The belief in the transfer of qualities by contact may have arisen from the sensations of the body and skin, to which heat, cold and moisture are communicated by contact.

It was applied to every kind of quality.

A familiar instance is the worship of the marks on rocks or stone which are held to be the footprints left by a god.

Here a part of the god's divine virtue and power has been communicated through the sole of his foot to the rock dented by the latter.

Touching for the king's evil was another familiar case, when it was thought that a fraction of the king's divine life and virtue was communicated by contact to the person touched and cured him of his ailment.