Chapter IV: Part 4

Mr. Frazer's Theory

The Australian respects his 'sex-totem' because the life of his sex is bound up in its life. He speaks of it as his brother, and calls himself (as distinguished by his sex) by its name. As a man he is a bat, as a woman his wife is an owl. As a member of a given human kin he may be a kangaroo, perhaps his wife may be an emu. But Mr. Frazer derives totemism, all the world over, from the same origin as he assigns to 'sex- totems.' In these the life of each sex is bound up, therefore they are by each sex revered. Therefore totemism must have the same origin, substituting 'kin' or 'tribe' for sex. He gives examples from Australia, in which killing a man's totem killed the man. {90}

I would respectfully demur or suggest delay. Can we explain an American institution, a fairly world-wide institution, totemism, by the local peculiarities of belief in isolated Australia? If, in America, to kill a wolf was to kill Uncas or Chingachgook, I would incline to agree with Mr. Frazer. But no such evidence is adduced. Nor does it help Mr. Frazer to plead that the killing of an American's nagual or of a Zulu's Ihlozi kills that Zulu or American. For a nagual, as I have shown, is one thing and a totem is another; nor am I aware that Zulus are totemists. The argument of Mr. Frazer is based on analogy and on a special instance. That instance of the Australians is so archaic that it _may_ show totemism in an early form. Mr. Frazer's may be a correct hypothesis, but it needs corroboration. However, Mr. Frazer concludes: 'The totem, if I am right, is simply the receptacle in which a man keeps his life.' Yet he never shows that a Choctaw _does_ keep his life in his totem. Perhaps the Choctaw is afraid to let out so vital a secret. The less reticent Australian blurts it forth. Suppose the hypothesis correct. Men and women keep their lives in their naguals, private sacred beasts. But why, on this score, should a man be afraid to make love to a woman of the same nagual? Have Red Indian _women_ any naguals? I never heard of them.

Since writing this I have read Miss Kingsley's Travels in West Africa. There the 'bush-souls' which she mentions (p. 459) bear analogies to totems, being inherited sacred animals, connected with the life of members of families. The evidence, though vaguely stated, favours Mr. Frazer's hypothesis, to which Miss Kingsley makes no allusion.

THE VALIDITY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

Anthropological Evidence

In all that we say of totemism, as, later, of fetishism, we rely on an enormous mass of evidence from geographers, historians, travellers, settlers, missionaries, explorers, traders, Civil Servants, and European officers of native police in Australia and Burmah. Our witnesses are of all ages, from Herodotus to our day, of many nations, of many creeds, of different theoretical opinions. This evidence, so world-wide, so diversified in source, so old, and so new, Mr. Max Muller impugns. But, before meeting his case, let us clear up a personal question.

'Positions one never held'

'It is not pleasant [writes our author] to have to defend positions
which one never held, nor wishes to hold, and I am therefore all the
more grateful to those who have pointed out the audacious
misrepresentations of my real opinion in comparative mythology, and
have rebuked the flippant tone of some of my eager critics' [i. 26,
27].

I must here confess to the belief that no gentleman or honest man ever _consciously_ misrepresents the ideas of an opponent. If it is not too flippant an illustration, I would say that no bowler ever throws consciously and wilfully; his action, however, may unconsciously develop into a throw. There would be no pleasure in argument, cricket, or any other sport if we knowingly cheated. Thus it is always _unconsciously_ that adversaries pervert, garble, and misrepresent each other's opinions; unconsciously, not 'audaciously.' If people would start from the major premise that misrepresentations, if such exist, are unconscious errors, much trouble would be spared.

Positions which I never held

Thus Mr. Max Muller never dreamed of 'audaciously misrepresenting' me when, in four lines, he made two statements about my opinions and my materials which are at the opposite pole from the accurate (i. 12): 'When I speak of the Vedic Rishis as primitive, I do not mean what Mr. A. Lang means when he calls his savages primitive.' But I have stated again and again that I _don't_ call my savages 'primitive.' Thus 'contemporary savages may be degraded, they certainly are not primitive.' {93a} 'One thing about the past of [contemporary] savages we do know: it must have been a long past.' {93b} 'We do not wish to call savages primitive.' {93c} All this was written in reply to the very proper caution of Dr. Fairbairn that 'savages are not primitive.' Of course they are not; that is of the essence of my theory. I regret the use of the word 'primitive' even in Primitive Culture. Savages, as a rule, are _earlier_, more backward than civilised races, as, of course, Mr. Max Muller admits, where language is concerned. {94} Now, after devoting several pages to showing in detail how very far from primitive even the Australian tribes are, might I (if I were ill-natured) not say that Mr. Max Muller 'audaciously misrepresents' me when he avers that I 'call my savages primitive'? But he never dreamed of misrepresenting me; he only happened not to understand my position. However, as he complains in his own case, 'it is not pleasant to have to defend positions which one never held' (i. 26), and, indeed, I shall defend no such position.

My adversary next says that my 'savages are of the nineteenth century.' It is of the essence of my theory that my savages are of many different centuries. Those described by Herodotus, Strabo, Dio Cassius, Christoval de Moluna, Sahagun, Cieza de Leon, Brebeuf, Garoilasso de la Vega, Lafitau, Nicholas Damascenus, Leo Africanus, and a hundred others, are _not_ of the nineteenth century. This fact is essential, because the evidence of old writers, from Herodotus to Egede, corroborates the evidence of travellers, Indian Civil Servants, and missionaries of today, by what Dr. Tylor, when defending our materials, calls 'the test of recurrence.' Professor Millar used the same argument in his Origin of Rank, in the last century. Thus Mr. Max Muller unconsciously misrepresents me (and my savages) when he says that my 'savages are of the nineteenth century.' The fact is the reverse. They are of many centuries. These two unconscious misrepresentations occur in four consecutive lines.

