beliefs." They certainly were; and when he adds that, "although it cannot be alleged that these aborigines have consciously any form of religion, it may be said that their beliefs are such that, under favourable conditions, they might have developed into an actual religion," he indicates afresh the confusion possible from unscientific definitions. The sole content of his thesis is, finally, that a "supernatural" being is not "divine" till the priests have somewhat trimmed him, and that a religion is not "actual" till it has been sacerdotally formulated. Dr. Howitt's negations are as untenable as Mr. Andrew Lang's magnification of the Australian All-Father into a perfect Supreme Being. The really important part of Dr. Howitt's survey of the problem is his conclusion that the kind of belief he has described exists only in a specified area of Australia, and that this area is "the habitat of tribes ... where there has been the advance from group marriage to individual marriage, from descent in the female line to that in the male line" (p. 500). Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's denial of the existence of any belief in a personal deity among the tribes of Central Australia (Northern Tribes, 1904, p. 491) appears to stand for actual fact. As to the "divinity" of the ancestor-gods of the primitives, see Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. p. 41 sq.] The problem has been unduly narrowed to the question whether there are any whole tribes so developed. It is obviously pertinent to ask whether there may not be diversity of opinion within a given tribe. Such testimonies as those collected by Sir John Lubbock [Lord Avebury] and others, as to the existence of religionless savages, are held to be disposed of by further proof that tribes of savages who had been set down as religionless on the evidence of some of themselves had in reality a number of religious beliefs. Travellers' questions had been falsely answered, either on the principle that non-initiates must not be told the mysteries, or from that sudden perception of the oddity of their beliefs which comes even to some civilized people when they try to state them to an unbelieving outsider. Questions, again, could easily be misunderstood, and answers likewise. We find, for instance, that savages who scout the idea that the dead can "rise again" do believe in the continued disembodied existence of all their dead, and even at times conceive of them as marrying and procreating! On the whole, they conceive of a continuity of spirit-life on earth in human shape. To speak of such people as having no idea of "a life beyond the grave" would obviously be misleading, though they have no notion of a judgment day or of future rewards or punishments. [77]