EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



less be unpleasant, even to a ghostly pair of ol- 

 factory nerves. This may be called the antago- 

 nistic, as it is certainly the pluckier and more 

 honest, method. 



Doubtless the primitive experts told off to deal 

 with such matters employed both the conciliatory 

 and the antagonistic methods. But it will readily 

 be seen that different types of mind would tend 

 rather to the one than to the other. From the 

 primitive class there would thus be formed two: 

 one which had established friendly relations with 

 the demons, and had found their soft side; another 

 which preferred to essay an overt opposition. In 

 a word, the primitive expert is the ancestor of the 

 two great professions, ecclesiastical and medical. 

 The priest cultivates the conciliatory, the medicine- 

 man the avowedly hostile method of treatment. 

 On this theory, the office of my friend the "ex- 

 orcist ' ' is seen to be of great interest and antiquity. 

 The differentiation of the original priest-physician 

 is not yet complete, the "exorcist" still claiming 

 the exercise of the medicine - man's antagonistic 

 powers, while preparing for a high office in the 

 exercise of the conciliatory or priestly method. 



Such is the theory of Herbert Spencer; of its 

 validity it is for the reader to judge. Meanwhile 

 we may note that it settles the question of priority 

 by declaring the honors easy; but if, as one is in- 

 clined to guess, the primitive expert would natu- 

 rally tend to hostility in the first place, the idea of 

 conciliation occurring only when the more obvious 

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