Note (return) — Chapter II

Now had the idea of God rested solely on tradition, it were the most natural probability that it might be lost, nay, must be lost, amongst those races of men who were geographically and chronologically far removed from the primitive cradle of humanity in the East. The people who, in their migrations, had wandered to the remotest parts of the earth, and had become isolated from the rest of mankind, might, after the lapse of ages, be expected to lose the idea of God, if it were not a spontaneous and native intuition of the mind,--a necessity of thought. A fact of history must be presumed to stick to the mind with much greater tenacity than a purely rational idea which has no visible symbol in the sensible world, and yet, even in regard to the events of history, the persistence and pertinacity of tradition is exceedingly feeble. The South Sea Islanders know not from whence, or at what time, their ancestors came. There are monuments in Tonga and Fiji of which the present inhabitants can give no account. How, then, can a pure, abstract idea which can have no sensible representation, no visible image, retain its hold upon the memory of humanity for thousands of years? The Fijian may not remember whence his immediate ancestors came, but he knows that the race came originally from the hands of the Creator. He can not tell who built the monuments of solid masonry which are found in his island-home, but he can tell who reared the everlasting hills and built the universe. He may not know who reigned in Vewa a hundred years ago, but he knows who now reigns, and has always reigned, over the whole earth. "The idea of a God is familiar to the Fijian, and the existence of an invisible superhuman power controlling and influencing nature, and all earthly things, is fully recognized by him." 91 The idea of God is a common fact of human consciousness, and tradition alone is manifestly inadequate to account for its universality.