imaginings loomed so large and life-like, and vanish so sadly before our bull's-eyes of search, we were rolled through the broad quiet twilight of tillage toward the growing twinkle of town.
V.
To give a full account of Shintō miracles, we have now to consider quite a different class of them; the objective ones, pure and simple. The nomenclature is not mere matter of distinction. For the first kind are brought about by the unintentional but efficient subjective action of the miracle-performer himself; the latter take place independently of him. It is a distinction unimportant as regards the things, but of vital consequence as regards the people. For though it be open to the looker-on to doubt whether the water or the fire in the two ordeals above be rendered any the less hot by having parted with its spirit, it is not open to him to doubt the difference of perception of that heat in the man's normal and abnormal states of consciousness. This question is quaintly begged by believers, by stating that the god withdraws the spirit of
