( 41 ) Remarks on some of Baron Cuvier's Lectures on the History of the Natural Sciences, in reference to the Scientific Knowledge of the Egyptians; of the source from whence Moses derived his Cosmogony, and the general agreement of that Cosmogony with Modern Geology*. IN some of the Numbers of the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal published in 1830, are given Reports of Lectures on the History of the Natural Sciences by Baron Cuvier; and in pages 342, No. XVI., we find in them the following statement respecting the Hebrew legislator:-" His books shew us, that he had very perfect ideas respecting several of the highest questions of natural philosophy. His cosmogony especially, considered in a purely scientific view, is extremely remarkable, inasmuch as the order which it assigns to the different epochs of creation, is precisely the same as that which has been deduced' from geological considerations." This, then, is the issue, in the opinion of Baron Cuvier, of that science, which has been held by many persons to teach conclusions at variance with the Book of Genesis,-when at last more matured by a series of careful observations and legitimate induction, it teaches us precisely what Moses had taught more than three thousand years ago. But at the same time that the Baron makes this statement, it is implied by him in the accompanying sentences, that the Hebrew legislator had acquired his knowledge of the cosmogony from the Egyptians; for he says, "The leaders of the colonies which issued from Egypt possessed, in general, but a small part of the knowledge of which the privileged caste (the priests) was the depositary. They carried with them only the practical results. The case was different with the Hebrew legislator. * "No opinion can be heretical but that which is not true. Truths can never war against each other. I affirm, therefore, that we have nothing to fear from the results of our inquiries, provided they be followed in the laborious but secure road of honest induction. In this way, we may rest assured, we shall never arrive at conclusions opposed to any truth, either physical or moral, from whatsoever source that truth may be derived; nay, rather that new discoveries will ever lend support and illustration to things which are already known, by giving us a larger insight into the universal harmonies of Nature."-Professor Sedgwick's Address to the Geological Society, February 19. 1830. Estimate of the Scientific Knowledge He had been brought up by the Egyptian priests, and k only their arts, but also their philosophical doctrines." In attempting to discuss the merits of the opinion h plied, we would speak in terms of high respect of the illu individual who has promulgated it; for such respect is one who, without question, has, in the field of natural erected a nobler monument to his own fame than any who has appeared since the days of Newton. The premises from which it is inferred that the Eg priests may have possessed such a knowledge of geol would furnish a foundation for the cosmogony of Moses, much too meagre to warrant such a conclusion. The cl them is indeed found in what Herodotus states regardi land of the Delta, by depositions from the waters of the It is said in page 340," The Egyptians had very correct on several points in geology; they had well observed th of alluvial deposition, and at the present day we account f formation of the Delta in no other manner than that in wh க was accounted for in the days of Herodotus." In turning to Herodotus, respecting whom many moder coveries have proved that he was a faithful chronicler of he saw, although often absurdly credulous of the repo others, we find no proof in his relation, that the Egyptian well observed the laws of alluvial deposition. With resp the priests, he states, in the passage referred to by the B only that they informed him of two facts; one, that the gr part of a country, of which he describes the limits, was an tion of land to the Egyptians by the depositions of the the other, that in the reign of Myris, about nine hundred before the time of the historian, the land was so low, that i river rose to the height of eight cubits, it was sufficiently tered; whereas at the time he visited Egypt, unless the rose fifteen or sixteen cubits the land was not sufficiently tered. This is not science, but history. No reasoning of priests is added with regard to these simple facts; and the dence appears conclusive, that he had heard no reasonin theirs, in this circumstance, that he himself proceeds to re regarding them with considerable ingenuity, and to prove t hich probability from a variety of considerations and Ige ts, and knew not rines." pinion here imof the illustrious respect is due to natural science, than any other t the Egyptian ny modern dis onicler of what the reports of Egyptians had With respect to by the Baron, hat the greater S, was an addis of the Nile; hundred years low, that if the sufficiently wa less the river sufficiently wa asoning of the ; and the evi reasoning of eeds to reason their to prove 11 of the Ancient Egyptians. 43 scarcely have omitted the arguments of the priests had he heard any from them. As far as regards the science contained in this passage of Herodotus, it is perhaps as truly philosophical as any other to be found in his writings; but the philosophy is exclusively that of the Greek himself. The facts, which rested on the authority of the priests, were of a character that it required no science or cultivated understanding to ascertain; no more, indeed, than, it requires in the present inhabitants of Cairo to discern when the Nile rises sufficiently to secure a productive crop. up But we are informed also, page 340, that "the properties of minerals were tolerably well examined. The country offered every facility for this; the mountains which form the sides of the valley of the Nile exhibited, and in all their native lustre, various species of rocks; in the lower part limestone, farther sandstone, and towards Syene, porphyry and granite. Egypt was in some measure a great mineralogical cabinet. The neces sity of passing along