Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/405

 Again, if the mental processes of primitive man differ in kind from ours, some demonstration of a corresponding anatomical or physiological difference might reasonably be expected. But, while the brain of a Veddah may be less elaborately convoluted than that of a European, anatomists have been unable to find any structural difference which might lead them to expect the one to be "prelogical" and the other logical, the one to possess a mentality impervious to the "law of contradiction" and the other to renounce belief in Epicureanism if it thunders out of a clear sky. Physiological differences alleged to exist between savage and civilized men have been demonstrated to be practically negligible.

But let us consider M. Lévy-Bruhl's findings. The "representations collectives" of primitive man differ from our ideas and concepts in that the former are not "logical" but "mystic," — a term meaning in this connection "related to the belief in forces, influences, and actions imperceptible to the senses but nevertheless real" (p. 38). "Les primitifs voient avec les mêmes yeux que nous; ils ne perçoivent pas avec le même esprit. On pourrait dire que leurs perceptions sont constituées par un noyau entouré d'une couche plus ou moins épaisse de représentations d'origine sociale." In other words, a primitive concept is a complex of what often seem to us to be wholly unrelated elements. The mystic character is especially exemplified in the case of names, images, shadows, dreams, etc. M. Lévy-Bruhl cites the persistence of savage belief in fetishes and charms in spite of demonstrations of their inefficacy as proof of "impermeability to experience." But the "will to believe" has often risen superior to contravening facts in societies of by no means primitive mentality.

The collective mental processes of primitive societies are regulated by what M. Lévy-Bruhl calls the "law of participation." By this he seems to mean a mystic connection between objects or beings logically unrelated. The Bororos of Brazil, for instance, declare themselves to be parrots. This substitution of mystic relationships for the natural relationships of causality leads the author to characterize primitive mentality as "prelogical." This means that it is indifferent to the "law of contradiction" and obeys the "law of participation." M. Lévy-Bruhl does not go so far as to deny all knowledge of the principles of cause and effect to the savage.