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

by Wilhelm Max Wundt

Though political organization has been mentioned as the first important feature distinguishing the heroic age from the preceding era, there is a second and not less significant differentia. This relates to the material conditions of life. Two things are of outstanding importance for the new culture. The first of these consists in what we ordinarily call agriculture—that is, the tilling of the soil by the aid of the plough, or, as it is therefore more properly called in contrast to the earlier hoe-culture, plough-culture. In addition, there is the breeding of domestic animals, particularly of food-supplying cattle, and, later, of sheep and goats.

It is even to-day widely believed that, of the various modes of procuring food, hunting came first. The hunter is thought to have been seized, one fine day, with an impulse to domesticate animals instead of hunting them. He tamed the wild creatures, and thus turned from a hunter into a nomad. In the course of time, the nomad is then supposed to have tired of his wandering life and to have settled down in permanent habitations. Instead of obtaining milk by herding his cattle, he hitched the ox to the plough, after having (with that wisdom and foresight which such theories always attribute to primitive man) invented the plough. This theory is an impossible fiction from beginning to end. It is just as intrinsically improbable as is the above-mentioned hypothesis that in prehistoric times the Australians invented totemic tribal organization and exogamy for the purpose of preventing the marriage of relatives. We have seen, on the contrary, that the prohibition of such marriages was a consequence of exogamy, and that the latter, in turn, was not a deliberate invention but the natural result of certain conditions inherent in the culture of the age. All these institutions were originally due to influences whose outcome could not possibly have been foreseen. The same is true of the subject under discussion. In the first place, the assumed order of succession of the three stages of life is contradicted by facts. It is hardly correct to speak of a hunting life which is not supplemented by a certain amount of agriculture in the form of hoe-culture—an industry which, as a rule, is carried on by the woman in the immediate vicinity of the hut. This primitive agriculture existed even at a very early age. We find it widely prevalent among the American aborigines, who possessed no domesticated animal whatever except the dog, and the dog, as was above observed, was never tamed at all, but domesticated itself at the very dawn of prehistoric times. The supposition that the nomadic life followed upon that of the hunter is impossible, in the second place, because the animals that are hunted are not identical with those that form the care of the nomad. Cattle were never objects of the chase; the closely related buffalo, on the other hand, was never domesticated, but has remained exclusively a game animal down to the present day. Game animals have never been domesticated and utilized for the purpose of supplying milk and drawing the plough. No doubt the domestic animals of the nomad at one time existed in a wild state. Wild cattle, of course, preceded tame cattle. But the latter did not develop from the former by the indirect way of the hunted animal. Nor does agriculture at all presuppose a nomadic life. There are vast stretches of the Old World, as, for instance, all of China, Indo-China, and Indonesia, where the production of milk was never engaged in but where agriculture in the form of plough-culture has existed, in part, since early times. Agriculture, however, involves the raising of cattle, particularly of oxen. These male cattle are castrated, usually when very young. They are thus made tractable, so that they may be hitched to the plough and used for agricultural purposes more easily than is possible in the case of bulls, which are never completely manageable. What, then, were the motives which led to the raising of cattle, an occupation which, in many places at least, is carried on solely in the interests of agriculture? What motives led to the castration of male cattle, a practice which everywhere obviously serves agricultural purposes?

