8380 PRIMITIVE NUMBERS [ETH. ANN. 19 
ance become secret or sacred, as when the plaza is forbidden to all save 
priests, and when the Word is deemed a symbol of the Life of the 
speaker. So, too, esoteric observances, impressive insignia, and 
imposing formalities are established, and systems of rank or caste 
grow up as tangible expressions of the intangible structures of control- 
ling subjectivity. Cumulatively strengthened by reaction of symbol 
on mystery and of mystery again on symbol, the pervading mysticism 
is exalted above all other motives in primitive thought; and the artis- 
tic concepts, the industrial devices, the social relations, and the themes 
and forms of speech all pass under the control of the unreal potencies 
which shadow the primitive thinker. 
Throughout primitive culture invocation habitually carries a reverse 
of incantation, so that the normal course of fiducial development is 
attended by persistent magic, sortilege, thaumaturgy; while in the 
higher stages necromancy and soothsaying, spells and enchantments, 
conjury and exorcism, oracles and ordeals, and divination by lot or 
chance become characteristic. In the higher strata, too, expressions 
supplement or supplant the objective symbols of lower plane, and the 
jargon of jugglers and the farrago of fakirs take the place of fetiches 
and idols; and it is particularly significant that words and verbal for- 
mulas come to be regarded as superpotent expressions of mystical 
power, and that even the letters of early times were credited with 
creative powers in practical cabala. Some sayage tribes regard their 
language as sacred, some haye hieratic languages, and among all known 
tribes personal names are considered magical or tabu in one way or 
another; while just within the lower strata of scriptorial sculpture (as 
illustrated by the Arabs and Hindoos and other Eurasians of a few 
centuries ago, and attested by literary and linguistic and objective 
vestiges), shibboleths and numerical formulas become rife, and the 
inscribed talisman and abracadabra and mystical number, and even- 
tually the magic square, form favorite symbols of occult power. 
The growth of writing and the attendant decadence of tradition 
sounded the knell of primitive mysticism; for one of the leading 
functions of lowly faith in the actual economy of thought was the 
maintenance of long series of mnemonic associations, and when this 
function was assumed (and better performed) by mechanical devices 
the strongest support of the crude philosophy fell away. Yet the 
mode of thought crystallized by uncounted generations of habit was 
too firmly fixed for easy dropping, and innumerable vestiges in the 
line of Aryan culture, as well as the examples afforded by other 
lines, demonstrate the potency of primeval mysticism and the tenac- 
ity of its hold on the human mind eyen beyond the yerge of modern 
enlightenment. 
Lgoism of primitive thought—All_ primitive men are egoists. 
Knowing little of the external world, tribesmen erect themselves or 
