heart, the first life principle of human existence and
regeneration, the first apparent individuality of embryonic human
life; was symbolized, in the _Per-em-Hru_, i.e., the Book of the
Dead, by Khepra, the scarabaeus deity; this is one reason why the texts
(chapters XXX. and XXVII., see also LXIV.,) which related to the
heart, were those usually inscribed on the funeral scarabaei, and
consecrated to the preservation of the heart of the dead. The
condition of death was described by the Egyptian expression: "The one
whose heart does not beat." The resurrection or re-birth from the dead
only began, according to the Egyptian idea, when this organ, so
essential and necessary to all animal life, was returned to the
deceased _Ba_, i.e., responsible soul, by the decree of Osiris and the
judges of the dead, which Thoth registers: "To him is accorded that
his heart may be in its place." Indeed most of the texts of the
_Per-em-Hru_, as we have seen, are dedicated to the preservation of
the heart of the dead one. The philosophic student can therefore from
this, at once see, the great value of the scarabaeus symbol to the
whole religious thought-world of Ancient Egypt. It was the symbol,
when returned to the dead, of the regenerated and resurrected life of
the dead one to the heavenly regions of the blessed for all eternity,
to the second birth in the regions of eternal rest and happiness.

Taking as a model the daily course of the sun, which rising in the
morning as Horus; reaching the zenith at noon as Ra; setting in the
evening, in the regions of darkness as Tum; and absent during the
night and until the morrow as Osiris; upon which, victorious over the
chaotic darkness, it arose in triumph again as Horus; the birth and
journey of man on earth, was considered by the Ancient Egyptians as
similar to the solar journey; and death, the end of that journey, was
assimilated to the course of the sun when at night it was, according
to their astronomical knowledge, supposed to be in the Lower Regions
or Underworld, the abode of Osiris. When he died, the Egyptian became
as Osiris, "the nocturnal sun;" resurrected, he became Horus, the
new-born and rising sun; in midday, he was Ra. Horus was: "The Old One
who rejuvenated himself." Such a re-birth of the dead to immortality,
was the recompense promised by the Egyptian religion, to the soul of
the man pious and good during this life, but the wicked were to be
tortured, transformed into lower