708 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



chicken, a goat, and yet you strike us ! What more do yon 

 want ? &quot; And then to cases like these, in which the conduct 

 towards certain ghosts and ghost-derived gods, is wholly or 

 partially antagonistic, have to be added the cases, occurring 

 abundantly everywhere, in which those ghosts who are sup 

 posed to stand in amicable relations with the living, are pro 

 pitiated by gifts, by praises, and by expressions of subordina 

 tion, with the view of obtaining their good offices ghosts 

 who receive extra propitiations when they are supposed to be 

 angry, and therefore likely to inflict evils. 



Thus, then, arises a general contrast between the actions 

 and characters of men who deal antagonistically with super 

 natural beings and men who deal sympathetically. Hence 

 the difference between medicine-men and priests ; and hence, 

 too, the early predominance of medicine-men. 



591. For in primitive societies relations of enmity, both 

 outside the tribe and inside the tribe, are more general and 

 marked than relations of amity ; and therefore the doubles of 

 the dead are more frequently thought of as foes than as 

 friends. 



As already shown at length in 118, 119, one of the first 

 corollaries drawn from the ghost-theory is, that ghosts are the 

 causes of disasters. ^Numerous doubles of the dead supposed 

 to haunt the neighbourhood, are those of enemies to the 

 tribe. Of the rest, the larger number are those with whom 

 there have been relations of antagonism or jealousy. The 

 ghosts of friends, too, and even of relatives, are apt to take 

 offence and to revenge themselves. Hence, accidents, mis 

 fortunes, diseases, deaths, perpetually suggest the agency of 

 malevolent spirits and the need for combating them. Modes 

 of driving them away are devised ; and the man who gains 

 repute for success in using such modes becomes an import-am 

 personage. Led by the primitive conception of ghosts as 

 like their originals in their sensations, emotions, and ideas, 



