History of the Intellectual Development of Europe Volume I Part 8

Why was it that civilization thus rose on the banks of the Nile, and not upon those of the Danube or Mississippi? Civilization depends on climate and agriculture. In Egypt the harvests may ordinarily be foretold and controlled. Of few other parts of the world can the same be said. In most countries the cultivation of the soil is uncertain. From seed-time to harvest, the meteorological variations are so numerous and great, that no skill can predict the amount of yearly produce. Without any premonition, the crops may be cut off by long-continued droughts, or destroyed by too much rain. Nor is it sufficient that a requisite amount of water should fall; to produce the proper effect, it must fall at particular periods. The labour of the farmer is at the mercy of the winds and clouds.

With difficulty, therefore, could a civilized state originate under such circ.u.mstances. So long as life is a scene of uncertainty, the hope of yesterday blighted by the realities of to day, man is the maker of expedients, but not of laws. In his solicitude as to his approaching lot, he has neither time nor desire to raise his eyes to the heavens to watch and record their phenomena; no leisure to look upon himself, and consider what and where he is. In the imperious demand for a present support, he dares not venture on speculative attempts at ameliorating his state; he is doomed to be a helpless, isolated, spell-bound savage, or, if not isolated, the companion of other savages as care-worn as himself. Under such circ.u.mstances, however, if once the preliminary conditions and momentum of civilization be imparted to him, the very things which have hitherto tended to depress him produce an opposite effect. Instead of remaining in sameness and apathy, the vicissitudes to which he is now exposed urge him onward; and thus it is that, though the civilization of Europe depended for its commencement on the sameness and stability of an African climate, the conquests of Nature which mark its more advanced stage have been made in the trying life of the temperate zone.

[Sidenote: Agriculture in a rainless country.]

There is a country in which man is not the sport of the seasons, in which he need have no anxieties for his future well-being--a country in which the suns.h.i.+nes and heats vary very little from year to year. In the Thebaid heavy rain is said to be a prodigy. But, at the time when the Dog-star rises with the sun, the river begins to swell; a tranquil inundation by degrees covering the land, at once watering and enriching it. If the Nilometer which measures the height of the flood indicates eight cubits, the crops will be scanty; but if it reaches fourteen cubits, there will be a plentiful harvest. In the spring of the year it may be known how the fields will be in the autumn. Agriculture is certain in Egypt, and there man first became civilized. The date-tree, moreover, furnishes to Africa a food almost without expense. The climate renders it necessary to use, for the most part, vegetable diet, and but little clothing is required.

[Sidenote: Rainless countries of the West.]

The American counterpart of Egypt in this physical condition is Peru, the coast of which is also a rainless district. Peru is the Egypt of civilization of the Western continent. There is also a rainless strand on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It is an incident full of meaning in the history of human progress, that, in regions far apart, civilization thus commenced in rainless countries.

In Upper Egypt, the cradle of civilization, the influence of atmospheric water is altogether obliterated, for, in an agricultural point of view, the country is rainless. Variable meteorological conditions are there eliminated.

[Sidenote: Inundations of the Nile.]

[Sidenote: Gradual rise of the whole country.]

Where the Nile breaks through the mountain gate at Essouan, it is observed that its waters begin to rise about the end of the month of May, and in eight or nine weeks the inundation is at its height. This flood in the river is due to the great rains which have fallen in the mountainous countries among which the Nile takes its rise, and which have been precipitated from the trade-winds that blow, except where disturbed by the monsoons, over the vast expanse of the tropical Indian Ocean. Thus dried, the east wind pursues its solemn course over the solitudes of Central Africa, a cloudless and a rainless wind, its track marked by desolation and deserts. At first the river becomes red, and then green, because the flood of its great Abyssinian branch, the Blue Nile, arrives first; but, soon after, that of the White Nile makes its appearance, and from the overflowing banks not only water, but a rich and fertilizing mud, is discharged. It is owing to the solid material thus brought down that the river in countless ages has raised its own bed, and has embanked itself with shelving deposits that descend on either side toward the desert. For this reason it is that the inundation is seen on the edge of the desert first, and, as the flood rises, the whole country up to the river itself is laid under water. By the middle of September the supply begins to fail and the waters abate; by the end of October the stream has returned to its usual limits. The fields are left covered with a fertile deposit, the maximum quant.i.ty of which is about six inches thick in a hundred years. It is thought that the bed of the river rises four feet in a thousand years, and the fertilized land in its width continually encroaches on the desert. Since the reign of Amenophis III. it has increased by one-third. He lived B.C. 1430. There have acc.u.mulated round the pedestal of his Colossus seven feet of mud.

