is circumstance by laying
down the rule, demonstrably unbased on facts, that 'the divine sanction of
ethical laws ... belongs almost or wholly to religions above the savage
level, not to the earlier and lower creeds;' that 'savage Animism is
almost devoid of that ethical element which to the educated modern mind is
the very mainspring of practical religion.'[4]

I have argued, indeed, that the God of low savages who imparts the divine
sanction of ethical laws is _not_ of animistic origin. But even where Mr.
Im Thurn finds, in Guiana, nothing but Animism of the lowest conceivable
type, he also finds in that Animism the only or most potent moral
restraint on the conduct of men.

While Anthropology holds the certainly erroneous idea that the religion of
the most backward races is always non-moral, of course she cannot know
that there has, in fact, been great degeneration in religion (if religion
began on the Australian and Andamanese level, or even higher) wherever
religion is non-moral or immoral.

Again, Anthropology, while fixing her gaze on totems, on worshipped
mummies, adored ghosts, and treasured fetishes, has not, to my knowledge,
made a comparative study of the higher and purer religious ideas of
savages. These have been passed by, with a word about credulous
missionaries and Christian influences, except in the brief summary for
which Mr. Tylor found room. In this work I only take a handful of cases of
the higher religious opinions of savages, and set them side by side for
purposes of comparison. Much more remains to be done in this field. But
the area covered is wide, the evidence is the best attainable, and it
seems proved beyond doubt that savages have 'felt after' a conception of a
Creator much higher than that for which they commonly get credit. Now, if
that conception is original, or is very early (and nothing in it suggests
lateness of development), then the other elements of their faith and
practice are degenerate.

'How,' it has been asked, 'could all mankind forget a pure religion?'[5]
That is what I now try to explain. That degeneration I would account for
by the attractions which animism, when once developed, possessed for the
naughty natural man, 'the old Adam.' A moral creator in need of no gifts,
and opposed to lust and mischief, will not help a man with love-spells, or
with malevolent 'sendings' of disease by witchcraft; will not favour one
man above his neighbour, or one tribe above its rivals,