual principle by the primitive himself: if it is well
analysed, his own conception will put us on the way towards the
solution.
Following out the method which we have set before ourselves, we shall
study these ideas in a determined group of societies where they have
been observed with an especial precision; these are the tribes of
Central Australia. Though not narrow, the area of our observations will
be limited. But there is good reason for believing that these same ideas
are quite generally held, in various forms, even outside of Australia.
It is also to be noted that the idea of the soul, as it is found among
these central tribes, does not differ specifically from the one found in
other tribes; it has the same essential characteristics everywhere. As
one effect always has the same cause, we may well think that this idea,
which is everywhere the same, does not result from one cause here and
another there. So the origin which we shall be led to attribute to it as
a result of our study of these particular tribes with which we are going
to deal, ought to be equally true for the others. These tribes will give
us a chance to make an experiment, as it were, whose results, like those
of every well-made experiment, are susceptible of generalization. The
homogeneity of the Australian civilization would of itself be enough to
justify this generalization; but we shall be careful to verify it
afterwards with facts taken from other peoples, both in Australia and
America.
As the conceptions which are going to furnish us with the basis of our
demonstration have been reported in different terms by Spencer and
Gillen on the one hand and Strehlow on the other, we must give these two
versions one after the other. We shall see that when they are well
understood, they differ in form more than in matter, and that they both
have the same sociological significance.
According to Spencer and Gillen, the souls which, in each generation,
come to animate the bodies of newly-born children, are not special and
original creations; all these tribes hold that there is a definite stock
of souls, whose number cannot be augmented at all,[784] and which
reincarnate themselves periodically. When an individual dies, his soul
quits the body in which it dwelt, and after the mourning is
accomplished, it goes to the land of the souls; but after a certain
length of time, it returns to incarnate itself again, and these
reincarnations are the cause of conception and birth. At the beginning
of things, it was these fundamental souls which animated the first
ancestors, the founders of the clan. At an epoch, beyond which the
imagination does not go and which is considered the very beginning of
time, there were certain beings who were not derived from any others.
For this reason, the Arunta call them the _Altjirangamitjina_,[785] the
uncreated ones, those who exist from all eternity, and, according to
Spencer and Gillen, they give the name _Alcheringa_[786] to the period
when these fabulous beings are thought to have lived. Being organized in
totemic clans just as the men of to-day are, they passed their time in
travels, in the course of which they accomplished all sorts of
prodigious actions, the memory of which is preserved in the myths. But a
moment arrived when this terrestrial life came to a close; singly or in
groups, they entered into the earth. But their souls live for ever; they
are immortal. They even continue to frequent the places where the
existence of their former hosts came to an end. Moreover, owing to the
memories attached to them, these places have a sacred character; it is
here that the oknanikilla are located, the sorts of sanctuaries where
the churinga of the clan is kept, and the centres of the different
totemic cults. When one of the souls which wander about these
sanctuaries enters into the body of a woman, the result is a conception
and later a birth.[787] So each individual is considered as a new
appearance of a determined ancestor: it is this ancestor himself, come
back in a new body and with new features. Now, what were these
ancestors?
In the first place, they were endowed with powers infinitely superior to
those possessed by men to-day, even the most respected old men and the
most celebrated magicians. They are attributed virtues which we may
speak of as miraculous: "They could travel on, or above, or beneath the
ground; by opening a vein in the arm, each of them could flood whole
tracts of country or cause level plains to arise; in rocky ranges they
could make pools of water spring into existence, or could make deep
gorges and gaps through which to traverse the ranges, and where they
planted their sacred poles (nurtunja), there rocks or trees arose to
mark the spot."[788] It is they who gave the earth the form it has at
present. They created all sorts of beings, both men and animals. They
are nearly gods. So their souls also have a divine character. And since
the souls of men are these ancestral souls reincarnated in the human
body, these are sacred beings too.
In the second place, these ancestors were not men in the proper sense of
the word, but animals or vegetables, or perhaps mixed beings in which
the animal or vegetable element predominated: "In the Alcheringa," say
Spencer and Gillen, "lived ancestors who, in the native mind, are so
intimately associated with the animals or plants the name of which they
bear that an Alcheringa man of, say, the kangaroo totem may sometimes be
spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or a kangaroo-man. The identity of
the human individual is often sunk in that of the animal or plant from
which he is supposed to have originated."[789] Their immortal souls
necessarily have the same nature; in them, also, the human element is
wedded to the animal element, with a certain tendency for the latter to
predominate over the former. So they are made of the same substance as
the totemic principle, for we know that the special characteristic of
this is to present this double nature, and to synthesize and confound
the two realms in itself.
Since no other souls than these exist, we reach the conclusion that, in
a general way, the soul is nothing other than the totemic principle
incarnate in each individual. And there is nothing to surprise us in
this derivation. We already know that this principle is immanent in each
of the members of the clan. But in penetrating into these individuals,
it must inevitably individualize itself. Because the consciousnesses, of
which it becomes thus an integral part, differ from each other, it
differentiates itself according to their image; since each has its own
physiognomy, it takes a distinct physiognomy in each. Of course it
remains something outside of and foreign to the man, but the portion of
it which each is believed to possess cannot fail to contract close
affinities with the particular subject in which it resides; it becomes
his to a certain extent. Thus it has two contradictory characteristics,
but whose coexistence is one of the distinctive features of the notion
of the soul. To-day, as formerly, the soul is what is best and most
profound in ourselves, and the pre-eminent part of our being; yet it is
also a passing guest which comes from the outside, which leads in us an
existence distinct from that of the body, and which should one day
regain its entire independence. In a word, just as society exists only
in and through individuals, the totemic principle exists only in and
through the individual consciousnesses whose association forms the clan.
If they did not feel it in them it would not exist; it is they who put
it into things. So it must of necessity be divided and distributed among
them. Each of these fragments is a soul.
