New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-10-16

Lecturer
tavc, pp. $50. LCngmans Green Co.
Mr.. Lang makes a highly valuable ana. in the
pr, sent condition OF religious speculation, an
original point as to the origin Of religion But
in order to do this. he has unset much of his
earlier theory on the subject \ large part OF
the present book is found, when his final prspo-
sition is reached to be a discussion not of the
ideas that make. but Of those that unmake re-
ligion. lie has marked the chasm where specu-
lation usually falls Laundering into the depths,
and h. has really got bridge to firm ground.
Yet his bridge is not built with materials gath
cred by the Society OF Psychcal Research. nor
with those furnished by savage spirtualism.
He is Just rs much Of a believer in crystal
sllryinG and second sight as he ever was. but he
now comedies that tho truth Of these things has
nothing To do with the origin Of religion and
very little TO do with its evolution except in
making it what it ought never to have been
from the point Of view Of its origin. In short,
you can account for po!ytheism 10y means Of
belief in spirits, but you cannot account for
monothesm in that way, nor indeed. by any
other process Of derivation that has hitherto
been traced This is apparently the position
which Mr. Lang takes after reviewing various
theories The reader will suspect at first that
he is going 10 be brought up against the we'll
worn theory Of IN antique revelation, something
as To the Lord God walking with man in the
cool or the evening and telling him all about the
/ infinite. or as to that familiar legend of the
Talmud which lis how Abraham rediscovered
the true religion. But Mr.. Lang goes back Of AL
that There is somewhere in the English Bible
a definition Of God in four words. God IS
spirit" Now. the most meagrc knowiedS" Of
ctYm0iogy Convinccs one that This definition
must haV" been comparatively late product
Of thought for the original meaning % the word
spirit and Of the corresponding words in nearly
all languages relates to the breath and is pure
~ physical in its connotation How long il took
TO work out of this purely physical meaning an
other sense absolutely in opposition to physical
facts will never be guessed. But there was
manifestly time when such definition OF God
would not be understood. How could men who
yet had not arrived at psychical use or
word for breath know God describe Him
Mr. Lang does no, say that he knows how they
did it, Lut he appeals to the lowest modern saw
ages 10 show how they could have done it. lie
suppOSes for example that primeval man may
have been low in the scale Of Intelligence as
the black fellows Of Australia were when the
white man discovered them. Now, the Aus
tralian is or was, a difficult specimen for the
anthropologists. He had no rulers whom he was
trained to revere he showed little or no traces
Of ancestor worship. he had no poytheistc pan
thcon and he was fully practical and avcrse
TO philosophical speculation as the present gen
Grafton Of novel-rcadcrs in Europe and America.
Some people said that he had no religion at all.
But Mr. Lang insists that he had one. and that
IT was a good one. The Australian thought that
he had a Fathcr in Heaven who saW all things.
rewarding those people who did right ana pun
ishng those who did wrong.
The moral aspect of this simple Australian
creed is Of special import. 1t is customary 10
say that savage religions have nothing to do
with morals This is trrc in the case of ami
misf1 and ancestor Worship and fctichiSm. But
Mr. Lang insists that every investigator who
pcnctratcs beyond these so-callcd religions to
the real religion Of a savage people always
finds real religion and real morality intimately
associated with each other. 1t is confessedly
very hard to get at this central fact in the case
Of any savage tribe. The modern savagcs bury
il in their mysteries just the Greeks and
Egyptians did. They even conceal it more cf-
fcctivcIy by a growth of humorous and trivial
mythology i'm which this supreme one of their
Worship is subject to ridiculous transforma lions.
But tins is a universal trait. God and man have
ALWAYS laughed at each other That fact never
disturbs their neutral relations. for to carry out
the provcrb il is always God who laughs last,
laughing AT mans calamity and hooking when
his fear comcth To savage man this mutual
mcrrimcnt with which God and man greet "ach
other is all the more natural. be. rs they
look at the matter God and man were once on
precisely tho same plane. The Father and the
SONS We're alike immortal. Not all the legends
Of how death came into the world are as dgn-