IN HIGHER PEOPLES 105 



the voice of the wind — the voice of something 

 alive. When a tree falls in the forest, the savage 

 believes that a spirit gets inside the tree and 

 throws it dovm. And if the tree happens to fall 

 on him he believes that the spirit has a grndge 

 against him, and hurled the tree in his direction 

 on purpose. The savage knows nothing of nat- 

 ural law, nothing of chemistry and physics, nor 

 physiology. When fire burns a piece of wood, it 

 is the understanding of the savage that the sub- 

 stance of that piece of wood goes out of existence. 



Nothing is ever destroyed. Every particle of 

 substance that exists today will always exist. It 

 is not possible to destroy anything nor to create 

 an}i:hing — except form. The forms of substances 

 change, but the atoms themselves remain the 

 same. This is one of the discoveries of modem 

 chemistry. It is known as the Law of the Inde- 

 structibility of Matter. When a piece of paper is 

 burned up, every particle of matter that was in 

 the paper continues to exist after the burning just 

 as before, but in a different form. The carbon of 

 the paper combines with oxygen and forms car- 

 bon dioxide (CO2), which passes into the air and 

 is invisible. But the savage knows nothing of 

 these changes, and believes that the paper goes 

 out of existence because he doesn't see it any 

 more. 



There are good spirits and bad spirits, accord- 

 ing to the savage understanding. The bad spirits 

 are supposed to be much more numerous and en- 



