Social function of asceticism ……………………………………………………………………...309 III.—Explanation of the system of interdictions : antagonism of the
saered and the profane, contagiousness of the sacred …………………………………….317
IV.—Causes of this contagiousness—It cannot be explained by the law» of the association of ideas—It is because religious forces are outside of their subjects—Logical interest in this property of religious forces
…………………………………………………………………………….321
CHAPTER II THE POSITIVE CULT I.—The Elements of Sacrifice
The Intichiuma ceremony in the tribes of Central Australia—Different forms which it presents
………………………………………………………………………………………………326
I.—The Arunta Form—The two phases—Analysis of the first: visit to sacred places, scattering of sacred dust, shedding of blood, etc., to assure the reproduction of the totemic species …...327
II.—Second phase : ritual consumption of the totemic plant or animal ………………….333
III.—Interpretation of the complete ceremony—The second rite consists in a communion meal—Reason for this communion ………………………………………………………………336
IV.—The rites of the first phase consist in oblations—Analogies with sacrificial oblations— The Intichiuma thus contains the two elements of sacrifice—Interest of these facts for the theory of sacrifice …………………………………………………………………………………………...340 V.—On the pretended absurdity of sacrificial oblations—How they are explained : dependence of sacred beings upon their worshippers— Explanation of the circle in which sacrifice seems to move—Origin of the periodicity of positive rites
……………………………………………..344 [XVIII]
CHAPTER III THE POSITIVE CULT—(continued) II.—Imitative Rites and the Principle of Causality
I.—Nature of the imitative rites—Examples of ceremonies where they are employed to assure the fertility of the species……………………………………………………………………..351
II.—They rest upon the principle : like produces like—Examination of the explanation of this given by the anthropological school—Reasons why they imitate the animal or plant—Reasons for attributing a physical efficacy to these gestures—Faith—In what sense it is founded upon experience—The principles of magic are born in religion
……………………………………..……355
III.—The preceding principle considered as one of the first statements of the principle of causality—Social conditions upon which this latter depends—The idea of impersonal force or power is of social origin— The necessity for the conception of causality explained by the authority inherent in social imperatives . ……………………………………………………………………361
CHAPTER IV THE POSITIVE CULT—(continued) III.—Representative or Commemorative
Rites
I.—Representative rites with physical efficacy—Their relations with the ceremonies already described—Their action is wholly moral …………………………………………………….…..371 II.—Representative rites without physical efficacy—They confirm the preceding results—
The element of recreation in religion : its importance ; its reason for existence—The idea of a feast III.—Ambiguity of function in the various ceremonies studied ; they substitute themselves
for each other—How this ambiguity confirms the theory proposed……………………………...376 CHAPTER V
PIACULAR RITES AND THE AMBIGUITY OF THE NOTION OF SACREDNESS
Definition of the piacular rite ……………………………………………………………..383 I.—Positive rites of mourning—Description of these rites………………………………..389 II.—How they are explained—They are not a manifestation of private sentiments—The malice attributed to the souls of the dead cannot account for them either—They correspond to the state of mind in which the group happens to be—Analysis of this state—How it ends by mourning—Corresponding changes in the way in which the souls of the dead are
conceived…………..390
III.—Other piacular rites; after a public mourning, a poor harvest, a drought, the southern lights—Rarity of these rites in Australia— How they are explained………………………………396
IV.—The two forms of the sacred: the pure and the impure—Their antagonism—Their relationship—Ambiguity of the idea of the sacred—All rites present the same character……………403
CONCLUSION
To what extent the results obtained may be generalized .
I.—Religion rests upon an experience that is well founded but not privileged—Necessity of a science to reach the reality at the bottom of this experience—What is this reality ?—The human groups— Human meaning of religion—Concerning the objection which opposes the ideal society to the real society How religious individualism and cosmopolitanism are explained in this theory………………………………………..……………………………………………………..…4 15
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II.—The eternal element in religion—Concerning the conflict between science and religion ; it has to do solely with the speculative side of religion—What this side seems destined to become..
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….426
III.—How has society been able to be the source of logical, that is to say conceptual, thought ? Definition of the concept: not to be confounded with the general idea ; characterized by its impersonality and communicability—It has a collective origin—The analysis of its contents bears witness in the same sense—Collective representations as types of ideas which individuals accept—In regard to the objection that they are impersonal only on condition of being true—Con- ceptual thought is coeval with humanity………………………………………………………….432
IV.—How the categories express social things—The chief category is the concept of totality which could be suggested only by society_Why the relations expressed by the categories could become conscious only in society—Society is not an a. logical being—How the categories tend to detach themselves froirgeographically determined groups…………………………………………………………………………………………….440
The unity of science on the one hand, and of morals and religion on the other—How the society accounts for this unity—Explanation of the role attributed to society : its creative power— Reactions of sociology upon the science of man
Index……..………………………………………………………………………………451
CHAPTER II
LEADING CONCEPTIONS OF THE ELEMENTARY RELIGION
I.—Animism
ARMED with this definition, we are now able to set out in search of this elementary religion which we propose to study.
