George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 3, 15th edition.

[285] idea of an Infinite and Eternal Being. But, as the

Chap. XXII.}

ideas of existence and causation were blended with words expressing action or quality, so the idea of divinity was blended with nature, and yet not wholly merged in the external world. So complete was this union, many travellers denied that they had any religion. ‘As to the knowledge of God,’ says Joutel of the south-west, ‘it did not seem to us that they had any definite notion about it. True, we found upon our route some who, as far as we could judge, believed that there was something exalted, which is above all, but they have neither temples, nor ceremonies, nor prayers, marking a divine worship. That they have no religion, can be said of all whom we saw.’ ‘The

Joutel, 224, 225.

northern nations,’ writes Le Caron, ‘recognize no divinity from motives of religion; they have neither

Le Clercq. II. 268, 269.

sacrifice, nor temple, nor priest, nor ceremony of worship.’ Le Jeune also affirms, ‘There is among

Relation 1632, 28.

them very little superstition; they think only of living and of revenge; they are not attached to the worship of any divinity.’ And yet they believed that some

St. Mary of the Incarnation, lettre LXXXVI. p. 652.

powerful genius had created the world; that unknown agencies had made the heavens above them and the earth on which they dwelt. The god of the savage

R. Williams, c. XXI.

was what the metaphysician endeavors to express by the word substance. The red man, unaccustomed to generalization, obtained no conception of an absolute substance, of a self-existent being, but saw a divinity in every power. Wherever there was being, motion,

Joseph Le Car on, in Le Clercq. i. 186.

or action, there to him was a spirit; and, in a special manner, wherever there appeared singular excellence among beasts or birds, or in the creation, there to him was the presence of a divinity. When he feels his pulse throb, or his heart beat, he knows that it is a

R. Williams.