[1] _Momie_ or _mumie_: the etymology of this word is not well known: the Jesuit Kircher supposes that _mum_ is a Persian word, and Pére Martini, an Arab name, signifying _a dried corpse_: other writers derive mummy from _ammomum_, the name of an aromatic plant. These conjectures I leave to the etymologists. The same opinion is advanced by Rouelle. In our general history of the preservation of the human body, the mummy of the sand, and those induced by other local circumstances, will have the first place; and the art of embalming among the Egyptians and the Guanches will occupy the second. This art, we have already said, presents among these people, a general character, which does not appear in any other country. No where, indeed, are the processes of preservation so efficacious, and these two nations alone, have been able to endow their mummies with the power of resisting destruction. We shall see in the sequel this custom establish itself among the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans and moderns--but it no longer displays a general character; it is no longer a law, a social institution; religious belief, superstition, personal interest, salubrity, no longer obliged them to recur to it. Sentiments of veneration, respect, and attachment, to which we have given the priority to all others, sufficed to perpetuate this custom, and have preserved it for a long series of ages, from the epoch of the Jews, down to our day. Joseph commanded the physicians in his service to embalm the body of his father, which they executed according to order, in the space of forty days.--(_Genesis._) Saint John informs us, that Nicodemus took a hundred pounds of a mixture of myrrh and aloes, with which to embalm the body of Jesus Christ, which they enveloped in sheets with aromatics, according to the usual mode of burying the dead among the Jews. Testimony of a similar nature, transmitted to us by historians, show us this usage in vigor among the Persians, the Arabians, the Ethiopians, &c.: for kings, princes, and persons of distinction, to whom they would not consider that they had rendered the respect due to their memories if they had failed to preserve preciously what remained of them. Corippus, in his funeral oration on the Emperor Justinien, thus expresses himself on the embalming of this emperor: “Thura sabæa cremant, fragrantia mille Infundunt pateris, et odoro balsama succo, locatis Centum aliæ species; unguentaque mira feruntur Tempus in æternum sacrum servantia corpus.”[2] [2] They burned the incense of Arabia, balms and perfumes of every kind filled a thousand vases, and the body is for ever preserved from corruption by essences possessing wonderful properties. The Romans, nevertheless, often contented themselves, in washing and rubbing the body with certain perfumes. “Tarquinii corpus bona femina lavit et unxit.”[3] [3] A benevolent woman washed the body of Tarquin, and rubbed it with perfumes.