145 
more anxious to snatch an argumentative triumph, or to defend 
a theological position, than to search honestly and dispassion- 
ately after truth. On the contrary, it seems to me that this is 
just the snare into which that particular school of which Sir 
John Lubbock stands forth as so able an exponent is in danger 
of falling ; for, carried away by another line of evidence into those 
distant regions of antiquity where maffis remains lie embedded 
amidst marks of primeval barbarism, that school seems incapable 
of tolerating any opposite opinion. Hence, when questions of 
aboriginal belief come up for discussion, a theory such as that 
presented in the opening of this paper is arbitrarily framed, in 
order to harmonize with the supposed savage origin of man ; 
and pains are not sufficiently taken to make a careful inquiry 
into other facts of the case which might possibly tend to over- 
throw that theory. In other words, this school of thought, 
when looking upon the condition of barbarous nations, instinc- 
tively seize hold of their grosser superstitions, and unconsciously 
disregard any underlying proofs of their having had a higher 
aboriginal faith indicative of some primeval moral civilization. 
Thus, Sir John Lubbock, when speaking of the Kaffirs, not only 
affirms that there is no appearance of any religious worship 
among them,* but quotes the following testimony of a Zulu : — 
Our knowledge does not urge us to search out the roots of religion ; we 
do not try to see them ; if any one thinks ever so little, he soon gives it up, 
and passes on to what he sees with his eyes.f 
The object of the writer is to express the almost innate inca- 
pacity of these Zulus to hold any religious belief, and so to 
place them on the lowest line of his programme, viz. Atheism. 
Yet the present Bishop of Natal, in a paper published during 
1855, says : — 
Like other Kaffirs, the Zulus have no idols, and it has been a common 
charge against them that they have no gods. I know not what may be the 
case with the frontier Kaffirs, but the Zulus have certainly two distinct names 
for a Supreme Being, viz. Unkulunkulu, or “ The Great, Great One,” equi- 
valent to “Almighty and Unvelinganga, or “The First Outcomer,” equiva- 
lent to the “ First Essence.” They spoke of Him to me repeatedly, and quite 
of their own accord, as “ The Maker of all things and of all men.” 
Such was the testimony of the Bishop in 1855, exhibiting a 
state of things which is totally at variance with the allegation 
that these Kaffirs are without any religious conceptions. Sir J. 
Lubbock does not quote this evidence. On the contrary, he 
* Page 141. 
t Page 143. 