Even the crudest religions with which history and ethnology make us acquainted are already of a complexity which corresponds badly with the idea sometimes held of primitive mentality. One finds there not only a confused system of beliefs and rites, but also such a plurality of different principles, and such a richness of essential notions, that it seems impossible to see in them anything but the late product of a rather long evolution. Hence it has been concluded that to discover the truly original form of the religious life, it is necessary to descend by analysis beyond these observable religions, to resolve them into their common and fundamental elements, and then to seek among these latter some one from which the others were derived.
To the problem thus stated, two contrary solutions have been given.
There is no religious system, ancient or recent, where one does not meet, under different forms, two religions, as it were, side by side, which, though being united closely and mutually penetrating each other, do not cease, nevertheless, to be distinct. The one addresses itself to the phenomena of nature, either the great cosmic forces, such as winds, rivers, stars or the sky, etc., or else the objects of various sorts which cover the surface of the earth, such as plants, animals, rocks, etc. ; for this reason it has been given the name of naturism. The other has spiritual beings as its object, spirits, souls, geniuses, demons, divinities properly so-called, animated and conscious agents like man, but distinguished from him, nevertheless, by the nature of their powers and especially by the peculiar characteristic that they do not affect the senses in the same way : ordinarily they are not visible to human eyes. This religion of spirits is called animism. Now, to explain the universal coexistence of
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these two sorts of cults, two contradictory theories liave been proposed. For some, animism is the primitive religion, of which naturism is only a secondary and derived form. For the others, on the contrary, it is the nature cult which was the point of departure for religious evolution ; the cult of spirits is only a peculiar case of that.
These two theories are, up to the present, the only ones by which the attempt has been made to explain rationally1 the origins of religious thought. Thus the capital problem raised by the history of religions is generally reduced to asking which of these two solutions should be chosen, or whether it is not better to combine them, and in that case, what place must be given to each of the two elements.2 Even those scholars who do not admit either of these hypotheses in their systematic form, do not refuse to retain certain propositions upon which they rest.3 Thus we have a certain number of theories already made, which must be submitted to criticism before we take up the study of the facts for ourselves. It will be better understood how indispensable it is to attempt a new one, when we have seen the insufficiency of these traditional conceptions.
1We thus leave aside here those theories which, in whole or in part, make use of super-experimental data. This is the case with the theory which Andrew Lang exposed in his book. The Making of JSeligicni, and which Father Schmidt has taken up again, with variations of detail, in a series of articles on The Origin of the Idea of God {Anthropos, 1908, 1909). Lang does not set animism definitely aside, but in the last analysis, he admits a sense or intuititm of the divine directly. Also, if we do not consider it necessary to expose and discuss this conception a the present chapter, we do not intend to pass it over in silence ; we shall come to it again below, when we shall ourselves explain the facts upon which it is founded (Bk. II, ch. ix, § 4).
2This is the case, for example, of Fustel de Coulanges who accepts the two conceptions together (The Ancient Ctty, Bk. I and Bk. Ill, ch. ii).
3This is the case with Jevons, who criticizes the animism taught by Tyior, but accepts his theories on the origin of the idea of the soul and the anthropomorphic instinct of man. Inversely, L'sener, in his Giitternamen, rejects certain hypotheses of Max Muller which will be described below, but admits the principal postulates of naturism.
It is Tyior who formed the animist theory in its essential outlines.4 Spencer, who took it up after him, did not reproduce it without introducing certain modifications.5 But in general the questions are posed by each in the same terms, and the solutions accepted are, with a single exception, identically the same. Therefore we can unite these two doctrines in the exposition which follows, if we mark, at the proper moment, the place where the two diverge from one another.
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In order to find the elementary form of the religious life in these animistic beliefs and practices, three desiderata must be satisfied : first, since according to this hypothesis, the idea of the soul is the cardinal idea of religion, it must be shown how this is formed without taking any of its elements from an anterior religion ; secondly, it must be made clear how souls become the object of a cult and are transformed into spirits ; and thirdly and finally, since the cult of these spirits is not all of any religion, it remains to be explained how the cult of nature is derived from it.
According to this theory, the idea of the soul was first suggested to men by the badly understood spectacle of the double life they ordinarily lead, on the one hand, when awake, on the other. when asleep. In fact, for the savage,1 the mental representations which he has while awake and those of his dreams are said to be of the same value : he objectifies the second like the first, that is to say, that he sees in them the images of external objects whose appearance they more or less accurately reproduce. So when he dreams that he has visited a distant country, he believes that he really was there. But lie could not have gone there, unless two beings exist within him : the one, his body, which has remained lying on the ground and which he finds in the same position on awakening ; the other, during this time, has travelled through space. Similarly, if he seems to talk with one of his companions who he knows was really at a distance, he concludes that the other also is composed of two beings: one which sleeps at a distance, and another which has come to manifest himself by means of the dream. From these repeated experiences, he little by little arrives at the idea that each of us has a double, another self, which in determined conditions has the power of leaving the organism where it resides and of going roaming at a distance.
