The complexities of the motives that inspire and direct human activities are entirely fatal to such speculations, as I have attempted to indicate (see above, p. 195). But apart from this general warning, there are other objections to Sir James Frazer's theories. In his illuminating article upon Osiris and Horus, Dr. Alan Gardiner (in a criticism of Sir James Frazer's "The Golden Bough: Adonis, Attis, Osiris; Studies in the History of Oriental Religion," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. II, 1915, p. 122) insists upon the crucial fact that Osiris was primarily a king, and that "it is always as a dead king," "the role of the living king being invariably played by Horus, his son and heir".

He states further: "What Egyptologists wish to know about Osiris beyond anything else is how and by what means he became associated with the processes of vegetable life". An examination of the literature relating to Osiris and the large series of homologous deities in other countries (which exhibit prima facie evidence of a common origin) suggests the idea that the king who first introduced the practice of systematic irrigation thereby laid the foundation of his reputation as a beneficent reformer. When, for reasons which I shall discuss later on (see p. 220), the dead king became deified, his fame as the controller of water and the fertilization of the earth became apotheosized also. I venture to put forward this suggestion only because none of the alternative hypotheses that have been propounded seem to be in accordance with, or to offer an adequate explanation of, the body of known facts concerning Osiris.

It is a remarkable fact that in his lectures on "The Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," which are based upon his own studies of the Pyramid Texts, and are an invaluable storehouse of information, Professor J. H. Breasted should have accepted Sir James Frazer's views. These seem to me to be altogether at variance with the renderings of the actual Egyptian texts and to confuse the exposition.]

[44: Dr. Alan Gardiner, quoted in my "Migrations of Early Culture," p. 42: see also the same scholar's remarks in Davies and Gardiner, "The Tomb of Amenemhet," 1915, p. 57, and "A new Masterpiece of Egyptian Sculpture," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. IV, Part I, Jan., 1917.]

[45: See J. Wilfrid Jackson, "Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture," 1917, Manchester University Press.]

Early Biological Theories.

Before the full significance of these procedures can be appreciated it is essential to try to get at the back of the Proto-Egyptian's mind and to understand his general trend of thought. I specially want to make it clear that the ritual use of water for animating the corpse or the statue was merely a specific application of the general principles of biology which were then current. It was no mere childish make-believe or priestly subterfuge to regard the pouring out of water as a means of animating a block of stone. It was a conviction for which the Proto-Egyptians considered there was a substantial scientific basis; and their faith in the efficacy of water to animate the dead is to be regarded in the same light as any scientific inference which is made at the present time to give a specific application of some general theory considered to be well founded. The Proto-Egyptians clearly believed in the validity of the general biological theory of the life-giving properties of water. Many facts, no doubt quite convincing to them, testified to the soundness of their theory. They accepted the principle with the same confidence that modern people have adopted Newton's Law of Gravitation, and Darwin's theory of the Origin of Species, and applied it to explain many phenomena or to justify certain procedures, which in the light of fuller knowledge seem to modern people puerile and ludicrous. But the early people obviously took these procedures seriously and regarded their actions as rational. The fact that their early biological theory was inadequate ought not to mislead modern scholars and encourage them to fall into the error of supposing that the ritual of libations was not based upon a serious inference. Modern scientists do not accept the whole of Darwin's teaching, or possibly even Newton's "Law," but this does not mean that in the past innumerable inferences have been honestly and confidently made in specific application of these general principles.

It is important, then, that I should examine more closely the Proto-Egyptian body of doctrine to elucidate the mutual influence of it and the ideas suggested by the practice of mummification. It is not known where agriculture was first practised or the circumstances which led men to appreciate the fact that plants could be cultivated. In many parts of the world agriculture can be carried on without artificial irrigation, and even without any adequate appreciation on the part of the farmer of the importance of water. But when it came to be practised under such conditions as prevail in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the cultivator would soon be forced to realize that water was essential for the growth of plants, and that it was imperative to devise artificial means by which the soil might be irrigated. It is not known where or by whom this cardinal fact first came to be appreciated, whether by the Sumerians or the Egyptians or by some other people. But it is known that in the earliest records both of Egypt and Sumer the most significant manifestations of a ruler's wisdom were the making of irrigation canals and the controlling of water. Important as these facts are from their bearing upon the material prospects of the people, they had an infinitely more profound and far-reaching effect upon the beliefs of mankind. Groping after some explanation of the natural phenomenon that the earth became fertile when water was applied to it, and that seed burst into life under the same influence, the early biologist formulated the natural and not wholly illogical idea that water was the repository of life-giving powers. Water was equally necessary for the production of life and for the maintenance of life.

At an early stage in the development of this biological theory man and other animals were brought within the scope of the generalization. For the drinking of water was a condition of existence in animals. The idea that water played a part in reproduction was co-related with this fact.

Even at the present time many aboriginal peoples in Australia, New Guinea, and elsewhere, are not aware of the fact that in the process of animal reproduction the male exercises the physiological role of fertilization.[46]

There are widespread indications throughout the world that the appreciation of this elementary physiological knowledge was acquired at a relatively recent period in the history of mankind. It is difficult to believe that the fundamental facts of the physiology of fertilization in animals could long have remained unknown when men became breeders of cattle. The Egyptian hieroglyphs leave no doubt that the knowledge was fully appreciated at the period when the earliest picture-symbols were devised, for the verb "to beget" is represented by the male organs of generation. But, as the domestication of animals may have been earlier than the invention of agriculture, it is possible that the appreciation of the fertilizing powers of the male animal may have been definitely more ancient than the earliest biological theory of the fertilizing power of water.

I have discussed this question to suggest that the knowledge that animals could be fertilized by the seminal fluid was certainly brought within the scope of the wider generalization that water itself was endowed with fertilizing properties. Just as water fertilized the earth, so the semen fertilized the female. Water was necessary for the maintenance of life in plants and was also essential in the form of drink for animals. As both the earth and women could be fertilized by water they were homologized one with the other. The earth came to be regarded as a woman, the Great Mother.[47] When the fertilizing water came to be personified in the person of Osiris his consort Isis was identified with the earth which was fertilized by water.[48]

One of the earliest pictures of an Egyptian king represents him using the hoe to inaugurate the making of an irrigation-canal.[49] This was the typical act of benevolence on the part of a wise ruler. It is not unlikely that the earliest organization of a community under a definite leader may have been due to the need for some systematized control of irrigation. In any case the earliest rulers of Egypt and Sumer were essentially the controllers and regulators of the water supply and as such the givers of fertility and prosperity.

Once men first consciously formulated the belief that death was not the end of all things,[50] that the body could be re-animated and consciousness and the will restored, it was natural that a wise ruler who, when alive, had rendered conspicuous services should after death continue to be consulted. The fame of such a man would grow with age; his good deeds and his powers would become apotheosized; he would become an oracle whose advice might be sought and whose help be obtained in grave crises. In other words the dead king would be "deified," or at any rate credited with the ability to confer even greater boons than he was able to do when alive.

It is no mere coincidence that the first "god" should have been a dead king, Osiris, nor that he controlled the waters of irrigation and was specially interested in agriculture. Nor, for the reasons that I have already suggested, is it surprising that he should have had phallic attributes, and in himself have personified the virile powers of fertilization.[51]

In attempting to explain the origin of the ritual procedures of burning incense and offering libations it is essential to realize that the creation of the first deities was not primarily an expression of religious belief, but rather an application of science to national affairs. It was the logical interpretation of the dominant scientific theory of the time for the practical benefit of the living; or in other words, the means devised for securing the advice and the active help of wise rulers after their death. It was essentially a matter of practical politics and applied science. It became "religion" only when the advancement of knowledge superseded these primitive scientific theories and left them as soothing traditions for the thoughts and aspirations of mankind to cherish. For by the time the adequacy of these theories of knowledge began to be questioned they had made an insistent appeal, and had come to be regarded as an essential prop to lend support to man's conviction of the reality of a life beyond the grave. A web of moral precept and the allurement of hope had been so woven around them that no force was able to strip away this body of consolatory beliefs; and they have persisted for all time, although the reasoning by which they were originally built up has been demolished and forgotten several millennia ago.

It is not known where Osiris was born. In other countries there are homologous deities, such as Ea, Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis, which are certainly manifestations of the same idea and sprung from the same source. Certain recent writers assume that the germ of the Osiris-conception was introduced into Egypt from abroad. But if so, nothing is known for certain of its place of origin. In any case there can be no doubt that the distinctive features of Osiris, his real personality and character, were developed in Egypt.

For reasons which I have suggested already it is probable that the significance of water in cultivation was not realized until cereals were cultivated in some such place as Babylonia or Egypt. But there are very definite legends of the Babylonian Ea coming from abroad by way of the Persian Gulf.[52] The early history of Tammuz is veiled in obscurity.

Somewhere in South Western Asia or North Eastern Africa, probably within a few years of the development of the art of agriculture, some scientific theorist, interpreting the body of empirical knowledge acquired by cultivating cereals, propounded the view that water was the great life-giving element. This view eventually found expression in the Osiris-group of legends.

