And, once more, these early, unlearned men, who had no one to teach them, but had to find out everything for themselves, saw indeed that they received great good from, let us say, the warmth of the sun and the overflowing of the river, and the growing of their crops, to give them food. They could worship the power that they thought had given them all this. But then, again, they would sometimes find themselves visited by some dreadful disaster, perhaps an earthquake, or terrible pestilence, or famine when the river did not overflow in its usual way. And these evil {29} things they had to ascribe to some power very much more strong than themselves. Thence they got the idea of evil gods, or devils, as well as of the good and kind gods. The idea arose that they must do something to avert these calamities, by giving to the powers or gods who caused the calamities something that the gods would like. And since men had to think that the gods would like the things that they themselves liked, they sacrificed to them, as it was called--that is to say, gave them gifts of such things as they themselves liked best. It was rather a puzzle, perhaps, to know how to give a gift to a being who was invisible, and who would not come and take the gift away; but they solved that puzzle as best they could. They burned some of the gifts, or sacrifices, so that the solid flesh of the sacrificed creature was turned into smoke and went up into the air and disappeared. Or they poured libation of wine or of blood upon the earth, where it soaked in. So in both instances it became invisible, and therefore it might be supposed that it had been accepted by the invisible god. And then, finally, there is this other point that I want you to notice about the speculations, or guesses, of man in his earliest ages, about the powers by which he was surrounded and which he was trying to understand--early man did not distinguish so clearly as we do between himself and the other animals. He regarded them as closely related to himself. Many of the Red Indians and other tribes even to-day believe themselves to be descended from some animal who was the founder, the first ancestor, of their tribe. Men of that tribe will on no account kill an animal of the species to which they believe that their first ancestor belonged. Thus a tribe which believes its ancestor to {30} have been a beaver, let us say, would hold all beavers sacred, would never kill one, and very likely would use the figure of a beaver as a kind of family crest. The beaver would become a kind of god to them, and when it was looked on in this way it was called the "totem" of the tribe.