Of course, this double reproduces all the essential traits of the perceptible being which serves it as external covering ; but at the same time it is distinguished from this by many characteristics. It is more active, since it can cover vast distances in an instant. It is more malleable and plastic ; for, to leave the body, it must pass out by its apertures, especially the mouth and nose. It is represented as made of matter, undoubtedly, but of a matter much more subtile and etherial than any which we
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know empirically. This double is the soul. In fact, it cannot be doubted that in numerous societies the soul has been conceived in the image of the body ; it is believed -that it reproduces even the accidental deformities such as those resulting from wounds or mutilations. Certain Australians, after having killed their enemy, cut off his right thumb, so that his soul, deprived of its thumb also, cannot throw a javelin and revenge itself. But while it resembles the body, it has, at the same time, something half spiritual about it. They say that "it is the finer or more aeriform part of the body," that " it has no flesh nor bone nor sinew " ; that when one wishes to take hold of it, he feels nothingthat it is " like a purified body."1
Also, other facts of experience which affect the mind in the same way naturally group themselves around this fundamental fact taught by the dream: fainting, apoplexy, catalepsy, ecstasy, in a word, all cases of temporary insensibility. In fact, they all are explained very well by the hypothesis that the principle of life and feeling is able to leave the body momentarily. Also, it is natural that this principle should be confounded with the double, since the absence of the double during sleep daily has the effect of suspending thought and life. Thus diverse observations seem to
4Primitive Culture, chs. xi-xviii.
5Principles of Sociology, Parts I and VI.
1Tyior, op. tit., I, pp. 455 f.
agree mutually and to confirm the idea of the constitutional duality of man.2
But the soul is not a spirit. It is attached to a body which it can leave only by exception; in so far as it is nothing more than that, it is not the object of any cult. The spirit, on the other hand, though generally having some special thing as its residence, can go away at will, and a man can enter into relations with it only by observing ritual precautions. The soul can become a spirit, then, only by transforming itself : the simple application of these preceding ideas to the fact of death produced this metamorphosis quite naturally. For a rudimentary intelligence, in fact, death is not distinguished from a long fainting swoon or a prolonged sleep ; it has all their aspects. Thus it seems that it too consists in a separation of the soul and the body, analogous to that produced every night; but as in such cases, the body is not reanimated, the idea is formed of a separation without an assignable limit of time. When the body is once destroyed—and funeral rites have the object of hastening this destruction—the separation is taken as final. Hence come spirits detached from any organism and left free in space. As
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Their number augments with time, a population of souls forms around the living population. These souls of men have the needs and passions of men; they seek to concern themselves with the life of their companions of yesterday, either to aid them or to injure them, according to the sentiments which they have kept towards them. According to the circumstances, their nature makes them either very precious auxiliaries or very redoubtable adversaries. Owing to their extreme fluidity, they can even enter into the body, and cause all sorts of disorders there, or else increase its vitality. Thus comes the habit of attributing to them all those events of life which vary slightly from the ordinary : there are very few of these for which they cannot account. Thus they constitute a sort of ever-ready supply of causes which never leaves one at a loss when in search of explanations. Does a man appear inspired, does he speak with energy, is it as though he were lifted outside himself and above the ordinary level of men? It is because a good spirit is in him and animates him. Is he overtaken by an attack or seized by madness? It is because an evil spirit has entered into him and brought him all this trouble. There are no maladies which cannot be assigned to some influence of this sort. Thus the power of souls is increased by all that men attribute to them, and in the end men find themselves the prisoners of this imaginary world of which they are, however, the authors and the models. They fall into dependence upon these spiritual forces which they have created with their own hands and in their own image. For if souls are the givers of health and sickness, of goods and evils to this extent, it is wise to conciliate their favour or appease them when they are irritated ; hence come the offerings, prayers, sacrifices, in a word, all the apparatus of religious observances.1
Here is the soul transformed. From a simple vital principle animating the body of a man, it has become a spirit, a good or evil genius, or even a deity, according to the importance of the effects with which it is charged. But since it is death which brought about this apotheosis, it is to the dead, to the souls of ancestors, that the first cult known to humanity was addressed. Thus the first rites were funeral rites; the first sacrifices were food offerings destined to satisfy the needs of the departed; the first altars were tombs.2
But since these spirits were of human origin, they interested themselves only in the life of men and were thought to act only upon human events. It is still to be explained how other spirits
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were imagined to account for the other phenomena of the universe and how the cult of nature was subsequently formed beside that of the ancestors.
For Tyior, this extension of animism was due to the particular mentality of the primitive who, like an infant, cannot distinguish the animate and the inanimate. Since the first beings of which the child commences to have an idea are men, that is, himself and those around him, it is
2 See Spencer, Principles of Sociology, I, pp. 143 ff., and Tylor, op. cit., I, PP. 434 и; 445 fi.
1Tyior, II, pp. 113 ff.
2Tyior, I. pp. 481 в.