EGYPT _a mysterious Country to the old Europeans.--Its History, great public Works, and foreign Relations.--Antiquity of its Civilization and Art.--Its Philosophy, hieroglyphic Literature, and peculiar Agriculture._ _Rise of Civilization in rainless Countries.--Geography, Geology, and Topography of Egypt--The Inundations of the Nile lead to Astronomy._ _Comparative Theology of Egypt.--Animal Worship, Star Worship.--Impersonation of Divine Attributes--Pantheism.--The Trinities of Egypt.--Incarnation.--Redemption.--Future Judgment.--Trial of the Dead.--Rituals and Ceremonies._ At this stage of our examination of European intellectual development, it will be proper to consider briefly two foreign influences--Indian and Egyptian--which affected it. [Sidenote: Of Hindu philosophy.] From the relations existing between the Hindu and European families, as described in the preceding chapter, a comparison of their intellectual progress presents no little interest. The movement of the elder branch indicates the path through which the younger is travelling, and the goal to which it tends. In the advanced condition under which we live we notice Oriental ideas perpetually emerging in a fragmentary way from the obscurities of modern metaphysics--they are the indications of an intellectual phase through which the Indo-European mind must pass. And when we consider the ready manner in which these ideas have been adopted throughout China and the entire East, we may, perhaps, extend our conclusion from the Indo-European family to the entire human race. From this we may also infer how unphilosophical and vain is the expectation of those who would attempt to restore the aged populations of Asia to our state. Their intellectual condition has passed onward, never more to return. It remains for them only to advance as far as they may in their own line and to die, leaving their place to others of a different constitution and of a renovated blood. In life there is no going back; the morose old man can never resume the genial confidence of maturity; the youth can never return to the idle and useless occupations, the frivolous amusements of boyhood; even the boy is parted by a long step from the innocent credulity of the nursery. [Sidenote: The phase of sorcery, and anthropocentric phase.] The earlier stages of the comparative theology of India are now inaccessible. At a time so remote as to be altogether prehistoric the phase of sorcery had been passed through. In the most ancient records remaining the Hindu mind is dealing with anthropocentric conceptions, not, however, so much of the physical as of the moral kind. Man had come to the conclusion that his chief concern is with himself. "Thou wast alone at the time of thy birth, thou wilt be alone in the moment of death; alone thou must answer at the bar of the inexorable Judge." [Sidenote: Comparative theology advances in two directions--Matter, Force.]