TREE-WORSHIP 25 



any one who eats a fruit that has fallen to the 

 ground will contract a disposition to stumble 

 and fall, and that any one partaking of some- 

 thing that has been forgotten, such as a sweet 

 potato left in the pot or a banana left in the 

 fire, will become forgetful. Another remark- 

 able instance he gives is a Vedic charm *'by 

 which a banished prince might be restored to 

 his kingdom. He had to eat food cooked on a 

 fire which was fed with wood from a tree which 

 had been cut down. The recuperative power 

 manifested by such a tree would in due course 

 be communicated through the fire to the food, 

 and so to the prince who ate the food which 

 was cooked on the fire which was fed with the 

 wood which grew out of the tree." 



We are on very different ground when man 

 has learned to believe in beings, mightier and 

 wiser than himself, who control nature and 

 man as well, and by whose aid alone, or by 

 averting their antagonism, he can accomplish 

 his ends. Man is humbled when he realises 

 how much is done for him compared with what 

 he himself can do, and he prostrates himself 

 in prayer where he has aforetime exercised his ^.^ 

 supposed power. It is now that animisnj'V ' ■^^^'^ 



4> f 



