Were we in possession of no direct historical evidence to prove that down to a late period in the history of Egypt women had not lost their prestige, sufficient evidence would be found in the fact that, notwithstanding the growing tendency of mankind in all the nations of the globe to suppress the female instincts and to reject, conceal, or belittle the woman element in the Deity, still Isis, the gracious mother, retained a prominent place in the god-idea of that country. I am not unmindful of the remarks which a reference to a past age of intellectual and moral greatness will call forth; indeed, I can almost hear some devotee of the present time remark: "So we are asked to regard as a sober fact the existence in the past of a golden age; also to believe that man was created pure and holy, and that he has since fallen from his high estate; in other words, we are to have faith in the ancient tradition of the 'fall of man.'" If by the fall of man we are to understand that a great and universal people, who in a remote age of the world's history had reached a high stage of civilization, gradually passed out of human existence, and that a lower race, which was incapable of attaining to their estate, and which, by the over-stimulation of the lower propensities, sank into a state of barbarism, in which the original sublime conceptions of a Deity were obscured and the great learning of the past was lost, I can see no reason to disbelieve it, especially as all the facts, both of tradition and history, bearing upon this subject unite in proclaiming its truth. After stating that in Chaldea has been found rather the debris of science than the elements of it, Bailly asks: "When you see a house built of old capitals, columns, and other fragments of beautiful architecture, do you not conclude that a fine building has once existed?... If the human mind can ever flatter itself with having been successful in discovering the truth, it is when many facts, and these facts of different kinds, unite in producing the same results." That the descendants of a once mighty nation lapsed into barbarism, forgetting the profound knowledge of the sciences possessed by their ancestors, is a fact too well attested at the present time to be doubted by those who have taken the pains to acquaint themselves with the evidence at hand. Regarding the manner in which this ancient civilization was reached, or concerning the way in which it was achieved, history and tradition are alike silent, although it is believed that the present methods of investigation will, at least in a measure, unravel the mystery. At present we only know that, as far in the remote past as human ken can reach, evidences of a high stage of civilization exist which it must have required thousands upon thousands of years to accomplish. CHAPTER VII. CONCEALMENT OF THE EARLY DOCTRINES.