The Practice of Presence

To pre-scientific man, Nature is a medley of presences. The blaze of a flash of sheet-lightning, the frightening din of a thunder-clap, the destruction wreaked by winds of gale-force; or the sudden encounter in a forest, of a menacing serpent or of a beast of prey e.g. a lion or a tiger, or the sudden darkness that obscures a bright moonlight during a lunar eclipse; the change that comes on a man of stalwart physique as a result of sickness, and his subsequent death, all give the impression of a presence or presences within Nature. So too the unusual behaviour of the night-jar, the bat and the owl-birds which go out at night when other birds have gone to roost-strike pre-scientific man as possessing special qualities which suggest their possession of special powers, attributable to a presence. Similar ideas are held of trees which are hard to cut and of stones and rocks of peculiar shapes and sizes. In short, man at this stage, attributes presences to the factors which constitute his environment. These presences therefore make up reality for him. These contrasts and contradictions of life are however not

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