A PELICAN BOOK HENRI FRANKFORT MRS H. A. FRANKFORT JOHN A. WILSON THORKILD JACOBSEN Before Philosophy A study of the primitive myths, beliefs, and speculati of Egypt and Mesopotamia, out of which grew the religions and philosophies of the later world Yer book hea EEEA PELICAN BOOK HENRI FRANKFORT MRS H. A. FRANKFORT JOHN A. WILSON THORKILD JACOBSEN Before Philosophy A study of the primitive myths, beliefs, and speculati of Egypt and Mesopotamia, out of which grew the religions and philosophies of the later world Yer book hea EEEBefore philosophy, in the strict sense of abstect, critical, and methodical thought, eame into being, ‘man's speculations, wea they turned tothe perca- ‘ial problems of self and the univers, were ex rested in myths. These myehs ae noe mere stores, ‘or do they merely digite an abstract trac, They epreseat a. peculiar form of concrete thought, ‘which should be analysed before the attempt ie made to understnd the mind of Ancieot Man, bis ‘moral aod religious preoccupations. “The authors, who have concentrated on the F¥O coldest civilizations known ~ those of Eeypt and ‘Mesopotamia ~have not shieked che Gest task. Just because they aimed at a deeper understanding of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian poins of view ia matters of life and death the function ofthe State, aod the nature of the phenomenal world, they bave ‘taken the problem of myth seiously, ‘They have discussed the emergcnce of Greck philosophy in onde to etces the gulf which separ- ates the babts of thought of the Greeks from those of thee predecessor. Fora compe Ut of books availble ‘plas arie 10 Penguin Books solace adres appears on tbe ac ofthe tte page Aig BEFORE PHILOSOPHYPREFACE ‘Trs book is an attempt to understand the view which the ancient peoples of Egypt and Mesopotamia took ofthe world ia which they lived. They were the most civilized people of thle time; and they have left us a rich and vaved erature ‘which has been deciphered to a large extent during the last hhuadted years. But the modern reader, confconted with the translations, will in most eases feel thatthe deeper meaning codes him. "This is trac even of many texts dealing with the ‘norms of human behaviour ~ the so-aled ‘wisdom literature” ‘of which the books of Proerbs and Ecelsiater in the Old “Testaren ate failae exatples, It's certainly tre ofthe great ‘official inscriptions in which rules define their ask or record theicachievements. And its most conspicuously tue of those ‘writings which claim to elucidate the nature of the universe For these assume throughout the form of myths, ad the med Jey of tales about gods seem to lack a common viewpoint altogether. ‘Yet nothing is more misleading (though nothi ‘common) than a piecemeal interpretation of myths, based on the tacit assumption that the Ancients were preoeccpied with problems very similar to ours, and that theis myths represent A charming but immature way of answering them. We have tried to show in ove fist chapter that such an assumption simply ignores the gulf which separates our habits of thought, ‘our modes of experience fom those remote civilizations, even in cases where man faced perennial problems: the problem of ‘an in nature, the problem of fate the problem of death. We have attempted to penetrate into this alien world of ‘mytho- pci’ ~ myth-making ~ thought and to analyse its peculias logic, inative and its emotional character. The readet ‘ay find this fist chapter the most dificult to follow and he ‘pay prefer to read it after the main sections of the book, ia ‘which the myths and beliefs of Egyptians and Mesopotamians are concretely described.s PREFACE In the lst chapteé we have described how the Hebrews e- duced the mythical element in thei religion to a minimum, and how the Greeks evolved extical from mythopocic thought. ‘This chapter has given rise, among some reviewers of our American edition, tothe misconception that we sing the prise of ntionalism or equate religion with superstition, We may sete, chen, emphatialy that we ae fully aware ofthe creative fanction of myth a living cultural fore and one which sus tains in greater of lesser degree all religious or metaphysical thought any ease it should be ceas that we have conceived of myth throughout as a matte of high seriousness. At the end of each chapter appear Nos refering profes sional reer to Our sources, and Selted Reading for those ‘uafamiliae with our subject. The translations of ancient texts in exch chapter are made by the respective authors except ‘where thei soazee is indicated in the notes; but Mrs H. A. Groene wegen Frankfort is responsible for the poetical render ings of the translations feom Sumerian and Akkadian ia Chapters V-VIL INTRODUCTION H. and H. A. Frankfortcuarrent Myth and Reality In ws look for ‘speculative thought’ in the documents of the ancients, we shall be forced to admit that there is very litle indeed in our writen records which deserves the name of ‘houghe’ in the strict sense of chat term. ‘There are very few -which show the discipline, the cogency of reasoning, ‘which we associate with thinking. The though of the ancient [Near East appeats wrapped in imagination. We consider it fainted with fantasy. But che ancients would not have admited that anything could be abstracted from the conerete imagi- sative forms which they efeus. We should remember that even for us speculative thought islese tigily disciplined than any other form. Speculation ~ as the etymology of the word shows ~ isan intuitive, an almost visionary, mode of apprchension. This does not meaa, of ‘course, that i is mere iesponsible meandering of the mind, ‘which ignores reality or seeks to eseape fom its problems. Speculative thought transcends experience, but only because itattempts to explain, to wnify, to onder experience. It achieves this ead by means of hypotheses. If we use the word in its ‘original sense, then we may say that speculative thought at tempts to andepin the chaos of experience so that it may reveal the features of structure — order, coherence, and meaning. Speculative thought is therefore distinct from mere idle speculation in that it never breaks entixely away from experi- ‘ence. It may be ‘once removed” from the problems of experi ‘ence, but its connected with them in tha it ries to explain them. Tn out own time speculative thought finds its scope more severely limited than it has been at any other period. Fos we possess in science another instrument for the interpretation of ‘experience, one that has achieved marvels snd retains its fll fascination, We do not allow speculative thought, under aaya BEFORE PHILOSOPAY circumstances, to encroach upon the sacred precincts of sci ence. It must not trespass on the ealm of verifiable fact; and it ‘must never pretend to a dignity higher than that of working hypotheses, even in the fields in which it is permitted some scope. ‘Where, then, is speculative thought allowed to range today? Js main concern is with man ~ his nature and his problems, his values and his destiny. For man does not quite succeed in becoming a scientific object to himselE. His need of transcend- ing chaotic experience snd conflicting faets leads him to seck. ‘2 metaphysical hypothesis that may clarify his urgent prob- lems. On the subject of his ‘sel man will, most obstinately, speculate —even today. Whea we tura to the ancient Near East in seach of similar forts, two correlated fats become apparent In the fst place, ‘we find that speculation found vnlimited possibilities for development; i was not restricted by a scientific (that i a disciplined) search for trath. In the second place, we notice that the alm of nature and the realm of man were not distine srished. "The ancients, like the modern savages, sw man always 33 part of society, and society as imbedded in nature and depea- deat upon cosmic forees. For them nature and man did not stand in opposition and did not, therefore, have t be appee- hhended by diferent modes of cognition. We shal see, in fact, in the course ofthis book, that aatual phenomena were segu- lady conceived in tems of human experience and that buran experience was conceived in terms of cosmic evens. We touch hete upon a dstinetion berween the ancients and us which is ofthe utmost sigafiance for out inguiy. "The fundamental difference between the attitudes of modera snd aacient man as regards the surrounding wodd is this: for ‘moder, sccatifie man the phenomenal wold is primaily an “Tes for ancient ~ and also for primitive ~ man it isa "Tow ‘This formulation goes far beyond the usval ‘animistic’ oF ‘personalisti interpretations. It shows up, in fact, the io- sAlequacies ofthese couumonly accepted theories. Fora elation © these two other relationships are as follows MYTH AND REALITY 8 between ‘Vand “Thou is absolutely sé giz. We can best explain is unique quality by comparing ie with evo other modes of cog 3¢ relation between subject and object tal thereon that exits when ‘understand’ snothe living being. ‘The correlation ‘subject-object’is of course, the basis ofall scicotifc thinking; itslone makes tcientife knowledge pos- sible. The second mode of cognition is the curiously dizece knowledge which we gain when we ‘understand? a creature confronting us ~ its far, let us say, or its anger. This, by the ‘way, isa form of knowledge which we bave the hoaode of Shasing with the animals. ‘The diferences between an Tand-Thow scationsip and ‘the identity ofan objec, a persons active In ‘understanding’ a fellow-creature, on the ote hand, a man or an aimal is sentially passive, whatever his subsequent ation may tara fut 1 be Fora frst he reesves aa impression. This type of knowledge is therefore diect, emotional, and inarticulate. Tatellectual knowledge, on the contzry, is emotionally ix ‘erent and articulate. ‘Now the knowledge which T’ bas of ‘Thou hovers berween the active judgment and the passive ‘undergoing of an impres- son’; berween the intellectual and the emotional, the arcuate and the inarticulate ‘Thou’ may be problematic, yt “Thou” Somewhat transparent, “Thou is alive presence, whose qual- ties and potentialities can be made somewhat articulate = not asa result of active inquiry but because “Thou, asa preseace, revealsitel “There is Yet another important diference. An object, an “Te, can always be scientifically elated to other objects and appear as part of a group or a series. Ia this manner science insists on seeing ‘It; hence, science is abe to comprenend objects and events s ruled by univertal laws which make thie behaviour under given circumstances predictable. ‘Thou’, on the other hand, i unique, “Thou has the uaprecedented, un- Panaleled, and unpredicable character of an individual, « presence Knowa only in so fac ast reveals itself “Thou, more4 BEFORE PHILosorny ‘over, is not merely contemplated or understood but is experi- ‘enced emotionally in a dynamic reciprocal relationship. For ‘these reasons there is justification for the aphorism of Craw- ley: Primitive man has only one mode of thought, one mode of expression, one part of speech ~ the personal.” This does ‘not mean (as isso often thought) that primitive man, in ordet ‘to explain natural phenomena, imparts human characteristics to an inanimate world, Primitive man simply does not know an inanimate world. For this very reason he docs not ‘per- sonify’ inanimate phenomena nor does he Sill an empty world ‘with the ghosts of the dead, as ‘animism’ would have us believe. "The world appears to primitive man neither inanimate not empty but redundant with life; and life has individuality, in ‘man and beast and plant, and in every phenomenon which confronts man - the thunderelap, the sudden shadow, the eerie and unknown clearing in the wood, the stone which sud- denly husts him when he stumbles while on a hunting te ‘Any phenomenon may at any time face him, not as It, but as ‘Thou’. In this confrontation, ‘Thou’ reveals its individuality, its qualities, its will. “Thow’ is not contemplated with intel- Tectual detachment; itis experienced as life confronting life, involving every faculty of man in a reciprocal relationship, ‘Thoughts, no less than acts and feelings, are subordinated to this experience. ‘Weare here concerned particularly with thought, It is likely that the ancients recognized certain intellectual problems and asked for the “why" and ‘how’, the ‘where from’ and ‘where to, Even so, we cannot expect in the ancient Near Eastern documents t0 find speculation in the predominantly intellec- tual form with which we are familiar and which presupposes strictly logical procedure even while attempting to transcend it, We have seen that in the ancient Near East, as in present day primitive society, thought does not operate autonomously. ‘The whole man conftonts a living “Thow’ in nature; and the whole maa ~ emotional and imaginative as well as intellectual = gives expression to the experience. All experience of “Thou’ { MYTH AND REALITY y | jshighly ndivideal; and easly man docs, infact, view happen {ngs ax individual evens. An account of such evens and also their can be conceived only as action and neces- sarily take the form of a story. In other words, the ancients tolé myths instead of presenting an analysis of coaclusios. We would explsin, for instance, that certain atmos changes broke a drought and brought about ria. The Baby- Tonians observed the same facts but experienced them as the ‘intervention of the gigantic bird Imdugud which came to their resene. Te covered the sky with the black storm londe of is ‘wings and devoured the Bul of Heaven, whose hot breath had scorthed the cops, telling such a myth, the ancients did aot intend to pro- vide entertinment. Neither did they see, ina detached way and without ulterioe motive, for intelligible explanations of the natural phenomena, They were recounting events in which they were involved tothe extent oftheir very existence. They experienced, directly, a confct of powers, one hostile to the harvest upon which they depended, the other ut beneficial the thunderstorm teprieved them in the nek of time by defeating and utteriy destroying the drought. The images had sleady become traditional atthe time when we sect thera in art and literature, but originally they must have been seenin the revelation which the experience entailed. They ate products of imagination, but they are not mere fantasy It is extential that true myth be distinguished from legend, saga, fable, and fic ale. All these may eetain elements ofthe myth, ‘And ie may also happen that a baroque ot frivolous imagiaa- ‘oa elaborates myths wat they become mere stories. But true ‘myth presents ts images and its imaginary actors, not withthe playfulness of fantasy, but with a compelling authori. It perpetuates the revelation ofa “Thou, ‘Phe imagery of myth is therefore by no means allegory. It is nothing less than a cateflly choten cloak for abstract thought. The imagery is inseparable from the thought. Tt represents the form in which the experience has become com- My, then, isto be taken seiously, because it reveals «6 BEFORE PHILOSOPHY significant, if unverifiable, truth — we might sy a ‘uth. But myth has not the universality and the theoretical statement, Is concrete, though ie claims to be astailable in its valde. Te claims recognition by the faithful; ‘it does not pretend to justification before the critical. “The irrational spect of myth becomes especially clear when, ‘we remember that the ancients were not content mezely t0 recount their myths as stories conveying information. They ‘dramatized them, acknowledging in them a special virtue ‘hich could be activated by recital. (OF the dramatization of myth, Holy Communion is a well. Known example. Another example is found in Babylonia, During each New Years festival the Babylonians re-enacted the victory which Marduk had won over the powers of chaos ‘on the frst New Year's Day, when the world was created. At the annual festival the Bpic of Creation was rected, Teis clear that the did not regard thei story of creation as we might accept the theory of Laplace, for instance, 85 an intellectually satisfying account of how the world came to be 1s itis. Ancient man had not thought out an answer; an answer had been revealed to him in a reciprocal relationship ‘with nature. Ifa question had been answered, man shared that answer with the “Thou’ which had revealed itself. Hence, it seemed wise that man, each yeas, at the critical turn ofthe sea- sons, should proclaim the knowledge which he shazed with the powers, in order to involve them once more in its potent uth. ‘We may, then, summarize the complex character of myth in the following words: Myth is a form of poetry which tran- scends poctry in that it proclaims a truth; a form of reasoning ‘which transcends reasoning in that it wants to bring about the truth it proclaims a form of action, of ritual behaviour, which does not find its flllment in the act but must proclaim and elaborate a poetic form of truth. Te will now be clear why we said at the beginning of this chapter that ous seazch for speculative thought in the ancient ‘Near East might lead to negative results. The detachment of MrrH AND REALITY " {tellectualinguiry is wanting throughout. And yet, within the framework of mythoposie thought, speculation may st in. yen eatly man, eatzngled in the immediacy of his percep tions ecognieed the existence of cerain problems which tan- scend the phenomena. He ‘he problem of origin aod the problem of ls, of the aim and purpose of being. He recognized the iavisble order of justice maintained by his ‘astoms, mores, instcuions; and he connected this invisible ‘order with the visible order, with ts succession of days and fights, seasons and years, obviously maintained by the san. ‘Bacly man evea pondered the hierachy ofthe diffrent powers ‘which he recognized in nature. In the Mempbite Theology, ‘which will be discussed in chapter i, the Egyptians, at one ping, reduced the multiplicity ofthe divine toa truly mono- theistic conception and spiritalized the concept of creation. Nevertheless, they spoke the language of yeh, The teachings fof such documents can be termed ‘speculative’ in recognition oftheir intention if not oftheir peformace. To give an eximple, let us anticipate our colleagues and consider various posible snswers tothe question of how the ‘world came into being. Some modera primitives, the Sbillale, in many respects related t0 the ancient Eeyprians, give che following answer to this question; “Ia the beginning vas Ju-ok the Great Creator, and he ereateda great white cow who eame ‘up out of the Nile and was called Deang Adok. The white cow gave bir to a man-chld whom she aursed and named Kola’? Of such a story (and there are many ofthis type) we can say that sppareatly any form which relates the coming into being as a concretely imagined eveot satisies the inquirer. ‘There is no shadow of speculative thoughe here. Instead there is immediacy of vision ~ concrete, unquestioned, incoase- quent ‘We move one stepfather if the creation is imagined, not ia purely fantastic manner, but by analogy with human con- ditions. Creation is then conesived as birth; and the simplest form isthe postulate ofa primeval couple 2s the parents of all that exists. Ir seems that for the Egyptians, as forthe Greeks and the Maoris, Earth and Sky were the pritneval pair.18 DEVORE PHILOSOPHY “The next step, this time one which leads jn the direction of speculative thought,is taken when creation is conceived as the action of one of the parents. It may be conceived of as birth bbya Great Mother, either a goddess as in Greece, ora demon, 4s in Babylonia. Alternatively it is possible to conceive eres tion as the act of male. In Egypt for instance, the god Atom arose unaided from the primeval waters and started the crea tion of cosmos out of chaos by begetting on himslé the fst pair of gods. ‘In al these ereation stores we remain inthe realm of myth, ‘even though aa element of speculation can be discerned, But ‘we move into the sphere of speculative thought ~ albeit myth- ‘opocie speculative thought when its said that Atumn was the Creator; that his eldest children were Shi and Tefntt, Airand Moisture; that their children were Geb and Nat, Eaeth and ‘Skys and their children, again, the four gods of the Osiris yee through whom (since Osicis was the dead king a8 well a5 god) society is related to the cosmic powers. In this story fof creation we find a defnite cosmological system as the out- ‘come of speculation. ‘Nor does this remain an isolated instance in Egypt. Even chaos itself became a subject of speculation. It was said that the primeval waters were inhabited by eight weird creatures, four fogs and four snakes, male and female, who brought forth Atum the sua-god and creator. This group of eight, this Opdoad, was part, not of the created order, but of chaos itself, a5 the names show. The frst pair was Nan and Naunet, prime val, formless Occan and primeval Matter; the second pair was Hith and Haubet, the Illimitable and the Boundless. Then came Kak and Kauket, Darkness and Obscurity; and, finally, ‘Amoa and Amaunet, the Hidden and Concealed ones — prob- ably the wind. For the wind ‘bloweth where it listeth and thou hhearest the sound thereof but canst aot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth” Job ill:8). Here, surely, i speculative ‘thought in mythotogieal poise. ‘We also find speculative thought in Babylonia, where chaos is conceived, nota a fiendly and co-operative Ogdoad which borings forth the creator, Sua, but as the enemy of life and MOTH AND REALITY 19 onder. After TPamat, the Great Mother, had given bith to countess beings, including the gods, the later, under the fguidaace of Marduk, fought a cxtcal battle in which she was fvercome and ‘And out of he the existing universe was coastructed. The Babylonian placed that conflict at the basis of existence. ‘Throughout the ancient Neat East then, we find specula- tive thought in the form of myth. We have seen how the atitude of carly man toward the phenomena explains his sythopocic form of thought. But, inorder to understand its peculasities more fully, we should consider the form i takes in somewhat greater detail. sux Lore oF uyrHoroxte THOUONT ‘Weave hitherto been at pans to show that for primitive man. ‘thoughts are not autonomous, that they remain involved in ‘the curious attitude toward the phenomenal world which we have called a confiontation of life with life, Indeed, we shal find