As a badge of distinction they wear a golden
ear-ring, which is frequently found in the ears of Hyaenas that
are killed, without its having ever been discovered how they catch
these animals, so as to decorate them with this strange ornament,
and this removes in the minds of the people all doubt as to the
supernatural powers of the smiths and potters. To the Budas is
also ascribed the gift of enchantment, especially that of the
influence of the evil eye. They nevertheless live unmolested, and
are not condemned to the flames by fanatical priests, as the
lycanthropes were in the Middle Ages.
CHAPTER IV--SYMPATHY
Imitation--compassion--sympathy, these are imperfect designations
for a common bond of union among human beings--for an instinct
which connects individuals with the general body, which embraces
with equal force reason and folly, good and evil, and diminishes
the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice. In this
impulse there are degrees, but no essential differences, from the
first intellectual efforts of the infant mind, which are in a
great measure based on imitation, to that morbid condition of the
soul in which the sensible impression of a nervous malady fetters
the mind, and finds its way through the eye directly to the
diseased texture, as the electric shock is propagated by contact
from body to body.
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