Beyond question, then, the original inference is that while the patient's other-self has gone away, some disembodied spirit, usurping its place, uses his body in this violent way. Such disembodied spirit is not in the Scriptural instances that might be named, or in the foregoing instances, defined. Bat where we have a specific account of the conception in its earliest state, we learn that the assumed supernatural agent is a ghost. From the Amazulu cross-examined by Canon Callaway, there is clearly brought out the state- ment that when a diviner is becoming possessed by the Itongo (ancestral spirits), ^'he has slight convulsions.'* More- ovet, a witness who " went to a person with a familiar spirit to inquire respecting a boy * * * who had convulsions,*' got the answer — ''he is affected by the ancestral spirits.^ f9 § 123. A further question conies before the primitive 244 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOGY.
mind, aad a farther rational corollary is drawn, which do- velops into a series of cnrions bnt consistent ideas.
Occasionally a person, while still conscious, cannot control the actions of his body. He finds himself doing something without willing it, or even in spite of his will. Is it, then, that another soul has entered him; even though his own soul has not wandered away? This is the only imaginable explanation. If, daring the absence of the other-self, bodily contortions are due to some intruding spirit that has taken possession of the body, and makes it do things its owner did not cause; then if, at other times, the body does things not caused by its owner, though he is still in it, must not these hare been caused by an intruding spirit? An affirmative answer is inevitable.
Hence the explanation of hysteria, with its vehement struggles, its uncontrollable and meaningless laughs, sobs, and cries. Among the Amazulu, hysterical symptoms are counted as traits of one who is becoming an Inyanga, or diviner — one who is becoming possessed. The remark made by Parkyns respecting the Abyssinians, that ^'the greater part of the 'possessed' are women,'' indicates a kindred interpretation: women being so much more liable to hysteria than men. And when we read in Mariner, that among the Tongans inspiration is not confined to tihe priests, but is sometimes experienced by others, especi- ally females, we may reasonably conclude that fits of hysterics are the signs of possession referred to. Indeed^ is not one of the hysterical symptoms conclusive proof? What can be said of the globus hystericus — a ball that is suddenly felt within the body — unless it is this alleged pos- sessing spirit?
Carried thus far, the explanation has to be carried further. If the^e more violent actions of the body, per- formed in defiance of the will, are ascribable to a usurping demon, so, too, must be the less violent actions of this kind. Hence the primitive theory of sneezing and yawning.
8UF£DNATU1tAL AOCNTS AS CAUSTNO EPJLSPST^ VTC. 245 The Amaznla regard these actions which the indiTidoal can prevent only with difficulty, or not at all, as caused by the Itongo — as marks of possession. When a man is becoming an Inyanga, " his head begins to gire signs of what is about to happen. He shows that he is about to be a diviner by yawning again and again, and by sneezing again and again. And men say, 'No! Truly it seems as though this man was about to be possessed by a spirit.' " In other cases we have proof, not of permanent posses- sion, bat of temporary possession, being inferred from the sneeze. The Khonds dash vessels of water upon the priest when they wish to consult him. He sneezes, and becomes inspired. Of course, there is nothing to determine whether this possession is by a friendly or by an unfriendly spirit: it may be, as among the Zulus, an ancestral ghost, or, as among other peoples, it may be a malicious demon. But be the sneeze, as with the Moslem, a reason for asking Allah to protect him against Satan as the presumed cause; or be it, as with the Christian, the occasion of a " God bless you " from bystanders; or be it the ground for putting faith in an utterance as inspired; the implication, which alone here concerns us, is that involuntary actions of these kinds are regarded as showing that some intruder has made the body do what its owner did not intend it to do.
Two other interpretations of kindred natures may be added. Cochrane tells us that among the Yakuts, in a dis- order accompanied by violent hiccup, " they persist in believing that a devil is in the body of the person afficted.*' A neighbouring people, the Kirghiz, furnish a still stranger instance. Mrs. Atkinson says that a woman in child-bed is supposed to be possessed by a devil; and it is even the custom to boat her fcr tho purpose of driving him away.
In this last case, as in all the othoi-s, there are involuntary muscular contractions. These may reasonably be ascribed to possession, if those of epilepsy are so; and we see that 246 THl DATA 09 SOOIOLOflT.
tiie ascription of epilepsy to possession is an implication o£ the original ghost-theory.
