Here, everything was still to be achieved, for before the hieroglyphics had been deciphered, scholars had been obliged to depend solely upon Grecian accounts of the Egyptian kings and gods, especially upon those given by Herodotus, and therefore had often relied on reports which were most inadequate, and which in many cases were misunderstood. The power recently acquired of reading the writing of the Egyptians disclosed a wealth of original material, which was unexpected, new, and authentic. The incontrovertible importance of this was self-evident, and even during Champollion’s lifetime many rushed upon the freshly discovered mines, and sought to rifle them for historical and mythological purposes. But, although at the outset many mistakes and uncertainties were rectified, and much that was incontestably new was established, yet on the other hand, error after error was introduced into the science by the rash course of the immediate successors of Champollion. They received on faith that which they only half comprehended, and applied it without care or criticism. They instituted comparisons upon bases either false or insufficiently established, and by means of them arrived at conclusions that we can now only regard with scorn and dismay. In place of the imperfect knowledge of former time, there appeared as its evil successor a disorder without parallel. The grateful, but difficult task undertaken by Lepsius, was to clear this away, and compel Egyptological research to conform to the same critical method which has become obligatory for other branches of study, and without which there can be no soundness in science. Out of vague and unregulated fancies concerning Egyptian history and mythology, he formed a true Egyptian history and science of Egyptian divinities. By his strong hand were restrained the more or less ingenious and active divagations of Champollion’s successors, and he pointed out the path by which alone Egyptology could succeed in winning the name of a science. His course was at the same time bold, prudent, and dexterous. He considered the whole extent of the monumental material collected by himself, or otherwise attainable, separated it into groups, sifted these, and treated the essential constituents which he thus extracted according to the same critical method to which he had become accustomed in other departments of science, under the tutelage of Hermann, Dissen, Müller, Bopp, Lachmann, and Boeckh. After his journey to England and Holland, of which we shall soon have to speak, he possessed a sovereign comprehensive view of all of the written relics of the Egyptians to be found in Europe. But he carefully guarded himself against drawing conclusions from them which had not been thoroughly worked out, or from using them, like many other followers of Champollion, in the building of card houses.