This theory found specific application in the invention of libations and incense. These practices in turn reacted upon the general body of doctrine and gave it a more sharply defined form. The dead king also became more real when he was represented by an actual embalmed body and a life-like statue, sitting in state upon his throne and holding in his hands the emblems of his high office.

Thus while, in the present state of knowledge, it would be unjustifiable to claim that the Osiris-group of deities was invented in Egypt, and certainly erroneous to attribute the general theory of the fertilizing properties of water to the practice of embalming, it is true that the latter was responsible for giving Osiris a much more concrete and clearly-defined shape, of "making a god in the image of man", and for giving to the water-theory a much richer and fuller significance than it had before.

The symbolism so created has had a most profound influence upon the thoughts and aspirations of the human race. For Osiris was the prototype of all the gods; his ritual was the basis of all religious ceremonial; his priests who conducted the animating ceremonies were the pioneers of a long series of ministers who for more than fifty centuries, in spite of the endless variety of details of their ritual and the character of their temples, have continued to perform ceremonies that have undergone remarkably little essential change. Though the chief functions of the priest as the animator of the god and the restorer of his consciousness have now fallen into the background in most religions, the ritual acts (the incense and libations, the offerings of food and blood and the rest) still persist in many countries: the priest still appeals by prayer and supplication for those benefits, which the Proto-Egyptian aimed at securing when he created Osiris as a god to give advice and help. The prayer for rain is one of the earliest forms of religious appeal, but the request for a plentiful inundation was earlier still.

I have already said that in using the terms "god" and "religion" with reference to the earliest form of Osiris and the beliefs that grew up with reference to him a potent element of confusion is introduced.

During the last fifty centuries the meanings of those two words have become so complexly enriched with the glamour of a mystic symbolism that the Proto-Egyptian's conception of Osiris and the Osirian beliefs must have been vastly different from those implied in the words "god" and "religion" at the present time. Osiris was regarded as an actual king who had died and been reanimated. In other words he was a man who could bestow upon his former subjects the benefits of his advice and help, but could also display such human weaknesses as malice, envy, and all uncharitableness. Much modern discussion completely misses the mark by the failure to recognize that these so-called "gods" were really men, equally capable of acts of beneficence and of outbursts of hatred, and as one or the other aspect became accentuated the same deity could become a Vedic deva or an Avestan daeva, a deus or a devil, a god of kindness or a demon of wickedness.

The acts which the earliest "gods" were supposed to perform were not at first regarded as supernatural. They were merely the boons which the mortal ruler was supposed to be able to confer, by controlling the waters of irrigation and rendering the land fertile. It was only when his powers became apotheosized with a halo of accumulated glory (and the growth of knowledge revealed the insecurity of the scientific basis upon which his fame was built up) that a priesthood reluctant to abandon any of the attributes which had captured the popular imagination, made it an obligation of belief to accept these supernatural powers of the gods for which the student of natural phenomena refused any longer to be a sponsor. This was the parting of the ways between science and religion; and thenceforth the attributes of the "gods" became definitely and admittedly superhuman.

As I have already stated (p. 23) the original object of the offering of libations was thus clearly for the purpose of animating the statue of the deceased and so enabling him to continue the existence which had merely been interrupted by the incident of death. In course of time, however, as definite gods gradually materialized and came to be represented by statues, they also had to be vitalized by offerings of water from time to time. Thus the pouring out of libations came to be an act of worship of the deity; and in this form it has persisted until our own times in many civilized countries.

But not only was water regarded as a means of animating the dead, or statues representing the dead, and an appropriate act of worship, in that it vitalized an idol and the god dwelling in it was thus able to hear and answer supplications. Water also became an essential part of any act of ritual rebirth.[53] As a baptism it also symbolized the giving of life. The initiate was re-born into a new communion of faith. In scores of other ways the same conception of the life-giving properties of water was responsible for as many applications of the use of libations in inaugurating new enterprises, such as "baptising" ships and blessing buildings. It is important to remember that, according to early Egyptian beliefs, the continued existence of the dead was wholly dependent upon the attentions of the living. Unless this animating ceremony was performed not merely at the time of the funeral, but also at stated periods afterwards, and unless the friends of the deceased periodically supplied food and drink, such a continuation of existence was impossible.

The development of these beliefs had far-reaching effects in other directions. The idea that a stone statue could be animated ultimately became extended to mean that the dead man could enter into and dwell in a block of stone, which he could leave or return to at will. From this arose the beliefs, which spread far and wide, that the dead ancestors, kings, or deified kings, dwelt in stones; and that they could be consulted as oracles, who gave advice and counsel. The acceptance of this idea that the dead could be reanimated in a stone statue no doubt prepared the minds of the people to credit the further belief, which other circumstances were responsible for creating, that men could be turned into stone. In the next chapter I shall explain how these petrifaction stories developed.[54]

All the rich crop of myths concerning men and animals dwelling in stones which are to be found encircling the globe from Ireland to America, can be referred back to these early Egyptian attempts to solve the mysteries of death, and to acquire the means of circumventing fate.[55]

These beliefs at first may have concerned human beings only. But in course of time, as the duty of revictualling an increasingly large number of tombs and temples tended to tax the resources of the people, the practice developed of substituting for the real things models, or even pictures, of food-animals, vegetables, and other requisites of the dead. And these objects and pictures were restored to life or reality by means of a ritual which was essentially identical with that used for animating the statue or the mummy of the deceased himself.

It is well worth considering whether this may not be one of the basal factors in explanation of the phenomena which the late Sir Edward Tylor labelled "animism".

So far from being a phase of culture through which many, if not all, peoples have passed in the course of their evolution, may it not have been merely an artificial conception of certain things, which was given so definite a form in Egypt, for the specific reasons at which I have just hinted, and from there spread far and wide?

Against this view may be urged the fact that our own children talk in an animistic fashion. But is not this due in some measure to the unconscious influence of their elders? Or at most is it not a vague and ill-defined attitude of anthropomorphism necessarily involved in all spoken languages, which is vastly different from what the ethnologist understands by "animism"[56]?

But whether this be so or not, there can be no doubt that the "animism" of the early Egyptians assumed its precise and clear-cut distinctive features as the result of the growth of ideas suggested by the attempts to make mummies and statues of the dead and symbolic offerings of food and other funerary requisites.

Thus incidentally there grew up the belief in a power of magic by means of which these make-believe offerings could be transformed into realities. But it is important to emphasize the fact that originally the conviction of the genuineness of this transubstantiation was a logical and not unnatural inference based upon the attempt to interpret natural phenomena, and then to influence them by imitating what were regarded as the determining factors.[57]

In China these ideas still retain much of their primitive influence and directness of expression. Referring to the Chinese "belief in the identity of pictures or images with the beings they represent" de Groot states that the kwan shuh or "magic art" is a "main branch of Chinese witchcraft". It consists essentially of "the infusion of a soul, life, and activity into likenesses of beings, to thus render them fit to work in some direction desired ... this infusion is effected by blowing or breathing, or spurting water over the likeness: indeed breath or khi, or water from the mouth imbued with breath, is identical with yang substance or life."[58]

[46: Baldwin Spencer and Gillen, "The Northern Tribes of Central Australia"; "Across Australia"; and Spencer's "Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia". For a very important study of the whole problem with special reference to New Guinea, see B. Malinowski, "Baloma: the Spirits of the Dead," etc., Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1916, p. 415.]

[47: The idea of the earth's maternal function spread throughout the greater part of the world.]

[48: With reference to the assimilation of the conceptions of human fertilization and watering the soil and the widespread idea among the ancients of regarding the male as "he who irrigates," Canon van Hoonacker gave M. Louis Siret the following note:—

"In Assyrian the cuneiform sign for water is also used, inter alia, to express the idea of begetting (banu). Compare with this the references from Hebrew and Arabic writings. In Isaiah xlviii. 1, we read 'Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah'; and in Numbers xxiv. 7, 'Water shall flow from his buckets and his seed shall be in many waters'.

"The Hebrew verb (shangal) which denotes sexual intercourse has, in Arabic (sadjala), the meaning 'to spill water'. In the Koran, Sur. 36, v. 6, the word ma'un (water) is used to designate semen" (L. Siret, "Questions de Chronologie et d'Ethnographie Iberiques," Tome I, 1913, p. 250).]

[49: Quibell, "Hieraconpolis", Vol. I, 260, 4.]

[50: In using this phrase I want to make a clear distinction between the phase of culture in which it had never occurred to man that, in his individual case, life would come to an end, and the more enlightened stage, in which he fully realized that death would inevitably be his fate, but that in spite of it his real existence would continue.

It is clear that at quite an early stage in his history man appreciated the fact that he could kill an animal or his fellow-man. But for a long time he failed to realize that he himself, if he could avoid the process of mechanical destruction by which he could kill an animal or a fellow-man, would not continue to exist. The dead are supposed by many people to be still in existence so long as the body is preserved. Once the body begins to disintegrate even the most unimaginative of men can entirely repress the idea of death. But to primitive people the preservation of the body is equally a token that existence has not come to an end. The corpse is merely sleeping.]

