[Sidenote: Fear of the ghosts of the slain a check on murder.] But I am not here concerned with the disastrous and deplorable consequences, the unspeakable follies and crimes and miseries, which have flowed in practice from the theory of a future life. My business at present is with the more cheerful side of the subject, with the wholesome, though groundless, terror which ghosts, apparitions, and spectres strike into the breasts of hardened ruffians and desperadoes. So far as such persons reflect at all and regulate their passions by the dictates of prudence, it seems plain that a fear of ghostly retribution, of the angry spirit of their victim, must act as a salutary restraint on their disorderly impulses; it must reinforce the dread of purely secular punishment and furnish the choleric and malicious with a fresh motive for pausing before they imbrue their hands in blood. This is so obvious, and the fear of ghosts is so notorious, that both might perhaps be taken for granted, especially at this late hour of the evening. But for the sake of completeness I will mention a few illustrative facts, taking them almost at random from distant races in order to indicate the wide diffusion of this particular superstition. I shall try to shew that while all ghosts are feared, the ghosts of slain men are especially dreaded by their slayers. [Sidenote: Ancient Greek belief as to the anger of a ghost at his slayer.] The ancient Greeks believed that the soul of any man who had just been killed was angry with his slayer and troubled him; hence even an involuntary homicide had to {114} depart from his country for a year until the wrath of the dead man had cooled down; nor might the slayer return until sacrifice had been offered and ceremonies of purification performed. If his victim chanced to be a foreigner, the homicide had to shun the country of the dead man as well as his own.[114.1] The legend of the matricide Orestes, how he roamed from place to place pursued and maddened by the ghost of his murdered mother, reflects faithfully the ancient Greek conception of the fate which overtakes the murderer at the hands of the ghost.[114.2]