Let us further remember that during this same period {51} there was some knowledge of chemistry. Sundry of the arts which we know to have been carried on, were made possible only by a generalized experience of the modes in which certain bodies affect each other under special conditions. In metallurgy, which was extensively practised, this is abundantly illustrated. And we even have evidence that in some cases the knowledge possessed was, in a sense, quantitative. For, as we find by analysis that the hard alloy of which the Egyptians made their cutting tools, was composed of copper and tin in fixed proportions, there must have been an established prevision that such an alloy was to be obtained only by mixing them in these proportions. It is true, this was but a simple empirical generalization; but so was the generalization respecting the recurrence of eclipses; so are the first generalizations of every science. Respecting the simultaneous advance of the sciences during this early epoch, it remains to point out that even the most complex of them must have made some progress. For under what conditions only were the foregoing developments possible? The conditions furnished by an established and organized social system. A long continued registry of eclipses; the building of palaces; the use of scales; the practice of metallurgy—alike imply a settled and populous nation. The existence of such a nation not only presupposes laws and some administration of justice, which we know existed, but it presupposes successful laws—laws conforming in some degree to the conditions of social stability—laws enacted because it was found that the actions forbidden by them were dangerous to the State. We do not by any means say that all, or even the greater part, of the laws were of this nature; but we do say, that the fundamental ones were. It cannot be denied that the laws affecting life and property were such. It cannot be denied that, however little these were enforced between class and class, they were to a considerable extent {52} enforced between members of the same class. It can scarcely be questioned, that the administration of them between members of the same class was seen by rulers to be necessary for keeping society together. But supposition aside, it is clear that the habitual recognition of these claims in their laws, implied some prevision of social phenomena. That same idea of _equality_, which, as we have seen, underlies other science, underlies also morals and sociology. The conception of justice, which is the primary one in morals; and the administration of justice, which is the vital condition to social existence; are impossible without the recognition of a certain likeness in men’s claims, in virtue of their common humanity. _Equity_ literally means _equalness_; and if it be admitted that there were even the vaguest ideas of equity in these primitive eras, it must be admitted that there was some appreciation of the equalness of men’s