Plutarch's Romane Questions. Plutarch
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not likely to "walk," but for the spirit, which may want to return. Thus in China, at the moment of death, a small hole is made through the roof; while the custom of opening the window, to allow the soul of the dying man to depart, is universal in Germany and not unknown in England.
Finally, all that is considered necessary to bar the right of way to the dead man's spirit is to close the house-door immediately after the departure of the corpse, and keep it closed until the return of the funeral party.
If the explanation which has now been given of Plutarch's fifth question be correct, we must ascribe to the early Italians beliefs and customs similar to or identical with those quoted above from modern folk-lore; and it will not be illegitimate to seek further parallels to Italian religion from the same source. Thus, in Romane Questions, 51, Plutarch inquires why the Lares Præstites are represented as clad in dog-skins and as having a dog by their side.[34] Now, it is universally admitted that the Lar Familiaris of the Romans is the same as the house-spirit of the Teutons, and that both are the spirits of a deceased ancestor, the founder of the family and its spirit guardian. In the absence of any presumption to the contrary, we may conclude that the Lares Præstites were also spirits of deceased ancestors. The dog which accompanies the Lares was explained by the ancients as a symbolic representation of the fidelity and watch-dog functions of the Lares.[35] So, too, the priests of ancient Egypt said that the animal forms in which their gods were represented were merely symbolical.[36] But it may safely be laid down as a law in the evolution of religion that beast-worship is primitive, and that the theory of symbolism is but a via media whereby more elevated conceptions of deity are reconciled with the older and more savage worship. Analogy, then, is all in favour of the supposition that the Lares Præstites were originally conceived not in human shape, but in the form of dogs. What we require to confirm the analogy is evidence that the dead—if possible, evidence that guardian spirits—sometimes appear in the shape of a dog. As a matter of fact, the belief that a dead man's spirit may manifest itself in the likeness of a black dog still survives in Germany.[37] As for the guardian spirit, I would suggest that the Mauthe dog of Peel Castle is a house-spirit; for as the hearth was the peculiar seat of the Lar Familiaris and of the Hûsing or Herdgota, and as the English house-spirit
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