Be does not think about thought: neither his faculties nor his language suffice for this. During early stages he merely thinks without observing that he thinks; and therefore never asks how he thinks, and what it is which thinks. His senses make him conversant only with things externally existing, and with his own body; and he transcends his senses only far enough to draw concrete inferences respecting the actions of these things. An invisible, intangible entity, such as Mind is inferred to be, is a High abstraction unthinkable by him, and inexpressible by his vocabulary.
148 TilE DATA OF SOCIOLOGY.
This, which is obvious a priori, is verified a posteriori. The savage cannot speak of internal intuition except in terms of external intuition. We ourselves, indeed, when saying that we see something that has been clearly ex- plained, or grasp an argument palpably true, still express mental acts by words originally used to express bodily acts. And this use of words implying vision and touch, which with us is metaphorical, is, with the savage, not dis- tinguished from literal. He symbolizes his mind by his eye. (See Principles of Psychology, § 404.)
But until there is a conception of Mind as an internal principle of activity, there can be no such conception of dreams as that which we have. To interpret the sights and sayings and doings we are conscious of during sleep, as activities of the thinking entity which go on while the senses are closed, is impossible until the existence of this thinking entity is recognized. Hence arises the inquiry — What ex- planation is given of dreams before the conception of Mind exists.
§ 69. Hunger and repletion, both very common with the primitive man, excite dreams of great vividness. Now, after a bootless chase and a long fast, he lies exhausted; and, while slumbering, goes through a successful hunt- kills, skins, and cooki his prey, and suddenly wakes when about to taste the first morsel. To suppose him saying to himself — '' It was all a dream,'^ is to suppose.him already in possession of that hypothesis which we see he cannot have. He takes the facts as they occur. With perfect dis- tinctness he recalls the things he saw and the actions he performed; and he accepts undoubtingly the evidence of memory. True, he all at once finds himself lying still. He does not understand how the change took place; but, as we have lately seen, the surrounding world familiarizes h^m with unaccountable appearances and disappearances, and why shoxdd not this be one f If, at another time, lying gorged THB IDEAS OP 3LKSP AND DREAMS. 149 irritli food^ the disturbance of His circulation produces night- nrnro — if, trying to escape and being unable, he fancies himself in the clutches of a bear, and wakes with a shriek; why should he conclude that the shriek was not caused by an actual danger? Though his squaw is there to tell him that she saw no bear, yet she heard his shriek; and like him has not the remotest notion that a mere subjective state can produce such an effect — has, indeed, no terms in which to frame such a notion.
This interpretation of a dream as an actual experience, is confirmed by narration of it in imperfect langfuage. We are apt to forget that discriminations easy to us, are impos- sible to those who have but few words, all concrete in their meanings, and only rude prepositional forms in which to com- bine these words. When we read that in the language of so advanced a people as the ancient Peruvians, the word hucica meant " idol, temple, sacred place, tomb, figures of men, animals, etc., hill,^' we may judge how extremely indefinite must be the statements which the vocabularies of the rudest men enable them to make; and when we read of an exist- ing South American tribe, that the proposition — " I am an Abipone,'* is expressible only in the vague way — '*I, Abipone '/* we cannot but infer that by such undeveloped grammatical structures, only the simplest thoughts can be rightly conveyed. When, further, we learn that among the lowest men the inadequate words indefinitely combined are also imperfectly pronounced, as, for instance, among the Akka, whose speech struck Schweinfurth by its inarticulate- ness, we recognize a third cause of confusion. And thus prepared, we need feel no surprise on being told that the Zuni Indians require "much facial contortion and bodily gesticulation to make their sentences perfectly intelligible /^ that the language of the Bushmen needs so many signs to eke out its meaning, that " they are unintelligible in the dark;'' and that the Arapahos '' can hardly converse with one another in the dark." If, now, remembering all 150 THE DATA OF BOCIOLOOT.
tUs^ we ask what moat happen when a dream is narrated by a savage^ we shall see that eyen supposing he snspects some distinction between ideal actions and real actions^ he cannot express it. His language does not enable him to say — ** I dreamt that I saw/* instead of — '* I saw/* Hence each relates his dreams as though they were realities; and thus strengthens in erery other, the belief that his own dreams are realities.
What then is the resulting notion? The sleeper has been visibly at rest. On awaking he recalls various occur- rences^ and repeats them to others. He thinks he has been elsewhere; witnesses say he has not; and their testimony is verified by suddenly finding himseU where he was when he went to sleep. The simple course is that of believing both that he has remained and that he has been away — ^that he has two individualities, one of which leaves the other and presently comes back. He, too, has a double existence, like many other things.
