The j.a.panese are a mixed race. Kioto and the adjacent provinces are said to have been occupied by the conquerors. Prior to 660 B.C. we have no trustworthy history of the island. This is the date a.s.signed by the j.a.panese to their hero, _Jimmu Tenno_, the first mikado, the founder of an unbroken line. For several centuries, however, the history is open to question. The tenth mikado, Sujin, is noted as a reformer, and promoter of civilization. An uncrowned princess, _Jingu-Kogo_ (201-269 A.D.), is famous for her military prowess. She suppressed a rebellion, and subdued Corea. _Ojin_, a celebrated warrior, is still worshiped as a G.o.d of war. The introduction of Chinese literature and civilization at this period, makes a turning-point in j.a.panese history.

LITERATURE.--J. J. REIN, _j.a.pan: Travels and Researches_, vol. I. (1881); E. J. Reed, _j.a.pan_ (2 vols., 1880); Siebold, _Nippon_ (5 vols. 410, and plates); Kampfer, _History of j.a.pan_ (2 vols. fol., 1728); _Encycl. Brit._, Art. _j.a.pan_.

CHAPTER II. INDIA.

India is the central one of the three great peninsulas of Southern Asia. On the north is the mountainous region of the Himalayas, below which are the vast and fertile river plains, watered by the _Indus_, the _Ganges_, and other streams. On the south, separated from the Ganges by the Vindhya range, is the hilly and mountainous tract called the Deccan.

THE ARYAN INVADERS.--The history of India opens with glimpses of a struggle on the borders of the great rivers,--first of the Indus and then of the Ganges,--between an invading race, the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans from the north-west, and the dusky aborigines. These rude native tribes have left few relics but their tombs. Before they tenanted the soil, there dwelt upon it still earlier inhabitants, whose implements were of stone or bronze. The incoming people referred to above were of that Indo-European stock to which we belong. From their home, perhaps in central Asia, they moved in various directions. A part built up the Persian kingdom; another portion migrated farther, and were the progenitors of the Greek nation; and a third founded Rome. The Indian Aryans migrated southward from the headwaters of the Oxus at some time prior, doubtless, to 2000 B.C. Our knowledge of them is derived from their ancient sacred books, the _Vedas_; of these the oldest, the _Rig-Veda_, contains ten hundred and seventeen lyrics, chiefly addressed to the G.o.ds. Its contents were composed while the Aryans dwelt upon the Indus, and while they were on their way to the neighborhood of the Ganges. The Rig-Veda, therefore, exhibits this people in their earliest stage of religious and social development. They were herdsmen, but with a martial spirit, which enabled them by degrees to drive out the native tribes, and compel them to take refuge in the mountains on the north, or on the great southern plateau. Among them women were held in respect, and marriage was sacred. There are beautiful hymns written by ladies and queens. No such cruel custom as the burning of widows existed: it was of far later origin. They were acquainted with the metals. Among them were blacksmiths, coppersmiths, goldsmiths, carpenters, and other artisans. They fought from chariots, but had not come to employ elephants in war. They were settled in villages and in towns. Mention is made of ships, or river-boats, as in use among them. They ate beef, and drank a sort of fermented beer made from the _soma_ plant.

THE VEDIC RELIGION.--The early religion of the Indian Aryans was quite different from the system that grew up later among them. We do not find in it the dreamy pantheism that appears afterwards. It is cheerful in its tone, quite in contrast with the gloomy asceticism which is stamped on it in after times. The head of each family is priest in his own household. It is only the great tribal sacrifice which is offered by priests set apart for the service. The worship is polytheistic, but not without tendencies to monotheism. The princ.i.p.al divinities are the powers of nature. The deities (_deva_) were the heavenly or the shining ones. "It was the beautiful phenomenon of light which first and most powerfully swayed the Aryan mind." The chief G.o.ds were the Father-heaven; Indra, the G.o.d of thunder and of rain, from whom the refreshing showers descended; Varuna, the encompa.s.sing sky; and Agni, the G.o.d of fire. Among these _Indra_, from his beneficence, more and more attracted worship. _Soma_, too, was worshiped; soma being originally the intoxicating juice of a plant. _Brihaspati_, the lord of prayer, personifying the omnipresent power of prayer, was adored. Thirty-three G.o.ds in all were invoked. The bodies of the dead were consumed on the funeral-pile. The soul survived the body, but the later doctrine of transmigration was unknown. All the attributes of sovereign power and majesty were collected in _Varuna_. No one can fathom him, but he sees and knows all. He is the upholder of order; just, yet the dispenser of grace, and merciful to the penitent. Worship is made up of oblations and prayers. It must be sincere. The G.o.ds will not tolerate deceit. They require faith. Of the last things and the last times the Rig-Veda hardly speaks. The Vedic hymns have much to say of the origin of things, but little, except in the last book, of the final issues.

