since Schelling's philosophy has proved that all the formations of mind as well as nature are subject to organic laws, as is now generally admitted by men of science, the philosophy and study of mythology have made much less advance than comparative philology, which is so nearly allied to it. It is difficult to say whether there is greater danger to be apprehended from that treatment of mythology which arises from want of spirituality, or from its excess. The former comprehends nothing at all, the latter misinterprets everything; the former hardly touches the surface, the latter jumbles together and does away with everything historical, in order to carry out some erroneous or one-sided idea. Even in the investigation of details, the student of mythological antiquity is driven on dangerous rocks. He is almost at a loss to comprehend the spirit of mythology, which seems indeed to him for the most part to be something of a heterogeneous character. While the one scorns and ridicules riddles which convey to him no meaning, because he does not comprehend that they are riddles, and in fact not merely ethical but metaphysical riddles also; the other is, on the contrary, intoxicated by the deep thoughts about the God-seeking and God-creating soul flashing before him, and is thus rendered incapable of taking a sober view, and exercising sound criticism upon what has been transmitted. He is at the same time very naturally overpowered by the sensation of being engaged in a sanctuary, the divine power of which has been in operation upon all that is profound and elevated in civilised nations, during many perhaps great and glorious periods, for centuries or even thousands of years. He is drawn by the noblest sentiments of his own breast into those unfathomable depths where religion and worldly wisdom, philosophy and fiction, all meet in worship. He gazes, not without inmost excitement, down into the depth of serious meditation in times long passed away, in which

the soul reads the mysteries of its destiny in the stars, and endeavours to elucidate from its own especial consciousness the laws of the visible world.

Even in the later times of Greece, when philosophers and Christians denied there was any virtue in the faith of their fathers, we see men of noble minds and great scholarship, in their interpretations of the ancient myths, seized with this intoxication, in which fancy and speculation supplied what was wanting in tradition, and arranged the detached remains according to their own system. The Stoics commenced in unbelief what the Neo-Platonists continued by force of intellectual enthusiasm. The Christian Fathers took advantage of these admissions, and combated their forced metaphysical interpretations. When, after the long night, the European mind began again to turn its attention to history and reality, Bacon contented himself with playing with the myths of Greece and Rome in order to draw from them ethical and political ideas. Anquetil du Perron was the first who displayed a lively interest in Indo-Median speculation combined with the earlier mythology of these our Iranian kinsmen. But when Schelling's philosophy of the final identity of Spirit and Nature had given the key to the fictions of the ancient world, Frederic Schlegel led the way in awakening an almost religious enthusiasm for the pantheistic wisdom of the Brahmins, as the foundation of all the deeper religious lore of the Old World, especially of Greece. Men of deep thought, seized by an intellectual intoxication, threw themselves into the study of the Eastern myths. Thence they sought a solution of the enigmas of the Old World, and announced astounding revelations. But, after jumbling together what was ancient and modern, they represented symbolical and historical, thought and image, a compound of ancient and modern speculative formulas, as being the oldest religion and wisdom of the East; whereas others saw in it at most a pæan of the intoxicated imagination

of a German prophet. They forgot, however, that the Arian branch of language is the youngest of all those of the civilised world; not to mention that the Brahminical books are later products of the Iranians after their emigration. In reference to Egypt, too, they forgot that the Semites must have exercised a strong direct influence both upon it and upon the civilisation of all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. It is therefore not to be wondered at if this tendency, which Creuzer placed upon a more learned and sensible philological footing, and wisely restrained within proper limits, called forth a strong reaction. This criticism, nevertheless, which had acquired great reputation in consequence of Hermann's and Lobeck's ingenious researches, was confined, as well as that of Voss, mainly to the negative side. Otfried Müller, Welcker, and Gerhard were the first who, adopting Creuzer's fundamental views of the importance of the myths, introduced a middle course for the study of Hellenic fables.

But there is no mythology which has been so long and so strongly affected by the fluctuations in the philosophic mode of treating it as the Egyptian.

Pythagoras and Plato, and many others of the old Hellenic thinkers, as well as Hecatæus and Herodotus, were attracted by the singularly sensuous picture of the Egyptian Pantheon, and were thus induced to compare it with the Hellenic. But even they were deficient in general historical conceptions. The Alexandrians entered upon the examination of the questions relating to this subject after the separation between faith and science had been made, most of them indeed embittered against the Pagan priesthood, who endeavoured to bring back into their own clutches the falling Old World, and vainly hoped to satisfy the thirst for truth by external ceremonies, which were dressed up again for that purpose. This feeling went so far as to deter them from entering deeply into the subject. It was only the dis

ciples of the Neo-Platonic school, like Jamblichus and Porphyry, who had any taste for these antiquarian pursuits, and they saw everything in the light of their own speculative views. Their Euhemeristic opponents did the same. But even the Christian Fathers were disconcerted. Then came the Dark Ages. The only hope of rousing the public to make researches which should be really productive was in a thoroughly profound investigation of the human mind and of history on one side, and the great discovery of Champollion on the other.

Our method, therefore, will be based entirely upon what has been advanced and proved in the First Book. We have there stated the facts of Egyptian mythology, exactly like those of language. Here it will be necessary to consider, from an historical point of view, the results of these facts, regard being also had to what has been since discovered by my own researches and those of others. But even the most complete elucidation of the facts in Egyptian mythology would be of no more avail for the comprehension of it, than the alphabet is for understanding a poem. The old questions recur again with redoubled force. What is the meaning of these hieroglyphics of the Egyptian mind when absorbed in sacred subjects? What was their starting-point, and with what purpose were they followed up ? What is the place they occupy in the development of the religious ideas of mankind? Can it be shown that the basis of their strange polytheism was a Divine Unity? What is symbol? and what idea? What was the original sense, and what interpretation? What is signified by the death and resurrection of Osiris? Was the immortality of the soul really first taught by the Egyptians, as all the ancient authorities have stated? and in what sense? Have the hieroglyphics only taught us this, that we have not merely learned nothing positive about it, but that we never can learn anything?

Such, indeed, is Professor Schwenck's opinion, and so thinks everybody who knows nothing about hieroglyphics, or only just enough to give up all study of them, instead of abandoning his own exploded system.

In order to answer these questions according to the standard of our present monumental knowledge, we must first consider the general elements of mythology, especially those of theogony and kosmogony.

B.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL ELEMENTS OF

MYTHOLOGICAL

FOR

MATION, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF THE THEOGONY AND KOSMOGONY OF THE ANCIENTS.

In all the natural religions of the civilised nations of the Old World the idea of the Godhead and of the world is expressed, both as regards worship and doctrine, or mythus, by symbols. Mythology is dogma in a pseudo-historic form. But, then, metaphysics exhibit the theogony or doctrine of the origines. It is obvious that the latter may be based upon either of two assumptions; either the doctrine of the origines is really the startingpoint of mythology, or it is its rationale : a theory devised or composed after the mythological circle had been formed out of individual deities, myths, and festivals, and had taken a different shape in different localities, and among different races. It is very important to decide this question: first, in order to understand the individual myths; and, secondly, in order to determine the date of the theogonic systems or fictions. We will first examine the mythological ideas and symbols, in order to come to a clear understanding upon this head.

As regards the ideas or thoughts themselves which are to be brought under our notice, they have reference either to the universe or to the soul. They either pro