208 SUPERSTITION. [ix. 



there between a savage's fear of a demon, and a hunter's 

 fear of a fall ? The hunter sees a fence. He does not 

 know what is on the other side, but he has seen fences 

 like it with a great ditch on the other side, and suspects 

 one here likewise. He has seen horses fall at such, and 

 men hurt thereby. He pictures to himself his horse 

 falling at that fence, himself rolling in the ditch, with 

 possibly a broken limb ; and he recoils from the picture 

 he himself has made; and perhaps with very good 

 reason. His picture may have its counterpart in fact ; 

 and he may break his leg. But his picture, like the 

 previous pictures from which it was compounded, is 

 simply a physical impression on the brain, just as much 

 as those in dreams. 



Now, does the fact of the ditch, the fall, and the 

 broken leg, being unseen and unknown, make them a 

 spiritual ditch, a spiritual fall, a spiritual broken leg ? 

 And does the fact of the demon and his doings, being 

 as yet unseen and unknown, make them spiritual, or 

 the harm that he may do, a spiritual harm ? What 

 does the savage fear ? Lest the demon should appear ; 

 that is, become obvious to his physical senses, and pro- 

 duce an unpleasant physical effect on them. He fears 

 lest the fiend should entice him into the bog, break the 

 hand-bridge over the brook, turn into a horse and ride 

 away with him, or jump out from behind a tree and 

 wring his neck tolerably hard physical facts, all of 

 them ; the children of physical fancy, regarded with 

 physical dread. Even if the superstition proved true ; 

 even if the demon did appear ; even if he wrung the 

 traveller's neck in sound earnest, there would be no 

 more spiritual agency or phenomenon in the whole 

 tragedy than there is in the parlour-table, when 



