This scene made an impression upon me which is not yet effaced.
It left no question on my mind of the sincerity of the strange
ghost theory of these savages, and of the influence which their
belief has on their practical life. I had it in my mind, as well
as many a like result of subsequent anthropological studies,
when, in 1869,<14> I wrote as follows:--


There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word,
but none without ghosts. And the Fetishism, Ancestor-worship,
Hero-worship, and Demonology of primitive savages are all, I
believe, different manners of expression of their belief in
ghosts, and of the anthropomorphic interpretation of out-of-the-
way events which is its concomitant. Witchcraft and sorcery are
the practical expressions of these beliefs; and they stand in
the same relation to religious worship as the simple
anthropomorphism of children or savages does to theology.


I do not quote myself with any intention of making a claim to
originality in putting forth this view; for I have since
discovered that the same conception is virtually contained in
the great "Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle" of Bossuet, now
more than two centuries old:--


Le culte des hommes morta faisoit presque tout le fond de
l'idolatrie; presque tous les hommes sacrificient aux manes,
c'est-a-dire aux ames des morts. De si anciennes erreurs nous
font voir a la verite combien etoit ancienne la croyance de