57
of the latter. The Sumerians never advanced to the further stage
of making the vital principle itself a separable quality; perhaps
the original signification of the word which it never lost would
have prevented this. But they did go on to transform the Zi into a
spirit or demon, who, in place of being the counterpart of some
individual person or thing, could enter at will into any object
he chose. Even in Egypt, traces of the same logical progress in
ideas may perhaps be found. If Professor Maspero is right in
his interpretation of certain passages in the Pyramid texts and
Ptolemaic papyri,“The double did not allow its family to forget
it, but used all the means at its disposal to remind them of its
existence. It entered their houses and their bodies, terrified them,
waking and sleeping, by its sudden apparitions, struck them down
with disease or madness, and would even suck their blood like
the modern vampire^25 .”Such a conception of the Ka, however, [060]
if ever it existed, must have soon passed away, leaving behind it
but few vestiges of itself.
I have dwelt thus long on the doctrine of the Ka or double on
account both of its importance and of the difficulties it presents
to the modern scholar. Its discovery by Professor Maspero and
Sir P. Le Page Renouf cleared away a host of misconceptions,
and introduced light into one of the darkest corners of Egyptian
religion^26. And however strange it may seem to us, it was in
thorough accordance with the simple logic of primitive man.
Given the premisses, the conclusion followed. It was only when
the Egyptian came to progress in knowledge and culture, and new
ideas about his own nature were adopted, that difficulties began
to multiply and the theory of the Ka to become complicated.
(^25) Maspero,Dawn of Civilisation, p. 114. The Ka, however, is here identified
with the Khu, and it is questionable whether the passages referred to in the
Pyramid texts really embody old ideas which are to be interpreted literally, or
whether they are not rather to be taken metaphorically.
(^26) Maspero,Comptes rendus du Congrés provincial des Orientalistes à Lyon,
1878, pp. 235-263; Renouf,Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology
(1879), vi. pp. 494-508.