"Men are rarely conscious of the prejudices, which really incapacitate them, from forming impartial and true judgments on systems alien to their own habits of thought. And philosophers who may pride themselves on their freedom from prejudice, may yet fail to understand; whole classes of psychological phenomena which are the result of religious practice, and are familiar to those alone to whom such practice is habitual."[6] Said Thespesion to Apollonius Tyanæus, according to the biography of the latter, by Philostratus; "The Egyptians do not venture to give form to their deities, they only give them in symbols which have an occult meaning."
The family of the _Scarabæidæ_ or _Coprophagi_ is quite large, the type of the family is the genus _Ateuchus_, the members of this genus are more frequently found in the old world than the new, and of its forty species, thirty belong to Africa.
The sacred scarab of the Egyptians was termed by Linnæus, the _Scarabæus sacer_, but later writers have named it, _Ateuchus sacer_. This insect is found throughout Egypt, the southern part of Europe, in China, the East Indies, in Barbary and at the Cape of Good Hope, Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is black and about one inch in length.
There was also another species of the scarabæus valued by the Ancient Egyptians, that termed by Cuvier, the _Ateuchus sacer Ægyptiorum_, which is larger and wider than the others of its family; it is of green golden tints, and is now found principally in Egypt and Nubia. Pliny, in his Natural History says: "The green scarabæus has the property of rendering the sight more piercing, (i.e., curing fatigue of the eye from its green color,) of those who gaze upon it; hence it is, that the engravers of precious stones use these insects to steady their sight."[7] M. Latreille thinks; the species he named _Ateuchus Ægyptiorum_, or ήλιοχχνθαρος, and which is of a green color, was that which especially engaged the attention of the Ancient Egyptians.
The Egyptian also held in estimation, the species _Buprestis_ and the _Cantharis_ and _Copris_, and used them as he did the members of the true family of the scarabæidæ, and S. Passalacqua found a species of _Buprestis_, embalmed in a tomb at Thebes.