every popular superstition a dignified and philosophical meaning. Another circumstance has been unfortunate, unless I am mistaken, for the accuracy of his conclusions: I mean the undue reliance he placed on the doubtful evidence of etymology, for which a profound acquaintance with the remains of the Coptic language and literature, joined to a great fertility of conjecture, seems to have given him a predilection.
In the following treatise I have placed no dependance on that fallacious testimony which has so often led the antiquarian astray, and have confined myself to the evidence which I have been able to collect from the ancient authors, and from some collateral sources of information that were scarcely accessible to the author of the Pantheon. It may be objected that I have transgressed the limits of my original plan, which was the comparison of the Egyptian doctrine with the Asiatic mythologies, by availing myself of these very mythologies for explaining the superstition of Egypt. But I have only applied to this resource under certain restrictions, which have, as I hope, secured me from the charge of reasoning in a circle. Having once entered upon the subject, I became desirous of presenting my readers with as complete an account as the existing materials enabled me to supply, of the Egyptian religion and philosophy;
