46 Was all Record of the Science of 



destitute of the incipient germs of the science, the full perfectioil 

 of which alone could direct unaided reason to that knowledge. 



In discussing the present question, we need scarcely refer, as 

 the Baron has done, to some arts which the Egyptians possessed 

 in a considerably advanced state, as the arts of making enamels 

 and porcelains, of applying some excellent and durable colours 

 in painting, and the art of representing the forms of animals, 

 and man himself, in both their paintings and sculptures. The 

 possession of these arts is not necessarily connected with any 

 great progress in science, as is evident by the existence of some 

 one or other of them, in much greater perfection, among several 

 other nations, who yet can scarcely be said to cultivate what is 

 properly termed science, as the Chinese and modern Hindoos, 



In page 341, after a detail of the branches of natural science 

 and art, in which the Egyptians are supposed to have made pro- 

 gress, but the evidence for which we find thus unsatisfactory, it 

 is added : " It cannot be imagined that a nation which devoted 

 itself with so much perseverance and success to the observation 

 of nature, should have confined itself to the mere collecting of 

 facts, without attempting to connect them by theories, and to 

 ascend to principles. It must, therefore, be supposed that there 

 was, at a certain epoch, in the colleges of the priests, the know- 

 ledge, not only of philosophical and religious doctrines, but also 

 of particular scientific theories. These theories doubtless have 

 been lost in consequence of the oppression to which the sacer- 

 dotal caste was subjected at the time of the conquest of Cam- 

 byses."" 



These conjectures, without proof, and in the avowed admis- 

 sion that all proof of them is wanting, are those which imme- 

 diately precede the intimation that Moses had derived his know- 

 ledge of the cosmogony from the Egyptian priests. Here, then, 

 is a singular series of mere suppositions. We must, first , sup- 

 pose that all record and knowledge of the philosophical science 

 of the priests was completely destroyed by the persecution of 

 Carabyses, for no trace of it remains in any profane author ; se- 

 condly. That the priests did certainly possess a truly philo- 

 sophical science of geology, in perfection at least equal to that 

 now attained by the joint labours and carcful inductions of 

 European geologists ; thirdly. That Moses transcribed the re- 



