e
actuality of the supernormal facts and faculties remains at least an open
question, the prevalent theory of Materialism cannot be admitted as
dogmatically certain in its present shape. No more than any other theory,
nay, less than some other theories, can it account for the psychical facts
which, at the lowest, we may not honestly leave out of the reckoning.

We have therefore no more to say about the supernormal aspects of the
origins of religion. We are henceforth concerned with matters of
verifiable belief and practice. We have to ask whether, when once the
doctrine of souls was conceived by early men, it took precisely the course
of development usually indicated by anthropological science.

[Footnote 1: Darwin, _Journal_, p. 458; Tylor, _Prim. Cult_. ii. 152. The
spoon was not untouched.]

[Footnote 2: Rowley, _Universities' Mission_, p. 217.]

[Footnote 3: _Africana_, vol. i. p. 161.]

[Footnote 4: In the author's _Custom and Myth_, 'The Divining Rod.']

[Footnote 5: Codrington's _Melanesia_, p. 210.]

[Footnote 6: Op. cit. pp. 229-325.]

[Footnote 7: _Prim. Cult_. vol. i. p. 125.]

[Footnote 8: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 330.]

[Footnote 9: Callaway, _Amazulu_, p. 368.]

[Footnote 10: _The So-called Divining-Rod_, S.P.R. 1897.]

[Footnote 11: See especially _The Waterford Experiments_, p. 106.]

[Footnote 12: Authorities and examples are collected in the author's _Cock
Lane and Common Sense_.]

[Footnote 13: _Proceedings_, xii. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 14: _Personal Narrative_, by M. Zoller. Hanke, Zurich, 1863.]

[Footnote 15: Daumer, _Reich des Wundersamen_, Regensburg, 1872,
pp. 265, 266.]

[Footnote 16: A criticism of modern explanations of the phenomena here
touched upon will be found in Appendix B.]

[Footnote 17: See Appendix B.]

IX

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD

To the anthropological philosopher 'a plain man' would naturally put the
question: 'Having got your idea of spirit or soul--your theory of
Animism--out of the idea of ghosts, and having got your idea of ghosts out
of dreams and visions, how do you get at the Idea of God?' Now by 'God'
the proverbial 'plain man' of controversy means a primal eternal Being,
author of all things, the father and friend of man, the invisible,
omniscient guardian of morality.

The usual though not invariable reply of the anthropologist might be given
in the words of Mr. Im Thurn, author of a most interesting work on the
Indians of British Guian