356 
APPENDIX. 
THE UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGION. 
As the statement in the text respecting the Universality of Religion is 
almost certain to be hastily denied, I subjoin the following dicta by the 
highest authorities : — 
“We may safely say that, in spite of all researches, no human beings have 
been found anywhere who do not possess something which to them is 
religion.” —(Prof. Max Miiller, Hilbert Lectures , 1878, p. 79). 
“ The statement that there are nations or tribes which possess no religion 
rests either on inaccurate observation or on a confusion of ideas. No tribe 
or nation has yet been met with destitute of belief in any higher beings ; 
and travellers who asserted their existence have been afterwards refuted by 
the facts. It is legitimate, therefore, to call religion in its most general 
sense a universal 'phenomenon of humanity” — ( Prof. Tiele, Outlines , 6 ; cf. 
R.M.A. , 16.) 
Dr. Tylor, after showing that absence of religion has been incorrectly 
attributed in the most positive manner to the aborigines of Australia, the 
Payaguas and Guanas of South America, the natives of Madagascar, the 
Dinkas of the White Nile, and various other tribes, observes : — “ Thus the 
assertion that rude non-religious tribes have been known in actual existence, 
though in theory possible, does not at present rest on that sufficient proof 
which, for an exceptional state of things, we are entitled to demand.” — 
( Primitive Culture , i. 378.) 
The Chairman, Mr. J. E. Howard, F.R.S. — I am sure that I may present 
your thanks to Mr. Robert Brown for this interesting paper, in which he has 
thrown before us what are certainly subjects for manifold discussion. For 
myself, I scarce agree with all he has said in regard to the origin of language. 
I think he has been more successful in pulling to pieces the bow-wow 
and pooh-pooh theories. The question can scarcely be fully considered 
without inquiring what was man antecedent to the foundation of his 
language? There are at least two theories on the subject, and it is 
necessary to proceed on one or the other of these two lines. Scripture 
teaches that man was created perfect from the hands of his Maker, 
endowed with a spiritual as well as animal part,— let us say, endowed 
with the irve vya as well as the ^xh (endowed with the spirit as well 
as with the soul), and from the first in communion with his Maker, — 
