MAN 267 



feelings or ideas, there is no evidence of the absence of 

 moral perceptions in any tribe of human beings. A 

 power of occasionally distinguishing an element of right 

 and of wrong in certain actions is a power possessed by 

 all normally constituted human beings. Even the worst 

 men can recognise such a character in acts of treachery 

 done to them by their own special associates. 



Man also seems habitually to have formed some judg- 

 ments about matters commonly called " religious." That 

 is to say, all races of men have the idea of the existence 

 of some kind of personal relation between themselves 

 and some invisible being or beings malevolent or be- 

 nevolent with more than human power and possessing 

 faculties more or less analogous to human intelligence 

 and will. The relations which exist, and should exist, 

 between human beings constitute the science of socio- 

 logy. The most general expression, then, for natural 

 religion is, a code regulating the relations which should 

 exist between human beings and invisible, non-human 

 intelligences. It is a sort of " supernatural sociology ; " 

 it merits that term the more, inasmuch as some regula- 

 tions as to the conduct of men amongst themselves 

 generally enter into it. The universal tendency of even 

 the most degraded tribes to practices which clearly show 

 their belief in preternatural agencies is too notorious to 

 admit of serious discussion, while the probably all but 

 universal practice of some kind of funeral ceremony 

 speaks plainly of as widespread a notion that the dead in 

 some sense yet live. Many funeral arrangements are 

 evidently intended to impede, or render impossible, the 

 return of the deceased to the home he has left. 



It is not, of course, meant to affirm that all savage 

 men, any more than all civilised men, believe in a future 

 life, or in one or many gods; but nevertheless, the 



