1850.] Brdkminical Conquerors of India. '25 



does not occur, according to the accurate researches of Mr. Birch 

 (iEg. Stelle. 1, 6, II.) on any monument anterior to the time of Arrime- 

 nophis I. or the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty : her effigy, says 

 Wilkinson, "is rarely found, and never as extant in a temple." Thus 

 we have the earliest deification of the purely aggressive principle, 

 exhibited in Egypt, at a period posterior to the rule of the Hyksos. 

 But there is yet another point of still greater moment, as additionally 

 proving the identity of origin in the case of the Egyptian, and the 

 Hindu races, — the knowledge of which takes us a step beyond what 

 has been as yet established as to their ancient analogies in moral opinion 

 and practice ; this is the verification of the assertion of the ever-true 

 Herodotus, as established by Bunsen (v. 1, 6, III.), that the worship 

 of Isis and Osiris, — or Isis, Osiris, and Horus, (Her-God in Egyptian, 

 thus latinised,) was the only religious form " that was honoured and 

 accepted throughout all Egypt." For a critical examination of every 

 available monument, document, or authority shows that, "to speak 

 out in plain terms," as Bunsen says, " the first and second Egyptian 

 Pantheons are nothing more than the development, first in undivided 

 and subsequently in subdivided theistic forms of particular attributes 

 of Isis and Osiris, or of both as either compared or combined." Isis 

 and Osiris, singly or together ; or Isis, Osiris, and Horus in one, com- 

 prehend directly in themselves that whole Egyptian theistic system, 

 which stands instead of Ammon and of Kneph, the hidden god, and 

 the soul. What are these words but Colebrooke on the Vedas once 

 again 1 " According to the most ancient annotations of the Indian 

 scriptures" — those, that is, which hold here the place in history of 

 monuments and graven stones — " these numerous names of persons 

 and things are all resolvable into different titles of three deities, and 

 ultimately of one God. The inference that these intend but one deity, 

 is supported by many passages in the Veda, and is very clearly and 

 concisely stated in the beginning of the index to the Rig-veda, on the 

 authority of the Nirukta and of the Veda itself." In this identifica- 

 tion of a first common belief we touch the root of the matter, and the 

 mystery of the Egyptian theistic darkness is dispelled ;— so that there 

 is no need to recapitulate identities, however exact, in posterior creeds 

 and doctrines, as to the eight Gods, the mundane egg, and so forth. 

 Nay, we have even a clue, and a direct one, to the mental process 



