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Herodotus, who gives us a history of the Egyptian kings, going back to a 
remote antiquity ; and the great value of his history is that he accurately 
reported what he saw and heard, after making diligent inquiry. He 
reported the history of Egypt from the priest-kept registers which were to 
a great extent supplied to him when he travelled in Egypt ; and it is a 
remarkable fact that those registers have been confirmed in the most 
striking manner by the discovery of monuments, whose inscriptions we have 
of late years been enabled to decipher. There are many differences, but, 
on the whole, the general history of the kings of Egypt, particularly of 
the later ones, has been confirmed, and we can from Herodotus illustrate 
the difference between anecdote and history. Take, for instance, the Saitic 
dynasty which began with Psammetichus. Herodotus gives us a list of 
kings confirmed in a very striking manner by the monuments, and we feel 
quite certain that the list is correct, being derived from the records of the 
priests ; but while he gives us this list correctly, he fills up his history with 
anecdotes utterly incredible ; so that when we speak of Herodotus as being 
accurate and careful, we admit that he was accurate in relating what he 
saw, and careful in recording what he heard ; but, at the same time, we are 
bound to confess that he accepted almost anything he was told with reference 
to history. Take the case of Psammetichus himself : Herodotus gives a very 
true account of him as the first of a dynasty which succeeded to the sole 
government of Egypt after it had been divided among a number of 
(Herodotus says twelve) independent princes. But he gives us a very curious 
account how it arose from an oracle that any one who offered a libation from 
a brazen bowl should be king. At that time they had golden bowls ; but 
on a certain occasion a bowl being wanted, and none forthcoming, 
Psammetichus used a brazen helmet. He was suspected and driven into 
banishment, whereupon he rose up in revenge, overthrew the twelve 
princes, and so fulfilled the oracle. Now we have monumental records 
which confirm the fact of Psammetichus having succeeded to the throne, 
after Egypt had been governed by many princes ; but when we come to the 
story about the oracle and its fulfilment, which Herodotus either received 
from the priests, or invented for himself, we have no record of it at all, 
we have only the account of Psammetichus succeeding to the throne of 
Egypt, and of the princes being tributaries to the great Assyrian 
monarchy. There were thirty subordinates when Psammetichus threw off 
the yoke. So there we have a simple historical fact, and around it is a 
fabulous narrative. That is quite characteristic of Herodotus, whose 
leading facts are borne out by records, but who surrounds each fact with 
poetical and legendary accounts, which he accepted without much reflection. 
What I would maintain is this : that in determining the basis of history, we 
must be content with less precise evidence than in the case of natural 
phenomena, or in establishing occurrences of the day. We have not, and 
cannot have, a series of events precisely similar to each other, which would 
determine a truth by the law of induction, and we must often be content 
with the testimony of persons far removed from the times at which they 
