Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/413

 Totemism m the Evolution of Religion. 373

against my theory/ but is itself the theory which I am seeking to maintain.

Whether the totemistic organisation of society is or is not a necessary stage in the evolution of society, is a question which is primarily one for sociologists to decide. But it is also one in which historians of religion have an interest ; and it is remarkable that both Professor Tylor and M. Ma- rillier have so little to say about it. The former allows it " far greater importance in sociology than in religion;"- the latter admits casually that totemist institutions are to be found everywhere, but does not anywhere think it necessary to answer, or even to ask the question, whether they are a necessary phase of social evolution. Yet it would dispose finally of the religious importance of totemism, if it could be shown that there was no reason to regard it as a necessary stage in the evolution of society. I propose, therefore, to take judgment by default, and to regard the social necessity and importance of totemism as conceded. I think I may fairly say that by most sociologists it is as- sumed.

Now if totemism, as a form of social organisation, is thus necessary and has thus been universal, I submit that as a form of religious organisation it cannot be dismissed as of secondary importance to theology,^ and that there is nothing narrow in the attempt to fix the relation in which it stands to other and historically later forms of religious organisation. Professor Tylor speaks of " the ancient and powerful action of the totems at once in consolidating clans and allying them together within the larger circle of the tribe," and he says " this may well have been amongst the most effective pro- cesses in the early social growth of the human race." * Yet

' The possessive pronoun here and elsewhere must not be taken to mean that I claim the theory, or whatever it is, as my own invention, but simply that I am interested in arguing on behalf of the theory.

- Journal of the Anthropological Institute, loc. cit., p. 1^4.

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 * Ibid., p. 143.