CHAPTER IX

Space is running out fast, and it is quite impossible to grapple with the details of so vast a subject as primitive morality. For these the reader must consult Dr. Westermarck's monumental treatise,The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, which brings together an immense quantity of facts, under a clear and comprehensive scheme of headings. He will discover, by the way, that, whereas customs differ immensely, the emotions, one may even say the sentiments, that form the raw material of morality are much the same everywhere.

Here it will be of most use to sketch the psychological groundwork of primitivemorality, as contrasted with morality of the more advanced type. In pursuance of the plan hitherto followed, let us try to move yet another step on from the purely exterior view of human life towards our goal; which is to appreciate the true inwardness of human life—so far at least as this is matter for anthropology, which reaches no farther than the historic method can take it.

It is, of course, open to question whether either primitive or advanced morality is sufficiently of one piece to allow, as it were, a composite photograph to be framed of either. For our present purposes, however, this expedient is so serviceable as to be worth risking. Let us assume, then, that there are two main stages in the historical evolution of society, as considered from the standpoint of the psychology of conduct. I propose to term them the synnomic and the syntelic phases of society. "Synnomic" (from the Greeknomos, custom) means that customs are shared. "Syntelic" (from the Greektelos, end) means that ends are shared.

The synnomic phase is, from the psychological point of view, a kingdom of habit; the syntelic phase is a kingdom of reflection. The former is governed by a subconscious selection of its standards of good and bad; the latter by a conscious selection of its standards. Itremains to show very briefly how such a difference comes about.

The outstanding fact about the synnomic life of the ruder peoples is perhaps this—that there is hardly any privacy. Of course, many other drawbacks must be taken into account also—no wide-thrown communications, no analytic language, no writing, no books, and so on; but perhaps being in a crowd all the time is the worst drawback of all. For, as Disraeli says inSybil, gregariousness is not association. Constant herding and huddling together hinders the development of personality. That independence of character which is the prime condition of syntelic society cannot mature, even though the germs be there. No one has a chance of withdrawing into his own soul. Therefore the individual does not experience that silent conversation with self which is reflection. Instead of turning inwards, he turns outwards. In short, he imitates.

But how, it may be objected, does evolution take place, if every one imitates every one else? Certainly, it looks at first sight like a vicious circle. Nevertheless, there is room for a certain progress, or at any rate for a certain process of change. To analyse its psychological springs would take us too long. If a phrase will do instead of an explanation, wemay sum them up, with the brilliant French psychologist, Tarde, as "a cross-fertilization of imitations." We need not, however, go far to get an impression of how this process of change works. It is going on every day in our midst under the name of "change of fashion." When one purchases the latest thing in ties or straw hats, one is not aiming at a rational form of dress. If there is progress in this direction, it is subconscious. The underlying spiritual condition is not inaptly described by Dr. Lloyd Morgan as "a sheep-through-the-gapishness."

From a moral point of view, this lack of capacity for private judgment is equivalent to a want of moral freedom. We have seen how relatively external are the sanctions of savage life. This does not mean, of course, that there is no answering judgment in the mind of the individual when he follows his customs. He says, "It is the custom; therefore it is right." But this judgment can scarcely be said to proceed from a truly judging, that is to say, critical, self. The man watches his neighbours, taking his cue from them. His judgment is a judgment of sense. He does not look inwards to principle. A moral principle is a standard that can, by means of thought, be transferred from one sensible situation to another sensible situation.The general law, and its application to the situation present now to the senses, are considered apart, before being put together. Consequently, a possible application, however strongly suggested by custom, fashion, the action of one's neighbours, one's own impulse or prejudice, or what not, can be resisted, if it appear on reflection not to be really suited to the circumstances. In short, in order to be rational and "put two and two together," one must be able to entertain two and two as distinct conceptions. Perceptions, on the contrary, can only be compared in the lump. Just as in the chapter on language we saw how man began by talking in holophrases, and only gradually attained to analytic, that is, separable, elements of speech, so in this chapter we have to note the strictly parallel development from confusion to distinction on the side of thought.

