109 
Primeval man then must have had “ impulses” very different 
to those of the brutes, who never trouble their heads about such 
matters at all. But this process is quite the reverse of all that 
we learn from history, whether sacred or profane, where we find 
God revealing Himself, making Himself known in some way or 
other ; and man disposed to suppress this knowledge (ti)v a\i)6ttav 
tv aSiida Karexovrcov *), or at all events to reserve the truth to the 
custody of their priests or druids, the wise men who alone were 
suitable guardians of the secret. Do we not learn that this was 
the case in the earliest history of Egypt ? Was not the worship 
of animals (as Manetho teaches) a later invention ? Does not 
the very oldest writing of which we have any certain knowledge 
(the Book of the Dead) lead us to the conclusion that God was 
known as the Judge of all men, distributing rewards and punish- 
ments after death ? f 
The Hermetic creed tells us that “ before all things that 
really exist, and before the beginning of all time, there is one 
God , prior to the first God and Ruler of the world, remaining 
immovable in the solitude of His unity. J . . . . 
“ These are the most ancient principles of all things, ” accord- 
ing to Jamblicus, “ which Hermes places first in order , before 
the ethereal , empyrean , and celestial deities.’ 1 ' 1 
M. Lenormant, who has profoundly studied the whole sub- 
ject, says,— 
“ Aussi haut que l’on remonte dans les documents relatifs a la religion 
Egyptienne, on y trouve pour fondement la grande notion de l’unit4 divine. 
. . . Mais cette notion sublime, si elle se maintint toujours dans la doctrine 
tisoterique, s’obscurcit rapidement et fut defiguree par les conceptions des 
pretres comme par l’ignorance de la multitude. L’idee de Dieu se confondit 
avec les manifestations de sa puissance ; ses attributs et ses qualites furen 
personnifies en une foule d’agens secondaires, distributes dans un ordre 
hierarchique, concourant a l’organisation generale du rnonde et a la conser- 
vation des etres. C’est ainsi que se forma ce polytheisme qui dans la 
variete et la bizarrerie de ses symboles, finit par embrasser la nature en- 
tiere.” — La Magic, chez les Chalcleens, &c., p. 71. 
Consider the following magnificent description of the Almighty 
from the Scriptures of our Aryan ancestors : — 
“Possessed of illimitable resources, He has meted out, created, and 
upholds heaven and earth. He dwells in all worlds as Sovereign Ruler. 
The wind which resounds through the atmosphere is His breath. He has 
opened boundless paths for the sun which He placed in the heavens, and 
has hollowed out channels for the rivers which flow by His command. By 
His wonderful contrivance the rivers pour their waters into the one ocean 
but never fill it. His ordinances are fixed and unassailable. They rest on 
* Rom. i. 
t Comp. La Magie chez les Chaldecns, par Lenormant, pp. 77, 7b. 
+ See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 45. 
