234 Evolution of Theology. 



changeably, as when we speak of the Religions of the 

 world; yet recent careful writers discriminate clearly be- 

 tween them. Theology is a belief, Religion is an emotion. 

 Questions of Theology or Theism are purely intellectual, 

 and to be resolved, if they are to be resolved at all, through 

 the discipline and exercise of the Speculative Reason. The 

 Religious Sentiment has its outcome and expression in faith, 

 worship, ritual and ceremonial. Our discussion excludes', 

 therefore, all these objective elements, for these have their 

 significance only as exponents of such ideas as may be held 

 concerning the nature and attributes of Deity or deities, as 

 these have appeared from time to time in religious history.* 

 The Evolutionist, not being able to accept the explana- 

 tion of the current Theology, as to how mankind have 

 arrived at theistic ideas, — namely, that of an immediate 

 personal revelation, — is obliged, if he would take account 

 of these matters, to endeavor, so far as possible, by the use 

 of what we may call the historical imagination, to realize 

 for himself the mental condition of primeval man, at a 

 period so far removed that we may believe him to have been 

 measurably inferior, in intellectual faculty, to the lowest 

 tribes now existing, as typified by the Fuegian of America, 

 the Bushmen of Africa, or the wandering savages of Austra- 

 lia ; and furthermore, in asking the question, How theistic 

 ideas have arisen, he must divest the word "theistic" of 

 any such meaning as is intended by its modern use. Prim- 

 itive Man, and the lowest races of the present day, did not, 

 and cannot, possess any conception of God or Deity, such 

 as is implied among us by those words. To inquire whether 

 they possess it would be as absurd as to ask whether a child 

 of a year old had any understanding of the Philosophy of 

 Kant. It is equally meaningless to ask whether tribes have 

 existed, or now exist, who have no idea of God. As matter 

 of fact no early men or tribes, or lowest races of the present 



*Want of space prevents our going into the deeply interesting question 

 whether, in the animal kingdom, we discover indications of such mentai faculty 

 as may have been subsequently evolved into the distinctively moral and relig- 

 ious ideas possessed by man. Darwin says, "The belief in God has often been 

 advanced as not only the greatest but the most complete of all the distinctions 

 between man and the lower animals. It is, however, impossible to maintain 

 that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand, a belief in 

 all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal, and apparently follows 

 from a considerable advance in the reasoning powers of man, and from a still 

 greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder" (Descent 

 of Man, Vol. II., p. 377). Those who are interested to look farther into the 

 question must consult Dr. Romanes' recent exhaustive treatise on "Mental 

 Evolution in Man." 



