Fact and Fable in Psychology

by Joseph Jastrow

VI

We may now enter in the search for reasonings by analogy into a field of greatest interest to the student of the history of culture; namely, the household traditions, the superstitions, and the pseudo-scientific systems, that originated among our ancestors, remote or immediate, and are still far from obsolete in all but the upper strata of our civilization. This portion of the theme indeed presents an embarras de richesses, and the illustrations to be cited form but an insignificant share of those that could readily be collected. Certainly more than one chapter of the history of human error could be profitably devoted to those due to an unwarranted use of the argument by analogy.

We may begin by taking a flying excursion into that body of superstitions and folk-lore customs which no nation, however high or low in the scale of civilization, is without. The widespread custom of carrying baby upstairs before being taken to the lower floors of the house, so that he may be successful in life and participate in its ups rather than its downs, rests upon baby-logic indeed. The belief that if baby keeps his fists tightly closed he will be stingy, but if he holds an open palm he will be generous, likewise requires no interpretation. It is forbidden, too, to measure a child, for measuring it is measuring it for its coffin. To the German peasant, if a dog howls looking downward it means death, if upward recovery from sickness. "The Hessian lad thinks that he may escape the conscription by carrying a baby-girl's cap in his pocket—a symbolic way of repudiating manhood." "Fish," says the Cornishman, "should be eaten from the tail to the head, to bring other fishes' heads towards the shore, for eating them the wrong way turns them from the coast." "It is still plain," says Mr. Tylor, from whom I have cited some of these examples, "why the omen of the crow should be different on the right or left hand, why a vulture should mean rapacity; a stork, concord; a pelican, piety; an ass, labor; why the fierce, conquering wolf should be a good omen, and the timid hare a bad one; why bees, types of an obedient nation, should be lucky to a king, while flies returning, however often they are driven off, should be signs of importunity and impudence." And as parallels to these signs, in the vegetable world, one may cite the amaranth as signifying immortality; ivy, strength; cypress, woe; heliotrope, attachment; aspen, fear; aloes, bitterness; while through more artificial associations the laurel becomes the sign of renown; the rose, of love; the olive, of peace; and the palm, of victory.

Less directly analogical are the customs of a semi-symbolic character, depending upon a mysterious or potent sympathy. Thus, in "Bavaria, flax will not thrive unless it is sown by women, and this has to be done with strange ceremonies, including the scattering over the field of the ashes of a fire made of wood consecrated during matins. As high as the maids jump over the fires on the hilltops on Midsummer Night, so high will the flax grow; but we find also that as high as the bride springs from the table on her marriage night, so high will the flax grow in that year." This is paralleled by the custom, recorded by Mr. Frazer, current in the interior of Sumatra. There "the rice is sown by women who, in sowing, let the hair hang loose down their backs, in order that the rice may grow luxuriantly and have long stalks." It is hardly necessary to continue these illustrations, which will at once suggest others, with which the wealth of superstitious lore overflows; nor do they require elaborate interpretation. The resemblances involved may be fanciful or symbolic, obvious or obscure, superficial or intrinsic, natural or artificial, but the subtle and protean bases of analogy become recognizable as soon as the mind is directed towards their detection.

It will be more profitable to limit the inquiry to a few groups of beliefs, which have been more or less fully elaborated into systems. Of these the interpretation of dreams offers a promising harvest of analogies. This practice has a venerable history, the study of which would constitute an interesting task for the patient student of the by-paths of human culture. I shall draw only from the contemporaneous survivals of this ancient lore, the dream-books purchasable in every city and village.

My selections from this literature have been made with a view of presenting the typical kinds of analogy through which modern dream omens are believed in and through which this kind of reading finds a sale. "To dream of using glue," an authority tells us, "foretells imprisonment for yourself or friend;" and this because a prison and glue are alike in that it is difficult to be released from the hold of either. Similarly, because the pineapple has a rough and forbidding appearance it becomes in dreams the omen of "crosses and troubles." This seems hardly more than a play of words; indeed, we have here touched one of the many points where metaphor and analogy meet. For instance, we commonly speak of the ladder of success and the ups and downs of fortune; the dream-book tells us that "to dream of going up a ladder foretells the possession of wealth; coming down, of poverty." The common phrase of "mud-slinging" is thus interpreted by the dream-books, "to dream of dirty dirt or mud signifies that some one will speak ill of you. If some one throws dirt on you it foretells that you will be abused." To the same category belong the dream-book maxims, that "to dream of being mounted on stilts denotes that you are puffed up with vain pride;" "to dream that you gather fruit from a very old tree is generally supposed to prognosticate that you will succeed to the wealth of some ancient person; if you dream of a clock and the hands stop it means death; if the hands keep moving, recovery;" "to dream of a concert means a life of harmony with one you love." So, too, various objects become significant of their striking characteristics: the earthworm, from its habits of underground and secret destruction, denotes "secret enemies that endeavor to ruin and destroy us;" and all strongly redolent food, such as onions, garlic, and leek, easily betraying the one who has partaken of them, becomes indicative of the betrayal of secrets and the like. Mr. Dyer cites some apt lines in which the logic is about as meritorious as the verse:—

"To dream of eating onions means
Much strife in thy domestic scenes;
Secrets found out or else betrayed,
And many falsehoods made and said."

