CHAPTER XXART AND MAGIC
Sympathetic magic has in recent times become a favourite subject of scientific study. We may therefore proceed to trace the influence which this important factor has exercised on the development of art-forms without going through the labour of presenting and describing the evidence of its occurrence at the different stages of evolution. It is sufficient to refer to the copious and detailed researches of Hartland, Frazer, Béranger-Féraud, and others. What we need is only a psychological interpretation of all the facts which have been brought together by these authors.
The instances of sympathetic magic are naturally divided into two main classes, which, broadly speaking, correspond to the two types of association. But just as in psychology it is often difficult to decide whether a given associative process has its origin in a relation of contiguity or in one of similarity, so it is often an open question to which group a given superstition is to be assigned. It may even be possible to deduce both groups from one common and fundamental magical principle.
However the definitive theoretical explanation may turn out, we have for the present to uphold a distinctionbetween the two forms. And in order to start from the facts that are simpler and easier to explain, we shall first devote our attention tosympathetic magic based on a material connection between things.
The superstitious notions which can be brought together under this heading are familiar to every one. There is scarcely a single book on ethnology or folklore which does not present some illustrations of the belief that by acting upon a part of a given whole we may influence this whole as well as all its other parts. This universal doctrine of a solidarity between the things that have entered as parts in the same material totality has given rise all over the world to beliefs and practices which, although varying in details, are essentially similar in general character. We need only refer to the well-known folk-beliefs as to the necessity of caution in disposing of clippings of hair or nails, of saliva, or anything else removed from the human body. Such objects, it is supposed, would give any enemy into whose hands they might fall the power of injuring through them the person from whom they had proceeded.[467]Almost equally universal is the belief that close relatives, as being ingredients in—or perhaps rather partakers of—the same whole, the family, are bound together in a quite material solidarity of suffering. From the sociological point of view this group of superstitions, owing to the social importance of the last-mentioned totality, is of especial interest; and therefore the curious customs concerning the relation between a father and his unbornchild, between husband and wife, ancestors and descendants, etc., which no doubt are all based on the idea of a material connection, have been treated of with due completeness in sociological literature.[468]Equally valuable for the psychological interpretation, although less pregnant with social import, are all the petty tricks of sorcery in connection with hunting, fishing, agriculture, and so on, which are practised even now among most European nations.[469]From the array of facts inserted by Mr. Hartland in his monumental commentary on theLegend of Perseus, we can form an opinion of the wide and deep-going influences which the belief in magical connection between things materially connected has exercised in all departments of life. And besides this ethnological apparatus, Mr. Hartland gives us in this work a most complete and definite account of the world-view which lies behind all these superstitious beliefs and practices.
More light, however, is thrown on the philosophy of this superstition by the researches of M. Rochas d’Aiglun than by any work on scientific ethnology and folklore. This is not said in order to detract in any way from the merits of Messrs. Hartland and Frazer. But although nothing could surpass the erudition of these scholars, they could not, in point ofsympathetic and intelligent representation, stand on a level with an author who himself believes in the reality of his facts. For those, therefore, who wish to understand the motives, conscious or unconscious, by which the adepts of sympathetic magic justify their practices, nothing could be more instructive than a perusal ofL’extériorisation de la motricitéandL’extériorisation de la sensibilité. In these works M. Rochas has not only minutely summarised the seventeenth century theories and observations of Digby and Papin:[470]he has also supplemented these old “facts” with his own experiments on objects that have been saturated with sensibility and motor power by contact with living bodies. The power of relics, love philtres, and charms is thus explained in a way which, however fantastic, is nevertheless undeniably consistent and methodical.[471]A savage or an uneducated man would indeed be unable to put his case in the logical form which M. Rochas gives it. But if he understood scientific terminology, he would doubtless ratify, as a true interpretation of his own vague conceptions, the theory of sensitive and motor effluvia which emanate from all living beings, and link them to all objects to which they may pass. As abona fidestatement of magic principles in the language of modern psychology and modern physics, M. Rochas’ works bring the old superstitions home to us with unsurpassable force. We learn here to appreciate the powerful influence which may in all times be exercised by the underlying belief in an invisible magical chain connecting things which appear to be severed. When we see a man of modern civilisation falling back upon these crude notions, which appeared for a long time tobe quite forgotten, we must needs be convinced that the world-view of magic, however erroneous, is, so to speak, a constitutional fallacy of the human mind. In every department of human ethos, therefore, there is reason to look for the possible effects of these conceptions.
