As M. Lenormant has justly and truly observed, go back as far as we will in Egyptian religion, we find there, as a foundation, or first cause, the idea of a divine unity,--a single God, who had no beginning and was to have no end of days,--the primary cause of all. [Footnote: _Chaldean Magic_, 79.] It is true that this idea of unity was early obscured by confounding the energy with its manifestations. Consequently a polytheism was engendered which embraced all nature. Gods and demons struggled for control and in turn were struggled with. In Egypt, in Media, in Chaldea, in Persia, there were wise men, sorcerers, and magicians who sought to put this science into practice, and among this fellowship Moses must always rank foremost. Before, however, entering upon the consideration of Moses, as a necromancer, as a scientist, as a statesman, as a priest, or as a commander, we should first glance at the authorities which tell his history. Scholars are now pretty well agreed that Moses and Aaron were men who actually lived and worked probably about the time attributed to them by tradition. That is to say, under the reign of Ramses II, of the Nineteenth Egyptian dynasty who reigned, as it is computed, from 1348 to 1281 B.C., and under whom the exodus occurred. Nevertheless, no very direct or conclusive evidence having as yet been discovered touching these events among Egyptian documents, we are obliged, in the main, to draw our information from the Hebrew record, which, for the most part, is contained in the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible.