What is come to this man who, lying prostrate, and refusing to eat, does not know those around; now matters incoherently or talks nonsense; now speaks to some one the bystanders cannot see; now shrinks in terror from an invisible foe; now laughs without a cause? And how does it happen that when, after some days, he has become calm again, and speaks to those around in his usual way, he either knows nothing about these strange doings of his, or narrates things which no one witnessed? Manifestly one of these spirits or ghosts, swarming around, and some of them ever on the watch to do mischief, had entered his body at night while he was away, and had thus abused it. That savagesi do thus interpret the facts we have not much proof: probably because travellei's rarely witness among them this kind of mental disturbance. Still, Petherick says the Arabo suppose that '^ in high fever, when a person is delirious, hb is possessed by the devil.'^ And there is the testimony of Southey respecting the Tupis: he recognizes delirium as one of the sources of their superstitions.
But when from temporary insanity we pass to prolonged or permanent insanity, we everywhere find proof that this is the interpretation given. Turner tells us that the Samoans attributed madness to the presence of an evil spirit; and Mariner says the like of the Tongans. The Sumatrans, too, {vccording to Marsden, consider that lunatics are possessed. Among more advanced races the interpretation has been, and still remains, the same. When the writer of E<ivib1es in Syria tells us that, '' in the East, madness is tantamount to inspiration/' we are] reminded that if there is any difference between this conception and the conceptions 8UF£RSrATUEAL AGENTS AS OAtJSINa SPlLEPSY, ETC. 247 i«ecoTded of old^ it concerns only the nature of tHe pOBsesfiing spirit, not its existence. These earlier records, too, yield evidence that the original form of the belief was the fonn to be inferred. Though in the days of Josephu^, only some Jews held that the demons which enter men, " are no other than the souls of the wicked ''; yet, as the possessed were said to frequent burial-places, and as demons were supposed to make tombs their favourite haunts, we have good reasons for thinking that the possessing spirit was originally conceived as a ghost.
The continuance of this view of insanity through mediaeval days, down to the days when the 72nd canon of our Church tacitly embodied it by forbidding the casting out of devils without a special licence, is easy to understand. Only after developing science had made familiar the idea that mental states result from nervous actions, which can be disordered by physical causes, did it become possible to conceive the madman^s amazing ideas and passions in any other way than as the expressions of some nature unlike his own.
We must not overlook a verification which the beliaviour of the insane yields to the belief in surroundingghosts or spirits. The uncivilized or semi-civilized man,-is wholly unable to think of the maniac^s visions as sub- ' jective illusions. He is at an immeasurable distance from -this conception: neither his intellect, nor his language,, nor/ his knowledge, suffices. What then must he conclude when • he hears a maniac talking furiously to an invisible person, or throwing a missile at some being, unseen by others, whom he wants to drive away? He is fearfully in earnest. His frantic gestures, his glaring eyes, his shrieking voice, make it impossible to doubt the strength of his belief. Obviously, then, there are mischievous demons around: manifest to him but not to bystanders. If any doubted the existence of supernatural agents, they can no longer doubt.
One further noteworthy idea is thus yielded to the primi- ^ tive man. In their paroxysms, the insane aro extremely ' strong — strong enough to cope single-handed with seTeral men. What is the inference? The possessing demon has superhuman energy. The beUef thus suggested has developments hereafter to be noted.
§ 125. Once established, this mode of explaining unusual actions, mental and bodilj, extends itself. Insensibly it spreads from abnormalities of the kinds aboye instanced to those of other kinds. Diseases are soon included under the theory. Seeing that bodily derangement often co-exists with mental derangement (as in fever that is attended by delirium), the inference is that the same agent causes both. And if some unhealthy states are produced by in-dwelling demons, then others are thus produced. An intruding spirit is either in the body, or is hovering around, inflicting evil on it: if not of its own malicious will, then at the dictate of an enemy.
