y day, serve to enforce the conclusion that life is
not limited to our transitory continuance here, but endures hereafter.
How often at night do we see the well-known forms of those who have been
dead a long time appearing before us with surprising vividness, and hear
their almost forgotten voices? These are admonitions full of the most
solemn suggestions, profoundly indicating to us that the dead still
continue to exist, and that what has happened to them must also happen
to us, and we too are destined for immortality. Perhaps involuntarily we
associate these conclusions with others, expecting that in a future life
good men will enjoy the society of good beings like themselves, the evil
being dismissed to the realms of darkness and despair. And, as human
experience teaches us that a final allotment can only be made by some
superior power, we expect that He who was our Creator shall also be our
Judge; that there is an appointed time and a bar at which the final
destination of all who have lived shall be ascertained, and eternal
justice measure out its punishments and rewards.

[Sidenote: Inducements to morality.] From these considerations there
arises an inducement for us to lead a virtuous life, abstaining from
wickedness and wrong; to set apart a body of men who may mediate for us,
and teach us by precept and example the course it is best for us to
pursue; to consecrate places, such as groves or temples, as the more
immediate habitations of the Deity to which we may resort.

Such are the leading doctrines of Natural Theology of primitive man both
in the old and new continent. They arise from the operations of the
human mind considering the fitness of things.

Just as we have in Comparative Anatomy the structure of different
animals examined, and their identities and differences set forth,
thereby establishing their true relations; just as we have in
Comparative Physiology the functions of one organic being compared with
those of another, to the end that we may therefrom deduce their proper
connexions, so, from the mythologies of various races of men, a
Comparative Theology may be constructed. [Sidenote: Course of
Comparative Theology.] Through such a science alone can correct
conclusions be arrived at respecting this, the most important of the
intellectual operations of man--the definite process of his religious
opinions. But it must be borne in mind that Comparative Theology
illustrates the result or effect of the