196 THE EIDDLE OF THE UNIVEESE. 



thanatism is the original absence of the dogma of 

 immortality (in the primitive uncivilised races) ; 

 secondary thanatism is the later outcome of a rational 

 knowledge of nature in the civilised intelligence. 



We still find it asserted in philosophic, and specially 

 in theological, works that belief in the personal immor- 

 tality of the human soul was originally shared by all 

 men — or, at least, by all "rational" men. That is 

 not the case. This dogma is not an original idea of 

 the human mind, nor has it eyer found universal 

 acceptance. It has been absolutely proved by modern 

 comparative ethnology that many uncivilised races of 

 the earliest and most primitive stage had no notion 

 either of immortality or of God. That is true, for 

 instance, of the veddahs of Ceylon, those primitive 

 pygmies whom, on the authority of the able studies 

 of the Sarasins, we consider to be a relic of the earliest 

 inhabitants of India ; x it is also the case in several of 

 the earliest groups of the nearly related Dravidas, the 

 Indian Seelongs, and some native Australian races. 

 Similarly, several of the primitive branches of the 

 American race, in the interior of Brazil, on the upper 

 Amazon, etc., have no knowledge either of gods or 

 immortality. This primary absence of belief in im- 

 mortality and deity is an extremely important fact ; 

 it is, obviously, easy to distinguish from the secondary 

 absence of such belief, which has come about in the 

 highest civilised races as the result of laborious 

 critico-philosophical study. 



Differently from the primary thanatism which 

 originally characterised primitive man, and has 

 always been widely spread, the secondary absence of 



1 E. Haeckel, A Visit to Ceylon. 