Savage morality, then, is not rational in the sense of analysed, but is, so to speak, impressionistic. We might, perhaps, describe it as the expression of a collective impression. It is best understood in the light of that branch of social psychology which usually goes by the name of "mob-psychology." Perhaps mob and mobbish are rather unfortunate terms. They are apt to make us think of the wilder explosions of collective feeling—panics, blood-mania, dancing-epidemics, and so on. But, though a savage society is by no means a mob in the sense of a weltering mass of humanity that has for the time being lost its head, the psychological considerations applying to the latter apply also to the former, when due allowance has been made for the fact that savage society is organized on a permanent basis. The difference between the two comes, in short, to this, that the mob as represented in the savage society is a mob consisting of many successive generations of men. Its tradition constitutes, as it were, a prolonged and abiding impression, which its conduct thereupon expresses.

Savage thought, then, is not able, because it does not try, to break up custom into separate pieces. Rather it plays round the edges of custom; religion especially, with its suggestion of the general sacredness of custom, helping it to do so. There is found in primitive society plenty of vague speculation that seeks to justify the existing. But to take the machine to bits in order to put it together differently is out of the reach of a type of intelligence which, though competent to grapple with details, takes its principles for granted. When progress comes, it comes by stealth, through imitating the letter, but refusing to imitate the spirit; until by meansof legal fictions, ritual substitutions, and so on, the new takes the place of the old without any one noticing the fact.

Freedom, in the sense of intellectual freedom, may perhaps be said to have been born in one place and at one time—namely, in Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.[7] Of course, minglings and clashings of peoples had prepared the way. Ideas begin to count as soon as they break away from their local context. But Greece, in teaching the world the meaning of intellectual freedom, paved a way towards that most comprehensive form of freedom which is termed moral. Moral freedom is the will to give out more than you take in; to repay with interest the cost of your social education. It is the will to take thought about the meaning and end of human life, and by so doing to assist in creative evolution.

[Footnote 7: Political freedom, which is rather a different matter, is perhaps pre-eminently the discovery of England.]

CHAPTER X

By way of epilogue, a word about individuality, as displayed amongst peoples ofthe ruder type, will not be out of place. There is a real danger lest the anthropologist should think that a scientific view of man is to be obtained by leaving out the human nature in him. This comes from the over-anxiety of evolutionary history to arrive at general principles. It is too ready to rule out the so-called "accident," forgetful of the fact that the whole theory of biological evolution may with some justice be described as "the happy accident theory." The man of high individuality, then, the exceptional man, the man of genius, be he man of thought, man of feeling, or man of action, is no accident that can be overlooked by history. On the contrary, he is in no small part the history-maker; and, as such, should be treated with due respect by the history-compiler. The "dry bones" of history, its statistical averages, and so on, are all very well in their way; but they correspond to the superficial truth that history repeats itself, rather than to the deeper truth that history is an evolution. Anthropology, then, should not disdain what might be termed the method of the historical novel. To study the plot without studying the characters will never make sense of the drama of human life.

It may seem a truism, but is perhaps worth recollecting at the start, that no man or womanlacks individuality altogether, even if it cannot be regarded in a particular case as a high individuality. No one is a mere item. That useful figment of the statistician has no real existence under the sun. We need to supplement the books of abstract theory with much sympathetic insight directed towards men and women in their concrete selfhood. Said a Vedda cave-dweller to Dr. Seligmann (it is the first instance I light on in the first book I happen to take up): "It is pleasant for us to feel the rain beating on our shoulders, and good to go out and dig yams, and come home wet, and see the fire burning in the cave, and sit round it." That sort of remark, to my mind, throws more light on the anthropology of cave-life than all the bones and stones that I have helped to dig out of our Mousterian caves in Jersey. As the stock phrase has it, it is, as far as it goes, a "human document." The individuality, in the sense of the intimate self-existence, of the speaker and his group—for, characteristically enough, he uses the first person plural—is disclosed sufficiently for our souls to get into touch. We are the nearer to appreciating human history from the inside.

