Some races, as we have seen, divide the soul into two or more entities, whereof one alone may be capable of re-manifestation. To discuss the reason for this would lead us away from our subject. It will be enough to suggest that it is an attempt to escape from the dilemma imposed by the meeting of two or more lines of speculation as to the future life. A reconciliation must be attained between the reasoning which would lead to the belief in a place of the dead elsewhere than here, and that which inclines to the opinion that the deceased remains among his friends, or amid his decaying dust, ready and eager to appear again. The divisibility of the inner self succeeds in this object; and if we meet with such a device less frequently than we might expect, it is no doubt because the savage mind, unaccustomed to consecutive and abstract thought, is slow in realising a contradiction, and unwilling to solve the difficulty, unless where circumstances have compelled the attention and the necessary effort.
The study of the belief in the re-incorporation of the soul in a human body has no direct bearing on the legend of Perseus, but some account of it was required to complete our view of savage thought upon the subject of Transformation by means of death and birth—a subject necessary to be understood in approaching the incident of the Life-token. To that incident we have next to address ourselves.
[End of vol. I]
LIST OF SOME OF THE WORKS REFERRED TO
Note.—In the notes Roman numerals placed before the name of a work or author indicate the volume, placed after the name indicate the book or chapter, cited; Arabic numerals generally indicate the page or verse.
Allen, Grant, Attis. The Attis of Caius Valerius Catullus Translated into English Verse, with Dissertations on the Myth of Attis, on the Origin of Tree-Worship, and on the Galliambic Metre by Grant Allen, B.A. London, 1892.
Am Urquell. Am Urquell. Monatsschrift für Volkskunde. Herausgegeben von Friedrich S. Krauss. 4 vols. Wien, 1890-3. [Still proceeding.]
Anthropologie. L’Anthropologie paraissant tous les deux mois sous la direction de MM. Cartailhac, Hamy, Topinard. 4 vols. Paris, 1890-93. [Still proceeding.]
Antiquary. The Antiquary: a Magazine devoted to the Study of the Past. 29 vols. London, 1880-94. [Still proceeding.]
Archivio. Archivio per lo Studio delle Tradizioni Popolari. Rivista trimestrale diritta da G. Pitrè e S. Salamone-Marino. 12 vols. Palermo, 1882-93. [Still proceeding.]