not of assumption, that the Supreme
Being of many rather higher savages differs from the Supreme Being of
certain lower savages by the neglect in which he is left, by the epicurean
repose with which he is credited, and by his comparative lack of moral
control over human conduct. In his place a mob of ghosts and spirits,
supposed to be potent and helpful in everyday life, attract men's regard
and adoration, and get paid by sacrifice--even by human sacrifice.

Turning to races yet higher in material culture, we find a crowd of hungry
and cruel gods.

On this point Mr. Jevons remarks, in accordance with my own observation,
that 'human sacrifice appears at a much earlier period in the rites for
the dead than it does in the ritual of the gods.'[3] The dead chief needs
servants and wives in Hades, who are offered to him. The Australians have
some elements of cannibalism, but do not, as a general rule, offer any
human victims. So far, then, ancestor-worship introduced a sadly
'degenerate' rite, compared with the moral faith in unfed gods.

To gods the human sacrifice was probably extended (in some cases) either
by a cannibal civilised race, like the Aztecs, or by way of _piacula_, the
god being conciliated for man's sin by the offering of what man most
prized, the 'jealousy' of the god being appeased in a similar way.
But these are relatively advanced conceptions, not to be found, to my
knowledge, among the lowest and most backward races. Therefore, advance to
the idea of spirit at one point, meant degeneration at another point, to
the extent of human sacrifice.

Thus, on looking at relatively advanced races, we find them worshipping
polytheistic deities and ghosts of the kings just dead, who are often
propitiated by terrible massacres of human victims, while, as in the case
of Taa-roa, the blood spurts back even on the uncreated Creator, who was
before earth was, or sea, sun, or sky.

Undeniably the hungry, cruel gods are degenerate from the Australian
Father in Heaven, who receives no sacrifice but that of men's lusts and
selfishness; who desires obedience, not the fat of kangaroos; who needs
nothing of ours; is unfed and unbribed. Thus, in this particular respect
the degeneration of religion from the Australian or Andamanese to the
Dinka standard--and infinitely more to the Polynesian, or Aztec, or
popular Greek standard--is as undeniable as any fact in human history.

Anthropology has only escaped the knowledge of th