[116] _Conférence_, p. 381. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the first chapters of his _Principles of Sociology_, has given a curious and plausible explanation of how this conception of a _double_ was formed. He finds its origin chiefly in the phenomena of sleep, of dreams, and of the faintness caused by wounds or illness. He shows how these more or less transitory suspensions of animation led men to suppose that death was nothing but a prolonged interruption of life. He also thinks that the actual shadow cast by a man's body contributed to the formation of that belief. But had it no other elements which belonged to the general disposition of humanity in those early periods of intellectual life? Into that question we cannot enter here further than to say that Mr. Spencer's pages make us acquainted with numerous facts which prove that the beliefs in question were not confined to a single race, but were common to all humanity. This _double_ had to be installed in a lodging suitable to its existence, had to be surrounded by objects which it had used in its former state, had to be supplied with the food which was necessary for the sustenance of its life. And all these things it obtained from the piety of its relations, who, on fixed days, brought them to the threshold of the _good dwelling_ or the _eternal dwelling_, which were the phrases used by the Egyptians.[117] By these offerings alone could the hungry and thirsty phantom which had replaced the living man be kept alive. The first duty of the survivors was to take care that this dependent existence should not be extinguished by their neglect, to provide food and drink for the support, if we may use such a phrase, of the precarious life of the dead, who would otherwise be irritated against them and use the almost godlike power attributed to his mysterious condition for the punishment of his ungrateful posterity.[118] [117] This expression, which is very common in the Egyptian texts, seems to have made a great impression upon the Greek travellers. The following passage of DIODORUS is well known: "This refers to the beliefs of the natives, who look upon the life upon earth as a thing of minor importance, but set a high value upon those virtues of which the memory is perpetuated after death. They call their houses hotels, in view of the short time they have to spend in them, while they call their tombs their _eternal dwellings_" (i. 51). [118] The dead were put under the protection of, and, as it were, combined with, Osiris; they talked of _the Osiris so and so_ in naming one who was dead.