the other religions of
Paganism, and traceable to the same sources; and consequently that
whatever may be Egypt's 'place in universal history,' she is not likely
to assume an extraordinarily important place in the history of theology,
or to affect, in any material respect, our views as to the origin of
religion. 2. That no connection is to be traced between the religion of
the Egyptians and the religion of the Hebrews. A more decided polytheism
than that of Egypt cannot be imagined. So far from recognizing any thing
like the _supremacy_ of a single Divine Being in their theological
system, we can scarcely even trace any thing answering to that primacy
of Jupiter which preserves at least a vestige of monotheism in the
religion of the Greeks. The rite of circumcision, which is supposed to
have been borrowed by one nation from the other, was not practised by
the Egyptians as a religious ceremony, nor upon infants, nor
universally. And it is remarkable that the belief in the conscious
existence of the soul and a retributive state after death--a doctrine
hardly to be lost when once imparted--seems to have been so prominent in
the one faith while it was so much the reverse of prominent in the
other. 3. That there was no connection between the mythology of Egypt
and that of Greece. Subtract what is common to all polytheistic systems,
and what is common to all systems of natural religions, and absolutely
no similarity remains. On the one side are forms of human beauty,
majesty, and passion, in which the original groundwork of nature-worship
is as much as possible concealed by the working of a plastic
imagination; on the other side are forms bestial or grotesque,
featureless and passionless, exhibiting nature-worship in one of its
lowest stages. But in every respect, in language, in physiognomy, in
mind, in political tendencies, in manners, as well as in religion, the
contrariety between the Egyptian and the Athenian is complete. There is
nothing on the other side except the vain pretensions of the priests of
Thebes, the credulity of Herodotus, and the wildest legends of the
mythical age; and we are surprised that so strict an ethnologist as Mr.
Kenrick should be inclined to admit even the general fact of an
Egyptian colonization.

"The most degrading part of the religion of the Egyptians was their
animal worship, which they carried to a higher pitch than any other
people, not excepting the Hindoos. Almost the whole animal and s