346 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vm 



nomads of Northern Asia, of the Asiatic Aryans 

 and of the Ancient Greeks and Bomans, and it 

 holds good among the Dravidians of the Dekhan 

 and the negro tribes of Africa. No tribe of 

 savages, which has yet been discovered, has been 

 conclusively proved to have so poor a theological 

 equipment as to be devoid of a belief in ghosts, 

 and in the utility of some form of witchcraft, in 

 influencing those ghosts. And there is no nation, 

 modern or ancient, which, even at this moment, 

 has wholly given up the belief; and in which it 

 has not, at one time or other, played a great part 

 in practical life. 



This sciotheism, 1 as it might be called, is found, 

 in several degrees of complexity, in rough corre- 

 spondence with the stages of social organisation, 

 and, like these, separated by no sudden breaks. 



In its simplest condition, such as may be met 

 i with among the Australian savages, theology is a 

 mere belief in the existence, powers, and disposi- 

 tion (usually malignant) of ghostlike entities who 

 may be propitiated or scared away ; but no cult 

 can properly be said to exist. And, in this stage, 

 theology is wholly independent of ethics. The 

 moral code, such as is implied by public opinion, 

 derives no sanction from the theological dogmas, 



1 Sciagraphy has the authority of Cud worth, Intellectual 

 System, vol. ii. p. 836. Sciomancy (ffKio^avrfia}, which, in the 

 sense of divination by ghosts, may be found in Bailey's 

 Dictionary (1751), also furnishes a precedent for my coinage. 



