wreak their fury on
their undutiful fellow-tribesmen. Thus the belief in immortality has not
merely coloured the outlook of the individual upon the world; it has
deeply affected the social and political relations of humanity in all
ages; for the religious wars and persecutions, which distracted and
devastated Europe for ages, were only the civilised equivalents of the
battles and murders which the fear of ghosts has instigated amongst
almost all races of savages of whom we possess a record. Regarded from
this point of view, the faith in a life hereafter has been sown like
dragons' teeth on the earth and has brought forth crop after crop of
armed men, who have turned their swords against each other. And when we
consider further the gratuitous and wasteful destruction of property as
well as of life which is involved in sacrifices to the dead, we must
admit that with all its advantages the belief in immortality has
entailed heavy economical losses upon the races--and they are
practically all the races of the world--who have indulged in this
expensive luxury. It is not for me to estimate the extent and gravity of
the consequences, moral, social, political, and economic, which flow
directly from the belief in immortality. I can only point to some of
them and commend them to the serious attention of historians and
economists, as well as of moralists and theologians.

[Sidenote: How does the savage belief in immortality bear on the
question of the truth or falsehood of that belief in general? The answer
depends to some extent on the view we take of human nature. The view of
the grandeur and dignity of man.]

My second observation concerns, not the practical consequences of the
belief in immortality, but the question of its truth or falsehood. That,
I need hardly say, is an even more difficult problem than the other, and
as I intimated at the outset of the lectures I find myself wholly
incompetent to solve it. Accordingly I have confined myself to the
comparatively easy task of describing some of the forms of the belief
and some of the customs to which it has given rise, without presuming to
pass judgment upon them. I must leave it to others to place my
collections of facts in the scales and to say whether they incline the
balance for or against the truth of this momentous belief, which has
been so potent for good or ill in history. In every enquiry much depends
upon the point of view from which the enquirer approaches his su