Elements of Folk Psychology / Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind

by Wilhelm Max Wundt

Now the most remarkable feature of this entire development is the fact that the idea of the corporeal soul in no wise disappears, as one might suppose, with the origin of the breath or shadow soul. On the contrary, both continue to exist without any mutual interference. This is noticeable particularly in the case of death in war. The belief that the soul leaves the body with the blood may here be directly combined with the belief that it departs with the breath, though the two ideas fall under entirely different categories. Even in Homer this combination of ideas is still clearly in evidence. The breath soul is said to descend to Hades, there to continue its unconscious existence as a dreamlike shadow, while at the same time the corporeal soul is thought to inhere not only in the blood but also in other parts of the body. Certain particular organs of the body are held to be vehicles of the soul; among these are the heart, the respiratory organs, and the diaphragm, the latter probably in connection with the immediately adjacent kidneys, which these primitive soul ideas usually represent as an important centre of soul powers. The believer in animism was not in the least aware of any contradiction in holding, as he did for a long time, that these two forms, the corporeal soul and the breath soul, exist side by side. His concern was not with concepts that might be scientifically examined in such a way as to effect a reconciliation of the separate ideas or a resolution of their contradictions. Even the ancient Egyptians, with their high civilization, preserved a firm belief in a corporeal soul, and upon this belief they based their entire practice of preserving bodies by means of embalmment. The reason for leaving the mouth of the mummy open was to enable the deceased person to justify himself before the judge of the dead. That the mummy was very carefully enclosed in its burial chamber and thus removed from the sphere of intercourse of the living, indicates a survival of the fear of demoniacal power which is characteristic of the beginnings of soul belief. The Egyptians, however, also developed the idea of a purely spiritual soul. The latter was held to exist apart from the body in a realm of the dead, from which it was supposed occasionally to return to the mummy. It was by this simple expedient of an intercourse between the various souls that mythological thought here resolved the contradiction between unity and multiplicity as affecting its soul concepts—a contradiction which even later frequently claimed the attention of philosophy.

When, on a more advanced cultural level, the structure of the body came to be more closely observed, a strong impetus was given towards a progressive differentiation of the corporeal soul. Certain parts of the body, in particular, were singled out as vehicles of the soul. Those that are separable from the body, such, for example, as certain secretions and the products of growth, received a sort of intermediate position between the corporeal soul proper and the breath soul. Chief among these was the blood. Among some peoples, particularly the Bantus of South Africa, the saliva rivals the blood in importance, possibly because of the readily suggested association with the soul that departs in the vapour of the breath. The blood soul, however, is by far the most universal and most permanent of these ideas. In its after-effects it has survived even down to the present. For, when we speak of a 'blood relationship' uniting those persons who stand close to one another through ancestry, the word 'blood' doubtless represents a sort of reminiscence of the old idea of a blood soul. To the dispassionate eye of the physiologist, the blood is one of the most unstable elements of the body, so that, so far as the blood is concerned, the father and mother certainly transmit nothing of a permanent nature to their descendants. More stable parts of the organism are much more likely to be inherited. But, in spite of the fact that blood is one of the most transitory of structures, it continues to be regarded as the vehicle of the relationship existing between members of a family, and even between tribally related nations. More striking expressions of the idea of a blood soul are to be found on primitive levels. In concluding the so-called blood brotherhood, the exchange of blood, according to prevalent belief, mediates the establishment of an actual blood relationship. In accordance with a custom which probably sprang up independently in many different parts of the earth, each of the two parties to the compact, upon entering this brotherhood, took a drop of blood from a small, self-inflicted wound and transferred it to the corresponding wound of the other. Since the drop of exchanged blood represents the blood in general—not merely symbolically, as it were, but in real actuality—the two who have entered into the alliance have become nearest blood relatives, and thus brothers.