that our categories of intellectual judgment often do not apply tothe complexes of cercbration and volition which con- stitute mythopocie thought. Aad yet the word ‘logic’ as used above is justified. The ancients expressed thei “emotional thought (as we might call it) in terms of cause and efet; they ‘phenomena in terns of time and space and number. ‘The form of theie reasoning is fc less alien to ours than is ee Teor coud pee ipa bet cey dot often care to do it. For the detachment which a purely iotel- ° lectual attitude implies is hardly compatible with their most significant experience of reality. Scholars who have proved at Tength that primitive man has a ‘prelopical’ mode of thinking alikely to refer to magic or eligious practice, thus forgetting that they apply the Kantian eategores, not to pure reasoning, but to highly emotional acts, ‘We shal find that if we atempt to define che structure of ‘mythopocic thought and compare it with that of modern (that , sceatife) though, the diferences wil prove to be due rather t emotional atitude and intention than to a so-ealled prelogial mentality. The base distinction of modera thoughtis that between sbjecie and objective. On this distinction scien- tific thought bas based a crite and analytial procedure by which it progressively seduces the individual phenomena to {ppiaal events subject to universal laws. Thus ie creates an increasingly wide gulf beeween our pereption of the pheno- ‘mena andthe conceptions by which we make them Ihensible, We see the sunrise and se, but we think ofthe easth 2s moving round the sun. We see colours, but we describe them as wavelengths. We dream of a dead relative, but we thiok of that distinct vision as a product of our own sub- conscious minds. Even if we individually are unable to prove these slmost uabelievable sciatic views tobe true, we accept them, because we know that they ead be proved eo posess a greater degree of objectivity than our sense-impressions, la the immediacy of primitive experience, however, there is 20 room for such a critical resolution of perceptions. Primitive ‘man cannot withdraw from the presence of the phenomena because they reveal themselves to him in the mansier we have described. Hence the distinction between subjective and objec: tive knowledge is meaningless to him. ‘Meaningless, also, ison contrast between reality and ap- pearance. Whatever is capable of acting mid, feeling, or Will has thereby established its undoubted reality. Theres for instanes, no reason why dreams should be considered less real than impressions received while one is awake. On the coa- trary, dreams often affect one so much more than the ham dirum events of daly lf that they appear to be more, and not less significant thaa the usual perceptions. The Babylonians, like the Greeks, soughe divine guidance by pasing the night in a sacred place hoping for a revelation in dreams. And pharaohs, too, have recorded that dreams induced them to Undertake certain works, Hallucinations, too, ae real. We find in the oficial annals of Assachaddon of Aseyria® a record of fabulous monsters ~ ewo-headed serpents and grcen, winged creatures ~ which the exhausted troops had seen ia the most tuying section of thee march, te arid Sinai Desert. We may recall that the Greeks saw the Spist of the Pain of Marathon arisen in the fateful bade against the Persians. As to monsters, the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom, ax much horsifed by the desert as are thes modern descendants, depicted dragons, fifins, and chimeras among gazele, foxes, and other desert fame, ona footing of perect equality. Jostas there was 10 sharp distinction among dreams, hlla- Ginations, and ordiaacy vision, there was.no sharp separation between the living and the dead. The survival ofthe dead and thei continved relationship with man were assumed aa mater ofcourse, for the deal were involved in the indubiable sealty of man’s own anguish, expectation, or resentment ‘To bbe elective’ to the mythopere mind means the same a ‘tobe. ‘Symbols ase treated in the same way. ‘The primitive uses symbols as mach as we do; but he ean n0 moze conceive therm a signifying, yet separate {som the gods or powers than be in consider @ relationship established in his mind ~ such a8 resemblance ~as connecting, and yet separate from, the objects compared. Hence thee is coalescence of the symbol aod what ie ignifies, as there is colescence of two objects compared 20 that one may stand forthe other. «Ina similar manner we cia explain the curious Sigute of thought per ro tos, “a pact ean stand forthe whole’; a name, atlock of ait, ox a shadow can stand forthe man because at fang moment the lock of hair ot shadow may be felt by the primitive to be pregnant with te full sgaiicance ofthe maa. Te may conizont him with a “Thou’ which bears the physiog- omy fits owaer. “An example of the coalescence of «symbol aad the tig it stands for is the treating of a person's mare as an estntil pare ‘of him ~ as if it were, ina way, identical with him, We bave 4 number of howls which Egyptian kings of the Midille Kingdom had inscribed with the names of hostile ‘tibes in Palestine, Libya, and Nubia; the names of thee rales and the names of certain rebellious Egyptians. ‘These bows were solemaly smashed at situa, posiby at the funeral ‘of the king’s predecessor; and the object ofthis ritual was cexpliciy stated. It was that all these enemies, obviously out fof the pharach’s reach, should die. But if we call the ital act fof the breaking of the bowls symbolica, we miss the point.“The Reyptiane fle chat real harm was done to the enemies by the destriction of their mimes. The ocasion was even wed t0 cast a propitious spell of wider scope. After the names of the hostile men, who were enumerated ‘that they should di’, were added such phrases as: ‘all detimental thought, all detri- ‘mental talk, all detrimental deeams, all detrimental plans, all detrimental sti, ete. Mentioing these things on the bowls to be smashed diminished thee actual power to hurt the king orlessen his authority. or us there is an essential difference between an act and 4 situa or eymbolical performance. But thi distinction was meaningless 0 the ancients, Gudea, 2 Mesopotamian ruler, desexbing the founding of a temple, mentions in one breath that he moulded abril in clay, purified che site with re, and consecrated the platform with oll. When the Egyptians claim that Orins, and the Babyloaians that Ouanes, gave them the clemente of thee culture, they include among those elements the crafis and agrculere as well as siual usages, These two. {groups of ativites possess the same degree of realty. Tewould bbe meaningless to atk a Dabylonian whether the success ofthe harvest depended on the skill of the farmers of on the correct performance of the New Year's festival. Both were essential to success. Just asthe imaginary is acknowledged as existing in reality, so concepts are likely to be substantalzed. A man who has courage or eloquence postestes these qualities almost as sub- Stances of which he ean be robbed or which be can shaze with ‘others. The concept of ‘justice’ ot ‘equity i in Eaype called ‘nda. ‘The king's mouth is the temple of meet. Matis per~ tonifed asa goddess; but at the ame time i is said that tbe ods ive by meat? This concept is represented quite con- Ceetely: in the daily ritual the gods ae oflered a figure of the goddess, together with the other material offerings, food and Atink, for their sustenance, Here we micet the paradox of tnythopocie thought. Though ie does not know dead matter tnd confronts a world animated fcom end to end, tit unable toleave the scope of the conerete and renders is owa concepts, as realities existing per se derrm AND REALITY 2 ‘An excellent example ofthis tendency toward concreteness is the primitive conception of death. Death is not, a8 for ws, fan event ~ the actor fact of dying, as Webster fas it. Ie is somehow a substantial reality. Thus we readin the Egyptian ‘Pyramid Tests a description ofthe beginning of things which suns as follows ‘When heaven ha not yet com iso existence, ‘When men had aot yet come into existence, ‘Wen gods had noe yet been bora, ‘When death tad aot yet come int existence. .* In exactly the same terms the cupbesrer Sidusi pities Gil- ‘gamesh in the Epic: Gilgamesh whither are you wandering? Tike, which yos loot for, os wil ever Sd. For wen te gods creed man, hey lt Note, in the first place, that life is opposed to death, thus ‘the fact that life in itself is considered endless. ‘Only the intervention of another phenomenon, death, makes an end to it. Inthe second place, we should note the conerete character aiibuted to life in the statement that the gods with held life in their hands. In case one is inclined to se in this phrase a figure of specch, itis well to remember that Gil- ‘gumesh and, in anotber myth, Adapa are given a chance to ‘gui eternal life simply by eating life as a substance. Gilgamesh is shown the ‘plant of life, but serpent robs him of it. Adapa is offered bread and water of life when he enters heaven, but he refuses it on the instruction ofthe wily god Eki. In both tases the assimilation of a concrete substance would have sade the dilference between death and immortality. ‘We are touching here on the category of causality, which is 1s important for modern thought as the distinetion between the subjective and the objective. If science, as we have said before, reduces the chaos of perceptions to an order in which4 BEFORE PHILOSOPHY ‘typical events take place according to universal laws, the in- strument of this conversion fom chaos to order is the posta- late of causality. Primitive thought naturally recognized the relationship of cause and effect, but it cannot recognize our vview of an impersonal, mechanical, and lwlike functioning of ‘causality. For we have moved far from the world of immediate ‘experience in our search for teue causes, that is, causes which ‘ill always produce the same effect under the same conditions, ‘We must remember that Newton discovered the eoncept of gravitation and also its laws by taking into account three ‘groups of phenomena which are entirely unrelated to the ‘merely perceptive observer: frely falling objects, the move~ rents ofthe planets, and the alternation of the tides. Now the primitive mind canot withdraw to that extent from pereep- tual reality. Moreover, it would not be satisfied by our ideas. Telooks, not for the ‘how’, but for the ‘who’, when it looks fora cause. Since the phenomenal world isa “Thou’ confront- ing early man, he does not expect to find an impersonal law regulating a process. He looks for a purposeful will commit- tng an act. Ifthe rivers refuse to rise, ic is not suggested that the lack of rainfall on distant mountains adequately explains the calamity. When the river does not tise, it has refused to rise. ‘The siver, or the gods, must be angry with the people who depend on the inundation, At bes che river or the gods intend to convey something to the people. Some action, then, is called for. We know that, when the Tigris did not cise, Gudea the king went to sleep in the temple in order to be instructed ina dream as tothe meaning of the drought. In Egypt, where annual records ofthe heights of the Nile flood were kept from the earliest historical times, the pharioh nevertheless made gifts to the Nile every year about the time when it was due to rise, To these sacrifices, which were thrown into the river, document was added, stated, in the form of either an order ‘ora contract, the Nile’s obligations. (Onur view of causality, thea, would not satisfy primitive man because of the impersonal character of its explanations. Ie ‘would not satisfy him, moreover, because ofits generality, We ‘understand phenomena, not by what makes them peculiar, but MOTH AND REALITY a by what makes them manifestations of general laws. But a general law cannot do justice to the indvideal character of ‘each event. And the individual character ofthe event i pre- ‘Gsely what carly man experiences most strongly. We may ‘explain that cerain physiologic processes cause a man’s death. Primitive man asks: Why sbould sis man die thar at ‘is moment? We can only say that, given these conditions, death will always occu. He wants o find a cause as specie tnd individual as the event which it must explain. The event is not analysed intellectually; it is experienced in its eom- plexity and individuality, and chese are matched by equally Individual causes. Death is sled. ‘The question, then, tarns ‘once more from the “why” tothe ‘who’, not ro the ‘how. “This explacation of death as willed dsfers from that given moment ago, when it was viewed 2s almost substantilized fd expecially created. We meet ere forthe fst time in these chapeers 2 curious maliplicity of approaches to. problems ‘which i characteristic for the mythopocie mind. Ia the Gil ‘gamesh Epie death was specific and concrete; it was allotted {© mankind. Its antidote, eteraal life, was equally substantial: it could be assimilated by means ofthe plant of life. Now we Ihave found the view that deat is eaused by volition, The two inexpretatioas are not mutually exclusive, but they are never- theless not so consistent with each other as we would desire Primitive man, however, would not consider our objections valid. Since he does not isolate an event from is attending. eeamstaness, he does not look for one single explanation ‘which mast hold good under al conditions. Death, considered ‘with some detachment as «state of bein, is viewed a a sub> stance inbercat in all who are dead or about to di, But death ‘considered emotionally is the ac of hose will “The same dualism occurs in the interpreation of illness o sa, When the scapegoat is deiven into the deer, laden with ‘the sins ofthe community, eis evidene tha these tos are com ceived as having substance. Early medical texs explain a fever as doe to ‘hot matters having entered 2 man's body. Mytho- posic thought substantalizs a quality and posits some ofits ecunenees as causes, other ab eects, But the heat that6 BEFORE PuniLosoPHe ‘caused the fever may also have been ‘willed? upon the man by Ihostile magic or may have entered his body as an evil pit. Evil spits are often no more than the evil itself eonecived 1s substantial and equipped with willpower. In a vague way ‘they may be specified alittle Farther as spirits of the dead’, but often this explanation appears as a gratuitous elaboration of the original view, which is no more than the incipient per- sonication of the evils This process of personification may, (of course, be carried much further when the evil in question becomes a focus of attention and stimolates the imagination. ‘Then we get demons with pronounced individuality like ‘Lamashta ia Babylonia. The gods also come ito being i this ‘We may even go further and say that the gods a8 pere sonifcations of power among other thinge fulél eacly man's reed for causes to explain the phenomenal world. Sometimes this aspect oftheir origin caa sil be ecognized in the com- plex deities of later times. There is, for instance, excellent ‘evidence thatthe great goddess Isis was, osigially, the deified throne. We know that among modem Africans closely related to the ancient Egyptians the enthroning of the new ralee is the central act of the ritual of the succession. The throne is fetish charged with the mysterious power of kingship. ‘The prince who takes his seat upon it arises a king. Hence the throne is called the ‘mother’ of the king. Here personification found a starting-point; a channel for emotions was prepaced hich, in its turn, led to an elaboration of myth. In this way Isis “the throne which made the king’ became ‘the Great Mother, devoted to her son Horus, faithful through al suffer- ing to her hosband Osiris ~ a figure with a powerful appeal to men even outside Egypt and, aiter Egypt's decline, theough- out the Roman Empice “The process of personification, however, only affects man's attitude toa limited extent. Like Tes, the sky-goddess Not was considered to be a loving mother-goddess; but the Egyptians of the New Kingdom arranged for their ascent to heaven with- cout reference to her will or acts. They painted a life-sized figure of the goddess inside thei cofins; the dead body was } } | norm Awp neALiTY a laid inher arms; and the dead man's ascent to heaven was assured. For esemblaace was a sharing of essentials, and Nat's image coalesced with its prototype. The dead maa in his cofin ested already in heaven. Tn every case where we would see no more than associations of thought, the mythopocie mind finds a causal connection. Eyery resemblance, every contact in space oF time, establishes ‘connection between wo objects of events which makes ic postble to sce in the one the exuse of changes observed ia the ‘other, We mast remember that mythopoeie thought does not sequite its explanation to represent a continuous proces. It accepts aa intial situation and a final situation eoonected by ‘80 more than the conviction thatthe one exme forth from the ‘other. So we find, for instance, thatthe ancient Egyptians as ‘wells the modern Maoris explain the present relation between Jpeaven and earth inthe following manner. Heaven was origin- ally lying upon earth; but the two were separated, and the sky ‘was lifted up tots present position. In New Zealand this was one by this son; in Egypt it was done by the god ofthe ai, Shi, who is now berwecn earth and sky. And heaven is depicted as a woman bending over the earth with outstretched tems while the good Sho supports her. Changes cxa be explained very simpiy as two diferent states, ‘one of which i ssid to come forth from the other without any insistence on an intelligible process ~ in other words, a8 4 ‘tansformatioa, « metamorphosis. We find that, time and ‘again, this device is used to accovat for changes and that n0 farther explanation is then required. One myth explains why the sun, which counted asthe first king of Egypt, should nowt bein the sky. Ie recounts that the sun-god Ré became tized of Jhumanity, so he seated himself upon the sky-goddess Nat, ‘who changed herself into a huge cow standing four squace ‘over the earth, Since then the sun has been inthe sky. “The charming inconsequentiality of this story hardly allows 1s to take it seriously. But we ate altogether inclined to take explanations more seriously than the facts they explain. Not 0 primitive man. He knew that the sun-god once ruled Egypt; he also knew thatthe sun was now in the sky. In thea aerone. pittiosorHy fist acount ofthe relation between sky and earth be explained how Sho, the air, came to be between sky and earths in the last account be explained how the sun got to the sky snd, ‘moreover, introduced the wellknown concept of the sky as 2 cow. All this gave him the satisfaction of feling that images tod owe fel ino plas. That, aftr all, what an explanation should achieve (ef. p. 23). "The image of R& exted on the cow of heaven, besides ilo trating a. noo-specultive type of causal explanation which satisfies the mpthoporie mind, ilustates a tendency Of the ancients which we have discused before. We have seen that they ate likely to present various descriptions of identical Phenomena side by side even though they are mutually exclu sive. We have seen how Shi lifted the sky-goddess Nat from the earth. In a second story Nat rises by here in dhe shape cof a cow. This image of the sky-goddess is very common, ‘specially when the accent lies on her aspect sx mother-god dese. Sbe is the mother of Osiris and, hence, of all the deads but she is also the mother who gives bizth each evening to the stars, each morning to the sin. When ancient Egyptian thought tucned to procreation, it expressed itself ia images derived feom eat. In the myth of sun and sky the image of the cky-cow does not appear wit ts original connotation; the image of Not asa cow evoked the pieture of the huge animal sing aod iting the sun to heaven, When the bearing of the fun by Not was the centre of atenton, the sun was called the ‘calf of gold’ or “te bull. But it was, of course, possible 0 consider the sky, not predominaatly in ts relation to heavenly bodies of to the deal who are reborn there, but asa sef- contained cosmie phenomenon. In that case Nat was described 5a descendant ofthe creator Aram through his children, Sha tnd Tefaat, Ait and Moisture. And she was, farthezmore, ‘wedded to"the earth, If viewed ia this manaet, Not was, imnagined in human form, ‘We see, agin, that the ancients’ conception of a pheno- menoa differed according t0 their approach to it. Modern Scholars have reproached the Egyptians for theis apparent in- onsistencics and have doubted thie ability to thik elealy. Mrs AND REALITY 9 pe ar eet eget Car vee cacecins the processes of ancient thought, their justification is apparent. “Afterall, eligious values are not reducible to rationalistie formulas. Natural phenomena, whether or not they were per- ‘sonifed and became gods, confronted ancient man with aliv- ing presence, a significant ‘Thow’, which, again, exceeded the scope of conceptual definition, In such cases our flexible thought and language qualify and modify certain concepts ¢0 thoroughly as to make them suitable to carry our burden of ‘expression and sigaicance. The mythopoeie mind, tending ‘toward the concrete, expressed the irrational, notin our man ‘er, butby admitting the validity of severalavenues ofapproach ‘at one and the same time. The Babylonians, for instance, wor- shipped the generative force in nature in’several forms: its ‘manifestation in the beneficial rains and thunderstorms was ‘visualized as a lion headed bied. Seen in the fertility of the ‘arth, it became a snake, Yet in statues, prayers, and cult acts ft was represented as a god in human shape. The Egyptians in the eatliese times recognized Horus, a god of heaven, as theic main deity. He was imagined as a gigantic falcon hover- ing over the earth with outstretched wings, the coloured clouds of suaset and suarise being his speckled breast and the ‘sun and moon his eyes. Yet this god could also be viewed as 1 sun-god, since the sun, the most powerful thing in the sky, ‘was naturally considered a manifestation of the god and thus confronted man with the same divine presence which he adored in the filcon spreading its wings over the earth. We should not doubt that mythopoeic thought fully recognizes the unity of each phenomenon which it conceives