A myth which is found in a rather large number of the societies of the
centre, and which, moreover, is only a particular form of the preceding
ones, shows even better that this is really the matter out of which the
idea of the soul is made. In these tribes, tradition puts the origin of
each clan, not in a number of ancestors, but in only two,[790] or even
in one.[791] This unique being, as long as he remained single, contained
the totemic principle within him integrally, for at this moment there
was nothing to which this principle could be communicated. Now,
according to this same tradition, all the human souls which exist, both
those which now animate the bodies of men and those which are at present
unemployed, being held in reserve for the future, have issued from this
unique personage; they are made of his substance. While travelling over
the surface of the ground, or moving about, or shaking himself, he made
them leave his body and planted them in the various places he is
believed to have passed over. Is this not merely a symbolic way of
saying that they are parts of the totemic divinity?
But this conclusion presupposes that the tribes of which we have just
been speaking admit the doctrine of reincarnation. Now according to
Strehlow, this doctrine is unknown to the Arunta, the society which
Spencer and Gillen have studied the longest and the best. If, in this
particular case, these two observers have misunderstood things to such
an extent, their whole testimony would become suspect. So it is
important to determine the actual extent of this divergence.
According to Strehlow, after the soul has once been definitely freed
from the body by the rites of mourning, it never reincarnates itself
again. It goes off to the isles of the dead, where it passes its days in
sleeping and its nights in dancing, until it returns again to earth.
Then it comes back into the midst of the living and plays the rôle of
protecting genius to the young sons, or if such are lacking, to the
grandsons whom the dead man left behind him; it enters their body and
aids their growth. It remains thus in the midst of its former family for
a year or two, after which it goes back to the land of the souls. But
after a certain length of time it goes away once more to make another
sojourn upon earth, which is to be the last. A time will come when it
must take up again, and with no hope of return this time, the route to
the isles of the dead; then, after various incidents, the details of
which it is useless to relate, a storm will overtake it, in the course
of which it will be struck by a flash of lightning. Thus its career is
definitely terminated.[792]
So it cannot reincarnate itself; nor can conceptions and births be due
to the reincarnation of souls which periodically commence new existences
in new bodies. It is true that Strehlow, as Spencer and Gillen, declares
that for the Arunta commerce of the sexes is in no way the determining
condition of generation,[793] which is considered the result of mystic
operations, but different from the ones which the other observers told
us about. It takes place in one or the other of the two following ways:
Wherever an ancestor of the Alcheringa[794] times is believed to have
entered into the ground, there is either a stone or a tree representing
his body. The tree or rock which has this mystic relation with the
departed hero is called _nanja_ according to Spencer and Gillen,[795]
or _ngarra_ according to Strehlow.[796] Sometimes it is a water-hole
which is believed to have been formed in this way. Now, on each of these
trees or rocks and in each of these water-holes, there live embryo
children, called _ratapa_,[797] which belong to exactly the same totem
as the corresponding ancestor. For example, on a gum-tree representing
an ancestor of the kangaroo totem there are ratapa, all of which have
the kangaroo as their totem. If a woman happens to pass it, and she is
of the matrimonial class to which the mothers of these ratapa should
belong,[798] one of them may enter her through the hip. The woman learns
of this act by the characteristic pains which are the first symptoms of
pregnancy. The child thus conceived will of course belong to the same
totem as the ancestor upon whose mystical body he resided before
becoming incarnate.[799]
In other cases, the process employed is slightly different: the ancestor
himself acts in person. At a given moment he leaves his subterranean
retreat and throws on to the passing woman a little churinga of a
special form, called _namatuna_.[800] The churinga enters the body of
the woman and takes a human form there, while the ancestor disappears
again into the earth.[801]
These two ways of conception are believed to be equally frequent. The
features of the child will reveal the manner in which he was conceived;
according to whether his face is broad or long, they say that he is the
incarnation of a ratapa or a namatuna. Beside these two means of
fecundation, Strehlow places a third, which, however, is much more rare.
After his namatuna has penetrated into the body of the woman, the
ancestor himself enters her and voluntarily submits to a new birth. So
in this case, the conception is due to a real reincarnation of the
ancestor. But this is very exceptional, and when a man who has been
conceived thus dies, the ancestral soul which animated him goes away,
just like ordinary souls, to the isles of the dead where, after the
usual delays, it is definitely annihilated. So it cannot undergo any
further reincarnations.[802]
Such is the version of Strehlow.[803] In the opinion of this author it
is radically opposed to that of Spencer and Gillen. But in reality it
differs only in the letter of the formulæ and symbols, while in both
cases we find the same mythical theme in slightly different forms.
In the first place, all the observers agree that every conception is the
result of an incarnation. Only according to Strehlow, that which is
incarnated is not a soul but a ratapa or a namatuna. But what is a
ratapa? Strehlow says that it is a complete embryo, made up of a soul
and a body. But the soul is always represented in material forms; it
sleeps, dances, hunts, eats, etc. So it, too, has a corporal element.
Inversely, the ratapa is invisible to ordinary men; no one sees it as it
enters the body of the woman;[804] this is equivalent to saying that it
is made of a matter quite similar to that of the soul. So it hardly
seems possible to differentiate the two clearly in this regard. In
reality, these are mythical beings which are obviously conceived after
the same model. Schulze calls them the souls of children.[805] Moreover,
the ratapa, just like the soul, sustains the closest relations with the
ancestor of which the sacred tree or rock is the materialized form. It
is of the same totem as this ancestor, of the same phratry and of the
same matrimonial class.[806] Its place in the social organization of the
tribe is the very one that its ancestor is believed to have held before
it. It bears the same name,[807] which is a proof that these two
personalities are at least very closely related to one another.
But there is more than this; this relationship even goes as far as a
complete identification. In fact, it is on the mystic body of the
ancestor that the ratapa is formed; it comes from this; it is like a
detached portion of it. So it really is a part of the ancestor which
penetrates into the womb of the mother and which becomes the child. Thus
we get back to the conception of Spencer and Gillen: birth is due to the
reincarnation of an ancestral personage. Of course it is not the entire
person that is reincarnated, it is only an emanation from him. But this
difference has only a secondary interest, for when a sacred being
divides and duplicates itself, all of its essential characteristics are
to be found again in each of the fragments into which it is broken up.
