Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

III.] The Secret Name. 81

of nature. And not until we have traced the
mighty variations and convulsions which in
the recesses of time our whole slobe has
undergone, not until we have looked back far
beyond the earliest seed-time of the forest, to
the days when the surrounding country for
hundreds of miles formed the bottom of an
immense ocean, through which the icebergs
bore the huge rocks torn from its frozen
shores, can we understand the position of that
primeval stone.

Something of a similar character may not
unfrequently be discerned in regard to the
religious belief and worship of a nation, when
a tradition or custom survives the convulsions
and changes of the centuries, and remains
firmly embedded in the national life, though
every trace of significance is long buried in
the past. Most superstitions, it is probable,
had once an intelligible meaning, even if that
meaning were founded on a mistaken belief;
but such survivals are by no means due to

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