50 
very late, and that there is evidence in them of a philosophy and 
a spirit similar to those of the Ritual of the Dead, and that they 
were undoubtedly written when a philosophical tendency had 
begun to spoil the Egyptian mythology; when the pseudo-his- 
torical explanation of the sacred legends was becoming popular, 
and when, no doubt, the grand language and conceptions of the 
Old Testament prophets, which had been introduced into Egyp- 
tian literature by the Alexandrian Jews, had leavened the reli- 
gious system of the Hamites in precisely the same manner as the 
Budhist legends were modified and purified by the Christian 
dogmas after the contact of the Hindu Gooroos with the Nes- 
torian priests of the West. 1 must lay considerable stress upon 
the axiom, which should never be forgotten by a student of com- 
parative mythology, that an analogy of ideas is not necessarily 
proven from an analogy of expression, unless by a parity of 
reasoning, the identical principles underlying them can be 
clearly traced out by a comparison of texts, monuments, and 
commentaries of the same 'period; since, for purposes of critical 
analysis, a subsequent exposition is merely an expression of the 
opinion of an individual writer. And what I affirm concerning 
tenets and phrases I unhesitatingly affirm concerning symbols 
and emblems also, Inman, Dana, Hislop, and Bryant to the 
contrary notwithstanding. 
Revenons a nos moutons. It is much to be regretted 
that in all the mysterious offices of Ilorus the avenger 
there is so much confusion of ideas and characteristics that 
it is almost impossible to separate the one from the other. 
Insensibly Horus is addressed as, or becomes, father, son, and 
man; is in himself a unity and a trinity; a victor and a victim, 
giviug honour to himself, receiving honours from himself ; 
he is the son of Isis, of Hathor, and of Nu, the heavenly waters * 
He is the son of Osiris, of Turn, of Ra, and of Harchuti ; he 
receives the Good Spirit from his father; he gives the Good 
Spirit to his father; and he is himself, as will be presently seen, 
the Good Spirit; material and immaterial ; mortal and immortal ; 
he fills every sacred personation, and performs every sacred 
duty, and is in all things, yet submits to all things. t 
These reflections naturally prepare the way for the considera- 
tion of the third office of Horus Ra, the office which is to us of 
the chiefest significance, and upon which I hope to dwell in some 
detail — the character and office of Horus Nets , the Deliverer 
* Or, “ the waters that are above the firmament.” — Gen. i. 7. 
f The same Pantheistic confusion runs throughout the great Litany of Ra, 
the chief texts of which belong to the period of the XIXth and XXtli 
Dynasties. 