[51: Breasted, op. cit., p. 28.]

[52: The possibility, or even the probability, must be borne in mind that the legend of Ea arising from the waters may be merely another way of expressing his primary attribute as the personification of the fertilizing powers of water.]

[53: This occurred at a later epoch when the attributes of the water-controlling deity of fertility became confused with those of the birth-giving mother goddess (vide infra, p. 40).]

[54: For a large series of these stories see E. Sidney Hartland's "Legend of Perseus". But even more instructive, as revealing the intimate connexion of such ideas with the beliefs regarding the preservation of the body, see J. J. M. de Groot, "The Religious System of China," Vol. IV, Book II, 1901.]

[55: In this connexion see de Groot, op. cit. pp. 356 and 415. [Transcriber's Note: the original text contained no marker for this footnote, so a guess has been made as to what it referred]]

[56: The child certainly resembles primitive man in the readiness with which it attributes to even the crudest models of animals or human beings the feelings of living creatures.]

[57: It became "magical" in our sense of the term only when the growth of knowledge revealed the fact that the measures taken were inadequate to attain the desired end; while the "magician" continued to make the pretence that he could attain that end by ultra-physical means.]

[58: De Groot, op. cit. p. 356.]

Incense.

So far I have referred in detail only to the offering of libations. But this was only one of several procedures for animating statues, mummies, and food-offerings. I have still to consider the ritual procedures of incense-burning and "opening the mouth".

From Mr. Blackman's translations of the Egyptian texts it is clear that the burning of incense was intended to restore to the statue (or the mummy) the odour of the living body, and that this was part of the procedure considered necessary to animate the statue. He says "the belief about incense [which is explained by a later document, the Ritual of Amon] apparently does not occur in the Old Kingdom religious texts that are preserved to us, yet it may quite well be as ancient as that period. That is certainly Erman's view" (op. cit. p. 75).

He gives the following translation of the relevant passage in the Ritual of Amon (XII, 11): "The god comes with body adorned which he has fumigated with the eye of his body, the incense of the god which has issued from his flesh, the sweat of the god which has fallen to the ground, which he has given to all the gods.... It is the Horus eye. If it lives, the people live, thy flesh lives, thy members are vigorous" (op. cit. p. 72). In his comments upon this passage Mr. Blackman states: "In the light of the Pyramid libation-formulae the expressions in this text are quite comprehensible. Like the libations the grains of incense are the exudations of a divinity,[59] the fluid which issued from his flesh, the god's sweat descending to the ground.... Here incense is not merely the 'odour of the god,' but the grains of resin are said to be the god's sweat" (op. cit. p. 72). "Both rites, the pouring of libations and the burning of incense, are performed for the same purpose—to revivify the body [or the statue] of god and man by restoring to it its lost moisture" (p. 75).

In attempting to reconstitute the circumstances which led to the invention of incense-burning as a ritual act, the nature of the problem to be solved must be recalled. Among the most obtrusive evidences of death were the coldness of the skin, the lack of perspiration and of the odour of the living. It is important to realize what the phrase "odour of the living" would convey to the Proto-Egyptian. From the earliest Predynastic times in Egypt it had been the custom to make extensive use of resinous material as an essential ingredient (what a pharmacist would call the adhesive "vehicle") of cosmetics. One of the results of this practice in a hot climate must have been the association of a strong aroma of resin or balsam with a living person.[60] Whether or not it was the practice to burn incense to give pleasure to the living is not known. The fact that such a procedure was customary among their successors may mean that it was really archaic; or on the other hand the possibility must not be overlooked that it may be merely the later vulgarization of a practice which originally was devised for purely ritual purposes. The burning of incense before a corpse or statue was intended to convey to it the warmth, the sweat, and the odour of life.

When the belief became well established that the burning of incense was potent as an animating force, and especially a giver of life to the dead, it naturally came to be regarded as a divine substance in the sense that it had the power of resurrection. As the grains of incense consisted of the exudation of trees, or, as the ancient texts express it, "their sweat," the divine power of animation in course of time became transferred to the trees. They were no longer merely the source of the life-giving incense, but were themselves animated by the deity whose drops of sweat were the means of conveying life to the mummy.

The reason why the deity which dwelt in these trees was usually identified with the Mother-Goddess will become clear in the course of the subsequent discussion (p. 38). It is probable that this was due mainly to the geographical circumstance that the chief source of incense was Southern Arabia, which was also the home of the primitive goddesses of fertility. For they were originally nothing more than personifications of the life-giving cowry amulets from the Red Sea.

Thus Robertson Smith's statement that "the value of the gum of the acacia as an amulet is connected with the idea that it is a clot of menstruous blood, i.e., that the tree is a woman"[61] is probably an inversion of cause and effect. It was the value attached to the gum that conferred animation upon the tree. The rest of the legend is merely a rationalization based upon the idea that the tree was identified with the mother-goddess. The same criticism applies to his further contention (p. 427) with reference to "the religious value of incense" which he claims to be due to the fact that "like the gum of the samora (acacia) tree, ... it was an animate or divine plant".

Many factors played a part in the development of tree-worship but it is probable the origin of the sacredness of trees must be assigned to the fact that it was acquired from the incense and the aromatic woods which were credited with the power of animating the dead. But at a very early epoch many other considerations helped to confirm and extend the conception of deification. When Osiris was buried, a sacred sycamore grew up as "the visible symbol of the imperishable life of Osiris".[62] But the sap of trees was brought into relationship with life-giving water and thus constituted another link with Osiris. The sap was also regarded as the blood of trees and the incense that exuded as the sweat. Just as the water of libation was regarded as the fluid of the body of Osiris, so also, by this process of rationalization, the incense came to possess a similar significance.

For reasons precisely analogous to those already explained in the case of libations, the custom of burning incense, from being originally a ritual act for animating the funerary statue, ultimately developed into an act of homage to the deity.

But it also acquired a special significance when the cult of sky-gods developed,[63] for the smoke of the burning incense then came to be regarded as the vehicle which wafted the deceased's soul to the sky or conveyed there the requests of the dwellers upon earth.[64]

"The soul of a human being is generally conceived [by the Chinese] as possessing the shape and characteristics of a human being, and occasionally those of an animal; ... the spirit of an animal is the shape of this animal or of some being with human attributes and speech. But plant spirits are never conceived as plant-shaped, nor to have plant-characters ... whenever forms are given them, they are mostly represented as a man, a woman, or a child, and often also as an animal, dwelling in or near the plant, and emerging from it at times to do harm, or to dispense blessings.... Whether conceptions on the animation of plants have never developed in Chinese thought and worship before ideas about human ghosts ... had become predominant in mind and custom, we cannot say: but the matter seems probable" (De Groot, op. cit. pp. 272, 273). Tales of trees that shed blood and that cry out when hurt are common in Chinese literature (p. 274) [as also in Southern Arabia]; also of trees that lodge or can change into maidens of transcendent beauty (p. 276).

It is further significant that amongst the stories of souls of men taking up their residence in and animating trees and plants, the human being is usually a woman, accompanied by "a fox, a dog, an old raven or the like" (p. 276).

Thus in China are found all the elements out of which Dr. Rendel Harris believes the Aphrodite cult was compounded in Cyprus,[65] the animation of the anthropoid plant, its human cry, its association with a beautiful maiden and a dog.[66]

The immemorial custom of planting trees on graves in China is supposed by De Groot (p. 277) to be due to "the desire to strengthen the soul of the buried person, thus to save his body from corruption, for which reason trees such as pines and cypresses, deemed to be bearers of great vitality for being possessed of more shen than other trees, were used preferably for such purposes". But may not such beliefs also be an expression of the idea that a tree growing upon a grave is developed from and becomes the personification of the deceased? The significance of the selection of pines and cypresses may be compared to that associated with the so-called "cedars" in Babylonia, Egypt, and Phoenicia, and the myrrh- and frankincense-producing trees in Arabia and East Africa. They have come to be accredited with "soul-substance," since their use in mummification and as incense and for making coffins, has made them the means for attaining a future existence. Hence in course of time they came to be regarded as charged with the spirit of vitality, the shen or "soul-substance".

In China also it was because the woods of the pine or fir and the cyprus were used for making coffins and grave-vaults and that pine-resin was regarded as a means of attaining immortality (De Groot, op. cit. pp. 296 and 297) that such veneration was bestowed upon these trees. "At an early date, Taoist seekers after immortality transplanted that animation [of the hardy long-lived fir and cypress[67]] into themselves by consuming the resin of those trees, which, apparently, they looked upon as coagulated soul-substance, the counterpart of the blood in men and animals" (p. 296).

In India the amrita, the god's food of immortality, was sometimes regarded as the sap exuded from the sacred trees of paradise.

