me readiness of belief, which would be surprising in
a Christian child, has been found to regulate the rudimentary political
organisations of grey barbarians. Add to this credulity a philosophy
which takes resemblance, or contiguity in space, or nearness in time as
a sufficient reason for predicating the relations of cause and effect,
and we have the basis of savage physical science. Yet the metaphysical
theories of savages, as expressed in Maori, Polynesian, and Zuni hymns,
often amaze us by their wealth of abstract ideas. Coincidence elsewhere
stands for cause.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, is the motto of the savage philosophy of
causation. The untutored reasoner speculates on the principles of the
Egyptian clergy, as described by Herodotus.(1) "The Egyptians have
discovered more omens and prodigies than any other men; for when aught
prodigious occurs, they keep good watch, and write down what follows;
and then, if anything like the prodigy be repeated, they expect the same
events to follow as before." This way of looking at things is the very
essence of superstition.

(1) II. p. 82.

Savages, as a rule, are not even so scientific as the Egyptians. When
an untoward event occurs, they look for its cause among all the less
familiar circumstances of the last few days, and select the determining
cause very much at random. Thus the arrival of the French missionaries
among the Hurons was coincident with certain unfortunate events;
therefore it was argued that the advent of the missionaries was the
cause of the misfortune. When the Bechuanas suffered from drought, they
attributed the lack of rain to the arrival of Dr. Moffat, and especially
to his beard, his church bell, and a bag of salt in his possession. Here
there was not even the pretence of analogy between cause and effect.
Some savages might have argued (it is quite in their style), that as
salt causes thirst, a bag of salt causes drought; but no such case could
be made out against Dr. Moffat's bell and beard. To give an example from
the beliefs of English peasants. When a cottage was buried by a little
avalanche in 1772, the accident was attributed to the carelessness of
the cottagers, who had allowed a light to be taken out of their dwelling
in Christmas-tide.(1) We see the same confusion between antecedence and
consequence in time on one side, and cause and effect on the other, when
the Red Indians aver that birds actually bring winds and storms or fair
weat