d by Mr. Tylor, and is accessible to all in the
chapters on "Animism" in his Primitive Culture. It is not our business
here to account for the universality of the belief in spirits. Mr.
Tylor, following Lucretius and Homer, derives the belief from the
reasonings of early men on the phenomena of dreams, fainting, shadows,
visions caused by narcotics, hallucinations, and other facts which
suggest the hypothesis of a separable life apart from the bodily
organism. It would scarcely be fair not to add that the kind of "facts"
investigated by the Psychical Society--such "facts" as the appearance
of men at the moment of death in places remote from the scene of their
decease, with such real or delusive experiences as the noises and
visions in haunted houses--are familiar to savages. Without discussing
these obscure matters, it may be said that they influence the thoughts
even of some scientifically trained and civilised men. It is natural,
therefore, that they should strongly sway the credulous imagination of
backward races, in which they originate or confirm the belief that life
can exist and manifest itself after the death of the body.(1)

(1) See the author's Making of Religion, 1898.

Some examples of savage "ghost-stories," precisely analogous to the
"facts" of the Psychical Society's investigations, may be adduced. The
first is curious because it offers among the Kanekas an example of a
belief current in Breton folk-lore. The story is vouched for by Mr. J.
J. Atkinson, late of Noumea, New Caledonia. Mr. Atkinson, we have reason
to believe, was unacquainted with the Breton parallel. To him one day a
Kaneka of his acquaintance paid a visit, and seemed loth to go away. He
took leave, returned, and took leave again, till Mr. Atkinson asked him
the reason of his behaviour. He then explained that he was about to die,
and would never see his English friend again. As he seemed in perfect
health, Mr. Atkinson rallied him on his hypochondria; but the poor
fellow replied that his fate was sealed. He had lately met in the wood
one whom he took for the Kaneka girl of his heart; but he became aware
too late that she was no mortal woman, but a wood-spirit in the guise of
the beloved. The result would be his death within three days, and, as a
matter of fact, he died. This is the groundwork of the old Breton ballad
of Le Sieur Nan, who dies after his intrigue with the forest spectre.(1)
A tale more like a common modern ghost-story is