UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 335 



connection with a higher spiritual life. These several 

 portions have been acting and re-acting on each 

 other ever since, and also have been acted on by the 

 remnants of primitive religion and by new influences 

 emanating from God. The latter, knowing no God 

 and no spiritual nature in man, supposes him at first a 

 mere animal in whom the life of intellect and of higher 

 tastes and feelings has been struck out by physical 

 causes acting on his organism. There can, I think, 

 be no hesitation in affirming that our old Biblical 

 doctrine is the more complete and scientific of the 

 two, and also that which is most in accord with the 

 evidence of history and archaeology; while even the 

 " Animism " of pre-historic peoples may claim kinship 

 with some of the higher doctrines of spiritual religion, 

 and so also may the " Shamanism " of the ancient 

 Turanians and Americans, and of which we find traces 

 even in Palaeocosmic men. 



Among the American tribes, except perhaps some 

 of the more civilized and advanced communities, no 

 distinct system of priesthood had been developed. 

 In this they resembled the men of those patriarchal 

 times in which the kingly and priestly functions were 

 conjoined, and were exercised by persons of great age 

 or of high and recognised gifts. The " ancients" 

 were the authorities in all religious and ceremonial 

 matters. The professed medicine-men, or jugglers, or 

 prophets, rested their claims on a totally different 

 basis from that of priestly caste or appointment. By 

 long fasts and urgent invocations, they had acquired 



