ABSTRACT
T h u s far we have been engaged in tracing the evolution of the primitive philosophical theory of a ghost-land, and have seen it successively assume the shapes of a far-off land, an underground world, a western island or other abode of the blessed, a happy other-world in the sun or sky, until at last ghosts and ghost-land alike are dissolved by an advanced philosophy into the ocean of divine essence. It is time, therefore, to recall to mind that, even when the belief in ghost-land first arose, there was another view as to man’s future state, inconsistent indeed but coexistent nevertheless with the ghost-land theory: it was that after death man rejoined his totem and assumed the shape of the plant or animal that he worshipped. We have therefore now to trace the career of this view. In most, the vast majority, of cases it had no career. The people which held the view were either progressive or they were not. If they were not, then ex hypothesi no development in their views took place: the two views as to the future state remained, as amongst the Zulus, inconsistent and coexistent. On the other hand, if the people were progressive, then everything in totemism that was capable of being taken up into the higher forms of religion which supervened was so transformed, and the restincluding this particular feature of totemism-lingered on as a mere survival, in the shape of tales of men being changed into animals, and, in out-of-the-way and backward places, in the belief that such changes still take place. It may there fore seem at first sight as though in no case could there be any development of this particular feature of totemism, namely, a belief in the posthumous transformation of man into a
plant or animal (a different belief from that in metem psychosis or the transmigration of souls-as different as an acorn is from an oak). As a matter of fact, there is only one combination of circumstances under which the develop ment in question has ever taken place; that is, the contact of a more advanced religion, holding the doctrine of retribution in a developed form, with a less advanced religion, adhering to the belief that after death man rejoins his totem. That contact, moreover, must take place under peculiar circum stances : the two religions must exist side by side in the same community, political or social; and the higher religion must be one bent on finding room within itself for the beliefs of all sections of the social or political community in which it is the dominant force. Now, in the ancient world there were, from the nature of the case, only two countries in which this peculiar combination could occur. They were Egypt and India. Let us begin with Egypt.
