from annihilation), and the belief of certain
Christian sects in the future annihilation of the wicked (based probably
on a misunderstanding of certain Biblical passages[104]), it may be said
that the role of the theory of extinction of the soul in the general
development of religion has been an insignificant one. Beginning among
the lowest tribes as an expression of belief in the universality of
mortality, it assumed a punitive character in the higher savage creed,
and was gradually abandoned by the religions of civilized peoples.

+53+. The belief in the continued existence of the soul, on the other
hand, has maintained itself from the earliest known times to the
present. The inquiry into the grounds of this survival belongs to the
history of the doctrine of immortality, and will not be pursued here in
detail.[105] Doubtless it has been the increasing sense of the dignity
of human nature, the conviction of the close connection of human life
with the divine, and the demand for a compensation for the sufferings of
the present (together with the instinctive desire for continued
existence) that has led men to retain faith in the continued life of the
soul. Modern beliefs in ghosts and in spiritualistic phenomena testify
to the persistence of this article of faith.

+54+. _Abode of the surviving soul._[106] Opinions regarding the destiny
of the surviving soul have changed from time to time in accordance with
topographical conditions and with changes in intellectual and moral
culture. There is no place or thing on or under or above the ground that
has not been regarded, at some time and by some communities, as its
abode. The selection of the particular thing or place has been
determined by local conditions--by what was supposed to be observation
of facts, or by what was conceived to be appropriate. The obscurity of
the subject has allowed free play to savage imagination. The paucity of
data makes it impossible to give a complete statement of the views that
have been held, or to arrange such as are known in accurate
chronological order; but the principal opinions may be mentioned,
following in a general way the order of refinement.[107]

+55+. 1. One of the earliest (and also one of the most persistent) views
of the future of souls is that they are reborn or reincarnated as human
beings, or as beasts or plants or inanimate things. It was not unnatural
that, when a new human being came into the world, it should be regarded