300 TROPICAL NATURE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



utmost accuracy, while every part of the building 

 exhibits the highest structural science. 



In all these respects this largest pyramid surpasses 

 every other in Egypt. Yet it is universally admitted 

 to be the oldest, and also the oldest historical building 

 in the world. 



Now these admitted facts about the Great Pyramid 

 are surely remarkable, and worthy of the deepest con- 

 sideration. They are facts which, in the pregnant words 

 of the late Sir John Herschel, "according to received 

 theories ought not to happen," and which, he tells us, 

 should therefore be kept ever present to our minds, 

 since " they belong to the class of facts which serve 

 as the clue -to new discoveries." According to modern 

 theories, the higher civilisation is ever a growth and an 

 outcome from a preceding lower state ; and it is inferred 

 that this progress is visible to us throughout all history 

 and in all material records of human intellect. But 

 here we have a building which marks the very dawn of 

 history, which is the oldest authentic monument of 

 man's genius and skill, and which, instead of being far 

 inferior, is very much superior to all which followed it. 

 Great men are the products of their age and country, 

 and the designer and constructors of this wonderful 

 monument could never have arisen among an unintellec- 

 tual and half-barbarous people. So perfect a work 

 implies many preceding less perfect works which have 

 disappeared. It marks the culminating point of an 

 ancient civilisation, - of the early stages of which we 

 have no trace or record whatever. 



The three cases to which I have now adverted (and 

 there are many others) seem to require for their satis- 



