"I know not that," answered the ancient. "Our records cover thirty full dynasties before the second Persian invasion, which occurred seven centuries ago, but each of these dynasties represents more than one Pharaoh, and several of them a great many; for government is not a permanent thing, and some form of revolution ever lieth in wait for it, as a tiger in a jungle watcheth a man to spring upon and strangle him." "And how many governments have existed among other peoples and nations during the thousands of years covered by the records of thy land of Kem?" "I know not that," said Am-nem-hat; "they are unknown and innumerable." "Therefore," answered Ammonius, "each one of them must have contained, in its very constitution and nature, the seeds of its own dissolution; and, so far at least in human history, the science of government hath learned no secret by which to secure permanency for itself." "The inference thou hast drawn seemeth to follow necessarily and undeniably from the known facts." "And what hath been the net result of the science of government among all the peoples and nations of whom thou hast ever heard?" "Misery!" "Yea!--But state the net result of government in political or in philosophical terms!" "State it for thyself; I desire to learn of thee." "Hath not the net result of human government everywhere, in all climes and ages and among all men, been only to produce, or develop, a ruling class at the top of every social and political system, unto whom all the blessings of the government and civilization are given by law; an oppressed or enslaved people at the bottom, upon whose weary shoulders rest all of the burdens and the waste of life; and between these two extremes, some religious system and some armed force, seeking to adjust the correlative legal rights and duties of the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the class that ruleth and the class that is ruled over, by the agency of religion, so long as the religious sentiment serveth to keep the people in bondage, and by sword and spear when superstition faileth? Add to this result the fact that women are everywhere slaves, or chattels, legally lower and more debased than their husbands and fathers, no matter what position the men may occupy; and have we not plainly stated, in this terrible formula, the net result of the science of human government to which it infallibly leadeth, and from which it hath never escaped? If thy large learning hath ever taught thee the name and location of any nation or people of whom this is not true, wilt thou now declare it?" "I can not name such a government or people," answered Am-nem-hat. "For history is but a dreary record of unceasing strife--among the fortunate for precedence and power, and among the poor for existence; and during the struggle it hath evermore happened that the women have been trampled into the filth and mud. I know not the reason thereof, but the fact is fearfully true."