which has nothing but a will. If an object of nature, therefore, is looked upon as a supernatural agent, mentality and life are at the same time attributed to it as a matter of course. This I take to be the real origin of animism. It is not correct to say that "as the objects of the visible world are conceived as animated, volitional, and emotional, they may be deemed the originators of those misfortunes of which the true cause is unknown." 1 This is to reverse the actual order of ideas. Inanimate things are conceived as volitional, emotional, and animate, because they are deemed the originators of startling events. The savage does not speculate upon the nature of things unless he has an interest in doing so. He is not generally inquisitive as to causes.2 The natives of West Australia, says Eyre," are not naturally a reasoning people, and by no means given to the investigation of causes or their effects." In matters not concerning the common wants of life the mind of the Brazilian Indian is a blank.1 When Mungo Park asked some negroes, what became of the sun during the night? they considered his question a very childish one; they had never indulged a conjecture, nor formed any hypothesis, about the matter.' I often found the Beduins of Morocco extremely curious, but their curiosity consisted in the question, What? rather than in the question, Why? Whilst belief in supernatural agents endowed with a will made the savage an animist, the idea that a mind presupposes a body, when thought out, led to anthropomorphism. Impossible as it is to imagine a will without a mind, it is hardly less impossible to imagine a mind without a body. The immaterial soul is an abstraction to which has been attributed a metaphysical reality, but of which no clear conception can be formed. As Hobbes observed, the opinion that spirits are incorporeal or immaterial, "could 1 Peschel, Races of Man, p. 245. 2 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 86 sq.; Karsten, op. cit. p. 43 sq. 3 Eyre, Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, ii. 355 Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, ii. 163. Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, i. 413. 2 never enter into the mind of any man by nature; because, though men may put together words. . . . as Spirit and Incorporeall; yet they can never have the imagination of anything answering to them." Descartes himself frankly confessed, "What the soul itself was I either did not stay to consider, or, if I did, I imagined that it was something extremely rare and subtile, like wind, or flame, or ether, spread through my grosser parts." The supernatural agents were consequently of necessity considered to possess a more or less material constitution. The disembodied human soul which the savage saw in dreams or visions, in the shadow or the reflection, was only the least material being which he could imagine; and when raised to the dignity of an ancestor-god, it by no means lost its materiality, but, on the contrary, tended to acquire a more substantial body. Of a grosser substantiality and very unlike the human shape are the inanimate objects of nature which receive divine veneration. It has been said of savages that they do not worship the thing itself, only the spirit dwelling in it. But such a distinction cannot be primitive. The natural object is worshipped because it is believed to possess supernatural power, but it is nevertheless the object itself that is worshipped. Castrén, who combined great personal experience with unusual acuteness of judgment, states that the Samoyedes do not know of any spirits attached to objects of nature, but worship the objects as such; "in other words, they do not separate the spirit from the matter, but adore the thing in its totality as a divine being.' Of the deification of the Nerbudda river Sir W. H. Sleeman likewise observes, "As in the case of the Ganges, it is the river itself to whom they address themselves, and not to any deity residing in it, or presiding over it-the stream itself is the deity which fills their imaginations, and receives their 1 Hobbes, op. cit. i. 12, p. 8o. 2 Descartes, Meditationes, 2, p. 10. 3 Cf. Tiele, Max Müller und Fritz Schultze über ein Problem der Religions 4 wissenschaft, p. 35; Parkman, op. cit. p. Ixvii. (North American Indians). 4 Castrén, op. cit. iii. 192. Cf. ibid. iii. 161, 200 sq. 1 homage." The animist who endows an inanimate object. with a soul regards the visible thing itself as its body.2 How a being with such a body, like a tree or a stone, can hear the words of men, can see their doings, and can partake of the food they offer, might be difficult to explain-if it had to be explained. But, as I have said, the inquisitiveness of savage curiosity does not go to the roots of things, and religion is in its essence mystery. However, in proportion as a supernatural being comes more and more to occupy the thoughts of its worshippers and to stir their imagination, a more distinct personality is attributed to it; and at length neither the ethereal or vaporous materiality of a departed human soul, nor the crude substantiality of an inanimate object is considered a satisfactory body for such a being. It is humanised also with regard to its essential shape. The Koriaks of Siberia believe "that objects and phenomena of nature conceal an anthropomorphic substance underneath their outer forms"; but they also show the first signs of a belief in spiritual owners or masters