HIS HISTORICAL RELATIONS. 107 



become settled, amidst fable and allegory, some de- 

 scriptions of actual events are introduced ; and, at 

 length, history, assuming the exalted character that 

 becomes it, is contented with the simple narration of 

 fact, and fable is totally discarded. But such is the 

 disposition ia the human mind to believe the mira- 

 culous, that, even at a period when no one would dare 

 to introduce a tale of wonder unsupported by ex- 

 perience, credit still continues to be attached to the 

 traditions of early history, as though the sanction of 

 antiquity were sufficient to entitle impossibilities to 

 implicit beUef "* Where fable, fact, and allegory get 

 so commingled, it will be readily seen how little, either 

 direct or suggestive, can be drawn from the historical 

 element of our iuquiry. " It is easier, indeed," as re- 

 marked by Bacon, " to extract truth from error than 

 from confusion." 



It would be waste of time, in the present state of 

 our knowledge, to appeal to the chronologies of the 

 Chinese and Hindoos, for even could they be brought 

 within the category of critically-substantiated history, 

 and did carry us back some hundreds of thousands of 

 years, they give no indication of the stages through 

 which man has passed, nor other than the most ab- 

 surd and fabulous accounts of his origin. There may 



* Manners and Cvstoms of the Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. Second 

 series. 



