e to infer that some such
agency is at work in the case of those phenomena which we see no reason
to attribute to the voluntary actions of men and animals? It is well
known that primitive man took this step. Primitive man had no notion of
the 'Uniformity of Nature': it is only very gradually that civilized man
has discovered it. But primitive man never doubted for one instant the
law of Causality: he never doubted that for any change, or at least for
any change of the kind which most frequently attracted his attention,
there must {42} be a cause. Everything that moved he supposed to be
alive, or to be under the influence of some living being more or less
like himself. If the sea raged, he supposed that the Sea-god was angry.
If it did not rain to-day, when it rained yesterday, that was due to the
favour of the Sky-god, and so on. The world for him was full of spirits.
The argument of primitive man's unconscious but thoroughly sound
Metaphysic is well expressed by the fine lines of Wordsworth in the
_Excursion_:

Once more to distant ages of the world
Let us revert, and place before our thoughts
The face which rural solitude might wear
To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece.
--In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched
On the soft grass through half a summer's day,
With music lulled his indolent repose:
And, in some fit of weariness, if he,
When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched,
Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,
A beardless Youth, who touched a golden lute,
And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.
The nightly hunter, lifting a bright eye
Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart
Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed
That timely light, to share his joyous sport:
And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs,
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,
(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes
By echo multiplied from rock or cave),
{43}
Swept in the storm of chace; as moon and stars
Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven,
When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked
His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked
The Naiad. Sunbeams, upon distant hills
Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,
Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.
The Zep