380 
So far as I can gather, the great lesson that we learn from the paper is in 
reference to the antiquity of the human race in Egypt. I do not quite know 
what the Chairman meant when he spoke of Scriptural Chronology, but 
suppose he did not mean the chronology which we are accustomed to see 
on the margin of our Bibles, because that is not Scriptural, but merely a de- 
duction made in very late years, and is one which has not been by any means 
universally received ; and for my part, I think it is not at all capable of 
being accepted in the face of the testimony which we derive from an exami- 
nation of ancient records. One naturally turns with especial interest to the 
records which we observe in Egypt, because we all know that Egypt is a 
country which was inhabited in very early times. We know that we possess 
in its monuments a mass of evidence which we have nowhere else ; and that 
a great advance has been made during the last 50 years, in deciphering the 
languages in which these records are set forth, so that we are now really 
beginning to find distinct evidence with regard to the chronology of Egypt. 
No doubt Mr. Howard has pointed out in his paper how very little certainty 
there is with regard to exact chronology. The greatest Egyptologists indeed 
have always given their results with much reserve, and when we examine 
them we find that they differ from one another by 2,000 to 3,000 years. 
This is perfectly true, but at the same time I scarcely know whether Mr. 
Howard laid sufficient stress on another fact, namely, that although we may 
not be able to obtain anything like an exact table of chronology, yet, at the 
same time we may, by collecting a great quantity of evidence, come to a kind 
of general result which we cannot help accepting. I know well that it is quite 
hopeless in the present day to have evidence sufficient to enable us to lay 
down anything like a chronology that shall determine the exact time in 
relation to our Christian era, — of the accession of Menes, for instance ; but 
at the same time we have abundant evidence to show that there must have 
been a much greater number of years between that time and the Christian 
era, than is accounted for in the popular chronology. It was at one time 
conceived that all those dynasties which Manetho brought forward on the 
evidence of Egyptian priests, and the vast number of years they involved, 
were fabulous ; but the more the Egyptian records are examined, the less is 
that view tenable. Those dynasties of Manetho come down to us in a very 
imperfect state, and no doubt we cannot accept many of them in the form 
in which they are given to us, but they contain remarkable evidences to show 
that they are, upon the whole, genuine lists of kings. Mr. Howard has 
pointed out the very remarkable fact that the names of the kings of the first 
dynasty are fin- more simple than those of later : in the later dynasties we 
have names which we know are composed, to a great extent, of the names of 
gods, as was the custom in those days ; but on the contrary, the names of the 
early kings of Egypt are without any such accession of the names of deities. 
This is a very strong argument against the supposition that these lists were 
compiled by priests for the sake of exaggerating the antiquity of their race. If 
this had been the case, we should surely have found that the earlier names 