The primitive form of this interpretation is shown us by the Amazula. Even a stitch in the side they thus explain: ^if the disease lasts a long time,'^ they say, ''he is affected by the Itongo. He is affected by his people who are dead.^^ According to Turner, the Samoans supposed that the spirits of the dead '' had power to return, and cause disease and death in other members of the family.'' As we saw in § 92, the New Caledonians ''think white men are the spirits of the dead, and bring sickness.^' The Dyaks who, like the Australians, attribute every disease to spirits, like them, too, personify diseases. They will not call the small-pox by its name; but ask — " Has he yet left you?*' Sometimes they call it " the chief.'' In these cases ghosts are the assumed agents; and in somo of them, bodily possession of the sufferer is alleged or implied. In other cases, the supernatural agent, not specified in its origin, appears to be regarded as external. By the Arawaks, pain is called "the evil spirit's arrow/' and the Land-Dyaks believe that sickness is occasionally " caused * by spirits inflicting 8T7PBENATUBAL AGENTS AS CAUSING EHLEPST^ ETC. 249 on people invisible wonnds with invisible spears/' But everywhere the supposed cause is personal. In Asia^ the Karens ^'attribute diseases to the influence of unseen spirits''; hj the Lepchas^ all ailments ''are deemed the operations of devils''; and the Bodo and Dhimals similarly think them due to demoniacal agency. In Africa, the Coast Negroes ascribe illness to witchcraft or the operation of the gods; the Kaffirs consider it caused by enemies and evil spirits; and the offended ancestor of a Zulu is represented as saying — "I will reveal myself by disease." In America, the Comanches think a malady is caused by the blasting breath of a foe; and the Mundurucus regard it as the spell of an unknown enemy. If instead of "ghost" we read ''supernatural agent," the savage theory becomes the semi-civilized theory. The earliest recorded hero of the Babylonians, Izdubar, is smitten with a grievous malady by the offended goddess Ishtar; in the first book of the Iliad, the Greeks who die of pestilence are represented as hit by Apollo's arrows — ^an idea parallel to one of the savage ideas above named; it was believed by the Jews that dumbness and blindness ceased when the devils causing them were ejected; and in after-times, the Fathers described demons as inflicting diseases. How persistent this kind of interpretation has been, we are shown by the fact that the production of illness by witches, who instigate devils, is even now alleged among the uncultured; and by the fact that the cultured still countenance the belief that illness is diabolically caused. A State-authorized expression of this theory of disease, is often repeated by priests. In the service for the visitation of the sick, one of the prayers is — " Let the enemy have no advantage over him;" and another is — " renew in him " " whatsoever has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil."
§ 126. After contemplating the foregoing beliefs as naturally arising, the belief which the primitive man frames 250^ THE DATA 0? SOCIOLOGY.
respecting the cause of deaths will no longer surprise us. It is a necessary sequence.
Insensibility^ temporarily or prolonged^ haying been seen to follow a blow from a club^ the conclusion is that this permanent insensibility has resulted from some such injury inflicted by an enemy unseen. In one form or other this conception occurs everywhere. The Uaupes^ Wallace tells us, '^ scarcely seem to think that death can occur naturally ^^; and Hearne says the Ohippewayans ascribe the deaths of their chiefs to witchcraft, commonly by the Esquimaux. The Kalmucks believe that '^ death is caused by some spirit at the command of the deity ^';' the Kookies ascribe death, as well as all earthly evils, ta supernatural causes; and the Khonds hold ^Hhat death is not the necessary and appointed lot of man» but that it is incurred only as a special penalty for offences against the gods.^^ Arbousset states that the Bushmen think death is chiefly due to witchcraft; Burchell says of the Bechuanas, that death, even in old age, is ascribed to sorcery; the Coast Negroes, Winterbottom tells us, think '^ no death is natural or accidental ''; the belief of the Fans, as given by Burton, is that '^no man, however old, dies a natural death ^'; and Astley asserts that the Loango people do not believe in natural death, even from drowning or other accident. The Tahitians regarded the effects of poisons as " more the effects of the god's displeasure, * * ^ than the effects of the poisons themselves. * * * Those who were killed in battle were also supposed to die from the influence of the gods.'' And kindred ideas are current among the Sandwich Islanders, the Tannese, the Australians, etc.
A sequence must be named. Eventually the individualities of the special demons supposed to have caused death, merge in a general individuality — ^a personalized Death: the personalization probably beginning, everywhere, in the tradition of some unusually-ferocious foe whose direotly-seen acts of vengeance were multitudinous.
