194 The Great Pyramid in Egypt. [April, 



For, if geography thus assigns the general central position 

 of the land-surface of the world roughly to Lower Egypt, 

 chorography assigns a particular physical centre of figure 

 and formation to a certain part of Lower Egypt, and locates 

 that more precise point upon the hill of Jeezeh ; while 

 minute topography there shows the Great Pyramid arrogating 

 peculiarly to itself the one only exact standpoint on that 

 hill which distinctly commands the beginning or central 

 origin of the peculiar physical domain just mentioned. 



2. What Decided the Shape of the Great Pyramid. 



Who does not give precedence to German minds, and 

 especially to their greatest leaders in philosophy, in every 

 question of deepest mystery. Can we then pass over what 

 the illustrious Schelling has written on the identical subject 

 of this section. Certainly not, for it is exemplary in every 

 way. 



" The Great Pyramid of Cheops," says Schelling,* was 

 the symbol of the higher Monotheism, in which way we can 

 account for its being constructed on a quaternary principle, 

 viz., on the three powers of Typhon, Osiris, and Horus 

 (below), and on the fore-mentioned one-only-Godhead 

 (above). (The three powers form the basis, the one God 

 above them the apex.) For the quaternary is also the 

 ruling principle in this theistic system, viewed as intelligible 

 (although as yet we have only developed it into the three- 

 fold), as already eight gods have come into view out of 

 Herodotus, which, when one understands the half to be 

 female, shows that the fundamental number is the four- 

 fold. The pyramid is the first body, the first solid, and 

 since, in the old philosophy of arithmetic, the point stood 

 for unity, as the line appeared to be produced out of the 

 number two, and the plane superficies out of the number 

 three, so the grand meaning of the number four was seen in 

 this, that it would show itself as the first solid-like number, 

 since the pyramid, the first of the five regular bodies is pro- 

 duced in it with the four given points." 



Now there is a great deal in this essay most admirable as 

 to some general principles of philosophising, though in the 

 particular instance before us, failing miserably in practice. 

 Not only, too, because we have no proof that the myths of 

 Typhon, Osiris, and Horus were invented until several 

 centuries after the Great Pyramid, but because we do know 

 positively, even from our own careful, clear, distinct, and 



* " Philosophic der Mythologie," pp. 405, 406. From J. T. Goodser's 

 " Homilies," p. 260. 