§ 70. From all quarters there come proofs that this is the conception actually formed of dreams by savages — a conception which continues to be held after considerable advances in civilization have been made. Here are a few of the testimonies.
Schoolcraft teUs us that the North American Indians in general, think '' there are duplicate souls, one of which re- mains with the body, while the other is free to depart on excursions during sleep; '' and, according to Orantz, the Greenlanders believe '' that the soul can forsake the body during the interval of sleep.'' Thomson says the New Zeal&nders believed ''that during sleep the mind left the body, and that dreams are the objects seen during its wanderings;'' and in Fiji, '' it is behoved that the spirit of a man who still lives will leave the body to trouble other people when asleep.'' Similarly in Borneo. It is, accord- ing to St. John, the conviction of the Dyaks that '' the soul / THl IDIAS or 8LXSP AND DBIAMS. 151 during sleep goes on expeditions of its own^ sees, hears, and talks /' and Bajah Brooke also says " the Dyaks believe that those things which have been brought viyidly before their minds in dreams haye acttudly taken place/' Among Hill-tribes of India, snch as the E^arens, the same doctrine is held: their statement, as given by Mason, being that '' ia sleep it [the lA, spirit or ghost] wanders away to the ends of the earth, and onr dreams are what the lA sees and ex- periences in his perambulations/' Even by the ancient Pemvians, developed as was the social state they had rsached, the same interpretation was put upon the facts. "Hiey held, says Grarcilasso, that " the soul leaves the body while it is sleeping. They asserted that th^ soul could not sleep, and that the things we dream are what the soul sees in the world while the body sleeps.''
Occurring rarely, it may be, somnambulism serves, when it does occur, to confirm this interpretation. For to the uncritical, a sleep-walker seems to be exemplifying that aetiviiy during sleep, which the primitive conception of dreams implies. Each phase of somnambulism furnishes its evidence. Frequently the sleeper gets up, performs various actions, and returns to rest without waking; and sometimes, recalling afterwards these actions, and regarding them as ordinary dream-fancies, is surprised when told by witnesses that he actually did the things he dreamt about doing. What construction must be put on such an experience by primitive men? It proves to the somnambulist that he may go away and lead an active life daring his sleep, and yet find himself afterwards in the place where he lay down* With equal conclusiveness it proves to those who saw him, that men actually go away during their sleep; that they do the things they dream of doing; and may even sometimes be visible. True, a careful exa- mination of the &cts would show that in this case the man's body was absent from its place of rest. But savages do not carefully examine the facts. Again, in cases 152 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOOt.
where the sleep-walker has no recollection of the things he did^ there is Btill the testimony of others to show him that he was not quiescent; and occasionally there is more. When, as sometimes happens, his night-ramble brings him in contact with an obstacle which wakes him, he has a demonstration of the alleged fact that he goes hither and thither during sleep. On retmning to his sleeping-place he does not, indeed, find a second self there; but this dis- coveiy, irreconcilable with the accepted notion, simply increases the confusion of his ideas about these matters. Unable to deny the eyidence that he wanders during sleep, he takes this in verification of the current belief, without dwelling much on the inconsistency.
When we consider what tradition, with its exaggerations, is likely to make of these abnormal phenomena, now and then occurring, we shall see that the primitive interpreta- tion of dreams must receive from them strong support.
§ 71. Along with this belief there of course goes tho belief that persons dreamt of were really met. K the dreamer thinks his own actions real, he ascribes reality to whatever he saw — ^place, thing, or living being. Hence a group of facts similarly prevalent.