Elsewhere in these pages it is explained how the vaguely defined Mother "Goddess" and the more distinctly anthropoid Water "God," which originally developed quite independently the one of the other, ultimately came to exert a profound and mutual influence, so that many of the attributes which originally belonged to one of them came to be shared with the other. Many factors played a part in this process of blending and confusion of sex. As I shall explain later, when the moon came to be regarded as the dwelling or the impersonation of Hathor, the supposed influence of the moon over water led to a further assimilation of her attributes with those of Osiris as the controller of water, which received definite expression in a lunar form of Osiris.

But the link that is most intimately related to the subject of this address is provided by the personification of the Mother-Goddess in incense-trees. For incense thus became the sweat or the tears of the Great Mother just as the water of libation was regarded as the fluid of Osiris.

[59: As I shall explain later (see page 38), the idea of the divinity of the incense-tree was a result of, and not the reason for, the practice of incense-burning. As one of the means by which the resurrection was attained incense became a giver of divinity; and by a simple process of rationalization the tree which produced this divine substance became a god.

The reference to the "eye of the body" (see p. 55) means the life-giving god or goddess who is the "eye" of the sky, i.e. the god with whom the dead king is identified.]

[60: It would lead me too far afield to enter into a discussion of the use of scents and unguents, which is closely related to this question.]

[61: "The Religion of the Semites," p. 133.]

[62: Breasted, p. 28.]

[63: For reasons explained on a subsequent page (56).]

[64: It is also worth considering whether the extension of this idea may not have been responsible for originating the practice of cremation—as a device for transferring, not merely the animating incense and the supplications of the living, but also the body of the deceased to the sky-world. This, of course, did not happen in Egypt, but in some other country which adopted the Egyptian practice of incense-burning, but was not hampered by the religious conservatism that guarded the sacredness of the corpse.]

[65: "The Ascent of Olympus," 1917.]

[66: For a collection of stories relating to human beings, generally women, dwelling in trees, see Hartland's "Legend of Perseus".]

[67: The fact that the fir and cypress are "hardy and long-lived" is not the reason for their being accredited with these life-prolonging qualities. But once the latter virtues had become attributed to them the fact that the trees were "hardy and long-lived" may have been used to bolster up the belief by a process of rationalization.]

The Breath of Life.

Although the pouring of libations and the burning of incense played so prominent a part in the ritual of animating the statue or the mummy, the most important incident in the ceremony was the "opening of the mouth," which was regarded as giving it the breath of life.

Elsewhere[68] I have suggested that the conception of the heart and blood as the vehicles of life, feeling, volition, and knowledge may have been extremely ancient. It is not known when or under what circumstances the idea of the breath being the "life" was first entertained. The fact that in certain primitive systems of philosophy the breath was supposed to have something to do with the heart suggests that these beliefs may be a constituent element of the ancient heart-theory. In some of the rock-pictures in America, Australia, and elsewhere the air-passages are represented leading to the heart. But there can be little doubt that the practice of mummification gave greater definiteness to the ideas regarding the "heart" and "breath," which eventually led to a differentiation between their supposed functions.[69] As the heart and the blood were obviously present in the dead body they could no longer be regarded as the "life". The breath was clearly the "element" the lack of which rendered the body inanimate. It was therefore regarded as necessary to set the heart working. The heart then came to be looked upon as the seat of knowledge, the organ that feels and wills during waking life. All the pulsating motions of the body seem to have been regarded, like the act of respiration, as expressions of the vital principle or "life," which Dutch ethnological writers refer to as "soul substance". The neighbourhood of certain joints where the pulse can be felt most readily, and the top of the head, where pulsation can be felt in the infant's fontanelle, were therefore regarded by some Asiatic peoples as the places where the substance of life could leave or enter the body.

It is possible that in ancient times this belief was more widespread than it is now. It affords an explanation of the motive for trephining the skull among ancient peoples, to afford a more ready passage for the "vital essence" to and from the skull.

In his lecture on "The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul,"[70] Professor John Burnet has expounded the meaning of early Greek conceptions of the soul with rare insight and lucidity. Originally, the word [Greek: psyche] meant "breath," but, by historical times, it had already been specialized in two distinct ways. It had come to mean courage in the first place, and secondly the breath of life, the presence or absence of which is the most obvious distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the "ghost" which a man "gives up" at death. But it may also quit the body temporarily, which explains the phenomenon of swooning ([Greek: lipopsychia]). It seemed natural to suppose it was also the thing that can roam at large when the body is asleep, and even appear to another sleeping person in his dream. Moreover, since we can dream of the dead, what then appears to us must be just what leaves the body at the moment of death. These considerations explain the world-wide belief in the "soul" as a sort of double of the real bodily man, the Egyptian ka,[71] the Italian genius, and the Greek [Greek: psyche].

Now this double is not identical with whatever it is in us that feels and wills during our waking life. That is generally supposed to be blood and not breath.

What we feel and perceive have their seat in the heart: they belong to the body and perish with it.

* * * * *

It is only when the shades have been allowed to drink blood that consciousness returns to them for a while.

At one time the [Greek: psyche] was supposed to dwell with the body in the grave, where it had to be supported by the offerings of the survivors, especially by libations ([Greek: choai]).

An Egyptian psychologist has carried the story back long before the times of which Professor Burnet writes. He has explained "his conception of the functions of the 'heart (mind) and tongue'. 'When the eyes see, the ears hear, and the nose breathes, they transmit to the heart. It is he (the heart) who brings forth every issue and it is the tongue which repeats the thought of the heart.'"[72]

"There came the saying that Atum, who created the gods, stated concerning Ptah-Tatenen: 'He is the fashioner of the gods.... He made likenesses of their bodies to the satisfaction of their hearts. Then the gods entered into their bodies of every wood and every stone and every metal.'"[73]

That these ideas are really ancient is shown by the fact that in the Pyramid Texts Isis is represented conveying the breath of life to Osiris by "causing a wind with her wings".[74] The ceremony of "opening the mouth" which aimed at achieving this restoration of the breath of life was the principal part of the ritual procedure before the statue or mummy. As I have already mentioned (p. 25), the sculptor who modelled the portrait statue was called "he who causes to live," and the word "to fashion" a statue is identical with that which means "to give birth". The god Ptah created man by modelling his form in clay. Similarly the life-giving sculptor made the portrait which was to be the means of securing a perpetuation of existence, when it was animated by the "opening of the mouth," by libations and incense.

As the outcome of this process of rationalization in Egypt a vast crop of creation-legends came into existence, which have persisted with remarkable completeness until the present day in India, Indonesia, China, America, and elsewhere. A statue of stone, wood, or clay is fashioned, and the ceremony of animation is performed to convey to it the breath of life, which in many places is supposed to be brought down from the sky.[75]

In the Egyptian beliefs, as well as in most of the world-wide legends that were derived from them, the idea assumed a definite form that the vital principle (often referred to as the "soul," "soul-substance," or "double") could exist apart from the body. Whatever the explanation, it is clear that the possibility of the existence of the vital principle apart from the body was entertained. It was supposed that it could return to the body and temporarily reanimate it. It could enter into and dwell within the stone representation of the deceased. Sometimes this so-called "soul" was identified[76] with the breath of life, which could enter into the statue as the result of the ceremony of "opening the mouth".

It has been commonly assumed by Sir Edward Tyler and those who accept his theory of animism that the idea of the "soul" was based upon the attempts to interpret the phenomena of dreams and shadows, to which Burnet has referred in the passage quoted above. The fact that when a person is sleeping he may dream of seeing absent people and of having a variety of adventures is explained by many peoples by the hypothesis that these are real experiences which befell the "soul" when it wandered abroad during its owner's sleep. A man's shadow or his reflection in water or a mirror has been interpreted as his double. But what these speculations leave out of account is the fact that these dream- and shadow-phenomena were probably merely the predisposing circumstances which helped in the development of (or the corroborative details which were added to and, by rationalization, incorporated in) the "soul-theory," which other circumstances were responsible for creating.[77]

I have already called attention (p. 5) to the fact that in many of the psychological speculations in ethnology too little account is taken of the enormous complexity of the factors which determine even the simplest and apparently most obvious and rational actions of men. I must again remind the reader that a vast multitude of influences, many of them of a subconscious and emotional nature, affect men's decisions and opinions. But once some definite state of feeling inclines a man to a certain conclusion, he will call up a host of other circumstances to buttress his decision, and weave them into a complex net of rationalization. Some such process undoubtedly took place in the development of "animism"; and though it is not possible yet to reconstruct the whole history of the growth of the idea, there can be no question that these early strivings after an understanding of the nature of life and death, and the attempts to put the theories into practice to reanimate the dead, provided the foundations upon which has been built up during the last fifty centuries a vast and complex theory of the soul. In the creation of this edifice the thoughts and the aspirations of countless millions of peoples have played a part: but the foundation was laid down when the Egyptian king or priest claimed that he could restore to the dead the "breath of life" and, by means of the wand which he called "the great magician,"[78] could enable the dead to be born again. The wand is supposed by some scholars[79] to be a conventionalized representation of the uterus, so that its power of giving birth is expressed with literal directness. Such beliefs and stories of the "magic wand" are found to-day in scattered localities from the Scottish Highlands to Indonesia and America.

