334 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



another at Cairo. In each of these places there is a pair of pillars, set close 

 together, and the ciceroni inform visitors that only he who can squeeze 

 between the pillars can obtain admission t<> heaven. At Cairo the space 

 between the pillars lias been appreciably widened by the attrition of the inner 

 surfaces of the pillars: at Jerusalem an iron grille has been inserted to prevent 

 the experiment being made — it is said because a certain fat man met his death 

 by endeavouring t" force himself through the narrow space. 



Sir .lames Frazer, quoting the ess Gaidoz, 1 says that its author 



•'rightly rejects the that all such pass . - e symbols of a new 



birth" — as though the patient v ■ into a new world of health, of 



legitimacy, of fitness for office, or what-not. This, however, does not exactly 

 exp ■> of the 1 p. 77 of I 



will show : It is no! the crude idea of physical re-birth which he n 



lanatory of this rite, but the ethical ideas which for us form almost the 

 exclusivi ition." In this he is no doubt right ; 



but lie does not, and - I can judge lie should not, wholly reject the 



view that thi einpt to express the notion of a physical 



re-birth. II d with the ceremony, it is doubtless not to 



the exclusion of otlii - gh which a sickly 



infant has been ;. wards linki d with the life of the child ; we 



must thi and the child have some physical connexion 



for which the re-birth th< Id not wholly account. But in the study of 



folk-lore aud foil nd complications of this kind are 



only what we n ;. Very few primitive rites and ceremonies are 



tentacles to 

 which ol ch then accretions vary 



ibly in d siirromiui n of the most rudiment 



ceremonj ty. 



Whether "i i I with the i it*-— of the 



lanation of what 

 we 



thai _ as 



hav: _ And v en we learn that l>efore the 



'■■ he close-fitting, 

 we may f airlj formation of this explans For in re-birth 



rould be the reproduction of the 



Nous aaiu. -la throne 



de la ii'iivclle nai&aai o'i] s'agit la il'ime image niaterialle et en qnelque aorte 



d'une 