wader s0 ‘many different guises; the many-sidedness ofits images serves +0 do justice to the complexity of the phenomena. But the pro- ‘cedure of the mythopoeic mind in expressing a phenomenon bby manifold images corresponding to unconnected avenues of approach clearly leads away from, rather than toward, our ppostalate of causality which seeks to discover identical causes for identical effects throughout the phenomenal world. ‘We observe a similar contrast when we tura from the eate-30 BEFORE puiLosoPHY ory of canal to thst of spa. Jost as modem thovght seeks sp. ght to establish causes as abstract functional between phenomena, soit views space asa mere system of relations and. functions. Space is postulated by us to be infinite, continuous, ‘and homogeneous ~ attributes which mere sensual perception does not reveal. But primitive thought cannot abstract a con- ‘cept ‘space’ ftom its experience of space. And this experience consists in what we would call qualifying associations. The spatial concepts of the primitive are concrete orientations; they refer to localities which have an emotional eolour; they ‘may be familia o: alien, hostile or friendly. Beyond the scope cf mete individual experience the community is aware of cet- tain cosmic events which invest regions of space with a par- ticular significance. Day and night give to east and west a sorration with if and death, Sprutive thought may eal develop in connection with such regions as are camielpageemmptaneis oo. ‘Mesopotamian astrology evolved a very extensive system of correlations between heavenly bodies and events in the sky and earthly localities. Thus mythopoeic thought may succeed ‘no less than modern thought in establishing a co-ordinated spatial system; but the system is determined, not by objective measurements, but by an emotional recognition of values. ‘The extent to which this procedure determines the primitive ‘view of space can best be illustrated by an example which will ‘be met again in subsequent chapters a5 a remarkable instance ‘of ancient speculation. Ta Egypt the creator was said to have emerged from the ‘waters of chaos and to have made a mound of dry land upon which he could stand, This primeval hill, from which the creation took its beginning, was traditionally located in the sun temple at Heliopolis, the sun-god being in Egypt most commonly viewed as the creator. However, the Holy of Holies cof each temple was equally sacred; each deity was ~ by the very fact that he was recognized as divine ~ a source of creative power. Hence each Holy of Holies throughout the land could be identified with the primeval bill. Thus it is said of the temple of Philae, which was founded in the fourth century MYTH AND REALITY ra 1. “This (temple) came into being when nothing at all ad yet come into being and the earth Was stil lying in darkness and obscurity” ‘The same claim was made for other temples, ‘The names Of the great srines at ‘Thebes, and ‘Hermonthis explicitly stated that they were the “vine emerg- fing primeval island’ or used similar expressions. Each sanc- ‘wary possessed the essential quality of origical holiness; for, ‘when « new temple was founded, it was assumed that the potential sacredness ofthe site became manifest. The equation ‘with the primeval hill recived architectaral expression also, ‘One mounted few steps or followed a ramp at every entrance from court of hall to the Holy of Holes, which was thus situated ata level noticeably higher than the entrance. ‘But this coalescence of temples with the primeval hill does fot give us the fall measure of the significance which the ‘acted locality had assumed for the encient Egyptians. The soyal tombs were aso made to coincide with it. The dead, aad, above all, the king, were seborn inthe hereafter. No place wat ‘more propitious, no ste promised greater chances for a vie~ ‘orious passage through the cxsis of death than the primeval hil, the centre of creative forces where the ordered life ofthe universe bad begun, Hence the royal tomb was given the shape of pyramid which is the Heliopolitan styliation of ‘the primeval hil "To us this view is entirely unacceptable. In our continuous, Ihomogeneous space the place ofeach locality i unambiguously fixed. We would insist that there must have been one single place where the ist mound of dry land actally emerged from the chaotic waters. But the Egyptian would have considered such objections mere quibbles. Since the temples and the zoyal tombs were as sacred asthe primeval hill and showed architec fuml forms which resembled the hil, they shared essentials, ‘And it would be fatous to argue whether one ofthese mons. ‘ments could be called the primeval ill with moze justification than the others. Similarly, the waters of chaos from which al life emerged swere consilered to be present in several places, sometines playing their pat in the economy of the country, sometimesPA BEFORE PHILOSOPHY necessary to round out the Egyptian image of the universe. ‘The waters of chaos were supposed to subsist in the form of the ocean surrounding the earth, which had emerged from them and now floated upon them. Hence these waters were also present in the subsoil water. In the cenotaph of Seti I at ‘Abydos the coffin was placed upon an island with a double stair imitating the hieroglyph for the primeval hill; this island ‘was surrounded by a chanael filled always with subsoil water. ‘Thus the dead king was buried and thought to sise again in the locality of creation. But the waters of chaos, the Naa, were also the waters of the nether world, which the sun and the eal have to cross. On the other hand, the primeval waters hhad once contained all the potentialities of life; and they were, therefore, also the waters of the annual inundation of the Nile ‘which renews and revives the fertility ofthe fields. ‘The mythopocie conception of sme is, like that of space, qualitative and concrete, not quantitative and abstract. Mytho- pocie thoughe does not know time asa uniform duration or as ‘a succession of qualitatively indiferent moments. The concept of time as itis used in our mathematics and physics is a5 un- known to early man as that which forms the framework of our history. Early man does not abstract a concept of time from the experience of time. thas been pointed out, for example, by Cassirer, that the time experience is both tich and subtle, even for quite primi- tive people. Time is experienced inthe periodicity and rhythm of man’s own life as well as in the life of narure. Fach phase Of man’s life ~ childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age ~ is atime with peculiar qualities, The transition from one phase to another is a ecisis in which man is assisted by the com- smunity’s uniting in the situals appropriate to birth, puberty, marriage, of death. Cassicer las called the peculiae vi time as a sequence of essentially diferent phases of life logical time’. And the manifestation of time in nature, the succession of the seasons, and the movements of the heavenly, bodies were conceived quite eaely as the signs ofa life-process similar, and zelated, to that of man. Even so, they are not vere ano amatter —y Pisses prea ta cso. Wien tet ee aati atenccten tse leryet Be cal ier ee Sa Se rseg ee ty as tae eee ce cotir euciccat ori oa Misti cuted st somone Sy a sical cnr (Gen vie Tov crccof nce Be eaten ncs (ot wa ae) co tay ened fyi Golf Od Tosmen in cuca cls pores et Svclsancaactnes thy cowboy gat be ed op Co Reece ae reer ee eee accel ee eon eee ees cae rie cg eccarga, Sperry en lca soe eee oes ee te meet a eek petty tyne ee ee ciees eee eines isis sal Beet estat seep ra en ts Hee eee ee ee ian ieee rea ay ieee Imythoposic mind each repetition cvalesoss with —is practically irtieihdeocgalecs ea ee ee eae ies ole ace tar cea mrtg oat Settee egret ea eevee Bathe Gos canines > raelebrelelecerhselige tere a ee ie) ee tae ear ee a ede blag“ BEFORE PHILosoPHY ‘had been the frst ruler of Egypt and that the pharaoh was, to the extent chat he ruled, an image of RE. The verse says of the ‘enemies of the king: “They shall be like the snake Apophis on ‘New Year's morning.’¢The snake Apophis is the hostile dazk- ness which the sun defeats every night on his journey through the nether world from the place of sunset in the west to the place of suarise in the east. But why should the enemies be like Apophis on New Yeats morning? Because the notions of ‘creation, daily sunrise, and the beginning of the new annual ‘qyele coalesce and culminate in the festivities of the New Year. Hence the New Year is invoked, that is, conjured up, to intensify the curse. ‘Now this ‘dramatic conception of nature which sees every- where a strife between divine and demoniac, cosmic and chaotic powers’ (Wensinck), does not eave man a mere spec- ‘ator. He is too much involved in, his welfare depends t00 completely upon, the victory of the benefcial powers for him ‘not to feel the need to participate om their side. Thus we find, jn Egypt and Babylonia, thae man - that is, man in society — ‘accompanies the principal changes in nature with appropriate situals, Both in Egypt and in Babylonia the New Year, for instance, was an occasion of elaborate celebrations in which the battles of the gods were mimed or in which mock-battles were fought. "We must remember again that such situals are not merely symbolical; they are part and parcel of the cosmic events; they are man's share in these events. In Babylonia, from the third millennium down to Hellenistic times, we find 2 New Year's festival which lasted several days. Dusing the celebration the story of creation was recited and a mock-batte was fought in ‘which the king impersonated the victorious god. In Fgypt we know mockc-bettles in several festivals which are concerned ‘with the defeat of death and rebirth or resucrection: one took place at Abydos, during the annual Great Procession of Ositis; ‘one took place on New Year's Eve, at the erection of the Djed pillar; one was fought, at least in the time of Herodotus, at apremis in the Delta. In these festivals man participated in the life of nature. I arr AND REALINY ot ‘Man also arranged his own lif, or atlas the life of the society to which he belonged, in such a mannee that a har- ‘mony with nature, co-ordination of natural and social forces, gave added imperas to his undertakings and increased his Chances for succes. The whole ‘scence’ of omens sims, of outset this erult, But theze ae also definite instances which Iustrate the need of early maa to actin unison with narare Tn both Egypt and Babylon a king's coronation was postponed tala new beginning in the epee of nature provided pro- pitious starting-point for the new reign. In Egypt the time Inight be i the eatly summer, when the Nile began tose ot in the autumn, when the inundation receded and the fertilized fields were ready to receive the seed. In Babylonia the king began his reign on New Year's Days and the inauguration of tinew tecple was clcbested only 2 that te. “This deliberate co-ordination of cosmic and social events shows most cliry thet time to early man did not mean a ‘neural and abstract fume of reference but rather a succrsion (fsecuslag phases, cach charged with a pecullae value and figoltcanceAgecy aia dealing with spac, we find tat thees fe corti ‘apices’ of tine which are withdcawa fen daset txpetience and greatly stimulate speculative thought. They are the distant past and the future, Either of there may become ‘normative and absolute; each then falls beyond the range of the altogethe. The sbsolate past does aot recede, nor do we approach the absolute Fotare gradually. The Kingdom of God fly etany tiene Break into our present. Forthe Jews the fore In toetative For the Egyptians, on tbe other head, the past ‘was normative; and no pharaoh could hope to schiewe more than the establishment ofthe conditoos ‘ts they were lathe time of Re, in the begianing” But here we are touching on material which will be dis ‘nie in cubsequeat chapters. We have atempted to demoo- feats how the ogi’, the pecllr stractre, of mythopoee thought can be derived from the fc thatthe intellect doesnot gees swe Bc a nye fe te basic experience of erly man, that of confrontation with slfcant "Thou Hence when caly tani faced by an intellee36 pErone PHILosoPHy tual problem within the many-sided complexities of life, emo- tional and volitional factors are never debacred; and the con clusions reached ate not ertial judgments but compleximages. ‘Nor can the spheres which these images refer to be neatly kept apart. We have intended in this book to deal successively with speculative thought concerning (2) the nature of the uni- vyerse; (2) the function of the state; and (5) the values of life. Bur the reader will have grasped that ths, our mild attempt to distinguish the spheres of metaphysics, politics, and ethics, is doomed to remain a convenience without any deep signié- cance, For the life of man and the function of the state are for mythopoeic thought imbedded in sature, and the natural pro- cesses are affected by the acts of man no less than man’s life depends on his harmonious integration with mature, The expericacing of this unity with the utmost intensity was the greatest good ancient oriental religion could bestow. To con- ceive this integration in the form of intuitive imagery was the tim of the speculative thought of the ancient Near Bast. NOTES 2, Seligman, a Forth Retrs of the Welle Trp Reser Labor seh a fe bn Nerd Cay Karoo, 39, VOB General She, 239. TD. D. Loekenbill, Anint Recrds of Argris ond Bellis, Vol. 1, - Pee, Dh spin Earls Perce nd Plain de Derler Maras (spa, 1908), Pa: li ec dopo oo pelea Ln is Ad Hermann Renke (Tubingen, 1929), p70. SUGGESTED READINGS Cassmen, Est. Phiboaplie dr gmbalicen Formen I: Dar myiicte ‘Denko. Belin, 2935. Lan, G. yan en lignin Exe end Manifestation: A Stay jn Phromerhy. New York, 1938 Lave: Baits Le How Nati Thick, New Yor 1936 (Oro, Rovots The ea of he Holy: An Ins no He Newall Fare ‘ti dof the Divino te Relation te he Rational. London, 1943. ‘Raong, Batu Print Monat Phlooplar. New York, 1937 HL Faison, King and te Gade A Sid of Amit Near Eastern Re “ign ar be Itai f Sect and Note. Chieag, 1948. (London. ‘Gorbeidge University Press, 1948). EGYPT Jobn A. WilsonCHAPTER 11 Egypt: The Nature of the Universe GBOGRAPHIC CONSIDERATIONS ‘Tux separation of these chapters into the Selds of Egypt and Mesopotamia is a necessary separation, because the two cultures exhibited their general uniformity in individoal terms and with distincly diferent developments. As the ‘case was presented in the introductory chapter, the common attiude of mind toward the phenomena of the universe was governing for each of the two separate treatments. It is no thesis in our material chat the Egyptian phenomena were tunique, even though our exclusive pre-cccupation with Egypt ‘may seem to ignore the many elements common to Egypt and hier neighbours. ‘The common ground is the important con- sideration for those who wish to know something about the developing human mind rather than the mind of the Egyptian alone. We consider, then, that our documentary material ilus- trates the early and pre-classical mind with examples from one of the two cultures. Within that uniformity of viewpoint the cultures were dif ferent, as British culture differs from that of continental Europe ‘or from that of the United States. Geography is not the sole determinant in matte: of cultural differentiation, but geo- ‘graphic features are subject to description which is practically incontrovertible, so that a consideration of the geographic uniqueness of Egypt will suggest easly some of the factors of| differentiation. Throughout the Near East there is a contrast between the desert and the sown land; Egypt had and stil has a concentration of that contrast. "The essential part of Egypt isa green gash of teeming life ceutting across brown desert wastes. The line of demarcation between life and non-life is startlingly clear: one may stand at the edge ofthe cultivation with one foot on the irrigated black soil and one foot on the desert sands, The country is essentially© FORE runiLosoPuy sinless; only the waters of the Nile make life possible where ‘otherwise there would be endless wastes of sand and zock. ‘But what a life the Nile makes possible! The little ageicul- tural vilges contract themselves within smallest compas, in odes not to encrouch upon the fertile Selds of rice, cotton, ‘wheat, of sugar cane. When propel eated for, the land ean Yield two crops a year Normally Bgypt has avery comfortable Surplus of agricultural produce for export. “This richness is confined to the green Nile Valley. Only 404 per cent. of the modern state of Egypt is cultivable and habitable. The remaining 96.5 per cent. is bucren and waia~ habitable desert. Today pethaps 99.5 pet cent. ofthe popula tion lives oa the 3.5 per eeat. of the land which will support population. That means an even greater contrast berween the Aesere and the sown, and it means that on the calivable land there is. concentration of people close tothe saturation point. ‘Today baitabe Egypt has over 1,200 persons to the square ale. The figures for Belgium, the most densely populated country of Europe, are about 720 to the square mile; fo Java, about goo to the square mile. The deasity of population in modern Egypt is therefore so great that the concentration approaches that of an industrial end urban country rather than that ofan apricaltural and rustic country. Yet Egypt, with her ferile soil, is always essentially ageicultural, 'No figures ate avilable for ancient Eayps, of course, and ‘the population could not have been as great as today; but the, sain features were surely the same as atthe present: ahermet- cally sealed tube containing a concentration of life close tothe saturation point. The two features of isolation and semi-urbaa population combine to make Egypt diferent from hee neigh- hours. At the present day the Arabs of Palestine and of Iraq concede the general cultural leadership of Egypt, as being the ‘most sophisticated of the Arab countries; and yet they do not feel thatthe Egyptians are truly Arabs. The Egyptians are not subject to the great conservative control ofthe Arabian Desert “The deserts adjacent to Palestine and Iraq are poteatial breed ing-geounds for fierce and puctanial elements in the popola- tions of those countries. Egypt, with her agricultural wealth WHE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 4 sod with hee people lying check by jowl, developed an ealy ‘which expressed itself intellectually in tendent ‘es toward eatholicty nd syncretism. Within Egypt the most concepts were toleratly accepted and woven to- Da er ota coer nigh gel ose ns sophical lack of system, but which tothe ancient was inclusive, ‘The way of the Semite, who held a contact with the desert, ‘was to dling Sercely to tradition and to resist innovations, ‘which changed the purity and simplicity of life, The way ofthe Egyptian was to accept innovations and to incorporate them {nto his thought, without discarding the old and outmoded, ‘This means that itis impossible to ind in ancient Egype a sys tem in our sense, orderly and consistent. Old and new lic blandly together like some surrealist picture of youth and age fon a single face. However, ifthe ancient Egyptian ws tolerant of divergent concepts, it does not nccessaily follow that he was tolerant of other peoples. He was semisarban and sophisticated of mind. snd fle foreigners to be rustic and uninitiated, He was cutoff from his neighbours by sea and desert and fle that he could sfford a superior isolationism. He made a distinetion betweea, ‘mea’, on the one hand, and Libyans or Asities or Aicans, on the other The word ‘men in that sense meant Egyptians: cthervite it meant humans’ in distinction to the gods, oF “humans in dstinetion to animals, In other words, the Eayp- tians were ‘people’; foreigners were not. Ata time of national distess, when the stable, old orde had broken dowa and social conditions were upside-down, there was a complaint that ‘strangers from outside have come into Baypt... Foreigners have become people everywhere.