Passing now to the consideration of the meaning of the name for God, _neter_, we find that great diversity of opinion exists among Egyptologists on the subject. Some, taking the view that the equivalent of the word exists in Coptic, under the form of _Nuti_, and because Coptic is an ancient Egyptian dialect, have sought to deduce its meaning by seeking in that language for the root from which the word may be derived. But all such attempts have had no good result, because the word _Nuti_ stands by itself, and instead of being derived from a Coptic root is itself the equivalent of the Egyptian _neter_, [Footnote: The letter _r_ has dropped out in Coptic through phonetic decay.] and was taken over by the translators of the Holy Scriptures from that language to express the words "God" and "Lord." The Coptic root _nomti_ cannot in any way be connected with _nuti_, and the attempt to prove that the two are related was only made with the view of helping to explain the fundamentals of the Egyptian religion by means of Sanskrit and other Aryan analogies. It is quite possible that the word _neter_ means "strength," "power," and the like, but these are only some of its derived meanings, and we have to look in the hieroglyphic inscriptions for help in order to determine its most probable meaning. The eminent French Egyptologist, E. de Rougé, connected the name of God, _neter_, with the other word _neter_, "renewal" or "renovation," and it would, according to his view, seem as if the fundamental idea of God was that of the Being who had the power to renew himself perpetually--or in other words, "self-existence." The late Dr. H. Brugsch partly accepted this view, for he defined _neter_ as being "the active power which produces and creates things in regular recurrence; which bestows new life upon them, and gives back to them their youthful vigour." [Footnote: _Religion und Mythologie_, p. 93.] There seems to be no doubt that, inasmuch as it is impossible to find any one word which will render _neter_ adequately and satisfactorily, "self-existence" and "possessing the power to renew life indefinitely," may together be taken as the equivalent of _neter_ in our own tongue, M. Maspero combats rightly the attempt to make "strong" the meaning of _neter_ (masc.), or _neterit_ (fem.) in these words: "In the expressions 'a town _neterit_ 'an arm _neteri_,' ... is it certain that 'a strong city,' 'a strong arm,' give us the primitive sense of _neter_? When among ourselves one says 'divine music,' 'a piece of divine poetry,' 'the divine taste of a peach,' 'the divine beauty of a woman,' [the word] divine is a hyperbole, but it would be a mistake to declare that it originally meant 'exquisite' because in the phrases which I have imagined one could apply it as 'exquisite music,' 'a piece of exquisite poetry,' 'the exquisite taste of a peach,' 'the exquisite beauty of a woman.' Similarly, in Egyptian, 'a town _neterit_ is 'a divine town;' 'an arm _netsri_' is 'a divine