g for the deceased immunity from punishment for moral offenses: a
sacred beetle of stone, inscribed with a charm beginning "O my heart,
rise not up against me as a witness," laid on the breast of the mummy,
silences the heart in the presence of Osiris, and the man, even though
guilty, goes free. Forms of charms were prepared by the priests, and the
name of any one who could pay was inserted in blanks left for this
purpose.[201] This sort of corrupting procedure was reproduced in some
periods of Christianity. In the early Church a custom existed of
receiving baptism on behalf of such as died unbaptized;[202] here,
apparently, a magical efficacy was ascribed to the act. The first
mention of prayer for the dead occurs in a history of the Maccabean
wars, where a sin-offering, accompanied by prayer, effects
reconciliation for certain soldiers who died in a state of sin (idol
symbols were found on their persons).[203] Prayer for the dead has been
largely developed in Christianity and Islam.[204]

6. GENESIS OF SPIRITS

+97+. As early science identified life with the soul, it logically
attributed a soul to everything that was regarded as living. This
category seems to have embraced all the objects of the world--human
beings, beasts, plants, weapons, rocks, waters, heavenly bodies. Savages
rarely formulate their ideas on such a subject, but the belief in the
future existence of nonhuman as well as human things is fairly
established by the widespread practice of slaying animals at the tomb
and burying with the dead the objects they are supposed to need in the
other world. This custom exists among many tribes at the present day,
and the contents of ancient tombs prove its existence in former times.
The dead are provided with clothing, implements of labor, weapons,
ornaments, food, and as these objects remain in their mundane form by or
in the grave, it is held that their souls pass with the souls of their
possessors into the world beyond. Further, the belief in transformation
from human to nonhuman forms and vice versa involves the supposition of
life in all such things. That the heavenly bodies, similarly, are
supposed to be animated by souls appears from the fact that they are
regarded as manlike in form, thought, and manner of life: the sun is
frequently represented as a venerable man who traverses the sky--the
moon being his wife, and the stars their children; and sun and moon
sometimes figure as totems. This general conce