tablish actual connection. Why do the Bushmen kindle great fires in
time of drought, if not because of the similarity in appearance between
smoke and rain-clouds? Such resemblances, to give a familiar instance,
have fastened on certain rocks and stones many legends of transformation
in conformity with the belief already discussed; and they account for a
vast variety of symbolism in the rites and ceremonies of nations all
over the world.

The topic is well nigh endless; but enough has been said to enable the
reader to see how widely pervasive in human affairs is the belief in
real connection founded on nothing more substantial than association of
thought, however occasioned. Nothing, indeed, is too absurd for this
belief. It is one of the most fruitful causes of superstition; and it
only disappears very gradually from the higher civilization as the
reasoning powers become more and more highly trained. In magic, or
witchcraft, we find it developed into a system, with professional
ministers and well-established rules. By these rules its ministers
declare themselves able to perform all the wonders of transformation
referred to above, to command spirits, to bring distant persons and
things into their immediate presence, to inflict injury and death upon
whom they please, to bestow wealth and happiness, and to foretell the
future. The terror they have thus inspired, and the horrors wrought
under the influence of that terror, form one of the saddest chapters of
history.[14]

I do not of course pretend that the foregoing is a complete account of
the mental processes of savage peoples. Still less have I attempted to
trace the history of the various characteristics mentioned, or to show
the order of their evolution. To attempt either of these things would
be beyond the scope of the present work. I have simply enumerated a few
of the elements in the psychology of men in a low state of culture which
it is needful to bear in mind in order to understand the stories we are
about to examine. In those stories we shall find many impossibilities,
many absurdities and many traces of customs repulsive to our modes of
thought and foreign to our manners. The explanation is to be obtained,
not by speculations based on far-fetched metaphors supposed to have
existed in the speech of early races, nor in philological puzzles, but
by soberly inquiring into the facts of barbarian and savage life and
into the psychological phenomena of which the fact