So really the Alcheringa ancestor is entire in each part of himself
which becomes a ratapa.[808]
The second mode of conception distinguished by Strehlow has the same
significance. In fact, the churinga, and more especially the particular
churinga that is called the namatuna, is considered a transformation of
the ancestor; according to Strehlow,[809] it is his body, just as the
nanja tree is. In other words, the personality of the ancestor, his
churinga and his nanja tree, are sacred things, inspiring the same
sentiments and to which the same religious value is attributed. So they
transmute themselves into one another: in the spot where an ancestor
lost his churinga, a sacred tree or rock has come out of the soil, just
the same as in those places where he entered the ground himself.[810] So
there is a mythological equivalence of a person of the Alcheringa and
his churinga; consequently, when the former throws a namatuna into the
body of a woman, it is as if he entered into it himself. In fact, we
have seen that sometimes he does enter in person after the namatuna;
according to other stories he precedes it; it might be said that he
opens up the way for it.[811] The fact that these two themes exist side
by side in the same myth completes the proof that one is only a doublet
of the other.
Moreover, in whatever way the conception may have taken place, there can
be no doubt that each individual is united to some determined ancestor
of the Alcheringa by especially close bonds. In the first place, each
man has his appointed ancestor; two persons cannot have the same one
simultaneously. In other words, a being of the Alcheringa never has more
than one representative among the living.[812] More than that, the one
is only an aspect of the other. In fact, as we already know, the
churinga left by the ancestor expresses his personality; if we adopt the
interpretation of Strehlow, which, perhaps, is the more satisfactory, we
shall say that it is his body. But this same churinga is related in the
same way to the individual who is believed to have been conceived under
the influence of this ancestor, and who is the fruit of his mystic
works. When the young initiate is introduced into the sanctuary of the
clan, he is shown the churinga of his ancestor, and someone says to him,
"You are this body; you are the same thing as this."[813] So, in
Strehlow's own expression, the churinga is "the body common to the
individual and his ancestor."[814] Now if they are to have the same body
it is necessary that on one side at least their two personalities be
confounded. Strehlow recognizes this explicitly, moreover, when he says,
"By the tjurunga (churinga) the individual is united to his personal
ancestor."[815]
So for Strehlow as well as for Spencer and Gillen, there is a mystic,
religious principle in each new-born child, which emanates from an
ancestor of the Alcheringa. It is this principle which forms the essence
of each individual, therefore it is his soul, or in any case the soul is
made of the same matter and the same substance. Now it is only upon this
one fundamental fact that we have relied in determining the nature and
origin of the idea of the soul. The different metaphors by means of
which it may have been expressed have only a secondary interest for
us.[816]
Far from contradicting the data upon which our theory rests, the recent
observations of Strehlow bring new proofs confirming it. Our reasoning
consisted in inferring the totemic nature of the human soul from the
totemic nature of the ancestral soul, of which the former is an
emanation and a sort of replica. Now, some of the new facts which we owe
to Strehlow show this character of both even more categorically than
those we had at our disposal before do. In the first place, Strehlow,
like Spencer and Gillen, insists on "the intimate relations uniting each
ancestor to an animal, to a plant, or to some other natural object."
Some of these Altjirangamitjina (these are Spencer and Gillen's men of
the Alcheringa) "should," he says, "be manifested directly as animals;
others take the animal form in a way."[817] Even now they are constantly
transforming themselves into animals.[818] In any case, whatever
external aspect they may have, "the special and distinctive qualities of
the animal clearly appear in each of them." For example, the ancestors
of the Kangaroo clan eat grass just like real kangaroos, and flee before
the hunter; those of the Emu clan run and feed like emus,[819] etc. More
than that, those ancestors who had a vegetable as totem become this
vegetable itself on death.[820] Moreover, this close kinship of the
ancestor and the totemic being is so keenly felt by the natives that it
is shown even in their terminology. Among the Arunta, the child calls
the totem of his mother, which serves him as a secondary totem,[821]
_altjira_. As filiation was at first in the uterine line, there was once
a time when each individual had no other totem than that of his mother;
so it is very probable that the term _altjira_ then designated the real
totem. Now this clearly enters into the composition of the word which
means great ancestor, _altjirangamitjina_.[822]
The idea of the totem and that of the ancestor are even so closely
kindred that they sometimes seem to be confounded. Thus, after speaking
of the totem of the mother, or _altjira_, Strehlow goes on to say, "This
altjira appears to the natives in dreams and gives them warnings, just
as it takes information concerning them to their sleeping friends."[823]
This _altjira_, which speaks and which is attached to each individual
personally, is evidently an ancestor; yet it is also an incarnation of
the totem. A certain text in Roth, which speaks of invocations addressed
to the totem, should certainly be interpreted in this sense.[824] So it
appears that the totem is sometimes represented in the mind in the form
of a group of ideal beings or mythical personages who are more or less
indistinct from the ancestors. In a word, the ancestors are the
fragments of the totem.[825]
But if the ancestor is so readily confused with the totemic being, the
individual soul, which is so near the ancestral soul, cannot do
otherwise. Moreover, this is what actually results from the close union
of each man with his churinga. In fact, we know that the churinga
represents the personality of the individual who is believed to have
been born of it;[826] but it also expresses the totemic animal. When the
civilizing hero, Mangarkunjerkunja, presented each member of the
Kangaroo clan with his personal totem, he spoke as follows: "Here is the
body of a kangaroo."[827] Thus the churinga is at once the body of the
ancestor, of the individual himself and of the totemic animal; so,
according to a strong and very just expression of Strehlow, these three
beings form a "solid unity."[828] They are almost equivalent and
interchangeable terms. This is as much as to say that they are thought
of as different aspects of one and the same reality, which is also
defined by the distinctive attributes of the totem. Their common essence
is the totemic principle. The language itself expresses this identity.
