ABSTRACT

COLLECTIVE R EPR ESEN TA TIO N S IN PR IM ITIVES' PERCEPTION S AND TH E M YSTICAL CH A R A CTER OF SUCH

I B e f o r e undertaking an investigation of the most general laws governing collective representations among undeveloped peoples, it may be as well to determine what the essential characteristics of these representations are, and thus avoid an ambiguity which is otherwise almost inevitable. The ter­ minology used in the analysis of mental functions is suited to functions such as the philosophers, psychologists, and logicians of our civilization have formulated and defined. If we admit these functions to be identical in all human aggregates, there is no difficulty in the m atter; the same terminology can be employed throughout, with the mental reservation that “ savages " have minds more like those of children than of adults. But if we abandon this position-and we have the strongest reasons for considering it untenable-then the terms, divisions, classifications, we make use of in analysing our own mental functions are not suitable for those which differ from them ; on the contrary, they prove a source of confusion and error. In studying primitive mentality, which is a new subject, we shall probably require a fresh terminology. A t any rate it will be necessary to specify the new meaning which some expressions already in use should assume when applied to an object differing from that they have hitherto betokened.