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Here a few words may be said on a subject which cannot be left out of sight, connecting as it does the two great ( branches of the doctrine of future existence, but which it is difficult to handle in defniite terms, and much more to trace historically by comparing the views of lower and

1 Swedenborg, 'The True Christian Keligion,' 13. Compare the notion attributed to the followers of Bnsilides the Gnostir, of men whose souls aro affected by spirits or dispositions as of wolf, ape, lion, or bear, wherefore their souls bear the properties of these, and imitate their deeds (Clem. Alex. Stromat. ii. e. 20).


l See J. G MQller, 'Amer. Urrol.' p. 208 (Cnribs); but compare Kochcfort, p. 429. Stellcr, 'Kamtschatka,' p. 269; Castren, 'Finnischo Mythologie, p. 119.

3 See for American evidence Brinton, 'Myths of New World,' p. 254, etc. For Egyptian evidence Birch's tr. of ' Book of Dead' in Bunsen's 'Egypt.' vol. vi. ; Wilkinson, etc.


1 Aryan evidence in 'Kig-Veda,' x. 14, 8; xi. 1, 8; Menu, xii. 16—22; Max Mttller, 'Todtenbestattung,' pp. xii. xiv. ; 'Chips,'vol. i. p. 47; Muir in 'Journ. As. Soc. Bengal.' vol. i. 1865, p. 306 ; Ward, 'Hindoos,' vol. ii. pp. 832, 347, 357 ; Hang, 'Parsee*,' p. 266; see Alger, 'Future Life.'

2 Origen, De. Princip. ii. 3, 2: "materia corporalis, cujus materia; anima Ugum semper habet, in qualibet quolitate posita;, nunc quidem carnali, postmoilum vero subtiliori et puriori. iju:e spiritalis appcllatur."

* Burton, 'Central Africa,' vol. ii. p. 345. 4 Callaway, 'Kel . of Amazulu,' p. 84.

theology of the Zulus, whose ghosts not only survive in the under-world, but are the very deities of the living, we can put the proper sense to these expressions. But without such information, we might have mistaken them for denials of the soul's existence after death. This objection may even apply to one of the most formal denials of a future life ever placed on record among an uncultured race, a poem of the Dinka tribe of the White Nile, concerning Dendid the Creator:

"On the day when Dendid made all things,

He made the sun;
And the sun comes forth, goes down, and comes again:

He made the moon;
And tho moon comes forth, goes down, and comes again:

He made the stars;
And the stars come forth, go down, and come again:

He made man;

And man comes forth, goes down into the ground, and comes no more."

It is to be remarked, however, that the close neighbours of these Dinka, the Bari, believe that the dead do return to live again on earth, and the question arises whether it is the doctrine of bodily resurrection, or the doctrine of the surviving ghost-soul, that the Dinka poem denies. The missionary Kaufmann says that the Dinka do not believe the immortality of the soul, that they think it but a breath, and with death all is over; Brun-Rollet s contrary authority goes to prove that they do believe in another life; both leave it an open question whether they recognize the existence of surviving ghosts.l The case is, like various others of the same kind, incomplete.

Looking at the religion of the lower races as a whole, we shall at least not be ill-advised in taking as one of its general and principal elements the doctrine of the soul's Future Life. But here it is needful to explain, to limit, and to reserve, lest modern theological ideas should lead us to misconstrue more primitive beliefs. In such enquiries the

1 Kaufmann, 'Schilderungen aus Ccntralaf rika,'p. 124; Q. Lejean in 'Rev. des Deux Mondes,' Apr. 1, I860, p. 760 ; see Brnn-Rollet, 'Nil Blane,' pp. 100. 234.

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