1. The first observation which we would offer on this position, or on what seems to be implied in Mr. Bunsen's remarks, is the very obvious one, that all the attempts hitherto made to assign an indefinite antiquity to different nations, have proved abortive. However gratifying to national vanity, the assumption has hitherto been entirely unsubstantiated. In reference to China, India, Persia, and Greece, this exaggerated chronology has been brought within reasonable limits, with the sanction of all scholars who have attended to the subject. The recent excavations in the plain of Assyria, though revealing a high antiquity, do not as yet afford any countenance to the idea of an indefinitely distant origin of the people.

2. Our second remark is, that in all researches into the ancient history of mankind, and into the Egyptian antiquities among others, the highest credit is due to the Biblical notices, even if we regard them (apart from their divine authority) as a common authentic history, like the histories of Herodotus and Josephus. They have been subjected to every species of scrutiny, and their accuracy, not merely their general, but their minute accuracy, has been demonstrated. Mr. Layard's investigations in Assyria, prove that the shades of thought, the minute colorings in the delineations of the Hebrew Prophets, were wonderfully exact. We may be allowed to refer to a few testimonials. The English traveller, Legh, remarks that the Old Testament is, beyond all comparison, the most interesting and instructive guide which an Oriental traveller can consult. "The oldest and most authentic record of the primeval state of the world," remarks Mr. Wilkinson, "is unquestionably the Scripture History." "Wherever any fact is mentioned in the Bible History," he continues, "we do not discover anything on the Egyptian monuments which tends to contradict it." The same cannot be affirmed of Josephus, or Diodorus, or Herodotus, or Manetho. "All the kings of Egypt," says Champollion-Figeac, "named in the Bible," except the two mentioned in the history of Joseph and Moses, "are found on the Egyptian monuments, in the same order of succession and at the precise epochs where the sacred writers place them." "It has been said that Egyptian studies tended to impair the belief in the historical documents furnished by Moses. The application of my discovery, on the contrary, goes invincibly to support them."1

Now this acknowledged accuracy, which might be drawn out into a multitude of particulars, does not cover merely common historical events, but it extends to the genealogies of nations. In the tenth

'Letter of Champollion-Figeac to the duke of Blacas.

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chapter of Genesis, there is a tabular view of the origin and distribution of the different families and nations of the earth, which is recognized as authentic and veritable by all classes of critics. One of the most recent and sceptical of these, Bruno Bauer, admits that in no nation of antiquity, is there found a survey so universal of the relations of different nations. John Von Müller, a critic of the opposite school, says that all true history must begin with this chapter. A number of the earliest names found in this table, are likewise found on the Egyptian monuments. Much doubt rests on the application of some of these names; yet, so far as any light has been thrown upon them by the monuments and by profane history, it has been shown that they belong to a perfectly trustworthy document. Now this table asserts that Egypt was colonized from Assyria, by a grandson of Noah, forming a race not cognate with any other, but identical with that of the common ancestor of man.

3. A third observation suggested by Mr. Bunsen's theory is this, that in order to account for the early and extraordinary civilization of the Egyptians, we may assume that the original condition of man was not that of barbarism. Had we no positive evidence of this, we should reason correctly, à priori, that the Supreme Being, who originally formed man, according to the hypothesis of all, by direct creation, would not introduce him into the world as a savage or barbarian. Ignorant we may suppose him to have been, in the sense that his powers and faculties were undeveloped, but still, all the germs were there, in a strength and a harmony too, which would not require long years of necessity to unfold them. It is utterly derogatory to all our ideas of the Creator to suppose that he would form a being, as an image of Himself, who could provide for his wants only by the most slow and toilsome steps, arriving at a degree of civilization only after the lapse of centuries.

Now this presumptive argument is strengthened by the preponderant traditions of all nations. These traditions imply an original, golden period of virtue and knowledge and that the degeneracy of man was some time subsequent to his creation. The tradition that the human race were originally only at a slight remove from the beasts, like them, living on roots and acorns, was not the earliest nor the one which was most generally received. Man originally lived long and happily in a friendly and highly useful communion with the gods; those benevolent beings were his instructors in the most necessary arts and sciences. He was not thrown upon the shores of time a rude, helpless being, to reach his true moral and intellectual development only after ages of slow and wearisome effort. There is every reason

to suppose that the earliest dwellers on the banks of the Nile did not migrate thither as stupid barbarians. Springing from Central Asia, they would come with no inconsiderable degree of intellectual light, with an aptitude at least to take immediate advantage of the wonderful facilities now opening before them.

