binations found during the six thousand years of Egyptian religion:
these combinations of beliefs being due to combinations of the races to
which they belonged.

{7}

CHAPTER II

THE NATURE OF MAN

Before we can understand what were the relations between man and the
gods we must first notice the conceptions of the nature of man. In the
prehistoric days of Egypt the position and direction of the body was
always the same in every burial, offerings of food and drink were
placed by it, figures of servants, furniture, even games, were included
in the grave. It must be concluded therefore that it was a belief in
immortality which gave rise to such a detailed ritual of the dead,
though we have no written evidence upon this.

So soon as we reach the age of documents we find on tombstones that the
person is denoted by the _khu_ between the arms of the _ka_. From
later writings it is seen that the _khu_ is applied to a spirit of man;
while the _ka_ is not the body but the activities of sense and
perception. Thus, in {8} the earliest age of documents, two entities
were believed to vitalise the body.

The _ka_ is more frequently named than any other part, as all funeral
offerings were made for the _ka_. It is said that if opportunities of
satisfaction in life were missed it is grievous to the _ka_, and that
the _ka_ must not be annoyed needlessly; hence it was more than
perception, and it included all that we might call consciousness.
Perhaps we may grasp it best as the 'self,' with the same variety of
meaning that we have in our own word. The _ka_ was represented as a
human being following after the man; it was born at the same time as
the man, but it persisted after death and lived in and about the tomb.
It could act and visit other _kas_ after death, but it could not resist
the least touch of physical force. It was always represented by two
upraised arms, the acting parts of the person. Beside the _ka_ of man,
all objects likewise had their _kas_, which were comparable to the
human _ka_, and among these the _ka_ lived. This view leads closely to
the world of ideas permeating the material world in later philosophy.

The _khu_ is figured as a crested bird, which has the meaning of
'glorious' or 'shining' in ordinary use. It refers to a less material
conception than {9} the _ka_, and may be called the intelligence or
spirit.

The _khat_ is the material body of man which was the vehicle of the
_ka_, and in