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metaphors he used; but in this respect he does not stand alone.
Where he has no rival is in the magnitude of the part played in
his religion by the symbol and its logical development.
It was just this symbolism which enabled him to retain, on the
one hand, all the old formulæ with their gross materialism and
childlike views of the universe, and, on the other hand, to attain to
a conception of the divine being which was at once spiritual and
sublime. For Egyptian religion, as we find it in the monuments
of the educated classes before the decay of the monarchy, was,
in spite of its outward show of symbols and amulets, full of
high thoughts and deep emotions. I cannot do better than quote
the words in which it is described by one of its least prejudiced
students, Professor Maspero:^199 “When we put aside the popular
superstitions and endeavour solely to ascertain its fundamental
doctrines, we soon recognise that few religions have been so
exalted in their principles. The Egyptians adored a being who
was unique, perfect, endowed with absolute knowledge and
intelligence, and incomprehensible to such an extent that it
passes man's powers to state in what he is incomprehensible. He
is‘the one of one, he who exists essentially, the only one who
lives substantially, the sole generator in heaven and earth, who
is not himself generated.’Always the same, always immutable
in his immutable perfection, always present in the past as in [245]
the future, he fills the universe without any form in the world
being able to give even a feeble idea of his immensity; he is felt
everywhere, he is perceived nowhere.
“Unique in essence, he is not unique in person. He is father
because he exists, and the force of his nature is such that he is
eternally begetting, without ever growing weak or exhausted. He
has no need to go outside himself for this act of generation; he
finds in his own bosom the material of his perpetual fatherhood.
Alone in the plenitude of his being he conceives his offspring;
(^199) Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie égyptiennes, ii. pp. 446, 447.