® The concept that only our group is “oll, that outsiders lack something of humanity, s fot confined to the modeen world. However, the Eayptian isolationist of nationalist fecling wwasa matter of geography and of manners rather than of racial theory and dogmatic xenophobia. “The people’ were those who lived i Egypt, without distinction of race or colour. Once 4 foreignce came to reside in Egypt, learned to speak Eayptian, and adopted Egyptian dress, he might finally be accepted ai“ BEFORE rutLosoPity cone of ‘the people’ and was no longer the object of superior fiicle. Asiatic of Libyans ox Negroes might be accepted Egyptians of high positon when they bad become acca: tized ~ might, indeed rise to the highest potion ofall that fF the god-king who possessed the nation. The same Egyptian ‘word means the ‘land’ of Egypt and the ‘earth. I is correct 0 say that, when any element was within this land i merited fll and tolerant acepeance. “The ancient Egyptin’s sens that his land was the one and that really mattered was fostered by a knowledge that those other counties with which he had immediate contact were not fo filly developed in culture as bis own. Babylonia and the Hite region were too distant for proper compatizon, but the nearby lands of the Libyans, the Nubians, and the Asiatic Bedovins were cleacy inferior in cultural developement. Pales- tine and Syria were sometimes colonized by Egypt, or were fometimes under Egyptian cultoral and commercial leader. ship. Until the Assyrians and Persian and Greeks finally came in conquering domination, it was possible forthe Egyptian to feel a comforting sene that his civilization was supezio to all others, An Egyptian story pots into the mouth of a Syrian ince tis sweeping statement to an eavoy who ad come to him feom the and ofthe Nile: For (he imperil god) Amon founded all lands. He founded them, but frst he founded the land of Egypt, from which thou hast come. For skilled work came forth from to reach tis place where Iam and teaching fame from it to reach this place where I am. Because the soncce is Egyptian, we cannot be suze that a prince of Syria actually did say such words, acenowledging Egyptian leader- {hip in lestning and craftsmanship, but this story from Egypt ‘isties the assurance that it was a comforting doctrine to those tho believed themselves to live a the centre ofthe world ‘Thus it may be cated thatthe physical isolation of Egype from other ands produced a self-centred feeling of separate- tess, within which Egypt had an intellectual development of diveiseclements in admiature, Its our pat to try to rexolve tome ofthese seeming incongeuites ito a semblance of order ‘which the reader will be able to grasp. To be sue, it is unjust THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE a to leave an impression that there was anarchical chaos; 20 ‘people could maintain a way of life for 2000 visible years ‘without established foundations. We shall find foundation stones and a sensible structure rising from those stones; but it is sometimes puziling toa visitor to find a front door on each of four sides of a building. ‘Lets return again to the geography of Egypt. We have the picture of the green gash of life cutting through the brown stretches of non-life. Let us examine the mechanics of the Egyptian scene, The Nile cuts north out of Aftica, surmounts ‘ye rocky cataracts and fially empties ito the Mediterranean. “These eataracts form the barriers of Egype against the Hamitic and Negro peoples tothe south justas effectively as the deserts and the tea bac Libyan and Semitic peoples to the north, east, ‘and west. In the morning the sunrise in the east iterosses the sky by day, and it sets in the west inthe evening. Of course, you know that; buticis important enough in Egypt to deserve ‘repeated meation, because the daily birth, journey, and death Of the sun were dominating features of Egyptian life and thought. In a country essentially rainless, the daly cireuit of the sun is of blazing importance. We might think that there ‘was too much sun in Egypt, that shade was a welcome neces- sity; but the Epyptian hated the dackness and the cold and stretched himself happily to greet the rising sun, He saw chat the sun was the source of his life. At night the cart is in dark ness, as if it were dead." So the personification of the sun's power, the sun-god, was the supreme god and the ereator-god. ‘eis curious that the Egyptians gave relatively litte credit to another force - the wind. The prevailing wind in Egypt ‘comes from the north, across the Mediterranean and then down the trough of the Nile Valley. It mitigates the unceasing heat ff the sun and makes Egypt an easier place in which to lives it contrasts with those hot dry winds of late spring, which bring sandstorms and a brittle heat out of Africa to the south, “This north wind was good, and the Fayptians expressed their appreciation and made it into a minor divinity; but, relative to the all-pervading power of the sun, the wind was practically ignored,“ aeronn Puriosorny It is somewhat diferent in the ease of the Nile, The siver ‘was 60 obvious a soures of life that it had is appreciated place ia the scheme of things, evea though italso could not ‘with the sun for position. The Nile had a eyele of bieth and death on an anntal basis, which corresponded to the daly bith and death of the sua. Ia the sumsmer the river ies quiet and slow between its shrunken banks, while the felds beside it parch and turn to dust and blow away toward the desert. less water can be raised bya series ofits from the sver or from very deep wels, agricultural growth comes toa standstill, and people aad extie grow thin and torpidly look upon the face of famine. “Thea, just lifeisat its lowest ebb, the Nile River ts slog- gishly and shows « pulse of power. ‘Through the summer it swells slowly but with increasing momentum untiit begins 0 ace with mighty waters, burst its banks, and rush over the niles of fat land lying on cach side. Great stretches of moving muddy water cover the land. In a year of a high Nile they cncrosch upon the litle village shade standing up out of the elds nibble at the mud brick houses, and bring some of chem tumbling down, From inert, dusty wastes, the land has torned toa great shallow stream, which caries a refering load of silt. ‘Then the peak of the ood passes, and the waters become smote sluggish. Out ofthe flooded stretches there appeat litle peaks of sol, sfreshed with new, fertile mud. The torpor of sen disappears; they wade out into the thick mud and begia eagerly sowing thee frst exop of clover or grain. Life has come to Egypt. Soon a broad green carpet of growing felis Tl complet the anal mite of the conquest of life ovet death, ‘These, thea, were the two central features of the Egyptian scene: the teiumphont daly ebirth ofthe sun and the teiumph- fant annval rebicth of the river. Out of these miracles the Egyptians drew their sasorance that Eaypt was the centre of the Universe and their assurance that ene wed life may always be vietorious over death. Tis necesary to make some qualieaton toa picture which has been presented in terme of a free gift of life and fectlity. ME NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 4“ “Egypt was sich but not prodigal: the fruit did not drop from the trees for indolent farmers. The sun and the Nile did com- bine to bring forth renewed life, but only atthe cost ofa battle ‘against death. The sun warmed, but in the summer it also blasted. The Nile brought fertilizing water and soil, but its ‘annual inundation was antic and unpredictable. An excep- tionally high Nile destroyed canals, dams, and the homes of ‘men, An exceptionally low Nile brought famine. The inunda- tion came quickly and moved on quickly; constant, back- “breaking work was necessary to catch, hold, and dole out the _waters for the widest and longest use. ‘The desert was always ‘ready to nibble away atthe cultivation and rurn fertile silt into arid sand. The desert in particular was a tetsble place of veno~ ‘mous serpents, lion, and fabulous monsters. In the broad muddy stretches of the Delt, jungle-like swamps had to be ‘drained and cleared to make arable fields. For more than ‘third of every yer the hot desert winds, the blasting sun, and ‘the low Nile brought the land withia sight of death, uatl the ‘weather turned and the iver brought abundant waters again, “Thos Eaypt was rich and blessed in contrast with hee immedi- ate acighbours, but within her own teritory she experienced struggle, privations, and dangers which made the annual tr- ‘umph real. These was a sense that the triumph was not an ‘automatic privilege but that it must be earned at some cost. ‘We have alceady suggested that the Fagyptians were self ‘centred and had their own satisfied kind of solationism. We have said that they ued the word ‘humans to apply to Egyp- sians in distinction from foreigners. The concept that Egypt ‘was the focal centre of the universe vet the standard for what ‘wis right and norma in the universe in terms of what was n0e- smal in Egypt. The centeal feature of Egypt the Nile, owing ‘orth and bringing the necessary wate for life, They therefore looked at other peoples and other existences in terms of theie ‘own scene, The Egyptian word ‘to go north isthe Egyptian ‘word ‘to go downstream, and the word ‘to go south’ is the ‘word ‘to go upstream’, against the current. When the Egyp~ tians met another river, the Euphrates, which flowed south instead of north, they had to express the sense of contrast by46 peront riniiosorsy calling it ‘that circling water which goes downstream in going ‘upstream, which may azo be translated ‘that inverted water ‘which goes downstream by going south.* ‘Navigation on the Nile employed the power of the current in moving north, In moving south, boats tised the sal in corde to ke advantage of the prevaling north wind, which ‘would posh them against the cucrent. Since this was normal it Became the ide for any wold, including the aff. Into their tombs the Egyptians put reo model boats, which might be projected by magi into the neat world for navigation there, ne boat had the sail down, for ailing nord with the current on the waters ofthe other world; one boat had the sail up for Salling south with that norh wind which mast be notmal ia any proper existence, here ot hereafter. 'S0, oo, tain could be understood only in tems of the ater which cre to Eat. Adreing the pod the Ea tian worshipper acknowledged his goodness to Egypt: “Thou tas the Ne inthe lower woe end hinge whither | ‘thou wilt, in order to sustain mankind, even as thou hast made them’ ‘Then, in an untuel interest in foreign lands, the wor- ‘shipper went on; “Thou makest that wheteon all distant coon tees live. Thou hast put (anocher) Nile in the sky, so that i may come down for them, and may make waves upon the ‘mountains like ase, in order to motsten thei elds in thet townships .. The Nile in the sky, thou appointest it for the foreign peoples and (or) all the beasts of te highland which | | Teak pon fect, whereas the (ral) Nil, it comes fom the Tower world for (te people of) Egypt "It we reve com: cep tt water mortally falls from the skies tad acrpe a | eres siete eee ee Telow to bet oaly popes saeco: cles cw eel to asin out ova tam: Iris ten tthe cave tat Egypt DP esilea cery eeeceec e eee ete fags cote Cai es tees Tet ae sci oes pet ead eee ecieapeontae canto ok eg bath bulges coegling arvana ae Ate sinc ingot ine a he wo ad | their habitatin gions which were similacly conceived in thei THE NATURE OF THE UNIV! see ar ‘contrast tothe Nile Valley. Egypt was a fat pancake of fertile black soil (==). Every foreign country consisted of corni- gated ridges of fed sand, The same biroglyphic sign was wed for “orciga county’ at was wed for ‘highland’ or for ‘desert (22); a elosely similar sign was used for ‘mountain’ (), because the mountain sidges which fringed the Nile Valley were also desert and also foreign. ‘Thus the Egyptian pictoially grouped the foreigner withthe beast of the desect fod pitorally denied to the foreigner the blesings of frtiity and uniformity. Jost as people from our own western plains fee shut in if thes visit he ills of Neve England, so the Egyptian had ssimi- lar claustrophobia about any country where one could aot look far acoss the pain, where one could aot se de sua i all its course. One Egyptian scribe wrote to another: "Thou bast, tot trodden the road to Meger (in Syria), in which the sky is dack by dey, which is overgrown with eypreses, oaks, ad cedars that reach the Beavens, There are more lions there than panthers Or hyenas, and tis surrounded by Bedouin on every) Fide. Shuddering seizes the, (teh of thy bead stands on tend, ad thy soul lies in thy hand, Thy pati filled with boul- ders and pebbles, and there i no passable track, fori is over- frown with reeds, thorns, brambles, and woll’s pad. The Taine i on onesie of thee, while the mountain tres on the other” ‘A similar sense that a land of mountains, ran, and trees is 4 dismal place comes out in the worde: ‘The miserable Asiatic, it goes ill withthe land where he is (4 land) troubled with | water, inaccessible because of the many trees, with its roads bad because of the mountains.” Just as this land was wrong in every respect, so the miserable Asiatie was unaccountable: ‘Hee does not live in a single place, but his feet wander. He has been fighting since the time of Fiorus, but he conquers not, for is he conquered, and he never annovinces the day in fight” ing. .. He may plunder a lonely settlement, but he will not ‘ake City. .. Trouble thyself not about him: he is (only) an Asiatic’ Our own standard of life is the one which“a pErORE PHILosoPHY ‘we apply to others, and on the basis ofthis standard we find uaterpart in the Egyptian psychology. That is the uniformity of landscape. Down the centre of the land cuts the Nile. On each bank the fertile felds stretch away with the west bank the counterpart of the east. Thea comes the desert climbing up into two mountain finges lining the valley. Again, the western mountain desert isthe counterpart of the ‘eastern. Those who live on the black sil look out through the cleat aie and see practically the same scene everywhere. If they travel a day's journey t0 the south oF two days" journey to the north, the scene is much the same. Fields are broad and level; ‘ees are rare or small; there is no exceptional breakin the visa, except where some temple has been erected by man, or except in the two mountain ranges, which are really the outer limits of Eeypt. In the broad reaches of the Delta the uniformity is even. ‘more striking. There the fat stretches of fields move on mono- tonously without feature. ‘The only land which matters ia -Egype has uniformity and it has symmetry, “The interesting result of uniformity is the way in which it accentuates any exceptional bit of relief that happens to break the monotonous regularity. Out in the desert one is conscious of every hillock, of every spoor of an animal, of every desert duststorm, of every bit of movement. The rare irregular is very striking in an environment of universal regularity. It bas ani- ‘mation, it has life within the dominating pattern of non-life. Soalso in Egypt the prevailing uniformity of landscape threw into high relief anything which took exception to that unifor- sity. A solitary tree of tome size, a peculiarly shaped hill, ot 4 storm-cot valley was so exceptional that it took on indivi ualty. Man who lived close to nature endowed the excep tional feature with animation; i became inspisted to his mind “The same attrade of mind looked upon the animals which moved through the scene: the falcon floating inthe sky with ‘no more apparent motive power then the sun; the jackal fit- ting ghostlike along the margin of the desert; the crocodile wx NATURE oF rim UNIVERSE 49 Yorking lumplike oa the muds; or the powerful bull in whom was the sced of ‘These beasts were forces zoing beyond the normality of landscape they were fores ‘hich transcended the minimal observed atures of animals “They thecefoce took on high relief in the sene and were baieved to be vented with myrsrous or inserutable force related to an extex-homan wor. “Thismay bean oversimplieation of ancieot man’s animieic outlook on narore. OF course, itis trae tat any ageealtarl People bas fering for the force that works in nature and Eomes to personalize exch separate force. And before there ‘were naturalists to explain the mechanism of plants and ani tials to reason ox the chainof cxuseand tect inthe behaviout ‘of other things in one word, man’s only yardstick of ormalicy tras humanity: what be knew in himself andin his own expe ‘ce was human and normal; deviations from the normal wee fxtixfoman and thas potentially superhuman. Therefore a | was pointed out in the opening chapter, the burn came to | tes the cxtsshoman in terms of Roman intercourse The | phenomenal world to him was not'Te but “Thon” ews not | ecetsary that the object become Knally superhuman and be “fevered 454 god before it might be conetved in terms of "Thou. As exrachaman, but not of divine aatite, i wat “accorded the “Thon” sather than the“ by man. The Eeyp- “than might ~ and did ~ personify almost anything: the ead, “Thebally, the vongu, perecption, taste uth ate, a moun tain thes, city, darkest, and death But fe of these were | personified wth regularity or with ave; that is, few of them | feached the statute of gods or demigode, They were Fores | ith which man had the “Thou” relation. And ita lite dic | Cleto thik of anything in the phenomenal word with which | hemight not have shat rlition as indicted in scenes and tex. | Theansweris that he mightbave the "Thou relation with any- thiag inthe phenomenal world J Aether aspect of the mniforon landscape of Egypt was ite tymuetry est bank blancig west bank ard eastern roan | tin range balancing westem mountain range. Whether this | blsteen! syranetry of landscape sas the mason or not, the |30 dEFORE ruitosorny Eayptian had a strong sense of balance, symmetry, and geo- ‘meity. This comes out elealy in his art, where the best pro- ducts show a fidelity of proportion and a earefil counterpois- ing of clements in order to secuze a harmonious balance It ‘comes out nhs iterature, where the best products show adeli- berate and sonorous parallelism of members, which achieve dignity and cadence, even though it seeme monotonous and petitive to modern eats. ‘Let us illustrate this literary balance by quotations from 4 text giving a statement of one of the Fayptian kings: Give ead to my erences beatken them. Tipe to you mae you aware ‘Thar am the on of Re / who toed fom his body. stupa his toe in mpg nce be exablahed me te 1 oot ype [eld = ‘The balance sought bythe arst could be illustrated by Egyp- tian seulptores of paintings. Instead, we shall quote from the inscription of a ‘chief craltsman, painter, and sculptor, who ‘went into considerable deal with regard to his technical abi tics. Of his modelling, he said: ‘know how to work up clay how to proportion (i) according to rule, hw tomould grintso. duce (it) by taking sway or adding to itso that (cach) member ‘comes to its (proper) place.” OF his drawing, he sid: ‘I know (Gow to express) the movement of «figure, the carage of 4 woman, the pose ofa single instant, the cowering ofthe iso- lated captive, or how one eye looks a the other.® The empha- sis of his claimed shill ies in propoztioa, balance, and poise The same balance comes out in the Egyptia’s cosmology and his theology, where he sought for a eobnterpoie to exch observed phenomenon or each supernatural clement. If there inasky above thre mut be shy below; cach go must ave his goddess consort, even though she has no separate divine fanction but is simply «feminine counterpart of himself. Some ofthis stiving for bilateral symmetry seems tous strained, and ‘undoubtedly artical concepts dd arse inthe search t find 4 countezpoite fur anything observed or conceived. However, HE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE sn the psychological desire for balance which drew forth the artic ficial concept was not itself artificial but was adeeply engrained desite for symmettic poise. "That deep desire for balance will appear to the reader as con- tadictory t0 the lack of order which we deplored in the Egyp- tians? bland acceptance of any new concept, whether it €on- formed to an old concept or not, and their maintenance of apparently confiting concepts side by side There is acontea~ diction here, but we believe that it can be explained. The ancient Egyptian had a strong tense of symmetry and balance, ‘but he had litle sense of incongruity: he was perfectly willing, to balance off incompatibles. Fusther, he had litte sense of ‘causation, that A leads sequentially to B and B leads sequen- tially to C. Ae remarked in the introductory chapter, the ancient did not recognize causality «s impersonal and binding. {eis an oversimplifeation to say that the Egyptian’s thinking ‘was in terms of geometry rather than in terms of algebra, but that statement may give some idea of his limited virtues. The ‘order in hs philosophy lay in physical arrangement rather than in integrated and sequential systematization. cosmorocr ‘is now time to consider the terms in which the Egyptian viewed the physical universe, of which his own land was the focal centre, First of al, he took his orientation from the Nile River, the source of his life. He faced the south, from which the stream came. One ofthe terms for ‘south’ is also a term for “face’; the wsual word for ‘north is probably telated to a word which means the “back of the head. On his left was the eat tnd on his tight the west. The word for ‘east’ and ‘lft isthe same, and the word for ‘west and ‘ight is the same. ‘We were technically incorrect in stating that the Egyptian’s ‘orientation was to the south; more precisely we should say that the Egyptia ‘australized’ himself toward the source of the Nile. Ieis significant that he did not take his primary direction from the caxt, the land ofthe ising sun, the region which he called ‘God's Land’. As we shall see, the formulated theology did emphasize the east. But back inthe prehistoric days befores aaron rurosorHy theology hed crystallized, when the terms of the Egyptian lan- ‘guage were forming, the dweller on the Nile faced toward the South, the source ofthe annual refrilization of his land. The theological priority of the sun scems thus to bea later develop- sent. Te may be that we are dealing with two separate searchings for direction. Inthe trough of Upper Egypt, where the Nileso clessly flows from the south as the dominating featre of the land, the compass of maa's attention swung o the south In the Dele, where the broad stretches had no sich magaetie pul of direetion, the rising of the suai the east was a more important Phenomenon. The worship of the sun may thus have been ‘mote important in the north and may have been transferred © the entire land as state theology in some prehistoric conquest of the south by the north. Such a conquest would have estab- lished the theological primacy of the sun and made the eas hich was the region of the sun's rebirth, the aea of eligi importance, but it would not afect the words which showed that man's polarity was originally to the south, "The crystallized theology, as we know it in historic times, made the orient, the land of the sun's rising, the region of birth and ze-bitth, and made the occideat, the land ofthe suns st- ting, the region of death and life afer death. The east was tserer, God's Land’, beeause the sun rose there in youthly tlory. This general term for the east was even used for specific foreign countries, which were otherwise despised. Syea, Sinai, and Pun, all ing to the east, might be afficted with moua. tains, ees, and zsin, might be inhabited by ‘miserable Asi- but they belonged fo the youthful sun-god, so that they were designated also as ‘God's Land” and enjoyed a reflected glory through geographical accident and not through inner ‘merit. Implicitly the good produce of these eastern countries was ascribed tothe suo-god rather than tothe inhabitants: ‘All good woods of God's Land: heaps of myrsh gum, trees of fresh myreh, ebony, and clean ivory w« baboons, aes, grey- hounds, and panther skins," or ‘cedar, eypeess, and junipe all good woods of God's Land."