MUXIZ—MC GEE] DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEFS raph 
Primitive men are mystics. In the earliest stage in the development 
of belief, all objects, but especially the rare and unfamiliar, are supposed 
to be imbued with mysterious attributes and powers which are exer- 
cised capriciously for the good or the evil of the egoistic and egotistic 
thinker—for magnification of the ego is the leading characteristic of 
primitive thought. Thus, in this stage, primitive man considers himself 
surrounded by mysterious potencies, beneficent and maleficent, whose 
favor is sought by propitiation, which commonly takes the form of 
fetich-worship, amulet-wearing, and oblation. As this stage in the 
development of belief advances, the mysterious potencies are segregated ; 
some are regarded as more beneficent or maleficent than others; and 
the supposed actions of the imaginary powers gradually come to be held 
as less capricious, more uniform or regular, than at the outset. In the 
second stage of the development of belief, the mysterious potencies are 
still further segregated and ascribed mainly to animate or self-moving 
things, and in time animals, particularly the strong, the swift, and the 
venomous, are deified. In this stage the veneration of animal totems, 
the taboo, and other curious customs develop, while amulet-wearing and 
oblation persist. In this stage, too, inimical men and women, both alien 
and intern, are assumed to possess mystical powers, and witchcraft and 
a peculiar fear of and veneration for members and fragments of the 
human body arise; thus incantation and sorcery through nail-parings, 
hair-combings, and other parts of the person (the synecdochic magic of 
Mason), and the wearing of scalps or fingers or teeth of slain enemies, 
first as charms and later as trophies, grow up as features in formal or 
ceremonial propitiation of mysterious powers. As this stage advances, 
the deific animals are presumed to possess supernatural forms as well 
as powers, and thus the age of dragons and chimeras and goblins and 
molochs is introduced. In the third stage in the development of belief, 
the mysterious potencies are so far classified and arranged as to corre- 
spond with the powers of nature—the action of sun and moon and stars, 
of thunder and lightning, of winds, of storm-waves and torrents, of the 
cold of the north and the winter, etc—and these are personified first as 
beast-gods and later as anthropomorphic deities. In this stage, incan- 
tation and sorcery gradually become incongruous with the developing 
belief, and either disappear or (under a curious law, exemplified in 
biology as well as demology, which may be called the Law of monstrosi- 
ties)’ pass into divination or sortilege, which leads into necromancy or 
jugglery, such as culminates among the fakirs of India, or grow into 

4As is well known, when deep-sea fishes are traced downward into the abysmal depths where the 
light is faint, the eyes of some species disappear, while those of others are abnormally developed; itis 
also well known that when a flora is traced into the desert, some plants become dwarfed and shrunken 
with the diminishing moisture, while others develop taumid and pulpy trunks to fit themselves to the 
changed conditions. In iike manner, when a belief outlasts the conditions under which it was devel- 
oped, it may be either abandoned or moditied; in the latter case the modification soon becomes incon- 
gruous with the ever-changing conditions, when it is again necessary either to abandon or modify; and 
thus beliefs tend to develop into persistent extravagancies with respect to both concept and ceremo- 
nial. Itis needless for the present to trace this tendency in detail or to enumerate the many striking 
illustrations of the law. 
