One knows how gross the external forms of worship in the beginning were. They simply consisted in a practical application of the social economy: the gods were given to eat and drink; an altar was a butcher’s stall or the stall of a wine merchant, and the cult was a veritable commerce between heaven and earth—a sort of a market, in which man offered lambs or sheep and received in exchange riches and health. In our days, the cult is refined; the exchange has become more and more symbolic, the gift is simply an expression of moral homage, for which the worshipper expects no immediate return; still the principle of the cult is always the same, one believes that an act on man’s part possesses a direct influence on the will of God, and this act consists in offerings or prayers fixed on beforehand. [Sidenote: Governed by the law of the market.] Another principle of primitive cult is proportionality. One can expect no more from another than a proportionate return; bow three times before him, and he will be better disposed toward you than if you bow but once; offer him a beef, and he will be more grateful than if you offer an egg. Accordingly, to an uncultivated and superstitious mind, it follows that quantity and number should regulate our relations with the gods as they regulate our relations with our fellow-men; multiply your prayers, and you will multiply your chances of favours; three Paternosters go farther than one, a dozen candles will produce a much greater effect than a single candle. A prayer that you go to a temple to say in public, a cantique chanted in a sonorous voice, will attract more attention than a silent demand formulated at the bottom of one’s heart. Similarly, if one wishes to obtain rain or sun for the crops, it is into the fields that one must go to offer up one’s prayer, in a motley file of chanting worshippers; it is always serviceable to point one’s finger at what one wants, and to make the demand in person. The better to stimulate the memory of one’s idol primitive man was accustomed to drive a nail into him, and the custom still survives in Brittany in the form of thrusting pins into the bodies of the saints. Out of sight, out of mind, holds good both of gods and saints. To simple minds it would be contrary to the law of proportionate exchange for a simple thought, a silent prayer, to receive such favour in the eyes of the gods as an overt act. [Sidenote: Embodied in fixed forms.]