Anthropology by Robert Ranulph Marett (top ten books to read txt) ๐
This does not mean that human history, once constructed according to truth-regarding principles, should and could not be used for the practical advantage of mankind. The anthropologist, however, is not, as such, concerned with the practical employment to which his discoveries are put. At most, he may, on the strength of a conviction that truth is mighty and will prevail for human good, invite practical men to study his facts and generalizations in the hope that, by knowing mankind better, they may come to appreciate and serve it better. For instance, the administrator, who rules over savages, is almost invariably quite well-meaning, but not seldom utterly ignorant of native customs and beliefs. So, in many cases, is the missionary, another type of person in authority, who
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When, on the other hand, the thing, or the person, falls within the world of supernormal experience, when they strike the imagination as wonderful and wonder-working, then there is much more reason why he should seek to account to himself for the mystery in, or behind, the strange appearance. Howitt, who knew his Australian natives intimately, cites the following as "a good example of how the native mind works." To the black-fellow his club or his spear are part and parcel of his ordinary life. There is no, "medicine," no "devil," in them. If they are to be made supernaturally potent, they must be specially charmed. But it is quite otherwise with his spear-thrower or his bull-roarer. The former for no obvious reason enables him to throw his spear extraordinarily far. (I have myself seen an Australian spear, with the help of the spear-thrower, fly a hundred and fifty yards, and strike true and deep at the end of its flight.) The latter emits the noise of thunder, though a mere chip of wood on the end of a string. These, then, are in themselves "medicine." There is "virtue" in, or behind, them.
Is, then, to attribute "virtue" the same thing, necessarily, as to attribute vitality? Are the spear-thrower and the bull-roarer inevitably thought of as alive? Or are they, as a matter of course, endowed with soul or spirit? Or may there be also an impersonal kind of "virtue," "medicine," or whatever the wonder-working power in the wonder-working thing is to be called? Now there is evidence that the savage himself, in speaking about these matters, sometimes says power, sometimes vitality, sometimes spirit. But the simplest way of disposing of these questions is to remember that such fine distinctions as these, which theorists may seek to draw, do not appeal at all to the savage himself. For him the only fact that matters is that, whereas some things in the world are ordinary, and can be reckoned on, other things cannot be reckoned on, but are wonder-working.
Moreover, of wonder-working things, some are good and some are bad. To get all the good kind of wonder-workers on to his side, so as to confound the bad kindโthat is what his religion is there to do for him. "May blessings come, may mischiefs go!" is the import of his religious striving, whether anthropologists class it as spell or as prayer.
Now the function of religion, it has been assumed, is to restore confidence, when man is mazed, and out of his depth, fearful of the mysteries that obtrude on his life, yet compelled, if not exactly wishful, to face them and wrest from them whatever help is in them. This function religion fulfils by what may be described in one word as "suggestion." How the suggestion works psychologicallyโhow, for instance, association of ideas, the so-called "sympathetic magic," predominates at the lower levels of religious experienceโis a difficult and technical question which cannot be discussed here. Religion stands by when there is something to be done, and suggests that it can be done well and successfully; nay, that it is being so done. And, when the religion is of the effective sort, the believers respond to the suggestion, and put the thing through. As the Latin poet says, "they can because they think they can."
What, from the anthropological point of view, is the effective sort of religion, the sort that survives because, on the whole, those whom it helps survive? It is dangerous to make sweeping generalizations, but there is at any rate a good deal to be said for classing the world's religions either as mechanical and ineffective, or as spiritual and effective. The mechanical kind offers its consolations in the shape of a set of implements. The "virtue" resides in certain rites and formularies. These, as we have seen, are especially liable to harden into mere mechanism when they are of the negative and precautionary type. The spiritual kind of religion, on the other hand, which is especially associated with the positive and active functions of life, tends to read will and personality into the wonder-working powers that it summons to man's aid. The will and personality in the worshippers are in need not so much of implements as of more will and personality. They get this from a spiritual kind of religion; which in one way or another always suggests a society, a communion, as at once the means and the end of vital betterment.
To say that religion works by suggestion is only to say that it works through the imagination. There is good make-believe as well as bad; and one must necessarily imagine and make-believe in order to will. The more or less inarticulate and intuitional forces of the mind, however, need to be supplemented by the power of articulate reasoning, if the will is to make good its twofold character of a faculty of ends that is likewise a faculty of the means to those ends. Suggestion, in short, must be purged by criticism before it can serve as the guide of the higher life. To bring this point out will be the object of the following chapter.
Space is running out fast, and it is quite impossible to grapple with the details of so vast a subject as primitive morality. For these the reader must consult Dr. Westermarck's monumental treatise, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, which brings together an immense quantity of facts, under a clear and comprehensive scheme of headings. He will discover, by the way, that, whereas customs differ immensely, the emotions, one may even say the sentiments, that form the raw material of morality are much the same everywhere.
