PHILOLOGICAL VARIETIES. 67 



three parts of the world which are most difficult to explore, 

 the only parts which have even not yet been thoroughly exa- 

 mined. And this is one consequence of this want of explora- 

 ration ; it supposes a sort of sequestration from the rest of the 

 world, which has not even succumbed to civilisation by this 

 contact and imitation of which we have already spoken. Let 

 us admit that relations were established by these people with 

 their neighbours; they would soon have imported from the 

 foreigner conceptions which would even then have never taken 

 a form, on account of the small portion of intellect which 

 nature had given to them. 



Referring to the inhabitants of Australia, Latham acknow- 

 ledges that the general opinion is, in fact, that they have not 

 yet commenced to shape the rudest elements of a religion,* 

 <c an opinion," he says, ' ' which causes the idea that their in- 

 tellects are too sluggish even for the maintenance of super- 

 stition." It is certainly true that, in the American expedition 

 under Captain Gray, it was thought that some religious ideas 

 could be perceived among them ; but it appears from the same 

 account that the song which constituted all this apparent re- 

 ligion, had been brought from far by strangers, and adopted 

 by the natives, doubtless, by other Australians, who had 

 already been influenced by the Christian ideas of the white 

 men, or the Buddhist principles of the Malays. 



To relate the history of the introduction of an idea among 

 a people is, in reality, to declare and prove that this idea did 

 not exist there before, which is sufficient for us if we can be 

 assured of the fact. The testimony of missionariesf is, besides, 

 consonant with that which we have just said ; and we may re- 

 mark on the importance of assertions coming from men 

 whose whole study is to discover, in the people whom they 

 desire to convert, ideas analogous to those which they endea- 



* I translate in this way the word mythology, used by Latham ; it is the 

 real translation. Every religion is necessarily based on a fable, for whoever 

 does not practise it, " Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur." [This is an 

 assertion which our author has no right to make, and which certainly does not 

 redound to his credit. We must earnestly protest against it. A moment's 

 consideration, however, will satisfy most men that the translator's license 

 has here been carried to a most unwarrantable extent. EDITOR.] 



f The Reverend Messrs. Schmidt, Parker, etc. 



F2 