4. A remark on the character of the civilization of the Egyptians and of their advance in knowledge is important. We are perhaps dazzled by their extraordinary progress in certain arts and in certain departments of action, so that we do not make the necessary discrimination. Their civilization at the best was, in some important respects, very imperfect. It was radically different, on some fundamental points, from what we understand by modern civilization. War, in its most revolting forms, was the great business of most of the Egyptian dynasties. Not a trace of humanity is discernible in their spirited and innumerable delineations of war. The face of the Egyptian and the Assyrian warrior is as passionless, as devoid of all human sympathy, as the horse that is bearing them forward. It is the grim sternness of a beast of prey. As a general thing, the people lived as long, and in the manner, that would please their sovereign. His will was despotic. Now in the development of the arts in modern times, there are two points of essential importance in which Egyptian art was entirely, or almost entirely deficient. One was the practical application of art to the well being of the great body of the people. Humane tendencies and applications were not sought. Art was cultivated, to a great extent, only as a gratification of regal or priestly taste and luxury. Again, in modern times, the field of art is far wider. All arts are cultivated simultaneously. Certain great ideas lie at the basis of modern improvement, which were unknown to the Egyptians, and which ensure the harmonious progress of all science and art. In Egypt there was a wonderful development in certain directions. Certain processes may have been carried to a perfection which is now unknown. Ingenious contrivances, which then were familiar, seem to be wholly lost. But on the other hand, there is a wearisome monotony or uniformity, in most of their sculptures and paintings. With scientific principles of fundamental importance, e. g. the principle of the arch, they were, in the earliest times of the monuments, unacquainted. In this respect they resemble the artists of the Middle Ages. The Gothic structures in the Netherlands have a perfection which may not now be approached. The modern artisan finds it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to put up buildings of the exquisite proportions so common in Mediaeval times, or to sustain a vast weight without pillars, or to color glass in the manner so familiar

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to those old workmen. And yet the arts of the Middle Ages were comparatively isolated; they were the possession of but few individuals; they came accidentally, as it were, and were not the component parts of a great system; the gifts of sudden inspiration, the miracles of genius; like a great epic poem springing out of a region of thick darkness; they did not imply a long antecedent period of growth, of gradual preparation, of the unfolding of a thousand influences all cooperating to the same end. So it seems to have been, to a great extent at least, with Egyptian art. It did not necessarily imply, as is the case with much of modern culture, a long process of preparatory training, ages of converging and increasing light, patient study on the part of a great number of individuals. It has more resemblance, in this respect, to the phenomena of art in the Middle Ages.

It is said, indeed, that the old Egyptian language was a "legacy," transmitted from a long past period. But a language, separated from its literature, does not necessarily imply a great antiquity. It may be, in some respects, remarkably developed; it may be formed in the most scientific manner, with all the regularity with which a philosopher would construct it, and yet it may be the speech of barbarians; as is the case with the Cherokee dialect, and with the Mpongwe, on the western coast of Africa. Over the growth of language, in such cases, impenetrable mysteries as yet hang. There may have been a sudden and tropical growth. Causes which appear to us accidental, may have combined to produce a rapid yet regular development. As far as we can see, the mere existence of a finely developed dialect, does not imply an immeasurable antiquity of the people that used it. We do not know enough of the literature of the Old Egyptians to pronounce in the case. All the German critics who give up the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, allow that there are certain fragments of a date at or before the time of Moses. But these fragments exhibit the Hebrew in its perfect form. Yet this perfection does not by any means imply that the Hebrew was the original language of man, or that it had been in the process of development during long ages.

But allowing all which is claimed for the high civilization of the Egyptians in the most ancient period of history and of the monuments, - and a wonderful advance and maturity are obvious to all - is it necessary to suppose an indefinite or a very long extended previous existence? May not all the phenomena be accounted for on the supposition of the lapse of only a few centuries?

It is a matter of course that the progress of a nation in art, science, civilization, will be rapid in proportion to the strength and activity of

the causes at work fitted to promote this end. The advance of England in nearly all those things which we understand by English comfort and culture, during the 350 years since the reign of Elizabeth, has been very great. There has not only been progress, but the absolute creation of some of the most important elements of this culture. The republics of Venice and Genoa shot rapidly upwards to great renown and commercial prosperity, and comparative refinement of manners, amid the stagnation and darkness of the Middle Ages. It required but a few centuries to develop an extraordinary prosperity. There was, no doubt, in both cases, an excellent basis in the ardent temperament of these children of the sea. This native, restless disposition only required scope for its exercise, and an occasion or powerful cause to call it forth. In the time in which the poems of Homer were written, the Phoenicians on the coast of Syria had made great progress in some of the arts, and had attained to a distinguished position among the nations. Now it is susceptible of the most satisfactory proof that their ancestors, a few centuries before, had emigrated from Babylonia. Böckh, e. g., has proved that their weights and measures had their origin in Chaldaea. But this great advance in civilization was caused by their maritime position.

Now it will be universally admitted that in Egypt a combination of causes existed for the rapid development and growth of art and civilization, such as is not probably to be found elsewhere on earth. These causes are so obvious that it is hardly necessary to allude to them. The climate is eminently favorable, during the greater part of the year, genial, yet not enervating. The position of Egypt - central between Asia, Africa, and Europe, on or near the great highways of nations, the Mediterranean and Red seas and the Indian Ocean, and on the banks of a great river for a long distance, probably the most useful of any stream on the globe, bearing on its bosom an annual tribute of immense wealth, yet not indolently pouring it into the laps of the people, but demanding their active coöperation and, to a considerable extent, nautical skill, being the means and occasion of affluence, not affluence itself. Again, Egypt is, by eminence, an agricultural country. Many wants would be immediately felt which could not be experienced by a nomadic people. The powers of invention would be set to work. Various implements and labor-saving machines would be the result. This civilizing tendency of agricultural labors was experienced in a high degree in Assyria, the cradle of the human race, as is demonstrated by the recent discoveries. Again, Egypt, occupying one of the gardens of the world, would hold out strong temptations to the cupidity and ambition of surrounding nations.