The idea that a soul exists in the blood, however, has also a converse aspect. This consists in the fear of shedding blood, since the wounded person would thus be robbed of his soul. The belief then arises that one who consumes the blood of a sacrificed person or animal also gains his soul powers—an idea which likewise comes to have reference to other parts of the body, particularly to the specific bearers of the soul, such as the heart and the kidneys. Thus, between fear, on the one hand, and this striving for power, on the other, a conflict of emotions may arise in which the victory leans now to the one and now to the other side. But the striving to appropriate the soul which is contained in the blood tends to become dominant, since the struggle which enkindles the passion for the annihilation of the enemy is also probably the immediate cause for acting in accordance with this belief concerning the blood. To drink the blood of the slain enemy, to consume his heart—these are impulses in which the passion to annihilate the foe and the desire to appropriate his soul powers intensify each other. These ideas, therefore, also probably represent the origin of anthropophagy. Anthropophagy is not at all a prevalent custom among primitive tribes, as is generally believed. On the contrary, it is just among primitive peoples that it seems to be entirely lacking. It appears in its primary forms, as well as in its modifications, only where weapons and other phenomena point to intertribal wars, and the latter do not occur until the beginning of the totemic age. The totemic age, however, is the period which marks the development not only of the idea of the blood soul but of other soul ideas as, well. Accordingly, anthropophagy is, or was until recently, to be found, not among the most primitive peoples such as have not attained to the level of totemism, but precisely within the bounds of totemic culture, and, in part, in connection with its cults. In these cults, man, as well as the animal, becomes an object of sacrifice in the blood offering. Human sacrifice of this sort continues to be practised under conditions as advanced as deity cult. In the latter, anthropophagy even finds a temporary religious sanction, inasmuch as the priest, particularly, is permitted to eat of the flesh of the sacrifice. Of course, the perpetuation and extension of anthropophagy was not due merely to magical motives; even at a very early period, the food impulse was a contributing factor. The very fact of the relatively late origin of the custom, however, makes it highly improbable that the food impulse would, of itself and apart from magical and cult motives, ever have led to it, though such an explanation has been offered, especially as regards the regions of Oceania where animals are scarce.

In the course of religious development, human sacrifice gave way to animal sacrifice, and cult anthropophagy was displaced by the eating of the flesh of the sacrificial animal. Inasmuch as the latter cult was not only more common than the former but everywhere probably existed prior to the rise of human sacrifice, this later period involved a recurrence of earlier conditions. Nevertheless, there were phenomena which clearly indicated the influence of the fear of the blood, and this militated against the appropriation of the blood soul. Of extreme significance, for example, was the injunction of the Israelitic Priests' Code against partaking of the blood of animals. The original motive for drinking the blood became a motive for abstaining from it—a counter-motive, in which the prohibition, as in many other cases, may also indicate an intentional abandonment of an earlier custom. Among the Israelites, as among many other Semitic tribes, the blood of the animals was poured out at the sacrificial altar. That which was denied man was fitly given to the gods, to whom the life of the animal was offered in its blood.

In early ages, reaching down probably into the beginnings of totemic culture, two organ complexes, in addition to the blood, were held, in an especial degree, to be vehicles of the corporeal soul—the kidneys with their surrounding fat, and the external sexual organs. The fact that, in many languages, kidneys and testicles were originally denoted by the same name, indicates that these two organs were probably regarded as essentially related, a view that may possibly be due to the position of the urethra, which apparently connects the kidneys with the sexual organs. The Bible also offers remarkable testimony in connection with the history of the belief that soul powers are resident in the kidneys and their appended organs. In the earlier writings of the Old Testament, the kidneys, as well as the heart, are frequently referred to as bearers of the soul. It is said of God that he searches the heart and tries the reins; and Job, afflicted with sorrow and disease, complains, "He cleaveth my reins asunder and doth not spare." The sacrificial laws of the Israelites, therefore, state that, in addition to the blood, the kidneys with their surrounding fat are the burnt offering which is most acceptable to God. Rationalistic interpretation has sometimes held that man retains the choice parts of the flesh of the sacrificial animal for himself and devotes the less agreeable parts to the gods. Such motives may have played a rôle when sacrificial conceptions were on the wane. The original condition, however, was no doubt the reverse. The most valuable part belonged to the gods, and this consisted of the organs that were pre-eminently the vehicles of the soul. Though man first aimed to appropriate the soul of the sacrifice for himself, the developed religious cult of a later period made this the privilege of the deity.