ruling over certain classes of things or over large objects. The supernatural being which is originally embodied in a natural phenomenon is gradually placed behind it. In the Vedic hymns we may study this anthropomorphism as a process in growth. The true gods of the Veda are almost without exception the deified representatives of the phenomena or forces of nature, which are personified, though in varying degrees. When the name of the god is the same as that of his natural basis, the personification has not yet advanced beyond the rudimentary stage; names like Dyaus ("heaven "), Prthivi ("earth"), Surya ("sun"), Usas ("dawn"), represent the double character of natural phenomena and of the personalities presiding over them. Speaking of the nature of the gods, the ancient Vedic interpreter Yaska remarks that "what is seen of the gods is certainly not 1 Sleeman, Kambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, i. 20. 2 Castrén, op. cit. iii. 164 sq. 3 Jochelson, Koryak Religion and Myth,' in Jesup Nor Pacific Expedition, vi. 115, 118. 4 Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 591 sqq. 3 anthropomorphic, for example the sun, the earth, and so forth." Again, when the name of the god is different from that of the physical substance he is supposed to inhabit, the anthropomorphism is more developed, though never very distinct. The Vedic people always recognised behind its gods the natural forces of which they were the expression, and their physical appearance often only represents aspects of their natural bases figuratively described to illustrate their activities. The sun is spoken of as the eye with which Varuna observes mankind; or it is said that the all-seeing sun, rising from his abode, goes to the dwellings of Mitra and Varuna to report the deeds of men. Even to this day the Hindu, to whatever sect he may belong, does homage to the rising sun every morning of his life by repeating a text of the Veda. The god does not very readily change his old solid body for another which, though more respectable, has the disadvantage of being invisible. The simple unreflecting mind finds it easier to worship a material thing which may be seen, than a hidden god, however perfect in shape. To the common Japanese the sun is still the god to whom he prays morning and evening. Whilst Chinese scholars declare that the sacrifice offered to Heaven "is assuredly not addressed to the material and sensible heaven, which our eyes see, but to the Master of heaven, earth, and all things, " the people are less metaphysical; and the Russian peasant to this day makes an appeal to the Svarog of the old religion when crying, "Dost thou hear, O Sky? dost thou see, O Sky?' That the worship of animals survives at comparatively late stages of civilisation is probably due to the double advantage of their bodies being both visible and animate. 1 Nirukta, vii. 4, quoted by Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 209. 2 Rig Veda, 1. 50. 6. Hopkins, op. cit. p. 67. Cf. Rig-Veda, i. 25. 10 sq.; i. 136. 2. 3 Rig-Veda, vii. 60. 1 sq. See Macdonell, op. cit. pp. 2, 15, 17, 23; Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 6; Barth, 5 Religions of India, p. 178; Oldenberg, Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and 5 Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 87. 6 Legge, Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits, p. 38. 7 Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 362. But though man created his gods in his own image. and likeness, endowing them with a mind and a body modelled after his own, he never lost sight of the difference between him and them. He always ascribed to them a superior power of action; otherwise they would have been no gods at all. In many cases, at least, he also attributed to them a superior knowledge. The Bechuanas maintain that their gods are much wiser than they are themselves. In the admonitions of an Aztek mother to her daughter reference is made to a god who "sees every secret fault." The gods of the Greeks and Romans were possessed of superhuman wisdom,3 and so was Yahveh. It is true that the anthropomorphic god acquires knowledge of the affairs of men through his senses. When hearing the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, Yahveh said, "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know." 4 But the senses of a god are generally superior to those of "A god," says Orestes, "can hear even from a distance." 5 Varuna has an all-seeing eye, and the Zoroastrian Mithra has a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. In other respects, also, the bodies of gods excel the bodies of men. Sometimes they are more beautiful, sometimes they have a gigantic shape. When Ares is felled to the ground by the stone flung by Athene, his body covers seven roods of land. When Here takes a solemn oath, she grasps the earth with one hand and the sea with the other.s In three steps Poseidon goes an immense distance; in three paces Vishnu traverses earth, air, and sky.10 a man. 9 However, the tendency to make gods more and more 1 Arbousset and Daumas, Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 341. Sahagun, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, vi. 19, vol. ii. 131. Cf. Westcott, Essays in the History of Religious Thought, p. 101. 4 Genesis, xviii. 20 sq. Aeschylus, Eumenides, 297. 6 Yasts, x. 7. 8 Ibid. xiv. 272 sq. 10 Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, i. 325. |