The mind of primitive man : $b A course of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., and the National University of Mexico, 1910-1911Boas, Franz
Science
The mind of primitive man : $b A course of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., and the National University of Mexico, 1910-1911
Boas, Franz
Ethnopsychology; Race
That such feelings are not by any means improbable,
or even rare, is sufficiently shown by the exclusiveness of the European
high nobility, or by the national emotions in their pronounced form. It
is not at all difficult to understand how an overbearing enthusiasm of
self-appreciation of a community may become a powerful emotion or a
passion, which, on account of the lack of rational explanation of the
world, will tend to associate the members of the community with all that
is good and powerful. Psychologically, therefore, we may compare
totemism with those familiar forms of society in which certain social
classes claim privileges by the grace of God, or where the patron saint
of a community favors its members with his protection. It will be
recognized that we have here again a type of association in primitive
society which has completely changed with the development of
civilization.
However these associations may have been brought about, there is no
doubt that they do exist, and that, psychologically considered, they are
of the same character as those previously discussed, and that the
rationalizing mind of man soon lost the historic thread, and
reinterpreted the established customs in conformity with the general
trend of thought of his culture. We are therefore justified in
concluding that these customs must also be studied by the pragmatic
method, because their present associations are not likely to be
original, but rather secondary.
It is perhaps venturesome to discuss at the present moment the origin of
these types of association; yet it may be admissible to dwell on a few
of the most generalized facts which seem to characterize primitive
culture as compared to civilization. From our point of view, the
striking features of primitive culture are the great number of
associations of entirely heterogeneous groups of phenomena, such as
natural phenomena and individual emotion, social groupings and religious
concepts, decorative art and symbolic interpretation. These tend to
disappear with the approach to our present civilization, although a
careful analysis reveals the persistence of many, and the tendency of
each automatic action to establish its own associations according to the
mental relations in which it regularly occurs. One of the great changes
that has taken place may perhaps best be expressed by saying that in
primitive culture the impressions of the outer world are associated
intimately with subjective impressions, which they call forth regularly,
but which are determined largely by the social surroundings of the
individual. Gradually it is recognized that these connections are more
uncertain than others that remain the same for all mankind, and in all
forms of social surroundings; and thus sets in the gradual elimination
of one subjective association after another, which culminates in the
scientific method of the present day. We may express this also by saying
that when we have our attention directed to a certain concept which has
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