So the savage concludes that there must be a giant living in the
cliff, who threw stones at him, with evil intent; and he concludes
in like wise concerning most other natural phenomena. There is
something in them which will hurt him, and therefore likes to hurt
him; and if he cannot destroy them, and so deliver himself, his fear
of them grows quite boundless. There are hundreds of natural
objects on which he learns to look with the same eyes as the little
boys of Teneriffe look on the useless and poisonous Euphorbia
canariensis. It is to them--according to Mr. Piazzi Smyth--a demon
who would kill them, if it could only run after them; but as it
cannot, they shout Spanish curses at it, and pelt it with volleys of
stones, "screeching with elfin joy, and using worse names than ever,
when the poisonous milk spurts out from its bruised stalks."

And if such be the attitude of the uneducated man towards the
permanent terrors of nature, what will it be towards those which are
sudden and seemingly capricious?--towards storms, earthquakes,
floods, blights, pestilences? We know too well what it has been--
one of blind, and therefore often cruel, fear. How could it be
otherwise? Was Theophrastus's superstitious man so very foolish for
pouring oil on every round stone? I think there was a great deal to
be said for him. This worship of Baetyli was rational enough. They
were aerolites, fallen from heaven. Was it not as well to be civil
to such messengers from above?--to testify by homage to them due awe
of the being who had thrown them at men, and who though he had
missed his shot that time might not miss it the next? I think if
we, knowing nothing of either gunpowder, astronomy, or Christianity,
saw an Armstrong bolt fall within five miles of London, we should be
inclined to be very respectful to it indeed. So the aerolites, or
glacial boulders, or polished stone weapons of an extinct race,