picture primitive man as a profound metaphysical philosopher,
speculating on that which lies behind phenomena, contemplating an
"insoluble Mystery," and paying homage to an "Ultimate Reality"? Nothing
could be more absurd. Thinking begins in concrete images, not in
abstractions. We have only to note the development of intelligence in
children to realise this. And primitive man, not being a mystic nor a
metaphysician, bases his religion, not upon a reality that transcends
experience, but upon a presumed fact, and what is to him the best known
of all facts. And even with modern men it may safely be said that they
worship God for what they believe they know about him, not because they
believe him to be unknown and unknowable.

Spencer himself may be cited in support of this. In his "Principles of
Sociology," where the Unknowable plays no part whatever, he concludes
after an elaborate survey of the facts, that the imagination of
primitive man is reminiscent, not constructive; his power of thought is
feeble, he is without the quick curiosity of civilised man, there is an
absence of the conception of causation, he accepts things as they
appear, without any vivid desire to inquire into their real nature or
their connection with other events, and is without abstract ideas.
Clearly, here is not a very promising subject from which to derive even
the germ of the idea of a "Reality transcending experience." Spencer
also, and quite properly, insists that religious ideas are, under the
condition of their origin, national ideas; that we must accept the truth
that the laws of thought are everywhere the same, and that, given the
data as known to primitive man, the inference drawn by him is a
reasonable inference.

With this we agree, but it gives the death blow to the previous
statement as to the essential nature of religion, and its essential
differentiation from science. For given the constitution of the
primitive mind, its ignorance of causation and general lack of
knowledge, religion commences not in some search after an eternal
reality, but in a natural misunderstanding of observed facts. Primitive
religion is just a reasoned misunderstanding of phenomena that in later,
and better informed ages, are given an altogether different explanation.

That this is so, Spencer himself makes plain. For he shows, step by
step, how the experience of dreams, echoes, shadows, etc., combine to
produce the belief in unseen agencies differing in