The value of an artistic result is in proportion to the difficulty of its achievement. The Greek sculptor had nothing beyond the bodily form and the features of man with which to give a distinct individuality to each god and goddess of his mythology; he was therefore obliged to make use of the most delicate and subtle distinctions of feature and contour. This necessity was a great incentive to perfection; it drove him to study the human form with a continuous energy which, unhappily for himself, was not required of the Egyptian sculptor or painter. Art and religion have ever been so closely allied that it was necessary that we should give some account of the original characteristics of the Egyptian beliefs, but we shall make no attempt to describe, or even to enumerate, the chief divinities of the Egyptian pantheon; such an attempt would be foreign to the purposes which we have in view. We have, however, already mentioned most of the chief deities of Egypt, and we shall have occasion to draw the attention of our readers to others, in speaking of the tombs and temples, the statues and bas-reliefs, of the country. Now, each of these gods began by being no more than the local divinity of some particular nome or city. As a city grew in importance, so did its peculiar god, and sometimes it came about that both a dynasty of kings and a divinity were imposed upon Egypt by the power of what we may call their native city. In the course of time a number of successive deities thus held the supreme place, each of whom preserved, even after his fall, some of the dignity which he had acquired during his period of supremacy.