C. b. Weakness of the argument derived from universal consent :

negatively, such consent is unproved ; positively, many have held a contrary opinion, ch. xx11I $$ 62—64.
Ch. xxu. equidem—deorum sit. The question whether religious belief is universal, is very fairly considered in Tylor’s Primitive Culture vol. I p. 877 foll. He gives the following as the result of his investigations, ‘as far as I can judge from the immense mass of accessible evidence, we have to admit that the belief in spiritual beings (termed by him ‘animism’) appears among all low races with whom we have attained to thoroughly intimate acquaintance’ p. 384. The doubtful nature of the facts alleged by Sir J. Lubbock, in favour of the opposite view, is conclusively shown in Flint’s Antithetstie Theories ch. vil. See too Roskoff Das Leligionswesen der rohesten Naturvolker, and cf. n. on § 43 quae est enim gens. Simplicius on Epict. p. 222 and Porphyrius Adst. 1 8 quote from Theophrastus mept evoeBetas (see the fragments collected by Bernays p. 56) an account of a ‘pre-Hellenic Sodom and Gomorrah’, the Thoes of Thrace who were swallowed up by the earth in punishment for their atheism ; but Simp. says this is the only exception to the universality of belief. Cotta’s classification of atheists agrees with that given by Clarke Being and Attributes ch. 1, ‘Atheism arises from stupid ignorance’, i.e. from