advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that for ever recedes. We need not murmur at the endless pursuit: Fatti non foste a viver come bruti Ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza. Great things will come of that pursuit, though we may not enjoy them. Brighter stars will rise on some voyager of the future-some great Ulysses of the realms of thought-than shine on us. The dreams of magic may one day be the waking realities of science. But a dark shadow lies athwart the far end of this fair prospect. For however vast the increase of knowledge and of power which the future may have in store for man, he can scarcely hope to stay the sweep of those great forces which seem to be making silently but relentlessly for the destruction of all this starry universe in which our earth swims as a speck or mote. In the ages to come man may be able to predict, perhaps even to control, the wayward courses of the winds and clouds, but hardly will his puny hands have strength to speed afresh our slackening planet in its orbit or rekindle the dying fire of the sun. Yet the philosopher who trembles at the idea of such distant catastrophes may console himself by reflecting that these gloomy apprehensions, like the earth and the sun themselves, are only parts of that unsubstantial world which thought has conjured up out of the void, and that the phantoms which the subtle enchantress has evoked to-day she may ban to-morrow. They too, like so much that to common eyes seems solid, may melt into air, into thin air. Without dipping so far into the future, we may illustrate the course which thought has hitherto run by likening it to a web woven of three different threads-the black thread of magic, the red thread of religion, and the white thread of science, if under science we may include those simple truths, drawn from observation of nature, of which men in all ages have possessed a store. Could we then survey the web of thought from the beginning, we should probably perceive it to be at first a chequer of black and white, a patchwork of true and false notions, hardly tinged as yet by the red thread of religion. But carry your eye farther along the fabric and you will remark that, while the black and white chequer still runs through it, there rests on the middle portion of the web, where religion has entered most deeply into its texture, a dark crimson stain, which shades off insensibly into a lighter tint as the white thread of science is woven more and more into the tissue. To a web thus chequered and stained, thus shot with threads of diverse hues, but gradually changing colour the farther it is unrolled, the state of modern thought, with all its divergent aims and conflicting tendencies, may be compared. Will the great movement which for centuries has been slowly altering the complexion of thought be continued in the near future? or will a reaction set in which may arrest progress and even undo much that has been done? To keep up our parable, what will be the colour of the web which the Fates are now weaving on the humming loom of time? will it be white or red? We cannot tell. A faint glimmering light illumines the backward portion of the web. Clouds and thick darkness hide the other end. Our long voyage of discovery is over and our bark has drooped her weary sails in port at last. Once more we take the road to Nemi. It is evening, and as we climb the long slope of the Appian Way up to the Alban Hills, we look back and see the sky aflame with sunset, its golden glory resting like the aureole of a dying saint over Rome and touching with a crest of fire the dome of St. Peter's. The sight once seen can never be forgotten, but we turn from it and pursue our way darkling along the mountain side, till we come to Nemi and look down on the lake in its deep hollow, now fast disappearing in the evening shadows. The place has changed but little since Diana received the homage of her worshippers in the sacred grove. The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough. But Nemi's woods are still green, and as the sunset fades above them in the west, there comes to us, borne on the swell of the wind, the sound of the church bells of Aricia ringing the Angelus. Ave Maria! Sweet