While offering the above explanation of many of the most important phenomena vouched for by the advocates of Spiritualism, it is simply to show that such phenomena, according to the evidence of Spiritualists themselves, do not require the intervention of spirit agency, although this has an important bearing on the past history of mankind. Spiritism has a marvellous influence over the mind of uncultured man, and it has retained its influence almost unimpaired through most of the phases of human progress. A late French writer, after stating that superstition was supreme in the Roman Empire at the commencement of the Christian era, declares that magic was universally practised, with the object of acquiring, by means of “demons”—the spirits of the dead—power to benefit the person using it, or to injure those who were obnoxious to him. It is thus evident that the phenomena to which the modern term “Spiritualism” has been applied are of great interest to the Anthropologist, and, indeed, of the utmost importance for a right understanding of some of the chief problems with which he has to deal. They constitute an element in the life-history of past generations which cannot be left out of consideration when their mental and moral condition are being studied; and modern _Spiritualism_ may, therefore, be studied with great advantage as a key to what is more properly called _Spiritism_. Not that the former can be considered as an instance of “survival,” in the proper sense of this phrase. Apart from such isolated instances as that of Swedenborg, Spiritualism is of quite recent introduction, and it appears to have had no direct connection with its earlier prototype. It is worthy of note, however, that it sprang up among the people who have long been in contact with primitive tribes, over whom Spiritism has always had a powerful influence. It is possible that intermixture of Indian blood with that of the European settlers in North America may have had something to do with the appearance of Spiritualism, which would thus be an example of intellectual reversion, analogous to the physical divergence to the Indian type which has by some writers been ascribed to the descendants of those settlers. Or the former may be merely a resemblance, instead of a reversion, dependent on the change in the physical organism. In either case, it is somewhat remarkable that many of the so-called “spirits,” which operate through Spiritualist mediums, claim to have had an American (Indian) origin. FOOTNOTES: [302] I have not forgotten the so-called _Mutterrecht_. Whatever the influence of woman, as head of the family or household, however, her position in society was a secondary one, except under the conditions referred to in the chapter on “Sacred Prostitution.” CHAPTER XII. TOTEMS AND TOTEMISM.