sexual character."1 This is met in the first place by the objection that, terminations expressive of gender could only carry with them the idea of sex with peoples whose language was so constructed. For an adverse example, Mr. Spencer cites the ancient Peruvians, whose names for natural objects had no genders; notwithstanding which, the Peruvians personified all natural objects. The fact is, (thinks Mr. Spencer), sunshine and storm and the like were represented as persons because, sunshine and storm actually were persons who lived upon the earth under these names. Savages do not receive proper names or family names; but (and abundant instances are given to prove it) they are called after some event, some coincidence, some "juxtaposition." If it thundered or hailed at the hour of a birth, the infant would be called Thunder or Hail. In short, if you want the explanation of Mythology you must look for it in ancestor-worship.

The prominent idea in Professor Müller's mind is that, primevous man was, by the force of unbridled fancy heightened by ignorance and fear, and by the accident of his poor and metaphorical speech, a being of rude poetic feelings. As might be expected, the poetical element meets with little favour in the eyes of Mr. Spencer. "The intellectual mind," says he, with just a flick of contempt, "has neither the emotional tendencies nor the intellectual tendencies which the mythologists assume." 2 "Daily experiences prove that surrounding objects and powers, however great, excite no religious emotion in undeveloped minds if they are common and not supposed to be dangerous." "The lowest types of men are devoid of wonder." "In primitive man there does not exist that sentiment which nature-worship presupposes." Primitive man is not a poet, he is not addicted to "imaginative fictions." "Amongst a posteriori reasons for rejecting the mythological theory it is not true, as tacitly alleged, that the primitive man looks at the powers of nature with awe. It Sociology, appendix, vol. i.

1 Chips, ii. p. 57.

2

is not true that he speculates about their causes. not true that he has a tendency to make fictions." 1

It is

So much for the salient principles of these two writers. Their strength and their weakness may be evoked by reference to the opinions of others who move between the

two extremes.

Dr. Edward Tylor has devoted his attention to "Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom." These subjects have been for some years his particular study. His extensive knowledge, therefore, is of the greatest help to us, especially if we avail ourselves of his uncommon sagacity in the use of it.

In both the systems glanced at, there is now and then manifested a perceptible proneness to à priori reasoning. Before Mr. Max Müller, Bunsen had written, "All polytheism is based on monotheism." After Bunsen, Mr. Müller has written, "No human mind could have conceived the idea of gods without having previously conceived the idea of a God." Professor Müller trims his hypotheses to this belief as confidently as Mr. Spencer trims his to suit the doctrine of evolution. To a bystander, each consequently seems to heel to the side he favours. And one is not surprised to hear Mr. Spencer speaking contemptuously of "mythologists," or Mr. Max Müller speaking inappreciatively of "Euhemerists." Mr. Tylor, though a pronounced evolutionist, adopts a method which is strictly à posteriori. The astonishing mass of materials he sets before us, leaves a general impression behind that the subject, if not too intricate for analysis, is so many-sided as to render any definite theory incomplete. In dealing with mythology as the oldest form into which religious belief was crystallised, we meet with traces of historical and heroic myths, of nature-myths, and of theological myths, so contorted that, (to use a geological phrase), there is no constancy in either " strike " or " dip;" or to take a better simile, so conglomerated that the

1 Ubi supra.

fragments are as compactly set as in a lump of puddingstone. Had I to select a single sentence from the "Primitive Culture" which might serve as a guide to its main argument concerning incipient religion, I should choose this: Mythology rests on a basis of analogy." With the book before us, we can soon test the virtue of the proposition.

