in the centre, and then began to
speak in a low, trembling voice, and in a kind of cadence:

'Oh! you that I have tried to see,
Oh! you that I have heard in the night,
Oh! you that live in the sky and the water;
Now I see you, now you have come:
Now you will tell me where you live,
And what things are, and who made them.
Oh Dala, these stones are yours;
These are the goona stones I find,
And play with when I think of you.
Oh Dala, be my friend, and never leave me
Alone in the dark night.'

'As I live, it's a religious service, the worship of a green butterfly!'
said the professor. At his voice the child turned round, and seeing the
men, looked very much ashamed of himself.

'Come here, my dear old man.' said the professor to the child, who came
on being called.

'What were you doing?--who taught you to say all those funny things?'

The little fellow looked frightened.

'I didn't remember you were here.' he said; 'they are things I say when
I play by myself.'

'And who is Dala?'

The boy was blushing painfully.

'Oh, I didn't mean you to hear, it's just a game of mine. I play at
there being somebody I can't see, who knows what I am doing; a friend.'

'And nobody taught you, not Jane or Harriet?'

Now Harriet and Jane were the maids.

'You never saw anybody play at that kind of game before?'

'No,' said the child, 'nobody ever.' 'Then,' cried the professor, in
a loud and blissful voice, 'we have at last discovered the origin of
religion. It isn't Ghosts. It isn't the Infinite. It is worshipping
butterflies, with a service of fetich stones. The boy has returned to
it by an act of unconscious inherited memory, derived from Palaeolithic
Man, who must, therefore, have been the native of a temperate climate,
where there were green lepidoptera. Oh, my friends, what a thing is
inherited memory! In each of us there slumber all the impressions of all
our predecessors, up to the earliest Ascidian. See how the domesticated
dog,' cried the professor, forgetting that he was not lecturing in
Albemarle Street, 'see how the domesticated dog, by inherited memory,
turns round on the hearthrug before he curls up to sleep! He is
unconsciously remembering the long grasses in which his wild ancestors
dwelt. Also observe this boy, who has retained an unconscious
recollection of the earliest creed of prehistoric man. Behold him
instinctively, and I may say automatically,