this view.[1] He maintains that the conception of soul did not have its origin in dreams, visions, and trances, although the conception may be of service in an attempt to account for some of these phenomena. As the point raised by Durkheim is of considerable importance, I give his chief objections under four heads, and offer answers which seem to me sufficient to refute his arguments.
1. The belief in soul is not the simplest way to account for dreams, visions, etc. Why should not man instead have imagined that he could see at a distance through all kinds of obstacles? This is a simpler idea than that of a double made of a semi-invisible, ethereal substance.
2. Many dreams are refractory to the ghost-interpretation; for instance, dreams of things that we have done in the past. The double might transport himself into the future, but how could he live over again the past existence of the body to which he belongs? How could a man when awake really believe that he has taken part in events which he knows to have taken place long ago? It is much more natural that he should think of memories, since these at least are familiar to him.
3. How could he be so stupid and non-inquisitive as not to be impressed by the fact that the person whose alleged double has conversed with his own double while he slept had also had dreams that same night and was with another person than his own double? There is, thinks Durkheim, some naïveté in the blind credulity ascribed to primitive man by this theory.
4. Even though the ghost-explanation should be sufficient to account for all dreams, it would remain unlikely that man ever sought for an explanation of his dreams; they are
- ↑ E. Durkheim, "Examen Critique des Systemes Classiques sur la Pensée Religieuse," Revue Philosophique de la France etc., tome lii. (1900), pp. 10-15. What he regards as the origin of the soul I do not know, for at the present writing the book has not appeared of which the article from which I quote is to be a chapter.
