"The religious tenets of the Egyptians are much more ancient than those of the Greeks. They, however, held that Osiris and Isis were the sun and moon; and the ether difl'used through all space they named Jupiter; fire, Vulcan; the earth, Ceres; water, Oceanus, or their own river Nilus, to which also they ascribed the production of their gods; and the air, Minerva."