CHAPTER V. RELIGIOUS FEELING IN LOWER MAN. AN essential preliminary to a consideration of the question whether the lower animals possess what is entitled to be called or recognised as religious feeling, is a study of what is called the 'religious instinct' in man; but not in man of high or the highest religious culture. We must study the religious instinct in its lowest, not its highest manifestations, in its crude, not cultivated state; in 1. The lower or savage races of man a. The absence of all religion. b. Rudimentary forms of religion— as well as in 2. The higher or civilised races; in- b. Idiots and the insane. d. Buddhists and other classes or races of atheists or pantheists. Nor are certain considerations, based upon the condition of religion in adults of the educated and moral classes of the most highly civilised nations of the West, altogether irrelevant. In the first place, missionaries and travellers in different parts of the world, and various writers on the natural history of man, tell us that there are, or were, certain savage races utterly devoid of any religious sentiment, sense, idea, worship, or observance. Thus the Rev. William Colenso, of Napier, New Zealand, says of the Maoris, when they were first visited by Europeans-a race with which I have myself come in contact in the course of many wanderings—' Religion, according to both the true and popular meaning of the word, they had none. Whatever religion may be defined to be-virtue as founded upon the reverence of God and expectation of future rewards and punishments, or any system of Divine faith and worship—they knew nothing of the kind. They had neither doctrine nor dogma, neither cultus nor system of worship. They knew not of any Being who could properly be called God. They had no idols. They reverenced not the sun, nor moon, nor glittering heavenly host, nor any natural phenomena.' Mr. Colenso happens to be not only a missionary but also a naturalist. As a missionary his bias would probably lead him to discover some germ of religion in this and every other savage race, did such a germ really exist; but as a naturalist he feels bound to represent facts simply as he finds them. His opinion as regards the New Zealanders is confirmed by a writer of a different kind— Edward Shortland-who thus writes of them: The great fact observable from a consideration of their traditions is that the people had no idea of a Supreme Being, the Creator of all things in heaven and in earth.'2 Similar views are, or have been, held by some of the most eminent missionaries concerning the negative condition of religion in other savage races, and their testimony is of the highest importance in connection with the confident assertion so constantly being made in Exeter Hall that in all men the rudiments of religion, of a religious instinct, exist, and only require suitable cultivation and direction. The Rev. Dr. Moffatt, the veteran South African missionary, says of the Bushman (or Bosjesman), 'He knows no god; knows nothing of eternity.' In his address on South African missions in Westminster Abbey, in November 1875, he said of the Bechuanas when he first visited them, 'They had no idea of a God, and no notion of a hereafter. There was not an idol to be found in all their province,' and one being shown to a chief, an intelligent leader of the people, it excited his Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,' vol. i. 1868, p. 385. 2 Ibid. p. 329. Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa,' 13th edition, p. 15. liveliest astonishment. one worshipping a thing he had made with his own hands.' But, on the other hand, a printed book was regarded as the white man's charm.' Dr. Moffatt's distinguished son-in-law, Dr. Livingstone, thus refers to the Makondé natives of the Rovuma district:-They know nothing of a deity; they pray to their mothers when in distress; they know nothing of a future state, nor have they any religion except a belief in medicine. . . . They blame witches for disease and death. They fear the English.' The Rev. Dr. Nixon, Bishop of Tasmania, was obliged to desist from all attempts at conversion, because the poverty of their language and conceptions rendered every higher religious idea impossible to them'-the aborigines of Tasmania. Dr. George Smith, formerly editor of the Friend of India,' endeavouring to claim for the Andaman Islanders a capacity for being influenced by Christian teaching,' is forced, with obvious unwillingness, to admit that such a capacity has been so lamentably wanting in the Nicobarese to the south, whom ... . . . the Jesuits and Moravians successively attempted to influence in vain.' Regarding certain savage tribes of the Albert Nyanza region of Central Africa, Baker reports that the head of the Austrian mission acknowledged. . . . that the mission was absolutely useless among such savages that the natives were utterly impracticable' as to religious impressions of any kind. Baker himself found that the obtuseness of the savages was such that