...

the evolution of Ecclesiastical Institutions, . . . we must know whence came the ideas and sentiments implied by them '; and he proceeds to ask, 'Are these innate, or are they derived?' (p. 671). We had supposed that the vexed question of innate ideas belonged to a former generation; but Mr. Spencer raises it again in a form involving what Sir William Hamilton calls 'the crude and very erroneous doctrine of innate ideas which Locke took the trouble to refute.'1 He cites the case of uninstructed deaf-mutes, and some reported instances of savages devoid of religious conceptions, and proceeds immediately to this astounding conclusion: Clearly, then, religious ideas have not that supernatural origin commonly alleged ; and we are taught, by implication, that they have a natural origin' (p. 673).

It appears, then, that Mr. Spencer is unable to conceive of any supernatural origin for religion, except that implied in the crude doctrine of innate ideas which he unnecessarily combats. His instances, if they prove anything, merely prove that certain human beings do not possess the fully developed conception of a Supreme Being as the Creator and Ruler of the universe. We are not aware that anyone seriously disputes this. Many persons, it is true, are of opinion that no race or tribe of men are wholly without religious ideas, at least of an elementary kind. And Mr. Spencer's examples cannot be said to disprove this. For example, in support of his contention that among various savages 'the religious ideas of civilized men' do not exist, he writes :

'Still more definite evidence is afforded by a people of considerable intelligence, the Zulus, as shown by Mr. Gardiner's questioning of one.

"Have you any knowledge of the power by whom the world was made? When you see the sun rising and setting, and the trees growing, do you know who made them and who governs them?" "Tpai (after a little pause, apparently deep in thought): No; we see them, but cannot tell how they come; we suppose that they come of themselves (p. 672).

666

But the next question and answer, which Mr. Spencer does not quote, were as follows:

"To whom, then, do you attribute your success or failure in war?"

1 Reid's Works, p. 782 b.

2 Certainly, Professor Max Müller, to whom Mr. Spencer alludes in this connexion, would not dispute it. His view may be gathered from the Lectures on the Science of Language, ii. pp. 478 sqq. 490, &c., and Lectures on the Science of Religion, Lect. iv.

"Tpai: When we are unsuccessful, and do not take cattle, we think that our father has not looked upon us.

And the rest of the dialogue is to the effect that, though the Zulus do not think the spirits of their forefathers made the world, they believe that such a spirit 'looks upon them' when they go to war. This seems to show, then, not that the Zulus are without religion, but that they have that particular form of religion which Mr. Spencer regards as the foundation of all others.2

But this is not all. It has been pointed out by more than one writer that reports of travellers who have failed to elicit from individual savages any avowal of belief in a God are to be received with much caution. We cannot rely upon them unless we are sure that the person who gives the evidence knew the language thoroughly, and had also cultivated such friendly relations with the natives as to have got at their real opinions. And it happens that this very dialogue is quoted by Professor Max Müller as an example of an untrustworthy report. Out of numerous statements which he takes from Bishop Callaway to show the true character of the religious ideas of the Zulus, we may cite the following account given by 'a very old woman when examined by one of her own countrymen':

4

'When we speak of the origin of corn, asking, “Whence came this?" the old people said, "It came from the Creator, who created all things; but we do not know him." When we asked continually, "Where is the Creator? for our chiefs we see," the old men denied, saying, "And those chiefs, too, whom we see, they were created by the Creator." And when we asked, "Where is he? for he is not visible at all; where is he then?" we heard our fathers pointing towards heaven and saying, "The Creator of all things is in heaven. And there is a nation of people there too." ' 6

Not only so; in an earlier part of his book Captain Gardiner himself writes of some other Zulus :

:

'From the conversation which I have had with the prisoners during the periods of halting, it appears that they have always had

1 Narrative of a Journey to the Zoolu Country in 1835, p. 283.

2 The Zulus are frequently referred to by Mr. Spencer himself as worshipping their ancestors. Cf. Eccles. Inst. p. 678, and Princ. of Sociology, passim.

3 We gather that Captain Gardiner made use of an interpreter. Cf. Narrative, pp. 27, 163.

4 Cf. Tylor's Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. on the Science of Religion (1882), pp. 42, 43; 5 Loc. cit. p. 43.

378; Max Müller's Lectures

cf. pp. 185, 186.

Ibid. p. 184.

some indistinct idea of a Supreme Being. Nonha's 1 words in reply to some inquiries on this point were these: "We always believed that there was an Incosi-pezula" (a great chief above), "who before there was a world came down and made it; he made men," ' &c.2

The reader will judge for himself how far the fragment of dialogue quoted by Mr. Spencer conveys a fair impression of the state of the case.

We turn to the evidence adduced in proof of the theory of ancestor-worship. No one, of course, disputes that this is an extremely common form of religion amongst various tribes throughout the world. The points to be proved are, that it is the only primitive form, and that it is sufficient to account for all other religions. Mr. Spencer calls special attention to the religious conceptions of the ancient Egyptians, and we will, therefore, take this case for consideration. After a summary of what he considers to be the evidence on the subject he adds the following note:

