the most striking affinity with one another. China and
Egypt have some doctrines in common which are also found in the
religion of the Incas; the Aryan and the Semitic religions know them
too. Should these doctrines be found in the religion of savages, it
will at least be a question whether the great religions all alike
borrowed and developed them from that source, or whether any other
explanation of the case can be found. Evidently we cannot make any
progress with our subject till we have taken a general view of this
religion of savages and come to some conclusions regarding it.

A few words must be said, by way of preface to this subject, on the
mental habits of early races. We cannot hope to understand the
thoughts of those people without knowing how they came to have such
thoughts, how they were accustomed to think. Now of the savage we may
say that he is just like a child who has not yet learned to think
correctly, or to know things truly. He is making all kinds of
experiments in thought, and being led into all sorts of errors and
confusion; and if the child takes years, the savage may take
millenniums, to get free from these. He does not know the difference
between one thing and another, between himself and the lower animals,
or between an animal and a water-spout. He does not know how far
things are away from him, nor what makes them move and act as they
do; why, for example, the sun and moon go round the sky, or why the
wind blows. He cannot tell why things have this or that peculiar
appearance; why, for example, the rabbit has no tail, why the sky is
red in the morning, why some stones are like men. And he wants to
know all these things, and is for ever asking questions. But almost
any answer will do for him, the first explanation that turns up is
accepted; and while a child finds out pretty soon if he has been told
wrong, the savage is so ignorant that he cannot see the absurdest
explanation to be false, but sticks to it seriously and goes on using
it. There is no consistency in the contents of his mind, and
inconsistency does not distress him. He has no classes and orders of
things, but considers each thing by itself as it occurs, without
putting it in its place with reference to other things. He has no
idea of what is possible and what is impossible; these words in fact
would have no meaning for him, since he is not aware of any laws by
which events are governed. His imagination, accordingly, is not under
a