of creation, nor do they use prayers; they have no religious forms, ceremonies or worship. They do not believe in the existence of a Deity, nor is their morality in any way connected with their religion, if it can be so called."

But the subsequent patient investigation of missionaries has shown these statements to be wholly unreliable. Thus, Mr. Tylor in a work on Primitive Culture, quotes the Rev. W. Ridley, to the effect that whenever he has conversed with the aborigines, he found them to have quite definite traditions concerning supernatural beings, as Baime whose voice they hear in thunder and who made all things."

Another missionary (Stanbridge) is quoted as asserting that, so far from the Australians having no religion, they declare that Jupiter, whom they call "Fount of Day," "(Chinabong Beary) was a chief among the old spirits, that ancient race who were translated to heaven before man came on earth." (25-1-378). In relation to other savage tribes Mr. Tyler says: "The statement that the Samoan Islanders had no religion cannot stand in the face of the elaborate description by the Rev. G. Turner of the Samoan religion itself, and the assertion that the Tapinombas of Brazil had no religion is not to be received without some more positive proof, for the religious doctrines and practices of the Tapir race have been recorded by Lery, DeLaet and

It is now discovered that fetichism in Africa is something very distinct from the real religion of the Negro. "There is ample evidence to show that the same tribes who are represented as fetish worshipers, believe either in Gods, or in a supreme good God, the creator of the world, and that they possess in their dialects particular names for him." (41-103-4). So the Kaffirs and the Congo races (who are distinct from the negro), are represented as having well defined languages, and religious ideas of great sublimity. (Id-66).

Quatrefages, in chapter 34 of his very interesting work entitled, "The Human Species" (published 1880), conclusively shows from the latest researches, that there is no human race yet found destitute of some kind of religious belief in a Deity, or in a life after physical death. And he ascribes much of the misrepresentations on the subject to the high opinion which the European traveller has of himself, and his intolerance of beliefs differing from his own. He says:

"A traveller who as a general rule speaks the language of the country very badly, interrogates a few individuals upon the delicate question of the Deity, future life, &c., and his interlocutors not understanding, make a few signs of doubt or denial, which have no reference to the question asked. The European in his turn mistakes the meaning. Having in the first instance merely regarded them as beings of the lowest type, incapable of any conception however trifling, he con

no idea, either of a God, or of another life." (p. 473).

In reference to faith in a personal Deity, the scientific mind has departed from former land marks to a greater extent in this than in any former period; and from its minuteness of research and subtlety of reasoning, has presented grounds for scepticism not easily overcome. It is gratifying, therefore, to find some evidence that the tide of unbelief is beginning to ebb, in the following conclusion arrived at by Prof. Wm. B. Carpenter: "As a physiologist, I most fully recognize the fact that the physical force exerted by the body of man is not generated de novo by his will, but is derived from the oxidation of the constituents of his food, holding equally certain, because the fact is capable of verification by every one as often as he chooses to make the experiment, that on the performance of every volitional movement, physical force is put, directed by the individualities or ego. I deem it just as absurd and illogical to affirm that there is no place for God in nature, originating, directing and controlling its forces by his will, as it would be to assert that there is no place in man's body for his conscious soul.” (1-vi-625).

CHAPTER X.

The order of Creation, from the lowest form to Man.

The order of the creation of animal life upon the earth has almost uniformly been from rudimentary and imperfect forms, in regular succession, to those which have been more and more perfect-perhaps it would be more correct to say -from generalized to specialized types.

There are indeed cases, or supposed cases of retrograde metamorphism, in which some animals at birth show resemblances to a somewhat higher grade than at its adult state; but these (alluded to hereafter) do not essentially conflict with the general rule.

We do not precisely know what was the elementary appearance of the sun; but we know enough reasonably to infer that it was an immense nebula of fire, which by rapid motion has thrown off successively the planets. In what way the planets were thrown off is of course matter of speculation; but we may suppose them to have

being of irregular shape, broke up and ran together into globes. That such was the case receives confirmation in the facts that their axial and orbital motions are alike in direction. The earth gradually cooling and condensing, became finally fit for the reception of life; and what is true of the earth, we have every reason to believe is the case with all the planets of this, and of every other solar system.

The history of creation, as written in the rocks, gives us the successive order of the introduction of all such animals as are capable of being fossilized. This history commences in the Laurentian, a formation of immense thickness underlying the Cambrian, and shows a progress of life from the lowest to the highest forms.

According to Principal Dawson the lowest known fossilized evidence of life is the Eozoon Canadense, discovered by him in the Lower Laurentian (Canada), and so named by him from its possible connection with the dawn of life (27-23). It could thus be preserved, for the reason that it was able to cover its gelatinous body with a thick crust of carbonate of lime. But the very dawn of animal life must have been manifested long prior to the Eozoon, in the lowest of the Protozoa, which could not leave their impress upon the rocks. Probably the very first appearance of life was in the vegetable Diatomaca, still perpetuated at the bottom of the seas. The remains of this primitive vegetation, together with