Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/806

 powell] SOCIOLOGY, OR THE SCIENCE OF INSTITUTIONS 735

motive of religion is the gain of happiness, and the methods of religion are the methods of obtaining happiness.

We are now to explain what methods of securing superlative happiness are devised in savagery.

Esthetic joys are the primary pleasures. Such joys are founded on the pleasures of physical activity ; not the activity of labor itself, but on social activity. The dance is the primeval ceremony of religion ; connate with it is the joy of feasting, so that both feasting and dancing constitute connate religious cere- monies that are universal in savage society. The festival is a religious ceremony of savagery. Preparation for the highest enjoyment of the festival is often found in the practice of fast- ing, so fasting becomes antecedent to festival. The pleasures of love naturally arise through the social pleasures of the festival and are often added. Therefore superlative happiness consists in the revelry of the festival.

Days come and wants are renewed. Plenty brings joy, but hunger brings pain. The memory of want is the mother of fear. The experience of hunger is the primitive motive to industry, but industry has precarious rewards in savagery. The hunt may be in vain. The tree may not yield its fruits. The savage seems forever to be the victim of chance. The seasons come with heat and cold, with sunshine and with storm, and these vicissitudes press upon the savage a load of care and thought, for good and evil are dependent on the changes of nature. Over this nature he seeks to gain control. Primitive man knows of control only as control of motive. The ghosts of the world must be con- trolled in the interest of the people of the tribe. Ere he has learned to plant he attempts to allure, and before he attempts to control he attempts to propitiate. He would secure happiness from the ghosts of the world by tempting them with the super- lative joys with which he is himself conscious. So he attempts to influence ghosts with festivals, and to hold audience with the ghosts by charming them with the highest pleasures with which

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