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APPENDIX.

A. Page 25.

CHRONOLOGY OF BUNSEN.

THE Conception of Bunsen's work is a vast one. "Egypt's Place in Universal History!" Egypt! that land of pyramids; whose kings are enumerated in history under thirty distinct dynasties; whose monuments antedate the oldest historic records; whose language has consumed the lives of some of the greatest scholars; the source whence the wisest of the ancient Greeks drew their wisdom; whose empire had extended from the Nile to the Indus, before Greece and Rome had even a name! And can Egypt's place in history be determined and described? Bunsen has attempted it. He has placed himself on her ancient monuments, and surveyed the immense periods of her historic existence, and, as he thinks, ascertained her "place" in the history of man.

To his own great industry and learning he has joined 'that of all the learned Egyptologers from Champollion to Lepsius; in short, what human learning and industry could do to fix Egypt's place in history, it would seem has been done by Bunsen in these five volumes.

It is with his system-that of chronology-that we are now concerned. We shall give that system, and the principal facts and reasons on which it rests, as near as we can, in the author's own words. In general, we think these facts and reasons need only to be stated in order to be discarded as insufficient for the basis of such superstructure:

"SYNOPSIS OF THE FOUR AGES OF THE WORLD.

"FIRST AGE OF THE World.

"Ancient Antediluvian History-from the Creation to the Flood; Primitive Formation of Language; and the Beginning of the Formation of Mythology.

"The Historical Primitive World (I., II., III.). (1-10,000 Year of Man; 20,000-10,000 B. C.).

"FIRST PERIOD (I.). — Formation and Deposit of Sinism (20,000-15,000 B. C.).

"Primitive language, spoken with rising or falling cadence elucidated by gesture — accompanied by pure pictorial writing; every syllable a word, every word a full substantive, one representable by a picture.

"Deposit of this language in Northern China (Shensi), in the country of the source of the Houngho-Sinism. The earliest polarization of religious consciousness: Kosmos or Universe, and the Soul of Personality. Objective worship, the firmament; subjective worship, the soul of parents, or the manifestation of divine in the family.

"SECOND PERIOD OF THE WORLD (II.). — Formation and Deposit of Primitive Turanism: The eastern polarization of. Sinism (15,000-14,000 B. C.).

"Pure agglutinative language: formation of polysyllabic words by means of unity of accent (word accent).

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Origin of particles, words no longer substantive and full, but

denoting the mutual relation of persons and things; finally, of complete parts of speech.

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Deposit of this stage of formation in Thibet (Botya language).

"Germ of mythology in substantiation of inanimate things and of properties.

“Third Period (III.). — Formation and Deposit of Khamism and the Flood: Western polarization of Sinism (14,000-11,000 B. C.).

"Formation of stems into roots producing derivative words; complete parts of speech beyond the distinction between full words (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and formative words (14,000).

"Declensions and conjugations with affixes and endings; stage of the Egyptian (13,000).

"Commencement of symbolical Hieroglyphics, i. e., picture writing; but without the introduction of the phonetic element or designation of sound (12,000).

"Deposit of this language in Egypt, owing to the earliest immigration of West Asiatic primitive Semites. Invention of, or advancement in, hieroglyphic signs: primitive syllabarium (11,000).

"THE FLOOD. — Convulsion in Northern Asia. Emigration of the Aryans out of the country of the sources of the Oxus (Gihon) and Jaxartes, and of the Semites out of the country of the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris (11,000-10,000).

"SECOND AGE OF THE World.

"Ancient Postdiluvian History - from the Emigration after the Flood down to Abraham in Mesopotamia. Formation of the historical tribes and empires of Asia (10,000-2878 B. Ç.),” *

We will not occupy space with the details of this

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Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. iv. pp. 485-497.

"age." Suffice it to say, the author exhibits the same wonderful knowledge in regard to the history of the "Egyptian deposit" from 10,000 down to 4000 B. C.,

as in reference to the preceding age. He

gives definite

dates for numerous events in the civil and religious history, e. g.:

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Close of the republican period,

Duration of the sacerdotal kings, according to Manetho,

1855 years; end of the sacerdotal kings,

Beginning of hereditary kings in Lower Egypt,

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9,086

7,231

5,413

Duration of them according to Manetho, 1790 years;

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It is safe to say, in general, that such a mass of pure assumption as our author has here put forth is nowhere else to be found in any professedly historical or chronological work. He frequently says, "According to Manetho," while Manetho affords not the least support for the declaration put forth on his authority.

The following sentences are valuable, as showing our author's manner of assuming his premises and drawing his conclusions, as well as exhibiting a cardinal principle of his work :

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"But if we find, almost four thousand years before our era, a mighty empire possessing organic members of a very ancient type, a peculiar written character and national art and science,

we must admit that it required thousands of years to bring them to maturity in the valley of the Nile. If, again, its language be shown to be a deposit of Asiatic, and by no means the oldest formation, it will be admitted upon reflection to be a sober conclusion that we require some twenty thousand years to explain the beginnings of the development of man, which have been only once violently interrupted in its primeval birthplace." (Vol. iv. p. 21.)

"The question as to the place of Egypt, in historical chronology, is thus at once changed to that of its place in the whole development of man. We pass out of the domains of chronology and history into that of pure philosophy." (Vol. iv. p. 22.)

We have here a statement of a fundamental principle of the author a principle by which he is guided, and which underlies his whole work. It is the founding of a system of chronology on the principles of philosophy.. We are fond of philosophy when it is sound and in its place; and we do not assert that it has no connection with chronology. When the materials for a strict historical chronology do not exist, we have no objections to philosophy doing her utmost to elucidate and present probable truth. But the danger is, that she will transcend the limits of her just domain. This we think she has done under the guidance of Bunsen. She magnifies the difficulties arising from the received chronology of Bible history, and then resorts to expedients that destroy the truthfulness of that history. Certainly in such a work as this she should be watched, and her supposed facts and her expedients be severely scrutinized. If our faith in Bible history is to be undermined by philosophy, let us know what is proposed in its place.

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