28 Science Religion and Reality 



Bruhl, gave an impetus to the student's interest in what the savage 

 does in his more sober moods. The results were startling indeed : 

 Professor Levy- Bruhl tells us, to put it in a nutshell, that primitive 

 man has no sober moods at all, that he is hopelessly and com- 

 pletely immersed in a mystical frame of mind. Incapable of 

 dispassionate and consistent observation, devoid of' the power of 

 abstraction, hampered by " a decided aversion towards reasoning," 

 he is unable to draw any benefit from experience, to construct or 

 comprehend even the most elementary laws of nature. " For 

 minds thus orientated there is no fact purely physical." Nor can 

 there exist for them any clear idea of substance and attribute, 

 cause and effect, identity and contradiction. Their outlook is 

 that of confused superstition, " pre-logical," made of mystic 

 " participations " and " exclusions." I have here summarised 

 a body of opinion, of which the brilliant French sociologist is 

 the most decided and competent spokesman, but which numbers, 

 besides, many anthropologists and philosophers of renown. 



But there are also dissenting voices. When a scholar and 

 anthropologist of the measure of Professor J. L. Myres entitles 

 an article in Notes and Queries " Natural Science," and when we 

 read there that the savage's " knowledge based on observation is 

 distinct and accurate," we must surely pause before accepting 

 primitive man's irrationality as a dogma. Another highly com- 

 petent writer. Dr. A. A. Goldenwei§er, speaking about primitive 

 " discoveries, inventions and improvements " — which could hardly 

 be attributed to any pre-empirical or pre-logical mind — ^affirms 

 that " it would be unwise to ascribe to the primitive mechanic 

 merely a passive part in the origination of inventions. Many a 

 happy thought must have crossed his mind, nor was he wholly 

 unfamiliar with the thrill that comes from an idea effective in 

 action." Here we see the savage endowed with an attitude of 

 mind wholly akin to that of a modern man of science ! 



To bridge over the wide gap between the two extreme opinions 

 current on the subject of primitive man's reason, it will be best to 

 resolve the problem into two questions. 



First, has the savage any rational outlook, any rational mastery 

 of his surroundings, or is he, as M. Levy-Bruhl and his school 

 maintain, entirely " mystical " ? The answer will be that every 

 primitive community is in possession of a considerable store of 

 knowledge, based on experience and fashioned by reason. 