* Tin the dogma that arose in magnification of the rising sun THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 8 the gratefl joy ofall creation atthe senewed appearance ofthe ‘motning sun was expressed again and again. The contrast be- tween evening and morning was a contrast between death and life, When thou settest on the western horizon, the land isin darkness in the manner of death .. (but) when the day breaks, as thou risest on the horizon ... they awake and stand upon their feet .. they live because thou hast arisen for them.” Not ‘only does mankind join in this renewal of life, but ‘all beasts prance upon their fet, and everything that fies or flutters," ‘and “apes worship him; “Praise to thee!” (ay) all heasts with ‘one accord." The Egyptian pictures show this morning wor- ship ofthe sua by animals: the apes stretching out limbs which ‘had been cooled at night, i apparent salutation to the warmth of the sun, or the ostriches limbering up at dawn by dancing f stately pavane in the fist rays of the sun. Such observed phenomena were visible proofs of the communion of men, beasts, and the gods. ‘But to rctum to the Egyptian’s concept of the world ia ‘which he lived. We are going to ty to give this ina single pic- ‘ure, which will have only partial justification, In the frst place, we are concerned with something like three thousand years of observed history, with the vestiges of prehistoric evelopment partially visible; and there was constant slow change across this long stretch of time. In the second place, the ancient Egyptian left us no single formulation of his ideas which we may use as nuclear material; when we pick and choose seraps of deat from seattered sources, we ate gratify- ing our modern craving fora single integrated system. That is, ‘our modern desire to capture a single picture is photographie and static, whereas the ancient Egyptian’s picture was cine- matic and Aid. For example, we should want to know in our picture whether the sky was supported on posts or was held up ‘bya god; the Egyptian would answer: “Yes, itis supported by posts or held up by a god ~ orit rests on walls, or itis a cow, or it isa goddess whose arms and feet touch the earth.” Any one ‘of these pictures would be satisfactory to him, according to his approach, and in a single picture he might show two different supports for the sky: the goddess whose arms and fet reach4 BEFORE PHILOSOPHY the earth, and the god who holds up the sky-goddess. This possibility of complementary viewpoints applies t0 other con- cepts, We shal therefore pick a single picture, in the knowledge thar it tells a characteristic story, but not the only story. “The Egyptian conceived of the earth as a at platter with ‘ corrugated rim. The inside bottom of tis platter was the fat alluvial plan of Egypt, and the corrugated rim was the rim of mountain countries which were che foreign lands. This platter floated in water. There were the abysmal waters below, on ‘which the plater rested, called by the Egyptian ‘Noa’. Naa ‘was the waters of the underworld, and, according to one con- tinuing concept, Nin was the primordial waters out of which life fst issued. Life sil isued from these underworld waters, for the sua was reborn every day out of Nin, and the Nile ‘came pouring forth from caverns which were fed from Non. In addition to being the underworld waters, Nin was the waters encircling the world, the Okeanos which formed the outermost boundary, also called the ‘Great Cireuit or the “Great Green’. Thus it was clear thatthe sun, aftr its nightly journey under the world, must be cebora beyond the eastern horizon out of those encircling waters, just as all the gods had originally come forth out of Nan. Above the easth was the invested pan of the sky, setting the ‘outer limi to the universe. As we have already said the erav- ing for symmetry, as well as a sense that space is limited, called forth counterheaven under the earth, bounding the limits of the underworld, This was the universe withia which man and the gods and the heavenly bodies operated. ‘Various qualifications to this picrare are immediately neces- sary. Our picture gives the vault of heaven as suspended by apparent levitation above the earth. That would appeal to the ancient Egyptian as dangerous, and he would ask for some visible means of support. As we have already said, he provided various means of support in various concepts, the incompati- bility of which he cheerfully ignored. The simplest mechanism ‘was fous posts set on earth to entry the weight of heaven. These ‘were at the outer limits of the earth, as is indicated by such texts as: ‘Thave set. the terror of thee as far as the four pillars HE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 55 of heaven," and the aumber four suggests that they were Dplced at the four points of the compass. Fortunately, this Arrangement appealed to the Eeyptian as being both strong, land permanent: “(As firm) as heaven resting upon its four | posts isa simile used move han once” EO Ne sho | . w Se es | Nin mee a oe ieee eae ‘But heaven might have other support. Between heaven and ‘earth there was Sh, the air-god, and it was his function to stand fiemly on earth and carry the weight of heaven. In the Pyramid Tests (t101) it is said: “The arms of Sha are under heaven, that he may carry it’ Sigaificantly, another version of this text gives a variant: “The arms of Sha are under Nat, that hhe may carry her,’ for heaven was, of course, personified as a deity, the sky-goddess Nut. She is represented as erouching lover earth, with her fingers and toes touching the ground, ‘while the son, moon, and stars adorn her body. She may cxtry her own weight in this pose, or the air-god Sha may take some of her weight on his uplifted hands. ‘Again, the vault of heaven might be represented as the ‘under-belly ofa celestial cow, studded with sta, and provid- ing the Milky Way along which the boat of the sun might make its heavenly course. That these concepts are essentially alternatives did not seem to bother the Egyptian. In the course Of single text he might use these differing ideas about heaven; cach concept pleated him and ad its pertinent value in uni ‘verse which was fluid and in which almost all things were pos- sible to the gods. Within his own standards of what is credible and convincing, he bad his own consistency. All his concepts6 BEFORE PHILosoPHY ‘THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 7 ‘of heaven and its supports gave him assurance instead of ua- place of the eternal blessedness for which Egyptians longed. In certainty, because the} weeeallsable and enduring and because fone concept could be taken as complementing another instead of contradicting it Under the vault of heaven were the heavenly bodies, the stars hanging from the inverted pan or else spangling the belly ‘of the cow oof the goddess, andthe moon similarly treated. ‘The moon has curiously tle weight in Egyptian mythology, or, rather, we should say that has ttle weightin the evidence ‘whic as desended ous. There are traces that chere had been cay importne centres of moon worship, but this worship became diverted into less cosmie directions in hstore times. “Thus the moon-god ‘Thoth was more important asa god of wisdom and a divine judge than he was through his heavealy setivity. The waning and waxing moon dise as one ofthe two ‘cles eyes became a rather formal part of the Ost story, ferving at the injury suffered by Horus in fighting for his father, aninjury which was restored every month by the moon- god. Conceivably this idea vas taken over from some eatlier ‘myth in which the moon had had an imporahee comparable to that of the sun, the other eclestial eye In historical times there ‘was litle comparison berscen the two bodies. Similaly, the stars had their importance in the measusing of time, and so or three ofthe major constellations were deities ‘of some weight; but only one group of stas achieved lasting importance in the Egyptian scene. Again, ths importance had to do with tumph over death, Tn the clear Egyptian ai the stars stand out with bilianee. Most ofthe stars swing across the sky witha seythelike sweep and disappene below the hori. zon. But one section ofthe skies employs a smaller orbit, and there the stars may dip toward the horizon but never disappeat "Those are the ciscumpolae stars swinging around the North Su, stars which the Egyptians called ‘those that know 0 sestivetion’ of ‘those that know no wearines. These undying stars they took as the symbol of the dead who triumphed ovee death and went on into eteral life. That north section of heaven was in eadly times an important past of the universe. Visibly there was no death theres therefore, it must be the the early mortuary texts, which we moderns call the Pyramid ‘Texts, the goal of the deceased was the region of Dit in the northern part of heaven, where he would join the circumpolar stats ‘which know no destruction’ and thus live forever him- self. There were located their Elysian Fields, the ‘Field of ‘Reeds’ and the ‘Field of Offerings, in which the dead would live as an afd, an ‘effective’ spirit As time went on, and as the dominant mythology of the sun spread:its weight over the nation, the region of Dit shifted from the northern part of the sky to the underworld. The old texts which tried every conceivable method of boosting the dead into heaven were still ctcrated with solema fervour, but the entry-way into the next world was now in the west, and the ‘two Elysian Fields were below the earth. This was clearly be- cause the sun died in the west, bad its spiritual course under the earth, and gloriously was reborn in the east. So, t00, the dead most shate in this promise of constantly continued life, ‘must be sifted to the proximity of the sun in order to pastici ‘pte in his fare. Thus our picture of the universe must recog- ‘ize Dit, the area between earth and the countecheaven asthe realm of the immortal dead. ‘Enough has already been said about the centeal importance Of the sun in this scene. Something must be said about his motive power on his daily journey. Most commonly he is Aepicted as moving by boat, and the bilateral symmetry which the Egyptian loved gave him a boat for the day and another boat forthe night. Various important gods formed the erews of these two boats. This journey might not be all stately and serene: there was a serpent lurking along the way to attack the boat and presumably swallow the sun; battle was necessary to ‘conquer this creature. This i, of course, the common belief in ‘many lands that eclipses occur when a snake or dragon swal- lows up the sun. But a tuc eclipse was not the only pheno- ‘menoa involved; every night an attempt to swallow up the sun ‘was met and conquered in the underworld, ‘The sun might have other motive power. It seemed to be ‘rolling ball, and the Egyptians knew a rolling ball in that pel-8 neront rurtosoriy let which the dung beede pushed across the sand, Soa beetle, a scarb, became a symbol for the morning sun, with an afer- ‘hoon counterpart in an old man wearily moving toward the ‘western horizon. Aga, the symbol of the faleonsoacing in spparent motiolessness in the upper air suggested that the San dsc alo might ave falcon wings for is forse fight. ‘As before, these concepts were fle to be complementary and notconflcting, The possesion of many manifestations of being olaged the glory of the god, “To move the concept ofthe sun even farther from the physi «al fom the notion of fry dise which swung sronnd the fatth every twenty-four hours, we must here note other apects ofthe sur god, Re. As supreme god, he was a divine king, and legend sid that he bad been the frst king of Bgypt in pamor- fl times. He-was thas represented inthe form ofa bearded deicy with diseashis crown. Ax supreme god, heloaned him- Selfto other gods, inorder to enlarge them and give thema pi- acy within geographical or fenctiogal limits, Thos he was both Re and Re-Atum, the erator god, at Heliopolis. He was RéHlarathte, thats, Re-tloras-ofthe-Hoczon, ss the youth- ful god on the eastern horizon. At various localities he became Monte-RE, a faleon-god, Sobel-Re, a crocodile-god, and Khnum-Ré, a ram-god. He became Amon-Ré, King of the Gods a the imperial god of Thebes. As we have su these separate manifestations enlarged him. He was ot simply asolae tise, He had personality asa god. Here we revere again to the istiction between the scientife concept of» phenomenon a8 “tf andthe ancient concept ofa phenomenon as ‘Thow given in chapter, There it was sid that science sable to compre hend the “Te assed by lave which make its behaviour rla~ tively predictable, whereas the ‘Thou has the unpredictable claracter ofan individea,'s presence known only in $0 far as it teveal tlt? In these terms the apparetiy antic end pro- tean character of the sun becomes simply the verte and ible ta very able incvidual. Surprise at ed personality may ultimately give way t0 fan expectation that he wil beable to participate in aay stu tion with specialized competence. THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 9 “Now we shall examine some of the creation stories. tec prank ie cme care” “not settle down to a single codified account ofthe beginaings. “The accepted various myths and discarded none of “them. It is farther to be noted that ti easier to observe close ‘parallels between the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts of the {Rencss than iti to relate the Egyptian accounts to the other ‘ovo, Within the broad area of general developmental simi- larity in the ancient Neat East, Egypt stood slight apart. We have already noted that Nan, the primordial abyss, was the region out of which life first came. This of course, partic cularly true ofthe sun, because of his daily re-emergence from the depths, and of the Nile, because it consists of ground ‘waters. But the phrase ‘who came forth from Nan’ is used of ‘many other individual gods and of the council of the gods as fa group. In large part, we nced not seek too seriously for ‘myth for this idea. The depths oF the primordial water are ‘a concept needing no teleological story; Tennyson's reference to life as ‘that which drew from out the boundless deep' needs 10 explanation. However, we must give closer attention to one account of life appearing out of the waters, and that has the location of ‘ication on a ‘primeval hillock. We have mentioned. how broad sheets of water cover Eaypt when the Nile inundation is tits height and how the sinking of the waters brings into view the first isolated peaks of mud, refreshed with new fertile sil. ‘These would be the frst islands of promise for new life in anew agricultural year. As these frst hilocks of slime lift their heads out of the floodwaters into the baking warmth of the sun, itis easy to imagine that they spotter and erckle with new life. The modern Egyptians believe that there is special ife- fiving power in thsslime, and they ae notalone ia this belief Alittle ess than thece centuries ago there was a scientific com. troversy about spontaneous generation, the ability of appar ently inorganic matter to produce living organisms. One Eng- Tishman wrote tat if his scholcly opponent doubted that lie ‘came into being through putrefition which went oa in mod6 BEronE PurosorHy ‘or slime, let him go to Egypt, and there he will ind the fields ‘swarming with mice begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great ‘calamity of the inbabitants.# It is not hard to believe that ani- mal life may come out of this highly charged mud. ‘The evidence on the Egyptian myth of the origin of life on the primeval hillock is scattered and allusive. The essential point is thatthe creator-god made his first appearance on this solitary island. At least two different theological systems imed primacy through the possession of a primeval hillock, indeed ultimately every temple which had a high place for its god probubly considered that high place to be the place of creation. The pyramids themselves bostow this ides of arising hill a a promise to the deceased Egyptian buried within the pyramid that he will emerge again into new being. As pointed ‘out in chapter I, the concept ofthe creation hillock isthe essen- al, and its location in space, whether Heliopolis or Hermo- polis, was of no concern to the Egyptian. ‘Let us take a passage from the Book of the Dead, which states this first solitary appearance of RE-Atum, the exeator-god. ‘The text ie provided with explanatory glosses. ‘Lam Atum when I ws alone in Nia (the primordial water); Tame RE in is rt} appearances, when he began to rule tat which he bad made ‘What does hat mean? This ‘Ré when he began to rule that which be bad ‘made’ moses that Re beg to appear as a Ling, a8 one who existed before {Ue sie-god) Shi had (ven) ite (beaven from earth, when be (R) a8 (90 the primeval block which wat in Hermopoli™ "The text then goes on to emphasize the fact that the god was self-created and that he proceeded to bring into being “the gods who are in his following.” “The Egyptian hieroglyph which means the primeval ‘hillock of appearance’ meant also ‘to appear in glory’. It shows a rounded mound with the rays of the sun streaming upward from it (@), graphically portraying this miracle of the first appearance of the creator god. "The text which we have cited placed the creation ona mound the town of Hermopolis, the home of certain gods who were being before the creation. However, that anomaly of pre- creation existence need not worry us too seriously, for the TME NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE Gr ‘names of these gods show that they represent the formless chaos which existed before the creator-god brought order out of disorder. We should qualfy the term ‘chaos lightly, 38 these preereation gods sre neatly paired onto fou couples, | god and a goddess for each quality of chaos. Tht is another ‘aazmple ofthe love of symmetry. These fou prs of pods pet |Sxted in mythology as the ‘Hight who were before the begin- | bing. They were Nan, the primordial waters and his consor, ‘Nasnet, who cate tobe the counterheaven Huh, the bound: ‘less stretches of primondal formlessness, and his consort, ‘Havhet; Kak, ‘darkness’, and his consort, Kauket; and Amin, thats, Amon, ‘the hidden’, representing the intangibility and imperceptibilty of chaos, with ie consore, Amaunet, All this isa way of saying what the Book of Genesis says tht, before creation, ‘the earth was waste and void; and darkness was ‘poo the face of the deep.” Sh and Amin, boundleseness and {mperceptbilty, are rough parallels tothe Flcbrew tabu vob, ‘waste and void’; while Kak, darkness, and Noa, the abyss, ase cleatysimilac tothe Hebrew beshok apo tlm, “darkness ‘upon the fice ofthe deep water’. This smlaity i interesting bat not too alluring, because the Egyptian story and the “Hebrew diverge immediately when one comes tothe episodes ff creation, with Egypt emphasising the eeléemergence of a creator-god, whereas the creator pod of Genesis existed Alongside the chaos. You have to begin with some concept, so thar primitive man everywhere would try toconceive ofa form- Tessnes before form was made. This formlesrness might have such the same terms anywhere. We shall zvert to the Genesis story ater, ‘At this point we cannot pursue the other emeapences of 4 primeval hillock in other cule ceates of the implications of this though a the beliefs and iconography of Egypt. We wish instead to plunge on toa more developed mythological pheno- ‘enon which basis importance in the creation storie, Tneatly times the sun-god had his own fir of gods, which -vas also the supreme council of the gods. This group, which Ina its eief centre atthe temple ofthe sun at Heliopolis, wat the Ennead, ‘te Nine’, consisting of four intertelated couples62 BEFORE putLosoPHy surmounted by one common ancestor. This Ennead or ‘Nine’ ‘may be placed in contrast to the ‘Bight’, which we havealready. discussed, for the ‘Eight’ comprised elements of cosmic dis- order, whereas this ‘Nine’ contained only progressive steps of cosmic order: air and moisture; earth and sky; the beings on. the earth. This says clearly that the creation marks the divid= ing-line between preceding confusion and present order. I is ‘ot implied thatthe ereator-god conquered and annihilated the clements of chaos and set the elements of order in their place. ‘On the contrary, itis obvious that such pre-creation gods as Niin, the underworld waters, and Kak, darkness, continued after the creation; but they continued in their proper place and rot in universal and formless disorder. la that sense, this crea- tion has similarities with the ereation in Genesis: a separation of light from darkness and a scparation of waters below from waters above. ‘The sun-god Atum, as he perched on the primeval hillock, ‘was selfcreated; as the Egyptian puts it, he ‘became, by him- self Now the mame Arum means ‘everything’ and it means ‘nothing’. This is not as paradoxical a it sounds, for the word ‘means ‘what is finished, completed, perfected’ and all these terms have their postive and their negative, ‘Finis’, weitten at the end of a boole, means: “That's all. There isn’t any more." So, too, Atum means all-inclusiveness and it means emptiness, acthe beginaing rather than atthe end. Acum isthe inchoation of all. He is like that pregnant stillness which precedes a bhursicane, "There are varying aceounts ofthe creation itself. The Book of the Dead (17) states that the sun-god created his names, as the ruler of the Ennead. This is explained as meaning that he named the parts of his body and that ‘thus arose these gods ‘who are in his following’. ‘That is delightfully primitive and has a consistency ofits own. The parts of the body have sepa rate existence and separate character, so that they may have relation to separate deities. The name is a thing of indivi- duality and of power; the act of speaking a new name isan act of creation. Thus we have the picture ofthe creator squatting, oa his tiny island and inventing eames for eight parts of ‘THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 6 body ~ of four pairs of parts ~ with each utterance bringing fa new god into existence. ‘The Pyramid Texts present a diferent pictare. Addressing. _Atum and recalling the occasion whea the god was high upon the primeval hillock, the inscription goes on: “Thou didst spit what was Sh; thou didst sputter out what was Tefnu. Thou didst put thy arms about them as the arms of a Ay, for thy ha ‘was in'them’ (1652-3). This has the creation asa rather vio- lent ejection ofthe first two gods. Pechaps it was as explosive ‘asa sneeze, for Shi is the god of air, and his consort, Tefntt, is the goddess of moisture. The reference to the ke needs ‘We shall discuss the Aa or other personality of an individual