12 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XI. 



We cannot, however, from the authority of Dio- 

 dorus and Clemens of Alexandria, venture to assert 

 that the books of Hermes which contained the 

 science and philosophy of Egypt, were all composed 

 before the reign of Menes ; the original work, by 

 whomsoever it was composed, was probably very 

 limited and imperfect, and the famous books of Her- 

 mes were doubtless compiled at different periods, in 

 the same manner as the Jewish collection of poems 

 received under the name of David's Psalms, though 

 some were composed after the Babylonish captivity. 

 Nor was Hermes, or Mercury, as I have elsewhere 

 observed, a real personage, but a deified form of the 

 divine intellect, which being imparted to man had 

 enabled him to produce this effort of genius ; and 

 the only argument to be adduced respecting the 

 high antiquity of any portion of this work is the 

 tradition of the people, supported by the positive 

 proof of thegreatmathemati^ d skill of the Egyptians 

 in the time of Menes, by the change he made in the 

 course of the Nile. It may also be inferred, from 

 their great advancement in arts and sciences at this 

 early period, that many ages of civilisation had pre- 

 ceded the accession of their first monarch. 



At all events, we may conclude that to agricul- 

 ture and the peculiar nature of the river, the ac- 

 curate method adopted by the Egyptians in the 

 regulation of their year is to be attributed ; that 

 by the return of the seasons, so decidedly marked 

 in Egypt, they were taught to correct those inac- 

 curacies to which an approximate calculation was 

 at first subject ; and that the calendar, no longer 



