o spirit. For from Pthah (heat) comes light, from
light proceeds life, from life arise gods, men, plants, animals, and all
organic existence. The inscriptions call Pthah, "Father of the Father of
the Gods," "King of both Worlds," the "God of all Beginnings," the "Former
of Things." The egg is one of his symbols, as containing a germ of life.
The scarabaeus, or beetle, which rolls its ball of earth, supposed to
contain its egg, is dedicated to Pthah. His sacred city was Memphis, in
Lower Egypt. His son, Ra, the Sun-God, had his temple at On, near by,
which the Greeks called Heliopolis, or City of the Sun. The cat is sacred
to Ra. As Pthah is the god of all beginnings in Lower Egypt, so Ra is the
vitalizing god, the active ruler of the world, holding a sceptre in one
hand and the sign of life in the other.

The goddesses of Lower Egypt were Neith at Sais, Leto, the goddess whose
temple was at Buto, and Pacht at Babastis. In Upper Egypt, as we have
seen, the chief deity was Amun, or Ammon, the Concealed God, and Kneph, or
Knubis. With them belonged the goddess Mut[193] (the mother) and Khonso.
The two oldest gods were Mentu, the rising sun, and Atmu, the setting sun.

We therefore find traces of the same course of religious thought in Egypt
as we shall afterward find in Greece. The earlier worship is of local
deities, who are afterwards united in a Pantheon. As Zeus was at first
worshipped in Dodona and Arcadia, Apollo in Crete and Delos, Aphrodite in
Cyprus, Athene at Athens, and afterward these tribal and provincial
deities were united in one company as the twelve gods of Olympus, so in
Egypt the various early theologies were united in the three orders, of
which Ammon was made the head. But, in both countries, each city and
province persevered in the worship of its particular deity. As Athene
continued to be the protector of Athens, and Aphrodite of Cyprus, so, in
Egypt, Set continued to be the god of Ombos, Leto of Buto, Horus of Edfu,
Khem of Coptos.

Before concluding this section, we must say a word of the practical
morality connected with this theology. We have seen, above, the stress
laid on works of justice and mercy. There is a papyrus in the Imperial
library at Paris, which M. Chabas considers the oldest book in the world.
It is an autograph manuscript written B.C. 2200, or four thousand years
ago, by one who calls himself the son of a king. It contains practical
philosophy like that of Solomon in his proverbs.