ibed to
him, any direct assertion of the doctrine of a future life or of an
immortality of the human soul, or of a future reward or punishment in
a future state of the soul. Ideas are therein set forth however, of a
separation of the spiritual part of man into different divisions.

It may be, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not
accepted as a religious dogma, by the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings, an
apparently Asiatic race, probably Semitic, of which we have not as yet
very much knowledge. It is likely that it was under the Hyksos that
the Hebrew, Joseph, was advanced to high honors in Egypt, and under
their kings, that the influx and increase of the Hebrew population in
Egypt began and prospered.

It may be advanced with much certainty, that the Hebrew people
residing in Ancient Egypt, must have been acquainted with many of the
Egyptian ideas on the subject of the eternal future life of the soul
of the dead, and the reward or punishment of it in that future life,
for these ideas were undoubtedly widely and generally known by the
Egyptian people, and were too thoroughly formulated in the active and
daily life of the Ancient Egyptian population, not to have been known
by the Hebrews living in daily contact with them, but the Hebrews may
not have accepted them as a verity.

It may have been, that as the idea of the future existence of the soul
in its perfection, was based upon the mummification and preservation
of the body of the dead, so that the _Ka_ might remain with it, and go
out and revisit it in the tomb; and also, on inscriptions either on
the walls of the tomb or the papyri deposited with the body; that
Moses, knowing that in his wanderings and journeyings, it would be
impossible to have performed those ceremonies and preliminaries
necessary under the Egyptian system, for the proper burial of the
corpse; its mummification and the preparation of the funeral
inscriptions or papyri, considered as necessary to be inscribed on the
walls of the tomb, or on the papyri, to be buried with the corpse, so
as to assist the soul against the perils it was supposed it would
encounter in its journey through the Underworld;[3] was therefore
compelled to abandon a dogma based on preliminaries and preparations
he could not, during such wanderings, have performed. This would be
partly an explanation of a subject which has for many years caused
much dispute among very erudite theologians.

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