Page:The Conquest of Mexico Volume 1.djvu/29

 years that the intellectual courage of Ridgeway enforced the view that even the Greek colossus had his feet firmly rooted in the ooze of primal superstitions and usages.

In 1843 Egyptology was in the slack water between the great wave, already past, of Champollion, and the greater wave of Lepzius and Brugsch yet to come. For ethnological parallels Prescott had at his disposal the works of classical writers and of Wilkinson; and the works of Wilkinson, though in advance of his age, were strongly influenced by classical tradition. In fact, in this branch of archæology also, the solvent of Anthropological criteria had yet to be applied to the complex. It is unnecessary to labour the point. In a note Prescott writes: "It is impossible not to be struck with the great resemblance, not merely in a few empty forms, but in the whole way of life, of the Mexican and Egyptian priesthood." In truth, the sole resemblance is the elemental resemblance which one organised priesthood bears to another, based upon an identity of function. The institution of religious communities devoted to the service, or associated with the cult, of certain major or minor divinities, is not the peculiar characteristic of Mexico and Ancient Egypt.

With the position of Oriental Studies in Prescott's day, it is almost possible to deal adequately within the limited scope of an introduction such as this. It will be sufficient, perhaps, to refer only to Buddhism, to which Prescott makes more than one allusion. This great philosophy, comparatively simple in its original form, but in course of time elaborated in some regions into a religion with a pantheon of "gods" and an organised priesthood (against both of which it was, in its inception, a revolt), was known to the western world only in the form of a mere travesty before the researches of Hodgson revealed to Europe the Sanskrit texts upon which the knowledge of to-day is primarily based. Hodgson did not leave Nepal until 1843, but it is true that he had published certain most illuminating papers before the Conquest of Mexico appeared. However it is clear that Prescott had no knowledge of them. In any case, it was not until 1844 that Burnouf, basing his work upon Hodgson's discoveries, published his Introduction à l'Histoire du Bouddhisme Indien, which has a valid claim to be considered the first, even approximately, correct presentation of the subject as a whole to the Western world. Two quotations will suffice to show the class of information from which Prescott drew his material in this subject. In a note referring to the