54 Did Science originate in India ? 



not at present spoken — a language the most regular that is 

 known, and which is especially remarkable for the circumstance, 

 that it contains the roots of the various languages of Europe, 

 of the Greek, Latin, German, Sclavonic ; so that to find even 

 the first instrument of science, namely language, it would seem 

 we must go to the Indians in search of it." We have, then, an 

 acknowledgment that the astronomy of the Indians is not very 

 ancient, and that they had no knowledge of anatomy ; so that, 

 ** in short,"^ it is said, " all that the Indians could communicate 

 to the Egyptians was their metaphysics, their mythology, and 

 their constitution.*" 



But if we admit the introduction of these branches into Egypt 

 by the Indian colony, why must we exclude their other sciences, 

 since they had music, medicine, war, and others. Is it lest we 

 should be compelled to admit, along with these, their well-known 

 absurd cosmogonies, and so deprive ourselves of the right to de- 

 rive the cosmogony of Moses out of the utter darkness of 

 Egypt ? But let us briefly investigate the merits of the tradition 

 preserved by Manetho, and how far it agrees with the true 

 light of history. 



The inquisitive Herodotus tells us, that he himself penetrated 

 into Egypt as far as Elephantis, and there inquired particular- 

 ly into the state and history of the countries higher up, and 

 gives, as some of the results of his inquiries, that the Ethiopians 

 of Meroe had no other gods but Jupiter and Bacchus, whom 

 they worshipped with great pomp. Here, then, we find neither 

 the mythology of India nor the fetishism of Egypt ; and in con- 

 sistency with this, he tells us in another place, that the croco- 

 dile, an object of adoration to the lower Egyptians, was so far 

 from being held sacred, even no higher up than Elephantis, that 

 the inhabitants were in the practice of eating him. Will these 

 facts permit us to derive the religion of Egypt from Meroe ? He 

 gives us another piece of history, throwing much light on that 

 of Meroe, and which he assigns to the reign of Psammetichus, 

 from whose time, he says, the affairs of Egypt, through means 

 of the Ionian and Carian military colonies, were nearly as well 

 known to the Greeks as those of their own country. It is, that 

 a large body of troops revolted from that king, and went to Me- 

 roe, where they were well received, and that through their 



