presently see, was developed out of the primitive funeral-rites and
propitiatory ceremonies.

The existing family religion is therefore a comparatively modern
development; but it is at least as old as the true civilization of
the country, and it conserves beliefs and ideas which are indubitably
primitive, as well as ideas and beliefs derived from these. Before
treating further of the cult itself, it will be necessary to consider
some of these older beliefs.

The earliest ancestor-worship,--"the root of all religions," as
Herbert Spencer calls it,--was probably coeval with the earliest
definite belief in ghosts. As soon as men were able to conceive the
idea of a shadowy inner self, or double, so soon, doubtless, the
propitiatory cult of spirits began. But this earliest ghost-worship
must have long preceded that period of mental development in which
men first became capable of forming abstract ideas. The [25]
primitive ancestor-worshippers could not have formed the notion of a
supreme deity; and all evidence existing as to the first forms of
their worship tends to show that there primarily existed no
difference whatever between the conception of ghosts and the
conception of gods. There were, consequently, no definite beliefs in
any future state of reward or of punishment,--no ideas of any heaven
or hell. Even the notion of a shadowy underworld, or Hades, was of
much later evolution. At first the dead were thought of only as
dwelling in the tombs provided for them,--whence they could issue,
from time to time, to visit their former habitations, or to make
apparition in the dreams of the living. Their real world was the
place of burial,--the grave, the tumulus. Afterwards there slowly
developed the idea of an underworld, connected in some mysterious way