234 CULTURE 



if it presents a picture in specious detail. This 

 faculty is possessed by us strongly during child- 

 hood : it weakens as age advances, but there is 

 reason to conclude that amongst savages it 

 endures more persistently. To them the world 

 resembles a cinematograph show, which presents 

 two moving films, passing before them side by 

 side, one of things observed, the other of things 

 visioned. There are, then, two sets of happenings 

 from which they can select causes, and, since the 

 boundary line between the two series of im- 

 pressions is not clearly defined, they may con- 

 fusedly see in one series a cause for something 

 that happens in the other. Their reasoning 

 accordingly proceeds along a double track one 

 line concerned with observed, the other with 

 visioned causes. We are ourselves not free from 

 this duality. We offer prayers for fine weather, 

 but do not neglect to take an umbrella or to 

 cock the hay when clouds are about. The 

 selection of causes, whether observed or visioned, 

 has often been exceedingly erroneous. An Indian 

 cultivator confidently believes that grain germi- 

 nates most freely when it is sown by a pregnant 

 woman, that the sprouting of sugar cane is 

 stimulated should a horseman ride into the field. 

 These are mistakes affecting observed causes. 

 Everywhere in the Indian fields we may find 

 illustrations of a belief in visioned causes. Sowing, 

 harvesting and threshing are attended by rites of 

 magic or worship that are supposed to control or 

 propitiate unseen influences. 



Another conviction, of far reaching conse- 

 quences, resulted from the confusion of the seen 

 with the unseen. It was imagined that every 

 object possessed a double existence, one appear- 

 ing to observation, the other in visions, the former 

 transient, the latter everlasting. Such a con- 