§ 124. Certain allied phenomena^ explicable in like manner and otherwise inexplicable, further confirm the doctrine of possession. I refer to the phenomena of delirium andmadness.
What is come to this man who, lying prostrate, and refusing to eat, does not know those around; now matters incoherently or talks nonsense; now speaks to some one the bystanders cannot see; now shrinks in terror from an invisible foe; now laughs without a cause? And how does it happen that when, after some days, he has become calm again, and speaks to those around in his usual way, he either knows nothing about these strange doings of his, or narrates things which no one witnessed? Manifestly one of these spirits or ghosts, swarming around, and some of them ever on the watch to do mischief, had entered his body at night while he was away, and had thus abused it. That savagesi do thus interpret the facts we have not much proof: pro- bably because travellei's rarely witness among them this kind of mental disturbance. Still, Petherick says the Arabo suppose that '^ in high fever, when a person is delirious, hb is possessed by the devil.'^ And there is the testimony of Southey respecting the Tupis: he recognizes delirium as one of the sources of their superstitions.
But when from temporary insanity we pass to prolonged or permanent insanity, we everywhere find proof that this is the interpretation given. Turner tells us that the Samoans attributed madness to the presence of an evil spirit; and Mariner says the like of the Tongans. The Sumatrans, too, {vccording to Marsden, consider that lunatics are possessed. Among more advanced races the interpretation has been, and still remains, the same. When the writer of E<ivib1es in Syria tells us that, '' in the East, madness is tantamount to inspiration/' we are] reminded that if there is any dif- ference between this conception and the conceptions 8UF£RSrATUEAL AGENTS AS OAtJSINa SPlLEPSY, ETC. 247 i«ecoTded of old^ it concerns only the nature of tHe pOBsesfi- ing spirit, not its existence. These earlier records, too, yield evidence that the original form of the belief was the fonn to be inferred. Though in the days of Josephu^, only some Jews held that the demons which enter men, " are no other than the souls of the wicked ''; yet, as the possessed were said to frequent burial-places, and as demons were supposed to make tombs their favourite haunts, we have good reasons for thinking that the possessing spirit was originally conceived as a ghost.
The continuance of this view of insanity through mediaeval days, down to the days when the 72nd canon of our Church tacitly embodied it by forbidding the casting out of devils without a special licence, is easy to understand. Only after developing science had made familiar the idea that mental states result from nervous actions, which can be disordered by physical causes, did it become possible to conceive the madman^s amazing ideas and passions in any other way than as the expressions of some nature unlike his own.
We must not overlook a verification which the be- liaviour of the insane yields to the belief in surrounding- ghosts or spirits. The uncivilized or semi-civilized man,- is wholly unable to think of the maniac^s visions as sub- ' jective illusions. He is at an immeasurable distance from - this conception: neither his intellect, nor his language,, nor/ his knowledge, suffices. What then must he conclude when • he hears a maniac talking furiously to an invisible person, or throwing a missile at some being, unseen by others, whom he wants to drive away? He is fearfully in earnest. His frantic gestures, his glaring eyes, his shrieking voice, make it impossible to doubt the strength of his belief. Obviously, then, there are mischievous demons around: manifest to him but not to bystanders. If any doubted the existence of supernatural agents, they can no longer doubt.
One further noteworthy idea is thus yielded to the primi- ^ tive man. In their paroxysms, the insane aro extremely ' 248 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOGY.
strong — strong enough to cope single-handed with seTeral men. What is the inference? The possessing demon has superhuman energy. The beUef thus suggested has developments hereafter to be noted.
§ 125. Once established, this mode of explaining unusual actions, mental and bodilj, extends itself. Insensibly it spreads from abnormalities of the kinds aboye instanced to those of other kinds. Diseases are soon included under the theory. Seeing that bodily derangement often co-exists with mental derangement (as in fever that is attended by delirium), the inference is that the same agent causes both. And if some unhealthy states are produced by in-dwelling demons, then others are thus produced. An in- truding spirit is either in the body, or is hovering around, inflicting evil on it: if not of its own malicious will, then at the dictate of an enemy.