For the present, however, we have to admit that sympathetic magic in its simplest form seems to be without any influence on the origin of works of art. It is very different with the second kind of magic—namely, that where the occult influence is based upona likeness between things.
To judge from the literature of ethnology and folklore, this principle seems to be almost as universal as that of magic by virtue of material connection. Its influence can be traced in beliefs and practices, not only of the lowest savages, but also of civilised nations. It has received elaborate theoretical justification in the old systems of Greek philosophy, in the theories of Agrippa and Paracelsus, and in the tenets of modern homœopaths. And there are even some real facts, such as the beneficial effects of inoculation and the “katharsis” action of poetry—the curing of sorrow by tragedy—which are sometimes quoted in support of the thesis that “like affects like.”[472]Apart from all regard to such spurious arguments the theory of this form of magic is scarcely less irrational than that underlying the first group of facts. From our point of view, however, even the crudest forms of “homœopathic” magic are of far greater interest than the examples of sorcery by means of material connection. Whereas the adepts of the latter need only procure a nail, a tuft of hair, or a few articles of clothing belonging to the man they wish to bewitch,the sorcerer who works by similarities is compelled to create a representation of things and beings in order to acquire an influence over them. Thus magical purposes call forth imitations of nature and life which, although essentially non-æsthetic in their intention, may nevertheless be of importance for the historical evolution of art.
To how great an extent works of art derive their material from old magical practices, the real meaning of which has gradually fallen into oblivion, may be shown in all the various departments of art. There is not a single form of imitation which has not been more or less influenced by this principle. Pantomimic representation, which for us is of value only in virtue of its intellectual or emotional expressiveness, was in lower stages of culture used as a magical expedient. Even a single gesture may, according to primitive notions, bring about effects corresponding to its import,[473]and a complete drama is sincerely believed to cause the actual occurrence of the action which it represents. Students of folklore know that there is practically no limits to the effects which primitive man claims to produce by magical imitation. He draws the rain from heaven by representing in dance and drama the appropriate meteorological phenomena.[474]He regulatesthe movements of the sun and encourages it in the labour of its wanderings by his dramatic sun-rituals;[475]and he may even influence the change of the seasons by dramas in which he drives winter away and brings summer in.[476]By those phallic rites to which we have already referred in the chapter on erotic art, he tries in the same way to act upon the great biological phenomena of human life.[477]And again, when sickness is to be cured, he tries to subdue the demons of disease—to neutralise their action or to entice them out of the body of the patient—by imitating in pantomime the symptoms of the particular complaint.[478]Finally, when the assistance of a divine power is required, the god himself may be conjured to take his abode in the body of the performer, who imitates what is believed to be his appearance, movements, and behaviour.[479]Thus the belief in the effectual power of imitation has all over the world given rise to common dramatic motives as universal as the belief itself, and uniform as the chief requirements of mankind.
There are, no doubt, many instances of dramaticritual the purpose of which is as yet a matter of discussion. With regard to some of the symbolic dances representing hunting or fishing or the movements of game-animals, much may be said in favour of Mr. Farrer’s view that the object of the pantomime is to make clearer to the deity a prayer regarding the things imitated.[480]Similarly it is open to doubt whether the dramatic performances at initiation ceremonies, such as, for instance, the kangaroo dance described by Collins, are meant to impart instruction concerning the customs of the animals to the novitiates, or to confer upon them a magic power over the game.[481]In the therapeutic practices of primitive tribes we may find still more puzzling points of controversy. The sucking cure, for instance, by which the medicine-man pretends to extract from the patient the cause of his illness in the form of some small object—a pebble, a tuft of hair, or the like—may be, as Professor Tylor thinks, a mere “knavish trick.”[482]But it is also possible, we believe, that, at least originally, it may have been performed as abona fidemagic, based upon the notion of the efficacy of vehicles and symbolic action. The method of restoring sick people and sick cattle to health by pulling them through a narrow opening, for instance, in a tree, which has been explained by most authors as a case of magical transference by contact—i.e.transference of the disease from the patient and of the vital power represented by the tree to him[483]—ought, according to the brilliant hypothesis of Professor Nyrop, to be considered as a magically symbolic representation of regeneration.[484]
While leaving undecided all these subtle questions, each of which would require a chapter of its own in order to be definitively treated, we have only to maintain the great probability which stands on the side of the dramatic interpretation. However fantastic the belief in a magical connection between similar things may appear at the outset, a continued ethnological study must needs convince every one of its incalculable importance in the life of primitive man. And such a conviction can only become confirmed by an examination of the influence which this superstition has exercised on the formative arts.
