The first belief was that the child derived its life from its mother, and apparently that the weakness and debility of the mother after childbirth were due to the fact that she had given up a part of her life to the child.

When the system of female descent changed to male descent, the woman was taken from another clan into her husband's; the child, being born in its father's clan, obviously could not draw its life from its mother, who was originally of a different clan.

The inference was that it drew its life from its father; consequently the father, having parted with a part of his life to his child, had to imitate the conduct of the mother after childbirth, abstain from any violent exertion, and sometimes feign weakness and lie up in the house, so as not to place any undue strain on the severed fraction of his life in his child, which would be simultaneously affected with his own, but was much more fragile.
61.

Similarity and identity.
Again, primitive man had no conception of likeness or similarity, nor did he realise an imitation as distinct from the thing imitated.

Likeness or similarity and imitation are abstract ideas, for which he had no words, and consequently did not conceive of them.