244 



PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



birth is represented in the bibliography appended to 

 Mr. Alger's work on Theories of a Future Life, by 

 4977 books, exclusive of many published since his 

 list was compiled. Save in refinement of detail such 

 as a higher culture secures, what is there to choose 

 between the four souls of the Hidatsa Indians, the 

 two souls of the Gold Coast natives, and the tripartite 

 division of man by Rabbis, Platonists, and Paulinists, 

 which are but the savage other-self " writ large "? 

 Their common source is in man's general animistic 

 interpretation of Nature, which is a vera causa, super- 

 seding the need for the assumptions of which Mr. 

 Wallace's is a type. As an excellent illustration of 

 what is meant by animism, we may cite what Mr. 

 Everard im Thurn has to say about the Indians of 

 Guiana, who are, presumably, a good many steps 

 removed from so-called '' primitive " man. " The 

 Indian does not see any sharp line of distinction 

 such as we see between man and other animals, be- 

 tween one kind of animal and another, or between 

 animals — man included — and inanimate objects. On 

 the contrary, to the Indian all objects, animate and 

 inanimate, seem exactly of the same nature, except 

 that they differ in the accident of bodily form. Every 

 object in the whole world is a being, consisting of 

 a body and spirit, and differs from every other ob- 

 ject in no respect except that of bodily form, and in 

 the greater or lesser degree of brute power and brute 

 cunning consequent on the difiference of bodily form 

 and bodily habits. Our next step, therefore, is to 



