5o6 GENERAL BIOLOGY 



in all sorts of absurd divinations. We tell fortunes. We 

 consider signs. We give birthstones. We tell ghost stories 

 in the dark — the primeval setting, and the condition that 

 stimulates the latent racial emotions which we wish to recall 

 in diluted and enjoyable form. 



But these are matters serious enough to many of our own 

 population; witness the advertising columns of the necro- 

 mancers and magicians in any of the Sunday newspapers. 

 And we do well not to forget with what tyranny such ideas 

 have held sway over our entire race during most of its his- 

 tory. Selfish and vainglorious magicians and sorcerers and 

 healers have been able, through appeals to fear, to practice 

 great oppression, and to add a grievous burden to the sins 

 and miseries of all savage peoples. The earliest records of 

 all races are full of this. Happily, they tell also of prophets 

 and seers who have risen to point out truer relations between 

 cause and effect, and of great leaders who have sought to 

 free men from the bondage of superstition, and of teachers 

 who have labored to dispel ignorance — its cause. 



Besides wars and superstitions, there are yet other trou- 

 bles of his own creation that have vexed man throughout his 

 history. He has never been satisfied with food, but has 

 always and everywhere wanted something added to his diet 

 to excite or modify the action of his nervous system. 

 Opium and alcohol are typical of these; and the use of 

 stimulants and narcotics has added and is still adding 

 enormously to the vast sum of human misery in all nations. 



Nor has he ever anywhere been clothed with the utmost 

 possible comfort and convenience. Dress was originally 

 for charm bearing, for ornamentation, or for sign of rank or 

 station; and it is little modified from its traditional func- 

 tions by considerations of comfort. Every improvement in 

 methods of getting a livelihood that has set men's hands 

 free from constant toil and given time for thought, has 



