Anthropology by Robert Ranulph Marett (top ten books to read txt) 📕

It will be replied—and I fully realize the force of the objection—that history, and therefore anthropology, has nothing to do with truth or falsehood—in a word, with value. In strict theory, this is so. Its business is to describe and generalize fact; and religion from first to last might be pure illusion or even delusion, and it would be fact none the less on that account.

At the same time, being men, we all find it hard, nay impossible, to study mankind impartially. When we say that we are going to play the historian, or the anthropologist, and to put aside for the time being all consideration of the moral of the story we seek to unfold, we are merely undertaking to be as fair all round as we can. Willy nilly, however, we are sure to colour our history, to the extent, at any rate, of taking a hopeful or a gloomy view of man's past achievements, as bearing on his present condition and his future prospects.

In the same way, then, I do not believe that we can help thinking to ourselves all the time, when we are tracing out the history of world-religion, either that there is "nothing in it" at all, or that there is "something in it," whatever form it assume, and whether it hold itself to be revealed (as it almost always does) or not. On the latter estimate of religion, however, it is still quite possible to judge that one form of religion is infinitely higher and better than another. Religion, regarded historically, is in evolution. The best form of religion that we can attain to is inevitably the best for us; but, as a worse form preceded it, so a better form, we must allow and even desire, may follow. Now, frankly, I am one of those who take the more sympathetic view of historical religion; an I say so at once, in case my interpretation of the facts turn out to be coloured by this sanguine assumption.

Moreover, I think that we may easily exaggerate the differences in culture and, more especially, in religious insight and understanding that exist between the ruder peoples and ourselves. In view of our common hope, and our common want of knowledge, I would rather identify religion with a general striving of humanity than with the exclusive pretension of any one people or sect. Who knows, for instance, the final truth about what happens to the soul at death? I am quite ready to admit, indeed, that some of us can see a little farther into a brick wall than, say, Neanderthal man. Yet when I find facts that appear to prove that Neanderthal man buried his dead with ceremony, and to the best of his means equipped them for a future life, I openly confess that I would rather stretch out a hand across the ages and greet him as my brother and fellow-pilgrim than throw in my lot with the self-righteous folk who seem to imagine this world and the next to have been created for their exclusive benefit.

Now the trouble with anthropologists is to find a working definition of religion on which they can agree. Christianity is religion, all would have to admit. Again, Mahomedanism is religion, for all anthropological purposes. But, when a naked savage "dances" his god—when the spoken part of the rite simply consists, as amongst the south-eastern Australians, in shouting "Daramulun! Daramulun!" (the god's name), so that we cannot be sure whether the dancers are indulging in a prayer or in an incantation—is that religion? Or, worse still, suppose that no sort of personal god can be discovered at the back of the performance—which consists, let us say, as amongst the central Australians, in solemnly rubbing a bull-roarer on the stomach, so that its mystic virtues may cause the man to become "good" and "glad" and "strong" (for that is his own way of describing the spiritual effects)—is that religion, in any sense that can link it historically with, say, the Christian type of religion?

No, say some, these low-class dealings with the unseen are magic, not religion. The rude folk in question do not go the right way about putting themselves into touch with the unseen. They try to put pressure on the unseen, to control it. They ought to conciliate it, by bowing to its will. Their methods may be earnest, but they are not propitiatory. There is too much "My will be done" about it all.

Unfortunately, two can play at this game of ex-parte definition. The more unsympathetic type of historian, relentlessly pursuing the clue afforded by this distinction between control and conciliation, professes himself able to discover plenty of magic even in the higher forms of religion. The rite as such—say, churchgoing as such—appears to be reckoned by some of the devout as not without a certain intrinsic efficacy. "Very well," says this school, "then a good deal of average Christianity is magic."

My own view, then, is that this distinction will only lead us into trouble. And, to my mind, it adds to the confusion if it be further laid down, as some would do, that this sort of dealing with the unseen which, on the face of it, and according to our notions, seems rather mechanical (being, as it were, an effort to get a hold on some hidden force) is so far from being akin to religion that its true affinity is with natural science. The natural science of to-day, I quite admit, has in part evolved out of experiments with the occult; just as law, fine art, and almost every other one of our higher interests have likewise done. But just so long and so far as it was occult science, I would maintain, it was not natural science at all, but, as it were, rather supernatural science. Besides, much of our natural science has grown up out of straightforward attempts to carry out mechanical work on industrial lines—to smelt iron, let us say; but since then, as now, there were numerous trade-secrets, an atmosphere of mystery was apt to surround the undertaking, which helped to give it the air of a trafficking with the uncanny. But because science then, as even now sometimes, was thought by the ignorant to be somehow closely associated with all the powers of evil, it does not follow that then or now the true affinity of science must be with the devil.