later. The concept of the Aa has something of the alter ego in it and something of the guardian spiet with the protecting arms. That is why Atum puts his arms protectingly Around his two children, for his Ae was in them, an essential part of himself, ‘Another, more earthy, text makes the production of Sha and ‘Tefiiitan act of selfpollution on Atum’s part#® This is clearly an attempt to surmount the problem of generation by a god alone, without an attending goddess, ‘The couple Shi and Tefntt, air and moisture, gave birth to ‘earth and sky, the earth-god Geb and the sky-goddess Nat. (Or, according to another concept, the airgod Shi lifted and tore asunder earth and sky. Thea in their tum Geb and NOt, ‘earth and sky, mated and produced two couples, the god Oniris and his consort Isis, the god Seth and his consort Nephthys. ‘hese represent the creatures of this world, whether human, divine, or cosmic. I shall not take time toargue the exact origie nal significance of these four beings, as we are not precisely ‘certain of any of them. ‘Arum sh Tete ‘Geb Oss — 1 Seth —Nephihys ‘Thus in this ruling family of the gods we have a ereation| story implicily. Arum, the supercharged vacuum, separated into air and moisture. As if ia the operation of the nebular64 BsvoRE pumosoPHy hypothesis, air and moisture condensed into earth and sky. Out of earth and sky came the beings that populate the universe. ‘We do not here wish to go into some of the other creation stories, such as the god who was himself the ‘rising land’ on. ‘hich the misacle took place, It is interesting that we lack a specific account ofthe crestion of mankind, except in the most allusive way. A ram-god, Khnum, is referred to as forming ‘mankind on his potter's wheel, or the sun-god is called the ‘discoverer of mankind” * But no story of separate creation of man is necessary, for a reason which we shall discuss more fully later; that zeason is that there was no firm and final divid jngeline between gods and men. Once a creation was started ‘with beings, it could go oa, whether the beings were gods, demi-gods, tpists, or men. ‘One of the texts which comments incidentally on excation states that mankind was made in the image of god. This text ‘emphasizes the goodness of the creator-god in caring for his ‘human creatures. ‘Well ended are men, the eatle of god. He ‘made heaven and earth according to their desire, and he repelled the water monster (at creation). He made the breath (of) life (For) their nostrils. They are his images that have issued from his body. He arises in heaven according to their desire. ‘Hee made for them plants and animals, fow! and fish, in order ‘to nourish them. He slew his enemies and destroyed (even) his (own) children when they plotted rebellion (against him)’ ‘The text is interesting and unusual in making the purposes of creation the interests of humans; normally the myth recounts the steps of creation without indication of purpose. But this pparticulac text happens to have strong moral purpose. Note, for example, the reference to the god’s destroying mankind ‘when they rebelled against him. We shall rerurn to this remote parallel to the biblical Flood story in the next chapter. ‘We must examine at length one final document beating; on the creation, This is an insription called the Memphite Theo- logy, a context to strange and difleent from the material we have been discussing thatt seems, at first glance, to come from. another wotld, And yet closer examination assures us thatthe difference isa matter of degree and not of kind, because all the ‘THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 6 strange clemeats io the text of the Memphite Theology were present in other Egyptian texts in isolated instances; only in this text were they brought together into a broad philosophical system about che nature of the univers. ‘The document in question is a battered stone in the British Muscum, bearing the name of an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled | about 700 0.c:* However, this pharaoh claimed that he had | simply copied an insription ofthe ancestors, and his lain is | bore out by the language and typically easly physical arrange- sent of the test. We are dealing with a document which comes | from the very beginning of Egyptian history, from the time ‘when the first dynasties made their new eapital at Memphis, ‘the city ofthe god Ptah. Now, Memphis as the centre ofa theo- cratic tate was an upstart; it had had no national importance before. To make matters worse, Heliopolis «traditional relig- jows capital of Egypt, the home of the sun-god RE and ofthe ‘crestor-god RE-Atum, was only twenty-five miles from Mem- pis. It was necessary to justify a new location ofthe centre of the world. The text in question is past of a theological rgu- ‘ment of the primacy of the god Ptah and thus of his home, ‘Memphis. | ‘The creation texts which we have discussed eater have ‘been more strictly in physial terms: the god separating earth from sky or giving birth to air and moistuse. ‘This new text turns as far as the Egyptian could turn toward a creation in philosophical terms: the thought which came into the heart of 4 god and the commanding utterance which brought that ‘thought into reality. ‘Tis creation by thought conception and speech delivery has its experiential background in humaa life: theauthority ofa ruler to ereate by command, But only the use of physical terms such as ‘heart’ for thought and ‘tongue’ for ‘command relate the Memphite Theology to the more earthy texts which we have been considering. Here, as Professor | Breasted has pointed out, we come close to the background of the Logos doctrine of the New Testament: ‘In the beginning ‘was the Word, and ehe Word was with God, and the Word ‘was God? Before undertaking this dificult text itself, we should lay | om,66 ORE PHILOSOPHY out for ourselves the knowa factors that play into the interpee- tation of the text. First, the Memphite text takes off fom the creation stories which Ihave aleady recounted: Atam coming into being out of Nao, the primeval wates, and Atum bring- ing his Ennead of gods into existence. The Memphite text is aware that these were prevailing concepts in Eaypt. Ia place of discarding them as competitive, it wishes to subsume them into a higher philosophy, to take advantage of them by point- ing out that they belong toa higher system. “That higher sjstem employs ienian by the cognition of an dean the mind and production hough the uterance ofa xeat~ ing order by speech. Now thought and speech are ancient attri butes of power in Egypt, personified as deities in our eaiest, literature. They occus normally as par of related acributes of the sun-god: He, ‘authoritative utterance, that speech which is so efective that it creates, and Si, ‘perception, the cogni tive reception ofa situation, sn object, or an idea. HO and were attributes that eartied governing authosity. Inthe Pyea- tid ‘Tees the raling god leaves his shrine and surrender his office to the deceased king, because the latter ‘has eapeured Ha, has contro of Sia" (300). In our Memphite text these two axteibutes of power ate taken in material texms: the hearts the ‘organ which conceives though, and the tongue is the organ ‘which creates the conceived thought a8 a phenomenal actu- ality. AI this is exedited to the acuvity of the Memphite god rah who is himself thought and speech in every heart and on every tongue, and thus was the fst creative principle ust as be remains now. ‘The part of the text in which we are intrested begias by equating Puh with Non, the peimeval waters out of which time tum, the normally accepted ereaor-god. This in itself sakes Pah antecedent tothe sun-god, and that priority occurs in pasting references in other texts But one text doesnot leave: the priosty implicit; it states the mechanism by which Ptah produced Atum. “Ptah, the Great One; he is th heat and tongue ofthe Ea- need of gods... who begot the gods .. There came into being in the heart, and there eae into being on the tongue (some ‘THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 67 thing) in the form of Atum.’ This is the invention and produc- ‘tion of Atum. Out of nothing, there came into existence the dea of an Atam, of a exeatorsgod. That idea ‘became, in the ‘heart’ of the divine world, which heart or mind was Ptah him ‘self; then that idea “became, upon the tongue’ of the divine ‘world, which tongue or specch was Ptah himself. The Egyp- ‘an utes pictorial, physical language; it says ellipialy: “in- the-form-of-Atum became, ia the heart, and became, on the ‘tongue’, but there is no question ofthe meaning, Conception ‘nd parturition reside in these terms. But Puab’s creative power does not stop with the production ‘of the traditional ereator-god. ‘Great and mighty is Pah, who has transmitted (power to all gods), a8 well as theie spirits, through this (activity of the) heare and chis (activity of the) ‘tongue.’ Nor does the cxcative principle stop with the gods. “Teas come to pass thatthe beart and tongue control (very) | member (ofthe body) by teaching that he Pua is throughout ‘every body (in the form of the heart) and throughout every ‘mouth (i the form of the tongue), ofall gods, ofall men, of (all) animals, ofall eeeping things, and of what (ever) lives, by |(Pah’s) thinking (asthe heart) and commanding (asthe ton~ ‘gue) anything that he wishes.’ In other words, we have no single miracle of thought conception and articulation, but the same principles of creation which were valid in the primeval waters to bring forth Arum are still valid and operative. ‘Wherever there is thought and command, there Ptah still ‘reat. ‘The text even draws an invidious distinction between the ‘taditioval creation by which Atum brought forth Shi and ‘efntit and that creation whereby Ptah spoke Shi and Tefnit and thos brought them into being, P's teeth and lps ate the articulating organs of the productive speech As we mentioned earlier, ne version of the Atum story makes Shi and Tefnit products of the selpollution of the ereator-god. Thus teeth And lips in the case of Ptah are brought into parallelism with the semen and hands of Atum. To out maderh prejudice, this ‘makes the Ptah creation a nobler activity; but i is not certain thatthe ancient meant to belite the more physical story. Pee-68 BEFORE PHILOSOPHY haps he was simply expressing the correspondence of altena- tive myths when be sad: ‘Now the Ennead of Atum came into ‘being from his seed and by his fingers; but the Ennead (of Pa) is the teed andthe lis in this mouth which utered the same of everything and (tus) Sho and Tefoae came forth from is? We have aleady seen how the utterance ofa name is in itself an act of ereation. ‘That text goes on to specify in detail the products of the activity of the conceptive heart and creative tongue, without fadding anything essentially new. It explains the mechanistic ‘elation ofthe vatiows senses to the hexet and tongue by stating that the function ofthesight of the eyes the hearing ofthe ears, and the smelling ofthe nose isto report to the hear. Oa the basis of this aesory information, the heart releases ‘everything ‘which is completa’ that is, every established concept, and then ‘itis the tongue which aanouaces what the heat thinks’. “Then the text summarizes the range ofthis creative power of Ptahas heart and tongue. Thus were the gods born; thus came into being ll of the divine order; thus were made the directive destinies ‘which supply mankind with food and provisions; thus war made the distinetion betweea sight and wrong; thas were made allats crafts, and human activites; thus Pa made provinces and eitics and ser he various local gods in their pox ‘oning places, Finally: “Thus it was discovered and understood that his (Paha) power is greater than (hat ofthe othe) gods. ‘And so Pah rested afterhe had made everything, as well asthe divine order’. Admittedly the word ‘ested? introduces a paral lelto the Genesis story of God's resting on the seventh day-The ‘uanslation’ restedis defensible, butitis probably saferto sender: ‘And so Puah was satisfied, aftr be had made everything” Tis clear that there is some special pleading in this text, the stempt of an upstart theology to establish self as national and univecsal against older, traditional ways of thinking, That comes out in a quotation which we have just givea, which tight be paraphrased: For these eatons, all nghethiaking ‘men have come to the conclusion that Pas the most power- fal ofall gods. Undoubtedly that special interest does li ia this text, Dut that fact need not eoacern us much, As we have suid, | What the gods have said isi He NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 6 the Memphite Theology did not wish to conquer and annihi- late the theology of Heliopolis bu to conquer and assimilate it. ‘And, after al, we are more interested in the possibility of ' developed speculative thought as given in this text than in ‘any controversy between two important shrines. itwould be better to call our rendering of the words “the word of the god? by ‘the divine order’ a free paraphrase. ‘But we should still justify it. “The word of the god’ ean and does mean ‘concern ofthe gods’ or what we might ell ‘divine interest. But the phrace ‘the divine order’ implies that the ‘gods have a system into which all the created elements should ‘Stas soon as created. The context enumerates the created ele- ‘ments: gods, fortunes, food, provisions, towns, districts, ete. “These ate summed up inthe term ‘everything’, after which we thave ‘as well as the word of the god’. What can this mean other than the directive order? ‘One can argue this same sense in other Egyptian contexts. For example, an assertion that the righteous man is not wiped ‘out by death but has an immortality because of his goodly memory is indorsed with the words: “That is the method of seckoning of the word of god”; in freer sense: “Thatis the prin- ciple ofthe divine order’* ‘Because the Egyptians thought ofthe word in physical, con- crete terms and because the priesthood was the interpreter of ‘what was divine, this ‘word of god’ came to be treated as “a body of lieratore, the sacred writings, but it was still the directive speech given by the gods. A dead noble was promised ‘every good and pure thing, in conformance to that writing of the word of god which (the god of wisdom) Thoth made.”*In another passage one scribe chides another for the impious pre- ‘sumption of his boasting: “Iam astonished when thou sayest: “Tam more profound as a scribe than heaven, or earth, or the ‘underworldt™... The house of books is concealed and invisible; the council ofits gods is hidden and distant... Thus I answer theet “Beware lest thy fingers approach the word of god!” elf directive and controling; itsets an order within which man and the other elements of the universe operate.7 BEFORE PittLosoPHY ‘Thos the ‘word of the god” is nothing so simple in these con- texts as divine writing’ or hieroglyphic. It is the word or con- ‘ern or business of the gods which applies to the elements ‘which the gods have created, Not only were material elements ‘xeated, but there was created for them ‘word’, which applied ‘to them and which put them into their appropriate places in the god's scheme of things. Creation was not the irresponsible production of oddly assorted pieces, which might be shaken ‘down in a vast impersonal lottery wheel. Creation was accom- ‘panied and directed by a word which expressed some kind of a divine order in order to comprehend the created elements. Tnsummary, the ancient Egyptian was selconscious about himself and his universe; he produced a cosmos in terms of bis ‘wa observation and his own experience. Like the Nile Valley, this cosmos had limited space but reassuring periodicity; its structural framework and mechanics permitted the reiteration of life through the rebirth of life-giving elements, The exeation stories of the ancient Egyptian were also in terms of his own. ‘experienc although they bear loose general similarity to other creation stories. The most interesting advance lies in a very ‘early attempt t relate creation to the processes of thought and. speech rather than to mere physical activity. Even this ‘higher? philosophy is given in pictorial terms arising out of Egyptian experience. NOTES . 15. BD, Introductory Hyman, = 36, Unk. IV, 61a. Es 17 Mid 183,83 4. Ata tym, 5 o Brita (rhe). $ Tomboe, ts 1, Uke V, 6=BD, 17. & Aton Hy, 9-10, ae Pyre12y8, 2 a Ps Anat Tyrer. f cuaprer 1 Egypt: The Function of The State ‘THE UNIVERSE AND THE STATE ‘Tux inst two chapters have attempted to establish the atti- ‘ude of mind with which ancient man viewed the world around him. Before moving directly o a consideration of the state and its place in the Egyptian scene, we should consider two questions which provide a setting for that consideration. Did the ancient Egyptian see an essential difference in sub stance between men, society, the gods, plants animals, and the physical universe? Did he believe the universe to be benevo- Tent, hostile, or indifferent to him? These questions have bear- ing on the selation ofthe state to the universe and on the fune- toning of the state for the bene of man. Let us take first the question about difference of substance among men, gods, and other elements of the universe. This problem has vexed Christian theologians for centuries. We can give only a personal answer with reference to ancient Egypt: Tobe sure, a man seems to be one thing, and the sky or a tree seems to be another. Bue to the ancient Eeyptian such concepts had a protean and complementary aatuse, The sky might be thought of as a material vault above earth, of as a cow, of a8 8 female. A tree might bea tre ot the female who was the tree- goddess. Truth might be treated as an abstract concept, of a8 4 goddess, or a a divine hero who once lived on eatth. A god might be depicted as a man, ot as a falcon, ot as a faleon- ‘headed man. In one context the king is desctibed as the sua, aastar,a bull, a crocodile, a lion, a falcon, a jackal, and the two tutelary gods of Egypt - not so much in simile as in vital, essence There was thus a continuing substance across the phenomena of the universe, whether organic, inorganic, of abstract. It is not a matter of black being antipodal to white Dbut rather tha the universe is a spectrum in which one colour blends off into another without line of demarcation, in which,” BEFORE PHILOSOPHY THE FUNCTION oF THE STATE 75 indeed, one colour may become another under alternating con- of Egypt, ot kingship. In terms of his function that god had ditions. “We wish to argue this point further. Our line of argument sll be chat to the ancient Egyptian the clements ofthe universe ‘were consubstantial. If that be true, the tems which he knew best - human behaviour ~ would be the frame of reference for ‘non-human phenomena, Itwould then be idle to argue whether the universe, or the gods of the universe, were believed to be benevolent, malevolent, or indifferent. They would be just like bbumans: benevolent when they were benevolent, malevolent ‘when malevolent, and indifferent whea indifferent. To patitin active terms, they would be benevolent when benevolence was their stated business and malevolent when malevolence was their stated business. That conclusion would have relation to the of the state and the forces responsible for the "The fist claim for the argument that the elements ofthe uai- verse were of one substance is in the principle of free substitu- tion, interchange, or representation. It was very easy for one clement to take the place of another. ‘The deceased wanted bead, so that he might not be hungry in the next world. He ‘made contractual arrangements whereby loaves of bread were presented cegulacly at hi tomb, so that his spieit might return and ext of the bread, But he was aware of the transitory nature fof contracts and of the greed of bred servants, He supported his needs by other forms of bread. A model loaf made of wood and left inthe tomb would be an adequate representative of an actual loaf. The pictare of loaves of bread on the tomb wall would continue to feed the deceased by representation. If other means of presentation were lacking, the word ‘bread’, spoken or written with reference to his nourishment, might bean effective substitute. Ths is an easy concept: the physical rman was formerly here; now the spisitual man is over there; ‘we must project over to him spiritual, not physical, bread, 50 that the absolute is not necessary; the aame or the idea or the representation will be enough. ‘Let us carry representation into another atea. A god tepre- sented something important in the universe: the sky, a district cextensiveness and intangibility. Buthe might havealocalization in our world, ina place where he might fecl at home; that is, 4 shrine might be specified for him. In that shrine he might ‘havea place of manifestation in an image. This image was not ‘the god; it was merely a mechanism of stone or wood or metal to permit him to make aa appearance. This is stated by the Egyptians in one of the ereation sceounts. The creator god acted for the other gods, and *he made their bodies like that ‘with which their hears were satisfied. So the gods entered into. their bodies of every (kind of) wood, of every (kind of) stone, lor every (kind of) cay. ia which they had taken form. ® These images were provided for them so tha they might have places in which to ake visible form. ‘Thus the god Amon might be at hhome in a stone statue of human form, in a specially selected am, ot ina specially selected pander. He remained himself and did not become identical with this form of appearance, and yet hhe bad a diferent form of appearance fora diferent purpose, just as humans might maintain diferent homes ox might have diferent garments, OF course, we rationalize the image ot the sacred animal as being an empty shell of divinity unless divinity were manifest in the shel. Fowever, in another sense the image or the animal was ive of divinity or was divinity itself. I mean that divinity would be present in his place of manifestation ‘wheneverhis business placed him there, and his business placed hhim there when the act of worship before the image called him into residence. So that the image did act for and as the god. ‘whenever the worshipper addressed himself to the image. Ia that sense, the image was the god forall working purpose. ‘There