Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/33

Rh the youth from the sky, prompt to punish," and so on (Howitt, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xiii., p. 192). "I could not do that, He would be very angry" (same place). "The All-seeing Spirit saw," and so on (Mrs. Langloh Parker, More Legendary Tales, p. 84). In this case, it is Baiame's messenger who is all-seeing, and tells all to him, who, therefore, knows all. That the Beings observe human conduct, Mr. Hartland, perhaps, will admit, whether Pundjel does so from a stellar observatory or not. "Creator"—of that point I give evidence in a future page. "Judge"—as to that, Mr. Howitt's evidence seems sufficient; more will be offered as we advance. Thus, of my rhetoric, "eternal" is overstrained. When, in my rhetorical mood, I used the term "Omniscient," I did not mean that Baiame, for instance, was supposed to know the inner verity about the Röntgen rays, or even to know the future. I was thinking of him, or Daramulun, in relation to his knowledge of human conduct: in fact, as Mr. Hartland says, I was "rhetorical." Of the other ideas, I may say that the attributes of the Beings, as given by me, seem precisely such as we, when children, could entertain as a result of Christian teaching. Mr. Tylor, we shall see, is so much impressed by all this, that he regards Christian teaching as their source, a question to which I shall return. Meanwhile, if Mr. Tylor (who is not on my side here) regards these beliefs as of Christian origin, I may surely state them in the Christian terms which I "rhetorically" use, after offering that explanation of my rhetoric which I ought to have given before.

Well, even on my present statement, perhaps Mr. Hartland will think that the belief (as qualified above) in "a moral, eternal, omniscient Creator and Judge" is "antecedently improbable." The tribes cannot count up to seven; how then could they evolve such ideas? This raises that interesting and important question, Of what are "the high mental faculties of early man" (as Mr. Darwin says)