204. SUPERSTITION. [ix. 



meant by superstition is to be found in the lively 

 and dramatic words of Aristotle's great pupil Theo- 

 phrastus. 



The superstitious man, according to him, after 

 having washed his hands with lustral water that is, 

 water in which a torch from the altar had been 

 quenched goes about with a laurel-leaf in his mouth, 

 to keep off evil influences, as the pigs in Devonshire 

 used, in my youth, to go about with a withe of moun- 

 tain ash round their necks to keep off the evil eye. 

 If a weasel crosses his path, he stops, and either 

 throws three pebbles into the road, or, with the innate 

 selfishness of fear, lets someone else go before him, 

 and attract to himself the harm which may ensue. He 

 has a similar dread of a screech-owl, whom he com- 

 pliments in the name of its mistress, Pallas Athene. 

 If he finds a serpent in his house, he sets up an altar 

 to it. If he pass at a four-cross-way an anointed 

 stone, he pours oil on it, kneels down, and adores it. 

 If a rat has nibbled one of his sacks he takes it for a 

 fearful portent a superstition which Cicero also men- 

 tions. He dare not sit on a tomb, because it would 

 be assisting at his own funeral. He purifies endlessly 

 his house, saying that Hecate that is, the moon has 

 exercised some malign influence on it ; and many 

 other purifications he observes, of which I shall only 

 say that they are by their nature plainly, like the last, 

 meant as preservatives against unseen malarias or con- 

 tagions, possible or impossible. He assists every 

 month with his children at the mysteries of the Orphic 

 priests ; and finally, whenever he sees an epileptic 

 patient, he spits in his own bosom to avert the evil 

 omen. 



