(2) Cranz, i. 199.
(3) Romans, i. 19.
Another example of barbaric man "seeking after God" may be adduced.
What the Greenlander said is corroborated by what a Kaffir said. Kaffir religion is mainly animistic, ancestral spirits receive food and sacrifice—there is but an evanescent tradition of a "Lord in Heaven". Thus a very respectable Kaffir said to M. Arbrousset, "your tidings (Christianity) are what I want; and I was seeking before I knew you.... I asked myself sorrowful questions. 'Who has touched the stars with his hands?... Who makes the waters flow?... Who can have given earth the wisdom and power to produce corn?' Then I buried my face in my hands."
"This," says Sir John Lubbock, "was, however, an exceptional case. As a general rule savages do not set themselves to think out such questions."(1)
(1) Origin of Civilisation, p. 201.
As a common fact, if savages never ask the question, at all events, somehow, they have the answer ready made. "Mangarrah, or Baiame, Puluga, or Dendid, or Ahone, or Ahonawilona, or Atahocan, or Taaroa, or Tui Laga, was the maker." Therefore savages who know that leave the question alone, or add mythical accretions. But their ancestors must have asked the question, like the "very respectable Kaffir" before they answered it.
Having reached the idea of a Creator, it was not difficult to add that he was "good," or beneficent, and was deathless.
A notion of a good powerful Maker, not subject to death because necessarily prior to Death (who only invaded the world late), seems easier of attainment than the notion of Spirit which, ex hypothesi, demands much delicate psychological study and hard thought. The idea of a Good Maker, once reached, becomes, perhaps, the germ of future theism, but, as Mr. Darwin says, the human mind was "infallibly led to various strange superstitions". As St. Paul says, in perfect agreement with Mr. Darwin on this point, "they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened".
Among other imaginations (right or wrong) was the belief in spirits, with all that followed in the way of instituting sacrifices, even of human beings, and of dropping morality, about which the ghost of a deceased medicine-man was not likely to be much interested. The supposed nearness to man, and the venal and partial character of worshipped gods and ghost-gods, would inevitably win for them more service and attention than would be paid to a Maker remote, unbought and impartial. Hence the conception of such a Being would tend to obsolescence, as we see that it does, and would be most obscured where ghosts were most propitiated, as among the Zulus. Later philosophy would attach the spiritual conception to the revived or newly discovered idea of the supreme God.