haps one day the cord connecting the temple
with Ephesus was drawn TIGHT and it was found that messages could be, by
tapping, transmitted along it. That way lay the discovery of a fact. In
an age which worshiped fertility, whether in mankind or animals, TWINS
were ever counted especially blest, and were credited with a magic
power. (The Constellation of the Twins was thought peculiarly lucky.)
Perhaps after a time it was discovered that twins sometimes run in
families, and in such cases really do bring fertility with them. In
cattle it is known nowadays that there are more twins of the female sex
than of the male sex. (3)

(1) Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 106.

(2) See The Golden Bough, i, 127.

(3) See Evolution of Sex, by Geddes and Thomson (1901), p. 41,
note.

Observations of this kind were naturally made by the ablest members of
the tribe--who were in all probability the medicine-men and wizards--and
brought in consequence power into their hands. The road to power in
fact--and especially was this the case in societies which had not
yet developed wealth and property--lay through Magic. As far as magic
represented early superstition land religion it laid hold of the HEARTS
of men--their hopes and fears; as far as it represented science and the
beginnings of actual knowledge, it inspired their minds with a sense of
power, and gave form to their lives and customs. We have no reason to
suppose that the early magicians and medicine-men were peculiarly wicked
or bent on mere self-aggrandizement--any more than we have to think the
same of the average country vicar or country doctor of to-day. They
were merely men a trifle wiser or more instructed than their flocks.
But though probably in most cases their original intentions were decent
enough, they were not proof against the temptations which the possession
of power always brings, and as time went on they became liable to trade
more and more upon this power for their own advancement. In the
matter of Religion the history of the Christian priesthood through the
centuries shows sufficiently to what misuse such power can be put; and
in the matter of Science it is a warning to us of the dangers attending
the formation of a scientific priesthood, such as we see growing up
around us to-day. In both cases--whether Science or Religion--vanity,
personal ambition, lust of domination and a hundred other vices, unless
corrected by a real devotion to the public good, may easi