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all go back to the priestly philosophers of Egypt. Gnosticism
and Alexandrianism, the speculations of Christian metaphysic [251]
and the philosophy of Hegel, have their roots in the valley of the
Nile. The Egyptian thinkers themselves, indeed, never enjoyed
the full fruition of the ideas they had created; their eyes were
blinded by the symbolism which had guided their first efforts,
their sight was dulled by overmuch reverence for the past, and
the materialism which came of a contentment with this life. They
ended in the scepticism of despair or the prosaic superstitions of
a decadent age. But the task which dropped from their hands
was taken up by others; the seeds which they had sown were
not allowed to wither, and, like the elements of our culture and
civilisation, the elements also of our modes of religious thought
may be traced back to the“dwellers on the Nile.”We are heirs
of the civilised past, and a goodly portion of that civilised past
was the creation of ancient Egypt.
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