ST7PEBNATURAL AGENTS AS CAUSING SPILEPSY^ ETC. 251 and to whom, afterwards, unseen acts of yengeanoe were more and more ascribed. Be this as it may, however, we may trace the evolution of these primitive notions into those which existed in classic times and medisBval times. Butler tells us that at a Naga's burial, his friends arm themselves, and challenge the spirit who caused his death. Of the Tasmanians, Mr. Davis relates that, " during the whole of the first night after the death of one of their tribe, they will sit round the body, using rapidly a low, continuous reci* tative, to prevent the evil spirit from taking it away. Such evil spirit being the ghost of an enemy.'' On the other hand, among the Hottentots the conception has become partially generalized: Lichtenstein says they personaliKe death — ^say ^' Death sees thee." In which several facts we may perceive the root of the belief implied by the story of the deceased Alcestis, who is rescued from the grasp of the strong Death by the still stronger Hercules; and also the root of the belief implied by the old representations of Death as a skeleton, holding a dart or other weapon. While observing this filiation, we should remark that, in the minds of many, the primitive notion still lingers. When reading with astonishment that savages, not recognizing natural death, ascribe all death to supernatural agency, we forget that even now supernatural agency is assigned in cases where the cause of death is not obvious — ^nay, in some cases where it is obvious. We still occasionally read the coroner's, verdict — ^^ Died by the visitation of God"; and we still meet people who think certain deaths (say the drowning of those who go boating on Sundays) directly result from divine vengeance: a belief differing from these savage beliefs, only in a modified conception of the supernatural agent.
§ 127. Considered thus as following from the primitive interpretation of dreams, and consequent theory of ghosts, souls, or spirits, these conclusions are quite consistent.
252 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOOY.
If souIb can leavo their bodies and re-entor tlLcm, why 8lionld not their bodies be entered by strange souls, while their own are absent? If, as in epilepsy, the body performs acts which the owner denies having performed, there is no choice bat to assume such an agency. And if certain uncontrollable movements, as those of hysteria, together with the familiar ones of sneezing, yawning, and hiccup, take place without the will of the individual, the conclusion must be that here, also, some usurping spirit within him is directing the actions of his body in spite of him.
This hypothesis explains, too, the strange behaviour of the delirious and the insane. Tliat the maniac^s body lias been taken possession of by an enemy, is proved by the fact that it is impelled to self-injury. Its right owner would not make the body bite and tear itself. Further, the possessing demon is heard to hold converse with other demons, which he sees but which bystanders do not see.
And if these remarkable derangements of body and mind are thus effected, the manifest inference is that diseases and disorders of less i*emarkable kinds are effected in the same way. Should there not be a demon within the body, there must be, at any rate, some invisible enemy at hand, who is working these strange perturbations in it.
Often occurring after long-continued derangement or disease, death must be caused by that whicji caused the disease. Whenever the death has no visible antecedent, this is the only possible supposition; and even when there is a visible antecedent, it is still probable that there was some demoniacal interference. The giving way of the foothold that led to a man's fatal fall down a precipice, or the particular motion which carried a spear into his heart, was very likely determined by the malicious spirit of a foe.
Thus these interpretations are congruous throughout. Given the initial idea, and the entire series follows.
CHAPTER XVin.
INSPIRATION, DIVINATION, EXORCISM, AND SORCERY.
§ 128. If a man's body may be entered by a ''wicked sonl of the dead'' enemy, may it not be entered by a fidendly soul? If the struggles of the epileptic, the ravings of the delirious, the self -injuries of the insane, are caused by an indwelling demon; then must not the transcendent power or marvellous skill occasionally displayed, be caused by an indwelling beneficent spirit? If, even while the individual is conscious, the ghost of a foe may become joint occupant of his body and control its actions in spite of him, so producing hysteria, and sneezing, and yawning; may not joint occupancy be assumed by an ancestral ghost, which oo-operates with him instead of opposing him: so giving extra strength, or knowledge, or cunning?
These questions the savage consistently answers in the affirmative. There result the ideas to be here glanced at.
§ 129. A fact named in the last chapter as having noteworthy implications, is that maniacs, during their paroxysms of excitement, are far stronger than men in their nonnal states. Hence, those holding the theory of possession infer that these supernatural agents have superhuman energies.
That manifestations of unusual bodily power are thus accounted for, we find proofs among early traditions. Ea« couraging Dioinede, Minerva says — " Into thy soul have I sent that intrepid ancestral might, such aa the shieldbrandishing knight Tydeus was wont to possess": words implying some kind of inspiration — some breathing-in of a soul that had been breathed-out of a father. More distinctly is this implied by certain still-earlier legendary histories of the Egyptians. In Prof. Lnshington^s translation of the third Sallier papyrus, narrating a conquest, Ramses II., the conqueror, invokes his "father Ammon,'^ and has the reply — ''Bamses Miamon, I am with thee, I thy father Ra. * * * I am worth to thee 100,000 joined in one.'' And when Ramses, deserted by his own army, proceeds to slay single-handed the army of his foes, they are represented as saying — ''No mortal bom is he whoso is among us.''
