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highly disagreeable, as every one will admit who has listed not night to the irregular flapping of a rope on board ship. ct same principle seems to come into play with vision, as the eye prefers symmetry or figures with some regular recurrence. Patterns of this kind are employed by even the lowest savages as ornaments; and they have been developed through sexual selection for the adornment of some male animals. Whether wo can or not give any reason for the pleasure thus derived from vision and hearing, yet man and many of the lower animals aro alike pleased by the same colours, graceful shading and forms, and the same sounds.

The taste for the beautiful, at least as far as female beauty is concerned, is not of a special nature in the human mind; for it differs widely in the different races of man, and is not quite the same even in the different nations of the same race. Judging from the hideous ornaments, and the equally hideous music admired by most savages, it might be urged that their æsthetic faculty was not so highly developed as in certain animals, for instance, as in birds. Obviously no animal would be capable of admiring such scenes as the heavens at night, a beautiful landscape, or refined music; but such high tastes are acquired through culture, and depend on complex associations; they are "not enjoyed by barbarians or by uneducated persons.

Many of the faculties, which have been of inestimable service to man for his progressive advancement, such as the powers of the imagination, wonder, curiosity, an undefined sense of beauty, a tendency to imitation, and the love of excitement or novelty, could hardly fail to lead to capricious changes of customs and fashions. I have alluded to this point, because a recent writer 73 has oddly fixed on Caprice "as one of the most remarkable and typical differences between savages and brutes." But not only can we partially understand how it is that man is from various conflicting influences rendered capricious, but that the lower animals are, as we shall hereafter see, likewise capricious in their affections, aversions, and sense of beauty. There is also reason to suspect that they love novelty, for it own sake.

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Belief in God-Religion. There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary there is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no

13 The Spectator,' Dec. 4th, 1869, p. 1430.

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variof in their languages to express such an idea." The question course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe; and this has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.

TS.

If, however, we include under the term “religion” the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is wholly different; for this belief seems to be universal with the less civilised races. Nor is it difficult to comprehend how it arose. As soon as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder, and curiosity, together with some power of reasoning, had become partially developed, man would naturally crave to understand what was passing around him, and would have vaguely speculated on his own existence. As Mr. M'Lennan 75 has remarked, "Some explan"ation of the phenomena of life, a man must feign for himself; "and to judge from the universality of it, the simplest hypothesis, "and the first to occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants, “and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits prompting "to action as men are conscious they themselves possess." It is also probable, as Mr. Tylor has shewn, that dreams may have first given rise to the notion of spirits; for savages do not readily distinguish between subjective and objective impressions. When a savage dreams, the figures which appear before him aro believed to have come from a distance, and to stand over him; or "the soul of the dreamer goes out on its travels, and comes 'home with a remembrance of what it has seen." But until

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74 See an excellent article on this subject by the Rev. F. W. Farrar, in the Anthropological Review,' Aug. 1864, p. ccxvii. For further facts see Sir J. Lubbock, 'Prehistoric Times,' 2nd edit. 1869, p. 564; and especially the chapters on Religion in his 'Origin of Civilisation,' 1870.

75 The Worship of Animals and Plants,' in the 'Fortnightly Review,' Oct. 1, 1869, p. 422.

76 Tylor, Early History of Mankind,' 1865, p. 6. See also the three striking chapters on the Development of Religion, in Lubbock's 'Origin of Civilisation,' 1870. In a ike manner Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his ingenious essay in the Fortnightly Review' (May 1st, 1870, p. 535), accounts for the earliest

forms of religious belief throughout
the world, by man being led through
dreams, shadows, and other causes,
to look at himself as a double
essence, corporeal and spiritual. As
the spiritual being is supposed to
exist after death and to be power-
ful, it is propitiated by various gifts
and ceremonies, and its aid invoked.
He then further shews that names
or nicknames given from some
animal or other object, to the early.
progenitors or founders of a tribe,
are supposed after a long interval
to represent the real progenitor of
the tribe; and such animal or object
is then naturally believed stil' to
exist as a spirit, is held sacred, and
worshipped as a god. Nevertheless
I cannot but suspect that there is
a still earlier and ruder stage, when

the faculties of imagination, curiosity, reason, &c., had been fairly well developed in the mind of man, his dreams would not have led him to believe in spirits, any more than in the case c{ a dog.

The tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects and agencies are animated by spiritual or living essences, is perhaps illustrated by a little fact which I once noticed: my dog, a full.. grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the lawn during a hot and still day; but at a little distance a slight breeze occasionally moved an open parasol, which would have been wholly disregarded by the dog, had any one stood near it. As it was, every time that the parasol slightly moved, the dog growled fiercely and barked. He must, I think, have reasoned to himself in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and that no stranger had a right to be on his territory.

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The belief in spiritual agencies would easily pass into the belief in the existence of one or more gods. For savages would naturally attribute to spirits the same passions, the same love of vengeance or simplest form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves feel. The Fuegians appear to be in this respect in an intermediate condition, for when the surgeon on board the "Beagle" shot some young ducklings as specimens, York Minster declared in the most solemn manner, Oh, Mr. Bynoe, “much rain, much snow, blow much;" and this was evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human food. So again he related how, when his brother killed a “wild man," storms long raged, much rain and snow fell. Yet we could never discover that the Fuegians believed in what we should call a God, or practised any religious rites; and Jemmy Button, with justifiable pride, stoutly maintained that there was no devil in his land. This latter assertion is the more remarkable, as with savages the belief in bad spirits is far more common than that in good

ones.

The feeling of religious devotion is a highly complex one, consisting of love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence," fear, ¡ reverence, gratitude, hope for the future, and perhaps other elements. No being could experience so complex an emotion

anything which manifests power or movement is thought to be endowed with some form of life, and with mental faculties analogous to our

own.

17 See an able article on the Physical Elements of Religion,' by Mr. L. Owen Pike, in Anthropolog Review,' April, 1870, p. lxiii.

until advanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at least a moderately high level. Nevertheless, we see some distant approach to this state of mind in the deep love of a dog for his master, associated with complete submission, some fear, and perhaps other feelings. The behaviour of a dog when returning to his master after an absence, and, as I may add, of a monkey to his beloved keeper, is widely different from that towards their fellows. In the latter case the transports of joy appear to be somewhat less, and the sense of equality is shewn in every action. Professor Braubach goes so far as to maintain that a dog looks on his master as on a god.78

The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and customs. Many of these are terrible to think of-such as the sacrifice of human beings to a bloodloving god; the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire; witchcraft, &c.—yet it is well occasionally to reflect on these superstitions, for they shew us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to the improvement of our reason, to science, and to our accumulated knowledge. As Sir J. Lubbock" has well observed, "it is not too much to say that the horrible dread of "unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and "embitters every pleasure." These miserable and indirect consequences of our highest faculties may be compared with the incidental and occasional mistakes of the instincts of the lower animals.

78 Religion, Moral, &c., der Darwin'schen Art-Lehre,' 1869, s. 53. It is said (Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay, Journal of Mental Science,' 1871, p. 43), that Bacon lcng age, and the poet Burns, held the same notion.

79 Prehistoric Times,' 2nd edit. p. 571. In this work (p. 571) there will be found an excellent account of the many strange and capricious customs of savages.

CHAPTER IV.

COMPARISON OF THE MENTAL POWERS OF MAN AND THE
LOWER ANIMALS-continued.

The moral sense-Fundamental proposition-The qualities of social animals-Origin of sociability-Struggle between opposed instinctsMan a social animal-The more enduring social instincts conquer other less persistent instincts-The social virtues alone regarded by savages-The self-regarding virtues acquired at a later stage of developmentThe importance of the judgment of the members of the same community on conduct-Transmission of moral tendencies-Summary.

I FULLY subscribe to the judgment of those writers' who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important. This sense, as Mackintosh2 remarks, has a

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rightful supremacy over every other principle of human "action;" it is summed up in that short but imperious word ought, so full of high significance. It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment's hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, impelled simply by the deep feeling of right or duty, to sacrifice it in some great cause. Immanuel Kant exclaims, "Duty! Wondrous thought, that workest neither by "fond insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by "holding up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting for "thyself always reverence, if not always obedience; before "whom all appetites are dumb, however secretly they rebel; "whence thy original ?" 3

This great question has been discussed by many writers of consummate ability; and my sole excuse for touching on it, is the impossibility of here passing it over; and because, as far as 1 know, no one has approached it exclusively from the side of natural history. The investigation possesses, also, some in

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