There are four Vedas,--the _Rig-Veda_, which has the body of hymns; the _Yajur-Veda_, in which the prescribed formulas to be used in acts of sacrifice are collected; the _Sama-Veda_, containing the chants; and the _Atharva-Veda_, a collection of hymns, in part of a later date. Besides, each Veda contains, as a second part, one or more Brahmanas, or prose treatises on the ceremonial system. In addition, there are theological works supplementary, and of later origin,--the intermediate _Aranyakas_, and the _Upanishads_, which are of a speculative cast.

Not only is nature--mountains, rivers, trees, etc.--personified in the Vedas: the animals--as the cow, the horse, the dog, even the apparatus of worship, the war-chariot, the plow, and the furrow--are addressed in prayer. The sacrificial fire is deified in _Agni_, the sacrificial drink in _Soma_. Indra has for his body-guards the _Maruts_, G.o.ds of the storm and lightning. He is a warlike G.o.d, standing in his chariot, but also a beneficent giver of all good gifts. _Varuna_ is the G.o.d of the vast luminous heavens, in their serene majesty. _Indra_, on the other hand, represents the atmosphere in its active and militant energy. The number of the G.o.ds is variously given. In pa.s.sages, they are said to be many thousands.

RITES.--There is no hierarchy among the G.o.ds. But there is a tendency to confuse the attributes of the different divinities. Occasionally, for the time being, one eclipses all the rest, and is addressed as if all others were forgotten. There is sometimes a tendency to regard them as all one, under different names. But this tendency develops itself later. Offerings consisted of rice, cakes, soma, etc. Victims also were sacrificed, the horse especially; also the goat, the buffalo, and other animals. Sacrifice purchases the gifts and favor of the G.o.ds. It is an expression of grat.i.tude and dependence. It has, moreover, a deep, mysterious energy of an almost magical character.

THE ARYANS ON THE GANGES.--Later, but earlier than 1000 B.C., we find that the Aryan invaders have moved onward in their career of conquest, and have planted themselves on the plains of the Ganges. A marvelous transformation has taken place in their social const.i.tution, their religion, and in their general spirit. The caste system has sprung up, of which there are few traces in the Rig-Veda. In the first or lowest of these distinct cla.s.ses are the _Sudras_, or despised serfs, who are the subjugated aborigines; the second, or next higher, cla.s.s is composed of the tillers of the soil, who are of a lower rank than the third, the warrior caste. These, in turn, fall below the _Brahmans_, or priests, who, as rites of worship grew more complicated, and superst.i.tion increased, gained, though not without a struggle, a complete ascendency. This marks the beginning of the sacerdotal era. The tendency of the farmer caste was to decrease, until, in modern times, in various provinces they are hardly found. The supremacy of the Brahmans was largely owing to their eminence as the great literary caste. They arose out of the families by whom the hymns had been composed, and who managed the tribal sacrifices. They alone understood the language of the hymns and the ritual. _Brahman_, in the earliest Veda, signifies a worshiper.

BRAHMINICAL PANTHEISM.--The polytheism of the earlier type of religion was converted into pantheism. _Brahma_, the supreme being, is impersonal, the eternal source of all things, from which all finite beings--G.o.ds, nature, and men--emanate. It is by _emanation_,--an outflow a.n.a.logous to that of a stream from its fountain, in distinction from _creation_, implying will and self-consciousness,--that all derived existences emerge into being. With this doctrine was connected the belief in the transmigration of souls. All animated beings, including plants as well as animals, partake of the universal life which has its origin and seat in Brahma. Alienation from Brahma, finite, individual being, is evil. To work the way back to Brahma is the great aim and hope. Absorption in Brahma, return to the primeval essence, is the supreme good. The sufferings of the present are the penalty of sins committed in a pre-existent state. If they are not purged away, the soul is condemned to be embodied again and again,--it may be, in some repulsive animal. This process of metempsychosis might be repeated far into the indefinite future. With the doctrine of Brahma and of transmigration was connected the feeling that all life is sacred. The Brahman spared even trees and plants from destruction. Pollution or defilement might be contracted in a great variety of ways. There grew out of these ideas of sin, rigorous penances, most painful forms of self-torment. It was only by practices of this sort that there was hope of avoiding the retribution so much dreaded.

