DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.548#0005
2 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
full value and significance of those at hand by a
singular chain of fundamental errors, which origi-
nated when Egyptian research was in its infancy,
and its connection with biblical enquiry little
thought of; and which have hung about it ever
since, baffling every attempt to work out a con-
sistent chronological sequence. Errors emanating
from one great authority, and repeated unques-
tioningly on the strength of a name, by another,
have thus so long passed current as facts through
the power of reiteration, that I fear the force of
rational demonstration will now scarcely suffice to
overcome the vis inertia that keeps them fixed for
so many stumbling blocks in the path of our pro-
gress in historical knowledge.
Yet the removal of these errors, and the demon-
stration of the false ground on which they stand, is
the formidable task I have undertaken in the brief
limits of this introductory notice. A piece of mill-
stone in a feeble hand is seemingly a poor weapon;
yet it may save the stronghold of truth invested
and assailed by fallacious authorities, if it be aimed
at the right mark—the head and front of the lead-
ing errors themselves.
To begin, for instance, with the primary element
towards establishing an exact synchronism of Sa-
cred and Egyptian history, which is, to find the
true place in time of the 18th and 19th dynasties,
coeval with the patriarchal age of Moses and his
history; how long and far wide has conjecture
been drifting about at sea! One man thinks
he has at last cast anchor on a rock; another
full value and significance of those at hand by a
singular chain of fundamental errors, which origi-
nated when Egyptian research was in its infancy,
and its connection with biblical enquiry little
thought of; and which have hung about it ever
since, baffling every attempt to work out a con-
sistent chronological sequence. Errors emanating
from one great authority, and repeated unques-
tioningly on the strength of a name, by another,
have thus so long passed current as facts through
the power of reiteration, that I fear the force of
rational demonstration will now scarcely suffice to
overcome the vis inertia that keeps them fixed for
so many stumbling blocks in the path of our pro-
gress in historical knowledge.
Yet the removal of these errors, and the demon-
stration of the false ground on which they stand, is
the formidable task I have undertaken in the brief
limits of this introductory notice. A piece of mill-
stone in a feeble hand is seemingly a poor weapon;
yet it may save the stronghold of truth invested
and assailed by fallacious authorities, if it be aimed
at the right mark—the head and front of the lead-
ing errors themselves.
To begin, for instance, with the primary element
towards establishing an exact synchronism of Sa-
cred and Egyptian history, which is, to find the
true place in time of the 18th and 19th dynasties,
coeval with the patriarchal age of Moses and his
history; how long and far wide has conjecture
been drifting about at sea! One man thinks
he has at last cast anchor on a rock; another