"In Assyrian the cuneiform sign for water is also used, inter alia, to express the idea of begetting (banú). Compare with this the references from Hebrew and Arabic writings. In Isaiah xlviii. 1, we read 'Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah'; and in Numbers xxiv. 7, 'Water shall flow from his buckets and his seed shall be in many waters'.
"The Hebrew verb (shangal) which denotes sexual intercourse has, in Arabic (sadjala), the meaning 'to spill water'. In the Koran, Sur. 36, v. 6, the word mâ'un (water) is used to designate semen" (L. Siret, "Questions de Chronologie et d'Ethnographie Ibériques," Tome I, 1913, p. 250).
[49] Quibell, "Hieraconpolis", Vol. I, 260, 4.
[50] In using this phrase I want to make a clear distinction between the phase of culture in which it had never occurred to man that, in his individual case, life would come to an end, and the more enlightened stage, in which he fully realized that death would inevitably be his fate, but that in spite of it his real existence would continue.
It is clear that at quite an early stage in his history man appreciated the fact that he could kill an animal or his fellow-man. But for a long time he failed to realize that he himself, if he could avoid the process of mechanical destruction by which he could kill an animal or a fellow-man, would not continue to exist. The dead are supposed by many people to be still in existence so long as the body is preserved. Once the body begins to disintegrate even the most unimaginative of men can entirely repress the idea of death. But to primitive people the preservation of the body is equally a token that existence has not come to an end. The corpse is merely sleeping.
[51] Breasted, op. cit., p. 28.
[52] The possibility, or even the probability, must be borne in mind that the legend of Ea arising from the waters may be merely another way of expressing his primary attribute as the personification of the fertilizing powers of water.
[53] This occurred at a later epoch when the attributes of the water-controlling deity of fertility became confused with those of the birth-giving mother goddess (vide infra, p. 40).
[54] For a large series of these stories see E. Sidney Hartland's "Legend of Perseus". But even more instructive, as revealing the intimate connexion of such ideas with the beliefs regarding the preservation of the body, see J. J. M. de Groot, "The Religious System of China," Vol. IV, Book II, 1901.
[55] In this connexion see de Groot, op. cit. pp. 356 and 415. [Transcriber's Note: the original text contained no marker for this footnote, so a guess has been made as to what it referred]