337 
ON JADE AND KINDRED STONES. 
By F. W. RUDLER, F.G.S. 
[PLATE VIII.] 
S CIENCE is unquestionably the arch-foe to superstition ; yet 
superstition, it must be conceded, has unwittingly rendered 
an occasional service to the cause of science. How ill, for 
instance, might it have fared to-day with the student of pre- 
historic archaeology if our ancestors had been free from any 
superstitious regard for those implements of stone — unknown 
alike in origin and use — which they occasionally brought to 
light with help of spade and plough! As long as the flint 
arrow-head was regarded as a “ fairy dart,” or the stone axe as 
a "thunderbolt,” it stood in little danger of being heedlessly 
destroyed. Shielded by the supernatural origin to which it was 
referred, the relic may have been piously preserved, generation 
after generation, until in these latter days it has come to grace 
the cabinet of an archaeologist. The time of real danger was 
not when there was too much superstition abroad, but when 
there was too little superstition, yet not sufficient science — 
when men had ceased to value a stone implement as talisman, 
or amulet, or charm, but were not sufficiently enlightened to 
recognise its true meaning and to value it on scientific grounds. 
Much of the esteem which the ancients set upon precious 
stones was due, in like manner, to the superstitions by which 
such minerals were liberally surrounded. No doubt the properties 
which we prize at the present day — such as colour, brilliancy, 
and hardness — were equally prized in the remotest times at 
which precious stones were used ; but above and beyond these 
obvious characters, overarching all these physical properties, 
there was the higher value derived from their metaphysical 
virtues. Some of these virtues were of a purely spiritual 
character, such as the power attributed to so many gems of 
dispelling vicious propensities and of inspiring purity of life in 
the owner. Others, however, were of less subtle nature, and 
were in fact medicinal rather than metaphysical. 
NEW SERIES, YOL. III. — NO. XII. Z 
