If, therefore, belief in God grew out of belief in ghosts, it must have been in some stage of culture lower than any of which we have experience so far; and at some period which belongs to the region of hypothesis and conjecture. There are no known tribes where ghosts are worshipped and God is not known, or where the supposed process of development can be watched in action. Nor is it only that links are missing, but one of the very terms to be connected, namely, a godless race, is conjectural. Still more unfortunate is it for the animists that evidence points to the fact that advance in civilization often means the decay of monotheism, and that the ruder races are the purer in their religious and ethical conceptions. Once more, all facts are against the theory that tribes transfer their earthly polity to the heavenly city; for monotheism is found where monarchy is unknown. "God cannot be a reflection from human kings where there are no kings; nor a president elected out of a polytheistic society of gods, where there is as yet no polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor where men do not worship their ancestors." To the substantiating of these facts Mr. Lang then applies himself, and shows us how among the Australians, Red Indians, Figians, Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, Zulus, and all known savages there lives the conception of a Supreme Being (not necessarily spirit) who is variously styled Father, Master, Our Father, The Ancient One in the skyland, The Great Father. He shows us, moreover, that this deity is the God of conscience, a power making for goodness, a guardian and enforcer of the interests of justice and truth and purity; good to the good, and froward with the froward. But surely, it will be said, all this is too paradoxical, too violently in conflict with what is notorious concerning the religion and morality of savages.