112 HISTORY OP THE PHYSICAL 



and according to different historical views, at one time to a 

 Semitic race in Northern Chaldea, (Arpaxad ( 144 ), the 

 Arrapachitis of Ptolemy), and at another, to the race of the 

 Indians and Iraunians in the ancient land of the Zend ( 145 ), 

 near the sources of the Oxus and the Jaxartes. History, as 

 founded on testimony, recognises no such primitive people 

 occupying a primary seat of civilisation, and possessing a 

 primitive physical science or knowledge of nature, the light 

 of which was subsequently darkened by the vicious barbarism 

 of later ages. The student of history has to pierce through 

 many superimposed strata of mist, composed of symbolical 

 myths, in order to arrive at the firm ground beneath, on 

 .which appear the first germs of human civilisation unfolding 

 according to natural laws. In the early twilight of history, 

 we perceive several shining points already established as cen- 

 ters of civilisation, radiating simultaneously towards each 

 other. Such was Egypt at least five thousand years before 

 our Era ; ( 146 ) such also were Babylon, Niniveh, Kashmeer, 

 and Iran, such too was China, after the first colony had 

 migrated from the north-eastern declivity of the Kuen-lun 

 into the lower valley of the Hoang-ho. These central 

 points remind us involuntarily of the larger among the 

 sparkling fixed stars, those suns of the regions of space, of 

 which we know, indeed, the brightness, but, with few ex- 

 ceptions, ( u ?) we are not yet acquainted with their relative 

 distances from our planet. 



A supposed primitive physical knowledge made known to 

 the first race of men a wisdom or science of nature pos- 

 sessed by savage nations, and subsequently obscured by 

 civilisation can find no place in the history of which we 

 treat. We meet with such a belief deeply rooted in the 

 earliest Indian doctrine of Krishna. ( 148 ) " Truth was origv 



