The Eternal Belief in Immortality & Worship of the Dead. James George Frazer

      James George Frazer

      The Eternal Belief in Immortality & Worship of the Dead

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Table of Contents

       Volume 1

       Volume 2

      Volume 1

       Table of Contents

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       LECTURE I INTRODUCTION

       LECTURE II THE SAVAGE CONCEPTION OF DEATH

       LECTURE III MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN OF DEATH

       LECTURE IV THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINES OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA

       LECTURE V THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINES OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA (continued)

       LECTURE VI THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE OTHER ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA

       LECTURE VII THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA (concluded)

       LECTURE VIII THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF THE TORRES STRAITS ISLANDS

       LECTURE IX THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA

       LECTURE X THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA

       LECTURE XI THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA (continued)

       LECTURE XII THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA (continued)

       LECTURE XIII THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA (continued)

       LECTURE XIV THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN AND DUTCH NEW GUINEA

       LECTURE XV THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF SOUTHERN MELANESIA (NEW CALEDONIA)

       LECTURE XVI THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF CENTRAL MELANESIA

       LECTURE XVII THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF CENTRAL MELANESIA (concluded)

       LECTURE XVIII THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF NORTHERN AND EASTERN MELANESIA

       LECTURE XIX THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF EASTERN MELANESIA (FIJI) (continued)

       LECTURE XX THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF EASTERN MELANESIA (FIJI) (concluded)

       NOTE MYTH OF THE CONTINUANCE OF DEATH

      PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      The following lectures were delivered on Lord Gifford's Foundation before the University of St. Andrews in the early winters of 1911 and 1912. They are printed nearly as they were spoken, except that a few passages, omitted for the sake of brevity in the oral delivery, have been here restored and a few more added. Further, I have compressed the two introductory lectures into one, striking out some passages which on reflection I judged to be irrelevant or superfluous. The volume incorporates twelve lectures on "The Fear and Worship of the Dead" which I delivered in the Lent and Easter terms of 1911 at Trinity College, Cambridge, and repeated, with large additions, in my course at St. Andrews.

      The theme here broached is a vast one, and I hope to pursue it hereafter by describing the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead, as these have been found among the other principal races of the world both in ancient and modern times. Of all the many forms which natural religion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far-reaching an influence on human life as the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead; hence an historical survey of this most momentous creed and of the practical consequences which have been deduced from it can hardly fail to be at once instructive and impressive, whether we regard the record with complacency as a noble testimony to the aspiring genius of man, who claims to outlive the sun and the stars, or whether we view it with pity as a melancholy monument of fruitless labour and barren ingenuity expended in prying into that great mystery of which fools profess their knowledge and wise men confess their ignorance.

      J. G. FRAZER.

       Cambridge,

       9th February 1913.

      LECTURE I

      INTRODUCTION

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      Natural theology, and the three modes of handling it, the dogmatic, the philosophical, and the historical.

      The subject of these lectures is a branch of natural theology. By natural theology I understand that reasoned knowledge of a God or gods which man may be supposed, whether rightly or wrongly, capable of attaining to by the exercise of his natural faculties alone. Thus defined, the subject may be treated in at least three different ways, namely, dogmatically, philosophically, and historically. We may simply state the dogmas of natural theology which appear to us to be true: that is the dogmatic method. Or, secondly, we may examine the validity of the grounds on which these