answer all the questions that might arise
concerning external nature. It rested upon the basis of authority
built through ages of tradition, and through a continuous domineering
priest-craft. The human mind struggling within its own narrow bounds
could not overcome the stultifying and sterilizing influence of such a
religion. The lower forms of religion were "of the earth, earthy."
The higher forms consisted of such abstract conceptions concerning the
creation of the earth, and the manipulation of all the forces of nature
and the control of all the powers of man, as to be entirely
non-progressive. There could be no independent scientific
investigation. There could be no rational development of the mind.
The religion of the Orient brought gloom to the masses and cut off hope
forever. The people became subject to the grinding forces of fate.
How, then, could there be intellectual development based upon freedom
of action? How could there be any higher life of the soul, any moral
culture, any great advancement in the arts and sciences, or any popular
expression regarding war and government?

_Social Organization Was Incomplete_.--All social organization tended
toward the common centre, the king, and there was very little local
organization except as it was necessary to bring the people under
control of official rule. There were apparently very few voluntary
associations. Among the nobility, the priests, and ladies of rank, we
find frequently elaborate costumes of dress, manifold ornaments,
necklaces, rings, and earrings; but whatever went to the rich seemed to
be a deprivation of the poor. Indeed, when we consider that it cost
only a few shillings at most to rear a child to the age of twenty-one
years in Egypt, we can imagine how meagre and stinted that life must
have been. The poorer classes of people dressed in a very simple
style, wearing a single linen shirt and over it a woollen mantle; while
among the very poor much less was worn.

However, it seems that there was time for some of the population to
engage in sports such as laying snares for birds, {176} angling for
fish, popular hunts, wrestling, playing checkers, chess, and ball, and
it appears that many of these people were gifted in these sports. Just
what classes of people engaged in this leisure is difficult to
determine. Especially in the case of Egypt, most of the people were
condemned to hard and toilsome labor. Probably the nobility and people