vn THE ANTIQUITY AND ORIGIN OF MAN 431 



the passages and chambers being lined with huge blocks of 

 stones fitted with the utmost accuracy, while every part of 

 the building exhibits the highest structural science. 



In all these respects this largest pyramid surpasses every 

 other in Egypt. Yet it is universally admitted to be the 

 oldest, and also the oldest historical building in the world. 



Now these admitted facts about the Great Pyramid are 

 surely remarkable and worthy of the deepest consideration. 

 They are facts which, in the pregnant words of the late Sir 

 John Herschel, "according to received theories ought not 

 to happen," and which, he tells us, should therefore be kept 

 ever present to our minds, since " they belong to the class of 

 facts which serve as the clue to new discoveries." According 

 to modern theories, the higher civilisation is ever a growth 

 and an outcome from a preceding lower state ; and it is 

 inferred that this progress is visible to us throughout all 

 history and in all material records of human intellect. But 

 here we have a building which marks the very dawn of 

 history, which is the oldest authentic monument of man's 

 genius and skill, and which, instead of being far inferior, is 

 very much superior to all which followed it. Great men are 

 the products of their age and country, and the designer and 

 constructors of this wonderful monument could never have 

 arisen among an unintellectual and half -barbarous people. 

 So perfect a work implies many preceding less perfect works 

 which have disappeared. It marks the culminating point of 

 an ancient civilisation, of the early stages of which we have 

 no trace or record whatever. 



Conclusion 



The three cases to which I have now adverted (and there 

 are many others) seem to require for their satisfactory inter- 

 pretation a somewhat different view of human progress from 

 that which is now generally accepted. Taken in connection 

 with the great intellectual power of the ancient Greeks 

 which Mr. Galton believes to have been far above that of the 

 average of any modern nation and the elevation, at once 

 intellectual and moral, displayed in the writings of Confucius, 

 Zoroaster, and the Vedas, they point to the conclusion that, 

 while in material progress there has been a tolerably steady 



