Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/206

 190 HENET RUTGERS MARSHALL: Surely the painfulness directly or indirectly connected with starvation cannot in itself be attractive. Nor are the hallucinations which arise so often as the result of lack of food attractive in themselves, as we have already seen ; nor do they appear to ordinary men to be connected to any great extent with individualistic advantage ; consequently in accordance with our argument in the last section, we are unable to agree with Tylor l that habits of fasting could have had their origin in the desire of the primitive man to produce voluntarily the exceptional nervous states favourable to the seeing of those visions that are supposed to give to the seer access to the realities of the spiritual world. And even if we could agree that fasting had this origin, it would not seem possible thus to account for its persistence in the race for a sufficient time to have become established as an organic tendency. Nor can we account for the persistence of the fasting habit by reference to Mr. Spencer's somewhat imaginative hypothesis that fasting had its origin in the starving con- nected with the custom of providing refreshment for the dead ; even if this hypothesis be well grounded it can at most account for the genesis, and not for the continuance of the habit. For very clearly the habit is in its direct results not only of no advantage but of very great disadvantage to the indi- vidual, and hence indirectly to the race of which he is a member ; for the ascetic who indulges himself thus, is liable to become weakened to such a degree that he may find him- self incapable of self-protection against the adverse forces in his environment ; a fact indeed which the most stupid of savages would be quick to appreciate. But notwithstanding the fact that the custom of fasting altogether fails in attraction, and although it is easily seen to be opposed to individual welfare, still the habit is sur- prisingly persistent. Not only do we hear of the fasting of those great leaders who in the past have seen visions and heard voices guiding them to actions they would not have conceived of under normal conditions ; but voluntar) 7 fasting is taught as a duty by many religious bodies in our day in all parts of the world ; usually indeed in connexion with seclusion more or less rigid. Nor is the habit limited to people of this type, for we find fasting undertaken voluntarily ty many pious people who do not at all believe in the hermit- like life of separation from one's kind. 1 Primitive Culture, i., 277, 402 ; ii., 372.