Magic and religion, according to the view I would support, belong to the same department of human experience—one of the two great departments, the two worlds, one might almost call them, into which human experience, throughout its whole history, has been divided. Together they belong to the supernormal world, the x-region of experience, the region of mental twilight.

Magic I take to include all bad ways, and religion all good ways, of dealing with the supernormal—bad and good, of course, not as we may happen to judge them, but as the society concerned judges them. Sometimes, indeed, the people themselves hardly know where to draw the line between the two; and, in that case, the anthropologist cannot well do it for them. But every primitive society thinks witchcraft bad. Witchcraft consists in leaguing oneself with supernormal powers of evil in order to effect selfish and anti-social ends. Witchcraft, then, is genuine magic—black magic of the devil's colour. On the other hand, every primitive society also distinguishes certain salutary ways of dealing with supernormal powers. All these ways taken together constitute religion. For the rest, there will always be a mass of more or less evaporated beliefs, going with practices that have more or less lost their hold on the community. These belong to the folklore which every people has. Under this or some closely related head must also be set down the mass of mere wonder-tales, due to the play of fancy, and without direct bearing on the serious pursuits of life.

The world to which neither magic nor religion belongs, but to which physical science, the knowledge of how to deal mechanically with material things, does belong wholly, is the workaday world, the region of normal, commonplace, calculable happenings. With our telescopes and microscopes we see farther and deeper into things than does the savage. Yet the savage has excellent eyes. What he sees he sees. Consequently, we must duly allow for the fact that there is for him, as well as for us, a "natural," that is to say, normal and workaday world; even though it be far narrower in extent than ours. The savage is not perpetually spook-haunted. On the contrary, when he is engaged on the daily round, and all is going well, he is as careless and happy as a child.

But savage life has few safeguards. Crisis is a frequent, if intermittent, element in it. Hunger, sickness and war are examples of crisis. Birth and death are crises. Marriage is usually regarded by humanity as a crisis. So is initiation—the turning-point in one's career, when one steps out into the world of men. Now what, in terms of mind, does crisis mean? It means that one is at one's wits' end; that the ordinary and expected has been replaced by the extraordinary and unexpected; that we are projected into the world of the unknown. And in that world of the unknown we must miserably abide until, somehow, confidence is restored.

Psychologically regarded, then, the function of religion is to restore men's confidence when it is shaken by crisis. Men do not seek crisis; they would always run away from it, if they could. Crisis seeks them; and, whereas the feebler folk are ready to succumb, the bolder spirits face it. Religion is the facing of the unknown. It is the courage in it that brings comfort.[6]

[Footnote 6: The courage involved in all live religion normally coexists with a certain modesty or humility. I have tried to work out this point elsewhere in a short study entitled The Birth of Humility.]

We must go on, however, to consider religion sociologically. A religion is the effort to face crisis, so far as that effort is organized by society in some particular way. A religion is congregational—that is to say, serves the ends of a number of persons simultaneously. It is traditional—that is to say, has served the ends of successive generations of persons. Therefore inevitably it has standardized a method. It involves a routine, a ritual. Also it involves some sort of conventional doctrine, which is, as it were, the inner side of the ritual—its lining.

Now in what follows I shall insist, in the first instance, on this sociological side of religion. For anthropological purposes it is the sounder plan. We must altogether eschew that "Robinson Crusoe method" which consists in reconstructing the creed of a solitary savage, who is supposed to evolve his religion out of his inner consciousness: "The mountain frowns, therefore it is alive"; "I move about in my dreams whilst my body lies still, therefore I have a soul," and so on. No doubt somebody had to think these things, for they are thoughts. But he did not think them, at any rate did not think them out, alone. Men thought them out together; nay, whole ages of living and thinking together have gone to make them what they are. So a social method is needed to explain them.

The religion of a savage is part of his custom; nay, rather, it is his whole custom so far as it appears sacred—so far as it coerces him by way of his imagination. Between him and the unknown stands nothing but his custom. It is his all-in-all, his stand-by, his faith and his hope. Being thus the sole source of his confidence, his custom, so far as his imagination plays about it, becomes his "luck." We may say that any