nditions of which
we know nothing historically, had evolved the hypothesis of this
conscious, powerful, separable soul, capable of surviving the death of the
body, it was not difficult for them to develop the rest of Religion, as
Mr. Tylor thinks. A powerful ghost of a dead man might thrive till, its
original owner being long forgotten, it became a God. Again (souls once
given) it would not be a very difficult logical leap, perhaps, to conceive
of souls, or spirits, that had never been human at all. It is, we may say,
only _le premier pas qui coute_, the step to the belief in a surviving
separable soul. Nevertheless, when we remember that Mr. Tylor is
theorising about savages in the dim background of human evolution, savages
whom we know nothing of by experience, savages far behind Australians and
Bushmen (who possess Gods), we must admit that he credits them with great
ingenuity, and strong powers of abstract reasoning. He may be right in his
opinion. In the same way, just as primitive men were keen reasoners, so
early bees, more clever than modern bees, may have evolved the system of
hexagonal cells, and only an early fish of genius could first have hit
on the plan, now hereditary of killing a fly by blowing water at it.

To this theory of metaphysical genius in very low savages I have no
objection to offer. We shall find, later, astonishing examples of savage
abstract speculation, certainly not derived from missionary sources,
because wholly out of the missionary's line of duty and reflection.

As early beasts had genius, so the earliest reasoners appear to have been
as logically gifted as the lowest savages now known to us, or even as some
Biblical critics. By Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, they first conceived the
extremely abstract idea of Life, 'that which makes the difference between
a living body and a dead one.'[15] This highly abstract conception must
have been, however, the more difficult to early man, as, to him, all
things, universally, are 'animated.'[16] Mr. Tylor illustrates this
theory of early man by the little child's idea that 'chairs, sticks, and
wooden horses are actuated by the same sort of personal will as nurses and
children and kittens.... In such matters the savage mind well represents
the childish stage.'[17]

Now, nothing can be more certain than that, if children think sticks are
animated, they don't think so because they have heard, or discovered, that
they possess souls, and then transfer soul