Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/208

 192 HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL : themselves intrinsically unattractive to the individual, and which therefore would not have persisted in the race on account of their individualistic desirability. Moreover, they are habits which are evidently disadvantageous to individuals and would be seen to be so by any set of men of very moderate intelligence. Furthermore, it is evident that in themselves they might not infrequently bring serious dis- advantage to the tribal group. It seems clear, therefore, that there must have at- tached to these practices in the past some important advantage to the race, which has over-balanced the ever- present individualistic, and the occasional racial, disadvan- tage connected with them. But in the light of our previous studies of the habits of seclusion and fasting so closely connected with these more variable customs, it is not difficult to conceive that this advantage may be found in the aid obtained in connexion with these practices in the strengthening of the social instincts. As we have already seen there is every reason to believe that in the states of hallucination which these practices often entail the deeper lying instincts tend to come to the mind : at all events the tendency to spontaneous indi- vidualistic action would be largely reduced by these very weakening processes which induced the hallucinations ; and for those who gained these hallucinations the important fact, so far as the persistence of the torture habits is concerned, may not improbably have been the emphasis within the hearers, or the seers, of their tendency to listen for this guidance within themselves, which they thought to te commands to them from without. But again we must not forget that the hallucinatory images occur to relatively few even of those who aim to gam them by undergoing these weakening processes ; and yet the one who fails will be benefited as well as he who finds the more impressive guidance : for he too has gained that suspension of the individualistic tendencies that results from the processes of weakening, and therefore has in- directly gained the emphasis of the slower acting, deeper seated impulses of social import. 6. It seems appropriate at this juncture to consider for a moment certain customs connected with the initiation into the mysterious brotherhood of the religious body ; cere- monies which are evidently in themselves unattractive, and clearly disadvantageous from a purely individualistic point