34 ORIGINALITY A CRIME. 



It is only by means of superstition that a rude people 

 can be induced to support, and a robber soldiery to 

 respect, an intellectual class. But after a certain 

 time this alliance must be ended, or harm will surely 

 come. The boy must leave the apartments of the 

 women when he arrives at a certain age. Theology 

 is an excellent nurse, but a bad mistress for grown 

 up minds. The essence of religion is inertia ; the 

 essence of science is change. It is the function of the 

 one to preserve, it is the function of the other to im- 

 prove. If, as in Egypt, they are firmly chained to- 

 gether, either science will advance, in which case the 

 religion will be altered ; or the religion will preserve 

 its purity, and science will congeal. 



The religious ideas of the Egyptians became associ- 

 ated with a certain style. It was enacted that the 

 human figure should be drawn always in the same 

 manner, with the same colours, contour, and propor- 

 tions. Thus the artist was degraded to an artizan, and 

 originality was strangled in its birth. 



The physicians were compelled to prescribe for their 

 patients according to rules set down in the standard 

 works. If they adopted a treatment of their own, and 

 the patient did not recover, they were put to death. 

 Thus even in desperate cases heroic remedies could 

 not be tried, and experiment, the first condition of 

 discovery, was disallowed. 



A censorship of literature was not required, for 

 literature, in the proper sense of the term, did not 

 exist. Writing, it is true, was widely spread. Cattle, 

 clothes, and workmen's tools, were marked with the 

 owners' names. The walls of the temples were 

 covered and adorned with that beautiful picture 

 character, more like drawing than writing, which 