Anthropological Evidence

In connection with this topic (the nature of anthropological evidence), Mr. Max Muller (i. 205-207) repeats what he has often said before. Thus he cites Dr. Codrington's remarks, most valuable remarks, on the difficulty of reporting correctly about the ideas and ways of savages. I had cited the same judicious writer to the same effect, {95} and had compiled a number of instances in which the errors of travellers were exposed, and their habitual fallacies were detected. Fifteen closely printed pages were devoted by me to a criterion of evidence, and a reply to Mr. Max Muller's oft-repeated objections.

'When [I said] we find Dr. Codrington taking the same precautions in
Melanesia as Mr. Sproat took among the Ahts, and when his account of
Melanesian myths reads like a close copy of Mr. Sproat's account of
Aht legends, and when both are corroborated [as to the existence of
analogous savage myths] by the collections of Bleek, and Hahn, and
Gill, and Castren, and Rink, in far different corners of the world;
while the modern testimony of these scholarly men is in harmony with
that of the old Jesuit missionaries, and of untaught adventurers who
have lived for many years with savages, surely it will be admitted
that the difficulty of ascertaining savage opinion has been, to a
great extent, overcome.'

I also cited at length Dr. Tylor's masterly argument to the same effect, an argument offered by him to 'a great historian,' apparently.

Mr. Max Muller's Method of Controversy

Now no member of the reading public, perusing Mr. Max Muller on anthropological evidence (i. 24-26, 205-207), could guess that his cautions about evidence are not absolutely new to us. He could not guess that Dr. Tylor replied to them 'before they were made' by our present critic (I think), and that I did the same with great elaboration. Our defence of our evidence is not noticed by Mr. Max Muller. He merely repeats what he has often said before on the subject, exactly as if anthropologists were ignorant of it, and had not carefully studied, assimilated, profited by it, and answered it. Our critic and monitor might have said, 'I have examined your test of _recurrences_, and what else you have to urge, and, for such and such reasons, I must reject it.' Then we could reconsider our position in this new light. But Mr. Max Muller does not oblige us in this way.

Mr. Max Muller on our Evidence

In an earlier work, The Gifford Lectures for 1891, {96} our author had devoted more space to a criticism of our evidence. To this, then, we turn (pp. 169-180, 413-436). Passing Mr. Max Muller's own difficulties in understanding a Mohawk (which the Mohawk no doubt also felt in understanding Mr. Max Muller), we reach (p. 172) the fables about godless savages. These, it is admitted, are exploded among scholars in anthropology. So we do, at least, examine evidence. Mr. Max Muller now fixes on a flagrant case, some fables about the godless Mincopies of the Andaman Islands. But _he_ relies on the evidence of Mr. Man. So do I, as far as it seems beyond doubt. {97a} Mr. Man is 'a careful observer, a student of language, and perfectly trustworthy.' These are the reasons for which I trust him. But when Mr. Man says that the Mincopies have a god, Puluga, who inhabits 'a stone house in the sky,' I remark, 'Here the idea of the stone house is necessarily borrowed from our stone houses at Port Blair.' {97b} When Mr. Man talks of Puluga's only-begotten son, 'a sort of archangel,' medium between Puluga and the angels, I 'hesitate a doubt.' Did not this idea reach the Mincopie mind from the same quarter as the stone house, especially as Puluga's wife is 'a green shrimp or an eel'? At all events, it is right to bear in mind that, as the stone house of the Mincopie heaven is almost undeniably of European origin, the only-begotten mediating son of Puluga and the green shrimp _may_ bear traces of Christian teaching. Caution is indicated.

Does Mr. Max Muller, so strict about evidence, boggle at the stone house, the only son, the shrimp? Not he; he never hints at the shrimp! Does he point out that one anthropologist has asked for caution in weighing what the Mincopies told Mr. Man? Very far from that, he complains that 'the old story is repeated again and again' about the godless Andamans. {97c} The intelligent Glasgow audience could hardly guess that anthropologists were watchful, and knew pretty well what to believe about the Mincopies. Perhaps in Glasgow they do not read us anthropologists much.

On p. 413 our author returns to the charge. He observes (as I have also observed) the often contradictory nature of our evidence. Here I may offer an anecdote. The most celebrated of living English philosophers heard that I was at one time writing a book on the 'ghostly' in history, anthropology, and society, old or new, savage or civilised. He kindly dictated a letter to me asking how I could give time and pains to any such marvels. For, he argued, the most unveracious fables were occasionally told about himself in newspapers and social gossip. If evidence cannot be trusted about a living and distinguished British subject, how can it be accepted about hallucinations?

I replied, with respect, that on this principle nothing could be investigated at all. History, justice, trade, everything would be impossible. We must weigh and criticise evidence. As my friendly adviser had written much on savage customs and creeds, he best knew that conflicting testimony, even on his own chosen theme, is not peculiar to ghost stories. In a world of conflicting testimony we live by criticising it. Thus, when Mr. Max Muller says that I call my savages 'primitive,' and when I, on the other hand, quote passages in which I explicitly decline to do so, the evidence as to my views is contradictory. Yet the truth can be discovered by careful research.

The application is obvious. We must not despair of truth! As our monitor says, 'we ought to discard all evidence that does not come to us either from a man who was able himself to converse with native races, or who was at least an eye-witness of what he relates.' Precisely, that is our method. I, for one, do not take even a ghost story at second hand, much less anything so startling as a savage rite. And we discount and allow for every bias and prejudice of our witnesses. I have made a list of these idola in M. R. R. ii. 334-344.

Mr. Max Muller now gives a list of inconsistencies in descriptions of Australian Blacks. They are _not_ Blacks, they have a dash of copper colour! Well, I never said that they had 'the sooty tinge of the African negro.' Did anybody?

