FIFTH day's sitting. 11,5 



Lord G. By all means, Mr. Darwin ; let us have your 

 views on this point. 



Darwin. " If," my Lord, " we include under the term 

 ' religion ' the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies . . . 

 this belief seems to be almost universal with the less 

 civilized races. Nor is it difficult to comprehend how it 

 arose. As soon as the important faculties of the imagina- 

 tion, wonder, and curiosity, together with some power of 

 reasoning, had become partially developed, man would 

 naturally have craved to understand what was passing 

 around him, and have vaguely speculated on his own 

 existence. ... It is probable that dreams may have first 

 given rise to the notion of spirits ; for savages do not 

 readily distinguish between subjective and objective im- 

 pressions. When a savage dreams, the figures which appear 

 before him are believed to have come from a distance and 

 to stand over him ; or ' the soul of the dreamer goes out 

 on its travels, and comes home with a remembrance of 

 what it has seen.' But, until the above-named faculties of 

 imagination, curiosity, reason, &c., had been fairly well de- 

 veloped in the mind of man, his dreams would not have 

 led him to believe in spirits any more than in the case of a 

 dog. . . . The belief in spiritual agencies would easily pass 

 into the belief in the existence of one or more gods. For 

 savages would naturally attribute to spirits the same 

 passions, the same love of vengeance or simplest form of 

 justice, and the same affections which they themselves 

 experienced." (Vol. i. pp. 65-67.) 



Homo. Let us suppose, my Lord, for the sake of argu- 

 ment, that such religion as savages possess arose among 

 them in the way which Mr. Darwin suggests, their dreams 

 having had much to do with it. Will he now explain how 

 it has happened that the dreams of dogs and horses — for 



