30 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIII. 



tude. These were reflective qualities ; and more 

 immediately beneficial to the individual who pos- 

 sessed them, than to those with whom he was in 

 the habit of associating. 



As the dead, after the final judgment and ad- 

 mission into the regions of the blessed, bore her 

 emblem (either the ostrich feather, or the vase 

 which indicated their good deeds, taken from the 

 scales of Truth), and were considered approved or 

 justified by their works, the hieroglyphics of her 

 name were adopted to signify " deceased," or, in 

 other words, "judged" or "justified." 



The same idea may be traced in an expression 

 of Plato's Gorgias, where, in speaking of the judg- 

 ments of the dead, Socrates says, *' Sometimes 

 Rhadamanthus, beholding the soul of one who has 

 passed through life with Truth, whether it be of 

 a private man, or any other, is filled with admir- 

 ation, and dismisses that soul to the Islands of the 

 Blessed. The same is also done by ^acus."* 

 Indeed, the modern Persian or Arabic expression 

 in relation to the dead is not very dissimilar, 

 which styles them " pardoned," or " to whom the 

 mercy of God has been shown," answering to our 

 more simple and matter-of-fact '* the late," or 

 " the departed." 



Diodorust mentions a figure of Justice without 

 a head t, standing in the lower regions, "at the 

 gates of Truth," which I have found in the judg- 



* Plato, Taylor's Trans, vol. iv. p. 4.58. 



f Diodor. i. 9G. 



t This calls to mind "the good woman" of modern times. 



