“In Greece,” says Champollion-Figeac, “the service of the temple was the sole occupation of the priests; in Egypt, they were statesmen governing, so to speak, kings and people in the name of the gods, and monopolizing the administration of justice, the culture of the sciences and their diffusion. We, therefore, find members of this caste everywhere, in all ranks of Egyptian society, and we see by the grants to the lowest grades that they were attached by their titles or office to religion and its ministrants. We find in ancient writings the proper qualifications for the different classes of the priesthood. 67 The monuments show that this class, with its infinite ramifications, was of every grade, the lowest of which was not despised. It was everywhere present by means of a vast hierarchy, which had every gradation from the all-powerful chief pontiff down to the humble porter of the temple and palace, and, perhaps, even their servant.[13] In addition to their religious duties, the learned priests taught in the schools of the temples the arts and sciences, writing, drawing, music, literature, cosmogony, natural and moral philosophy, natural history, and the requirements of religion. The priest had charge of the finances, the assessment and collection of the taxes; priests administered justice, interpreted the laws, and in the king’s name decided all civil and criminal cases. Another sacerdotal division practised medicine and surgery. It is known that the Egyptians were the first to make medicine an art founded on the data of experience and observation.[14] One of the most numerous and most important of the sacerdotal divisions was the scribes, who transcribed the sacred books, the national annals, the documents of all kinds relating to the civil condition of families, property, justice, the administration, and, finally, the ritual of the dead, more or less extended, which piety deposited in the coffins of deceased relatives. Writing in Egypt dates from extreme antiquity. There are inscriptions still to be seen, perfectly legible, in the sepulchral chambers of the great pyramid, constructed by one of the first kings of the fourth dynasty. Champollion-Figeac says the three kinds of writing, hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic, were in general use. He adds that “the hieroglyphic alone was used on the public monuments. The humblest workman could make use of it for the most common purposes, as may be seen by the utensils and instruments of the most common kinds, which, it may be observed, contradicts the incorrect assertions respecting the pretended mystery of this writing, which the Egyptian priests, according to them, made use of as a means of oppressing the common people and keeping them in ignorance.”