In this sketch I have referred merely to one or two aspects of a conception of vast complexity. But it must be remembered that, once the mind of man began to play with the idea of a vital essence capable of existing apart from the body and to identify it with the breath of life, an illimitable field was opened up for speculation. The vital principle could manifest itself in all the varied expressions of human personality, as well as in all the physiological indications of life. Experience of dreams led men to believe that the "soul" could also leave the body temporarily and enjoy varied experiences. But the concrete-minded Egyptian demanded some physical evidence to buttress these intangible ideas of the wandering abroad of his vital essence. He made a statue for it to dwell in after his death, because he was not able to make an adequately life-like reproduction of the dead man's features upon the mummy itself or its wrappings. Then he gradually persuaded himself that the life-substance could exist apart from the body as a "double" or "twin" which animated the statue.

Searching for material evidence to support his faith primitive man not unnaturally turned to the contemplation of the circumstances of his birth. All his beliefs concerning the nature of life can ultimately be referred back to the story of his own origin, his birth or creation.

When an infant is born it is accompanied by the after-birth or placenta to which it is linked by the umbilical cord. The full comprehension of the significance of these structures is an achievement of modern science. To primitive man they were an incomprehensible marvel. But once he began to play with the idea that he had a double, a vital essence in his own shape which could leave the sleeping body and lead a separate existence, the placenta obviously provided tangible evidence of its reality. The considerations set forth by Blackman,[80] supplementing those of Moret, Murray and Seligman and others, have been claimed as linking the placenta with the ka.

Much controversy has waged around the interpretation of the Egyptian word ka, especially during recent years. An excellent summary of the arguments brought forward by the various disputants up to 1912 will be found in Morel's "Mysteres Egyptiens". Since then more or less contradictory views have been put forward by Alan Gardiner, Breasted, and Blackman. It is not my intention to intervene in a dispute as to the meaning of certain phrases in ancient literature; but there are certain aspects of the problems at issue which are so intimately related to my main theme as to make some reference to them unavoidable.

The development of the custom of making statues of the dead necessarily raised for solution the problem of explaining the deceased's two bodies, his actual mummy and his portrait statue. During life on earth his vital principle dwelt in the former, except on those occasions when the man was asleep. His actual body also gave expression to all the varied attributes of his personality. But after death the statue became the dwelling place of these manifestations of the spirit of vitality.

Whether or not the conception arose out of the necessities unavoidably created by the making of statues, it seems clear that this custom must have given more concrete shape to the belief that all of those elements of the dead man's individuality which left his body at the time of death could shift as a shadowy double into his statue.

At the birth of a king he is accompanied by a comrade or twin exactly reproducing all his features. This double or ka is intimately associated throughout life and in the life to come with the king's welfare. In fact Breasted claims that the ka "was a kind of superior genius intended to guide the fortunes of the individual in the hereafter" ... there "he had his abode and awaited the coming of his earthly companion".[81] At death the deceased "goes to his ka, to the sky". The ka controls and protects the deceased: he brings him food which they eat together.

It is important clearly to keep in mind the different factors involved in the conception of the ka:—

(a) The statue of the deceased is animated by restoring to it the breath of life and all the other vital attributes of which the early Egyptian physiologist took cognisance.

(b) At the time of birth there came into being along with the child a "twin" whose destinies were closely linked with the child's.

(c) As the result of animating the statue the deceased also has restored to him his character, "the sum of his attributes," his individuality, later raised to the position of a protecting genius or god, a Providence who watches over his well-being.[82]

The ka is not simply identical with the breath of life or animus, as Burnet supposes (op. cit. supra), but has a wider significance. The adoption of the conception of the ka as a sort of guardian angel which finds its appropriate habitation in a statue that has been animated does not necessarily conflict with the view so concretely and unmistakably represented in the tomb-pictures that the ka is also a double who is born along with the individual.

This material conception of the ka as a double who is born with and closely linked to the individual is, as Blackman has emphasized,[83] very suggestive of Baganda beliefs and rites connected with the placenta. At death the circumstances of the act of birth are reconstituted, and for this rebirth the placenta which played an essential part in the original process is restored to the deceased. May not the original meaning of the expression "he goes to his ka" be a literal description of this reunion with his placenta? The identification of the ka with the moon, the guardian of the dead man's welfare, may have enriched the symbolism.

Blackman makes the suggestion that "on the analogy of the beliefs entertained by the Hamitic ruling caste in Uganda," according to Roscoe, "the placenta,[84] or rather its ghost, would have been supposed by the Ancient Egyptians to be closely connected with the individual's personality, as" he maintains was also the case with the god or protecting genius of the Babylonians.[85] "Unless united with his twin's [i.e. his placenta's] ghost the dead king was an imperfect deity, i.e. his directing intelligence was impaired or lacking," presumably because the placenta was composed of blood, which was regarded as the material of consciousness and intelligence.

In China, as the quotations from de Groot (see footnote) show, the placenta when placed under felicitous circumstances is able to ensure the child a long life and to control his mental and physical welfare.

In view of the claims put forward by Blackman to associate the placenta with the ka, it is of interest to note Moret's suggestion concerning the fourteen forms of the ka, to which von Bissing assigns the general significance "nourishment or offerings". He puts the question whether they do not "personify the elements of material and intellectual prosperity, all that is necessary for the health of body and spirit" (op. cit., p. 209).

The placenta is credited with all the varieties of life-giving potency that are attributed to the Mother-Goddess. It therefore controls the welfare of the individual and, like all maternal amulets (vide supra), ensures his good fortune. But, probably by virtue of its supposed derivation from and intimate association with blood, it also ministered to his mental welfare.

In my last Rylands Lecture I referred to the probability that the essential elements of Chinese civilization were derived from the West. I had hoped that, before the present statement went to the printer, I would have found time to set forth in detail the evidence in substantiation of the reality of that diffusion of culture.

Briefly the chain of proof is composed of the following links: (a) the intimate cultural contact between Egypt, Southern Arabia, Sumer, and Elam from a period at least as early as the First Egyptian Dynasty; (b) the diffusion of Sumerian and Elamite culture in very early times at least as far north as Russian Turkestan and as far east as Baluchistan; (c) at some later period the quest of gold, copper, turquoise, and jade led the Babylonians (and their neighbours) as far north as the Altai and as far east as Khotan and the Tarim Valley, where their pathways were blazed with the distinctive methods of cultivation and irrigation; (d) at some subsequent period there was an easterly diffusion of culture from Turkestan into the Shensi Province of China proper; and (e) at least as early as the seventh century B.C. there was also a spread of Western culture to China by sea.[86]

I have already referred to some of the distinctively Egyptian traits in Chinese beliefs concerning the dead. Mingled with them are other equally definitely Babylonian ideas concerning the liver.

It must be apparent that in the course of the spread of a complex system of religious beliefs to so great a distance, only certain of their features would survive the journey. Handed on from people to people, each of whom would unavoidably transform them to some extent, the tenets of the Western beliefs would become shorn of many of their details and have many excrescences added to them before the Chinese received them. In the crucible of the local philosophy they would be assimilated with Chinese ideas until the resulting compound assumed a Chinese appearance. When these inevitable circumstances are recalled the value of any positive evidence of Western influence is of special significance.

According to the ancient Chinese, man has two souls, the kwei and the shen. The former, which according to de Groot is definitely the more ancient of the two (p. 8), is the material, substantial soul, which emanates from the terrestrial part of the universe, and is formed of yin substance. In living man it operates under the name of p'oh, and on his death it returns to the earth and abides with the deceased in his grave.

The shen or immaterial soul emanates from the ethereal celestial part of the cosmos and consists of yang substance. When operating actively in the living human body, it is called khi or "breath," and hwun; when separated from it after death it lives forth as a refulgent spirit, styled ming.[87]

But the shen also, in spite of its sky-affinities, hovers about the grave and may dwell in the inscribed grave-stone (p. 6). There may be a multitude of shen in one body and many "soul-tablets" may be provided for them (p. 74).

Just as in Egypt the ka is said to "symbolize the force of life which resides in nourishment" (Moret, p. 212), so the Chinese refer to the ethereal part of the food as its khi, i.e. the "breath" of its shen.

The careful study of the mass of detailed evidence so lucidly set forth by de Groot in his great monograph reveals the fact that, in spite of many superficial differences and apparent contradictions, the early Chinese conceptions of the soul and its functions are essentially identical with the Egyptian, and must have been derived from the same source.

From the quotations which I have already given in the foregoing pages, it appears that the Chinese entertain views regarding the functions of the placenta which are identical with those of the Baganda, and a conception of the souls of man which presents unmistakable analogies with Egyptian beliefs. Yet these Chinese references do not shed any clearer light than Egyptian literature does upon the problem of the possible relationship between the ka and the placenta.

