Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/133

 posterity, we must at the same time recollect that here among the Egyptians no written documents are in existence, for the reason that Spirit had not as yet clarified itself, as it were, but was struggling to clear itself of alien elements, and this in an external way, as appears in the works of art. At last, it is true, after prolonged study, advance has been made in the deciphering of hieroglyphics, but, on the one hand, there is still a part of this work which is unaccomplished, and on the other hand, they always remain hieroglyphics. Numerous rolls of papyrii have been found beside the mummies, and it was at first believed that a great treasure had been discovered in these, and that we had come upon important disclosures. These papyrii are, however, nothing else than a species of archives, and contain for the most part deeds of purchase regarding pieces of land, or have reference to objects which the person deceased had acquired.

It is, therefore, principally the extant works of art whose language we have to decipher, and from which a knowledge of this religion may be obtained.

Now, if we contemplate these works of art, we find that everything in them is wonderful and fantastic, but always with a definite meaning, which was not the case among the peoples of India. We thus have the immediateness of externality here, and the meaning, the thought. We have all these elements together in the tremendous conflict of the inner with the outer; there is a tremendous impulse on the part of what is inner to work itself free, and what is outer exhibits to us this struggle of Spirit.

The form is not as yet exalted into form that is free and beautiful, not as yet spiritualised into clearness, transparency; the sensuous, the natural, is not as yet so perfectly transfigured into the spiritual as to be merely an expression of the spiritual, so that this organisation and its features might be mere signs, merely the signification of the spiritual. To the Egyptian principle this transparency of the natural, of the external element of