*

The influence of language has been duly weighed; the relation of spirit to soul or ghost has been duly weighed; (we shall note Mr. Tylor's opinion on both heads); and the net result is: "Deep as language lies in our mental life, the direct comparison of object with object, and action with action, lies yet deeper." 1 Whatever we may think of Mr. Spencer's opinion that, "there is no tendency gratuitously to ascribe duality of nature," or that it is not true that the savage speculates about causes, or has a tendency to make fictions,-it must be true that he observes or becomes aware of what he has the direct evidence of likeness for. If he dreams, if he sees another faint, if his shadow accompanies him, if he hears an echo, he has (as Mr. Spencer himself shows) immediate proof, or what is unavoidably taken for such, of a twofold existence. No innate tendency to arrive at this conclusion is called for. Nor need we dub the savage a philosopher, or talk of his speculating on natural causes, because, having always observed movement to be dependent on life in himself and in other animals, he argues that movement and life are inseparable concomitants. Whether he has or has not a tendency to make fictions, it is certain that he does make them. If "fictions" stand here for poetical fictions, or for myths, then I maintain it is a mere question of degree, not of kind. True, a poetic fiction or a myth must have some sort of artistic finish or completeness about it: it must make some pretence to a beginning, a middle, and an end. But myth in this stage is the developed fiction-the fullgrown tree which was but as grain of mustard-seed. A dream or a phantasm is a fiction; and either might have 1 Researches, &c., i. p. 298.

been the stuff of which a myth was made. When primitive man saw the lightning dart from the cloud, and rive an oak to shreds, it was no act of poetic imagination on his part to ascribe the fact to a living power above him. As a human being (and we are not now talking of beings incapable of the simplest process of reasoning), he argued from analogy. He compared object with object, and action with action, and the result was an erroneous theory of causation, and a fiction doubtless not devoid of poetry.

man.

Mr. Tylor repeatedly emphasises our right to assume close resemblance between the modern savage and early With endless detail he acquaints us with the myths still prevalent in all quarters of the world. In alluding to them, he says: “When in surveying the quaint fancies and wild legends of the lower tribes, we find the mythology of the world at once in its most distinct and most rudimentary form, we may here again claim the savage as a representative of the childhood of the human race.' “The various grades of existing civilisation preserve the landmarks of a long course of history, and there survive by millions savages and barbarians whose minds still produce, in rude archaic forms, man's early mythic representations of nature."2 The worship of heaven, of the sun and moon, and powers of nature generally, have been alluded to. Everywhere we still meet with myth and legend; everywhere myth and legend are compounds of personified nature, metaphorical corruptions, exaggerated heroisms, perverted remnants of history, beastfables, and allegory; the whole touched up by the hand of intrinsic art, and rounded by the wear of time. As for the worship of ancestors, Mr. Tylor fully supports Mr. Spencer regarding its universality. "Manes-worship," he writes, "is one of the great branches of the religion of mankind." A chapter is filled with instances of this custom amongst the inhabitants of both Americas, the Polynesians, the Malays, the natives of Madagascar, the Zulus, the Western 1 Vol. i. p. 284. 2 Ibid. p. 317.

Africans, the Veddas of Ceylon, the Japanese, Chinese, and generally throughout Asia. But we are not here at the root-the tap-root of religion. Anthropomorphic conception based on analogy-based on the direct comparison. of action with action,-this, in the last analysis, is the simplest element of religious belief. "The general theory that such direct conceptions of nature as are so naïvely and even boldly uttered in the Veda, are among the primary sources of myth, is enforced by evidence gained elsewhere in the world." 1

Language has undoubtedly played its part: "The teachings of a childlike primeval philosophy ascribing personal life to nature at large, and the early tyranny of speech over the human mind, have thus been the two great, perhaps greatest, agents in mythologic development.'

The distinction of grammatical gender is a process ultimately connected with the formation of myths." Still, anthropomorphism comes first.

Although the discussion turns here mainly upon the order in time of the different stages of the mythopoeic operation, the divergence between Mr. Spencer and Professor Müller is of vital consequence. I confess I can discover nothing in the formation of the religious myth which would surpass the capabilities of the untutored mind of the rudest barbarian ;-nothing, therefore, to hinder my adherence, for the main, to the principles so famously defended by Mr. Spencer. Nevertheless, I take the liberty to think that, by his own showing, Mr. Spencer is not always self-consistent. More than once he tells us, in furtherance of his particular views that, "daily experiences prove that surrounding objects and powers, however great, excite no religious emotion in undeveloped minds," that, "only when there is an unfamiliar appearance, or motion, or sound, or change in a thing, does there arise this idea of a possessing spirit." 2 In the first place, these two sentences seem to cancel each other; 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 339.

1 Ubi supra.