“ That the practice of offering human sacrifices is compatible with a high degree of civilization we know from the examples of Greece, of Rome, and Mexico. There were great gatherings in honor of the gods, in the nature of pilgrimages or holy fairs, which were celebrated with festivity, with noisy music, with illuminations, and with license. There were mysteries, which were not, in Egypt at least, initiations into any thing different from the popular religion; but merely representations — celebrated amidst nocturnal gloom — of the sufferings of Osiris. ”

“ That there was no connection between the mythology of Egypt and that of Greece. Subtract what is common to all polytheistic systems, and what is common to all systems of natural religions, and absolutely no similarity remains. On the one side are forms of human beauty, majesty, and passion, in which the original groundwork of nature-worship is as much as possible concealed by the working of a plastic imagination; on the other side are forms bestial or grotesque, featureless and passionless, exhibiting nature-worship in one of its lowest stages. ”

“ The lion's body represents the monarch's might — the human head his wisdom. The rock, from which the figure is cut, broke the view of the Pyramids, and to convert it into the Sphinx was a stroke of Egyptian genius. ”

“ The priests, in fact, were the lords of Egypt. Exclusively possessed of science, and even of letters, numerous, wealthy, united, in a single polity, a confined territory and an isolated people, unchecked by any literary, philosophical, or foreign influence, they must have exercised a dominion unrivalled by any priesthood in the history of the world. ”

“ Kenrick, the Times says:—
"He commences with the land of Egypt. In the East great rivers are the parents of civilized nations. A great river, which by its deposit forms a long valley and a broad delta of rich alluvial soil in the midst of deserts, was the parent, the nourisher, and the god of the oldest civilized nation of the earth. The Nile is Egypt; the Egyptians were those who lived below the cataracts and drank of the Nile. Above the cataracts they pushed their arms into Ethiopia, and left there the monuments of their dominion. ”

“ Kenrick has collected: — l. That the Egyptian religion was in all essential respects like the other religions of Paganism, and traceable to the same sources; and consequently that whatever may be Egypt's 'place in universal history,' she is not likely to assume an extraordinarily important place in the history of theology, or to affect, in any material respect, our views as to the origin of religion. 2. That no connection is to be traced between the religion of the Egyptians and the religion of the Hebrews. A more decided polytheism than that of Egypt cannot be imagined. ”

“ The last fact at once severs Egypt from India, and destroys every presumption of affinity that may arise from the presence in both countries of caste, of animal worship, and of a religion derivable from a primitive adoration of the powers of nature. ”

“ The most degrading part of the religion of the Egyptians was their animal worship, which they carried to a higher pitch than any other people, not excepting the Hindoos. Almost the whole animal and some part of the vegetable kingdom enjoyed either a national or a local sanctity. ”

“ Architecture is the most material of the arts. It was the art in which the Egyptians most excelled. They seem to have understood in some degree the grandeur which results from proportion and arrangement, as well as that which results from size. ”

“ Retributive pains, by fire and steel, are also supposed to have been detected among the paintings. At the same time they held and taught to the Greeks the doctrine of metempsychosis. It is difficult to reconcile with either of these notions their belief that the spirit dwelt in the body so long as the body could be rescued from decay, and the reason which they give for bestowing such prodigality of labor on their sepulchers — that the tomb was man's eternal home. The darkness of uninterpreted hieroglyphics still rests to a great extent on the religious creed and practices of the Egyptians. ”

“ If we pass to science, we shall find no reason for supposing that the advances of modern times were anticipated by the mysterious wisdom of the Egyptians. Something they must have known of astronomy to practice astrology, to divide the ecliptic, and to effect the exact orientation of the Pyramids. ”

“ All is lost in the King, whose gigantic figure, drawn by gigantic horses, crushes, massacres, or grasps by the hair scores of his pigmy enemies, whose hands after the victory are laid in heaps before him and counted by attendant scribes. ”

“ The privileged castes were those of the warriors and the priests, who, with the Pharaoh, held in fee all the land of Egypt. The Government was an hereditary monarchy. When election was necessary the two privileged castes chose from among their own numbers; the people enjoyed only the right of acclamation. ”

“ And it is remarkable that the belief in the conscious existence of the soul and a retributive state after death — a doctrine hardly to be lost when once imparted — seems to have been so prominent in the one faith while it was so much the reverse of prominent in the other. ”

“ The highest object of this superstition, the bull Apis, was regarded as an actual incarnation of Osiris. No rational account of such a system can be given. The serpent cannot have been respected for its utility. The ibis cannot have been honored as the destroyer of the sacred serpent. Nothing divine can have been perceived in the beetle or the ape. The connection between the god and the beast was originally the offspring of a grotesque imagination, and priestcraft and the superstitions tendency of the people did the rest.
"The political constitution of Egypt was based on caste. ”

“ The caravans of surrounding nations visited Egypt with their precious and fragrant merchandise to exchange for her corn and manufactures. But the Egyptian trader appears seldom to have visited other countries either by land or sea.
"The army was a warrior caste. Its might consisted in its chariots. No mounted cavalry appear in any of the monuments. With this exception they had every kind of force and every weapon known to ancient warfare. ”

“ In other sciences there is evidence of long and careful observation, but nothing to prove an acquaintance with the laws of nature. Progress in the medical art was precluded by the necessity of adhering to the precepts of the sacred books. ”

“ Of music, we learn from Plato that it was restricted to certain established tunes of approved moral tendency, and the wayward Athenian thought all restraint wholesome as he saw that some license was pernicious. ”

“ As no specimens remain of their domestic architecture, it is supposed rather than ascertained that their houses were of a single story with a terraced roof. The rooms of great men at least were richly and elegantly painted, and furnished with tables, chairs, and couches, which have supplied models for the upholstery of modern times. ”

“ Thick lips are frequently seen, but they are supposed to indicate intermarriage with Ethiopians. From the negro the Egyptians were far removed, nor can they be connected with any other known race. If we turn to language, a surer guide perhaps than physiology, we are again completely baffled. ”

“ And the unvarying landscape, the unchanging sky, the small number and unpoetic or even grotesque forms of the plants and animals, may partly account for the lack of imagination evinced by the most formal and most stationary of nations, scarcely excepting the Chinese. ”