(_d_) Uncultured man believed that by dancing to such an extent that he became unconscious he was not only doing something that was honouring to the deity, not only offering something in the nature of sacrifice, but that, he was, above all, making his body a fit temporary abode for his god. He did not enquire how this came about. Conceivably, the earliest idea, though unexpressed, was that by honouring the god to this extent the god showed his approval by uniting himself with his dancing worshipper. The earlier widespread belief that the deity took up his abode at certain times in trees, stones, etc., may well have suggested the possibility of the same thing occurring in men, but more especially in those more intimately and directly dedicated to his worship. The question would have arisen as to the means to be employed whereby this end could be achieved in the case of men; and as dancing was the earliest form of worship this would have been the most natural means to suggest itself. The dance would then proceed; during it the performers would be anxiously awaiting some inner indication of the entrance of the deity; nothing, of course, would happen until the long-continued dance would induce first giddiness, then semi-consciousness, and finally a state of semi-delirium ending not infrequently in total unconsciousness for some time. But it is easy to understand that the first signs of semi-consciousness would have been interpreted as the advent of the deity and the beginnings of the divine overpowering. Given belief in the possibility of divine indwelling in a man, the further belief that the god utilized his worshipper as his mouthpiece was a natural and easy transition. Natural, because it could not be supposed that the god would take up his abode in a man without some purpose, and what more obvious purpose than that of making his will known? Easy, because the mechanism, if one may so call it, of utterance was all ready to hand. Other things would follow, also in the natural course; for if, on the one hand, the god utilized the body of his worshipper as the vehicle for making his will known, the worshipper could, on the other hand, utilize the divine power with which he was suffused for other purposes. Thus, for example, we have the Hebrew prophet who, in an ecstatic state, utters the will of Jahwe, or gives an oracle; or, as illustrating the other side, we have the Bodo-priest “devil-dancer” of Southern India who utilizes the divine power within him for working cures. But whatever the result might be, the important thing from our present point of view is that the requisite state required for the accomplishment of these things was brought about by the performance of the sacred dance. The ecstatic dance will receive a good deal of notice below (pp. 107 ff.), so that we need not say more about it here.