nce, had
already interrogated himself concerning what was to become of him after
his death, as he had early reasoned on the principle of life which
animates his body, and which leaves it without deforming it, and as he
had imagined airy substances, phantoms, and shades, he fondly believed
that he should continue, in the subterranean world, that life which
it was too painful for him to lose; and these lower regions seemed
commodious for the reception of the beloved objects which he could not
willingly resign.

* Nights of six months duration.

** Aliz, in the Phoenician or Hebrew language signifies
dancing and joyous.

"On the other hand, the astrological and geological priests told
such stories and made such descriptions of their heavens, as accorded
perfectly well with these fictions. Having, in their metaphorical
language, called the equinoxes and solstices the gates of heaven, the
entrance of the seasons, they explained these terrestrial phenomena by
saying, that through the gate of horn (first the bull, afterwards the
ram) and through the gate of Cancer, descended the vivifying fires which
give life to vegetation in the spring, and the aqueous spirits which
bring, at the solstice, the inundation of the Nile; that through the
gate of ivory (Libra, formerly Sagittarius, or the bowman) and that
of Capricorn, or the urn, the emanations or influences of the heavens
returned to their source, and reascended to their origin; and the Milky
Way, which passed through the gates of the solstices, seemed to be
placed there to serve them as a road or vehicle.* Besides, in their
atlas, the celestial scene presented a river (the Nile, designated by
the windings of the hydra), a boat, (the ship Argo) and the dog Sirius,
both relative to this river, whose inundation they foretold. These
circumstances, added to the preceding, and still further explaining
them, increased their probability, and to arrive at Tartarus or Elysium,
souls were obliged to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron in the boat of
the ferryman Charon, and to pass through the gates of horn or ivory,
guarded by the dog Cerberus. Finally, these inventions were applied to a
civil use, and thence received a further consistency.

*See Macrob. Som. Scrip. c. 12.

"Having remarked that in their burning climate the putrefaction of dead
bodies was a cause of pestilential diseases, the Egyptians, in many of
their towns, had adopted the practice of burying