LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Theological Seminary, 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Cus 
 Sim 
 Boc 
 
 BL 240 .A74 1875 
 Arnold, John Muehleisen, 
 
 1817-1881. 
 Genesis and science; or The 
 
 first leaves of the Bible 
 

 \ 
 
 GENESIS AND SCIENCE 
 
 OR 
 
 THE FIRST LEAVES OF THE BIBLE. 
 
WORKS BY THE SAME AU1H0R. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 ENGLISH BIBLICAL CRITICISM, & THE AUTHORSHIP 
 OF THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 TRUE AND FALSE RELIGION; OR, THE ORIGIN, 
 DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTER OF DIFFERENT SYS- 
 TEMS OF BELIEF. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 ISLAM : ITS HISTORY, CHARACTER, AND RELATION 
 
 TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 THE MOSLEM MISSION FIELD. The 109th Thousand. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 A PLEA FOR MISSIONARY LABOURERS. 
 
 ST. PAUL'S EXAMPLE: ITS SUPREME WEIGHT IN 
 
 MATTERS OF RITUAL, AS WELL AS IN MATTERS OF 
 FAITH. SERMON PRINTED BY REQUEST. 
 
 BIBLE CATECHISM; OR, SCRIPTURE ANSWERS TO 
 QUESTIONS ON THE CHURCH CATECHISM. 
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAIRBAIRN'S THEOLOGICAL 
 BIBLE DICTIONARY 
 
GENESIS AND SCIENCE 
 
 THE FIRST LEAVES OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JOHN MUEHLEISEN ARNOLD, B.D., D.D., 
 
 Honorary Secretary of the Moslem Mission Society. 
 
 "Was Himmel an die Menschen treibet, 
 Sie besser macht ; was Probe halt ; 
 Was Walirheit ist und Wahrheit bleibet 
 Fur diese und fur jene Welt : 
 Das ist uns lieilig, ist uns hehr ! 
 Ihr Fasler, faselt morgen melir." 
 
 Claudius. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 ^Ccmbmt: 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., 
 
 MDCCCLXXV. 
 
 [All rights reserved.'] 
 
EMILY FAITHFULL, 
 
 PRINTER IN ORDINARY TO THE QUEEN, 
 
 PRAED STREET, PADDINGTON, W. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Though strictly original in its conception, and 
 based on a foundation and plan of its own, the 
 following treatise is, to a great extent, constructed 
 of materials derived from foreign works of rare merit, 
 and not easily accessible to the English reader ; 
 and this will undoubtedly be its chief recom- 
 mendation. The chief aim has been faithfully to 
 reproduce the most recent outcome of the very 
 abundant and faithful labours of the leading 
 naturalists, physicists, and theologians on the Conti- 
 nent, respecting the supposed dissonance between 
 Genesis and Science. 
 
 Many are acquainted with the writings of La Place, 
 Cuvier, Lalande, Elie de Beaumont, Arago, Klap- 
 roth, Pasteur, De Luc, Marcel de Serres, Agassiz, 
 de Rougemont, Copernicus, Kepler, Mitdler, Sey- 
 ffarth, von Schubert, Silberschlag, Liebig, Blumen- 
 bach, the two Humboldts, Ehrenberg, Bopp, Patter, 
 Auberlin, Kurtz, Keil, Lange, Delitzsch, and others. 
 But few comparatively have studied the works 
 of A. and It. Wagner, Euler, Grone, Huber, Fabri, 
 Knobel, von Pfaff, Virchow, Luschka, Lilken, 
 
ii. PREFACE. 
 
 von Bar, Burmeister, Keerl, Stutz, Miiller, Zoll- 
 mann, Pruner, von Bronn, von Meyer, Fuchs, Mohr, 
 Ebrard, Bohner, Lotze, Oswald Heer, Retzius, Quen- 
 stedt, Christlieb, Fraas, Zockler, Goppert, Aeby, Bis- 
 cliof, Kolliker, Reusch, Giebel, Beuss, Perty, Nageli, 
 Ulrici, Frohscliammer, Eraw, Settegast, von Leonhard, 
 Hyrtl, Helmholz, Richers, Hoffmann, Snell, PHlippi, 
 Lund, Schilling, von Siebold, Cornelius, Deshayes, 
 Dubeux, de la Beche, Semenov, de Christol, de 
 Candolle, Flourens, Paul Janet, Tournal, and others, 
 who have severally written upon one or other of the 
 subjects treated in this volume. 
 
 Where I could not adopt their arguments or make 
 their conclusions my own, I endeavoured to show, 
 from what are deemed authoritative statements, how 
 great is the confusion among themselves, and how 
 utterly without weight and value, in consequence, 
 must be the assertions hazarded by scientists against 
 the Book of Genesis. If censured, as I shall be, for 
 not recklessly deciding some of the burning questions 
 of the day, I shall quietly submit and take it very 
 patiently. Is there not a time for everything ? If 
 revelation has long since closed its canon, certainly 
 science has not, and before this is done, it is vain to 
 apprehend danger for the cause of truth. 
 
 Whatever be the effect of these chapters upon 
 the wavering, it would reveal a vast deal of bigotry 
 and ignorance of the real questions at issue, if in the 
 face of the difficulties, incongruities, and perplexities 
 of certain theories exposed in this book, a small faction 
 of sciologians were to persist in claiming infalli- 
 bility for themselves, or in rashly reiterating the 
 
PREFACE. iii. 
 
 charges of supposed contradictions between faith and 
 science. If there remain problems, this will only 
 show that, as yet, neither Natural Philosophy, nor 
 Theology as a science, have wholly fulfilled their 
 mission. Ours may be an age of unprecedented 
 intellectual progress, but if, like the circumnavigator 
 of the globe, scientific progress were to come back to 
 the point whence it started, the agitated needle of 
 controversy, after restlessly quivering over every 
 degree in the compass of human thought, may finally 
 come to its rest where least expected. 
 
 The ignominious defeat of the able materialistic 
 
 a 
 
 developist, Carl Vogt, at the recent Stuttgardt Con- 
 ference of German naturalists by an immense majority, 
 is certainly a sign that the reaction has fairly com- 
 menced, and that in less than ten years, Darwinism, 
 which falsely ascribes to nature what really belongs 
 to culture, will be only remembered as one of the 
 delusions of the past. 
 
 Lastly a few words by way of personal explanation. 
 First, when " English Biblical Criticism and the 
 Authorship of the Pentateuch," was published and 
 republished within three months in 1864, it was an- 
 nounced that this present treatise would follow 
 quickly as a kind of sequel. That pledge could not be 
 redeemed till 1867, when the comparatively easy charge 
 of the Consular Chaplaincy at Batavia first enabled me 
 to publish it, and it may interest some of my readers 
 to learn that one of the two independent translations 
 of the treatise into Dutch, which soon followed 
 its publication, was executed by a Dutch lawyer; 
 the other by the accomplished authoress of Flore et 
 
iv. PREFACE. 
 
 Pomone de Java, Madame Bertha Hoola van 
 Nooten. 
 
 Secondly, the reader will observe that this work 
 has been printed at the Victoria Press, from type 
 set up by young women, the entire process being- 
 done by female hands, excepting only the laborious 
 press work. Having some experience in printing, I 
 hold that the Victoria Press need not mind 
 sending out workwomcmship of this description, 
 and Miss Emily Faithfull, in opening this and 
 various other fresh occupations for women in these 
 days of wild competition and reckless selfish- 
 ness, is worthy of the honour bestowed upon her by 
 the Sovereign, and deserves still greater help and 
 sympathy than she has, as yet, received in her noble 
 efforts. 
 
 Thirdly, it may have happened, whilst hasten- 
 ing this book through the press, prior to my 
 returning to the more practical work of a parish priest, 
 that some minor point may have been overlooked, mis- 
 stated, or imperfectly set forth ; but I earnestly trust 
 that any such oversight or misstatement in this my last 
 literary work, will not wholly mar the help the book 
 is intended to minister to minds having need of 
 
 being re-assured. 
 
 St. Peter's Day, 1875 ; 
 
 27, Bristol Gardens, London, "W. 
 
 J. M. A. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Pages i — ii. 
 The periodical recurrence of false alarms. Destiny of 
 Classical Paganism. Why Science never could become 
 the object of Divine Revelation. Stand-point of Genesis 
 practically the same as that of Science. How the scien- 
 tific blunders committed by the Hindu Shastras were 
 avoided in Genesis. Whence the objections to Genesis. 
 Modern samples of scientific fallacies. Hopeful sign of the 
 times. 
 
 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Pages 12 — 54. 
 The anti-materialistic tendency of true Science illustrated by 
 modern scientific discoveries in astronomy, botany, chemistry, 
 physiology, and zoology. The unscientific character of ma- 
 terialism. Its superstitious character illustrated in various 
 ways. The fallacy of its arguments. The modern physio- 
 latrous materialism traced to its true source. The materialistic 
 philosophical doctrine of atoms among Buddhists, Greeks, and 
 Romans. Mediaeval materialism. Post-Reformation mate- 
 rialism. Hobbes preparing the great Rebellion in England. 
 Hume, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and the French Encyclopae- 
 dists preparing the great French Revolution. Dogmas of 
 modern materialism. The impending reign of terror, and 
 the deadly fruitsof materialism, morally, socially, religiously, 
 and politically. 
 
ii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Pages 54 — 101. 
 The philosophical conclusions of the present day. Equi- 
 vocal and homogeneous generation. The developist theory 
 traced to its fountain head ; being imported by M. 
 Demaillet, from Hindustan into France, in 1748. Criticism 
 of the Transmutation hypothesis by English, French, 
 German, and other savants. The purely scientific diffi- 
 culties of the Evolution theory. Its hypothetical assumptions, 
 absolutely and mathematically disproved. The law of 
 compensation, inter-dependence, and harmony. How the 
 ape gradually became endowed with a human body and 
 a reasonable soul. The principle of Evolution and inorganic 
 substances. The fearfully demoralizing and brutalizing 
 tendency of the Evolution theory. Specimen of the Bible 
 of the Future. 
 
 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 Pages 10 1 — 144. 
 
 Monogenistic or Polygenistic origin of man. Species and 
 Genera. Presumptive physiological evidence of the unity 
 of all races. Divergence in the colour, the hair, and the 
 skull. Reasons why all classifications derived from them 
 are fallacious. The causality and permanency of race 
 examined. The unity of mankind proved from the gifts 
 of language, of reason, and of faith. The antiquity of the 
 human family. Infallible method of fixing the antiquity of 
 mankind by the approximate uniform date which all ancient 
 mythologies assign to the general deluge. 
 
 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND ANCIENT MYTHS. 
 
 Pages 145 — 197. 
 
 General traditions of ancient nations respecting the origin of 
 all things. Primitive monotheism. Cosmogonical legends. 
 
CONTENTS. iii 
 
 The mundane egg and primitive chaos. The hexaemeron, 
 or the six creation days. Myths respecting- man's creation, 
 his original felicity in Paradise, his degeneracy and fall by 
 the woman, and the general hope of recovery. Myths 
 respecting the ten patriarchs before the flood, the tower of 
 Babylon, and subsequent dispersion of mankind. Myths 
 respecting truths, originally revealed. The final lustration 
 of the earth by fire ; immortality of the soul ; resurrection 
 of the dead : judgment to come. Relation of Pagan myths 
 to the Book of Genesis. Are myths embodied in the Book 
 of Genesis ? 
 
 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 Pages 197 — 247 
 
 The sons of God and the daughters of men. Examina- 
 tion of the theory that the sons of God are the descendants 
 of Seth. The hypothesis that they were the angels of God 
 held by the whole Jewish synagogue, and the un- 
 divided Church, during the first four centuries. The flood 
 legends of the Babylonians, and the Assyrians, as recently de- 
 cyphered by George Smith in the Cuneiform Deluge Tablet : 
 and of the Syrians, Persians, Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, 
 Thibetans, and Tartars. The flood legends of Greece, 
 Scandinavia, Wales, Germany, Russia, North, Central, and 
 South America. The flood legends of Egypt, Central, and 
 South Africa. The physical cause and the universality of the 
 Noachidian Deluge. Examination of the alleged difficulties 
 of the Ark, and its internal arrangements. 
 
 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 Pages 247 — 274 
 
 Objections came first, not from astronomers, but from theo- 
 logians. The earth a star among stars. Symmetry and 
 harmony. The significance of the heavenly bodies as 
 the great clock of the Universe.- The planetary jubilee in 
 our solar system at the birth of Christ. The great fulness 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 of time. The central position ascribed to this planet not 
 mathematical, but moral. Demonstrated by a comparative 
 view of all the planets, that the earth is central. The ap- 
 pearance of the " light-bearers " on the fourth day of the 
 hexaemeron, and the divine philosophy in perfecting the in- 
 dispensable conditions for animal existence. One of the 
 many theories of the physical development of our planetary 
 system when first created. 
 
 CHAP. VII. GENESIS, GEOLOGY, & PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 Pages 274 — 351. 
 Geology its history and geological eras. Examination of 
 the earth strata and their fossil enclosures. The older 
 formations do not enclose lower types as was proclaimed. 
 The primeval types have never died out. The Sauria mon- 
 sters. Comparison of the fossil with the present fauna. The 
 remains of man among what were deemed pre-historic fossils. 
 The three great catastrophes which befell this our globe. 
 Argument for analogy. Facts and fictions of palaeontology. 
 The identity of many, the difference of some, and the 
 extinction of other species accounted for. The ancient view 
 vindicated. Alleged difficulties of Genesis reviewed. The 
 restitution hypothesis. The day-period theory. The sup- 
 posed analogy to prophecy. The first 40 Hebrew Para- 
 shioth of Genesis. " The Book of the genesis of the world," 
 and " the Book of the genesis of Jesus Christ." 
 
GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 I. Before entering- into the grave subject of this treatise, it is 
 to be distinctly understood that, cost what it may, everything how- 
 ever dear and sacred if proved unreal, or untrue, must be unmur- 
 muringly surrendered. We are indeed accustomed to a periodical 
 recurrence of false alarms, as if this or that fundamental truth of 
 religious faith were put in danger by the discovery of some fresh 
 scientific truth ; but it happens not seldom that what is put forth as 
 the undoubted result of scientific research to-day, by to-morrow has 
 to be classed among the many scientific fallacies, which are not 
 easily forgiven or forgotten. Nor can it be a matter of surprise that 
 all fresh scientific theories, and every kind of scientific dogmatism 
 should be received with grave suspicion. 
 
 In days when so many run to and fro and knowledge is vastly 
 increased, we must be prepared to meet calmly every difficulty 
 which any moment may present itself. Nor is there any reason 
 why we should question the strong resemblance supposed to exist 
 between our own days and those which immediately preceded the 
 dissolution of the national faith of Greece and Rome. We allow 
 that both epochs are alike marked by extraordinary intellectual pro- 
 gress in arts and sciences, combined with the most daring inquiry 
 into religious systems, which before had been accepted with implicit 
 confidence. 
 
 The question, however is, are we to regard the renewed flight 
 of intellect as the forerunner of the certain downfall of Christianity. 
 The answer is simple. If our belief were of the same order as 
 that of classical Paganism, the result would be doubtless the same. 
 But as Christianity differs altogether, it needs neither to dread the 
 opposition, nor to court the favour of secular science. Were it 
 otherwise, it could not be of God, but must, like classical Paganism, 
 be of the world, and perish with the world. 
 
2 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Since by divine appointment Salvation comes from the Jews, and 
 Science from the Gentiles, there can be no more collision between 
 Revelation and Science in our days than there was in the days when 
 the heathen workmen of Phoenicia constructed the temple in which 
 the Hebrews were to worship Jehovah. If before the advent of 
 Christ, religious truth were designed by God to come from the 
 Jews, and arts and sciences from the Gentiles, we should expect this 
 double purpose to have been accomplished in "the fulness of time." 
 Paganism cannot lay any sort of claim to a divine or superhuman 
 element, yet during " the times of this ignorance, which God winked 
 at," Paganism was permitted to accomplish some good. 
 
 Whatever remained of Paganism and Judaism had forfeited the 
 divine forbearance in one case and divine sanction in the other. The 
 times of the long-suffering of God respecting the Gentile world 
 expired at the same period when the ancient constitution of Israel 
 had fulfilled its purpose. Hence the Paganism which survived the 
 advent of Christ is as much a caricature of classical Paganism, as 
 modern Judaism is a caricature of the theocratical constitution of 
 Israel. Hence also the impotency of modern Paganism to produce 
 anything similar to that ancient treasure of arts, science, and civilisa- 
 tion, which classical Paganism had accumulated before the coming 
 of Christ, The admission that Paganism before Christ was called 
 by God to furnish arts and sciences is not a new doctrine, but is 
 freely taught by St. Augustine. 
 
 He says respecting the good which classical Paganism effected : — ■ 
 " As the Egyptians had not only idols and heavy burdens, from which 
 the Israelites fled with a feeling of abhorrence, but also precious 
 jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and such things as they required, 
 which they made use of for better purposes : even so have the 
 doctrines of the Gentiles not only images and heavy useless burdens, 
 which must be abhorred by every Christian, but also liberal arts and 
 sciences, which are fitted for the service of truth." 
 
 This divine dispensation, according to which liberal arts and 
 sciences were mainly reserved to the Gentiles, has not been sufficiently 
 recognised ; yet there is a singular wisdom in this appointment. 
 Science never could be made the subject of divine Revelation. Any 
 revelation of scientific light must of necessity have been imperfect, 
 since at no point short of communicating omniscience could such a 
 revelation have stopped. Such a revelation of Science, for instance, 
 as was known in the last century would be defective in our day ; and 
 what may satisfy us, now-a-days, will doubtless appear poor and 
 imperfect to our successors. Since therefore Science could neither be 
 the subject nor the object of revelation, we may account for the in- 
 stinctive distrust and for the undisguised aversion with which all 
 scientific dogmatism is received, not only by liberal divines but 
 
GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 3 
 
 by scientific men themselves, who know best to what perpetual 
 change all sciences are naturally subject. As there is no ob. 
 jective Science in the sense in which there is an objective 
 Revelation, most of the assumed facts of the former are but so 
 many opinions, conjectures, and inferences which never cease 
 being modified. I am not acquainted with a single man of au- 
 thority in scientific matters, who has not changed his views at least 
 once in his career upon some very material point ; and the over- 
 weening confidence of living scientific men will be as severely 
 censured by their successors, as they themselves condemn the 
 presumption of those who have toiled before them. 
 
 If the Mosaic cosmology ever be stated to be at variance with 
 scientific results, it may be asked whether the dissonance arises from 
 the scientific results of yesterday, or of to-day. Had Science closed 
 its canon as Revelation has long since done, or had we received by 
 divine Revelation a perfect knowledge of all the mysterious agencies 
 which sustain the complex mechanism of the material world, it might 
 be time to feel uneasy. 
 
 One of the Quarterly Reviews writes as follows : — " Twenty 
 years ago, he would have been esteemed a madman who had 
 asserted that the sun was made of soda and iron, and that a slit in a 
 shutter would reveal it. Yet science has now universally accepted 
 this as a fact. Ten years ago all geology was proceeding on the 
 wholly uncontested dogma of the successive deposition of strata. 
 But the investigations connected with submarine telegraphy have 
 proved the simultaneous deposition of strata. Five years ago it 
 was universally believed that no life could exist in deep-sea levels. 
 But the voyage of the "Challenger" is, at this moment, proving 
 that life there exists in abundance." 
 
 Whatever Moses knew of astronomy, geology, natural philosophy 
 or medical science, he acquired not by Revelation but by his being 
 taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Again the knowledge 
 of Solomon concerning the objects of natural science was acquired 
 by study and application, see 1 Kings IV. 32, 34 ; and must not be 
 confounded with the wisdom which he received in answer to prayer. 
 To go a step further, Moses might share in the then popular defects 
 of what are termed the exact sciences, without detriment to his 
 inspiration, since the cosmogony written by him wholly abstains 
 from treading upon scientific grounds. 
 
 The author of Genesis invariably speaks and writes so as to be 
 understood, and in order to reproduce the original traditions of the 
 creation of the universe, it was not necessary that he should give a 
 theory of the formation of the earth or of the solar system ; much 
 less that he should furnish a digest in anticipation of the concentrated 
 research of future generations. Had Moses recorded the creation 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 of the world in any other than the unscientific style of his narrative 
 he must have uttered statements which science in after ages would 
 have been compelled to dispute. This is a point to which too much 
 weight cannot be attached. 
 
 Yet it is just in this report that a dissonance between Science 
 and the Mosaic cosmogony has been asserted. It is maintained 
 that Moses described appearances, not facts ; or in other words that 
 his cosmogony took the optical standpoint. But what other stand- 
 point could be taken, or is now taken by the astronomer or the 
 natural philosopher whilst treating the same subjects? If the 
 cosmogony be a faithful record of appearances, it is as much a 
 record of facts and stands on the same level with the daily register 
 of any observatory in the civilised world. If the optical standpoint 
 of our cosmogony be that which is taken both in the language of 
 daily life, and of scientific observations, if it be moreover the settled 
 idiom of all historians, sacred and profane, why should it be objected 
 to in the writings of Moses ? Had the method of the critics been 
 adopted, our cosmogony would have been a sealed book to all ages, 
 excepting only to the few wise men who happen to unseal it towards 
 the end of time. 
 
 This, however, is not all. Had the Mosaic cosmology offered 
 scientific elements, it could not for example have escaped the pre- 
 dicament of Hinduism, in which mythological cosmogonies are 
 amalgamated with religion, astronomy, geography, metaphysics, 
 anatomy, logic, and history ; and it is this mixing of secular know- 
 ledge with religious truths which has brought the Pooranas into 
 irretrievable discredit and contempt with all educated Hindus. 
 Every thing in Hinduism assumes a religious character and goes 
 forth under the sanction of divinity : whenever, therefore, we 
 demolish a faulty member of their body of profane knowledge v/e 
 demolish a member of their religious system. 
 
 Our earth is described in the sacred Pooranas as a " circular of 
 flat, like the flowers of the water lily, in which the petals project 
 beyond each other." It consists of seven circular islands, or 
 continents, each surrounded by a different ocean, the central island 
 being Yamba Dweep, around which rolls the sea of salt water ; 
 around the second circular island heaves the sea of sugar-cane-juice ; 
 around the third, the sea of spirituous liquor; around the fourth, the 
 sea of clarified butter ; around the fifth, the sea of sour curds ; around 
 the sixth the sea of milk ; then the seventh and last island is washed 
 by the sea of sweet water ! Beyond this last ocean is an uninhabited 
 country of pure gold, so prodigious in extent that it equals all the 
 islands with their accompanying oceans in magnitude. It is begirt 
 with a boundary wall of stupendous mountains, which enclose within 
 their bosom realms of everlasting darkness. 
 
SCIENTIFIC BLUNDERS OF HINDUISM. 5 
 
 The central island, the destined habitation of the human race, is 
 several hundred miles in diameter, and the sea that surrounds it is 
 of the same breadth. The second island is double the diameter of 
 the first, and so is the sea that surrounds it. And each of the 
 remaining- islands and seas, in succession, is double the breadth of 
 its immediate predecessor. So that the diameter of the whole earth 
 amounts to several hundred thousand millions of miles. 
 
 In the midst of this almost immeasurable plain, from the very 
 centre of Yamba Dweep, shoots up the mountain, Su-Meru, 600,000 
 miles high in the form of an inverted pyramid, having its summit, 
 which is two hundred times broader than the base, surmounted by 
 three swelling^cones, the highest of these transpiercing the upper 
 vacancy with three golden peaks, on which are situate the favourite 
 residences of the Hindu triad. At its base, like so many giant 
 sentinels, stand four lofty hills, on each of which grows a mango 
 tree, several thousand miles in height, bearing fruit delicious as 
 nectar, and of the enormous size of many hundred cubits. From 
 these mangos, as they fall, flows a mighty river of perfumed juice, so 
 communicative of its sweetness, that those who partake of it exhale 
 the odour from their persons to the distance of many leagues ! 
 