Mr. Ridley thinks that all natives are called 'Murri.' Mr. Curr says 'No.' Important. We must reserve our judgment.

Missionaries say the Blacks are 'devoid of moral ideas.' What missionaries? What anthropologist believes such nonsense? There are differences of opinion about landed property, communal or private. The difference rages among historians of civilised races. So, also, as to portable property. Mr. Curr (Mr. Max Muller's witness) agrees here with those whose works I chiefly rely on.

'Mr. McLennan has built a whole social theory on the statement' (a single statement) 'made by Sir George Grey, and contradicted by Mr. Curr.' Mr. McLennan would be, I think, rather surprised at this remark; but what would he do? Why, he would re-examine the whole question, decide by the balance of evidence, and reject, modify, or retain his theory accordingly.

All sciences have to act in this way; therefore almost all scientific theories are fluctuating. Nothing here is peculiar to anthropology. A single word, or two or three, will prove or disprove a theory of phonetic laws. Even phonetics are disputable ground.

In defence of my late friend Mr. McLennan, I must point out that if he built a whole social theory on a single statement of Sir George Grey's, and if Mr. Curr denies the truth of the statement, Mr. Frazer has produced six or seven witnesses to the truth of that very statement in other parts of the world than Australia. {100} To this circumstance we may return.

Mr. Max Muller next produces Mr. Curr's opinions about the belief in a god and morality among Australians. 'Here he really contradicts himself.' The disputable evidence about Australian marriage laws is next shown to be disputable. That is precisely why Dr. Tylor is applying to it his unrivalled diligence in accurate examination. We await his results. Finally, the contradictory evidence as to Tasmanian religion is exposed. We have no Codrington or Bleek for Tasmania. The Tasmanians are extinct, and Science should leave the evidence as to their religion out of her accounts. We cannot cross-examine defunct Tasmanians.

From all this it follows that anthropologists must sift and winnow their evidence, like men employed in every other branch of science. And who denies it? What anthropologist of mark accepts as gospel any casual traveller's tale?

The Test of Recurrences

Even for travellers' tales we have a use, we can apply to them Dr. Tylor's 'Test of Recurrences.'

'If two independent visitors to different countries, say a mediaeval
Mahommedan in Tartary and a modern Englishman in Dahomey, or a Jesuit
missionary in Brazil and a Wesley an in the Fiji Islands, agree in
describing some analogous art, or rite, or myth among the people they
have visited, it becomes difficult or impossible to set down such
correspondence to accident or wilful fraud. A story by a bushranger
in Australia may perhaps be objected to as a mistake or an invention,
but did a Methodist minister in Guinea conspire with him to cheat the
public by telling the same story there?'

The whole passage should be read: it was anticipated by Professor Millar in his Origin of Rank, and has been restated by myself. {101a} Thus I wrote (in 1887) 'it is to be regretted that Mr. Max Muller entirely omits to mention . . . the corroboration which is derived from the undesigned coincidence of independent testimony.'

In 1891-1892 he still entirely omits to mention, to his Glasgow audience, the strength of his opponents' case. He would serve us better if he would criticise the test of recurrences, and show us its weak points.

Bias of Theory

Yes, our critic may reply, 'but Mr. Curr thinks that there is a strong tendency in observers abroad, if they have become acquainted with a new and startling theory that has become popular at home, to see confirmations of it everywhere.' So I had explicitly stated in commenting on Dr. Tylor's test of recurrences. {101b} 'Travellers and missionaries have begun to read anthropological books, and their evidence is, therefore, much more likely to be biassed now by anthropological theories than it was of old.' So Mr. McLennan, in the very earliest of all writings on totemism, said: 'As the totem has not till now got itself mixed up with speculations the observers have been unbiassed.' Mr. McLennan finally declined to admit any evidence as to the savage marriage laws collected after his own theory, and other theories born from it, had begun to bias observers of barbaric tribes.

It does not quite seem to me that Mr. Max Muller makes his audience acquainted with these precautions of anthropologists, with their sedulous sifting of evidence, and watchfulness against the theoretical bias of observers. Thus he assails the faible, not the fort of our argument, and may even seem not to be aware that we have removed the faible by careful discrimination.

What opinion must his readers, who know not Mr. McLennan's works, entertain about that acute and intrepid pioneer, a man of warm temper, I admit, a man who threw out his daringly original theory at a heat, using at first such untrustworthy materials as lay at hand, but a man whom disease could not daunt, and whom only death prevented from building a stately edifice on the soil which he was the first to explore?

Our author often returns to the weakness of the evidence of travellers and missionaries.

Concerning Missionaries

Here is an example of a vivacite in our censor. 'With regard to ghosts and spirits among the Melanesians, our authorities, whether missionaries, traders, or writers on ethnology, are troubled by no difficulties' (i. 207). Yet on this very page Mr. Max Muller has been citing the 'difficulties' which _do_ 'trouble' a 'missionary,' Dr. Codrington. And, for my own part, when I want information about Melanesian beliefs, it is to Dr. Codrington's work that I go. {103} The doctor, himself a missionary, ex hypothesi 'untroubled by difficulties,' has just been quoted by Mr. Max Muller, and by myself, as a witness to the difficulties which trouble himself and us. What can Mr. Max Muller possibly mean? Am I wrong? Was Dr. Codrington _not_ a missionary? At all events, he is the authority on Melanesia, a 'high' authority (i. 206).

THE PHILOLOGICAL METHOD IN ANTHROPOLOGY

Mr. Max Muller as Ethnologist

Our author is apt to remonstrate with his anthropological critics, and to assure them that he also has made studies in ethnology. 'I am not such a despairer of ethnology as some ethnologists would have me.' He refers us to the assistance which he lent in bringing out Dr. Hahn's Tsuni-Goam (1881), Mr. Gill's Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), and probably other examples could be added. But my objection is, not that we should be ungrateful to Mr. Max Muller for these and other valuable services to anthropology, but that, when he has got his anthropological material, he treats it in what I think the wrong way, or approves of its being so treated.

