Man and His Dead
Man is one of the few animals to pay special attention to his dead. Funeral rites differ much from place to place, and form a special subject of anthropological study. Tumuli, pyramids, standing-stones, and other forms of funeral monument have each their history and implications. Especially does man almost everywhere believe in some sort of survival of the individual after death, and in the existence within himself of a soul or spirit which outlives its fleshly habitation. The origin of religion is largely connected with these ideas of a future life and a future world. Herbert Spencer traces it directly to the theory of hosts and ancestor-worship; Dr. Tylor, to what he calls animism, or the belief in souls universally pervading all natural objects.
Man alone also wilfully indulges in intoxicating, stupefying, or exciting substances, such as alcohol, tobacco, bhang, opium, hashish, etc.