Observing with satisfaction that, even amongst savages, the positive mind can sometimes free itself from popular superstitions and penetrate the disguise of mystery-mongers, one asks why Nature could not produce whole tribes of men so minded, and spare the folly and horror and iniquity which take up so much space in the retrospect of human life. Because common sense is only related to actual experience, and could not appreciate the necessity of government and social co-ordination as the condition of all improvement in human life, until it already existed. Such co-ordination had, therefore, to grow up without being understood; and it did grow up under the protection of certain beliefs that induced the tribes of men to hold together and subordinate themselves to leaders: amongst which beliefs the superstitions exploited by wizards had no small part. FOOTNOTES: [389] Ling Roth, _The Aborigines of Tasmania_, p. 65. [390] Spencer and Gillen, _Across Australia_, p. 336. [391] Czaplicka, _Aboriginal Siberia_, p. 177. [392] The political importance of the wizard seems to have been first noticed by Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, II. p. 178 (§ 474). [393] Bellamy, quoted by Seligman, _Melanesians of British North Guinea_, p. 694. [394] _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 40. [395] Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, p. 114. [396] Czaplicka, _Aboriginal Siberia_, p. 191. [397] E. Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, ch. xlix. [398] _The Sacred Shrine._ [399] _Report of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits_, V. pp. 322-3. [400] Rivers, _History of Melanesian Sociology_. [401] _Am. B. of Ethn._, VII., “Ojibway Medicine,” by W. J. Hoffman; XI., “The Sia,” by M. C. Stevenson; XIV., “The Menomini Indians,” by W. Hoffman. For a collection of the facts see Frazer, _Totemism and Exogamy_, IV. ch. xix; and Hutton Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_. [402] _Report of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits_, VI. p. 200. [403] _Op. cit._, p. 278. [404] _Among Congo Cannibals_, p. 251. [405] Spencer and Gillen, _Across Australia_, p. 326. [406] Book VII. The witch, imitated from Circe and Medea by Ariosto, Tasso, Spenser, became a traditionary, romantic motive. [407] Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 388. [408] Stefánson, _op. cit._, p. 403. [409] Czaplicka, _op. cit._, p. 240. [410] _Across Australia_, p. 51. [411] _Op. cit._, p. 184. [412] _Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, II. p. 178. [413] _The Primitive Bakongo_, p. 216. [414] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, XXIV., “Shamanism,” p. 144. [415] _Among the Indians of Guiana_, p. 335. [416] _Am. B. of Ethn._, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” by J. Mooney, p. 323. [417] W. Mariner’s _Account of the Tonga Islands_, ch. xxi. [418] _Am. B. of Ethn._, IX., “Medicine Men of the Apache,” by J. E. Bourke, p. 471. [419] Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, p. 135. [420] _Travels and Researches in South Africa_, ch. i.