An examination into the primitive religious beliefs of the Egyptians is full of difficulty. In discovering new papyri, in determining the signification of signs which have been puzzling egyptologists, the inquirer will undoubtedly do good work, and will establish facts which are sure not to lack interest and even importance; but even when documents abound and when every separate word they contain is understood, even then it is very difficult to penetrate to the root of their meaning. A glimpse will be caught of it, I admit, by one of those efforts of inductive divination which distinguish modern research; but even then it will remain to explain the primitive and only half-understood notions of five or six thousand years ago in the philosophical vocabularies of to-day. It is here that the most difficult and irksome part of the task begins. We who represent the old age, or, perhaps, the prime, of humanity, think of these matters and speak of them as abstractions, while the Egyptians, who were children compared to us, thought of them under concrete forms. Their very ideals were material, more or less vague and refined perhaps, but still material. Their only conception of a deity was of a figure larger, more vigorous and more beautiful than mortals; the powers and attributes with which it was endowed were all physical. If we attempt to express their conceptions in abstract terms, we falsify their meaning. We cannot avoid altering it to a certain extent, for exact equivalents are not to be found, and, in spite of all precautions, we give to the confused and childish ideas of ancient religion, a precision which is entirely modern. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--Amenhotep or Amenophis III. presented by Phré to Amen-Ra; Thebes. (Champollion, pl. 344.)]