f the eyes was
the distinctive sign of the latter condition the open eyes were not
unnaturally regarded as clear evidence of wakefulness and life. In fact,
to a matter-of-fact people the restoration of the eyes to the mummy or
statue was equivalent to an awakening to life.

At a time when a reflection in a mirror or in a sheet of water was
supposed to afford quite positive evidence of the reality of each
individual's "double," and when the "soul," or more concretely, "life,"
was imagined to be a minute image or homunculus, it is quite likely that
the reflection in the eye may have been interpreted as the "soul"
dwelling within it. The eye was certainly regarded as peculiarly rich in
"soul substance". It was not until Osiris received from Horus the eye
which had been wrenched out in the latter's combat with Set that he
"became a soul".[93]

It is a remarkable fact that this belief in the animating power of the
eye spread as far east as Polynesia and America, and as far west as the
British Islands.

Of course the obvious physiological functions of the eyes as means of
communication between their possessor and the world around him; the
powerful influence of the eyes for expressing feeling and emotion
without speech; the analogy between the closing and opening of the eyes
and the changes of day and night, are all hinted at in Egyptian
literature.

But there were certain specific factors that seem to have helped to give
definiteness to these general ideas of the physiology of the eyes. The
tears, like all the body moisture, came to share the life-giving
attributes of water in general. And when it is recalled that at funeral
ceremonies emotion found natural expression in the shedding of tears, it
is not unlikely that this came to be assimilated with all the other
water-symbolism of the funerary ritual. The early literature of Egypt,
in fact, refers to the part played by Isis and Nephthys in the
reanimation of Osiris, when the tears they shed as mourners brought
life back to the god. But the fertilizing tears of Isis were life-giving
in the wider sense. They were said to cause the inundation which
fertilized the soil of Egypt, meaning presumably that the "Eye of Re"
sent the rain.

There is the further possibility that the beliefs associated with the
cowry may have played some part, if not in originating, at any rate in
emphasizing the conception of the fertilizing powers of the eye. I have
already mentioned the outstan