130 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



in certain animals, for instance, as in birds. Obviously no 

 animal would be capable of admiring sucb. scenes as tbe 

 heavens at nigbt, a beautiful landscape, or refined music; 

 but such high tastes are acquired through culture, and 

 depend on complex associations; they are not enjoyed by 

 barbarians or by uneducated persons. 



Many of the faculties which have been of inestimable 

 service to man for his progressive advancement, such as the 

 powers of the imagination, wonder, curiosity, an undefined 

 sense of beauty, a tendency to imitation, and the love of 

 excitement or novelty, could hardly fail to lead to ca- 

 pricious changes of customs and fashions. I have alluded 

 to this point, because a recent writer" has oddly fixed on 

 Caprice "as one of the most remarkable and typical differ- 

 ences between savages and brutes. ' ' But not only can we 

 partially understand how it is that man is from various con- 

 flicting influences rendered capricious, but that the lower 

 animals are, as we shall hereafter see, likewise capricious 

 in their affections, aversions, and sense of beauty. There 

 is also reason to suspect that they love novelty for its 

 own sake. 



Belief in God — Beligion.— There is no evidence that man 

 was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the 

 existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary, there is 

 ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, but from 

 men who have long resided with savages, that numerous 

 races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one 

 or more gods, and who have no words in their languages to 

 express such an idea." The question is of course wholly 

 distinct from that higher one, whether there exists a Creator 

 and Euler of the universe; and this has been answered in 



" "The Spectator," Dec. 4, 1869, p. 1430. 



'■* See an excellent article on this subject by the Rev. 1?. W. Farrar, in the 

 "Anthropological Review," Aug. 1864, p. ccxvii. For further facts see Sir J. 

 Lubbock, "Prehistoric Times," 2d edit., 1869, p. 564; and especially the chap- 

 ters on Religion in his "Origin of CivOization, " 1870. 



