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ὑπόκειται κτλ. For this principle, so often forgotten by H.'s critics, cf. vii. 152. 3.

Demeter and Dionysus are Isis (c. 41 n.) and Osiris (cc. 42 nn., 62. 2 n.). H., having introduced the subject of the world below, brings in another doctrine as to life after death, which he thought the Greeks had borrowed from Egypt. Whether metempsychosis was really a doctrine taught in Egypt is uncertain. Wiedemann rightly says that it is inconsistent with the preservation of the body by embalming, and that the number 3,000 is quite insufficient for Egyptian ideas; he therefore supposes that H. confused the doctrine of immortality, which in a certain form (cf. Maspero, M. et A. E. I. 48 seq.) the Egyptians undoubtedly held, with that of metempsychosis, and wrongly attributed the latter to Egypt. H. would be the more likely to do this, as the Egyptians believed the souls of the blessed could at will take any form they pleased (Sourdille, R. p. 365). Gomperz (Gk. Thinkers, i. 126-7) considers the doctrine of metempsychosis rather Indian than Egyptian, and seems to believe that the Greeks had been brought into relation with the Indians by their common subjection to Persia. He also quotes Egyptian doctrines as to the changes of the soul's abode, which H. may have misunderstood.

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