PHYSIOLOGICAL IGNORANCE 251 



kind was for many ages beyond the power of mankind. 

 The savage hunter who marks down or traps his game 

 has learned its habits and can detect its presence by 

 the lightest sound, or by a visible indication which 

 would pass unnoticed by one less experienced in the 

 ways of the wilderness. The warrior or the avenger 

 of blood tracks his victim more unerringly than the 

 bloodhound. In these cases his mind has been 

 concentrated and his observation sharpened by the 

 daily necessities of life, by the contest of skill with his 

 human and non-human competitors. Here the deduc- 

 tions from sight and sound are immediately verifiable, 

 and his reasoning powers are not clouded by axioms 

 which do not correspond to reality. But the same 

 hunter who is so keen and certain in his conclusions as 

 to the movements of his prey believes that he can by 

 magical or religious ceremonies draw from unknown 

 distances the herd of bisons which he desires to hunt, 

 or gather the clouds and bring down the rain upon the 

 parched and aching land. No failures suffice to con- 

 vince him of his error, because the process which brings 

 the bison into his neighbourhood or produces a change 

 of meteoric conditions cannot be discovered without a 

 long and complicated induction based upon a much 

 wider knowledge than he possesses, and because in the 

 absence of this knowledge he is incessantly misled by 

 preconceptions of the universe and its government, his 

 limited experience and reason trained only to deal with 

 his immediate needs and surroundings cannot correct 

 or disperse. 



The attention of mankind would not be early or 

 easily fastened upon the procreative process. It is 

 lengthy, extending over months during which the 