It was only in early custom and cult, however, that the kidneys played this rôle. Indeed, as already indicated, it is not improbable that they owe their importance to the fact that their position led to the belief that they are a central organ governing particularly the sexual functions. That this is the case is corroborated by the fact that, in the further development of these ideas of a corporeal soul, the kidneys more and more became secondary to the external sexual organs, and that the latter long continued to retain the dominant importance. Thus, the phallus cult, which was prevalent in numerous Oriental countries and which penetrated from these into the Greek and Roman worlds, may doubtless be regarded as the last, as well as the most permanent, expression of those ideas of a central corporeal soul that were originally associated with the kidneys and their surrounding parts. At the outset, the representation of the phallus was held to be not a mere symbol, as it were, but the very vehicle of masculine power. As a productive, creative potency, it was regarded as very especially characteristic of the deity, and, just as the attributes of deities were supposed to be vested in their images, so also was this divine power thought to be communicated to the phallus. In addition to and anteceding these ideas relating to gods, the phallus was held to be the perfect embodiment of demons, particularly of field-demons, who cause the ripening and growth of the seed. The belief in phallus-bearing demons of fertility probably dates back to the totemic age. The cults, however, to which such ideas of the corporeal soul gave rise, reached their mature development only in the following period. It was then that deity belief was elaborated, and it was in connection with the latter that the phallus became a universal magic symbol of creative power. With the decline of these cults, the symbol, according to a law observable in the case of other phenomena also, was again relegated, for the most part, to the more restricted field of its origin.

Vestiges and survivals of the primitive forms of the corporeal soul extend far down into later culture. Nevertheless, the second main form of soul-belief, that of the psyche, comes to gain the prepondering influence, at first alongside of the corporeal soul, and then more and more displacing it. In this case, the earliest form of the belief, that in a breath soul, proves to be also the most permanent. The idea that the soul leaves the dying person in his last breath, and that the breath, therefore, exercises animating or magical effects, or that in it the soul may pass over from one person to another, is a very common belief. Probably, moreover, it arose independently in many different localities. Some primitive tribes have the custom of holding a child over the bed of a dying person in order that the soul may pass over into it; or, a member of the family stoops over the expiring one to receive his soul. Virgil's Æneid contains an impressive account relating that upon Dido's death her sister attempted to catch the soul, which, as she assumed, roams about as an aerial form, while she also carefully removed the blood from the wound in order that the soul might not remain within the body. Thus, the blood soul and the breath soul are here closely connected.

In the further destinies of the breath soul, a particularly important incident is its passage into some swiftly moving animal, perhaps a bird hovering in the air, or, again, some creeping animal, such as the lizard or the snake, whose manner of movement arouses uncanny fear. It is these animals, chiefly, that are regarded as metamorphoses of the psyche. Remarkable evidence that the bird and snake in combination were regarded as vehicles of the soul may be found in the pictorial representations of the natives of northwestern America. The escape of the soul from the body is here portrayed as the departure of a snake from the mouth of a human figure seated in a birdlike ship. This picture combines three ideas, which occur elsewhere also, either singly or in combination, in connection with the wandering of the soul. There is, in the first place, the soul-bird; then the soul-ship, readily suggested by association with a flying bird, and recurring in the ship which was thought in ancient times to cross the Styx of the underworld; finally, the soul-snake, representing the soul in the act of leaving the body. This very common idea of the soul as a snake and, by further association, its conception as a fish, may be ascribed not only to the fear aroused by the creeping snake, but also to the circumstances attending the decomposition of the corpse. The worm which creeps out of the decaying body is directly perceived as a snake. Thus, corporeal soul and psyche are again united; in this union they mediate the idea of an embodied soul, which, in a certain sense, of course, is a psyche retransformed into a corporeal soul.

