fe and help
him through its many changes and chances;[150] and the peculiarity of
this Latin guardian is that he was specially helpful in continuing the
life of the family. The soul of a man is often conceived as the cause of
life, but not often as the procreative power itself; and that this
latter was the Latin idea is certain, both from the etymology of the
word and from the fact that the marriage-bed was called _lectus
genialis_. I am inclined to think that this peculiarity of the Latin
conception of Genius was the result of the unusually strong idea that
the Latins must have had, even when they first passed into Italy, of
kinship as determined not by the mother but by the father.[151] It is
possible, I think, that the Genius was a soul of later origin than those
I have just mentioned, and developed in the period when the gens arose
as the main group of kinsmen real or imaginary. I would suggest that we
may see in it the connecting link between that group and the individual
adult males within it; in that case the Genius would be that soul of a
man which enables him to fulfil the work of continuing the life of the
gens. We can easily imagine how it might eventually come to be his
guardian spirit, and to acquire all the other senses with which we are
familiar in Roman literature. With the development of the idea of
individuality, the individuality of a man as apart from the kin group,
the idea of the individuality of the Genius also became emphasised,
until it became possible to think of it as even living on after the
death of its companion;[152] in this way, in course of time, the Genius
came to exercise a curious influence on the idea of the Manes. The
history of the idea of Genius, and its application to places, cities,
etc., is indeed a curious one, and of no small interest in the study of
religion; but we must return to the primitive house and its divine
inhabitants. There is one more of these who calls for a word before I
pass to the land and the boundaries; we meet him on the threshold as we
leave the dwelling.

It is, of course, well known to anthropologists that the door of a house
is a dangerous point, because evil spirits or the ghosts of the dead may
gain access to the house through it. Among the innumerable customs which
attest this belief there are one or two Roman ones, _e.g._ the practice
of making a man, who has returned home after his supposed death in a
foreign country, enter the house by the roof in