s of describing in words these counting-gestures.
Second, the process of "survival in culture" has caused the preservation
in each stage of society of phenomena, belonging to an earlier period,
but kept up by force of custom into the later, thus supplying evidence
of the modern condition being derived from the ancient. Thus the mitre
over an English bishop's coat-of-arms is a survival which indicates him
as the successor of bishops who actually wore mitres, while armorial
bearings themselves, and the whole craft of heraldry, are survivals
bearing record of a state of warfare and social order whence our present
state was by vast modification evolved. Evidence of this class, proving
the derivation of modern civilization, not only from ancient barbarism,
but beyond this, from primeval savagery, is immensely plentiful,
especially in rites and ceremonies, where the survival of ancient habits
is peculiarly favoured. Thus the modern Hindu, though using civilized
means for lighting his household fires, retains the savage "fire-drill"
for obtaining fire by friction of wood when what he considers pure or
sacred fire has to be produced for sacrificial purposes; while in Europe
into modern times the same primitive process has been kept up in
producing the sacred and magical "need-fire," which was lighted to
deliver cattle from a murrain. Again, the funeral offerings of food,
clothing, weapons, &c., to the dead are absolutely intelligible and
purposeful among savage races, who believe that the souls of the
departed are ethereal beings capable of consuming food, and of receiving
and using the souls or phantoms of any objects sacrificed for their use.
The primitive philosophy to which these conceptions belong has to a
great degree been discredited by modern science; yet the clear survivals
of such ancient and savage rites may still be seen in Europe, where the
Bretons leave the remains of the All Souls' supper on the table for the
ghosts of the dead kinsfolk to partake of, and Russian peasants set out
cakes for the ancestral manes on the ledge which supports the holy
pictures, and make dough ladders to assist the ghosts of the dead to
ascend out of their graves and start on their journey for the future
world; while other provision for the same spiritual journey is made when
the coin is still put in the hand of the corpse at an Irish wake. In
like manner magic still exists in the civilized world as a survival from
the savage and barbaric