Morgan states that the Iroquois think dreams real, and obey their injunctions — do what they are told by those they see in dreams; and of the Chippewas, Keating asserts that they fast for the purpose of "producing dreams, which they value above all things." According to Drury, the Malagasy " have a religious regard to dreams, and think that the good doemon * * * comes, and tells them in their dreams when they ought to do a thing, or to warn them of some danger." Ellis tells us that the Sandwich Islanders think the departed member of a family " appears to the survivors sometimes in a dream, and watches over their des- tinies;" and, similarly, he tells us of the Tahitians that they thoufi^ht the spirit of the dead sometimes appeared to the sur- "TUB IBBAS OF SLEVP AND DREAMS. 153 viTors in dreams. In Africa it is the same. The Congo peo- ple, as described by Eeade, '' think that what thej see and bear in dreams come to them from spirits;" and, writing of the East Africans, Krapf says the '^ Wanika believe that the spirits of the dead appear to the living in dreams.'^ The Kaffirs, too. Shooter tells ns, " seem to ascribe dreams in general to the spirits." Abundant evidence is famished by the Rev. Dr. Callaway concerning the Zulus, whose ideas he has written do v. n from their own mouths. Comparatively intelligent as these people are, somewhat advanced in social state, and having language enabling them to distinguish between dreaming and waking perceptions, we nevertheless find among them (joined with an occasional scepticism) an habitual belief in the reality of the persons who appear in dreams. Out of many illustrations, here is one of a man who complains how he is plagued by the spirit of his brother. He tells his neighbours: — ** I have seen mj brother.** They ask what he said. He says, " I dreamed that he was beating me, and saying, ' How is it that yon do no longer know that I am?' I answered him, saying, ' When I do know yon, what can I do that yon may see I know you? I know that yon are my brother.' He answered me as soon as I said this, and asked, 'When yon sacrifice a bullock, why do you not call upon me?' I replied, * I do call on you, and laud you by your laud-giving names. Just tell me the bullock which I have killed without calling on yon. For I killed an ox, I called on you; I killed a barren cow, I called on yon.' He answered, saying, ' I wish for meat.' I refused him, saying, * No, my brother, I have no bullock; do you see any in the cattle-pen?' He replied, * Though there be but one, I demand it.' When I awoke, I had a pain in my side;" etc.
Though this perfectly-definite conception of a dead brother as a living person who demands meat, and inflicts bodily pain for non-compliance, is so remote from our own beliefs as to seem scarcely possible; yet we shall see its pos- sibility on remembering how little it differs from the beliefs of early civilized races. At the opening of the second book of the Iliad, we find the dream sent by Jove to mislead the Greeks, described as a real person receiving Jove's 154 THB DATA 0? SOCIOLOaT.
directions wliat he is to saj to the sleeping Agamemnon* In like manner^ the sool of Patroclos appeared to the sleep- ing Achilles, " in all things like himself," saying, " Bury me soon that I may pass the gates of Hades," and, when grasped at, " like smoke yanished with a shriek:" the ap- pearance being accepted by Achilles as a reality, and its in- junction as imperative. Hebrew writings show us the like. When we read that 'Hhe word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision," that ^' God came to Abimelech in a dream by night," that ''the liord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel;" we see shown an equally unhesitating belief in an equally objective reality. During civilization this faith has been but slowly losing ground, and even still survives; as we are shown by the stories from time to time told of people who when just dead appeared to distant relations, and as we are shown by the superstitions of the '' spiritualists."
Indeed, after recalling these last, we have but to imagine ourselves de-civilized — ^to suppose faculty decreased, know- ledge lost, language vague, criticism and scepticism absent, to understand how inevitably the primitive man conceives as real the dream-personages we know to be ideal.
§ 72. A reflex action on other beliefs is exercised by these beliefs oonceming dreams. Besides fostering a ^s- tem of erroneous ideas, this fundamental misconception discredits the true ideas which accumulated experiences of things are ever tending to establish.
For while the events dreamed are accepted as events that have actually occurred — ^while the order of phenomena they exhibit is taken to be an actual order; what must be thought about the order of phenomena observed while awake f Such uniformities in it as daily repetition makes conspicuous, cannot produce that sense of certainty they might produce if taken by themselves; for in dreams these uniformities are not maintained. Though trees and stones seen when I THK IDKAS OP SLjeXF AMD DAEAMB. 155 awake, do not pve place to other things which panoramically change, yet, when the eyes are closed at night, they do. Wliile looking at him in broad daylight, a man does not transform himself; bnt daring slomber, something jnst now recognized as a companion, tnms into a forions beast, threatening destruction; or what was a moment since a pleasant Idee, has become a swarm of crocodiles and snake?. Thongh, when awake, the ability to leare the eartVs surface is limited to a leap of a few feet; yet, when asleep, there oc- casionally comes a consciousness of flying with ease oyer yast regions. Thus, the experiences in dreams continually oonfaradict the experiences receiyed during the day; and go far towards cancelling the conclusions drawn from day-experiences. Or rather, we may say that they tend to confirm the erroneous conclusions suggested by day-ex- periences, instead of the correct conclusions. For do not these sudden appearances and disappearances in dreams, proye, like many facts obseryed when awake, that things can pass imaccountably from yisible to inyisible states, and vice versa? And do not these dream-transformations thoroughly accord with those other transformations, some real and some apparent, which make the primitiye man belieye in an unlimited possibility of metamorphosis f When something which in his dream he picked up as a stone, becomes aliye, does not the fact seem to harmonize with his discoyeries of fossils haying the hardness of stones with the shapes of liying things f And is not the sudden abandonment of a tiger-shape for the shape of a mau, which his dream shows him, akin to that of the insect* matamorphoses he has noticed, and to the seeming trans- formations of leayes into walking creatures f Clearly, then, the acceptance of dream-actiyities as real actiyities, besides the fundamental misconception it gene- rates, strengthens misconceptions of the same kind other- wise generated. It strengthens them both negatiyely and positiyely. It discredits those waking-experiences from 156 THB DATA OF SOCIOLOGY.
which right beliefs are to be drawn; and it yields support to those waking experiences which suggest wrong beliefs.
