Note 56 — Chapter II

I will give one instance of this from an otherwise sensible writer, and a man too of considerable learning: ‘As to the physical knowledge of the Egyptians, their cotemporaries gave them credit for the astonishing power of their magic; and as we cannot suppose that the instances recorded in Scripture were to be attributed to the exertion of supernatural powers, we must conclude that they were in possession of a more intimate knowledge of the laws and combinations of nature than what is professed by the most learned men of the present age.’ Hamilton's Ægyptiaca, pp. 61, 62. It is a shame that such nonsense should be written in the nineteenth century: and yet a still more recent author (Vyse on the Pyramids, vol. i. p. 28) assures us that ‘the Egyptians, for especial purposes, were endowed with great wisdom and science.’ Science properly so called, the Egyptians had none; and as to their wisdom, it was considerable enough to distinguish them from barbarous nations like the old Hebrews, but it was inferior to that of the Greeks, and it was of course immeasurably below that of modern Europe.