death into the bodies of various animals as an expiation for sin.  But however lofty were the esoteric doctrines which the more learned of the initiated believed, they were carefully concealed from the people, who were deemed too ignorant to understand them; and hence the immense difference between the priests and people, and the universal prevalence of degrading superstitions and the vile polytheism which everywhere existed,—­even the worship of the powers of Nature in those animals which were held sacred.  Among all the ancient nations, however complicated were their theogonies, and however degraded the forms of worship assumed,—­of men, or animals, or plants,—­it was heat or light (the sun as the visible promoter of blessings) which was regarded as the animus mundi, to be worshipped as the highest manifestation of divine power and goodness.  The sun, among all the ancient polytheists, was worshipped under various names, and was one of the supremest deities.  The priestly city of On, a sort of university town, was consecrated to the worship of Ra, the sun.  Baal was the sun-god among the polytheistic Canaanites, as Bel was among the Assyrians.

The Egyptian Pantheon, except perhaps that of Rome, was the most extensive among the ancient nations, and the most degraded, although that people were the most religious as well as superstitious of ancient pagans.  The worship of the Deity, in some form, was as devout as it was universal, however degrading were the rites; and no expense was spared in sacrifices to propitiate the favor of the peculiar deity who presided over each of the various cities, for almost every city had a different deity.  Notwithstanding the degrading fetichism—­the lowest kind of Nature-worship, including the worship of animals—­which formed the basis of the Egyptian religion, there were traces in it of pure monotheism, as in that of Babylonia and of ancient India.  The distinguishing peculiarity of the Egyptian religion was the adoration of sacred animals as emblems of the gods, the chief of which were the bull, the cat, and the beetle.

The gods of the Egyptian Pantheon were almost innumerable, since they represented every form and power of Nature, and all the passions which move the human soul; but the most remarkable of the popular deities was Osiris, who was regarded as the personification of good.  Isis, the consort of Osiris, who with him presided at the judgment of the dead, was scarcely less venerated.  Set, or Typhon, the brother of Osiris, was the personification of evil.  Between Osiris and Set, therefore, was perpetual antagonism.  This belief, divested of names and titles and technicalities and fables, seems to have resembled, in this respect, the religion of the Persians,—­the eternal conflict between good and evil.  The esoteric doctrines of the priests initiated into the higher mysteries probably were the primeval truths, too abstract for the ignorant and sensual people to comprehend, and which were represented to them in visible forms that appealed to their senses, and which they worshipped with degrading rites.