Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/119

 Cause, and lead, as the notion of Cause will always lead reflecting men, in spite of the protests of critical philosophers, to the admission of One First Cause or Power from which all others are derived. But, as we know equally well from the history of speculation, the notions of Power and Substance may be identified, and it is easy to imagine one universal Force in nature, in itself eternal and unchangeable, but manifesting itself in the most different forms. In both cases the result is Unity; Theistic in the first case, Pantheistic in the second. I shall have occasion to speak of the complete and final triumph of the latter of these conceptions. But the triumph did not take place till a comparatively late period, and till then the Egyptian religion may be considered as susceptible of either a Theistic or a Pantheistic interpretation. In either case the gods of the mythology represent the real or imaginary powers of the universe; and what these powers were in the most primitive conception entertained of them by the Egyptians, can only be discovered by the same scientific process which has been applied with such success to the mythology of the Indo-European races.

Myth and Legend.

The most common opinion held by the best scholars only a few years ago was, that however many gods the Egyptians might have, they had no mythology properly speaking. The only myth they were supposed to