body
decaying," [Greek: tou somatos de kataphthinontos]), then if embalming
delays decay for one thousand years, so much is taken off from the journey
through animals. That the soul was believed to be kept with the body as
long as it was undecayed is also expressly stated by Servius (Comm. on the
AEneid of Virgil): "The learned Egyptians preserve the corpse from decay
in tombs in order that its soul shall remain with it, and not quickly pass
into other bodies."

Hence, too, the extraordinary pains taken in ornamenting the tombs, as the
permanent homes of the dead during a long period. Diodorus says that they
ornamented the tombs as the enduring residences of mankind.

Transmigration in India was retribution, but in Egypt it seems to have
been a condition of progress. It was going back into the lower
organizations, to gather up all their varied life, to add to our own. So
Tennyson suggests,--

"If, through lower lives I came,
Though all experience past became
Consolidate in mind and frame," etc.

Beside the reason for embalming given above, there may have been the
motive arising from the respect for bodily organization, so deeply rooted
in the Egyptian mind.

[170] Animals and plants, more than anything else, and animals more than
plants, are the types of variety; they embody that great law of
differentiation, one of the main laws of the universe, the law which is
opposed to that of unity, the law of centrifugal force, expressed in our
humble proverb, "It takes all sorts of people to make a world."

[171] Maury, "Revue des Deux Mondes, 1867." "Man's Origin and Destiny,
J. P. Lesley, 1868." "Recherches sur les Monumens, etc., par M. de Rouge,
1866."

[172] Article "AEgypten," in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon, 1869. Duncker,
"Geschichte des Alterthums, Dritte Auflage, 1863."

[173] See Duncker, as above.

[174] Les Pasteurs en Egypt, par F. Chabas. Amsterdam, 1868.

[175] The "hornets," Ex. xxiii. 28, and Josh. xxiv. 11, 12, are not
insects, but the Hyksos, who, driven from Egypt were overrunning Syria.
See New York Nation, article on the Hyksos, May 13, 1869.

[176] Pap. Tallier (Bunsen IV. 671) as translated by De Rouge, Goodwin,
&c.: "In the days when the land of Egypt was held by the invaders, King
Apapi (at Avaris) set up Sutekh for his lord; he worshipped no other god
in the whole land."

[177] I follow here De Rouge, Brugsch, and Duncker, rather than Bunsen.

[178] Athenaeum Francais, 1856.