The origin of the Temple is various; but all temples may nevertheless be reduced in the last resort either into graves of the dead, or into places where worship is specially offered up to them. This truth, which Mr. Herbert Spencer arrived at by examination of the reports of travellers or historians, and worked up in connection with his _Principles of Sociology_, was independently arrived at through quite a different line of observation and reasoning by Mr. William Simpson, the well-known artist of the _Illustrated London News_. Mr. Simpson has probably visited a larger number of places of worship all over the world than any other traveller of any generation: and he was early impressed by the fact which forced itself upon his eyes, that almost every one of them, where its origin could be {075}traced, turned out to be a tomb in one form or another. He has set forth the results of his researches in this direction in several admirable papers, all of which, but especially the one entitled _The Worship of Death_, I can confidently recommend to the serious attention of students of religion. They contain the largest collection of instances in this matter ever yet made; and they show beyond a doubt the affiliation of the very idea of a temple on the tomb or grave of some distinguished dead person, famous for his power, his courage, or his saintliness. The cave is probably the first form of the Temple. Sometimes the dead man is left in the cave which he inhabited when living; an instance of which we have already noticed among the Veddahs of Ceylon. In other cases, where races have outgrown the custom of cave-dwelling, the habit of cave-burial, or rather of laying the dead in caves or in artificial grottoes, still continues through the usual conservatism of religious feeling. Offerings are made to the dead in all these various caves: and here we get the beginnings of cave-temples. Such temples are at first of course either natural or extremely rude; but they soon begin to be decorated with rough frescoes, as is done, for example, by the South African Bushmen. These frescoes again give rise in time by slow degrees to such gorgeous works as those of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes; each of which has attached to it a magnificent temple as its mortuary chapel. Sculpture is similarly employed on the decoration of cave-temples; and we get the final result of such artistic ornament in splendid cave-temples like those of Ellora. Both arts were employed together in the beautiful and interesting Etruscan tomb-temples.