of varied histories and traditions,
in stimulating progress. Even if the practice of mummification had
exerted no other noteworthy effect in the history of the world, this
fact alone would have given it a pre-eminent place.

Another aspect of the influence of mummification I have already
discussed, and do not intend to consider further in this lecture. I
refer to the manifold ways in which it affected the history of medicine
and pharmacy. By accustoming the Egyptians, through thirty centuries, to
the idea of cutting the human corpse, it made it possible for Greek
physicians of the Ptolemaic and later ages to initiate in Alexandria the
systematic dissection of the human body which popular prejudice forbade
elsewhere, and especially in Greece itself. Upon this foundation the
knowledge of anatomy and the science of medicine has been built up.[14]
But in many other ways the practice of mummification exerted
far-reaching effects, directly and indirectly, upon the development of
medical and pharmaceutical knowledge and methods.[15]

There is then this _prima-facie_ evidence that the Egyptian practice of
mummification was closely related to the development of architecture,
maritime trafficking, and medicine. But what I am chiefly concerned with
in the present lecture is the discussion of the much vaster part it
played in shaping the innermost beliefs of mankind and directing the
course of the religious aspirations and the scientific opinions, not
merely of the Egyptians themselves, but also of the world at large, for
many centuries afterward.

It had a profound influence upon the history of human thought. The vague
and ill-defined ideas of physiology and psychology, which had probably
been developing since Aurignacian times[16] in Europe, were suddenly
crystallized into a coherent structure and definite form by the musings
of the Egyptian embalmer. But at the same time, if the new philosophy
did not find expression in the invention of the first deities, it gave
them a much more concrete form than they had previously presented, and
played a large part in the establishment of the foundations upon which
all religious ritual was subsequently built up, and in the initiation of
a priesthood to administer the rites which were suggested by the
practice of mummification.

[3: An elaboration of a Lecture on the relationship of the Egyptian
practice of mummification to the development of civilization delivered
in the John Rylands