P. F. Camp.
EGYPT
PREFATORY CHAPTER
here never was a time when men were so intensely interested in origins and development as they are today. Our biologists are studying life in all its forms, from the single cell to the highest mammal. Our psychologists are studying mind—what consciousness is; how attention, habit, memory are formed. Our physicists, not content with studying gravitation, heat, light, electricity, etc., are inquiring into the very nature of matter itself, and, together with the astronomers and geologists, are telling us not only how the earth, but also how the universe came to be. Our anthropologists, ethnologists and sociologists are just as actively and patiently inquiring into the origins of customs, institutions, law, religion, society. The historian is no longer content to rehearse a story because it is interesting; he insists upon getting at the original documents, at the facts in the case, not at theories. The savage, when asked why he observes a certain custom or performs some ceremony whose meaning he does not know, replies that his ancestors did the same. To inquire beyond this seems to him more than useless. Until the beginning of our modern scientific age the answer to similar questions among ourselves—as it still is among the Chinese, would have been, "it is written," "thus saith the Lord," "Aristotle, Plato or St. Augustine thought so and so about the matter." But today all is different. We are no longer content to know what is written, or what somebody thinks about a subject, we insist upon demonstrating or having some one demonstrate for us, the proposition put forward. We want the "facts." Our whole system of education encourages pupils to perform experiments and thus verify the statements they may find in their text-books on chemistry, physics and other subjects. It is the inductive method which gives the pupil the facts and encourages him to draw his own conclusions.
But what has Egypt to offer the modern man? Does it interest any but specialists and archaeologists? Apparently it does, for every year sees an increase of tourists in the Nile valley. It is true many go there because of the ideal climate or because it has become the fashion to do so. But if we look at the matter more closely, do we not see other, deeper reasons? Is it not true that many go because in their youth they had read about the pyramids and the wonderful temples of Egypt, and because now when they have the opportunity they desire to see these for themselves? The architect, the engineer, the contractor, all are interested in these masses of masonry. Again, when we are beginning to reclaim the desert areas in our western states, Egypt with its system of irrigation, older than history, arouses a new interest. The fact is that in spite of our practical nature, as some would put it, or rather, as we prefer to have it, because of our intensely practical nature, we are beginning to feel the necessity of inquiring into the activities of other peoples, be they past or present, not only because such inquiry will satisfy our curiosity or enliven our dull moments, but because of the lasting benefit we derive from it. We insist upon knowing the people who have achieved, who have accomplished things, and surely the pyramids alone would demonstrate that the ancient Egyptians belonged to this class.
Man attained to civilization for the first time in the Nile valley. We study the natives of Australia and Africa for social origins. It is here we can gather most information about the primitive forms of marriage and the growth of the family; about the beginnings of dress and ornament; about primitive warfare, magic, religion and early forms of tribal government. Just as we pay special attention to the development of the mind of the child in the study of psychology, so we feel that the best way to study the complex features of our civilization is to observe the simpler life of the savage. But the child becomes a man while the savage has not yet developed a civilization before our eyes. The growth of the race is slow. It is only when we are able to observe a race through a period of thousands of years that it is possible to see it grow from infancy to manhood. We can follow our own ancestors from the time they had advanced little beyond the stage of savagery, but it is to be observed that they did not develop but borrowed their civilization. Of the beginnings of the Greeks and Romans, whose civilization our ancestors took over, we know but little, but in the case of the Egyptians matters are different. We are able, by means of archaeological, monumental and inscriptional remains to follow them as they developed in the Nile valley, unassisted by any outside civilization—for none existed, the world's first great civilized state.