METHODIST

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

JANUARY, 1875.

ART. I.-RELIGIOUS IDEAS AMONG BARBAROUS

TRIBES.

THE primitive religious sentiments of the human mind may be discussed as a fact, without reference to their genesis. We may inquire into the prevalence of these sentiments among mankind in different ages and countries, and in different stages of intellectual development; and may endeavor to ascertain the strength of the religious principle, and its efficiency in regulating the conduct of mankind. If we find religious notions possessing a general distribution among tribes of men who could not have received them through any other cominon channel than a common nature; if we find them playing the part of instincts and primitive beliefs; if we find them uniform in nature, and ineradicable under adverse conditions, we shall find in the facts of history and anthropology important corroborations of a conclusion which, we think, may be deductively reached, that the elementary theistic ideas of which we find ourselves in possession are either direct primitive intuitions, or simple spontaneous deductions from primitive judgments.*

* The doctrine of direct intuition-inspiration, faith, feeling-as the source of all religious phenomena, has been maintained by Jacobi, Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Mansel, and, probably, Hamilton. The doctrine of deductive development is maintained by Cocker, ("Christianity and Greek Philosophy,") and many others. M'Cosh says: "Our conviction of God is not a single instinct incapable of analysis, but is the proper issue of a number of simple principles, all tending to one point." ("Intuitions of the Mind, " p. 377.) The writer inclines more and FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXVII.—1

In searching among barbarous tribes for the presence of primitive religious notions, we must not expect to find them identical, or even similar, in their manifestations. If the principle be present which prompts to action of the religious class, it is the religious principle. To the enlightened conscience of Christianity these actions may be extremely incorrect; but we must recognize the nature of the underlying principle. The conclusions of two scientific men upon a debatable question may stand diametrically opposed to each other-like the conclusions of Locke and Hamilton in reference to intuitive ideas. -and we may feel sure that only one conclusion is correct; yet both conclusions, the erroneous not less than the correct, may demonstrate the existence of a thinking faculty.

We must not be surprised to find religious notions, in some extreme cases, unrecognizable or wholly undeveloped. If these notions have to undergo an evolution, however simple, it is conceivable that human condition may somewhere sink so low that the simplest evolution has not yet been completed. If it be proper to regard them as primitive intuitions, it is still to be remembered that the adult human mind may possibly retain, somewhere, a condition of such infantile weakness as not to have come yet into the conscious possession of all its intuitive notions and judgments. In determining what is a law of mind we eliminate certain abnormal cases and conditions-the insane, those wanting in any faculty, and those who are idiotic either from congenital defect or tribal degradation. We shall not deny the universality of the religious nature if an occasional idiot show no signs of its possession, or an occasional tribe, sunken to the level of idiocy, betray no religious consciousness.

I. PREHISTORIC PEOPLES.

We do not raise here the question whether the primeval condition of man was one of savagism, because every one will admit that the prehistoric tribes which have come within the scope of modern investigation may have been far removed, at

more to the opinion that the deepest feeling of God is directly intuitional. Upon this supervenes, at an early stage of intellectual development, the deductive judgment. Note how such an opinion grows out of the discussion on which we arę entering.

least for the greater part, from the epoch of the first advent of

our race.

It would be a circumstance of almost crucial significance, in the present inquiry, if, among the relics of prehistoric peoples, we could discover some evidence on which all might agree, in reference to their religious instincts and practices. Sir John Lubbock and Professor Carl Vogt are inclined to deny the religious meaning of any of the vestiges of prehistoric men which have yet been found in Europe. On the contrary, Quatrefages, the Duke of Argyll, Figuier, and other eminent archæologists, fully believe that the Bronze Age, and even the Stone Age, have furnished us with some vestiges which require a religious interpretation.

The oldest indications are from burial customs. In the earliest period of human residence in Europe-known as the CaveBear epoch-it was the custom of men to deposit their dead in caves. Single caves were made the tombs of numbers of the deceased. The cavern of Aurignac, in France, contained seventeen human skeletons, by the sides of which lay various implements of stone and reindeer's horn, and a large number of articles of ornament. The mouth of the cavern was closed with an immense slab of limestone. In front of this was a broad terrace which had been employed as a hearth, apparently for roasting the flesh of various animals, whose bones were thickly strewn around. Mingled with the bones were numerous implements of flint-including not less than a hundred flint knives. These and other similar circumstances have been regarded, apparently with good reason, as indicating a belief in future existence, prevailing in the remotest epoch of prehistoric times. The implements and trinkets buried with the dead were votive offerings, like the beads and hatchets of the American Indian, and the wreaths and immortelles of our own Christian burial. The funeral feast was offered in honor

* Lubbock: "Prehistoric Times," London, 1865; "Origin of Civilization, and Primitive Condition of Man." Yet Lubbock puts a religious interpretation upon Stonehenge, as we shall see. Vogt: "Lectures on Prehistoric Man."

+ Quatrefages: Rapport sur le Progrès de l'Anthropologie, 1868. Duke of Argyll: "Primeval Man," New York, 1869. Figuier: "Primitive Man," New York, 1870.

Compare E. B. Taylor on "Traces of the Early Mental Condition of Man," Proceedings of the Royal Institute, London, ("Smithsonian Report," 1867, p. 396,) and Lyell, "Antiquity of Man," p. 192.

of the dead, as is still the custom with the Chinese and other eastern nations. These observances imply a belief that the dead have not passed beyond the bounds of life, and consciousness, and sympathy. "The weapons and trophies, the ornaments and joints of meat, placed by the side of the defunct, does not all this seem to establish the fact that a belief in future life existed at an extraordinarily remote epoch? What could have been the use of these provisions for traveling, and these instruments of war, if the man who had disappeared from this world was not to live again in another? The great and supreme truths, that the whole being of man does not die with his material body, is, therefore, innate in the human heart, since it is met with in the most remote ages, and even existed in the mental consciousness of the man of the Stone Age." *

In the Polished Stone Age, immediately following, man seems to have abandoned caverns as places of burial, and to have practiced the construction of what may be styled artificial caverns. These consist of immense slabs of stone resting upon vertical stone slabs or piers, in such a way as to inclose extensive passages or rooms, which could serve as a last resting-place for the dead. These rude constructions are known as dolmens; and many of them, if not all, were originally covered by tumuli, or mounds of earth. Many of these dolmens were surrounded by vast circuits of rude stone posts, called menhirs. Within are found the skeletons of individuals, and often, apparently, of whole families, placed in a sitting posture, with weapons of war, trinkets, ornaments and clothing, associated with the bones of animals employed for food, and the cinders and ashes, which attest the ceremony of the funeral feast. All these circumstances constitute, as before, the basis of a conviction that the Stone Folk cherished a belief in future existence.t

Descending to the Bronze Epoch, we discover, in addition to burial rites, some intimations of a prompting to worship.

Figuier: "P
"Primeval Man," p. 68.

On the sitting posture in burial, see Lubbock, "Prehistoric Times,” pp. 94– 102, etc.; Morton, Crania Americana, p. 244; Wilson, "Smithsonian Report," 1862, p. 292.

On the care of the dead as evidence of a belief in future existence, see Hériot, "Travels through Canada," p. 357; Herder, "Philosophy of History," vol. i, p. 457, English edition.