woven by the coincidence of evidence, direct and indirect, ancient and modern, of learned and unlearned men, of Catholics, Protestants, Pagans, and sceptics. What can be said against that evidence we have heard. We have examined the objections based on "the influence of public opinion on travellers," on "the absence of recognised authorities among savages," on the discrepancies of the authorities who are recognised, on the "unwillingness of savages to talk of their religion," and on the difficulty of understanding them when they do talk of it.
But after allowing for all these drawbacks (as every anthropologist worthy of the name will, in each case, allow), we have shown that there does remain a body of coincident evidence, of authority, now learned and critical, now uncritical and unlearned, which cannot be set aside as "extremely untrustworthy." This authority is accepted in questions of the evolution of art, politics, handicraft; why not in questions of religion? It is usually evidence given by men who did not see its tendency or know its value. A chance word in the Veda shows us that a savage point of marriage etiquette was known to the poet. A sneer of Theophrastus, a denunciation of Ezekiel, an anecdote of Herodotus, reveal to us the practices of contemporary savages as they existed thousands of years ago among races savage or civilised. A traveller's tale of Melville or Mandeville proves to be no mere "yarn," but completes the evidence for the existence in Asia or the Marquesas Islands of belief and rites proved to occur in Europe or India.
Such is the nature of the evidence for savage ideas, and for their survivals in civilisation; and the amount of the evidence is best known to him who has to plod through tracts, histories, and missionary reports.
