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Article VOICES EEOM DEAD NATIONS. BY KENNETH R. ... ← Page 5 of 7 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Voices Eeom Dead Nations. By Kenneth R. ...
1790 , that no original light is to he obtained from European authors of the last generation , whose works are merely repetitions of the few truths and the many fallacies transmitted to us by GtsbcoJJoman antiquity . " Perhaps one of the most singular systems of what must be called self-delusions , presented to us in the history of Egyptian discovery ,
is that of the Jesuit Kircher , a man of prodigious , but most unprofitable , learning . In the Egyptian hieroglyphics he found the most enormous mysteries . Truly says the lively author just now quoted , that "he succeeded in enveloping Egyptian studies with an increased density of gloom it has taken nearly two hundred years to dissipate ' ! " The secrets of nature , and not the triumph of an ancient
art , was what he found in the hieroglyphics . In seven characters , ATJT 0 KEA . T 0 E ( Emperor ) , his iiwentwe mind discovered the following valuable and interesting information : — "the author of fecundity and of all vegetation is Osiris , of which the generative faculty is drawn from heaven into his kingdom , by the Saint Moptha . ' ' The excellence of Kircher ' s philology is confirmed by his faculty , of which a modern Eoman Catholic saint-maker might be proud , of
inventing not only readings but saints ; for " Saint Moptha" existed nowhere but in Kircher ' s imagination . Again Kircher translates as follows , what modern science has shown to mean Czesab Domitiak Attghjsttts : " The beneficent being , who presides over generation , who enjoys heavenly dominion .
and four-fold power , commits the atmosphere , by means 01 Moptha , ( a sort of Egyptian Kircherian familiar or Puck , ) " the beneficent ( principle of ?) atmospherical humidity unto Ammon , most powerful over the lower parts ( of the world ) , who , by means of an image and appropriate ceremonies , is drawn to the exercising of his power . " * While Kircher w as thus tabulating to his own supreme
satisfaction , the fight of Egyptian chronology w as proceeding ; and , as is the the way under all circumstances where controversy is carried on , the attacking party renewed itself , Antams-like , at every overthrow . Manetho ' s lists w ere published by Scaliger , according to the version of Africanus , and so struck was he with their value that , like a true son of learning , he preferred to give up his own labours and his system of chronology , and adopt a broader basis , more conformable with the new light which has burst upon him , and which w as
dazzling him w ith its brightness . Scaliger was able and eminent enough to recognise that his former system was inadequate to the explanation demanded . Not so Petavius . Eull and unconditional condemnation of the lists which Scaliger had termed " a glorious and inestimable record , ' f flowed from his pen . Petavius w as either afraid
* Not having access to the ponderous ( Kdipus ifigyptiacus , I acknowledge my obligations for these extracts to Mr . Gliddorrs Chapters on Ancient Egypt . J may mention , that this work is correct enough as a report on Egyptological knowledge to the close of 1811 . His more recent works , Otia iUgyptiaca , 18 It ) ; and Types of Mankind , 1854 , contain the more recent discoveries , together with the historical alterations they have superinduced . t Hansen , Egypt ' s Place , vol . i . p . 232 . "VOL . II . r >
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Voices Eeom Dead Nations. By Kenneth R. ...
1790 , that no original light is to he obtained from European authors of the last generation , whose works are merely repetitions of the few truths and the many fallacies transmitted to us by GtsbcoJJoman antiquity . " Perhaps one of the most singular systems of what must be called self-delusions , presented to us in the history of Egyptian discovery ,
is that of the Jesuit Kircher , a man of prodigious , but most unprofitable , learning . In the Egyptian hieroglyphics he found the most enormous mysteries . Truly says the lively author just now quoted , that "he succeeded in enveloping Egyptian studies with an increased density of gloom it has taken nearly two hundred years to dissipate ' ! " The secrets of nature , and not the triumph of an ancient
art , was what he found in the hieroglyphics . In seven characters , ATJT 0 KEA . T 0 E ( Emperor ) , his iiwentwe mind discovered the following valuable and interesting information : — "the author of fecundity and of all vegetation is Osiris , of which the generative faculty is drawn from heaven into his kingdom , by the Saint Moptha . ' ' The excellence of Kircher ' s philology is confirmed by his faculty , of which a modern Eoman Catholic saint-maker might be proud , of
inventing not only readings but saints ; for " Saint Moptha" existed nowhere but in Kircher ' s imagination . Again Kircher translates as follows , what modern science has shown to mean Czesab Domitiak Attghjsttts : " The beneficent being , who presides over generation , who enjoys heavenly dominion .
and four-fold power , commits the atmosphere , by means 01 Moptha , ( a sort of Egyptian Kircherian familiar or Puck , ) " the beneficent ( principle of ?) atmospherical humidity unto Ammon , most powerful over the lower parts ( of the world ) , who , by means of an image and appropriate ceremonies , is drawn to the exercising of his power . " * While Kircher w as thus tabulating to his own supreme
satisfaction , the fight of Egyptian chronology w as proceeding ; and , as is the the way under all circumstances where controversy is carried on , the attacking party renewed itself , Antams-like , at every overthrow . Manetho ' s lists w ere published by Scaliger , according to the version of Africanus , and so struck was he with their value that , like a true son of learning , he preferred to give up his own labours and his system of chronology , and adopt a broader basis , more conformable with the new light which has burst upon him , and which w as
dazzling him w ith its brightness . Scaliger was able and eminent enough to recognise that his former system was inadequate to the explanation demanded . Not so Petavius . Eull and unconditional condemnation of the lists which Scaliger had termed " a glorious and inestimable record , ' f flowed from his pen . Petavius w as either afraid
* Not having access to the ponderous ( Kdipus ifigyptiacus , I acknowledge my obligations for these extracts to Mr . Gliddorrs Chapters on Ancient Egypt . J may mention , that this work is correct enough as a report on Egyptological knowledge to the close of 1811 . His more recent works , Otia iUgyptiaca , 18 It ) ; and Types of Mankind , 1854 , contain the more recent discoveries , together with the historical alterations they have superinduced . t Hansen , Egypt ' s Place , vol . i . p . 232 . "VOL . II . r >