Here, indeed, is the irreconcilable difference between two schools of mythological interpretation. Given Dr. Hahn's book, on Hottentot manners and religion: the anthropologist compares the Hottentot rites, beliefs, social habits, and general ideas with those of other races known to him, savage or civilised. A Hottentot custom, which has a meaning among Hottentots, may exist where its meaning is lost, among Greeks or other 'Aryans.' A story of a Hottentot god, quite a natural sort of tale for a Hottentot to tell, may be told about a god in Greece, where it is contrary to the Greek spirit. We infer that the Greeks perhaps inherited it from savage ancestors, or borrowed it from savages.

Names of Savage Gods

This is the method, and if we can also get a scholar to analyse the _names_ of Hottentot gods, we are all the luckier, that is, if his processes and inferences are _logical_. May we not decide on the _logic_ of scholars? But, just as Mr. Max Muller points out to us the dangers attending our evidence, we point out to him the dangers attending his method. In Dr. Hahn's book, the doctor analyses the meaning of the name Tsuni-Goam and other names, discovers their original sense, and from that sense explains the myths about Hottentot divine beings.

Here we anthropologists first ask Mr. Max Muller, before accepting Dr. Hahn's etymologies, to listen to other scholars about the perils and difficulties of the philological analysis of divine names, even in Aryan languages. I have already quoted his 'defender,' Dr. Tiele. 'The philological method is inadequate and misleading, when it is a question of (1) discovering the origin of a myth, or (2) the physical explanation of the oldest myths, or (3) of accounting for the rude and obscene element in the divine legends of civilised races.'

To the two former purposes Dr. Hahn applies the philological method in the case of Tsuni-Goam. Other scholars agree with Dr. Tiele. Mannhardt, as we said, held that Mr. Max Muller's favourite etymological 'equations,' Sarameya=Hermeias; Saranyu=Demeter-Erinnys; Kentauros=Gandharvas and others, would not stand criticism. 'The method in its practical working shows a lack of the historical sense,' said Mannhardt. Curtius--a scholar, as Mr. Max Muller declares (i. 32)--says, 'It is especially difficult to conjecture the meaning of proper names, and above all of local and mythical names.' {106a} I do not see that it is easier when these names are not Greek, but Hottentot, or Algonquin!

Thus Achilles may as easily mean 'holder of the people' as 'holder of stones,' i.e. a River-god! Or does [Greek] suggest aqua, Achelous the River? Leto, mother of Apollo, cannot be from [Greek], as Mr. Max Muller holds (ii. 514, 515), to which Mr. Max Muller replies, perhaps not, as far as the phonetic rules go 'which determine the formation of appellative nouns. It, indeed, would be extraordinary if it were. . . .' The phonetic rules in Hottentot may also suggest difficulties to a South African Curtius!

Other scholars agree with Curtius--agree in thinking that the etymology of mythical names is a sandy foundation for the science of mythology.

'The difficult task of interpreting mythical names has, so far, produced few certain results,' says Otto Schrader. {106b}

When Dr. Hahn applies the process in Hottentot, we urge with a friendly candour these cautions from scholars on Mr. Max Muller.

A Hottentot God

In Custom and Myth (p. 207), I examine the logic by which Dr. Hahn proves Tsuni-Goam to be 'The Red Dawn.' One of his steps is to say that few means 'sore,' or 'wounded,' and that a wound is _red_, so he gets his 'red' in Red Dawn. But of tsu in the sense of 'red' he gives not one example, while he does give another word for 'red,' or 'bloody.' This may be scholarly but it is not evidence, and this is only one of many perilous steps on ground extremely scabreux, got over by a series of logical leaps. As to our quarrel with Mr. Max Muller about his friend's treatment of ethnological materials, it is this: we do not believe in the validity of the etymological method when applied to many old divine names in Greek, still less in Hottentot.

Cause of our Scepticism

Our scepticism is confirmed by the extraordinary diversity of opinion among scholars as to what the right analysis of old divine names is. Mr. Max Muller writes (i. 18): 'I have never been able to extract from my critics the title of a single book in which my etymologies and my mythological equations had been seriously criticised by real scholars.' We might answer, 'Why tell you what you know very well?' For (i. 50) you say that while Signer Canizzaro calls some of your 'equations' 'irrefutably demonstrated,' 'other scholars declare these equations are futile and impossible.' Do these other scholars criticise your equations not 'seriously'? Or are you ignorant of the names of their works?

Another case. Our author says that 'many objections were raised' to his 'equation' of Athene=Ahana='Dawn' (ii. 378, 400, &c.). Have the objections ceased? Here are a few scholars who do not, or did not, accept Athene=Ahana: Welcker, Benfey, Curtius, Preller, Furtwangler, Schwartz, and now Bechtel (i. 378). Mr. Max Muller thinks that he is right, but, till scholars agree, what can we do but wait?

Phonetic Bickerings

The evidence turns on theories of phonetic laws as they worked in pre- Homeric Greece. But these laws, as they apply to common ordinary words, need _not_, we are told, be applied so strictly to proper names, as of gods and heroes. These are a kind of comets, and their changes cannot be calculated like the changes of vulgar words, which answer to stars (i. 298). Mr. Max Muller 'formerly agreed with Curtius that phonetic rules should be used against proper names with the same severity as against ordinary nouns and verbs.' Benfey and Welcker protested, so does Professor Victor Henry. 'It is not fair to demand from mythography the rigorous observation of phonetics' (i. 387). 'This may be called backsliding,' our author confesses, and it _does_ seem rather a 'go-as- you-please' kind of method.

