Conclusion as to our Method
All this discussion of fetishes arose out of our author’s selection of the subject as an example of the viciousness of our method. He would not permit us ‘simply to place side by side’ savage and Greek myths and customs, because it did harm (i. 195); and the harm done was proved by the Nemesis of De Brosses. Now, first, a method may be a good method, yet may be badly applied. Secondly, I have shown that the Nemesis does not attach to all of us modern anthropologists. Thirdly, I have proved (unless I am under some misapprehension, which I vainly attempt to detect, and for which, if it exists, I apologise humbly) that Mr. Max Müller, on p. 15, accepts the doctrine which he denounces on p. 197. [{126}] Again, I am entirely at one with Mr. Max Müller when he says (p. 210) ‘we have as yet really no scientific treatment of Shamanism.’ This is a pressing need, but probably a physician alone could do the work—a physician doublé with a psychologist. See, however, the excellent pages in Dr. Tylor’s Primitive Culture, and in Mr. William James’s Principles of Psychology, on ‘Mediumship.’