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The Chairman. — I understand that the leading theory of Darwin is the 
theory of natural selection. That which you have fixed upon is common to 
many authors besides Darwin. 
Dr. Haughton. — Perhaps I have not stated Dr. Freke’s theory so fully as 
I ought. He considered that there was a primitive molecule, if you will, or 
one, perhaps more, atoms, from which all the rest of creation was successively 
evolved. I need scarce add that I do not desire to support this theory. 
Rev*.p. Graham. — I do not rise to offer any opposition to the paper, 
but to' express my agreement with its principles and reasoning. There 
are, however, one or two little things upon which I should like to say a 
word. Here is a quotation which Mr. Reddie has taken from Sir John 
Lubbock : — 
“ Where, therefore, we find a race which is now ignorant of religion, I 
cannot but assume that it has always been so.” 
Now Mr. Moffatt found, in Southern Africa, certain races which were 
ignorant of Religion ; but among some of the old men he found still in use 
the word “ Morimo,” which had been used by their forefathers to describe 
God, or the Great Spirit, but to which those who then used it attached 
no definite idea whatever. Here is another quotation from Sir John 
Lubbock : — 
“ The cases are perhaps less numerous than they are asserted to be, but 
according to almost universal testimony — that of merchants, philosophers, 
naval men, and missionaries alike — there are many races of men who are 
altogether destitute of a religion.” 
It was generally believed in this country in the last generation that the 
natives of New South Wales had no distinct idea of the being of a God. 
But I have talked to one who spent twenty-three years amongst them, and 
he found that as a general rule they had a distinct idea of the being of 
a God, and some of them even gave the name which they said was generally 
applied to the one that they believed to be God, who lived up in the sky, 
and who, when they heard thunder, they believed to be engaged in conflict 
with his enemies. My friend endeavoured to reform them, and teach them 
Christianity, but he was much struck by this fact, that whenever it thun- 
dered they were particular to manifest by various noises their sympathy with 
their “ Mika,” or God. That is a fact of very great moment. It is in direct 
contradiction to that statement made by Sir John Lubbock, and I think we 
shall find, after all, that there are very few races of men on record who have 
not the idea of a Supreme Being. (Hear, hear.) Now if we go for a moment 
to the question of polytheism I think it is quite clear that in the early ages 
of the world there was a general belief in the unity of God and a general 
conviction, that we express by monotheism. The early Fathers of the Church, 
in contending with the polytheists, quoted their own poets and their own 
philosophers against them. Lactantius speaks of the unity of the Greeks and 
Romans as proving the fact of the unity of God, and Aristotle was quoted to 
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