t is
very possible, however, that Mr. Tylor has arguments more powerful than
those contained in his paper of 1892. For our information is not yet
adequate to a scientific theory of the Origin of Religion, and probably
never will be. Behind the races whom we must regard as "nearest the
beginning" are their unknown ancestors from a dateless past, men as
human as ourselves, but men concerning whose psychical, mental and moral
condition we can only form conjectures. Among them religion arose, in
circumstances of which we are necessarily ignorant. Thus I only venture
on a surmise as to the germ of a faith in a Maker (if I am not to say
"Creator") and Judge of men. But, as to whether the higher religious
belief, or the lower mythical stories came first, we are at least
certain that the Christian conception of God, given pure, was presently
entangled, by the popular fancy of Europe, in new Marchen about the
Deity, the Madonna, her Son, and the Apostles. Here, beyond possibility
of denial, pure belief came first, fanciful legend was attached after.
I am inclined to surmise that this has always been the case, and, in the
pages on the legend of Zeus, I show the processes of degeneration, of
mythical accretions on a faith in a Heaven-God, in action. That "the
feeling of religious devotion" attests "high faculties" in early man
(such as are often denied to men who "cannot count up to seven"), and
that "the same high mental faculties... would infallibly lead him,
as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various
strange superstitions and customs," was the belief of Mr. Darwin.(2)
That is also my view, and I note that the lowest savages are not yet
guilty of the very worst practices, "sacrifice of human beings to a
blood-loving God," and ordeals by poison and fire, to which Mr. Darwin
alludes. "The improvement of our science" has freed us from misdeeds
which are unknown to the Andamanese or the Australians. Thus there was,
as regards these points in morals, degeneracy from savagery as society
advanced, and I believe that there was also degeneration in religion.
To say this is not to hint at a theory of supernatural revelation to the
earliest men, a theory which I must, in limine disclaim.

(1) Tylor, "Limits of Savage Religion." Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, vol. xxi.

(2) Descent of Man, p. 68, 1871.

In vol. ii. p. 19 occurs a reference, in a note, to Mr. Hartland's
criticism of my ideas about