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and dreams made him conclude that his intelligence was due 
to an unsubstantial body, or spirit, living inside him, which 
could leave him, travel about, and return. Dreaming of 
dead friends led him to believe that this spirt lived on as a 
ghost after the death of the body, and this belief, in time, 
gave rise to ancestor worship, which passed, first, into the 
deification of ancestors, and, afterwards, into that of mythi- 
cal personages who were not considered as ancestors. Thus 
arose that belief in beneficent tribal gods which still has 
great influence even among civilised nations. 
Primitive man passed from the idea of human spirits to 
the belief that inanimate bodies also contained spirits. But, 
as these inanimate things were often thwarting his wishes. 
and frightening him by noises which he could not under- 
stand, he assumed that their spirits were hostile to him, and 
he tried to appease them by sacrifices, or to disarm them by 
spells. 
The belief that spirits inhabit all kinds of bodies is called 
Animism. Both it and deification are different forms of 
Polytheism, which have become so mingled together that 
it is now often impossible to disentangle them. 
This was the natural philosophy of the earlier races of 
man, and it came to a standstill for want of further know- 
ledge. A very imperfect acquaintance with nature had led 
to erroneous ideas of religion, and a more accurate acquaint- 
ance with nature was not then possible. However, a foun- 
dation had been laid which was subsequently built upon 
by metaphysicians, and, in the course of time, Polytheism 
passed into what Professor Max Miiller has called Henothe- 
ism. That is, the gods are no longer regarded as of equal 
power, but a supreme spirit rules over the others. 
Henotheism appears to have originated independently 
among the negroes of Africa and the Red Indians of 
America, as well as among the semi-civilised nations near 
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. In Persia and 
N.W. India, the philosophers developed Animism into Pan- 
theism, a philosophy which teaches that mind pervades all 
matter, and that nature and God are one. On the other 
hand, among the Semitic nations, the prophets of Israel 
gradually passed from a belief in tribal gods to Theism, in 
which God is recognised as existing outside of, and uncon- 
nected with, the material universe, which He has created. 
The originators of these philosophies were, however, poets 
or mystics, who arrived at their conclusions intuitively, and 
could offer no proofs, thinking, indeed, that their beliefs 
must be self-evident to all. So, at a later date, we find an 
Atheistic philosophy, or Materialism, also, in existence, due, 
