possible. For we saw that burial is prompted by a deadly fear
lest the corpse or ghost should return to plague the living.
Nevertheless, natural affection for parents or friends, and the
desire to insure their goodwill and aid, make these seemingly
contrary ideas reconcilable. As a matter of fact, we find that
even when men bury or burn their dead, they continue to worship
them; while, as we shall show in the sequel, even the great
stones which they roll on top of the grave to prevent the dead
from rising again become, in time, altars on which sacrifices
are offered to the spirit.

Much of the Bible is evidently legendary. Here we have a jumble of
ancient myths, allegories, and mysteries drawn from many sources and
remote ages, and adapted, altered, and edited so many times that in
many instances their original or inner meaning has become obscure.
And it is folly to accept the tangled legends and blurred or distorted
symbols as the literal history of a literal tribe, and the literal
account of the origin of man, and the genesis of religion.

The real roots of religion lie far deeper: deeper, perhaps, than
sun-worship, ghost-worship, and fear of demons. In _The Real Origin
of Religion_ occurs the following:

Quite recently theories have been advocated attempting to
prove that the minds of early men were chiefly concerned with
the increase of vegetation, and that their fancy played so much
round the mysteries of plant growth that they made them their
holiest arcana. Hence it appears that the savages were far more
modest and refined than our civilised contemporaries, for almost
all our works of imagination, both in literature and art, make