The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1904-08-24

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more closely akin TO children than are
linen in both their mental and physical
composition,
| Putting these important facts to-
gether. the man Of science can see
some significant conclusions emerging
from the synthesis. Mature civilized
men and women alike are proverbially
less impressed with the fear Of and
belief in ghosts than are their chill
dren. The "bogey man" is a power
fully vital fact in the child mind al
though grownups take little stock in
it. Again. all savages. mature as well
as young, are thorough believers In
ghosts and bogey men of every descrip-
ton The savage mind is filed with
fears of every imaginable supernatural
kind. So is the mind of the child of
civilized society. The minds of mature
civilized men and women are Impress
ed with comparatively little fear and
belief of that kind. Now, what con-
cmsion can be drawn from this in
teresting fact?
If it could be shown, for example.
that the ancestors of civilized men
were at one time precisely like the
savages of today; that the most highly
developed tribes of the human race
had passed. in their evolution upwards,
through the state in which we find the
savages of the present. the problem
would seem to be clearing itself. And
If it could be further shown that each
individual of race, In its growth from
its beginning onward to its maturity,
passes through all the lower stages of
the life growth of the race itself-then
the close resemblance OF the civilized
child to the mature savage would be
perfectly understood.
And such, to be perfectly frank about
the matter, is the conviction OF biol
ogists, from whom anthropologists have
borrowed the idea in order to account
not only for the belief in and fear of
ghosts but for many other beliefs.
fears, and customs which, upon their
surface, seem mysteriously common
place and unaccountable.
Were it not for this innate, this in
herited fear of ghosts, children could
not be afraid of them. Children. just
ike savages, are in many respects
the most hardened skeptics imagina-
BILE. They are not open to conviction
upon any matter which does not di-
rectly appeal to their imagination.
They will believe the most monstrous
fable only be it clothed in an alluring
garb; whereas the most obviously
forcible truth, if it appeal more to the
intellect than to the imagination, will |
have no effect whatsoever upon their
lively, resilient, and shallow minds, In |
just the degree in which the man is
primitive will his beliefs be akin to
the beliefs of the child and of the saw
age.
The belief in ghosts seems to go hand |
in hand with the power of perceiving |
shades in color. Prof. Rivers of Cam |
bridge has recently investigated the |
color perception of savages and comes
to the conclusion that the savage is
unable to distinguish between blue and |
gray. He finds also that in savages the |
perception of red is keenest; that saw
ages have words for red. but not for
blue; and Gladstone long ago proved
that such was the case with the Greeks
of the heroic age. In the classic age
Greek sculptors painted blue the boards
of their statues. Color perceptions in
have been found to resemble
those Of savages. These facts. taken
into consideration with the intense be-
liefs of the Greeks in animated nature,
add new evidence to the strength of the
ghost theory above outlined.
In fact anthropologists seem to hold
that the people of Europe have made
considerable progress anatomically and
physiologically during the last 2OO0
years and less. This would seem to
promise that the belief in ghosts-even
among children-is doomed, and at a
not distant time in the future. The
time will hence come when every lit
tie boy will be his own Huxley-una-
fraid of bogey man, ghost, or witch
with the evil eye.-M. A. Lane in Ia
coma Sunday Ledger.