While offering no hypothesis of the origin of belief in a moral creator we may present a suggestion. Mr. Darwin says about early man: "The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetichi**, polytheism and ultimately monotheism, would infallibly lead him, so long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and customs". Now, accepting Mr. Darwin's theory that early man had "high mental faculties," the conception of a Maker of things does not seem beyond his grasp. Man himself made plenty of things, and could probably conceive of a being who made the world and the objects in it. "Certainly there must be some Being who made all these things. He must be very good too," said an Eskimo to a missionary. The goodness is inferred by the Eskimo from his own contentment with "the things which are made".
Another example of barbaric man "seeking after God" may be adduced.
What the Greenlander said is corroborated by what a Kaffir said.
Kaffir religion is mainly animistic, ancestral spirits receive food and sacrifice--there is but an evanescent tradition of a "Lord in Heaven". Thus a very respectable Kaffir said to M. Arbrousset, "your tidings (Christianity) are what I want; and I was seeking before I knew you. . . . I asked myself sorrowful questions. 'Who has touched the stars with his hands? . . . Who makes the waters flow? . . . Who can have given earth the wisdom and power to produce corn?' Then I buried my face in my hands.""This," says Sir John Lubbock, "was, however, an exceptional case.
As a general rule savages do not set themselves to think out such questions."
As a common fact, if savages never ask the question, at all events, somehow, they have the answer ready made. "Mangarrah, or Baiame, Puluga, or Dendid, or Ahone, or Ahonawilona, or Atahocan, or Taaroa, or Tui Laga, was the maker." Therefore savages who know that leave the question alone, or add mythical accretions. But their ancestors must have asked the question, like the "very respectable Kaffir" before they answered it.
Having reached the idea of a Creator, it was not difficult to add that he was "good," or beneficent, and was deathless.
A notion of a good powerful Maker, not subject to death because necessarily prior to Death (who only invaded the world late), seems easier of attainment than the notion of Spirit which, ex hypothesi, demands much delicate psychological study and hard thought. The idea of a Good Maker, once reached, becomes, perhaps, the germ of future theism, but, as Mr. Darwin says, the human mind was "infallibly led to various strange superstitions". As St. Paul says, in perfect agreement with Mr. Darwin on this point, "they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened".
Among other imaginations (right or wrong) was the belief in spirits, with all that followed in the way of instituting sacrifices, even of human beings, and of dropping morality, about which the ghost of a deceased medicine-man was not likely to be much interested. The supposed nearness to man, and the venal and partial character of worshipped gods and ghost-gods, would inevitably win for them more service and attention than would be paid to a Maker remote, unbought and impartial. Hence the conception of such a Being would tend to obsolescence, as we see that it does, and would be most obscured where ghosts were most propitiated, as among the Zulus. Later philosophy would attach the spiritual conception to the revived or newly discovered idea of the supreme God.
In all this speculation there is nothing mystical; no supernatural or supernormal interference is postulated. Supernormal experiences may have helped to originate or support the belief in spirits, that, however, is another question. But this hypothesis of the origin of belief in a good unceasing Maker of things is, of course, confessedly a conjecture, for which historical evidence cannot be given, in the nature of the case. All our attempts to discover origins far behind history must be conjectural. Their value must be estimated by the extent to which this or that hypothesis colligates the facts. Now our hypothesis does colligate the facts.
It shows how belief in a moral supreme being might arise before ghosts were worshipped, and it accounts for the flaw in the religious strata, for the mythical accretions, for the otiose Creator in the background of many barbaric religions, and for the almost universal absence of sacrifice to the God relatively supreme. He was, from his earliest conception, in no need of gifts from men.
On this matter of otiose supreme gods, Professor Menzies writes, "It is very common to find in savage beliefs a vague far-off god, who is at the back of all the others, takes little part in the management of things, and receives little worship. But it is impossible to judge what that being was at an earlier time; he may have been a nature god, or a spirit who has by degrees grown faint, and come to occupy this position."Now the position which he occupies is usually, if not universally, that of the Creator. He could not arrive at this rank by "becoming faint," nor could "a nature-god" be the Maker of Nature. The only way by which we can discover "what that being was at an earlier time" is to see what he IS at an earlier time, that is to say, what the conception of him is, among men in an earlier state of culture.