Shall we hold that these animals interpreted the unusual experiences reported above as the work of hidden beings of the kind known to them, or shall we agree rather with Lloyd Morgan, Romanes, Spencer, and others, in thinking that their behaviour indicated merely surprise, astonishment, and fear at the unexpected movements of familiar objects? That explanation is probably sufficient. The failure of an object to fit in with the psycho-physiological attitude of expectation which past experience has taught us to assume brings about the sudden disturbance called surprise, astonishment, or fear. It is in substance what would happen to any person if, on opening his bed in the dark, his hands came in contact with some object concealed in it. Personalisation of the unexpected object is not necessary to cause fright. And yet, who shall say that in none of these instances is there anything corresponding to the anthropomorphic interpretation of natural event so common among men of low culture? Does not the growling of Darwin’s dog indicate as much? It would seem to me an unjustifiably dogmatic assertion to affirm that no animal can think of thunder as caused by a being like those with which his senses have made him familiar. Were he to do so, he would do as the savage who projects his ordinary notion of animated beings behind inanimate phenomena. Creative imagination is not any more required for such an interpretation than for the belief in survival after death when it is suggested by apparitions in dreams or trances. It is quite in point, at any rate, to affirm that man and beasts are much nearer to each other, regarding the possibility of interpreting animistically certain striking natural events, than most people are willing to admit.
The most significant difference between men and animals is not found in the fact that animals may be unable to interpret animistically certain striking natural phenomena—an opinion open to question—but in their inability to fix by means of communicable signs any fleeting animistic interpretation which might chance to cross their mind. Without the advantage conferred by speech, upon even the lowest savages, to hold, clarify, keep alive, and bring to fruition impressions of this evanescent nature, I do not see how a stable belief in animism could have been established. The decisive rôle played by language appears forcibly when one considers the part it takes in introducing dream experiences into waking life. The baffling evanescence of dreams caught sight of on awakening is familiar to every one. Unless one succeeds in putting them in linguistic form they are soon completely lost; verbal expression makes them part and parcel of our mental possessions.
The mental differences between man and the higher animals to which the presence of Magic and Religion is to be referred, are not in themselves startling, however considerable their consequences may have been. Psychological analysis leaves absolutely no standing ground to those who insist upon interpreting the advent of Religion as the manifestation of essentially new kinds of powers, of the birth of a ‘spiritual life,’ for instance. We hope to have made clear that the use of this term in this connection constitutes a misrepresentation of the facts.
CHAPTER III
ORIGIN OF THE IDEAS OF GHOSTS, NATURE-BEINGS AND GODS
Every savage tribe known to us has already passed beyond the naturistic stage of development. The living savages believe in ghosts, in spirits, and all of them, perhaps, also in particular spirits elevated to the dignity of gods. Whence these ideas of unseen personal beings? They may be traced to four independent sources.
(1) States of temporary loss of consciousness—trances, swoons, sleep, etc.—seem in themselves sufficient to suggest to ignorant observers the existence of ‘doubles,’ i.e. of beings dwelling within the body, animating it, and able to absent themselves from it for a time or permanently. These alleged beings have been called ‘ghosts’ or ‘souls.’ The belief in a second life of the dead would also spring easily enough from these observations.
(2) Apparitions in sleep, in the hallucinations of fever, of insanity, etc., of persons still living or dead, seem also sufficient to lead to a belief in ghosts and in survival after death.