Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/86

64 considered, within his power; by it he could control a variety of forces external to himself: hence magic was from the beginning different from, and opposed to, religion. Religion is not derived from magic, nor is magic a convenient term under which a number of survivals of earlier religions may be classed. On the threshold, therefore, we are met by a question which, if decided in the sense advocated by Mr. Jevons, will demand reconsideration of some of the positions that many inquirers have during recent years been disposed to assume.

After rendering an admirable account of Taboo, though raising issues which we have no space to mention, the author passes to a discussion of Totemism. Here he contends with great force, and we think successfully, that it is to totemism that we owe civilisation, because the domestication of animals and the culture of grain and fruit originated in totemism, and it is due simply to these that man was enabled to rise out of the hunting stage. It is totemism alone," he says, "which could have produced that transition from the natural to an artificial basis of subsistence, which is effected by the domestication of plants and animals, and which results in civilisation." The present religious condition of most savage races he ascribes to the disintegration of totemism. Totemism is a stage through which they have passed, but for want of domesticable animals, or from social and political causes, they have not reached that grade of civilisation in which a developed and anthropomorphic polytheism is possible, while on the other hand the social and political influences at work among them have broken up the old totemism. Hence when, from stress of calamity or any other reason, a need for help has arisen beyond that conceived to be afforded by their totems, they have had recourse either to magic or to individual protectors; some of the old totems have perhaps been found powerful in certain directions, and have thus gradually been limited in their powers, becoming inchoate departmental gods, while often remaining special objects of worship of one family or clan. This appears to afford a satisfactory explanation of problems which must have puzzled all students. Evolution, as Dr. Jevons rightly insists, is not equivalent to progress. The survival of the fittest is not necessarily the survival of the highest, but merely of that which best suits the environment; and it as often, perhaps more often, results in decadence than improvement.