Hearn

Well, I think we Occidentals have yet to learn the worship of ancestors; and evolution is going to teach it to us. When we become conscious that we owe whatever is wise or good or strong or beautiful in each one of us, not to one particular inner individuality, but to the struggles and sufferings and experiences of the whole unknown chain of human lives behind us, reaching back into mystery unthinkable - the worship of ancestors seems an extremely righteous thing. What is it, philosophically, but a tribute of gratitude to the past - dead relatively only alive really within us, and about us.