_cultus_ of praise and propitiation,
and reverence, and is humoured with food-offerings and similar
sacrifices. Nor is it long before the form of an earthly polity is
transferred to that unearthly city of the dead, till for one reason or
another some jealous ghost gains a monarchic supremacy over his
brethren, and thus polytheism gives place to monotheism. It need not be
that this supreme deity is always conceived as a defunct ancestor, once
embodied, but no longer in the body. Rather it would seem that the
primitive savage, having once arrived at the conception of a ghost,
passes by generalization to that of incorporeal beings unborn and
undying, of spirits whose presence and power is revealed in stocks and
stones, or in idols shaped humanwise--spirits who preside over trees,
rivers, and elements, over species and classes and departments of
Nature, over tribes and peoples and nations; until, as before, the
struggle for existence or some other cause gives supremacy to some one
god fittest to survive either through being more conceivable, or more
powerful, or in some other way more popular than the rest of the
pantheon.

Again, it is assumed that the gods of primitive man are non-ethical,
that they do not "make for righteousness;" that they are at most jealous
powers to be feared and propitiated. When the savage speaks of a god as
good, he only means "favourable to me," "on my side;" he does not mean
"good to me if I am good." God is conceived first as power and force;
then as non-moral wisdom, or cunning, and only in the very latest
developments as holy and just and loving.

Starting with the assumptions of evolutionists, the theory is plausible
enough. Nor is it inconceivable that God, without using error and evil
directly as a means to truth and good, should passively permit error for
the sake of the truth that He foresees will come out of it. Astrology
was not incipient astronomy; nor was alchemy primitive chemistry; the
end and aim in each case was wholly different. Yet the pseudo-science
gave birth to the true; as false premisses often lead by bad logic to
sound conclusions. Totemism, "a perfectly crazy and degrading belief,"
says Mr. Lang, "rendered possible--nay, inevitable--the union of hostile
groups into large and relatively peaceful tribal societies.... We should
never have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it should have
been thus done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally ignorant of