In the Iranian domain, however, right on the overland route from the Persian Gulf to China, there seems to be a ray of light. According to the late Professor Moulton, "The later Parsi books tell us that the Fravashi is a part of a good man's identity, living in heaven and reuniting with the soul at death. It is not exactly a guardian angel, for it shares in the development or deterioration of the rest of the man."[88]

In fact the Fravashi is not unlike the Egyptian ka on the one side and the Chinese shen on the other. "They are the Manes, 'the good folk'" (p. 144): they are connected with the stars in their capacity as spirits of the dead (p. 143), and they "showed their paths to the sun, the moon, the sun, and the endless lights," just as the kas guide the dead in the hereafter.

The Fravashis play a part in the annual All Soul's feast (p. 144), for which Breasted has provided an almost exact parallel in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom.[89] All the circumstances of the two ceremonies are essentially identical.

Now Professor Moulton suggests that the word Fravashi may be derived from the Avestan root var, "to impregnate," and fravasi mean "birth-promotion" (p. 142). As he associates this with childbirth the possibility suggests itself whether the "birth-promoter" may not be simply the placenta.

Loret (quoted by Moret, p. 202), however, derives the word ka from a root signifying "to beget," so that the Fravashi may be nothing more than the Iranian homologue of the Egyptian ka.

The connecting link between the Iranian and Egyptian conceptions may be the Sumerian instances given to Blackman[90] by Dr. Langdon.

The whole idea seems to have originated out of the belief that the sum of the individual attributes or vital expressions of a man's personality could exist apart from the physical body. The contemplation of the phenomena of sleep and death provided the evidence in corroboration of this.

At birth the newcomer came into the world physically connected with the placenta, which was accredited with the attributes of the life-giving and birth-promoting Great Mother and intimately related to the moon and the earliest totem. It was obviously, also, closely concerned in the nutrition of the embryo, for was it not the stalk upon which the latter was growing like some fruit on its stem? It was a not unnatural inference to suppose that, as the elements of the personality were not indissolubly connected with the body, they were brought into existence at the time of birth and that the placenta was their vehicle.

The Egyptians' own terms of reference to the sculptor of a statue show that the ideas of birth were uppermost in their minds when the custom of statue-making was first devised. Moret has brought together (op. cit. supra) a good deal of evidence to suggest the far-reaching significance of the conception of ritual rebirth in early Egyptian religious ceremonial. With these ideas in his mind the Egyptian would naturally attach great importance to the placenta in any attempt to reconstruct the act of rebirth, which would be regarded in a literal sense. The placenta which played an essential part in the original act would have an equally important role in the ritual of rebirth. [For a further comment upon the problem discussed in the preceding ten pages, see Appendix A, p. 73.]

[68: "Primitive Man," Proceedings of the British Academy, 1917, p. 41.

It is important to remember that the real meaning of respiration was quite unknown until modern science revealed the part played by oxygen.]

[69: The enormous complexity and intricacy of the interrelation between the functions of the "heart," and the "breath" is revealed in Chinese philosophy (see de Groot, op. cit. Chapter VII. inter alia).]

[70: Second Annual Philosophical Lecture, Henriette Hertz Trust, Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. VII, 26 Jan., 1916.]

[71: The Egyptian ka, however, was a more complex entity than this comparison suggests.]

[72: Breasted, op. cit. pp. 44 and 45.]

[73: Op. cit. pp. 45 and 46.]

[74: Ibid. p. 28.]

[75: W. J. Perry has collected the evidence preserved in a remarkable series of Indonesian legends in his recent book, "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia". But the fullest exposition of the whole subject is provided in the Chinese literature summarized by de Groot (op. cit.).]

[76: See, however, the reservations in the subsequent pages.]

[77: The thorough analysis of the beliefs of any people makes this abundantly clear. De Groot's monograph is an admirable illustration of this (op. cit. Chapter VII.). Both in Egypt and China the conceptions of the significance of the shadow are later and altogether subsidiary.]

[78: Alan H. Gardiner, Davies and Gardiner, op. cit. p. 59.]

[79: F. Ll. Griffith, "A Collection of Hieroglyphs," 1898, p. 60.]

[80: Aylward M. Blackman, "Some Remarks on an Emblem upon the Head of an Ancient Egyptian Birth-Goddess," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. III, Part III, July, 1916, p. 199; and "The Pharaoh's Placenta and the Moon-God Khons," ibid. Part IV, Oct., 1916, p. 235.]

[81: "Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p. 52. Breasted denies that the ka was an element of the personality.]

[82: For an abstruse discussion of this problem see Alan H. Gardiner, "Personification (Egyptian)," Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, pp. 790 and 792.]

[83: Op. cit. supra.]

[84: Mr. Blackman is puzzled to explain what "possible connexion there could be between the Pharaoh's placenta and the moon beyond the fact that it is the custom in Uganda to expose the king's placenta each new moon and anoint it with butter."

To those readers who follow my argument in the later pages of this discussion the reasoning at the back of this association should be plain enough. The moon was regarded as the controller of menstruation. The placenta (and also the child) was considered to be formed of menstrual blood. The welfare of the placenta was therefore considered to be under the control of the moon.

The anointing with butter is an interesting illustration of the close connexion of these lunar and maternal phenomena with the cow.

The placenta was associated with the moon also in China, as the following quotation shows.

According to de Groot (op. cit. p. 396), "in the Siao 'rh fang or Medicament for Babies, by the hand of Ts'ui Hing-kung [died 674 A.D.], it is said: 'The placenta should be stored away in a felicitous spot under the salutary influences of the sky or the moon ... in order that the child may be ensured a long life'". He then goes on to explain how any interference with the placenta will entail mental or physical trouble to the child.

The placenta also is used as the ingredient of pills to increase fertility, facilitate parturition, to bring back life to people on the brink of death and it is the main ingredient "in medicines for lunacy, convulsions, epilepsy, etc." (p. 397). "It gives rest to the heart, nourishes the blood, increases the breath, and strengthens the tsing" (p. 396).

These attributes of the placenta indicate that the beliefs of the Baganda are not merely local eccentricities, but widespread and sharply defined interpretations of the natural phenomena of birth.]

[85: Op. cit. p. 241.]

[86: See "The Origin of Early Siberian Civilization," now being published in the Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.]

[87: De Groot, p. 5.]

[88: Early Religious Poetry of Persia, p. 145.]

[89: Op. cit. p. 264.]

[90: Ibid. p. 240.]

The Power of the Eye.

In attempting to understand the peculiar functions attributed to the eye it is essential that the inquirer should endeavour to look at the problem from the early Egyptian's point of view. After moulding into shape the wrappings of the mummy so as to restore as far as possible the form of the deceased the embalmer then painted eyes upon the face. So also when the sculptor had learned to make finished models in stone or wood, and by the addition of paint had enhanced the life-like appearance, the statue was still merely a dead thing. What were needed above all to enliven it, literally and actually, in other words, to animate it, were the eyes; and the Egyptian artist set to work and with truly marvellous skill reproduced the appearance of living eyes (Fig. 5). How ample was the justification for this belief will be appreciated by anyone who glances at the remarkable photographs recently published by Dr. Alan H. Gardiner.[91] The wonderful eyes will be seen to make the statue sparkle and live. To the concrete mind of the Egyptian this triumph of art was regarded not as a mere technical success or aesthetic achievement. The artist was considered to have made the statue really live; in fact, literally and actually converted it into a "living image". The eyes themselves were regarded as one of the chief sources of the vitality which had been conferred upon the statue.



This is the explanation of all the elaborate care and skill bestowed upon the making of artificial eyes. No doubt also it was largely responsible for giving definition to the remarkable belief in the animating power of the eye. But so many other factors of most diverse kinds played a part in building up the complex theory of the eye's fertilizing potency that all the stages in the process of rationalization cannot yet be arranged in orderly sequence.

I refer to the question here and suggest certain aspects of it that seem worthy of investigation merely for the purpose of stimulating some student of early Egyptian literature to look into the matter further.[92]

As death was regarded as a kind of sleep and the closing of the eyes was the distinctive sign of the latter condition the open eyes were not unnaturally regarded as clear evidence of wakefulness and life. In fact, to a matter-of-fact people the restoration of the eyes to the mummy or statue was equivalent to an awakening to life.

At a time when a reflection in a mirror or in a sheet of water was supposed to afford quite positive evidence of the reality of each individual's "double," and when the "soul," or more concretely, "life," was imagined to be a minute image or homunculus, it is quite likely that the reflection in the eye may have been interpreted as the "soul" dwelling within it. The eye was certainly regarded as peculiarly rich in "soul substance". It was not until Osiris received from Horus the eye which had been wrenched out in the latter's combat with Set that he "became a soul".[93]

It is a remarkable fact that this belief in the animating power of the eye spread as far east as Polynesia and America, and as far west as the British Islands.

Of course the obvious physiological functions of the eyes as means of communication between their possessor and the world around him; the powerful influence of the eyes for expressing feeling and emotion without speech; the analogy between the closing and opening of the eyes and the changes of day and night, are all hinted at in Egyptian literature.

