8 Some tonjectures on the progress of [Jan. 



there perfected it, and then carried back their arms and arts as con- 

 querors, both before and after their temporary subjection by the Hyksos, 

 into the countries immediately civilized and peopled, through which 

 they had, as nomads, passed on their way to the Nile. 



It is remarkable that up to the time of the Ptolemies, the character 

 of every monument, and of every vestige of the ancient Egyptian people 

 retains its Egyptian type, that * impress of locality' which so much 

 struck Heeren ; and as this type has from the earliest, been unmixed 

 by analogy with that of any other nation, save the Hindu, the neces- 

 sary conclusion is that the Egyptians in their migration towards the 

 Nile traversed virgin lands, as yet unsettled and uninhabited. Accord- 

 ing to the great law which seems to regulate the progress of people 

 from land to land, that progression is impulsive, the foremost tribe 

 being forced forward by that which directly infringes upon it. This 

 may happen in three ways ; — by the strong hand, driving a race of 

 previous settlers from their homes to the masterful advantage of the 

 aggressor, who has perhaps himself been forced upon them ; — or by 

 the two supposed cases of incompatibility of co-existence in races 

 whose capacities for accepting civilization materially differ ; viz. either 

 when the foremost race being of peaceful habits, industrious and 

 quiescent, becomes dissatified with the neighbourhood of a people, 

 which, though not unfriendly, is inapt to mix or to deal with its 

 denizens on equal terms ; — or where the converse occurs, the foremost 

 nation being slothful, inert, uninventive, and capable of only a semi- 

 savage independence, refusing and ultimately withdrawing from the 

 offence of the civilization superincumbent over it, in the institutions 

 of the nation that has immediately followed it up.* It is probable 

 then that the shepherds, i. e. the Nomad races, had been " an abomi- 

 nation unto the Egyptians'* from times anterior to their settlement in 

 the Nile-valley, — at a period how remote the newly-established chrono- 



* The disappearance of the pure Celtic races, in our isles before Saxon influences 

 is a melancholy extant example of this latter phenomenon in the history of man- 

 kind : in process of centuries, the pure Celt recedes, while the Saxon or Teuton 

 advances, and the mixed race formed intermediately remains stationary. The 

 recession and gradual extinction of aboriginal American, Australian, and some 

 South-African races before a mixed Saxo-Teutonic, — and as respects the Spaniard, 

 a mixed Goto-Semitic race, offer analogous examples with variation of circum- 

 stances according to relative grades of civilization. — H. T. 



