his sentiment and actions, with the feelings and practices which flow from such belief, we have a definition of the kind required, one excluding nothing which can be called religion, and including nothing which is only partially present in religion." [281] This definition would not, one may presume, include mere belief in magic, but might be taken to include a man's belief in devils. As there are many who would not agree that devil-worship and the like can have any connection with god-worship, I shall follow the ethnologist in citing examples of the absence of god-worship as evidence of the absence of the religious instinct; but I shall also give examples in which there is no appearance of worship either of god or devil. These will chiefly be drawn from present-day beliefs and customs, because now, if ever, the contention of the religionist should hold good, and also because it has been incidentally examined with reference to ancient beliefs in a previous chapter. BELIEFS OF SAVAGE MAN. Among the concluding remarks of Darwin's Descent of Man we read: "The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest, but the most complete, of all the distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is, however, impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand, a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal, and apparently follows from a considerable advance in the reasoning powers of man, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity, and wonder. I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence; but this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, possessing only a little more power than man; for the belief in them is far more general than the belief in a beneficent Deity." [282] Again, in Huxley's essay on "The Evolution of Theology" we read: "In its simplest condition, such as may be met with among the Australian savages, theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers, and disposition (usually malignant) of ghost-like entities who may be propitiated or scared away; but no cult can properly be said to exist. And in this stage theology is wholly independent of ethics." Sir John Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, states the argument against the universality of religion in his Prehistoric Times. He asks: "How can a people who are unable to count their own fingers possibly raise their minds so far as to admit even the rudiments of religion?" And he sums up his observations on various tribes by saying: "Indeed, the first idea of God is almost always an evil spirit." [283]