NATURE 



49 



THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1881 



"^ BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS" 

 A Book of the Beginnings. By Gerald Massey. Two 



Vols. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1881.) 

 T N two large volumes Mr. Gerald Massey has collected 

 ^ together all the principal facts known about Egypt, 

 with a view to trace the origin of mankind. Some 

 portions of his theories are undoubtedly correct, especially 

 those which go to prove that the Egyptians are the oldest 

 known historical race, that they are an African people of 

 a peculiar type, and by no means an Asiatic tribe filtered 

 through the Ibthmus of Suez, and in course of time build- 

 ing up a Semitic population in Africa ; that evidence 

 of their primitive development is to be found in their 

 physical type ; for Mr. Massey is a decided evolutionist, 

 and regards man as evolved from some of the anthropoid 

 apes, especially the black races, whose colour he considers 

 marks their animal descent ; that tlint and stone weapons, 

 principally of the Neolithic period, have been found in 

 Egypt at different points is undoubted ; and that the 

 aboriginal inhabitants of the Nile Valley gradually rose 

 to a higher state of civilisation, and that without a 

 foreign predisposing them, is probably true. When how- 

 ever the author leaves the realms of ethnology and 

 dashes into philology his results are startling, and his 

 deductions so weird and transcendental that they fail to 

 command acquiescence. It is the rash seizing of any 

 word in any dialect which is totally inadmissible, as 

 from such arbitrary selections any absurdity may be 

 perpetrated. 



Still more extraordinary is the separation, arbitrary as 

 it appears, of dissyllable words into syllables, and com- 

 paring each syllable with any Egyptian one that will give 

 such a meaning as the inquirer wishes. To such pro- 

 ceedings there are no limits, and some of the results are 

 grotesque. The first requirement in the study of a 

 language is to separate the original from the introduced 

 words, and to apply to each a distinct etymology. In all 

 languages nouns are of uncertain origin, verbs and original 

 inflections, affixes and prefixes are more typical. Such 

 derivations, for example, as butter and butterfly from the 

 Egyptian /'/i'/,"food,"and7"£T, "entire" or "total,"and moth 

 from the Egyptian Mut, " death," and cooper from the 

 Egyptian Khcper, " a bottle," are too far-fetched to entitle 

 them to the designation of philological deductions. But 

 with all this straining at gnats the number of English 

 words, whether original or derivative, which can be 

 tortured into supposed Egyptian origin, is remarkably 

 small. Objecting, as is imperative, to all such vain 

 delusions, it must be admitted that the author has a full 

 right to oppose that system of comparative philology 

 which has been built up from the Sanslcrit, the supposed 

 oldest representation of the Aryan languages, to the 

 utter neglect of the older Egyptian, Sumerian, Baby- 

 lonian, and Chinese. The stately edifice built upon the 

 sand of Sanscritism already shows signs of subsidence, 

 and will ultimately vanish like the baseless fabric of a 

 vision. For by it not the study of the genera! laws of 

 speech, but only of a comparatively recent development is 

 exhibited. The weakness of the author is however equally 

 Vol. x.xiv. — No. 603 



manifest here, as he deals with languages which he does 

 not understand, and institutes comparisons on imperfect 

 data, nor does he seem to be aware of the knowledge 

 recently acquired of a prehistoric Chinese. He is however 

 right when he points out that such a Hebrew, not British, 

 name as Adam is more likely to be derived from Ttm or 

 Atem, the Egyptian word for "creator" and "created" 

 being, than the Sanscrit Adima, proposed by Max MuUer, 

 the more so that the Pentateuch abounds in Egyptian 

 words, and Sanscrit philology is vainly and ridiculously 

 applied to it. But in treating of the Egyptian word for 

 cat and its vocative form pussy, although the different 

 forms cited may amuse those interested in the "great cat 

 question," the learning expended is not on an original, but 

 an introduced word. The cat was doubtless an African 

 and Chinese animal unknown to the Greeks till a very 

 late period, not introduced till late into the houses of the 

 Romans, and not seen on Egyptian sculptures as a pet till 

 about 1500 B.C. The immense deal of reading and the 

 fanciful comparisons of the section of the Egyptian 

 names of personages are too daring and startling. No 

 doubt there is a peculiar fascination in playing with words, 

 and it the combinations arc neither correct nor harmonious, 

 they are at all events amusing, as to find that the Chinese 

 expression fieng yue is the same as the word fiend, after 

 all only the Egyptian ytv;//, and "old Bendy," the English 

 nick-name for the devil. The same remarks may .also be 

 applied to the attempts to refer British symbolical customs 

 to Egyptian names, and the identification of the Egyptian 

 deities in the British Isles, although a great deal of 

 reading has been wasted. In the wriggling over the word 

 Tasc on British coins, the well-known abridgment of 

 Tasciovanus, the father of Cunobelinus, or Cymbelin, 

 there is an unusual degree of floundering. It is referred 

 to the Egyptian word tcs and the English ias, a reaper, 

 and this example will give an idea of the manner in which 

 the subject is treated. \K. some spot in Herefordshire 

 certain services were performed over " old Tom " — not the 

 spirit, but as the departed year was called ; and this is 

 supposed to be part of the myth or legend of the Egyptian 

 god Atum, or the Creator, Tom in the game of noughts 

 and crosses, and so is Tommy Dodd. The only difficulty 

 is to conceive how such a transformation can have got 

 into any English head, for the word Tom suggests a 

 vulgar familiarity and a contracted form of Thomas ; 

 and in the same strain run on the consideration of 

 the types, names, and similar subjects, all on the same 

 plan. From the consideration of Egyptian origins 

 in Britain, a more than doubtful thesis, Mr. Massey 

 however goes into deeper water when he ventures on 

 Egjptian analogies in the Hebrew scriptures, although 

 the subject is by no means novel, and has been men- 

 tioned by various Egyptologists, Chabas, De Rouge, 

 Ebers, Brugsch, and others, besides the extensive use 

 of Egyptology made by German theologians. The 

 identification of biblical personages is another of the 

 attempts of the author to grasp at faint analogies with 

 Egyptian words that might possibly be compounded 

 into the Hebrew syllables forming the Hebrew names ; the 

 slightest probability is grasped at as if an absolute proof, 

 with the undaimted boldness of a preconceived theory. 

 Such researches may dazzle those unacquainted either 

 with Egyptian or Hebrew, but it is more than doubtful 



