VTTT THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 



of the time of Samuel .and Saul, is (to say the 

 least) by no means conclusive. The Deuteronomic 

 version of the fourth commandment is hopelessly 

 discrepant from that which stands in Exodus. 

 Would any later writer have ventured to alter the 

 commandments as given from Sinai, if he had had 

 before him that which professed to be an accurate 

 statement of the "ten words" in Exodus? And 

 if the writer of Deuteronomy had not Exodus 

 before him, what is the value of the claim of the 

 version of the ten commandments therein contained 

 to authenticity ? From one end to the other of the 

 books of Judges and Samuel, the only " command- 

 ments of Jahveh " which are specially adduced refer 

 to the prohibition of the worship of other gods, or 

 are orders given ad hoc, and have nothing to do 

 with questions of morality. 



In Polynesia, the belief in witchcraft, in the 

 appearance of spiritual beings in dreams, in pos- 

 session as the cause of diseases, and in omens, 

 prevailed universally. Mariner tells a story of a 

 woman of rank who was greatly attached to King 

 Finow, and who, for the space of six months after 

 his death, scarcely ever slept elsewhere than on 

 his grave, which she kept carefully decorated with 

 flowers : 



One day she went, with the deepest affliction, to the house of 

 Mo-oonga Toobo, the widow of the deceased chief, to com- 

 municate what had happened to her at the fytoca [grave] dur- 

 ing several nights, and which caused her the greatest anxiety. 



