320 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vm 



It is a matter of fact that, whether we direct 

 our attention to the older conditions of civilised 

 societies, in Japan, in China, in Hindostan, in 

 Greece, or in Rome, 1 we find, underlying all other 

 theological notions, the belief in ghosts, with its 

 inevitable concomitant sorcery ; and a primitive 

 cult, in the shape of a worship of ancestors, which 

 is essentially an attempt to please, or appease 

 their ghosts. The same thing is true of old 

 Mexico and Peru, and of all the semi-civilised or 

 savage peoples who have developed a definite cult ; 

 and in those who, like the natives of Australia, 

 have not even a cult, the belief in, and fear of, 

 ghosts is as strong as anywhere else. The most 

 clearly demonstrable article of the theology of the 

 Israelites in the eleventh and twelfth centuries 

 B.C. is therefore simply the article which is to be 

 found in all primitive theologies, namely, the 

 belief that a man has a soul which continues to 

 exist after death for a longer or shorter time, and 

 may return, as a ghost, with a divine, or at least 

 demonic, character, to influence for good or evil 

 (and usually for evil) the affairs of the living. 

 But the correspondence between the old Israelitic 

 and other archaic forms of theology extends 

 to details. If, in order, to avoid all chance of 



1 See among others the remarkable work of Fustel de 

 Coulanges, La Cit6 antique, in which the social importance of 

 the old Roman ancestor-worship is brought out with grea/t 

 clearness. 



