This is one cause of the dissolution of Animism: the power that comprehends all powers ceases to be an object, and becomes the immanence of all things, good and evil. Another cause is the complexity of theogonies, or of spiritual kingdoms with their orders and degrees: found too fanciful, when hierarchic despotisms, that furnished the analogues, give place to the simpler social structure of democracies; or, to a certain type of democrat, even insulting, a provocative disparagement of the sovereignty of the people. And Animism has other enemies in the growth of Positivism, and sometimes in the resurgence of Magic.
CHAPTER VI
THE RELATIONS BETWEEN MAGIC AND ANIMISM
§ 1. The Question of Priority
Magic and Animism now everywhere flourish side by side, or in confused association, and, by those who believe in them, are not discriminated as they may be by a spectator. As to their origin, we have seen that both of them are prehistoric; it is useless to inquire about it amongst believers (who can only tell you that they learnt these things from their forefathers), or to look for any sort of direct proof. In Chapter [IV.] I mentioned general considerations in favour of the priority of Magic; but said nothing of the opposite opinion, that Animism is prior and Magic derivative: an opinion held by many and, amongst them, by Wundt, whose treatment of the problem claims attention.
Prof. Wundt holds that the idea of the soul is older than Magic and has three principal sources: (1) the gebundene Seele, or Körperseele (consciousness as an attribute of the body), is immediately given, without the need of any reflection, as a result of perception-associations; for thinking, feeling and willing are constant elements of a living body.[261] The influence of this idea is seen in the practices of making offerings to the dead at their tombs, of preserving the body itself, of treating the blood and various parts of the body as vehicles of the soul, the use of hair and nail-parings in sorcery, and so forth. By contact, this soul can be transfused into other things. But the freie Seele, a being differing from and opposed to the body, is suggested (2) by breath and by the cessation of the body’s living functions with the last breath—the Hauchseele; and also (3) by dreams and visions—the Schattenseele. This third conception gradually subordinates the other two, and has the chief part in the development of Animism and Mythology.[262] As to sorcery (Zauber), it is, at first, always attributed to the human will; inasmuch as this is the original type of causation. Ordinary events raise no question of causes for the Naturmensch; but only extraordinary occurrences do so, such as sickness and death. Even pain or death from wounds is a matter of course, for the antecedents are visible to him; but pain or death from sickness has no such customary antecedent; so to explain them he imagines an enemy who can operate at a distance by sorcery. Sorcery he conceives of as an operation of one soul upon another; either directly, or indirectly by various appliances, such as pantomimic injury by means of an image. Pantomime is at first believed to affect the victim’s soul, and so to cause sickness in his body; but the oftener such rites are repeated, the more the intervention of the soul is obscured. For in many-linked associations, especially where the first and last links stand as means and end, the middle links are apt to disappear; and since these are, in this case, ideas about the soul, there remains, after their loss, the indefinite idea of some incomprehensible action at a distance by means of the pantomime: it is then no longer Sorcery but Magic. Similarly, a fetich, or a talisman or amulet (which differs from a fetich only in not being the object of a cult), originally owes its power to an indwelling spirit, but may degenerate into a magical object.[263] Magic, therefore, is always derivative and secondary; and Animism is entirely independent of Magic.[264]
This theory is worked out with Prof. Wundt’s usual comprehensiveness and methodical clearness; and the exposition abounds with interesting discussions; but it has not convinced me. The Körperseele, as an attribute of the body, is, surely, not a soul at all. Customary perception of other men interpreted by self-consciousness, with the habitual treatment of others (and of ourselves by others) as conscious bodies—making it difficult to conceive that a corpse is really dead—no doubt influences animistic rites; for even though the soul seen in dreams may be believed to live, having the consciousness of its former body in dreamland, yet some consciousness seems to remain with the body in the grave. Many rites performed at a tomb, however, may also be understood in relation to a belief that the soul, though having a separate existence as seen in dreams, still desires to reinhabit its body, or to protect its buried treasures, and therefore, though its new home be far away, frequently returns and haunts the neighbourhood of its tomb, and will certainly return if summoned. But it is not until the soul seen in dreams has become an object of popular belief, that any idea can be formed of a body-soul—or more properly of a soul within the body, and thence of a soul-stuff of the body—which leaves the body at death (and under other conditions) as the vehicle of consciousness. This soul-stuff which leaves the body at death may easily come to be identified with the breath, but not until the discussion of dreams has given rise to the belief in a separable soul. The fact that in cold weather the last breath (or any other!) may appear for a moment as a vapour, and is never seen again, cannot by itself suggest a separate persistent existence like that of the soul; and over a considerable part of the earth such a vapour is seldom formed by the breath. The Körperseele and the Hauchseele, therefore, are not independent sources of Animism, but are entirely dependent for their imaginary existence upon the Schattenseele, upon the growth of a belief in a separable soul as seen in dreams.