The belief in picture magic is evinced by its negative as well as by its positive results. All over the world we meet with the fear of being depicted. In so far as this superstition has given rise to a prohibition of painting and sculpture, it has thus seriously arrested the development of art. But, on the other hand, the same notion has commonly called forth pictorial representation, the aim of which is to gain a power over the things and beings represented. Most frequent, perhaps, of all these specimens of magical art are the volts,i.e.those dolls and drawings used for bewitching, which are spoken of as early as in the ancient Chaldean incantations, which are used by the majority of savage tribes, and which may incidentallybe found even now among the European nations.[485]But owing to their necessarily clandestine character these charms have never exercised any important influence on the pictorial art. More important, from the historical point of view, than these black and cryptic arts is the white magic by which social benefits are pursued. Just as the principal forms of magical drama correspond to the chief requirements of mankind, so the most important magical sculptures and paintings are found in connection with agricultural rites,[486]the observances of hunting and fishing,[487]medical practices,[488]and ceremonies for removing sterility.[489]And in the same way as dramatic representation, but with far greater efficacy, pictorial representation has been able to satisfy the highest material as well as spiritual requirement by bringingthe deity in concrete relation with man through the sympathetic force of the image. The art of conjuring a spirit to take its abode in what is believed to be a counterfeit of its corresponding body has thus given rise to the fashioning of idols and the subsequent adoring of them. Although essentially the same as in the simple medical cures and the practices of sorcery, pictorial magic has in these cases of idol-making exercised a more far-reaching and thorough influence on mankind than in any of its other manifestations.
We need not dwell at any length on the superstitions connected with poetic or literary descriptions of things. The universal objection to the mentioning of proper names is evidently based upon a belief in the efficacy of words. And, on the other hand, this same belief lies behind the equally universal use of incantations. Songs that are sung in order to facilitate the labour of workers and to increase the result of it, poems that aim at conjuring the favour of a hard-hearted or indifferent woman, charms for invoking or expelling spirits, and medical spells,—all these forms of poetic magic are too familiar to be more than mentioned.
From the point of view of the civilised observer the above-quoted examples of dramatic, pictorial, and poetic magic may seem to have an obvious and ready explanation. A work of art always gives to the spectator, and no doubt also to the creator, an illusion of reality. As, moreover, primitive man is notoriously unable to distinguish between subjective and objective reality, it seems natural to assume that it is the mental illusion created by his work which makes the magician believe that he has acquired a power over the things represented by it. And this assumption is all the more tempting because even to civilised, enlightened man there issomething magical in the momentary satisfaction which art affords to all our unfulfilled longings by its semblance of reality. Strong desire always creates for itself an imaginary gratification which easily leads the uncritical mind to a belief in the power of will over the external world. The whole of art-creation may thus be looked upon as an embodiment of the greatest wishes of mankind, which have sought the most convincing appearance of their fulfilment in the form and shape of objective works. What is in us a conscious and intentional self-deception, may be in the unsophisticated man a real illusion. The main psychological aspects of the activity could not be changed by these different subjective attitudes on the part of the producer. The essential point is that in both cases the greatest possible resemblance to the original would be sought for in order to increase in the one case the magical efficacy of the work, in the other the pleasure to be derived from the illusion. The belief in a magical connection between similar things would thus exercise an incalculable influence on the growth of realism in art. But, unfortunately, this easy explanation is not corroborated by an impartial examination of the lower stages of art-development. The statement of M. Guaita as to the volt,Plus la ressemblance est complète plus le maléfice a chance de réussir,[490]does not appear to be borne out by the evidence. The only instance we know of in which greater or less resemblance to the model is thought of as bearing on the magical efficacy of a painting is that of the East Indian artists. We are told that it was in order to evade the Mohammedan prohibition of painting that they resorted to that style of treating nature, bordering on caricature, which is so characteristic of, say, Javaneseart.[491]Similarly it is by an appeal to their virtue of non-resemblance that artists among the Laos defend their pictures as being harmless and innocent.[492]But such references to barbaric or semi-barbaric art do not tell us much about the conditions prevailing at the beginning of art-development. The primitive man who avails himself of dolls and drawings in order to bewitch is generally quite indifferent to the life-like character of his magical instruments. The typical volt gives only a crude outline of the human body, and, which is most remarkable, it does not display any likeness to the man who is to be bewitched. As a rule the same vagueness can also be noticed in the paintings and sculptures which serve the aims of medical cure and religious cultus. With due allowance for the deficient technical ability and the naïve suggestibility of primitive man, it seems hard to believe that illusion could have been either intended or effected by the rude works of pictorial magic. Thus it becomes doubtful whether the belief in the magical power of painting and sculpture can have been based upon a confusion between subjective and objective reality.
