386 



lieves to be some relation to the organic func- 

 tions and even to the propensities of the soul. 

 This ancient worship of stones, these benign 

 virtues attributed to jade and hematite, belong 

 to the savages of America as well as to the inha- 

 bitants of the forests of Thrace, whom the vene- 

 rable institutions of Orpheus., and the origin of 

 mysteries, forbid us to consider as savages. 

 The human race, when nearer it s cradle, be- 

 lieves itself to be autocthonic, and feels as if 

 it were enchained to the Earth, and the sub- 

 stances contained in her bosom. The powers of 

 nature, and still more those which destroy, than 

 those which preserve, are the first objects of it's 

 worship. It is not solely in the tempest, in the 

 sound that precedes the earthquake, in the fire 

 that feeds the volcano, that these powers are 

 manifested ; the inanimate rock, the stones by 

 their lustre and their hardness, the mountains 

 by their mass and their solitude, act upon the 

 untaught mind with a force, which in a state of 

 advanced civilization can no longer be con- 

 ceived. This worship of stones, when once esta- 

 blished, is preserved amid more modern forms 

 of worship ; and what was at first the object 

 of religious homage becomes that of supersti- 

 tious confidence. Divine stones are transformed 

 into amulets, which preserve the wearer from 

 every ill, mental and corporeal. Although a 

 distance of five hundred leagues separates the 



