Historical Relations 89 



of the beasts on which he preyed. Yet, despite these powers and 

 aspirations, we cannot admit that man in the pre-civiHsed stages can 

 be said to have the capacity that we call scientific. 



Science involves, and must involve, something far more than 

 the mere power to observe and record. It is true that much of 

 scientific practice is little else than the systematic collection and 

 record of observations, and our savage has perhaps in certain 

 matters attained to the systematic stage. But behind the vast 

 systematic collection of observations that occupies the main 

 scientific effort throughout the ages there is a motive, an aspiration, 

 that is absent from the savage mind. It is just that motive which 

 makes science. The scientific motive is provided by a conscious 

 faith in the existence of general laws underlying the multiplicity 

 of phenomena. Science is the purposeful search for such general 

 laws that can then be used to link together the observed pheno- 

 mena. The savage has none of this faith, this aspiration. If he 

 had, he would cast off his magic and cease to be a savage. This 

 faith, we have said, is a thing consciously held. It is something 

 moreover which is by no means necessarily implied when the savage 

 resorts, as he often does, to reason. While many modern anthro- 

 pologists are disposed to deny the existence of a pre-logical stage of 

 human development, they must, we believe, admit a pre^scientijic 

 stage. Where there is no science or where science is not yet 

 differentiated, we cannot hope to trace anything which concerns 

 us here.^ 



3. Early Religions 



Let us now glance at the religious practices and beliefs of the 

 savage. We say religious practices and beliefs because on this 

 level man cannot be said to profess a religion. We observe that 



1 I find that what I have written above concerning the absence of science 

 among peoples on the anthropological level traverses statements in the previous 

 essay. Dr. Malinowski regards science as a very early development. The 

 difference between us is, however, almost entirely verbal. It is due to the fact that 

 I have interpreted science as the self-conscious investigation of nature with the 

 direct and avowed object of educing general laws. Such is science as we know 

 it to-day and as the Greeks knew it. Dr. Malinowski, however, rightly 

 considers that there are certain scientific elements even in the most primitive 

 culture and it is these elements that he calls science. I should describe this early 

 stage as science in the making. If the reader will bear these terminological 

 differences in mind, he will perceive that there is little or no difference between 

 Dr. Malinowski and myself. 



