Feb. 1, 1886.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



105 



% ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE ^ 

 SC!ENCE,IITERATURE,& ART^ 



LONDON: FEBRUAEY 1, 1886. 



THE UNKNOWABLE; 



OB, 



THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 



Bt Richakd a. Proctoe. 



EARLY EELIGIOUS IDEAS: THE HUNTEK— THE 

 HERDSMAN. 



T would be easy to write a volume about the 

 religious ideas of savage races., Tyler, 

 Lubbock, and many other writers have col- 

 lected multitudinous evidence to illustrate 

 savage beliefs. Here I propose rather to 

 present the results to which such accumu- 

 lated evidence clef.rly points, and to bhow 

 how such results correspond with the views to which 

 d priori reasoning as clearly tends, than to fill page after 

 page as I easily might, with quoted evidence. But I 

 may remark that some of the matter recorded in these 

 pages under the head of " Indian Myths " may be 

 regarded as affording a very suitable, and sufficient illus- 

 tration, though presenting the beliefs of only one race 

 among one class of savage tribes. 



We must regard the lowest class of savages as those 

 who live either by hunting and fishing, or on the wild 

 fruits of the earth, having neither flocks aud herds to 

 supply them with food, nor cultivated land to give them 

 crops of various sorts in the proper seasons. Thus 

 the earliest recognition of existences and fo/ces outside 

 himself came to men trusting to the wild products of the 

 earth or entering into the struggle for existence with 

 creatures scarcely wilder than themselves. It might feem 

 that all traces of religions ideas having their origin in 

 that remote time (iov each now civilised race) when the 

 progenitors of the race were thus slightly advanced 

 beyond wild animals of the woods, could have left no 

 traces on the religions of civilised races in our day. But 

 no ideas and no customs are so long-lasting, as those 

 associated with man's fates and fortunes as affected by 

 external influences, — and in such ideas and such customs 

 all religions had their origin. So that, as we shall pre- 

 sently find, not only the superstitions, but even the 

 religions of to-day, bear traces of such notions as natu- 

 rally sprang up among races living by agriculture, among 

 earlier i-aces trusting chiefly to pasture, and so backwards 

 into time among races trusting wholly to the wild 

 products, animal and vegetable, of land and river and sea. 

 That in the vegetable world those wild savage ancestors 

 of ouro should have fotmd evidence of power and will, 

 such as each individual man had learned to recognise in 

 himself was natural. The tree which brings forth fruit, 

 the herb, yielding seed, held later to be created things, 

 were self-existent individualities to the earlier savage, — 

 as they now are to many children, perhaps would be to 



all if left uutaught. The rain which nourished vegeta- 

 tion, and the cloud from which the rain fell, were pro- 

 bably not so early regarded as powers, though they 

 certainly came to be so regarded later. Vegetation must 

 also early have been regarded from the point of view of 

 the hunter. When the animals he pursued were sought in 

 their lairs in grass or bush or tree, when in the pursuit 

 of such animals vegetation in various forms seemed to 

 afford either protection to wild creatures or assistance to 

 the huntsman, then the idea of innate force in trees and 

 shrubs would naturally arise. So also to the fisherman 

 would the river seem a power, — as indeed it would 

 appear, though in another way, to the hunter. Snow 

 and wind, thtmder and lightning, land and sea and sky, 

 wotdd ere long take their place among the existences and 

 the powers which man in this earliest stage of savage 

 life would recognise as influencing his fortunes. 



But still more especially would various animals come 

 to be recognised as having powers akin to man's own — 

 nay in some cases grenly exceeding his. There would 

 be the animals who took part with him in preying ujx)n 

 others, — the lion, the tiger, the bear, the crocodile, — 

 mightier hunters than man, often making man himself 

 their prey, and only to be overcome by men when many 

 joined in the assault. There would also be those whose 

 craft seemed so great that man had but small chance of 

 captttring them for prey. There would be those — like 

 the elephant, the hippopotamtis, the rhinoceros, and the 

 bison — whose ponderous strength secured them from 

 attack. And lastly there would be others which, though 

 weak and simple, were endowed with such agility, such 

 keen senses, or such other protective properties, as often 

 to elude the pursuit of even the keenest and most active 

 huntsmen. 



We can understand that in the struggle for existence, 

 the peculiarities of such races of animals as had chiefly 

 to be considered, whether because of their destructive or 

 their self-preserving powers, would be keenly noticed. 

 The fortunes of the huntsman, varying in a hundred ways 

 with varying circumstances, would be associated with the 

 various animals affecting them, in such sort as to suggest 

 the idea of powers to be feared and to be propitiated. 

 Often mere chance events would suggest the idea that 

 some animals were lucky and some unlucky, or rather 

 that some were of evil others of good influence. And 

 by the way, we may be well assured that very early the 

 serpent would be recognised by the httnterj even thotigh 

 he did not pursue it for food, and were not molested by 

 it, as more subtle than any beast cif the field. 



Along with the growth of such ideas as these would 

 proceed the development of the idea of a second self in 

 each human being, — a consciotis entity independent of the 

 body, — an entity whose beginning was a mystery and 

 whose end seemed no more likely to have come with the 

 death of the body than it had come with sleep or trance. 

 We cam understand, then, how there would arise quite 

 early the idea of a second self other than the visible 

 form, in tree, shrub, and animal. We can see also how 

 the idea would almost simultaneotisly arise that the 

 second self in animals and trees, in earth and sea, in sky 

 and in river, in rain, wind, lightning, and thunder — 

 might not only be akin to the human second self, but 

 might absolutely be human. The thought that when 

 man dies his other self remains, would not long remain 

 separate from the thought that power will and intelli- 

 gence, akin to those of the human soul, may exist outside 

 man. From the association of these thoughts would 

 arise the belief that the souls of the dead animated the 

 various natural objects on which the fortunes of the 



