9 



Epitome of the Progress of JVaiural Science. , 53 



and aversion to dead bodies, even to skins of animals, at tt)is day : 

 as though their ancestors had known a period, v^hen the very 

 scarcity of animal Ufe, had made it impious in their eyes to de- 

 stroy it. 



4. The evidence v\^e have that the religion of Egypt v^as de- 

 rived from Ethiopia, or upper Nubia ; and that civilization 

 originally came into Nubia, from India. 



The fanciful cosmogonies v\^hich are found in many of those 

 ancient records, appear to have sprung from the theologico-meta- 

 physical studies, common to those ancient people. In all of 

 them we find a surprising coincidence, as to the occurrence of a 

 great deluge. In the institutes of Menu, which date, according 

 to Sir Wilham Jones, about nine hundred years B. C, the ac- 

 count of the creation of the world by an omnipotent being, is 

 made — in a passage bearing a close resemblance to the analogous 

 passage in Genesis — to occupy a period of six days ; but the con- 

 struction given to the word day, makes it equivalent to a period 

 of several thousand years. These coincidences show, that the 

 human mind, in those distant ages, and in regions so far apart, 

 by thus cherishing the memory of traditions with scarce a differ- 

 ence of character, has done much to give to them the weight of 

 historical truths ; and the geological phenomena, which coincide 

 so remarkably with those traditions, sustain the assertion we 

 have before made, that geological knowledge is important to the 

 satisfactory study of the antiquity of human society. We are far 

 from seeking to reconcile the Mosaic and Hindoo narrations of 

 creation, by considering the days as so many secular, instead of 

 solar periods ; the Hindoo construction is to be rejected as irra- 

 tional to the judgment of common sense : for whether men choose 

 to consider the sabbatical institution, as ordained for sanctifica- 

 tion, or for relaxation from labour, it has one general character in 

 our scriptures, about which we cannot dispute : it is a seventh 

 part of the whole period, and the notion of praying or preaching, 

 or abstaining from all kinds of labour, for a period equal to several 

 thousand years, is an absurd hypothesis. To rest from labour 

 one natural day in seven, is a convenient custom, grateful to the 

 physical condition of man, and sanctioned by all civiHzed nations. 



In relation to the Egyptians, the great antiquity which was 

 once attributed to them, is no longer admitted. The long list of 

 their kings, which Eusebius, the bishop of Cesarea, has preserved 



