From that point of view we must refuse to give more than a guarded assent to the "opinion that prayer appeared in the religion of the lower culture, but that in this its earlier stage it was unethical" (Tylor, 364). Prayer obviously does appear in the religion of the lower culture, but to say that it there is unethical is to make a statement which requires defining. The statement means what {148} Professor Tylor expresses later on in the words: "It scarcely appears as though any savage prayer, authentically native in its origin, were ever directed to obtain moral goodness or to ask pardon for moral sin" (p. 373). But it might be misunderstood to mean that among savages it was customary or possible to pray for things recognised by the savage himself as wrong, and condemned by the community at large. In the first place, however, the god of the community simply as being the god of the community would not tolerate such prayers. Next, the range and extent of savage morality is less extensive than it is--or at any rate than it ought to be--in our day; and though we must recognise and at the right time insist upon the difference, that ought not to make us close our eyes to the fact that the savage does pray to do the things which savage morality holds it incumbent on him to do, for instance to fight bravely for the good of his wife, his children, and his tribe, to carry out the duty of avenging murder. And if he prays for wealth he also prays for wisdom; if he prays that his god may deliver him from sickness, that shows he is human rather than that he is a low type of humanity.