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So far, then, as man was under the dominion of this conception of the supernatural, he could not possibly believe that he himself was in possession of supernatural power, or that he was on a level with the wielders of it. And if, as we have seen reason to believe, this the negative phase of the supernatural dawned upon the mind of man before the positive, then man could not have begun by thinking himself equal to or more powerful than his gods. In fine, the power of the supernatural was from the beginning conceived as something different in kind from any power exercised by man.

Next, as has already been urged, the regular and familiar phenomena of nature, such as the shining of the sun and the descent of rain, were not at first regarded as supernatural, nor was it the observation of such familiar facts which could have stimulated the sentiment of the supernatural into activity. Even when these phenomena were attributed (as probably from the beginning they were attributed) to the agency of indwelling spirits, and when material objects were regarded as living things, those living things and those indwelling spirits were not at first regarded as supernatural beings. Consequently, when man attempted, as undoubtedly at first he did attempt, to make rain or sunshine, he was not conscious, of attempting anything supernatural. He could not know à priori and at the beginning what series of changes it was possible for man to initiate and what not, what effects in nature it was and what it was not possible for man to produce. It was only by trying all things that he could learn that not all things were possible for man; and it was only when he had learned that lesson that he could extend the denotation of the term "supernatural" so as to include in it “things impossible for man." It was only after making many experiments that he learned that the power to stay the sun or to make the wind to cease was supernatural. He could not therefore have known whilst making his experiments, that he was attempting the supernatural. The conclusion that the things attempted were supernatural was the consequence of his attempts, and was the very opposite of the idea with which he started.

Finally, the means by which the savage attempts to produce results which we should but which he does not

consider to be superhuman, are not regarded by him as supernatural. He does not imagine that he possesses supernatural power. His sympathetic magic is but one branch

of his science, and is not different in kind from the rest. He neither produces, in his opinion, supernatural results nor uses supernatural means to produce what he effects. Sympathetic magic was not in the beginning identical with the supernatural, nor was the conception of the latter evolved out of or differentiated from the former. But perhaps we had better devote a separate chapter to the establishment of this point.

CHAPTER IV

SYMPATHETIC MAGIC

THE law of continuity holds not only in science but of science. It is true not only of the subject-matter with which science deals, but of the evolution of science itself. The assured triumphs of modern science are linked to the despised speculations of the savage by a chain which may be ignored but cannot be snapped; for, in the first place, though the mass of observed facts which the modern investigator has at his command is greater than that which was at the disposal of the ancient student of nature, the accumulation has been gradual; and, in the next place, the foundation, the principle, and the methods of savage logic and scientific logic are identical.1

The foundation of both logics is the same, for it is the uniformity of nature. What reason we have for believing that nature is uniform is a matter much disputed by philosophers. The cause of the belief, the inherent tendency of the human mind to expect similar sequences or coexistences in similar conditions, was as strong in primitive man as in the modern savant; and the savage not only expects a cause to produce its effect, but also holds with Mill that a single instance of the production of a phenomenon by a given antecedent is enough to warrant the belief that it will always tend to be produced by that antecedent. Thus, "the king of the Koussa Kaffirs having broken off a piece of a stranded anchor died soon afterwards, upon which all the Kaffirs looked upon the anchor as alive, and saluted it respectfully whenever they passed near it."2

1 See Folk-Lore, ii. 2. 220, F. B. Jevons, "Report on Greek Mythology" (June 1891).

2 Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, 188.

Here the Kaffirs' error consisted in jumping to the conclusion that the molestation of the anchor was the cause of the king's death; and as it is against this class of error that the inductive methods are designed to guard, the reader may be tempted to imagine that it is in the ignorance of those methods that the difference between savage and scientific logic consists. But the reader would be mistaken. The savage has not indeed formulated the methods, but he uses them all to distinguish the antecedent which is the cause from the other antecedents which have nothing to do with the effect under investigation. Thus the Peruvian mountaineers mentioned in the last chapter, who observed that a certain kind of illness befell them whenever they were in sight of the sea, were using the Method of Agreement in inferring that the sea-spirit was the cause of that particular kind of illness. The Method of Difference, according to which, if the introduction of a new antecedent into a set of conditions already known is immediately followed by the emergence of a new effect, the new antecedent may be regarded as the cause of the new effect, is employed by the Dusuns in Borneo, who, according to Mr. Hatton (North Borneo, 2331), "attribute anything-whether good or bad, lucky or unlucky-that happens to them to something novel which has arrived in their country. For instance, my living in Kindram has caused the intensely hot weather we have experienced of late." The Method of Concomitant Variations again plays a large part in savage logic. According to this method, things which vary together are causally related to one another, or, vice versa, things which are related together vary together. Hence the world-wide belief that, if the nail-parings or the cut hair of a man pass into the possession of an enemy, the enemy can injure the man; and hence, too, the equally widespread custom of burying hair or nail-parings, or otherwise placing them beyond reach of an enemy. The shadow, the image, the picture, and the name of a man are closely related to him; and therefore as they are treated so will he suffer. Hence the witch could torture her victim by roasting or wounding a waxen image of him. The savage declines to be sketched or photographed for the same 1 Quoted in G. B. i. 174.

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reason; the ancient Egyptian secured happiness hereafter by having his tomb filled with pictures representing him engaged in his favourite occupations and surrounded by luxury; wounds. inflicted on the shadow or the foot-prints of a man will take effect on him; savages frequently keep their names a profound secret, and the safety and inviolability of the city of Rome depended on the secrecy observed as to the name of its tutelary deity. If the connection required by the method does not exist, then it must be artificially created, as it easily may be the Ephesians placed their city under the protection of Artemis by connecting the city and the temple with a rope seven. furlongs long. But the best exemplification of the savage application of the Method of Concomitant Variations is the waxing and the waning of the moon, with which the growth. and decay of all sorts of sub-lunar objects, plants, and animals, things animate and inanimate, are associated; and if the reader is inclined to smile at the obvious folly and puerility of the savage, let him remember that the weather is still supposed, by educated people, to vary with the changes of the moon; and that as to the influence of her phases on vegetation and the advisability of sowing on a waxing moon, the founder of inductive logic, Bacon himself, thought there was something in it: "videmus enim in plantationibus et insitionibus ætatum lunæ observationes non esse res omnino frivolas" (De Aug. Scient. iii. 4). So thin are the partitions between savage and scientific logic.

The principle of induction, again, is the same in the logic of the savage and the savant. That principle is the principle of similarity in difference. Whether the induction be an inference from particulars to particulars or to universals, it proceeds from similars to similars, and would be impossible if similar cases did not recur in experience. In such an induc

1 "When Dr. Catat and his companions, MM. Maistre and Foncart, were exploring the Bara country on the west coast of Madagascar, the people suddenly became hostile. On the previous day, the travellers, not without difficulty, had photographed the royal family, and now found themselves accused of taking the souls of the natives with the object of selling them when they returned to France. Denial was of no avail; following the custom of the Malagasays, they were compelled to catch the souls, which were then put into a basket and ordered by Dr. Catat to return to their respective owners."'l

1 Folk-Lore, vi. 1. 75, from the Times of March 24, 1891.

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