•Chap. II. 
MENTAL POWEES. 
65 
*“ typical differences between savages and brutes.” But 
not only can we perceive how it is that naan is capri- 
cious, but the lower animals are, as we shall hereafter 
see, capricious in their affections, aversions, and sense 
of beauty. There is also good 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 . 51 The question is of course wholly distinct from 
that higher one, whether there exists a Creator and 
Ruler of the universe ; and this has been answered in 
the affirmative by the highest intellects that have ever 
lived. 
If, however, we include under the term “ religion ” the 
belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is wholly 
different; for this belief seems to be almost universal 
with the less civilised races. Nor is it difficult to 
comprehend how it arose. As soon as the important 
faculties of the imagination, wonder, and curiosity, 
together with some power of reasoning, had become 
partially developed, man would naturally have craved 
to understand what was passing around him, and 
have vaguely speculated on his own existence. As 
51 See an excellent article on this subject by the Eev. F. W. Farrar, 
in the L Anthropological Review,’ Aug. 1864, p. ccxvii. For farther 
facts see Sir J. Lubbock, ‘ Prehistoric Times,’ 2nd edit. 1869, p. 564 ; 
;and especially the chapters on Religion in his 1 Origin of Civilisation,’ 
1870. 
VOL. I. 
F 