the small valleys which run towards the Red Sea, led to the discovery of other minerals, which do not occur in so great masses. It was in one of them that the mine of emeralds was discovered, which supplied all those known in antiquity." The discovery and working of the emerald mines, the only fact stated here, from which any thing can be inferred affecting the present subject, does not necessarily imply that the properties of minerals were tolerably well examined. Very barbarous nations, among whom not a trace of legitimate science has been discovered, have yet the propensity and the skill to dig out and ornament their persons with the natural gems; and it implies no more knowledge of mineralogy, much less of geology, in the ancient Egyptians, to dig mines for the emeralds, than it does in the inhabitants of Pegu to search for the rubies of their country, or in those of Siam for the sapphire. It may be allowed, yet within certain limits, that the properties of minerals were in some degree examined. It appears to have been known to them that their granites and syenites were more durable than their sandstones and limestones, as they have often carried the former from great distances to execute their more important architectural works, when they had the others nearer at hand; Estimate of the Scientific Knowledge but this implies no more than the knowledge possessed b working mason, and from any thing communicated w tainty regarding them, we are not called on to ascribe more.replebeite hot Egypt was no doubt, even in the most ancient times, now, a great mineralogical cabinet, just as the Paris bas The minerals were placed there by the hand of the Au Nature; but we have no more reason to believe that the Egyptians could demonstrate and explain the order of th rals in their country, than the Parisii, in the time of Juli sar, could illustrate the Palæotheria and Anaplotheria of But, in the lecture on the science of Egypt, the mos tisfactory argument is that which relates to anatomy.I 335, after stating that there were constant opportunities ed of observing the external forms and habits of anim many were brought up in the temples of the gods, either dicated to them, or receiving divine honours themselve added, "there were even occasions of observing their in structure, as it was customary to embalm them after de and," in Egypt the same horror towards dead bodies w entertained as in India; not only were the bodies of sacre mals embalmed, but those of men also. Now, this pr could not fail to give those who were charged with it a ledge of the form and position of the organs. It was und edly in Egypt that anatomy originated; it was to that co that the Greeks resorted to study it; and thither Galen m journey expressly for the purpose of seeing the representati bronze of a human skeleton." di eno od Now, with regard to this matter, when we reflect on the pose for which the dead bodies were embalmed in Egypt what the motives must have been which led to the practice must immediately conclude, that, instead of affording faci for acquiring a knowledge of anatomy, nothing could have sented a greater impediment to it. The purpose of embal was to preserve the bodies as much as possible in the fo which belonged to them when alive, which was altogether compatible with that dissection of the parts which unfolds structure to the anatomist: the motive to the practice could essed by every ated with cer scribe to them times, as it is aris basin was. the Author of at the ancient r of the mineof Julius Ca eria of Mont e most unsa y. In page nities afford animals, as either as deselves, it is heir internal Fter death;" lies was not sacred anihis practice it a knows undoubt at country en made a entation in the pur Sypt, and actice, we facilities have prebalming e forms ether inlds their could be of the Ancient Egyptians. 45 no other than the desire to honour the remains of their deceased kindred, which has been common to all the nations of the earth, and the effects of which, whether shewing themselves in embalming them, in depositing them in splendid catacombs or mausolia, or in simply interring them in grounds appropriated to that purpose, must be held as the natural and becoming expression of those family affections which form the basis of all human society. If, in the operation of embalming, the viscera were extracted, this was not for the purpose of investigating the structure of these organs, but for subjecting these more perishable parts to an additional preparation for preservation. In fact, there is no evidence whatever that anatomy was a science at all understood by the ancient Egyptians; and, with regard to comparative anatomy, the branch which has in later times illustrated geology, we have the statement of the Baron himself that Democritus of Abdera was the first who practised it. Even with regard to the science of medicine, which in all countries we find, in some shape or other, preceding anatomy, we have the testimony of Herodotus that it must have been at a low ebb in Egypt, when he tells us, that each of those who practised it applied himself exclusively to cure one disease, or the diseases of one organ. If Galen went to Egypt to see the representation of a skeleton in bronze, we must remember that this occurred long after the Alexandrian school of anatomy, under the patronage of a Macedonian race of kings had been enabled to throw some light, but still only a glimmering and very partial one, on that science, which it has been reserved for Cuvier himself to bring at last, in all its relations, into the full blaze of day. When we reflect how absolutely the determination, in the present age, of the relative position of many of the strata of the earth, has depended on that beautiful comparative anatomy which, under the hands of Baron Cuvier, has become one of the best founded and most splendid monuments of the inductive philosophy, equally remarkable for the happy elucidation of both physical and final causes; we must at the same time acknowledge how impossible it was that Moses could derive his knowledge of the order of the epochs of creation from a people 2 |