If, under these reserves, we study the Egyptian theology in its most learned and refined form--namely, that which it attained during the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties--we shall dimly perceive that it implies a belief in the unity of the First Cause of all life. But this belief is obscured behind the numerous gods who are, in fact, emanations from its substance and manifestations of its indefatigable activity. It is in the person of these gods that the divine essence takes form. Each of them has his own name, his own figure, and his own special share in the management of the universe; each of them presides over the production of some particular order of phenomena and insures their regularity. These gods are related to each other as fathers, mothers, and sons. They thus form a vast hierarchy of beings, superior to man, and each enjoying a dignity corresponding to his rank in the series. There is, so to speak, most of divinity in those who are nearest to the "one God in heaven or earth who was not begotten." These deities are divided into groups of three, each group constituting a family, like those of earth, consisting of father, mother, and son. Thus from triad to triad, the concealed god develops his sovereign powers to all eternity, or, to use an expression dear to the religious schools of ancient Egypt, "he creates his own members, which are themselves gods."[70] [70] This formula frequently occurs in the texts. To cite but one occasion, we find upon a Theban invocation to Amen, translated by P. PIERRET (_Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie égyptienne et assyrienne_, t. i. p. 70), at the third line of the inscription: "Sculptor, thou modelest thine own members; thou begettest them, not having thyself been begotten."