The
experience of the Egyptologist must teach him to reverse the observation
of Topsy, and to '`spect that nothing growed,' but that as soon as men
were planted on the banks of the Nile they were already the cleverest
men that ever lived, endowed with more knowledge and more power than
their successors for centuries and centuries could attain to. Their
system of writing, also, is found to have been complete from the very
first. . . .
"But what are we to think when the antiquary, grubbing in the dust and
silt of five thousand years ago to discover some traces of infant
effort--some rude specimens of the ages of Magog and Mizraim, in which
we may admire the germ that has since developed into a wonderful
art--breaks his shins against an article so perfect that it equals if it
does not excel the supreme stretch of modern ability? How shall we
support the theory if it come to our knowledge that, before Noah was
cold in his grave, his descendants were adepts in construction and in
the fine arts, and that their achievements were for magnitude such as,
if we possess the requisite skill, we never attempt to emulate? . . .
"As we have not yet discovered any trace of the rude, savage Egypt, but
have seen her in her very earliest manifestations already skilful,
erudite, and strong, it is impossible to determine the order of her
inventions.
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