and solemn they chime out from the distant town and die lingeringly away across the wide Campagnan marshes. Le roi est mort, vive le roi! Ave Maria! INDEX with Adultery of wife thought to spoil the luck of absent husband, 23, 24 Aegira, priestess of Earth at, 94 Aegis, Athena and the, 477 Aeneas, and the Golden Bough, 3, 163, 703, Aeolus, King of the Winds, 81 Afghanistan, ceremony at the reception of Africa, magicians, especially rain-makers, as Africa, British Central, heart of lion eaten to Africa, North, charms to render bridegroom -, South, rat's hair as a charm in, 31; - West, magical functions of chiefs in, leopard in, 523; the external soul in, Afterbirth, contagious magic of, 39-41 Agaric, superstitions as to, 618 Agdestis, a man-monster, 349 Agni, Indian fire-god, 708 Agricultural year, expulsion of demons Agrionia, festival at Orchomenus, 291 Agu, Mount, in Togo, wind-fetish on, 81; Ague, cure for, 545, 546 Aht of Nootka Indians, 599 of Ainos, 481, 496, 515, 528, 530, 532; Akikuyu of British East Africa, 145, 604 Alake, the, of Abeokuta, 295 Alaska, respect of hunters for dead sables Alba Longa, 148; kings of, 149 Alban dynasty, 149; hills, 148; lake, 149; 715 Albania, milk-stones in, 34; mock lamen- Albanians of the Caucasus, 251, 571 Alexandria, festival of Adonis at, 335 Alfoors, of the island of Buru, 250; of Algeria, Midsummer fires in, 631 Algonquins, 144 Alvarado, Pedro de, Spanish general, 687 Amazon, Indians at the mouth of the, 581 America, power of medicine men in North, 87; continence in Central, 138; the Corn American Indians, 29, 63, 82, 87, 111, 136, Amethysts as charms, 34, 85 Ammon, the god, 142, 477, 500 Amoy, spirits who draw away the souls of children at, 186 Amphictyon, king of Athens, 155 Amulets, 109, 242, 243, 679, 680 Amulius Silvius, 149 Anabis, human god at, 96 Anaitis, Persian goddess, 331 Anatomie of Abuses, 123 Ancestor, wooden image of, 679 Ancestors, prayers to, 71; sacrifices to, 72; Ancus Marcius, Roman king, 158 Andaman Islanders, 192 Anderida, forest of, 109 Andes, the Peruvian, 79; the Colombian Anemone, the scarlet, 336 Angamis, Eastern, of Manipur, 64 Angoniland, rain-making in, 63 Anhouri, Egyptian god, 265 Animal, killing the divine, 499-518; and man. Animals, homeopathic magic of, 31; asso- Animism, the Buddhist, not a philosophical Anjea, mythical being, 39 Anna Kuari, an Oraon goddess, 434 Annam, ceremonies observed when a whale Anointing stones, in order to avert bullets Anointment, of weapon which caused wound, 423 Antigonus, King, 97 Antioch, festival of Adonis at, 336, 346 Anubis, the jackal-headed god, 366, 367, Anula tribe of Northern Australia, 64, 72, Apaches, the, 76, 211 Aphrodite, 4; and Adonis, 7, 327, 335; Apis, sacred Egyptian bull, 335, 365, 476, Apollo, prophetess of, 95; image of, in Apollo Diradiotes, inspired priestess at Apologies offered to trees, 113, 115, 116; Apoyaos, head-hunters, 433 Apple-tree, barren women roll under, to Arab charms, 31, 242; name for the scarlet Arabia, belief as to shadows in ancient, 190; Arabian Nights, story of the external soul in Arabs, of Moab, 32, 378; of North Africa, Araucanians of South America, 245 Archigallus, high priest of Attis, 349, 353 Arden, forest of, 110 Ardennes, effigies of Carnival in the, 305; Aricia, 1, 2; many Manii at, 6, 491; its Arician grove, 5, 6, 301, 477-9, 491, 582, Arizona, aridity of, 76 Armenia, rain-making in, 70; cut hair. Arrows, in homeopathic magic, 29; in Arsacid house, divinity of Parthian kings Art, sylvan deities in classical, 117 Aru Islands, custom of not sleeping after Arunta of Central Australia, 17, 603 Aryan god of thunder, 638 Aryans, magical powers ascribed to kings, Ascension Day, 312, 702 Ascetic idealism of the East, 139 Ashes, in magic, 30-32, 72, 76; of human Asia Minor. pontiffs in, 9; human scape- Asongtata, annual ceremony performed by Aspalis, a form of Artemis, 355 Ass, in cure for scorpion's bite, 544 Assumption of the Virgin, festival of, 360 Athamas, king of Alus, 290-92 Athena and the aegis, 477 Athenian sacrifice of the bouphonia, 466 Athens, king and queen at, 9; titular king Attis, and Cybele, 4, 5, 8; myth and ritual Augustine, 359, 382 Aun or On, King of Sweden, 278, 290 Central, magical ceremonies for the |