Here several points of significance are observable. The ancestral ghost was the possessing spirit, giving superhuman strength. Along with development of this ancestral ghost into a divinity, amplified and idealized, had gone increase of this strength from something a little above the human to something immeasurably above the human. The conception, common to all these ancient races — Egyptians; Babylonians, Assyrians, Hebrews, Greeks — was that gods, otherwise much like men, were distinguished by power traiiscending that of men; and this conception, subject to no restraint^ readily expanded into the conception of omnipotence. Further, any display of bodily energy passing that whioh was ordinary, naturally raised in the minds of observers the suspicion, either that there was possesion by a supernatural being, or that a supernatural being in disguise was before them.
§ 130. Extraordinary power of mind is, of course, to be similarly explained. If an incarnate spirit, having either the primitive character of an ancestral ghost or some modified and developed character, can give superhuman IN8PIBATI0N, DIVINATION^ EXOBOISlfj AND SOBCSBT. 255 strength of hodj, then it can give, too, sttperhnman intelligence and snperhaman passion. The general doctrine of mental inspiration is a corollaiy.
We are now so remote from this doctrine, as to have difficaltj in thinking of it as once accepted literallj. Existing primitive races, as the Tahitians, do indeed still fihow ns, in its original form, the belief that the priest when inspired *' ceased to act or speak as a voluntarj agent, bnt moved and spoke as entirely under supemataral influence;^' and so they make real to us the ancient belief that prophets and others such, were channels for divine utterances. But we less clearly recognize the truth that the inspiration of the poet was at first conceived in the same way. '' Sing, O goddess, the destructive wrath of Achilles," was not, like the invocations of the Muses in later times, a rhetorical form; but was an actual prayer for possession. The Homeric belief was, in the words of Prof. Blackie, that " all great and glorious thoughts * * ♦ come from a god.'' Of course, this mode of interpreting ideas and feelings admits of unlimited extension and variation. There is no way of deciding what amount of divergence from a usual mental state or power, warrants the assumption of a supernatural cause } and hence the assumption of a supernatural cause, made on the smallest suggestion, becomes habitual.
In the Iliad, Helen is represented as having an ordinary emotion excited in her by Iris: '' The goddess infused a tender desire into her mind, both of her former husband, and of her city, and her parents.'' Nor does the interpretation extend itself only to exaltations, emotional ot intellectual. In the Homeric view, as Prof. Blackie points out, ''not the doers of an evil deed, but the gods who inspire the purpose of doing it, are the re«tl criminals;" and even a common error of judgment the early Greek explains by saying — " a god deceived me that I did this thing."
. How this theory, beginning with that form still showH ta by such Savages as the Congoese, who ascribe the con- 256 THB DATA OF SOCIOLOQY.
toi*tions of the priest to the inspiration of the fetish, and differentiating^ as above implied, into inspirations of the divine and the diabolical kinds, has persisted and developed, it is needless to show in detail. It will be enough to recognize the fact that it still lives in both sacred and secular thought. Indeed, between the earliest and latest views the unlikeness is far less than we suppose. When we read in Brinton that '^ among the Tahkalis the priest is accustomed to lay his hand on the head of the nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow into him the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come to lifo in his next child; '' we are reminded that in the service for ordaining priests there are the words — "Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God, now committed imto thee by the imposition of our hands.'' Not only in the theory of Apostolic Succession do we see this modified form of the savage belief in inspiration, but we see it, with a difference, in the ideas of the most unsacerdotal of our sects, the Quakers: being moved by the spirit, as they understand it, is being temporarily possessed or inspired. And then, in its secular application, the primitive notion is traceable in the qualitative distinction, still asserted by some, between genius and talent.
§ 131. There is scarcely more than a nominal difference between the facts just grouped under the head of inspiration, and the facts to be grouped under the head of divination. The diviner is simply the inspired man using his supernatural power for particular ends.
