Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of MankindWundt, Wilhelm Max
Science
Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Wundt, Wilhelm Max
Ethnopsychology
In these various modifications, _individual totemism_ is doubtless
more widespread than is tribal totemism. Nevertheless, this by no
means implies that the latter developed from the former. On the
contrary, both may possibly be equally original, grounded as they
are in universal human motives that run parallel and independent
courses. For this very reason, however, it is also possible that
tribal totemism is the older form, for on somewhat higher cultural
levels it recedes in favour of the belief in protective spirits
of individuals. In questions such as this it is helpful to adduce
parallels from later cults whose mode of origin is more familiar. In
the present instance, leaving out of account the animal ideas, the
two forms of totemism are closely analogous to the Roman Catholic
worship of saints. The saints also are regarded partly as guardians
of communities and partly as personal protectors. Thus, on the one
hand, we have the patrons of cities, of monasteries, of vocations,
and of classes; on the other hand, the individual also may possess a
particular patron saint. We know of a certainty, however, that the
patron saints of individuals did not antecede those of the Church
itself. It was this most inclusive community that first elected the
saints, whereupon smaller groups and finally individuals, guided by
motives that were frequently quite external, selected specific patron
saints from among the number of ecclesiastical saints. When the Church
set apart a certain day of the year for the particular worship of one
of its saints, this day was called by the name of the saint; to those
individuals who were named after him, the day became sacred. Thus, the
patron saint of the individual appeared later than the more universal
saint. This order of development, moreover, is in harmony with the
general nature of custom, language, and myth, according to which the
individual succeeds the universal; only secondarily may the process
occasionally be reversed. Usually, however, it is cult associations
and their common cult objects that are first in origin. Our contention
is unaffected by the fact that individual cult objects, as well as
individual totems, may continue to survive after tribal cults and
tribal totems have disappeared. For the need of a personal protector is
generally much more permanent than are the social conditions that gave
it birth. Again we may find verification in the analogous development
of saint worship. Nowadays the patron saints of the vocations, classes,
and cities have more and more passed into oblivion. Among the Roman
Catholic rural population, however, the individual still frequently
has his patron saint, and, even where the saint has disappeared, the
celebration of the 'name-day' has been retained. It is particularly
in the religious realm that personal need gains a greater and greater
ascendancy over community need. Everything seems to indicate that
such a change took place even within totemism, especially under the
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