Athenians, indeed, kept a small collection of public scapegoats always
in stock, waiting to be sacrificed at a moment's notice.

More even than that. Go one step further back, and you will find that
man in his early stages has no conception of such a thing as natural
death in any form. He doesn't really know that the human organism is
wound up like a clock to run at best for so many years, or months, or
hours, and that even if nothing unexpected happens to cut short its
course prematurely, it can only run out its allotted period. Within his
own experience, almost all the deaths that occur are violent deaths, and
have been brought about by human agency or by the attacks of wild
beasts. There you have a cause with whose action and operation the
savage is personally familiar; and it is the only one he believes in.
Even old age is in his eyes no direct cause of death; for when his
relations grow old, he considerately clubs them, to put them out of
their misery. When, therefore, he sees his neighbour struck down before
his face by some invisible power, and writhing with pain as though
unseen snakes and tigers were rending him, what should he naturally
conclude save that demon or witch or wizard is at work? and if he cares
about the matter at all, what should he do save endeavour to find the
culprit out and inflict condign punishment? In savage states, whenever
anything untoward happens to the king or chief, it is the business of
the witch-finder to disclose the wrong-doer; and sooner or later, you
may be sure, "somebody gets whopped for it." Whopping in Dahomey means
wholesale decapitation.

Now, is it not a direct survival from this primitive state of mind that
entails upon us all the desire to find a scapegoat? Our ancestors really
believed there was always somebody to blame--man, witch, or spirit--if
only you could find him; and though we ourselves have mostly got beyond