Some of those students of mankind, therefore, who have been privileged to live amongst the ruder peoples, and to learn their languagewell, and really to be friends with some of them (which is hard, since friendship implies a certain sense of equality on both sides), should try their hands at anthropological biography. Anthropology, so far as it relates to savages, can never rise to the height of the most illuminating kind of history until this is done.

It ought not to be impossible for an intelligent white man to enter sympathetically into the mental outlook of the native man of affairs, the more or less practical and hardheaded legislator and statesman, if only complete confidence could be established between the two. That there are men of outstanding individuality who help to make political history even amongst the rudest peoples is, moreover, hardly to be doubted. Thus Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, in the introductory chapter of their work on the Central Australians, state that, after observing the conduct of a great gathering of the natives, they reached the opinion that the changes which undoubtedly take place from time to time in aboriginal custom are by no means wholly of the subconscious and spontaneous sort, but are in part due also to the influence of individuals of superior ability. "At this gathering, for example, some of the oldest men were of no account; but, on the otherhand, others not so old as they were, but more learned in ancient lore or more skilled in matters of magic, were looked up to by the others, and they it was who settled everything. It must, however, be understood that we have no definite proof to bring forward of the actual introduction by this means of any fundamental change of custom. The only thing that we can say is that, after carefully watching the natives during the performance of their ceremonies and endeavouring as best we could to enter into their feelings, to think as they did, and to become for the time being one of themselves, we came to the conclusion that if one or two of the most powerful men settled upon the advisability of introducing some change, even an important one, it would be quite possible for this to be agreed upon and carried out."

This passage is worth quoting at length if only for the admirable method that it discloses. The policy of "trying to become for the time being one of themselves" resulted in the book that, of all first-hand studies, has done most for modern anthropology. At the same time Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, it is evident, would not claim to have done more than interpret the external signs of a high individuality on the part of these prominent natives. It still remains a rare and almostunheard-of thing for an anthropologist to be on such friendly terms with a savage as to get him to talk intimately about himself, and reveal the real man within.

There exist, however, occasional side-lights on human personality in the anthropological literature that has to do with very rude peoples. The page from a human document that I shall cite by way of example is all the more curious, because it relates to a type of experience quite outside the compass of ordinary civilized folk. Here and there, however, something like it may be found amongst ourselves. My friend Mr. L.P. Jacks, for instance, in his story-book,Mad Shepherds, has described a rustic of the north of England who belonged to this old-world order of great men. For men of the type in question can be great, at any rate in low-level society. The so-called medicine man is a leader, perhaps even the typical leader, of primitive society; and, just because he is, by reason of his calling, addicted to privacy and aloofness, he certainly tends to be more individual, more of a "character," than the general run of his fellows.

I shall slightly condense from Howitt'sNative Tribes of South-East Australiathe man's own story of his experience of initiation. Howitt says, by the way, "I feel stronglyassured that the man believed that the events which he related were real, and that he had actually experienced them"; and then goes on to talk about "subjective realities." I myself offer no commentary. Those interested in psychical research will detect hypnotic trance, levitation, and so forth. Others, versed in the spirit of William James'Varieties of Religious Experience, will find an even deeper meaning in it all. The sociologist, meanwhile, will point to the force of custom and tradition, as colouring the whole experience, even when at its most subjective and dreamlike. But each according to his bent must work out these things for himself. In any case it is well that the end of a book should leave the reader still thinking.

The speaker was a Wiradjuri doctor of the Kangaroo totem. He said: "My father is a Lizard-man. When I was a small boy, he took me into the bush to train me to be a doctor. He placed two large quartz-crystals against my breast, and they vanished into me. I do not know how they went, but I felt them going through me like warmth. This was to make me clever, and able to bring things up." (This refers to the medicine-man's custom of bringing up into the mouth, as if from the stomach, the quartz-crystal in which his "virtue" has its chief material embodimentor symbol; being likewise useful, as we see later on, for hypnotizing purposes.) "He also gave me some things like quartz-crystals in water. They looked like ice, and the water tasted sweet. After that, I used to see things that my mother could not see. When out with her I would say, 'What is out there like men walking?' She used to say, 'Child, there is nothing.' These were the ghosts which I began to see."

