attached that “they contained the virtues and advantages of the deceased,” and that his “living strength passed over into the kinsmen who consumed the cakes, and was thus retained within the kindred.”[60.2] The eating of the flesh of animals remarkable for qualities such as ferocity, strength, fleetness, and so forth, with intent to acquire these qualities is well known. One illustration will be sufficient here. The Basuto, before going to war, make assurance doubly, trebly sure by a cruel rite. The foreleg of a living bull is cut off. The warriors eat it and are sprinkled with blood from the animal, which is then killed. They are lanced by the witch-doctor, and a powder made of the flesh of the bull is rubbed into the wounds. In this way, namely, by eating the flesh, by sprinkling the blood, and by inoculation, “the strength and courage of the animal” are imparted to them.[60.3] It appears then that the concept of personality is inseparable from that of the potentiality with which a personality is endowed. Hence the ambiguity of the Tahitian rite. Whether the feathers which had been {61} attached to an image retained and transmitted to the next wearer the _mana_, or a portion of the personality, of the god, the one effect was equivalent to the other: they are indistinguishable. But between _mana_ and the potentiality that elsewhere invests a personality there is a difference. The latter may be, and frequently is, held to be drawn from the common source of power, the invisible and continuous life that permeates all things; whereas in Melanesia (and perhaps in Polynesia too) _mana_ is definitely ascribed only to a personal origin, if Dr Codrington has rightly interpreted the belief. It is the special property of spirits--that is to say, of supernatural beings--and is communicated by them to whatsoever or whomsoever they will. An important step has thus been taken by the Melanesian mind towards separating the Personal from the Impersonal, and human from superhuman attributes and potentialities. Thus we find in widely separated regions, among widely different races and in cultures the most diverse, the idea of mystic power or potentiality, often concentrated in individual persons or things, but in effect spread throughout the world. Some peoples have been more alive to the impersonal character of this power, and have ascribed to it, wherever manifested, a unity of origin akin to the scientific concept of force behind all phenomena. To others it has assumed a more individual character. It clings in any case to personality and tends to become inseparable from it; but the impersonal aspect is never wholly wanting.