357 
the book to find that M. Renouf ’s conclusions with regard to Egypt are 
similar to those to which I have ventured to come with regard to the Aryan 
f amil y. For instance, I have mentioned the Rita-path as a law of kosmic 
order. I was not aware when that was written that anything analogous 
to it had been discovered in Egypt, but I am glad to observe from what I 
find iD M. Renouf ’s book that the law of kosmic order is as fully laid 
down in Egypt as ever it was in India. I find on pages 208-9 an allusion 
to the law called “ Maat,” which controls all things, and which is the out- 
come of some Supreme Being. It is particularly connected with the ordinary 
phenomena of nature, the setting of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the 
course of the seasons, while even the various inferior gods are bound by it 
— that is to say, the personifications of nature act in exact harmony 
with kosmic law — an idea precisely analogous to that which we find 
in India ; because, as a matter of course, the laws of nature were not found 
out in a day ; that knowledge was the result of long and careful observa- 
tion, and it must have been a long time before man came to have full 
confidence in those laws. Another important point which I find in 
M. Renouf’s lectures is the principle of monotheism, or a belief in one God,* 
which it is one of the gTeat objects of this Institute to set before you. 
M. Renouf expresses himself with considerable caution on this point, but 
he quotes translations, many of them perfectly new to us, all which go a 
long way to prove that during the whole history of ancient Egypt mono- 
theism was the belief, at all events of the more enlightened people, until 
comparatively late times, when the religion of the Egyptians became purely 
pantheistic and thoroughly degraded. The author observes, after having 
quoted what the idea of God is, as given in the words of Dr. Newman : — 
" I am obliged to acknowledge that single parallel passages to match can be 
quoted from Egyptian far more easily than either from Greek or from 
Roman religious literature Where shall we find a heathen Greek or 
Latin saying, like that of a papyrus on the staircase of the British Museum : 
* The great God, Lord of heaven and of earth, who made all things which 
are 1 ? Or where shall we find such a prayer in heathen Greek or Roman 
times as this : 1 0 my God and Lord, who hast made me and formed 
me, give me an eye to see, and an ear to hear thy glories ’ P ” That 
is a very ancient Egyptian prayer. I think I have already mentioned 
the “ self-existent Being,” and I may refer you to another passage 
from an Egyptian text which says : u The Divine Word is 
made for those who love and for those who hate it ; it gives life to 
the righteous and it gives death to the unjust” — a passage which very 
forcibly reminds me of that in which the Apostle Paul speaks of “ The 
* Canon Cook, the editor of the Speaker’s Commentary, has informed me 
that, after a long and careful examination of the question, the result of his 
researches has been to show that monotheism was existent in the earliest 
ages, and not pantheism, as some still urge. — Ed. 
YOL. XIV. 2 C 
