In three days ducklings eliminate a habit which has become useless, whereas generations after generations of men have gone through innumerable, time-wasting, often costly and painful ceremonies for results rarely secured, and, as we think, never directly secured by the magical or the religious ceremonies themselves. There is here a curious point of psychology: animals establish habits under the guidance of immediate results while man develops the magical art and Religion _despite_ the usual absence of the results sought after. The very possibility of deceiving himself reveals the superiority of man over animals, for self-deception requires a degree of independence from sense-observation, a capacity of constructive imagination, a susceptibility to auto-suggestion, not to be found in animals. That the first glimmer of these capacities should have plunged man in the darkness of primitive Magic and Religion, and made him the ridiculous fool he appears to be by the side of the matter-of-fact, intelligent animal is, however, a very striking and singular fact. If the constant and immediate appearance of the desired results does not seem necessary to the establishment of Magic and Religion, it should not be thought, however, that these arts are altogether useless. On the contrary, they are, even independently of the results at which they aim, of a most substantial value to the cause of individual and social development. Let it be said first, concerning the expected results, that they happen more frequently, perhaps, than I may have seemed to imply. When, for instance, the rain ceremonies are performed during a spell of dry weather, success, more or less distant, always crowns the efforts of the magicians: the rain does come and the earth does bring forth its fruits. The ceremonies for the healing of disease are often followed by the recovery of the patient, however absurd the treatment may have been. One should not forget, in this connection, the considerable effect of suggestion upon the credulous savage. Many cures are, no doubt, performed in this manner by the medicine-man. Davenport, speaking of tribes of Puget Sound, says: 'Their cure for disease consists in the members of the cult shaking in a circle about a sick person, dressed in ceremonial costume. The religious practitioner waves a cloth in front of the patient, with a gentle fanning motion, and, blowing at the same time, proceeds to drive the disease out of the body, beginning at the feet and working upward. The assistant stands ready to seize the disease with his cloth when it is driven out of the head! And they are able to boast of many real cures.'[9] A psychologist is not inclined to doubt the report of Curr, that among the aborigines of Victoria persons who knew themselves to have been devoted to destruction with magical ceremonies have pined away and died,[10] nor that of Howitt, who, alluding to the habit of the medicine-men of certain