34)2 Baron Cuvier's Lectures on the Natural Sckuccs. 



sliould have confined itself to the mere collecting of facts, without 

 attempting to connect them by theories, and to ascend to prin- 

 ciples. It must, therefore, be supposed, that there was at a cer- 

 tain epoch in the colleges of the priests, the knowledge not only 

 of philosophical and religious doctrines, but also that of parti- 

 cular scientific theories. These theories doubtless have been 

 lost in consequence of the oppression to which the sacerdotal 

 caste was subjected at the time of the conquest of Cambyses. 



The leaders of the colonies which issued from Egypt^ pos- 

 sessed in general but a small part of the knowledge of which 

 this privileged caste was the depository. They carried with 

 them only the practical results. The case was different with 

 the Hebrew legislator. He had been brought up by the Egyp- 

 tian priests, and knew not only their arts, but also their philo- 

 sophical doctrines. His books shew us that he had very perfect 

 ideas respecting several of the highest questions of natural phi- 

 losophy. His cosmogony especially, considered in a purely 

 scientific point of view, is extremely remarkable, inasmuch as 

 the order which it assigns to the different epochs of creation, is 

 precisely the same as that which has been deduced from geolo- 

 gical considerations. According to Genesis, after the earth and 

 the heavens had been formed and animated by light, the aqua- 

 tic animals were created, then plants, then terrestrial animals, 

 and last of all man. Now this is precisely what geology teaches 

 us. In the deposites which have been first consolidated, and 

 which, consequently are the deepest seated, there occur no or- 

 ganic remains ; the earth, then, was therefore without inhabitants. 

 In proportion as we approach the upper strata^ we find appearing 

 at first shells and remains of fishes, then remains of large rep- 

 tiles, then bones of quadupeds. As to tl)e bones of the human 

 race, they are met with only in alluvial deposites, in caves and 

 in the fissures of rocks ; which shows that man made his ap- 

 pearance upon the earth after all the other classes of animals. 



Lbctubjs Fouhth. — Greeck. 



The Greeks did not receive the whole of their knowledge 

 from Egypt. They had communications with the Phenicians, 

 and probably also with the Babylonians, as well as assuredly 

 with the tribes of Colchis and Caucasus, from whjch latter they 



