vni.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. 1C3 



by far tlio more general impression) hurt us if it be 

 angered ? Will it not be well to do towards it those 

 things which would have soothed the man and put 

 him in good humour during his life? It is impossible 

 to study trustworthy accounts of savage thought with- 

 out seeing that some such train of ideas as this lies at 

 the bottom of their speculative beliefs. 



There arc savages without God, in any proper sense 

 of the word, but none without ghosts, And the Fetish- 

 ism, Ancestor-worship, Hero-worship, and Demonology 

 of primitive savages, are all, I believe, different manners 

 of expression of their belief in ghosts, and of the 

 anthropomorphic interpretation of out-of-the-way events, 

 which is its concomitant. Witchcraft and sorcery are 

 the practical expressions of these beliefs; and they 

 stand in the same relation to religious worship as the 

 simple anthropomorphism of children, or savages, does 

 to theology. 



In the progress of the species from savagery to 

 advanced civilization, anthropomorphism grows into 

 theology, while physicism (if I may so call it) develops 

 into science ; but the development of the two is con- 

 temporaneous, not successive. For each, there long 

 exists an assured province which is not invaded by 

 the other ; while, between the two, lies a debateable land, 

 ruled by a sort of bastards, who owe their complexion 

 to physicism and their substance to anthropomorphism, 

 and are M. Comte's particular aversions — metaphysical 

 entities. 



But, as the ages lengthen, the borders of Physicism 

 increase. The territories of the bastards are all annexed 

 to science ; and even Theology, in her purer forms, 

 has ceased to bo anthropomorphic, however she may 

 talk. Anthropomorphism has taken stand in its last 

 fortress — man himsel£ But science closely invests the 



