Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

4 On the Remote
that their progenitors were co-eval with the fun.
Thefe two nations were the Aborigines of Greece,
and the latter alTumed the name of Autochthones^
a name which flrongly charaderizes their pi ide and
ignorance.
O N Ihifting the fcene to the other divifions of
the old world, the fame ambitious folly, and the
fame anility of belief prefent themfelves to our
view.
Egypt was reputed the mother of wifdom,
and the kingdom of fcience and knowledge : but
whatever degree of wifdom and learning the E-
gyptians had, they had alfo weaknefs enough to
entertain the mofl extravagant notions concerning
their own antiquity. They carried up the age of
their empire to an immenfe height, and reckoned
it their peculiar honour and felicity to have been
governed by gods, for ages immemorial. Thefe
gods, through time, became indolent, and fo
cloyed with power, that they thought proper to
refign the adminiftration of Egyptian affairs into
the hands of mortal kings. The mortality of kings
was fupplied by the regularity and perpetuity of
fucceffion. Accordingly, we are told that between
the commencement of their government and the
reign of the laft priefl of Vulcan who far on the
Egyptian throne, a feries of no lefs than three
hundred and forty-one generations had palTed
away. This period of mortal monarchs was fo in-
timately known to the literati of Egypt, that they
fpoke with confidence of every trivia! occurrence
that happened, and could afcertain the exa6t du-
ration of every particular reign. The courfe of
things had very happily adapted this laft branch
of the hiftory to tlieir remembrance ; for it was
demonftrable that the number of their monarchs
correfponded