its natural outcome. Men found that at night, when the quicksilver
current of sleep ran through their veins and their bodies were
quiescent, they had none the less thoughts as of life. The body lay
still; but something in alliance with the body gave them impressions of
vivid waking vigour and action. Men fancied that they fought, hunted,
loved, hated; and yet all the time their limbs were quiet. What could it
be that forced the slumbering man to believe himself to be in full
activity? It must be some invisible essence independent of the bones and
muscles. Therefore when a man died it followed that the body which was
buried must have parted permanently from the mystic "something" that
caused dreams. That mystic "something" therefore lived on after the
death of the body. The bodily organs were mere accidental encumbrances;
the real "man" was the viewless creature that had the visions of the
night. The body might go; but the thing which by and by was named
"soul" was imperishable.

I can see the drift of foggy argument. The writer means to say that the
belief in immortality sprang up because the wish was father to the
thought. Men longed to live, and thus they persuaded themselves that
they would live; and, one refinement after another having been added to
the vague-minded savage's animal yearning, we have the elaborate system
of theology and the reverential faith that guide the lives of civilized
human entities. Very pretty! Then the literary critic steps in and shows
how the belief in immortality has been enlarged and elaborated since the
days of Saul, the son of Kish. When the witch of Endor saw gods
ascending from the earth, she was only anticipating the experience of
sorcerers who ply their trade in the islands of the Pacific. Professor
Huxley admires the awful description of Saul's meeting with the witch;
but the Professor shows that the South Sea islanders also see gods
ascending out of the earth, and he thinks that the Eastern natives in
Saul's day encouraged a form of ancestor-worship. The literary critic
says ancestor-worship is one of the great branches of the religion of
mankind. Its principles are not difficult to understand, for they
plainly keep up the social relations of the living world. The dead
ancestor, now passed into a deity, goes on protecting his family and
receiving suit and service from them as of old. The dead chief still
watches over his own tribe, still holds his authority by helping friends
a