2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a statuette in the Gizeh Museum (Mariette, _Album du Musee de Boulaq_, pl. 4). The son in a divine triad had of himself but limited authority. When Isis and Osiris were his parents, he was generally an infant Horus, naked, or simply adorned with necklaces and bracelets; a thick lock of hair depended from his temple, and his mother squatting on her heels, or else sitting, nursed him upon her knees, offering him her breast.[*] Even in triads where the son was supposed to have attained to man's estate, he held the lowest place, and there was enjoined upon him the same respectful attitude towards his parents as is observed by children of human race in the presence of theirs. He took the lowest place at all solemn receptions, spoke only with his parents' permission, acted only by their command and as the agent of their will. Occasionally he was vouchsafed a character of his own, and filled a definite position, as at Memphis, where Imhotpu was the patron of science.[**] * For representations of Harpocrates, the child Horus, see Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, pis. ccxxvii., ccxxviii., and particularly pl. cccx. 2, where there is a scene in which the young god, represented as a sparrow-hawk, is nevertheless sucking the breast of his mother Isis with his beak. ** Hence he is generally represented as seated, or squatting, and attentively reading a papyrus roll, which lies open upon his knees; cf. the illustration on p. 142. But, generally, he was not considered as having either office or marked individuality; his being was but a feeble reflection of his father's, and possessed neither life nor power except as derived from him. Two such contiguous personalities must needs have been confused, and, as a matter of fact, were so confused as to become at length nothing more than two aspects of the same god, who united in his own person degrees of relationship mutually exclusive of each other in a human family. Father, inasmuch as he was the first member of the triad; son, by virtue of being its third member; identical with himself in both capacities, he was at once his own father, his own son, and the husband of his mother. Gods, like men, might be resolved into at least two elements, soul and body;[*] but in Egypt, the conception of the soul varied in different times and in different schools. It might be an insect--butterfly, bee, or praying mantis;[**] or a bird--the ordinary sparrow-hawk, the human-headed sparrow-hawk, a heron or a crane--bi, hai--whose wings enabled it to pass rapidly through space;[***] or the black shadow--khaibit--that is attached to every body, but which death sets free, and which thenceforward leads an independent existence, so that it can move about at will, and go out into the open sunlight.