'Pour arriver au plus haut degre d'inspiration dont il est capable, le
devin doit avoir recours a l'emploi de certaines phrases qui se
distinguent par _une cadence et un parallelisme particuliers_. Il
essaye ce moyen _afin de soustraire son ame aux influences des sens_ et
de lui donner assez de force pour se mettre dans un contact imparfait
avec le monde spirituel.[a] Cette agitation d'esprit, jointe a l'emploi
des moyens intrinseques dont nous avons parle, excite dans son coeur
des idees que cet organe exprime par le ministere de la langne. Les
paroles qu'il prononce sont tantot vraies, tantot fausses. En effet,
le devin, voulant suppleer a l'imperfection de son naturel, se sert de
moyens tout a fait etrangers a sa faculte perceptive et qui ne
s'accordent en aucune facon avec elle. Donc la verite et l'erreur se
presentent a lui en meme temps, aussi ne doit on mettre aucune
confiance en ses paroles. Quelquefois meme il a recours a des
suppositions et a des conjectures dans l'espoir de rencontrer la verite
et de tromper ceux qui l'interrogent.']

[Footnote a: Compare Tennyson's way of attaining a state of trance by
repeating to himself his own name.]

APPENDIX D

_CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA_

In the remarks on Australian religion, it is argued that chiefs in
Australia are, at most, very inconspicuous, and that a dead chief cannot
have thriven into a Supreme Being. Attention should be called, however, to
Mr. Howitt's remarks on Australian 'Head-men,' in his tract on 'The
Organisation of Australian Tribes' (pp. 103-113).

He attaches more of the idea of power to 'Head-men' than does Mr. Curr in
his work, 'The Australian Race.' The Head-men, as a rule, arrive at such
influence as they possess by seniority, if accompanied by courage, wisdom,
and, in some cases, by magical acquirements. There are traces of a
tendency to keep the office (if it may be called one) in the same kinship.
'But Vich Ian Vohr or Chingahgook are not to be found in Australian
tribes' (p. 113). I do not observe that the manes or ghost of a dead
Head-man receives any worship or service calculated to fix him in the
tribal memory, and so lead to the evolution of a deity, though one
Head-man was potent through the whole Dieyri tribe over three hundred
miles of country. Such a person, if propitiated after death, might
conceivably develop into a hero, if not into a creative being. But we
must await evidence to the effect that any posthumous reverence was p