he soul is so interwoven with the history of
religious beliefs that a brief statement of its early forms will be
appropriate before we enter on the consideration of religious
institutions and ideas.[18]

1. NATURE OF THE SOUL

+18+. The belief in an interior something in man, different from the
body, appears to be practically universal in early human history; the
ideas concerning the nature of the soul have changed from time to time,
but no tribe of men has yet been found in which it is certain that there
is no belief in its existence. The Central Australians, religiously one
of the least-developed communities known, believe in ghosts, and a ghost
presupposes some sort of substance different from the ordinary body. Of
some tribes, as the Pygmies of Central Africa and the Fuegians, we have
no exact information on this point. But in all cases in which there is
information traces of a belief in a soul are found. We are not concerned
here with philosophic views, like that of Buddhism and many modern
psychologists, that do not admit the existence of the soul as a separate
entity. The proofs of the universality of the belief in a soul are
scattered through all books that deal with man's religious constitution
and history.[19]

+19+. For the basis of a universal fact of human experience we naturally
seek a universal or essential element of human thought. In this case we
must assume a natural or instinctive conviction of the existence of an
internal life or being--a consciousness (at first doubtless dim and
vague) of something diverse and separate from the visible physical
being, a sense of mental activity in thought, feeling, and will.

+20+. It is not surprising that we do not meet with the expression of
such a consciousness among savages: partly, as is well known, they are
like children, intellectually incapable of formulating their instinctive
beliefs (and they have, consequently, no word to express such a
formulation); partly, they are not disposed to speak frankly on subjects
that they regard as sacred or mysterious. Attempts at formulation follow
the lines of culture, and it is not till a comparatively late stage that
they reach definite shape.

+21+. The interior being, whose existence was vaguely felt, was
recognized by early man in many common experiences. Certain phenomena
were observed that seemed to be universal accompaniments of life, and
these, by a strictly scientific method of procedure, were referred to