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NATURE 



[May 17, 1883 



stage from which the analogy of gesture-language leads 

 us to suppose that they originally sprang. Moreover, 

 the sequence or collocation of gesture-signs conforms to 

 fixed rules, which display the action of the thinking mind. 

 The subject must precede the attribute : for instance, 

 such a sequence as a " heavy stick " would have no sense 

 to the sign-maker, who necessarily introduces the stick 

 before he can clothe it with an attribute. Phrases, so to 

 speak, out of an American gesture-story illustrate the 

 gesture-syntax. When the finger-tips of the two hands 

 are brought together to show a hut or wigwam, then 

 pointing to one's own breast does the work of the pro- 

 noun, "hut-mine." The sequence " buffalo-one-shot- 

 killed " starts with the idea of buffalo, adds that there 

 was one, and then the sign-maker, having placed the idea 

 of that one buffalo before his interlocutor, can imitatively 

 shoot at it, and it falls dead. He can even imply the 

 idea of causation in the sharp following of the shot by 

 the animal's fall, which makes one the instantaneous con- 

 sequence of the other. In spoken language the theory of 

 syntax or combining-order is a subject of great com- 

 plexi ty and difficulty. Of the few philologists who 

 have attempted it, mention may be made of Steinthal, 

 von der Gabelentz, and Max Muller, whose early disser- 

 tation is published as an appendix to Bunsen's " Philo- 

 sophy of Universal History." But while the age-long 

 shifting history of speech has brought the order of se- 

 quence of its elements into an entanglement hardly 

 possible to unravel, we have still before us the first clue 

 in the sequence by which man has arranged his gestures, 

 and will do so anew when he is put to pantomime as a 

 means of converse. Thus the philologist, engaged in 

 studying the formation and combination of speech-sounds 

 or words, may have from the anthropologist the natural 

 rules framed by the human mind dealing in the simplest 

 of known ways with the problem how to express 

 thought. 



Scarcely less light is thrown oa the working of the 

 human mind by the history of that special development 

 of error which since the remotest ages has taken the 

 form of magic. Of late certain events in France have 

 revived popular interest in that curious old-fashioned in- 

 strument, the divining-rod, and as I happened to be staying 

 at a friend's house in the Mendip district, where it is still 

 used by well-sinkers and miners, at my request a regular 

 practitioner was sent for. I show the instrument — a forked 

 hazel twig, which is held loosely by its outward-bent ends in 

 the closed upturned hands, so that it can rise or fall 

 easily. On approaching a spring, vein of ore, &c, the 

 rod dips toward it, but when replaced horizontally and 

 passing over the place, it rises toward the bearer's face. 

 That the spring or other object sought has really no 

 effect on the instrument, but that its dipping has to do 

 with the seeker, is sufficiently shown by its being consi- 

 dered to act with the most dissimilar objects — a spring of 

 water, a vein of ore, a piece of metal, a dead body — 

 which have, however, this in common, that they are what 

 the "dowser" is in search of. It does not appear that he 

 fraudulently moves the rod, but my sensations led me to 

 agree with Chevreul that the slight movements of the 

 hands are unconsciously guided to accumulate into im- 

 pulses sufficient to cause the twig to dip or rise. I 

 noticed that when I could allow my attention to stray, 

 the rod would from time to time move in my hands in a 

 way so lifelike that an uneducated person might well 

 suppose the movement to be spontaneous. It is hardly 

 necessary to say that the rod always moves where the 

 bearer's mind suggests an object. In the present case 

 the special business of the dowser was to find springs of 

 water, and his difficulty was to distinguish between the 

 mere top springs, which though acting on the rod were of 

 course practically worthless, and the valuable main 

 springs which would repay the sinking of a well. In 

 the trial an incident occurred which threw light on the 



nature of the whole operation. The rod when brought 

 over my watch, dipped strongly, and the dowser looking 

 up at me with innocent archness said : " You see, sir, it's 

 just over the mainspring of your watch" The remark 

 showed how his mind was so simply controlled by asso- 

 ciation of ideas, that he expected the same action from 

 a main spring of water and of a watch, their likeness 

 of name quite overriding their unlikeness of nature. 

 Nothing could have better shown at once the man's 

 sincerity and the purely ideal character of his craft, nor 

 does one often meet with a more perfect illustration of 

 the state of mind where magic has its origin in delusive 

 analogy, whether of things or of their names. Magic 

 has often passed as mystery, but to the anthropologist 

 few arts are less mysterious ; he reads by childishly 

 simple association of ideas the open secret of half the 

 magical rules which prevail in savage and barbaric life, 

 and even last on into the midst of civilisation. In the 

 wild north-west of Ireland I learnt not long since the use 

 of the "worm-knot " for curing ailments of cattle; it is a 

 bit of cord in which a peculiar slip-knot is made, and if 

 this knot when pulled over the creature's back comes 

 away clear (as shown), the disease will come away too. 

 On the same principle, the purpose of the pig's heart 

 stuck full of thorns and bricked up in an old chimney 

 (produced) was sympathetically to pictce with pain and 

 shrivel with disease some hated person, probably a re- 

 puted witch suspected of "overlooking." It is a curious 

 exercise to read from this point of view the precepts of 

 the modern astrologer, which still show their quasi- 

 reasons, futile but quite intelligible. Suppose one's self 

 seeking for lost property, the significator of the thing 

 missing will be the moon, apparently because herself so 

 often lost and found again. According to her position, 

 east or west, the object must be looked for ; if the Moon 

 is in a human sign, as the Twins, it will be in a human 

 habitation, but the sign of the Bull indicates its being in 

 a cow-house. Even the thief's clothes are denoted by the 

 governing planets ; under Saturn he will be found in a 

 black suit, or if Mars is in it, his presence will be shown 

 by some red article, .perhaps a neck-handkerchief. Folly 

 as this is, it at any rate shows the working of uneducated 

 men's minds, where the argument from analogy appears in 

 its early crude state, not yet cleared by observation, but 

 still on its way to become, under proper checks and 

 reservations, the explorer of the universe and the guide to 

 science. 



This is by no means the only example of a delusive 

 theory being, when honestly worked out, productive of 

 scientific truth. In times when the study of races for 

 mere knowledge sake had little hold on scholars' minds, 

 anthropology was much indebted to the fancy that any 

 people whose presence in an outlying region seemed hard 

 to account for must be the " lost tribes of Israel." One 

 nation answered the conditions of this theory about as 

 well as another : the remnants of the ten tribes were found 

 marauding in the Afghan passes, wandering with the 

 reindeer in Lapland, chasing buffaloes on the American 

 prairies, or slaughtering human victims on the teocallis 

 of Mexico. The manners and customs of these countries 

 being studied, showed distinct analogies with Jewish cus- 

 toms, as indeed they would have with German or Chinese, 

 or any other. Enthusiasts such as Rudbeck, or Garcia, or 

 Adair, of course did not see this, but the practical result 

 was that, especially in North and South America, evidence of 

 great value in the history of civilisation was recorded which 

 would have perished had it not been thus caught before 

 it was swept away by European influence. This is a 

 good instance of its being better to have a bad hypo- 

 thesis than none at all. The ten tribes delusion has 

 now, however, sunk to a lower level than when Lord 

 Kingsborough spent his fortune in publishing the Mexican 

 pictures and chronicles. But in spite of all the new real 

 knowledge as to races, it has even in this country more 



