We have seen how the evolution of religious faith caused the dwelling-place of the dead to move from the tomb to the nether world and from the nether world to the heavens. When the abode of souls was changed, all the ideas attached to the future life had to be transposed. In this lecture we shall endeavour to make clear how the opinions which were held as to the felicity of the blessed were thus transformed. We shall take up again matter which we have already touched upon in another connection and try to show the successive changes undergone by three manners of conceiving happiness in after life: the repose of the dead, the repast of the dead, and the sight of God. The most ancient and originally the simplest of these conceptions was that of the repose of the dead. We know[464] that the dead who had not been buried in accordance with the rites were believed to find no rest in the tomb. A corpse had to be committed to the earth with traditional ceremonies in order that the spirit which animated it might have quiet. If this spirit were not subsequently nourished by offerings and sacrifices, it left its burial place and roamed the earth’s surface like an animal driven by hunger. The shades inhabiting the tombs could also be evoked by necromancers and such disturbance broke in upon their rest most unpleasantly. These archaic ideas were so deeply implanted in the popular mind that other beliefs never expelled them, but supervened and existed side by side with them without causing their disappearance. On tombs of the imperial period formulas like the following are often read: “_Hic requiescit_,” “Here rests,” “_Quieti aeternae_,” “For eternal rest”—inscriptions which could be interpreted figuratively; but other wishes can only be taken to have a material sense, such as: “_Ossa quiescant_,” “May his bones rest,” and “_Molliter ossa cubent_,” “May the bones lie softly.” Poetry has preserved a number of similar phrases. Tibullus expresses the following wish for a loved woman: “May thy slender form rest well beneath the soft earth.”[465] The rest which the exact accomplishment of the rites gave to the dead was not physical only but moral also. The dead were _securi_—the word is properly applied to them—that is, they were exempt from care. Doubtless the care from which they were delivered by the cult of the grave, was first that of suffering from hunger and thirst,[466] but the “eternal security” (_securitas aeterna_)[467] they enjoyed was also the absence of all the fears and anxieties which haunt humanity.