This doubt can only be increased when we see how little confidence primitive men themselves put in the mere likeness as such. When M. Rochas produced his modern imitations of the volt, he was always anxious to have his wax dolls sufficiently saturated by contact with the person over whom they were intended to give him power.[493]And in this he closely followed the methods of the native sorcerers, who generally tried to increase the efficiency of their magical instruments by attaching to them such objects as nail-cuttings, locks ofhair, or pieces of cloth belonging to the man to be bewitched.[494]In the making of idols we can often observe the same principle. The statue itself is not sacred by virtue of its form; it acquires divine power only by being put inmaterialconnection with the deity. The most obvious example is that of the West African Negroes, who, when they wish to transplant the wood deity from his original home to their towns and villages, build up a wooden doll of branches taken from the tree in which he lives.[495]The god is certainly supposed to feel a special temptation to take up his abode in the idol made in his own likeness; but it is evident that the material link established by the choice of the wood is thought of as being of no less, perhaps even of greater, importance than the resemblance. The same close and inseparable combination of magic by connection and magic by similarity meets us in the ancestor statues of New Guinea, which contain the skull of the dead in hollows inside their head.[496]And although the procedure is more indirect, the underlying thought is nevertheless the same in the curious practices found,e.g., on the island of Nias. The spirit of the deceased is here conducted to his statue by means of some small animal which has been found in the neighbourhood of his grave.[497]In none of these examples—which might be supplemented by analogous instances from various tribes—do we see any hint of that manner of regarding statues and paintings which prevails among civilised men. While with us the mental impression on the spectator constitutes, so to speak, the object and the essential purport of the work of art, the magicians and the idolaters seem to look chiefly for material power and influence in their simulacra.
The way in which pictorial art is used for curative purposes affords us—if further proofs are wanted—a still more telling example of the difference between the magical and the aesthetic points of view. Nothing could be more crude and primitive than the notions held by the Navajo with regard to the salutary influences of their famous sand-paintings. The cure is effected, they believe, not by the patient’s looking at the represented figures, but by his rolling himself on them, or having the pigments of the mosaic applied to the corresponding parts of his own body. The more of the sacred sand he can thus attach to his body, the more complete is his recovery.[498]Among other tribes at the same stage of development as the Navajos the prevailing views are almost equally materialistic.[499]And even among the barbaric and semi-civilised peoples, although we do not meet with quite as gross superstitions, the fundamental idea of pictorial magic appears often to be the same. The power of a painting or a sculpture is thought of as something which is quite independent of its mental effects upon the spectator. That interpretation of sympathetic magic, therefore, which to us seemed most natural, cannot possibly be applied to its lower forms.
As the concepts by which primitive man justifies to himself his beliefs and practices are naturally vague and hazy, it may seem futile to attempt to reconstruct his reasoning. Nothing final or definite can be asserted on so obscure a topic. But we may legitimately discuss the most consistent and most probable way in which to account for the various forms of sympathetic magic. And with regard to this question of probabilities we may rely to some extent upon the illustrative and suggestive analogies to primitive thought which can be found in scientific philosophies. For it is evident that a philosophical doctrine, if it fits in with the facts of primitive superstition, may be explanatory of those vague and latent notions which, without logical justification or systematical arrangement, lie in the mind of the magician and the idolater. Such a doctrine is presented to us in the familiar emanation-theories, according to which every image of a thing constitutes a concrete part of that thing itself. According to the clear and systematic statement of this doctrine given by the old Epicurean philosophers, shadows, reflections in a mirror, visions, and even mental representations of distant objects, are all caused by thin membranes, which continually detach themselves from the surface of all bodies and move onward in all directions through space.[500]If there are such things as necessary misconceptions, this is certainly one. Such general facts of sensuous experience as reflection, shadow, and mirage will naturally appear as the result of a purely material decortication—as in a transfer picture.[501]How near at hand this theory may lie even to the modern mindappears from the curious fact that such a man as Balzac fell back upon it when attempting to explain the newly-invented daguerreotype, that most marvellous of all image-phenomena.[502]
To the primitive mind it is only natural to apply this reasoning even to artificial images. Whether the likeness of a thing is fashioned by nature in water or air, or whether it be made by man, it is in both cases thought of as depriving the thing itself of some part of its substance. Such a notion, which cannot surprise us when met with among the lower savages, seems to have been at the bottom of even the Mohammedan prohibition of the formative arts.[503]It is evident that, wherever images are explained in this crude manner, magic by similarity in reality becomes merely a case of magic by contiguity.