THE BRAHMINICAL CODES.--The princ.i.p.al of these codes is the _Laws of Manu_. Manu was imagined to be the first human being, conceived of as a sage. This code is a digest compiled by the priests at a date unknown, but comprising in it materials of a very high antiquity. Hence, while exhibiting Brahmanism in its maturer form, it affords glimpses of society at a much earlier date. A second code was compiled not earlier than the second century A.D. These codes present Hindu law under three heads: (1) domestic and civil rights and duties, (2) the administration of justice, (3) purification and penance. In truth, the codes prescribe regulations for every department of life. The obligations of kings, of Brahmans, and of every other cla.s.s, are defined in detail. One motive that is kept in view is to set forth and fortify the special privileges of the Brahminical order.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMINS.--In process of time, commentaries on the Vedas were multiplied. Discord arose in the interpretation of the sacred books. Out of this debate and confusion there emerged, in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., several philosophical systems. These aimed to give peace to the soul by emanc.i.p.ating it from the bondage of matter, and by imparting a sense of independence of the body and of the external world.

These old philosophies are preserved in the _Upanishads_, or Instructions. The main idea in these diverse systems--the _Sankhya_, the _Vedanta_, etc.--is, that the soul's notion of itself as separate from the supreme, impersonal being, is the fallen state. This duality must be overcome. Conscious of its ident.i.ty with the Supreme, the soul enters into _yoga_, or the state of unison with the Infinite. He who is thus taken away from the illusions of sense, or the _yogin_, is free from the power of things perishable. Death brings a complete absorption into the source of all being. It is the bliss of personal extinction. This sort of philosophy attached great value to contemplation and self-renunciation. It led to a light esteem of ritual practices and ceremonies.

BUDDHISM.

The Brahminical system has not ceased to maintain its supremacy in India since the time when it was presented to view in the law-codes. But it has not escaped alteration and attack. New movements, religious and political, have appeared to modify its character. Of these, Buddhism is by far the most memorable.

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA.--Of the life of Buddha we have only legendary information, where it is impossible to separate fact from romance. The date of his death was between 482 and 472 B.C. He was then old. He belonged to the family of Gautamas, who were said to be of the royal line of the cakyas, a clan having its seat about a hundred and thirty-seven miles north of Benares. The story is, that, brought up in luxury, and destined to reign, he was so struck with the miseries of mankind, that, at the age of twenty-nine, he left his parents, his young wife, and an only son, and retired to a solitary life to meditate upon the cause of human suffering. From Brahminical teachers he could obtain no solution of the problem. But after seven years of meditation and struggle, during which sore temptations to return to a life of sense and of ease were successfully resisted, he attained to truth and to peace. For forty-four years after this he is said to have promulgated his doctrine, gathering about him disciples, whom he charged with the duty of spreading it abroad.

THE BUDDHISTIC DOCTRINE.--Buddhism was not a distinct revolt against the reigning system of religion. Buddha left theology to the Brahmans. Indra, Agni, and the other divinities, and the services rendered to them, he left untouched. Being an anchorite, he was not required to concern himself with the rites and observances in which others took part. His aim was practical. His doctrine, though resting on a theoretical basis, was propounded simply as a way of salvation from the burdens that oppressed the souls of men. Nor did he undertake a warfare against caste. The blessing of deliverance from the woes of life he opened to all without distinction. This was the limit of his opposition to caste.

THE ROAD TO NIRVANA.--Buddha taught, (1) that existence is always attended with misery; (2) that all modes of misery result from pa.s.sion, or desire unsatisfied; (3) that desire must be quenched; (4) that there are four steps in doing this, and thus of arriving at NIRVANA, which is the state in which self is lost and absorbed, and vanishes from being. These four ways are (1) the awakening to a perception of the nature and cause of evil, as thus defined; (2) the consequent quenching of impure and revengeful feelings; (3) the stifling of all other evil desires, also riddance from ignorance, doubt, heresy, unkindliness, and vexation; (4) the entrance into Nirvana, sooner or later, after death. The great boon which Buddha held out was escape from the horrors of transmigration. He attributed to the soul no substantial existence. It is the _Karma_, or another being, the successor of one who dies, the result and effect of all that he was, who re-appears in case of transmigration. Buddhism involved atheism, and the denial of personal immortality, or, where this last tenet was not explicitly denied, uncertainty and indifference respecting it. On the foundation of Buddha's teaching, there grew up a vast system of monasticism, with ascetic usages not less burdensome than the yoke of caste. The attractive feature of Buddhism was its moral precepts. These were chiefly an inculcation of chast.i.ty, patience, and compa.s.sion; the unresisting endurance of all ills; sympathy and efficient help for all men.

