the question, like the "very respectable Kaffir" before they answered
it.

Having reached the idea of a Creator, it was not difficult to add that
he was "good," or beneficent, and was deathless.

A notion of a good powerful Maker, not subject to death because
necessarily prior to Death (who only invaded the world late), seems
easier of attainment than the notion of Spirit which, ex hypothesi,
demands much delicate psychological study and hard thought. The idea of
a Good Maker, once reached, becomes, perhaps, the germ of future theism,
but, as Mr. Darwin says, the human mind was "infallibly led to various
strange superstitions". As St. Paul says, in perfect agreement with Mr.
Darwin on this point, "they became vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish heart was darkened".

Among other imaginations (right or wrong) was the belief in spirits,
with all that followed in the way of instituting sacrifices, even of
human beings, and of dropping morality, about which the ghost of a
deceased medicine-man was not likely to be much interested. The supposed
nearness to man, and the venal and partial character of worshipped gods
and ghost-gods, would inevitably win for them more service and attention
than would be paid to a Maker remote, unbought and impartial. Hence the
conception of such a Being would tend to obsolescence, as we see that it
does, and would be most obscured where ghosts were most propitiated, as
among the Zulus. Later philosophy would attach the spiritual conception
to the revived or newly discovered idea of the supreme God.

In all this speculation there is nothing mystical; no supernatural or
supernormal interference is postulated. Supernormal experiences may have
helped to originate or support the belief in spirits, that, however, is
another question. But this hypothesis of the origin of belief in a good
unceasing Maker of things is, of course, confessedly a conjecture, for
which historical evidence cannot be given, in the nature of the
case. All our attempts to discover origins far behind history must be
conjectural. Their value must be estimated by the extent to which
this or that hypothesis colligates the facts. Now our hypothesis does
colligate the facts. It shows how belief in a moral supreme being might
arise before ghosts were worshipped, and it accounts for the flaw in the
religious strata, for the mythical accretions, for the otiose Creator in
the background of many barbaric religions, and for t