+Awe.+--A fundamental sense of awe was felt in the presence of anything unusual or contrary to experience, and man's instinctive philosophy shaped his ideas from the suggestions of daily life, accounting for all cases of causation by assimilating them to the intentional acts of voluntary agents like himself. There was no doubt of the existence and influence of surrounding unseen powers; they must be cajoled, appeased, bribed and rewarded. Some were inevitably malevolent; with others man could enter into relations which were mutually beneficial. Even at the present day there is no clear distinction between what we should call the natural and the supernatural; a demon or a saint can appear in human or animal form; and the marvel or miracle is that which happens to lie outside the intellectual horizon of the individual. The modern phenomena can be traced back through {51} early sources and appear now in grosser and now in more elevated forms; even the presence of any advanced material culture, or of more spiritual conceptions of the Godhead does not annihilate that lower supernaturalism which flourishes uncontrolled among more rudimentary races. It would be unreasonable to suppose that the religion of our period was more free from imprecision than that of more progressive peoples: the whole routine of life brought the individual into constant contact with unseen agencies, and the world of spirits involved a medley of beliefs, more embarrassing to the modern inquirer who seeks to systematise them, than to the Oriental mind which has always been able and willing to accept the incredible and the contradictory. Man's relations with the spirits whom he shuns or seeks are illustrated in magical practices; _e.g._ incantation, symbolic magic (p. 34). +Charms,+ on the other hand, possess a magical virtue which is effective without interference on the part of the possessor. Many little objects of this character have been unearthed: pendants of red coral (still a prophylactic against the evil eye), beads (still supposed to possess curative properties), small articles cut out of bone {52} (especially the heads of human femora, sawn off and perforated). Here may be included the occasional jewels (_e.g._ a silver pendant crescent)--amulets and ornaments were closely associated, and the latter continue to convey ideas which could be regarded as idolatrous (compare Gen. xxxv. 4). The representations of Egyptian gods and the 'Horus-eyes' should also be mentioned here. 'Eyes' are still on sale in the East, they are expected to be on the watch for evil influences. But the anxiety to avert evil and to procure favour need not involve an intelligent interest in the means employed, and some of the objects (when not originally possessed by Egyptian settlers) may have as much bearing upon the question of Egyptian influence upon the religion of Palestine as the use of foreign (Phoenician?) formulæ in Egyptian magical texts.