n
direct proportion as they have become adapted to our knowledge of
natural phenomena"--Lydston: _The Diseases of Society_, p. 68.

"It is an evident historical fact that man _first personified natural
phenomena_, and then made use of these personifications to personify his
own inward acts, his psychical ideas and conceptions. This was the
necessary process, and external idols were formed before those which
were internal and peculiar to himself."[2] Sun, moon, and star;
mountain, hill, and dale; torrent, waterfall, and rill, all became to
him distinct personalities, powerful beings, that might do him great
harm or much good. He therefore endeavored to propitiate them, just as a
dog endeavors to get the good will of man by abjectly crawling toward
him on his belly and licking his feet. There was no element of true
worship in the propitiatory offerings of primitive man; in the beginning
he was essentially a materialist--he became a spiritualist later on.
Man's first religion must have been, necessarily, a material one; he
worshiped (propitiated) only that which he could see, or feel, or hear,
or touch; his undeveloped psychical being could grasp nothing higher;
his limited understanding could not frame an idea involving a spiritual
element such as animism undoubtedly presents. Apropos of the dream
birth of the soul, all terrestrial mammals dream, and in some of them,
notably the dog and monkey, an observer can almost predicate the subject
of their dreams by watching their actions while they are under dream
influence; yet no animal save man, as far as we know, has ever evolved
any idea of ghost or soul.[B] It may be said, on the other hand, that
since animals show, unmistakably, that they are, in a measure, fully
conscious of certain phenomena in the economy of nature, and while I am
not prepared to state that any element of worship enters into their
regard, I yet believe that an infinitesimal increase in the development
of their psychical beings would, undoubtedly, lead some of them to a
natural religion such as our pithecoid ancestors practiced.

[2] Tito Vignoli: _Myth and Science_, p. 85.

[B] Clarke in his interesting book gives us some very readable
stories anent the ability of animals seeing imaginary objects. I
myself have seen a parrot with a marked case of _delirium tremens_,
due to excessive use of alcoholic stimulants (Vid. Author: _The
Dawn of Reason_). Romanes also gi