this way, mainly to examination of
the religion of some of the very lowest races, and of the highest
world-religions, such as Judaism. The historical aspect of Christianity,
as arising in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, would demand
a separate treatise. This would, in part, be concerned with the attempts
to find in the narratives concerning our Lord, a large admixture of the
mythology and ritual connected with the sacrificed _Rex Nemorensis_, and
whatever else survives in peasant folk-lore of spring and harvest.[4]

After these apologies for the limitations of this essay, we may survey the
backward track. We began by showing that savages may stumble, and have
stumbled, on theories not inconsistent with science, but not till
recently discovered by science. The electric origin of the Aurora Borealis
(whether absolutely certain or not) was an example; another was the
efficacy of 'suggestion,' especially for curative purposes. It was,
therefore, hinted that, if savages blundered (if you please) into a belief
in God and the Soul, however obscurely envisaged, these beliefs were not
therefore necessarily and essentially false. We then stated our purpose of
examining the alleged supernormal phenomena, savage or civilised, which,
on Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, help to originate the conception of 'spirits.'
We defended the nature of our evidence, as before anthropologists, by
showing that, for the savage belief in the supernormal phenomena, we have
exactly the kind of evidence on which all anthropological science reposes.
The relative weakness of that evidence, our need of more and better
evidence, we would be the very last to deny, indeed it is part of our
case. Our existing evidence will hardly support any theory of religion.
Anyone who is in doubt on that head has only to read M. Reville's 'Les
Religions des Peuples Non-Civilises,' under the heads 'Melanesiens,'
'Mincopies,' 'Les Australiens' (ii. 116-143), when he will observe that
this eminent French authority is ignorant of the facts about these races
here produced. In 1883 they had not come within his ken. Such minute and
careful inquiries by men closely intimate with the peoples concerned, as
Dr. Codrington's, Mr. Hewitt's, Mr. Man's, and the authorities compiled by
Mr. Brough Smyth, were unfamiliar to M. Reville, Thus, in turn, new facts,
or facts unknown to us, may upset my theory. This peril is of the essence
of scientific theorising on the history of religion