 The universe is partitioned into seven inferior, and seven superior 
 worlds, consisting, — with the exception of our own earth, which is 
 the first — of immense tracts of space, besludded with glorious 
 luminaries and habitations of the gods, rising, not unlike the rings of 
 Saturn, one above the other, as so many concentric zones, or belts, 
 of almost measureless extent. Of the seven inferior worlds, which 
 dip beneath our earth in a regularly descending series, it is need- 
 less to say more than that they are destined to be the abodes of all 
 manner of wicked and loathsome creatures. The first of the ascend- 
 ing series being the earth, the second world is that which immediately 
 over- vaults the earth, and is the region of space between us and the 
 sun, which is declared, on divine authority, to be distant only a few 
 hundred thousand miles. The third in the upward ascent is the 
 region of space intermediate between the sun and the Polar Star. 
 Within this region are all the planetary and stellar mansions. The 
 distances of the heavenly bodies are given with the utmost precision. 
 The moon is placed as far beyond the sun as the sun is from the 
 earth. Next succeed at equal distances from each other, and in the 
 following order, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Ursa Major, 
 and the Polar Star. The four remaining worlds beyond continue to 
 rise one above the other at immense and increasing intervals. The 
 entire circumference of the celestial space is then given with the 
 greatest exactitude of numbers. 
 
 According to the accepted system of astronomy the revolutions 
 of Saturn are slow in proportion to the extent of the orbit he has to 
 
6 INTRODUOTOEY REMARKS. 
 
 travel. The Hindus, however, tell us of sad misfortunes that hap- 
 pened to Saturn in his younger days, by which he became lame. 
 His mother, the wife of the sun, could not bear her husband's exces- 
 sive heat, and ran away to her father Paulastya, to make a complaint 
 on the subject. He advised her to repair to the forest, to perform 
 austerities, and in the meantime to substitute Chaya in her own 
 place by the side of her husband. Saturn, as might have been ex- 
 pected, was not overfond of his stepmother, and one day went so far 
 as to give her a kick. This she bitterly resented by uttering 
 a curse, that his legs might be destroyed. Immediately the 
 boy lost the use of his legs, and he has been able only to creep 
 ever since ! The stars are generally regarded as glorified 
 Brahmins ; and the Polar Star is a Brahmin too, who attained that 
 exalted and fixed position on account of his resolute and fixed 
 abandonment of all mutable things. It is natural to suppose that 
 the revolutions and phases of the moon were settled by God at the 
 creation, and that they have continued to this day as they were 
 fixed at first. If, however, we may believe Brighu, the moon did 
 not wax and wane at the beginning, but it was the curse of a Brahmin 
 which superinduced it ; and eclipses are caused by Rahoo and 
 Ketoo, two serpents, taking the sun and moon now and then into 
 their mouths, in order to avenge some grievous injury they pretend 
 to have sustained. 
 
 Equally unhappy is the natural philosophy and physiology of the 
 Hindu Pooranas. There are ten winds lodging in different parts 
 of the body, some of which cause respiration, laughter, weeping, 
 cough, sneezing, etc., etc. One of them remains in the head three 
 days after death, when it bursts the head and escapes through the 
 cleft. All these winds are solemnly saluted whilst the Hindu per- 
 forms his ablutions. 
 
 When nourishment is received into the body it is said to undergo 
 a threefold distribution, according to its fineness or coarseness ; corn 
 and other terrenae become flesh ; the coarser particles are rejected, 
 whilst the finer nourish the mind. Water is chiefly converted into 
 blood ; part of the element is ejected, the finer part supports the 
 breath. Oil and other combustible substances deemed igneous, 
 become marrow ; the coarser part is deposited as bone, and the 
 finer supplies the faculty of speech. Again, a hundred and one 
 arteries flow from the heart, and one of them passes to the crown of 
 the head. It is along this artery that the liberated soul makes its 
 escape. From the crown of the head it passes along a sunbeam, 
 through various regions, to the sun. Thence it proceeds to the 
 moon which is far beyond the sun. If it is to be rewarded with 
 absorption, it advances from the moon to the region of lightning, 
 which is far beyond the moon. Thence, again, to the realm of 
 
WHENCE THE OBJECTIONS TO SCEIPTURE. 7 
 
 Varuna, the region of water, and all these are far beyond the 
 moon, which, as we have already mentioned, is again far beyond the 
 sun. 
 
 An apology is due for inserting some of the learned absurdities 
 of the Hindu Shastras, as forming part and parcel of the religious 
 teachings of Hinduism respecting the creation of the world. These 
 Pooranas are, however, to the Hindu what Genesis is to the Christian ; 
 and it may serve to show, from an extreme case, what difficulties the author 
 of Genesis avoided in altogether omitting scientific information. 
 
 Yet in spite of this vast difference between Genesis and the 
 Hindu Shastras, objections are raised and dissonances pointed 
 out between Scripture and Science. Euler, one of the most distin- 
 guished modern mathematicians, in reply to some of these objections, 
 thus expresses himself, " There is no science so firmly grounded, 
 against which just as weighty objections could not be raised, as are 
 raised against the Bible. Yea, we find in these sciences such appa- 
 rent contradictions as at first sight appear altogether irrecon- 
 cilable. Yet in tracing them to their first principles we are soon 
 placed in a position to remove difficulties. But should we not be 
 able to do this, these sciences would lose nothing of their intrinsic 
 certainty, and why then should the holy Scriptures lose all their 
 historical character by similar objections ? The science to which I 
 have specially devoted myself is the one in which nothing is taken 
 for granted, that is not clearly derived from the first principles of our 
 knowledge. Yet there have been people of no ordinary intellectual 
 powers, who imagined they had discovered the most abstruse diffi- 
 culties in mathematics by which they feared that science had lost all 
 its certainty. The objections, too, which they made were so shrewd, 
 that it required no small skill and penetration effectually to confute 
 and repel them. Yet by this difficulty the science of mathematics 
 will not lose any of its value among reasonable men, although they 
 should not be able at once satisfactorily to solve those shrewd objec- 
 tions. With what right, therefore, can freethinkers demand the rejec- 
 tion of the Bible, when difficulties are presented which are far less 
 important than those alluded to \ Thus their conduct proves beyond 
 a doubt that these objections have not originated in the love of truth, 
 but in an altogether different and impure fountain." 
 
 According to the Arab writer Al-Biruni we are not to abandon 
 what we know, because there are some things we do not know. 
 Instead therefore of rejecting what we do not understand, and of 
 fouling the residue with our feet, let the words of Socrates concerning 
 the writings of Heraclites be remembered when engaged in the study 
 of the grand opening chapters of Genesis. He says, "As much as 
 I can understand is good and excellent ; and methinks also that part 
 which I cannot as yet understand, only it will require the services of a 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Delian diver" Sextus Caecilius said of the famous Twelve Tables 
 in answer to the objections of the philosopher Favorinus that the 
 cause of obscurities was not to be traced to the writer, but to the 
 ignorance and incompetence of the reader. This holds true in a 
 more actual sense of the book of Genesis. 
 
 Al-Farabi, an eastern philosopher, has set an example of patience 
 and perseverance in his efforts to study Aristotle which it would be 
 well if Bible critics would imitate. As a native Turk he was com- 
 pelled to study Arabic to get access to translations of the Greek 
 writings. He noted in his copy of the physiology of Aristotle that 
 he had read the book two hundred times. Of another of Aristotle's 
 writings he said, " I have read this book forty times, but I feel that 
 I must read it once more." If there were more of this patient study, 
 there would be less difficulties. A contemporary astronomer 
 suggested to Copernicus, " If the world were constructed as you 
 say, Venus would have phases like the moon. She has none how- 
 ever, what do you say to that ?" The great astronomer replied, 
 " I have no reply to give to that, but God will be so good as to per- 
 mit that an answer to this difficulty be found." Soon after, Galileo 
 invented the telescope, by the aid of which, these phases of Venus 
 were discovered. And we hold that whatever apparently well 
 grounded objections to the book of Genesis were to arise, God will 
 "be so good " as to raise up men to answer them satisfactorily. 
 
 It is one of the worst possible symptoms of our day that men 
 will doubt every thing but their own infallibility. Let us take a few 
 noted examples to show how readily men distrust every authority 
 but their own, and how, after they have thus sown to the wind, they 
 speedily reap the whirlwind. Volney wished to deprive the Penta- 
 teuch of all historical value. But the same author appeals with the 
 utmost confidence to Sanchoniathon as a safe authority whom he 
 assumes to have written 1300 years before our era. Yet this same 
 Sanchoniathon has since been unmasked as a worthless fabrication. 
 Again other writers like Nicol. Damascenus, Alex. Polyhistor, 
 Aitapanus, whose works are devoid of all independent historical 
 value, are treated by Volney with the utmost confidence. 
 
 Gesenius, owing to the dogmatic prejudices of his age, hesitated to 
 acknowledge the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, yet this 
 cautious philologian was most easily caught in a snare laid for him 
 by a French Marquise, who submitted to him a self-fabricated in- 
 scription as some rare antiquarian treasure. Gesenius speedily 
 recognised in this document a very important contribution of the 
 history of Gnosticism, and he learnedly commented upon it before 
 the eyes of all Europe in the pamphlet " De inscriptione nuper in 
 Cyrenaica reperta" He had scarcely recovered himself from the 
 serious nervous shock which his health received on the discovery 
 
LEARNED FOLLIES OF THE DAY. 9 
 
 of the deception, and prepared himself to wipe out this grievous 
 blunder by fresh palaeographical labours, when he fell into a still 
 greater mistake. What had happened with regard to a few 
 lines, was repeated in a work of Dr. Wagenfeld of Bremen, which 
 was given out by him, and adopted by Gesenius as a fragment of 
 Sanchoniathon ! 
 
 The discovery of the zodiac in the temple of Denderah during the 
 expedition of Napoleon to Egypt created an immense sensation. 
 The zodiac was declared to be at least 15000 years old; and a 
 second one found at Esne with the same signs only differently dis- 
 tributed, was thought to be 20,000 years old. It was plausibly 
 argued that when these temples were built, the signs must have 
 stood, just as they appear in these zodiacs, and their existence was 
 quoted in every direction as evidence of the high antiquity of 
 mankind and the early development of arts and sciences. 
 
 When, however, the inscriptions came to be understood, it was 
 found that the temple at Denderah was dedicated to the health of 
 the Emperor Tiberius, and upon the zodiac itself was discovered the 
 title of autocrator, which probably applied to Nero. Upon a pillar 
 in the temple at Esne was inscribed the date of the tenth year of 
 the reign of Antoninus which coincides with the 147th year after 
 Christ ; and respecting the temple itself which had been estimated 
 by some at 40,000 years, Champollion wrote in 1829: " I have 
 satisfied myself by accurate investigations, that this temple which 
 was considered to be the oldest, in consequence of certain 
 hypotheses connected with the zodiac, is the most modern of all 
 Egyptian buildings. The sculptures of the temple go back only to 
 Caracalla (21 1 — 217 A. D.) and amongst these is to be reckoned 
 the zodiac respecting which so much has been written." Thus the 
 40,000 come down nearly to 1000 years ! 
 
 Still more recently, the rare historical discovery was gravely 
 submitted to the Royal Society upon "incontestable evidence," that 
 a civilised people had occupied the valley of the Nile for 1 5,000 years. 
 The evidence consisted in a piece of pottery dug up so many feet 
 deep, which on closer inspection was proved to have been 
 manufactured by the Greeks or Romans. Again the Geological 
 Society are favoured with specimens of Roman pottery from a bed 
 which was assumed to date back to the days of Nero, but shortly 
 afterwards, the same Society had it proved to them that the said 
 specimens of Roman pottery consisted of portions of modern brown 
 " pigs " and flower-pots ; and that the supposed ancient silt bed is 
 nothing more than the soil surface, and its contents the imperishable 
 relics of a cottager's dung-hill amongst which were fragments of 
 T. W. tobacco-pipes. 
 
 The jaw-bone from the valley of the Somme, together with the 
 
10 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 gravel in which it was said to have been deposited, was recently 
 estimated to be of enormous antiquity, but a fortnight had scarcely 
 passed when it was discovered to be a huge imposition on the part 
 of the workmen, and the famous jaw, clearly shown by a late 
 antiquarian to belong to an inferior race of human beings, had been 
 obtained from a neighbouring burying ground on the confession of 
 the perpetrators of the fraud. 
 
