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I have been challenged for saying that the story of Moses and

the floating basket is a variant of the myth of Horos and the

floating island (Herod ii. 156). But this seems sufficiently proved by the fact that in the reign of Rameses II., according to the monuments, there was a place in Middle Egypt which bore the name I-en-Moshe, "the island of Moses." That is the primary meaning. Brugsch, who proclaims the fact (Egypt Under the Pharaohs, ii. 117), suggests that it can also mean "the river bank of Moses." It is very obvious, however, that the Egyptians would not have named a place by a real incident in the life of a successful enemy, as Moses is represented in Exodus. Name and story are alike mythological and pre-Hebraic, though possibly Semitic. The Assyrian myth of Sargon, which is, indeed, very close to the Hebrew, may be the oldest form of all; but the very fact that the Hebrews located their story in Egypt shows that they knew it to have a home there in some fashion. The name Moses, whether it mean "the water-child" (so Deutsch) or "the hero" (Sayce, Hib. Lect. p. 46), was in all likelihood an epithet of Horos. The basket, in the latter form, was doubtless an adaptation from the ritual of the basket-born God-Child, as was the birth story of Jesus. In Diodorus Siculus (i. 25) the myth runs that Isis found Horos dead "on the water," and brought him to life again; but even in that form the clue to the Moses birth-myth is obvious. And there are yet other Egyptian connections for the Moses saga, since the Egyptians had a myth of Thoth (their Logos) having slain Argus (as did Hermes), and having had to fly for it to Egypt, where he gave laws and learning to the Egyptians. Yet, curiously enough, this myth probably means that the Sun God, who has in the other story escaped the "massacre of the innocents" (the morning stars), now plays the slayer on his own account, since the slaying of many-eyed Argus probably means the extinction of the stars by the morning sun (cp. Emeric-David, Introduction, end). Another "Hermes" was the son of Nilus, and his name was sacred (Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iii. 22, Cp. 16). The story of the floating child, finally, becomes part of the lore of Greece. In the myth of Apollo, the Babe-God and his sister Artemis are secured in float-islands.

It is impossible to form a just estimate of the Bible without some knowledge of ancient history and comparative mythology. It would be impossible for me to go deeply into these matters in this small book, but I will quote a few significant passages just to show the value of such historical evidence. Here to begin with, are some passages from Mr. Grant Allen's Evolution of the Idea of God.

THE ORIGIN OF GODS.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has traced so admirably, in his Principles of Sociology, the progress of development from the Ghost to the God that I do not propose in this chapter to attempt much more than a brief recapitulation of his main propositions, which, however, I shall supplement with fresh examples, and adapt at the same time to the conception of three successive stages in human ideas about the Life of the Dead, as set forth in the preceding argument. In the earlier stage of all—the stage where the actual bodies of the dead are preserved—gods, as such, are for the most part unknown: it is the corpses of friends and ancestors that are worshipped and reverenced. For example, Ellis says of the corpse of a Tahitian chief, that it was placed in a sitting posture under a protecting shed; "a small altar was erected before it, and offerings of fruit, food, and flowers were daily presented by the relatives or the priest appointed to attend the body." (This point about the priest is of essential importance.) The Central Americans, again, as Mr. Spencer notes, performed similar rites before bodies dried by artificial heat. The New Guinea people, as D'Albertis found, worship the dried mummies of their fathers and husbands. A little higher in the scale we get the developed mummy-worship of Egypt and Peru, which survives even after the evolution of greater gods, from powerful kings or chieftains. Wherever the actual bodies of the dead are preserved, there also worship and offerings are paid to them. Often, however, as already noted, it is not the whole body, but the head alone, that is specially kept and worshipped. Thus Mr. H. O. Forbes says of the people of Buru: "The dead are buried in the forest on some secluded spot, marked by a merang, or grave pole, over which at certain intervals the relatives place tobacco, cigarettes, and various offerings. When the body is decomposed the son or nearest relative disinters the head, wraps a new cloth about it, and places it in the Matakau at the back of his house, or in a little hut erected for it near the grave. It is the representative of his forefathers, whose behests he holds in the greatest respect." Two points are worthy of notice in this interesting account, as giving us an anticipatory hint of two further accessories whose evolution we must trace hereafter: first, the grave-stake, which is probably the origin of the wooden idol; and second, the little hut erected over the head by the side of the grave, which is undoubtedly one of the origins of the temple, or praying-house. Observe, also, the ceremonial wrapping of the skull in cloth and its oracular functions. Throughout the earlier and ruder phases of human evolution this primitive conception of ancestors or dead relatives as the chief known object of worship survives undiluted; and ancestor- worship remains to this day the principal religion of the Chinese and of several other peoples. Gods, as such, are practically unknown in China. Ancestor-worship, also, survives in many other races as one of the main cults, even after other elements of later religion have been superimposed upon it. In Greece and Rome it remained to the last an important part of domestic ritual. But in most cases a gradual differentiation is set up in time between various classes of ghosts or dead persons, some ghosts being considered of more importance and power than others; and out of these last it is that gods as a rule are finally developed. A god, in fact, is in the beginning, at least, an exceptionally powerful and friendly ghost—a ghost able to help, and from whose help great things may reasonably be expected. Again, the rise of chieftainship and kingship has much to do with the growth of a higher conception of godhead; a dead king of any great power or authority is sure to be thought of in time as a god of considerable importance. We shall trace out this idea more fully hereafter in the religion of Egypt; for the present it must suffice to say that the supposed power of the gods in each pantheon has regularly increased in proportion to the increased power of kings or emperors. When we pass from the first plane of corpse preservation and mummification to the second plane, where burial is habitual, it might seem, at a hasty glance, as though continued worship of the dead, and their elevation into gods, would no longer be possible. For we saw that burial is prompted by a deadly fear lest the corpse or ghost should return to plague the living. Nevertheless, natural affection for parents or friends, and the desire to insure their goodwill and aid, make these seemingly contrary ideas reconcilable. As a matter of fact, we find that even when men bury or burn their dead, they continue to worship them; while, as we shall show in the sequel, even the great stones which they roll on top of the grave to prevent the dead from rising again become, in time, altars on which sacrifices are offered to the spirit.

Much of the Bible is evidently legendary. Here we have a jumble of ancient myths, allegories, and mysteries drawn from many sources and remote ages, and adapted, altered, and edited so many times that in many instances their original or inner meaning has become obscure. And it is folly to accept the tangled legends and blurred or distorted symbols as the literal history of a literal tribe, and the literal account of the origin of man, and the genesis of religion.

The real roots of religion lie far deeper: deeper, perhaps, than sun-worship, ghost-worship, and fear of demons. In The Real Origin of Religion occurs the following: