which is a historical impossibility. So far I was bound to go in my examinations of all possible materials for the history of Ethiopia. I may add that as a consequence I come to the conclusion that the editor of II Kings, having a late version of the prophetic utterances of Isaiah which he wished to incorporate with part (b), provided an introduction from his general knowledge of history to distinguish it from part (b). It is of course possible that he believed part (c) to have been another occasion, or that he found part (c) with its introduction already in existence dressed up by some former editor. The composer of part (c) in its present form appears to have had a confused knowledge of Tirhakah's wars with Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, and possibly of the relief expedition from Musri, which he naturally confused with Egypt.25 To sum up, the royal family of Ethiopia, to which belonged the kings of the Egyptian Twenty-fifth Dynasty, took its origin from a Libyan chief who settled at Napata about 900 B.C. Ethiopia was then as always the land of the southern roads, and thus the material resources on which this chief and his descendants founded the family fortunes came from the control of the trade routes and the gold mines. The normal population supported by the agricultural areas of Ethiopia is small, but with a large income from the traffic the rulers of Ethiopia were able to draw levies from the negro and the desert tribes. Individually men of courage and successful in the military occupation of Ethiopia, favored by the political disintegration of Egypt, these Libyan chiefs gained the headship of the Nile valley, held it for about eighty years, and then went down to defeat before the invading Assyrians. Their losses in men, accumulated wealth, and pres 25 The origin of the story of Sethon, Sennacherib, and the field mice, related by Herodotus (see Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis, pp. 5-12), is a legitimate subject for investigation; but the statements contained in the story cannot at present be utilized for the examination of the question in hand. tige in their ill-fated struggles with the Assyrians, perhaps also a degeneration of character in Tanutaman and Atlanersa, reduced them to inferiority to the king of Sais, Psammetik I, and they withdrew to Ethiopia, which Psammetik was not able to include in his kingdom. Thus Ethiopia, for centuries a province of Egypt and for eighty years the dominant province, was separated from the mother country under independent kings descended, at least at first, from those who had ruled Egypt. Tanutaman was succeeded by a king named Atlanersa, probably a son of Tirhakah.26 He began a temple to Amon at Gebel Barkal, which we excavated in 1916, but he must have died unexpectedly. Only one room was completed and a beautiful granite altar set up in it; but the reliefs in that room and the front part of the temple were unfinished. Neither of the great granite statues intended to stand before the outer pylon was ever completed; one was found on its side in the debris before the temple, and the other is still lying in the quarry at Tombos. He was buried in a small tomb at Nuri (Pyr. XX), the second king's pyramid in that cemetery. It was his successor, Senkamanseken, who appears to have revived the fortunes of the family. He finished the temple of Atlanersa at Barkal, and placed at least three fine granite statues of himself in the Great Temple there (found by us in 1916). At Nuri he built the first of the large three-room stairway-pyramids (28 m. square), and his burial was carried out with great ostentation. His reign was marked by an accumulation of wealth and by the fact that his craftsmen participated in the development of the Egyptian renaissance. I refrain from giving the list of subsequent kings down to 300 B.C. or beyond, which we have recovered, inasmuch as the 26 The pronunciation of these names of Ethiopian kings after Tanutaman is conjectural. The writing gives only the consonants. The forms I adopted in 1917 are merely pronounceable ones in which the original hieroglyphic forms may be recognized. My justification in rejecting forms based on the Meroitic now appears in the fact that the names are for the greater part of Libyan origin. names would be meaningless to any one but a specialist in Egyptian history. Suffice it to say that Senkamanseken was followed by five kings whose scribes and craftsmen clung closely to the Egyptian traditions; but the fortunes of the last two of the five gradually declined. The next two dynasties, also buried at Nuri and therefore probably claiming descent from Tirhakah (by marriage?), present a progressive departure from the Egyptian traditions, and about 350-300 B.C. the degeneration had produced a curious Egypto-Ethiopian culture closely resembling the Meroitic. Long before 300 B.c. the Ethiopian kings, cut off from Egypt, had turned