628 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Spencer, in his " Principles of Sociolo- 

 gy," recently published, has carefully 

 traced out this working of the primi- 

 tive mind, and explained how the early 

 men, by their crude misconceptions ot 

 natural things, were gradually led to 

 the belief in a ghost-realm of being ap- 

 pended to the existing order. The idea 

 of a life after death, so universally en- 

 tertained among races of the lowest 

 grades of intelligence, is accounted for, 

 and is only to be accounted for, in this 

 way. Through experiences of sleep, 

 dreams, and loss and return of con- 

 sciousness at irregular times as in 

 swoon, catalepsy, trance, and various 

 forms of insensibility, there grew up 

 the idea of a double nature of a part 

 that goes away leaving the body lifeless, 

 and returns again to revivify it; and 

 thus originated the theory of immate- 

 rial ghosts and spirits. At death the 

 ghost departed, but not to return and 

 reanimate the body in the usual way ; 

 it went to inhabit another place. Thus 

 arose the conception of a separate and 

 future life, which, at first, could not 

 have been supposed to differ much from 

 that of the present order of things. No 

 doubt what is said of the Fijians, that 

 after death " they plant, live in fami- 

 lies, fight, and, in short, do much as 

 people in this world," represents the 

 common beginnings of belief upon this 

 subject. Yet the. hope of better things 

 could not fail to come soon into play, 

 as indicated by the belief of the Creeks, 

 that after death they go where " game 

 is plenty, and goods very cheap ; where 

 corn grows all the year round, and the 

 springs of pure water are never dried 

 up." Von Tschudi tells us that in Peru 

 " a small bag with cocoa, maize, qui- 

 nua, etc., is laid beside the dead that 

 they might have wherewithal to sow 

 the fields in the other world." The 

 condition of the future life, where the 

 ghosts go to dwell, is believed to be so 

 similar to that which they have left 

 that it is almost universal among sav- 

 ages to bury food, weapons, implements, 



ornaments, clothing, and whatever they 

 may be likely to want, with the bodies 

 of their dead friends. Even dogs and 

 cattle are slain, and women and ser- 

 vants immolated, that they may accom- 

 pany and minister to the departed. 



But this bald conception of a future 

 life, as a kind of literal continuance of 

 present materialities, could not last. 

 As knowledge accumulated the concep- 

 tion grew incongruous, and underwent 

 important modifications, so that simi- 

 larity gradually passed into contrast. 

 The intimacy of the intercourse sup- 

 posed to be carried on between the two 

 worlds decreased ; the future world 

 was conceived of as more remote, and 

 as having other occupations and gratifi- 

 cations more consonant with develop- 

 ing ideas of the present life. Rude 

 conceptions regarding good and evil 

 could not fail to be early involved with 

 considerations of man's futurity. Good 

 and evil are inextricably mixed up in 

 this world, which seems always to have 

 been regarded as a faulty arrangement, 

 and, as there was little hope of rectifying 

 it here, the future life came to be re- 

 garded as compensatory to the present. 

 But the problem was solved, not by the 

 absorption and disappearance of evil, 

 but by supposing good and bad to be 

 mechanically separated ; and, as good 

 and bad means good people and bad 

 people, the belief arose that in the fu- 

 ture world they would be divided off, 

 the good being all collected in a good 

 place, and the bad ones all turned into 

 a bad place. 



This idea of using the next world to 

 redress the imperfections and wrongs 

 of this grew up early and survives still, 

 and it has exerted a prodigious influence 

 in human affairs. As the grosser su- 

 perstitions were gradually developed in- 

 to systematic religions, a priestly class 

 arose, and religious beliefs were em- 

 bodied in definite creeds. Fundamental 

 among these was the belief in heaven 

 as a place of happiness, and of hell as a 

 place of penal torment for the wicked. 



