PSYCHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 199 



human intellect. And we know that, probably in 

 the latter half of the palaeolithic period, and cer- 

 tainly in the neolithic, men were buried with their 

 weapons, evidently as a provision for a future exis- 

 tence. 



Judging from the beliefs now held by the lowest 

 races of mankind, it seems probable that when man 

 first began, in an incoherent manner, to speculate 

 on himself and his surroundings, the remarkable 

 facts connected with sleep and dreams made him 

 conclude that his intelligence was due to an un- 

 substantial body, or spirit, living inside him, which 

 could leave him, travel about, and return. Dream- 

 ing of dead friends led him to believe that this spirit 

 lived on as a ghost after the death of the body. 

 And this belief, in time, gave rise to ancestor- 

 worship, which passed first into the deification of 

 ancestors, and afterwards into that of mythical per- 

 sonages, who were not considered as ancestors. 

 Thus arose the belief in beneficent tribal gods, which 

 still has great influence even among civilised nations. 



Primitive man passed from the idea of human 

 spirits to the belief that inanimate bodies also con- 

 tained spirits. But as these inanimate things were 

 often thwarting his wishes and frightening him by 

 noises which he could not understand, he assumed 

 that their spirits were hostile to him, and he tried 

 to appease them by sacrifices, or to disarm them by 

 spells. 



The belief that spirits inhabit all kinds of bodies is 

 called Animism. Both it and deification are dif- 

 ferent forms of Polytheism, which have become so 



