prevalence of totemism is another proof of the intense interest of men in the hunting stage in the ways of animals. And if we may apply the inverse method and argue back from the infancy of the individual to the infancy of the race, we may notice that the "gee-gee" and the "bow-wow" are the first objects of interest to the little ones.[1] Sir Richard Burton would even go further, and sees the essence of the beast-fable in "a reminiscence of Homo primigenius with erected ears and hairy hide, and its expression is to make the brother brute to hear, think, and talk like him with the superadded experience of ages."[2] One hesitates to dissent from so great an authority as Sir R. Burton on all that relates to the bestial element in man.
- ↑ George Eliot's infantile imagination was first touched by Æsop's Fables (Life, i. 20), and M. Bert sensibly begins his First Year of Scientific Knowledge with Animals.
- ↑ I owe this quotation and my knowledge of Sir R. Burton's views generally on this subject to an article by Mr. T. Davidson on "Beast-Fables," in the new edition of Chambers's Cyclopædia, which sums up admirably the present state of opinion on this subject, and a very confused state it is. Mr. Davidson quotes section 3 of the notorious Terminal Essay of the Thousand Nights and A Night.
