460 Naturai-Historical Collections. 
they possessed it for two centuries. During this time the order of priests was 
degraded, and the progress of science stayed. The second irruption was that of 
the Medes and Persians under Cambyses. Since our era other nomadic tribes 
have attacked them ; the Saracens, and afterwards the Turks. We do not take 
into consideration the conquest in the time of Alexander ; it was, indeed, op- 
posed to civilization, since the Greeks were then more advanced than the 
Egyptians. 
Thus, the sciences continually retarded in the east by the irruptions of barba- 
rians, did not attain a condition favourable to their developement, until they had 
penetrated into the west, passing from the Egyptians to the Greeks, and from 
them to the rest of Europe. As to the Indians, they did not contribute directly 
to our civilization, and it is in fact but a very short time since scientific commu- 
nication has been established between their country and ours. 
It is in India, however, according to all appearances, that we must search for 
the origin of the sciences. It was in this country, indeed, that man first esta- 
blished himself after his escape from the last cataclysm. The highest mountains 
of the world, the chains of Himalaya and Thibet, served for their asylum; and 
the base of the same mountains presented to them the first field for cultivation, 
Babylonia could then offer nothing but marshes, and Egypt was yet under the 
waters. All the low country, indeed, as the priests told Herodotus, is a present 
from the Nile. This river every year deposits a new bed of mud. By counting 
the number of superincumbent beds, which are easily distinguished from each 
other, we can learn how much the soil rises during a given time ; and thence, by 
a simple calculation, we arrive at the fact, that 2000 years before Christ, Lower 
Egypt did not exist. 
The priority of the Indians is proved also by a tradition, to which no one 
seems to have paid attention. We find, indeed, from the extracts which are pre- 
served out of thejwritings of Manetho, that in the reign of Amenophis, king of the 
16th dynasty, a colony from the Indus established itself in Ethiopia. But Dio- 
dorus Siculus, and all those who have written upon the religion of Egypt, trace 
it from Ethiopia or Higher Nubia. Thebes itself was but an island,—but a co- 
lony of Meroe, the sacerdotal city of the Ethiopians, Thus, then, civilization 
would advance from India to Nubia, and from Nubia to Egypt ; from the latter 
country it may be followed to Babylon, since, according to Diodorus, the Chal. 
deans, who formed the sacred caste in Babylonia, were at first nee but a co- 
lony of Egyptian priests. 
We might expect to receive great light on the history of the sciences amongst 
he Indians, who were the first | to cultivate them, and who, notwithstandiug the 
different conquests, preserved themselves so free from alteration, that we see them 
in this day precisely as they were in the time of Alexander. No documents are, 
however, found amongst them. Not that they were destitute of writings even at 
a very early date; but they have not a single historical work. Perhaps the Brah- 
mins, to concentrate every interest in their own caste, would not allude to events 
which might bring the others into notice. It is certain that they hold it to 
be a point of doctrine, that history ought not to be written. The fourth age, say 
they, the age in which we live, is too miserable; all past time is too degraded for 
us to seek to preserve it inremembrance. ‘The traces of the effects of civilization, 
have all then been preserved among them, and the only hope, in this absence of 
annals, is, that we may draw some indirect information from other books, or from 
the monuments. 
The monuments cannot, in this respect, afford us much assistance. Although 
they do not bear any date, we may conclude that they are posterior to the times 
of Alexander cr the Ptolemies. If they had existed at this epoch, some Grecian 
writer would not have failed to speak of them,—their gigantic proportions must 
at all times have rendered them very remarkable. We may, moreover, in a cer- 
tain degree, estimate their age by the emblems which are represented on them. 
These emblems ail belong to the religion of the present day ; but the mythologi- 
cal notions to which they refer, are only to be found in treatises posterior to the 
