- to him by divine communication, is a speculation of secondary moment. Egypt, however, must either have received her theology from the East, and have superinduced on it those mixed ornaments and fantastic decorations which, by a process not unlike that of architectural corruption, afterward deformed the sublime but simple structure of natural religion; or it must have built it up among themselves without foreign aid or intercourse, a theory repugnant to the usual march of human affairs. Certain it is that from Egypt Greece derived her early mythologies; and it is not less certain that, at its first introduction, the Grecian religion approximated to primæval purity. The simple and unmixed theism of her early history is abundantly testified; and, uncertain as the Orphic hymns are with respect to date and origin, their antiquity is unquestioned, and they bear a striking attestation to this interesting fact. Aristotle, in his treatise on the world, cites the hymn to Jupiter, in which the unity of the divine naturę is emphatically expressed : Ζεὺς πρωτος, Ζεὺς ύστατος. x. T. λ. In his political treatise, Plato, speaking of the early religion of his country, remarks that " a tradition ran that one God once governed the world, but that, a great depravation having taken place in the nature of men and things, the dominion then devolved on Jupiter, with various inferior deities." Here, then, is a tradition asserting the original unity of God, and assigning a specific rise to polytheism; and not only Plato, who was equally versed in Egyptian and Greek antiquity, but Aristotle also refers it to this source. In the treatise already cited, Aristotle says that it has been handed down from old times that God is the creator and preserver of all things, but that many of the antients held that every thing was full of gods, objects of sight and hearing; an opinion, he observes, which is inconsistent not with the power but with the nature of the Deity. This pure theism, then, must have been imported into Greece from Egypt, and was the esoteric doctrine preserved in its mysteries. The Orphic verses were brought from Egypt by the sect of Pythagoreans, and are mystical interpretations of the popular superstition, of which every problem is solved and every allegory explained by the unity of a Divine Providence and a future state. If, however, it should seem improbable that those who transplanted that superstition from the banks of the Nile to the shores of Argos, and of Attica, should have at the same time imparted those doctrines which belonged only to the hierophants of Egypt, the authority of Hero Q 3 Herodotus*, which seems to attribute the pure theology of the antient Greeks to their Pelasgian ancestors, may assign to it a more satisfactory origin; and thus the circle of our reasoning will be much contracted. We say contracted, because the Pelasgian race may be traced from Europe far back into Asia, so that the inference is inevitable that they must have derived their theology from that region of the East to which a pure religion was first imparted; and the transition is not improbable from this original and primary belief to that of a separate divine essence in different places and things, from simple divinity through pantheism to polytheism. As mankind, in their gradual migrations from the East, receded from that early seat of civilization and refinement, this sublime conception would naturally become more dim. A strong exercise of thought is necessary to comprehend that great abstraction, an omnipotent and boundless being. Local divinities, therefore, the deification of moral and even physical attributes, become resting-places to the imagination; till the dreams of superstition, and the tales of imposture, alike consecrated by law and policy, grow up into complex systems of national mythology. An attentive perusal of Dr. Prichard's treatise will qualify us, though the author seems not to have had this object in view, to trace the stream of pure religion flowing from the East, where the belief of "one living and true God" was first deposited, through Hindûstan to Egypt, and from Egypt to Greece; gathering, as it flowed, the pollutions of popular belief. Dr. Prichard has also enabled us to follow the gradual progress of religious corruption, from the triads of Hindû and Egyptian pantheism, till it was polished into elegance by that inventive genius of Greece, which inlaid it with streaks of a beautiful and poetic allegory; and, if theism be the antique creed of all nations who have preserved the memorials of their early existence, Hindûs, Egyptians, Greeks, Celtics, and Scandinavians, and even of the antient Persians +, it must have been the original inheritance of man, the primeval benefaction of his Creator, — or a discovery to which his natural powers and first instincts were directed. Any of these suppositions will destroy Mr. Hume's theory: according to which, the first struggles of the mind are exercised in framing fantastic objects of worship; peopling earth, air, and ocean, with divinities; investing them with the grossness of human *Mitford's Hist. of Greece, vol. i. 8vo. p. 106. + Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. viii., who cites Herodotus, 1. i. and Hyde de Relig. Persarum. passions; passions; and subjecting them to the wants of human imbe cillity. Dr. P.'s investigations will establish also another im❤ portant fact, equally repugnant to that theory; — that a sensual and corrupt religion, so far from being a characteristic of the early state of mankind, is almost peculiar to refined and cultivated periods. Yet the elements of a primitive reli gion have still been preserved from the taint of popular superstition; in Egypt, burning like a vestal lamp in the dark recesses of her mystic rites; in Greece, kept alive by that sect which may be said to be the parent of Grecian philosophy; and in antient Rome cherished by the greatest of her philosophers, who transmitted it from the schools of Greece. * If this be not a more rational, it is a more consolatory hypo+ thesis. Not fashioned by our great Creator for gross and debasing superstitions, we occupy a higher place in the scale of being; and we add a cubit to our moral stature, when we feel that we came fresh from his hands, endued with capacities capable of ascending to such high contemplation. This is a reflection which must fill us with a sense of the dignity of man; whose faculties are symbols of his