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of information have religious conceptions, but that the belief in a Supreme Being is very widely spread among

them.

The travels of Baker, Barth, Cameron, Grant, Speke, and Stanley have not contributed greatly to our knowledge of the religions of the peoples they visited. Their not seeing in certain cases traces of religion, may perhaps be some slight evidence that what is called fetichism is not prevalent in districts which they traversed.

Sir Samuel Baker says of the Dinkas, Shilluks, Nuehrs, and other White Nile tribes, that "they are without a belief in a Supreme Being, neither have they any form of worship or idolatry, nor is the darkness of their minds enlightened by even a ray of superstition." But as Mr Tylor ('Primitive Culture,' vol. i. pp. 423, 424) has pointed out, the religions of these very tribes have been described by Kaufmann, Brun-Rollet, Lejean, and other travellers. All the evidence which Sir Samuel produces for the atheism of the Latukas is a conversation with the chief Commoro regarding the future life and the resurrection. See 'Albert N'Yanza,' vol. i. pp. 246250. The impression which the report of the conversation leaves on my mind is, that Commoro was not frankly stating his own views, but trying to ascertain those of his interrogator. Even if this were not the case, however, his disbelief of a future life was obviously a conclusion arrived at through considerable reflection. When Sir Samuel made a mistaken application of St Paul's metaphor of the grain of wheat, Commoro detected the fallacy at once. Sir Samuel was, in consequence, obliged to "give up the religious argument as a failure;" but instead of inferring that here was a Latuka Hume or Bradlaugh, whose very scepticism plainly implied

religious thought, he concluded that "in this wild, naked savage" ("one of the most clever and common - sense savages that I had seen in these countries," says he elsewhere), "there was not even a superstition upon which to found a religious feeling."

Probably the best work on the Hottentots, Bushmen, and Kaffirs is G. Fritsch's 'Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas,' 1872. Canon Callaway's account of the religion of the Kaffirs is well known; also Casalis' work on the Bassutos. The sketches of the religion of the Hottentots by Prichard in his 'Natural History of Man' and 'Researches' are very much superior to most of the later accounts. The celebrated missionary Robert Moffat affirms that the Bechuanas, Kaffirs, &c., have no religion; yet in chapters xv. and xvi. of his 'Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa' he supplies a considerable amount of evidence to the contrary.

NOTE XXX., page 275.

ALLEGED ATHEISM OF ESQUIMAUX.

Probably the best account of the religion of the Esquimaux will be found in the introduction to Dr H. Rink's Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,'-see pp. 35-64. According to it, few traces of ideas as to the origin and early history of the world and the supreme powers are discoverable among them. They believe, however, that the whole visible world is ruled by powers or "owners," each of which is an inua—a person or soul.

They divide it into an upper and under world, and suppose the latter to be the best, because it is warm and rich in food. Its inhabitants are called the arsissuti.e., those who live in abundance. Souls which go to the upper world are imagined to suffer from cold and hunger. They are called the assartut-i.e., ball-players; and the aurora borealis is ascribed to their being engaged in their favourite occupation. The supreme ruler dwells with the happy deceased in the under world, and makes the subordinate rulers helping spirits, or tornat, to the angakut. A secondary deity, represented as a female, is credited with sending forth all animals needed for food. Witchcraft is distinguished from the power of the angakut, and, being deemed selfish and evil, is punished. The Esquimaux have prayers, invocations, spells, amulets, and a priesthood. Religious belief is the chief connecting-link between their scattered tribes.

NOTE XXXI., page 279.

SIR J. LUBBOCK'S MISCELLANEOUS INSTANCES OF

ATHEISTICAL PEOPLES.

Dobrizhoffer's work was originally published in Latin at Vienna in 1784, but there is an English translation of it by Sara Coleridge-'An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay,' 3 vols., 1822.

That the Hottentots, as Kolben reports, not only worshipped the moon, but believed in a higher deity, is distinctly testified to by G. Schmidt, Ziegenbalg, Kolb,

and other missionaries. of their chief religious conceptions from the Hottentots. Thus the Kaffir Unkulunkulu has originated in the Hottentot Heitsi-eibib, or moon-god-a fact which renders very doubtful the conjecture of Mr Spencer and others, that the former is to be regarded as merely a deified ancestor. Among the names by which the Kaffirs express their highest and most general apprehension of divinity -Utixo (the inflicter of pain), Umdali (the shaper or former), and Umenzi (the creator)—the first has been adopted from the Hottentots.

The Kaffirs have derived some

Colonel Dalton's account of the Khasias will be found in pp. 54-58 of the work already mentioned, and Colonel Yule's Note on the Khasia Hills and people in No. 152 of the Asiatic Society's Journal (1844). Hooker's account (vol. ii. pp. 273-277) is drawn mainly from the information of Mr Inglis, and quite agrees with that in Yule's Note. His words as to the religion of the Khasias are certainly curious, but Sir John Lubbock's use of them is much more so. The words are,-"The Khasias are superstitious, but have no religion; like the Lepchas, they believe in a Supreme Being, and in deities of the grove, cave, and stream.”

NOTE XXXII., page 289.

POLYTHEISM.

The author at one time hoped to devote two lectures to polytheism, and to the theories which have been promulgated regarding its origin, nature, and evolution, but

he has found it necessary to leave these subjects undiscussed, at least for the present. Had the limits of this work allowed of their consideration, he would have endeavoured to show that the view of the character and conditions of theistic proof given in the third lecture of 'Theism' affords the only foundation for a true and comprehensive theory of the natural development of religion. In the last volume of his 'Philosophy of History' he will have an opportunity of examining whether the hypotheses as to henotheism, animism, fetichism, spiritism, the succession of the simpler phases of religion, &c., as held by Max Müller, Mr Spencer, Mr Tylor, Sir John Lubbock, and others, are psychologically well founded and historically justified or not.

NOTE XXXIII., page 333.

PESSIMISM.

Mr Sully's 'Pessimism' (1877) is the ablest workwhether regarded as a history or a criticism-which has yet been written on the subject of which it treats. It is especially rich in excellent psychological observations and suggestions. In the lecture I have felt constrained strongly to express dissent from Mr Sully on one important point, but I cordially rejoice that there is in our language such a work to which the student of pessimism can be referred.

As to the history of pessimism, besides Mr Sully's first eight chapters, Huber's 'Pessimismus' and Gass's 'Optimismus und Pessimismus' may be consulted.

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