Lao-tse, the younger contemporary of Kong-tse, which lays down as the basis of the world, that is of the unreal or non-existent, a supreme principle, _Tao_, or _Being_, corresponds with the Brahma doctrine of the Indians, among whom he lived for a long time; but this doctrine never became popular in China. 3. THE EGYPTIANS. The worship of nature, which is seen in its beginnings among the Chinese, exhibits itself among the Egyptians in a more developed form as theogony. Here also the reflecting mind rose to the recognition of two fundamental principles, the producing and the passive power of nature, Kneph and Neith, from which sprang successively the remaining powers of nature, time, air, earth, light and darkness, personified by the fantasy of the people into as many divinities. The Egyptian mythology also (none has as yet been discovered among the Chinese) exhibits a like character. Fruitfulness and drought, the results of the Nile's overflowing and receding, are imaged in the myth of _Osiris_, _Isis_, and _Typhon_. The 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._