We are now able to qualify the definition previously given of the totem as a “badge of fraternity,” or the “symbol of a gens.” We see that the totem is something more than a symbol or a badge. This description might answer for the pictorial representation of the totem, but not for the totem itself, which is regarded as having actual vitality as the embodiment or re-incarnation of an ancestral spirit. Any object is fitted for this spirit embodiment, and therefore totemism may be looked upon, not as a phase of nature-worship, but as a combination of this religion with ancestor-worship. The ancestral character of the totem accounts for the association with it of the idea of protection, which is based on the existence of a fraternal relationship between the totem and all the individuals belonging to a particular group of kin. The totem, as a badge or symbol, therefore represents the group of individuals, dead or alive, towards whom a man stands in a fraternal relation, and the protection of whom he is therefore entitled to, so long as he performs all the obligations on his part which flow from the existence of that relationship. The ideas embodied in the totem are no doubt more ancient than totemism as a developed social institution. This fact will furnish an answer to the objection that totemism is known only to peoples of a low degree of culture, who can hardly be supposed capable of rising to the conception of nature, as a whole, on which that system is founded, or the idea of a relationship existing between all the objects in nature.
Dr. Brinton[363] answers those who object that the cosmogonical myth of the Algonkins is “too refined for those rude savages, or that it smacks too much of reminiscences of old-world teachings,” that “it is impossible to assign to it other than an indigenous and spontaneous origin in some remote period of Algonkin tribal history.” The same reply may be given in relation to the universal totemism of the Australians, with the qualification that the tribal history of this race would have to be carried back to a period when it was in contact, on the Asiatic Continent, with peoples among whom originated or developed the ideas on which totemism is based, if, indeed, they did not belong with them to a common stock. The existence among the natives of Australia and America of that system may have been due to the establishment of the gentile institution on the basis of female kinship, and the intermingling of the gentes or family groups, owing to wives leaving their own kin on marriage to live among their husband’s kin, as the result of the practice of exogamy. Some of the Australian tribes have a legend according to which the use of totems was introduced, by command of the Supreme Being, to put a stop to consanguineous marriages. This shows that the totem was connected with marriage and kinship, but, considering how universal is the objection among savages to marriage between near relations, it is more than probable that the legend was formed to explain an already existing phenomenon, that of totemism. As the conditions of social life were changed, totemism as a system would gradually become effete, and totems would come to be regarded chiefly as curiosities of nomenclature. The preference for kinship through males, in connection with the tracing of descent, over kinship through females, combined with the practice of wives leaving their own family to live among their husband’s kin, would take from the totem one of its most important uses, as all the members of a “family” would dwell together instead of being, like the individuals belonging to the American or Australian totems, intermingled in one group. Totems would then be useful chiefly as ensigns, or as surnames to establish community of descent, and therefore the evidence of marriage disability; as with the Chinese, among whom no persons of the same family name can intermarry, however distant may be the actual relationship. When the mere possession of a common surname was no longer an absolute bar to intermarriage, and kinship came to be traced equally through both parents, totemism ceased to have any value, except so far as the study of its phenomena can throw light on the constitution and habits of ancient society.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
MAN AND THE APE.
The primary object of the present essay is to ascertain whether the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Darwin and other writers as to the origin of man—that he has sprung from the ape by simple descent—can be depended on, and if not, what is the nature of man’s relationship to the animal kingdom.
