Chapter III: Preface: To the Fourth Edition

For ordinary purposes the present edition may be taken as substantially unchanged. In only a few passages noticeable alterations have been made, (see vol. i. p. 167, vocal tone; vol. ii. pp. 234-7, totemism).

E. B. T.

_October, 1903._

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER I.

THE SCIENCE OF CULTURE.

Culture or Civilization—Its phenomena related according to definite Laws—Method of classification and discussion of the evidence—Connexion of successive stages of culture by Permanence, Modification, and Survival—Principal topics examined in the present work 1

CHAPTER II.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE.

State of culture, industrial, intellectual, political, moral—Development of culture in great measure corresponds with transition from savage through barbaric to civilized life—Progression-theory—Degeneration-theory—Development-theory includes both, the one as primary, the other as secondary—Historical and traditional evidence not available as to low stages of culture—Historical evidence as to principles of Degeneration—Ethnological evidence as to rise and fall in culture, from comparison of different levels of culture in branches of the same race—Extent of historically recorded antiquity of civilization—Prehistoric Archæology extends the antiquity of man in low stages of civilization—Traces of Stone Age, corroborated by megalithic structures, lake-dwellings, shell-heaps, burial-places, &c., prove original low culture throughout the world—Stages of Progressive Development in industrial arts 26

CHAPTER III.

SURVIVAL IN CULTURE.

Survival and Superstition—Children’s games—Games of chance—Traditional sayings—Nursery poems—Proverbs—Riddles—Significance and survival in Customs: sneezing-formula, rite of foundation-sacrifice, prejudice against saving a drowning man 70

CHAPTER IV.

Occult Sciences—Magical powers attributed by higher to lower races—Magical processes based on Association of Ideas—Omens—Augury, &c.—Oneiromancy—Haruspication, Scapulimancy, Chiromancy, &c.—Cartomancy, &c.—Rhabdomancy, Dactyliomancy, Coscinomancy, &c.—Astrology—Intellectual conditions accounting for the persistence of Magic—Survival passes into Revival—Witchcraft, originating in savage culture, continues in barbaric civilization; its decline in early mediæval Europe followed by revival; its practices and counter-practices belong to earlier culture—Spiritualism has its source in early stages of culture, in close connexion with witchcraft—Spirit-rapping and Spirit-writing—Rising in the air—Performances of tied mediums—Practical bearing of the study of Survival 112

CHAPTER V.

EMOTIONAL AND IMITATIVE LANGUAGE.

Element of directly expressive Sound in Language—Test by independent correspondence in distinct languages—Constituent processes of Language—Gesture—Expression of feature, &c.—Emotional Tone—Articulate sounds, vowels determined by musical quality and pitch, consonants—Emphasis and Accent—Phrase-melody, Recitative—Sound-words—Interjections—Calls to Animals—Emotional Cries—Sense-words formed from Interjections—Affirmative and Negative particles, &c. 160

CHAPTER VI.

EMOTIONAL AND IMITATIVE LANGUAGE (_continued_).

Imitative Words—Human actions named from sound—Animals’ names from cries, &c.—Musical Instruments—Sounds reproduced—Words modified to adapt sound to sense—Reduplication—Graduation of vowels to express distance and difference—Children’s Language—Sound-words as related to Sense-words—Language an original product of the lower Culture 200

CHAPTER VII.

THE ART OF COUNTING.

Ideas of Number derived from experience—State of Arithmetic among uncivilized races—Small extent of Numeral-words among low tribes—Counting by fingers and toes—Hand-numerals show derivation of Verbal reckoning from Gesture-counting—Etymology of Numerals—Quinary, Decimal, and Vigesimal notations of the world derived from counting on fingers and toes—Adoption of foreign Numeral-words—Evidence of development of Arithmetic from a low original level of Culture 240

CHAPTER VIII.

MYTHOLOGY.

Mythic fancy based, like other thought, on Experience—Mythology affords evidence for studying laws of Imagination—Change in public opinion as to credibility of Myths—Myths rationalized into Allegory and History—Ethnological import and treatment of Myth—Myth to be studied in actual existence and growth among modern savages and barbarians—Original sources of Myth—Early doctrines of general animation of Nature—Personification of Sun, Moon, and Stars; Water-spout, Sand-pillar, Rainbow, Waterfall, Pestilence—Analogy worked into Myth and Metaphor—Myths of Rain, Thunder, &c.—Effect of Language in formation of Myth—Material Personification primary, Verbal Personification secondary—Grammatical Gender, male and female, animate and inanimate, in relation to Myth—Proper names of objects in relation to Myth—Mental State proper to promote mythic imagination—Doctrine of Werewolves—Phantasy and Fancy 273

CHAPTER IX.

MYTHOLOGY (_continued_).

Nature-myths, their origin, canon of interpretation, preservation of original sense and significant names—Nature-myths of upper savage races compared with related forms among barbaric and civilized nations—Heaven and Earth as Universal Parents—Sun and Moon: Eclipse and Sunset, as Hero or Maiden swallowed by Monster; Rising of Sun from Sea and Descent to Under-World; Jaws of Night and Death, Symplegades; Eye of Heaven, Eye of Odin and the Graiæ—Sun and Moon as mythic civilizers—Moon, her inconstancy, periodical death and revival—Stars, their generation—Constellations, their place in Mythology and Astronomy—Wind and Tempest—Thunder—Earthquake 316

CHAPTER X.

MYTHOLOGY (_continued_).

Philosophical Myths: inferences become pseudo-history—Geological Myths—Effect of doctrine of Miracles on Mythology—Magnetic Mountain—Myths of relation of Apes to Men by development or degeneration—Ethnological import of myths of Ape-men, Men with tails, Men of the woods—Myths of Error, Perversion, and Exaggeration: stories of Giants, Dwarfs, and Monstrous Tribes of men—Fanciful explanatory Myths—Myths attached to legendary or historical Personages—Etymological Myths on names of places and persons—Eponymic Myths on names of tribes, nations, countries, &c.; their ethnological import—Pragmatic Myths by realization of metaphors and ideas—Allegory—Beast-Fable—Conclusion 368