Where burial prevails, and where arts are at a low stage of development, the memory of the dead is not likely to survive beyond two or three generations. But where mummification is the rule, there is no reason why deceased persons should not be preserved and worshipped for an indefinite period; and we know that in Egypt at least the cult of kings who died in the most remote times of the Early Empire was carried on regularly down to the days of the Ptolemies. In such a case as this, there is absolutely no need for idols to arise; the corpse itself is the chief object of worship. We do find accordingly that both in Egypt and in Peru the worship of the mummy played a large part in the local religions; though sometimes it alternated with the worship of other holy objects, such as the image or the sacred stone, which we shall see hereafter to have had a like origin. But in many other countries, where bodies were less visibly and obviously preserved, the worship due to the ghost or god was often paid to a simulacrum or idol; so much so that “idolatry” has become in Christian parlance the common term for most forms of worship other than monotheistic. Now what is the origin and meaning of Idols, and how can they be affiliated upon primitive corpse or ghost worship? Like the temple, the Idol, I believe, has many separate origins, several of which have been noted by Mr. Herbert Spencer, {080}while others, it seems to me, have escaped the notice even of that profound and acute observer. The earliest Idols, if I may be allowed the contradictory expression, are not idols at all--not images or representations of the dead person, but actual bodies, preserved and mummified. These pass readily, however, into various types of representative figures. For in the first place the mummy itself is usually wrapped round in swathing-cloths which obscure its features; and in the second place it is frequently enclosed in a wooden mummy-case, which is itself most often rudely human in form, and which has undoubtedly given rise to certain forms of idols. Thus, the images of Amun, Khem, Osiris, and Ptah among Egyptian gods are frequently or habitually those of a mummy in a mummy-case. But furthermore, the mummy itself is seldom or never the entire man; the intestines at least have been removed, or even, as in New Guinea, the entire mass of flesh, leaving only the skin and the skeleton. The eyes, again, are often replaced, as in Peru, by some other imitative object, so as to keep up the lifelike appearance. Cases like these lead on to others, where the image or idol gradually supersedes altogether the corpse or mummy.