there has been great readiness on the part of
students of the science of religion to recognise that belief in the
continued existence of the soul after the death of the body has
comparative universality amongst the lower races of mankind. Their
yearning after continued existence developes into hope of a future
life; and the hope, or fear, takes many forms: the continued existence
may or may not be on this earth; it may or may not take the shape of a
belief in the transmigration of souls; it sometimes does, and sometimes
does not, lead to belief in the judgment of the dead and future
punishments and rewards; it may or may not postulate the immortality of
the soul; it may shrink to comparative, if not absolute, unimportance;
or it may be dreaded and denounced by philosophy and even by religion.
But whether dreaded or delighted in, whether developed by religion or
denounced, the tendency to the belief is there--universal among mankind
and ineradicable.

{32}

The parallel, then, between this belief and the belief or tendency to
believe in God is close and instructive; and I shall devote my next
lecture therefore to the belief in a future life among the primitive
races of mankind. That belief manifests itself, as I shall hope to
show, from the beginning, in a yearning hope for the continued
existence of the beloved ones who have been taken from us by death, as
well as in dread of the ghosts of those who during their life were
feared. But in either case what it postulates and points to is man
living in community with man. It implies society; and there again is
parallel to religion. It is with the hopes and fears of the community
as such that religion has to do: and it is from that point of view that
I shall start when I come to deal with the subject of magic, and its
resemblance to and difference from religion. Its resemblance is not
accidental and the difference is not arbitrary: the difference is that
between social and anti-social purposes. That difference, if borne in
mind, may give us the clue to the real nature of fetichism,--a subject
which will require a lecture to itself. I shall then proceed to a
topic which has been ignored to a surprising extent by the science of
religion; that is, the subject of {33} prayer: and the light which is
to be derived thence will, I trust, give fresh illumination to the
meaning of sacrifice. The relation of religion to morality will then
fall to be considered; and my final l