iv MODERN EVOLUTION 



225 



suddenly became hostile. On the previous day the 

 travellers, not without difficulty, had photographed 

 the royal family, and now found themselves accused 

 of taking the souls of the natives with the object of 

 selling them when they returned to France. Denial 

 was of no avail ; following the custom of the 

 Malagasays, they were compelled to catch the souls, 

 which were then put into a basket, and ordered by 

 Dr. Catat to return to their respective owners ( Times, 

 24th March 1891). 



Although the difference presented by such pheno- 

 mena and by death is that it is abiding, while they 

 are temporary, to the barbaric mind the difference is 

 in degree, and not in kind. True, the 'other self 

 has left the body, and will never return to it ; but it 

 exists, for it appears in dreams and hallucinations, 

 and therefore is believed to revisit its ancient haunts, 

 as well as to tarry often near the exposed or buried 

 body. The nebulous theories which identified the 

 soul with breath, and shadow, and reflection, slowly 

 condensed into theories of semi -substantiality still 

 charged with ethereal conceptions, resulting in the 

 curious amalgam which, in the minds of cultivated 

 persons, whenever they strive to envisage the idea, 

 represents the disembodied soul. 



Therefore, in vain may we seek for points of 

 difference in our comparison of primitive ideas of 

 the origin and nature of the soul with the later ideas. 

 The copious literature to which these have given 

 birth is represented in the bibliography appended to 

 Mr. Alger's work on Theories of a Future Life, by 

 4977 books, exclusive of many published since his 

 list was compiled. Save in refinement of detail such 



