COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



lated sections of the race, except a disposition 

 to run away and hide themselves in the jungle ; 

 and the only reply made to a missionary at the 

 end of an eloquent description of the omnipo- 

 tence of God, was, ' And what if that Strong 

 One should eat me ? ' But although the Santal 

 has no God from whose benignity he may ex- 

 pect favour, there exist a multitude of demons 

 and evil spirits, whose spite he endeavours by 

 supplications to avert. So far from being with- 

 out a religion, his rites are infinitely more nu- 

 merous than those of the Hindu." ^ The gen- 

 esis of this primitive devil-worship finds its 

 explanation in the fact that the uncontrollable 

 agencies of nature — the storm and the earth- 

 quake, the wind and the wave — though sup- 

 posed to resemble man in so far as they were 

 intelligent and volitional agents, could not be 

 wholly like him. Their ways were not as his 

 ways. They were not to be counted upon. 

 They could not be prepared for, or defended 

 against, or reasoned with. They might bring 

 harm ; and frequently they did bring harm. 

 Accordingly they were regarded with fear and 

 trembling. It is not easy for us to realize the 

 extent to which in early times the unknown 

 was identified with the hurtful.^ It is not pos- 



^ Annals of Rural Bengal ^ p. 1 8 1 . 



^ As Humboldt says, in allusion to the long-enduring effects 

 of this primitive inference : ** £s liegt tief in der triiben Natur 

 300 



