Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/404

380 school bases its investigations upon the theoretically primitive group, and denies that its mental processes may be deduced or its institutions explained by the consideration of the individual mentality. On the other hand, the English school adheres to the theory of a close analogy between the mental processes of primitive man and civilized man, the influence of individual mind and personality in the formation of social institutions, and the legitimacy of reconstructing primitive mental processes in the light of our own mental life. M. Lévy-Bruhl attacks the English school on this score at the outset of his work. He states that the mental processes of peoples of lower cultures, their institutions, and in fact almost all things in their lives, are of a social rather than an individual character,—"representations collectives,"—and as such must obey the laws of a psychology founded upon the collective rather than the individual consciousness.

Animism is the particular object of M. Lévy-Bruhl's onslaught, since it involves the axiomatic assumption of one mental mechanism common to man at whatever stage of culture. He accuses British anthropologists of making animism a sort of residuary legatee for the reception of all rites and beliefs not obviously connected elsewhere. It is unfortunately true that in some instances the comparative method has been utilized in this country with more of zeal than caution. But in all the body of facts brought together in this book there is nothing which successfully controverts a rational application of the animistic hypothesis. The author seems to think that in proving the existence of belief in a plurality of souls amongst savages he has confuted the entire Tylorian theory. M. Lévy-Bruhl's real reason for denying animism seems to be that it does not fit in with his scheme of a generic difference between the mental workings of the savage and the civilized man.

If it be assumed that primitive man's mental processes are entirely different from ours, how is it possible for us to learn each other's language, to understand each other by utilizing the mechanism of generically different mental processes to express our mutually unintelligible modes of reasoning? The possibility of translating from a savage to a civilized language and vice versa would seem to indicate a fundamental similarity of mental workings in man of whatever culture or race.