Unfortunately, history is not at all like mathematics.
When you solve a sum you go from "a" to "b" and from "b" to "c" and from
"c" to "d" and so on.
History on the other hand jumps from "a" to "z" and then back to "f" and
next to "m" without any apparent respect for neatness and order.
There is a good reason for this.
History is not exactly a science.
It tells the story of the human race and most people, however much we
may try to change their nature, refuse to behave with the regularity and
the precision of the tables of multiplication.
No two men ever do precisely the same thing.
No two human brains ever reach exactly the same conclusion.
You will notice that for yourself when you grow up.
It was not different a few hundred centuries ago.
Prehistoric man, as I just told you, was on a fair way to progress.
He had managed to survive the ice and the snow and the wild animals and
that in itself, was a great deal.
He had invented many useful things.
Suddenly, however, other people in a different part of the world entered
the race.
They rushed forward at a terrible speed and within a very short space of
time they reached a height of civilization which had never before been
seen upon our planet. Then they set forth to teach what they knew to the
others who had been less intelligent than themselves.
Now that I have explained this to you, does it not seem just to give the
Egyptians and the people of western Asia their full share of the
chapters of this book?