Several customs also point to the belief in the survival of some degree of life in the body after death, apart from the idea of the soul.
53.

The distribution of life over the body.
Primitive man further thought that life, instead of being concentrated in certain organs, was distributed equally over the whole of the body.

This mistake appears also to have been natural and inevitable when it is remembered that he had no name for the body, the different limbs and the internal organs, and no conception of their existence and distribution, nor of the functions which they severally performed.

He perceived that sensation extended over all parts of the body, and that when any part was hurt or wounded the blood flowed and life gradually declined in vigour and ebbed away.

For this reason the blood was subsequently often identified with the life.