Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 12 (Egyptian and Indo-Chinese).djvu/33



OR almost two millenniums the religion of ancient Egypt has claimed the interest of the nations of the West. When the Classical peoples had lost faith in the credence of their forefathers, they turned to the "wise priests" of Egypt, and a certain reverence for the "wisdom of Egypt" survived even the downfall of all pagan religions. This admiration received a considerable impetus when Napoleon's expedition revealed the greatness of that remarkable civilization which once had flourished on the banks of the Nile. Thus today an Egyptian temple seems to many a peculiarly appropriate shrine for religious mysticism, and the profoundest thoughts of the human mind and the finest morality are believed to be hidden in the grotesque hieroglyphs on obelisks and sphinxes.

Yet the only bases of this popular impression are two arguments which are quite fallacious. The first has been implied—the religious thought of a nation which produced such a wonderful and many-sided civilization ought, one would naturally suppose, to offer an achievement parallel to what it accomplished in architecture, art, etc. The principal reason for this excessive regard, however, has been the unwarranted prejudice of Classical paganism. Modern readers must be warned against following this overestimation blindly, for it is largely founded on the very unintelligibility of the Egyptian religion, which, in its hyperconservatism, absolutely refused to be adapted to reason. Even the anxiety of dying heathenism could not force the endless number of gods and their contradictory functions into a rational system or explain away the crudity of such aspects of the Egyptian faith as the worship of animals; and the missionaries of Christianity selected these