[125] _Principles of Sociology_, Vol. I. [126] _l.c._, p. 179. [127] Compare my short paper: _A Note on the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis_, in the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, Part LXVI, Vol. XXVI, 1912. [128] p. 26. [129] Frazer, _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, p. 158 [130] Frazer, _l.c._, p. 200. [131] Frazer, _l.c._, p. 237. [132] Freud, _Psychopathology of Everyday Life_, p. 215, trans. by A. A. Brill. [133] p. 139. [134] _Revue Scientifique_, October, 1900, reprinted in the four volume work of the author, _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, 1908, Tome I, p. 17. [135] 1910. [136] But it may be well to show the reader beforehand how difficult it is to establish the facts in this field. In the first place those who collect the observations are not identical with those who digest and discuss them; the first are travellers and missionaries, while the others are scientific men who perhaps have never seen the objects of their research.--It is not easy to establish an understanding with savages. Not all the observers were familiar with the languages but had to use the assistance of interpreters or else had to communicate with the people they questioned in the auxiliary language of pidgin-English. Savages are not communicative about the most intimate affairs of their culture and unburden themselves only to those foreigners who have passed many years in their midst. From various motives they often give wrong or misleading information, (Compare Frazer, _The Beginnings of Religion and Totemism Among the Australian Aborigines_; _Fortnightly Review_, 1905; _Totemism and Exogamy_, Vol. I, p. 150).--It must not be forgotten that primitive races are not young races but really are as old as the most civilized, and that we have no right to expect that they have preserved their original ideas and institutions for our information without any evolution or distortion. It is certain, on the contrary, that far-reaching changes in all directions have taken place among primitive races, so that we can never unhesitatingly decide which of their present conditions and opinions have preserved the original past, having remained petrified, as it were, and which represent a distortion and change of the original. It is due to this that one meets the many disputes among authors as to what proportion of the peculiarities of a primitive culture is to be taken as a primary, and what as a later and secondary manifestation. To establish the original conditions, therefore, always remains a matter of construction. Finally, it is not easy to adapt oneself to the ways of thinking of primitive races. For like children, we easily misunderstand them, and are always inclined to interpret their acts and feelings according to our own psychic constellations. [137] _Totemism_ (Edinburgh, 1887), reprinted in the first volume of his great study, _Totemism and Exogamy_. [138] Compare the chapter on Taboo.