There must, however, have been a time in the progress of organic forms from some lower to that highest mammal, Man, when he did not have a religious consciousness; for it is doubtful if even the slightest traces of it can be discerned in the inferior animals. Mr. Darwin, indeed, put in a plea that his favourite dog manifested the same psychical traits which lead savages to believe in gods or spiritual agencies[27]; and lately Professor Pinsero, of Palermo, has argued that the anthropoid apes cultivate a worship of serpents, even burying them with considerable ceremony, and placing in their tombs a provision of insects for their consumption in their future life![28] But these scientific speculations have not found general acceptance, and even Professor Pinsero himself, while conceding religion to the ape, denies it to prehistoric man of the earlier epochs. We may conclude, therefore, that the development of the religious side of man’s nature began at a very early period in his history as a species, though probably it was extremely vague or practically absent in his first stadia; and that it is something distinctly human, and not shared in any definite form by even the best developed of the lower animals. It is the only trait in which he is qualitatively separated from them. They, too, communicate knowledge by sounds; they have governments and arts; but never do we see anywhere among them the notion of the Divine. This was the spark of Promethean fire which has guided man along the darksome and devious ways of his earthly pilgrimage to the supremacy he now enjoys. The Greek fable tells us of the shepherd lad Endymion, who fed his sheep on Mt. Latmus, and dreamed of no higher ambition, until in his sleep the goddess Selene descended from heaven and embraced him. Inspired by her divine touch, he waked to noble aspirations, and went forth to become monarch of Elis and father of a line of kings. So the human mind groped for dateless ages amid brutish toils and pleasures, unconscious of grander aims; until the thought of God, rising to consciousness within the soul, whispered to it of endless progress and divine ideals, in quest of which it has sought and will ever continue seeking, with tireless endeavour and constantly increasing reward. This question settled, another arises. The religions thus found everywhere among the rudest tribes, did they take root and exert a deep influence on the individual and society, or were they superficially felt, and of slight moment in practical life?