The Ruins by C. F. Volney

An example of an important omission of this kind may be found on
the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth pages of this volume,
which may be appropriately referred to, in this connection. It is
there stated, in describing the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia, and
the ruins of Thebes, her opulent metropolis, that "There a people,
now forgotten, discovered, while others were yet barbarians, the
elements of the arts and sciences. A race of men, now rejected
from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the
study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems
which still govern the universe."

A voluminous note, in which standard authorities are cited, seems
to prove that this statement is substantially correct, and that we
are in reality indebted to the ancient Ethiopians, to the fervid
imagination of the persecuted and despised negro, for the various
religious systems now so highly revered by the different branches
of both the Semitic and Aryan races. This fact, which is so
frequently referred to in Mr. Volney's writings, may perhaps solve
the question as to the origin of all religions, and may even
suggest a solution to the secret so long concealed beneath the flat
nose, thick lips, and negro features of the Egyptian Sphinx. It
may also confirm the statement of Dioderus, that "the Ethiopians
conceive themselves as the inventors of divine worship, of
festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and of every other
religious practice."

That an imaginative and superstitious race of black men should have
invented and founded, in the dim obscurity of past ages, a system
of religious belief that still enthralls the minds and clouds the
intellects of the leading representatives of modern theology,--that
still clings to the thoughts, and tinges with its potential
influence the literature and faith of the civilized and cultured
nations of Europe and America, is indeed a strange illustration of
the mad caprice of destiny, of the insignificant and apparently
trivial causes that oft produce the most grave and momentous
results.

The Ruins