§ 8 Influence of the Imaginary Environment
The necessity of learning the whole art of hunting from its rudiments, without the help of instinct or tradition, by sheer observation, memory and inference, put extraordinary stress upon the brain. At first by knowledge, strategy, co-operation and persistence of will, later by devising weapons and snares, evolving language and discovering the ways of making and utilising fire, man found means of entirely changing the conditions of his life; but this would have been impossible without a great development of his brain; and, accordingly, it appears that Eoanthropus, at the beginning of the Pleistocene, had a skull with three times the cubic capacity of the anthropoids. With the growth of the brain came a continually increasing fecundity of ideas. “Piltdown man saw, heard, felt, thought, and dreamt much as we do.”82 The use of ideas is to foresee events and prepare for them beforehand: the great advantage of distance-senses over contact-senses, is to give an animal time to adapt its actions to deferred events; and ideas give this power in a vastly higher degree. So far the utility of brains and ideas seems obvious. But in order that ideas may be useful in this way, they must (one would suppose) represent and anticipate the actual course of events. If they falsely indicate the order of nature, or even beings and actions that do not exist at all, ideas may seem to be worse than useless.
Now, when we turn to the lowest existing savages, they are found to possess, in comparison with apes, a considerable fecundity of ideas; constituting, on the one hand, a good stock of common sense, or knowledge of the properties and activities of the things and animals around them, and of how to deal with them, which enables them to carry on the affairs of a life much more complex and continuous than any animal’s: but including, on the other hand, a strange collection of beliefs about magic and spirits, which entirely misrepresent the course of nature and the effective population of the world. These latter beliefs, or imaginative delusions, hamper them in so many ways, waste so much time, lead them sometimes into such dark and cruel practices, that one may be excused for wondering whether their bigger brains can have been, on the whole, of any biological advantage to them in comparison with the anthropoids. The anthropoids live by common sense. So do savages, and they have much more of it; but the anthropoids seem not to be troubled by magic and animism. We must suppose that the common sense of primitive man increased age by age, as he became more and more perfectly adapted to the hunting-life, and that at some stage his imagination began to falsify the relations of things and the powers of nature. It seems that imagination-beliefs depend chiefly upon the influence of desire and fear, suggestibility, hasty generalisation, and the seduction of reasoning by analogy. At what stage imaginations, thus divorced from reality, began to influence human life, it is impossible to say; but it cannot be less than half a million years ago, if (as Dr. Keith says) Eoanthropus, 400,000 years ago, “thought and dreamt much as we do.” Why did not such delusions hinder our development? Or did they promote it?
The first consideration is, that biological adaptation is nearly always a compromise: if any organ or faculty be useful on the whole, in spite of some disutility, its increase favours the survival of those in whom it increases; and this is true of the brain and its thinking. The second is, that nearly all the magical and animistic beliefs and practices that are socially destructive, probably belong to a stage of human life that is attained long after our differentiation has been established, and when some progress has been made in arts and customs. Savages of the lowest culture have few beliefs that can be called positively injurious. Talismans and spells, not by themselves relied upon, but only adscititious to common-sense actions, give confidence without weakening endeavour. To curse, or to “point the bone,” does not create but merely expresses a malevolent purpose; and, although sometimes fatal by suggestion, is on the whole better than to assassinate. Taboos do more good by protecting person and property and custom than they do harm by restricting the use of foods. Belief in imaginary evils waiting upon secret sins exerts, whilst supported by social unanimity, a control upon all kinds of behaviour: it is the beginning of the “religious sanction,” and one sort of conscience. The dread of spirits that prowl at night keeps people in the family-cave or by the camp-fire; and that is the best place for them. Many rites and observances are sanitary. Totemism rarely does any harm, and may once have usefully symbolised the unity of social groups. Totemic and magical dances give excellent physical training, promote the spirit of co-operation, are a sort of drill; and (like all art), whilst indulging, they also restrain imagination by imposing upon it definite forms. For a long time there was no special profession of wizard or priest, with whose appearance most of the evil of magic and animism originates; though probably even they generally do more good than harm by their courage and sagacity, by discovering drugs and poisons, by laying ghosts, and by their primitive studies in medicine and psychology.
The wizard, however, and the priest, who could never have existed but for the prevalent beliefs in Magic and Animism, have a further and far more important function in human life, namely, the organisation, or rather reorganisation of society. The organisation of the hunting-pack described above was liable through several causes to fall asunder. Some of these causes are obvious: (a) The improvement of weapons and snares and discovery of poisons made very small parties, or even single families, self-sufficing—as among the Bushmen (though they sometimes assembled for a grand hunt).83 (b) Failure of game from desiccation, as in Australia, or because the tribe has been driven into a poor country like Tierra del Fuego; so that a small population is scattered over a wide area, and reduced to a greater or less dependence on “collecting.” (c) The adoption of even a primitive agricultural or pastoral life may make hunting a secondary interest. In such cases the natural leaders of a clan are no longer (as in the old pack) plainly indicated; and if society is to be saved from anarchy, some new control must establish itself for the preservation of tradition and custom. Conceivably this happened in several ways; but in fact (I believe) we know of only one, namely: First, the rule of wizards, who are chiefly old men credited with mysterious power that makes the boldest tribesman quail, such as the headmen and elders of an Australian tribe. In New Guinea, too, and much of Melanesia, the power of rulers, even though recognised as of noble birth, depends chiefly upon their reputation for Magic. And among the Bushmen secrets about poisons and antidotes and colours for painting (probably considered magical) were heirlooms in certain families of chiefs, and gave them caste.84 Secondly, at a later stage, as the belief in ghosts more and more prevails, and ancestral ghosts are worshipped, and ghosts of heroes or chiefs become veritable gods, the priests who celebrate their worship strengthen the position of chiefs or kings descended from these gods, and help to maintain more comprehensive and coherent governments than those established upon Magic only; though to these later forms, also, and to Religion itself magical beliefs contribute their support. The inevitable development of illusory imaginations along with common sense, then, assisted early and also later culture, because they preserved order and cohesion by re-arousing the ancient submission and loyalty of the pack. For common sense is always limited to present conditions, it could never have foreseen the dependence of human life upon order and the necessity of maintaining cohesion even at great immediate sacrifices. These interests were, therefore, served indirectly through delusions; natural selection must, within certain limits, have favoured the superstitious. Excessively imaginative and superstitious tribes may sometimes have been eliminated; for common sense also has biological utility. But, perverse as it may seem, imaginations utterly false have had their share in promoting “progress”: co-operating with agriculture and trade, magic, religions and the fine arts have, by supporting government and civil order, helped in accommodating us, and even in some measure adapting us, to our present condition, such as it is.