[Sidenote: Geological age of Egypt.]

In the recent examinations made by the orders of the Viceroy of Egypt, close by the fallen statue of Rameses II., at Memphis, who reigned, according to Lepsius, from B.C. 1394 to B.C. 1328, a shaft was sunk to more than 24 feet. The water which then infiltrated compelled a resort to boring, which was continued until 41 feet 4-1/2 inches were reached.

The whole consisted of Nile deposits, alternate layers of loam and sand of the same composition throughout. From the greatest depth a fragment of pottery was obtained. Ninety-five of these borings were made in various places, but on no occasion was solid rock reached. The organic remains were all recent; not a trace of an extinct fossil occurred, but an abundance of the residues of burnt bricks and pottery. In their examination from Essouan to Cairo, the French estimated the mud deposit to be five inches for each century. From an examination of the results at Heliopolis, Mr. Horner makes it 318 inches. The Colossus of Rameses II. is surrounded by a sediment nine feet four inches deep, fairly estimated. Its date of erection was about 3215 years ago, which gives 3-1/2 inches per century. But beneath it similar layers continue to the depth of 30 feet, which, at the same rate, would give 13,500 years, to A.D. 1854, at which time the examination was made. Every precaution seems to have been taken to obtain accurate results.

[Sidenote: Its geography and topography.]

The extent of surface affected by the inundations of the Nile is, in a geographical point of view, altogether insignificant; yet, such as it was, it const.i.tuted Egypt. Commencing at the Cataract of Essouan, at the sacred island of Philae, on which to this day here and there the solitary palm-tree looks down, it reached to the Mediterranean Sea, from 24 3' N. to 31 37' N. The river runs in a valley, bounded on one side by the eastern and on the other by the Libyan chain of mountains, and of which the average breadth is about seven miles, the arable land, however, not averaging more than five and a half. At the widest place it is ten and three-quarters, at the narrowest two. The entire surface of irrigated and fertile land in the Delta is 4500 square miles; the arable land of Egypt, 2255 square miles; and in the Fyoom, 340 square miles, an insignificant surface, yet it supported seven millions of people.

Here agriculture was so precise that it might almost be p.r.o.nounced a mathematical art. The disturbances arising from atmospheric conditions were eliminated, and the variations, as connected with the supply of river-water, ascertained in advance. The priests proclaimed how the flood stood on the Nilometer, and the husbandman made corresponding preparations for a scanty or an abundant harvest.

In such a state of things, it was an obvious step to improve upon the natural conditions by artificial means; d.y.k.es, and ca.n.a.ls, and flood-gates, with other hydraulic apparatus, would, even in the beginning of society, unavoidably be suggested, that in one locality the water might be detained longer; in another, shut off when there was danger of excess; in another, more abundantly introduced.

[Sidenote: Control of agriculture by the government.]

There followed, as a consequence of this condition of things, the establishment of a strong government, having a direct control over the agriculture of the state by undertaking and supporting these artificial improvements, and sustaining itself by a tax cheerfully paid, and regulated in amount by the quant.i.ty of water supplied from the river to each estate. Such, indeed, was the fundamental political system of the country. The first king of the old empire undertook to turn the river into a new channel he made for it, a task which might seem to demand very able engineering, and actually accomplished it. It is more than five thousand years since Menes lived. There must have preceded his times many centuries, during which knowledge and skill had been increasing, before such a work could even have been contemplated.

[Sidenote: Topographical changes occasioned by the Nile.]

I shall not indulge in any imaginary description of the manner in which, under such favourable circ.u.mstances, the powers of the human mind were developed and civilization arose. In inaccessible security, the inhabitants of this valley were protected on the west by a burning sandy desert, on the east by the Red Sea. Nor shall I say anything more of those remote geological times when the newly-made river first flowed over a rocky and barren desert on its way to the Mediterranean Sea; nor how, in the course of ages, it had by degrees laid down a fertile stratum, embanking itself in the rich soil it had borne from the tropical mountains. Yet it is none the less true that such was the slow construction of Egypt as a habitable country; such were the gradual steps by which it was fitted to become the seat of man. The pulse of its life-giving artery makes but one beat in a year; what, then, are a few hundreds of centuries in such a process?

[Sidenote: The inundations lead to the study of astronomy.]

