Europe was unfavourable, partly because excessive reverence for the authority of the past fettered men's minds, and partly because the learned successors of Aristotle had come to believe so utterly in argumentation as to fancy that the problems of the world could be dealt with by arguing about them, without increasing the stock of real knowledge. The great movement of modern philosophy with which the name of Bacon is associated as a chief expounder, brought men back to the sound old method of working experience and thought together, only now the experience was more carefully sought and observed, and thought arranged it more systematically. We who live in an age when every week shows new riches of nature's facts, and new shapeliness in the laws that connect them, have the best of practical proof that science is now moving on a right track.

The student who wishes to compare the mental habits of rude and ancient peoples with our own, may look into a subject which has now fallen into contempt from its practical uselessness, but which is most instructive in showing how the unscientific mind works. This is Magic. In the earlier days of knowledge men relied far more than we moderns do on reasoning by analogy or mere associa tion of ideas. In getting on from what is known already to something new, analogy or reasoning by resemblance always was, as it still is, the mind's natural guide in the quest of truth. Only its results must be put under the control of experience. When the Australians picked up the bits of broken bottles left by the European sailors, the likeness of the new material to their own stone flakes at once led them to try it for teeth to their spears; experience proved that in this case the argument from analogy held good, for the broken glass answered perfectly. So the

North American Indian, in default of tobacco, finds some more or less similar plant to serve instead, such as willowbark. The practical knowledge of nature possessed by savages is so great, that it cannot have been gained by mere chance observations; they must have been for ages constantly noticing and trying new things, to see how far their behaviour corresponded with that of things partly like them. And where the matter can be brought to practical trial by experiment, this is a thoroughly scientific method. But the rude man wants to learn and do far more difficult things— how to find where there is plenty of game, or whether his enemies are coming, how to save himself from the lightning, or how to hurt some one he hates, but cannot safely throw a spear at. In such matters beyond his limited knowledge, he contents himself with working on resemblances or analogies of thought, which thus become the foundation of magic. On looking into the "occult sciences," it is easy to make out in them principles which are intelligible if one can only bring one's mind down to the childish state they belong to. Nothing shows this better than the rules of astrology, although this is far from the rudest kind of magic. According to the astrologers, a man born under the sign Taurus is likely to have a broad brow and thick lips, and to be brutal and unfeeling, but when enraged, violent and furious. If he had been born under the sign Libra, he would have had just and well-balanced mind. All this is because two particular groups of stars happen to have been called the bull and the balance; the child whose hour of birth has some sort of astronomical relation to these constellations is imagined to have a character resembling that of a real bull or a real pair of scales. So with the planets. He over whom Mars presides in his better aspect will be bold and fearless, but where the planet is "ill-dignified," then he will be a boastful

shameless bully, ready to rob and murder. Had he but been born when Venus was in the ascendant, how different would he have been, with dimpled cheek and soft voice apt to speak of love. Practically foolish as all this is, it is not unintelligible. There is in it a train of thought which can be followed quite easily, though it is a train of thought hardly strong enough for a joke, much less for a serious argument. Yet such is the magic which still pervades the barbaric world. The North American Indian, eager to kill a bear to-morrow, will hang up a rude grass image of one and shoot it, reckoning that this symbolic act will make the real one happen. The Australians at a burial, to know in what direction they may find the wicked sorcerer who has killed their friend, will take as their omen the direction of the flames of the grave-fire. The Zulu who has to buy cattle may be seen chewing a bit of wood, in order to soften the hard heart of the seller he is dealing with. The accounts of such practices would fill a volume, and they do not seem broken-down remains of old ideas, for there is no reason to suppose they ever had more sense in them than is to be plainly seen now. They may be derived from some such loose savage logic as this :--Things which are like one another behave in the same way-shooting this image of a bear is like shooting a real bear-therefore, if I shoot the image I shall shoot a real bear. It is true that such magical proceedings, if tested by facts, prove to be worthless. But if we wonder that nevertheless they should so prevail among mankind, it may be answered that they last on even in our own country among those who are too ignorant to test them by facts-the rustics who believe a neighbour's ill-wishing has killed their cow, and who, on true savage principles, try to punish the evil-doer by putting a heart spitefully stuck full of pins up the chimney to shrivel

in the smoke, that in like manner sharp pangs may pierce

him and he may waste away.

In another and very different way the student of science is interested in magic.

Loose and illogical as man's early

reasonings may be, and slow as he may be to improve them under the check of experience, it is a law of human progress that thought tends to work itself clear. Thus even

the fancies of magic have been sources of real knowledge. Few magical superstitions are more troublesome than the Chinese geomancy or rules of "wind and water," by which a lucky site has to be chosen for building a house. Absurd as this ancient art is, its professors appear to have been the earliest to use the magnetic compass to determine the aspects of the heavens, so that it seems the magician gave the navigator his guide in exploring the world. What exact science owes to astrology is well known, how in Chaldæa the places of the stars were systematically observed and recorded for portents of battle and pestilence, and registers of lucky and unlucky days. The old magical character hung to astronomy even into modern ages, wh.n astrologers like Tycho Brahe and Kepler, who believed that the destinies of men were foretold by the planets, helped by their observation and calculation to foretell the motions of the planets themselves. Thus man has but to go on observing and thinking, secure that in time his errors will fall away, while the truth he attains to will abide and grow.

Religion of Lower Races, 342-Souls, 343-Burial, 347-Future Life, 349-Transmigration, 350-Divine Ancestors, 351-Demons, 352-Nature Spirits, 357-Gods, 358-Worship, 354-Moral Influence, 368.

IT does not belong to the plan of this book to give a general account of the many faiths of mankind. The anthropologist, who has to look at the religions of nations as a main part of their life, may best become acquainted with their general principles by beginning with the simple notions of the lower races as to the spirit-world. That is, he has to examine how and why they believe in the soul and its existence after death, the spirits who do good and evil in the world, and the greater gods who pervade, actuate, and rule the universe. Any one who learns from savages and barbarians what their belief in spiritual beings means to them, will come into view of that stage of culture where the religion of rude tribes is at the same time their philosophy, containing such explanation of themselves and the world they live in as their uneducated minds are able to receive.

The idea of the soul which is held by uncultured races, and is the foundation of their religion, is not difficult to us