The mystic notion that the human soul will live forever after death has had a polyphyletic origin. It was unknown to the earliest speaking man (the hypothetical _homo primigenius_ of Asia), to his predecessors, of course, the _pithecanthropus_ and _prothylobates_, and to the least developed of his modern successors, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Seelongs of India, and other distant races. With the development of reason and deeper reflection on life and death, sleep and dreams, mystic ideas of a dualistic composition of our nature were evolved--independently of each other--in a number of the earlier races. Very different influences were at work in these polyphyletic creations--worship of ancestors, love of relatives, love of life and desire of its prolongation, hope of better conditions of life beyond the grave, hope of the reward of good and punishment of evil deeds, and so forth. Comparative psychology has recently brought to our knowledge a great variety of myths and legends of that character; they are, for the most part, closely associated with the oldest forms of theistic and religious belief. In most of the modern religions athanatism is intimately connected with theism; the majority of believers transfer their materialistic idea of a "personal God" to their "immortal soul." That is particularly true of the dominant religion of modern civilized states, Christianity. As everybody knows, the dogma of the immortality of the soul has long since assumed in the Christian religion that rigid form which it has in the articles of faith: "I believe in the resurrection of the body and in an eternal life." Man will arise on "the last day," as Christ is alleged to have done on Easter morn, and receive a reward according to the tenor of his earthly life. This typically Christian idea is thoroughly materialistic and anthropomorphic; it is very little superior to the corresponding crude legends of uncivilized peoples. The impossibility of "the resurrection of the body" is clear to every man who has some knowledge of anatomy and physiology. The resurrection of Christ, which is celebrated every Easter by millions of Christians, is as purely mythical as "the awakening of the dead," which he is alleged to have taught. These mystic articles of faith are just as untenable in the light of pure reason as the cognate hypothesis of "eternal life."