DEIFICATION OF BUDDHA.--By the pupils of Buddha he was glorified. He was placed among the Brahminical G.o.ds, by whom he was served. A mult.i.tude of cloisters were erected in his honor, in which his relics were believed to be preserved. On the basis of the simpler doctrine and precepts of the founder, there acc.u.mulated a ma.s.s of superst.i.tious beliefs and observances.

THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM.--After the death of Buddha, it is said that his disciples, to the number of five hundred, a.s.sembled, and divided his teaching into three branches,--his own words, his rules of discipline, and his system of doctrine. During the next two centuries Buddhism spread over northern India. One of the most conspicuous agents in its diffusion was _Asoka_, the king of Behar, who was converted to the Buddhistic faith, and published its tenets throughout India. His edicts, in which they were set forth, were engraved on rocks and pillars and in caves. He organized missionary efforts among the aborigines, using only peaceful means, and combining the healing of disease, and other forms of philanthropy, with preaching. He carried the Buddhistic faith as far as _Ceylon_. It spread over _Burmah_ (450 A.D.). _Siam_ was converted (638 A.D.), and _Java_ between the fifth and seventh centuries of our era. Through Central Asia the Buddhistic missionaries pa.s.sed into _China_ in the second century B.C., and Buddhism became an established system there as early as 65 A.D. At present, this religion numbers among its professed adherents more than a third of the human race.

THE BRAHMINICAL RE-ACTION.--In India Buddhism did not supplant the old religion. The Brahmans modified their system. They made their theology more plain to the popular apprehension. They took up Buddhistic speculations into their system. But they rendered their ceremonial practices more complex and more burdensome. Their ascetic rule grew to be more exacting and oppressive. In diffusing and making popular their system, customs, like the burning of widows, were introduced, which were not known in previous times. The divinities, _Brahma_, the author of all things, _Vishnu_ the preserver, and _Siva_ the destroyer, were brought into a relation to one another, as a sort of triad. Successive incarnations of Vishnu became an article of the creed, _Krishna_ being one of his incarnate names. For centuries Brahmanism and Buddhism existed together. Gradually Buddhism decayed, and melted into the older system; helping to modify its character, and thus to give rise to modern Hinduism. For ten centuries Buddhism, with mult.i.tudinous adherents abroad, has had no existence in the land of its birth.

THE GREEK-ROMAN PERIOD.--In 327 B.C., _Alexander the Great_ advanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab, which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the kings, _Porus_, who disputed the pa.s.sage of the river Jhelum. The heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established alliances, and left garrisons. On the death of Alexander (323 B.C.) and the division of his empire, Bactria and India fell to the lot of Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy. About this time a new kingdom grew up in the valley of the Ganges, under the auspices of _Chandra Gupti_, a native. After various conflicts, Seleucus ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab to this prince, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage. The successors of Seleucus sent Graeco-Bactrian expeditions into India. Thus Greek science and Greek art exerted a perceptible influence in Hindustan. During the first six centuries of the Christian era, Scythian hordes poured down into northern India. They were stoutly resisted, but effected settlements, and made conquests. The events as well as the dates of the long struggle are obscure. The non-Aryan races of India, both on the north and on the south of the Ganges, many of whom received the Buddhistic faith, were not without a marked influence--the precise lines of which it is difficult to trace--upon the history and life of India during the period of Greek and Scythic occupation and warfare. The _Dravidian_ people in southern India, made up of non-Aryans, number at present forty-six millions.

LITERATURE.--Mill's _History of India_ (Wilson's edition, 9 vols.); MONIER WILLIAMS, _Indian Wisdom_; Max Muller's _History of Sanskrit Literature_; EARTH'S _The Religions of India_, 1882; _Encycl. Brit._, Arts. _India, Brahmanism, Buddhism_.

SECTION II. THE EARLIEST GROUP OF NATIONS.

CHAPTER I. EGYPT.

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.--When the curtain that hides the far distant past is lifted, we find in the valley of the Nile a people of a dark color, tinged with red, and a peculiar physiognomy, who had long existed there. Of their beginnings, there is no record. It is not likely that they came down the river from the south, as some have thought; more probably they were of Asiatic origin. Their language, though it certainly shows affinities with the Semitic tongues in its grammar, is utterly dissimilar in its vocabulary: its modern descendant is the Coptic, no longer a spoken dialect. The Egyptians were of the Caucasian variety, but not white like the Lybians on the west. On the east were tribes of a yellowish complexion and various lineage, belonging to the numerous people whom the Egyptians designated as _Amu_. On the south, in what was called _Ethiopia_, was a negro people; and, also beyond them and eastward, a dusky race, of totally different origin, a branch of the widely diffused _Cus.h.i.tes_.

