forms, and translated into modern language, in the theology, philosophy and speculation of modern Europe. The key to the hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt which has been found enables us to unlock many a secret chamber of thought and knowledge which for thousands of years had remained closed; and though much still remains to be learned, that which has been gained is of marked significance not alone to the archæologist and the historian, but to the philosopher and to all who take interest in the study of human nature, and especially of the ideas and inner life of man. Besides the scanty notices of ancient writers, three sources of this knowledge have been laid open to us. First, the papyrus rolls, one of which was placed in the bosom of every corpse after it had undergone the process of embalment. This roll, inscribed with hieroglyphics, contains the names of the deceased and his parents, prayers he is to recite, and scenes and experiences that await him in the unseen state. According to Bunsen, some of these compositions were ancient five thousand years ago; and are taken from the primitive sacerdotal literature. This is the view not only of Bunsen, but of Mr. Samuel Birch, of the Royal Society of Literature, who has given us a translation of this most important of their sacred books. "The rhapsodic and religious aspirations found in this Book of the Dead, contain the germs of speculative as well as ethical philosophy, Many of its teachings relative to the nature of God (Osiris) as the universal soul of the world; the immortality of man; the guardian care of the gods; the return of ascended spirits; invocations offered to departed ancestors, with formulas intended to act as charms upon evil spirits to avert their hostility, are interesting and absolutely wonderful, considering the thousands of years that have rolled into eternity since they were chiselled on solid rocks, or penned on the hieratic papyri of the oldest dynasties." In this book, we find that the old Egyptians represented the soul in man by a hawk with human head and arms, to personify its volatile and solar (or celestial) character and human intelligence; and that it is to them we are primarily indebted for the phoenix, as a symbol of the spirit risen from the ashes of the body. In chapter xiii, the departed spirit is represented as saying in reference to the body, "I went in as a hawk, I came out as a phoenix.' a phoenix." Again, these Egyptians did not regard the spirit as a mere unbodied essence, but believed that as on earth it had a material body, so in the world of spirits it has a spiritual body. Bunsen tells us that in their religious system "there is not a shadow of the abominable materialistic doctrine of absorption of the soul into the universe: on the contrary, the soul living with God, is in a state of consciousness of divine life; the soul continues to have an organ (body), as Osiris has his body in the sun." They also considered that to God, the father of the soul, the Eternal, every soul born into this world is tending through the darkness of death. In chapter ix, the departed spirit is spoken of as the beloved son of his father (Osiris). "He has been seen passing from the gate: he has come from the mummy a prepared spirit. One short passage more, only, I give from this most ancient book. I quote it, as illustrating the elevated conceptions of God, and of moral obligation, to which, in those early times, the thoughtful mind of Egypt had attained. "If words are spoken in secret, the interior of a man is no secret to him who made it. If words are spoken boastfully or openly, he is present with thee, though thou be alone." Well may we regard with reverence these "aspirations of the highest instincts of our race, and of deep individual ethic thought akin to sacred trust, and to the spiritual philosophy and pious faith of later times." Secondly, the ornamental cases in which the mummies are enclosed are painted all over with scenes setting forth the realities and events to which the soul of the dead occupant has passed in the other life. Thirdly, the various fates of souls are sculptured and painted on the walls in the tombs. Every man's grave was made a biography. The scenes of his life were frescoed on the walls of his chamber, or sculptured on his coffin, or brilliantly painted on the grave clothes that bound him. In the same way the national history, the law and religion of the country, are written on public buildings. With the exception of the Pyramids, all the ruined temples and palaces of Egypt are covered with sculptures and painting. At Herculaneum and Pompeii we have pages from the history of ancient Italy. In the Nineveh sculptures, we have in stone the grotesque conceptions and some of the history of the Assyrians. But in Egyptian antiquities, we have Egypt herself living and moving before us. Surrounded as Egypt is on three sides by desert, moisture-one great agent in decay-is almost unknown. The winds from the east, west, and south, have all their moisture drunk up by the burning sand, while the clouds that come from the Mediterranean carry their rain to the mountains of Syene or of the Moon. The effect is that fragments of temples which Cambyses threw down four-and-twenty centuries ago still retain their polish, while on the walls of roofless buildings, the figures and even the colouring may be traced. The very obelisk of Alexandria, which has been in ruins for sixteen centuries, sas fresh and as sharp on the north or protected side, as if it had come within a few years from the workman's hands. Without, however, entering particularly into the knowledge gained from these several sources I shall perhaps bring the substance of it most vividly before the reader in the words of Harriet Martineau, in her Eastern Life, Past and Present. (Vol. I. chap. xv.) I give the principal passages, as containing the best popular account I remember to have met with concerning their knowledge of what are called "the Occult Sciences," and their ideas of the spiritual world. "About their Oracles, Magic, and Medicine;-it is needless, and therefore unjust, to attribute to them any artifice or insincerity. All who have duly inquired into that class of natural facts know that among human faculties exist those of perception or apprehension of distant and of future events; and some powers of sympathetic operation, whose nature and limits are as yet but little understood. Those powers are as yet but too little inquired into, notwithstanding the example and exhortations of Bacon, Cuvier, Laplace, and other philosophers who were rendered by their philosophy meek enough to learn from nature. Finding, as we do, indisputable proofs that at present the human being is capable of various states of consciousness, and of knowing events which are happening afar, and of fore-knowing events which are future,sometimes spontaneously, and