Suppose a religious reformer were to arise in one of the many savage tribes who, as we shall show, possess, but neglect, an Eternal Creator.  He would do what, in the secular sphere, was done by the Mikado of Japan.  The Mikado was a political Dendid or Ndengei—­an awful, withdrawn, impotent potentate.  Power was wielded by the Tycoon.  A Mikado of genius asserted himself; hence arose modern Japan.  In the same way, a religious reformer like Khuen Ahten in Egypt would preach down minor gods, ghosts and sacred beasts, and proclaim the primal Maker, Ndengei, Dendid, Mtanga.  ‘The king shall hae his ain again.’  Had it not been for the Prophets, Israel, by the time that Greece and Rome knew Israel, would have been worshipping a horde of little gods, and even beasts and ghosts, while the Eternal would have become a mere name—­perhaps, like Ndengei and Atahocan and Unkulunkulu, a jest.  The Old Testament is the story of the prolonged effort to keep Jehovah in His supreme place.  To make and to succeed in that effort was the differentia, of Israel.  Other peoples, even the lowest, had, as we prove, the germinal conception of a God—­assuredly not demonstrated to be derived from the ghost theory, logically in no need of the ghost theory, everywhere explicitly contrasted with the ghost theory.  ‘But their foolish heart was darkened.’

It is impossible to prove, historically, which of the two main elements in belief—­the idea of an Eternal Being or Beings, or the idea of surviving ghosts—­came first into the minds of men.  The idea of primeval Eternal Beings, as understood by savages, does not depend on, or require, the ghost theory.  But, as we almost always find ghosts and a Supreme Being together, where we find either, among the lowest savages, we have no historical ground for asserting that either is prior to the other.  Where we have no evidence to the belief in the Maker, we must not conclude that no such belief exists.  Our knowledge is confused and scanty; often it is derived from men who do not know the native language, or the native sacred language, or have not been trusted with what the savage treasures as his secret.  Moreover, if anywhere ghosts are found without gods, it is an inference from the argument that an idea familiar to very low savage tribes, like the Australians, and falling more and more into the background elsewhere, though still extant and traceable, might, in certain cases, be lost and forgotten altogether.

To take an example of half-forgotten deity.  Mr. Im Thurn, a good observer, has written on ‘The Animism of the Indians of British Guiana.’  Mr. Im Thurn justly says:  ’The man who above all others has made this study possible is Mr. Tylor.’  But it is not unfair to remark that Mr. Im Thurn naturally sees most distinctly that which Mr. Tylor has taught him to see—­namely, Animism.  He has also been persuaded, by Mr. Dorman, that the Great Spirit of North American tribes is ’almost certainly nothing more than a figure of European origin, reflected and transmitted almost beyond recognition on the mirror of the Indian mind,’ That is not my opinion:  I conceive that the Red Indians had their native Eternal, like the Australians, Fijians, Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, and so forth, as will be shown later.