The Kamschatkans were so particular that they would not name the bear or wolf, for these animals understood the language of men, and would be offended at such familiarity![107] Even if it does not hear, the power for good or evil which a being has, can, in primitive opinion, be communicated through its name. For that reason the priest known as the _flamen dialis_ among the Romans would not only avoid touching a dog or bear, but he would not pronounce their names, lest he should be contaminated! And to this day a Mohammedan, if he pronounces the word for “hog,” will spit, that his mouth may not be defiled by the name of the unclean beast. Even more universal was the avoidance of the names of the dead. This prevailed throughout Africa, Australia, Tasmania, Polynesia, and America. The reason was, that the name was held to be a part of the spirit of the departed, and to pronounce it would disturb the rest of the grave, and probably indeed bring the perturbed spirit to the circle of auditors.[108] If such was the case with the names of men and beasts, how sacred must be the names of the gods! This is an extraordinary feature, common to the rudest superstitions of savage and the most developed faiths of civilised lands, and it has for its basis the conception of the name as a real attribute, a part of the Self. “In all the religions of ancient Asia,” writes Lenormant, “the mysterious Name was considered a real and divine being, who had a personal existence and exclusive power over both nature and the world of spirits.”[109] In the name dwelt the essential power of the deity. An Egyptian magical formula, placed in the mouth of a god, reads: “I am the elect of millions of years. Were my name spoken on the bank of a river, it would be consumed; Were it uttered on earth, fire would burst from the ground.”[110] The knowledge of this name by another enabled him to exert a power over the god himself. That by naming a demon, he can be forced to appear, was a cardinal principle of ancient magic. “The list of divine names possessed by the Roman pontiffs in their _indigitamenta_ was their most efficacious magical instrument, laying at their mercy all the forces of the spirit world.”[111] For this reason, the gods of ancient Egypt sedulously concealed their names, and we cannot doubt that it was the fear of some such subjection of their deity through the malicious use of his name, which led the early Jews to conceal it so well that it is now lost. It was the same with the Semitic Arabians. Instead of the true divine name, they substituted Allah, the Mighty One, so that now the original is conjectural or unknown.