Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/222

 2o6 Reviews.

the omission prevents his book from being anything more than a study of one aspect of the marriage relation. For him, the entire fabric of human institutions, if I understand him correctly, rests upon " the taboo of personal isolation, which is implicit in all human relations." " Owing to the taboo of personal isolation and egoism," he tells us, "all society, as such, is dangerous." "As man was perhaps not always gregarious, so in early society he had none of the solidarity of clan, tribe, or kin, which is often attri- buted to him." Taboo arises, in fact, out of the intense indivi- dualism of every human being, and the terror and distrust which every other human being inspires. The terror and distrust are not merely directed against violence and conscious magic. What is equally dreaded is the unconscious infection of personal qualities, or accidents. As between the sexes this dread is em- phasised. Consequently, one of the two principal objects of mar- riage-rites is to avert the danger of contact.

It is obvious, however, that " the taboo of personal isolation " cannot be a foundation for society. It must have resulted in the speedy extinction of the race, if, indeed, the race could ever have come into existence. Mr. Crawley, of course, perceives this. He admits that " man's desire for social union and harmony is very keen ; " but he uses the fact that ceremonial methods are em- ployed to produce both social union and union between individuals (the distinction is fine) as an argument against the solidarity often attributed to the tribe or the clan. " Why," he asks, " these anxious methods of wielding together the body politic, if the ' tie of blood ' was instinctively so strong ? " The truth is that, so far from the methods used being " anxious " or unexpected, they are by Mr. Crawley himself derived from " a physiological impulse " — the impulse to assimilation, to union. If this be a physiological impulse, as undoubtedly it is, if it be an impulse of universal range, as equally undoubtedly it is, it must be as natural to man as " the taboo of personal isolation," or the individualism on which that taboo (assuming it exists in the manner and with the force here ascribed to it) rests. What then is the ground for deciding " that in primitive society, as now, individualism still shows itself above a?iy connection of marriage or relationship " ? It is surely going too far to assert that so intense is the egoism of primitive man that a// society, aii intercourse, is dangerous. This is not the testimony of travellers, and Mr. Crawley's own pages bear