"'Does the soul assume a body akin to its own nature?
"'Should I live to be very old, dwarfed in limb and blind, when my soul returns to its preserved mummy, which you maintain it does, will I rise again, old and blind and weak? If not why preserve the body?
"'Will I know the friends of my former life if they return to their bodies in the same period?
"'Your still-born brother, whose body I embalmed, had he yet a soul, and when his soul returns to his body, will it have life?
"'There is a mummy in one of the old tombs with two heads and on one body; has that body one or two souls? And if two souls, will they be purified and return together to the body, though one be good and the other bad?'
"I believe not in Osiris; nor that my soul after many transmigrations shall find and reanimate its rejected tenement. Yet I know no other god or even if I have a soul. Can I by searching find out truth or the true God? Will there be a time when the truth shall be made clear? I know that error is spread over all things; that the race is not to the swift, neither the battle to the strong. That he who disdains ease and comfort, though poverty is a disgrace and misfortune a crime, recognizes that wealth consists not in great possessions but in few wants; looking upon ownership as a trusteeship and therefore a responsibility; content with what life gives; thinking himself and conceding to others the right to think; living and letting others live; believing there is nothing after death and death is nothing; is as well off as he who struggles to be a blind leader of the blind. Would I could believe that we shall live many lives and each a preparation for a higher one. Our religion, like our government, as it grows old grows complex and rotten. What we need is a simple government, a simple faith and one God."
(Nefermat) "What you say is the vilest sacrilege. Your belief, if general, would lead to chaos; to the destruction of our holy order. You shall find there is a hell for the unbeliever; your mortal life shall end and your immortal begin as soon as our mother's body is prepared for Osiris. You shall know the difference between soul and body and have your doubts as to a future state tested and dissolved."
(Rahotep) "I would not be too hasty with the death sentence. What matters it what Tepti may think! He is a good embalmer, reticent of speech and his belief in death and nothingness if expressed would neither find believers nor corrupt our faith. The thought of non-existence is not acceptable to the Egyptians; it lacks enthusiasm, it lacks certainty, it lacks hope; there is no appeal to pride or power."
(Nefermat) "I cannot overlook such utterances from a priest of Osiris; he must die."
(Rahotep) "He is one of your priesthood; you are sole arbiter of his life or death, but were he one of Amun's and I demanding his opinion had been so answered, and it was delivered as to stone ears, as his was to us, I would pass it by. However, if you are bent on his death, which I regret, I would ask his body, hoping by my intercession, Amun may convince him he has a soul."