her: "What Egyptologists wish to know about Osiris beyond
anything else is how and by what means he became associated with the
processes of vegetable life". An examination of the literature relating
to Osiris and the large series of homologous deities in other countries
(which exhibit _prima facie_ evidence of a common origin) suggests the
idea that the king who first introduced the practice of systematic
irrigation thereby laid the foundation of his reputation as a beneficent
reformer. When, for reasons which I shall discuss later on (see p. 220),
the dead king became deified, his fame as the controller of water and
the fertilization of the earth became apotheosized also. I venture to
put forward this suggestion only because none of the alternative
hypotheses that have been propounded seem to be in accordance with,
or to offer an adequate explanation of, the body of known facts
concerning Osiris.

It is a remarkable fact that in his lectures on "The Development of
Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," which are based upon his own
studies of the Pyramid Texts, and are an invaluable storehouse of
information, Professor J. H. Breasted should have accepted Sir James
Frazer's views. These seem to me to be altogether at variance with the
renderings of the actual Egyptian texts and to confuse the exposition.]

[44: Dr. Alan Gardiner, quoted in my "Migrations of Early Culture," p.
42: see also the same scholar's remarks in Davies and Gardiner, "The
Tomb of Amenemhet," 1915, p. 57, and "A new Masterpiece of Egyptian
Sculpture," _The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology_, Vol. IV, Part I,
Jan., 1917.]

[45: See J. Wilfrid Jackson, "Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of
Early Culture," 1917, Manchester University Press.]

Early Biological Theories.

Before the full significance of these procedures can be appreciated it
is essential to try to get at the back of the Proto-Egyptian's mind and
to understand his general trend of thought. I specially want to make it
clear that the ritual use of water for animating the corpse or the
statue was merely a specific application of the general principles of
biology which were then current. It was no mere childish make-believe or
priestly subterfuge to regard the pouring out of water as a means of
animating a block of stone. It was a conviction for which the
Proto-Egyptians considered there was a substantial scientific basis; and
their faith in the efficacy of water to animate the dead i