is
said to have paid the penalty of death, is a case in point. [118]
Sir E.B. Tylor gives many other interesting examples of the above
ideas and points out the connection clearly existing in the savage mind
between the name and the object to which it is applied. The Muhammadans
think that Solomon's name is very efficacious for casting out devils
and evil spirits. The practice of naming children after gods or by
the epithets or titles applied to the divine being, or after the
names of saints, appears to be due to the belief that such names,
by reason of their association with the god or saint, acquire a part
of his divine life and virtue, which when given to children the names
will in turn convey to them. [119] On the other hand, when a Hindu
mother is afraid lest her child may die, she sometimes gives it an
opprobrious name as dirt, rubbish, sweepings, or sold for one or two
cowries, so that the evil spirits who take the lives of children may
be deceived by the name and think that such a valueless child is not
worth having. The voice was also held to be concrete. The position
of the Roman tribune was peculiar, as he was not a magistrate chosen
by divine authority and hence could not summon people to his court;
but the tribune had been dedicated to the city gods, and his person
was sacrosanct. He could therefore lay hands on a man, and once the
tribune touched him, the man was held to be in the magistrate's power,
and bound to obey him. This rule extended even to those who were within
hearing of his voice; any one, even a patrician or consul, who heard
the tribune's voice was compelled to obey him. In this case it is
clear that the voice and spoken words were held to be concrete, and
to share in the sanctity attaching to the body. [120] When primitive
man could not think of a name as an abstraction but had to think of
it as an actual part of the body and life of the person or visible
object to which it belonged, it will be realised how impossible it
was for him during a long period to conceive of any abstract idea,
which was only a word without visible or corporal reality.

58. The soul or spirit.

Thus he could not at first have had any conception of a soul or
spirit, which is an unseen thing. Savages generally may have evolved
the conception of a soul or spirit as an explanation of dreams,
according to the view taken by Mr. E. Clodd in _Myths and Dreams_,
[121] Mr. Clodd shows that dreams were necessarily and