t advantage over that of Von Hartmann,
that it makes the development of religion continuous from the first,
instead of representing it as being originally a purely selfish
thing, into which the character of affection and devotion only
entered at some subsequent stage. If man's nature is essentially
religious, then all that constitutes religion must have been with him
from the first, in however unconscious and undeveloped form.

[Footnote 6: _Philosophy of Religion_, vol. iii. chap. i.]

Conclusion.--We have enumerated the different kinds of gods
worshipped by early man--fetishes, spirits, the powers of nature. We
have found a general agreement that fetishism is not an original form
of religion, but a product of the decay of higher forms in
unfavourable conditions. As to the other two kinds of deities, it is
impossible to deny that gods have been formed from the very first in
each of these two ways. The domestic worship of the early world
cannot be derived from nature-worship, but grew out of the belief
awakened in early man, by the familiar experiences mentioned above.
That the greater nature-worship, on the other hand, can be derived
from the belief in spirits is an assertion which can never be proved,
or even made probable; that it arose from the impressions produced on
early man by the great objects and forces of nature, is a thing we
can understand and believe. The minor nature-worship is also a very
intelligible thing, even without Mr. Tylor's theory of souls to
explain it. What more natural than that the savage should worship the
great oak or the waterfall, or should think himself surrounded by
invisible beings, even if he did not frame the latter on the model of
the human soul? We arrive therefore at the conclusion that with the
exception of the doctrines about death and the abode of spirits, we
must regard the worship of nature as the root of the world's
religion.

We must beware, however, of imputing to the thoughts of early men
about their gods, any such qualities as consistency or regularity.
The power of holding at one and the same time religious beliefs which
are inconsistent with each other, is one which even in the most
developed religions is by no means wanting; and how much more was
this the case among men who lived before there was any exact thought!
The savage could have a variety of gods of very different natures,
who formed in his mind quite a happy family. When he found a new god,
that did not