set out in a tabular form. This, clearly, is an attempt to make the sins
mentioned equal in number to the gods of the Hall of Ma[=a]t, and it
would seem as if they preferred to compose an entirely new form of this
section of the one hundred and twenty-fifth chapter to making any
attempt to add to or alter the older section. The artists, then,
depicted a Hall of Ma[=a]t, the doors of which are wide open, and the
cornice of which is formed of uraei and feathers, symbolic of Ma[=a]t.
Over the middle of the cornice is a seated deity with hands extended,
the right over the Eye of Horus, and the left over a pool. At the end of
the Hall are seated the goddesses of Ma[=a]t, _i.e._, Isis and Nephthys,
the deceased adoring Osiris who is seated on a throne, a balance with
the heart of the deceased in one scale, and the feather, symbolic of
Ma[=a]t, in the other, and Thoth painting a large feather. In this Hall
sit the forty-two gods, and as the deceased passes by each, the deceased
addresses him by his name and at the same time declares that he has not
committed a certain sin. An examination of the different papyri shows
that the scribes often made mistakes in writing this list of gods and
list of sins, and, as the result, the deceased is made to recite before
one god the confession which strictly belongs to another. Inasmuch, as
the deceased always says after pronouncing the name of each god, "I have
not done" such and such a sin, the whole group of addresses has been
called the "Negative Confession." The fundamental ideas of religion and
morality which underlie this Confession are exceedingly old, and we may
gather from it with tolerable clearness what the ancient Egyptian
believed to constitute his duty towards God and towards his neighbour.

It is impossible to explain, the fact that forty-two gods only are
addressed, and equally so to say why this number was adopted. Some have
believed that the forty-two gods represented each a name of Egypt, and
much support is given to this view by the fact that most of the lists of