SECT. I.] ORIGIN OP RELIGIONS. 279 



very wrong, and attribute to it diseases, whilst the coarsest 

 vices appear to them venial. Moral ideas flow from an essen- 

 tially different source than religion, but both are associated 

 when man reaches a higher degree of civilization. We must 

 also consider as erroneous, the opinion that morality and 

 religion have grown out from a common root, namely, 

 conscience. 



Though man may be considered as the lord of the creation, 

 his dominion is by no means a secure one ; the less so the 

 lower he stands in psychical development : his wishes and 

 aims are not fulfilled, his plans are frustrated, misery and want 

 overtake him. Whose fault is this ? who effects it ? These 

 are the questions which occur both to the savage and the 

 civilized man. The first answer which man returns to his own 

 questions is generally to the following effect : There is an 

 inimical power which wills my misfortune, a wicked being 

 which, with invisible power, leads me to destruction. The 

 belief in spirits is extended to all nature, the course of which, 

 though apparently uniform and regular, still appears to the un- 

 civilized man as incalculable. Man sees in the natural sensible 

 phenomena something more than material forces; he sees in 

 them supernatural powers and a supernatural connexion, he 

 spiritualizes nature. We find all uncultured peoples in this 

 condition ; and though they may be deficient in definite ideas 

 of a God and fixed forms of worship, the religious element, so 

 far from being absent, influences their whole conception of 

 nature. 



Temples are not everywhere erected to higher powers, nor 

 images nor sacrifices made ; but, in great need, invocations of 

 such powers, and attempts to appease their wrath or malice are 

 nowhere wanting. Their habitations are usually imagined to be 

 on high mountains, or in inaccessible places. Dreams, un- 

 common occurrences, disease, and even natural death, are 

 ascribed to the influence of spirits. The fear of the dead, and 

 the honour shown to them, among all uncultured nations, are 

 partly connected with the belief that the departed souls return 

 to the earth, and like other spirits, reappear in an animal form 

 to plague the living. This is essentially the essence of the 



