Mr Baring Gould postulates, I am aware, the lapse of several generations for the evolution of these ideas. But there is nothing in Mr Baring Gould's statement of the progression or development of the conception of the Deity among mankind which might not pass in rapid sequence through the mind of the primitive man,--call him "Areios," if you shrink from close contact with history, and refuse to call him Adam. Why then the indefinite lapse of time? why the progressive advance of the idea through successive generations of mankind? Why, except that the primitive barbarism _must_ be assumed; and because (p. 239), "in the examination of the springs of religious thought, we have to return again and again to the wild bog of savageism in which they bubble up." But if the savagery was so great, the perplexity how man ever came to make the first step in the induction is much greater than that, having made it, he should proceed on to make the last. It is certain that reason can prove the existence of God and His goodness, and this knowledge evokes the instincts of love and worship. It is true also that man has a conscience of right and wrong, and that among its dictates is a sense of the obligation of love and worship. Still this will not account for the existence of religion in the world. Much less will Mr Baring Gould's theory of an induction by mankind collectively, spread over several centuries, account either for the notion or for the institution. Neither, apart from direct or indirect revelation, would it prove more than that man was religious, though without religion; capable of arriving at the knowledge of God's existence, but without any knowledge how to propitiate him; seeking God, but not able to find Him.