VIII THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 325 



universal trembling, the perspiration breaks out on his fore- 

 head, and his lips turning black are convulsed ; at length tears 

 start in floods from his eyes, his breast heaves with great 

 emotion, and his utterance is choked. These symptoms 

 gradually subside. Before this paroxysm comes on, and after it 

 is over, he often eats as much as four hungry men under other 

 circumstances could devour. The fit being now gone off, he 

 remains for some time calm and then takes up a club that is 

 placed by him for the purpose, turns it over and regards it 

 attentively ; he then looks up earnestly, now to the right, now 

 to the left, and now again at the club ; afterwards he looks up 

 again and about him in like manner, and then again fixes his 

 eyes on the club, and so on for several times. At length he 

 suddenly raises the club, and, after a moment's pause, strikes 

 the ground or the adjacent part of the house with considerable 

 force ; immediately the god leaves him, and he rises up and 

 retires to the back of the ring among the people (vol. i. pp. 

 100, 101). 



The phenomena thus described, in language 

 which, to any one who is familiar with the mani- 

 festations of abnormal mental states among 

 ourselves, bears the stamp of fidelity, furnish a 

 most instructive commentary upon the story of 

 the wise woman of End or. As in the latter, we 

 have the possession by the spirit or soul (Atua, 

 Elohim), the strange voice, the speaking in the 

 first person. Unfortunately nothing (beyond the 

 loud cry) is mentioned as to the state of the wise 

 woman of Endor. But what we learn from other 

 sources (e.g. 1 Sam. X. 20-24) respecting the 

 physical concomitants of inspiration among the 

 old Israelites has its exact equivalent in this and 

 other accounts of Polynesian prophet ism. An 



