Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/500

 mcgee] THE TREND OF HUMAN PROGRESS 44 1

stress of fear on budding intelligence environed by infinite sources of tragedy, is an umbrage of mystery illumed only by the feeble light of actual knowledge at the center of the cloud investing lower man ; as time passes the mystery is analyzed in terms of his small knowledge, and vaguely formulated as a hierarchy of mysteries, at first maleficent all but gradually becoming benefi- cent in part as his growing experience makes way for conquest over the erstwhile terrible unknown. Naturally some thinkers lead in forcing the environing mysteries, and are spontaneously chosen as chiefs of mystical craft ; their function is to confront and conquer for the weal of their group the dim-peopled shadows of dark imagining ; and in many tribes they are organized in a hierarchy of shamans often equal and sometimes far superior in power to the temporal hierarchy of civil chiefs. It is the duty of the shaman to encompass knowledge mystically, and the duty of the warrior and food-finder to encompass facts experimentally ; and as knowledge develops under its cumulative law the mystery of paternity is solved, and the savage gains a new hold on the forces shaping his own career. Thenceforth the family organiza- tion becomes paternal, and savagery grows into barbaric culture. Scripture teaches that this type of culture grew into a patriarchal- priestly organization, and that under its beneficent influence population multiplied, raising problems of territorial tenure ; classic history teaches that the territorial factor grew into a priestly cult represented by the god Terminus and the sacred landmark ; while analysis of thought teaches that the conception of personal property-right necessarily awakened the idea of the correlative right of the neighbor — and the maturing concept found sacerdotal expression in the cult of Palestine, which quickly illumed the world, revolutionizing narrower institutions and marking the birth of civilization. The recognition of mate- rial right was followed in due course — albeit two millenniums later — by growing recognition of intellectual right ; and another era in institutional progress began with the inauguration of gov-

�� �