 Still more mortifying, recently, has been the experience of many a 
 zealous and ambitious scientist and sciologist, when his calculations 
 as to certain deposits, such as theKjokkenmoddingers, in Denmark, 
 or the Pfahlbauten on the Swiss lakes, or in Mecklenburg, have been 
 suddenly reduced to all but a cypher compared with the figures he 
 put forth on their behalf. In most cases it seems that some fiery 
 young man is anxious to win his spurs as a bold and original thinker, 
 and before he himself has entered the years of discretion, the whole 
 theory comes to irreparable grief. Such disappointments at least 
 ought to inspire caution. 
 
 Happily there exists a noble band of truly scientific men who pene- 
 trate these miserable fallacies. It has been proved by them that the 
 adverse theories which threaten the Mosaic cosmogony are far from 
 being in a position as yet to claim scientific certainty. Andreas Wagner, 
 one of the most distinguished palaeontologists, admits that there is a 
 dissonance between Scripture and Science ; but says, it arose when 
 some naturalists offered their subjective opinions and conjectures as 
 the infallible results of Science, and he adds : " The disreputable 
 confusion between theory and matter-of-fact must be arrested by true 
 science, and if this be done, it will soon appear that the assumed 
 discrepancy between Revelation and Science rests on misapprehen- 
 sions of the actual state of things, or what is worse, on a wilful per- 
 version of the truth. The deeper the mysteries of nature are pene- 
 trated by men really competent, the more clear will become the 
 harmony between Science and Religion. Not a few scruples, at first 
 held by honest natural philosophers, touching the Biblical cosmogony, 
 have resolved themselves into downright errors or prejudice." 
 
 Gcethe for half a century was much attached to the neptunic theory 
 of the origin of the world, and when the rival theory of volcanic 
 action came to be generally received, he was greatly disturbed. 
 Referring to the violent actions and reactions which the volcanic 
 theory assumed, the great poet wrote these words, which admit of a 
 wider application : " I hate the noisy chamber of this new theory of 
 the creation of the world. Surely some talented young man will rise 
 up to confront this general but mad consensus in a manly and bold 
 spirit. Is there no one to make these men pause, and to ask whether 
 limited and feeble creatures like ourselves are really competent to 
 deal with these marvellous things \ " Gcethe, who was a man of 
 
LEARNED FOLLIES OF THE DAY. 11 
 
 science as well as a poet, did not live to see that " general consent " 
 of the learned world, against which he protested, come to grief, but 
 it came to grief soon after he was dead. 
 
 More burning and more confident are the words of Professor 
 Pritchard, who spent a lifetime in the pursuit of natural knowledge. 
 He says : — "I meet with a grateful and hopeful thought all those 
 unexpected accessions to our knowledge of God in Nature, which in 
 recent times have come to us in almost overwhelming abundance. 
 There is no need to be frightened at the phantoms raised by such 
 terms as matter and force, and molecules, and protoplasmic energy, 
 and rythmic vibrations of the brain ; there are no real terrors in a 
 philosophy which affirms the conceivability that two and two might 
 possibly make five ; or of that which predicates that an infinite 
 number of straight lines constitute a finite surface ; or in that which 
 denies all evidence of a design in Nature ; or in that which assimi- 
 lates the motives which induce a parent to support his offspring, to 
 the pleasures derived from wine and music ; or in that which boldly 
 asserts the unknowableness of the Supreme, and the vanity of 
 prayer. Surely, philosophies which involve results such as these 
 have no permanent grasp on human nature ; they are in themselves 
 suicidal, and in their turn, and after their brief day, will, like other 
 such philosophies, be refuted or denied by the next comer, and are 
 doomed to accomplish the happy despatch. Meanwhile, we have 
 the means of at least partially summarising the results of modern 
 discovery, or the interpretation of the revelation of God's will con- 
 tained in the Sacred Scriptures. The discoveries of Copernicus, 
 Galileo, and Kepler, taught the Christian Church that the language 
 of the Bible was to be understood in the ordinary sense of the ordi- 
 nary language of men, and was not to be strained into an adamantine 
 literalness. The subsequent discoveries of geology have carried a 
 similar lesson still further, and we may safely conclude that in the 
 earlier chapters of Genesis the great Father of Mankind is teaching 
 His children as children, and only up to the measure of their capa. 
 cities and their needs, at and about the time of the revelation." 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 1. Anti- Materialistic Tendency of Science. 
 
 The unfounded suspicion that Science is subversive of 
 faith and religious truth is happily disappearing ; and 
 the prejudice still existing in many quarters against 
 scientific research is mainly due to the groundless 
 theories which are put forth from time to time as the 
 bona fide results of exact science. I purpose to show in 
 this paragraph that the tendency of Science properly so 
 called, is essentially anti-materialistic. It can only 
 become materialistic, when matter or nature is being 
 made to teach and to do what it was never meant to 
 teach and to do. 
 
 The deeper, truer, and wider our knowledge of natural 
 science in all its branches, the more it will appear that 
 the entire realm of nature is one wholly at unity with 
 itself; and this is just what would be expected in a 
 kino-dom with one supreme lawgiver, and with the same 
 universal laws to be obeyed by all the forces which are 
 at work in the universe. Look where we will in the 
 physical universe there is unity, harmony, and the 
 utter absence of dissonance ; and what could be more 
 damaging to the intellectual reputation of modern 
 materialists, than their non-perception of this great 
 
 fact? 
 
 Let us cive a few illustrations to prove that the results 
 
SCIENCE NOT MATERIALISTIC. 13 
 
 of true science happen to be wholly adverse to material- 
 istic or atheistical tendencies. If the same pulsation 
 be felt in the head, the hand, and the foot, we naturally 
 infer that all these are organically connected with the 
 central action of the heart. If it can also be estab- 
 lished that there are successive periods extending over 
 a term of exactly 11 J years, within which there is 
 a corresponding increase and decrease in the solar spots, 
 and in the deviations of the magnetic currents of our 
 planet, we naturally conclude that the sun and this 
 our own planet are intimately connected the one with 
 the other, though separated by a distance of about 
 92 millions of miles ; that the one is in close sympathy 
 with the other, and that there is a power superior to 
 the cosmical force inherent in the bodies themselves. 
 
 Again, as the hand ministers to the head, and the 
 head in its turn fulfils the conditions of life to the 
 hand and its fellow members, it is clear that there 
 exists an organic connection between the one and the 
 other. In like manner if the planets are seen to re- 
 volve around the sun with a precision and regularity 
 which to conceive surpasses the united skill and intel- 
 ligence of the wisest men, and if the sun in its turn 
 excite and diffuse on this earth light and life, it is 
 evident that they are members of the same system, 
 and that one is made to exist because of the other. 
 
 Has it come about by chance that all the moons, as 
 seen from the sun, should appear to have the same 
 diameter, though more or less remote from the sun ; 
 that the spheroid shape or form of the planets should 
 exactly correspond to their respective force of revolu- 
 tion ; or that the sun and the moon should appear to us 
 of equal magnitude though in reality vastly different in 
 size ? Whence the opposite rotation of the moons of 
 Jupiter? Whence the mutual relation of Mars, the 
 
14 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 earth, and the moon, according to which Mars is exactly 
 seven times larger than the moon, and seven times 
 smaller than the earth, thus all of them fulfilling 
 the condition of the permanent harmony of the entire 
 solar system ? Again, is it not highly significant of the 
 unity of the entire universe that the one simple law of 
 gravitation should suffice to account for the bulk, the 
 density and the shape of the several planets, as well 
 as for the velocity of their revolutions and the character 
 of their orbits, all the planetary bodies being duly 
 balanced in their several orbits by the inter-actions of 
 the centrifugal and the centripetal forces ? Can we 
 take it as sheer accident that by the simplest of all 
 means our own planet should have secured to it in per- 
 petuity, not only the certain change of day and night, 
 but also of the seasons of the year, whilst the slightest 
 change in the axis of our globe would be fraught with 
 the most disastrous consequences? 
 
 This may also be the proper place briefly to point 
 out the astounding fact that the very deviations which 
 are observed in the planetary orbits invariably adjust 
 themselves in the most perfect harmony. The secular 
 interruptions are observed to increase and decrease so 
 as mutually to compensate each other. Hence the very 
 irregularities confirm the truth we seek to establish, 
 i. e. that it is not matter but mind, not materialism but 
 spiritualism, which is the guiding principle of the 
 universe. 
 
 Nothing seems more surprising to those that can 
 appreciate the force of the argument than the incom- 
 mensurability of all the planets in their orbits. Take 
 the case of Jupiter and Saturn. The revolution periods 
 of these two planets are very nearly as 2:5 ; if, however, 
 they had been precisely as 2:5, irregularities must have 
 ensued by their regular approximation, which could not 
 
SCIENCE NOT -MATERIALISTIC. 15 
 
 fail to end in concussion, and in consequence of the 
 breaking up of the necessary balance, it would lead to 
 the breaking up of the whole planetary system. But 
 owing to the present incommensurability of all the 
 planets, such an event is physically impossible; and 
 we ask is there no proof in this that some great master 
 mind so adjusted the whole mechanism of the universe 
 as to ensure the eternal peace and harmony of the entire 
 system ? 
 
 When the inequalities of the orbit of Jupiter could 
 not be fully explained from the influences of other 
 known planets, it was taken for granted that there 
 must be another planet somewhere to which these 
 irregularities were due. Leverrier went so far as to 
 point out the very spot in the heavens where it was 
 to be looked for, and just in that remote spot Galle, 
 in the year 1846, discovered Neptune, the remotest 
 planet of our system. Again the same laws were 
 given to kindred solar systems, which govern our own, 
 and the careful observations which have discovered 
 this identity of law, have penetrated into space above 
 a full trillion of miles. Everywhere is observed the 
 same action of the two great forces without one of 
 which the universe would disperse into atoms, and 
 without the other would collapse into the prima3val 
 chaos. Is it possible that there should be no third 
 superior power to balance and to adjust the two 
 contravening forces in question ? Hence the very 
 basis upon which the universe was constructed and is 
 still maintained in its integrity, implies an emphatic 
 protest against the materialistic theory. 
 
 Yet how inconceivably vast are the spheres in which 
 the same laws are obeyed, and in which the same 
 unity prevails. Our solar system is known to be a 
 subordinate branch of still higher and wider systems 
 
16 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 of astral worlds, all of them revolving around a given 
 centre, from whence the ray of light which takes 8 
 minutes and 13 seconds to reach us from the sun, will 
 require 498 years ! The mean orbital velocity of our 
 sun is 32 miles per second, but it takes 18 millions of 
 years to complete its orbit around the great Alkyone 
 centre in the Pleiades. 
 
 If we were to represent the sun by a globe of one 
 foot diameter, our earth at a distance of 107 feet would 
 appear of the size of a millet ; Jupiter would be 
 distant 2000 feet, that of Neptune 3214 feet, the nearest 
 of the Pixed Stars about 12,000 miles ; and compared 
 with the orbit of Neptune the sun itself appears a 
 minute sandcorn. In comparison with the nebulae or 
 thick clusters of stars in the Milky Way, our solar 
 system would shrink into one of the countless other 
 luminous specks in the universe. A steamer making 16 
 miles an hour, in order to reach the sun from this planet, 
 would require 605 years ; from Uranus to the sun, 
 11,275 years; from Neptune to the sun 19,250 
 years. A cannon ball making 600 feet per second, 
 would occupy 9 years from the sun to Mercury ; 18 
 years to Venus ; 26 years to the earth ; 38 years to 
 Mars ; 130 years to Jupiter ; 238 years to Saturn ; 
 478 years to Uranus ; 885 years to Neptune ; 700,000 
 years to Sirius ! The distance of the Pleiades, where 
 is supposed to lie the great centre of all centres, is 
 calculated to be 31-J millions of the semi-diameters of 
 the orbit of our planet. 
 
 Such are some of the inexpressibly large proportions 
 of the starry systems of which our earth is a member, 
 and yet there being one ruling power, there is perfect 
 order, harmony, and sympathy in all the spheres of 
 the universe. Every sphere is found to have its own 
 dynamic centre, all the centres have one common cen- 
 
SCIENCE NOT MATEEIALISTIC. 17 
 
 tre, constituting a universal whole, all being joined 
 together by some invisible force, and compacted by 
 that which every joint supplieth according to the 
 effectual working in the measure of every part. 
 
