Another interesting instance of sympathetic magic lurks in _R. Q._ 32. The images which, as Plutarch says, were thrown into the river, represented a spirit of vegetation or a corn-spirit; and the object of plunging them into the river was thereby to secure that the crops should be correspondingly drenched with rain.[87] This rite also illustrates the origin of a conception which has its roots in sympathetic magic and yet exerts considerable influence in the civilised world—the conception of "legal fictions." The images, undoubtedly, were substitutes for human beings who were (as representing the corn-spirit) drowned in the Tiber. Human sacrifice, though exceptional, was not unknown at Rome in historic times, as appears from _R. Q._ 83; and the substitution of animals or of inanimate objects for human beings is not peculiar to Rome, but is the usual means by which the transition from the more to the less barbarous custom is effected. But the Romans, who were practical and logical to the extreme, who reduced magic to a system whereby they regulated their daily life, consistently enough also utilised sympathetic magic as a legal instrument. For it would be a great mistake to infer from the ridicule poured by Cicero (_Pro Murena_, xii. 62) on the fictions of Roman law, that those symbolisms were puerile mummeries designed to benefit the legal profession at the expense of its clients. The clod of earth which was brought into court was no mere symbol, but gave to those who held it exactly the same control over the estate from which it came, as the image of a god gives to its possessor, or as the hair or clothing of a person who is to be bewitched gives to the worker of the spell.