Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/379

 CHAPTER IV.

THE RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY.

§ 1.

The division of the human entity into the two parts which we call soul and body has been so universally recognised even among the most primitive of mankind that the idea of it must have been first suggested by the observation of some universal phenomenon—most probably the phenomenon of unconsciousness whether in sleep, in fainting, in trance, or in death. If it had been man's lot to pass in this world a life of activity unbroken by sleep or exhaustion, and thereafter to be translated like Enoch or Ganymede to another world, so that the spectacle of a body lying inert and senseless could never have been forced upon men's sight, the first impulse to speculation concerning that impalpable something, the loss of which severs men from converse with the waking, active world, might never have been given, and the duality of human nature might never have been conceived. But death above all overtaking each in turn has forced in turn the mourners for each to muse on the future condition of these two elements which, united, make a man, and, disjoined, leave but a corpse. Does neither or does one or do both of them continue? And, continuing, what degree of intelligence and of power has either or have both? Are they for ever separated, or will they be re-united elsewhere? Such are the questions that must have vexed, as they still vex, the minds of many when their eyes were confronted by the spectacle of death.

For some indeed a means of answering or of quieting such searchings of heart has been found in the acceptance of religious dogma. But ancient Greek religion, the faith or superstition in which the Hellenic people, defiant alike of destructive and of con