The traditional mode of explanation would lead us to suppose that man foresaw the effects of castration, that he knew beforehand that if the bull were subjected to this operation he would become an animal fitted to draw the plough. The impossibility of this supposition is evident. Such an effect could be learned only from experience, prior to which, therefore, it could not have been known. The problem relating to the cultivation of the soil by means of the plough, therefore, divides into two questions: How may we account for the ox? How for the plough? These questions are closely related, and yet they lead us back to divergent explanations. For in all probability the plough was originally drawn by man. Moreover, the plough was not the first implement to be thus drawn; it was anteceded by the wagon. Even on the early Babylonian and Assyrian monuments there were figures of a wagon bearing either an image of a god or else the king or chief priest, both of whom were probably regarded as uniting in one person the function of their offices with that of representative of the deity. Thus, the question as to the origin of the plough carries us back directly to that of the origin of the wagon. Now, the earliest wagon had but two wheels; the four-wheeled wagon came as a later discovery or as an improvement. The two-wheeled wagon, however, presupposes the wheel. But how did the wheel come to be recognized as a useful object of locomotion? The first traces of a wheel or of wheel-like objects are to be found in the latter part of the stone age. A number of such objects have been discovered in Europe; in their centre is a hole, and there are spokes that radiate to the circumference. The fact that these wheels are of small size indicates that they may have been worn about the neck as amulets. But even in early culture the wheel was also put to an entirely different use. Widely prevalent over the earth and probably connected with ancient sun worship, is the custom of kindling a fire to celebrate the festival of the summer solstice. In ancient Mexico, tradition tells us, this fire was started by turning a notched disk of wood about a stake until the heat thus generated gave rise to fire—the same method of producing fire by friction that is still in use among primitive peoples. This fiery wheel was then rolled down a hill as an image of the sun, and later, when the custom had lost its original magical significance, as a symbol of the sun moving in the heavens. According to the report of W. Mannhardt, a remarkably similar custom existed in East Prussia not so very long ago. Perhaps the wheel that was worn about the neck as an amulet or article of adornment likewise had some connection with the idea that the sun was a celestial wheel rolling across the heavens. After the early sun cults had once created the rolling wheel in imitation of the sun and its movements, it was but a short step to the idea of securing regular, continuous movements by means of which some sort of work might be performed. An early application of this idea is to be found in the practice of spinning with distaff and whorl. This invention was credited even by the ancients to prehistoric times. Doubtless its origin belongs to the beginnings of the heroic age. This same early period, however, probably also used the wheel for transporting heavy articles. This was the original purpose of the one-wheeled barrow. It alone enabled the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians to overcome the difficulties of transporting by human agencies the mighty blocks of stone required for their temples and pyramids. From this it was not a far advance to the two-wheeled wagon. The barrow was pulled or pushed by men. The wagon, in contrast to the barrow, was apparently from the beginning an aristocratic mode of transit, never used by the common people. The two-wheeled wagon was in the first instance a vehicle of the gods. Later it served as the vehicle of the ruler, the terrestrial counterpart of the deity. Finally, the nobleman employed it in war, in going forth to battle. A vivid portrayal of battles in which such two-wheeled wagons played a part is presented in the Iliad. True, the wagon is here also, as a rule, only a means for carrying the hero to the scene of combat. The fighting itself is seldom done from it. Upon its arrival at the appointed place, the warrior dismounts, to try his strength, shield against shield, with his opponent. The general populace, however, always goes on foot.

This sketch gives us the main outlines of the history of the wagon. But how did the animal, first the ox and later the horse, come to be hitched to the wagon? Originally, the wagon bearing the image of the god was very probably drawn by men, as was likewise, in imitation of this, the chariot of the king. But the breeding of animals soon changed matters. Oxen were used for the purpose of drawing wagons much earlier than were horses. The horse did not appear until late in the history of civilization. There are no Egyptian pictures of horses that date back farther than the fifteenth dynasty, whereas those of cattle occur considerably earlier. In Oriental civilization, furthermore, the ass antedates the horse. In harmony with ancient custom, the ass even to-day continues, in the Orient, to be a favourite beast of burden as well as a riding animal. The horse seems to make its first appearance in history along with the Indo-Germanic tribes, who were probably indebted for it to the Turanian peoples of the Asiatic steppes. As a result of its superior speed, it then superseded its rivals in all the civilized countries of the ancient world. The Assyrian king went forth to the chase and the Homeric hero proceeded to battle in a chariot drawn by steeds. It was only later that the Greeks used the horse for saddle purposes, and not merely to draw the chariot. When this took place, equestrian combat came into favour among the aristocracy.

