that
admired in the Far East. Such deeply seated tastes may possibly
(indeed, not improbably) be due to a common origin of the
Mediterranean and African peoples distinct from that of the Mongoloid
Asiatic races.

[Illustration: Plate IX.--Fresco drawing of two female acrobats from
the palace of Knossos, date about 1400 B.C. The originals were
discovered by Sir Arthur Evans.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: A brief account of the skulls and implements of primitive
man, with illustrations, is given in the first series of "Science from
an Easy Chair," published in 1910 by Methuen & Co.]

CHAPTER XVII

NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR

I came across a discussion the other day as to whether it is right to
tell children and to let them believe that Santa Claus puts Christmas
presents in their stockings, and that Peter Pan really comes in at the
window and teaches nice little boys and girls to float through the
air. I was surprised that anyone should be so singularly ignorant of
child-nature as to hold that children really believe these things.
Children have a wonderful and special faculty of "make-believe," which
is not the same as "belief." All the time when a child is indulging in
"make-believe" (a sort of willing self-illusion or waking dream) its
real, though tender, reasoning-power is merely "suspended," and is not
offended or outraged. That power can on emergency be brought to the
front, and the little one will say, "Of course, they're not real," or
"I always knew he didn't really come down the chimney." So that I do
not think anyone need be anxious as to doing harm or laying the
foundations of future distrust by telling fairy-tales to the very
young. If told in the right form and spirit they are received by
six-year-old and older children readily and naturally as belonging to
that delicious world of "make-believe" which (as one of their own
orators, I believe, has said) "children of even the meanest
intelligence will not be guilty of confounding with that very inferior
every-day world of reality in which we find, much to our regret, that
it is necessary to spend so large a part of our time." The power of
make-believe is almost limitless, and makes its appearance even in the
speechless infant of less than two years old, who will gather fruit
from a coloured picture, generously offer you a bite, and pretend to
swallow the rest itself. Make-believe must have been a very big
factor in the life of the ape-like pre