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ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



human body — in the blood, or the heart, or the pupil of the eye, 

 or, as seems most natural, in the breath. But whatever the- 

 assumed locality of the spirit might be, its presence meant life,, 

 and its departure meant death. 



But life is not the attribute of man alone in JvTature. There is- 

 life everywliere — motion, energy, force, vitality, not in the lower 

 animals oiily, but in the wind, the sea, the flowing streams, 

 the echoing waterfalls, the thunder, the lightning, the tremulous- 

 forest, the growing crops, the gathering dawn, the lengthening 

 shadows of nightfall ; and wherever there was life — so primitive- 

 man would argue — there was spirit. 



What could be more natural than that he should imagine a. 

 spiritual force — a spiritual Being — as associated with, and 

 actually resident in, the various objects of the natural world ? 

 Greek mythology itself recognised, almost instinctively, such 

 deities as the Dryades, or spirits of the trees ; the Naiades, or 

 spirits of the waters, the Hyades, or spirits of the rain-clouds. 

 It spoke not of the sky only but of Ouranos, nor of the ocean 

 but of Poseidon, nor of the sun but of Apollo, nor of the fire 

 but of Hephaistos, nor of the earth, but of Demeter. 



It is perhaps in the instance of the thunder that the 

 anthropomorphism of primitive theology reveals itself most 

 clearly : for to savage minds the thunder could scarcely appear 

 anything else than the voice of a living superhuman Person. 

 Accordingly the thunder-god is a deity known to all or nearly 

 all early mythologies. 



The Iroquois believe in tlie god Heno, who rides through the ^ 

 heavens on the clouds, and splits the trees of the forest with 

 the bolts wliich he hurls at his enemies. The Yorubas call 

 the same god Shango ; he it is who with his thunder-clap and 

 lightning flash casts down upon tlie earth, according to their 

 fancy, the rude stone celts whicli they dig up out of the soil and 

 call his axes. Among the Araucanians of Chili, he is known as 

 Dillar ; and to him as the thunder-god they pray for victory, 

 before forming battle, and render thanks when tlie victory is 

 won. 



This lialf-unconscious spiritualisation of natural phenomena 

 is the germ of such worsliip as is fre(|uently, but not correctly. 



