Chap. II.] MENTAL POWERS. 63 



there is ampxe evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, 

 but from men who have long resided with savages, that 

 numerous races have existed and still exist, who have no 

 idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in their 

 languages to express such an idea.^^ The question is of 

 course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there 

 exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe ; and this has 

 heen answered in the affirmative by the highest intellects 

 that have ever lived. 



If, however, we include under the term " religion " the 

 belief in imseen or spiritual agencies, the case is wholly 

 different ; for this belief seems to be almost universal with 

 the less civilized races. Nor is it difficult to comprehend 

 how it arose. As soon as the important faculties of the 

 imagination, wonder, and curiosity, together with some 

 power of reasoning, had become partially developed, man 

 would naturally have craved to understand what was 

 passing around him, and have vaguely speculated on his 

 own existence. As Mr. M'Lennan ^' has remarked, " Some 

 exjDlanation of the phenomena of life, a man must feign 

 for himself; and to judge from the universality of it, the 

 simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems 

 to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to 

 the presence in animals, plants, and things, and in the 

 forces of Nature, of such s^^irits prompting to action as 

 men are conscious they themselves possess." It is prob- 

 able, as Mr. Tylor has clearly shown, that dreams may 

 have first given rise to the notion of spirits ; for savages 

 do not readily distinguish between subjective and objec- 



" See an excellent article on this subject by the Rev. F. W. Farrar, in 

 the 'Anthropological Review,' Aug. 1864, p. ccxvii. For further facts 

 see Sir J. Lubbock, 'Prehistoric Tunes,' 2d edit. 1669, p. 564 ; and es- 

 pecially the chapters on Religion in his 'Origin of Civilization,' 1870. 



'= The Worship of Animals and Plants, in the ' Fortnightly Review,' 

 Oct. 1, 1869, p. 422. 