'It is strange how impervious to evidence the mind becomes when once prepossessed. One would have thought that such an accumulation of proofs, congruous with the proofs yielded by multitudinous other societies, would have convinced everyone that the Egyptian religion was a developed ancestor-worship. But such proofs appear to have no effects in the minds of the theologians and the mythologists. Though the ancient Egyptian tradition is that "the land of Punt was the original seat of the gods," whence "the holy ones had travelled to the Nile valley, at their head Amon, Horus, Hathor"; though there is also the tradition that "during the first age a Dynasty of the Gods reigned in the land; this was followed by the age of the Demigods, and the Dynasty of the mysterious Manes closed the prehistoric time"; though these traditions are congruous with that deification of kings, priests, minor potentates, and, in a sense, even ordinary persons, which Egyptian history at large shows us; yet all this evidence is disregarded from the desire to ascribe a primitive monotheism or a primitive nature-worship. For these the sole authorities are statements made by the later Egyptian priests or contained in certain of the inscriptions-statements, written or spoken, which were necessarily preceded by a long period during which the art of recording did not exist, and a further long period of culture—statements which naturally embodied relatively advanced conceptions. It would be about as wise to deny that the primitive Hebrew worship was that prescribed in Leviticus because such worship is denounced by Amos and by Hosea. It would be about as wise to take the conception of Zeus entertained by Socrates as disproving the gross

1 A Zulu woman of rank.

2 Narrative, &c. p. 152. It should be observed that Mr. Spencer cites Professor Max Müller's book, as well as Captain Gardiner's, amongst his authorities.

anthropomorphism of the primitive Greeks. It would be about as wise to instance some refined modern version of Christianity, like that of Maurice, as showing what mediaval Christians believed.'1

We may remark in passing that we are glad, for once, to be able to claim Mr. Spencer as an ally in the cause of oldfashioned orthodoxy. We are pleased to find that he does not agree with the rationalistic critics whom he usually quotes, in referring the Book of Leviticus to a late period of Jewish history. But we were not aware that the worship prescribed in that Book was denounced by Amos and Hosea.

With regard to the Egyptian religion, the first importance must obviously be assigned to the opinions of those who have specially studied the subject. Now we believe that no single Egyptologist has considered the Egyptian religion to be a development of ancestor-worship, or has noticed any examples of the practice except in the case of deceased kings who were regarded as divine in their lifetime. One of Mr. Spencer's principal authorities is M. Renouf, to whose Hibbert Lectures he is indebted for many of his quotations. But this is what M. Renouf says:—

There is no confirmation of Mr. Herbert Spencer's hypothesis that the rudimentary form of all religion is the propitiation of dead ancestors. If the Egyptians passed through such a rudimentary form of religion they had already got beyond it in the age of the Pyramids, for their most ancient propitiation of ancestors is made through prayer to Anubis, Osiris, or some other gods. The deceased is already described in the funereal inscription as "faithful to the great God." And in no case can it be proved that the propitiation of departed ancestors preceded a belief in divinity of some other kind.' 2

The Book of the Dead is of extreme antiquity; many chapters are thought to date from a period anterior to the Egyptian monarchy. We find in this, along with mention of the gods, some purely monotheistic expressions, such as 'I have not despised God in my heart, or to His face, or in matters concerning Him.'3 And M. Renouf remarks that 'throughout the whole range of Egyptian literature no facts appear to be more certainly proved than these: (1) that the doctrine of one God and that of many gods were taught by the same men; (2) that no inconsistency between the two doctrines was thought of.' 4 Mr. Poole thinks that Egyptian monotheism did not involve the idea of a Personal God, but it would 1 Pp. 693, 694. 2 Hibbert Lectures, 2nd edit. p. 127.

3 See the famous Negative Confession in the 125th chapter.

4 Hibbert Lectures, p. 92.

5 Ancient Egypt in its Comparative Relations (Lectures at the Royal Institution); Contemporary Review, June 1881, p. 811.

appear at least that the polytheistic deities which were recognized along with this doctrine were regarded as different manifestations of one Power ruling the universe.

So far back, then, as we can definitely trace the Egyptian doctrines we find no confirmation of Mr. Spencer's views, but the reverse. If it should be replied that Mr. Spencer invites us to look beyond the age even of the extremely early documents which we possess, we may remark that in that case we abandon the ground of proof for that of conjecture. Mr. Spencer, however, suggests that we find certain traditions and practices which are evidently survivals from a primitive worship of ancestral spirits.

He mentions, for instance, a tradition that the gods formerly reigned in Egypt. This tradition is now generally understood to be purely cyclical in its character; that is to say, it was not the form in which a dim remembrance of actual former kings came down to later ages, but was itself of later origin, and was the invention of men who looked backwards to the beginnings of authentic history, and strove to people the blank astronomical cycles beyond with imaginary personages and names. The regnal years assigned to these supposed royal gods were supplied from calculations based upon the cycle of the risings of the Dog Star.1

The deification of kings is, however, referred to. And there can be no doubt that the ruling sovereign of Egypt was regarded as divine. He was considered to be the living image and vicegerent of the Sun-God.'2 But it should be observed (1) that in the form in which the deification of the king presents itself, the existence of a Deity is already presupposed, the king being regarded as deriving his divine authority from the Sun-God, Ra; (2) that there is not the slightest proof that this was due to the king's ancestors having been deified. The example of the apotheosis of the Roman emperors at once disposes of the idea that the two things are necessarily connected. There can be no pretence that their deification was due to their supposed descent from divine tribal ancestors.3 Hence it is in no way improbable that the deification of the Egyptian rulers was due to a recognition in an extreme form of the divine authority of the civil power,

1 So Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt, pp. 33, 34 (from which pages Mr. Spencer appears to have taken his quotation); cf. Mr. R. S. Poole, Contemporary Review, June 1881, p. 811. Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, p. 161. Wiedemann, Ägypt. Gesch. (2nd edit.), 1884, p. 160.

2

Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, p. 161.

3 Cf. Dr. Westcott's essay on The Two Empires, the Church and the World, appended to The Epistles of S. John, pp. 257, 258.