378 DIVISION I. VERTEBRAL ANIMALS.—CLASS I. MAMMALIA. 
political existence as a state, and which presents the wonderful spectacle of 
a race preserving its peculiarities of worship, doctrine, language, and feel- 
ings, in a dispersion of eighteen hundred years, over the whole globe, pre- 
sents to the mere philosopher a not less important subject of contemplation 
than to the theologian, who reads in its history a series of direct and strik- 
ing interpositions of Providence. Its history reaches back to the earliest 
periods of the world; its code of laws has been studied and imitated by 
legislators of other ages and distant countries ; and the two religions, which 
now divide the greater part of the civilized world, have been ingrafted on 
the stock planted by the children of Abraham. The Hebrew history begins 
with the patriarch of the nation, Abraham ; but that of the Hebrew state, 
with the acquisition of Palestine. 
Under Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they merely formed one nomadic family, 
whose history exhibits pictures of the wild hunter, the migratory herdsman, and 
the incipient husbandman ; and in which we already find the worship of one 
God, the rite of circumcision, and other traits,of the future nation. It was in 
Lower Egypt, however, whither Israel had migrated, and where his descen- 
dants resided four hundred and thirty, or, according to some, two hundred and 
fifty years, that they became a powerful nation. Joseph, having become 
grand vizier of Egypt, assigns his brothers a residence in the fertile Goshen. 
They increase rapidly, and become formidable to the Egyptian monarchs, 
who require them to build and inhabit cities. The oppressions to which 
they are subjected lead them to flee from the tyranny of their hard masters, 
and they find a leader and deliverer in a lonely exile, who had forty years 
before committed the crime of slaying an Eeyptian officer, and had since 
resided on the borders of Arabia, tending the flocks of his father-in-law. 
The number which left Egypt was six hundred and three thousand five hun- 
dred and fifty fighting men, exclusive of the Levites. This unarmed, or 
at least unwarlike crowd, is pursued by the Egyptians, but escapes across 
an arm of the Red Sea, the waters of which swallow up the chariots and 
horsemen of the pursuers. 
Niebuhr thinks that this passage was effected near Suez, where he him- 
self forded the sea, which is about two miles across. Burckhardt is of the 
same opinion. The law —a code at once moral, religious, and political — 
is given to the Hebrews from Mount Sinai; God himself is their Leader, 
their King; the constitution is strictly theocratic ; a violation of it is sac- 
rilege, and is attended with punishments from heaven; the possession of 
Palestine is assured to them, and they set forward again for the promised 
land. On arriving at the frontiers of their new country, their spies bring 
them back word that it is occupied by a fierce and warlike people, and they 
immediately demand to be led back to Egypt. But Moses determines to 
