the parents of Osiris, Chronos and Rhea-as will from the following synoptical table.

GENERAL RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION.

EGYPTIAN mythology, as presented to us in its three Orders, would appear on the whole at least to have been complete at the commencement of the historical age or reign of Menes, the founder of one united Egyptian empire, of Egypt itself and its history. We meet in the Oldest Empire with names of Kings out of all the mythological Orders, and representations of the very deities whom we find worshipped at the beginning of the New Empire.

The genealogy of the gods, also, as exhibited on the monuments, represents the divinities of the three Orders as one indivisible whole. The second Order of gods is derived exclusively or mainly from the first; and is genealogically connected, through Chronos and Rhea, with the third, from which it is otherwise wholly distinct. Now the first has evidently its origin in the Thebaid, the inhabitants of which, down to the latest period, still cleaved to Amun, Khem, and Kneph, as being indigenous in their country. But Ptah and Neith originate, as far as we can ascertain, in Lower Egypt. From these divinities of the first Order proceeds an unbroken genealogical series down to those of the second, principally through the medium of Ra. Helios forms the transition from the first to the second; as Seb and Nutpe, whose descent from Ra is also demonstrable, form the transition from the second to the third. The twelve gods of the second Order are also traceable to different parts of Egypt.

No less striking is the result as to the origin of the Osiris Order. The oldest shrines of Osiris and Isis point to Upper Egypt (Abydos and Elephantina): the myth of Seth and Nephthys, and consequently every thing that refers to the combat of Osiris and Isis with Seth and Typhon, to Lower Egypt. Here is the

stage of the human reign of Osiris; here he fought, suffered, and was found again; here was the abode of Nephthys and Typhon; here is Busiris, that is, the tomb of the old cruel Osiris, who was appeased by human sacrifices. The procession of Isis ascends the river with the corpse; on the southern frontier it is entombed. The worship of Isis and Osiris was the only one, according to Herodotus, that all the Egyptians had in common.

The mythological system which we meet with at the first dawn of the empire of Menes, owes its existence therefore, in the primeval time, to the amalgamation of the religion of Upper and Lower Egypt. This however means nothing more than that it originated in the same manner as the Empire of Menes, which owed its existence to the union of the two Misr, by which process it became Mizraim and took its place in history. The oldest kings appear to have been both rulers and priests. Religion had already united the two provinces before the power of the race of This in the Thebaid extended itself to Memphis, and before the giant work of Menes converted the Delta from a desert, chequered over with lakes and morasses, into a blooming garden; as from the couch of Nephthys, after the embrace of Osiris (viz. Nilus), the melilotus and other plants sprang up, and Anubis was born, the favourite of Isis, although the offspring of a secret connexion with her rival.

This fact, which is as certain as it is at variance with modern criticism, gives us the epoch of the primeval era of Egypt, which cannot be defined chronologically, but which belongs to the one immediately preceding the commencement of history.

Its very nature shows that it cannot be the most ancient. Before the two religious systems were merged in one, they must have been worked out, and that indeed in Egypt itself; for they grew together with

Now the series of Osiris is

the land and its language. decidedly the most national. It bears on the face of it traces of Egyptian locality, and of the commencement of an historical consciousness in the nation. Osiris is the centre from which they formed a conception of the oldest founders of their race and of their princes, the prototypes of the great Pharaohs. He even runs into the real historical period.

The first historical point of this kind is the interweaving of the later myth of Osiris with the reminiscences. of the fearful Hyksos epoch. Seth is the father of Judæus and Palæstinus; he is the ass-god of the Semitic tribes, who rested on the seventh day; he has the complexion of the hated race. Astarte is identical with the wandering Isis. The gods of Egypt veil themselves under the heads of animals in order to save themselves from Typhon. The enemies of the Egyptian gods, and their gods, contend with the gods of Egypt: these succumb, with the exception of Canopus, who nevertheless is the same as Nubi or Seth.

Modern critics were misled by these facts, which are recorded by Plutarch evidently on Egyptian authority, into considering the myth of Osiris as a history, veiled in fable, of the contest of the Egyptians with the Hyksos and their neighbours of a cognate race.

Our researches, however, will prove that the system of the Osiris-Typhon myth, as related by Plutarch, is of a later date than the great Ramesside. Down to the time of Ramses and his successor, consequently about 1300 B. C., Typhon was one of the most venerated and powerful gods, a god who pours blessings and life on the rulers of Egypt, just as the hateful Nephthys is called "the benevolent, protecting sister."

It was only after this time, perhaps in consequence of the fall of the 21st Dynasty (about 970), as we shall attempt to show in the third and fourth books, that a great revolution at length overthrew Seth and his

worshippers, and stamped him to all future time as the foe of Osiris and all the gods of Egypt. Then were the names of the detested deity, even his hieroglyphic, the giraffe, erased from the Rings of those illustrious rulers who were called after Seth as well as Osiris. In like manner in the 18th Dynasty, the 15th century B. C., in consequence of a religious war, as the subsequent inquiry will show, the temple-worship of Amun-ra was abolished, and his name expunged from the monuments.

The division and succession of the three Orders of Herodotus seem therefore to be confirmed and borne out by the genealogies on the monuments. But did they really succeed each other in this manner, as three successive religious systems? Does the stratum of the second Order, which evidently bears an astronomical and physical character, overlay the first stratum of cosmogonic ideas, just as it was in turn overlaid by the worship of Osiris? Did the Egyptian mind, in the course of its progress towards religious development, pass from the general cosmic feeling of natural existence, through the astro-telluric, or co-ordinately with it, to a psychological consciousness? Or are Isis and Osiris (one name according to language and the hieroglyphics) the basis of their religion, so that the gods who would seem to be the most ancient are merely expressions of the speculations as to the origin of the universe, like Chaos and Uranos in Hesiod? These are questions upon which we would only remark here, that the monuments and myths in no way justify us in excluding the latter hypothesis as inadmissible. On the contrary, according to them, as well as to Herodotus, Osiris and Isis are the centre of Egyptian religion and worship. Now it is an essential part of the myth of Osiris and Isis, that they are connected with Phoenicia and Syria. The myth and worship of Thamuz and Adonis ("the Lord") exhibit the same fundamental idea of the suffering, dying, and resuscitated god, which is