[25]. While the soul of the living man was most commonly conceived of as a sublimated replica of the ordinary body, it was also supposed in some cases to take the form of some animal—an opinion that may have arisen as regards any particular animal from its appearance at a time when the soul was supposed to be absent from the body,[32] and is to be referred ultimately to the belief in the identity of nature of animals and man. The souls of the dead also were sometimes supposed to take the shape of animals, or to take up their abode in animals[33] or in trees (as in Egypt): such animals (tigers, for example) were commonly dangerous, and this theory of incarnation is an expression of the widely diffused belief in the dangerous character of the souls of the dead. In later, cultivated times the bird became a favorite symbol of the soul—perhaps from its swift and easy flight through the air.[34]
[26]. Savage science, though it generally identified the soul with the breath, and regarded it as a separate interior form, seems not to have attempted to define its precise locus, posture, and extension within the body—the early man was content to regard it as a vague homunculus. The whole body was looked on as the seat of life, and was sometimes eaten in order to acquire its qualities, especially the quality of courage.[35] Life was supposed to reside in the bones as the solid part of the body, and these were preserved as the basis of a future life.[36] But even in early stages of culture we find a tendency to specialize—courage, for example, was assigned particularly to the head and the heart, which were accounted the most desirable parts of a dead enemy.[37] These organs were selected probably on account of their prominence—the heart also because it was the receptacle of the blood. The soul was located by the Indians of Guiana in the pupil of the eye.[38]
[27]. Gradually a more precise localization of qualities was made by the Semites, Greeks, Romans, and other peoples. These, for reasons not clearly known to us, assigned the principal emotional faculties to the most prominent organs of the trunk of the body. The Semites placed thought and courage in the heart and the liver, anger in the liver (the bile), love and grief in the bowels, voluntary power in the kidneys.[39] The Greeks and Romans were less definite: to the heart, the diaphragm, and the liver (the upper half of the trunk); the Greeks assigned thought, courage, emotion;[40] the Romans placed thought and courage in the heart, and the affections in the liver. Among these organs special prominence came to be given to the heart and the liver as seats of mental faculties.[41]
[28]. It is not clear how early the brain was supposed to be connected with the mind. Alcmæon of Crotona (5th cent. b.c.), who, according to Diogenes Laertius, wrote chiefly on medical subjects, is credited with the view that the brain was the constructor of thought.[42] Plato suggests that the brain may be the seat of perception and then of memory and reflection, and calls the head the most divine part of man.[43] Cicero reports that some persons looked on some part of the cerebrum as the chief seat of the mind.[44] In the Semitic languages the first occurrence of a term for 'brain' is in the Arabic.[45] Some American tribes are said to regard the brain as the seat of the mind.[46] The scientific Greek view appears to have been connected with medical research, but the process by which it was reached has not been recorded. The Arabic conception of the brain was probably borrowed from the Greeks.
[29]. The soul as an independent personality was supposed to leave the body at times, and its departure entailed various consequences—in general the result was the withdrawal of the man's ordinary powers to a greater or less extent, according to the duration of the soul's absence. The consequences might be sleep, trance, swoon, coma, death; the precise nature of the effect was determined by the man's subsequent condition—he would wake from sleep, or return to his ordinary state from a trance, or come to himself from a swoon, or lie permanently motionless in death. When he seemed to be dead there was often doubt as to his real condition—the escaped soul might seek its old abode (as in the case of the vampire, for instance), and means were sometimes taken to prevent its return.[47]
[30]. The obvious difference in serious results between sleep and other cessations of the ordinary consciousness and activity led among some tribes to the supposition of a special dream-soul that could leave the body without injury to the man. It was believed by certain Greenlanders[48] that a man going on a journey might leave his soul behind. It was a not uncommon opinion that souls might be taken out for a while, with friendly intent, to guard them during a period of danger (so in Celebes when a family moves into a new house). In Greenland, according to Cranz, a damaged soul might be repaired. Or the soul might be removed with evil intent by magic art—the result would be sickness or swoon; it was then incumbent on the sufferer or his friends to discover the hostile magician and counteract his work by stronger magic, or force him to restore the soul.[49] On the other hand, the soul of a dead man might be so recalled that the man would live again, the usual agency being a god, a magician, or a prophet.
[31]. It has been and is a widespread opinion in low tribes that the life of a person is bound up with that of an animal or plant, or with the preservation of something closely connected with the person. This opinion springs from the conviction of the intimate vital relation between men and their surroundings. From the combination of these beliefs with the view referred to above[50] that a man's soul might dwell in a beast or a plant, the idea of the hidden soul, common in folk-lore, may have arisen[51]—the idea that one might conceal his soul in some unsuspected place and then would be free from fear of death so long as his soul remained undisturbed.[52] These folk-tales are products of the popular imagination based on materials such as those described above. From the early point of view there was no reason why the vital soul, an independent entity, should not lead a locally separate life.
2. Origin of the Soul
[32]. Theories of a special origination of the soul belong only to the more advanced cults. In early stages of culture the soul is taken as a natural part of the human constitution, and though it is regarded as in a sort an independent entity, the analysis of the man is not carried so far as to raise the question of separate beginnings of the two constituents of the personality, except as this is partially involved in the hypothesis of reincarnation. The child is born into the world equipped with all the capacities of man, and further investigation as to how these capacities originally came is not made.
[33]. It was, however, thought necessary to account for the appearance of man (a clan or tribe) on earth, and his creation was generally ascribed to a supernatural being. Every tribe has its history of man's creation—the variety in the anthropogonic myths is endless, the diversities depending on the differences of general culture and of surroundings; but the essential point is the same in all; some god or other supernatural Power fashioned human creatures of different sex, whether with well-considered aim or by caprice is not said.