n of Cancer, announced the
inundation of the Nile, and seemed to prepare the creation."

* See the Pythagorean, Ocellus Lacunus.

** Vide Oedip. Aegypt. Tome II., page 205.

*** This comparison of the sun with the yolk of an egg
refers: 1. To its round and yellow figure; 2. To its central
situation; 3. To the germ or principle of life contained in
the yolk. May not the oval form of the egg allude to the
elipsis of the orbs? I am inclined to this opinion. The
word Orphic offers a farther observation. Macrobius says
(Som. Scrip. c. 14. and c. 20), that the sun is the brain of
the universe, and that it is from analogy that the skull of
a human being is round, like the planet, the seat of
intelligence. Now the word Oerph signifies in Hebrew the
brain and its seat (cervix): Orpheus, then, is the same as
Bedou or Baits; and the Bonzes are those very Orphics which
Plutarch represents as quacks, who ate no meat, vended
talismans and little stones, and deceived individuals, and
even governments themselves. See a learned memoir of Freret
sur les Orphiques, Acad. des Inscrp. vol. 25, in quarto.

**** See Porphyry in Eusebus. Proep. Evang., lib. 3, p. 115.

*5 The Northern or Etesian wind, which commences regularly
at the solstice, with the inundation.

VII. Seventh System. Worship of the SOUL of the WORLD, that is to say,
the Element of Fire, vital Principle of the Universe.

"But others, disgusted at the idea of a being at once effect and cause,
agent and patient, and uniting contrary natures in the same nature,
distinguished the moving principle from the thing moved; and premising
that matter in itself was inert they pretended that its properties were
communicated to it by a distinct agent, of which itself was only the
cover or the case. This agent was called by some the igneous principle,
known to be the author of all motion; by others it was supposed to be
the fluid called ether, which was thought more active and subtile;
and, as in animals the vital and moving principle was called a soul, a
spirit, and as they reasoned constantly by comparisons, especially
those drawn from human beings, they gave to the moving principle of the
universe the name of soul, intelligence, spirit; and God was the vital
spirit, which extended through all beings and animated the vast body of
the world. And this class conveyed thei