Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/177

Rh belief that certain substances are "givers of life," and it is to Dr. Elliot Smith that we owe, so far as I am aware, the first appreciation of the importance of this belief in the building up of civilisation. In his work on The Evolution of the Dragon he says, "In delving into the remotely distant past history of our species we cannot fail to be impressed with the persistence with which, throughout the whole of his career, man (of the species Sapiens) has been seeking for an elixir of life, to give added 'vitality' to the dead (whose existence was not consciously regarded as ended), to prolong the days of active life to the living, to restore youth, and to protect his own life from all assaults, not merely of time, but also of circumstance. In other words, the elixir he sought was something that would bring 'good luck' in all the events of his life and its continuation. Most of the amulets, even of modern times, the lucky trinkets, the averters of the 'Evil Eye,' the practices and devices for securing good luck in love and sport, in curing bodily ills or mental diseases, distress, in attaining material prosperity, or a continuance of existence after death, are survivals of this ancient and persistent striving after those objects which our earliest forefathers called collectively 'givers of life.'"

I feel convinced that this is one of the most important generalisations made in the study of human history. It has served to throw a flood of light upon many dark places in early beliefs, and it enables one to group together vast masses of facts that previously seemed to be entirely independent and inexplicable. You have heard what have been some of the consequences of this search: it has caused men to examine into the nature of minerals and plants, and to seek far and wide for "givers of life." Men in search of magical substances covered vast stretches of country. They even went across the seas on the same errand. You have heard that Gilgamesh, in the