gical theory of religion as
expounded by Mr. Tylor. We then collected from his work a series of
alleged supernormal phenomena in savage belief, all making for the
foundation of animistic religion. Through several chapters we pursued the
study of these phenomena, choosing savage instances, and setting beside
them civilised testimony to facts of experience. Our conclusion was that
such civilised experiences, if they occurred, as they are universally said
to do, among savages, would help to originate, and would very strongly
support the savage doctrine of souls, the base of religion in the theory
of English anthropologists. But apart from the savage doctrine of
'spirits' (whether they exist or not), the evidence points to the
existence of human faculties not allowed for in the current systems of
materialism.

We next turned from the subject of supernormal experiences to the admitted
facts about early religion. Granting the belief in souls and ghosts and
spirits, however attained, how was the idea of a Supreme Being to be
evolved out of that belief? We showed that, taking the creed as found in
the lowest races, the processes put forward by anthropologists could
not account for its evolution. The facts would not fit into, but
contradicted, the anthropological theory. The necessary social conditions
postulated were not found in places where the belief is found. Nay, the
necessary social conditions for the evolution even of ancestor-worship
were confessedly not found where the supposed ultimate result of
ancestor-worship, the belief in a Supreme Being, flourished abundantly.

Again, the belief in a Supreme Being, _ex hypothesi_ the latest in
evolution, therefore the most potent, was often shelved and half
forgotten, or neglected, or ridiculed, where the belief in Animism (_ex
hypothesi_ the earlier) was in full vigour. We demonstrated by facts that
Anthropology had simplified her task by ignoring that essential feature,
_the prevalent alliance of ethics with religion_, in the creed of the
lowest and least developed races. Here, happily, we have not only the
evidence of an earnest animist, Mr. Im Thurn, on our side, but that of a
distinguished Semitic scholar, the late Mr. Robertson Smith. 'We see that
even in its rudest forms Religion was a moral force, the powers that man
reveres were on the side of social order and moral law; and the fear of
the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of society, which were also the
laws of m