Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/419

 Totemtsm in the Evolution of Religion. 379

Indeed, I am wondering whether I can claim as much, for Professor Tylor seems to think that a hypothesis is inad- missible till it is proved — which would rule all hypotheses whatever out of court. " Till the totem sacrament," he says, " is vouched for by some more real proof it had better fall out of speculative theology." But if theology only admitted things which were already proved, it would no longer be speculative, if theology. I fear it would cease even to be progressive, and I am sure it would be very dull.

At the time when the above paper was written, I had not seen Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's Native Tribes of Central Australia ; but by the courtesy of the editor I am now allowed to add by way of postscript a few remarks on the light thrown on the subject of totemism by the publication of that valuable contribution to anthropology. To some extent it has eclipsed the gaiety of theology by converting the " totem-sacrament " from an engaging hypothesis into a sober fact, a fact which perhaps after all " had better " not " fall out of speculative theology."

The discovery of this striking testimony to the genius, and the accuracy of the late Professor Robertson Smith's scientific imagination, not only shows that science would be the poorer if some or all hypotheses were ruled out of court, it changes the conditions under which the place of totemism in the evolution of religion must be discussed. As long as the totem-sacrament was a pure hypothesis, the only way in default of the direct evidence, which has now turned up, was to cast about for everything which might be regarded as a survival of it, or an indication of its previous existence. The obvious method of meeting this line of argument, and a method largely employed by M. Marillier, was to appeal to the " plurality of causes," and to point out that the supposed effects of totemism might quite well be due to other causes, and that consequently we must, if we wish to be scientific, build on those other causes known to exist, and not on such