fluence has become embalmed for all time in many languages and in the
ritual of every religion.

But it was a factor in the development not merely of religious beliefs,
temples and ritual, but it was also very closely related to the origin
of much of the paraphernalia of the gods and of current popular beliefs.
The swastika and the thunderbolt, dragons and demons, totemism and the
sky-world are all of them conceptions that were more or less closely
connected with the matters I have been discussing.

The ideas which grew up in association with the practice of
mummification were responsible for the development of the temple and its
ritual and for a definite formulation of the conception of deities. But
they were also responsible for originating a priesthood. For the
resuscitation of the dead king, Osiris, and for the maintenance of his
existence it was necessary for his successor, the reigning king, to
perform the ritual of animation and the provision of food and drink. The
king, therefore, was the first priest, and his functions were not
primarily acts of worship but merely the necessary preliminaries for
restoring life and consciousness to the dead seer so that he could
consult him and secure his advice and help.

It was only when the number of temples became so great and their ritual
so complex and elaborate as to make it a physical impossibility for the
king to act in this capacity in all of them and on every occasion that
he was compelled to delegate some of his priestly functions to others,
either members of the royal family or high officials. In course of time
certain individuals devoted themselves exclusively to these duties and
became professional priests; but it is important to remember that at
first it was the exclusive privilege of Horus, the reigning king, to
intercede with Osiris, the dead king, on behalf of men, and that the
earliest priesthood consisted of those individuals to whom he had
delegated some of these duties.

In conclusion I should like to express in words what must be only too
apparent to every reader of this statement. It claims to be nothing more
than a contribution to the study of some of the most difficult problems
in the history of human thought. For one so ill-equipped for a task of
such a nature as I am to attempt it calls for a word of explanation. The
clear light that recent research has shed upon the earliest literature
in the world has done much to destroy the foundations upon wh