Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/233

Rh or a privilege, or a charm, or a preservative against evil, or an engine of evil against others, it matters little as to whether it be rendered to God, or spirit, or goblin, or devil, because, whatever the worship is rendered to, the worshiper honestly feels he is in the presence of one whose power is needed to aid him in his life or work, and without whose help he can not be successful.

The chief contestant of universal religiousness has been, and is. Sir John Lubbock, although the force of circumstances has driven him of late to change his mode of presenting his contest. In the earlier editions of his Prehistoric Times he claims that "almost all the most savage races" are "entirely without a religion," "without idea of deity," and that the "almost universal testimony of travelers" supports this assertion. In his fifth edition (1890) he still claims that "almost all the savage races" are "entirely without a religion, without idea of deity," but he proceeds to define what religion is not. It is not "a mere fear of the unknown," it is not "a more or less vague belief in witchcraft," it is something "higher" than all this; and if this "higher estimate" of religion be adopted then his original assertion remains true, that "many, if not all, of the most savage races" are "entirely without a religion, without any idea of a deity." The object of this definition of the word religion is plain. Between the years 1869 and 1890 evidence as to the religiousness of savage tribes kept pouring in from all quarters of the world; the list of unbelieving savages made public by Sir John Lubbock in 1869 was seriously interfered with, and the position taken by Waitz, that "the religious element, so far from being absent from uncultured peoples, influences their whole conception of Nature," was powerfully substantiated. Then Sir John Lubbock repairs his damaged argument, Working with the implements of the most bigoted member of an old-fashioned missionary society. He defines religion as something spiritually "higher" than the belief of a Hottentot or Eskimo, and then repeats his assertion of 1869 that "all of the most savage races are entirely without" such "a religion."

Sir John Lubbock's method (pursued consistently through all editions) of adducing evidence in favor of his assertion as to the non-religiousness of savage tribes is palpably unreliable, as far as he professes to give the full intention of the authors quoted. Bates, Caillie, Ross, and others certainly say all that Sir John Lubbock quotes, but they say much more; and what is left unquoted often throws a totally different light on each quotation. He quotes Caillie as follows: "I tried to discover whether the Foulahs (of Wassoula, in central Africa) had any religion of their own; whether they worshiped fetiches, or the sun, moon, or stars; but I could never perceive any religious ceremony