The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

48 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

or thought of had its double, and he never suspected that it was
his own act of thought which brought it into being.
It was symbolism again that was to blame. Once more the
symbol was confused with that for which it stood, and the
abstract was translated into the concrete. The abstract idea of
personality became a substantial thing, to which all the attributes
of substantial objects were attached. Like the“Name,”which
was a force with a concrete individuality of its own, the Ka was
as much an individual entity as the angels of Christian belief.
Between it and the object or person to which it belonged, there
was the same relation as exists between the conception and the
word. The one presupposed the other. Until the person was born,
his Ka had no existence; while, on the other hand, it was the
Ka to which his existence was owed. But once it had come into
being the Ka was immortal, like the word which, once formed,
[050] can exist independently of the thought which gave it birth. As
soon as it left the body, the body ceased to live, and did not
recover life and consciousness until it was reunited with its Ka.
But while the body remained thus lifeless and unconscious, the
Ka led an independent existence, conscious and alive.
This existence, however, was, in a sense, quite as material
as that of the body had been upon earth. The Ka needed to be
sustained by food and drink. Hence came the offerings which
were made to the dead as well as to the gods, each of whom had
his Ka, which, like the human Ka, was dependent on the food
that was supplied to it. But it was the Ka of the food and the Ka
of the drink upon which the Ka of man or god was necessarily
fed. Though at first, therefore, the actual food and drink were
furnished by the faithful, the Egyptians were eventually led by
the force of logic to hold that models of the food and drink in
stone or terra-cotta or wood were as efficacious as the food and
drink themselves. Such models were cheaper and more easily
procurable, and had, moreover, the advantage of being practically
imperishable. Gradually, therefore, they took the place of the