RELIGIOUS RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 341 



istences which he regards as usually inaudible, intangible, invisible ; 

 and yet which he regards as operative upon him. What suggests this 

 notion of agencies transcending perception ? How do these ideas con- 

 cerning the supernatural evolve out of ideas concerning the natural ? 

 The transition can not be sudden ; and an account of the genesis of 

 religion must begin by describing the steps through which the transi- 

 tion takes place. 



The ghost-theory exhibits these steps quite clearly. We are shown 

 that the mental differentiation of invisible and intangible beings from 

 visible and tangible beings progresses slowly and unobtrusively. In 

 the fact that the other-self, supposed to wander in dreams, is believed 

 to have actually done and seen whatever was dreamed, in the fact that 

 the other-self when going away at death, but expected presently to re- 

 turn, is conceived as a double equally material with the original, we 

 see that the supernatural agent in its primitive form diverges very little 

 from the natural agent — is simply the original man with some add- 

 ed powers of going about secretly and doing good or evil. And the 

 fact that, when the double of the dead man ceases to be dreamed about 

 by those who knew him, his non-appearance in dreams is held to im- 

 ply that he is finally dead, shows that these earliest supernatural agents 

 have but a temporary existence : the first tendencies to a permanent 

 consciousness of the supernatural prove abortive. 



In many cases no higher degree of differentiation is reached. The 

 ghost-population, recruited by deaths on the one side, but on the other 

 side losing its members as they cease to be recollected and dreamed 

 about, does not increase ; and no individuals included in it come to be 

 recognized through successive generations as established supernatural 

 powers. Thus the Unkulunkulu, or old-old one, of the Zooloos, the 

 father of the race, is regarded as finally or completely dead, and 

 there is propitiation only of ghosts of more recent date. But where 

 circumstances favor the continuance of sacrifices at graves, witnessed 

 by members of each new generation who are told about the dead and 

 transmit the tradition, there eventually arises the conception of a per- 

 manently-existing ghost or spirit. A more marked contrast in thought 

 between supernatural beings and natural beings is thus established. 

 There simultaneously results a great increase in the number of these 

 supposed supernatural beings, since the aggregate of them is now 

 continually added to ; and there is a strengthening tendency to think 

 of them as everywhere around, and as causing all unusual occur- 

 rences. 



Differences among the ascribed powers of ghosts soon arise. They 

 naturally follow from the observed differences among the powers of 

 the living individuals. Hence it results that while the propitiations 

 of ordinary ghosts are made only by their descendants, it comes occa- 

 sionally to be thought prudent to propitiate also the ghosts of the 

 more dreaded individuals, even though they have no claims of blood. 



