RELIGION AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 13 



swiftness from place to place, of possessing its will and consciousness 

 independently of the body, and continuing to exist and appear after 

 the death of the body. 



This conception of the soul once formed, the abnormal facts of 

 disease, insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria, come readily to be explained 

 by the invasion into these bodies of other spirits than their own — celes- 

 tial or demoniac, superhuman or infra-human, according to the phe- 

 nomena observed. These notions, once diffused, give rise, in their turn, 

 to a whole cycle of kindred animistic theories and religious practices — 

 such as divination by dreams, exorcisms of demons, dervish-dancings, 

 and other artificially produced swoons and ecstasies, and fetichistic 

 magic of all sorts. Sneezing, hiccough, and all painful diseases, are 

 to the savage the work of some spirit that has crept into his body. 

 Fasting, as occasioning vivid visions, becomes a method of seeing one's 

 tutelar deity, as among our Indians, or as the proper rite to fit the 

 priest for initiation into his sacred ofiice, as generally in savage tribes. 

 When it is evil spirits that do their work in man, they must be 

 cast out by invoking some beneficent and more powerful god. Hence 

 exorcism, witchcraft, medicine-men. When it is good spirits that do 

 their work in man, we have inspired seers and priestesses — divine 

 oracles, like those of Delphi and Dodona. Out of a belief that the 

 spirits of the dead still maintain an interest in those they have left, 

 and are causers of good and evil to them, come propitiation of them 

 by gifts and prayers, and ancestor-worship — so prevalent in ancient 

 China, Egypt, and Rome, as among many African and Polynesian 

 tribes still — is developed. 



Next, perhaps (as happens in many cases), the departed chieftain 

 or patriarch, still looked upon as protecting his descendants and tribes- 

 men, becomes the guardian deity of the tribe, or the ruler of the hid- 

 den land to which the ghosts of the dead must journey. As still 

 further evolutions from this root, we find the belief in the resurrection 

 of the body and the transmigration of souls, the custom of embalming, 

 and the varied ideas of the nature of the future life found in different 

 nations. 



3. Next, we must notice the great influence of man's intercourse with 

 his fellows. Under this third head I would call attention to the action 

 of the political condition or environment, as a differentiating factor. 

 In ancient times, the connection between religion and government was 

 far closer than we see almost anywhere to-day. That separation be- 

 tween church and state, that independence of politics and faith so 

 prevalent everywhere to-day, was unknown to antiquity. The state 

 and the church were one. The king was high-priest by virtue of his 

 office, and the priest as much a state or civic official as judge or war- 

 rior-chief. Not infrequently, the same individual held both what we 

 now distinguish as secular and sacred offices. Among the ancient 

 Aryans — as with the early Hindoos, Greeks, and Romans — religion 



