istic theory is not
necessary as material for the "god-idea". We cannot, of course, prove
that the "god-idea" was historically prior to the "ghost-idea," for we
know no savages who have a god and yet are ignorant of ghosts. But we
can show that the idea of God may exist, in germ, without explicitly
involving the idea of spirit. Thus gods MAY be prior in evolution to
ghosts, and therefore the animistic theory of the origin of gods in
ghosts need not necessarily be accepted.

In the first place, the original evolution of a god out of a ghost
need not be conceded, because in perhaps all known savage theological
philosophy the God, the Maker and Master, is regarded as a being
who existed before death entered the world. Everywhere, practically
speaking, death is looked on as a comparatively late intruder. He came
not only after God was active, but after men and beasts had populated
the world. Scores of myths accounting for this invasion of death have
been collected all over the world.(1) Thus the relatively supreme being,
or beings, of religion are looked on as prior to Death, therefore, not
as ghosts. They are sometimes expressly distinguished as "original
gods" from other gods who are secondary, being souls of chiefs. Thus all
Tongan gods are Atua, but all Atua are not "original gods".(2) The word
Atua, according to Mr. White, is "A-tu-a". "A" was the name given to the
author of the universe, and signifies: "Am the unlimited in power," "The
Conception," "the Leader," "the Beyond All". "Tua" means "Beyond that
which is most distant," "Behind all matter," and "Behind every action".
Clearly these conceptions are not more mythical (indeed A does not seem
to occur in the myths), nor are they more involved in ghosts, than the
unknown absolute of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Yet the word Atua denotes gods
who are recognised as ghosts of chiefs, no less than it denotes the
supreme existence.(3) These ideas are the metaphysical theology of a
race considerably above the lowest level. They lend no assistance to a
theory that A was, or was evolved out of, a human ghost, and he is not
found in Maori MYTHOLOGY as far as our knowledge goes. But, among the
lowest known savages, the Australians, we read that "the Creator was
a gigantic black, once on earth, now among the stars". This is in
Gippsland; the deities of the Fuegians and the Blackfoot Indians are
also Beings, anthropomorphic, unborn and undying, like Mangarrah, the
creative being of the