symbol of moral purification. The
former view, perhaps, prevailed in Egypt, though on this point the
records appear to be silent.[318] The latter view is that of the Old
Testament prophets and the New Testament.[319] It has now ceased to
have any effective religious significance, and is retained in some
communities merely as a national social tradition or as an ancient
divine ordinance.

+168+. The origin of circumcision suggested above seems to account
sufficiently for all usages and ideas connected with it; the possibility
of several different origins need not be denied, but the practical
identity of the customs in all parts of the world in which the
institution exists, makes the simpler hypothesis the more probable.

+169+. Certain features of ceremonies of initiation appear to be
designed to secure _union_ between the initiate and the clan. Such, for
example, is the custom found in New South Wales of the initiate's
drinking the blood of his companions. In other cases there is a union
with other parts of the body. Such usages arise from the idea that
physical union is essential to social union--a conception which
elsewhere takes the form of blood-brotherhood.[320] This is a scientific
rather than a religious idea, depending on the belief that the body is
an essential part of the personality.[321]

+170+. Another noteworthy custom is the feigned _resurrection_ of the
initiate. In Australia the women are informed that the youth during the
process of initiation is slain by a supernatural being and brought to
life again. Elsewhere the initiate is supposed to forget his former life
completely and to be obliged, on emerging from the ceremony, to recover
slowly his knowledge of things.[322] The origin of this custom is
obscure, but it appears to express the idea that the youth now enters on
an entirely new life, and having come into new relations and
responsibilities, is to forget what he was and what he did before--a
profound conception which has been taken up into some of the most
advanced religions (as, for example, in baptism and confirmation).

+171+. In certain half-civilized tribes a higher type of initiatory
ceremonies is found. The youth must perform a lonely vigil, going into
the forest or some other solitary place, and there wait for the vision
or revelation of a supernatural protector.[323] This procedure is
connected with the advance of individualism, the old totemic or other
relation being superseded by a