THE WISDOM OF OLD EGYPT 45 



foreigner appeared inevitably in Egypt to demand 

 his revenge. At the same time the wealth got by 

 conquest abroad really weakened the economic life 

 of the country — which was always elementary — and 

 the end was inexorable. 



Yet Egypt had played a fine part in the evolution 

 of civilization. On the tombs of governors and 

 officials who died nearly five thousand years ago we 

 repeatedly find such epitaphs as : " He gave bread to 

 the hungry, drink to the thirsty, and clothed the 

 naked." Probably he did not ; but these things 

 show that the ideals on which Europe would pride 

 itself ages afterwards were familiar in the early dawn 

 of history. In its later days, in fact, Egyptian 

 religion went beyond this plain moral code and 

 preached an asceticism like that of our Middle Ages. 

 The worship of Isis was particularly associated with 

 female continence, and there were large monasteries 

 of men. Thus even the ascetic excesses of Europe 

 were anticipated. But these were the days of decay. 

 In its long prime Egypt was a land of sober idealism. 

 It had — especially when imperial expansion began — 

 many slaves ; it had no education for the mass of the 

 people ; it retained its feudalism and autocracy to 

 the end. These things one expects in the earliest 

 civilizations. In other respects the story of Egypt is 

 itself a fair outline of the evolution of civilization 

 during five thousand years. 



