THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



incantations against evil spirits which/ according to 

 the belief of the time, lurked back of all the appearances 

 of nature. 



Greek literature teems with illustrations of the same 

 spirit. The noted pictures of Charon rowing the 

 shades of the departed to the shores of the nether world 

 are as familiar as the images of household companions. 

 Invisible gods dwelled on Mt. Olympus, and per- 

 petually interfered with the affairs of men. Iphigenia, 

 about to be sacrificed, is spirited away, and a stag 

 miraculously substituted in her place. Bacchus, 

 imprisoned by a mortal, liberates himself by magic, 

 leaving a bull in his stead. Hippolytus is slain by 

 Neptune in answer to the prayer of his outraged father, 

 who is led to regret his mistake through revelations 

 made by Diana regarding the machinations of Venus. 

 It is impossible to go astray in seeking for similar 

 illustrations, anywhere outside the purely historical 

 literature, and even there similar incidents may be found 

 though the great historians Herodotus, Thucydides, 

 and Xenophon show something of the skepticism that 

 is the birthright of advanced thinkers in all ages. 



"But," you say, "surely the people did not really 

 believe in all these apparitions, even though they made 

 use of them in their literature." 



You are quite wrong there. The people did believe 

 in their ghosts. It might almost be said that the subject 

 did not admit of disbelief; it was so much a matter of 

 course, that to doubt would be like doubting the exist- 

 ence of the material world. Some philosophers there 

 were, to be sure, who professed skepticism regarding 



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