THE MAKING OF RELIGION

which science, until recently and in only a few instances, has laughed at, ignored, and ‘thrown aside as worthless.’

It should be observed that I am not speaking of ‘spiritualism,’ a word associated with the worst things, inextricably entangled with fraud, bad logic, and the blindest credulity. Some of the phenomena alluded to have, however, been claimed as their own province by ‘spiritists,’ and need to be rescued from them. Mr. Tylor writes:

‘The issue raised by the comparison of primitive original: "savage", barbaric, and civilized spiritualism is this: Do the Red Indian medicine man, the Tatar necromancer, the Highland ghost-seer, and the Boston medium share the possession of belief and knowledge of the highest truth and importance, which, nevertheless, the great intellectual movement of the last two centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless?’

Distinguo! Latin: "I make a distinction!" That does not seem to me to be the issue. In my opinion the issue is: ‘Have the Red Indian, the Tatar, the Highland seer, and the Boston medium (the least reputable of the group) observed, and reasoned wildly from, and counterfeited, and darkened with imposture, certain genuine by-products of human faculty, which do not at first glance original: "prima facie" deserve to be thrown aside?’

That, I venture to think, is the real issue. That science may toss aside as worthless some valuable observations of primitive peoples original: "savages" is now universally admitted by people who know the facts. Among these observations is the whole topic of Hypnotism, with the use of suggestion for healing purposes, and the phenomena, no longer denied, of ‘alternating personalities.’ For the truth of this statement we may appeal to one of the greatest of Continental anthropologists, Adolf Bastian.¹ The missionaries, like Livingstone, usually supposed that the primitive original: "savage" seer’s—

¹ On Psychological Observations among Primitive Peoples. original: "Ueber psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturvölkern" Leipzig: Gunther, 1890.