DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL SENSE. 213 



"THE ENNOBLIITG BELIBP IN GOD." 



Descent There is no evidence that man was aborigi- 



of Man, nally endowed with the ennobling belief in 

 ^^^ ' the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the 

 contrary, there is ample evidence, derived not from hasty 

 travelers, but from men who have long resided with sav- 

 ages, 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 uni- 

 verse ; and this has been answered in the afBrmative by 

 some of the highest intellects that have ever existed. 



If, however, we include under the term "religion" 

 the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is 

 wholly different ; for this behef seems to be universal 

 with the less civilized races. Nor is it diflBcult to com- 

 prehend how it arose. As soon as the important facul- 

 ties of the imagination — ^wonder and curiosity, together 

 with some power of reasoning — ^had become partially de- 

 veloped, man would naturally crave to understand what 

 was passing around him, and would have vaguely specu- 

 lated on his own existence. As Mr. McLennan has re- 

 marked : " Some explanation of the phenomena of life a 

 man must feign for himself ; and, to judge from the uni- 

 versality of it, the simplest hypothesis, and the first to 

 occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenom- 

 ena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants, 

 and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits 

 prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves 

 possess." It is also probable, as Mr. Tylor has shown, 

 that dreams may have first given rise to the notion of 

 spirits; for savages do not readily distinguish between 