THE NILE: DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY.--Egypt (styled by its ancient inhabitants, from the color of the soil deposited by the Nile, _Kem_ or the Black Land, and by the Hebrews called _Mizraim_) is the creation of the great river. "Egypt," says Herodotus, "is the gift of the Nile;" and this is not only true, as the historian meant it, physically, because it is the Nile that rescued the land from the arid waste by which it is bordered; but the course of Egyptian history--the occupations, habits, and religion of the people--was largely determined by the characteristics of the river. The sources of the Nile have had in all ages the fascination of mystery, and have been a fruitful theme for conjecture. It was reserved for modern explorers to ascertain that it takes its rise in equatorial Africa, in the two great lakes, the _Albert_ and _Victoria Nyanzas_. From that region, fed by few tributaries, it flows to the Mediterranean, a distance of two thousand miles, but breaks, as it nears the sea, into two main and several minor arms. These spread fruitfulness over the broad plain called, from its shape, the _Delta._ Above the Delta the fringe of productive land has a width of only a few miles on either side of the stream. Its fertility is due to the yearly inundation which, as the effect of the rainfall of Abyssinia, begins early in July, and terminates in November, when the river, having slowly risen in the interval to an average height of twenty-three or twenty-four feet, reaches in its gradual descent the ordinary level. This narrow belt of territory, annually enriched with a layer of fertile mud, is in striking contrast with the barren regions, parched by the sun, on either side, with the long chain of Arabian mountains that adjoin it on the east, and with the low hills of the Lybian desert on the west. By dikes, ca.n.a.ls, and reservoirs, the beneficent river from the most ancient times has been made to irrigate the land above, where are the towns and dwellings of the people, and thus to extend and keep up its unrivaled fertility. The country of old was divided into two parts,--_Upper Egypt,_ as it is now called, with _Thebes_ for its princ.i.p.al city, extending from the first cataract, near _Syene,_ to the Memphian district; and _Lower Egypt,_ embracing the rest of the country on the north, including the Delta. The two divisions were marked by differences of dialect and of customs. The country was further divided into _nomes,_ or districts, about forty in all, but varying in number at different times. They were parted from one another by boundary stones. Each had its own civil organization, a capital, and a center of worship.

EARLY CULTURE.--At a far remote day, there existed in Lower Egypt an advanced type of culture. Sepulchers, with their inscriptions and sculptures, were made of so solid material that they have remained to testify to this fact. When the pyramids were built, mechanical skill was highly developed, Egyptian art had reached a point beyond which it scarcely advanced, and the administration of government had attained substantially to the form in which it continued to exist. The use of writing, the division of the year, the beginnings of the sciences and of literature, are found in this earliest period. Egyptian culture, as far as we can determine, was not borrowed. It was a native product. The earliest period was the period of most growth. The prevailing tendency was to crystallize all arts and customs into definite, established forms, and to subject every thing to fixed rules. The desire to preserve what had been gained overmastered the impulses to progress: individuality and enterprise were blighted by an excessive spirit of conservatism. Moreover, the culture of the Egyptians never disengaged itself from its connection with every-day practical needs, or the material spirit that lay at its root. They did not, like the Greeks, soar into the atmosphere of theoretical science and speculation. They did not break loose from the fetters of tradition.

THE HIEROGLYPHICS.--We owe our knowledge of ancient Egypt chiefly to hieroglyphical writing. The hieroglyphs, except those denoting numbers, were pictures of objects. The writing is of three kinds. The _first_, the hieroglyphical, is composed of literal pictures, as a circle, O, for the sun, a curved line for the moon, a pointed oval for the mouth. The _second_ sort of characters, the hieratic, and the _third_, the demotic, are curtailed pictures, which can thus be written more rapidly. They are seldom seen on the monuments, but are the writing generally found on the papyrus rolls or ma.n.u.scripts. They are written from right to left. The hieroglyphs proper may be written either way, or in a perpendicular line. In the demotic, or people's writing, the characters are somewhat more curtailed, or abridged, than in the hieratic, or priestly, style. There were four methods of using the hieroglyphics in historical times. _First_, there were the primary, representational characters, the literal pictures. _Secondly_, the characters were used figuratively, as symbols. Thus a circle, O, meant not only the sun, but also "day"; the crescent denoted not only the moon, but also "a month;" a pen and inkstand signified "writing,"

etc. So one object was subst.i.tuted for another a.n.a.logous to it,--as the picture of a boot in a trap, which stood for "deceit." A conventional emblem, too, might represent the object. Thus, the hawk denoted the sun, two water-plants meant Upper and Lower Egypt.

