92 



PEEJUDICES WHICH RETARD 



[Ch. V. 



C* 



V 



cultivators of geology to come to such, a conclusion, so Ion 

 as they were under a delusion as to the age of the world 

 and the date of the first creation of animate beings. However 

 fantastical some theories of the sixteenth century may now 

 appear to us,— however unworthy of men of great talent and 

 sound judgment, — we may rest assured that, if the same 

 misconception now prevailed in regard to the memorials of 

 human transactions, it would give rise to a similar train of 



* 



absurdities. Let us imagine, for example, that Champollion 

 and the French and Tuscan literati when engaged in ex- 

 ploring the antiquities of Egypt, had visited that country 

 with a firm belief that the banks of the Nile were never 



peopled by the human race before the beginning of the nine- 



teenth century, and that their faith in this dogma was as 

 difficult to shake as the opinion of our ancestors, that the 

 earth was never the abode of living beings until the creation 

 of the present continents, and of the species now existing, 

 it is easy to perceive what extravagant systems they would 

 frame, while under the influence of this delusion, to account 

 for the monuments discovered in Egypt. The sight of the 

 pyramids, obelisks, colossal statues, and ruined temples, 

 would fill them with such astonishment, that for a time they 

 would be as men spell-bound — wholly incapable of reasoning 

 with sobriety. They might incline at first to refer the con- 

 struction of such stupendous works to some superhuman 

 powers of a primeval world. A system might be invented 

 resembling that so gravely advanced by Manetho, who relates 

 hat a dynasty of gods originally ruled in Egypt, of whom 

 Yulcan, the first monarch, reigned nine thousand years; 

 after whom came Hercules and other demigods, who were 





at last succeeded by human kings. 



When some fanciful speculations of this kind had amused 

 their imaginations for a time, some vast repository of mum- 

 mies would be discovered, and would immediately undeceive 

 those antiquaries who enjoyed an opportunity of personally 

 examining them ; but the prejudices of others at a distance, 

 who were not eye-witnesses of the whole phenomena, would 

 not be so easily overcome. The concurrent report of many 

 travellers would, indeed, render it necessary for them to 





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