All these are, of course, only restricted merits, which correspond to some striking deficiencies. It is easily understood that art-life in a military state of society always tends to be circumscribed within the narrow boundaries of tribal sympathy. It may also be pointed out, at least as a curious and significant coincidence, that descriptive and figurative art, in the sense of realistic, faithful rendering of nature and life, has never attained any high development among the most military tribes. Such a sympathetic interest in the picturesque qualities of the human and animal body as that which characterises the art of the prehistoric European cave-dwellers, the Bushmen, and the Eskimo, does not seem compatible with the customs of war. In this connection it is not our business to estimate critically the comparative importance of these merits and deficiencies: we have only to point out the undeniable significance which, from an historical point of view, must be accorded to war as a factor in the development of art.
CHAPTER XX
ART AND MAGIC
Sympathetic magic has in recent times become a favourite subject of scientific study. We may therefore proceed to trace the influence which this important factor has exercised on the development of art-forms without going through the labour of presenting and describing the evidence of its occurrence at the different stages of evolution. It is sufficient to refer to the copious and detailed researches of Hartland, Frazer, Béranger-Féraud, and others. What we need is only a psychological interpretation of all the facts which have been brought together by these authors.
The instances of sympathetic magic are naturally divided into two main classes, which, broadly speaking, correspond to the two types of association. But just as in psychology it is often difficult to decide whether a given associative process has its origin in a relation of contiguity or in one of similarity, so it is often an open question to which group a given superstition is to be assigned. It may even be possible to deduce both groups from one common and fundamental magical principle.
However the definitive theoretical explanation may turn out, we have for the present to uphold a distinction between the two forms. And in order to start from the facts that are simpler and easier to explain, we shall first devote our attention to sympathetic magic based on a material connection between things.
The superstitious notions which can be brought together under this heading are familiar to every one. There is scarcely a single book on ethnology or folklore which does not present some illustrations of the belief that by acting upon a part of a given whole we may influence this whole as well as all its other parts. This universal doctrine of a solidarity between the things that have entered as parts in the same material totality has given rise all over the world to beliefs and practices which, although varying in details, are essentially similar in general character. We need only refer to the well-known folk-beliefs as to the necessity of caution in disposing of clippings of hair or nails, of saliva, or anything else removed from the human body. Such objects, it is supposed, would give any enemy into whose hands they might fall the power of injuring through them the person from whom they had proceeded.[467] Almost equally universal is the belief that close relatives, as being ingredients in—or perhaps rather partakers of—the same whole, the family, are bound together in a quite material solidarity of suffering. From the sociological point of view this group of superstitions, owing to the social importance of the last-mentioned totality, is of especial interest; and therefore the curious customs concerning the relation between a father and his unborn child, between husband and wife, ancestors and descendants, etc., which no doubt are all based on the idea of a material connection, have been treated of with due completeness in sociological literature.[468] Equally valuable for the psychological interpretation, although less pregnant with social import, are all the petty tricks of sorcery in connection with hunting, fishing, agriculture, and so on, which are practised even now among most European nations.[469] From the array of facts inserted by Mr. Hartland in his monumental commentary on the Legend of Perseus, we can form an opinion of the wide and deep-going influences which the belief in magical connection between things materially connected has exercised in all departments of life. And besides this ethnological apparatus, Mr. Hartland gives us in this work a most complete and definite account of the world-view which lies behind all these superstitious beliefs and practices.
