Plutarch gives early indication of his point of view. “The philosophy of the Egyptian priests was generally concealed in myths and narratives containing dim hints and suggestions of truth.” It was to indicate this “enigmatic” character of their theological wisdom that they erected Sphinxes before their temples; that, too, is the meaning of their inscription on the shrine of Athene-Isis at Sais, “_I am all that was, and all that is, and all that shall be, and my veil hath yet no mortal raised_.”[347] It follows from this that we must on no account attach a literal significance to their narratives.[348] Thus they represent the sun as a newborn child sitting on a lotus flower, but this is an enigma teaching the derivation of the solar heat from moisture.[349] “It is in this way,” says he, clearly indicating the twofold object he has in view throughout this work, “it is in this way that you are to hear and accept traditions of the gods, taking their meaning from such as interpret them _in a spirit at once pious and philosophic_. This spirit of reverent inquiry must be accompanied by a constant observance of the recognized forms of worship, and by a conviction that no religious or other action is more grateful to the gods than the acceptance of true opinions concerning them. This harmonious co-operation of Piety and Philosophy saves equally from Atheism and its cognate evil, Superstition.”[350] It is in this spirit—the spirit in which every Religion justly claims that it should be approached—that Plutarch gives an account of the Egyptian myth “in the briefest possible terms, denuded of such particulars as are quite useless and superfluous”; denuded also, as we are told later, “of its most blasphemous features,”[351] “such as the dismemberment of Horus and the decapitation of Isis.” Piety absolutely rejects these tales concerning beings who participate “in that blessed and eternal nature which marks our conception of the Divine”; although Philosophy will not be equally severe on these legends, regarding them not solely as unsubstantial tales and empty fictions spun, like spiders’ webs, by poets and romancers out of their own imagination, but also as indirectly reflecting the pure light of some ancient narrative whose meaning has now been utterly broken up as are the sun’s rays when reproduced in the multitudinous hues of the rainbow.[352] Plutarch clearly regards it as a pious duty to accept the Osirian legend as containing a substratum of truth, embodying the religious lore of the Egyptian priesthood, but he reserves to himself the right of interpreting the expression of this truth in the light of his own philosophy. His attitude is identical with that assumed by the authors of the various explanations of the myth which he reports as current in antiquity. “These interpretations,” in the lively expression of Mr. Andrew Lang, “are the interpretations of civilized men, whose method is to ask