VTTT 



THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 347 



and the influence of the spirits is supposed to be 

 exerted out of mere caprice or malice. 



As a next stage, the fundamental fear of ghosts and 

 the consequent desire to propitiate them acquire 

 an organised ritual in simple forms of ancestor- 

 worship, such as the Rev. Mr. Turner describes 

 among the people of Tanna (I.e. p. 88) ; and this 

 line of development may be followed out until it 

 attains its acme in the State-theology of China 

 and the Kami-theology l of Japan. Each of these 

 is essentially ancestor- worship, the ancestors being 

 reckoned back through family groups, of higher 

 and higher order, sometimes with strict reference 

 to the principle of agnation, as in old Rome ; and, 

 as in the latter, it is intimately bound up with the 

 whole organisation of the State. There are no 

 idols; inscribed tablets in China, and strips of 

 paper lodged in a peculiar portable shrine in Japan, 

 represent the souls of the deceased, or the special 

 seats which they occupy when sacrifices are offered 

 by their descendants. In Japan it is interesting 

 to observe that a national Kami Ten-zio-dai-zin 

 is worshipped as a sort of Jahveh by the nation 

 in general, and (as Lippert has observed) it is 

 singular that his special seat is a portable litter- 

 like shrine, termed the Mikosi, in some sort ana- 

 logous to the Israeli tic ark. In China, the emperor 



1 " Kami " is used in the sense of Elohim ; and is also, like 

 our word "Lord," employed as a title of respect among men, as 

 indeed Elohim was. 



