316 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
bodies of the solar system to be discerned without the optical inventions 
of man; he sees the lightning, hears the thunder, feels the wind and 
knows the value of rains and snows; he is acquainted with the beasts of 
the forests, the birds and insects of the air, the fishes of the rivers, and 
knows that these living things possess attributes not attainable by him- 
self, and so he endows these animals with superior or supernatural 
qualities.” (Jnter. Congr. Anthr., 1893, p. 317.) 
Again: 
“ Our concepts of the universe are altogether different from those of 
primitive man ; we understand phenomena through philosophical laws, 
while he accounts for them by analogy ; we live in a world of reality, he 
in a world of mysticism and symbolism ; he is deeply impressed by his 
natural.environment, every object with him possessing a spiritual life, 
so that celestial bodies, mountains, rocks, the flora of the earth and the 
earth itself are to him quite different from what they are tous. The 
sturdy pine, delicate sapling, fragrant blossom, giant rock and tiny 
pebble play alike their part in the mystic world of aboriginal man,” 
(p. 318.) 
We can detect no symptom of world-wide insanity here, but rather 
the beginnings of the profoundest philosophy, the most consoling 
religion man shall ever come to know. Nature never hypnotized the 
race with lower aim than God when he intoxicated Spinoza. Too 
often have critics and historians forgotten the truth enunciated by 
Heinrich Heine: “Thought is the unseen nature, as nature is the unseen 
thought.” Primitive man’s view of nature is not that of the inmate of 
an asylum, but the view of a normal human being who deeply felt, 
though but dimly, at times, he perceived, the great thought of Goethe : 
“In Nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connec- 
tion with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and 
over it.” 
In ignorance, no doubt, of the vast amount of primitive literature, 
accumulated by the patient toil and unwearying industry of the last 
quarter of a century of anthropological investigation, some writers have 
seen fit to vouchsafe to the uncivilized races but little power of descrip- 
tion, a plenitude of monotony, and childish, rather than child-like 
imagination. How unjust. this charge is, a moment’s study of the 
original documents will show. Take the creation-myths alone— 
hours would not suffice to enumerate them even, much less to describe 
them. 
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