We noiay again take the ideas of the Amazulu, which have been so carefully ascertained and clearly specified, as typical of the ideas originally framed. Mark, first, that bodily derangement, leading to mental perturbation, is the usual preliminary. Fasting is requisite. They say ''the continually-stuffed body cannot see secret things." Moreover, " a man who is beginning to be an Inyanga * * * docs not IKSPIBATION, DIVINATION^ SXOBCISM^ AND SOBCEBT. 257 sleep^ * * * his sleep is merely by snatches,'^ " lie becomes a house of dreams/' Mark, next, that mental perturbation, rising to a certain point, is taken as proof of inspiration. Where the evidence is not strong, '' some dispute and say, ' No. The fellow is merely mad. There is no Itongo [ancestral ghost] in him.' Others say, '0, there is an Itongo in him; he is already an Inyanga.' " And then mark, further, that the alleged possession is proved by his success: doubters say — " We might allow that he is an Inyanga if you had concealed things for him to find^ and he had discovered what you had concealed.^' The conception here so clearly implied is traceable in all cases, if with less clearness, still with sufficient clearness: the chief difference being in the supposed nature of the indwelling supernatural agent. Fasting, and such other treatment as produces abnormal excitement, is everywhere a preparation for the diviner's office. Everywhere, too, this excitement is ascribed to the possessing ghost, demon, or divinity; and the words uttered are his. Of the inspired Fijian priest, Williams says: — " All his words and actions are considered as no longer his own, but those ef the deity who has entered into him. * * * While giving the answer, the priest's eyes stand out and roll as in a frenzy; his voice is nnnatnral, his face pale, his lips livid, his breathing depressed, and his entire appearance like that of a furious madman/' And just the same constituents of the belief are shown by the Santals, Starving many days the Santal priest brings on a state of half wildness. He then answers questions through the power of the possessing god. And in the case named by Sherwill, this god was " formerly a chief amongst them.''
The views of the semi-civilized and civilized need mention only to show their kinship. As represented by Homer, '^the gods maintain an intercourse with men as part of the ordinary course of their providence, and this intercourse consists principally in revelations of the divine will, and espes 253 THE DATA OF BOCIOLOQT.
cially of f utare events, made to men by oracular yoices," etc. When reminded of this, we perceive that there is likeness in nature, though some unlikeness in form, between the utterances of the Greek oracle and those of the Zulu Inyanga, to whom the ancestral ghost says — " You will not speak with the people; they will be told by us everything they come to enquire about/^ Along with greater deviation in non-essentials, there have remained the same essentials in the notions entertained throughout Christendom; beginning with the ''inspired writers," whose words were supposed to be those of an indwelling holy spirit, and ending with the Pope, who says his infallible divinations have a like origin.
§ 132. Inevitably there comes a further development of these ideas. When the ghost of an enemy has entered a man^s body, can it not be driven out? Can it not be frightened away, or the body be made untenable? Or if this cannot otherwise be done, can it not be done by supernatural aid f If some men are possessed to their hurt by spirits of evil, while others are possessed to their benefit by friendly spirits, as powerful or more powerful, is it not possible by the help of the good spirits to undo the mischief done by the bad ones — ^perhaps to conquer and expel them? This possibilityis reasonably to be inferred. Hence exorcism.
With the belief that derangements of mind and body are caused by indwelling demons, there has everywhere gone the belief that these demons may be ejected; either with, or without, the help of superior demons. The medicineman of the savage is primarily an exorcist. What Rowlatt tells us of the Mishmis, that, in illness, a priest is sent for to drive away the evil spirit, is told us directly or by implication in hosts of instances. Where a friendly supernatural agent is not invoked to aid, the method is that of making the body of the patient so disagreeable a residence that the demon will not remain in it. In some cases very heroio INSPnUTlON, OITINATIOH, EXOBCISH, AND SORCERY. 259 modes of doing thifl are adopted; as, according to Marsden, by the Samatrans, who, in insanity, attempt to drive away the spirit by putting the insane person into a hat, which they set fire to, leaving him to escape as he best can. Probably varions other extreme measures described, including the swallowing of horrible things, and the making intolerable smells, have the purpose of disgusting the intrader. Generally, also, the exorcist tries to alarm the mischievous tenant by shouts, and gesticulations, and fearful faces. Among the Calif omian tribes, the doctor " squats down opposite the patient and barks at him after the manner of an enraged cur, for hours together''; and a Koniagadoctor has a female assistant who does the groaning and growling. Sometimes with other means is joined physical force. Among the Okanagans, the medicine-man ''proceeds to force the evil spirit from the sick man by pressing both clenched fists with all his might in the pit of his stomach/' As a type of such processes may be taken that ascribed by Herrera to the Indians of Cumana: — " If the disease increaBed, they said the patient was possessed with spirits, stroked all the body over, used words of enchantment, licked some joints, and sncked, saying they drew ont spirits; took a twig of a oertain tree, the virtue whereof none but the physician knew, tickled their own throats with it, till they vomited and bled, sighed, roared, qoaked, stamped, made a thousand faces, sweated for two hours, and at last brought up a sort of thick phlegm, with a little, hard, black ball in the middle of it, which those that belonged to the sick person carried into the field, saying — ' Go thy way, Devil.'" But in what we may consider the more-developed form of exorcism, one demon is employed to drive out another. The medicine-man or priest conquers the demon in the patient by the help of a demon with which he is himself possessed, or else he summons a friendly supernatural power to his aid.