The word ratapa, and the _aratapi_ of the Loritja language, designate
the mythical embryo which is detached from the ancestor and which
becomes the child; now these same words also designate the totem of this
same child, such as is determined by the spot where the mother believes
that she conceived.[829]
III
Up to the present we have studied the doctrine of reincarnation only in
the tribes of Central Australia; therefore the bases upon which our
inference rests may be deemed too narrow. But in the first place, for
the reasons which we have pointed out, the experiment holds good outside
of the societies which we have observed directly. Also, there are
abundant facts proving that the same or analogous conceptions are found
in the most diverse parts of Australia or, at least, have left very
evident traces there. They are found even in America.
Howitt mentions them among the Dieri of South Australia.[830] The word
_Mura-mura_, which Gason translates with Good Spirit and which he thinks
expresses a belief in a god creator,[831] is really a collective word
designating the group of ancestors placed by the myth at the beginning
of the tribe. They continue to exist to-day as formerly. "They are
believed to live in trees, which are sacred for this reason." Certain
irregularities of the ground, rocks and springs are identified with
these Mura-mura,[832] which consequently resemble the Altjirangamitjina
of the Arunta in a singular way. The Kurnai of Gippsland, though
retaining only vestiges of totemism, also believe in the existence of
ancestors called _Muk-Kurnai_, and which they think of as beings
intermediate between men and animals.[833] Among the Nimbaldi, Taplin
has observed a theory of conception similar to that which Strehlow
attributes to the Arunta.[834] We find this belief in reincarnation held
integrally by the Wotjobaluk in Victoria. "The spirits of the dead,"
says Mathews, "assemble in the _miyur_[835] of their respective clans;
they leave these to be born again in human form when a favourable
occasion presents itself."[836] Mathews even affirms that "the belief in
the reincarnation or transmigration of souls is strongly enrooted in all
the Australian tribes."[837]
If we pass to the northern regions we find the pure doctrine of the
Arunta among the Niol-Niol in the north-west; every birth is attributed
to the incarnation of a pre-existing soul, which introduces itself into
the body of a woman.[838] In northern Queensland myths, differing from
the preceding only in form, express exactly the same ideas. Among the
tribes on the Pennefather River it is believed that every man has two
souls: the one, called _ngai_, resides in the heart; the other, called
_choi_, remains in the placenta. Soon after birth the placenta is buried
in a consecrated place. A particular genius, named Anje-a, who has
charge of the phenomena of procreation, comes to get this _choi_ and
keeps it until the child, being grown up, is married. When the time
comes to give him a son, Anje-a takes a bit of the choi of this man,
places it in the embryo he is making, and inserts it into the womb of
the mother. So it is out of the soul of the father that that of the
child is made. It is true that the child does not receive the paternal
soul integrally at first, for the _ngai_ remains in the heart of the
father as long as he lives. But when he dies the _ngai_, being
liberated, also incarnates itself in the bodies of the children; if
there are several children it is divided equally among them. Thus there
is a perfect spiritual continuity between the generations; it is the
same soul which is transmitted from a father to his children and from
these to their children, and this unique soul, always remaining itself
in spite of its successive divisions and subdivisions, is the one which
animated the first ancestor at the beginning of all things.[839] Between
this theory and the one held by the central tribes there is only one
difference of any importance; this is that the reincarnation is not the
work of the ancestors themselves but that of a special genius who takes
charge of this function professionally. But it seems probable that this
genius is the product of a syncretism which has fused the numerous
figures of the first ancestors into one single being. This hypothesis is
at least made probable by the fact that the words Anje-a and Anjir are
evidently very closely related; now the second designates the first man,
the original ancestor from whom all men are descended.[840]
These same ideas are found again among the Indian tribes of America.
Krauss says that among the Tlinkit, the souls of the departed are
believed to come back to earth and introduce themselves into the bodies
of the pregnant women of their families. "So when a woman dreams, during
pregnancy, of some deceased relative, she believes that the soul of this
latter has penetrated into her. If the young child has some
characteristic mark which the dead man had before, they believe that it
is the dead man himself come back to earth, and his name is given to the
child."[841] This belief is also general among the Haida. It is the
shaman who reveals which relative it was who reincarnated himself in the
child and what name should consequently be given to him.[842] Among the
Kwakiutl it is believed that the latest member of a family who died
comes back to life in the person of the first child to be born in that
family.[843] It is the same with the Hurons, the Iroquois, the Tinneh,
and many other tribes of the United States.[844]
The universality of these conceptions extends, of course, to the
conclusion which we have deduced from them, that is, to the explanation
of the idea of the soul which we have proposed. Its general
acceptability is also proved by the following facts.
We know[845] that each individual contains within him something of that
anonymous force which is diffused in the sacred species; he is a member
of this species himself. But as an empirical and visible being, he is
not, for, in spite of the symbolic designs and marks with which he
decorates his body, there is nothing in him to suggest the form of an
animal or plant. So it must be that there is another being in him, in
whom he recognizes himself, but whom he represents in the form of an
animal or vegetable species. Now is it not evident that this double can
only be the soul, since the soul is, of itself, already a double of the
subject whom it animates? The justification of this identification is
completed by the fact that the organs where the fragment of the totemic
principle contained in each individual incarnates itself the most
eminently are also those where the soul resides. This is the case with
the blood. The blood contains something of the nature of the totem, as
is proved by the part it takes in the totemic ceremonies.[846] But at
the same time, the blood is one of the seats of the soul; or rather, it
is the soul itself, seen from without. When blood flows, life runs out
and, in the same process, the soul escapes. So the soul is confused with
the sacred principle which is imminent in the blood.
