152 
universally that itis made of sterner stuff than this. On such 
experience surely ought to be founded the investigation of 
the psychological question as to the reality of religion. 
And this method of investigation would bring out a very 
real objective element, demonstrated by very tangible proofs. 
This, however, has not yet been recognised as a matter of 
scientific knowledge. 
5. We have at present to set before us the simply historical 
question of the actual course of religion in the world, and 
to examine it by historical methods. This question once 
settled might open the way for an inductive demonstration 
of the psychological question also. But we have to beware 
how we allow ourselves to be tempted to fill up the lacune 
of historical evidence by psychological speculation. Very 
curious conclusions are occasionally brought out in this way. 
Thus M. Reville asserts that ‘‘ cannibalism, which is now 
restricted to a few of the savage tribes who have remained 
closest to the animal life, was once universal in our race.’’* 
What are the grounds of this conclusion, which is quite contrary 
to the idea cf the most learned anthropologists? First, the 
historical fact, that “traces of the primitive sacrifice of human 
victims meet us everywhere.” Secondly, the psychological 
theory that all primitive sacrifices “ were originally suggested 
by the idea, that the Divine Being, whatever it may have been 
—whether a natural object, an animal, or a creature analo- 
gous to man—liked what we liked, was pleased with what 
pleases us, and had the same tastes and proclivities as ours.” 
This is a remarkable bouleversement of reasoning. It might 
perhaps be safer to argue that, as human sacrifices have been 
universal and cannibalism has not, the aim of sacrifices could 
not be merely to gratify supposed human tastes in the 
deities to whom they were offered. And thus we might be 
driven back to acknowledge, in regard to the origins of 
sacrifice, some of those “ moral and metaphysical ideas ” which 
M. Reville declares “really did not appear till much later.” 
But the matter is here referred to simply as a_ protest 
against forming historical conclusions on psychological 
grounds. 
6. Our question, then, is as to the Evolution of Religions, 
not of Religion. And this question is historical. What do we 
find to have been the actual course of the history of religions 
in the world?” How has the religious faculty of man actually 
——_ of 
~—F 
* Hibbert, Lectures on Religion in Mexico and Peru, pp. 86-90, See 
also the Duke of Argyll, Primeval Man, p. 135, 
