nted for it
by a variety of theories; and various theories are still held on the
subject. We can only enumerate the principal ones. (1) The beasts
were worshipped for their qualities, as is said to have been the case
in Peru before the Incas (chapter vi.); each was reverenced for that
divine excellence or virtue which appeared to be manifestly resident
in it. Thus the dog was worshipped for his watchfulness and
faithfulness; the hawk for its darting flight through the upper air,
like the flashing of the sunlight or of the sun-god himself; the cow
as a great kind mother; the beetle for that wonderful procedure in
the reproduction of his kind, in which he so strikingly brings life
out of decay. (2) The beasts are not worshipped themselves; they are
only the emblems of the deities with whom they are connected, and it
is the deity who is worshipped, not the animal. This may be quite
true of later practice, but is by no means a satisfactory explanation
of its origin; for how was it arranged, and who was it that ordained
at first, that the jackal should be the emblem of Anubis, the cat of
Bast, the crocodile of Sebak, and so on? (3) Various mythological and
quasi-historical accounts of the origin of the practice are given,
such as that men long ago chose different animals for their standards
in war, or that some early king, wishing to keep his subjects
disunited, ordered that each nome should serve a different animal. It
is also told as a story of early times that the gods when they walked
on earth assumed the forms of various animals; thus the gods are
still in the animals. The gods hid in the beasts in order to be near
men and see how they did. But men found them out and worshipped them
in the disguise they had assumed. (4) The gods cannot be present in
the world and cannot be satisfactorily worshipped unless they have
bodies to dwell in--that is involved in Egyptian psychology; and as
the gods would be too much alike if they all occupied human bodies,
they chose the bodies of different animals.

These theories of animal worship are evidently later inventions, to
account for a state of matters the real origin of which was not
known. Philosophical priests could not accommodate themselves to the
animal worship of the temples without a doctrine to justify it to
their minds. But those who resorted to such theories about animal
worship could have nothing to do with calling the system into
existence. We may be sure that a refine