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If we find it hard
to throw ourselves even in fancy into a mental condition in which
such things seem possible, we can more easily picture to ourselves
the anxiety which the savage, when he first began to lift his
thoughts above the satisfaction of his merely animal wants, and to
meditate on the causes of things, may have felt as to the continued
operation of what we now call the laws of nature. To us, familiar as
we are with the conception of the uniformity and regularity with
which the great cosmic phenomena succeed each other, there seems
little ground for apprehension that the causes which produce these
effects will cease to operate, at least within the near future. But
this confidence in the stability of nature is bred only by the
experience which comes of wide observation and long tradition; and
the savage, with his narrow sphere of observation and his
short-lived tradition, lacks the very elements of that experience
which alone could set his mind at rest in face of the ever-changing
and often menacing aspects of nature.


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