NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 151 



All opposition to the received view seemed broken down ; and 

 as late as 1835, indeed as late as 1850, came an announcement in 

 the work of one of the most eminent Egyptologists, Sir J. G. 

 Wilkinson, to the effect that he had modified the results he had 

 obtained from Egyptian monuments, in order that his chronology 

 might not interfere with the received date of the Deluge of Noah.* 



But all investigators were not so docile as Wilkinson, and 

 there soon came a new train of scientific thought which rapidly 

 undermined all this theological chronology. Not to speak of 

 other noted men, we have early in the present century Young, 

 Champollion, and Rosellini, beginning a new epoch in the study 

 of the Egyptian monuments. Nothing could be more cautious 

 than their procedure, but the evidence was soon overwhelming in 

 favor of a vastly longer existence of man in the Nile Valley than 

 could be made to agree with even the longest duration then 

 allowed by theologians. 



First of all, in spite of all the suppleness of men like Wilkin- 

 son, it became evident that, whatever system of scriptural chro- 

 nology was adopted, Egypt was the seat of a flourishing civiliza- 

 tion at a period before the "Flood of Noah," and that no such 

 flood had ever interrupted it. This was bad, but worse remained 

 behind : it was soon clear that the civilization of Egypt began 

 earlier than the time assigned for the creation of man, even ac- 

 cording to the most liberal of the sacred chronologists. 



As time went on, this became more and more evident : the long 

 duration assigned to human civilization in the fragments of 

 Manetho, the Egyptian scribe at Thebes in the third century b. c, 

 was discovered to be more accordant with truth than the chronol- 

 ogies of the great theologians ; and, as the present century has 

 gone on, scientific results have been reached absolutely fatal to 

 the chronological view based by the universal Church upon Script- 

 ure for nearly two thousand years. 



* For Lightfoot, see his Prolegomena relating to the age of the world at the birth of 

 Christ; see also in the edition of his works, London, 1822, vol. iv, pp. 64, 112. For 

 Scaliger, see the De Emendatione Temporum, 1583 ; also Mark Pattison, Essays, Oxford, 

 1889, vol. i, pp. 162 et seq. For Raleigh's misgivings, see his History of the World, Lon- 

 don, 1614, p. 227, Book II of Part I, section 7 of chapter i ; also Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, 

 ii, 293. For Usher, see his Annales Vet. et Nov. Test., London, 1650. For Marsham, 

 see his Canon Chronicus Aegyptiacus Ebraicus Graecus et Disquisitiones, London, 1672. 

 For La Peyrere, see especially Quatrefages, in Revue des Deux Mondes for 1861, as cited 

 in Topinard, Anthropologic, p. 52. For Jackson, Hales, and others, see Wallace's True 

 Age of the World. For Wilkinson, see various editions of his work on Egypt. For Vig- 

 nolles, see Leblois, vol. iii, p. 617. As to the declarations in favor of the recent origin of 

 man, sanctioned by Popes Gregory XIII and Urban VIII, see Strauchius, cited in Wallace, 

 p. 97. For the general agreement of church authorities, as stated, see L'Art de Verifier 

 les Dates, as above. As to difficulties of scriptural chronology, see Ewald, History of 

 Israel, English translation, London, 1883, pp. 204 et seq. 



