iendly hint that he would do well to get off
without delay. He expressed surprise, as the people seemed very fond of
him. That, it was explained, was the cause of the trouble. They thought
so much of him they intended to kill him, and thus retain so excellent a
man with them for ever.

When Tylor wrote, the prevalent impression was that this killing of
human beings was due to a desire to appease the spirits of the place.
Later investigation showed that instead of a sacrifice it was a
creation. The purpose was to create a local god who would watch over the
building or settlement. God-making was thus shown to be a universal
practice.

Our next step must be taken in the company of Sir James Frazer. On
all-fours with the practice of creating a guardian deity for a building
is that of making a similar guardian for crops and vegetation. The
details of this practice are interesting, but they need not now detain
us. It is enough that the practice existed, and, as Frazer shows, was an
annual practice. Year by year the god was killed in order that the seed
might ripen and the harvest be secured. In some cases the body was cut
up and pieces buried in the fields; in other cases it was burned and the
ashes scattered over the ground. Gradually the ritual becomes more
elaborate, but the central idea remains intact that of a human being
converted into a god by being killed, a man sacrificed for the benefit
of the tribe. In the light of these researches the New Testament story
becomes only a more recent version of a widespread savage superstition.
The time of the sacrifice, the symbolism, the practices all prove this.
The crucified Saviour, in honour of whom all the Christian cathedrals
and churches of the world are built, is only another late survival of
the god-making practice of primitive savagery.

The gods are, then, ultimately deified ghosts. They are born of
misinterpreted subjective and objective experiences. This is among the
surest and most firmly established results of modern investigation. It
matters not what modifications later knowledge may demand; it will only
mean a change of form, not of substance. On any scientific theory we are
bound to explain the origin of the gods in terms of human error. And no
subsequent development can alter its character. We may trace the various
stages of a universal delusion, but nothing can convert a delusion into
a reality. It is now universally recognised that the primitive notions
of g