monuments force us at once to seek out of Africa for the origines, and to look towards Central Asia, in order to find them.

The original roots common to Egypt and the whole of the old historical races are in primitive Asia; first, in antediluvian, then in the oldest and old post diluvian, Asia.

Hence, therefore, there is nothing more certain than the historical character of the sketch which has been preserved in the Bible, taken in its general leading features. The history of the world is to be divided, in the first place, into ante- and post-diluvian.

The first commencement of Egypt belongs to the antediluvian period, that is, to the last epoch of it. Its language is the deposit of an Asiatic formation which had already passed beyond the stage of Sinism, and writing has made a step in advance of pure pictures. The oldest Turanian formations, as we find them in the highlands and slopes of the Himalaya, are an older type than Khamism, that is, than the Egyptian type. This in itself, supposing about two myriads of years B. C., in the middle of which the deluge in the primitive country took place, would throw back these Egyptian origines to about the ninth or tenth millennium of mankind, or the year 9000 of mankind, that is, 11,000 B.C.

The beginnings of Egypt as a state, the formation of Nomes with a lax confederation of the different provinces, cannot however be placed later than about 7000 B. C., or 13,000 of mankind, on account of the date. which we must assign to Menes.

To the three earlier millenniums of the post diluvian period belongs the separation between the Arian and the Semitic, especially the language of the Iranians. This separation was caused by the vast shoot which the Arian race had produced, forming the crown of the tree of language of mankind. The Semitic and Arian entirely overlaid the preceding formation, Khamism or

Turanism, in the fairest portion of the old world, in Asia and Europe.

But before one of the two divided races had raised itself into a dominant power in Asia, a Turanian empire was formed which threatened to eclipse them both, and may even have seriously disturbed the first political beginnings of Egypt, the empire of Nimrod.

All things considered, the date of this cannot be earlier than 12,000 years of Man, or 8000 B. C., certainly not later than 13,000 of Man, or 7000 B. c.

The beginnings of the first Mesopotamian kingdomthe cradle of the postdiluvian civilisation of man in the West-do not go back chronologically much beyond Menes, that is, beyond 3700 or 3800. But the building of the vastest monument in Babylon and the world—the temple of Belus-dates from about 3000, or the era of the largest pyramid. This temple must not be confounded with the watch-tower in Genesis, which is, however, historical, only many thousand

years older.

Prior to this commencement of strictly chronological computation there were undoubtedly historical reminis cences of man in Babylon, which go back to the earlier portion of the post diluvian period.

But, as regards the Arian beginnings, we were unable to place the immigration into the Indus country later than 4000 B. C., and consequently the immigration from Bactria later than 5000; or the foundation of the Zoroastrian religion later than between 3500 and 3000.

The social union, therefore, of the Arian peoples does not date merely from India, but goes back to Iran, and is consequently anterior to 5000 B.C.

That of the Pelasgo-Hellenic races, placed as nearly as possible prior to the emigration from Bactria, is accordingly earlier still, about 6000 B. C.

The date of the separation of the Slavic and Germanic tribes may probably be older, and certainly cannot

be younger; that of the Kelts, must be coeval, at latest, with the age of Nimrod.

The social union with the Turanians, however, belongs to the beginning of the postdiluvian age, if not to the antediluvian.

Thus we obtain the following historical table of Egyptian dates.

The main Epochs of the Four Ages of the World.

Creation of Man in Northern Asia, set at B.C. 20,000 Great disturbance in the globe, and Flood in

the primitive country

First Age.

Old antediluvian history (Primeval World). (From the Creation to the Flood)

20,000 to 10,000

First formation of language and commencement of the formation of mythology:

Old postdiluvian history (Middle Age). (From the emigration caused by the Flood down to the departure

of Abraham from Mesopotamia)

IV. (1.) The formation of Semism. kingdom (Nimrod)

B.C.

V. (2.) The formation of Iranism VI. (3.) Chaldecism in Babylonia

The empire of Menes in Egypt

10,000 to 2878

The Turanian 10,000 to 7250

7250 to 4000

4000

3623

X.

From free Church Congregations to free
National Churches

XI. From small to great free National

Governments and Federal

A.D. 33 to 1550

States

1550 to X.

II.

THE EPOCHS OF THE HISTORICAL RELATIONS OF EGYPT.

THE earliest trace of social union between the Egyptian and Semitico-Arian peoples belongs to a stage of antediluvian development which has disappeared, as a point of transition in Asia itself, by the movements of races consequent on the emigration of the Semites and Arians from the primeval country. And yet this is at once the most important of all, as well as the best authenticated.

Its record is engraven in indelible lines in language, and in the early poetry and mythology directly connected with the formation of language. But we find also unmistakable traces of their common origin in the proper mythopoeic or oldest mythological epoch.

After that period all demonstrable contact on a large scale between Egypt and Asia ceases for the many thousands of years before Menes. Philo's extracts from Sankhuniathon certainly make it probable that the Phonicians did exercise in that epoch an early religious influence upon them, called the voyage of the Kabiri. The Menes empire is exclusively Egyptian. The Hyksos made Egypt tributary, resided at Memphis, and had a fortified camp on the frontier: but there is no ground for supposing that these Semitic races exercised any influence there.

Still less was any Zoroastrian influence at work. The Arians always kept aloof from Egypt. All that Egypt received at their hands was its death-blow, inflicted by the most modern Arian people of Asia, the Persians, after they had obtained universal dominion in Asia. The Egyptians knew no more of Zoroaster than they did of Abraham, and his general religious views were in many points even more at variance with those of Egypt than were Abraham's. The descendants of the latter, indeed, and his adherents, always had a leaning towards the worship of Seth-Baal, and his bloody human sacrifices, and the cognate mysteries of Adonis.

On the purely negative side the connexion of Egypt with the Hellenic beginnings and with the Asiatico-Arian traditions is the same. In contrast with both, the Egyptians are an antediluvian people, and they exercised no more influence on the Arians than on the Semites or Greeks.

But they were not "an abomination" to the Hebrews, any more than they were "barbarians" in the stricter sense to the Grecks; although the former were in their eyes unclean and godless, the latter mere intellectual children.

In surveying therefore the whole development of Egypt we find four great epochs of interconnexion between Egyptian and universal history.