Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/3

 evident that the magical ornaments worn by them on these occasions are but superorganic survivals of a plastic mould of the body which is still represented by lower organisms but has disappeared in the course of evolution. To speak with Semon we shall say that it is the numerous "engrams" of former changes both temporary and permanent which survives in the belief in the possibility of a change from one shape to the other. In a Wichita legend of the deeds of "Wets the Bed" we read: "They took a small bowl and filled it with water. They poured it on fire and when the smoke went up it sounded like thunder; as the people who had determined to change their nature flew up in the air those that wished to exist as animals went to different directions, some to the water." Or we may compare the story of "Child of a Dog". "So after recounting many troubles, they said to one another: Let us become something else, for we have met so much trouble and we are likely to meet more and in order to prevent this we must leave our old home and become something else." Most primitive people have an age of the world when everything is continually becoming something else, and here again primitive man finds himself in accordance with modern science which tells us that Nature operates through a sort of trial and error method and that the natural species which has proved itself best adapted