The bodily organs were mere accidental encumbrances;
the real "man" was the viewless creature that had the visions of the
night. The body might go; but the thing which by and by was named
"soul" was imperishable.
I can see the drift of foggy argument. The writer means to say that the
belief in immortality sprang up because the wish was father to the
thought. Men longed to live, and thus they persuaded themselves that
they would live; and, one refinement after another having been added to
the vague-minded savage's animal yearning, we have the elaborate system
of theology and the reverential faith that guide the lives of civilized
human entities. Very pretty! Then the literary critic steps in and shows
how the belief in immortality has been enlarged and elaborated since the
days of Saul, the son of Kish. When the witch of Endor saw gods
ascending from the earth, she was only anticipating the experience of
sorcerers who ply their trade in the islands of the Pacific. Professor
Huxley admires the awful description of Saul's meeting with the witch;
but the Professor shows that the South Sea islanders also see gods
ascending out of the earth, and he thinks that the Eastern natives in
Saul's day encouraged a form of ancestor-worship.
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