From Mr. Tylor's collection of dream omens of similar character I cull the following: "to wash the hands denotes release from anxieties;" "to have one's feet cut off prevents a journey;" "he who dreams he has lost a tooth shall lose a friend;" "he that dreams that a rib is taken out of his side shall ere long see the death of his wife;" to dream of swimming and wading in the water is good, so that the head be kept above water. A good share of the omens depend upon contrasts and not upon resemblances: "to be married denotes some of your kinsfolk are dead;" "to dream of death denotes happiness and long life;" and so on. Others of these dream-book analogies depend rather upon verbal resemblance, and still others involve resemblances too subtle and peculiar to be readily explained. There is perhaps nothing more underlying the dictum that "dreaming about Quakers means that you will meet a friend soon" than the fact that the Quakers are a "Society of Friends;" a little more elaborate punning underlies the prediction that "to dream of a dairy showeth the dreamer to be of a milksop nature;" and finally what a curious mixture of perverted analogy is reflected in the notion that to dream of "a zebra indicates a checkered life"!

The great parts that names and numbers play in superstitions of all kinds is so familiar that a few instances will be sufficient. It is well to bear in mind that these number and name predictions, in the course of their venerable and eventful lives, have been systematized, and the gaps in the system supplied by arbitrary associations. Thus the modern fortune-telling books have an omen for each one of a pack of cards, or a set of dominoes, in which we find, among what seems little more than an arbitrary assignment of the ordinary events of life, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, important and trivial,—among the several cards or dominoes, here and there some underlying basis of analogy; hearts relate to love affairs, diamonds to wealth; kings and queens play important rôles; the jack is about as often a lover as a knave; threes and sevens have special significance; and double throws in dice, especially the two sixes, have important consequences. So in folk-lore, operations, to be effective, must be done just three times, or thrice three, or seven. The seventh child of a seventh child has special powers, as we all know. The twelfth hour that divides night from day is a momentous instant, as is also the time of the cock's crow. "Against a warty eruption the leeches advised the patient to take seven wafers and write on each wafer, Maximianus, Malchus, Johannes, Martinianus, Dionysius, Constantinus, Serafion; then a charm was to be sung to the man, and a maiden was afterwards to hang it about his neck" (Black). In a similar strain the dream-book informs us that if a number of young women, not less than three nor more than seven, assemble on a certain night, and if, as the hour strikes eleven, they each take a sprig of myrtle and throw it, together with nine hairs from the head, upon a live coal, and if they go to bed at exactly twelve o'clock, they will dream of their future husbands as a reward of their pains and their mathematical accuracy. Not a few of number and name ceremonials are invested with their power by religious associations; the ill luck of thirteen and of Friday is commonly regarded as due to this source. In the northern English countries, witches are said to dislike the bracken fern, because it bears on its roots the initial C (indicating Christ), which may be seen on cutting the root horizontally (Dyer). The clover, on account of its trefoil form, suggesting trinity, is likewise good against witches (Dyer). A like explanation seems applicable to the efficacy of the cross and the cross-roads, both of which enter, in a variety of ways, into folk-lore beliefs and customs. While numbers and names and definite associations seldom form the whole basis of analogy by which the belief becomes plausible, they very frequently enter to emphasize and give point to practices suggested on other grounds. The argument involved in the number analogy is extremely simple; it is nothing more than because two phenomena have in common the association with the same number, therefore they will be connected in further respects. This slender line of connection affects the minute code of superstitious action, and forms the thread whereon are strung momentous omens, powerful recipes, dire predictions, and wise precautions against various imaginary dangers.

The logic by which the treatments current in folk-medicine acquire their efficacy is passing strange; at first acquaintance with this wonderland we are apt to imagine ourselves in some weird topsy-turvydom, where everything uncanny and incongruous is greedily collected, and the most bizarre and trivial doings become endowed with marvelous efficacy. Upon closer acquaintance we discover some little order in the medley, and, in spite of much that remains arbitrary and capricious, we begin to trace the analogies according to which the various treatments are composed and the potions concocted. The common connection of toads with warts, both as giving and curing them, is due to nothing more than the warty appearance of the toad's skin; similarly, in Gloucestershire, against ear-ache a snail is pricked and the froth that exudes dropped into the patient's ear (Black); and this by reason of the snail-like passages in the ear. Fevers being connected with heat and blood, and both these closely associated with red, red things become efficacious in diseases characterized by fever. That this should be especially in vogue against scarlet fever is no more than natural; and it is related that when the son of Edward II. was sick of the small-pox, the physician directed that the bed-furniture should be red (Black). Other forms of such associations will be met with in the discussion of the doctrines of signatures and sympathies.

Folk-medicine forms a particularly apt field for the application of the two general forms of analogy indicated as prevalent among savages: analogies by contrast and the assignment of unusual effects to uncommon causes. If something is done with the right hand, doing it with the left reverses the action; one set of directions applies to men and contrary ones to women; saying a thing backwards is particularly efficacious. The prescription against hiccough, that you should "cross the front of the left shoe with the forefinger of the right hand while you repeat the Lord's prayer backwards" (Black) may serve to illustrate the one crooked type of argument, while for the other we have only to recall the Shakespearean witches, with their—

"Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under coldest stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf;
Witches' mummy; maw and gulf,
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat, and slips of yew,
Silvered in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch deliver'd by a drab,—
Make the gruel thick and slab;
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Cool it with the baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good."