224 SUPERSTITION. [ix. 



from curiosity, or an excited imagination, but from 

 jealousy and revenge. Oppressed, as woman has 

 always been under the reign of brute force ; beaten, 

 outraged, deserted, at best married against her will, 

 she has too often gone for comfort and help and 

 those of the very darkest kind to the works of 

 darkness ; and there never were wanting there are 

 not wanting, even now, in remote parts of these isles 

 wicked old women who would, by help of the old 

 superstitions, do for her what she wished. Soon 

 would follow mysterious deaths of rivals, of husbands, 

 of babes ; then rumours of dark rites connected 

 with the sacred tree, with poison, with the wasp and 

 his sting, with human sacrifices ; lies mingled with 

 truth, more and more confused and frantic, the more 

 they were misinvestigated by men mad with fear : till 

 there would arise one of those witch-manias, which 

 are too common still among the African Negros, 

 which were too common of old among the men of our 

 race. 



I say, among the men. To comprehend a witch- 

 mania, you must look at it as what the witch-litera- 

 ture confesses it unblushingly to be man's dread of 

 Nature excited to its highest form, as dread of 

 woman. 



She is to the barbarous man she should be more 

 and more to the civilised man not only the most 

 beautiful and precious, but the most wonderful and 

 mysterious of all natural objects, if it be only as the 

 author of his physical being. She is to the savage a 

 miracle to be alternately adored and dreaded. He 

 dreads her more delicate nervous organisation, which 

 often takes shapes to him demoniacal and miraculous ; 