The Egyptians had, at an early period, observed that the rising of the Nile coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, the Dog-star, and hence they very plausibly referred it to celestial agencies. Men are ever p.r.o.ne to mistake coincidences for causes; and thus it came to pa.s.s that the appearance of that star on the horizon at the rising of the sun was not only viewed as the signal, but as the cause of the inundations.

Its coming to the desired position might, therefore, be well expected, and it was soon observed that this took place with regularity at periods of about 360 days. This was the first determination of the length of the year. It is worthy of remark, as showing how astronomy and religious rites were in the beginning connected, that the priests of the mysterious temple of Philae placed before the tomb of Osiris every morning 360 vases of milk, each one commemorating one day, thus showing that the origin of that rite was in those remote ages when it was thought that the year was 360 days long. It was doubtless such circ.u.mstances that led the Egyptians to the cultivation of historical habits. In this they differed from the Hindus, who kept no records.

[Sidenote: The philosophy of star-wors.h.i.+p.]

The Dog-star Sirius is the most splendid star in the heavens; to the Egyptian the inundation was the most important event upon earth.

Mistaking a coincidence for a cause, he was led to the belief that when that brilliant star emerged in the morning from the rays of the sun, and began to a.s.sert its own inherent power, the sympathetic river, moved thereby, commenced to rise. A false inference like this soon dilated into a general doctrine; for if one star could in this way manifest a direct control over the course of terrestrial affairs, why should not another--indeed, why should not all? Moreover, it could not have escaped notice that the daily tides of the Red Sea are connected with the movements and position of the sun and moon, following those luminaries in the time of their occurrence, and being determined by their respective position as to amount at spring and at neap. But the necessary result of such a view is no other than the admission of the astrological influence of the heavenly bodies; first, as respects inanimate nature, and then as respects the fortune and fate of men. It is not until the vast distance of the starry bodies is suspected that man begins to feel the necessity of a mediator between him and them, and star-wors.h.i.+p pa.s.ses to its second phase.

To what part of the world could the Egyptian travel without seeing in the skies the same constellations? Far from the banks of the Nile, in the western deserts, in Syria, in Arabia, the stars are the same. They are omnipresent; for we may lose sight of the things of the earth, but not of those of the heavens. The air of fate-like precision with which their appointed movements are accomplished, their solemn silence, their incomprehensible distances, might satisfy an observer that they are far removed from the influences of all human power, though, perhaps, they may be invoked by human prayer.

[Sidenote: Principles of Egyptian theology.]

Thus star-wors.h.i.+p found for itself a plausible justification. The Egyptian system, at its highest development, combined the adoration of the heavenly bodies--the sun, the moon, Venus, &c., with the deified attributes of G.o.d. The great and venerable divinities, as Osiris, Pthah, Amun, were impersonations of such attributes, just as we speak of the Creator, the Almighty. It was held that not only has G.o.d never appeared upon earth in the human form, but that such is altogether an impossibility, since he is the animating principle of the entire universe, visible nature being only a manifestation of him.

[Sidenote: G.o.d. Trinities and their persons.]

These impersonated attributes were arranged in various trinities, in each of which the third member is a procession from the other two, the doctrine and even expressions in this respect being full of interest to one who studies the gradual development of comparative theology in Europe. Thus from Amun by Maut proceeds Khonso, from Osiris by Isis proceeds Horus, from Neph by Sate proceeds Anouke. While, therefore, it was considered unlawful to represent G.o.d except by his attributes, these trinities and their persons offered abundant means of idolatrous wors.h.i.+p for the vulgar. It was admitted that there had been terrestrial manifestations of these divine attributes for the salvation of men. Thus Osiris was incarnate in the flesh: he fell a sacrifice to the evil principle, and, after his death and resurrection, became the appointed judge of the dead. In his capacity of President of the West, or of the region of the setting stars, he dwells in the under world, which is traversed by the sun at night.

[Sidenote: Incarnations; fall of man; redemption.]

[Sidenote: The future judgment.]

