THE LESSON OF EVOLUTION 5 



led him to believe that this spirit lived on as a ghost 

 after the death of the body. And this belief, in time, 

 gave rise to ancestor-worship, which passed first into 

 the deification of ancestors, and afterwards into that 

 of mythical personages, who were not considered as 

 ancestors. Thus arose the belief in beneficent tribal 

 gods, which still has great influence even among 

 civilised nations. 



Primitive man passed from the idea of human 

 spirits to the belief that inanimate bodies also con- 

 tained spirits. But as these inanimate things were 

 often thwarting his wishes and frightening him by 

 noises which he could not understand, he assumed 

 that their spirits were hostile to him, and he tried to 

 appease them by sacrifices, or to disarm them by 

 spells. 



The belief that spirits inhabit all kinds of bodies is 

 called Animism. Both it and deification are different 

 forms of Polytheism, which have become so mingled 

 together that it is now often impossible to disentangle 

 them. 



This was the natural philosophy of the earlier races 

 of man, and it came to a standstill for want of further 

 knowledge. A very imperfect acquaintance with 

 nature had led to erroneous ideas of religion, and a 

 more accurate acquaintance with nature was not then 

 possible. However, a foundation had been laid, which 

 was subsequently built upon by metaphysicians, and 

 in the course of time Polytheism passed into what 

 Professor Max Muller has called Henotheism. That is, 

 the gods are no longer regarded as of equal power, but 

 a supreme spirit rules over the others. 



Henotheism appears to have originated indepen- 



