We shall find, too, as the result of all this, that the civilization became more or less stationary. True, there must have been a slow development of religious ideas, a slow development of art, a slow development of government, and yet when the type was once set there was but little change from century to century in the relation of human beings to one another, and their relation to the products of nature. When we consider the accomplishments of these people we must not forget the length of time it took to produce them. Reckon back from the present time 6,000 years, and then consider what has been accomplished in America in the last century. Think back 2,000 years, and see what had been accomplished in Rome from the year of the founding of the imperial city until the Caesars lived {180} in their mighty palaces, a period of seven and a half centuries. Observe, too, what was accomplished in Greece from the time of Homer until the time of Aristotle, a period of about six and a half centuries; then observe the length of time it took to develop the Egyptian civilization, and we shall see its slow progress. It is also to be observed that the Egyptian civilization had reached its culmination when Greece began, and had begun its slow decline. After considering this we shall understand that the civilization of Egypt finally became stationary, conventionalized, non-progressive; that it was only a question of time when other nations should rule the land of the Pharaohs, and that sands should drift where once were populous cities, covering the relics of this ancient civilization far beneath the surface.