But different motives gave rise to different laws. One man, overjoyed at the birth of a first born son, resolved to distinguish him from future children by bestowing on him a more considerable share of his possessions, and giving him greater authority in his family. Another, more attentive to the interests of a beloved wife or darling daughter, whom he wanted to settle in the world, thought it incumbent on him to secure her rights and increase her advantages. The solitary and cheerless state a wife might be reduced to in case she should become a widow affected more intimately another man, and made him provide beforehand for the subsistence and comfort of a woman who formed his felicity. In proportion as every family increased by the birth of children and their marrying into other families, they extended their domain, and by insensible degrees formed towns and cities. From these different views and others of a like nature arose the different customs and rights of nations.
These societies growing in time very numerous, and the families, dividing into different branches, each having its head, it was necessary to intrust one person with the whole in order to unite all these heads under one authority and to maintain the public good by a uniform administration. To heighten the lustre of this newly acquired dignity and to cause them to devote themselves entirely to the public good, the title of king was bestowed upon them and they were invested with full power to administer justice and to punish crime.
At first every city had its particular king, who, being more solicitous of preserving his dominion than of enlarging it, confined his ambition within its limits But the unavoidable feuds that break out between neighbors, the jealousy against a more powerful rival, the turbulent spirit of a prince, his martial disposition or thirst for aggrandizing himself and displaying his ability, gave rise to wars which frequently ended in the entire subjugation of the vanquished and the addition of their cities to the victors. Thus a first victory led the way to a second, which, making a prince more powerful and enterprising, several cities and provinces became united under one monarch, forming kingdoms of greater or less extent, according to the degree the victor pushed his conquests. Such was the origin of the famous empires that at times included the greater part of the known world.
From various historical authorities the following summaries of history are obtained, and are presented as containing some of the principal points by which the general progress of the world should be judged. The principal empires of ancient time will be observed separately; those of modern time under one head, because of the more connected character of their histories, and because of the more general knowledge that is possessed of them. Then the general course events took will be noticed, the deductions that legitimately flow from them introduced, and the bearing they have upon present affairs of the world in reference to its future condition of government considered.
There are several nations that have, at various times, and that still do claim, the greatest antiquity. The Chinese, the Indians, the Syrians and Egyptians appear to have the most evidence to support their claim. The Egyptians once accorded it to the Phrygians, through the result of the somewhat singular experiment of confining two children away from all intercourse with the world until they began to cry, “Beecos,” which was found to be the Phrygian word for bread. This word, Psammetichus, the King decided must be of the original language, and consequently that the Phrygians were the original people.
Manetho, a high priest in Egypt, who had charge of the sacred archives, pretends to have extracted from the writings of Mercurius and to have proved thereby that up to the time of Alexander the Great, whose reign began 356 years B. C., there had been thirty dynasties in Egypt, which together covered a space of more than 5,300 years. If this claim be allowed, Egypt has existed 7,500 years. Herodotus says “that the Egyptian priests computed 341 generations until the reign of Sethon,” which began 719 years B. C. “These generations,” he adds, “make 11,341 years.” They also counted a like number of priests and kings, who had succeeded one another without interruption, under the name of “Pyromas,” signifying good and virtuous. These priests hewed 341 colossal statues in wood of these Pyromas, all arranged in a large hall in the order of their succession.
Let these claims be false or true, historians unanimously agree that Menes was the first King of Egypt, and that his reign began 2,188 years B. C., which would make its historic age about 5,000 years; undoubtedly its fabulous age would cover a sufficient period to make what is claimed, at least by Menetho, if not by the priests Herodotus mentions. These claims will seem the more probable when we are informed that a few ages only after Menes, the first King, one Busiris, built the famous city of Thebes, and made it the seat of his empire, which would seem to indicate that the arts and sciences had at that time been carried to a considerable degree of perfection, not only in the building of cities, but also in their adornment; for we are told that the public buildings were decorated with sculptures and paintings of the most exquisite beauty.
Additional force is also given these claims by the fact that Osymandyas, the successor of this Busiris, collected a magnificent library at Thebes, called “The Treasury of Remedies for Diseases of the Soul,” which would indicate that polite learning had made considerable advancement as well in philosophy as in religion. Historians also inform us that Cham, the father of Misriam—the same with Menes—was the second son of Noah, and it is supposed that he retired into Africa after the “confusion of tongues.” He was doubtless the Jupiter Ammont so long worshiped as a god by the Egyptians. We are also informed that this Cham, or Ham, had three other sons—Chus, who settled Ethiopia; Phut, who settled Africa westward from Egypt, and Canaan in the country that afterward was called after him, and whose descendants were called Phœnicians.
When we remember the so-called flood; that Cham was the second son of Noah and the father of Menes, the first king, 2,189 years B. C., and that 200 years later Osymandyas, one of his successors, was able to fit out an expedition against the Bactrians of Asia, consisting of 400,000 foot and 20,000 horse, it must be conceded that if the “flood” destroyed all the people existing on the face of the earth, except those saved in the ark, the descendants of Cham must have multiplied with inconceivable rapidity to have made the collecting of such an army possible. But this is not more astonishing than the supposition would be that there could be contained in the atmosphere surrounding the earth sufficient moisture to form the amount of water, which, falling through a space of forty days and nights, should cover the whole earth to the depth narrated of Noah’s flood; nor more so than that the temperature of the whole earth at that time should have been so uniform as to have permitted rain throughout, instead of hail or snow, in frigid portions thereof. And if we were to inquire where such a quantity of water was borrowed from and returned, a consistent reply would be equally surprising; for it is now known that there is just as large a quantity of the elements that compose water at present as there was then.
Considerable latitude can be allowed the statements regarding the flood, when it is remembered that the knowledge of geography, astronomy and meteorology must have been exceedingly limited at that time. But if credence is given to it as having occurred—and it is conceded that all the people Noah knew were destroyed by it—and a solution is sought, it can be imagined that a tremendous upheaval of mountains in Northern Asia might have thrown the waters of the Arctic Ocean southward over the country Noah dwelt in; but this could not have been the result of forty days and forty nights rain, though it may have rained continuously during that period, and may have been considered such by Noah.