Phonetic Rules

Mr. Max Muller argues at length (and, to my ignorance, persuasively) in favour of a genial laxity in the application of phonetic rules to old proper names. Do they apply to these as strictly as to ordinary words? 'This is a question that has often been asked . . . but it has never been boldly answered' (i. 297). Mr. Max Muller cannot have forgotten that Curtius answered boldly--in the negative. 'Without such rigour all attempts at etymology are impossible. For this very reason ethnologists and mythologists should make themselves acquainted with the simple principles of comparative philology.' {109}

But it is not for us to settle such disputes of scholars. Meanwhile their evidence is derived from their private interpretations of old proper names, and they differ among themselves as to whether, in such interpretations, they should or should not be governed strictly by phonetic laws. Then what Mr. Max Muller calls 'the usual bickerings' begin among scholars (i. 416). And Mr. Max Muller connects Ouranos with Vedic Varuna, while Wackernagel prefers to derive it from [Greek], urine, and this from [Greek]=Sk. Varshayami, to rain (ii. 416, 417), and so it goes on for years with a glorious uncertainty. If Mr. Max Muller's equations are scientifically correct, the scholars who accept them not must all be unscientific. Or else, this is not science at all.

Basis of a Science

A science in its early stages, while the validity of its working laws in application to essential cases is still undetermined, must, of course, expect 'bickerings.' But philological mythologists are actually trying to base one science, Mythology, on the still shifting and sandy foundations of another science, Phonetics. The philologists are quarrelling about their 'equations,' and about the application of their phonetic laws to mythical proper names. On the basis of this shaking soil, they propose to build _another_ science, Mythology! Then, pleased with the scientific exactitude of their evidence, they object to the laxity of ours.

Philology in Action--Indra

As an example of the philological method with a Vedic god, take Indra. I do not think that science is ever likely to find out the whole origins of any god. Even if his name mean 'sky,' Dyaus, Zeus, we must ask what mode of conceiving 'sky' is original. Was 'sky' thought of as a person, and, if so, as a savage or as a civilised person; as a god, sans phrase; as the inanimate visible vault of heaven; as a totem, or how? Indra, like other gods, is apt to evade our observation, in his origins. Mr. Max Muller asks, 'what should we gain if we called Indra . . . a totem?' Who does? If we derive his name from the same root as 'ind-u,' _raindrop_, then 'his starting-point was the rain' (i. 131). Roth preferred 'idh,' 'indh,' _to kindle_; and later, his taste and fancy led him to 'ir,' or 'irv,' _to have power over_. He is variously regarded as god of 'bright firmament,' of air, of thunderstorm personified, and so forth. {110} His name is not detected among other Aryan gods, and his birth may be _after_ the 'Aryan Separation' (ii. 752). But surely his name, even so, might have been carried to the Greeks? This, at least, should not astonish Mr. Max Muller. One had supposed that Dyaus and Zeus were separately developed, by peoples of India and Greece, from a common, pre-separation, Aryan root. One had not imagined that the Greeks _borrowed_ divine names from Sanskrit and from India. But this, too, might happen! (ii. 506). Mr. Max Muller asks, 'Why should not a cloud or air goddess _of India_, whether called Svara or Urvasi, have supplied the first germs from which [Greek] descended?' Why not, indeed, if prehistoric Greeks were in touch with India? I do not say they were not. Why should not a Vedic or Sanskrit goddess of India supply the first germs of a Greek goddess? (ii. p. 506). Why, because 'Greek gods have never been Vedic gods, but both Greek and Vedic gods have started from the same germs' (ii. 429). Our author has answered his own question, but he seems at intervals to suppose, contrary to his own principles, as I understand them, that Greek _may_ be 'derived from' Vedic divine names, or, at least, divine names in Sanskrit. All this is rather confusing.

Obscuring the Veda

If Indra is called 'bull,' that at first only meant 'strong' (ii. 209). Yet 'some very thoughtful scholars' see traces of totemism in Indra! {111a} Mr. Max Muller thinks that this theory is 'obscuring the Veda by this kind of light from the Dark Continent' (America, it seems). Indra is said to have been born from a cow, like the African Heitsi Eibib. {111b} There are unholy stories about Indra and rams. But I for one, as I have said already, would never deny that these _may_ be part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the Vedic hymnists. Indra's legend is rich in savage obscenities; they may, or may not, be survivals from savagery. At all events one sees no reason why we should not freely compare parallel savageries, and why this should 'obscure' the Veda. Comparisons are illuminating.

CRITICISM OF FETISHISM

Mischief of Comparisons in Comparative Mythology

Not always are comparisons illuminating, it seems. Our author writes, 'It may be said--in fact, it has been said--that there can at all events be no harm in simply placing the myths and customs of savages side by side with the myths and customs of Hindus and Greeks.' (This, in fact, is the method of the science of institutions.)

'But experience shows that this is not so' (i. 195). So we must not, should not, simply place the myths and customs of savages side by side with those of Hindus and Greeks. It is taboo.

Dr. Oldenberg

Now Dr. Oldenberg, it seems, uses such comparisons of savage and Aryan faiths. Dr. Oldenberg is (i. 209) one of several '_very thoughtful scholars_' who do so, who break Mr. Max Muller's prohibition. Yet (ii. 220) '_no true scholar_ would accept any comparison' between savage fables and the folklore of Homer and the Vedas 'as really authoritative _until fully demonstrated on both sides_.' Well, it _is_ 'fully demonstrated,' or 'a very thoughtful scholar' (like Dr. Oldenberg) would not accept it. Or it is _not_ demonstrated, and then Dr. Oldenberg, though 'a very thoughtful,' is not 'a true scholar.'

Comparisons, when odious

Once more, Mr. Max Muller deprecates the making of comparisons between savage and Vedic myths (i. 210), and then (i. 220) he deprecates the _acceptance_ of these very comparisons 'as really authoritative until fully demonstrated.' Now, how is the validity of the comparisons to be 'fully demonstrated' if we are forbidden to make them at all, because to do so is to 'obscure' the Veda 'by light from the Dark Continent'?

