New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-08-28

years for every important modification OF
religious belief almost in the same way IL has
| looked 10 other well-dcfned regions for more
material products. In order 10 show tha'
| even the most degraded races of the present day
believe in ghosts, Mr.. Huxley relates from his
own experience anecdote which shows that
the natives OF Mount Ernest. an island in Torres
Strait. believe white men 10 be the reinc"r-
| mated spirits OF bacl, men. Now according 10
his own canons Of criticism this evidence Is OIL
no value for his purpose. lie VIII NOT allow
his opponents TO reject one part OF story anu
accept the rest Yet he here adduces az proof
OF the universality Of belief in spirits story
which could not have originated until after white
mon had visited the region. The blacks could
not conceive the transmigration Of their souls
into white men until they knew that there were
such creatures as white men. But In that case
what is 10 overcome the inference that they
imbbed the whole belief, metempsychosls an"
ALL from the whites 1t is not asserted mere 'iao
this inference is true. What is asserted Is thac
Mr.. Huxey's example has no value in his arSu-
ment.
So with the whole argument drawn from
Polynesian rites and ceremonies. MT. HuA'S
gets on swjmmingly with quotations thac prove
what no man well vcrsd in the SUBJECT was
likely to deny. His whole argument Is Vi'la'eu
by the tacit assumption Of the very point upo"
which the whole argument hangs frac'lcaiiS
he takes it for granted that the Poynesians have
always lived where they are now, that thelr
DEVELOPMENT has been wholly independent, and
consequently that the similarity of their beliefs
with those of the Hebrews is proof Of spon-
taneity He acknowledges, in fact; that ne
aimed at this result If, in order TO avoid all
chances of direct communication. says he, I'VE
direct our attention 70 the theology OF semi
civilized people, such the Polyncslan Islanders
separated by the greatest possible distance ana
by every conceivable barrier from the inhabitants
Of Palestine, we shall find not merely that all
the features of old Israelitc theology, which are
revealed in The records cited, are found among
them, but that eXtant information as to the
inner mind of these people tends to remove
MANY of the difficulties which those who have
not studied anthropology find In the Hebrew
narrative" Now, in order to make this argument
of value on the lines thus laid down, II IL
indispensable that proof, outrarldns mere con-
lecture, should he offered of the impossbilty OF
West Asiatic influence having ever affected the
polvnesians This requirement is the more I'm
pcrativc because there forms OF Thought, Tor
example. in the fancy about the cosmic egg. by
which the Pacific Islanders are related not merely
to the Hebrews, but to the Assyrians the early
Hindoos. the Egyptians and the Greeks. win
all these great races Of the mainland this
pcculinr fancy did not emerge until compare
lively high stage Of learning had been reached
II cannot be assumed without evidence TO have
been a phase of primitive belief The possession
Of il BY tho Polynesans Is distinct argument
for q closer connection than now exists between
these people and Asia. But there are stronger
proofs than any parallels in theogomy or cosmog-
omy could furnish. The Polynesan languages
arc .aid TO he branches Of the Malayan tree,
which has it's roots in and near the Asatc
mainland. Their occupation of the Islands
which they now inhabit is estimated TO he q
matter of less than two thousand years at the
utmost Upon the subject Of the Polynesah
migration Horatio Hale is, perhaps. as good
authority as any. At meeting of the Inter
national Congress Of Americanists in Berlin
in 1883 he read paper in which he
remarked 1T is established by unquestionablc
proof that the two wesiernmost clusters of Poly
nesia. the Samoan or Navigator Islands and the
Toncan or Friendly Islands, were the mother
rroup whence oil the eastern and southern islands
from Hawaii in the north to New-Zealand in the
South. and the Poumotus, the Gambler Group
and Easter Island in the far east have been pco-
pled The natives of these mother groups Samoa
and Tonga have themselves a tradition that
their first inhabitants came from an island IN the
far west called Burotu, which has been supposed
with much probability. to he the island OF Bouro
in the Fast Indian Archipelago. II is very I'M
likely that the event concentrated by this ira
dition can have occurred more than 5000
wears ago. Thus the best evidence ahaina-
BILE places the ancestors Of the Poynesians near,
il not Within the circle Of the very influences 70
which the Hebrews were subjected and that too
AT a time when those Influences were as potent
throughout Asia as afterwards those OF
Persia or the successors Of Alexander
II is not asserted here that Mr.. llae's state
ment of the case is irrcfrasable. 1t is not as
serted that Mr.. Huxley is wrong. But 1t Is
plain that if the Polyncsans were originally
emgrants from the Asiatic coast and If they
NAV even plausibly be supposed to have been
affected by Asiatic civilization, then any theory
which presupposes their independent development
Is practically broken at the outset. That is what
has happened to Mr.. Iiuxlcy's Hypothetical Evo-
luton of Theology" 1t limps because he has
failed to bring any evidence to show that the
remote causes of IIcbraic development and Poly
nesian development were not geographically,
socially and politically identical.