With the appearance of these ideas of an embodied soul, totemism merges directly into soul-belief. Under the influence of the remaining elements of totemism, however, the soul-ideas come to be associated with more and more animals. The soul is no longer held to be embodied merely in the earliest soul-animals—bird, snake, and lizard—but other animals are added, such particularly as those of the chase, which have a closer relation to the life of man. Following upon this change are also the further developments mentioned above. When interest in the production of vegetable food is added to that of the chase, the same ideas become associated with plants. Their sprouting and growth continue to suggest soul-powers; and, even though the ancestor idea characteristic of the animal totem cannot attain to prominence because of the greater divergence of plants from man, this very fact causes the phenomena of sprouting and growth all the more to bring into emphasis the magical character of these vegetable totems. Hence it is mainly the plant totem that gives rise to those ceremonies and cult festivals which are designed for the magical increase of the totems. With the wane of the soul-beliefs connected with animal totemism, it is not only plants to which demoniacal powers are ascribed. Even inanimate objects come to be associated with magical ideas, either because of certain peculiar characteristics or because of the function which they perform. It is in this way that the introduction of the plant into the realm of totemic ideas mediates the transition from the totem to the fetish. On the other hand, as the totem animal comes more and more to be an ancestral animal, and as the memory of human forefathers gains greater prominence with the rise of culture, the animal ancestor changes into the human ancestor. Thus, fetishism and ancestor worship are logical developments of totemism. Though differing in tendency, they nevertheless constitute developmental forms which are not at all mutually exclusive, but which may become closely related, just as is the case with the animal and the plant totems from which they have proceeded.

Before turning to these later outgrowths of totemic soul-belief, however, we must consider their influence upon the important customs relating to the disposition of the dead. These customs give expression to the ideas of death and of the destiny of the soul after death. Hence the changes that occur at the beginning and in the course of the totemic age as regards the usages relative to the disposal of the corpse, mirror the important transformations which the latter undergoes. Primitive man, as we have seen, flees from the corpse. Dominated solely by his fear of escaping demons, he allows the dead to lie where they have died. Thus, no attempt whatsoever is made to dispose of the dead, or at most there are but slight beginnings in this direction. It is not the dead who vacate the premises in favour of the living, but the latter accommodate themselves to the dead. Totemic culture, accustomed to armed warfare and sudden death, begins from the outset gradually to lose its fear of the dead, even though not the fear of death, and this reacts upon the disposal of the corpse. Of course, the early custom of depositing the corpse in the open air near the place where death has occurred, does not entirely disappear. This locality, however, is no longer avoided; on the contrary, anxious expectation and observation are now fixed upon the corpse. Just as totemic man drinks the blood of those who are slain in battle, in order to appropriate their power, so also in the case of those who die of disease does he wish to acquire their souls the moment they leave the body. Traces of such a custom, indeed, occur even in much later times, as is shown in Virgil's above-mentioned account of the death of Dido. Within the sphere of totemic ideas, however, where the belief in a corporeal soul is still incomparably stronger, though already intercrossing with the belief in animal transformations of the psyche, the custom of depositing the dead in the open indeed continues to be practised, yet the disposition of the corpse changes, becoming, in spite of an external similitude, almost the very opposite. The corpse is no longer left at the place of death, but is stretched out on a mound of earth. This is the so-called 'platform' method of disposal, which, as is evident, forms a clear transition to burial, or interment. Before the mound of earth covers the body, it forms a platform upon which the corpse is laid out to be viewed, a primitive catafalque, as it were. This manner of disposing of the corpse has been regarded as a custom characteristic of the dominance of totemic culture. This is going entirely beyond the facts, since other modes of disposal are also to be found even in Oceania and Australia, the chief centres of totemism. Nevertheless, the phenomena connected with exposure on a platform indicate that a fusion with soul-ideas has now taken place. Decomposition follows relatively soon after death, particularly in a damp, tropical climate. On the one hand, the liquid products of decomposition that flow from the corpse are interpreted as a departure of the soul analogous to that which occurs, in the case of death by violence, in the loss of blood. As the blood is drunk to appropriate the soul of the deceased, so also do the relatives now crowd in to partake of the liquid products of decomposition—a transference similar to that which sometimes occurs when the powers of the blood are ascribed to the saliva or to other secretions. On the other hand, the first worm of decomposition to leave the corpse is held to be the bearer of the soul. Thus, corporeal soul and psyche are here closely fused. The liquid products that leave the body are in themselves elements of the corporeal soul, but in their separation from the body they resemble a psyche incorporated in an external object; conversely, the worm of decomposition is an embodiment of the psyche, which is itself represented as proceeding directly from the corporeal soul.