As to Sorcery, it may be defined as Magic practised with the aid of spirits; and since its existence implies that a belief in spirits and their influence has already formed itself, it may also be believed to operate, in the first place, on the souls of its victims and so, in the second place, on their bodies. Then, as Prof. Wundt explains, a process of retrogradation sometimes occurs, in the course of which the spirits are forgotten, and only the mechanical rites remain as a residuum of bare Magic. Similarly, a fetich sometimes becomes a merely magical talisman or amulet. This is hardly disputable; but it does not prove that the degeneration of Sorcery is the only source of Magic, or that Magic has not (for the most part, indeed,) another, independent origin. The issue is difficult to argue upon the ground of facts, because magical practices are of such high antiquity. If, for example, one should urge that the intichiuma ceremonies of the Arunta are not, so far as we have evidence, designed to operate by spiritual power upon the souls of the emu or the witchettygrub, but directly to promote by Magic the fertility of these objects, it might be replied that such, indeed, may be their present character, but that the original intention must have been to promote fertility by first influencing their souls, and that this has been forgotten. Or, again, if one should point to the little stones—tied up in bark and believed by the Kaitish to be stores of evil Magic—as having no mark of the fetich, no character to indicate that their power is due to spirits, so that they seem to be merely magical, the answer would be ready, that by long use and retrogradation they may have ceased to be fetiches, but that a good theory requires them to have been of that nature aforetime. Thus any case of apparently bare Magic may be treated as a residuum of lapsed Animism; or, should its origin be recent and ascertainable, it may still be said to have been constituted by analogy with such residua.
We are driven, therefore, to rest the argument upon the psychological conditions of such beliefs. Is the nature of the human mind, so far as we can interpret it at the savage level, such that the belief in Animism necessarily precedes and (later) gives rise to the belief in Magic; or is it possible to indicate conditions that may independently give rise to Magic? According to Prof. Wundt, as I have said, Sorcery precedes Magic and, at first, is always attributed to human volition, because this is the original type of causation. Contrary to Hume’s doctrine (he says), the ordinary course of events does not excite in the savage the idea of causation, or the need of explanation. Customary series of events belong to those matter-of-course properties of things which he, eben wegen ihrer Regelmässigkeit, unmöglich hinweg denken kann.[265] It is the unusual occurrences—accidents, storms, drought (where rain is much desired) and especially sickness and death—that awaken in him the need of causal explanation. He is accustomed to pain from wounds, where he sees the conditions on which they always follow; but the pain of disease has no such antecedents, and he supplies the gap in routine by free associations, imagining that this pain also must be the work of some enemy. For in the regular course of events there is for him only one region in which an effect appears notwendig verknüpft mit dem Vorausgehende: namely, that of his own voluntary actions. The connexion is, indeed, only a matter of fact; but it includes the sensations and feelings of his own power über den Eintritt des Ereignisses. This, as Berkeley saw (says Prof. Wundt), is the true origin of the notion of causality; though the true principle of causality requires the elimination of this subjective ground of its origin.[266]
It is true, of course, that the savage has no definite idea of the principle of causation; but he has obscure ideas of all its chief marks—the need of some antecedent for every event, regularity of connexion, and proportionality; and probably, in the depths of his mind, the abstract principle has made some progress toward maturity. (a) The ground or source of such ideas, according to Hume, is customary experience; and that such experience includes its own causation (and, therefore, needs no explanation) is proved by Prof. Wundt’s contention that it is the unusual which first demands causal explanation; because there the familiar causation is missing; so that the savage tries to fill up the lacuna, as best he can, according to the type of what is usual. But (b), according to Prof. Wundt, there is in the regular course of events only one region in which the idea of causation (though illusory) first arises: namely, our own actions, in which we are aware of our own power over the beginning of the event. And no one, I suppose, doubts that the notion of power is derived originally from the consciousness of our own exertions[267]: read, by sympathy, into the actions of other men and animals and, by empathy, into the movements of trees, stones, winds and waters. All this, however, occurs so early in the individual and in the race (probably in the higher animals) that, before the need of causal explanation is felt, the world is seen as if pervaded by forces, which are manifested in every usual course of events and not merely in voluntary actions. Again (c), power is only one character of the primitive belief in causation: another, not less important, is uniformity; and the study of our own actions is notoriously unfavourable for the discovery of uniformity. Without any obvious reason for it, our visceral activities can hardly be controlled at all; compound reflexes (such as yawning, sneezing, laughing, weeping) are very imperfectly controlled; our habitual actions, once started, go on of themselves, and often begin without (or contrary to) our wishes, especially gestures and expressions; in fatigue control flags, in disease is often lost;[268] we do not always give the same weight to the same motives, nor fulfil our intentions whether good or bad. But if the relation of will to action is not apparently uniform, it cannot be seen to be necessary; so that volition is generally regarded as the peculiar region of caprice. This is very important in Animism. But, further (d), were the connexion between volition and movement more constant than it is, it would still be most improbable that ideas of causation should be chiefly drawn from our consciousness of it; for the interest of action lies not in the mere control of our own movements, or power over the beginning of events, but in the attainment of our ends; and there is no department of nature in which the failure of connexion is nearly so impressive. It is because of this failure that the savage becomes fascinated by ideas of magical and (later) of spiritual aid. Finally (e), no control is exercised by the will over pain—headache, colic, rheumatism, etc.; yet we are told that the savage, when so afflicted, refers his sufferings at once to the will of some enemy operating at a distance. Such inferences are not primitive, but the result of a long growth of superstitions. Among Australian aborigines, disease and natural death are generally believed to be caused by the magical practices of an enemy, not merely by his will.