There arc many who consider this circumstance as the real origin, of the animal worship of the Egyptians; as they would be naturally enough led to adore the symboli cal animals thus impressed with the stamp of sacredness . and of mystery, the real meaning and origin of which, their ignorance as well as superstition, forbade them to penetrate. And as the emblem of some animal general ly served to designate the qualities of the ancient heroes of their race, it was of course added to the figure in vari ous ways, as best suited-the taste of the artist, but prin cipally by substituting the head of the animal for that of the person; thus generating the monstrous mixture of the brute and human nature, so prevalent in their mythology.
The engine with which this laborious artifice armed the priesthood, grew in strength as it became successful in excluding the people from all the treasures of know ledge, and the discoveries in natural science, of which the archives were thus placed in the hand of the priests alone. And they took especial care. that the profane and uninitiat ed should not be instructed beyond what suited their pur pose, thus occasioning the very means devised by the blindness of man for the diffusion of knowledge, to be come the immediate cause of its destruction. As the second class of the Egyptian hierarchy were devoted to the duties of sacred writing, and particularly trained to the painting of hieroglyphics, they became the depositaries of the key of knowledge, and were themselves deified by the ignorant multitude, as conceiving their skill to be the result of inspiration, and their power of interpreting the divine will as implying a superior rank in the scale of be ings. This serves to explain the numerous processions of figures similarly disguised with the heads of birds or beasts, and are generally represented in Egyptian pictures as attending the obsequies of the dead. - Moreover, their exclusive acquaintance with natural science, and all the physical knowledge of the day, enabled them to play suc cessively on the credulity of the people by predictions and pretended miracles, which must have given them a very dangerous sway, and proved as detestable a consequence of this artifice, as that of depriving future generations of any benefit from the accumulated knowledge of ancient times. And yet the ruling principle which seems to have inflenced all their exertions in matters of record, appears to have been to insure perpetuity, by the singularly mas sive and gigantic solidity which characterizes their works in architecture and statuary. They had this object clear
ly in view in leaving the legs of their statues attached to each other, and the arms to the body, so as to be less ex posed to accidental injury ; besides that the stone selected was the most solid and durable that could be found. Their labours are obviously for posterity, and solidity prevades every thing that remains of their works; all sorts of pro jections were scrupulously avoided in their statuary; their animals are scarcely ever represented standing, but squat ted solidly on their base, immoveable rocks are sculptur ed, and, instead of being convex, their bassowelievos are made concave. In the durability of these they have suc ceeded, but have greatly outwitted themselves with their painted records, which no doubt exist, but might as well have perished, as they only serve the tantalizing purpose of showing us that they wished to transmit information to posterity, which they conceived so important as to be en graved on the hardest Stone, or painted with scrupulous exactness. But alas, not one ray appears to enable us to penetrate the utter darkness in which their ancient history is enveloped.
To perpetuate was the ruling passion of the Egyptians, and not any love of the arts, or taste for them ; so that the exercise of an elegant accomplishment did not form any motive in their practice of painting, as they do not appear at all to have cultivated the sister arts of music or poetry. Indeed, it is alleged by ancient authors that both music and poetry were proscribed. Strabo says that their festivals and sacrifices were performed in silence, and without the sound of instruments, as in most other coun tries ; but this restriction, if it ever was absolute, became probably relaxed at a later period, as in their ancient pic tures we observe some representations of priests playing on musical instruments : and although the noisy pageant and hilarity of the Greek festival would have ill suited the sombre and gloomy character of Egyptain mythology, which is loaded with dark and mysterious rites; yet their unbending adherence to ancient custom would lead us to conclude, that if at any time musical instruments appear to have been used in their service, the probability is that it was so ab origine.