origines, we may, as far as Egypt and the whole of ancient Asia are concerned, confidently assert that all these traditions, as well as all the facts in language and mythology, are irreconcilable with the rabbinical system blindly adopted by the Christian nations. But it also results from all our researches, that it is only by the grossest misunderstanding that the Bible can be claimed as the authority and guarantee for such unwarranted notions.

In respect to the system here pursued for restoring the ancient dates of the human race upon the basis of the combined testimony of language, of mythology, and the best-authenticated traditions, and especially those of the Bible itself, these researches, which have been carried out upon perfectly independent principles, have led upon the whole to the same result; and the chronological restoration has found its strongest support in the internal connexion which is thus established between the incontrovertible facts and the traditions respecting the primitive world.

The Biblical tradition about the origines of man. ceases now to be isolated and sterile. We have found several points of contact with Egypt and the mythological Semites, with the Arians of Asia and of Europe, even with the primitive race of the Chinese. The Biblical tradition is thus directed into the stream of general history, and the place of Egypt has shown itself to us as the great Middle Age of mankind.

Lastly, as regards the question of the unity of the Egyptian with the Semitic and Arian races, in Asia as well as in Europe, we find that they all have roots in common, both as to language and to mythology. One civilisation prevails throughout the whole of this world. But, on the other side, all the dreams and conjectures about a later historical influence having been exercised by Egypt upon Asia, and even upon Hellas, fall to the ground. In like manner, not only the adventurous as

sumption that the origines of Egypt are to be sought for in India, but also the attempt at a scientific proof that a social connexion in historic times existed between the Semitic and Arian forms of religion, entirely fails. That certain influences were, however, exercised by the Semites on the Ionic Greeks in these times, is not to be denied; but they stand as isolated facts, and are limited to travestied myths and secret forms of worship, far remote from intellectual religious consciousness.

Those who oppose these conclusions ought, as moral and scientific men, to attack either the premises or the results deduced from them, or both. They must see that they have not to deal with abstract theories, or with isolated facts and empirical reflections. They are right to appeal to the Bible. But then they must first learn to judge the Bible (that fig-leaf of ignorance and indolence for so many) philologically and critically, as has conscientiously been done in Germany these last ninety years. They ought to learn to consider languages as primeval facts; and they must, moreover, try to understand what are the laws of their development. The case with mythology is the same. These problems are before us, and cannot be any longer ignored. Finally, and though last not least, they must study the Egyptian monuments and records, and not evade this labour with simulated disdain. They must not follow up delusions and imaginations, but study and adopt that scientific method which created by Champollion, improved by Lepsius, and powerfully advanced by Birch, De Rougé, and others has produced, in less than forty years, a grammar and a dictionary, and analytical carefully reasoned translations. This Egyptology furnishes us with well established and critically sifted facts. for fixing Egypt's place in the history of the world, and for filling up the more lamentable lacunæ which heretofore existed in our knowledge of the development of the human mind, the science of the future.

PART VII.

EGYPT, AND THE AGES OF THE WORLD;

OR,

OUTLINES OF THE FRAMEWORK OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY

WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE

TO EGYPT.

INTRODUCTION.

SURVEY OF THE EPOCHS.

I.

THE AGES OF THE WORLD, AND THE EARLY EPOCHS, ACCORDING TO THE PLACE WHICH HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO EGYPT IN GENERAL HISTORY.

THE Egyptians are the chronometers of the history of the world. This expression has been verified throughout every portion of this lengthened inquiry. Whether advancing forwards or backwards, we have always found a steady resting-place in the historical monuments of Egypt. But it is only the general history of the world which gives us the framework for each portion, both as regards dates and historical interest.

By the combination and reciprocal action of these two elements, astonishing light has gradually been thrown upon the older and oldest history of our race. Especially we have learned by it to understand the facts of the formation of language and mythology, the two great exploits of the human mind in what Müller has called the epopeic and mythologic period. There is the closest interconnexion between them, inasmuch as the formation of words leads to the formation of myths; and there is no phenomenon in the latter of which the germ was not foreshadowed in the former.

Now the facts of these two imperishable records and