§ 73. That the primitive man's conception of dreaming is natural, and indeed necessary, will now be obvious. His notions seem strange because, in thinking about them, we inadvertently carry with us the theory of Mind which civili- zation has slowly established and embodied in language, and which, early in life, we unawares absorb so completely as to mistake it for an original possession. Mind, however, is neither disclosed by the senses, nor directly revealed as an internal entity: there is no state of consciousness in which it is presented. The fact that even now some metaphysicians hold that nothing beyond impressions and ideas can be known to exist, while others hold that impres- sions and ideas imply a something of which they are states, and by which they are held together as a continuous whole, shows clearly that Mind, as conceived by us, is not an in- tuition but an implication; and therefore cannot be con- ceived until re&soning has made some progress.
When, indeed, we look closely into the matter, we discover that there can be no conception of Mind, properly so called, until the difference between impressions and ideas is clearly recognized. Like every child, the primitive man passes through a phase of intelligence during which there has not yet arisen the power of introspection implied by saying — *' I think — I have ideas.^' For a long time the observations generalized are exclusively those concerning the natures and powers of objects, together with those concerning the active and re-active forces and feelings of the organism itself. While awake, the thoughts that perpetually accompany sensations and the perceptions framed of them, are so unobtrusive, and pass so rapidly, that they are not noticed: to notice them implies a self-criticism impossible at the out- set. These faint states of consciousness which, during the day, are obscured by the vivid statos, become obtrusive only THB IDEAS OF 8LKEP AND DREAlfS. 157 at niglifcj when the ejes are shat and the other senses dollecl. Then^ onlj^ do the subjective activities clearlj reveal them« selves^ as the stars reveal themselves when the sun is absent. That is to saj, dream-experiences necessarily pre- cede the conception of a mental self; and are the ex- fer!enee8 out of whiel^ the conception of a mental self even- tually grows. Mark the order of dependence: — Dreams cannot be interpreted as we interpret them, in the absence of the hypothesis of mind as a distinct entity; the hy^ pothesis of mind as a distinct entity cannot exist before the experiences suggesting it; the experiences suggesting it are the dream-experiences, which seem to imply two entities f and in its primary form this supposition of two entities involves the notion that the second entity differs from the first simply in being absent and active at night while the other is at rest. Only as this supposed duplicate^ once thonght of as like the original in aU things, becomes gradually modified by the dropping of physical characters irreconcilable with the facts, does the hypothesis of a mental self, as we understand it, become established.
Here, then, is the germinal principle which sets up such organization as the primitive man's random observations of things can assume. This belief in another self belonging to him, harmonizes with all those illustrations of duality fur- nished by things around; and equally harmonizes with those multitudinous cases in which things pass from visible to invisible states and back again* Nay more, by com- parison he discovers a kinship between his own double and the doubles of other objects. For have not these objects their shadows 7 Has not he too his shadow f Does not his shadow become invisible at night f Is it not obvious, then, that this shadow which in the day accompanies his body is that other self which at night wanders away and has adven- tures? Clearly, the Greenlanders who, as we have seen^ l)elieve this, have some justification for the belief.
CHAPTER XI.
TUB IDEAS OP SWOON, APOPLEXY, CATALEPSY, MSTASY, AND OTHER FORMS OV INSENSIBILITY.
§ 74. The quiescence of ordinary sleep is daily seen by tht? savage to be quickly exchanged for actiyiiy when the slumberer is forcibly disturbed: a noise or a shake causes him to open his eyes, to speak, to rise. Differences in the amounts of the required disturbances are, indeed, observ- able. Now the slightest sound or touch suffices; and now it needs a shout, or rough handling, or pinching. Still, his experience shows that when a man^s body lies motion- less and insensible, a.mere calling of the name causes re- animation.
