Chap.Vl. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 373 



if, at the fame time, I have convinced him, that Egypt vpas the firfl: 

 country in which a regular polity was formed, and arts and fciences 

 invented and cultivated, he can have no doubt that it was alfo the 

 firft country of religion. This Herodotus has told us, who has 

 faid, that the Egyptians were the firil: who gave names to the Gods, 

 and eredled temples, altars, and llatues, to them * : And Lucian, 

 in his treatife De Dea Syriac, has told us, that tlie Egyptians were 

 the firft of men who had any idea of Gods, built temples to them, 

 and inftituted Panegyrics, and other folemn afl'emblies in their ho- 

 nour. 



There were in Egypt, as I have elfewhere obferved f, two reli- 

 gions ; the one, a philofophical religion, which was the religion of 

 the Priefts, and which they muft have learned from their Dxmon 

 Kings; the other the vulgar religion of the country, the objedls of 

 which were thofe Dxmons themlelves, whom the Priefts fet up as 

 the Gods that the people were to worfhip. 



That this popular religion of Egypt went to the Greeks, who got 

 even the names of the Gods from them, is a fai£t that cannot be dif- 

 puted. But it was only the names that went to Greece, for the per- 

 fons of the Egyptian Gods, that is of their Dsemon Kings, never went 

 to Greece . But the Greek Gods were Greeks, to whom they gave 

 the names, and afcribed the adventures, of the Egyptian Gods. It is 

 alfo, I think, certain, that the religion of Egypt went to India, along 

 with their politvand their other inftitutions. And Sir William Jones 

 has dlfcovered, that it travelled in the Eaft as far as China and Ja- 

 pan, where, he fays, there are ftatues to be feen, at this day, of 

 Ifis the Egyptian goddefs, who is ftill known, even in thofe coun- 

 tries, by that name. And befides thoie ftatues of Ifis, there are bufts 



of 



* Euterpe, Cap. 4. 



f Page 165. of this volume. 



