Myths and Myth-Makers [98]
determine the point by throwing a stone at a tree. "Hit, sign of salvation; miss, sign of damnation!" The tree being a large one and very near at hand, the result of the experiment was reassuring, and the young philosopher walked away without further misgivings concerning this momentous question.[158]
[157] Tylor, op. cit. I. 107.
[158] Rousseau, Confessions, I. vi. For further illustration, see especially the note on the "doctrine of signatures," supra, p. 55.
When the savage, whose highest intellectual efforts result only in speculations of this childlike character, is confronted with the phenomena of dreams, it is easy to see what he will make of them. His practical knowledge of psychology is too limited to admit of his distinguishing between the solidity of waking experience and what we may call the unsubstantialness of the dream. He may, indeed, have learned that the dream is not to be relied on for telling the truth; the Zulu, for example, has even reached the perverse triumph of critical logic achieved by our own Aryan ancestors in the saying that "dreams go by contraries." But the Zulu has not learned, nor had the primeval Aryan learned, to disregard the utterances of the dream as being purely subjective phenomena. To the mind as yet untouched by modern culture, the visions seen and the voices heard in sleep possess as much objective reality as the gestures and shouts of waking hours. When the savage relates his dream, he tells how he SAW certain dogs, dead warriors, or demons last night, the implication being that the things seen were objects external to himself. As Mr. Spencer observes, "his rude language fails to state the difference between seeing and dreaming that he saw, doing and dreaming that he did. From this inadequacy of his language it not only results that he cannot truly represent this difference to others, but also that he cannot truly represent it to himself. Hence in the absence of an alternative interpretation, his belief, and that of those to whom he tells his adventures, is that his OTHER SELF has been away and came back when he awoke. And this belief, which we find among various existing savage tribes, we equally find in the traditions of the early civilized races."[159]
[159] Spencer, Recent Discussions in Science, etc., p. 36, "The Origin of Animal Worship."
Let us consider, for a moment, this assumption of the OTHER SELF, for upon this is based the great mass of crude inference which constitutes the primitive man's philosophy of nature. The hypothesis of the OTHER SELF, which serves to account for the savage's wanderings during sleep in strange lands and among strange people, serves also to account for the presence in his dreams of parents, comrades, or enemies, known to be dead and buried. The other self of the dreamer meets and converses with the other selves of his dead brethren, joins with them in the hunt, or sits down with them to the wild cannibal banquet. Thus arises the belief in an ever-present world of souls or ghosts, a belief which the entire experience of uncivilized man goes to strengthen and expand. The existence of some tribe or tribes of savages wholly destitute of religious belief has often been hastily asserted and as often called in question. But there is no question that, while many savages are unable to frame a conception so general as that of godhood, on the other hand no tribe has ever been found so low in the scale of intelligence as not to have framed the conception of ghosts or spiritual personalities, capable of being angered, propitiated, or conjured with. Indeed it is not improbable a priori that the original inference involved in the notion of the other self may be sufficiently simple and obvious to fall within the capacity of animals even less intelligent than uncivilized man. An authentic case is on record of a Skye terrier who, being accustomed to obtain favours from his master by sitting on his haunches, will also sit before his pet india-rubber ball placed on the chimney-piece, evidently beseeching it to jump down and play with him.[160]
[157] Tylor, op. cit. I. 107.
[158] Rousseau, Confessions, I. vi. For further illustration, see especially the note on the "doctrine of signatures," supra, p. 55.
When the savage, whose highest intellectual efforts result only in speculations of this childlike character, is confronted with the phenomena of dreams, it is easy to see what he will make of them. His practical knowledge of psychology is too limited to admit of his distinguishing between the solidity of waking experience and what we may call the unsubstantialness of the dream. He may, indeed, have learned that the dream is not to be relied on for telling the truth; the Zulu, for example, has even reached the perverse triumph of critical logic achieved by our own Aryan ancestors in the saying that "dreams go by contraries." But the Zulu has not learned, nor had the primeval Aryan learned, to disregard the utterances of the dream as being purely subjective phenomena. To the mind as yet untouched by modern culture, the visions seen and the voices heard in sleep possess as much objective reality as the gestures and shouts of waking hours. When the savage relates his dream, he tells how he SAW certain dogs, dead warriors, or demons last night, the implication being that the things seen were objects external to himself. As Mr. Spencer observes, "his rude language fails to state the difference between seeing and dreaming that he saw, doing and dreaming that he did. From this inadequacy of his language it not only results that he cannot truly represent this difference to others, but also that he cannot truly represent it to himself. Hence in the absence of an alternative interpretation, his belief, and that of those to whom he tells his adventures, is that his OTHER SELF has been away and came back when he awoke. And this belief, which we find among various existing savage tribes, we equally find in the traditions of the early civilized races."[159]
[159] Spencer, Recent Discussions in Science, etc., p. 36, "The Origin of Animal Worship."
Let us consider, for a moment, this assumption of the OTHER SELF, for upon this is based the great mass of crude inference which constitutes the primitive man's philosophy of nature. The hypothesis of the OTHER SELF, which serves to account for the savage's wanderings during sleep in strange lands and among strange people, serves also to account for the presence in his dreams of parents, comrades, or enemies, known to be dead and buried. The other self of the dreamer meets and converses with the other selves of his dead brethren, joins with them in the hunt, or sits down with them to the wild cannibal banquet. Thus arises the belief in an ever-present world of souls or ghosts, a belief which the entire experience of uncivilized man goes to strengthen and expand. The existence of some tribe or tribes of savages wholly destitute of religious belief has often been hastily asserted and as often called in question. But there is no question that, while many savages are unable to frame a conception so general as that of godhood, on the other hand no tribe has ever been found so low in the scale of intelligence as not to have framed the conception of ghosts or spiritual personalities, capable of being angered, propitiated, or conjured with. Indeed it is not improbable a priori that the original inference involved in the notion of the other self may be sufficiently simple and obvious to fall within the capacity of animals even less intelligent than uncivilized man. An authentic case is on record of a Skye terrier who, being accustomed to obtain favours from his master by sitting on his haunches, will also sit before his pet india-rubber ball placed on the chimney-piece, evidently beseeching it to jump down and play with him.[160]