!

object is to establish in the student's mind a full and clear conviction of the degree of certainty attaching to any particular point. From the want of insight into this point, one of two great evils necessarily must ensue. Either too much stress will be laid upon something of doubtful authority, and its real value will be endangered, as well as that of all historic truth, by dogmatic unqualified assertion. From this error sprang that dry, uncritical, and lifeless style of writing primeval history, first introduced by the Byzantine school, and subsequently adopted throughout Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Or doubts will be thrown alike on certain and uncertain facts, till at length a general scepticism will prevail as to the authenticity of all history, and as to any security in historic truth. Men are apt to think lightly of a thing which they despair of understanding, to keep it out of sight as much as possible, and by degrees to forget that it exists. We are particularly liable to the latter evil in the present day, when history is analysed on a new principle, and doubts consequently are continually thrown on hitherto undoubted facts. This renders it more difficult than ever to keep the reasoning powers and judgment in a healthy state. Sound judgment, however, is displayed rather in an aptness for believing what is historical, than in a readiness at denying it. For in days like our own, of so much curiosity and inquiry, and so little earnestness of purpose, shallow minds have a decided a decided propensity to fall into the latter error. This is very unfortunate; because the almost universal tendency of the human mind being to take the negative side of a question, such an age loses easily that serious cast and feeling of respect, which are so closely connected, for the subjects under discussion. Without respect there is no zeal, and without

zeal no hope of succeeding in any undertaking. Incapability of believing on evidence is the last form of the intellectual imbecility of an enervated age, and a warning sign of impending decay: but it is also the reaction against a dogmatic coercion, or a thoughtless credulity. We shall pursue the same system when treating of the Origines. The first great fact we meet with in primordial history is Language, which we shall endeavour to elucidate, as we would any other monument, by offering a list of all such roots and flexions. as can be shown to have been the national heritage of the Old Empire from the primeval times. The second is Mythology, which contains different Orders of gods, admitting of, and therefore requiring, classification and explanation. The third is Writing, which we shall also analyse systematically, according to the historical stages it must have gone through in its complete development in the Old Empire. Thus we hope to have prepared the way for appreciating the important rank which the Egyptian Origines hold in history, as well as for the foundation of its historical chronology, which will form the subject of the second volume.

At the head of the first book stands the venerable name of NIEBUHR. By placing it there we mean to intimate that he is in our estimation the highest model of an historical critic; an honour which would seem to depend, not on the negation, but the recognition and restoration, of true historic principles. In attaching his name to illustrations of an antiquarian rather than historical character, we would also express our conviction that the restoration of history is the last and most complete form in which the skill of the antiquarian can be exhibited. Inquiries like these undoubtedly demand that we should enter into philological and antiquarian details, and explain the present state of science in both

these respects. This should be done with as much conciseness as is compatible with perspicuity, and the process should embrace, not merely a list of authors, but show the real history of the inquiry. Thus, only, will all that is essential be fully appreciated, and the rest consigned to literary bookworms or to oblivion. No bibliographical matter ought to be introduced into an historical work, which is not evidently indispensable to a clear understanding of the point under consideration. In the second book we shall restore the Chronology of the Old Empire, a period of 1076 years, according to the data of ERATOSTHENES, with whose name that portion of our work is headed.

In the third we treat of the Period of the Middle and New Empires, comprising nine and thirteen centuries, respectively. Here MANETHO is our guide, and his name is affixed to the book.

In this manner we hope to have made all the necessary preparations for giving a connected survey of our researches, as well as for testing the chronological results arising out of them, both on internal and external grounds. We propose to submit them to a double test. First, that of Astronomy, which is an infallible test; and, secondly, the historical Synchronisms: or, in other words, to gain fixed points of time, both by the synchronism of celestial phenomena and of remarkable events in the history of other nations. The former is evidently of more immediate importance to the most ancient and consequently darkest period of our inquiry; and, therefore, we affix to our fourth book the name of CHAMPOLLION, who made the most brilliant discovery, and one fraught with the greatest results, upon this subject; although it has barely been noticed out of France. It bears also the name of another Frenchman; for the second part, in which the historical

synchronisms are examined, is dedicated to JOSEPH SCALIGER, who, though of Italian origin and Dutch renown, was by birth a Frenchman.

The fifth book will contain a Survey of general History. Its object will be to exhibit whatever in the history of Egypt is of universal importance for the whole history of the human mind. The first thing requisite, therefore, is to connect the Origines of Egypt with those of the human race by the three steps above mentioned, language, mythology, and the germs of national life. In the second part, we shall endeavour to point out the development of strictly Egyptian history, which commences with these Origines and is dependent on them.

This book, which forms the second division of our work, will be headed with the name of SCHELLING, to mark our personal respect for him, as well as our conviction that not only by his philosophical system, but also by his researches in the highest branches of the development of the human mind, he has laid the foundation of the true philosophy of history. Egyptian mythology offers, moreover, a striking proof of the importance of philosophical research in research in a fact asserted by him, but the proof of which has but lately been discovered.

After this general sketch of the work, we proceed to the details of the first volume. It is divided into six sections; in the first half of which the Historical Period is treated of; in the second, the Origines.

In the chronological portion, the tradition of the Egyptians as to their history and computation of time, as well as their national researches, will be considered. These two points will be elucidated in the first section, which comprises an epoch of thirty centuries of tradition, and an historical one of fifteen centuries of research.

In the second will be considered the results of Grecian Research during five centuries, from Herodotus to Diodorus.

Christian researches have been guided by these two lines of research, conjointly with the tradition and research contained in Scripture. The third section, therefore, will commence with the Bible Chronology, from the dedication of Solomon's temple, up to the earliest notices of the Jewish nation; a chronology which is as important to the Egyptian research, as the latter is to the Jewish. By settling this, the foundation is laid of the inquiry into the Origines. We shall there have to deal with a period of more than 1000 years, and be brought to the verge of the most ancient tradition relative to those Origines. Jewish research must next be examined, from the Septuagint down to Josephus; then, that of the Eastern churches, from the 2nd to the 9th century of the Christian era; and, lastly, that of the Western churches, from the 16th century to the present day.

These three sections form the first part of the present volume; the three latter will be occupied with the remains of the primeval epochs themselves. In the first of these we shall give the Roots hitherto discovered, distinguishing those which can be clearly proved by the monuments of the first 12 Dynasties to have existed in the Old Empire. In the same manner we give all the facts of Egyptian grammar. To this analysis of Language, the first stage of mental development, we subjoin immediately, in the fifth section, that of the third stage, Writing, on account of their direct connexion; and we offer to our readers the first regular synopsis of the whole Hieroglyphical System of Writing. Such elements as can be verified as having been used in the Old Empire have been particularly noticed. The restoration of the three