for the purpose of explaining the growth and the development of
religion, it was natural that the conception which had proved so
valuable in the one case should be applied without modification to the
other--as natural as that the first railway coach should be built on the
model of the stagecoach. The possibility that the theory of evolution
might itself evolve, and in evolving change, was one that was not, and
at that time could hardly be, present to the minds of those who were
extending the theory and in the process of extending it were developing
it. Yet the possibility was there, implicit in the very conception of
evolution, which involves continuous change--change in continuity and
continuity in change.

Any and every attempt to trace the evolution of religion seems at first
necessarily to involve the assumption that from the beginning religion
was there to be evolved. That was the position assumed by Robertson
Smith in _The Religion of the Semites_, which appeared in 1889. At that
date the aborigines of Australia were supposed to represent the human
race in its lowest and its earliest stage of development. In them,
therefore, if anywhere, we might expect to find what would be religion
in its lowest and earliest stage indeed but still religion. Reduced to
its lowest terms, religion, it was felt at first, must imply at least
belief in a god and communion with him. If, therefore, religion was to
be found amongst the representatives of the lowest and earliest stage in
the evolution of humanity, belief in a god and communion with him must
there be found. He who seeks finds. Robertson Smith found amongst the
Australians totem-gods and sacramental rites. Indeed, it was at that
time the belief universally held by students of the science of religion
that in Australia a totem was a god and a god might be a totem. It was
conjectured by Robertson Smith that in Australia the totem animal or
plant was eaten sacramentally. Since, then, the totem in Australia was