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is having paths cut through it here and there. But along its 
borders is inscribed in large letters the warning, ‘ Con- 
jecturers, beware!” 
8. Vistas, however, are opening up. Hereand there, in spite 
of the trees, one can manage to see something of the forest. 
In a matter like this, generalisations are for the most part 
formed gradually, coming into view little by little, and only 
concatenated with each other by degrees. The first attempts 
at forming them are often wide of the mark, and corrections 
are naturally to be expected. It will not do, therefore, to shrink 
from attempting them lest they should prove to be incorrect. 
They may at least serve as helps to some one else in 
generalising more successfully. -There are one or two 
generalisations which are now widely accepted. Others are 
only just coming into sight, and need to be stated cautiously. 
9. The first to be mentioned is one on which there has been 
fierce discussion, now almost obsolete. It is, that there is 
religion of some sort everywhere amongst men. Against 
this, tribes have been triumphantly pointed to amongst whom 
no trace of worship had been discovered. More careful 
investigation has generally shown such tribes to be by no 
means in the atheistic condition imputed to them. But, even 
if here and there a godless tribe were found, it would affect 
the general fact that man is a God-fearing animal no more 
than does the existence of a large number of non-religious 
persons within the fold of every religion alike. It must not 
be taken for granted—it would need to be clearly proved— 
that the nations most nearly devoid of religion were those 
which had remained “nearest to the state of nature,” or 
which had developed least. They might be those which have 
fallen furthest from the original condition. The Duke of 
Argyll has shown that there is no necessary’ connexion 
between the development of nations as concerns the industrial 
arts, and their spiritual development as concerns religion.* 
Even the existence, therefore, of very degraded tribes almost 
or altogether without the idea of God would afford no pre- 
sumption that religion was a matter of development, growing 
part passu with civilisation. But this only by the way. 
10. The existence, however, of religion of some sort through- 
out the human race does prove decisively that man is a religious 
animal, that his mental constitution enables and impels him 
to seek for and live with God. If God were unknowable, yet 
man’s nature cannot do without Him, but demands, seeks, 
* Primeval Man, p. 182. — 