Everyone knows that, in this last form, exorcism continues during civilization. In their earlier days the Hebrews employed some physical process, akin to the processes we find among savages; such as making a 260 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOQT.
dreadful Btench by burning the heart and liver of a fish: by such exorcism, taught by the angel Baphael, the demon Asmodeus was driven out — fled to Egypt when he ^' had smelled " the smoke. But later, as in the exorcisms of Christ, the physical process was replaced by the compulsion of superior supernatural agency. In this form exorcism still exists in the Koman Catholic Church, which has specially-ordained exorcists; and it was daily practised in the Church of England down to 1550, when infants were exorcized before baptism, in the words — "I command thee, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that thou come out, and depart from these infants.^' Occasional exorcism continued till 1665, if not later: a clergyman named Ruddle, licensed to exorcize by the Bishop of Exeter, having then, according to his own account, succeeded in laying the ghost of a woman, by the use of the nieans appointed for dealing with demons — ^magic circle, '' pentacle,'' etc.* Nor is this aU. It has been an ecclesiastical usage, lasting down to Protestant times, to exorcize the water used in divine service: a practice implying the primitive notion that invisible demons swarm everywhere around.
In this, as in other cases, we may still trace the original nature of the supernatural agent. Malicious ghosts which annoy the living because their bodies have been ill-treated, differ but little from evil spirits which vex the living by possessing them. The instance given above, clearly implies that the laying of ghosts and the exorcism of demons, are but modifications of the same thing. The Amazulu show us the two in undistinguished forms. Concerning a woman pei*secuted by the ghost of her dead husband. Canon Callaway tells us: — " If it trouble her when she has gone to another man without being as yet married; if she has left her husband's children behind, the dead * See Qlimptet of the Supernatural, vol. L» pp. 59-69.
IN8PIRATI0K, DIVINATTON, EXORCISM, AND SOBCBBY. 261 husbifnd follows her and asks, ' With whom have you left my children? What are yoa going to do here? Go back to my children. If you do not assent I will kill you.' The spirit is at once laid in that village because it harasses the woman."
Of coarse, as civilization adyances, the ideas and processes differentiate; so that while evil spirits, distinctly classed as enemies, are commanded or conjured, ghosts, regarded as less mischievous, are pacified by fulfilling their requests. But since the meanings of ghost, spirit, demon, devil, angel, were originally the same, we may fairly infer that what eventually became the casting out of a devil, was originally an expulsion of the malicious double of a dead man.
§ 133. Power over spirits supposed to be attained by the exorcist, grows into power used for other purposes. A medicine-man who, helped by friendly ghosts, expels the ghosts of enemies, naturally asks himself whether he may not get ghostly aid for other purposes. Can he not by such aid revenge himself on enemies, or achieve ends not else possible? The belief that he can initiates sorcery.
A primitive form of this belief is shown us by the Kaffirs, who think " dead bodies are restored to life by bad persons, and made hobgoblins to aid them in mischief." Here we have direct identification of the familiar demon with the deceased man. When we read in Ellis's Polynesia the belief of the Tahitians, that sickness and death are produced by the incantations of priests, who induce the evil spirits to enter the sick; or when we read that most misfortunes are attributed by the Australians to the power which hostile tribes possess over the spirits and demons which infest every comer of the land; we recognize the same notion less specifically stated. In the fact that by Jewish writers '' a necromancer is defined as one who fasts and lodges at night amongst tombs, in order that the evil spirit may come upon him; " we have a hint of a kindred belief in an early historic race. And we recognize the connection between 262 THE DATA OF BOniOLOGT.
these original forms of tlie conception and tlie derived forma that have survived among the more civilized.
The operations of the sorcerer, having for their primary end the gaining of power over a living person, and having for their secondary end (which eventually becomes predominant) the gaining of power over the souls of dead persons, or supernatural agents otherwise conceived, are guided by a notion which it will be instructive to consider.