Japan_.

J. Edkins' _Religion in China_, 1878, the account of a modern
missionary, may be consulted.

On Taoism, Pfizmaier, _Die Loesung der Leichname und Schwerter_, 1870;
and _Die Tao-lehre von dem wahren Menschen und den Unsterblichen_,
1870. Julius Grill, _Lao-tsze's Buch vom hoechsten Wesen und vom
hoechsten gut_. _Tao-te-King_, 1910. Vols. xxxix.-xl. of the _S.B.E._
give Taoist Texts.

Revon, _Le Shintoisme_, 1907.

CHAPTER IX
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Egypt is a land of still more ancient civilisation than China, and
its civilisation is of more interest to us, since from it the nations
of the West obtained in part the seeds of their arts and sciences.
Even to antiquity everything Egyptian appeared venerable and
mysterious, and the air of mystery is not yet removed from the
country of the Nile. We have discovered the sources of the river and
have learned to read the writing on Egyptian monuments; but the
sphinx has other riddles than these--riddles not yet solved. Who are
the Egyptians, and where did they come from? In ancient times they
were thought to have descended from the interior of Africa; now the
opinion gains ground that they were at a very early period connected
with the ancestors of the Semitic races; their language is thought to
show signs of this remote relationship. How, by whom, and when were
they formed into a nation? No one can tell; they come before us four
thousand years before Christ, a fully-formed nation, with an
elaborately organised public service, and with a civilisation both
broad and rich. And lastly, What is the religion of Egypt? What are
the earliest gods of the land, and in what relation do the various
gods which were worshipped in it stand to each other? That question
cannot at the present time be fully answered. Even should it be
proved, as it appears likely to be, that Egyptian civilisation was
derived originally from Mesopotamia, much will still be dark and
enigmatical. The foremost scholars in Egyptology confess that no
history of Egyptian religion can as yet be written. Those who have
tried to sketch it differ from each other as widely as possible, some
alleging monotheism as its starting-point, and some the worship of
animals. The religion also comes into view at the early period we
have mentioned as a fully-formed and stately public system, whose
youthful struggles, if it had any, are long past. What is most
peculiar in that religion is, that it embraces