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Letter to Professor Arthur D. Nock on Some Fundamental Concepts in the Science of Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Martin P. Nilsson
Martin P. Nilsson
Affiliation:
Lund University
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Extract

Prefatory Note. This letter has a lengthy history. More than thirty years ago I felt the necessity of a knowledge of and clearing up of the modes and lines of thought of unlettered people and wrote down a draft of a lecture upon which I have drawn here. Later on I applied my views to a special field, the concept, or to speak more justly the concepts of the soul, in a lecture delivered to the Fifth Congress for the History of Religions at Lund in 1929. Then I put the subject aside, although it always lurked at the back of my mind. Certain recent tendencies in the science of religion caused me to reconsider the problems involved and to write down a draft in order to coördinate and to systematize my views in regard to certain fundamental questions of this science. I happened to mention this in a letter to Professor Nock, and, as he wanted to take cognizance of the draft I had made for private purposes, I translated it into English and sent it to him. When he wished to publish it I asked him to subject my draft to the judgment of an expert anthropologist and to let me know his opinion. Professor Kluckhohn of Harvard was kind enough to read my manuscript and to supply some useful remarks and references. As he found my considerations useful, I consented to their being printed. I thank these two colleagues warmly for the interest they have taken in them. I am under a heavy debt of gratitude to Mrs. W. L. Sperry for her kindness in undertaking the difficult task of revising my English style in this paper as well as in others which I have published in the Harvard Theological Review.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , April 1949 , pp. 71 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1949

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References

1 Cf. my review of Otto, W. F., Dionysos, in the German periodical Gnomon, xi. 1935. pp. 177Google Scholar et seqq.

2 Revue de l'Histoire et de la Philosophie religieuses, x. 1930, pp. 113 et seqq.

3 In the Swedish periodical ‘Folkminnen och Folktankar,’ xiii. 1926, pp. 53 et seqq.

4 Per Nilsson-Stjernquist, Om handräckningsutslag, Lund 1946, pp. 38 et seqq. I translate some relevant sentences. Among primitive peoples substantives are wanting that correspond to the words dominium and possessio, right of property or possession. However, genitives or corresponding forms are found everywhere. A person and an object are connected, e.g., by one of them being put in the genitive. The Greenland Eskimoes are cited as an example. According to Professor W. Thalbitzer they lack an abstract concept of the right of property. One observes solely that they conceive of the connection of a person with an object much more intimately than we do. One might say that all possessed objects have a very great affection value for the possessor himself as well as for others. For others the object so to say takes color through its connection with a certain person. Because of this, stealing is a bad action. The affection value of a harpoon which once belonged to a skilled hunter is in a certain measure comparable. The value is inherent in the harpoon even though for a long time it has been used by others. Ceremonies in bargaining or exchange of goods do not occur. This record is very illuminating.

5 Professor Kluckhohn refers to Alexander, H. G., Linguistic Morphology in relation to Thinking, Journal of Philosophy, xxxiii, 1936, pp. 261CrossRefGoogle Scholar et seqq. His statement, p. 267, that morphology comes nearer to a natural and primitive systematization of the world than does vocabulary, agrees substantially with my view on the so-called categories.

6 Cf. Schweitzer, B., Studien zur Entstehung des Porträts bei den Griechen, Akademie der Wiss., Leipzig, Berichte, phil.-hist. Klasse, xci, 1939Google Scholar, fasc. 4, pp. 8 et seqq.

7 R. Karsten, The Origin of Religion, p. 191, with references.

8 Examples in Marett, The Threshold of Religion, pp. 120 et seqq., and above, p. 80, n. 4.

9 Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xii, 1909, pp. 186 et seqq.

10 I refer to the lucid exposition by Dr. Westermarck, Ritual and Belief in Morocco, vol. I, pp. 37 et seqq. Agreeing theoretically with Sir James Frazer he emphasizes the ‘mysterious,’ the supernatural as the common element of religion and magic.

11 From Spell to Prayer, The Threshold of Religion, pp. 33 et seqq.

12 Cf. lonka-lonka, Marett, loc. cit., p. 75.

13 Cf. my Gesch. d. gr. Rel., I, p. 153.

14 Cf. my Gesch. d. gr. Rel., I, pp. 152 et seqq.

15 Religionen hos urkulturens folk, p. 98.

16 The fatalism of Homer is something different which I treated in my Gesch. d. gr. Rel., I, pp. 338 et seqq., and so too the Babylonian tables of Fate in the New Years festival are a product of astrological belief.

17 In the preface to the second edition of his Making of Religion, p. x.