The Egyptian priests affirmed that nothing is ever annihilated; to die is therefore only to a.s.sume a new form. Herodotus says that they were the first to discover that the soul is immortal, their conception of it being that it is an emanation from or a particle of the universal soul, which in a less degree animates all animals and plants, and even inorganic things. Their dogma that there had been divine incarnations obliged them to a.s.sert that there had been a fall of man, this seeming to be necessary to obtain a logical argument in justification of prodigies so great. For the relief of the guilty soul, they prescribed in this life fasts and penances, and in the future a transmigration through animals for purification. At death, the merits of the soul were ascertained by a formal trial before Osiris in the shadowy region of Amenti--the under world--in presence of the four genii of that realm, and of forty-two a.s.sessors. To this judgment the shade was conducted by Horus, who carried him past Cerberus, a hippopotamus, the gaunt guardian of the gate. He stood by in silence while Anubis weighed his heart in the scales of justice. If his good works preponderated, he was dismissed to the fields of Aahlu--the Elysian Fields; if his evil, he was condemned to transmigration.

[Sidenote: The trial of the dead.]

[Sidenote: Origin of the Greek Hades.]

But that this doctrine of a judgment in another world might not decline into an idle legend, it was enforced by a preparatory trial in this--a trial of fearful and living import. From the sovereign to the meanest subject, every man underwent a sepulchral inquisition. As soon as any one died, his body was sent to the embalmers, who kept it forty days, and for thirty-two in addition the family mourned, the mummy, in its coffin, was placed erect in an inner chamber of the house. Notice was then sent to the forty-two a.s.sessors of the district; and on an appointed day, the corpse was carried to the sacred lake, of which every nome, and, indeed, every large town, had one toward the west. Arrived on its sh.o.r.e, the trial commenced; any person might bring charges against the deceased, or speak in his behalf; but woe to the false accuser. The a.s.sessors then pa.s.sed sentence according to the evidence before them: if they found an evil life, sepulture was denied, and, in the midst of social disgrace, the friends bore back the mummy to their home, to be redeemed by their own good works in future years; or, if too poor to give it a place of refuge, it was buried on the margin of the lake, the culprit ghost waiting and wandering for a hundred years. On these Stygian sh.o.r.es the bones of some are still dug up in our day: they have remained unsepulchred for more than thirty times their predestined century. Even to wicked kings a burial had thus been denied. But, if the verdict of the a.s.sessors was favourable, a coin was paid to the boatman Charon for ferriage; a cake was provided for the hippopotamus Cerberus; they rowed across the lake in the baris, or death-boat, the priest announcing to Osiris and the unearthly a.s.sessors the good deeds of the deceased. Arriving on the opposite sh.o.r.e, the procession walked in solemn silence, and the mummy was then deposited in its final resting-place--the catacombs.

[Sidenote: Ceremonies, creeds, oracles, prophecy.]

From this it may be gathered that the Egyptian religion did not remain a mere speculative subject, but was enforced on the people by the most solemn ceremonies. Moreover, in the great temples, grand processional services were celebrated, the precursors of some that still endure.

There were sacrifices of meat-offerings, libations, incense. The national double creed, adapted in one branch to the vulgar, in the other to the learned, necessarily implied mysteries; some of these were avowedly transported to Greece. The machinery of oracles was resorted to. The Greek oracles were of Egyptian origin. So profound was the respect paid to their commands that even the sovereigns were obliged to obey them. It was thus that a warning from the oracle of Amun caused Necho to stop the construction of his ca.n.a.l. For the determination of future events, omens were studied, entrails inspected, and nativities were cast.

CHAPTER IV.

GREEK AGE OF INQUIRY.

RISE AND DECLINE OF PHYSICAL SPECULATION.

IONIAN PHILOSOPHY, _commencing from Egyptian Ideas, identifies in Water, or Air, or Fire, the First Principle.--Emerging from the Stage of Sorcery, it founds Psychology, Biology, Cosmogony, Astronomy, and ends in doubting whether there is any Criterion of Truth._

ITALIAN PHILOSOPHY _depends on Numbers and Harmonies.--It reproduces the Egyptian and Hindu Doctrine of Transmigration._

ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY _presents a great Advance, indicating a rapid Approach to Oriental Ideas.--It a.s.sumes a Pantheistic Aspect._

RISE OF PHILOSOPHY IN EUROPEAN GREECE.--_Relations and Influence of the Mediterranean Commercial and Colonial System.--Athens attains to commercial Supremacy.--Her vast Progress in Intelligence and Art.--Her Demoralization.--She becomes the Intellectual Centre of the Mediterranean._

_Commencement of the Athenian higher a.n.a.lysis.--It is conducted by_ THE SOPHISTS, _who reject Philosophy, Religion, and even Morality, and end in Atheism._

_Political Dangers of the higher a.n.a.lysis.--Ill.u.s.tration from the Middle Ages._