Various are the causes to which the decomposition and downfall of Egypt are ascribed. Some assert that Egyptian society and civilization, traversing all the stages of growth and development, logically ended in senility, decrepitude and death. Others find in the division into castes, one of the pre-eminent causes of the decline of Egypt. But, baneful and destructive as is the organization into castes, it is a blessing when compared with domestic slavery. The rigid organization of the castes was a counter-poison, a check imposed upon the extension of domestic slavery, preventing it from eating up the healthy agencies of society. The caste system--and above all priestly caste--was, to a great extent, a curb on the despotism of the Pharaohs. The castes for many centuries prevented the fusion of the two greatest social plagues: domestic and political slavery. The all-powerful law of analogies--which in the course of these pages will be more luminously exhibited from the fate of other empires and civilizations--authorizes already the positive, and even axiomatic assertion, that the almost unparalleled by long historical life of the Egyptians, and the highly advanced state of their civilization, are due exclusively to the fact, that domestic slavery and chattelhood remained for a long time an abnormal outgrowth. It was not the basis of domestic and national economy, not the object fit for the special care of the legislator, and was not intertwined with the social, political and intellectual life of the Egyptians. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 4: The term _Japhetic_ is rather confused and unscientific. It is used here as being more popularly intelligible.] [Footnote 5: Herodotus.] II. PHOENICIANS. AUTHORITIES: _Moevers, Rénan, Duncker, Ewald, Ezekiel, Proverbs of Solomon, etc._