gists, about whose scanty show of proof we have complained, are conscientiously desirous that our evidence should be full and trustworthy. Now, according to Mr. Max Müller, the materials which we possess for the study of savage races "are often extremely untrustworthy" (India and what it can Teach us). This remark, or its equivalent, is constantly repeated, when any attempt is made to study the natural history of man. M. Reville, on the other hand, declares with truth that our evidence is chiefly embarrassing by the very wealth of documents. (Les religions des Peuples non Civilisés). We naturally side with M. Reville.
Consider for a moment what our evidence as to the life and ideas of savages is; our evidence, in the first place, from the lips of civilised eyewitnesses. It begins with the Bible, which is rich in accounts of early religious ideas, animal worship, stone worship, ritual, taboos on articles of food; marriage customs and the like. Then we have Herodotus, with his descriptions of savage manners, myths, and customs. Next come all the innumerable Greek and Roman geographers, and many of the historians and general writers, Aristotle, Strabo, Pliny, Plutarch, Ptolemy, and dozens of others. For the New World, for Asia, for Africa, we have the accounts of voyagers, merchants, missionaries, from the Arab travellers in the East to Marco Polo, to Sahagun, to Bernal Diaz, to Garcilasso de la Vega, to Hawkins, to all the Spanish travellers, and the Portuguese, to Hakluyt's men; we have the Jesuits, with their Relations Edifiantes; we have evangelists of every Christian church and sect; we have travellers of every grade of learning and ignorance, from shipwrecked beech-combers to Nordenskiöld and Moseley. Now from Leviticus to the Cruise of the Challenger, from Herodotus to Mariner, nay, from the Rig-Veda to Fison and Howitt, we possess a series of independent documents
