64 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



tion and intercession of saints ; in the prayers and 

 offerings at the shrines of the Virgin and saints, and 

 at the graves of martyrs ; there are the manifold 

 forms of that great cult of the departed which is 

 found throughout the world. To this may be linked 

 the belief in angels, whether good or bad, or guardian, 

 because the element common to the whole is ani- 

 mistic, the peopling of the heavens above, as well 

 as the earth beneath, with an innumerable company 

 of spiritual beings influencing the destinies of men. 

 Well might Jews and Moslems reproach the Chris- 

 tians, as they did down to the eighth century, with 

 having filled the world with more gods than they 

 had overthrown in the pagan temples ; while we 

 have Erasmus, in his Encomium Moriae, when recit- 

 ing the names and functions of saints, adding that 

 ' as many things as we wish, so many gods have 

 we made/ Closely related to this group of beliefs 

 is the adoration of relics, the vitality of which has 

 springs too deep in human nature to be wholly 

 abolished, whether we carry about us a lock from 

 the hair of some dead loved one, or read of the frag- 

 ments of saints or martyrs which lie beneath every 

 Catholic altar, or of the skull-bones of his ancestor 

 which the savage carries about with him as a charm. 

 Then there is the long list of church festivals, the 

 reference of which to pagan prototypes is but one 

 step towards their ultimate explanation in nature- 

 worship ; there are the processions which are the 

 successors of Corybantic frenzies, and, more remotely, 

 of savage dances and other forms of excitation ; 

 there is that now somewhat casual belief in the 

 Second Advent which is a member of the widespread 



