SCIENCE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 25 



When we turn to consider the other great civilization i 



of early times that of Egypt a difference of religious 



attitude is seen at once to produce a 



different scientific spirit. While in Chaldea 



and, more markedly, in Assyria the gods were usually 



conceived as hostile to man, pursuing him in life and 



death with an implacable hatred, in Egypt, as in Greece, 



the divine powers were represented in mythology as 



friendly, ready to watch over, to protect and to guide 



mankind in life, in death and in the after-world. 



It would be interesting to enquire what share the 

 external conditions of their lives have in shaping the 

 attitude of a people towards the forces of Nature and 

 the mythology by which they endeavour to interpret 

 the phenomena of the world and of consciousness. 

 In Egypt, the Nile, with its regular and unfailing rise 

 and fall, was the source of all fertility steady, 

 trustworthy and friendly. In Chaldea, the tempestu- 

 ous and incalculable flooding of the Euphrates and 

 the Tigris made life near their banks dangerous and 

 uncertain. Nature was hostile, ready to sweep away 

 man and his puny works together in one unforeseen 

 ruin. The climate of Egypt is more equable, free 

 from the extreme variations and violent storms that 

 harry the highlands of Assyria and Armenia and the 

 shores of the Persian Gulf. It is possible, too, that 

 her isolated position both geographically and politi- 

 cally made Egypt less liable to the ravages of war, and 

 to the visitations of plague and other diseases which 

 would more easily reach Chaldea from the closely 

 populated East. 



Even with an original or partial similarity of race, 

 these differences in natural conditions might modify 