Occasionally, however, something quite different hanpens. Here is a companion exhibiting signs of extreme pain, who, all at once, sinks down into an inert state; and at another time, a feeble person making a violent effort, or one greatly terrified, undergoes a like change. In those who behave thus, the ordinary sensibility cannot be forthwith re-esta- blished. Though the Fijian, in such case, calls the patient by his name, and is led by the ultimate revival to believe that his other self may be brought back by calling, yet there is forced on him the &ct that the absence of the other self is unlike its ordinary absences. Evidently, the occurrence of this special insensibility, commonly lasting^ less than a minute but occasionally continuing for hours.
THB IDSAS OF SWOON, APOPLBZT, ETC. ]50 yields support to the primitiYe belief in a dnplicate that wanders awaj from the body and returns to it: the deser- tion of the body being now more determined than usual, and being followed by silence as to what has been done or seen in the interyal.
Our familiar speech shows the way in which syncope yields seeming verification of the primitiye notion of duality. We say of one who revives from a fainting fit, that she is '' coming back to herself — ''returning to herself.*' The expressions are significant. Though we no longer explain insensibility as due to an absence of the sentient entily from the body, yet our phrases bear witness to a time when insensibility was so explained.
§ 75. Apoplexy " is liable to be confounded with syncope or fainting, and with' natural sleep.'' And if the instructed medical man thus describes it, we may infer how little it can be discriminated by savages.
Suddenly falling, the apoplectic patient betrays a '' total loss of consciousness, of feeling, and of voluntary move- ment." The breathing is sometimes natural, as in quiet sleep; and sometimes the patient lies " snoring loudly aa in deep sleep." In either case, however, it presently turns out that the sleeper cannot be '' brought back to himself" as usual: shouts and shakes have no effects.
Recalling his dream-experiences, what must the savage tLink about a fellow-savage in this state; which continues perhaps foi^ a few hours but occasionally for several days? Clearly the belief in duality is strengthened. The second self has gone away for a time beyond recall; and when it eventually comes back, nothing can be learnt about its experiences while absent.
If, as commonly happens, after months or years there comes a like fall, a like prolonged insensibility, and a like return, there is again a silence about what has been done. And then, on a third occasion, the absence is longer than ICO THE DATA OF SOCIOUKif.
before — ^the relatiyes wait and wait^ and there is no coming back: the coming back seems postponed indefinitely.
§ 76. Similar in the suddenness with which it commences^ hut othewise dissimilar^ is the state of insensibility called catalepsy; which also lasts sometimes, several hours and sometimes seyoral days. Instantaneous loss of conscious- ness is followed by a state in which the patient ^' presents the air of a statue rather than that of an animated being/' The limbs^ placed in this or that position^ remain fixed: the agent which controlled them seems absent; and the body is passive in the hands of those around.
Resumption of the ordinary state is as instantaneous as was cessation of it. And^ as before^ '^ there is no recollec- tion of anything which occurred during the fit." That is to say, interpreting the facts according to their primary meanings — ^the wandering other self will give no account of its adventures.
That this conception, carrying out their conception of dreams, is entertained by savages, we have direct testi- mony. In his account of the Chippewas, Keating says, con- cerning the joumeyings of souls, that some " are the souls of persons in a lethargy or trance. Being refused a pas- sage, these souls return to their bodies and re-animate them.^' And that a kindred conception has been general, is inferable from the fact named by Mr. Fiske in his Myths and Myth-makers, that "in the Middle Ages the phenomena of trance and catalepsy were cited in proof of the theory that the soul can leave the body and afterwards return to it.'* § 77. Yet another, but closely related, form of insensi- bility has to be named, as yielding evidence similarly in- terpretable. I refer to ecstasy. While, by making no re- sponses to ordinary stimuli, the ecstatic subject shows that he is " not himself," he seems to have vivid perceptions of things elsewhere.
I THS IDSAS or SWOON, AFOPLBXY^ ETC. 161 Sometimes ^'induced by deep and long-sustamed con- templation^^' ecstasy is characterized by " a higb degree of mental excitement, co-existing with a state of unconscious- ness of all surrounding things/' While the muscles are ''rigid, the body erect and inflexible/' there is "a, total suspension of sensibility and yoluntary motion/' During this state, which in some cases recurs daily, '' visions of an extraordinary nature occasionally occur," and '' can be mi- nutely detailed afterwards."
That witnessing such phenomena tends to make still stronger the primitiye belief that each man is double, and that one part can leave the other, is manifest; and that it does strengthen them we have facts to show. In Dr. Callaway's account of the Zulu's beliefs, TJndayeni is described as being able to see ''things which he would not see if he were not in a state of ecstasy: " a statement which, joined with their interpretation of dreams, makes it manifest that the visions of his ecstatic state were regarded by the Zulus as experiences of his wandering other self.