 The same anti-materialistic tendency of true 
 science is revealed in other spheres. Not dead, inert 
 matter, but mind, and order, everywhere take the 
 lead in the process of thought and action, and this 
 unity of plan and order is discernible in the micro- 
 scopic atom, no less than in the vast worlds of the 
 solar systems. From the meteors which come to us 
 as the shavings or dustings of other worlds, down to 
 the dew-drop or the snow-flake, every substance is 
 seen to assume its own true pristine and lawful 
 shape and no other, nothing being left to accident 
 or caprice. As the heavenly bodies assume the 
 spheroid form and arrange themselves into concentric 
 groups, so salts and minerals crystallize upon cer- 
 tain fixed principles and laws. The waves of light 
 and the waves of sound, travel at a rate fixed and 
 laid down by a higher power. 
 
 The pristine colours, the polarisation of light, 
 the photographic picture upon the eye, the fata 
 morgana playing in the desert air, the harmony of 
 sound, the currents of light, of electricity, of magnet- 
 ism, and of diamagnetism, are all the impartial 
 scientific witnesses, not of the omnipotent power 
 of matter as such, but of mind, of forethought, and 
 of infinite wisdom and power. 
 
 Take Botany. "Without the plastic principle, which 
 to explain it will be hard, the plant is nothing but 
 water, carbonic acid, and ammonia. Are we ex- 
 pected to believe that these elements will convert 
 themselves now into iron wood, now into oak, now 
 into one of the giant trees on the shores of the 
 
18 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Senegal, and now again into the most delicate petals 
 of the evanescent flower? There are known to 
 science 200,000 species of the entire flora, and we 
 cannot believe that by their own volition, or force, 
 the three elements could produce the variety con- 
 tained in the above Compounds. 
 
 Take chemistry. The 65 elements known to that 
 science combine chemically only upon certain given 
 conditions, by certain fixed laws, and by adherence 
 to the exact figures of weight and measure. And is 
 there no voice against materialism in the fact that 
 the combination of atoms among themselves takes 
 effect onlv according to law T s which cannot be broken ? 
 Physiological science teaches that the changes of 
 substance in vegetable and animal organisms, and 
 the physical process of respiration and digestion, take 
 place one and all according to the most perfect laws. 
 The chemistry of the human body, and in the labo- 
 ratory, is found to be almost identical. Hydrau- 
 lics, gravitation, mecbanism, electro-magnetism, 
 have severally their own proper place in the 
 animal frame, but the difference between organic 
 and inorganic substances is not immaterial on 
 that account, for purely physical or chemical ac- 
 tion can never produce a living organism. No 
 one, now-a-day, will dispute such an assertion. 
 Dr. Bohner says, "Wenn das Lebensprincip in 
 einem Organismus den Chemismus nur einen Augen- 
 blick ganz sich selbst uberlgesst, da wirkt er Faulniss, 
 und Tod statt des Lebens." The animal egg 
 may be chemically analyzed, but that marvellous 
 germ of a living creature comprises not only the 
 form, features, size, and properties of its parents, 
 but even many acquired habits, inclinations, and 
 peculiarities of its grand-parents. And how comes 
 
SCIENCE NOT MATERIALISTIC. 19 
 
 the first action of life into play ? If it be true that 
 the embryo of a lizard, of a whale, and of a human 
 body be indistinguishable, why does the one never 
 trangress into the domain of the other ? Why 
 under favourable circumstances should not the germ 
 of a lower creature develop into a human being, 
 and why should a feebly-disposed human embryo not 
 degenerate into an animal of a lower state ? And 
 how comes it that the human child prematurely 
 born, never sinks down into a lower existence than 
 its own ? 
 
 Chemistry, as such, defines the elements which 
 constitute the bones, skin, muscles, nerves, horn, etc., 
 but this by no means touches or explains the question 
 of life. The great mission of the circulation of the 
 blood is in itself so complicated and marvellous that 
 its share in the economy of the animal body has, 
 comparatively speaking, only been discovered re- 
 cently. Does it not surpass all comprehension 
 that the blood should work its way through every 
 part and limb of the body every four minutes, 
 either absorbing or carrying away as a scavenger 
 the used-up materials, or else like a wise master- 
 builder depositing what is useful and needful at 
 the right time, in the right place, in the right 
 quantity, such as phosphate of lime in the 
 bones, nitrogen in the muscles, mucous in the 
 mucous membrane, wax in the ears, crystal jelly in 
 the eyes, horn in the hair and in the nails, brain- 
 substance in the nerves, bile in the gall-bag, sup- 
 plying in short all that is needful to every part of 
 the body in measured proportions, in the proper 
 chemical combination. The manifold processes in the 
 transformation of the nourishing properties in the 
 cells, skins, muscles, nerves, bones, lymphs, etc., and 
 
20 
 
 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 the combination of matter which takes place, are so 
 entirely the reverse of accidental, and so essentially 
 needful, that the least deviation would be fraught 
 with sickness or death. 
 
 All this shows that Absolute Wisdom, Goodness, 
 and Power govern even the minutest details of the 
 vast universe. Has not one of the great leaders among 
 the materialists of the day so far committed himself 
 as to state that the vegetable and animal organisms 
 were a " masterpiece of Creative thought ! " Liebig 
 ably demonstrates that chemistry may discover the 
 elements, but it cannot fathom the laws by which 
 they are combined ; yet upon this internal arrange- 
 ment he proves that the issue of things depends, and 
 that the same elements, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, 
 (and this in the same weight and measure), produce 
 milk-sugar, lactic acid, and cotton. Why this, but 
 because there was a something of which the chemist 
 knows nothing, which gives it the one form or 
 the other. Thus strychnine and quinine both 
 represent the same elements in very nearly the same 
 proportions ; yet, with the slightest change of quantity 
 in the one case it becomes nourishment and me- 
 dicine, and in the other case a poison. Notice the 
 following proportions : — 
 
 Strychnine. C21 H22 N2 O2 
 
 Nitrogen 8,46 
 
 Carbon 76,60 
 
 Hydrogen 6,69 
 
 Oxygen 8,85 
 
 Quinine. C20 H 2 i N 2 2 
 
 Ditto 8,55 
 
 Ditto 74,89 
 
 Ditto 7,65 
 
 Ditto 8,31 
 
 It is clear from this that the difference of substance 
 lies not so much in the ingredients as in their myste- 
 rious adjustment, which is beyond the reach of 
 human analysis. And if the accidental concurrence 
 of the ingredients thus shows its inefficiency to 
 
SCIENCE NOT MATERIALISTIC. 21 
 
 form either a poison or a medicine, much less could 
 we expect that matter by its own inherent power 
 would ever shape itself into a higher, living organism. 
 It is not probable for instance, that dull, dead, scat- ' 
 tered atoms of inert matter would spontaneously 
 form themselves into such a delicate and mysterious 
 organ, as the human eye. If we take the process 
 of nourishment as an illustration 4 , we notice that 
 starch is not soluble in water, and, indeed, never 
 exists in the blood, but the saliva of the mouth and 
 of the abdomen converts starch into soluble sugar, 
 and by the pancreatic juice and the bile the sugar is 
 converted into fat, and sugar and fat are constituents 
 of the blood, and since the blood furnishes the materials 
 for the entire structure of the animal organism, 
 it may be said that " life is in the blood." 
 
 In a cell almost invisible, is contained the potential 
 germ for every member, every vessel, and every 
 nerve of the body. The eye is being prepared in 
 utter darkness, without a ray of light to excite or to 
 stimulate its development, yet when brought into 
 the light for which it was secretly fashioned, it is 
 found perfectly adapted for its purpose, instantly 
 performing the most delicate action of contracting 
 and expanding the pupil. The crystalline lens is capa- 
 ble of receiving distinct images at the distance of a 
 few inches up to 125 feet, a quality or property 
 never found in the artificial lens. Not to speak of 
 the masterpiece of acoustics, which is given in the 
 structure of the human ear, or of the heart, so 
 wondrously fitted for sending from 25 to 281bs. of 
 blood through the body every four minutes, or 
 of the mechanism of the human hand and foot, 
 science, indeed, furnishes abundant evidence that 
 we are fearfully and wonderfully made. There is 
 
22 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 no room for a fortuitous concurrence of circum- 
 stances, but the clearly denned plan of infinite 
 wisdom and power. It will be quite as easy to im- 
 agine the English Bible to have resulted from the 
 
 DO 
 
 accidental shuffling together of type, paper, and ink, 
 the great Book coming forth self-made, after myriads 
 of failures, in its present perfection, as it can possibly 
 be to assume that the above-named structures are 
 the fortuitous production of nature or matter. On 
 the contrary, the eye was being formed to see and 
 the ear made to hear, and the lung to play, the heart 
 to act, the tongue to speak, the hand to work, and the 
 foot to walk, whilst one and all were as yet hidden 
 in utter darkness, and long before the commence- 
 ment of their future activity could possibly be 
 thought of. We are not conscious of possessing 
 sinews and muscles till they are injured. Then 
 what is meant by the increased rush of blood to the 
 wounded limb, or by the fact that nature invariably 
 points out to the physician the ways of healing, or 
 by the many other phenomena which are known as 
 efforts of nature ? 
 
 Take another branch of science, that of zoology. 
 How comes it that animals in winter receive addi- 
 tional hair; that the plumage of birds changes 
 according to the season ; that birds, naturally 
 restless, should become almost immovable during 
 incubation ; # that brute creatures should make their 
 preparation for the winter ; that birds of passage, 
 without chart and compass, should find their way 
 across the sea to the distance of 6,000 miles, 
 to reach a place suited to their wants ? As true as 
 the magnetic needle points to the North, so these 
 birds of passage are drawn forth at the right time 
 towards the right place. By these unconscious, but 
 
SCIENCE NOT MATERIALISTIC. 23 
 
 powerful instincts or undefined reasonings, do not 
 the animals give a clear sign of their being the 
 veritable members of a higher organism, the plan 
 and object of which higher organism these instincts 
 thus incidentally reveal, just as the unconscious 
 action of the hand, whilst at work, proves it to be the 
 member of a higher organism. 
 
 The swallow knows, in its own way, that the insect 
 which in Europe begins to fail in the autumn, is 
 very plentiful in Africa, hence it travels over seas, 
 deserts, lands, as far as Senegambia, where it finds 
 its own nest. The green woodpecker, of North 
 America, knows exactly when the cherries are begin- 
 ning to ripen in France, hence the bird is seen to 
 start on its voyage, till it be in possession of all it 
 can desire. The French quail crosses the Mediter- 
 ranean, the Atlas, the great desert of Sahara, the 
 interior of Africa, passing on as far as the Cape of 
 Good Hope. 
 
 The German marmots first build their storehouses 
 and then replenish them for the winter ; and the 
 squirrel lays up a plentiful supply of nuts and acorns 
 in hollow trees. The whistling hare of Siberia first 
 gathers nutritious herbs, then dries them care- 
 fully in the sun, then collects and stacks them, 
 taking care that they are protected against rain 
 and snow, and last of all from its abode it digs a sub- 
 terraneous passage to these well stored magazines, 
 laid up against the severity of a long winter. The 
 sick animal, as a rule, searches for the healing herb, 
 and cats and dogs, against their nature, are known 
 to eat grass, just as men take medicine. The hawk 
 sparrow, in Choko, feeds upon poisonous reptiles, and 
 as often as it is bitten eats some leaves of the 
 Vejuco plant ; a negro observing this proved the leaf 
 
24 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 to be the most efficacious antidote against the 
 serpent's bite. The simple and innocent lamb 
 carefully avoids poisonous plants. The little ducks, 
 hatched by the hen, rush at once to the water. 
 The tortoise, as soon as it escapes the egg, runs in a 
 straight line for the water, though that water may 
 be miles distant, and if turned aside from the straight 
 course, it will yet find the nearest cut to the river 
 or the pool. The tailor bird spins its own thread 
 from cotton, sows the leaves together, and attaches 
 the nest to a very slender branch, which none of its 
 many foes will ever venture upon. The rabbit closes 
 the entrance to its warren with moss, to protect her 
 young from danger. The caterpillar, when its ap- 
 pointed time is come, seeks for a safe spot, and with 
 the greatest care and skill hides itself in its grave, 
 and is turned into a chrysalis. The ant-lion makes 
 a funnel-shaped hole in the dry sand, and in that den 
 hides itself till the ant falls into the pit, when it 
 pounces upon the victim with its sharp pincers. If 
 the ant tries to escape (I speak from observation) the 
 ant-lion casts a quantity of dust after the victim to 
 prevent it. 
 