_Thirdly_, hieroglyphics were used as determinatives. That is, an object would be denoted by letters (in a way that we shall soon explain), and a picture be added _to determine_, or make clear, what was meant. After proper names, they designated the s.e.x; after the names of other cla.s.ses, as animals, they specified the particular genus. _Fourthly_, the bulk of the hieroglyphs are phonetic. They stand for sounds. The picture stood for the initial sound of the name of the object depicted. Thus the picture of an eagle, _akhom_, represented "A." Unfortunately, numerous objects were employed for a like purpose, to indicate the same sound. Hence the number of characters was multiplied. The whole number of signs used in writing is not less than nine hundred or a thousand. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone--a large black slab of stone--with an identical inscription in hieroglyphics, in demotic and in Greek, furnished to _Champollion_ (1810) and to _Young_ the clew to the deciphering of the Egyptian writing, and thus the key to the sense of the monumental inscriptions. The Egyptian ma.n.u.scripts were made of the pith of the byblus plant, cut into strips. These were laid side by side horizontally, with another layer of strips across them; the two layers being united by paste, and subjected to a heavy pressure. The Egyptians wrote with a reed, using black and red ink.

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY.--These are (1) the inscriptions on the monuments. These, it must be remembered, are commonly in praise of the departed, and of their achievements. (2) The list of kings in the Turin papyrus, a very important Egyptian ma.n.u.script, discovered by Champollion. (3) _Manetho_. An Egyptian priest, he wrote, about 250 B.C., a history. Only his lists of dynasties are preserved as given in an Armenian version of _Eusebius_, a writer of the fourth century, and in _George Syncellus_, a writer of the eighth century, who professed to embody the statements of Eusebius and of another author, _Julius Africa.n.u.s_, probably of the second century, who had also quoted the lists of Manetho. Manetho is of great importance; but we do not know accurately what his original text was, it being so differently reported. His details frequently clash with the monuments. Moreover, the method adopted by him in making his lists is, in essential points, subject to doubt. (4) The Greek historians. _Herodotus_ had visited Egypt (between 460 and 450 B.C.), and conferred with Egyptian priests. _Diodorus_, also, in the time of Julius Caesar, had visited Egypt. He is largely a copyist of Herodotus. (5) The Old Testament. Here we have many instructive references to Egypt. But, until Rehoboam, the kings of Egypt have in the Scriptures the general name of _Pharaoh_. Hence it is not always easy to identify them with corresponding kings on the Egyptian lists.

CHRONOLOGY.--The date of the beginning of the first dynasty of Egyptian rulers is a controverted point; there are advocates of a longer and of a shorter chronology. The data are not sufficient to settle accurately the questions in dispute. Some judicious scholars put the beginning of _the first dynasty_ as early as 5000 B.C.; others have wished to bring it down even lower than 3000 B.C. Egyptian history, prior to the Persian conquest (525 B.C.), divides itself into three sections,--the _Old Empire_, having its seat at Memphis; the _Middle Empire_, following upon a period of strife and division, and embracing the rule of foreign invaders, _the Hyksos;_ and the _New Empire_, the era of conquest, by foreign power, and of downfall.

The expedition of Shishak, king of Egypt, against Rehoboam, is ascertained, from both Egyptian and Hebrew sources, to have been not earlier than 971 B.C., and within twenty-five years of that date. The nineteenth Egyptian dynasty began about the year 1350 B.C. The Middle Empire is thought by some to have commenced as early as 2200 B.C.; by others as late as 1720 B.C. When we go backward into the Old Empire, the sources of uncertainty are multiplied. The main difficulty is to determine whether the lists of dynasties are _consecutive_ throughout, or in part _contemporary_. One cla.s.s of scholars place the date of the first historic king, _Menes_, two or three thousand years earlier than the point a.s.signed by the other cla.s.s! The date of Menes given by _Bockh_ is 5702 B.C.; by _Lenormant_, 5004 B.C.; by _Brugsch_, 4455 B.C.; by _Lepsius_, 3852 B.C.; by _Bunsen_, 3623 or 3059 B.C.; _E. Meyer_ makes 3180 B.C. the lowest possible date for Menes; 3233 B.C. is the date a.s.signed by _Duncker_. On the contrary, _R. S. Poole_ gives 2717 B.C.; _Wilkinson_, 2691 B.C.; and _G. Rawlinson_, between 2450 and 2250 B.C. There are no means of fully determining the controversy, as Rawlinson has shown (_History of Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii., p. 19). It appears to be well ascertained that Egyptian civilization was in being at least as far back as about 4000 B.C.

