s of this evil
practice among relatively civilized nations; the massacre which takes
place at the death of a king of Dahomey is well known, and is revolting
from the number of victims and from the mode of their sacrifice. It is
therefore easy to imagine the way in which musical instruments and the
sounds produced by them were personified, since these manifestations
seemed to approximate more closely to those of animals.

Fetishtic beliefs concerning magic songs or sounds were, as we have
seen, confirmed by the influence naturally exerted on men and animals in
their normal or abnormal state by rhythmic and musical sounds, however
rude and unformed they may be. Theophrastus tells us that blowing a
flute over the affected limb was supposed to cure gout; the Romans
recited _carmina_ to drive away disease and demons: the old Slav word
for physician, _vraci_, comes from a root which means to murmur; in
Servian, _vrac_ is a physician, and _balii_, an enchanter or physician.
The use of incantations as a remedy prevailed among the Greeks in
Homer's time. The Atarva-Veda retains the old formula of imprecation
against disease, and the Zendavesta divides physicians into three
classes, those which cure with the knife, with herbs, and with magic
formulas. Kuhn believes that the Latin word _mederi_ refers to these
proceedings, comparing with it the Sanscrit _meth_, _medh_, to oppose or
curse. Pictet traces the meaning of exorciser in another Sanscrit word
for a physician: _Bhisag_ from _sag_, _sang_, tojurbo gate.

As the civilization of the historic races advanced, poetry, singing, and
musical instruments became more perfect, and were classified as reflex
arts. Among the more intellectual classes the earlier fetishtic ideas
connected with them almost disappeared, while in the case of the common
people, the fetish was idealized, but not therefore lost; it persisted,
and still persists, under other forms. Polytheism, modified to suit the
place, time, and race, and yet essentially the same, offers us a more
ideal form of the arts, each of which was personified as a god, and
taken together they formed a heavenly company, which generated and
presided over the arts. The greatest poets and philosophers of antiquity
retained a sincere belief in the inspiration of every creation of art;
and this was only a more noble and intellectual form of the first rude
and indefinite conception by which the arts were embodied in a material
shape.

Of a