therefrom.

It is probable that we find in Egypt a double tendency. One is the Asiatic
spiritualism, the other the African naturalism. The union of the ideal and
the real, of thought and passion, of the aspirations of the soul and the
fire of a passionate nature, of abstract meditation and concrete life, had
for its result the mysterious theology and philosophy which, twenty
centuries after its burial under the desert sands, still rouses our
curiosity to penetrate the secret of this Sphinx of the Nile.

We have seen in a former section that the institutions of Egypt, based on
a theocratic monarchy, reach back into a dim and doubtful antiquity.
Monuments, extending through thirty-five centuries, attest an age
preceding all written history. These monuments, so far as deciphered by
modern Egyptologists, have confirmed the accuracy of the lists of kings
which have come to us from Manetho. We have no monument anterior to the
fourth dynasty, but at that epoch we find the theocracy fully
organized.[171] The general accuracy of Manetho's list has been
demonstrated by the latest discoveries of M. Mariette, and has rendered
doubtful the idea of any of the dynasties being contemporaneous.

The main chronological points, however, are by no means as yet fixed.
Thus, the beginning of the first dynasty is placed by Boeckh at B.C. 5702,
by Lepsius B.C. 3892, by Bunsen B.C. 3623, by Brugsch B.C. 4455, by Lauth
B.C. 4157, by Duncker 3233.[172] The period of the builders of the great
Pyramids is fixed by Bunsen at B.C. 3229, by Lepsius at B.C. 3124, by
Brugsch at B.C. 3686, by Lauth at B.C. 3450, and by Boeckh at B.C.
4933.[173]

The Egyptian priests told Herodotus that there were three hundred and
thirty-one kings, from Menes to Moeris, whose names they read out of a
book. After him came eleven others, of whom Sethos was the last. From
Osiris to Amasis they counted fifteen thousand years, though Herodotus did
not believe this statement. If the three hundred and forty-two kings
really existed, it would make Menes come B.C. 9150,--at an average of
twenty-five years' reign to each king. Diodorus saw in Egypt a list of
four hundred and seventy-nine kings. But he says in another place that
Menes lived about four thousand seven hundred years before his time.
Manetho tells us that from Menes there were thirty dynasties, who reigned
five thousand three hundred and sixty-six years. But he gives a list of
four hundred and seventy-two kings in t