66 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



fear of the dead, who were worshipped before there existed 

 any Zeus or Juppiter^); and låter Dr. Lippert bas tried to 

 prove a similar development of religions ideas among all Indo- 

 European peoples^). Professor Schrader also in his Reallexikon 

 points out in many places that among these races uature- 

 worship "was developed out of an earlier worship of the dead. 

 All attempts of this kind are, however, futile and cannot 

 but bring confusion mto the whole problem of primitive re- 

 ligion. The same must be said, for instance, of Professor 

 Schrader's theory relating to G-reek religion, accordiug to 

 which both the word ^eoc and the word öaifiMV are to be 

 derived from stems which meaut „breathe", „ghost", „spirit" ^). 

 Although he himself considers that this argument makes his 

 theory „almost certain" we cannot ascribe much importance 

 to it. Linguistic science would, no doubt, afiford a certain help 

 in matters concernmg the primeval religion of the Indo-Eu- 

 ropeans if its results could only be relied upon. But we are 

 bound to mistrust and reject etymological interpretations which 

 are evideiitly infiuenced by the preconceived opinions of their 

 authors *). I also fail to see the importance of the other 

 argument of Professor Schrader that in the earliest Greek 

 literature the word éaifioiv is sometimes used to signify the 

 ghosts of the dead ^). With regard to the development of the 



*j Fustel de Coulange, Oité nntique pp. 1—40. 



■-; Lippert, Die. Religionen der europeischen Culiurvölker 



^) Schrader, Reallexikon, p. 29: „Es steht nichts im Wege, fiir baiacov 

 eine Grundform öaot-uov anzusctzen, imd den ersten Bestandtheil dieses Wortes 

 öaoL- unter Annahme eines bekannten Lautwandels (bå-nQvua, lacriraa), dem 

 lat. lasi- ilares, lariura), 'Geist eines Verstorbenen' zu vergleichen. Wie 

 öaiTvumv einen bezeichnet, der nnt dem Mahle zusamnienhängt, so muss die 

 Grundbedeutung von öaaLjiév die eines Wesen gewesen sein, das mit Seelen 

 der Verstorbenen zusammenhängt, dann Seele eines Verstorbenen selbst". 



*) Even it Prof. Schrader's etymologj' were correct its bearing on the 

 question about the natur of eearly Greek deities would be problematic as long as 

 the true nature of the Roman Inres is not definitively fixed. Recently Professor 

 Wissowa bas rejccted the theory that the Inres were identical with the di 

 månes, the spirits of the dead (Wissowa, Die Anfänge des römischen Larcn- 

 kultes, in Archiv fur Religionswissenschnft, Bd 7, Leipzig 1904, p. 14 sqq. 

 Idera, Religion und Kultus der Rönier, pp. 148—50. Roscher's Lexikon s. v. 

 Lares, pp. 1888—90). 



*) Schrader. fj). cit. p. 28. 



