but can only transform itself into a legal order after it has once arisen. 11. THE ORIGIN OF GODS. At first glance it may seem presumptuous even to raise the question as to how gods originated. Have they not always existed? one is inclined to ask. As a matter of fact, this is the opinion of most historians, particularly of historians of religion. They hold that the belief in gods is underived. Degenerate forms may arise, the belief may at times even disappear altogether or be displaced by a crude belief in magic and demons, but it itself can in no wise have been developed from anything else, for it was possessed by mankind from the very beginning. Were it true that the belief in gods represents an original possession of mankind, our question concerning the origin of gods would be invalidated. The assumption, however, is disproved by the facts of ethnology. There are peoples without gods. True, there are no peoples without some sort of supersensuous beings. Nevertheless, to call all such beings 'gods'--beings, for example, such as sickness-demons or the demons which leave the corpse and threaten the living--would appear to be a wholly unwarranted extension of the conception of deity. Unbiased observation goes to show that there are no peoples without certain conceptions that may be regarded as precursors of the later god-ideas. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that there are some peoples without gods. The Veddahs of Ceylon, the so-called nature-Semangs and Senoi of Malacca, the natives of Australia, and many other peoples of nature as well, possess no gods, in our sense of the word. Because all of these primitive peoples interpret certain natural phenomena--such as clouds, winds, and stars--in an anthropomorphic fashion, it has been attempted time and again to establish the presence of the god-idea of higher religions. Such attempts, however, may be straightway characterized as a play with superficial analogies in which no thought whatsoever is taken of the real content of the god-conception.