e
visible form under which the divine was worshiped in Egypt was the
sacred animal, the bull _Apis_, dedicated to _Osiris_, the cow,
dedicated to _Isis_, as symbols of agriculture; the bird _Ibis_, the
crocodile, the dog _Anubis_, and other animals, whose physical
characteristics impressed the as yet childish man, who saw in them the
symbol, either of the beneficent power of nature which moved him to
thankfulness, or of a destructive power which he dreaded and whose anger
he sought to avert. The religion of Egypt was not of a purely spiritual
character. To the man whose eye is not yet open to the manifestation of
the spiritual around him and in him, the divine is not spirit, but as
yet only nature. The animal, although in the form of the sphinx
approaching the human, holds in Egyptian art a place above the human as
symbol of the divine.

CHAPTER II.

THE ARIAN NATIONS.

1. THE EAST ARIANS. THE INDIANS.

In the development of religion among the Indians, the following periods
may be distinguished:--

_a._ The original Veda-religion.

_b._ The priestly religion of the Brahmins.

_c._ The philosophical speculation.

_d._ Buddhism.

_e._ The modified Brahminism after Buddha, in connection with the
worship of Vishnu and Siva.

_a. The original Veda-religion._

The original religion of Arya originated in Bactria. From thence, before
the time of Zoroaster, it was brought over, with the great migration of
the people, to the land of the seven rivers, which they conquered, and
which stretched from the Indus to the Hesidrus. It consisted, according
to the oldest literature of the Veda, in a polytheistical worship of the
divine, either as the beneficent or the baneful power of nature. The
clear, blue sky, the light of the sun, the rosy dawn, the storm that
spends itself in fruitful rain, the winds and gales which drive away the
clouds, the rivers whose fruitful slime overspreads the fields,--these
moved the inhabitants of India to the worship of the divine as the
beneficent power of nature which blesses man. On the other hand, he
changed under the impression of the harmful phenomena of nature, the
dark and close-packed clouds which hold back the rain and intercept the
sunshine, the parching heat of summer, which dries up the rivers and
hinders growth and fruitfulness, and these also he erected into objects
of awe and religious adoration. From this view of nature sprang the
Indian mythology