44 w. H. WINCH: a future union of anthropology and history. In vague and uncritical anthropology it was customary to read of the mar- vellous imagination of primitive peoples. Their real world seems indeed, at first sight, to be but a wild play of fancy, their art the wilful perversion of what they see, their religion a grotesque medley of superstitions. First, as to their world of reality. It is a truism to say that " reality," though ap- parently a very rigid expression, is not so. Even the realities of the natural scientist depend upon his hypotheses, and also, as with all of us, depend upon the degree of consistency within a system. Now " primitive beliefs," says Dr. Stout, " are nearly all relevant to the narrow circle of immediate practical interests within which the activities of the savage are confined ", 1 " Any association between A and B, through which the idea of A vividly and insistently calls up the idea of B, may lead to a belief in a real connexion between them. If in a fit of anger we trample on a man's portrait, it is difficult for the moment to avoid believing that we are by the act doing the man himself a direct injury. The savage has a real and permanent belief that men can be injured in such ways. He thinks, for instance, that by destroying a man's footprints he can spoil his journey or make him lame." We can also connect with this the superstitious regard for names felt by savages, children, and the populace, who, a year or so ago, were killing " Kruger with their mouths ". It is not, I may perhaps be permitted to repeat, imagination which pretends a connexion in which it does not believe, for this connexion is primary and antecedent to imagination. On the contrary, when imagination and perception are dif- ferentiated, such connexions are on the way to dissolution. There intervenes a stage in which dissociation detaches what we afterwards call superstitions from the main body of belief, and these superstitions, with varying emotional conviction on our part, cease to be real and become play, fiction, and art. Any one in the least accustomed to continuous introspection can verify the above process by instances from his own mental life, and modern anthropology supports this psychological view. Speaking of primitive societies, Mr. Hartland says 2 : " But we must of all things beware of crediting the story- teller with that degree of conscious art which is only possible in an advanced culture and under literary influences. In- deed the researches which are constantly extending the history of human civilisation into a remoter and remoter 1 Manual of Psychology, p. 551. 2 Science of Fairy Tales, p. 3.