A Question of Logic

I am not writing 'quips and cranks;' I am dealing quite gravely with the author's processes of reasoning. 'No true scholar' does what 'very thoughtful scholars' do. No comparisons of savage and Vedic myths should be made, but yet, 'when fully demonstrated,' 'true scholars would accept them' (i 209, 220). How can comparisons be demonstrated before they are made? And made they must not be!

'Scholars'

It would be useful if Mr. Max Muller were to define 'scholar,' 'real scholar,' 'true scholar,' 'very thoughtful scholar.' The latter may err, and have erred--like General Councils, and like Dr. Oldenberg, who finds in the Veda 'remnants of the wildest and rawest essence of religion,' totemism, and the rest (i. 210). I was wont to think that 'scholar,' as used by our learned author, meant 'philological mythologist,' as distinguished from 'not-scholar,' that is, 'anthropological mythologist.' But now 'very thoughtful scholars,' even Dr. Oldenberg, Mr. Rhys, Dr. Robertson Smith, and so on, use the anthropological method, so 'scholar' needs a fresh definition. The 'not-scholars,' the anthropologists, have, in fact, converted some very thoughtful scholars. If we could only catch the _true_ scholar! But that we cannot do till we fully demonstrate comparisons which we may not make, for fear of first 'obscuring the Veda by this kind of light from the Dark Continent.'

Anthropology and the Mysteries

It is not my affair to defend Dr. Oldenberg, whose comparisons of Vedic with savage rites I have never read, I am sorry to say. One is only arguing that the _method_ of making such comparisons is legitimate. Thus (i. 232) controversy, it seems, still rages among scholars as to 'the object of the Eleusinian Mysteries.' 'Does not the scholar's conscience warn us against accepting whatever in the myths and customs of the Zulus seems to suit our purpose'--of explaining features in the Eleusinia? If Zulu customs, and they alone, contained Eleusinian parallels, even the anthropologist's conscience would whisper caution. But this is not the case. North American, Australian, African, and other tribes have mysteries very closely and minutely resembling parts of the rites of the Eleusinia, Dionysia, and Thesmophoria. Thus Lobeck, a scholar, describes the Rhombos used in the Dionysiac mysteries, citing Clemens Alexandrinus. {114} Thanks to Dr. Tylor's researches I was able to show (what Lobeck knew not) that the Rhombos (Australian turndun, 'Bull-roarer') is also used in Australian, African, American, and other savage religious mysteries. Now should I have refrained from producing this well-attested matter of fact till I knew Australian, American, and African languages as well as I know Greek? 'What century will it be when there will be scholars who know the dialects of the Australian blacks as well as we know the dialects of Greece?' (i. 232) asks our author. And what in the name of Eleusis have dialects to do with the circumstance that savages, like Greeks, use Rhombi in their mysteries? There are abundant other material facts, visible palpable objects and practices, which savage mysteries have in common with the Greek mysteries. {115} If observed by deaf men, when used by dumb men, instead of by scores of Europeans who could talk the native languages, these illuminating rites of savages would still be evidence. They have been seen and described often, not by 'a casual native informant' (who, perhaps, casually invented Greek rites, and falsely attributed them to his tribesmen), but by educated Europeans.

Abstract Ideas of Savages

Mr. Max Muller defends, with perfect justice, the existence of abstract ideas among contemporary savages. It appears that somebody or other has said--'we have been told' (i. 291)--'that all this' (the Mangaian theory of the universe) 'must have come from missionaries.' The ideas are as likely to have come from Hegel as from a missionary! Therefore, 'instead of looking for idols, or for totems and fetishes, we must learn and accept what the savages themselves are able to tell us. . . . ' Yes, we _must_ learn and accept it; so I have always urged. But if the savages tell us about totems, are they not then 'casual native informants'? If a Maori tells you, as he does, of traditional hymns containing ideas worthy of Heraclitus, is _that_ quite trustworthy; whereas, if he tells you about his idols and taboos, _that_ cannot possibly be worthy of attention?

Perception of the Infinite

From these extraordinary examples of abstract thought in savages, our author goes on to say that his theory of 'the perception of the Infinite' as the origin of religion was received 'with a storm of unfounded obloquy' (i. 292). I myself criticised the Hibbert Lectures, in Mind; {116} on reading the essay over, I find no obloquy and no storm. I find, however, that I deny, what our author says that I assert, the primitiveness of contemporary savages.

In that essay, which, of course, our author had no reason to read, much was said about fetishism, a topic discussed by Mr. Max Muller in his Hibbert Lectures. Fetishism is, as he says, an ill word, and has caused much confusion.

Fetishism and Anthropological Method

Throughout much of his work our author's object is to invalidate the anthropological method. That method sets side by side the customs, ideas, fables, myths, proverbs, riddles, rites, of different races. Of their _languages_ it does not necessarily take account in this process. Nobody (as we shall see) knows the languages of all, or of most, of the races whose ideas he compares. Now the learned professor establishes the 'harm done' by our method in a given instance. He seems to think that, if a method has been misapplied, therefore the method itself is necessarily erroneous. The case stands thus: De Brosses {117a} first compared 'the so-called fetishes' of the Gold Coast with Greek and Roman amulets and other material objects of old religions. But he did this, we learn, without trying to find out _why_ a negro made a fetish of a pebble, shell, or tiger's tail, and without endeavouring to discover whether the negro's motives really were the motives of his 'postulated fetish worship' in Greece, Rome, or Palestine.