The primitive form of this interpretation is shown us by the Amazula. Even a stitch in the side they thus explain: ^if the disease lasts a long time,'^ they say, ''he is affected by the Itongo. He is affected by his people who are dead.^^ According to Turner, the Samoans supposed that the spirits of the dead '' had power to return, and cause disease and death in other members of the family.'' As we saw in § 92, the New Caledonians ''think white men are the spirits of the dead, and bring sickness.^' The Dyaks who, like the Australians, attribute every disease to spirits, like them, too, personify diseases. They will not call the small-pox by its name; but ask — " Has he yet left you?*' Sometimes they call it " the chief.'' In these cases ghosts are the assumed agents; and in somo of them, bodily posses- sion of the sufferer is alleged or implied. In other cases, the supernatural agent, not specified in its origin, appears to be regarded as external. By the Arawaks, pain is called "the evil spirit's arrow/' and the Land-Dyaks believe that sickness is occasionally " caused * by spirits inflicting 8T7PBENATUBAL AGENTS AS CAUSING EHLEPST^ ETC. 249 on people invisible wonnds with invisible spears/' But everywhere the supposed cause is personal. In Asia^ the Karens ^'attribute diseases to the influence of unseen spirits''; hj the Lepchas^ all ailments ''are deemed the operations of devils''; and the Bodo and Dhimals simi- larly think them due to demoniacal agency. In Africa, the Coast Negroes ascribe illness to witchcraft or the operation of the gods; the Kaffirs consider it caused by enemies and evil spirits; and the offended ances- tor of a Zulu is represented as saying — "I will reveal myself by disease." In America, the Comanches think a malady is caused by the blasting breath of a foe; and the Mundurucus regard it as the spell of an unknown enemy. If instead of "ghost" we read ''supernatural agent," the savage theory becomes the semi-civilized theory. The earliest recorded hero of the Babylonians, Izdubar, is smitten with a grievous malady by the offended goddess Ishtar; in the first book of the Iliad, the Greeks who die of pestilence are represented as hit by Apollo's arrows — ^an idea parallel to one of the savage ideas above named; it was believed by the Jews that dumbness and blindness ceased when the devils causing them were ejected; and in after-times, the Fathers described demons as inflicting diseases. How persistent this kind of interpretation has been, we are shown by the fact that the production of illness by witches, who instigate devils, is even now alleged among the uncultured; and by the fact that the cultured still countenance the belief that illness is diabolically caused. A State-authorized ex- pression of this theory of disease, is often repeated by priests. In the service for the visitation of the sick, one of the prayers is — " Let the enemy have no advantage over him;" and another is — " renew in him " " whatsoever has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil."
§ 126. After contemplating the foregoing beliefs as naturally arising, the belief which the primitive man frames 250^ THE DATA 0? SOCIOLOGY.
respecting the cause of deaths will no longer surprise us. It is a necessary sequence.
Insensibility^ temporarily or prolonged^ haying been seen to follow a blow from a club^ the conclusion is that this permanent insensibility has resulted from some such injury inflicted by an enemy unseen. In one form or other this conception occurs everywhere. The Uaupes^ Wallace tells us, '^ scarcely seem to think that death can occur naturally ^^; and Hearne says the Ohippewayans ascribe the deaths of their chiefs to witchcraft, commonly by the Esquimaux. The Kalmucks believe that '^ death is caused by some spirit at the command of the deity ^';' the Kookies ascribe death, as well as all earthly evils, ta supernatural causes; and the Khonds hold ^Hhat death is not the necessary and appointed lot of man» but that it is incurred only as a special penalty for offences against the gods.^^ Arbousset states that the Bushmen think death is chiefly due to witchcraft; Burchell says of the Bechuanas, that death, even in old age, is ascribed to sorcery; the Coast Negroes, Winterbottom tells us, think '^ no death is natural or accidental ''; the belief of the Fans, as given by Burton, is that '^no man, however old, dies a natural death ^'; and Astley asserts that the Loango people do not believe in natural death, even from drowning or other accident. The Tahitians regarded the effects of poisons as " more the effects of the god's displeasure, * * ^ than the effects of the poisons themselves. * * * Those who were killed in battle were also supposed to die from the influence of the gods.'' And kindred ideas are current among the Sandwich Islanders, the Tannese, the Australians, etc.
A sequence must be named. Eventually the indi- vidualities of the special demons supposed to have caused death, merge in a general individuality — ^a personalized Death: the personalization probably beginning, every- where, in the tradition of some unusually-ferocious foe whose direotly-seen acts of vengeance were multitudinous.
