THE RELIGIOUS IDEA. G93 



fince of it as fact ; and thus to generate a belief that the 

 Sun had been actual ruler over Egypt. 



The derivation of all these beliefs from ancestor-worship, 

 clear as the above evidence makes it, becomes clearer still 

 when we observe, on the one hand, how the name &quot;god&quot; was 

 applied to a superior living individual, and, on the other 

 hand, how completely human in all their attributes were 

 the gods, otherwise so-called. The relatively small difference 

 between the conceptions of the divine and the human, is 

 shown by the significant fact that in the hieroglyphics, one 

 and the same &quot;determinative&quot; means, according to the 

 context, god, ancestor, august person. Hence we need not 

 wonder on finding king Sahura of the 5th dynasty called 

 &quot; God, who strikes all nations, and reaches all countries with 

 his arm ; &quot; or on meeting with like deifications of other 

 historical kings and queens, such as Mencheres and Nofert- 

 Ari-Aahmes. And on finding omnipotence and omnipre 

 sence ascribed to a living king, as to Eamses II., we see 

 little further scope for deification. Indeed we see no further 

 scope ; since along with these exalted conceptions of certain 

 men there went low conceptions of gods. 



&quot;The bodies of the gods are spoken of as well as their souls, and 

 they have both parts and passions ; they are described as suffering from 

 hunger and thirst, old age, disease, fear and sorrow. They perspire, 

 their limbs quake, their head aches, their teeth chatter, their eyes weep, 

 their nose bleeds, * poison takes possession of their flesh/ . . . All the 

 great gods require protection. Osiris is helpless against his enemies, 

 and his remains are protected by his wife and sister/ * 



* It is strange how impervious to evidence the mind becomes -when once 

 pro-possessed. One would have thought that such an accumulation of proofs, 

 congruous with the proofs yielded by multitudinous other societies, would 

 have convinced everyone that the Egyptian religion was a developed ancestor- 

 worship. But such proofs appear to have no effects in the minds of the 

 theologians and the mythologists. Though the ancient Egyptian tradition is 

 that &quot; the land of Punt was the original seat of the gods,&quot; whence &quot; the holy 

 o^es had travelled to the Nile valley, at their head Amon, Horus, Hathor ;&quot; 

 though there is also the tradition that &quot; during the first age a Dynasty of the 

 Tods reigned in the land ; this was followed by the age of the Demigods ; and 

 I -ie dynasty of the mysterious Manes closed the prehistoric timej&quot; though 