were other substitutes for the gods. The king of Egypt was himself one ofthe gods and was the land’s representative among the gods. Furthermore, he was the one oficial inter- ‘mediary between the people and the gods, the ove priest of ll the gods. Endowed with divinity, the pharaoh had the protean character of divinity; he could merge with his fel- Jlow-gods and could become any one of them. In part this was symbolic, the ating ofa partin religious drama or the simile of" aaron rutiosorHr piste. Bur the Feyptian did aot distinguish berwesa symbole ism and (on; if he said that the king was Horus, be did not mean that the king was playing the part of Horas, be ‘meant thatthe king aus Flom, that the god was effectively present ia the king's body during the particular accvity ia “"Hlow can the king be the god-kng unless the god-king is present in him, so thatthe ewo become one? A single text ma tifying the king equates him with a series of deities: ‘He is Sia) the god of perception; ‘he is Re, the sun-gods ‘he is ‘Khnum, the god who beings mankind into being on his pot- ters wheel ‘be is Baste, the goddess who protects; and ‘he is Sckhmet, the goddels who punishes? Undesstanding, supreme rule, bulding-up of the populace, protection, and punishmene were all atzibutes ofthe king; the king war each ‘of them; each ofthese attbutes was manifestin a god or god ess; the hing wus cach of these gods or goddesses. Carrying the principle of substitution one step Further, if the king could zeprescot a god, i is also true that the king could be represented by a maa. The business of kingship was too deuiled for absolute rule by a single individual so that certain responsibilities must be deputized, even though state ddogina sad thatthe ing di all. Similarly, state dogma might insist thatthe king was the sole priest forall the gods; but it ‘was imposible for him to function every day inal the temples; that activity most also be deputized. Heze we must admie that there i some difference of representation; the priest or oficial acted forthe king, not as the king. Te was deputzing rather than participating inthe nature of the other being. This isan acknowledged diference, bu even this diference is not abso Iute, Those who actin the place of another share somewhat in the personality of that other. Simply the physical grouping. cof the tombs of Old Kingdom courtiers around the pyramid of pharios shows cha they wished to share in his divine glory by belonging to him and thus participating in him, Eves here they belonged to some portion of the same spectrum and had an ultimate consubstantility with him, which was partially de- rived and partially inate, Between god and man there Was 80 | THE FONCTION OF THE STATE 2 at which one could erect a boundary line and state that ee et to mundane, human, mortal. ‘The fluidity of Egyptian concepts and the tendeacy to sya- thesize divergent elements have led some Egyprologists to believe that the Eayptians were really monotheistic tat all gods were subsumed into a single god. Ia a moment we shall presenta text that would scem to bea prime document for this thesis of essential monotheism, but we wish to preface it by insisting thatitis nota mater of single god burof single mature of observed phenomena in the universe, with the clear possi- Dility of exchange and substitution. With relation to gods and ‘men the Egyptians were monophysites: many men and many gous, but all ulimately of one natore. ‘The text that we mentioned presents an ancieat Egyptian trinity: the dhe gods who were supremely important at one eres ey ete opens cele ree, The pote was to enlarge the god Amon by incorporating the other {30 gods into his being. “All gods are theee ~ Amon, Ré, and Ptah ~ and they have no second’ Amon isthe name of this single being, Re is his head, and Prah is his body. ‘Only he is: ‘Amon and it8 (and Piah, together three’*'Three gods are one, fand yet the Egyptian elsewhere insists on the separate identity fof each of the thrce. In another group of hymns which has been called mono- theistic the god is addressed asa single personage of eompo- site form, Amon-Ré-Atum-Harakhte, that is, the several stm, supreme, and sational-gods rolled up into one. The text goes fon to break this being cow into his several facets as Ambon, Re, Acum, Horus, and Harakhte, and also to equate him with Kherpsi, Sh, the moon, and the Nile. Whether this s mono- theistic of not ‘spon one’s definition. Ie may be baic- splitting, but we prefer f0 invoke the principles of consub- Stantiality and frce interchange of being and clsim that the Egyptians were monophyste instead of monotheistic. They secopnized diferent beings but fle chore beings to be of sin- fle essential substance, a rainbow, in which certain colours ‘were dominant under certsin conditions and others dominant6 BEFORE PHILOSOPHY ‘vhen the conditions altered. A complete personality inclades Ing diferent aspects of personality. ‘One clement of consubstatality lies in the fact that the Egyptian gods were very human, with oman weaknesses and varying moods They could not remain ona high and comsis- {ent plane of infallibiiy. And no god was single-minded eyed t4 single function, For example, he god Seth is well Known as the enemy of the ‘good? gods Osiris and Hors; therefore, Seth was the enemy of good; be was roughly like the dev. Yer throughout Eayprian history Seth appeared also 4 4 good god, who functioned beaeScently forthe dead at times; who fought on behalf ofthe sun god, and who acted positively forthe ealargement of the Egyptian state. Horas, fhe good ton throughout Eayptian history oace few into 2}rage a his mother Isis and chopped of het ead, co thet the poor goddess was forced to take the form of a headless Tatue® “The Egyptians apparently delighted in the humanness of their gods, A-welhiknowa story tells how RE, the estore pod, repented that be had created mankind, which had devised evil tains him. He decided to destroy chem and sent Sehmes, the ‘Powesfal, agains them, This goddess slew mankind, waded in their blood, and exolted in their destruction, Then RE ‘lene and regretted bis desis to obliterate Tastead of order- ing Sekhmet to stop the laughter, he resorted toa stratagem. Seven thousand jars of redcoloured beer were poured out in Sckhmet’s path so that she might believe that it was blood. She waded lastly into it, became drunken, and stopped her slaughtering.” "chic al, 9 fret fom the bbl story ofthe Flood because ofits lack of moral motivation, ia tld bee only tocmphasize the frequent tenes ofthe Egyptian gods. They Changed this minds and they resorted to tricks to accomplish their ends. And yet ina neighbouring text~ they may be po ttayed as noble and consistent. "Koother, move sophisticated story tls of rial inthe divine tuibunal. A minor deity rose and shouted an insult at the su- reme, presiding god; he eried* Thy shine is empey!” Then HE FUNCTION OF THE STATE a [RE-Harakhte was pained at this retort which had been made to him, and he lay down om his back and his heart was very, very sore, Then the Ennead went out. to thei tents. And so the great god spent a day Iying on his back in his arbour, alone, while his heare was very, very sore.’ In order to cure his sulk, the other gods sent the goddess of love to him, and she exhic bited to him her charms. “Thea the great god laughed at her; and so he arose and sat down (again) with the great Ennead,” and the trial was eesumed.® This is admittedly a lusty tale for ‘eotertinment, but its characterization of the gods accords ith the picture given in more sober contexts. "If the gods were so human, it will not be surprising that humans could address them in brusque terms, Not infrequently there are texts in which the worshipper secalls the natuse of his services to the gods and threatens those gods who fail to ‘return service for service. One of the famous passages in Egyp- tian literature is called the ‘Cannibal Hyma’, because the de- ceased expresses his intention of devouring those whom he ‘meets in his path, human or divine. It was oxiginally written for the deceased king but was later taken over by commoners. “The skys overcast, the stars are beclouded . the (very) bones of the earth-god tremble .. when they see (this dead man) appear animated as a god who lives on his fathers and feeds on his mothers... (He) is the one who eats men and lives on gods. sw (He) is the one who eats thei magicand devours thei glory. ‘The biggest of them are for his breakfast; their middle-szed ‘are for his dinner; and the smallest of them are for his supper. ‘Theie old males and females (serve only) for his fuel’® ‘The effective continuation ofthat concepts that any buman ‘might become so magically potent that he could consume the greatest ofthe gods and, by consuming them, take their magic land thei glory into his own being. That isthe ultimate state- ment of consubstantalty from highest to lowest in the uni- ‘verse It may sound childish, like the mighty imaginings of 1 small boy who dreams of becoming Superman and conquer- ing the world. But the small boy is not yet growa up, and ‘not beyond the range of his dreams for his Future that he may be incredibly great some day. The same range of possibility7m BEFORE PHILOSOPHY wwas present for the Egyptian through the single substance | which extended from him up into the vast unknown. ‘This statement which we are making about the siogle sub- stance of the Egyptian univesseis true ofthe eatlierlong period ‘of Egyptian thinking, down to pechaps 13c0 2.c. Involved in this concept of consubstantility isthe feeling that eheze is no ‘ultimate diference between men and gods. It is neceseary 10 ‘makea reservation, however, about the later period of Egyptian Iistory. As chall be seen ia the next chapter, there came a time ‘when a gulf developed between weak litte man, and powesful ‘god, In that later period a difference was felt, and the two were ‘no longer ofthe same substance. For the present, however, we do not wish to stress the later change but rather the eatlier unity. Indeed, the more one examines this hypothesis of consub- stantiality, the mote exceptions or qualifeations one must admit. We gave one in the last chapter when we said that the Egyptians did not accept foreigners as being like themselves. ‘We shall give another later in this chapter, when we point out a difference in administrative freedom between the king, who ‘was a god, and his ministers, who were humans. It is a ques- tion whethcr one is talking about difference qualitatively (di ference of substance) or quantitatively (variations of the same substance). We take it to be a quantitative difference of the same substance. In contrast to ourselves and to other peoples, the Egyptians took the universe as being of one continuous substance, without any definite line of demarcation between pact and part ‘To return, then, to the question about the disposition of the universe towards the Egyptian, whether friendly, hostile, ot indifferent. Since there is but one substance fom man Ooffinto the unknowns, the world of the dead, the world of gods and spirits, the world of organic and inorganic nature, this means that the frame of reference must be human behaviour itself Are other men fiendly, hostile, or indifferent to us? The answer must be tha they are not exclusively any ofthese three dispositions but that interested beings are benevolent or mal- evolent, according to whether their interests are complemen- THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE p tary or competitive, and uninterested beings are iniorent. Te | Becomes a matter of the stated concern ofthe force in question, aswell ashe particular disposition of the force ata tated time ‘Thesun give life by warmings butitmay destoy life by bast- ing ort my destroy life by withdrawing fuel and chilling. “The Nile brngslfe, but an uousvally low oran sowscaly high ‘ile may bring destruction and death, “The modern Egyptian fcls himself to be surrounded by unseen personalized forces, the gon, each of them concerned ‘vith some phenomenon: a child, ashesp,a house tree, ra ning wate, fire, et. Some are fendly, some wntendly, but fost are static unles one offends them, when they become talevolent, or unlest one invokes them to benevolence. "The fclent Egyptian bad a sinilarsenee ofa surrounding wodd of forces, A-mother had to croon a protective song over her sleeping child: “Thos flowing thing tat comes in dackness and enters fortvely in, with er ose behind hee and her face twisted around, who fl in that for which she ame ~ hast thou come to kis this child? wll nt let thee kts him! Hast thou come to sirke dumb? will not le the srike dumbness into him! Hast thou come to injre hin? Twill not le thee injure him! Hast thou come to carry him away? Iwill at let thee carry him away from mel have made his magial protec= tiom against thee ov of clover. onions. hone In an incantation agens disease the malevolent forces which may bring sickness include ‘every blesied male, everylessed female, every dead male, and every dead female, thats che dead who have stained stat of eternal glory, a well as those who have died without certainty ofimmoceiny?™ However, despite this surrounding word of uaceraia spici- tual free, the general role wa that certain Beings hada stated function oe activity, and that activity was ether findly o¢ hostile Thus the generally beneficent fnctions of the su, the Nile, the north wind, Osiris, or Isis were established; just as. the generally dangerous ot hostile functions ofthe Apophis demon, Seth, oF Sekimer were exibished, ‘These funciona ‘ete general and at ines it might be aecosary to protect an individual fom the “good Oss orto entrust an incividl 20to BuroRE pHILosoPHY the helpful activity of the “bad” Seth, just as humans in this world have more thta one side to theit characters. If this Functional authority and responsibility are leas, then ‘we must seck our answer to the functions of the state in those forces which had authority over and responsibility for the state. The speculative thought of the ancient Egyptians will [provide no treatise on the philosophy of statecraftor the rela- tion of government t0 the governed, but their speculative thought will play upon the powers, attributes, and interests of those gods who were primarily concerned with Egypt a5 f going concem. Ukimately out attention focuses on state ‘ments concerning the ‘good god’ who was king of Egypt. We can best discover the functions of the state by determining the ‘deals Inid down in seattered sources for the one individual responsible for government ~ the king. ‘The Egyptian’s love of symmetrical balance produced an ideal ruler who was nicely composed of graciousness and terror, becanre rule is nurture and rule is control. Again and again this balance appears in close juxtaposition in the texts. The kking is ‘that beneficent god, the fear of whom is throughout the countries like (the fear of) Sekhmet in a year of plague’? Poems of praise emphasize the two aspects of his being with bbewilderingly sudden shifts of emphasis: ‘Exulting is be, a smasher of foreheads, so that none can stand near him. .. He {fights without end, he spares not, and there is nothing let over (from his destruction). He is a master of graciousness, rich in sweetness, and be conquers by love. His ety loves him more than its own self and takes more joy in him than in its (own Jocal) god." Here, in two adjacent statements, i is claimed that the king conquers by lustful destruction and that he con- ‘quers by kindly love. We are again dealing witha personality of ‘mote than one side a spectrum in which one colour or another ‘may be emphasized. But here speculative thought has its rea- sons in producing a balance of forces. Government must be gracious but terrible, just as the sun and the Nile are gracious but terible in their effective power. | ME FUNCTION oF THE stare br “The sating-poin of ous consideration is the fact chat the ing of Egypt was a god and that he was a god forthe por- poses ofthe Egyptian state. This was not tated in a nce comn- pct formalation which made the pharaoh the personification (f the land of Egypt oc even embodied rule sta personised principle, Bor the supreme god, Re, encrusted the land his fon he king, From the Old Kingdom on, an eerie ve for the Egyptian pharaoh was the ‘Son of Re. In mythology the ‘only som of RE was the air-god Sha, bot the pharaoh was made Son of Re forthe specie purpose of ling Res chick concer, the land of Egypt. ‘As for Egypt, men sty since (the time of) the gods, shes the only daughter of Re, and iis his son that is upon the throne of Sh. Implicit in thie statement there ‘was a pairing of god and godess, Eayp asthe only daughter (Of RE and pharaoh as the Son of Ré, in those brotherister terms which made up the coupes of Egyptian diets. Jost as the hasband wes urged by the books of wisdom to take kindly care ofthe wif becuse ‘she i afield advantagcovs to er lord 20 the King bad ownership, thority, and responsi. bility ove hit land, It was histo control with power, bat if he ‘wore wise, he would also nartre with cre. “The stated repeatedly that the ng was the physi calson who isoed from the body ofthe un-god RE, Tobe sure, Seman recognized that he had been horn of a woman in this ‘wor, Bot the father who had begotten him was ceinitely 2 god. Re hime had to easure the proper divine rule of the land of Egypt, Looking toward the fare, he made earthly visits to produce rulers. A story about the origin of the Fifth Dynasty tls ofthe humble mother ofthe coming riers. She fete wiicof en (ordinary) priest oR, Lord of Sab, wh ispregamat with thee children of Re, Lord of Sakhebu, and he (Re) fas aid of them that they shall exercise this beneficent ofc (9 king) inthis entre land."# Bren the problem ofthe earthly father, in view of the fact that Kings did exist and apparently did prodoce sone who ber aoe kings, was oot insurmountable. For porposes of proctea- | Son the sopreme god astumed the form of he living king and f2ve that seed which was to become the ‘Son of R= Hatsep-rn BEFORE PHILOSOPHY siit was clay the daughter of Thutmose I, but the account of that divine birth which permitted her to become pharaoh of Egypt makes it clear that there was a substitution here, and that the supreme god, Amon-Ré, was her efective father. The queen-mother was selected by the gods, and it was recom- mended that Amon visit hee while the pharaoh was sil in his youthfal vigour. ‘(Amon took) his form (as) the majesty (of) this her husband, the King (Thutmose 1)... Thea he went to her immediately; then he had intercourse with her. .. The majesty of this god did all that he desited with her. The words ‘which Amoo, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, spoke in hee presence: “Now Khenemet-Amon-Hatshepsit is the ‘name of this my daughter whom I have placed in thy body. She is to exercise this beneficent king)ship in this entire lad."7 No words could more explicitly state the divine pure poses and divine methods. The pharaoh was produced by the supreme deity, masquerading as the roling king to bea god in order to rule the land. In this solar theology the king of Egypt issued out of the boul of the sun-god and), on death, returned tothe body of his progenitor. Here isthe statement of the death of a pharaoh: ‘Year so, third month of the fist season, day 9: the god entered his horizon. ‘The King of Upper end Lower Eaypt, Schetepibze, went up to heaven and was united with the sun. disc, 0 that the divine body was merged with him who made him" "This i the necessary completion of filial attachment 0 the supreme god: from conception through life tothe final tri- tumph over death, the king was the ‘Son of Re’. As we shall see, an alternative system of thought made the dead king Osis, role of the realm of the dead. “The formal list of titles which denominated the king of Egypt breaks into three groups. We have already seen that he was called the son and succestor of the sun-god; we shall shortly discuss his identification with the god Horus; we shall row consider him as incorporating the responsibilities for the two part of Eaypt ‘Physically snd cultarally the land of Baypt breaks into the narrow (ough of the Nile Valley and the spreading Delta. THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE 85 Upper Egypthas tics tothe desert and to Africa; Lower Baypt faces out to the Mediterranean Sea and to Asia. From time "immemorial these two regions have hada self-conscious separa- | tion. Lying so elose together and yet apart from neighbours, | they are aware oftheie diferences. The old texts bring out this feeling of contrast. One who had impulsively left his office "expressed his bewilderment over the forces that had led him to such unaccountable action: ‘Ido not know what sundered me | from my place; it was lke a dream, as if a man of the Delta ‘were (suddenly) to see himself in Elephantine."* Just as today, the dialects ofthese two regions varied enough to cause mis- ‘understanding. Am inept writer was chided with these words: “Thy narratives .. are confosed when heard, and there is 90 interpzeter who can unravel them; they ae like the speech of ‘man of the Delta with a man of Elephantine.”