Without further preface, I shall proceed to consider as briefly as possible the main arguments adduced by Mr. Darwin in support of this conclusion.[364] Those which are derived from the consideration of physical data appear to me to be of comparatively small importance, since they may be admitted without seriously affecting the question at issue. They are almost all connected with the fact that man is “constructed on the same general type or model with other mammals.” Thus it is with the brain, every chief fissure and fold of which is declared to be developed in the brain of the orang equally with that of man. Their constitutional habit, however, appears also to be the same. Thus man and monkeys are liable to many of the same non-contagious diseases; medicines produce the same effect on both, and most mammals exhibit the mysterious law of periodicity in various diseases. These are interesting facts, but the most important for the argument of the ape-descent of man are those which show the existence in the human body of certain rudimentary organs and structures which are fully developed with some of the lower animals. It is possible, however, to explain this phenomenon without having recourse to the hypothesis of a simple ape-descent; even if it be admitted with M. Broca, that in the parallel between man and the anthropoids, the comparison of organs shows only some slight differences.[365] This may be granted even as to the brain, and that “the immense superiority of man’s intelligence depends, not on the anatomical structure of his brain, but on its volume and power.”[366] But then, if such is the case, it is all the more difficult to account for the vast difference which, says Broca, a comparison of function reveals, and which led M. Gratiolet to exclaim that, although man is indeed by his structure a monkey, yet by his intelligence he is a God.[367]
While admitting that physiological considerations reveal a much wider interval between man and the anthropoid apes than anatomical data require, M. Broca would hardly allow that the former exhibits anything peculiar in his mental action. So, also, Mr. Darwin says that man and the higher mammals “have some few instincts in common. All have the same senses, intuitions, and sensations—similar passions, affections, and emotions, even the more complex ones; they feel wonder and curiosity; they possess the same faculties of imitation, attention, memory, imagination, and reason, though in very different degrees.”[368] The faculty of articulate speech, moreover, is said not in itself to offer “any insuperable objection to the belief that man has been developed from some lower form;” while the taste for the “beautiful” is shown not to be peculiar to the human mind.[369] The moral sense is supposed by Mr. Darwin to be the most distinctive characteristic of man; but even this is asserted to have been developed out of the social instincts which man and many of the lower animals have in common.[370] Finally, self-consciousness, abstraction, &c., even if peculiar to man, are declared to be “the incidental results of other highly-advanced intellectual faculties;”[371] and these again are mainly due to the continued use of a highly-developed language, which originated in “the imitation and modification, aided by signs and gestures, of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals and man’s own instinctive cries.”[372]
If, however, all this be true, how are we to account for the wonderful intellectual superiority of man? Haeckel gives an explanation which, although ingenious, is far from satisfactory. He says that it is owing to the fact that “man combines in himself several prominent peculiarities, which only occur separately among other animals.” The most important of these are the superior structure of the larynx, the degree of brain or soul development, and that of the extremities, the upright walk, and, lastly, speech. But, says Haeckel, “all these prerogatives belong singly to other animals—birds with highly-organised larynx and tongue, such as the parrot, &c., can learn to utter articulate sounds as perfectly as man himself. The soul’s activity exists among many of the higher animals, particularly with the dog, the elephant, and the horse, in a higher degree of cultivation than with man when most degraded. The hand, as a mechanical instrument, is as highly developed among the anthropoid apes as with the lowest men. Finally, man shares his upright walk with the penguin and other animals, while capacity for locomotion is more fully and more perfectly developed among many animals than with man.” Haeckel concludes, therefore, that it is “solely the fortunate combination of a higher organisation of several very important organs and functions which raises most men, but not all, above the animals.”[373] This explanation, however, appears rather to increase the difficulty than to remove it. Some of Haeckel’s statements might probably be challenged with success; but even admitting their truth, what cause can be given of the marvellous combination in man, of qualities possessed separately by animals, the highest in the class to which they belong?
Mr. Darwin justly remarks, that “the belief that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties, is supported by the comparison of the skulls of savage and civilised races of ancient and modern peoples, and by the analogy of the whole vertebrate series.”[374] There must, indeed, be a certain agreement between the brain and its intellectual products, and hence the large size of the human brain requires that the mental phenomena of man should be of a vastly superior nature to those presented by the lower animals. Whether, according to the developmental view of the correspondence between human and brute mental faculties, the lower races of man, as compared with animals, really exhibit an intellectual superiority commensurate with the largeness of their brains, may be questioned. Mr. Wallace, indeed, declares that they do not, and he goes so far as to say that “a brain slightly larger than that of the gorilla would, according to the evidence before us, fully have sufficed for the limited mental development of the savage.”[375] This opinion is correct, on the assumption that animal and human mental action is perfectly analogous, and Mr. Wallace would undoubtedly be right in asserting that the savage possesses a brain “quite disproportionate to his actual requirements,” if by this phrase is meant his mere animal wants. But the savage is a man, and the size of brain required by him must be judged of, not by the degree of intellectual action he exhibits, but by its accompaniments—not by quantity, but by quality.
The source of man’s superiority must be sought in an examination of his mental faculties, and yet the inquiry is vitiated at the very commencement, by the assumption that the mind of man differs from that of the animal only in the degree of its activity. I am prepared to admit that the higher mammalia, at least, have the power of reasoning, with all the faculties which are essential to its exercise. But this very fact makes it utterly incomprehensible how the result of human mental activity can be so superior, unless some further principle or faculty than those which the animal mind possesses operates in that of man. What this principle or faculty is, may be shown by reference to certain facts connected with language. Mr. Darwin ascribes the origin of human speech to imitation and modification of natural sounds and man’s own instinctive utterances.[376] That the primitive elements of man’s language were thus obtained is doubtless true. Something else, however, is required to explain the phenomena presented by the languages of uncultured peoples. Such, for instance, cannot have been the origin of certain ideas which are apparently common to the minds of all peoples however savage. It has been said that these peoples, although having names for every particular object, have no words to express a class of objects. This statement must be received with caution. But if absolutely true in the sense intended, it cannot be denied that nearly all primitive languages have words denoting colours, and these by their very nature, as expressive of attributes, are applicable to a series of objects.