l'immortalite de l'ame, et nous montrent qu'elle doit etre
rangee parmi les premieres traditions du genre humain.
Mais l'homme, qui gatoit tout, en avoit etrangement abuse,
puisqu'elle le portoit a sacrificer aux morts. On alloit meme
jusqu'a cet exces, de leur sacrifier des hommes vivans; ou tuoit
leurs esclaves, et meme leurs femmes, pour les aller servir dans
l'autre monde."<15>


Among more modern writers J. G. Muller, in his excellent
"Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen" (1855), clearly
recognises "gespensterhafter Geisterglaube" as the foundation of
all savage and semi-civilised theology, and I need do no more
than mention the important developments of the same view which
are to be found in Mr. Tylor's "Primitive Culture," and in the
writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer, especially his recently-
published "Ecclesiastical Institutions."<16>

It is a matter of fact that, whether we direct our attention to
the older conditions of civilised societies, in Japan, in China,
in Hindostan, in Greece, or in Rome,<17> we find, underlying all
other theological notions, the belief in ghosts, with its
inevitable concomitant sorcery; and a primitive cult, in the
shape of a worship of ancestors, which is essentially an attempt
to please, or appease their ghosts. The same thing is true of
old Mexico and Peru, and of all the semi-civilised or savage
peoples who have developed a definite cult; and in those who,
like the natives of Australia, have not even a cult, the belief
in, and fear of, ghosts is as strong as anywhere else. The most
clearly demonstrable article of the theology of the Israelites