[41] On the Egyptian Goddess of Truth, see WIEDEMANN, La _Déesse Maā_, in the _Annales du Musée Guimet_, x., pp. 561 _et seq._ With regard to the meaning of the Egyptian name and word _Maāt_, which is generally translated “truth, or justice,” Renouf has said: “The Egyptians recognised a divinity in those cases only where they perceived the presence of a fixed Law, either of permanence or change. The earth abides for ever, and so do the heavens. Day and night, months, seasons, and years succeed each other with unfailing regularity; the stars are not less constant in their course, some of them rising and setting at fixed intervals, and others eternally circling round the pole in an order which never is disturbed. This _regularity_, which is the constitutive character of the Egyptian divinity, was called [Illustration: {H}] _Maāt_. The gods were said to be nebû maāt, ‘possessors of _maāt_.’ or _ānchiû em maāt_, ‘subsisting by or through _maāt_.’ _Maāt_ is in fact the Law and Order by which the universe exists. Truth and justice are but forms of _Maāt_ as applied to human action.”—_Papyrus of Ani, Introduction_, p. 2. [42] This prayer is contained in chap. xxx. of _The Book of the Dead_:— “_Chapter whereby the heart of a person is not kept back from him in the Netherworld_. Heart mine which is that of my mother, Whole heart mine which is that of my birth, Let there be no estoppel against me through evidence, let no hindrance be made to me by the divine Circle; fall thou not against me in presence of him who is at the Balance. Thou art my genius (KA), who art by me (in my KHA-T), the Artist who givest soundness to my limbs. Come forth to the bliss towards which we are bound; Let not those Ministrants who deal with a man according to the course of his life give a bad odour to my name. Pleasant for us, pleasant for the listener, is the joy of the Weighing of the Words. Let not lies be uttered in presence of the great god, Lord of the Amenti. Lo! how great art thou (as the triumphant one).” —_Renouf’s translation_. [43] As stated on the mummy case of Panehemisis, ed. VON BERGMANN, I., p. 29. [44] The conception of a kind of hell is certainly found in the book _Am Dûat_ (cf. JÉQUIER, _Le livre de ce qu’il y a dans l’Hadès_, Paris, 1894, p. 127); such allusions are, however, exceptional, and Egyptian belief in a hell appears to have existed at times only, and to have been confined to certain classes of society. [45] The “fields of Aalû”; cf. the “Elysian fields” of the Greeks. [46] See p. 19.