078 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



been in intimate contact with a human being, are penetrated by his personality) 

 remain, as it were, united with him for f^ood or ill. The cleft ash through which a 

 child has heen drawn for the cure of infantile hernia, hound up and allowed to 

 grow together, continues to sympathise with him in health and sickness as though 

 part of his own hody. In the same way, in the Polynesian islands, red feathers of 

 the man-of-wat bird, for which the gods were supposed to have special favour, 

 were introduced into or attached to the images of the gods. To anyone who 

 brought fresh feathers a small bundle of such as had been previously deposited 

 was given in return. It was first placed before the image from which it had been 

 taken. The priest prayed to the god, requesting him to abide in the feathers. 

 Then, declaring that it was inhabited (that is to s&j, by the god in question), he 

 delivered it to the person who had brought the i'resh feathers, by whom it was 

 carried home and deposited in a bamboo cane, to be taken out and addressed in 

 prayer from time to time. If prosperity attended its owner, that prosperity was 

 attributed to the feathers. They were honoured with an image, into which they 

 were wrought, and possibly, at a later date, with an altar and a rude temple. But 

 when they were attached to the new image it was taken to the eld temple, ' that 

 the supreme idols might sanction the transfer of their influence.'' This is the 

 reason given by the missionary Ellis, whose account I have summarised. I think 

 we must infer that not merely the influence, but a portion of the personality of the 

 god himself, had passed into the feathers, and that while his chief home was at the 

 great temple where his chief image dwelt, he was also present whithersoever the 

 bunches of feathers, which had been consecrated by deposition upon or within it, 

 had been carried. 



Such beliefs as these are well known, and it would be waste of time to multiply 

 examples. They exhibit a concept of personality imperfectly crystallised. It is 

 still fluid and vague, only to become entirely definite under the influence of trained 

 reason and a wider and more scientific knowledge. But, such as it is, there is 

 behind and around it the still vaguer and unlimited territory of the Impersonal, 

 because the Unknown. Every object that is known has its own personality— 

 every object, whether living or, according to our ideas, not-living. What remains 

 is the stuff" out of which personalities are formed as it is gradually reduced into 

 definite relations with the savage observer. These personalities do not necessarily 

 correspond to anything objective. They may be creations of the excited imagina- 

 tion. It is sufficient for the savage that they seem to be and to have a relation to 

 himself which he cannot otherwise interpret. His emancipation from this state of 

 mind is gradual. It leaves its traces every where — there most of all where emotion 

 is most acute and permanent, where hopes and fears are most overwhelming, in the 

 sphere of religion. 



Now, every personality is endowed with qualities whicli enable it to persist, 

 to influence others, and even to overcome, subjugate and destro)' them for its 

 own ends. No more than ourselves could the primeval savage avoid being 

 influenced and often o%'ermatched by the charm and wiles of woman, the wisdom 

 of the elders of his tribe, the dauntless might of the warrior. The non-human 

 personalities with which he came in contact possessed qualities not less remarkable 

 than those of the human. The strength, the fierceness, the agility of the lion, the 

 speed of the antelope, the cunning of the fox, the lofty forms and endurance of 

 the forest trees, their response to every breath of wind, and the kindly shelter they 

 yielded to birds and beasts and men, the fantastic forms and stern patience of the 

 rocks, the smooth and smiling treachery of the lake, the gentle murmur and 

 benign largess of the river, the splendour, the burning heat of the sun, the 

 changeableness and movement of the clouds, are qualities, a few of the more 

 obvious, attached to the myriad personalities with which men found themselves 

 environed. These personalities and their qualities would impress them all the 

 more because of the mystery that perpetually masked them, mystery through 

 which only on rare occasions or to favoured human beings they deigned to speak 

 directly in the language of mankind. Mystery magnified them, and magnified 



' Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i. p. 338. 