® These two regions were then disparate, and they were traditionally and continuingly competitive. Yet they were a unity in thet isola- tion from the rest ofthe world, and they were a unity in their dependence upon the Nile, twas a function of government to ‘make Upper and Lower Egypt an effective single nation. This ‘was done by incorporating authority and responsibility for both regions ina single figure, the god-king. By his formal titles he was Lord of the Two Lands, that is, ‘owner and master; he was King of Upper Egypt and King of ‘Lower Egypt, the wearer ofthe double crown which symbo- lized the union ofthe two regions; and he was the Two Ladies’ that is, the incorporation ofthe two tuelary goddesses who seprescnted the north and the south. A parallel ttle, the “Two Lords’, expressed the dogma thatthe two competing gods of Lower and Upper Egypt, Horus and Seth, were alo physically resident and reconciled withia the person of the king. An im- portant ritual activity ofthe king’s coronation was the “Uniting of the Two Lands’, a ceremony somehow in relation to the throne of a dual kingship. Now this self- consciousness about two diflerent parts of the | land was expressed administratively in a duality of office and officers. There were two viziers, two treasurers, and often two ‘capitals. There had to be a recognition ofthe separate needs of% BBFORE PHILOSOPAY the two areas, a sort of states’ rights in administration. But the ‘two lands had no final rule except in the single person of the ‘pharaoh, who partook of the divinity of each area in exactly balanced measure. This worked. In all sable periods of Egyp- tian history there was only one king ofthe united Two Lands ‘The god bing was a sucessful expression of national unity. ‘The thd group of forma ties forthe pharaoh males him ‘theincorporation ofthe god Horus, a faleon whose divine pro- vince was the heavens. As in the ease ofthe other two types oF Utley, the ‘Son of RE’, and the embodiment of the deitis ofthe ‘Two Lands, the identification with Horus seems t have made the pharaoh the king ofall Egypt. We are not precisely sure Ihow this came to be. It is true that the myths indicate that Horus coatested for tad won the rae of his dead father, the god Osiris, Thus Horus came to be the living king who had ‘Succeeded the dead king, Osta. Every living king was Horas, and every dead king Osis, But we modesns would like 12 reconcile the ida ofthe kingly Horas as son and successor of Osiis and the idea ofthe ‘Son of Re’, a kingly successor of the sun-god. Ia consecutive lines of a single text the pharaoh called the son of Osiris, who issued fom the body offs, and itis sated that RE begot his majesty Perhaps again we should not seck to suoder ideas which were complementary and thus gave added strength t0 the throne. Probably we have concentration on two diferent aspects ofthe divinity ofthe pharaoh. The tile ‘Son of RE? crmphasized the story of his physial bird asa god, whereas, the tile ‘Horus’ emphasized is divine credentials to rle in the palace, asthe god who had been awarded the kingship by the divine tbanal. At any cate, Hors ruled the entire land and not simply a par. All he tiles taught that there was but ‘one being who could hold sway overall Egypt by divine right. ‘The divine petson of the pharaoh was to holy for direct approach. An ordinary mortal did not speak to’ che king; he spoke ‘in the presence of the king. Various cireumlocutions ‘Were employed to avoid direct reference to the king: ‘May thy rajesty hea’, instead of ‘mayest thou hea’, and ‘one gave command’, instead of ‘be gave command’. Goe of these ct- THE FUNCTION OF THE srATE as ‘cumlocutions, pera ‘the Great House’, gave tise to our word ‘pharaoh’, in somewhat the same way as we modernly say: "The ‘White House today announced. ." Tis mot clear tha this avoidance of verbal contact with awful ‘majesty was paralleled by 2n avoidance of physical eoatact with the royal person. To be sure, there is a somewhat obscure tale about a courtier who wes touched by the King’s ceremonial staff, after which the king gave him firm assurances that he was to sller no hurt thereby. ‘The mete bumping witha stileis not enough to justify the magnification ofthe tale into something ‘worth carving ona tomb wall. Arguably the bight of majesty ‘was so terrible thae it had to be exorcised by royal words Possibly we personally over-value this text, as it has been pointed out to us thatthe king's assurances may be rather an apology than the exorcising ofa blight. A royal apology might ‘bea uiicient mark of attention to warrant cording ina tomb. ‘A similar uncertainty clouds the next example. A late story has a rather puzzling joke. The shadow of the sunshade of foreign prince fell upon an Egyptian, and there was an ironic ‘warning to the Egyptian to beware, for the shadow of the pharaoh of Egypt had touched him. This sounds as though an intimate part of the royal person like the shadow was too fraught with boliness for human approach. If 0, the body of the king will also have beea dangerous for the ordinary mortal. ‘Bat the pharaoh certainly had his personal attendants and body servants, and there must have been means of delivering them ‘from the blight of majesty. The first principe is surely that of ‘Diodorus (j. 70), that the royal servants were selected from the highest classes, close to the king in blood. The second principle will have been that the other gods had thei personal atten dants, who eared for their most intimate needs, and to the divine king could also have his priestly servants, authorized to act for his person and thus not to be blasted by contact with 1 god. Ie is significant that the same epithet, ‘pure of hands’, ‘was used for the priests who served the gods and for the per” sonal attendants on the king. "As our evidence on the physical unapproachabilty of the pharaoh is weak, we wish to adduce a few additional points,86 BEFORE puItosorHy none of which clinches the case. Certain individuals were granted close access tothe king and exempt from any bight of holiness. This was probably implicit in such tides as ‘Sole Com- panion’, ‘Privy Councillor of the House of the Morning’ He Who Is Beside the King’ (literally, “under the head of the King). Some favoured individuals were graciously permitted 10 kiss the royal foot, instead of kissing the ground before the pphacsoh (Urk. 1,423 333 BAR, I, 260). The tracos- serpent on the brow of the king was a Gre~spitting sorceres, who pro- tected the royal person from any approach of unauthorized persons. Whether thes instances fall oct ofa dopma of unap- proachability or not is an opea question to us. Jost as the person of the king arguably had a dangerously high voltage, so also his lofty responsibilities involved kaow- ledge and abilities beyond the ken of ordinary man. As one of his chief ministers said: ‘Now his majesty knows what takes place. There is nothing at all which he does not know. He is (the god of wisdom) Thoth in everything: there is no subject Which he has not omprehended.# Oris geovelling courtiers told him: “Thou ar like Ré in all that thou docst. What thy heazt desires flows forth. Ifthou destest a pla ia the night, at davon it comes into being quickly. We have seca a multitude of thy marvel since thou didstappeat as King of the Two Lands. We cannot hear, nor can out eyes sce (how it happens; yet (hinge) come into being everywhere” This was superhuman: ie was the closely guarded secret of kingship, At a time whea the stste was overthrown and rule erombled into anarchy, it ‘was thought to be the release ofthis ‘secee’ that permitted the impious fazmentatin of divine rule: ‘Behold, it has come to (@ point where) the lind is stripped of the kingship by a few irresponsible people... Behold, the secret of the land, whose limits are uaknowa, is divulged, o thatthe (oyal) residence is overthrown in an hour... The secrets ofthe kings of Upper and Lower Egypt have heca divel ‘We cold mocern analysts view the doctrines of the divisity, the blighting majesty, an the mystery ofthe Egyptian king a3 tmere propaganda devices to bolster the person of a maa who ‘was solely responsible forthe state, But they eannot be brushed THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE for that reson. They had the realty of long-continuing success, They wee as ral in ancent Egypt os in Solomon's ‘Temple at Jerusalem — or as in modern J Je was onl being this god-king of ype All by him self be stood between humans and gods. Tests and scenes ‘emphasize his solitary responsibilty. The temple scenes show him as the only priest in ceremonies before the gods. A hymn to 2 god states: “There is no one else that knows thee except thy son (the king), whom thou causest to understand thy plans and thy power.” it was the king who buile temples and cities, “who won battles, who made laws, who collected taxes, or who [provided the bounty forthe tombs of his nobles. The fat that ‘the pharaoh might not have heard about a batle until it was reported to the royal cour was immaterial; the literary and pic torial myth of Egypt's might demanded that he be shown as defeating the enemy single-handed. An Egyptian io a provin- «ial town might make contractual provision fos the delivery of {goods to his tomb after death; the reigning pharaoh need have ‘nothing to do with this transaction in the age-long famework ‘of mortuary activity the goods would come as an ‘offing Which the king gives’, a mark of royal favour. | Only the national gods might intervene in the affairs of the | state: the sun-god might ask the king to clear away the sand | fiom the Sphinx, or Amon might commission the king to wn- | dertake a campaign against the Libyans. Otherwise pharaoh ‘was the state, because he was himself a national god, speci- fically charged to carry out the functions of the state. ‘Because we can penetrate the trappings of divinity and dis- | cern the human hear ofthe pharaob, we can sympathize with the loneliness of his administration. ‘The other gods might temporarily escape to realms outside this world. He alone was a god who had to live out his solitary life surrounded by humans. Those humans through daly itimacy might dace to ‘encroach upon his omaiseience and omaipotence. One aged king has eft a weaty warning to his son and successor: “Thow that hast appeared asa god, listen to what ¥ have to say to thee, 10 that thou mayest be king over the land and ruler over the ‘iver banks, so that thou mayest achieve an overabundance of 78 BEFORE PittLosoPHY good. Hold thyself together agaiast those subordinate (to ‘hee, lst chat should heppen to whose terrors no thought has been given. Do not approach them in thy loneliness. Fil not thy heart with a brother, know nota fiend, nor create for thy- self intimates ~ that has 90 (happy) outcome... I gave to the poor and brought up the osphaa . (but) it was be who ate my food that raised up txoops (against me). and they who were clothed in my fe linen locked upon’ me as (mete) dried ‘weeds’"* "The penalty of being a god was the removal of divinity from the world of bumanity. The gods bad seat him forth to tend manikind, but he was not of mankind. ‘This is pethaps the most fitting picture of the good Egyp- tian rule, that he was the herdsman for his people. The fane- tions of the state were to own, control, deve, discipline, and defend; they were also to cherish, nutute shelter, and enlarge the population. The god-sent contcoller of the Fayptian people wwas the herdsman who kept them in green pastures, fought © secure fresh pastures for them, drove off the voracious beasts ‘who attacked them, belaboured the eatle who strayed out of Tine, and helped along the weaklings. "The Egyptian texts se the same picture. Oacof the pharaohs stated why the god had made him ruler: ‘He made me the herdsman ofthis land, for he discerned that would keep it ia order for hien; he entrusted to me that which be protected." Ina time of disres, men looked toward the ideal king of the foure: ‘He isthe herdsman of every one, without evi in his heart, His herd may be ext down (Ia numbers), but he will spend the day in citing for them. Elsewhere the king is called ‘the goodly herdsman, watchfal for all mankind whom their maker has placed under his supervision." The sun-god ‘appointed him to be shepherd ofthis land, to keep alive the people and the folk, not sleeping by night as well a by day ia Seeking out every beneficial act, in looking for possibilities of Usefulness The antiquity ofthis concept ofthe kings visible in the fact that a shepherds crook i one ofthe etles insig- nia ofthe pharsoh and is the origin of one of the words meaa- ing “to ale’ “The concept of the herdsman has its negative pole in. the He FUNCTION OF THE sraTE t implication that men are simply cattle, property on a lower stage of existence. This attitude is never given ina single state- | ment, because the view tha the pharaoh was the Lord, or Pos- scssor, of the Two Lands was taken for granted, and the texts naturally concentrated attcation on the proper care of property rather than on the fice of property itself. For example, one long story deals with an injustice done to a peasant and his protests that those who administer justice have a responsibility to take scoostructive rather dhana passive attitude toward their liens, It was necessary to reject certain customary expressions of indiference to the fortunes of ordinary men. For example, ‘4 proverb, ‘The poor man’s name is pronounced (only) for his master’s sake’, is cited as an expression of non-justice against which the peasant i struggling.® A magistrate was urged by ‘other oficals not to intervene on behalf of the peasant, be- ‘eause the latter had gone over the head of his immediate master. Do aot disturb the disciplinary rights of a ‘aster; ‘behold, itis wha they (normally) do t0 pexsants of theirs who go to others instead of to them’; the operation of justice should not interfere with the control of property.™ ‘Characterstcally this text has an ultimate triumph of justice, because the Egyptians always rejected the narrow belief that ‘the owner has no responsibility to maintain his propery. At the positive pole, the herdsman’s duty was to nurtuee and build up his herds. ‘The herdsman is primarily the pastor, the ‘feeder’, and a Gist esponsibility of tac state was to see thatthe people were fed. ‘Thus the king of Egypt was the god who broughe fertility 9 Egypt, produced the life giving waters, and presented the gods with the sheaf of grain which symbolized abundant food. Indeed, an essential function of his kingship was that ofa medic cine man, whose magic ensured good crops. In one of the ceremonials of kingship, the pharaoh encitcled a feld four times asa rite of conferring fertility upon the land ** He con- tuolled the water which made Egypt and made bet fertile. ‘The Nile is at his service, and he opens its cavern to give life to Egypt.% As his couttiees told him: ‘If thou thyself shouldst s2y to thy father, the Nil, the father of the gods: “Let water9° BEvORE PuILosoPuY ow forth upon the mountains!” he will ct according to all that thou hast said.” "As the pharaoh controlled the water of Egypt, the Nile, so tlso he was a rainmaker for the foreign countries. One text rakes the king ofthe Hittites say thathis land must make ove tres to pharaoh, for ‘if the god accepts not its offering, it sees not the waters of heaven, since itis in the power of” the king of Egypt Pharaoh himself was alittle more modest; he did not [pose as the rainmakes for lands abroad but as the intermediary to the gods for water. Thinking of a diplomatic deputation which he had sent to Syria and Anatolia, ‘his majesty took counsel with his own heart: “How willit go with those whom Thave sent out, who are going ona mission to Djahi in these ays of rain and snow which come in winter?” Then he made an offering to his father, (the god) Seth; then he came praying and said “Heaven isin thy hands, and earth is under thy fet. ‘= (Mayest) thou (delay) to make the rain and the north wind tnd the snow watil the marvels reach re which thou hast assigned to mel” ... Then hs father Seth heard every word, and the heavens were peaceful, and summer days came for him) ‘All nature that had reference to the prospesty of Egypt was under the sway of the pharaoh, He was the ‘lord of the sweet breeze’, the cooling wind from the Mediterranean which made Egypt habitable © Nay, even more, asthe master magician he controlled the moon and the sta, o that the months, days, and hours came with regular cadence. A hymn of joy at the accession of one ofthe kings runs: ‘Be gay of heart, the entire land, forthe goodly times have come! A lord has been given toall lands! The waters stand and are not dried up, and the Nile carries a high flood). (Now) the days are long, the nights have hours, and the moons come normally. The gods are at sestand happy of heart and people live (in) laughter and won- der!" By doctrine and by continuing ritual, pharaoh was the god who gave to Egypt its normal times and seasons, who Brooght the abundant waters and who gave the fel cops, In actual practice there was administrative justifieation the dogma of treating pharaoh as a water- and feld-god. Tt ‘THE FUNCTION OF THE staTE 3 seems thatthe central government also maintained the national astronomical and calendrical offices, although we lack full proof here. As one document in the ease we cite a black ebony bar in the collections of the Oriental Institute museum at the University of Chicago. Tis is part of an astronomical appara tus or charting the movements ofthe stars, and it was made by the hands of Totankhamon himself. Whether this was his royal hobby, or whether the observation of the heavenly bodies ‘was a function of kingship, we cannot be sure. We can say that the dogma that the pharaoh was responsible for tood, water, and seasons was carried out by the function of bureaus of the royal government. Diodorus paints a dreadful picture of the king of Egypt a5 the slave of regulations which controlled his every hour and ‘every act. “The hours of both the day and night were laid out according to a plan, and at the specified hours it was abso- Tutely required of the king that he should do what the laws stipulated and not what he thought best’ (I. 70-7"). Diodorus {goes on to state that these regulations covered not only the ‘king's administrative actions but also his own freedom to take a walk, bathe, of even sleep with his wife. He was allowed no ‘personal initiative in his governmental functions but was re- {quired to act only in conformance with the established laws. Diodorus insists that the pharaohs of his time were quite ‘happy in this tightly laced stritjacket of prescription because they believed that men who followed their natural emotions fell into exror, whereas the kings, ia depending rigidly om the law, were personally freed from responsibility for wrong doing. Diodorus’ hollow shell of aking is paralleled by the empty. picture which Herodotus (i. 57) gives of Egyptian celigion at his time, when he says that the Egyptians were more religious than any other nation the word used is seateb, ‘god-fearing”. Tt turns out that Herodotus means that they were slavishly devoted to situal, most scrupulous about ceremonial cleanli- ‘ness and the prescribed forms, but without the slightest indica- tion of spirituality or of a working ethics. In the next chapter we wish to draw a distinction between92 BEFORE PHILOSOPHY an earlier and a later period of ancient Egyptian history. Inthe carler period the spirit was broadly one of conformance to precept, but the proof was Isid upon the individual to show himself worthy by his own actions and his own freedom of decision within general law. Inthe later period the sprit was solely one of conformance to precept, with the individual charged to exhibit patience and humility in following that ‘which the gods had laid down. It is our belief that Diodorus and Herodotus were both relating a practice anda spirit which ‘were not normal t the Paypr discussed in these chapters. The atmosphere of their times was one of withdrawal into loog- hallowed practice; the eaeier atmosphere was one offre play of individual initiative within the general framework of human, law and what we have called the ‘divine order’. “The earlier kings of Egypt, ofthe period when that culture ‘was developing asa native growth, were encouraged to express individuality as a part of the divine and worldly ordes to which they belonged. This earlier seene emphasized personal justice tather than impersonal law. We shall take up the eoncept of justice in the next chapter, which is devoced to an examination, (of “The Values of Life’; for the present the reader must accept ‘our word that Egyptian meat means ‘justice’, one of the essen- tial attributes of the Egyptian state, and that this justice does ‘not appear to have been codified in statutes and precedents but ‘was expressed in right dealing in relation to persons and situa- tions. The ruler who dispensed justice was urged to dispense itn relation to need, indeed, to give more than was due. The state thus did bave @ responsibility to act with initiative to meet the needs of the nation. ‘We shall not defend this thesis that rule was personal and Aexible~patersalistc, if you please ~ except to throw out one for two examples of protest against impersonal non-jstce. “That peasant whom we havementioned as strugeling against injustice did not humbly submit to discipline from a magis- trate, Insteatl he cried out bitterly: ‘So then the son of Mera {goes on erring!” and went on with a series of bitter charges against the lack of roling principle inthe high official: that he ‘was like a town without a mayor or a ship without a skipper. THE FUNCTION OF THD StATE 95 Similan Ramses I, when bandooedin bate, tuinedangly taint te imperial god Anon ad cid out “What the titer with hey ter Amon! Has fer eves forgot Ison? Have Teves done snything apart fom the? an on fined to recke bi beet othe ged ss deserving of beer fete There ere no resignation to destiny orto the insertable plan ofthe gods; teehee an indigo sense that panooal worth sunt be sewaeded Ir would be exy 89 ‘mull examples rm teeter peiod of Egypin ist {0 show tat ler didnot operate in aa impersonal mechan ism of aw snd costom but were feeacting ndividaas “Tobe roe, there wat prescbedpatten forthe idea king vd there wee hallowed precdens;evusuamine some ofthe presctipions id down forthe god rls He tan xt to be eomposidon oflove aad trom which the Egyptians ook to te complementary clout inthe same specttam. Good ule vex pater, tad there was devodon tothe principle of Alsciplinary control. Thats nt as atari ay seem to 4 geertion given ove toa progresivecdscaion, Te Epyp- Sn word to tach is also the word to puns ike oar word “Gace, and ie was apace fk that “whom the Lord Ioveth he chasteneth The eompotents of good rue were fod- given autho and godlike angen. Ta the preceding chapter we csamined the ext ofthe Mem ple ‘Theology fn which te creative pencpes free the het whch conceived thought andthe ongor Which Produced command, In tat conection we mentioned pit Of related artes of the sorgod, which were themelves Pesoniied as deen, Ha, ‘auhoriave useanee or the ommanding speech which brings a station into bela, and Sis perception the cognitive reception of an obec, ox titan, These ae go equals, te preston fom thing in iotegrned aod constractve crs and te comequcst tsthoratie sttcrnce which cates someting new. ‘hae two quae were not confine othe am god; they were sso atibues ofthe King‘ the phasch wns sid "Rathodtaivesternce indeed that which in ty mouth, td pereplon (that whch) sn (hy hea)" ao other