EVOLUTION AND THE IIIGIIKIl IIUM.VN LII K 301 



nevolent spirits. Their gods are numerous as in Greek 

 religion, and likewise one of them is usually set up as the 

 superior deity, to be the Tirawa of the Indian, the 

 greater Atua of Polynesia, and the Muniho Jumbo of a 

 West African negro. There is no centralization of the 

 supernatural powers, as in the Jehovah of Judaism and 

 the still subtler Brahma of the Asian. Then, too, the 

 gods must be concretely materialized for purposes of 

 worship and sacrifice; consequently idols are made, to 

 be regarded as the actual spirits themselves permanently 

 or for the time being, and not viewed as representations 

 of an ideal, like the statues of more advanced peoples. 

 The immortal state is d^cribed in low religions in 

 various w^ays that seem to be determined by wliat the 

 believer himself most desires. The spirit of an Ameri- 

 can Indian goes to the hapi)y hunting-grounds, where it 

 mounts a spirit pony and forever jjursues the ghosts 

 of bison which it kills with spirit bow and arrows; to 

 provide these necessaries his earthly possessions are laid 

 beside his dead body. The Norseman was conducted 

 to Valhalla and, attended by the Valkyrie as hand- 

 maidens, he eternally drank mead from the skull of an 

 enemy and gloried over his nmndane ])rowess in battle. 

 It is unnecessary to expand the foregoing list, because 

 the examples sufficiently represent the various grades 

 of human religions. Regarding them as typical, we ran 

 see how universal are the three fundamental ideas with 

 which we are concerned. I^xcry race has its own con- 

 ception of future bliss, as well as its conception of respon- 

 sibility to the immortal and supernatural powers of the 

 universe. Whatever may be the actual reality, and 

 however closely the conceptions of one or another re- 



