Others have been so blind in deducing the Original of things, or delivering their own beginnings, that when it hath fallen into controversie, they have not recurred unto Chronologie or the Records of time: but betaken themselves unto probabilities, and the conjecturalities of Philosophy. Thus when the two ancient Nations, _Egyptians_ and _Scythians_, contended for antiquity, the _Egyptians_ pleaded their antiquity from the fertility of their soil, [SN: Diodor. Justin.] inferring that men there first inhabited, where they were with most facility sustained; and such a land did they conceive was _Egypt_.
The _Scythians_, although a cold and heavier Nation urged more acutely, deducing their arguments from the two active Elements and Principles of all things, Fire and Water. For if of all things there was first an union, and that Fire over-ruled the rest: surely that part of earth which was coldest, would first get free, and afford a place of habitation. But if all the earth were first involved in Water, those parts would surely first appear, which were most high, and of most elevated situation, and such was theirs. These reasons carried indeed the antiquity from the _Egyptians_, but confirmed it not in the _Scythians_: for as _Herodotus_ relateth from _Pargitaus_, their first King unto _Darius_, they accounted but two thousand years.
[Sidenote: _That men speak not by natural instinct, but by instruction and imitation._]
As for the _Egyptians_ they invented another way of trial; for as the same Author relateth, _Psammitichus_ their King attempted this decision by a new and unknown experiment, bringing up two Infants with Goats, and where they never heard the voice of man; concluding that to be the ancientest Nation, whose language they should first deliver. But herein he forgot that speech was by instruction not instinct, by imitation, not by nature, that men do speak in some kind but like Parrets, and as they are instructed, that is, in simple terms and words, expressing the open notions of things; which the second act of Reason compoundeth into propositions, and the last into Syllogisms and Forms of ratiocination. And howsoever the account of _Manethon_ the _Egyptian_ Priest run very high, and it be evident that _Mizraim_ peopled that Country (whose name with the _Hebrews_ it beareth unto this day) and there be many things of great antiquity related in Holy Scripture, yet was their exact account not very ancient; for _Ptolomy_ their Country-man beginning his Astronomical compute no higher than _Nabonasser_, who is conceived by some the same with _Salmanasser_. As for the argument deduced from the Fertility of the soil, duly enquired, it rather overthroweth than promoteth their antiquity; if that Country whose Fertility they so advance, was in ancient times no firm or open land, but some vast lake or part of the Sea, and became a gained ground by the mud and limous matter brought down by the River _Nilus_, which setled by degrees into a firm land. According as is expressed by _Strabo_, and more at large by _Herodotus_, both from the _Egyptian_ tradition and probable inducements from reason, called therefore _fluvii donum_, an accession of earth, or tract of land acquired by the River.