72 Musings by Camp-Fire and Wayside 



ger of being torn by them. Fear of a graveyard at 

 night is an inherited memory of the belief that the 

 shades of the dead were liable to be malevolent and 

 dangerous. Thus all tragical superstitions are 

 traceable to the tragical in human experience, and 

 they so permeate the human organism that no 

 degree of enlightenment will wholly remove them. 

 The higher animals are superstitious, notably the 

 horse and the dog. If the impressions made upon 

 the mind of man by the tragical in nature are not 

 the original source of what are called the "religious 

 instincts," they are invariably an integral part of 

 them. No religion has ever existed which did not 

 make these superstitions the exclusive source of its 

 power. No system of religion, if we except Chris- 

 tianity in its higher attainments, could exist for a 

 day without them. 



There are what we may call the benign or harm- 

 less superstitions, which add to the picturesqueness 

 and pleasure of life. These usually come under the 

 classification of folk-lore, and are as well established 

 in the minds of the peasantry as any of their more 

 serious beliefs. One would suppose that the stories 

 of rabbit lore among the Southern negroes were to 

 them only amusing fables. Not so. They believe 

 as fully in the wisdom and the magical powers of 

 the rabbit as they do in anything. These harmless 

 superstitions are in endless variety in all parts of 

 the world, and relate to everything in life. Another 

 class consists of the fictions and fancies of the poets 



