Cults, myths and religions

Salomon Reinach, Elizabeth Frost-Knappman

Sujets

• Religion
• Mythology

Informations

• Publié par: les_archives_du_savoir
• Nombre de lectures: 8
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

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iERKELEY ^
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yCALIFORNIA
EDWARD SAKER,
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'II •'.•.\f:!IA.\>. INCI AM.\JCULTS, MYTHS AND RELIGIONSMYTHSCULTS,
RELIGIONSAND
REINACHSALOMON
BYTRANSLATED
ELIZABETH FROST
LONDON
NUTTDAVID
STREETOXFORDSTREET, NEWGRAPE17
1912STACKLOAN3Uo
INTRODUCTION
evolutionist—and we are all evolution-In the eyes of the
beast, humanity fromists nowadays—man springs from
take him where and when youanimality. But man,
the Positivistwill, is a religious animal ; and religiosity, as
Itwould say, is the most essential of his attributes.
de Mortilletcan no longer be maintained, with Gabriel
ignorant ofand Hovelacque, that quaternary man was
andUnless, then, we admit the gratuitousreligion.
revelation, we mustchildlike hypothesis of a primitive
psychology, notlook for the origin of religions in the
fromcivilised man, but of man the farthest removedof
civilisation.
we have noOf this man, anterior to all history,
the imple-knowledge, beyond what we glean fromdirect
quaternary period.and artistic products of thements
striven toteach us something, as I haveTrue, these
teachlater page but, equally truly, theyshow on a ;
ourthan we could wish. To supplementus far less
tapped :three other sources have to beinformation,
psychologypsychology of the present-day savage, thethe
animals.and the psychology of the higherof children,
savages andprobable that animals, certain thatIt is
the twilitare animists—that they projectchildren,
into the externalintelligence, stirring within them,
V
502:
INTRODUCTIONvi
people the universe, especially the beingsworld, and
surround them, with a life and sentimentand objects that
own. Poetry, with her personificationsakin to their
metaphors, is only a self-conscious survival ofand her
of mind, which we might even say has foundthis state
eleventh-hour justification in the scientific monisman
discerns everywhere the manifestations of onewhich
of energy.identical principle
not only obey that residuum ofThe higher animals
experience known as instinct they haveancestral ;
'energies curbed by scruples. Hawks dotheir physical
hawks' een,' says the homely adage andnot pike out ;
alleged against the generalany exceptions that may be
confirm it. This scruple, in regard torule serve only to
devouring the flesh of the species,shedding the blood or
but in the case of everymay not be primitive ;
protected, vitalwhose young need to be suckled or it is a
Where no such scruplecondition of its preservation.
existed,the species has quicklyand inevitablydisappeared
natural selection is powerless against suicide. With
ofprimitive or savage humanity, the scruple blood
would seem less general than among certain animals.
^/
homini lupus, said Hobbes. On the other handHomo
it is singularly intense in certain groups united by ties
of consanguinity ; that is to say, in clans whose members
believe themselves to be descendedfrom acommon mother
—descent from the female being the only form of filiation
which can be absolutely established.
Thus the scruple—this barrier opposed to the destruc-
appetites—is heritagetive an transmitted to man from
animals. Scruples, or at least certain scruples, are as
natural to him as the religious itself. In fact,sentiment
scruples and animism combined are the starting-point of