Regarding matters from another point of view, if our explanation is
well-founded, the totemic principle, in penetrating into the individual
as we suppose, should retain a certain amount of autonomy there, since
it is quite distinct from the subject in whom it is incarnated. Now this
is just what Howitt claims to have observed among the Yuin: "That in
this tribe the totem is thought to be in some way part of a man is
clearly seen by the case of Umbara, before mentioned, who told me that,
many years ago, someone of the Lace-lizard totem sent it while he was
asleep, and that it went down his throat and almost ate his totem, which
was in his breast, so that he nearly died."[847] So it is quite true
that the totem is broken up in individualizing itself and that each of
the bits thus detached plays the part of a spirit or soul residing in
the body.[848]
But there are other more clearly demonstrative facts. If the soul is
only the totemic principle individualized, it should have, in certain
cases at least, rather close relations with the animal or vegetable
species whose form is reproduced by the totem. And, in fact, "the
Geawe-Gal (a tribe of New South Wales) had a superstition that everyone
had within himself an affinity to the spirit of some bird, beast or
reptile. Not that he sprung from the creature in any way, but that the
spirit which was in him was akin to that of the creature."[849]
There are even cases where the soul is believed to emanate directly from
the animal or vegetable serving as totem. Among the Arunta, according to
Strehlow, when a woman has eaten a great deal of fruit, it is believed
that she will give birth to a child who will have this fruit as totem.
If, at the moment when she felt the first tremblings of the child, she
was looking at a kangaroo, it is believed that the ratapa of the
kangaroo has entered her body and fertilized her.[850] H. Basedow
reported the same fact from the Wogait.[851] We know, also, that the
ratapa and the soul are almost indistinguishable things. Now, such an
origin could never have been attributed to the soul if men did not think
that it was made out of the same substances as the plants and animals of
the totemic species.
Thus the soul is frequently represented in an animal form. It is known
that in inferior societies, death is never considered a natural event,
due to the action of purely physical causes; it is generally attributed
to the evil workings of some sorcerer. In a large number of Australian
societies, in order to determine who is the responsible author of this
murder, they work on the principle that the soul of the murderer must
inevitably come to visit its victim. Therefore, the body is placed upon
a scaffolding; then, the ground under the corpse and all around it is
carefully smoothed off so that the slightest mark becomes easily
perceptible. They return the next day; if an animal has passed by there
during the interval, its tracks are readily recognizable. Their form
reveals the species to which it belongs, and from that, they infer the
social group of which the guilty man is a member. They say that it is a
man of such a class or such a clan,[852] according to whether the
animal is the totem of this or that class or clan. So the soul is
believed to have come in the form of the totemic animal.
In other societies where totemism has weakened or disappeared, the soul
still continues to be thought of in an animal form. The natives of Cape
Bedford (North Queensland) believe that the child, at the moment of
entering the body of its mother, is a curlew if it is a girl, or a snake
if it is a boy.[853] It is only later that it takes a human form. Many
of the Indians of North America, says the Prince of Wied, say that they
have an animal in their bodies.[854] The Bororo of Brazil represent the
soul in the form of a bird, and therefore believe that they are birds of
the same variety.[855] In other places, it is thought of as a snake, a
lizard, a fly, a bee, etc.[856]
But it is especially after death that this animal nature of the soul is
manifested. During life, this characteristic is partially veiled, as it
were, by the very form of the human body. But when death has once set it
free, it becomes itself again. Among the Omaha, in at least two of the
Buffalo clans, it is believed that the souls of the dead go to rejoin
the buffalo, their ancestors.[857] The Hopi are divided into a certain
number of clans, whose ancestors were animals or beings with animal
forms. Now Schoolcraft tells us that they say that at death, they take
their original form again; each becomes a bear or deer, according to the
clan to which he belongs.[858] Very frequently the soul is believed to
reincarnate itself in the body of an animal.[859] It is probably from
this that the widely-spread doctrine of metempsychosis was derived. We
have already seen how hard pressed Tylor is to account for it.[860] If
the soul is an essentially human principle, what could be more curious
than this marked predilection which it shows, in so large a number of
societies, for the animal form? On the other hand, everything is
explained if, by its very constitution, the soul is closely related to
the animal, for in that case, when it returns to the animal world at the
close of this life, it is only returning to its real nature. Thus the
generality of the belief in metempsychosis is a new proof that the
constituent elements of the idea of the soul have been taken largely
from the animal kingdom, as is presupposed by the theory which we have
just set forth.
IV
Thus the notion of the soul is a particular application of the beliefs
relative to sacred beings. This is the explanation of the religious
character which this idea has had from the moment when it first appeared
in history, and which it still retains to-day. In fact, the soul has
always been considered a sacred thing; on this ground, it is opposed to
the body which is, in itself, profane. It is not merely distinguished
from its material envelope as the inside from the outside; it is not
merely represented as made out of a more subtle and fluid matter; but
more than this, it inspires those sentiments which are everywhere
reserved for that which is divine. If it is not made into a god, it is
at least regarded as a spark of the divinity. This essential
characteristic would be inexplicable if the idea of the soul were only a
pre-scientific solution given to the problem of dreams; for there is
nothing in the dream to awaken religious emotions, so the cause by which
these are explained could not have such a character. But if the soul is
a part of the divine substance, it represents something not ourselves
that is within us; if it is made of the same mental matter as the sacred
beings, it is natural that it should become the object of the same
sentiments.
