Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/138

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MAGIC AND WONDER

to follow the earlier legends, Dolon explains his device to the chorus:

"Over my back a wolf-skin will I draw,
And the brute's gaping jaws shall frame my head:
Its forefeet will I fasten to my hands,
Its legs to mine; the wolf's four-footed gait
I'll mimic, baffling so our enemies,
While near the trench and pale of ships I am;
But whenso to a lone spot come my feet,
Two-footed will I walk."

Here the wolf-skin is a disguise, which, though not in itself magical, carries us nearer to that primitive age when stealthy men, for their own purposes, changed into were-wolves, and when every wild beast, therefore, implied a fearful possibility that it was a man transformed.

From such illuminating glimpses into the early world we make the conclusion that primitive man dwelt in mystery, that he was fond of make-believe, that he had a highly developed

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