Lecture II. Egyptian Religion. 31
night, during the larger portion of the year.
This steady toil in the open air gives no opportunity for
philosophic meditation or introspective theorising. On the
contrary, life for the Egyptianfellahis a very real and practical
thing: he knows beforehand what he has to do in order to gain
his bread, and he has no time in which to theorise about it. It is,
moreover, his sense of sight which is constantly being exercised.
The things which he knows and remembers are the things which
he sees, and he sees them clearly in the clear sunshine of his
fields.
We need not wonder, therefore, that the ancient Egyptian
should have shown on the one hand an incapacity for abstract
thought, and on the other hand a love of visible symbols. The
two, in fact, were but the reverse sides of the same mental
tendency. Symbolism, indeed, is always necessary before we can
apprehend the abstract: it is only through the sensuous symbol
that we can express the abstract thought. But the Egyptian did not [032]
care to penetrate beyond the expression. He was satisfied with
the symbol which he could see and remember, and the result was
that his religious ideas were material rather than spiritual. The
material husk, as it were, sufficed for him, and he did not trouble
to inquire too closely about the kernel within. The soul was for
him a human-headed bird, which ascended on its wings to the
heavens above; and the future world itself was but a duplicate of
the Egypt which his eyes gazed upon below.
The hieroglyphic writing was at once an illustration and an
encouragement of this characteristic of his mind. All abstract
ideas were expressed in it by symbols which he could see and
understand. The act of eating was denoted by the picture of a
man with his hand to his mouth, the idea of wickedness by the
picture of a sparrow. And these symbolic pictures were usually
attached to the words they represented, even when the latter had
come to be syllabically and alphabetically spelt. Even in reading
and writing, therefore, the Egyptian was not required to concern