The religious notions of any people may be consider ed in reference to the being of a God ; the means of :Averting his displeasure, or of procuring his favour ; ancl the doctrine of a future state.
An inhabitant of Europe, accustomed to think of a Deity, to reflect on his works of creation, and to rejoice in the bounties of his providence, is apt to imagine, that the ideas which are familiar to him must be coeval with the first efforts of thought, and must. be possessed, in some degree, by every human creature. But if we en quire into the religious opinions of those in the inferior ranks of life among ourselves, it will appear, that their vstcm of belief is derived, not from examination, but instruction. Even in enlightened and civilized t-ountrics, the ideas of such as have not been trained to the exercise of abstraction, are gross and corporeal. But among a people, where the first notices of the di ine will, which were received by man from his Crea are lost; the mind. destitute of instruction, and a stranger as yet to inquiry, is long unable to infer the existence of a Divinity from the contemplation of his works. Those visionary fears, which torment our spe cies in the darker periods of society, proceed invariably from the misconception of the phenomena of nature. _As if the real evils incident to life were not enough, the mind is ever at work in creating factitious distress. Insensible to the beauty and order which pervade the universe, the distempered imagination, harbouring ter ror and dismal forebodings, is only struck with the ap parent derangement of the system, and the convulsion of the elements: it every where sees the operations of a malignant genius, actuated by the dark passions of envy, cruelty, and revenge.
Among the various definitions which logicians have given of man, one is, that he is the animal that prays. This definition, intended to convey to us that man is the only one of the creatures of God, which acknowledges his superintendence, will not, however, apply universal ly; for some tribes have been discovered on the Ameri can continent that have no idea of a Supreme Being, and no observances of rt ligious institution. They have not been able to trace the attributes of power and wis dom in the appearances of nature ; but live, inattentive to the glorious spectacle around them, occupied with eating and drinking ; or sunk in the gratification of their indolence. " Our ancestors and we," said a cacique of
the Abiponiuns, " have been so solicitous to find food upon the earth, that we never dreamt of the stars or their architect." Strangers to science, to inquiry, and almost to thought, even the terrible revolutions in the heavens and the earth, the eclipse and the comet, the pestilence and the storm, have no other effect on their untutored minds, than that of awakening them fruit their inactivity, to stare for a moment in wild and me lancholy ignorance, and instantly to relapse into stupid ity and sloth. They have not in their language a name for a deity. In this unhappy state, man seems to have parted with the distinctive qualities of his nature, and to be separated by a small interval from the brutes. The authors who have described the most uncivilized nations of America, are uniform in their testimony, that there are no appearances of religion among them. The following is the declaration of P. Ribas, concerning the inhabitants of Cinaloa; and it agrees in every thing with that of Levy, (411ml de Bry. iii. 221.) of Nieuhoff. (Churchill's Voyafes, ii. 1320 of Guntilla, (Hist. de l'Orennue, ii. 157,) of Ulloa, (Xoticias .4nterican. 335, et seq.) and of many others who have visited and de scribed different parts of the western hemisphere. " was extremely attentive," says Ribas, " during my stay among the Cinaloans, to ascertain whether they were to be considered as idolaters; and it may be affirmed with the most perfect exactness, that though among some of them there may be traces of idolatry, yet others have not the least knowledge of God, or even of any false deity nor pay any formal adoration to the Supreme Being, who exercises dominion over the world ; nor have they any conception of the providence of a Creator or Governor, from whom they expert, in the next life, the reward of their good, or the punishment of their evil deeds." See Hist. de los THumfb. de Xuestra Santa Fe, &c. par P. And. Perez de Ribas, p. 16, et seq.