SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 309 



dividing history into two eras, in the first of which the years and centuries are 

 counted backwards, they will very probably search the Egyptian annals for the 

 first clearly defined starting-point between the dim twilight of unknown ages and 

 the broad daylight of history. 



Social Condition of the Ancient Egyptians. 



So ancient is the civilisation of Egypt that in certain respects it was known 

 only by virtue of its decadence. The national records reveal to us the peoples of 

 the Nile Valley constantly in a state of bondage, consequently living under a 

 system which must have debased them, suppressing all personal impulse, replacing 

 spontaneous growth of thought by formal rule, and substituting formulas for ideas. 



But the extent to which a nation can develop itself and increase its store of 

 knowledge is determined by the amount of liberty which it enjoys. What a 

 ruler lavishly squanders in one day, to enhance his glory, had been laboriously 

 acquired by free men or by those who enjoyed intervals of rest from the slavery 

 imposed upon them by internecine warfare and the vicissitudes of their oppressors. 

 Hence before being able to acquire their material resources, and the science of 

 which the monuments they have left us are an existing proof, the Egyptians must 

 have passed through a period of autonomy and obtained a state of relative indej)en- 

 dence. The erection of the Great Pyramids, which so many writers have appealed 

 to as an indication of the highly civilised state of Egypt, is in fact a striking proof 

 that before this period the nation had made very considerable progress in the arts 

 and sciences. 



But at a period of about fifty centuries anterior to the present time the peoj)le 

 had already commenced to degenerate. As Herder remarks, can any one conceive 

 the dire state of misery and the utter degradation into which the masses must 

 have fallen before it became possible to employ them in erecting such tombs ? A 

 mournful civilisation must that have been, which employed thousands of men for 

 years in transporting a few blocks of stone ! The slavery of the Egyptians, attri- 

 buted to Joseph by the Hebrew writers, must have been effected long before that 

 time, to enable the kings and priests to employ them on such works. The land and 

 its inhabitants had already become the property of the Pharaohs ; under these 

 masters the people sank to the level of a mere herd of cattle. 



Like the Nile, the Egyptian civilisation conceals its source in regions hitherto 

 unknown, and, in times antecedent to King Mènes, whom the annals state to be 

 the founder of the empire, the hieroglyphics show the Hor-chesou, or " servants of 

 Horus," also engaged in raising monuments in Egypt, according to plans traced 

 on gazelle skins. The social state of the people inhabiting the banks of the Nile 

 at this period is unknown ; but the most ancient buildings that they have left us, 

 notably the step pyramid of Saqqarah, and the temple of Armakhis near the great 

 sphinx, assuredly prove that they already possessed a well-established civilisation. 

 No other Egyptian statue is more lifelike or approaches nearer to the high artistic 

 standard than that of Khephren, although it is one of the most ancient. 



In the earlier times of Egyptian history, the paintings which cover the walls 



