300 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



of reflection, observation and experiment, he would be able to 

 discriminate between taboo and taboo. All that seemed real 

 and genuine he might naturally trace to the spirits that were 

 present everywhere, and the result might well be that he would, 

 with full conviction, take upon him the character of a religious 

 reformer. Religion might then assume a higher form, giving 

 its sanction only to those taboos which tended to the good of 

 society. This is not a reform of taboo by religion, but a reform 

 of religion (of which the taboo system was part) owing to a 

 mutiny of common sense and experience against the tangled 

 accretion of absurdities that were strangling social life. But 

 doubtless the reformer said little or nothing about practical 

 experience. He said that some taboos were right and others 

 were wrong. He himself may have regarded the injurious 

 consequences of some taboo restrictions as due not so much to 

 their foolish nature as to the disfavour of a god. Nevertheless 

 it must have been common sense using the test of experience 

 that told him which of all the taboos deserved to survive. 

 How could it have been otherwise when they appeared in ever 

 multiplying swarms till it seemed likely that the contagion would 

 infect the whole world ? In fact the transmissibility of taboo 

 must necessarily have made its yoke so galling that even a 

 sluggish people, most loth to reform itself, might well be driven 

 to make an effort to fling it off. But practical philosophy had 

 other means at hand with which to undermine taboo. Inter- 

 course between tribe and tribe must have brought to light 

 many unrealities : what was taboo in one was innocent and 

 harmless in another : things which one tribe shunned with awe 

 and horror, the other handled fearlessly and with impunity. 

 The bladder must thus eventually get pricked. 



To sum up then, we find in the taboo system, which is 

 essentially religious, evidence that morality rests on a religious 

 foundation. The reform of taboo, where it has taken place, we 

 trace to a revolt of common sense against the numberless accre- 

 tions that made it not only an absurdity but a curse to the 

 peoples among whom it prevailed. 1 



1 On Taboo, see also the article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on the subject. 



