TWt BTHNOLOOY OF TRB IMP! AN ARCHIPELAGO. 49 



refined organism than iho human race httd previously produced, 

 and necessarily leading to freer! bolder, more earnest, more 

 reverential nwl therefore truer and moie comprehensive yxewn 

 of nature. The science, material und spiritual, which had already 

 ■ lawiKil uj>on man in E^ypt and appears to have been in an 

 advanced state six thousand yearl ago, must, for a lime, have had 

 that intensely stimulative influence on the higher Asiatic mind, 

 ■which all great discoveries or revolutions exert. Up to the period 

 of Egyptian culture the races of mankind throughout the world 

 partici|»aied in the comparatively inn-baric devvlopment which we 

 have indicated above. Over all Africa, Europe, northern and 

 middle Asia, Oceanica and America, and, there can hardly be a 

 doubt, over southern Asia also, save it may be in China, the 

 prevailing uniformity marked the winding up of a great era in 

 the history of mankind, for only a vast lapse of time could have 

 allowed one development to embrace the world, and overcome all 

 the impediments to its diffusion arising from the rudeness of arts. 

 In 8. W, Asia f and the Nile a new activity of intellect broke 

 through the universal stagnation, and the scientific era dawned 

 with a series of discoveries, any one of which is sufficient to 

 attest the fact that a higher organism had been gradually deve- 

 loped in this corner of the world, — theism, purer ethics, poetry, a 

 more advanced astronomy, letters, architecture, sculpture, ships, 

 and improved arts tf many kinds. Egypt by its language and 

 partly by its organism, character and customs belongs to tha 

 earlier development, from which all its organic advancement ne- 

 ver entirely freed it By its higher organism and its civilisation 

 it associates itself with the present era, of the culture, hut not the 

 genius of which, it was the mother. 



I need hardly remark that I consider the opinion maintained by 

 many Germans, and, in our own country, by Dr Pricbard and 

 other writers, that lucre was a kind of supernatural energy in 

 mankind during the early developments, to be entirely imaginative 



the Egyptian tonnage Is better known, and Its word* of arts are compared with 

 die oldest Euphrates word?-, tome. Uu&t will be thrown on this. It I* clear not 

 merely from strong probability but from evidence «f all kinds, tliat tha Nilotic 

 race was not Isolated from the 8, W. Asian rarv*. The run re developed African 

 languages present no difficulties, as we shall explain hereafter. At present the 

 reader may refer to the remark* contained In the note lo p. 2G0- The Egyp- 

 tian language must have reed mi its organic form at a period long anterior 

 to the time 'when the pressure of population iu the N.le-boaln began to pro- 

 duee a higher artbtic and scientific cultnre. The language oi Egypt ftrat 

 ti*ik iu , Inr aft- ti fir structure In a family, whnee locality we know not, although 

 It was probably in Asia. Its arts were elaborated by a nation who filled 'he 

 ▼alley oi the N*Ue. The Asiatic tribes who attained higher Ungmlailc development*, 

 probably in all age* received succeathre stimulants from the older and greater 

 uvubiatkm of Egypt. The teed* of science and art imported from the Nile, and 

 genninat big in a more capaciouiand fertile mental toil, gradually advanced *oaJ0 

 of ihe IndD.~F.uro»i.an trxbea to a higher character than that ot the Egyptians. 

 On the other hand the Nile appears, from Dr. Morton's research!*, to haw repeat- 

 edly or constantly received oil influx of the higher organiwj of Q W, A*ia. 



18 



