entific, and religious works.

It was thus that tradition was pleased to ascribe to the gods, and
among them to Thot--the doubly great--the invention of all the arts and
sciences which gave to Egypt its glory and prosperity. It was clear,
not only to the vulgar, but to the wisest of the nation, that, had their
ancestors been left merely to their own resources, they would never have
succeeded in raising themselves much above the level of the brutes. The
idea that a discovery of importance to the country could have risen in a
human brain, and, once made known, could have been spread and developed
by the efforts of successive generations, appeared to them impossible
to accept. They believed that every art, every trade, had remained
unaltered from the outset, and if some novelty in its aspect tended to
show them their error, they preferred to imagine a divine intervention,
rather than be undeceived. The mystic writing, inserted as chapter
sixty-four in the _Book of the Dead_, and which subsequently was
supposed to be of decisive moment to the future life of man, was, as
they knew, posterior in date to the other formulas of which this book
was composed; they did not, however, regard it any the less as being of
divine origin. It had been found one day, without any one knowing whence
it came, traced in blue characters on a plaque of alabaster, at the
foot of the statue of Thot, in the sanctuary of Hermopolis. A prince,
Hardiduf, had discovered it in his travels, and regarding it as a
miraculous object, had brought it to his sovereign. This king, according
to some, was Husaphaiti of the first dynasty, but by others was believed
to be the pious Mykerinos. In the same way, the book on medicine,
dealing with the diseases of women, was held not to be the work of
a practitioner; it had revealed itself to a priest watching at night
before the Holy of Holies in the temple of Isis at Coptos. "Although the
earth was plunged into darkness, the moon shone upon it and enveloped
it with light. It was sent as a great wonder to the holiness of King
Kheops, the just of speech." The gods had thus exercised a direct
influence upon men until they became entirely civilized, and this work
of culture was apportioned among the three divine dynasties according
to the strength of each. The first, which comprised the most vigorous
divinities, had accomplished the more difficult task of establishing the
world on a solid basis; the second had carried on th