 The squirting fish in the Ganges lives upon 
 insects, and to catch them is observed to squirt drops 
 of water upon the intended prey as they are seen 
 basking in the sun upon the waterplants, with a view 
 to wash them into the water, and though this stra- 
 tagem is made several feet distant, the fish seldom 
 misses the mark. The larva of one of the winged 
 insects prepares its coffin, which it never fails 
 to carry with it wherever it goes. The cylinder 
 shaped coffin itself, which is made of sand and vege- 
 table matter, is left open on both sides till the great 
 change really comes, and during the metamorphosis 
 
SCIENCE NOT MATERIALISTIC. 25 
 
 a lattice work of thread is placed at each opening, 
 which in due time is severed by two sharp beak- 
 like hooks. The water-spider is known to con- 
 struct a watertight diving-bell, which is gradually 
 filled with air brought down from above, and in 
 which it lives in peace and comfort. The sacred 
 beetle, in Egypt, in order to hide its egg makes a 
 ball of manure, into which it deposits the egg, rolls 
 it to a safe place, and then buries it in the earth. 
 Who has not admired the work of the Minir spider, 
 in the South of Prance, which makes its dwelling 
 in the wall, one and a half inch wide, and about 
 two feet long, in an ascending line, to prevent the 
 rain penetrating ; and the trapdoor, which is made 
 of alternate sheets of mortar and thread, is fastened 
 from within as soon as any one attempts to open it 
 from without. The food of the carpenter bee is the 
 same as that of the common bee ; but the larva being: 
 carnivorous, the mother deposits dead spiders or cater- 
 pillars with some pollen. 
 
 The paper-wasps affix their sexagonal cells to 
 beams and trees, open from below, shut from above. 
 The materials are obtained from fibres of wood, which 
 are first kneaded into a pap, then wrought into balls, 
 and worked into the intended structure by their feet 
 and pincers. The bees build still more artistically, 
 and their cells are proved to be the strongest that can 
 be made from an engineering point of view. If the 
 queen, who reigns over a people from 20 to 30,000 
 strong, happen to sicken or die, they pull down 
 several workers' cells and turn them into a royal 
 palace; they then feed several ordinary maggots with 
 the royal food, and retaining one of the young queens, 
 they expel or kill the others. The termites, or the 
 white ants, in India, Africa, and South America, 
 
26 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 frequently construct their dwelling houses in a 
 conical shape, from eight to twenty feet high, so firm 
 that ten people can safely stand upon it. They have 
 only one male and female, all the others being of 
 the neuter gender, and divided into labourers and 
 soldiers, who will sacrifice their life for the safety 
 of the house. The royal chamber, which is in the 
 centre of the house, has two small doors by which the 
 labourers go in and out, whilst the royal pair them- 
 selves are kept prisoners. The queen, at the time the 
 eggs are to be laid, is about a thousand times bigger 
 than an ordinary termite. The royal chamber is 
 surrounded by many domestic cells and store-rooms. 
 They constantly work under covered tunnels, which 
 if destroyed to-day are restored again by to-morrow. 
 If a hole be knocked into the building, the soldiers 
 suddenly appear, biting everything and everybody 
 that comes in their way. On the retiring of the 
 assailants, the soldiers retire, and the labourers appear 
 with lumps of clay or mortar in their mouths to 
 repair the damage. Thus every living thing, down 
 to the very maggot or mite, is endowed with the 
 instinct suited to its peculiar destiny. The action 
 thus displayed, though not prompted by thought or 
 will, is evidently the act of a higher organism, of 
 which each living creature is a living member, just 
 as in the inorganic part of creation, heat, light, or 
 gravitation are the unconscious members in the 
 general organism of the whole universe, the working 
 of all the powers being prompted and guided by one 
 Almighty Will. 
 
 Those creatures which spring from one common 
 primitive cell, such as the bees, termites, ants, etc., 
 remain through their entire existence in the closest 
 communion with each other, forming, after their 
 
SCIENCE NOT MATERIALISTIC. 27 
 
 separation, one living organism, the maintaining of 
 which is indeed the condition of the existence of 
 every single member of the community. The work- 
 ing bee collects food, not for its own use, but its 
 whole strength and life is devoted to the general 
 interest of the community, whilst aiding in the care 
 of the young and in the gathering food for the house- 
 hold in prospect of the winter season. Not less 
 marvellous must appear the powerful instinct of 
 living creatures to transmit their existence, which is 
 often stronger than that of self-preservation. The 
 mother often lays down her life for her young. The 
 spider carries her eggs constantly with her, and 
 never surrenders the bag containing them till she 
 dies. And what but the Creator's omnipotent Will, 
 impressed upon the creature, could impel the bird, 
 the spider, the bee, and the ant to construct their 
 dwellings always after the same pattern, and as it is 
 most adapted to its destined mode of life, and always 
 demonstrating that the whole animal world is 
 momentarily dependent upon the Providence of Him 
 who worketh all things according to His Will ? No 
 marvel, too, that the most consistent scientists among 
 all nations have acknowledged that the root and 
 crown of all natural philosophy and of all true science 
 is not the worship of dead matter, but the worship 
 of the glorious majesty and power and wisdom and 
 goodness of the Living God, who made all things, and 
 for whose pleasure they are and were created. 
 
 2. The Unscientific Character of Materialism. 
 
 If it be asked how the combi nation of so many 
 unconscious atoms can possibly produce consciousness, 
 
28 CAAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 thought, volition and sensation, or how dead matter 
 can produce life, mind or spirit, or how mind, if in 
 any sense capable of being produced by matter, can 
 ever be conceived to rule and govern that same 
 matter from which it is produced, the materialists 
 will calmly reply that this cannot be explained, but 
 still so it is. Yet it is surely fair to say that if 
 these men claim to be worthily engaged in a serious, 
 grave, and scientific pursuit, they cannot, and they 
 dare not honestly refuse to give a reason of the hope 
 that is in them, and explain to the world how the 
 matter of the brain can of itself become the producer 
 of art, science, mind, religion, and indeed of every- 
 thing that is great, good, and pure. They have 
 appealed to the state of unconsciousness, of torpor, 
 and of death itself, to explain their theory, but it 
 is most clear that where the spirit is restrained, its 
 influences upon the brain are immediately inter- 
 rupted, and the brain atoms cannot any longer 
 produce consciousness. As regards the corpse under 
 the dissector's knife, little need be said. As little as 
 we can prove from an old coat, that neither the man 
 who made it, nor the man who wore it, ever existed, so 
 little can it be proved that because the dead body 
 neither thinks, feels, nor acts, that therefore the 
 spirit which once inhabited it, never existed. 
 Equally unscientific is it to assert that there is no 
 experience or perception but that which comes to 
 us by the outward senses. 
 
 It has long been the opinion of scientists that 
 all matter is ponderable, but we have had the oppor- 
 tunity of learning of late that light and heat, though 
 matter, are without weight. Again, who will deny 
 that thought always retires from outward sensual 
 observation ? We hear the word which is the bearer 
 
MATERIALISM IS UNSCIENTIFIC. 29 
 
 of thought, and we see the letters which signify 
 thought ; we may even analyse the brain, which was 
 the means of elaborating thought, but neither the 
 word, nor the letters, nor the brain simply or 
 unitedly are thought, or can be termed thought. 
 Nor is the blood quickening the brain, or the 
 chemical change which takes place in it, equivalent 
 to thought. The action of the brain, as far as ob- 
 servation goes, cannot give us the least clue as to 
 how thought could be originated by unconscious 
 matter. When interruptions take place in the brain, 
 thought instantly ceases, but the defective wire 
 ceasing to convey messages, does not prove that the 
 wire or the battery were of themselves the potential 
 cause of the thought conveyed in the message. As 
 little is it to be inferred from sleep or fainting fits 
 that the brain is not simply the medium, but the 
 cause of rational thought. 
 
 If the decrease of the brain's weight in the old 
 man be found to correspond to the decrease of his 
 energy of thought, it cannot be regarded as an 
 evidence of the potency of matter. The one may 
 be the condition of the other, much in the same way 
 as the brightness and integrity of the mirror may be 
 the condition of the perfection and clearness of the 
 reflected image ; but if the image be dull because 
 the mirror is dull, it is no proof that the image is 
 produced by the mirror. What can be more un- 
 scientific than to argue that because I know only of 
 one condition there must on that account be only one 
 condition ; or because I do not see how a phenomenon 
 came into existence that it cannot on that account 
 have any existence at all. This would be equivalent 
 to saying that because a man cannot produce a certi- 
 ficate of his birth, or has no recollection of it, he has 
 
30 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 on that account never been born, or was born with- 
 out father and mother. 
 
 The chief proof of there being no God or Spirit, is 
 said to be found in the want of knowledge on this 
 subject. Is this scientific ? All that is supra- 
 material and supernatural is denied existence, and 
 the denial is justified by our professing to be ignorant 
 of the case in point. Yet how can any rational 
 being deny the existence of what he happens to know 
 nothing ? Not knowing and not existing are two 
 different things. I may honestly say, I know not, 
 or, I see not, but I have no rational ground for saying, 
 Such and such a thing is not, because I know or see 
 it not. The blind man may deny the existence of 
 the sun, but that cannot render the sun's existence 
 a doubtful matter. Hence it appears that the 
 materialist, by all his reasoning, only confirms in his 
 blindness what he originally believed. This is not 
 scientific. Natural science is quite justified in 
 pursuing the laborious way of experiment, and 
 experiments have shown the connection between the 
 action of the brain and the activity of the soul ; but 
 materialists, as a body, have never yet added one 
 fraction of light to the whole question of the action 
 of the brain, because they cling to tbe notion that the 
 activity of the soul is the result of the chemical and 
 electrical motion of the brain. The confession that 
 they know nothing better or higher is sufficiently 
 candid, but to say that thought has no higher origin 
 is no less folly than it would be foolish to infer 
 from the young maiden's tears whilst reading the 
 letter announcing her mother's death, that they are 
 the genuine production of either the ink or of the 
 style of the handwriting, or of the quality of the 
 paper on which the sad message is written. The 
 
MATERIALISM IS UNSCIENTIFIC. 31 
 
 ink, paper, etc., were the outward means of convey- 
 ance, but no more. In like manner the material 
 brain is closely connected with the elaboration of 
 thought, but it is not the producer of that thought. 
 If you will, we might say that the brain-atoms are 
 the collaborators in the building, but they are not on 
 that account architect, builder and all. To produce 
 thoughts the brain must be actuated by a higher 
 power ; and its indwelling power is no more identical 
 with matter than life and the body are identical. Is it 
 not clear that there is a power exercised in all the 
 heavenly bodies, which goes far beyond the actual 
 volume of matter they contain ? All the heavenly 
 bodies exercise a power far beyond their material 
 circumference. Is it, therefore, scientific to say 
 that power and matter are identical ? 
 
 The materialist professes to know nothing, to 
 explain nothing, to prove nothing, and yet he asserts 
 that the incorporeal originated out of the corporeal, 
 and that thought and self-consciousness originated 
 out of the combination of unconscious atoms. To 
 him all action of the will is as much a necessity as 
 the advancing of the hand on the dial plate, or the 
 fallino* of a stone, or the contraction of the excited 
 muscle. But if we seek for proof, there is none forth- 
 coming. It is so, we are told, because it cannot 
 be otherwise, and yet, the stern realities of common 
 life give the lie to the entire system of this material- 
 ism. We are nowhere told how the spiritual is 
 produced by the material, or how dead matter is 
 quickened into life ; and how unconscious matter be- 
 comes conscious. It is, to say the least, the blindest 
 superstition to assume that death produces life ; 
 indeed the whole matter seems to come to this, that 
 as materialism begins with nothing, it must, as a 
 
32 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM ANT) SCIENCE. 
 
 matter of course, end with nothing. It clearly knows 
 nothing, has nothing, gives nothing, yet in pointing 
 to these blind, dead atoms as the originating power 
 of life in the soul, it commits itself to as gross 
 superstition as any to which the most ignorant Pagan 
 can commit himself. 
 
