ctical one--it was closely connected
with the question of man's inherent sinfulness and his capacity for
redemption. Tertullian's theory of the natural propagation of souls
(traducianism), which involved the inheritance of a sinful nature, was
succeeded on the one hand by the theory of preexistence (adopted by
Origen from Plato), and on the other hand by the view that every soul
was an immediate creation of God (creationism, held by Jerome and
others), these both assuming the natural goodness or untainted character
of the soul at the birth of the human being.

+38+. The mysterious character of death, the final departure of the soul
from the body, called forth in savage communities feelings of awe and
dread. As death, in the savage view, was due to the intervention of a
supernatural agency, the dead body and everything connected with it
partook of the sacredness that attached to the supernatural.[65] Hence,
probably, many of the customs relating to the treatment of
corpses--taboos that survived into comparatively late times.[66] The Old
Testament ritual term 'unclean' is used of corpses and other things that
it was unlawful to touch, things taboo, and in this sense is equivalent
to 'sacred.'[67]

3. POLYPSYCHISM

+39+. In the preceding section only the general fact of the existence of
the soul is considered. We find, however, a widespread belief among
savage and half-civilized peoples that every human body is inhabited by
several souls (two or more).[68] Thus, the Fijians, the Algonkins, and
the Karens recognize two souls; the Malagasy, the Dahomi, and the
Ashanti three; the Congoans three or four, the Chinese three, the
Dakotas four, the Malays (of the peninsula) seven; and this list is not
exhaustive.[69] To these various souls different procedures and
functions are assigned.

+40+. In general, as to place and function during the man's life, the
following classes of souls are distinguished: the vital soul, or the
principle of life, whose departure leaves the man insensible or dead
(Malagasy _aina_, Karen _kalah_, E['w]e 'ghost-soul'); the dream-soul,
which wanders while the man is asleep (probably a universal conception
in early stages of culture); the shadow-soul, which accompanies him by
day (also, probably, universal); the reflection-soul (similar to the
preceding); the beast-soul, or bush-soul, incarnate in a beast (among
the Congoans, the E['w]e, the Tshi, the Khonds), with which may be
compared the Egyptia