THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



inhabitants of India, etc.). Modern comparative ethnog- 

 raphy and evolution and prehistoric and anthropo- 

 logical research have shown us that our own ancestors, 

 ten thousand and more years ago, were (like the pre- 

 historic ancestors of all races of men) savages, and that 

 their earliest belief in miracles was a crude fetichism. 



By barbarians we understand the races that are found 

 between savage and civilized peoples. They show the 

 first beginnings of civilization, and are superior to 

 savages chiefly in the possession of agriculture and the 

 keeping of cattle. They make a provident use of the 

 productive forces of organic nature, artificially produce 

 large quantities of food, and are thus enabled by the 

 abundance of food to turn their minds to other interests. 

 We find that they have the rudiments of art and science. 

 Their religion does not at first rise much above fetichism, 

 but soon reaches the stage of animism, lifeless objects 

 in nature being credited with souls. Worship is no 

 longer paid to favorite dead objects (stones, bones, etc.), 

 but generally to living things, trees and animals, and 

 especially to images of gods which have the form of 

 animals or men, and are believed to possess souls. As 

 demons or spirits, these have a great influence on the 

 fortunes of men. At first this soul is conceived to be 

 purely material; it disappears at the death of the body 

 and lives apart. As the breathing and the beat of the 

 pulse and heart cease when a man dies, the seat of the 

 soul is thought to be the lungs, heart, or some other 

 part of the body. The idea of the immortality of the 

 soul takes on innumerable forms among them, like the 

 belief in the miracles which are worked by the gods, 

 demons, spirits, etc. Evolution again points out a long 

 gradation of forms of faith, if we compare the lower, 

 middle, and higher races. 



^Civilized races are distinguished from barbaric by the 

 formation of states with an extensive division of labor. 



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