to accept their own myths without inquiry,[1] it was a Zulu who suggested to Bishop Colenso his doubts about the historical character of the Noachian Deluge. Hearne[2] knew a Red Man, Matorabhee, who, "though a perfect bigot with regard to the arts and tricks of the jugglers, could yet by no means be impressed with a belief of any part of our religion." Lieutenant Haggard, R.N., tells the writer that during an eclipse at Lamoo he ridiculed the native notion of driving away a beast which devours the moon, and explained the real cause of the phenomenon. But his native friend protested that "he could not be expected to believe such a story." Yet it is, apparently, in regard to imported and novel opinions about religion and science alone that savages imitate the conduct of the adder, which, according to St. Augustine, is voluntarily deaf, and thrusts its tail into one ear, while it squeezes the other against the earth.
We have already seen sufficient examples of credulity in savage doctrines about the equal relations of men and beasts, stars, clouds, and plants. The same readiness of belief, which would be surprising in a Christian child, has been found to regulate the rudimentary political organisations of grey barbarians. Add to this credulity a philosophy which takes resemblance, or contiguity in space, or nearness in time as a sufficient reason for predicating the relations of cause and effect, and we have the basis of savage physical science. Coincidence with them stands for cause.
- ↑ Callaway, Religion of Amazulus, i. 35.
- ↑ Journey among the Indians, 1795, p. 350.
