In approaching our subject we are first confronted by the argument from the common consent of mankind. Like the belief in God, the hope of immortality is said to be implanted in every human heart, and the experience of travellers is cited to show that even the most barbarous races have given it expression in some form, however crude. Aside from the fact that the statement, as it stands, is somewhat exaggerated, we will admit that the belief in a future state is widely current among savage tribes. But the value of this testimony becomes extremely doubtful on closer inspection. A brief account of the origin of the conception of soul among our primitive ancestors, will make this plain. If we observe a child in its sleep, some half articulate word, some cry or gesture occasionally reveals to us the vividness of the dreams with which the little brain is teeming. It is hardly doubtful that the child mistakes the visions of its dream for actual occurrences, and attaches the same reality to these miasmas of the stagnant night as to the clear prospects of daylight reason. Even the adult sometimes finds it difficult to clear his brain of the fancies which occupied it in the hours of sleep. And the test of large experience can alone enable him to distinguish between fact and phantom. I call attention to these facts, because the phenomena of sleep and dreams seem to offer a satisfactory clue to the naive theories of the lower races concerning death and the after life. The savage indeed is the veritable child-man. His ardent emotions, his crude logic, the eagerness with which he questions the how and wherefore of nature, and the comparative ease with which his simple understanding accepts the most fanciful solutions, all combine to place him on the level of the child.