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
Considerably more light is thrown on this question when we examine the
products of human activity, such as implements, weapons, and works of
art. Traces of man, in the form of objects hammered out of flint and
shaped into clubs, chisels, knives, and daggers, capable of serving
as implements of daily use no less than as weapons, are to be found
as far back as the first diluvian epoch, and, in their crudest forms,
perhaps even as early as the tertiary period. The more polished
objects of similar form belong to a later age. Still more remarkable
are the works of art--in particular, the cave pictures of prehistoric
animals, such as the cave bear and the mammoth. Nevertheless, none of
these achievements is of such a nature as to afford positive evidence
of a culture essentially different from, or lower than, that of the
primitive man of to-day. Two outstanding facts, especially, make a
comparison difficult. On the one hand, wood plays an important rôle
in the life of modern primitive man, being used for the construction
of tools, weapons, and, in part, also of baskets and vessels. But the
utensils of wood that may have existed in prehistoric times could not
have withstood the destructive forces of decomposition and decay. All
such utensils, therefore, that prehistoric man may have possessed have
been lost. Thus, for example, it will be difficult ever to ascertain
whether or not he was familiar with the bow and arrow, since the arrow,
as well as the bow, was originally made of wood. Secondly, there is at
the present time no primitive tribe, however much shut off from its
more remote environment, into which barter, which is nowhere entirely
absent, may not introduce some objects representing a higher form of
civilization, particularly metals and metal implements. If, however, we
bear in mind that, in the one case, products have suffered destruction
and that, in the other, articles have been introduced from without, the
impression made by prehistoric utensils and products of art--aside from
certain doubtful remains dating back beyond the diluvial epoch--is not
essentially different from that made by the analogous products of the
Negritos of the Philippines or the inland tribes of Ceylon. Though the
material of which the implements are constructed differs, the knives,
hammers, and axes in both instances possess the usual form. Thus, the
wooden knife which the Veddah of Ceylon still carves out of bamboo
is formed precisely like some of the stone knives of the diluvial
period. We find a similar correspondence when we examine the traces of
dwellings and decorations that have been preserved, as well as certain
remains that throw light upon customs. The oldest prehistoric people
of Europe dwelt in caves, just as the primitive man of the tropics
does to-day in the rainy season. In a rock cavern near Le Moustier,
in France, there was discovered a skeleton whose crouching position
points to a mode of burial still prevalent among primitive peoples,
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