1G6 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



of a power in some given object, it must be preceded 

 by this rude belief in spirits and shades. Such a 

 complex elaboration takes time, since it involves a 

 previous creation of powers, spirits or the shades 

 of men ; these lead to the belief in independent spirits 

 of various origin, which people the heavens and all 

 parts of the world. Hence arose the belief in trans- 

 migration, the necessary prelude to the theory of 

 the incarnation, which was ultimately constituted by 

 fetishism. The comparative study of languages shows 

 that including the Aryan and Semitic races, the 

 belief in spirits w r as developed in all peoples, and in 

 all of them we also find a belief in the transmigration 

 of souls. 



The transmigration of the human soul was first 

 believed to take place in the body of a new-born child, 

 since at the moment of death the soul of the dying 

 person entered into the foetus. The Algonquins 

 buried the corpses of their children by the way- 

 side, so that their souls might easily enter into the 

 bodies of the pregnant women who passed that 

 way. Some of the North American tribes believed 

 that the mother saw in a dream the dead relation 

 who w r as to imprint his likeness on her unborn child. 

 At Calabar, when the mother who has lost a child 

 gives birth to another, she believes that the dead 

 child is restored to her. The natives of New Guinea 

 believe that a son who greatly resembles his dead 

 futher has inherited his soul. Among the Yorubas 



