arly idea of an undying, moral, creative being does not necessarily
or logically imply the doctrine of spirit (or ghost), then this idea of an
eternal, moral, creative being may have existed even before the doctrine
of spirit was evolved.

We may admit that Mr. Tylor's account of the process by which Gods were
evolved out of ghosts is a little _touffu_--rather buried in facts. We
'can scarcely see the wood for the trees.' We want to know how Gods,
makers of things (or of most things), fathers in heaven, and friends,
guardians of morality, seeing what is good or bad in the hearts of men,
were evolved, as is supposed, out of ghosts or surviving souls of the
dead. That such moral, practically omniscient Gods are known to the very
lowest savages--Bushmen, Fuegians, Australians--we shall demonstrate.

Here the inquirer must be careful not to adopt the common opinion that
Gods improve, morally and otherwise, in direct ratio to the rising grades
in the evolution of culture and civilisation. That is not necessarily the
case; usually the reverse occurs. Still less must we take it for granted,
following Mr. Tylor and Mr. Huxley, that the 'alliance [of religion and
morality] belongs almost, or wholly, to religions above the savage
level--not to the earlier and lower creeds;' or that 'among the Australian
savages,' and 'in its simplest condition,' 'theology is wholly independent
of ethics.'[4] These statements can be proved (by such evidence as
anthropology is obliged to rely upon) to be erroneous. And, just because
these statements are put forward, Anthropology has an easier task in
explaining the origin of religion; while, just because these statements
are incorrect, her conclusion, being deduced from premises so far false,
is invalidated.

Given souls, acquired by thinking on the lines already described, Mr.
Tylor develops Gods out of them. But he is not one of the writers who is
certain about every detail. He 'scarcely attempts to clear away the haze
that covers great parts of the subject.'[5]

The human soul, he says, has been the model on which man 'framed his
ideas of spiritual beings in general, from the tiniest elf that sports
in the grass up to the heavenly creator and ruler of the world, the
Great Spirit.' Here it is taken for granted that the Heavenly Ruler was
from the first envisaged as a '_spiritual_ being'--which is just the
difficulty. Was He?[6]

The process of framing these ideas is rather obscure. The savage