PREFACE. IN presenting the concluding volume of this little work to the Public, the Author has to perform a task, partly of a highly grateful, partly of a less agreeable nature: the former in acknowledging the favour with which his volumes have been received, the latter in offering some explanation on certain points on which he has been misapprehended. The extensive circulation of his work will exculpate him from any charge of presumption in stating his views and opinions, which have thus acquired an importance, to which they could not otherwise pretend. Nothing is more curious, or more calculated to confirm the veracity of the Old Testament history, than the remarkable picture which it presents of the gradual development of human society: the ancestors of the Jews, and the Jews themselves, pass through every stage of comparative civilization. The Almighty Ruler of the world, who had chosen them as conserva |