THE POLITICAL SYSTEM.--The bulk of the people were farmers and shepherds, indisposed to war. The land was owned in large estates by the n.o.bles, who were possessed of mult.i.tudes of serfs and of cattle. They had in their service, also, artisans, oarsmen, and traffickers. The centers of industry were the numerous cities. Here the n.o.bles had their mansions, and the G.o.ds their temples with retinues of priests. But the Nomes had each its particular jurisdiction. The traces of two original communities are preserved in the mythological legends and in the t.i.tles of the kings. The oldest inscriptions discover to us a systematic organization of the state. The king is supreme: under him are the rulers of the two halves of the kingdom. He creates the army, and appoints its generals. The whole strength of the kingdom is given to him for the erection of the temples which he raises to the G.o.ds, or of the stupendous pyramid which is to form his sepulcher. The n.o.bility make up his court; from them he selects his chief officers of state,--his secretary, his treasurer, his inspector of quarries, etc. The princes and princesses are educated in connection with the children of the highest n.o.bles. A body-guard protects the monarch: he shows himself to the people only in stately processions. All who approach him prostrate themselves at his feet. He is the descendant of the G.o.ds. The Pharaohs are even looked upon as G.o.ds incarnate. They are clothed with all power on earth. When they die, they go to the G.o.ds; and rites of worship are inst.i.tuted for them. That there was a well-ordered and efficient civil administration admits of no doubt. Whether there existed a thrifty middle cla.s.s or not we can not decide. The tendency was for the child to follow the vocation of the parent, but there were no rigid barriers of caste. Not until the New Empire, was there an attempt to build up such a wall even about the priesthood.

THE RELIGION.--With the Egyptians, religion was a matter of supreme and absorbing interest. There was a popular religion; and there arose early, in connection with it, an esoteric or secret doctrine relative to the G.o.ds and to the legends respecting them,--a lore that pertained especially to the priesthood. Moreover, while the religious system, from the earliest date, is polytheistic, we have proof that the educated cla.s.s, sooner or later, put a monotheistic interpretation upon it, and believed in one supreme deity, of whom all the particular G.o.ds were so many forms and manifestations, or that one being under different names. Whether this more elevated faith preceded the reigning system, or was a later offspring of it, is a matter of dispute. For a long period the two co-existed, and without collision.

The great divinities of Egypt are pre-eminently G.o.ds of light. They are a.s.sociated with the SUN. With the agency of that luminary, with his rising and setting, they stand in a close relation. All Egypt worships the sun under the names of _Ra_ and _Horus_. Horus is the adversary of _Seth_ (called _Typhon_ by the Greeks), the G.o.d of darkness, and is born anew every morning to attack and conquer him. In honor of Ra, the lofty obelisks, or symbols of the sun's rays, are erected, each of which has its own name and priests. With the sun-G.o.ds are joined the G.o.ddesses of the heavens,--_Nut_, _Hather_, _Isis_, and others. But _Osiris_ became the most famous sun-G.o.d. His worship was originally at Abydos and Busiris. At length his cult spread over the whole land. In the legend, he is murdered by Seth; but Horus is his avenger. Horus conquers the power of darkness. Henceforward Osiris reigns in the kingdom of the West, the home of the dead. He is the sun in the realm of the shades. He receives the dead, is their protector, and the judge whose final award is blessedness or perpetual misery. The departed, if their lives have not been wicked, become one with him. They are each of them called by his name. To Osiris, all sepulchral inscriptions are addressed. His career, with the victory of the power of darkness over him, and his glorious revival in the regions of the West, typifies human life and destiny. The princ.i.p.al G.o.d at Memphis is _Ptah_, the primal divinity, the former of heaven and earth; yet, perhaps, a G.o.d of light, since he is styled by the Greeks, _Hephaestus_. At Thebes, _Ammon_ was revered as the king of the G.o.ds: he shared in the properties of the sun. _Thoth_ is the chief moon-G.o.d, who presides over the reckoning of time. He is the G.o.d of letters and of the arts, the author of sacred books. The Nile is worshiped under the name of _Hapi_, being figured as a man with pendent b.r.e.a.s.t.s, an emblem of the fertility of the river. The G.o.ds were often connected in triads, there being in each a father, a mother, and a son. To bring to them the right offerings, and to repeat the right formulas, was a matter of momentous concern. Homage was directed to the material objects with which the activity of the G.o.d was thought to be connected, and in which he was believed to be present. All nature was full of deities. There were sacred trees, stones, utensils. Above all, animals, in their mysterious life, were identified with the divinities. Worship was offered to the crocodile, the cat, the bull, etc. In the temples these creatures were carefully tended and obsequiously served.