But there were certain specific factors that seem to have helped to give definiteness to these general ideas of the physiology of the eyes. The tears, like all the body moisture, came to share the life-giving attributes of water in general. And when it is recalled that at funeral ceremonies emotion found natural expression in the shedding of tears, it is not unlikely that this came to be assimilated with all the other water-symbolism of the funerary ritual. The early literature of Egypt, in fact, refers to the part played by Isis and Nephthys in the reanimation of Osiris, when the tears they shed as mourners brought life back to the god. But the fertilizing tears of Isis were life-giving in the wider sense. They were said to cause the inundation which fertilized the soil of Egypt, meaning presumably that the "Eye of Re" sent the rain.

There is the further possibility that the beliefs associated with the cowry may have played some part, if not in originating, at any rate in emphasizing the conception of the fertilizing powers of the eye. I have already mentioned the outstanding features of the symbolism of the cowry. In many places in Africa and elsewhere the similarity of this shell to the half-closed eyelids led to its use as an artificial "eye" in mummies. The use of the same objects to symbolize the female reproductive organs and the eyes may have played some part in transferring to the latter the fertility of the former. The gods were born of the eyes of Ptah. Might not the confusion of the eye with the genitalia have given a meaning to this statement? There is evidence of this double symbolism of these shells. Cowry shells have also been employed, both in the Persian Gulf and the Pacific, to decorate the bows of boats, probably for the dual purpose of representing eyes and conferring vitality upon the vessel. These facts suggest that the belief in the fertilizing power of the eyes may to some extent be due to this cowry-association. Even if it be admitted that all the known cases of the use of cowries as eyes of mummies are relatively late, and that it is not known to have been employed for such a purpose in Egypt, the mere fact that the likeness to the eyelids so readily suggests itself may have linked together the attributes of the cowry and the eye even in Predynastic times, when cowries were placed with the dead in the grave.

Hathor's identification with the "Eye of Re" may possibly have been an expression of the same idea. But the role of the "Eye of Re" was due primarily to her association with the moon (vide infra, p. 56).

The apparently hopeless tangle of contradictions involved in these conceptions of Hathor will have to be unravelled. For "no eye is to be feared more than thine (Re's) when it attacketh in the form of Hathor" (Maspero, op. cit. p. 165). If it was the beneficent life-giving aspect of the eye which led to its identification with Hathor, in course of time, when the reason for this connexion was lost sight of, it became associated with the malevolent, death-dealing avatar of the goddess, and became the expression of the god's anger and hatred toward his enemies. It is not unlikely that such a confusion may have been responsible for giving concrete expression to the general psychological fact that the eyes are obviously among the chief means for expressing hatred for and intimidating and "brow-beating" one's fellows. [In my lecture on "The Birth of Aphrodite" I shall explain the explicit circumstances that gave rise to these contradictions.]

It is significant that, in addition to the widespread belief in the "evil eye"—which in itself embodies the same confusion, the expression of admiration that works evil—in a multitude of legends it is the eye that produces petrifaction. The "stony stare" causes death and the dead become transformed into statues, which, however, usually lack their original attribute of animation. These stories have been collected by Mr. E. S. Hartland in his "Legend of Perseus".

There is another possible link in the chain of associations between the eye and the idea of fertility. I have already referred to the development of the belief that incense, which plays so prominent a part in the ritual for conferring vitality upon the dead, is itself replete with animating properties. "Glaser has already shown the anti incense of the Egyptian Punt Reliefs to be an Arabian word, a-a-netc, 'tree-eyes' (Punt und die Suedarabischen Reiche, p. 7), and to refer to the large lumps ... as distinguished from the small round drops, which are supposed to be tree-tears or the tree-blood."[94]

[91: "A New Masterpiece of Egyptian Sculpture," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. IV, Part I, Jan., 1917.]

[92: In all probability the main factor that was responsible for conferring such definite life-giving powers upon the eye was the identification of the moon with the Great Mother. The moon was the Eye of Re, the sky-god.]

[93: Breasted, "Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p. 59. The meaning of the phrase rendered "a soul" here would be more accurately given by the word "reanimated".]

[94: Wilfred H. Schoff, "The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea," 1912, p. 164.]

The Moon and the Sky-World.

There are reasons for believing that the chief episodes in Aphrodite's past point to the Red Sea for their inspiration, though many other factors, due partly to local circumstances and partly to contact with other civilizations, contributed to the determination of the traits of the Mediterranean goddess of love. In Babylonia and India there are very definite signs of borrowing from the same source. It is important, therefore, to look for further evidence to Arabia as the obvious bond of union both with Phoenicia and Babylonia.

The claim made in Roscher's Lexicon der Mythologie that the Assyrian Ishtar, the Phoenician Ashtoreth (Astarte), the Syrian Atargatis (Derketo), the Babylonian Belit (Mylitta) and the Arabian Ilat (Al-ilat) were all moon-goddesses has given rise to much rather aimless discussion, for there can be no question of their essential homology with Hathor and Aphrodite. Moreover, from the beginning, all goddesses—and especially this most primitive stratum of fertility deities—were for obvious reasons intimately associated with the moon.[95] But the cyclical periodicity of the moon which suggested the analogy with the similar physiological periodicity of women merely explains the association of the moon with women. The influence of the moon upon dew and the tides, perhaps, suggested its controlling power over water and emphasized the life-giving function which its association with women had already suggested. For reasons which have been explained already, water was associated more especially with fertilization by the male. Hence the symbolism of the moon came to include the control of both the male and the female processes of reproduction.[96]

The literature relating to the development of these ideas with reference to the moon has been summarized by Professor Hutton Webster.[97] He shows that "there is good reason for believing that among many primitive peoples the moon, rather than the sun, the planets or any of the constellations, first excited the imagination and aroused feelings of superstitious awe or of religious veneration".

Special attention was first devoted to the moon when agricultural pursuits compelled men to measure time and determine the seasons. The influence of the moon on water, both the tides and dew, brought it within the scope of the then current biological theory of fertilization. This conception was powerfully corroborated by the parallelism of the moon's cycles and those of womankind, which was interpreted by regarding the moon as the controlling power of the female reproductive functions. Thus all of the earliest goddesses who were personifications of the powers of fertility came to be associated, and in some cases identified, with the moon.

In this way the animation and deification of the moon was brought about: and the first sky deity assumed not only all the attributes of the cowry, i.e. the female reproductive functions, but also, as the controller of water, many of those which afterwards were associated with Osiris. The confusion of the male fertilizing powers of Osiris with the female reproductive functions of Hathor and Isis may explain how in some places the moon became a masculine deity, who, however, still retained his control over womankind, and caused the phenomena of menstruation by the exercise of his virile powers.[98] But the moon-god was also a measurer of time and in this aspect was specially personified in Thoth.

The assimilation of the moon with these earth-deities was probably responsible for the creation of the first sky-deity. For once the conception developed of identifying a deity with the moon, and the Osirian beliefs associated with the deification of a dead king grew up, the moon became the impersonation of the spirit of womankind, some mortal woman who by death had acquired divinity.

After the idea had developed of regarding the moon as the spirit of a dead person, it was only natural that, in course of time, the sun and stars should be brought within the scope of the same train of thought, and be regarded as the deified dead. When this happened the sun not unnaturally soon leapt into a position of pre-eminence. As the moon represented the deified female principle the sun became the dominant male deity Re. The stars also became the spirits of the dead.

Once this new conception of a sky-world was adumbrated a luxuriant crop of beliefs grew up to assimilate the new beliefs with the old, and to buttress the confused mixture of incompatible ideas with a complex scaffolding of rationalization.

The sun-god Horus was already the son of Osiris. Osiris controlled not only the river and the irrigation canals, but also the rain-clouds. The fumes of incense conveyed to the sky-gods the supplications of the worshippers on earth. Incense was not only "the perfume that deities," but also the means by which the deities and the dead could pass to their doubles in the newly invented sky-heaven. The sun-god Re was represented in his temple not by an anthropoid statue, but by an obelisk,[99] the gilded apex of which pointed to heaven and "drew down" the dazzling rays of the sun, reflected from its polished surface, so that all the worshippers could see the manifestations of the god in his temple.

These events are important, not only for creating the sky-gods and the sky-heaven, but possibly also for suggesting the idea that even a mere pillar of stone, whether carved or uncarved, upon which no attempt had been made to model the human form, could represent the deity, or rather could become the "body" to be animated by the god.[100] For once it was admitted, even in the home of these ancient ideas concerning the animation of statues, that it was not essential for the idol to be shaped into human form, the way was opened for less cultured peoples, who had not acquired the technical skill to carve statues, simply to erect stone pillars or unshaped masses of stone or wood for their gods to enter, when the appropriate ritual of animation was performed.[101]

This conception of the possibility of gods, men, or animals dwelling in stones spread in course of time throughout the world, but in every place where it is found certain arbitrary details of the methods of animating the stone reveal the fact that all these legends must have been derived from the same source.