This development, however, was preceded not only by the taming of cattle but probably also by the use of the ox for drawing the wagon. How the latter came about may, of course, only be conjectured. The bull has remained unmanageable even to the present day; the attempt to hitch him to a wagon, therefore, must always have failed. The cow was not forced into this service—at least, not in those places where milk was valued. On the other hand, the castrated male animal is thoroughly suited to the task of drawing the wagon. It is stronger than the cow, and also more tractable. It is inconceivable, however, that castration was originally performed with the purpose of engendering these characteristics. Before there could be such a purpose, the results must already have been known—that is, the operation must already have been performed for other purposes. Eduard Hahn has offered a suggestion with reference to our problem. He has called attention to the ancient Asiatic cults of the Phrygian Cybele and the Syrio-Phœnician Astarte. These cults are similar to the vegetation festivals which, as was mentioned in the preceding chapter, may be found among the Pueblo peoples of America. Similar orgiastic phenomena recur wherever peoples are primarily concerned with agriculture and are anxious for the welfare of the grain. The beginnings of vegetation cults, found in the earlier period of hoe-culture, were succeeded by more developed deity cults, connected with plough-culture. The ecstatic motives associated with the tilling of the soil then extended their influence beyond the limits of vegetation cults proper and became universal elements of the deity cults. The powers shared by the numerous demoniacal beings of the more primitive cults were now centralized in a single goddess mother. The life-giving activity of the deity in connection with human procreation came to be of focal interest. The exaggerated development of cult ecstasy caused the orgy to become a form of self-mortification. The cult associates, especially the priests, lacerated and emasculated themselves in the fury of religious excitement. By becoming a permanent custom, this gave rise to a group of eunuchs consecrated to the service of the deity. These were doubtless the earliest eunuchs of history. In the guardians of Turkish harems and in the singers of the Sistine Chapel, survivals of these unrestrained cults of the past still exist. Now, when the group of emasculated priests paced beside the chariot of the goddess, they might easily have hit upon the idea of hitching a castrated animal to the wagon. But, however plausible this hypothesis may appear, in that it avoids the impossible assumption of an invention, it nevertheless leaves one question unanswered. Even though the castration of the priest may be understood as the result of the well-known effects of extreme religious excitement, the castration of the bull is not yet accounted for. Are we to suppose that the priest merely aimed to render the animal similar to himself? Neither ecstasy nor reflection could account for such a purpose. But there is another factor which has always been significant for cult, and which attained to increased importance precisely in the worship of the deity. I refer to sacrifice. In its highest stages, sacrifice assumes new forms, in that man offers either himself or parts of his own body, his blood, his hair, or a finger. A late survival of such sacrifices is to be found in a custom that is still prevalent in Catholic countries. Here it frequently occurs that a sick man lays a wax replica of the diseased part of his body upon the altar of the saint. This idea of sacrificing parts of one's own body is also exemplified in the self-emasculation practised by the Russian sect of Skopzi even in our own Christian age. Such sacrifice, moreover, may receive a wider application, so as to include, among the sacrificial objects, parts of the animal. Now at one time the kidneys with their connected organs were regarded as vehicles of the soul, and, as such, were sacrificed to the gods. The castration of the bull, therefore, may originally well have been regarded as the sacrifice of the most readily accessible of the favourite vehicles of the soul. Thus, it may have been in the case of the animal whose generative organs had been sacrificed to the deity that man first observed the change of characteristics which fitted the animal to be hitched to the chariot of the deity, and finally, through an extension of its sphere of usefulness, to draw the plough across the fields. This hypothesis, which presupposes the joint influence of orgiastic vegetation cults and ancient sacrificial usages, is, of course, not susceptible of positive demonstration. Nevertheless, to one concerned with the transition from ancient field cults to the agriculture of later times, the combination of conditions just indicated may reasonably be regarded as affording the basis of an hypothesis that is psychologically not improbable.

Whether the raising of the milch cow was coincident with the taming of the ox for the purposes of agriculture, and whether it came about as the result of a similar transformation of motives, it is hardly possible to determine. Though such changes are of more importance for the development of culture than are many of the campaigns and ancient folk wars of which history has preserved a record, no positive clue as to their origin has anywhere survived. All that we know with certainty is that the taming of the ox to draw the plough and the raising of the milch cow are not necessarily bound up with one another. For plough-culture and the milk industry are by no means always to be found together. In spite of his highly developed agriculture, the Chinaman loathes milk, whereas the Hindoo regards it as a valuable gift of civilization, prizing it not only because of the butter which he secures from it but especially as a food and as a sacrifice to the gods. The Israelites received the promise that Canaan was to be a land "that floweth with milk and honey." The latter expression suggests the cultural conditions of two widely different periods. Milk represents the most valuable product of later culture, while even primitive man regarded the honey which he gathered from the hives of wild bees as his most precious article of food.

