Thus is evolved one of the most widely spread of all cults—ancestor-worship. Gradually be side the malignant ghost the benignant one ap pears, and by a process quite as natural. The interest which the father during life feels in his family is logically continued after his death, when the social life becomes more stable. (See MARRIAGE.) It is also proper that his sons should be the ministers of this cult, and thus the imperative necessity felt among many peoples for sons. If a man dies sonless. his ghost will lack care, and the ancestor-cult therefore exer cises a far-reaching influence on early family life. As already noted, however, this worship has its limitations. Even among civilized races, except in the comparatively rare instances where genea logical tables are constructed, men seldom know the names of their ancestors further back than the fourth generation. Translating this into terms of primitive life implies that the ghosts of remote ancestors perish, or become absorbed into a vague spirit-world. This leads to the conclusion that all men do not necessarily become ghosts, or at least have but an evanescent ghosthood. It may be stated as generally true that only those men sur vive after death as ghosts who have been so re markable for some reason or other as to command special attention while living. This is clearly shown by the development of the immortality concept in Judaism. (See ESCHATOLOGY.) Not in ancestor-worship alone does the ghost play an important part. Many phenomena in
nature-worship (q.v.) and in the various aspects of totemism (q.v.), including tree-worship and serpent-worship, are explicable only by the ghost cult. On the other hand, ghost-worship is deeply influenced by magic (q.v.), especially in the evo lution of the concept of the benignant ghost, to which allusion has already been made. Magic is, in its simplest terms, a means of control over supernatural powers. As the belief in magic in creases, and as by implication its power in creases, the ghost becomes less and less an object of fear, and in the same degree becomes more and more a beneficent spirit, until it is evolved in many instances into a guardian angel or some like concept. In this way the ghost idea may be traced from the primitive belief in life after the death-sleep, the care for such life and the avoid ance of its ill will, the superhuman and generally malignant nature of that life, and its evanescence in the lapse of years, down to the benignant ghost, controlled at first by magic, which often acts as a guardian spirit, While the immortality concept, at first individual and temporary, finally becomes universal and eternal.
Consult: Spencer, Principles of Sociology (3d ed., 2 vols., London, 1885) ; Campbell, Notes On the Spirit Basis of Belief and Custom (Bombay, 1885) ; Jastrow, The Study of Religion (New York, 1902). See also DEMONOLOGY; ESCIIATOLO GY; MAGIC; MORTUARY CUSTOMS; RELIGIONS, COMPARATIVE; SUPERSTITION; TOTEMISM.