37)

The prince usually honoured them with a large share in his confidence and
government, because they, of all his subjects, had received the best
education, had acquired the greatest knowledge, and were most strongly
attached to the king's person and the good of the public. They were at one
and the same time the depositaries of religion and of the sciences; and to
this circumstance was owing the great respect which was paid them by the
natives as well as foreigners, by whom they were alike consulted upon the
most sacred things relating to the mysteries of religion, and the most
profound subjects in the several sciences.

The Egyptians pretend to be the first institutors of festivals and
processions in honour of the gods.(338) One festival was celebrated in the
city of Bubastus, whither persons resorted from all parts of Egypt, and
upwards of seventy thousand, besides children, were seen at it. Another,
surnamed the feast of the lights, was solemnized at Sais. All persons,
throughout Egypt, who did not go to Sais, were obliged to illuminate their
windows.

Different animals were sacrificed in different countries, but one common
and general ceremony was observed in all sacrifices, _viz._ the laying of
hands upon the head of the victim, loading it at the same time with
imprecations; and praying the gods to divert upon that victim all the
calamities which might threaten Egypt.(339)

It is to Egypt that Pythagoras owed his favourite doctrine of the
Metempsychosis or transmigration of souls.(340) The Egyptians believed,
that at the death of men their souls transmigrated into other human
bodies; and that, if they had been vicious, they were imprisoned in the
bodies of unclean or ill-conditioned beasts, to expiate in them their past
transgressions; and that after a revolution of some centuries they again
animated other human bodies.

The priests had the possession of the sacred books, which contained, at
large, the principles of government, as well as the mysteries of divine
worship. Both were uncommonly involved in symbols and enigmas, which,
under these veils, made truth more venerable, and excited more strongly
the curiosity of men.(341) The figure of Harpocrates, in the Egyptian
sanctuaries, with his finger upon his mouth, seemed to intimate, that
mysteries were there enclosed, the knowledge of which was revealed to very
few. The sphinxes, placed at the entrance of all temples, implied the
same. It is very well known