ST7PEBNATURAL AGENTS AS CAUSING SPILEPSY^ ETC. 251 and to whom, afterwards, unseen acts of yengeanoe were more and more ascribed. Be this as it may, however, we may trace the evolution of these primitive notions into those which existed in classic times and medisBval times. Butler tells us that at a Naga's burial, his friends arm them- selves, and challenge the spirit who caused his death. Of the Tasmanians, Mr. Davis relates that, " during the whole of the first night after the death of one of their tribe, they will sit round the body, using rapidly a low, continuous reci* tative, to prevent the evil spirit from taking it away. Such evil spirit being the ghost of an enemy.'' On the other hand, among the Hottentots the conception has become par- tially generalized: Lichtenstein says they personaliKe death — ^say ^' Death sees thee." In which several facts we may perceive the root of the belief implied by the story of the deceased Alcestis, who is rescued from the grasp of the strong Death by the still stronger Hercules; and also the root of the belief implied by the old representa- tions of Death as a skeleton, holding a dart or other weapon. While observing this filiation, we should remark that, in the minds of many, the primitive notion still lingers. When reading with astonishment that savages, not recognizing natural death, ascribe all death to supernatural agency, we forget that even now super- natural agency is assigned in cases where the cause of death is not obvious — ^nay, in some cases where it is obvious. We still occasionally read the coroner's, verdict — ^^ Died by the visitation of God"; and we still meet people who think certain deaths (say the drowning of those who go boating on Sundays) directly result from divine vengeance: a belief differing from these savage beliefs, only in a modified conception of the supernatural agent.
§ 127. Considered thus as following from the primitive interpretation of dreams, and consequent theory of ghosts, souls, or spirits, these conclusions are quite consistent.
252 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOOY.
If souIb can leavo their bodies and re-entor tlLcm, why 8lionld not their bodies be entered by strange souls, while their own are absent? If, as in epilepsy, the body per- forms acts which the owner denies having performed, there is no choice bat to assume such an agency. And if cer- tain uncontrollable movements, as those of hysteria, together with the familiar ones of sneezing, yawning, and hiccup, take place without the will of the individual, the conclusion must be that here, also, some usurping spirit within him is directing the actions of his body in spite of him.
This hypothesis explains, too, the strange behaviour of the delirious and the insane. Tliat the maniac^s body lias been taken possession of by an enemy, is proved by the fact that it is impelled to self-injury. Its right owner would not make the body bite and tear itself. Further, the possessing demon is heard to hold converse with other demons, which he sees but which bystanders do not see.
And if these remarkable derangements of body and mind are thus effected, the manifest inference is that diseases and disorders of less i*emarkable kinds are effected in the same way. Should there not be a demon within the body, there must be, at any rate, some invisible enemy at hand, who is working these strange perturbations in it.
Often occurring after long-continued derangement or disease, death must be caused by that whicji caused the disease. Whenever the death has no visible antecedent, this is the only possible supposition; and even when there is a visible antecedent, it is still probable that there was some demoniacal interference. The giving way of the foothold that led to a man's fatal fall down a precipice, or the par- ticular motion which carried a spear into his heart, was very likely determined by the malicious spirit of a foe.
Thus these interpretations are congruous throughout. Given the initial idea, and the entire series follows.
CHAPTER XVin.
INSPIRATION, DIVINATION, EXORCISM, AND SORCERY.
§ 128. If a man's body may be entered by a ''wicked sonl of the dead'' enemy, may it not be entered by a fidendly soul? If the struggles of the epileptic, the ravings of the delirious, the self -injuries of the insane, are caused by an indwelling demon; then must not the transcendent power or marvellous skill occasionally displayed, be caused by an indwelling beneficent spirit? If, even while the individual is conscious, the ghost of a foe may become joint occupant of his body and control its actions in spite of him, so producing hysteria, and sneezing, and yawning; may not joint occupancy be assumed by an ancestral ghost, which oo-operates with him instead of opposing him: so giving extra strength, or knowledge, or cunning?
These questions the savage consistently answers in the affirmative. There result the ideas to be here glanced at.
§ 129. A fact named in the last chapter as having noteworthy implications, is that maniacs, during their paroxysms of excitement, are far stronger than men in their nonnal states. Hence, those holding the theory of possession infer that these supernatural agents have superhuman energies.