And the sacred character which men thus attribute to themselves is not
the product of a pure illusion either; like the notions of religious
force and of divinity, the notion of the soul is not without a
foundation in reality. It is perfectly true that we are made up of two
distinct parts, which are opposed to one another as the sacred to the
profane, and we may say that, in a certain sense, there is divinity in
us. For society, this unique source of all that is sacred, does not
limit itself to moving us from without and affecting us for the moment;
it establishes itself within us in a durable manner. It arouses within
us a whole world of ideas and sentiments which express it but which, at
the same time, form an integral and permanent part of ourselves. When
the Australian goes away from a religious ceremony, the representations
which this communal life has aroused or re-aroused within him are not
obliterated in a second. The figures of the great ancestors, the heroic
exploits whose memory these rites perpetuate, the great deeds of every
sort in which he, too, has participated through the cult, in a word, all
these numerous ideals which he has elaborated with the co-operation of
his fellows, continue to live in his consciousness and, through the
emotions which are attached to them and the ascendancy which they hold
over his entire being, they are sharply distinguished from the vulgar
impressions arising from his daily relations with external things. Moral
ideas have the same character. It is society which forces them upon us,
and as the respect inspired by it is naturally extended to all that
comes from it, its imperative rules of conduct are invested, by reason
of their origin, with an authority and a dignity which is shared by none
of our internal states: therefore, we assign them a place apart in our
psychical life. Although our moral conscience is a part of our
consciousness, we do not feel ourselves on an equality with it. In this
voice which makes itself heard only to give us orders and establish
prohibitions, we cannot recognize our own voices; the very tone in which
it speaks to us warns us that it expresses something within us that is
not of ourselves. This is the objective foundation of the idea of the
soul: those representations whose flow constitutes our interior life are
of two different species which are irreducible one into another. Some
concern themselves with the external and material world; others, with an
ideal world to which we attribute a moral superiority over the first. So
we are really made up of two beings facing in different and almost
contrary directions, one of whom exercises a real pre-eminence over the
other. Such is the profound meaning of the antithesis which all men have
more or less clearly conceived between the body and the soul, the
material and the spiritual beings who coexist within us. Moralists and
preachers have often maintained that no one can deny the reality of duty
and its sacred character without falling into materialism. And it is
true that if we have no idea of moral and religious imperatives, our
psychical life will all be reduced to one level,[861] all our states of
consciousness will be on the same plane, and all feeling of duality
will perish. To make this duality intelligible, it is, of course, in no
way necessary to imagine a mysterious and unrepresentable substance,
under the name of the soul, which is opposed to the body. But here, as
in regard to the idea of sacredness, the error concerns the letter of
the symbol employed, not the reality of the fact symbolized. It remains
true that our nature is double; there really is a particle of divinity
in us because there is within us us a particle of these great ideas
which are the soul of the group.
So the individual soul is only a portion of the collective soul of the
group; it is the anonymous force at the basis of the cult, but
incarnated in an individual whose personality it espouses; it is _mana_
individualized. Perhaps dreams aided in determining certain secondary
characteristics of the idea. The inconsistency and instability of the
images which fill our minds during sleep, and their remarkable aptitude
for transforming themselves into one another, may have furnished the
model for this subtile, transparent and Protean matter out of which the
soul is believed to be made. Also, the facts of swooning, catalepsy,
etc., may have suggested the idea that the soul was mobile, and quitted
the body temporarily during this life; this, in its turn, has served to
explain certain dreams. But all these experiences and observations could
have had only a secondary and complimentary influence, whose very
existence it is difficult to establish. All that is really essential in
the idea comes from elsewhere.
But does not this genesis of the idea of the soul misunderstand its
essential characteristic? If the soul is a particular form of the
impersonal principle which is diffused in the group, the totemic species
and all the things of every sort which are attached to these, at bottom
it is impersonal itself. So, with differences only of degree, it should
have the same properties as the force of which it is a special form, and
particularly, the same diffusion, the same aptitude for spreading itself
contagiously and the same ubiquity. But quite on the contrary, the soul
is voluntarily represented as a concrete, definite being, wholly
contained within itself and not communicable to others; it is made the
basis of our personality.
But this way of conceiving the soul is the product of a late and
philosophic elaboration. The popular representation, as it is
spontaneously formed from common experience, is very different,
especially at first. For the Australian, the soul is a very vague
thing, undecided and wavering in form, and spread over the whole
organism. Though it manifests itself especially at certain points, there
are probably none from which it is totally absent. So it has a
diffusion, a contagiousness and an omnipresence comparable to those of
the _mana_. Like the mana, it is able to divide and duplicate itself
infinitely, though remaining entire in each of its parts; it is from
these divisions and duplications that the plurality of souls is derived.
On the other hand, the doctrine of reincarnation, whose generality we
have established, shows how many impersonal elements enter into the idea
of the soul and how essential those are. For if the same soul is going
to clothe a new personality in each generation, the individual forms in
which it successively develops itself must all be equally external to
it, and have nothing to do with its true nature. It is a sort of generic
substance which individualizes itself only secondarily and
superficially. Moreover, this conception of the soul is by no means
completely gone. The cult of relics shows that for a host of believers
even to-day, the soul of a saint, with all its essential powers,
continues to adhere to his different bones; and this implies that he is
believed to be able to diffuse himself, subdivide himself and
incorporate himself in all sorts of different things simultaneously.
Just as the characteristic attributes of the mana are found in the soul,
so secondary and superficial changes are enough to enable the mana to
individualize itself in the form of a soul. We pass from the first idea
to the second with no break of continuity. Every religious force which
is attached in a special way to a determined being participates in the
characteristics of this being, takes on its appearance and becomes its
spiritual double. Tregear, in his Maori-Polynesian dictionary, has
thought it possible to connect the word _mana_ with another group of
words, such as _manawa_, _manamana_, etc., which seem to belong to the
same family, and which signify heart, life, consciousness.[862] Is this
not equivalent to saying that some sort of kinship ought to exist
between the corresponding ideas as well, that is to say, between the
idea of impersonal force and those of internal life, mental force and,
in a word, of the soul? This is why the question whether the churinga is
sacred because it serves as the residence of a soul, as Spencer and
Gillen believe, or because it has impersonal virtues, as Strehlow
thinks, seems to us to have little interest and to be without
sociological importance. Whether the efficacy of a sacred object is
represented in an abstract form in the mind or is attributed to some
personal agent does not really matter. The psychological roots of both
beliefs are identical: an object is sacred because it inspires, in one
way or another, a collective sentiment of respect which removes it from
profane touches. In order to explain this sentiment, men sometimes fall
back on to a vague and imprecise cause, and sometimes on to a determined
spiritual being endowed with a name and a history; but these different
interpretations are superadded to one fundamental phenomenon which is
the same in both cases.
