SURVIVAL OF INSTITUTIONS 313 



custom is regarded as an infamy by the 

 Ossetes." l 



We now come to cases of purely religious 

 survival, which offer the strongest resistance to 

 the inroads of change. Spencer instances the 

 custom of circumcising with a knife made of 

 flint, and the vestiges remaining in Catholic 

 worship of former primitive religions. The 

 Eucharist, as we have already pointed out, is 

 reminiscent of real sacrifices, and the symbolic 

 representation by a dove of the Holy Ghost is 

 only a rudimentary form of zoolatry. 2 



In Belgium there are still traces of the old 

 custom of sacrificing an animal upon the com- 

 pletion of a new building, with the idea that the 

 animal's spirit will protect the edifice from harm, 3 

 and if the observer of the following facts is correct 

 in his interpretation of them, there also remain in 

 Belgium traces of the ancient sacrifices to the 

 genius of the earth : 



" It is the custom, round about Florenville 

 (in the Belgian Ardennes), to offer a sacrifice to 

 the presiding genius of the road upon the con- 

 struction of a new road or railway. It is usually 

 a fowl, or a rabbit, or even a calf which is sacri- 

 ficed. ... In some parts of Luxembourg animals 



1 Kowalevsky, Droit coutumier Ossetien, p. 105. 



2 Spencer, Principles of Sociology. 



3 Folklore, Wallon, No. 1526, p. 115 (Bulletin de Folklore, ii., 

 177). 



