334 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



existence, and in the solemnities which must con 

 centrate there. Towards such conclusions as these the 

 great thinkers of ancient Greece reasoned. Socrates 

 argued that there is good reason to hope that death 

 is a good, for either it is a sleep, and in that case 

 eternity is only a single night/ or it is a pilgrimage 

 to another world, in which are the sons of God who 

 were righteous in their own life/ and whose judgment 

 will be better than that of earthly judges. l Plato 

 anticipated a future state, saying, when the dead 

 arrive in the other world, they have sentence passed 

 on them, as they have lived well and piously or not. 

 Wherefore let a man be of good cheer about his 

 soul, . . . who has adorned the soul in her own proper 

 jewels, which are temperance, and justice, and courage, 

 and nobility, and truth. 2 



If, from these heights on which philosophic thinkers 

 have delighted to tread, we pass down to the lowest 

 levels on which uncivilised tribes are dwelling now, 

 we shall see the extremes of thought possible for the 

 rational life in the world. On this point, a better 

 witness than Tylor could not be chosen, when treating 

 of Animism or belief in spiritual beings/ 3 existing 

 apart from organism, whether these be the ancestors 

 of the people, or a higher order of spirits. The 

 general conclusions as to the working of thought 

 among savage tribes, reached by Tylor, after deliberate 

 examination, may appear from these extracts. So far 

 as I can judge from the immense mass of accessible 

 evidence, we have to admit that the belief in spiritual 



1 Plato s Apology, 40, 41. Jowett s Transl. 



2 Phaedo, 113 and 114. Jowett s Transl. 



3 Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 425. 