Origin of Fetishes

If so, tant pis pour monsieur le President. But how does the unscientific conduct attributed to De Brosses implicate the modern anthropologist? Do _we_ not try to find out, and really succeed sometimes in finding out, _why_ a savage cherishes this or that scrap as a 'fetish'? I give a string of explanations in Custom and Myth (pp. 229- 230). Sometimes the so-called fetish had an accidental, which was taken to be a causal, connection with a stroke of good luck. Sometimes the thing--an odd-shaped stone, say--had a superficial resemblance to a desirable object, and so was thought likely to aid in the acquisition of such objects by 'sympathetic magic.' {117b}

Other 'fetishes' are revealed in dreams, or by ghosts, or by spirits appearing in semblance of animals. {118a}

'Telekinetic' Origin of Fetishism

As I write comes in Melusine, viii. 7, with an essay by M. Lefebure on Les Origines du Fetichisme. He derives some fetishistic practices from what the Melanesians call Mana, which, says Mr. Max Muller, 'may often be rendered by supernatural or magic power, present in an individual, a stone, or in formulas or charms' (i. 294). How, asks Mr. Lefebure, did men come to attribute this vis vivida to persons and things? Because, in fact, he says, such an unexplored force does really exist and display itself. He then cites Mr. Crookes' observations on scientifically registered 'telekinetic' performances by Daniel Dunglas Home, he cites Despine on Madame Schmitz-Baud, {118b} with examples from Dr. Tylor, P. de la Rissachere, Dr. Gibier, {118c} and other authorities, good or bad. Grouping, then, his facts under the dubious title of le magnetisme, M. Lefebure finds in savage observation of such facts 'the chief cause of fetishism.'

Some of M. Lefebure's 'facts' (of objects moving untouched) were certainly frauds, like the tricks of Eusapia. But, even if all the facts recorded were frauds, such impostures, performed by savage conjurers, who certainly profess {118d} to produce the phenomena, might originate, or help to originate, the respect paid to 'fetishes' and the belief in Mana. But probably Major Ellis's researches into the religion of the Tshi-speaking races throw most light on the real ideas of African fetishists. The subject is vast and complex. I am content to show that, whatever De Brosses did, _we_ do not abandon a search for the motives of the savage fetishist. Indeed, De Brosses himself did seek and find at least one African motive, 'The conjurers (jongleurs) persuade them that little instruments in their possession are endowed with a living spirit.' So far, fetishism is spiritualism.

Civilised 'Fetishism'

De Brosses did not look among civilised fetishists for the motives which he neglected among savages (i. 196). Tant pis pour monsieur le President. But we and our method no more stand or fall with De Brosses and his, than Mr. Max Muller's etymologies stand or fall with those in the Cratylus of Plato. If, in a civilised people, ancient or modern, we find a practice vaguely styled 'fetishistic,' we examine it in its details. While we have talismans, amulets, gamblers' fetiches, I do not think that, except among some children, we have anything nearly analogous to Gold Coast fetishism as a whole. Some one seems to have called the palladium a fetish. I don't exactly know what the palladium (called a fetish by somebody) was. The hasta fetialis has been styled a fetish--an apparent abuse of language. As to the Holy Cross qua fetish, why discuss such free-thinking credulities?

Modern anthropologists--Tylor, Frazer, and the rest--are not under the censure appropriate to the illogical.

More Mischiefs of Comparison

The 'Nemesis' (i. 196) of De Brosses' errors did not stay in her ravaging progress. Fetishism was represented as 'the very beginning of religion,' first among the negroes, then among all races. As I, for one, persistently proclaim that the beginning of religion is an inscrutable mystery, the Nemesis has somehow left me scatheless, propitiated by my piety. I said, long ago, 'the train of ideas which leads man to believe in and to treasure fetishes is _one among the earliest springs_ of religious belief.' {120a} But from even this rather guarded statement I withdraw. 'No man can watch the idea of GOD in the making or in the beginning.' {120b}

Still more Nemesis

The new Nemesis is really that which I have just put far from me--namely, that 'modern savages represent everywhere the Eocene stratum of religion.' They _probably_ represent an _early_ stage in religion, just as, teste. Mr. Max Muller, they represent an early stage in language 'In savage languages we see what we can no longer expect to see even in the most ancient Sanskrit or Hebrew. We watch the childhood of language, with all its childish pranks.' {120c}

Now, if the tongues spoken by modern savages represent the 'childhood' and 'childish pranks' of language, why should the beliefs of modern savages not represent the childhood and childish pranks of religion? I am not here averring that they do so, nor even that Mr. Max Muller is right in _his_ remark on language. The Australian blacks have been men as long as the Prussian nobility. Their language has had time to outgrow 'childish pranks,' but apparently it has not made use of its opportunities, according to our critic. Does he know why?

One need not reply to the charge that anthropologists, if they are meant, regard modern savages 'as just evolved from the earth, or the sky,' or from monkeys (i. 197). 'Savages have a far-stretching unknown history behind them.' 'The past of savages, I say, must have been a long past.' {121} So, once more, the Nemesis of De Brosses fails to touch me--and, of course, to touch more learned anthropologists.

There is yet another Nemesis--the postulate that Aryans and Semites, or rather their ancestors, must have passed through the savage state. Dr. Tylor writes:--'So far as history is to be our criterion, progression is primary and degradation secondary. _Culture must be gained before it can be lost_.' Now a person who has not gained what Dr. Tylor calls 'culture' (_not_ in Mr. Arnold's sense) is a man without tools, instruments, or clothes. He is certainly, so far, like a savage; is very much lower in 'culture' than any race with which we are acquainted. As a matter of hypothesis, anyone may say that man was born 'with everything handsome about him.' He has then to account for the savage elements in Greek myth and rite.

For Us or Against Us?