That manifestations of unusual bodily power are thus ac- counted for, we find proofs among early traditions. Ea« 254 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOGY.
couraging Dioinede, Minerva says — " Into thy soul have I sent that intrepid ancestral might, such aa the shield- brandishing knight Tydeus was wont to possess": words implying some kind of inspiration — some breathing-in of a soul that had been breathed-out of a father. More distinctly is this implied by certain still-earlier legendary histories of the Egyptians. In Prof. Lnshington^s translation of the third Sallier papyrus, narrating a conquest, Ramses II., the conqueror, invokes his "father Ammon,'^ and has the reply — ''Bamses Miamon, I am with thee, I thy father Ra. * * * I am worth to thee 100,000 joined in one.'' And when Ramses, deserted by his own army, proceeds to slay single-handed the army of his foes, they are represented as saying — ''No mortal bom is he whoso is among us.''
Here several points of significance are observable. The ancestral ghost was the possessing spirit, giving superhuman strength. Along with development of this ancestral ghost into a divinity, amplified and idealized, had gone increase of this strength from something a little above the human to something immeasurably above the human. The conception, common to all these ancient races — Egyptians; Babylonians, Assyrians, Hebrews, Greeks — was that gods, otherwise much like men, were distinguished by power traiiscending that of men; and this conception, subject to no restraint^ readily expanded into the conception of omnipotence. Further, any display of bodily energy passing that whioh was ordinary, naturally raised in the minds of observers the suspicion, either that there was possesion by a super- natural being, or that a supernatural being in disguise was before them.
§ 130. Extraordinary power of mind is, of course, to be similarly explained. If an incarnate spirit, having either the primitive character of an ancestral ghost or some modified and developed character, can give superhuman IN8PIBATI0N, DIVINATION^ EXOBOISlfj AND SOBCSBT. 255 strength of hodj, then it can give, too, sttperhnman intel- ligence and snperhaman passion. The general doctrine of mental inspiration is a corollaiy.
We are now so remote from this doctrine, as to have difficaltj in thinking of it as once accepted literallj. Existing primitive races, as the Tahitians, do indeed still fihow ns, in its original form, the belief that the priest when inspired *' ceased to act or speak as a voluntarj agent, bnt moved and spoke as entirely under supemataral influence;^' and so they make real to us the ancient belief that prophets and others such, were channels for divine utterances. But we less clearly recognize the truth that the inspiration of the poet was at first conceived in the same way. '' Sing, O goddess, the destructive wrath of Achilles," was not, like the invocations of the Muses in later times, a rhetorical form; but was an actual prayer for possession. The Homeric belief was, in the words of Prof. Blackie, that " all great and glorious thoughts * * ♦ come from a god.'' Of course, this mode of interpreting ideas and feelings admits of unlimited extension and variation. There is no way of deciding what amount of divergence from a usual mental state or power, warrants the assumption of a supernatural cause } and hence the assumption of a supernatural cause, made on the smallest suggestion, becomes habitual. In the Iliad, Helen is represented as having an ordinary emotion excited in her by Iris: '' The goddess infused a tender desire into her mind, both of her former husband, and of her city, and her parents.'' Nor does the interpreta- tion extend itself only to exaltations, emotional ot intel- lectual. In the Homeric view, as Prof. Blackie points out, ''not the doers of an evil deed, but the gods who inspire the purpose of doing it, are the re«tl criminals;" and even a common error of judgment the early Greek explains by saying — " a god deceived me that I did this thing."
. How this theory, beginning with that form still showH ta by such Savages as the Congoese, who ascribe the con- 256 THB DATA OF SOCIOLOQY.
toi*tions of the priest to the inspiration of the fetish, and differentiating^ as above implied, into inspirations of the divine and the diabolical kinds, has persisted and developed, it is needless to show in detail. It will be enough to recog- nize the fact that it still lives in both sacred and secular thought. Indeed, between the earliest and latest views the unlikeness is far less than we suppose. When we read in Brinton that '^ among the Tahkalis the priest is accustomed to lay his hand on the head of the nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow into him the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come to lifo in his next child; '' we are reminded that in the service for ordaining priests there are the words — "Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God, now committed imto thee by the imposition of our hands.'' Not only in the theory of Apostolic Succession do we see this modified form of the savage belief in inspiration, but we see it, with a difference, in the ideas of the most unsacerdotal of our sects, the Quakers: being moved by the spirit, as they understand it, is being temporarily possessed or inspired. And then, in its secular application, the primitive notion is traceable in the qualitative distinction, still asserted by some, between genius and talent.