ANCIENT HISTORY. INTRODUCTION. 1. THE early history of mankind is necessarily obscure, because there were not at first the means of recording events in writing. Even when men attained this power, they did not possess in any great degree that gift of mind which enables a writer to distinguish truth from falsehood. The history of all nations, therefore, commences with a narration consisting mainly of fables. In modern times, the character of these narrations has been seen with tolerable clearness, and some success has at the same time been attained in distinguishing the amount of truth mixed up with them, or resting at their bases. It is generally found that they have been suggested by national vanity, or by mere reflection on what was considered probable. 2. In the absence of written records, men of learning and science in modern times have made endeavours by other means to ascertain some particulars of the early history of the world. It now fully appears, from the researches of the geologist, as it formerly did from the Bible alone, that the origin of man upon the earth was a comparatively recent, though still remote event. The inferior animals preceded our race, and man did not appear till the surface had passed through various changes rendering it suitable for his dwelling. The ethnologist, who studies the history of ancient nations through the medium of their physical peculiarities and their languages, now, in like manner, announces, as the result of his inquiries, the great probability, altogether independently of Scripture, that the race sprung from a single pair, and that from one primitive centre the most distant parts A |