Having recently purchased a set of stereotyped plates of Volney's Ruins, with a view of reprinting the same, I found, onexamination, that they were considerably worn by the manyeditions that had been printed from them and that they greatlyneeded both repairs and corrections. A careful estimate showedthat the amount necessary for this purpose would go far towardsreproducing this standard work in modern type and in animproved form. After due reflection this course was at lengthdecided upon, and all the more readily, as by discarding the oldplates and resetting the entire work, the publisher was enabledto greatly enhance its value, by inserting the translator's prefaceas it appeared in the original edition, and also to restore manynotes and other valuable material which had been carelesslyomitted in the American reprint.An example of an important omission of this kind may befound on the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth pages of thisvolume, which may be appropriately referred to, in thisconnection. It is there stated, in describing the ancient kingdomof Ethiopia, and the ruins of Thebes, her opulent metropolis,that "There a people, now forgotten, discovered, while otherswere yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. Arace of men, now rejected from society for their sable skin andfrizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, thosecivil and religious systems which still govern the universe."A voluminous note, in which standard authorities are cited,seems to prove that this statement is substantially correct, andthat we are in reality indebted to the ancient Ethiopians, to thefervid imagination of the persecuted and despised negro, for thevarious religious systems now so highly revered by the differentbranches of both the Semitic and Aryan races. This fact, whichis so frequently referred to in Mr. Volney's writings, mayperhaps solve the question as to the origin of all religions, andmay even suggest a solution to the secret so long concealedbeneath the flat nose, thick lips, and negro features of theEgyptian Sphinx. It may also confirm the statement of Dioderus, that "the Ethiopians conceive themselves as theinventors of divine worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies,of sacrifices, and of every other religious practice."That an imaginative and superstitious race of black menshould have invented and founded, in the dim obscurity of pastages, a system of religious belief that still enthralls the mindsand clouds the intellects of the leading representatives of modern theology,—that still clings to the thoughts, and tingeswith its potential influence the literature and faith of thecivilized and cultured nations of Europe and America, is indeed
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