216 Biographical Sketch of Dr Piichard. 



favourite hypothesis, but a careful statement of facts and cir- 

 cumstances, with a view to the elucidation of truth. The 

 conclusion drawn from the remarkable coincidences and re- 

 lations which Dr Prichard pointed out as existing between 

 Egyptian and Indian modes of thought, has received consi- 

 derable support from a quarter the least expected. Recent 

 investigations into the structure of the old Egyptian language, 

 revealed to us by the successful interpretation of the hiero- 

 grammatic writing, have demonstrated an early original con- 

 nection between the language of Egypt and the old Asiatic 

 tongues. By this discovery, the Semitic barrier interposed 

 between the Egyptian and the Asiatic races is broken down, 

 and a community of origin established, which requires the 

 hypothesis neither of the immigration of sacerdotal colonies, 

 nor the doubtful navigation of the Erythraean sea. The pro- 

 found views which led Dr Prichard to assert, that, " although 

 many obstacles present themselves to the supposition that 

 direct intercourse subsisted between the Egyptians and the 

 nations of Eastern Asia, there appear, even on very super- 

 ficial comparison, so many phenomena of striking congruity 

 in the intellectual and moral habits, and in the peculiar cha- 

 racter of mental cultm*e displayed by those nations, and par- 

 ticularly by the Egyptians, when compared with the ancient 

 Indians, that it is extremely difficult to refer all these analogies 

 to merely accidental coincidence," have thus been remarkably 

 confirmed. His comparisons of individual personages of the 

 mythologic system of either nation may not bear the test of 

 measurement by the more extended knowledge of the subject 

 which a quarter of a century has produced ; but the terms 

 of the general conclusions which are deduced from his "An- 

 alysis " may be fairly taken to be past all dispute. 



The " Critical Examination of the remains of Egyptian 

 Chronology" is a remarkable monument of Dr Prichard's 

 sagacity, and of his aptitude for the elucidation of an obscure 

 and intricate subject. The difficulty of the task which he 

 here undertook he has not overrated, when, after laying be- 

 fore the reader the lists of Manetho and Eratosthenes, the 

 old Chi'onicle, and the dynastic chronology of Herodotus and 

 Diodorus, he says, " nothing can be more discouraging than 