The account goes on to state that at puberty our friend went through the regular initiation for boys; when he saw the doctors bringing up their crystals, and, crystals in mouth, shooting the "virtue" into him to make him "good." Thereupon, being in a holy state like any other novice, he had retired to the bush in the customary manner to fast and meditate.

"Whilst I was in the bush, my old father came out to me. He said, 'Come here to me,' and then he showed me a piece of quartz-crystal in his hand. When I looked at it, he went down into the ground; and I saw him come up all covered with red dust. It made me very frightened. Then my father said, 'Try and bring up a crystal.' I did try, and brought one up. He then said, 'Come with me to this place.' I saw him standing by a hole in the ground, leading to a grave. I went inside and saw a dead man, who rubbed me allover to make me clever, and gave me some crystals. When we came out, my father pointed to a tiger-snake, saying, 'That is your familiar. It is mine also.' There was a string extending from the tail of the snake to us—one of those strings which the medicine-men bring up out of themselves. My father took hold of the string, and said, 'Let us follow the snake.' The snake went through several tree-trunks, and let us through them. At last we reached a tree with a great swelling round its roots. It is in such places that Daramulun lives. The snake went down into the ground, and came up inside the tree, which was hollow. We followed him. There I saw a lot of little Daramuluns, the sons of Baiame. Afterwards, the snake took us into a great hole, in which were a number of snakes. These rubbed themselves against me, and did not hurt me, being my familiars. They did this to make me a clever man and a doctor.

"Then my father said, 'We will go up to Baiame's Camp.' [Amongst the Wiradjuri, Baiame is the high god, and Daramulun is his son. What 'little Daramuluns' may be is not very clear.] He got astride a thread, and put me on another, and we held by each other's arms. At the end of the thread was Wombu, the bird of Baiame. We went up through the clouds, and on the other side was the sky. Wewent through the place where the doctors go through, and it kept opening and shutting very quickly. My father said that, if it touched a doctor when he was going through, it would hurt his spirit, and when he returned home he would sicken and die. On the other side we saw Baiame sitting in his camp. He was a very great old man with a long beard. He sat with his legs under him, and from his shoulders extended two great quartz-crystals to the sky above him. There were also numbers of the boys of Baiame, and of his people who are birds and beasts. [The totems.]

"After this time, and while I was in the bush, I began to bring crystals up; but I became very ill, and cannot do anything since."

November, 1911.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTORYNOTE.—It is impossible to provide a bibliography of so vast a subject, even when first-class authorities only are referred to; whilst selection must be arbitrary and invidious. Here books written in English are alone cited, and those mostly the more modern. The reader is advised to spend such time as he can give to the subject mostly on the descriptive treatises. A few very educative studies are marked by an asterisk. In many cases, to save space, merely the author's name with initials is given, and a library catalogue must be consulted, or a list of authors such as is to be found,e.g.at the end of Westermarck's works.

GENERAL.—E.B. Tylor,Anthropology* (best manual);Primitive Culture* (the greatest of anthropological classics); Lord Avebury's works;Anthropological Essays presented to E.B. Tylor.

ANTIQUITY OFMAN.—W.J. Sollas,Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representatives(best popular account). Subject difficult without special knowledge, to be derived from,e.g.Sir J. Evans (Stone Implements); J. Geikie (Geology of Ice Age), etc. See also Brit. Mus. Guides to Stone Age, Bronze Age, Early Iron Age.

RACE ANDGEOGRAPHICALDISTRIBUTION.—A.C. Haddon,Races of ManandThe Wanderings of Peoples(best short outlines to work from); fuller details in J. Deniker, A.H. Keane; and, for Europe, W.Z. Ripley. See also Brit. Mus. Guide to Ethnological Collections.

SOCIALORGANIZATION ANDLAW.—J.G. Frazer,Totemism and Exogamy*; L.H. Morgan,Ancient Society*; E. Westermarck,History of Human Marriage*; E.S. Hartland,Primitive Paternity; A. Lang,The Secret of the Totem; N.W. Thomas,Kinship Organization and Group Marriage in Australia; H. Webster,Primitive Secret Societies.

