Light-heartedness is the key-note of the ancient philosophy of the country, and in this assertion the reader will, in most cases, find cause for surprise.  The Greek travellers in Egypt, who returned to their native land impressed with the wonderful mysticism of the Egyptians, committed their amazement to paper, and so led off that feeling of awed reverence which is felt for the philosophy of Pharaoh’s subjects.  But in their case there was the presence of the priests and wise men eloquently to baffle them into the state of respect, and there were a thousand unwritten arguments, comments, articles of faith, and controverted points of doctrine heard from the mouths of the believers, to surprise them into a reverential attitude.  But we of the present day have left to us only the more outward and visible remains of the Egyptians.  There are only the fundamental doctrines to work on, the more penetrating notes of the harmony to listen to.  Thus the outline of the philosophy is able to be studied without any complication, and we have no whirligig of priestly talk to confuse it.  Examined in this way, working only from cold stones and dry papyri, we are confronted with the old “Eat, drink, and be merry,” which is at once the happiest and most dangerous philosophy conceived by man.  It is to be noticed that this way of looking at life is to be found in Egypt from the earliest times down to the period of the Greek occupation of the country, and, in fact, until the present day.  That is to say, it was a philosophy inborn in the Egyptian,—­a part of his nature.

Imhotep, the famous philosopher of Dynasty III., about B.C. 3000, said to his disciples:  “Behold the dwellings of the dead.  Their walls fall down, their place is no more; they are as though they had never existed”; and he drew from this the lesson that man is soon done with and forgotten, and that therefore his life should be as happy as possible.  To Imhotep must be attributed the earliest known exhortation to man to resign himself to his candle-end of a life, and to the inevitable snuffing-out to come, and to be merry while yet he may.  There is a poem, dating from about B.C. 2000, from which the following is taken:—­

“Walk after thy heart’s desire so long as thou livest.  Put myrrh on thy head, clothe thyself in fine linen, anoint thyself with the true marvels of God....  Let not thy heart concern itself, until there cometh to thee that great day of lamentation.  Yet he who is at rest can hear not thy complaint, and he who lies in the tomb can understand not thy weeping.  Therefore, with smiling face, let thy days be happy, and rest not therein.  For no man carrieth his goods away with him; “O, no man returneth again who is gone thither.”

Again, we have the same sentiments expressed in a tomb of about B.C. 1350, belonging to a certain Neferhotep, a priest of Amen.  It is quoted on page 235, and here we need only note the ending: 

“Come, songs and music are before thee.  Set behind thee all cares; think only upon gladness, until that day cometh whereon thou shalt go down to the land which loveth silence.”

A Ptolemaic inscription quoted more fully towards the end of this chapter reads:  “Follow thy desire by night and by day.  Put not care within thy heart.”