CLXXII ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT [eth. ann. 20 



It is thus b}- repeated aud revived mentations as judgments 

 that concepts or notions arise. These notions constitute opin- 

 ions. We can not make a complete consideration of opinions 

 without considering their origin in the compounding of judg- 

 ments into concepts. 



While opinions often change, they are not necessarily horn 

 to die. Correct oj^inions developed in the individual and 

 propagated from man to man become immortal, while only 

 incorrect opinions ultimately die; but the vast body of opin- 

 ions as they arise from moment to moment are born only for 

 an ephemei'al life. Of those that have appeared upon the 

 stage of history because they have been accepted by the 

 great thinkers, it remains to be said that still the many die 

 and the few live. While they live they are esteemed as 

 science, when they die they are esteemed as errors; hence 

 sophiology can be defined as the science of opinions and their 

 classification as errors or truths when accepted as such by 

 the leaders of human thought, together with the methods of 

 discovering aud propagating such opinions. 



We are now to consider how opinions originate and change. 

 For this purpose we will consider them in groups in the order 

 in which tliey were developed by mankind. These gi'oujis fall 

 into five rubrics: animism, cosmology, mythology, metaphysic, 

 and science. Animism, which is the belief in ghosts, first pre- 

 vailed. We will, therefore, consider this subject first. For the 

 original formulation of this doctrine we are indebted to the 

 great ethnologist Edward B. Tylor. 



The science of ethnology teaches the nature and oi-igiu of 

 the ghost theor\-; that is, it discovei's the nature of ghosts and 

 explains how men come to believe in them. There are many 

 people wIk) l)elievein ghosts, the opinion being a survival from 

 primitive society, but with tribal men the belief is universal. 

 Ethnology also teaches the nature and origin of primitive cos- 

 mology, which has now become discredited, though vestiges of 

 it exist in the opinions of simple folk, when it is called folklore. 

 I have previously set forth the nature and origin of animism 

 and cosmology. 