More light, however, is thrown on the philosophy of this superstition by the researches of M. Rochas d’Aiglun than by any work on scientific ethnology and folklore. This is not said in order to detract in any way from the merits of Messrs. Hartland and Frazer. But although nothing could surpass the erudition of these scholars, they could not, in point of sympathetic and intelligent representation, stand on a level with an author who himself believes in the reality of his facts. For those, therefore, who wish to understand the motives, conscious or unconscious, by which the adepts of sympathetic magic justify their practices, nothing could be more instructive than a perusal of L’extériorisation de la motricité and L’extériorisation de la sensibilité. In these works M. Rochas has not only minutely summarised the seventeenth century theories and observations of Digby and Papin:[470] he has also supplemented these old “facts” with his own experiments on objects that have been saturated with sensibility and motor power by contact with living bodies. The power of relics, love philtres, and charms is thus explained in a way which, however fantastic, is nevertheless undeniably consistent and methodical.[471] A savage or an uneducated man would indeed be unable to put his case in the logical form which M. Rochas gives it. But if he understood scientific terminology, he would doubtless ratify, as a true interpretation of his own vague conceptions, the theory of sensitive and motor effluvia which emanate from all living beings, and link them to all objects to which they may pass. As a bona fide statement of magic principles in the language of modern psychology and modern physics, M. Rochas’ works bring the old superstitions home to us with unsurpassable force. We learn here to appreciate the powerful influence which may in all times be exercised by the underlying belief in an invisible magical chain connecting things which appear to be severed. When we see a man of modern civilisation falling back upon these crude notions, which appeared for a long time to be quite forgotten, we must needs be convinced that the world-view of magic, however erroneous, is, so to speak, a constitutional fallacy of the human mind. In every department of human ethos, therefore, there is reason to look for the possible effects of these conceptions.
For the present, however, we have to admit that sympathetic magic in its simplest form seems to be without any influence on the origin of works of art. It is very different with the second kind of magic—namely, that where the occult influence is based upon a likeness between things.
To judge from the literature of ethnology and folklore, this principle seems to be almost as universal as that of magic by virtue of material connection. Its influence can be traced in beliefs and practices, not only of the lowest savages, but also of civilised nations. It has received elaborate theoretical justification in the old systems of Greek philosophy, in the theories of Agrippa and Paracelsus, and in the tenets of modern homœopaths. And there are even some real facts, such as the beneficial effects of inoculation and the “katharsis” action of poetry—the curing of sorrow by tragedy—which are sometimes quoted in support of the thesis that “like affects like.”[472] Apart from all regard to such spurious arguments the theory of this form of magic is scarcely less irrational than that underlying the first group of facts. From our point of view, however, even the crudest forms of “homœopathic” magic are of far greater interest than the examples of sorcery by means of material connection. Whereas the adepts of the latter need only procure a nail, a tuft of hair, or a few articles of clothing belonging to the man they wish to bewitch, the sorcerer who works by similarities is compelled to create a representation of things and beings in order to acquire an influence over them. Thus magical purposes call forth imitations of nature and life which, although essentially non-æsthetic in their intention, may nevertheless be of importance for the historical evolution of art.
To how great an extent works of art derive their material from old magical practices, the real meaning of which has gradually fallen into oblivion, may be shown in all the various departments of art. There is not a single form of imitation which has not been more or less influenced by this principle. Pantomimic representation, which for us is of value only in virtue of its intellectual or emotional expressiveness, was in lower stages of culture used as a magical expedient. Even a single gesture may, according to primitive notions, bring about effects corresponding to its import,[473] and a complete drama is sincerely believed to cause the actual occurrence of the action which it represents. Students of folklore know that there is practically no limits to the effects which primitive man claims to produce by magical imitation. He draws the rain from heaven by representing in dance and drama the appropriate meteorological phenomena.[474] He regulates the movements of the sun and encourages it in the labour of its wanderings by his dramatic sun-rituals;[475] and he may even influence the change of the seasons by dramas in which he drives winter away and brings summer in.[476] By those phallic rites to which we have already referred in the chapter on erotic art, he tries in the same way to act upon the great biological phenomena of human life.[477] And again, when sickness is to be cured, he tries to subdue the demons of disease—to neutralise their action or to entice them out of the body of the patient—by imitating in pantomime the symptoms of the particular complaint.[478] Finally, when the assistance of a divine power is required, the god himself may be conjured to take his abode in the body of the performer, who imitates what is believed to be his appearance, movements, and behaviour.[479] Thus the belief in the effectual power of imitation has all over the world given rise to common dramatic motives as universal as the belief itself, and uniform as the chief requirements of mankind.