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were not the most simple, but were names composed of the names of these 
deities whom they wished to honour. Then we have tables, recently discovered, 
one containing a list of sixty-five kings, which is mentioned by Mr. Howard, 
and another which Brugsch brings forward, containing a list of architects, from 
father to son, all showing a great antiquity — we cannot say how great— but a 
great antiquity. With regard to the date from the time of Menes, with which 
the authentic history of Egypt commences, I see that Mr. Howard accepts an 
estimate which puts it back about 3,300 years before the Christian era ; now, 
that would bring us to 1,000 years earlier than the commonly-accepted date 
ot the Deluge. But what I wish to point out is that when we get in that way 
to Menes, w T e find, not that we have got to the beginning of things, but that 
there is still an antiquity behind, for everything was then going on in the 
world with populous cities, systems of government, and all the marks of a 
high civilization. Mr. Howard has pointed out that this is an argument 
against the doctrine that man proceeded from savagery to civilization. Well, 
perhaps so ; but whether it is or not, at all events it shows that there must 
have been considerable progress going on for years before, if not from bar- 
barism to civilization, at all events such a progress as that which we find 
among our own ancestors ; for they did not arrive without a long course of 
training at that knowledge of government and of the arts which is indicated 
by the earliest Egyptian monument. This proves that from the time of 
Menes we must go back a lonj number of years during which man was 
being trained up to the state of civilization at which he had arrived — 
whether in Egypt or in any other country makes no difference, 
because the amount of time required in any case would be the same. 
I therefore think that all this points to a very considerable number 
of years before the time of Menes ; so that whatever date we take with 
regard to Menes, we still must go back a considerable number of year 
more than are allowed for in the popular chronology. It is highly import- 
ant that we should recognize this. I am aware that there are difficulties in 
the way, because the system of chronology which we have, is said to have 
been framed by Archbishop Ussher, and is very ingenious, and there are 
always difficulties in the way of chronologies ; but still these difficulties are 
not to prevent us from looking the real facts in the face, and if we find in 
the records of Egypt, as I think we do, evidence of a much greater antiquity 
than has been accounted for on the once received theory, we must look back 
to our Scriptural record and see whether there is not some method of reconcil- 
ing the two, and acknowledge that we have been wrong in our former inter- 
pretations. It is far more easy to conceive that there should have been a 
misinterpretation of those Scriptural records, all contained in a very few 
chapters of Genesis, than it is to shut our eyes to the accumulating facts 
that speak of the antiquity of the Egyptian kings. This is one of the things 
which we learn from the study of Egyptian antiquities ; there is also another, 
and that is, the existence, as indicated on monuments, of marked races, 
differing from one another, even in the earliest times, in the same manner as 
