M. Marillier has collected and co-ordinated all that which, in the beliefs of the uncivilized, relates to the survival of the soul.[3] The ensemble of the facts shows that the idea of justice has had not the slightest share in forming the conception of the idea of immortality. There have been few discoveries more important for the history of human beliefs. The idea of immortality was, at first, as M. Marillier has the hardihood to assert, a purely scientific conception. It is the magnification and prolongation of a fact--of a fact badly observed, but still a fact. The future life is the continuation of the present life, and involves the same customs, the same pleasures, the same annoyances. This world also has a double: the other world. The bad and the good, the strong and the weak, continue there as here. Sometimes life, without change in the relations of its elements, is more clement in the other world. Sometimes, in the same conditions, it is worse. But, whether the future life be considered as better or worse, it is the same for all. Better still, it implies perfect equality in those commonplace pleasures which are the average ideal of the civilized man as well as of the savage. The tribes of New Guinea, rendered anaemic by hunger, dream of eating unlimited sago throughout eternity. As it would be possible to discover, even in this egalitarian paradise, some vague idea of compensation, hence of justice; we must go farther, to Java, where paradise--doubtless because of an excessive toll--was accessible only to the rich; to those resigned races, where alone the kings, the priest and the nobles, were saved; to Borneo, where the hereafter, divided into seven circles, corresponded to the seven circles of the social hierarchy. In another corner of the great island, "every person whom a man kills in this world becomes his slave in the next." There we have a paradise clearly based upon the idea of force, and a belief which laughs a little at the categorical imperative. Not only is the weak not "recompensed," but his weakness and his suffering may, through the caprice of the strong, be raised to the infinite. The slayer has acquired an immortal profit. Societies in which there is poetry, art, laughter, love, still exist with such a morality. The fact may sadden, but it does not surprise us; for it is evident that we have here a terrible element of resistance against foreigners. Such a system has its drawbacks. From time to time, in Borneo, a band of young Dyaks who have not yet killed, dash into a town and slay. Having thus gained immortal life and a slave, they remain more tranquil thereafter. Among the Shans, a man killed by an elephant forfeits paradise. Eaten by a tiger, he becomes a tiger. Women who die in child-bed become ghouls and haunt the tombs, their feet reversed, heels foremost. In the Mariannas, there is a heaven and a hell. Violent death leads to hell, natural death to paradise. These people were destined to be slaves from