significance. For example, Professor Toy[4] disposes of these questions
in relation to incense in a summary fashion. He claims that "when burnt
before the deity" it is "to be regarded as food, though in course of
time, when the recollection of this primitive character was lost, a
conventional significance was attached to the act of burning. A more
refined period demanded more refined food for the gods, such as ambrosia
and nectar, but these also were finally given up."

This, of course, is a purely gratuitous assumption, or series of
assumptions, for which there is no real evidence. Moreover, even if
there were any really early literature to justify such statements, they
explain nothing. Incense-burning is just as mysterious if Prof. Toy's
claim be granted as it was before.

But a bewildering variety of other explanations, for all of which the
merit of being "simple and obvious" is claimed, have been suggested. The
reader who is curious about these things will find a luxurious crop of
speculations by consulting a series of encyclopaedias.[5] I shall content
myself by quoting only one more. "Frankincense and other spices were
indispensable in temples where bloody sacrifices formed part of the
religion. The atmosphere of Solomon's temple must have been that of a
sickening slaughter-house, and the fumes of incense could alone enable
the priests and worshippers to support it. This would apply to thousands
of other temples through Asia, and doubtless the palaces of kings and
nobles suffered from uncleanliness and insanitary arrangements and
required an antidote to evil smells to make them endurable."[6]

It is an altogether delightful anachronism to imagine that religious
ritual in the ancient and aromatic East was inspired by such
squeamishness as a British sanitary inspector of the twentieth century
might experience!

[Illustration: Fig. 1.--The conventional Egyptian representation of the
Burning of Incense and the Pouring of Libations (Period of the New
Empire)--after Lepsius]

But if there are these many diverse and mutually destructive reasons in
explanation of the origin of incense-burning, it follows that the
meaning of the practice cannot be so "simple and obvious". For scholars
in the past have been unable to agree as to the sense in which these
adjectives should be applied.

But no useful purpose would be served by enumerating a collection of
learned fallacies and exposing their contradictions when the true