command, I think that sufficient has been produced
to furnish ample grounds for the belief, that the old Israelites of the
time of Samuel entertained theological conceptions which were on a level
with those current among the more civilised of the Polynesian islanders,
though their ethical code may possibly, in some respects, have been more
advanced. [24]

A theological system of essentially similar character, exhibiting the
same fundamental conceptions respecting the continued existence
and incessant interference in human affairs of disembodied spirits,
prevails, or formerly prevailed, among the whole of the inhabitants
of the Polynesian and Melanesian islands, and among the people of
Australia, notwithstanding the wide differences in physical character
and in grade of civilisation which obtain among them. And the same
proposition is true of the people who inhabit the riverain shores of the
Pacific Ocean whether Dyaks, Malays, Indo-Chinese, Chinese, Japanese,
the wild tribes of America, or the highly civilised old Mexicans and
Peruvians. It is no less true of the Mongolic nomads of Northern Asia,
of the Asiatic Aryans and of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and it holds
good among the Dravidians of the Dekhan and the negro tribes of Africa.
No tribe of savages which has yet been discovered, has been conclusively
proved to have so poor a theological equipment as to be devoid of a
belief in ghosts, and in the utility of some form of witchcraft, in
influencing those ghosts. And there is no nation, modern or ancient,
which, even at this moment, has wholly given up the belief; and in which
it has not, at one time or other, played a great part in practical life.

This _sciotheism,_ [25] as it might be called, is found, in several
degrees of complexity, in rough correspondence with the stages of social
organisation, and, like these, separated by no sudden breaks.

In its simplest condition, such as may be met with among the Australian
savages, theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers, and
disposition (usually malignant) of ghostlike entities who may be
propitiated or scared away; but no cult can properly be said to exist.
And, in this stage, theology is wholly independent of ethics. The moral
code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction from the
theological dogmas, and the influence of the spirits is supposed to be
exerted out of mere caprice or malice.

As a next stage, the fundamental fear of gh