ESCHATOLOGY. The teaching in re gard to the last things (Greek ta eschata). It deals with man's condition after death, the destiny of nations, and the end of the world. Speculation concerning the fate of the indi vidual appears to have started in a very early period of man's career. Archmological remains indicate the presence of certain customs al ready in the paleolithic age which seem to re veal a nascent conception of survival after death. The disposal of the lifeless body so as to provide it with a shelter, the pictorial repre sentation of men disguised by the heads of animals, and the cremation of the dead scarcely permit any other interpretation. Sepulture, even in its simplest form, apparently implies the idea of something within man that may be tem porarily absent but still demands a measure of sustenance and protection for the body. Ac cording to primitive notions among peoples sur viving until to-day in stone age conditions, some of those that once lived in a neighborhood and, possessed of extraordinary power, created things may return in the guise of totems for the increase and strengthening of the tribe. The desire to have the double within, whose existence had been suggested by many an ex perience, united with the element of fire, for whose permanent possession man had so long struggled, is likely to have given rise to the incineration of the body. In the neolithic age specially constructed tombs, offerings of solid food and blood to the dead, and other customs testify to the growing belief in a survival de pendent upon such ministrations. It is prob able that the satisfaction of immediate needs, impulses, and passions precluded, in these re mote ages, any serious concern about the future of the tribe, while the nomadic habits which allowed only a loose attachment to any partic ular place tended to prevent a local catastrophe from conjuring up the thought of an impend ing destruction of the whole world.
In various centres the early civilizations de veloped along different lines these ideas con cerning the future. The Egyptians continued through thousands of years the practices of the neolithic age, though with some modifications. Tombs were differently constructed, bodies were embalmed, painted food was substituted for real, the mortuary ritual was enriched, but the underlying conception remained the same. Even when the Osirian theology gave a larger measure of independence to the soul, which had to appear before the judges in the nether world, the connection with the entombed body was never lost in popular thought. In periods of foreign invasion and social disorder the need was felt of some guarantees of a better future.
While the Prophecies of an Egyptian Sage in a papyrus of the Middle Kingdom do not con tain any distinctly predictive element, there is at least the suggestion of eschatological thought in the desire for a "shepherd of all the people, who has no evil in his heart?' The freedom of the Nile valley from any devastating natural catastrophes was not conducive to ideas of an approaching end of the world. Our knowledge concerning the iEgean and Hittite civilizations is still too scanty to allow any definite con clusions on these points except such as may be inferred from the archeological remains. The belief in a survival through protection and care of the body is clearly evidenced by tombs and cultic performances. Whatever ideas the Greeks may have brought with them into their new home, they are likely to have been much influenced at the outset by their predecessors. In the Homeric Age it was thought that all souls pass at death to a shadowy and undesir able existence in Hades, unless for special rea sons a hero is translated to dwell with the gods. This subterranean realm may be visited by an Odysseus still in the flesh. Speculation upon successive ages, symbolized by gold, silver, copper and iron appears in Hesiod, together with the suggestion that the process of de generacy will end in destruction of the last race. As the thought of a moral retribution beyond the grave asserted itself, the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries offered to the initiated assurance of a blessed life after death and sal vation from future punishments adjusted to the crimes committed. Among the Pytha goreans the idea of transmigration, probably of Eastern origin, was added to the Orphic conceptions. The primitive notion seems to have been that at death the soul is carried hither and thither by the wind until it enters another body. Plato developed this eschatological thought in various directions. He based immortality upon the essential nature of the soul as an eternal "idea" existing before birth and sub sisting after death. While accepting the Orphic scheme of retribution, he emphasized the posi tive value and moral significance of life. He adopted the idea of the annus rnagnus, the cos mic year, thus anticipating the end of the present world; and he sought the realization by practical efforts of a society patterned upon the ideal, always limited, however, by the Greek conception of the city-state. Aristotle's atti tude towards this development was on all points negative or agnostic.