Part 17 (1/2)

We have therefore no more to say about the supernormal aspects of the origins of religion. We are henceforth concerned with matters of verifiable belief and practice. We have to ask whether, when once the doctrine of souls was conceived by early men, it took precisely the course of development usually indicated by anthropological science.

[Footnote 1: Darwin, _Journal_, p. 458; Tylor, _Prim. Cult_. ii. 152. The spoon was not untouched.]

[Footnote 2: Rowley, _Universities' Mission_, p. 217.]

[Footnote 3: _Africana_, vol. i. p. 161.]

[Footnote 4: In the author's _Custom and Myth_, 'The Divining Rod.']

[Footnote 5: Codrington's _Melanesia_, p. 210.]

[Footnote 6: Op. cit. pp. 229-325.]

[Footnote 7: _Prim. Cult_. vol. i. p. 125.]

[Footnote 8: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 330.]

[Footnote 9: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 368.]

[Footnote 10: _The So-called Divining-Rod_, S.P.R. 1897.]

[Footnote 11: See especially _The Waterford Experiments_, p. 106.]

[Footnote 12: Authorities and examples are collected in the author's _c.o.c.k Lane and Common Sense_.]

[Footnote 13: _Proceedings_, xii. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 14: _Personal Narrative_, by M. Zoller. Hanke, Zurich, 1863.]

[Footnote 15: Daumer, _Reich des Wundersamen_, Regensburg, 1872, pp. 265, 266.]

[Footnote 16: A criticism of modern explanations of the phenomena here touched upon will be found in Appendix B.]

[Footnote 17: See Appendix B.]

IX

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF G.o.d

To the anthropological philosopher 'a plain man' would naturally put the question: 'Having got your idea of spirit or soul--your theory of Animism--out of the idea of ghosts, and having got your idea of ghosts out of dreams and visions, how do you get at the Idea of G.o.d?' Now by 'G.o.d'

the proverbial 'plain man' of controversy means a primal eternal Being, author of all things, the father and friend of man, the invisible, omniscient guardian of morality.

The usual though not invariable reply of the anthropologist might be given in the words of Mr. Im Thurn, author of a most interesting work on the Indians of British Guiana:

'From the notion of ghosts,' says Mr. Im Thurn, 'a belief has arisen, but very gradually, in higher spirits, and eventually in a Highest Spirit, and, keeping pace with the growth of these beliefs, a habit of reverence for, and wors.h.i.+p of spirits.... The Indians of Guiana know no G.o.d.'[1]

As another example of Mr. Im Thurn's hypothesis that G.o.d is a late development from the idea of spirit may be cited Mr. Payne's learned 'History of the New World,' a work of much research:[2]

'The lowest savages not only have no G.o.ds, but do not even recognise those lower beings usually called spirits, the conception of which has invariably preceded that of G.o.ds in the human mind.'