eremony 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 d