[Footnote 12: Authorities and examples are collected in the author's Cock
Lane and Common Sense.]
[Footnote 13: Proceedings, xii. 7, 8.]
[Footnote 14: Personal Narrative, by M. Zoller. Hanke, Zurich, 1863.]
[Footnote 15: Daumer, Reich des Wundersamen, Regensburg, 1872, pp. 265, 266.]
[Footnote 16: A criticism of modern explanations of the phenomena here touched upon will be found in Appendix B.]
[Footnote 17: See Appendix B.]
IX
EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD
To the anthropological philosopher 'a plain man' would naturally put the question: 'Having got your idea of spirit or soul—your theory of Animism—out of the idea of ghosts, and having got your idea of ghosts out of dreams and visions, how do you get at the Idea of God?' Now by 'God' the proverbial 'plain man' of controversy means a primal eternal Being, author of all things, the father and friend of man, the invisible, omniscient guardian of morality.
The usual though not invariable reply of the anthropologist might be given in the words of Mr. Im Thurn, author of a most interesting work on the Indians of British Guiana: