capable? In the instance of the Australians, in practical matters they "show conspicuous ability;" there are other directions in which they are as conspicuously deficient, "This is, perhaps, shown most clearly in the matter of counting," seldom going beyond four.[1] "Their mental powers are simply developed along the lines which are of service to them in their daily life." Now we think arithmetic of indispensable service in daily life; religion by no means so. In practical life, however, the religious conceptions of the Australians are indispensable to the structure of their society. Daramulun and Co. ("under many names one form," as Mr. Howitt shows) keep the women and the young people in order, and the secrets of their mysteries are guarded by capital punishment. Tribal society notoriously falls to pieces without the beliefs which I have stated. Now their "mental powers, developed along the lines which are of service to them in daily life," we are told are "of conspicuous ability." Our Voltairean predecessors would, therefore, have argued that native "powers of conspicuous ability" had here taken the serviceable shape of informal priestcraft, and had evolved religious ideas for political purposes, as Maitland of Lethington was accused of calling the existence of a deity "a bogle of the nursery." Thus the old men would develop the idea of a bogle, who "can see all you do," can punish you now or after death, or both, who is, in fact, so far moral and knowing and potent. Perhaps Mr. Hartland will admit that "reasoning" might go to this extent, even if the savages (whose marriage laws, by the way, "might puzzle a mathematician") cannot count up to seven? I do not know if high mental powers were needed to frame these marriage laws, but to understand them demands powers unspeakably higher than mine. Once more, the Arunta can hardly count up to five, but they have a conception of beings whose name means "Out of Nothing," or "Self-existing"
- ↑ Spencer and Gillen, Natives of Central Australia, p. 25.
