MR.  HORNER  ON  THE  ALLUVIAL  LAND  OE  EGYPT. 
87 
contemporaneous  events  of  Asiatic  life,  leads  us  to  documentary  beginnings  of  a great 
development,  more  or  less  chronologically  determinable.  But  when  we  come  to  con- 
sider more  closely  the  unmistakeable  purely  historical  time,  before  Menes,  of  separate 
kingdoms  and  particular  provinces,  we  discover  that  those  earlier  ages  belong  to  a period, 
when  the  foundation  of  that  entire  development  rested  upon  the  formation  of  language 
and  mythology.  The  author  believes  that  he  is  justified  in  maintaining  this  to  be  a fact 
in  historical  science.” 
“ Kecords  forming  a documentary  history  of  nations  extend  to  about  4000  years  before 
our  era,  and  an  early  period  of  long  duration  must  necessarily  have  preceded  these. 
When,  on  the  grounds  set  forth  in  our  Fifth  Book,  we  assign  to  that  period  a duration 
of  from  6000  to  9000  years  for  Egypt,  and  from  16,000  to  16,000  years  for  man’s  exist- 
ence, it  is  no  arbitrary  and  presumptuous  application  of  research,  but  an  emancipation 
of  ourselves  from  error  which  throws  everything  into  confusion.  The  first  epochs  of  the 
history  of  the  human  race  demand,  at  the  least,  a period  of  this  extent,  and  its  com- 
mencement, 20,000  years  before  our  era,  is  a fair  starting-point  in  the  earth’s  history.” 
— Original  edition,  Vorrede,  p.  \dii. 
