MENTAL POWERS. 10? 



until the faculties of imagination, curiosity, reason, etc., 

 had been fairly well developed in the mind of man, his 

 dreams would not have led him to believe in spirits, any 

 more than in the case of a dog. 



The tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects 

 and agencies are animated by spiritual or living essences, is 

 perhaps illustrated by a little fact which I once noticed: 

 my dog, a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying 

 on the lawn during a hot and still day; but at a little dis- 

 tance a slight breeze occasionally moved an open parasol, 

 which would have been wholly disregarded by the dog had 

 any one stood near it. As it was, every time that the par- 

 asol slightly moved the dog growled fiercely and barked. 

 He must, I think, have reasoned to himself in a rapid and 

 unconscious manner that movement without any apparent 

 cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, 

 and that no stranger had a right to be on his territory. 



The belief in spiritual agencies would easily pass into the 

 belief in the existence of one or more gods. For savages 

 would naturally attribute to spirits the same passions, the 

 same love of vengeance or simplest form of justice, and the 

 game affections which they themselves feel. The Fuegians 

 appear to be in this respect in an intermediate condition, 

 for when the surgeon on board the " Beagle" shot some 

 young ducklings as specimens York Minster declared in 

 the most solemn manner: " Oh, Mr. Bynoe, much rain, 

 much snow, blow much;" and this was evidently a retribu- 

 tive punishment for wasting human food. So again he 

 related how, when his brother killed a ' ' wild man," storms 

 long raged, much rain and snow fell. Yet we could never 



Spencer, in liis ingenious essay in the " Fortnightly Review " (May 

 1, 1870, p. 535), accounts for the earliest forms of religious belief 

 throughout the world, by man being led through dreams, shadows, 

 and other causes, to look at himself as a double essence, corporeal 

 and spiritual. As the spiritual being is supposed to exist after death 

 and to be powerful, it is propitiated by various gifts and ceremonies, 

 and its aid invoked. He then further shows that names or nick- 

 names given from some animal or other object, to the early progeni- 

 tors or founders of a tribe, are supposed after a long interval to rep- 

 resent the real progenitor of the tribe; and such animal or object is 

 then naturally believed still to exist as a spirit, is held sacred, and 

 worshiped as a god. Nevertheless I cannot but suspect that there is 

 a still earlier and ruder stage, when anything which manifests 

 power or movement is thought to be endowed with some form of 

 life, and with mental faculties analogous to our own. 



