e, with no definite size, shape,
or situation, in which these shades of the departed could meet each other
and enjoy greater freedom than in the tomb, was added to the first
conception. This less material belief was better adapted than the first to
the moral instincts of humanity. A material and organic existence passed in
the grave dealt out the same fate to good and bad alike. On the other
hand, nothing was more easy than to divide the kingdom of the shades into
two compartments, into two distinct domains, and to place in one those
whose conduct had been deserving of reward; in the other, those whose
crimes and vices had been insufficiently punished upon earth.

It is not to the Chaldaean sepulchres that we owe our knowledge that the
Semites of Mesopotamia followed in the footsteps of the Egyptians, when
they found themselves in face of the problem of life and death; it is to
the literature of the Assyrians. Among those tablets of terra-cotta from
the library of Assurbanipal that are now preserved in the British Museum,
George Smith discovered, in 1873, a mythological document in which the
descent of Istar to the infernal regions in search of her lover Tammouz is
recounted. Of this he gives a first translation, which is already out of
date. Since his discovery was announced, the most learned Assyriologists
have made a study of the document, and now even those among them who most
seldom think alike, are in agreement as to its meaning except in a few
unimportant particulars.[438] No doubt remains as to the general
significance of the piece; we may even compare it with other documents from
the same library in which there is much to confirm and complete its
contents.

Even if there were no evidence to the contrary, we might safely affirm that
the first conception was not effaced from the minds of the Assyrians by the
second. M. Halevy has translated an Assyrian text, whose meaning he thus
epitomizes: "What becomes of the individual deposited in a tomb? A curious
passage in one of the 'books' from the library of Assurbanipal answers this
question, indirectly, indeed, but without any ambiguity. After death the
vital and indestructible principle, the incorporeal spirit, is disengaged
from the body; it is called in Assyrian _ekimmou_ or _egimmou_.... The
_ekimmou_ inhabits the tomb and reposes upon the bed (_zalalu_) of the
corpse. If well treated by the children of the defunct, he becomes their
protector; if not, their evil