are radically identical), formed a whole class of divine beings, who are mentioned in thousands of inscriptions as "the kau who live everlastingly." A well-known and interesting tablet contains the prayer, "May I journey upon the everlasting road in company with the kau and glorified ones."[1]
Not the least curious coincidence between Egyptian and European thought is the use of the words genius and ka to express mental gifts. "Genius" is not used in this way in classical Latin, but by being made synonymous with spirit, and spirit being used as in the eleventh chapter of Isaiah ("the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, of the fear of the Lord"), genius has come to signify a divine gift. Now the Egyptian word ka had certainly acquired this secondary signification as early as the time of Rameses II.,[2] and I have but little doubt, though the proof is not absolute, that this signification already existed in the earliest times known to us.
The anthropology of the Egyptians was very different from that recognized in our modern systems of philosophy. We are in the habit of speaking of man as consisting of body and soul, the soul being considered
