198 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
The actions and thoughts of the pre-historic savage we can 
know little about, as he has left but few marks, except in the 
way of implements of hunting and warfare. But he is invaluable 
to the Geologist, as marking the era in which we believe man 
made his appearance on our earth. We trace man through his 
various conditions so well known here, his flint implements of 
our own Museum beginning his history, and the gradual elaboration 
of these of course reaching up to our own times. 
We have no absolute proof of the commencement of Scientific 
thought, but I think the majority of us will locate its birth in 
Egypt. From the seat of Government every year the Pharaoh of 
the time went in grand state to the Temple of Phile to consult 
the Great Nilometer. He was met by the priests of his day, 
and with their aid, with many superstitious rites, was able to 
predict the price of corn in the coming autumn. 
This curious ceremony laid the foundation of exact thought. 
The Nile rose to such a height; hence the price of corn. This 
knowledge soon spread from the Pharaoh to the people, and the 
Science of the rising and falling of the Nile became an accom- 
plished fact. Later in Egyptian times came the knowledge of 
eclipses, transits of Venus, and various astronomical circumstances 
that now are well-known observed facts, and these must 
probably have caused the same heart-burnings that advanced 
Scientific thought does now. 
But the great idea, that real knowledge must in the end win, 
has been the hope of the inmost soul of every real Scientist since 
the world began. After the first few strides (which may have 
taken almost infinite time), ideas came to be jotted down on 
stones, walls, pyramids, and such lasting monuments, that, 
though thousands of years have past, the writing of these early 
sages is still fresh and new. But by far the majority of the 
records of these early times unfortunately deal with a class of 
theology only, with which we have little to do. Isis, Osiris, and 
Horus, Bubastis, Prosopis, and Menephtha, are interesting, 
but have little connection with the march of knowledge. In 
common with the same conditions of later date, it is probable 
that they retarded rather than advanced the progress of thought. 
Greek Philosophy rose and fell, and did little for Science. It 
was divided into two parts—the Greek Age of Faith, and the 
