For it was highly probable that King Khephrën had no standing army. It is certain that his predecessor had not.[48] It is even probable that he had no armed bodyguard. What, then, was the power which, every year, could muster thousands of his fellow-countrymen about him, and which induced them cheerfully to undertake this most strenuous, this most skilful, and this most highly artistic labour for him?
This power, there can no longer be any doubt, was the power of affection and profound and sincere reverence. An examination of the pyramids of Gizeh, alone, apart from all historical evidence, is sufficient to convince any one who has any knowledge of what forced labour produces, that love was very largely active in the work of these Egyptians of the third and fourth dynasties;[49] and, if we turn from the actual monuments themselves to the sculpture that adorned them, we become convinced that the people who built them were a united, law-abiding race, who recognized in Khephrën the highest product of their values. And yet, that enormous power was wielded by this one man-god, is proved by every detail that history and the archæological records have handed down to us. He was the remote predecessor of a king who one day would be able to declare—
"I teach the priests what is their duty: I turn away the ignorant man from his ignorance.... The gods are full of delight in my time, and their temples celebrate feasts of joy. I have placed the boundaries of the land of Egypt at the horizon. I gave protection to those who were in trouble, and smote those who did evil against them. I placed Egypt at the head of all the nations, because its inhabitants are at one with me in the worship of Amon!"[50]
He was a man the moral standards of whose people were in many respects higher than those of the Greeks;[51] he and his subjects felt very strongly the value of strength of character and of self-control;[52] though perhaps they laid "greater stress upon discretion and quietness than on any qualities of character. In the repudiation of sins an Egyptian would say: 'My mouth hath not run on;' 'My mouth hath not been hot;' 'My voice hath not been voluble in my speech;' 'My voice is not loud.'"[53]
"Ptahotep urged similar discreetness; he said: 'Let thy heart be overflowing, but let thy mouth be restrained.'"[54] While another Egyptian moralist said: "Do not be a talker!"[55]
Thus we find all the evidences of precisely that principle which goes to rear a great people—the belief that restraint is necessary, and part of the art of life, and that in order to have one group of advantages, another group must be sacrificed.
For this is the principle of all great legislation; it is the principle of all great art,—and it is the principle of all great life.
A great legislator has to discover what sacrifices his people can afford to make, what things they will be able for ever to discard in order to reap the advantages of a certain mode of life. His teaching must include restraint. It is the renunciation of some things and the careful cultivation of others that builds up a noble type. As Mr. Chesterton once observed, with really uncustomary wisdom, you cannot be King of England and the Beadle of Balham at the same time. To be the one you must sacrifice the advantages which are associated with the other. All values, all art,[56] and all life is based upon this principle—that if you grasp all, you lose all; or, as Nietzsche has it: "The belief in the pleasure which comes of restraint—this pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed."[57]
You may argue that the enjoyment of one set of joys is better in your opinion than the enjoyment of another set; but you cannot claim the enjoyment of all; that is impossible. It is only among an uncultured or democratic people that every one aspires to all pleasures, and it is precisely among such a people that some form of Puritanism becomes an urgent need—that is to say, as a substitute for the art of life.[58] Because the indiscriminate pursuit of all joys perforce ends in failure, and therefore in unhappiness. But measure is the delight only of æsthetic natures;[59] hence, where the art of living has not yet been learned, some kind of severe puritanical morality will be a condition of existence, and if that is dropped excesses will soon begin to make their presence felt.
I do not wish you to imagine, therefore, that the Egyptians were an austere, ascetic and self-castigating race; on the contrary, as all authorities declare, they were full of the joy of life and of the love of life;[60] and it was precisely because they recognized well-defined limits in particular things that they could allow themselves a certain margin in others.