Note 37 — Chapter XI · Tree-, Herb-, and Stone-lore

It was the human dread of death and pain, the human desire for health and long life, and for the renewal of youth that instigated early man to search for the well of life, the plant of life, the curative herb, the pearl, and precious stones and precious metals. But before the search began, the complex ideas about the origin of life and the means by which it might be prolonged, which are reviewed in this chapter, passed through a long process of development in the most ancient centres of civilization. In China we meet not only with primitive ideas regarding life-giving food and water, but with ideas that had gradually developed for centuries outside China after the earliest attempts had been made to reanimate the corpse, not merely by painting it, but by preventing the body from decaying. In the history of mummification in Egypt may be found the history of complex beliefs that travelled far and wide.37 Even those peoples who did not adopt, or, at any rate, perpetuate the custom of mummification, adopted the belief that it was necessary to preserve the corpse. This belief is still prevalent in China, as will be shown, but magic takes the place of surgery.