SINCE evidence of the existence of the belief that the soul
lives on is so indubitable, the question arises--what is its
condition? In what state does the discarnate spirit find itself
after final separation from the body? And first, as to what we
may be allowed to call, for want of a better term, its physical
condition. We have already noted that soul is conceived as
having both form and substance, the latter, so to speak, greatly
rarefied. Moreover, it has been brought to our attention that
the most common idea concerning form is that the soul is a
replica of the body it inhabited. Consistency in primitive
thinking is not to be assumed, as we have seen, nor are logical
processes among primitives quite the same as ours. Yet when a
disembodied soul took up its post-mortem residence in a serpent,
for example, we may not suppose that that soul was still
regarded as human in shape. But so far as the author has
discovered, no decisive evidence exists on this point. The
probabilities favor greatly the supposition