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however, he very plainly said., that this great lapse of time 
was merely supposed, there is here no argument to examine. 
But it would have been well, if he had given the supposed 
dates of the two classes of sculptured monuments from which 
he derived his negative proof of the non-chariot period in 
Egypt. If found in the Memphis monuments “ 2,000 years 
b.c.," i.e. at the time the city was founded, and it being 
admitted to be history that in Joseph's time there were 
chariots, then the “ supposed great interval," that it is as- 
sumed must have elapsed, is not really so great after all, — cer- 
tainly less than 300 years, even if we further suppose that 
chariots were just invented at the time when Joseph was made 
governor; which is not probable. 
As to the argument that the Egyptians were without 
domestic horses at the time when no chariots are represented 
in their sculptures, I will only say, that if we adopt the usual 
genealogy of the Egyptians as being the descendants of 
Mizraim, the grandson of Noah and the founder of Memphis, 
then we can scarcely imagine them to have ever been ignorant 
of the use of horses. But as to this, and also as regards the 
great advance supposed to be made by them in civilization when 
they built their chariots, I would suggest that the simple 
explanation of the meagre facts upon which all this speculation 
is based, may be, that the tribe of Mizraim did not find car- 
riage-roads ready-made in the valley of the Nile when they 
founded the colony of Egypt ! Hence the very natural delay 
that may have occurred before they introduced chariots after 
building Memphis. To us. who are accustomed to read 
in earlier chapters of Genesis , of earlier periods still in man's 
history, and of his primal condition as being one of high 
elevation and of great capacity, the early civilization of 
Egypt presents no difficulties. In Genesis chap. iv. we are 
told that Cain, the very first man born in the world, built the 
city he called Enoch after his son ; and we read then of men 
who handled the harp and organ, and of artificers in brass and 
iron. In Genesis chap. vi. we also read of the ark of Noah, 
a hundred years before the building of Babel, nearly 1,000 
years before the Egyptian pyramids. And we know from the 
modern science of ship-building, and the proportions given 
for Noah's ark, that its construction bears testimony to a mar- 
vellous knowledge of mechanical principles, far exceeding* an}^ 
amount of skill required for the construction of chariots. 
In homely phrase, “the cart is put before the horse" 
throughout this argument, deduced from the civilization of 
Egypt. Whatever we may think of the theory of development 
in organic life, or of “ the number of centres of human 
