Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/197

 serpent Sata, the bird called Bennu (which has generally, but, I think, upon insufficient grounds, been thought to have given rise to the story of the Phœnix), the crocodile Sebek, the god Ptah, a golden hawk, the chief of the principal gods, a soul, a lotus-flower and a heron. Brugsch has found a monument according to which these transformations correspond to the twelve successive hours of the day. There is, however, no evidence as to the date at which such a correspondence was first imagined, or of the general recognition of this correspondence. And the transformations to which these chapters refer are far from exhausting the list of possible ones. No limit whatever is imposed on the will of the departed.

The subject has often been misunderstood through a confusion between Egyptian notions and either Pythagorean or Hindu notions. The Pythagoreans held the notion of the metempsychosis, and the legendary history of their founder represented him as having travelled in the East, and as having been initiated by Egyptian priests into their mysteries. The Pythagorean doctrines about the destinies of the human soul have, in consequence of this unauthenticated history,