The materialistic thought which lies behind the belief in a solidarity between similar things appears nowhere so clearly as within the department of pictorial magic. But we believe that its influence can also be traced in all the other superstitions regarding sympathetic causation. In spite of that feeling of superiority so common in nations which have no leaning towards formative arts, poetical and musical magic in its lower forms is founded on quite as crude a conception as any idolatry or pictorial sorcery. It would indeed be unnatural if the theory of corporeal emanations had not been applied to acoustic as well as to optical phenomena. To the unscientific mind sounds and reverberations are something quite synonymous with sights and reflections. The sounds connected with the impression of a being, thing, or phenomenon will therefore be conceived asbeing a part of the being, thing, or phenomenon itself. To these easily-explained notions there are to be added the peculiar superstitions entertained with regard to a class of sounds which are only associated with things, viz. their names. To the primitive man a name literally constitutes a part of the object it denotes. The magician may therefore get the mastery over the spirits he invokes and the men he bewitches by merely mentioning their names.[504]In many cases a most potent spell consists of unintelligible words, which to the conjurer himself has no meaning at all. In other cases, although the words really have a sense, we can easily observe that they are not used for the purpose of creating an illusion of reality. The typical incantation may indeed in a manner be called descriptive. The singer is anxious not to pass by any detail, the omitting of which may be injurious to the potency of his magic. But the result is only a sort of inventory, which seldom suggests a full and vivid mental picture. Many of the Shaman prayers and songs show us by their whole character that in their case at least poetical illusion has had nothing to do with the belief in the power of words over things.[505]
Thus, according to the magical-world view, a system of material connections links together in close solidarity things and their images, sounds, or names. But this network of connections may even, we believe, extend further, so as to bring into its chain of causation qualities and actions, in short, abstract notions, which cannot be considered as material objects possessing material parts. Just as an image which presents the figure and shape of a given thing is conceived as a partof that thing itself, so all things which have distinctive qualities in common may be thought of as being parts of a common whole. As a fantastic but still natural product of the primitive mind, there may thus appear the idea of an invisible connection, which binds together all things similar and draws them to each other. Vaguely and dimly even savages may have been able to anticipate in some measure those imposing thoughts which received an organised and consistent statement in the doctrine of universal ideas. But to primitive man these “ideas” must appear as concrete objects and beings, exercising their influence on phenomena in a quite material manner.
To those who are familiar with that peculiar combination of spiritual conceptions of the world and material conceptions of the spirit which makes up the primitive cosmology, this explanation will not appear far-fetched or strained. But it is to be admitted that in many cases it may be difficult, or even impossible, to lay one’s finger on the elements of magic by contiguity which lie at the root of a given instance of imitative witchcraft. No doubt the mental effects produced by the imitation on its creator and spectators will in many cases contribute to the belief in its power. In the more artistic forms of poetic magic the suggestive power of the words replaces the brute force of their sound. And in dramatic magic an illusion, whether intended or unintended, must necessarily affect the performers as well as their audience. Therefore, however the psychological basis of magic may be explained, it cannot be denied that in some of its developments magic has become closely connected with art. The self-deceit by which we enjoy in art the confusion between real and unreal is indeed, by its intentional character, distinct from theillusion to which primitive man is led, more perhaps by his deficient powers of observation than by any strength of imaginative faculty. But still there exists a kinship, and that belief in an overlapping of the tangible and intangible life which is fostered by magic in the lower art affords, as it were, a premonition of the effects produced by imagination in the higher.