136 LESSONS FEOM NATURE. [CHAP. VI. 



&quot; language &quot; and &quot; morals,&quot; to commence with definitions 

 and distinctions. Obviously it cannot here be meant to 

 assert that men have, almost universally, a positive religious 

 belief, since so many of those we, most of us, know familiarly, 

 have none. It is evident that we have no cause to be sur 

 prised at finding generally diffused in some other nations 

 irreligious or non-religious phenomena analogous to those 

 we may meet with in our own. Neither can it be meant 

 that a distinct religious system is to be found in every 

 nation or tribe, since it would be very probable that the 

 descendants of some isolated irreligious parents skould have 

 grown up devoid of religion altogether. What is meant by 

 the universality of religious conceptions is the general dif 

 fusion amongst all considerable races of men : first, of a 

 power to apprehend the existence of a good supernatural 

 Being possessed of knowledge and will, and rewarding men 

 in another world in accordance with their conduct in this ; 

 secondly, of a tendency to believe in the actual existence of 

 superhuman powers and beings, and also in an existence 

 beyond the grave however shadowy, distorted, or aborted 

 such conceptions may seem to us to be. 



We have then to consider our authors teachings as to the 

 following questions : First, whether any people are now in 

 a state equally unconscious of the preternatural, and equally 

 unconcerned with regard to a future life, as are the brutes ? 

 Secondly, whether any races exist which may be deemed 

 to be in a transitional condition from brutish non-religiosity, 

 or with religious conceptions so essentially divergent from 

 our own as to be different in kind, and, therefore, incapable 

 of transition either from or to the highest religious con 

 dition ? 



But if in the former inquiries it was necessary for us to 

 be upon our guard against the misapprehensions 



Prejudices. i , P 



and misinterpretations 01 travellers, it is still more 

 necessary for us to be so here. The necessity is so great 

 because both theological and anti-theological prejudices are 

 more likely than are any others to warp the iudgment and 



