178 IDOLATRY AND DOLLATRY. 



of fire, that element to one class was merely an 

 emblem, to the other an actual person. Wherever 

 idols or images are used, the same phenomenon occurs. 

 These idols are intended by the priests as aids to de- 

 votion, as books for those who cannot read. But the 

 savage believes that his god inhabits the image, or 

 even regards the image as itself a god. His feelings 

 towards it are those of a child towards her doll. She 

 knows that it is filled with saw-dust and made of 

 painted wood, and yet she loves it as if it were alive. 

 Such is precisely the illusion of the savage, for he 

 possesses the imagination of a child. He talks to his 

 idol fondly and washes its face with oil or rum : beats it 

 if it will not give him what he asks ; and hides it in his 

 waist-cloth if he is going to do something which he 

 does not wish it to see. 



There is one other point which it is necessary to 

 observe. A god's moral disposition, his ideas of right 

 and wrong, are those of the people by whom he is 

 created. Wandering tribes do not, as a rule, consider 

 it wrong to rob outside the circle of their clan : 

 their god is therefore a robber like themselves. If 

 they settle in a fertile country, pass into the agricul- 

 tural state, build towns, and become peaceful citizens 

 with property of their own, they change their views 

 respecting theft, and accordingly their god forbids it in 

 his laws. But it sometimes happens that the sayings 

 and doings of the tent-god are preserved in writings 

 which are accepted as revelation by the people of a 

 later and a better age. Then may be observed the 

 curious and by no means pleasing spectacle of a people 

 outgrowing their religion, and believing that their god 

 performed actions which would be punished with the 

 gallows if they were done by men. 



