to be
hoped that they will strive to imitate him in qualities which are more
within the reach of us all, in his passionate devotion to knowledge, in
his ardent and unflagging pursuit of truth.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Review of preceding lectures.]

In my last course of lectures I explained that I proposed to treat of
the belief in immortality from a purely historical point of view. My
intention is not to discuss the truth of the belief or to criticise the
grounds on which it has been maintained. To do so would be to trench on
the province of the theologian and the philosopher. I limit myself to
the far humbler task of describing, first, the belief as it has been
held by some savage races, and, second, some of the practical
consequences which these primitive peoples have deduced from it for the
conduct of life, whether these consequences take the shape of religious
rites or moral precepts. Now in such a survey of savage creed and
practice it is convenient to begin with the lowest races of men about
whom we have accurate information and to pass from them gradually to
higher and higher races, because we thus start with the simplest forms
of religion and advance by regular gradations to more complex forms, and
we may hope in this way to render the course of religious evolution more
intelligible than if we were to start from the most highly developed
religions and to work our way down from them to the most embryonic. In
pursuance of this plan I commenced my survey with the aborigines of
Australia, because among the races of man about whom we are well
informed these savages are commonly and, I believe, justly supposed to
stand at the foot of the human scale. Having given you some account of
their beliefs and practices concerning the dead I attempted to do the
same for the islanders of Torres Straits and next for the natives of
British New Guinea. There I broke off, and to-day I shall resume the
thread of my discourse at the broken end by describing the beliefs and
practices concerning the dead, as these beliefs are entertained and
these practices observed by the natives of German New Guinea.

[Sidenote: German New Guinea.]

As you are aware, the German territory of New Guinea skirts the British
territory on the north throughout its entire length and comprises
roughly a quarter of the whole island, the British and German
possessions making up together the eastern half of New Guinea, while th