RELIGION, MAGIC, FOLK-LORE.—J.G. Frazer,The Golden Bough* (3rd edit.); E.S. Hartland,The Legend of Perseus(esp. vol. ii); A. Lang,Myth, Ritual and Religion,*The Making of Religion, etc.; W. Robertson Smith,Early Religion of the Semites*; F.B. Jevons, A.C. Crawley, D.G. Brinton, G.L. Gomme, L.R. Farnell, R.R. Marett, etc.

MORALS.—E. Westermarck,Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas*; E.B. Tylor,Contemp. Rev.xxi-ii; L.T. Hobhouse,Morals in Evolution; A. Sutherland,Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct.

MISCELLANEOUS.—Language: E.J. Payne,History of the New World called America,* vol. ii. Art: Y. Hirn,Origins of Art.* Economics: P.J.H. Grierson,The Silent Trade.

AUSTRALIA.—B. Spencer and F.J. Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia,*Northern Tribes of Central Australia; A.W. Howitt,Native Tribes of South-east Australia*; J. Woods (and others),Native Tribes of South Australia; L. Fison and A.W. Howitt,Kamilaroi and Kurnai; H. Ling Roth,Aborigines of Tasmania.

OCEANIA ANDINDONESIA.—R.H. Codrington,The Melanesians*; B.H. Thompson,The Fijians; A.C. Haddon (and others),Report of Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits; C.G. Seligmann (for New Guinea); G. Turner, W. Ellis, E. Shortland, R. Taylor (for Polynesia); A.R. Wallace,Malay Archipelago; C. Hose and W. McDougall (for Indonesia).

ASIA.—J.J.M. de Groot,The Religious System of China; W.H.R. Rivers,The Todas*; and a host of other good authorities for India,e.g.Sir H.H. Risley, E. Thurston, W. Crooke, T.C. Hodson, P.R.T. Gurdon, C.G. and B.Z. Seligmann (Veddas of Ceylon); E.H. Man,Journ. R. Anthrop. Instit.xii (Andamanese); W. Skeat (for Malay Peninsula).

AFRICA.—South: H. Callaway, E. Casalis, J. Maclean, D. Kidd. East: A.C. Hollis, J. Roscoe, W.S. and K. Routledge, A. Werner. West: M.H. Kingsley, A.B. Ellis. Madagascar: W. Ellis.

AMERICA.—A vast number of important works, see esp.Smithsonian Institution,Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology(J.W. Powell, F. Boas, F. Cushing, A.C. Fletcher, M.C. Stevenson, J.R. Swanton, C. Mindeleff, S. Powers, J. Mooney, J.O. Dorsey, W.J. Hoffman, W.J. McGee, etc.); L.H. Morgan (on Iroquois), J. Teit, C. Hill Tout; C. Lumholtz,Unknown Mexico; Sir E. im Thurn,Among the Indians of Guiana.

EUROPE.—Ancient: L.R. Farnell,Cults of the Greek States; J.E. Harrison,Prolegomena to Greek Religion; W. Warde Fowler,Religious Experience of the Roman People;Anthropology and the Classics, etc. Modern: G.F. Abbott, C. Lawson (to compare modern with ancient), Folk-lore Society's Publications, etc.

C. Darwin,Descent of Man(Part I); W. Bagehot,Physics and Politics*; W. James,Varieties of Religious Experience*; W. McDougall,Introduction to Social Psychology.* And in this series Geddes and Thomson, Newbigin, Myres, McDougall, Keith.

INDEX

Adultery,

195

Africans,

100

118

127

158

193

194

195

199

Age-grades,

176

Alpine race,

106

Altamira,

Americans,

100

110-114

124

128

133

138-147

157

163

174

192

199

Andamanese,

160

188

193

Anglo-Saxons,

193

Animatism,

230

Animism,

228

230

Anthropo-geography,

95-101

115

129

Anthropoid apes,

76-79

111

115

117

Anthropology,

7-30

186

204

227

242

244

Asiatics,

105-111

114-118

120-122

128

132

133

142

150

160-162

183

188

194

216-219

Athapascan languages,

112

Atlantic phase of culture,

102

Aurignac,

Australians,

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