 It was to characterise, rather than to caricature 
 this unscientific, grossly materialistic mode of thought 
 and reasoning, that Professor Frohschammer has 
 given the following humorous sketch of the sup- 
 posed origin of man and beast : "It happened 
 about ten millions of years ago that one fine 
 morning the respective atoms met accidentally in a 
 beautiful, well-wooded forest. After saluting each 
 other, and a few preliminary pleasant remarks and 
 looks at each other, they resolved to mingle, and so 
 to constitute a being, and this new being was to be 
 a lion. No sooner proposed than it was agreed that 
 it should be done. They then permitted their res- 
 pective physical and chemical powers to come into 
 full play, when suddenly the lion stood where they 
 themselves stood a few minutes before. Without 
 any knowledge of each other, animals of the same 
 species were accidentally formed in other parts of the 
 world. But as the lions wanted food, and as to eat 
 grass was not in their way, some other atoms close 
 by, being filled with a spirit of pity and the impulse 
 of self-sacrifice, resolved, almost too rashly, to unite 
 into animals which would serve the lion for food, 
 such as deer, sheep, oxen, asses, and other creatures. 
 It was upon this plan that the animals came into 
 being, all being arranged and carried out in the 
 most decorous and rational way by the atoms and 
 their respective chemical powers. Only in the pro- 
 duction of man, the atoms had somewhat miscarried 
 
MAT. SUPERSTITIOUS AND UNSCIENTIFIC. 33 
 
 in their intention, and this brought about much 
 trouble and mischief. Man, mistaking his position, 
 resolved to raise himself above all other creatures. 
 By this incipient pride he fell ; and his error consisted 
 in this, that being the product of matter he should 
 presume to think himself superior to those that pre- 
 ceded him, yea boasting to be free, independent, im- 
 mortal, and even to believe in a God ! But this will 
 not last for ever. The restorer of man's nature has 
 appeared, to make good man's fall and to set right 
 what the atoms, in first producing man, had over- 
 looked, and to bring him back to the consciousness 
 of his humble origin ; and that saviour is nothing 
 less than materialism ! " 
 
 A second proof of the superstitious tendency of 
 the materialistic school is given in the one-sided- 
 ness of its knowledge and the shallowness of its 
 observations, combined with a fanatical holding- 
 fast to foregone conclusions. According to the 
 teaching of materialism man knows nothing 
 but what enters through his senses, forgetting 
 that all knowledge of the outer world is actually 
 obtained through the medium of his reasoning 
 faculties. All perception through the senses is 
 discursive, not immediate knowledge. The starry 
 heavens appear to the senses a vast vault lit up by 
 countless dots of light. It is only through the 
 reasoning faculty we can hope to obtain the objective 
 truth as regards these heavenly bodies. 
 
 Our senses mislead us in countless ways. "VVe [/ 
 have the sensation of the earth standing still, as well 
 as the testimony of the eye, and yet both senses 
 deceive us. In short all our senses will impose upon 
 us, if we fail to call reason into account. Whenever 
 the outer senses fail to be corrected by the more 
 
 c 
 
34 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 spiritual faculties, man remains on the level of the 
 beast that perishes ; not the impression he receives 
 through his outer senses, makes man what he is, but 
 his reason. The superstitious, drunken, and fever- 
 stricken look upon their fanciful impressions as real 
 objects, so long as they decline, or are unable, to 
 take reason into their counsel. 
 
 A blow upon the eye produces the sensation of light, 
 and the same blow, which appears to the optic nerve 
 as light, will appear to the acoustic nerve as sound, to 
 the tongue as taste, etc., and which of these percep- 
 tions of the senses is to be considered the correct 
 one ? The convex lens magnifies, the concave 
 diminishes the object, and out of a hundred mirrors 
 each single one modifies to some extent the image 
 produced on the eye ; and which of these numerous 
 modifications can be regarded as representing the 
 truth most faithfully ? Dip the right hand into 
 freezing water, and the left into hot water ; im- 
 mediately after put them both into water of a mean 
 temperature, and the result will be that the same 
 water will appear cold to the one hand, and warm 
 to the other ; which of both will represent the true 
 fact ? This shows that the simple perceptions of 
 the senses cannot be relied on, and demand the 
 reasoning powers to regulate the judgment of the 
 senses. The impressions of the senses may stimulate 
 reason, but they can neither create nor supply the 
 judgment of reason ; otherwise animals, with strongly 
 developed senses, would gradually work themselves 
 up to reasonable beings. But during 6,000 years it 
 has never happened that a dog or an ape has raised 
 himself to the knowledge of God and of divine things. 
 In denying the perception of the inner sense the 
 materialist, as it were, confounds the spark with the 
 
MAT. UNSCIENTIFIC AND SUPERSTITIOUS. 35 
 
 powder, and the outward impulse with the inward 
 cause. 
 
 The perceptions of the inner sense differ from 
 those of the outer senses as much as the living 
 thought differs from the handwriting of a written 
 speech, and just as much as the sense of the words 
 differs from the motions of the organs of speech in 
 pronouncing the sounds. Without the inner sense 
 the sound of language would be incapable of com- 
 prehension, much less would the sense of a speech 
 be intelligible, and without this double perception 
 there can be no true knowledge. The optic nerve 
 in the cow and that of the botanist is precisely the 
 same, but how different is the impression made upon 
 the two brains by the sight of a bundle of grass or 
 a collection of herbs ! 
 
 Again,what is understood by such terms as, notions, 
 ideas, laws, never could enter man by his outward, 
 sensual perceptions, and indeed, the whole of the 
 outer world would be in itself a sealed book, with- 
 out the inner perceptions. No materialist has 
 ever perceived with the outward senses what is 
 understood by cause, law, thought, principle, or lead- 
 ing idea, without the aid of reason. Nor are the 
 outward senses in their material aspect more con- 
 scious of their action than the telegraphic wires are 
 conscious of the thought which the telegraphist 
 conveys to his correspondent. Is it not true that all 
 we know of our body must be collected by the reason- 
 ing faculties, from the diffused and widely-scattered 
 observations of the outer senses. There is the image 
 in the eye, the sound in the ear, the touch of the 
 hand, and from these scattered yet combined obser- 
 vations of the outer senses the inner sense must 
 draw its conclusions. But the image in the 
 
36 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 mirror can no more produce the eye which looks 
 upon it, than the image in the eye can produce this 
 inner sense, which perceives and appreciates the 
 ima°:e as it is reflected in the eve. 
 
 In order to show the one-sidedness and perver- 
 sion of materialistic principles, it will suffice to 
 glance at the process by which impressions are con- 
 veyed to us from without. Take the process of 
 hearing. 
 
 In the act of hearing a vibration is first produced 
 in the air by the voice, and this is continued till it 
 touches the drum of the ear : the drum acts upon 
 the ossicles of the ear, and one of these acts 
 upon the fluid with the skins in the convolutions of 
 the labyrinth. The nervous web in the labyrinth 
 conveys the impression further to the acoustic nerve, 
 and this nerve transmits the message to the centre 
 of the brain. In the. centre of the brain the emotion 
 is converted by the mind into a sensation of sound. 
 If the mind be otherwise engaged, the sound is never 
 heard : the miller never perceives the noise in his mill, 
 except when he gives his mind to it, and the in- 
 attentive scholar fails to hear the voice of the 
 teacher. It is a well-known £ict that people living 
 in large towns never hear the noise in the streets, 
 but they quickly hear the voice of any one they have 
 a wish to hear. 
 
 Take the process of seeing. The action of sight 
 commences with the vibration of the air reaching 
 the retina, and the following is the route the rays of 
 light have to pass to their final destiny. The first 
 stage is the ray of light penetrating the convex 
 cornea. Thence through the eyewater and the 
 pupil to the crystalline lens, and from thence to 
 the optic nerve. The impression made upon the 
 
MAT. UNSCIENTIFIC AND SUPERSTITIOUS. 37 
 
 retina is telegraphed to the brain with lightning 
 speed, and the process of seeing is thus accomplished, 
 not by the mechanical action of the apparatus, but 
 by the mind gathering up the various streams of im- 
 pressions which pass through the apparatus. The 
 healthiest eye sees nothing, though it were open 
 and receive the light images, if the mind be not 
 in a state of activity. Seeing is the action of the 
 mind or soul, which is sitting in judgment, but as 
 the mental process is so common and subtle we fail 
 to notice it. When that mental process cannot as 
 yet be exercised, the little child is seen to stretch 
 out his hands to touch the moon. 
 
 A striking evidence that the act of seeing is not 
 simply a mechanical or physical but also a mental 
 process, lies in our deeming the sun and the moon 
 larger in the horizon than in the meridian, whilst 
 in point of fact they are equally large at all times ; 
 but they appear larger behind hills and houses and 
 trees, hence if looked at through a tube which ex- 
 cludes all other objects the sizes will appear precisely 
 the same. All this shows that the apparatus of 
 seeing, hearing, and feeling is the simple medium, 
 transmitting and reconveying messages and impres- 
 sions at the bidding of the mind. Our senses are 
 the blind messengers, who know nothing from 
 each other, and, what is more, the brain itself is such 
 an unconscious agent. Since what we see of the 
 body is not its essence, only its reflection by means of 
 the light images which penetrate the eye, matter is 
 not really more certain than is spirit or mind ; and 
 astronomy, natural philosophy, chemistry, in short 
 all the so-called exact sciences, are the product of the 
 inner and outer senses conjointly. 
 
 A third proof of the superstitious nature of ma- 
 
38 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 terialisrn is the belief in whims, fancies, chimeras, 
 which nowhere exist. The materialist is the avowed 
 enemy of all superstition. Yet as superstitious 
 persons believe in ghosts and sprites, so do the 
 materialists. What is meant by "accident," or 
 " necessity," or " laws of nature," or the powers of the 
 atoms, if they be not the gods of the universe, acting 
 the part of witches, goblins and sprites, only with 
 this difference, that the witches of old believed 
 in the existence of the Deity, which is not the case 
 with the materialistic sprites of modern days. In 
 the darkest ages man was never taught grosser 
 superstition than this. Matter is in itself omni- 
 potent, it is local and not local, finite and not 
 finite, it is at once cause and effect, temporal and 
 eternal, dead and alive, conscious and unconscious. 
 So great is the confusion of ideas that laws of 
 thought, affections, sheer mechanism, accident, 
 necessity, man, beast, mineral substances, liberty, 
 reason, conscience, etc., are all thrown together 
 into one impenetrable chaos. If we venture to in- 
 quire what is matter, we are told, matter is reason, 
 and reason is matter. Man is said to know nothing, 
 but what comes to him by his own senses, yet the 
 materialist knows for a certainty that matter is eternal, 
 that it never came into being, and that it will never 
 come out of being ; and of all that is done in the 
 remotest solar system of the universe, matter is the 
 doer of it. Eternity, infinity, and the absoluteness 
 of matter entered the brain of materialists by their 
 very senses ; and to believe that matter can surpass 
 and raise itself in man to the highest pitch without 
 any extraneous spiritual agency, seems to involve 
 no incongruity or difficulty whatsoever. 
 
 It has been the fashion till now to believe that spirit 
 
ANCIENT MATERIALISM. 39 
 
 governs matter, that intellect constructs the machine, 
 and that reason guides man's life and conduct, but 
 now all is reversed, and matter is regarded as the 
 prime mover of all. 
 
 3. Materialism of the Buddhists, Greeks, and 
 Romans. 
 
 First faith in matter, then worship of matter, then 
 despair and doubt of all truth, then the utter collapse 
 of all that is good, true, great, and pure in the history 
 of man ; such it would seem have been the invariable 
 stages in every fresh round of materialistic specula- 
 tions from the beginning of time. The first re- 
 corded philosophcial embodiment of the principles 
 of materialism date as far back as 600 years B.C., 
 when Gautama, or Buddha, a supposed prince of 
 India, definitely taught that besides Prakriti or 
 matter, nothing is true and certain. He rejected 
 caste and sacrifices, and proved that the two con- 
 ditions of matter are rest and activity ; that all 
 men are equals in being nothing. His system was 
 suppressed in Hindustan, a.d. 800. Kanada, who 
 succeeded him, advanced a step further by denying 
 the existence of any spiritual element whatever, 
 and teaching that primal matter is an unconscious 
 assemblage of things. The history of the world is 
 only another way of expressing the process of the 
 accidental unceasing combination of atoms. The 
 world is self-existing and eternal ; and matter 
 acquires consciousness only in man. The only means 
 of producing consciousness is through the perception 
 of the senses. The human soul is of itself a com- 
 bination of such atoms, and its activity is the result 
 of simply animal forces. With death the soul sinks 
 back into nothing. We might give the names of 
 
40 CHAP. I. MATEKIALISM ANT) SCIENCE. 
 
 living authors, who reproduce this identical theory 
 as the highest philosophy man can hope to attain. 
 
