Indeed, so violent and tyrannous is the power of superstitious beliefs in many cases, that it may be difficult to understand how they are almost entirely born of the imagination. In a civilised country there are always current some beliefs as imaginative and absurd as any to be found in the middle of Africa; but surviving amidst a greater mass of perception-beliefs and positive ideas about industry and commerce, they have lost much of their driving power; and when the imaginative character of any belief has been recognised, it passes into the region of fine art or mythology, or even of ridicule. If such things have any place in our life, we turn to them of personal choice in the intervals of affairs. Under the influence of the fine arts or of literature treating of such things, our emotional states may be intense; but they are dissociated from action, exist for their own sake, have an appropriate tone (æsthetic) which marks their lack of energy, so that they require only an imaginary satisfaction. With a backward people there is much less “positive” opposition to their imaginative prepossessions and pursuits; what seems to us absurd, seems to them necessary; the actions and observances that express their beliefs are not performed as a matter of personal choice, but of public custom; the ends to be obtained (they think) are the same as those of what we call “business.” And it must be so. Considering the function of superstition in promoting political evolution, it is plain that primitive man must have been capable of believing and doing those things which (within certain limits) had so much biological and social value. To understand how the magical and religious beliefs of savages and the play-beliefs of civilised man, having a common source in imagination, are (in spite of strong contrasts) closely allied, we must call to mind the many degrees of intensity of play-belief in ourselves, varying from the momentary entertainment of playing with a child, through many grades of fiction or ceremony, down to a deeply serious frame of mind, a profound movement of dread or compassion that may long outlast our play. A child’s absorption in such beliefs is more intense than ours; but circumstances prevent his attaining to the solid faith of a savage. The child of civilised people has little or no support in tradition (except from nursemaids); he is not driven by the desires and anxieties of subsistence; and he is frequently interrupted by his seniors. The savage has an overwhelming tradition and authority, pressing anxieties and no seniors. Until the civilised sceptic reaches his shores, there is, for the average tribesman, nothing but tardy experience or social fatigue to check his vagaries. His imagination vies with the sense of reality, often overpowers it; yet his beliefs show many signs of their insecure foundations. * * * * *