The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max
increasing number of inhabitants the attempt must have been made to set low-lying marshy districts free from the excess of water, and to make fruitful the higher parts of the valley beyond the reach of the inundations by bringing the water upon them. Experience quickly taught that the plot produced the most abundant fruits on which the inundation had continued longest, and consequently had time to deposit the thickest layer of mud. Hence the attempt was made to keep the water longer on the soil by means of dykes. These objects, in regard to which the interests of the several districts differed, and which required the combination of large masses of operatives to carry them out, must have made the need of a supreme decisive and executive power felt earlier in Egypt than in other lands.
The inhabitants of Egypt found themselves surrounded by a solemn landscape, before fixed and unchanging forms and outlines, in the midst of natural phenomena, recurring with invariable regularity and always in the same succession. Such surroundings and impressions must have stamped on the young life of a ripening nation a settled, stern, and unvarying character. When the original unity and society of life, which comprises all members of the family and in the tribe, has been broken through—when at the beginning of their settled life some have turned their attention to agriculture and cattle, others to hunting and war, others again to the fulfilment of religious duties—the sons are wont to carry on the vocation of the fathers. This is the rule often in far more advanced periods; and simpler conditions of life compel the son to carry on the life of the father, in whose occupation he has grown up. In such times there is no mode of teaching and instruction but through the family. In this way the tribes and the nation part into separate circles, which carry on as an inheritance the mode of life derived from their forefathers. These divisions of occupation, of vocation, and mode of life could be carried out earlier and with greater sharpness in Egypt than in other lands.
As life becomes more settled and developed, there are always found families with an especial liking for war. They are enriched by the spoil which is the fruit of their bravery, and protect the agricultural and pastoral part of their tribe from the attacks of plunderers. Every nation gives willing honour to the brave warriors among them, and gladly recognises the superiority of a mode of life which puts life to the risk over other occupations. And when, from the early simple stage, in which every head of a family approaches the gods with his offerings in trust and confidence, religion has developed into a body of usages and customs which must be performed and followed out if any share is to be obtained in the grace of the gods, the exact knowledge of these can only be handed down from father to son. And if the mass of the population gives honour to the warriors, how much more readily will it bow down before those who, by their prayers, libations, and offerings, can bring them the fruits of the field and the blessing of the gods—protection in this world and salvation in the next! Moreover, if the families of warriors and priests, filled with the conviction of their own higher worth, disdain the occupations of the rest of the people; if they are convinced that they are of a better kind than the rest, that only from the noble and good can the noble and good arise—that better blood gives better feelings, and better birth better men—then in this feeling, so natural to a primitive era, they allow their occupation to be shared only by those who belong to their race; they take wives from their own class only, not from others; they give their daughters in marriage to their own people only. Thus the various modes of life and orders which naturally come into existence end in castes.
The more fruitful the land of Egypt, the richer the products of the soil, and the more frequent the necessity of repelling the plundering inroads of the desert tribes, the more rapidly did the distinction between the agricultural and military orders spring up. And the greater the pride with which the inhabitants of this favoured land might and did look down upon the miserable tribes of the desert, the more grateful were the looks turned towards the gods, who had given them so beautiful and productive a land in the midst of the desert, who supplied them with water, fertilised their soil, cooled the heat of the atmosphere and gave them life and plenty, while all around them reigned desolation and death. To these beneficent powers the inhabitants of the valley of the Nile could not refuse an earnest service of thanksgiving for blessings so rich and so ceaselessly renewed; by their piety they had also to provide that the gods would graciously preserve these blessings to them. It is obvious that a tone and feeling like this, arising in the population from the very nature of the land, must have been in a high degree conducive to the rise of a priestly order in Egypt.
Egypt had excellent natural boundaries. If the forces of the land were once united in a single hand, there could be no difficulty in repelling the tribes of the desert. Thenceforward there would be little reason to fear an enemy on this side of the boundary hills. No rival power could arise in the neighbouring deserts, and should any victorious state arise at a distance, the deserts checked the advance of their armies. It was much more probable that the united forces of the river-valley should subjugate the tribes of the surrounding desert. Hence the position of their land allowed the inhabitants of the valley to develop undisturbed. The culture once obtained could be quietly transmitted to others, and constantly extended. This circumstance, in connection with the domestic peace of the country under a monarchy, allowed the priesthood to extend their lore in unbroken tradition from generation to generation, while quietly amassing stores of knowledge; and with the increase of the population all the hands not required for agriculture—and in Egypt this claims but a small amount of labour—had to devote themselves to trade and manufacture. And even these arts were likely to attain the greater excellence in so far as the artisans and tillers of the ground were less disturbed by war and military service. The more distinct the boundaries of the land, the less to conquer and occupy outside them, the more industrious, amid the growing population, must have been the culture of the ground and the irrigation of it, the more actively must the artisans have pursued their trade, and industry must have developed with a greater vigour as the number of mouths requiring food increased.
So far as our knowledge reaches, the northern edge of Africa, like the valley of the Nile as far as the marshes at the foot of the Abyssinian hills, was inhabited by nations who in colour, language, and customs were sharply distinguished from the negro. These nations belong to the whites: their languages were most closely allied to the Semitic.[1] From this, and from their physical peculiarities, the conclusion has been drawn that these nations at some time migrated from Asia to the soil of Africa. They formed a vast family, whose dialects still continue in the language of the Berbers. Assisted by the favourable conditions of their land, the tribe which settled on the Lower Nile quickly left their kinsmen far behind. Indeed the latter hardly rose above a pastoral life. The descendants of these old inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, in spite of the numerous layers which the course of centuries has subsequently laid upon the soil of the land, still form the larger part of the population of Egypt, and the ancient language is preserved in the dialect of the Copts.[2]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bunsen, "Ægypten," 5, 1, 75 ff.; Ebers, "Ægypten and die Bücher Moses," p. 43; Renan ("Histoire générale et système comparé des langues Sémitiques") will not admit this close connection.
[2] Brugsch ("Histoire d'Egypte," pp. 5, 6) explains the name Egypt by ha-ka-ptah, i.e. "the precinct of Ptah." As Ptah was more especially the god of Memphis, this name would have come from Memphis. The attempt has been repeatedly made to derive the civilisation of Egypt from Ethiopia and Meroe. But the problem of the origin of a given civilisation is not solved by removing it from the locality where it exists in full bloom to another, and as a rule more unknown, district. In the case before us this assumption is met by the peculiar difficulty, that the culture of Egypt is influenced essentially by the nature of the land, and therefore can hardly have had an external origin. It cannot be removed from a highly favoured locality into a district extremely hot, and fruitful only in detached oases, without making the explanation of its origin much more difficult. Moreover, the lower valley of the Nile has always ruled over the upper: even in mediæval and modern times. The inscriptions of Sargon, king of Assyria (722–705