XLIX] Studies in primitive Greek religion. 61 



The primitive Greeks held the beliei which is universal 

 among all lower races of mankind, that every man as, indeed, 

 every auimal possesses a second-self, a spirit or ,.,soul" which 

 luhabits bis body being its principle of life. Equally familiar 

 to them was the other view that this soul survives the de- 

 struction of the bod}'. To an uncivilised mind, indeed, the 

 idea of a continued existence of th^ soul is much more natural 

 than would be that of its total destruction which latter is, 

 in fact, the result of låter speculation and higher intellectual 

 development. As the savage cannot conceive of a creation 

 out of nothing so he cannot grasp the idea that somethmg 

 actually existiug could ever return to nothing. — So also to 

 the earlj- Greeks the continued existence of the soul after 

 death was an artide of positive belief. The great antiquity 

 of their ideas relating to the dead is showu by the remains 

 from the prehistoric ages of Greece which ha ve been discovered 

 by modern archaeology and which speak eloqnenty on this 

 point. Whereas in other respects we know very little about 

 the religion ot the Mycenaean Greeks we know quite enougli 

 about their cult of the dead to state that it held a most im- 

 portant place in their life. The Mycenaean tombs, crowded as 

 they were with valuable objects of gold and silver, with im- 

 plements and clothings, with the bones of different animals as 

 well as with human skulls and skeletons ^), give us to understand 

 that these ancient Greeks believed that the departed lead much 

 the same life beyond the grave as in this world and require the 

 suit and service of the living. 



However, with regard to the rites performed to the de- 

 parted we have to note that among primitive peoples there 

 is not only a cult of the dead prompted by the idea that 

 after death man leads au existence similar to that on earth; 

 they are actually worshipped as diviue beings who are sup- 

 posed to have power of influencing the welfare of the living 

 for good or ill. How shall we account for the fact that a 

 man, to whom perhaps in life no particular respect is paid, 

 is after death credited with superuatural powers and looked 

 upon as a god? The deification of the dead is essentiallj' due 



^) See Tsountas & Manatt, The Mycenaean Age, chapter V. 



