322 
Some believe that religion has developed in savage minds 
on account of the felt want of it. But, if this were so, it is 
strange that some of these ideas have developed so nearly 
alike among’ such different people. True, some may hold to 
the idea that a belief in a Supreme Being and lesser deities, 
the immortality of the soul, providence, and a future state of 
happiness has been developed, and it may be a little difficult 
to prove that it is not so. But can it be claimed with any 
degree of reason that a tradition of a deluge to punish sin was 
developed because man wanted it, or that man wanted to 
believe himself a sinner, or in a devil, or a hell, or prayer, or 
sacrifice? ‘The facts are decidedly against this idea. We 
see civilised men who reject the Bible, and does a felt want 
in their hearts make them pray, or offer sacrifices, or believe 
themselves sinners, or accept the idea of hell? It is not so, 
in fact. Such men are the first to reject these ideas. The 
development is the other way. Hence we must believe that 
some of these ideas were not developed, and, if some, perhaps 
all. 
(3) Are they innate? This may be held in regard to some 
of them, as a Supreme Being and immortality. It is very 
difficult to prove it, or to prove the contrary, because all 
nations, or nearly all, believe them, and teach them to their 
children about as soon as they teach them anything. Yet, as 
far as I know, the weight of evidence is against it. Deaf 
and dumb children, who have never been taught by their 
parents of a God, when they have been taken to an asylum, 
have, I believe, almost or quite uniformly been found to have 
no idea of a God. 
I have also given some facts about certain tribes, among 
whom there is no positive proof that they believed either in 
a Supreme Being or immortality. I have given the statements 
as the observers have written them, and am not prepared to 
deny their truthfulness, nor to assert that further investigation 
may not prove them false. 
If these two ideas are innate, it simply proves the existence 
of a God and immortality, for I can hardly believe how they 
should be born in man and not be true. 
(4) But, if they are not innate, we are forced to the last 
alternative, 7.e., that they have been handed down from some one 
who received these truths by revelation. And, whatever we 
may think in regard to these two subjects, I am not aware that 
any persons claim that all the other subjects discussed are 
innate; as, the creation, deluge, sacrifice, future punishment, 
sin, divine teaching, and, perhaps, an incarnation. If these 
are neither developed nor innate, they must have come through 
