We must begin our examination of Greek belief as to the future life by turning to the Homeric poems. The outlines of the psychical doctrine which these contain has been traced with masterly hand by Dr. Erwin Rohde[31], whose conclusions agree well with all that we have of late learned from history and archaeology as to the Homeric age and literature. It is only superficial theorizing which will find in the Homeric poems the ordinary barbaric views as to the nature of the soul and the future life. Primitive elements there may be in the Homeric beliefs on these subjects; but these primitive elements are mostly of the nature of a survival. The Homeric poems belong to a race of singular gifts and remarkable intellectual capacity, a small clan or aristocracy which had by the force of inborn genius penetrated to views in all matters of practical wisdom which must be considered decidedly advanced. Like the _Vedas_ of India and the _Zend Avesta_, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ are the flowers of special developments of civilization, of the culture of pure-blooded clans, which had worked their way forward, amid surrounding barbarism, to a comparatively civilized survey of the world and of mankind. The notion which is the common property of barbarous peoples, that the dead dwell among the living, and constantly interfere for good and for evil in their affairs, that they must be appeased by constant sacrifices and receive their share of all increase,--this notion has indeed left traces in the Homeric poems, but they are slight. It rather shows through the psychology of Homer than regulates or inspires it. The intellectual aristocracy of Homer has in this matter a strong bias towards scepticism. It is really remarkable how nearly the Homeric theories of the soul correspond with the facts recorded by that cautious and sceptical body of inquirers, the Psychical Society. The psyche to Homer is not in the least like the Christian soul, but is a shadowy double of the man, wanting alike in force and in wisdom. It has no midriff, but lives as dreams live; appearing to the living in visions, sleeping or waking, but without power. While the body of a dead man remains unburnt or unburied, his ghost wanders about the place of death: when the body has received due meed of funeral rites, the spirit departs to the land of shades, never to return, nor to vex the survivors.