What is Inspiration ? 116 



planted by the personality of the foreign spirit 

 which has come to dwell in his body. This is 

 the theory of oracle-possession, and from this to 

 the theory of inspiration, as generally current in 

 antiquity, it is evidently but a short step. Instead 

 of supplanting the personality of the prophet, the 

 foreign spirit has but to be conceived as swaying 

 or influencing the prophet's mind from without, 

 and this step is taken ; instead of possession we 

 have inspiration. 



Thus in its origin the word " inspiration " is 

 implicated with a whole theory of the universe, 

 or, to speak more appropriately, with a general 

 way of looking at natural phenomena. In the 

 lower stages of culture men know nothing of a 

 universe, but they contemplate natural phenomena 

 as under the capricious direction of innumerable 

 ghostly beings similar to men. In most cases, in- 

 deed, these demons or deities are supposed to be 

 the ghosts of ancestral chieftains. The philoso- 

 phy which interprets Nature in this way is ex- 

 tremely crude, but it is quite intelligible and con- 

 sistent with itself ; and, when a barbarian speaks 

 of his prophet as " inspired " by the tutelary de- 

 ity of the tribe, we know exactly what he means. 

 He means that the words are whispered or other- 

 wise suggested to the prophet by the ghost of 