EMBALMING.--Believing that the soul survives death, the Egyptians linked its weal with the preservation of the body, from which they could not conceive its destiny to be wholly dissevered. Thus arose the universal practice of embalming, and of presenting, at intervals, offerings of food and drink to the departed. The tomb contains a room for sacred services to the dead. The most ancient structures are sepulchers. They were the germ of the pyramid, in which rested the sarcophagus of the king.

RELIGION AND MORALITY.--The leading G.o.ds were held to be the makers of the world and of men, the givers of good, the rulers and disposers of all things. Morality was not separated from religion. The G.o.ds punished unrighteousness and inhumanity. In the age of the pyramid-builders, family life was not wanting in purity; the wife and mother was held in respect: monogamy prevailed. _Ma-t_ was the G.o.ddess of truth: in the myth of Osiris, it is in her hall that the dead are judged.

THE PRIESTS.--The priests are the guardians of religious rites. They are acquainted with the origin and import of them. Their knowledge is communicated only to select believers. It was a body of traditions, guarded as a mysterious treasure. But the priests, certainly until a late period, do not control the king. The civil authority is uppermost.

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.--The most important Egyptian book that has come down to us is the _Book of the Dead._ It relates, in a mystical strain, the adventures of the soul after death, and explains how, by reciting the names and t.i.tles of numberless G.o.ds, and by means of other theological knowledge, the soul can make its way to the hall of Osiris. It is a monument of the pedantic and punctilious formalism of the Egyptian ritual. Most of the papyri that have been preserved are of a religious character. There are songs not void of beauty. The moral writings are of a decidedly higher grade. Works of fiction are constructed with considerable skill, and are sometimes not wanting in humor. Some of the hymns are not dest.i.tute of merit. It can not be doubted that there were important mathematical writings. Astronomical observations were very early made. In medicine, we have writings which prove that considerable proficiency was attained in this department. But here, as in other branches, the spirit was empirical rather than scientific in the higher sense; and the result was to petrify knowledge in an unalterable form. At length rules of medical treatment, with specific remedies, were definitely settled, from which it was a crime against the state to deviate.

THE OLD EMPIRE (to about 2100 B.C.).--_Senoferu,_ who belongs to the third dynasty, is the first king who has left behind him a monumental inscription. A rock-tablet in the peninsula of Sinai gives him the t.i.tle of conqueror. By some, the pyramid of Meydoun, built in three distinct stages to a height of 125 feet, is ascribed to him, and is believed to be his sepulcher. At Saccarah is a pyramid of like form, 200 feet in height. _Khufu,_ the Cheops of Herodotus, was the builder of the "Great Pyramid" of Ghizeh, the largest and loftiest building on earth. Its original perpendicular height was not less than 480 feet, the length of its side 764 feet, and the area covered by it more than thirteen acres. Near it are the small pyramids, which were the sepulchers of his wives and other relatives. The statues of _Khafra_ remain, and the wooden mummy-case of _Menkaura,_ with the myth of Osiris recorded on it. These were the builders of the two other most celebrated pyramids, the second and the third. With the long reign of _Unas_ closes the first era in Egyptian history. His unfinished pyramid, built of huge blocks of limestone, indicates that he died too soon to complete it. From this date, back to the epoch of _Senoferu_, are included nearly three centuries. In this period of prevalent peace, art had the opportunity to develop. The spirit of progress in this department had not yet been cramped by the "hieratic canon," the fixed rules set for artistic labor. There is evidence of considerable knowledge in anatomy and medicine. The myth of Osiris expanded, and his worship spread.

With the sixth dynasty a new epoch begins. The most powerful monarch in this series is _Pepi_. He levied armies, conquered the negroes of Nubia, and waged war against the nomads of the eastern desert. The interval from the sixth to the tenth dynasty was marked by usurpations and insurrections. The district governors sought to make themselves independent. Monarchs rose and fell. Syrian invaders appear to have seized the occasion to attack the country. _Heliopolis_, with _Tum_ for its sun-G.o.d, is the center of the new symbolical lore of the priesthood. Power is transferred to _Thebes_, and _Ammon_ becomes the embodiment of the monotheistic conception, the supreme deity.