e world. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Sit and
his partisans were the cause and origin of all that is harmful. Daily
their eyes shed upon the world those juices by which plants are made
poisonous, as well as malign influences, crime, and madness. Their
saliva, the foam which fell from their mouths during their attacks of
rage, their sweat, their blood itself, were all no less to be feared.
When any drop of it touched the earth, straightway it germinated, and
produced something strange and baleful--a serpent, a scorpion, a plant
of deadly nightshade or of henbane. But, on the other hand, the sun
was all goodness, and persons or things which it cast forth into life
infallibly partook of its benignity. Wine that maketh man glad, the bee
who works for him in the flowers secreting wax and honey, the meat and
herbs which are his food, the stuffs that clothe him, all useful things
which he makes for himself, not only emanated from the Solar Eye
of Horus, but were indeed nothing more than the Eye of Horus under
different aspects, and in his name they were presented in sacrifice. The
devout generally were of opinion that the first Egyptians, the sons and
flock of Ra, came into the world happy and perfect;[*] by degrees their
descendants had fallen from that native felicity into their present
state.

* In the tomb of Seti I, the words _flock of the Sun, flock
of Ra_, are those by which the god Horus refers to men.
Certain expressions used by Egyptian writers are in
themselves sufficient to show that the first generations of
men were supposed to have lived in a state of happiness and
perfection. To the Egyptians _the times of Ra, the times of
the god_--that is to say, the centuries immediately
following on the creation---were the ideal age, and no good
thing had appeared upon earth since then.

Some, on the contrary, affirmed that their ancestors were born as so
many brutes, unprovided with the most essential arts of gentle life.
They knew nothing of articulate speech, and expressed themselves by
cries only, like other animals, until the day when Thot taught them both
speech and writing.

These tales sufficed for popular edification; they provided but meagre
fare for the intelligence of the learned. The latter did not confine
their ambition to the possession of a few incomplete and contradictory
details concerning the beginnings of humanity. They wished to know the
history of its co