Consider the other woman--the ancestress of the witch, in the opprobrious sense. She knows very well that she cannot make rain. Probably she has made the experiment already. But--such faith in her power is tempting--so are the gifts thus easy to be earned. The man believes in her--almost she begins to believe in herself. Perhaps she tries to persuade herself that she may succeed this time. She is weatherwise, and she reads in natural signs the probability that rain may shortly be expected. If it should not--well, she must take precautions against incurring blame. She must impose conditions, and any failure must be set down to their non-fulfilment. There is a very pleasant sense of power in gulling the overgrown baby who is so ready to be gulled. She accepts the trust, commands the rain-demon to let down his showers. Her reading of the signs is justified--the expected rain comes. Her reputation is assured--until belief in the supernatural shall be no more. Her daughter and her grand-daughters inherit her claims. They also command the storm, using the same form of words. Possibly they are themselves deceived--believing that there is some virtue in the form of their mother's words, now become an incantation. From the first claim to power over the elements, to the finished sorceress, and thence to the "horrid old witch" of fairy legend, is but a matter of regular evolution. Just as the priestess was the mother of the priest, so the wizard is born of the witch. Man, though he start later--very much as the boy is slower in development than is his sister--is not content always to remain second in the race for knowledge. For a time--perhaps for long centuries--he has been content to leave things intellectual to his womenfolk. But when he starts he is not content to stay upon the threshold of knowledge, as woman, who has approached it only from necessity, has done. One day a male iconoclast rebels, pitting his awakening intellect against the woman's inherited reputation. Victorious, he yet trembles at his victory, while all Palæolithia awaits the angry fire from Heaven. But nothing happens. No lightning strikes him; no swift disease destroys him, or his children, or his cattle. A new era has begun--the wizard places himself beside the witch, slowly but surely to elbow her into the second place.