I never could make them understand the existence of good principle. Their one idea was power-force that could obtain all, the strong hand that could wrest from the weak.' These experiences and opinions of missionaries are abundantly confirmed by the concurrent evidence of travellers, naturalists, sportsmen, and merchants, all intimately acquainted with the habits both of thought and action of the savage races among whom they dwelt, or with whom they became for the time associated. Of the natives of Dahomey Lieutenant Ellis thus expresses himself in one of the leading religious publications of this country :-They have no idea Daily News,' December 1, 1875. ... of God. . . . They believe also in no future state of rewards or punishments proportionate to their behaviour on earth, which belief has always been found to be the germ of civilisation. . . . Christianity has made scarcely any progress.' Of one of the jungle Veddas of Ceylon Hartshorne tells us, He had no idea of a soul, of a Supreme Being, nor of a future state. He thought there was no existence after death. He was conscious of no difference between himself and the wild beasts which roamed through the forest.' As a whole they appear to be almost devoid of any sentiment of religion, except in so far as may be inferred from their offering a sacrifice to the spirit of one of their fellows immediately after his decease.' The author of one of the most recent and comprehensive works on Ceylon, an officer late of the Ceylon Rifles,' says of these Veddas, They know nothing of heaven or hell, or any kind of future existence.' Nevertheless, so far from being savage, they are mild and inoffensive. . . . Missionaries would be much better and more usefully employed at home in reclaiming the worse than wild beasts in human shape among ourselves. Veddas do not exhibit any of the brutal, drunken ruffianism of the civilised savages who infest our towns, bite people's noses off, or kick their wives to death, and (these Veddas) are by far the most civilised of the two.' This contrast between the native character of the so-called savage, who has not yet been subjected to the influences-too frequently contaminating and deteriorating-of civilisation, and the behaviour of whole classes of men and women in cities that superabound in churches and in clergymen, has frequently been made by the most competent authorities, and cannot be made too frequently or too strongly. Of the negro of Angola Monteiro remarks, 'He has no idea of a Creator, nor of a future existence. Neither does he adore the sun, nor any other object, idol or image. His whole belief is in evil spirits and in charms or fetiches.' Kamrasi's people, near the Nyanza Lake, although far superior to the tribes on the north of the Nile in general intelligence, had no idea of a Supreme Being, nor any object 1 'Religious Rites in Dahomey,' Sunday Magazine, vol. for 1876, p. 550. of worship, their faith resting upon a simple belief in magic, like that of the natives of Madi and Obbo. Although without an idea of a Supreme Being, the whole country bowed down to sorcery . . utterly devoid of a belief in a deity and without a vestige of superstition,' says Baker. After recounting a long conversation with a certain chief, the object of which was to bring out any glimmer of a religious sense, Sir Samuel is obliged to confess, 'In this wild, naked savage there was not even a superstition upon which to found a religious feeling. There was a belief in matter, and to his understanding everything was material. It was extraordinary to find so much clearness of perception. combined with such complete obtuseness to anything ideal.' Baker had, in fact, to give up the religious argument as a failure.' 1 Of the Andaman Islanders, Dr. Mouat says, "They have no conception of a Supreme Being. They have never risen from the effects they see around them even to the most imperfect notion of a Cause. They have never ascended in thought from the works to a Creator, or even to many creators that is to say, polytheism." Lieutenant Low, of H.M. Indian Navy, similarly remarks of them, "They do not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, and perform no religious ceremony of any sort.' Again, according to the evidence of the French castaway Narcisse Pellier, who lived seventeen years among them, the blacks of Night Island, on the N.E. coast of Queensland (Australia), 'have no knowledge of any Superior Being and no form of religion of any kind whatever.' Indeed, the Australian has no words to express the ideas of God, religion, righteousness, sin;' and 'there are numerous examples of savage nations . . . . who have no words in their language to express such ideas' (Büchner). In short, Lubbock points out how ample and varied is the evidence that goes to show that there are races of men altogether devoid of religion,' and that the question as to Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders,' 1863, p. 303. 2 The Land of the Sun: Sketches of Travel,' 1870, p. 168. |