Hartland gives us in this work a most complete and definite account of the world-view which lies behind all these superstitious beliefs and practices. More light, however, is thrown on the philosophy of this superstition by the researches of M. Rochas d’Aiglun than by any work on scientific ethnology and folklore. This is not said in order to detract in any way from the merits of Messrs. Hartland and Frazer. But although nothing could surpass the erudition of these scholars, they could not, in point of sympathetic and intelligent representation, stand on a level with an author who himself believes in the reality of his facts. For those, therefore, who wish to understand the motives, conscious or unconscious, by which the adepts of sympathetic magic justify their practices, nothing could be more instructive than a perusal of _L’extériorisation de la motricité_ and _L’extériorisation de la sensibilité_. In these works M. Rochas has not only minutely summarised the seventeenth century theories and observations of Digby and Papin:[470] he has also supplemented these old “facts” with his own experiments on objects that have been saturated with sensibility and motor power by contact with living bodies. The power of relics, love philtres, and charms is thus explained in a way which, however fantastic, is nevertheless undeniably consistent and methodical.[471] A savage or an uneducated man would indeed be unable to put his case in the logical form which M. Rochas gives it. But if he understood scientific terminology, he would doubtless ratify, as a true interpretation of his own vague conceptions, the theory of sensitive and motor effluvia which emanate from all living beings, and link them to all objects to which they may pass. As a _bona fide_ statement of magic principles in the language of modern psychology and modern physics, M. Rochas’ works bring the old superstitions home to us with unsurpassable force. We learn here to appreciate the powerful influence which may in all times be exercised by the underlying belief in an invisible magical chain connecting things which appear to be severed. When we see a man of modern civilisation falling back upon these crude notions, which appeared for a long time to be quite forgotten, we must needs be convinced that the world-view of magic, however erroneous, is, so to speak, a constitutional fallacy of the human mind. In every department of human ethos, therefore, there is reason to look for the possible effects of these conceptions. For the present, however, we have to admit that sympathetic magic in its simplest form seems to be without any influence on the origin of works of art. It is very different with the second kind of magic—namely, that where the occult influence is based upon _a likeness between things_.