This, moreover, is what explains the singular confusions, examples of
which we have met with as we have progressed. The individual, the soul
of the ancestor which he reincarnates or from which his own is an
emanation, his churinga and the animals of the totemic species are, as
we have said, partially equivalent and interchangeable things. This is
because in certain connections, they all affect the collective
consciousness in the same way. If the churinga is sacred, it is because
of the collective sentiments of respect inspired by the totemic emblem
carved upon its surface; now the same sentiment attaches itself to the
animals or plants whose outward form is reproduced by the totem, to the
soul of the individual, for it is thought of in the form of the totemic
being, and finally to the ancestral soul, of which the preceding one is
only a particular aspect. So all these various objects, whether real or
ideal, have one common element by which they arouse a single affective
state in the mind, and through this, they become confused. In so far as
they are expressed by one and the same representation, they are
indistinct. This is how the Arunta has come to regard the churinga as
the body common to the individual, the ancestor and even the totemic
being. It is his way of expressing the identity of the sentiments of
which these different things are the object.
However, it does not follow from the fact the idea of the soul is
derived from the idea of mana that the first has a relatively later
origin, or that there was a period in history when men were acquainted
with religious forces only in their impersonal forms. When some wish to
designate by the word preanimist an historical period during which
animism was completely unknown, they build up an arbitrary
hypothesis;[863] for there is no people among whom the ideas of the soul
and of mana do not coexist side by side. So there is no ground for
imagining that they were formed at two distinct times; everything, on
the contrary, goes to show that the two are coeval. Just as there is no
society without individuals, so those impersonal forces which are
disengaged from the group cannot establish themselves without
incarnating themselves in the individual consciousnesses where they
individualize themselves. In reality, we do not have two different
developments, but two different aspects of one and the same development.
It is true that they do not have an equal importance; one is more
essential than the other. The idea of mana does not presuppose the idea
of the soul; for if the mana is going to individualize itself and break
itself up into the particular souls, it must first of all exist, and
what it is in itself does not depend upon the forms it takes when
individualized. But on the contrary, the idea of the soul cannot be
understood except when taken in connection with the idea of mana. So on
this ground, it is possible to say that it is the result of a secondary
formation; but we are speaking of a secondary formation in the logical,
not the chronological, sense of the word.
V
But how does it come that men have believed that the soul survives the
body and is even able to do so for an indefinite length of time?
From the analysis which we have made, it is evident that the belief in
immortality has not been established under the influence of moral ideas.
Men have not imagined the prolongation of their existence beyond the
tomb in order that a just retribution for moral acts may be assured in
another life, if it fails in this one; for we have seen that all
considerations of this sort are foreign to the primitive conception of
the beyond.
Nor is the other hypothesis any better, according to which the other
life was imagined as a means of escaping the agonizing prospect of
annihilation. In the first place, it is not true that the need of
personal survival was actively felt at the beginning. The primitive
generally accepts the idea of death with a sort of indifference. Being
trained to count his own individuality for little, and being accustomed
to exposing his life constantly, he gives it up easily enough.[864] More
than that, the immortality promised by the religions he practices is not
personal. In a large number of cases, the soul does not continue the
personality of the dead man, or does not continue it long, for,
forgetful of its previous existence, it goes away, after a while, to
animate another body and thus becomes the vivifying principle of a new
personality. Even among the most advanced peoples, it was only a pale
and sad existence that shades led in Sheol or Erebus, and could hardly
attenuate the regrets occasioned by the memories of the life lost.
A more satisfactory explanation is the one attaching the conception of a
posthumous life to the experiences of dreams. Our dead friends and
relatives reappear to us in dreams: we see them act, we hear them speak;
it is natural to conclude that they continue to exist. But if these
observations were able to confirm the idea after it had once been born,
they hardly seem capable of creating it out of nothing. Dreams in which
we see departed persons living again are too rare and too short and
leave only too vague recollections of themselves, to have been able to
suggest so important a system of beliefs to men all by themselves. There
is a remarkable lack of proportion between the effect and the cause to
which it is attributed.
What makes this question embarrassing is the fact that in itself, the
idea of the soul does not imply that of its survival, but rather seems
to exclude it. In fact, we have seen that the soul, though being
distinguished from the body, is believed, nevertheless, to be closely
united to it: it ages along with the body, it feels a reaction from all
the maladies that fall upon the body; so it would seem natural that it
should die with the body. At least, men ought to have believed that it
ceased to exist from the moment when it definitely lost its original
form, and when it was no longer what it had been. Yet it is at just this
moment that a new life opens out before it.
The myths which we have already described give the only possible
explanation of this belief. We have seen that the souls of new-born
children are either emanations of the ancestral souls, or these souls
themselves reincarnated. But in order that they may either reincarnate
themselves, or periodically give off new emanations, they must have
survived their first holders. So it seems as though they admitted the
survival of the dead in order to explain the birth of the living. The
primitive does not have the idea of an all-powerful god who creates
souls out of nothing. It seems to him that souls cannot be made except
out of souls. So those who are born can only be new forms of those who
have been; consequently, it is necessary that these latter continue to
exist in order that others may be born. In fine, the belief in the
immortality of the soul is the only way in which men were able to
explain a fact which could not fail to attract their attention; this
fact is the perpetuity of the life of the group. Individuals die, but
the clan survives. So the forces which give it life must have the same
perpetuity. Now these forces are the souls which animate individual
bodies; for it is in them and through them that the group is realized.
For this reason, it is necessary that they endure. It is even necessary
that in enduring, they remain always the same; for, as the clan always
keeps its characteristic appearance, the spiritual substance out of
which it is made must be thought of as qualitatively invariable. Since
it is always the same clan with the same totemic principle, it is
necessary that the souls be the same, for souls are only the totemic
principle broken up and particularized. Thus there is something like a
germinative plasm, of a mystic order, which is transmitted from
generation to generation and which makes, or at least is believed to
make, the spiritual unity of the clan through all time. And this belief,
in spite of its symbolic character, is not without a certain objective
truth. For though the group may not be immortal in the absolute sense of
the word, still it is true that it endures longer than the individuals
and that it is born and incarnated afresh in each new generation.
