THE HUMAN SPECIES 



Belgium, and raises the further objection that we are quite 

 ignorant whether besides cave-burials there were other methods 

 of which no trace remains. At any rate, the question requires 

 other and more enlightening facts for its final solution. 



Certainly animism is proved to have existed in the neo- 

 lithic age, in the first place by the discovery of trepanned skulls 

 in the caves and dolmens of France and other countries 

 (Fig. 1 34). From the condition of the edges of the bone it can 

 be settled that the trepanning was performed during life, prob- 

 ably to allow of the escape of the evil spirit from the brain of 

 those who were mentally afflicted, as was quite recently the 



practice in the Tonga Islands. 

 The dolmens of Brittany and 

 Central France (Fig. 1 35), in the 

 Pyrenees, Corsica, and Northern 

 Europe serve as proofs of wor- 

 ship of the dead and the cult of 

 the soul, as also do the menhirs 

 of Western Europe and the 

 cromlechs in England (Stone- 

 henge). 



Among the gifts with which 

 the dead were provided on 

 their journey to the world be- 

 yond (Hissarlik, Tiryns, My- 

 cenae, Laibacher Moor) are 

 found idols, i.e., anthropomorphic representations of a god- 

 head which should protect the soul. 



In contradistinction to Homes, who ascribed the possession 

 of religion to all races even in primitive ages, Darwin believed 

 that many races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea 

 of a god, nor any religious customs. However, it is certain 

 that other savages believe in invisible, or spiritual agencies, 

 based on the resemblance of their own powers and faculties 

 to the phenomena of nature. Thus savages have arrived, 

 and still continue to arrive, at the idea of endowing natural and 

 terrestrial objects with a spirit and divinity which their simple 

 human mind can only imagine in human shape and therefore so 

 portrays their god. 



FIG. 134. Trepanned neolithic skull. 

 (Homes, Urgeschichte des Men- 

 schen.) 



