Page:Fifty years hence, or, What may be in 1943 - a prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method (IA fiftyyearshenceo00grim).pdf/30

 a duration of special application, far beyond the usual.

"I was long ago impressed with the idea that many of those long-past occurrences about which learned historians disagree, could be cleared up by the light of induction; that as like causes have ever produced like effects, any causes, however remote in time, might be deduced from their effects, if only the records were sufficiently full and accurate, and the method sufficiently philosophical and thorough. It seemed, for instance, unreasonable that so great discrepancies should exist as to names and arrangements of rulers, and commencement and duration of dynasties, of those very Hykshos, or Shepherd Kings, of whom I spoke the other night in those sacred precincts. Manetho (according to Josephus), states that they reigned five hundred and eleven years, but cites only reigns amounting to two hundred and sixty years; while Africanus makes the duration of those reigns two hundred and eighty-four years, and Eusebius one hundred and three. Africanus makes the Shepherds consist of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth dynasties, and. to have ruled nine hundred and fifty-three years,