3 i6 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



ready with some self-satisfying explanation for any- 

 thing that may happen to himself, or to others. If he 

 sickens, or is about to die, it is due to the superior 

 power, or witchcraft, or absent-treatment, of some in- 

 visible human enemy, or of some offended plant or 

 animal totem, or of some other nature-personality, who 

 to him may be very present and very real. If he stubs 

 his toe in the forest, he is little likely to count it his 

 own fault; rather will he attribute his disaster to some 

 stick or stone lying in ambush for him, which with dev- 

 ilish malignity rose up in the nick of time to accom- 

 plish its purpose. 



Like many other primitive people, and indeed like 

 many educated persons in our most civilized communi- 

 ties, he attributes miraculous powers to curiously 

 shaped sticks and stones and other oddities, which are 

 carefully sought for, treasured, and reverently worn 

 as protective charms, or amulets. Even the more cul- 

 tured races have pictured the great forces of nature, 

 such as the sun, moon, and stars, thunder, wind, etc., as 

 living things, or as man-like beings, but on a larger 

 scale, and have persistently interpreted their acts and 

 motives in terms of human life. 



The Greeks and Romans, in certain periods of their 

 evolution, endowed practically every familiar object, 

 or event, even the more trivial ones, with a presiding, 

 or controlling, spirit. 



All these amulets, totems, and personified physical 

 forces, are supposed to have peculiar powers of their 

 own, and to be animated with some good or evil pur- 

 pose. In effect, it is believed that by due respect, by 

 submission to their "will," or ways, or by appropriate 

 gifts and ceremonials, or even by threats to withdraw 



