The Abyssinian Zoomorphism is a no less important phenomenon, and shows itself in a manner quite peculiar. The blacksmiths and potters form, among the Abyssinians, a society, or caste called in Tigrè _Tebbib_, and in Amhara _Buda_, which is held in some degree of contempt, and excluded from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, because it is believed that they can change themselves into hyænas and other beasts of prey, on which account they are feared by every body, and regarded with horror. They artfully contrive to keep up this superstition, because by this separation they preserve a monopoly of their lucrative trades, and as in other respects they are good Christians, (but few Jews or Mahomedans live among them,) they seem to attach no great consequence to their excommunication. As a badge of distinction, they wear a golden earring, which is frequently found in the ears of hyænas that are killed, without its having ever been discovered how they catch these animals, so as to decorate them with this strange ornament, and this removes, in the minds of the people, all doubt as to the supernatural powers of the smiths and potters[322]. To the budas is also ascribed the gift of enchantment, especially that of the influence of the evil eye[323]. They nevertheless live unmolested, and are not condemned to the flames by fanatical priests, as the lycanthropes were in the middle ages. CHAPTER IV. SYMPATHY. Imitation—compassion—sympathy, these are imperfect designations for a common bond of union among human beings—for an instinct which connects individuals with the general body, which embraces with equal force, reason and folly, good and evil, and diminishes the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice. In this impulse there are degrees, but no essential differences, from the first intellectual efforts of the infant mind, which are in a great measure based on imitation, to that morbid condition of the soul in which the sensible impression of a nervous malady fetters the mind, and finds its way, through the eye, directly to the diseased texture, as the electric shock is propagated by contact from body to body. To this instinct of imitation, when it exists in its highest degree, is united a loss of all power over the will, which occurs as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly established, producing a condition like that of small animals when they are fascinated by the look of a serpent. By this mental bondage, morbid sympathy is clearly and definitely distinguished from all subordinate degrees of this instinct, however closely allied the imitation of a disorder may seem to be to that of a mere folly, of an absurd fashion, of an awkward habit in speech and manner, or even of a confusion of ideas. Even these latter imitations, however, directed as they are to foolish and pernicious objects, place the self-independence