CHAPTER XXXVII 

 DIVINATION AND PALMISTRY 



THE gradual passage of the race of man from the 

 condition of " beasts that reason not " to that of 

 •* persons of understanding and reason " has been an 

 immensely long and a very painful one. It is not yet 

 complete — is far, indeed, from being so — even amongst 

 the most favoured classes of the most highly civilized 

 peoples of to-day. Just as our bodily evolution and 

 adaptation to present conditions is incomplete and 

 exhibits what Metchnikoff has called " disharmonies " — 

 that is, retentions of ancestral structures now not only 

 useless, but even positively injurious — so does the mental 

 condition attained by civilized man (if we do not limit 

 our observation to exceptional instances) exhibit a reten- 

 tion — by means of records and accepted teaching — of 

 beliefs and tendencies which were among the first pro- 

 ducts of the blundering efforts of human reason, and 

 have caused atrocious suffering to millions of human 

 beings in the long process of mental development. At 

 one time the whole race lived in a world of delusions 

 and fantastic beliefs — the outcome of false or defective 

 observation rather than of false logic. These false con- 

 clusions as to many subjects were inevitable as soon as 

 man began to reason at all. It was the necessary 

 and injurious accompaniment of the growing habit of 



" reasoning " by which the more fortunate races have 



367 



