140 ANCIENT EGYPT. 



SO it returned again to his bosom. In Typhon, the serpent, 

 and in Set we have the principle of evil. Set is but another 

 name for Satan. Thus the Egyptians believed in a soul and 

 in a future life, hence their anxious care to preserve the 

 " tenement of clay " by embalmment for use after death by the 

 soul, and the elaborate precautions taken for the safety of the 

 mummy. After death comes judgment, when the heart is 

 weighed by Anubis ; while Toth, the recorder, notes down the 

 good and evil deeds done in the body. Osiris, son of Noot, 

 the heavens, as Judge of the Dead, described in the seven- 

 teenth chapter, has a sort of jury composed of 42 minor 

 divinities, the same number as the sins specified in one of the 

 papyrus rolls found. Before you is the illumination, numbered 

 I m the series belonging to the Society. Should the verdict 

 given in the hall of the two truths be adverse, the soul is 

 consigned to punishment, but only for a span, when it comes 

 up again for judgment. From this it is clear that the 

 Egyptians did not believe in eternal punishment. If the 

 heart weigh true the soul comes forth as a god, when the 

 elected enjoy eternal bliss, but only after some period of 

 purgatorial probation. In the papyrus of Neb-ket is a picture 

 of the soul's return, down a ladder from heaven to the earth, 

 to visit the mummy ; and on an inscription in one of the 

 pyramids allusion is made to a ladder reaching from earth to 

 heaven. 



So great was the anxiety to preserve the bodily tenement 

 for the soul, that the idea of the ka, the double or ghost of 

 the deceased, was conceived; but exactly in what sense is 

 obscure — the shadow conveys the best idea to my mind : some 

 call it the genius. Besides the body man is composed of the 

 ka, the soul ba, and an intelligence Xu. With a mummy are 

 one or more figures representing the ka, built into the walls of 

 the tomb or otherwise distributed, so that the soul had 

 always something to fly to in the event of the destruction of 

 the mummy, accidental or otherwise. 



The idea of "like unto like" is carried out literally; the 

 mummy being provided with real bread, while the food for 



