318 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vill 



informed him that he was the ghost of Antarki, 

 Paouda at once admitted the relationship and 

 acted upon it. For, as all the women on the 

 island had hidden away in fear of the ship, and 

 we were anxious to see what they were like, B. 

 pleaded pathetically with Paouda that it would be 

 very unkind not to let him see his daughter and 

 grandchildren. After a good deal of hesitation 

 and the exaction of pledges of deep secrecy, 

 Paouda consented to take B., and myself as B.'s 

 friend, to see Domani and the three daughters, by 

 whom B. was received quite as one of the family, 

 while I was courteously welcomed on his account. 

 This scene made an impression upon me which 

 is not yet effaced. It left no question on my 

 mind of the sincerity of the strange ghost theory 

 of these savages, and of the influence which their 

 belief has on their practical life. I had it in my 

 mind, as well as many a like result of subsequent 

 anthropological studies, when, in 1869, 1 I wrote as 

 follows : 



There are savages without God in any proper sense of the 

 word, but none without ghosts. And the Fetishism, 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. 



1 "The Scientific Aspects of Positivism," Fortnightly Review, 

 1869, republished in Lay Sermons. 



