Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

122 Totemism, Sacrament and Sacrifice [ch.
If we can once think ourselves back into totemistic days we
shall be rid for ever of an ancient and most pernicons orthodoxy,
the old doctrine that the religion of primiUve man was anthropo-
morphic. Facts tell ns that it was not ; that thenomorplnsm and
phytomorphism came first. Yet the ancient dogma flounsb.es.
Again and again we find the unqualified statement that man
protects Ms own image on the universe, sees in rt h.s own human
I peoples all nature with human soul, Totem^m teaches us
t the contrary
; it is as it were the fossil form of quite anothe
freed It stands for fusion, for „„»-differentiatmn Man canno
project his individual self, because that individual self is as yet
Tpart undivided; he cannot project his indivnlua! human wdl,
because that human will is felt chiefly as one *rthJ* un-
differentiated mana of the world ;
he cannot project hrs mdiv.dual
soul because that complex thing is as yet not completely
compounded 1 .
Totemism, then, is not so much a special social structure as a
stage in epistemology. It is the reflexion of a very pnmitive
fasnion in thinking, or rather feeling, the universe, a fefegOej
realization of which is essential to any understanding of primitive
made by
confuset
religion. It is not a particular blunder and
certain ignorant savages, but a phase or stage of collective think-
ng through which the human mind is bound to pass.
Its basis is
group-unity, aggregation, similarity, sympathy, a sense of common
group Hie, and this sense of common life, this parUnpaUon* tins
unity is extended to the non-human world in a way which our
modern, individualistic reason, based on observed distinctions, finds
almost unthinkable. .
_
We find totemism unthinkable because it is non-rational. We
are inclined to make the quite unauthorized assumption that true
Judgments, i.e. judgments which correspond to observed fact, are
natural to man. False judgments like totemism we feel are.
anomalous and need explanation. Man's opinions, his jadgmenM
we fondly imagine, are based on observation and reason. Just the
contrary is the case; beliefs of every kind, at least in mans early]
i The late character of the individual 'soul' will be discussed when we come to
the question of Hero-Worship in chapter vm.
Levv-Bruhl, op. cit.
a For a full analysis of the primitive idea of participation see Levy uru F ,
chapter n. La loi de participation.