Note 2 — Chapter VIII · Conclusion.

The belief that no obligation is more binding on man than that he pay proper respect to the dead is as old as civilization itself. Indeed, it probably antedates what we ordinarily call civilization, since otherwise it could not well be found so widely distributed over the earth in historical times. It evidently rests upon the notion that the soul, when separated from the body, could find no repose.2 Herodotus tells3 of the Egyptian law, which permitted a man to give his father’s body in pledge, with the proviso that if he failed to repay the loan neither he nor any of his kin could be buried at all. The story, also related by Herodotus,4 of Rampsinit and the thief which turns on the latter’s successful attempt to rescue his brother’s body, illustrates again the value that the Egyptians set upon burial. Their notion seems to have been that the more honour paid the dead, the more bearable would be their lot, though it was regarded as unenviable at best.5 Among the Magi of Persia, though both burial and burning were prohibited because of the sanctity of earth and fire, the bodies of the dead were cared for according to the strictest of codes, being left to the sun and air on elevated structures.6 In India the Rig-Veda7 bears witness to similar carefulness in the performance of this sacred duty.