[Illustration: FIG. 179. Decorated _bâtons de commandement_ carved from reindeer horn with a large perforation opposite the brow tine. After Lartet and Christy.] "The religious phenomenon," observes James,(3) "has shown itself to consist everywhere, and in all its stages, in the consciousness which individuals have of an intercourse between themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselves to be related. This intercourse is realized at the time as being both active and mutual.... The gods believed in--whether by crude savages or by men disciplined intellectually--agree with each other in recognizing personal calls.... To coerce the spiritual powers, or to square them and get them on our side, was, during enormous tracts of time, the one great object in our dealings with the natural world." The study of this race, in our opinion, would suggest a still earlier phase in the development of religious thought than that considered by James, namely, a phase in which the wonders of nature in their various manifestations begin to arouse in the primitive mind a desire for an explanation of these phenomena, and in which it is attempted to seek such cause in some vague supernatural power underlying these otherwise unaccountable occurrences, a cause to which the primitive human spirit commences to make its appeal. According to certain anthropologists,[AU] this wonder-working force may either be personal, like the gods of Homer, or impersonal, like the _Mana_ of the Melanesian, or the _Manitou_ of the North American Indian. It may impress an individual when he is in a proper frame of mind, and through magic or propitiation may be brought into relation with his individual ends. Magic and religion jointly belong to the supernatural as opposed to the every-day world of the savage. We have already seen evidence from the burials that these people apparently believed in the preparation of the bodies of the dead for a future existence. How far these beliefs and the votive sense of propitiation for protection and success in the chase are indicated by the art of the caverns is to be judged in connection with their entire life and productive effort, with their burials associated with offerings of implements and articles of food, and with their art. THE THREE CLIMATIC CYCLES OF MAGDALENIAN TIMES The culture of the Crô-Magnons was doubtless influenced by the changing climatic conditions of Magdalenian times, which were quite varied, so that we may trace three parallel lines of development: that of environment, as indicated by the climate and the forms of animal life, that of industry, and that of art.