sometimes by means of an agency purposely employed;-knowing, on the other hand, that history abounds with records which everybody believes more or less, of prophecy, of preternatural (so-called) knowledge, of witchcraft, unaccountable sympathies, and miraculous cures; we have every reason to suppose that the Egyptian priesthood encountered and held the facts which some of us encounter and hold, and employed them as sincerely and devoutly as they employed other facts in natural philosophy. It is probable that the oracles were true and we have no right to doubt that the priests believed them true, as earnestly as they believed that they could cure the sick whom they carried into their temples, and on whose heads they religiously laid their hands, with invocations to the gods. The faculties which drew the attention of Bacon and others are found more vigorous, more spontaneous, and more easily excitable among orientals than among ourselves. If we find, by the half-dozen, merely by opening our minds to the fact, cases of far-seeing and fore-seeing, and curative power, it is probable that such cases were familiar to the heathen priesthood of old; and that they sincerely believed that persons so gifted held a revealing commission from the gods. While fully aware of the means necessary for eliciting the faculty, and using those means, the priest might wait on the speech of the oracular somnambule, believing it to proceed from the veritable inspiration of the god This is not the place for bringing together the evidence the exists about the dealings of the Egyptian priests with the sick and infirm but it is curious; and it shews no cause for the assumption that they were jugglers, or in any way insincere in their practice. They probably believed that they should give relief by the touching with the hands,' which, as Solon tells us, 'will immediately restore to health' when soothing medicines are of no avail; and by that 'stroking with gentle hands' which Eschylus says was to be had on the Nile:* and they were probably justified in their belief by the results. Nothing but a very large proportion of cures will account for the continued celebrity of any seat of health during a sequence of many centuries. "As to the oracles, there were many in Egypt; and they were famous from the earliest times of which we have any record. The two most celebrated were those of Amun Ra, in the Oasis of Amun; and that of Buto in the city of that name.t Herodotus tells a curious story of the establishment of the Oracles of Amun Ra and of Dodona.t He heard two ver sions; one from the priests of Amun at Thebes; the other from the priestesses of the oracle at Dodona. The Greek priestesses told him that two black doves were carried off from Thebes; one of which went into the Lybian desert, and the other came to Dodona, perched on an oak, and spoke, saying that it was the will of the king of the gods that he should have an oracle there. The dove which flew to the Lybian Oasis delivered a similar command there from Amun Ra. The story of the Theban priests to Herodotus was that two women, sacred to the god, were carried off from Thebes by the Phoenicians, and set up oracles at the Oasis and at Dodona. They were probably carried off for the sake of that power of prevision which had caused their consecration at Thebes, and which they exercised afterwards at the two new oracular seats. Herodotus says expressly that there were no priestesses in Egypt: § yet it is certain that women of the priestly caste were, in one way or another, employed and consecrated about the temples; and in all purity and honour. They were probably the utterers of the oracle; and might be also the dispensers of health in the sanctuaries. Among so large a body as that of the Egyptian priesthood, it is probable that there was never any want of somnambules, who would be looked upon as chosen by the god of the region to deliver his oracles; and who would do it, while the faculty worked clearly (which we now find to be rarely for "Prometheus to Io: There Zeus will render you sane, stroking you with gentle hand, and simply touching you.' This sanctuary at Canopus was celebrated for the cures wrought by the god." +"Herod. II., 38." + "Herod. II., 54, 55.' "Herod. II., 35." any long time); and without any need of jugglery at the time, or occasion to suspect it now. Diodorus Siculus tells us of a daughter of Sesostris who seems to have had the faculty as eminently as Joan of Arc, exercising it with regard to her father's victories as Joan did about her own. Her father, being king, was also High-priest, and must have known how far to trust his daughter's divination: and he planned his proceedings, and prepared for his conquests, under her direction.* Herodotus observes that this Theban oracle, and that of Dodona are much like each other:† that the art of foretelling future events, as practised in the Greek temples, was derived from Egypt: and that it is certain that the Egyptians were the first of the human race who established feasts and public assemblies, processions, and the manner of approaching God and holding intercourse with Him: and that the Greeks had borrowed these customs from the Egyptians. It appears that there was a lake made near every capital city in Egypt, for the transit of the dead; and a sacred boat, to bear the hearse; and a boatman, whose official name, written in Greek, was Charon.§ The funeral train were obliged to pass over this lake on the way to the tomb; but they might return by land. The purpose of the obligatory custom of crossing the lake was that all the dead might pass through the same ordeal before admission to their eternal habitations,' as the priests called the tomb. This ordeal was judgment by the forty-two || assessors who, on earth, performed the first stage of the work which was to be completed by the forty-two heavenly assessors, who awaited the dead within the threshold of the unseen world. Notice was given to these judges of the day of the funeral; and they stood in a half circle on the nearer shore of the lake, awaiting the arrival of the funeral train. Any person might accuse the deceased in their presence of any immoral act. If the accusation was proved, the deceased was not allowed to pass. If the accuser could not substantiate his story, he was severely punished. Even kings have been known to he turned back from the place of embarkation, when acts of injustice have been proved against them: and it appears that priests had no more exemption than others from this ordeal. Those of the rejecte dead who had left a family behind them were carried ho and their mummy-cases set upright against the wall of chamber; a perpetual spectacle of shame and grief to families, who suffered acutely from the disgrace of whe "Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, I., 261." + "Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, V., 420." |