A fact confirms this interpretation. We have seen that according to the
testimony of Strehlow, the Arunta distinguish two sorts of souls: on the
one hand are those of the ancestors of the Alcheringa, on the other,
those of the individuals who actually compose the active body of the
tribe at each moment in history. The second sort only survive the body
for a relatively short time; they are soon totally annihilated. Only the
former are immortal; as they are uncreated, so they do not perish. It is
also to be noticed that they are the only ones whose immortality is
necessary to explain the permanence of the group; for it is upon them,
and upon them alone, that it is incumbent to assure the perpetuity of
the clan, for every conception is their work. In this connection, the
others have no part to play. So souls are not said to be immortal except
in so far as this immortality is useful in rendering intelligible the
continuity of the collective life.
Thus the causes leading to the first beliefs in a future life had no
connections with the functions to be filled at a later period by the
institutions beyond the tomb. But when that had once appeared, they were
soon utilized for other purposes besides those which had been their
original reasons for existence. Even in the Australian societies, we see
them beginning to organize themselves for this other purpose. Moreover,
there was no need of any fundamental transformation for this. How true
it is that the same social institution can successively fulfil different
functions without changing its nature!
VI
The idea of the soul was for a long time, and still is in part, the
popular form of the idea of personality.[865] So the genesis of the
former of these ideas should aid us in understanding how the second one
was formed.
From what has already been said, it is clear that the notion of person
is the product of two sorts of factors. One of these is essentially
impersonal: it is the spiritual principle serving as the soul of the
group. In fact, it is this which constitutes the very substance of
individual souls. Now this is not the possession of any one in
particular: it is a part of the collective patrimony; in it and through
it, all consciousnesses communicate. But on the other hand, in order to
have separate personalities, it is necessary that another factor
intervene to break up and differentiate this principle: in other words,
an individualizing factor is necessary. It is the body that fulfils this
function. As bodies are distinct from each other, and as they occupy
different points of space and time, each of them forms a special centre
about which the collective representations reflect and colour themselves
differently. The result is that even if all the consciousnesses in these
bodies are directed towards the same world, to wit, the world of the
ideas and sentiments which brings about the moral unity of the group,
they do not all see it from the same angle; each one expresses it in its
own fashion.
Of these two equally indispensable factors, the former is certainly not
the less important, for this is the one which furnishes the original
matter for the idea of the soul. Perhaps some will be surprised to see
so considerable a rôle attributed to the impersonal element in the
genesis of the idea of personality. But the philosophical analysis of
the idea of person, which has gone far ahead of the sociological
analysis, has reached analogous results on this point. Among all the
philosophers, Leibniz is one of those who have felt most vividly what a
personality is; for before all, the nomad is a personal and autonomous
being. Yet, for Leibniz, the contents of all the monads is identical. In
fact, all are consciousnesses which express one and the same object, the
world; and as the world itself is only a system of representations, each
particular consciousness is really only the reflection of the universal
consciousness. However, each one expresses it from its own point of
view, and in its own manner. We know how this difference of perspectives
comes from the fact that the monads are situated differently in
relation to each other and to the whole system which they constitute.
Kant expresses the same sentiment, though in a different form. For him,
the corner-stone of the personality is the will. Now the will is the
faculty of acting in conformity with reason, and the reason is that
which is most impersonal within us. For reason is not my reason; it is
human reason in general. It is the power which the mind has of rising
above the particular, the contingent and the individual, to think in
universal forms. So from this point of view, we may say that what makes
a man a personality is that by which he is confounded with other men,
that which makes him a man, not a certain man. The senses, the body and,
in a word, all that individualizes, is, on the contrary, considered as
the antagonist of the personality by Kant.
This is because individuation is not the essential characteristic of the
personality. A person is not merely a single subject distinguished from
all the others. It is especially a being to which is attributed a
relative autonomy in relation to the environment with which it is most
immediately in contact. It is represented as capable of moving itself,
to a certain degree: this is what Leibniz expressed in an exaggerated
way when he said that the monad was completely closed to the outside.
Now our analysis permits us to see how this conception was formed and to
what it corresponds.
In fact, the soul, a symbolic representation of the personality, has the
same characteristic. Although closely bound to the body, it is believed
to be profoundly distinct from it and to enjoy, in relation to it, a
large degree of independence. During life, it may leave it temporarily,
and it definitely withdraws at death. Far from being dependent upon the
body, it dominates it from the higher dignity which is in it. It may
well take from the body the outward form in which it individualizes
itself, but it owes nothing essential to it. Nor is the autonomy which
all peoples have attributed to the soul a pure illusion; we know now
what its objective foundation is. It is quite true that the elements
which serve to form the idea of the soul and those which enter into the
representation of the body come from two different sources that are
independent of one another. One sort are made up of the images and
impressions coming from all parts of the organism; the others consist in
the ideas and sentiments which come from and express society. So the
former are not derived from the latter. There really is a part of
ourselves which is not placed in immediate dependence upon the organic
factor: this is all that which represents society in us. The general
ideas which religion or science fix in our minds, the mental operations
which these ideas suppose, the beliefs and sentiments which are at the
basis of our moral life, and all these superior forms of psychical
activity which society awakens in us, these do not follow in the trail
of our bodily states, as our sensations and our general bodily
consciousness do. As we have already shown, this is because the world of
representations in which social life passes is superimposed upon its
material substratum, far from arising from it; the determinism which
reigns there is much more supple than the one whose roots are in the
constitution of our tissues and it leaves with the actor a justified
impression of the greatest liberty. The medium in which we thus move is
less opaque and less resistant: we feel ourselves to be, and we are,
more at our ease there. In a word, the only way we have of freeing
ourselves from physical forces is to oppose them with collective forces.
But whatever we receive from society, we hold in common with our
companions. So it is not at all true that we are more personal as we are
more individualized. The two terms are in no way synonymous: in one
sense, they oppose more than they imply one another. Passion
individualizes, yet it also enslaves. Our sensations are essentially
individual; yet we are more personal the more we are freed from our
senses and able to think and act with concepts. So those who insist upon
all the social elements of the individual do not mean by that to deny or
debase the personality. They merely refuse to confuse it with the fact
of individuation.[866]