The prospect of traveling back to this delightful state of things is held out by nearly every writer who touches upon classical mythology, above all by the poets. In that infinitely remote time, primitive man could
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
And we for a moment can catch, through the myths he made, a glimpse of that strangely and beautifully animated world.
But a very brief consideration of the ways of uncivilized peoples everywhere and in all ages is enough to prick that romantic bubble. Nothing is clearer than the fact that primitive man, whether in New Guinea today or eons ago in the prehistoric wilderness, is not and never has been a creature who peoples his world with bright fancies and lovely visions. Horrors lurked in the primeval forest, not nymphs and naiads. Terror lived there, with its close attendant, Magic, and its most common defense, Human Sacrifice. Mankind’s chief hope of escaping the wrath of whatever divinities were then a broad lay in some magical rite, senseless but powerful, or in some offering made at the cost of pain and grief.