Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/328

314 Space permitting I might add evidence furnished by Sir Alfred Lyall, who, in his valuable papers published in the "Fortnightly Review" years ago on religion in India, has given the results of observations made there. Writing to me from the North-West provinces under date August 1, in reference to the controversy between Mr. Harrison and myself, he incloses copies of a letter and accompanying memorandum from the magistrate of Gorakhpur, in verification of the doctrine that ghost-worship is the "chief source and origin" of religion. Kot, indeed, that I should hope by additional evidence to convince Mr. Harrison. When I point to the high authority of Dr. Tylor as on the side of the ghost-theory, Mr. Harrison says—"If Dr. Tylor has finally adopted it, I am sorry." And now I suppose that when I cite these further high authorities on the same side, he will simply say again "I am sorry," and continue to believe as before.

In respect of the fetichism distinguishable as nature-worship, Mr. Harrison relies much on the Chinese. He says:—

The case of China is decisive. There we have a religion of vast antiquity and extent, perfectly clear and well ascertained. It rests entirely on worship of Heaven, and Earth, and objects of Nature, regarded as organized beings, and not as the abode of human spirits.

Had I sought for a case of "a religion of vast antiquity and extent, perfectly clear and well ascertained," which illustrates origin from the ghost-theory, I should have chosen that of China; where the State religion continues down to the present day to be an elaborate ancestor worship, where each man's chief thought in life is to secure the due making of sacrifices to his ghost after death, and where the failure of a first wife to bear a son who shall make these sacrifices, is held a legitimate reason for taking a second. But Mr. Harrison would, I suppose, say that I had selected facts to fit my hypothesis. I therefore give him, instead, the testimony of a bystander. Count D'Alviella has published a brochure concerning these questions on which Mr. Harrison and I disagree. In it he says on page 15:—

La thèse de M. Harrison, au contraire,—que l'homme aurait commencé par l'adoration d'objets matériels "franchement regardés comme tels,"—nous paraît absolument contraire au raisonnement et à l'observation. Il cite, à titre d'exemple, l'antique religion de la Chine, "entièrement basée sur la vénération de la Terre, du Ciel et des Ancêtres, considérés objectivement et non comme la résidence d'êtres immatériels." [This sentence is from Mr. Harrison's first article, not from his second.] C'est là jouer de malheur, car, sans même insister sur ce quo peuvent être des Ancêtres "considérés objectivement," il se trouve précisément que la religion de l'ancien empire Chinois est le type le plus parfait de l'animisme organisé et quelle regarde même les objets matériels, dont elle fait ses dieux, comme la manifestation inséparable, l'enveloppe ou même le corps d'esprits invisibles. [Here in a note Count D'Alviella refers to authorities,