Religion and Consience in Egypt Petrie 1898

Religion and Consience in Egypt
Petrie 1898

Before we try to understand another
mind and without such understanding we
can never realize another religion we must
quit our present point of view ; we must try
to see how very different the minds of most
other peoples have been from our own at
present. We must feel that the greater
part of mankind has had systems of language
which would be wholly incapable
of expressing our ideas ; systems of religion
which would be a horror to us ; ideas of gods
which would be monstrous to us ; their ways
of life would make them flee into the fields
from our dwellings ; their systems of propriety
would bring them into the police
court ; and their systems of morality would
land them at once in the law court. We
must set aside all the framework of mind
and thought and habit in which we have
been formed, and try to leave our ideas free
to re-crystallize in a different system. Of
course we cannot do all this, we cannot do
a tenth of it ; but if we can do a very little
we shall at least feel how different the world
must look, how different the motives must
be, among people of another race, another
faith, another standard, and another order
of things. Close practical contact with a
very different race is the best guide to
seeing how far apart the organizations of
thought are on different bases. Learn to
respect, and love, and be intimate with,
a man of a far distant stage of life, and
you see then how very deep down is the
wide platform of elemental feeling and
thought which you have together in common
; and you begin to perceive how much
you have each built on that platform, which
isolates you from one another, and makes
the point of view of each incomprehensible
to the other.