We now hear that the worst and last penalty paid for De Brosses' audacious comparison of savage with civilised superstitions is the postulate that Aryan and Semitic peoples have passed through a stage of savagery. 'However different the languages, customs and myths, the colour and the skulls of these modern savages might be from those of Aryan and Semitic people, the latter must once have passed through the same stage, must once have been what the negroes of the West Coast of Africa are to-day. This postulate has not been, and, according to its very nature, cannot be proved. But the mischief done by acting on such postulates is still going on, and in several cases it has come to this--that what in historical religions, such as our own, is known to be the most modern, the very last outcome, namely, the worship of relics or a belief in amulets, has been represented as the first necessary step in the evolution of all religions' (i. 197).

I really do not know who says that the prehistoric ancestors of Aryans and Semites were once in the same stage as the 'negroes of the West Coast of Africa are to-day.' These honest fellows are well acquainted with coined money, with the use of firearms, and other resources of civilisation, and have been in touch with missionaries, Miss Kingsley, traders, and tourists. The ancestors of the Aryans and Semites enjoyed no such advantages. Mr. Max Muller does not tell us who says that they did. But that the ancestors of all mankind passed through a stage in which they had to develop for themselves tools, languages, clothes, and institutions, is assuredly the belief of anthropologists. A race without tools, language, clothes, pottery, and social institutions, or with these in the shape of undeveloped speech, stone knives, and 'possum or other skins, is what we call a race of savages. Such we believe the ancestors of mankind to have been--at any rate after the Fall.

Now when Mr. Max Muller began to write his book, he accepted this postulate of anthropology (i. 15). When he reached i. 197 he abandoned and denounced this postulate.

I quote his acceptance of the postulate (i. 15):--

'Even Mr. A. Lang has to admit that we have not got much beyond
Fontenelle, when he wrote in the last century:

'"Why are the legends [myths] about men, beasts, and gods so wildly
incredible and revolting? . . . The answer is that the earliest men
were in a state of almost inconceivable ignorance and savagery, and
that the Greeks inherited their myths from people in the same savage
stage (en un pareil etat de sauvagerie). Look at the Kaffirs and
Iroquois if you want to know what the earliest men were like, and
remember that the very Iroquois and Kaffirs have a long past behind
them"'--that is to say, are polite and cultivated compared to the
earliest men of all.

Here is an uncompromising statement by Fontenelle of the postulate that the Greeks (an Aryan people) must have passed through the same stage as modern savages--Kaffirs and Iroquois--now occupy. But (i. 15) Mr. Max Muller eagerly accepts the postulate:--

'There is not a word of Fontenelle's to which I should not gladly
subscribe; there is no advice of his which I have not tried to follow
in all my attempts to explain the myths of India and Greece by an
occasional reference to Polynesian or African folklore.'

Well, if Mr. Max Muller 'gladly subscribes,' in p. 15, to the postulate of an original universal stage of savagery, whence civilised races inherit their incredibly repulsive myths, why, in pp. 197, 198, does he denounce that very postulate as not proven, not capable of being proved, very mischievous, and one of the evils resulting from our method of comparing savage and civilised rites and beliefs? I must be permitted to complain that I do not know which is Mr. Max Muller's real opinion--that given with such hearty conviction in p. 15, or that stated with no less earnestness in pp. 197, 198. I trust that I shall not be thought to magnify a mere slip of the pen. Both passages--though, as far as I can see, self-contradictory--appear to be written with the same absence of levity. Fontenelle, I own, speaks of Greeks, not Semites, as being originally savages. But I pointed out {124} that he considered it safer to 'hedge' by making an exception of the Israelites. There is really nothing in Genesis against the contention that the naked, tool-less, mean, and frivolous Adam was a savage.

The Fallacy of 'Admits'

As the purpose of this essay is mainly logical, I may point out the existence of a fallacy not marked, I think, in handbooks of Logic. This is the fallacy of saying that an opponent 'admits' what, on the contrary, he has been the first to point out and proclaim. He is thus suggested into an attitude which is the reverse of his own. Some one--I am sorry to say that I forget who he was--showed me that Fontenelle, in De l'Origine des Fables, {125a} briefly stated the anthropological theory of the origin of myths, or at least of that repulsive element in them which 'makes mythology mythological,' as Mr. Max Muller says. I was glad to have a predecessor in a past less remote than that of Eusebius of Caesarea. 'A briefer and better system of mythology,' I wrote, 'could not be devised; but the Mr. Casaubons of this world have neglected it, and even now it is beyond their comprehension.' {125b} To say this in this manner is not to '_admit_ that we have not got much beyond Fontenelle.' I do not want to get beyond Fontenelle. I want to go back to his 'forgotten common-sense,' and to apply his ideas with method and criticism to a range of materials which he did not possess or did not investigate.

Now, on p. 15, Mr. Max Muller had got as far as accepting Fontenelle; on pp. 197, 198 he burns, as it were, that to which he had 'gladly subscribed.'

Conclusion as to our Method

All this discussion of fetishes arose out of our author's selection of the subject as an example of the viciousness of our method. He would not permit us 'simply to place side by side' savage and Greek myths and customs, because it did harm (i. 195); and the harm done was proved by the Nemesis of De Brosses. Now, first, a method may be a good method, yet may be badly applied. Secondly, I have shown that the Nemesis does not attach to all of us modern anthropologists. Thirdly, I have proved (unless I am under some misapprehension, which I vainly attempt to detect, and for which, if it exists, I apologise humbly) that Mr. Max Muller, on p. 15, accepts the doctrine which he denounces on p. 197. {126} Again, I am entirely at one with Mr. Max Muller when he says (p. 210) 'we have as yet really no scientific treatment of Shamanism.' This is a pressing need, but probably a physician alone could do the work--a physician double with a psychologist. See, however, the excellent pages in Dr. Tylor's Primitive Culture, and in Mr. William James's Principles of Psychology, on 'Mediumship.'

THE RIDDLE THEORY

What the Philological Theory Needs