354 Science Religion and Reality 



The statement that myth is not a speculation, nor the result of 

 contemplation of nature or of the desire to explain natural pheno- 

 mena, but rather a historical record of an important event, out of 

 which a ritual act has been born, is manifestly true only of one class 

 of myths. The savage is not without curiosity ; he is a natural 

 " animist," and he enjoys poetical and picturesque descriptions. 

 His cosmological myths may be described as poetical nature- 

 philosophy ; they have no close connection with his tribal customs 

 and disciplines. 



Before leaving this subject it is worth while to notice that 

 belief in the supernatural presupposes a belief in natural law. 

 Where there is no law, there is no miracle. The savage dislikes 

 the idea of a lawless universe ; and when he sees countless things 

 happening of which he can give no rational explanation, he assumes 

 that there is another causative principle, besides the natural order 

 on the regularity of which he counts in sowing his fields. Having 

 once restored his belief in law and order by this hypothesis, he is 

 content to ascribe wind and rain and everything else that seems 

 irregular to supernatural agency, and then to speculate whether 

 this power is in any way amenable to control. Rain-making is an 

 almost universal industry among savages, and we are told that 

 twenty years ago there were still old women in the Shetlands who 

 made a livelihood by selling winds to seamen. It is a slow process 

 to find out the limits of the possible ; the principle of causation is 

 fully realised, but its operation is unknown. Lubbock gives an 

 example of a Kaffir who broke a piece of a stranded anchor and 

 died soon afterwards, upon which all the Kaffirs looked upon the 

 anchor as alive, and saluted it respectfully whenever they passed 

 near it. We behave in the same way when our science is at fault. 

 A house in which there have been two deaths from cancer is not 

 easily let. The savage eats a tiger, or a slain enemy, to make him 

 fierce ; the British parent stuffs his boys with roast beef to make 

 them strong. There are to this day, I believe, remedies in the 

 materia medica which have no origin except sympathetic magic. 



Dr. Malinowski sums up magic as " pseudo-science," and yet 

 feels bound to find a justification for it and a value in it. It repre- 

 sents, he thinks, " the sublime folly of hope," which has encouraged 

 men to face life with courage, and therefore with some chance of 

 success. Without disputing this, we must remember that the 

 false science has been the deadliest enemy of the true. Religion 



