Lectures on the religion of the Semites. First series : the fundamental institutions / by W. Robertson Smith.

Date:: 1889

Credit: Lectures on the religion of the Semites. First series : the fundamental institutions / by W. Robertson Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$mankind, is divided into groups or societies of things, analogous to the groups or kindreds of human society. As life analogous to human life is imagined to permeate all parts of the universe, the application of this idea may readily be extended to inanimate as well as to animate things. In Jotham's fable the trees are represented as a commonwealth and make themselves a king (Judg. ix. 8 sqq^.), and fables, it will be admitted, are only modern reproductions of primitive conceptions about the life of nature. But the statistics of totemism shew that the natural kinds with which the savage mind was most occupied were the various species of animals. It is with them especially that he has permanent relations of kinship or hostility, and round them are gathered in a peculiar degree his superstitious hopes and fears and observances. Keeping these facts before us let us look back for a moment at the Arabian jinn. One difference between gods and jinn we have already noted; the gods have worshippers and the jinn have not. But there is another difference that now forces itself on our attention; the gods have individuality, and the jinn have not. In the Arabian Nights we find jinn with individual names and distinctive personalities, but in the old legends the individual jinnl who may happen to appear to a man has no more a distinct personality than a beast.^ He is only one of a This may be illustrated by reference to a point of grammar which is of some interest and is not made clear in the ordinary books. The Arab says the rjhid appeared, not a ghfil appeared, just as David says, the lion came and the bear (1 Sam. xvii. 34 ; Amos iii. 12, v. 19). The definite article is used because in such cases definition cannot be carried beyond the indication of the species. The individuals are numerically different, but qualitatively indistinguishable. This use of the article is sharply to bo distinguished from such a case as B'^NH in 1 Sam. ix. 9, where the article is generic, and a general practice of men is spoken of, and also from cases like t3'ban (Gen. xiv. 13), y^r\, Din MX etc., where the noun is really a verbal adjective implying an action, and the person is defined by the action ascribed to him.$