The complementary belief in the possibility of the petrifaction of men and animals has a similarly extensive geographical distribution. The history of this remarkable incident I shall explain in the lecture on "Dragons and Rain Gods" (Chapter II.).[102]

[95: I am not concerned here with the explanation of the means by which their home became transferred to the planet Venus.]

[96: In his discussion of the functions of the Fravashis in the Iranian Yasht, the late Professor Moulton suggested the derivation of the word from the Avestan root var, "to impregnate," so that fravasi might mean "birth-promotion". But he was puzzled by a reference to water. "Less easy to understand is their intimate connexion with the Waters" ("Early Religious Poetry of Persia," pp. 142 and 143). But the Waters were regarded as fertilizing agents. This is seen in the Avestan Anahita, who was "the presiding genie of Fertility and more especially of the Waters" (W. J. Phythian-Adams, "Mithraism," 1915, p. 13).]

[97: "Rest Days," New York, 1916, pp. 124 et seq.]

[98: Wherever these deities of fertility are found, whether in Egypt, Babylonia, the Mediterranean Area, Eastern Asia, and America, illustrations of this confusion of sex are found. The explanation which Dr. Rendel Harris offers of this confusion in the case of Aphrodite seems to me not to give due recognition to its great antiquity and almost world-wide distribution.]

[99: L. Borchardt, "Das Re-heiligtum des Koenigs Ne-woser-re". For a good exposition of this matter see A. Moret, "Sanctuaires de l'ancien Empire Egyptien,"; Annales du Musee Guimet, 1912, p. 265.]

[100: It is possible that the ceremony of erecting the dad columns may have played some part in the development of these beliefs. (On this see A. Moret, "Mysteres Egyptiens," 1913, pp. 13-17.)]

[101: Many other factors played a part in the development of the stories of the birth of ancestors from stones. I have already referred to the origin of the idea of the cowry (or some other shell) as the parent of mankind. The place of the shell was often taken by roughly carved stones, which of course were accredited with the same power of being able to produce men, or of being a sort of egg from which human beings could be hatched. It is unlikely that the finding of fossilized animals played any leading role in the development of these beliefs, beyond affording corroborative evidence in support of them after other circumstances had been responsible for originating the stories. The more circumstantial Oriental stories of the splitting of stones giving birth to heroes and gods may have been suggested by the finding in pebbles of fossilized shells—themselves regarded already as the parents of mankind. But such interpretations were only possible because all the predisposing circumstances had already prepared the way for the acceptance of these specific illustrations of a general theory.

These beliefs may have developed before and quite independently of the ideas concerning the animation of statues; but if so the latter event would have strengthened and in some places become merged with the other story.]

[102: For an extensive collection of these remarkable petrifaction legends in almost every part of the world, see E. Sidney Hartland's "The Legend of Perseus," especially Volumes I and III. These distinctive stories will be found to be complexly interwoven with all the matters discussed in this address.]

The Worship of the Cow.

Intimately linked with the subjects I have been discussing is the worship of the cow. It would lead me too far afield to enter into the details of the process by which the earliest Mother-Goddesses became so closely associated or even identified with the cow, and why the cow's horns became associated with the moon among the emblems of Hathor. But it is essential that reference should be made to certain aspects of the subject.

I do not think there is any evidence to justify the common theory that the likeness of the crescent moon to a cow's horns was the reason for the association. On the other hand, it is clear that both the moon and the cow became identified with the Mother-Goddess quite independently the one of the other, and at a very remote period.

It is probable that the fundamental factor in the development of this association of the cow and the Mother-Goddess was the fact of the use of milk as food for human beings. For if the cow could assume this maternal function she was in fact a sort of foster-mother of mankind; and in course of time she came to be regarded as the actual mother of the human race and to be identified with the Great Mother.

Many other considerations helped in this process of assimilation. The use of cattle not merely as meat for the sustenance of the living but as the usual and most characteristic life-giving food for the dead naturally played a part in conferring divinity upon the cow, just as an analogous relationship made incense a holy substance and was responsible for the personification of the incense-tree as a goddess. This influence was still further emphasized in the case of cattle because they also supplied the blood which was used for the ritual purpose of bestowing consciousness upon the dead, and in course of time upon the gods also, so that they might hear and attend to the prayers of supplicants.

Other circumstances emphasize the significance attached to the cow: but it is difficult to decide whether they contributed in any way to the development of these beliefs or were merely some of the practices which were the result of the divination of the cow. The custom of placing butter in the mouths of the dead, in Egypt, Uganda, and India, the various ritual uses of milk, the employment of a cow's hide as a wrapping for the dead in the grave, and also in certain mysterious ceremonies,[103] all indicate the intimate connexion between the cow and the means of attaining a rebirth in the life to come.

I think there are definite reasons for believing that once the cow became identified with the Mother-Goddess as the parent of mankind the first step was taken in the development of the curious system of ideas now known as "totemism".

This, however, is a complex problem which I cannot stay to discuss here.

When the cow became identified with the Great Mother and the moon was regarded as the dwelling or the personification of the same goddess, the Divine Cow by a process of confused syncretism came to be regarded as the sky or the heavens, to which the dead were raised up on the cow's back. When Re became the dominant deity, he was identified with the sky, and the sun and moon were then regarded as his eyes. Thus the moon, as the Great Mother as well as the Eye of Re, was the bond of identification of the Great Mother with an eye. This was probably how the eye acquired the animating powers of the Giver of Life.

A whole volume might be written upon the almost world-wide diffusion of these beliefs regarding the cow, as far as Scotland and Ireland in the west, and in their easterly migration probably as far as America, to the confusion alike of its ancient artists and its modern ethnologists.[104]

As an illustration of the identification of the cow's attributes with those of the life-giving Great Mother, I might refer to the late Professor Moulton's commentary[105] on the ancient Iranian Gathas, where cow's flesh is given to mortals by Yima to make them immortal. "May we connect it with another legend whereby at the Regeneration Mithra is to make men immortal by giving them to eat the fat of the ... primeval Cow from whose slain body, according to the Aryan legends adopted by Mithraism, mankind was first created?"[106]

[103: See A. Moret, op. cit. p. 81, inter alia.]

[104: See the Copan sculptured monuments described by Maudslay in Godman and Salvin's "Biologia Centrali-Americana," Archaeology, Plate 46, representing "Stela D," with two serpents in the places occupied by the Indian elephants in Stela B—concerning which see Nature, November 25, 1915. To one of these intertwined serpents is attached a cow-headed human daemon. Compare also the Chiriqui figure depicted by MacCurdy, "A Study of Chiriquian Antiquities," Yale University Press, 1911, fig. 361, p. 209.]

[105: "Early Religious Poetry of Persia," pp. 42 and 43.]

[106: Op. cit. p. 43. But I think these legends accredited to the Aryans owe their parentage to the same source as the Egyptian beliefs concerning the cow, and especially the remarkable mysteries upon which Moret has been endeavouring to throw some light—"Mysteres Egyptiens," p. 43.]

The Diffusion of Culture.

In these pages I have made no attempt to deal with the far-reaching and intricate problems of the diffusion abroad of the practices and beliefs which I have been discussing. But the thoughts and the aspirations of every cultured people are permeated through and through with their influence.

It is important to remember that in almost every stage of the development of these complex customs and ideas not merely the "finished product" but also the ingredients out of which it was built up were being scattered abroad.

* * * * *

I shall briefly refer to certain evidence from Asia and America in illustration of this fact and in substantiation of the reality of the diffusion to the East of some of the beliefs I have been discussing.

The unity of Egyptian and Babylonian ideas is nowhere more strikingly demonstrated than in the essential identity of the attributes of Osiris and Ea. It affords the most positive proof of the derivation of the beliefs from some common source, and reveals the fact that Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations must have been in intimate cultural contact at the beginning of their developmental history. "In Babylonia, as in Egypt, there were differences of opinion regarding the origin of life and the particular natural element which represented the vital principle." "One section of the people, who were represented by the worshippers of Ea, appear to have believed that the essence of life was contained in water. The god of Eridu was the source of the 'water of life'."[107]

"Offerings of water and food were made to the dead," not primarily so that they might be "prevented from troubling the living,"[108] but to supply them with the means of sustenance and to reanimate them to help the suppliants. It is a common belief that these and other procedures were inspired by fear of the dead. But such a statement does not accurately represent the attitude of mind of the people who devised these funerary ceremonies. For it is not the enemies of the dead or those against whom he had a grudge that run a risk at funerals, but rather his friends; and the more deeply he was attached to a particular person the greater the danger for the latter. For among many people the belief obtains that when a man dies he will endeavour to steal the "soul-substance" of those who are dearest to him so that they may accompany him to the other world. But as stealing the "soul-substance"[109] means death, it is easy to misunderstand such a display of affection. Hence most people who long for life and hate death do their utmost to evade such embarrassing tokens of love; and most ethnologists, misjudging such actions, write about "appeasing the dead". It was those whom the gods loved who died young.