destination, and point towards futurity, not merely as the close of his existence, or as an undefined world of shadows, but as his proper home and place of rest, the scene of his renewed and improved activities. "Separat hoc nos A grege mutorum; atque ideò venerabile soli After these remarks, we proceed to give our readers a sketch of Dr. Prichard's treatise, which incorporates a valuable mass of learning and information in a compass not disproportioned to the obscure and difficult questions that it elucidates; and we recommend the attentive perusal of it to all who prosecute these interesting inquiries. To the scholar, the sources of information respecting the learning and mythology of Egypt, as they are unfolded by Dr. Prichard in his introduction, cannot be unacceptable. Its mythological history divides itself into three periods. The hierarchy was in its fullest vigour before the Persian conquest: its next period is the time which elapsed from that event to the accession of the Ptolemies; and the third begins with the reign of Lagus, ending with the extinction of Paganism. The accounts of those who visited Egypt, during the third * Cic. de Nat. Deor. passim. Somn. Scip. and Macrob. passim. Q 4 period, period, are less valuable than those of the few travellers who surveyed it under the Persian sway; and these again afford less genuine information than might have been obtained from the age of the Pharaohs. Orpheus, Thales, and Pythagoras, frequented the Egyptian schools during the first period, but their accounts have not reached us. Moses, educated in the Egyptian learning, has furnished us with authentic but scanty gleanings during the reign of the Pharaohs. Under the Persian dominion, Hecatæus, Herodotus, and Plato, travelled into those regions, from the first and the last of whom we have no narrative, and Herodotus alone remains. Diodorus Siculus and Strabo visited Egypt under the Cæsars; and from Tacitus and Ammianus Marcellinus, (Dr. Prichard might have added Lucian * and Juvenal †) we derive the knowlege of a few facts. Much information is also to be collected from another class of writers; those who, living in a later age, and vainly attempting to prop the tottering cause of paganism by resolving it into allegory, contributed to throw important light on Pagan rites and Egyptian learning. Of these the most judicious are Plutarch and Macrobius, Porphyry and Iamblicus: - but Diodorus Siculus is at once compendious and instructive on these subjects, having incorporated the results of his own observation with those of an extensive acquaintance with other authors. The antient fathers, also, in their refutations of Paganism, have preserved intire passages from writers who are now extinct. Whence, however, was this knowlege derived; and is it real knowlege, or merely the dream of Greek speculation? It is certain that a number of books called the Hermaic books were preserved for centuries; and that they contained the canon of sacerdotal duty, the civil obligations of kings, hymns to the gods, astrological precepts, and the elements of astronomy: while others treated of medicine and anatomy. Of these books, ten were hieroglyphic. Still, all this learning was locked up under impenetrable mystery: no Greek or Roman ever became acquainted with the native language of Egypt; nor would a vestige have been discerned in later ages of her antient wisdom or superstition, had it not been for the school of Alexandria, which transferred into the Greek language the memorials of her dynasties and the institutes of her religion, with the essential parts of the Hermetic volumes: though the philosophical doctrines became mixed with Platonism, as they passed through the Alexandrian school. Unfortunately, the Hermetic books, even in their * Lucian, de Sacrif. c. 14, 15. 15th Satire of Juvenal. Greek Greek copies, have not descended to us, and it is therefore to Diodorus, Plutarch, Macrobius, Porphyry, and Iamblicus, that we must chiefly betake ourselves for the materials of authentic information. The Greek philosophers, of whose sects the founders had studied in Egypt, will likewise assist us in forming our conclusions respecting the tenets of the Egyptian hierarchy; since, when we are satisfied that these sects derived particular dogmas from Egypt, we may apply to them for information respecting the mode, or representation, under which they were taught in that country. For instance, the metempsychosis was derived by Pythagoras from the Egyptian schools; and the Pythagoreans, therefore, are our guides when we attempt to penetrate the sense of the Egyptian fables which relate to that doctrine. Dr. Prichard also specifies a fourth source of information, which may seem, he observes, to be of a more suspicious character; viz. the comparison of Egyptian theology with that of the Indian Brahmans. We are, however, by no means disposed to undervalue the importance of this analogy; which is now, indeed, all that remains to us. The darkness of ages has hung over that country. How short a time elapsed between the invasion of Cambyses and the visit of Herodotus ! Yet the origin of the Pyramids, and the mystic sculptures of the temples and statues, seemed scarcely better known to the priests of that period than to the Imans and Coptic Cenobites of the present. It is not in Egypt, then, that the solution of these problems will be found. Travellers still continue to go there, as they went before; gaping with surprize, swallowing the grossest absurdities, and, like Savary, seeing nothing but prodigies. Like those also who returned before, they return equally credulous and uninformed. Yet, if a ray of genuine light ever bursts on us, it will come from India; and it is there that the only clue can be found, to guide us through the almost inextricable maze of Egyptian history. We have made this remark, not rebukingly towards Dr. Prichard, but to express our settled conviction that, if the present race of investigators, who have hitherto toiled with such industry and success in this dark field of investigation, continue their learned diligence, those mythologies will be found more and more to enlighten each other. The popular religion of Egypt, comprehending the Theogony and fabulous history of the gods, occupies the first division of Dr. Prichard's dissertation. Most modern writers have regarded those gods as deified heroes, a notion probably derived from the Greeks, of whose mythology they formed a consider |