LAWS. 515 



dead, thus shown, is, in early stages, joined with conscious 

 conformity to their dictates. 



530. For along with development of the ghost-theory, 

 there arises the practice of appealing to ghosts, and to the gods 

 evolved from ghosts, for directions in special cases, in addi 

 tion to the general directions embodied in customs. There 

 come methods by which the will of the ancestor, or the dead 

 chief, or the derived deity, is sought ; and the reply given, 

 usually referring to a particular occasion, originates in some 

 cases a precedent, from which there results a law added to the 

 body of laws the dead have transmitted. 



The seeking of information and advice from ghosts, takes 

 here a supplicatory and there a coercive form. The Veddahs, 

 who ask the spirits of their ancestors for aid, believe that 

 in dreams they tell them where to hunt ; and then we read 

 of the Scandinavian diviners, that they &quot; dragged the ghosts 

 of the departed from their tombs and forced the dead to tell 

 them what would happen:&quot; cases which remind us that 

 among the Hebrews, too, there were supernatural directions 

 given in dreams as well as information derived from invoked 

 spirits. This tendency to accept special guidance from the 

 dead, in addition to the general guidance of an inherited code, 

 is traceable in a transfigured shape even among ourselves ; for 

 besides conforming to the orally-declared wish of a deceased 

 parent, children are often greatly influenced in their conduct 

 by considering what the deceased parent would have desired 

 or advised: his imagined injunction practically becomes a 

 supplementary law. 



Here, however, we are chiefly concerned with that more 

 developed form of such guidance which results where the 

 spirits of distinguished men, regarded with special fear and 

 trust, become deities. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics reveal 

 two stages of it. The &quot; Instructions &quot; recorded by King 

 Rash otephet are given by his father in a dream. &quot; Son of the 

 Sun Ameueinhat deceased : He says in a dream unto his 

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