their attention to the South and had developed the country about Baru’a (supposed to be Meroë). In the time of Nastasan, the last king buried at Nuri, the political seat was at Baru'a, but Napata remained the religious capital, the place of coronation and burial. After Nastasan's death, the royal cemetery was opened at Meroë (Kabushiyah), and at that time the political capital probably became the seat of the chief temple and of the priestly hierarchy. In the first century B.C. either Napata became again the capital of Meroitic Ethiopia, or it was the seat of an independent kingdom of Napata, detached from the kingdom of Meroë. For during this century pyramids were again built at Napata, this time at Gebel Barkal (excavated by us in 1916), the Great Temple of Amon and that built by Atlanersa-Senkamanseken were restored, and numerous buildings, administrative and religious, were constructed for the first time. The Ethiopia or Cush known to the Greeks and Romans was that of the Meroitic kingdom, and the name "Ethiopia was first given to Cush by them. In spite of the long accounts of the classical writers, the history of the Meroitic Kingdom is still in obscurity, and it is the hope of the Harvard-Boston expedition to continue its researches in Ethiopia by excavating the royal cemetery of Meroë. PSYCHIC RESEARCH HOWARD N. BROWN Psychic Research, " not to put too fine a point upon it," means for the most part thus far a careful and systematic investigation of the phenomena of spiritualism. A more elegant and reputable camouflage might be devised for it, and of course the name can be legitimately used to designate the study of many things with which spiritualism has nothing to do. But words have to be taken in the sense which common usage gives to them, and practically psychic research is the study of spiritualism. It used to be said by almost everybody, except the spiritualists, that the matter was not worth investigation; it was all an unwholesome mass of fraud, imposture, and delusion, to which no reasonable person would think for a moment of giving serious attention. Very likely a good many people are saying that still; but not if they have enough knowledge of the facts to serve as the basis of intelligent judgment. Whatever frauds may be practiced in the name of spiritualism, there are plenty of occurrences which no sane mind, having real knowledge of them, will attribute to that source. It is more common now to hear these occurrences ascribed to telepathy, which is perhaps correct; though where that conclusion is most confidently stated there is probably least right to hold it. Of telepathy very little is yet known, and what has been proved would seem to indicate that it is a faculty of quite limited range and power. It cannot be invoked to explain the facts which spiritualism presents without extending its capacity enormously, far beyond anything that is known of it elsewhere. Possibly it has this greater gift; but that is something which requires to be shown, not merely taken for granted. One can only jump to the conclusion that it has the gift; and this jump is often made, one must say, less for the sake of getting at the truth than for the purpose of getting rid of spiritualism. However, the investigation has now proceeded far enough so that we may intelligently state the issue to be, "spirits versus telepathy." Either there is some limited communication with personalities which have survived the change of death, or telepathy is a power of the mind possessing hitherto undreamed-of capacity. The purpose of the present paper is abundantly fulfilled if it can be shown that this is the issue to which psychic research has brought us, and that however unable we may now be to demonstrate in favor of spirits, we are quite as far from being able to give the case to telepathy. Whether or not this is a matter which no one can ever find out, remains to be seen. At present not many have the means at hand for making a decision of that question. Some minds of first-rate ability in close contact with the investigation have given their verdict strongly and unhesitatingly in favor of spirits. The general public may be in a better, or worse, position for exercising a dispassionate judgment; but it has no right to deliver an opinion which would close the case. As the matter now stands, with what it now knows or what can be shown to it, this public cannot be fairly asked to accept the views, say of Sir Oliver Lodge. But neither has it any good right to say that he is altogether deluded and mistaken. So far as it has any right to judge, the case for telepathy is quite as dubious as that for spirits. The heart of the problem which psychic research has attacked is the attempt to decide the real value of what purports to be evidence of the survival of personality after death. Its main task is the study of what is offered as proof of personal identity from a source beyond our |