Whatever may be the relation of the two factors in the domestication of cattle, whether the taming of the ox preceded the raising of cows or vice versa, the production of milk, at any rate, represents the more difficult and slower task. The taming of the ox is essentially an act that affects only the particular animal in question; even to-day it must be repeated in the case of every male calf; the inheritance of acquired characteristics is here not operative. The cow, just as all female mammals in their natural condition, produces very little milk except during the period of suckling, and then only so much as is necessary for the support of her young. Only through efforts continued throughout generations and as a result of the inheritance of acquired characteristics could she be brought to that tremendous over-production of her secretion of which she has become capable. In this case, therefore, there must from the very outset have been a systematic striving toward the desired goal. It is not absolutely essential to assume a change of motives such as occurred in the taming of the ox; from the very beginning there may have been an attempt to make personal use of the milk which Nature intended for the calf. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that religious motives here also played a part. This is made all the more probable by the fact that the cow, no less than the bull and the ox, was worshipped by many peoples even in the earliest period of deity cults. Such worship is particularly noteworthy, inasmuch as cattle were never favourite totem animals as was, for instance, the buffalo among the hunting peoples of the American prairies. Even though the general idea of animal cult was carried over from the totemic period to the beginnings of the agrarian deity cults, this animal cult was essentially changed, and it became associated with different objects. The latter are now no longer connected with the old totem beliefs that sprang, in part, from primitive animism; they are determined entirely by the conditions of a later culture, one of whose essential elements is the domestication of cattle. The two fundamental constituents of this later culture, agriculture and the milk industry, are not everywhere equally prized. Hence there is a difference as regards the relative importance of the male and the female member of the species in the cult worship that is accorded to the most valued domestic animal of the new economic era. In the Opis-worship of the Egyptians, as well as in the Persian cult of Mithra, the bull was regarded as an incarnation of the supreme deity. In many sections of Northern Europe it is even to-day customary, at harvest-time, to bedeck an ox with ribbons and wreaths of flowers and to lead him in a festal procession. On the other hand, we find that the Vedas and the Avesta, in harmony with the high value which the ancient Indian and Iranian peoples place on milk, extol the cow as the most sacred of animals. In the first stages of the domestication of cattle, it was possible to gain only a small supply of milk, since its over-production could be developed but slowly; just for this reason, however, milk was all the more valuable. This may probably also throw light on the high value which was long placed on butter as a sacrificial gift. The attempt to secure this valuable product for sacrificial purposes may then itself in turn have reacted upon the milk industry. Thus, the two great advances in material culture that attend the heroic age—the tilling of the soil with the plough and the systematic endeavour to secure milk and its products—seem to be, in part, directly due to, and, in part, closely bound up with, motives of cult. External culture and inner religious impulses have always attested themselves to be elements of a totality all of whose parts are interrelated.

Of the new forms of industry which thus arose, the cultivation of the soil by means of the plough led to a further important change. This change was just as much an effect of the new conditions of life as it was an expression of the altered spirit of the times. The guidance of the plough is a task which prevents the field work from being any longer done in common, as it was at the height of hoe-culture and during the time of the origin of the great vegetation festivals of totemism. The individual must guide his own plough. The appearance of plough-culture individualizes labour. Just as the individual comes to the fore in political development and is extolled in legend as the founder of cities and States, so also is it the individual who cultivates the land. This individualistic tendency also gradually makes itself felt in the raising of domestic animals. Plough-culture gives rise to private property as regards both the soil and its products.

Here again, however, the new social order influences economic life, and both together produce further changes in external culture. Individual activity receives emphasis not alone in the cultivation of the soil but also in warfare. Primitive man was not at all familiar with war. He slew his enemy from an ambush, attacking him but seldom in open combat. In the totemic age, when actual weapons of war first made their appearance, tribal war was a strife of many against many. As yet the individual combatants were not sharply differentiated from one another. The masses clashed with each other in unregulated strife, without definite leadership or fixed system. Only with the dawn of the political era do we find regulated single combat. Such combat then becomes the decisive factor in warfare. Consider the Homeric description of the battles before the walls of Troy. The battle is decided by champions (promachoi). These alight from their chariots of war and fight, man against man. The masses stand in the background, hurling lances or stones. Their actions, however, have little importance. They flee as soon as their champion falls. The result of the battle thus depends upon individuals and not upon the masses. The weapons also conform to these altered conditions. In earlier times, practically none but long-distance weapons were used—the sling, the hurled spear, or the bow and arrow, weapons similar to those employed in the chase. Single combat necessitated weapons of close range—the axe, held fast in the hand, the lance, used as a thrusting weapon, and the sword. Instead of the long shield, covering almost the entire body—shields such as even the Australians and also the earliest Greeks carried—a small round shield was demanded by reason of the use of swords in fighting. Of the various weapons found at the zenith of the heroic age, therefore, the sword is the most characteristic. It is also the most typical creation of this period. It obviously originated through a gradual shortening of the lance, thus becoming a weapon specifically adapted for individual combat at close range. Thus, the tendency toward the assertion of individual personality made itself felt in warfare and in weapons, just as it did in the State, in agriculture, and in the cult of personal gods.