nibals_, p. 283.

[21] _Ibid._, p. 283.

"I verily believe we have arrived at the sum total of their religion, if
a superstitious dread of the unknown can be so designated. Their mental
capacity does not admit of their grasping the higher truths of pure
religion," says Eden.[22] It is simply an inherent fear of the unknown;
the natural, inborn caution of thousands of years of inherited
experiences.

[22] Eden: _The Fifth Continent_, p. 69; quoted also by Lumholtz:
_Among Cannibals_.

In these savages we see a race whose psychical status is so low in the
intellectual scale that they have not evolved any idea of the double or
soul. The mental capacity of the Australians, I take it, is no lower
than was that of any race (no matter how intellectual it may be at the
present time) at one period of its history. All races have a tendency
toward psychical development under favorable surroundings; it has been a
progress instead of a decadence, a rise instead of a fall! Evolution has
not ceased; nor will it end until _Finis_ is written at the bottom of
Time's last page.

There are yet other people who believe in the supernatural, yet who have
no idea of immortality. When Gregory ascended the glacier of Mount
Kenya, the water froze in the cooking-pots which had been filled over
night. His carriers were terribly alarmed by the phenomenon, and swore
that the water was bewitched! The explorer scolded them for their
silliness and bade them set the pots on the fire, which, having been
done, "the men sat round and anxiously watched; when it melted they
joyfully told me that the demon was expelled, and I told them they could
now use the water; but as soon as my back was turned they poured it
away, and refilled their pots from the adjoining brook."[23]

[23] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 170.

Stanley declares that no traces of religious feeling can be found in the
Wahuma. "They believe most thoroughly in the existence of an evil
influence in the form of a man, who exists in uninhabited places, as a
wooded, darksome gorge, or large extent of reedy brake, but that he can
be propitiated by gifts; therefore the lucky hunter leaves a portion of
the meat, which he tosses, however, as he would to a dog, or he places
an egg, or a small banana, or a kid-skin, at the door of the miniature
dwelling, which is always at the entrance to the zeriba."[24]

[24] Stanley: _In Darkest Africa_, vol. ii, p. 400.

Thi