Here it will be of most use to sketch the psychological groundwork of primitive morality, as contrasted with morality of the more advanced type. In pursuance of the plan hitherto followed, let us try to move yet another step on from the purely exterior view of human life towards our goal; which is to appreciate the true inwardness of human lifeโso far at least as this is matter for anthropology, which reaches no farther than the historic method can take it.
It is, of course, open to question whether either primitive or advanced morality is sufficiently of one piece to allow, as it were, a composite photograph to be framed of either. For our present purposes, however, this expedient is so serviceable as to be worth risking. Let us assume, then, that there are two main stages in the historical evolution of society, as considered from the standpoint of the psychology of conduct. I propose to term them the synnomic and the syntelic phases of society. "Synnomic" (from the Greek nomos, custom) means that customs are shared. "Syntelic" (from the Greek telos, end) means that ends are shared.
The synnomic phase is, from the psychological point of view, a kingdom of habit; the syntelic phase is a kingdom of reflection. The former is governed by a subconscious selection of its standards of good and bad; the latter by a conscious selection of its standards. It remains to show very briefly how such a difference comes about.
The outstanding fact about the synnomic life of the ruder peoples is perhaps thisโthat there is hardly any privacy. Of course, many other drawbacks must be taken into account alsoโno wide-thrown communications, no analytic language, no writing, no books, and so on; but perhaps being in a crowd all the time is the worst drawback of all. For, as Disraeli says in Sybil, gregariousness is not association. Constant herding and huddling together hinders the development of personality. That independence of character which is the prime condition of syntelic society cannot mature, even though the germs be there. No one has a chance of withdrawing into his own soul. Therefore the individual does not experience that silent conversation with self which is reflection. Instead of turning inwards, he turns outwards. In short, he imitates.
But how, it may be objected, does evolution take place, if every one imitates every one else? Certainly, it looks at first sight like a vicious circle. Nevertheless, there is room for a certain progress, or at any rate for a certain process of change. To analyse its psychological springs would take us too long. If a phrase will do instead of an explanation, we may sum them up, with the brilliant French psychologist, Tarde, as "a cross-fertilization of imitations." We need not, however, go far to get an impression of how this process of change works. It is going on every day in our midst under the name of "change of fashion." When one purchases the latest thing in ties or straw hats, one is not aiming at a rational form of dress. If there is progress in this direction, it is subconscious. The underlying spiritual condition is not inaptly described by Dr. Lloyd Morgan as "a sheep-through-the-gapishness."
From a moral point of view, this lack of capacity for private judgment is equivalent to a want of moral freedom. We have seen how relatively external are the sanctions of savage life. This does not mean, of course, that there is no answering judgment in the mind of the individual when he follows his customs. He says, "It is the custom; therefore it is right." But this judgment can scarcely be said to proceed from a truly judging, that is to say, critical, self. The man watches his neighbours, taking his cue from them. His judgment is a judgment of sense. He does not look inwards to principle. A moral principle is a standard that can, by means of thought, be transferred from one sensible situation to another sensible situation. The general law, and its application to the situation present now to the senses, are considered apart, before being put together. Consequently, a possible application, however strongly suggested by custom, fashion, the action of one's neighbours, one's own impulse or prejudice, or what not, can be resisted, if it appear on reflection not to be really suited to the circumstances. In short, in order to be rational and "put two and two together," one must be able to entertain two and two as distinct conceptions. Perceptions, on the contrary, can only be compared in the lump. Just as in the chapter on language we saw how man began by talking in holophrases, and only gradually attained to analytic, that is, separable, elements of speech, so in this chapter we have to note the strictly parallel development from confusion to distinction on the side of thought.
Savage morality, then, is not rational in the sense of analysed, but is, so to speak, impressionistic. We might, perhaps, describe it as the expression of a collective impression. It is best understood in the light of that branch of social psychology which usually goes by the name of "mob-psychology." Perhaps mob and mobbish are rather unfortunate terms. They are apt to make us think of the wilder explosions of collective feelingโpanics, blood-mania, dancing-epidemics, and so on. But, though a savage society is by no means a mob in the sense of a weltering mass of humanity that has for the time being lost its head, the psychological considerations applying to the latter apply also to the former, when due allowance has been made for the fact that savage society is organized on a permanent basis. The difference between the two comes, in short, to this, that the mob as represented in the savage society is a mob consisting of many successive generations of men. Its tradition constitutes, as it were, a prolonged and abiding impression, which its conduct thereupon expresses.
Savage thought, then, is not able, because it does not try, to break up custom into separate pieces. Rather it plays round the edges of custom; religion especially, with its suggestion of the general sacredness of custom, helping it to do so. There is
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