1897.] MORRIS — PENTAG. DODECAHEDRON AND SIIAMAXISM. 181 



nothing of the system of a philosophy of the unseen but no less 

 real forces around, above and within him which he has developed. 

 He is in many respects a child — and so we too are but " children 

 of a larger growth." When things hurt or oppose him, or others 

 injure him, he grows angry and avenges himself unreasoningly and 

 excessively, as a child would. Higher aims and purposes he has 

 little chance to acquire. Yet there is the yearning for the higher, 

 the better — for the pure and true, for the brave and good : when 

 these are shown to him he seizes upon them and grows to the full 

 stature of man. How often this has been shown — and yet how 

 often it is ignored ! 



In every age and clime, among every race, there have been and 

 are those who have sought to know more of the truths around, 

 above and in them — men who have risen above their fellows, and 

 have been looked up to as leaders and advisers of the rest — and 

 also in every race and age these men have been credited with super- 

 natural powers — have been supposed to be in communication with 

 the world of spirits : and too often alas they have used their attain- 

 ments only for their own selfish ends : have availed themselves of 

 the ignorance and superstition of those beneath or around them 

 and by trickery have magnified their influence. If we, however, 

 think of the meaning of such terms as ''soothsayer," '' wahrsager," 

 ''wise heart" (wizard), "astrologers," "magicians," and think of 

 their succession in the history of our race, from that of the wise 

 men of the East, Balaam, Jannes and Jambres, the Pythian and Del- 

 phic oracles, the Roman augurs and haruspices — nay, even of Par- 

 acelsus, who may almost be called the father of modern physiologi- 

 cal medicine, we shall have less disposition to condemn so utterly the 

 Indian medicine man : especially as we read of Daniel, who was made 

 and seems to have accepted the post of "chief of the magicians, 

 soothsayers, astrologers and Chaldeans." In fact, the yearning 

 after occult science is as powerful and prevalent in Paris, London 

 and Berlin, not to mention among ourselves, as in India among the 

 Brahmins and Buddhists — it is a human yearning. To penetrate 

 the secrets of or to forecast the future — to resort to some species of 

 divination — to seize upon and compel the unknown, is so human 

 that Goethe makes it the aspiration of his Faust. 



We need not wonder then that Shamanism, tlie idealizing and 

 spiritualizing of the forces of Nature, became so prevalent among 

 the children of the forests and mountains, of the plains and sea- 



