THUNDERBOLTS 139 



steeple in question was nothing more in its real nature 

 than a very big immaterial spark. However, the word 

 thunderbolt has survived to us from the days when people 

 still believed that the thing which did the damage during 

 a thunderstorm was really and truly a gigantic white-hot 

 bolt or arrow ; and, as there is a natural tendency in human 

 nature to fit an existence to every word, people even now 

 continue to imagine that there must be actually something 

 or other somewhere called a thunderbolt. They don't 

 figure this thing to themselves as being identical with the 

 lightning ; on the contrary, they seem to regard it as 

 something infinitely rarer, more terrible, and more mystic ; 

 but they firmly hold that thunderbolts do exist in real life, 

 and even sometimes assert that they themselves have posi- 

 tively seen them. 



But, if seeing is believing, it is equally true, as all who 

 have looked into the phenomena of spiritualism and 

 ' psychical research ' (modern English for ghost-hunting) 

 know too well, that believing is seeing also. The origin 

 of the faith in thunderbolts must be looked for (like the 

 origin of the faith in ghosts and ' psychical phenomena ') 

 far back in the history of our race. The noble savage, at 

 that early period when wild in woods he ran, naturally 

 noticed the existence of thunder and lightning, because 

 thunder and lightning are things that forcibly obtrude 

 themselves upon the attention of the observer, however 

 little he may by nature be scientifically inclined. Indeed, 

 the noble savage, sleeping naked on the bare ground, in 

 tropical countries where thunder occurs almost every night 

 on an average, was sure to be pretty often awaked from 

 his peaceful slumbers by the torrents of rain that habitually 

 accompany thunderstorms in the happy realms of ever- 

 lasting dog-days. Primitive man was thereupon compelled 

 to do a little philosophising on his own account as to the 



