SCIENCE AND MORALITY. 775 



nature points true to that of Him in whom we have our heing ; that 

 he is with us when we do right, against us when we do wrong ; that 

 our well-doing moves his love, our evil-doing his aversion. There is 

 nothing apparently more absurd in this than in believing the same 

 thing with regard say to a friend, or even with regard to the commu- 

 nity of which we form a part, and the good-will of which is a motive 

 and a support of our rectitude. Nor is there any sort of necessity, so 

 far as this belief is concerned, for entangling ourselves in a metaphys- 

 ical labyrinth by going behind the divine nature and speculating on 

 the possibility of its having been other than it is. Being is an in- 

 scrutable and overwhelming mystery : there is no more to be said. 



That religion had its origin in primeval worship of the ghosts of 

 ancestors or chiefs, and that, these ancestors or chiefs having been 

 ferocious cannibals, we are hence enabled to account for the belief in 

 propitiation by self-torture and the other diabolical characteristics 

 of modern creeds, is a theory whi(5h Mr. Spencer habitually pro- 

 pounds as certain and almost self-evident. Scientific the theory may 

 be, and on questions of science the utmost deference is due to its 

 inventor's authority : that it is historical must be denied. In truth, 

 when it appeared some of us could not help being reminded of Vol- 

 taire's prompt explanation of the fossil shells found on mountain- 

 ranges, and adduced by ecclesiastical writers in proof of the Deluge, as 

 cockles dropped by pilgrims from their hats. Euhemerus explained 

 the Greek mythology in some such way, but his explanation has not 

 been applauded. Not in the Hebrew Scriptures, not in the Rig- Veda, 

 not in the Zendavesta, not in any of the monuments of primitive re- 

 ligion which philological science has been placing before us, not in any 

 important mythology, whether Greek or of any other nation, can we 

 find the slightest confirmation of the cannibal chieftain view. Every- 

 thing seems to show that the eailiest religious impressions were those 

 made by the great powers of Nature, especially by the Sun in his glory ; 

 and that this was the real origin of natural religion ; though, be it re- 

 membered, there must have been a religious impressibility, however 

 rudimentary, in man, otherwise religious impressions could not have 

 been made. As man advanced, the power seen through his moral nat- 

 ure became, instead of those seen with his eyes, the paramount object 

 of his worship. There would surely be something utterly preposter- 

 ous in the supposition that evangelical Christianity was a survival of 

 the primitive worship of dead chieftains. Mr. Spencer seems to have 

 swallowed whole Mr. Tylor's theory of animism, and to have given it 

 an application which was not given it by its acute and learned au- 

 thor ; for Mr. Tylor, if I do not misunderstand him, would allow that 

 Nature-worship was the origin of religion. The result, at all events, 

 historians will say, is an unhistoric presentation of the most important 

 subject in the history of opinion. In his volume on " Ceremonial Ob- 

 servances," Mr. Spencer maintains the surprising thesis that ceremony 



