Moses, imbued with the Egyptian policy, and initiated into the mysteries of the sacerdotal colleges, among many other of their institutions, retained this, of not imparting to his people the doctrine of immortality, which, in all probability, remained, as in Egypt, the peculiar privilege of the priestly order. We find no trace of it in the books of the Hebrews; except in the Arabic poem of Job, which, in fact, does not belong to them. How much this concealment of the doctrine of immortality, deemed by the priests such a master-piece of policy, has repressed the spirit of the people, and impeded every loftier aspiration, is sufficiently made known to us, not only in the history of their government, but also by their still remaining monuments, which are so entirely unconsecrated by the hand of art. The sphinxes and colossal statues, the temples, and the pyramids, those astounding monuments of human activity, and of the power of numbers directed to one end, bear the stamp of greatness, from the extent of their proportions, but by no means that of beauty in their execution. This latter dwells only in those favoured regions of light, to which art and religion are together elevated by the idea of immortality. Although this mysterious policy set bounds to the more free developement of civilization, and the elevation of the people to a higher social grade, it is nevertheless very probable, that it proceeded from purely intellectual views, and the honest intention of laying the foundation of the highest prosperity for the kingdom, and the greatest temporal happiness of the people, by the undisturbed activity of all human energies, and the continued application of them to one political object. The secret doctrine benefited the initiated, while it did not injure the profane. Of an entirely opposite nature, was, as we have seen, that which prevailed in modern Egypt, during the middle ages; the former contrived for the strengthening of the throne and the altar, the latter imagined for their ruin. As wide a chasm, as that which lies between the building of ancient Memphis and the founding of modern Cairo, divides the secret tenets of the academies of Heliopolis from those of the modern house of science. Egypt, in remote antiquity the cradle of science and social institutions, afterwards the mother of alchemy and treasure-hunting, by means of the philosopher’s stone and talismans,—became, in modern times, the native soil of secret sciences and societies.