 The Greeks were in some sense in advance of the 
 Easterns in philosophically representing the famous 
 doctrine of atoms as being eternal, unchangeable, 
 invisible, and imperceptible. Leucippus, who lived 
 500 B.C., must be regarded as the founder of the 
 atomical school in the West. He considered the atoms, 
 empty space, and the combination of the atoms as 
 the three conditions of all existing things ; the atoms 
 are the origin of all things ; and motion, which is 
 eternally inherent in them, produces the infinite 
 variety of forms and figures which we recognize. 
 The origin and decay of things are simply the result 
 of either combination or separation of these atoms. 
 Every change is produced by their involuntary and 
 irresistible action ; and the human soul itself is no- 
 thing but the combination of orbicular atoms which 
 produce heat, motion, and thought. 
 
 Democrites, the disciple of Leucippus, 490 B.C., 
 still further developed the theory of atoms, by 
 ascribing to them impenetrability and weight, and 
 by asserting that out of the infinite masses of atoms 
 an infinite multitude of worlds had originated. 
 Only like could operate upon like. The perception 
 by the senses originates from material images beino* 
 impressed upon the soul. The conception of the exist- 
 ence of God is derived partly from the mysterious 
 character of natural phenomena, partly from the 
 impressions received from semi-human beings which 
 float in the air, and from these impressions the 
 oracles are derived. The chief aim of life, according 
 to him, is happiness by equanimity, and his morality 
 the doctrine of prudence. 
 
 The foundation was thus laid for the sophists 
 
CLASSICAL MATERIALISM. 41 
 
 and sceptics, Diagoras, the atheist ; Suidas, who 
 was compelled to flee from Athens on account 
 of his blasphemies ; Protagoras and others, who 
 wholly despaired of all truth and ascribed all 
 conviction to the arbitrary opinion of the beholder 
 and to the accidental commingling of the atoms. 
 Thrasymachos declared openly that all knowledge was 
 deceptive, and that everything must be deemed right 
 which is most useful to him who is in power. 
 According to Callicles, there was no other precept for 
 man but the satisfying of his natural desires ; and 
 Critias, one of the thirty tyrants of Athens, being one 
 of the chief opponents of Socrates, taught that religion 
 was the invention of politicians. In all these 
 materialistic dogmas we have the originals of those 
 produced in later days ; and they clearly prove that 
 nothing short of the influence of Socrates, Plato, and 
 Aristotle could possibly save the ancient reputation of 
 Grecian thought and philosophy from a premature 
 collapse. 
 
 A second branch of the disciples of Democrites 
 expanded his teaching so as to make it minister to 
 the practical enjoyment of life. This was done by 
 Nausiphanes of Trios, the master of Epicurus, and 
 by those that after him were called Epicureans. 
 Epicurus, 337, B.C., fragments of whose work concern- 
 ing nature were found at Herculanimim, who opened 
 his school first at Lampsacus, and then at Athens, was 
 for a long time the representative of the theory that 
 enjoyment and the pursuit of pleasure is not only the 
 main object of science, but of life itself. Thus the 
 doctrine of atoms became practical, and on that account 
 more perilous, hastening the advent of the fearful end 
 of classical materialism. 
 
 Beviving the main teaching of Democrites, Epi- 
 
42 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 curus considers the world as an aggregate of atoms, 
 eternal and unchangeable, the parts only of the whole 
 being changeable and perishable. As the world 
 appears imperfect and reveals a scene of misery and 
 destruction, it cannot be the work of a reasoning and 
 beneficent cause. The soul, which is susceptible of the 
 impressions of the outer world, originates and perishes 
 with the body ; its constituent parts being heat, air, 
 breath, and some other nameless matter which is the 
 seat and source of sensation. The highest virtue is 
 consummate prudence to enjoy life, and the chief 
 object of science is to free man from the fear of 
 death and from the fear of the gods. 
 
 With some modifications, these principles of the 
 Epicurean philosophy maintained their ground as far 
 down as the beginning of our era; and when the 
 Apostles speak of some whose " god is their belly," 
 and of others who say, " Let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die," we must think of the materialists then 
 nourishing. Did not a zealous disciple of Epicurus 
 declare that the philosophy of nature bestowed all its 
 care upon the belly ? Certain it seems that the 
 leading ideas of the sect of the Sadducees among 
 the Jews were none other than those of Epicurus, 
 for according to Josephus, " the Sadducees not 
 only denied fate, but also the unchangeableness and 
 justice of God, the immortality of the soul, and the 
 existence of the world of spirits. God, according to 
 their teaching, exercises no influence upon the world ; 
 good and evil depend partly upon accident, partly 
 upon the arbitrary caprice of man, and the highest 
 object in life, is pleasure." No doubt this pernicious 
 leaven, leavening as it did the Jewish nation, hastened 
 the dissolution of the Jewish polity. 
 
 St. Paul, Romans i. 22-23, gives a true and terrible 
 
MEDIAEVAL MATERIALISM. 43 
 
 picture of the practical effects of the Epicurean 
 materialism at the commencement of our era ; and 
 all the subsequent records of the Roman Empire 
 confirm its faithfulness. It is not surprising that the 
 nation which had given itself up to lust and scepticism, 
 to scoffing at the truth, and shedding blood like 
 water, should come to a speedy end. Did not Lucianus 
 teach, towards the end of the second century, that 
 there is no truth either in religion, in science, or in 
 social life ? Nor need we marvel that this monster 
 materialism, in its grossest form, should destroy the 
 greatest empire that ever existed in the world. 
 
 4. Mediaeval and Modern Materialism. 
 
 The victory of Christianity over Heathendom was a 
 marked triumph of spiritualism over materialism, but 
 materialism re-entered the Church when under Con- 
 stantine the Great it assumed a directly religious 
 form, more especially in the invocation and worship 
 of saints, the adoration of relics, the idolatrous use of 
 images, etc. More than once materialists of a gross 
 type were able to mount the chair of St. Peter. 
 Sixtus IV., in order to obtain money, sanctioned the 
 establishment of houses of ill-fame in the Christian 
 metropolis of the world, and the great wealth he 
 accumulated by oppression and wrong was used to 
 enrich his sons and nephews. Innocent VIII. , who 
 had sixteen bastard children, encouraged the inquisi- 
 tion against witches and heretics, and whilst himself 
 in receipt of 40,000 ducats a year from Sultan Bajazet, 
 for keeping his brother out of the way, he encouraged 
 a fresh crusade against the Turks. 
 
 The Spaniard, Cardinal Borgia, purchased the votes 
 of his brother cardinals to become Alexander VI., and 
 
44 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 his pontificate proved a chain of vice and profligacy. 
 He comniitted crime after crime to satisfy his passions 
 and to enrich his children. He died at last by the 
 poisoned cup which was intended by him for one of 
 the cardinals. The following is from the diary of 
 the Papal Master of Ceremonies, Burchard, who was 
 made Bishop of Horla, and died 1506, being printed 
 inEccardi Corpus historic, medii aevi : — " Dominica 
 ultima mensis Octobris in sero fecerunt ccenam cum 
 duceValentinensi in camera sua,inPalatio Apostolico, 
 quinquaginta meretriceshonestae,Cortigiana3 nuncup- 
 ate, quae post ccenam chorearunt cum servitoribus 
 et aliis ibidem existentibus, primo in vestibus suis, 
 deinde nudre — ,Papa, duce, et Lucretia sorore sua 
 prsesentibus et adspicientibus. Tandem exposita dona, 
 diploides de Serico, paria caligarum et alia, pro illis, 
 qui plures meretrices carnaliter agnoscerent, quae 
 fuerunt ibidem in aula publice carnaliter tractatse 
 arbitrio prresentiuni, et dona distributa victoribus." 
 
 Boniface VIII. sold the feudal tenants of Colonna 
 into slavery, just as Sixtus IV. had sold the Bolognese, 
 and Julius II. the Venetians. John XXII. denied 
 the immortality of the soul, and confessed before 
 his death that he had all his life doubted the existence 
 of God and the truth of future retribution ! Leo X. 
 exclaimed, in his worldly prosperity, " quantas 
 divitias nobis dedit ista fabula de Christo /" And 
 Bishops were known openly to warn each other to 
 avoid reading the "trash " of St. Paul, for fear of 
 spoiling the purity of their Ciceronian style, and 
 cardinals publicly professed that all Borne could 
 possibly need to make a residence there delightful 
 was a court full of ladies. 
 
 But it can scarcely be said that materialism found 
 a less fertile soil in the post-reformation period. 
 
MODERN MATERIALISM. 45 
 
 Lord Bacon, with great ability, worked out the system 
 of materialism as propounded by Telesius, 1588, 
 though Bacon is greatly misconstrued, if modern 
 materialists appeal to his high authority in support 
 of their own principles. Bacon was not himself a 
 materialist, but in reconstructing the system of 
 Telesius, he assisted on the one hand in the emanci- 
 pation of scientific thought from the restraints of 
 secular and dogmatic prejudices, and on the other 
 hand he brought his own intellectual sensualism to 
 great honour ; all true knowledge, according to him, 
 must be based upon the perception of sense. 
 
 The seventeenth century in its commencement 
 records the feeble attempts of Basso, Berigard, 
 Magnus, Sennert, Gassendi, Sanchez, etc., in order 
 to revive some of the older materialistic theories, 
 but none of them left any deep mark behind them, 
 as they wisely avoided treating of subjects which 
 might bring them into open collision with the 
 teaching of the Church. 
 
 M. de la Mothe le Bayer, 1678, observed no 
 such reserve, when he openly denied the reality of 
 all knowledge which is derived from reason, depre- 
 cating all religious truth, denouncing virtue as a 
 snare, and life as a delusion. A still bolder step, in 
 the same direction, was made a little later by Thomas 
 Hobbes, 1679, when he converted the philosophical 
 empiricism of Bacon into the full-blown and most 
 perfect materialism. So bold are the features of his 
 system, that it may be said to embody the quintes- 
 sence of all the dogmas of this negative creed. 
 The following are the leading thoughts of Hobbes. 
 Nothing can be real or true, which is not local and 
 limited, or fails to fall within the observation of 
 sense. All true knowledge is derived from the 
 
46 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 perception of outward sense, and all that is not so 
 perceptible is qualitas occulta, and, therefore, not 
 real. Philosophy itself is phantastical and im- 
 aginary. There can be no knowledge of God or of 
 things divine. The only legitimate and consistent 
 motive for action is self-interest, self-pleasing, or 
 pure selfishness. Everything is unconditionally 
 good and best in itself which seems most service- 
 able to self-interest ; and the highest virtue consists 
 in the highest prudence to advance selfish interests 
 and to gratify selfish desires. 
 
 That which is most useful or gratifying to myself 
 is, therefore, according to Hobbes, the great end and 
 final scope of all human effort. Every one does and 
 must do that which is most helpful to self-interest. 
 I can do everything that I fancy will suit my pur- 
 pose, provided I feel strong enough to do it. If I 
 possess power I am acting reasonably and virtuously, 
 when I seek to extend that power by dictating to 
 others everything relating to faith, religion, or 
 politics, as far as it serves my own personal ends. 
 Religion as a subordinate means to uphold the policy 
 of the State, is for that very reason a fit subject for 
 the legislature, and it must be treated as a subject 
 for legislation. All is allowable in itself ; I may 
 profess any or no religion as it happens to serve my 
 own interests ; and the greatest crimes become a 
 duty when they appear useful. Yea, rebellion 
 against existing governments becomes a virtue under 
 certain circumstances. 
 
 Such being the principles inculcated into the 
 national mind, it was the most natural of all things 
 that the Great Rebellion should immediately follow 
 such teaching. The Great Revolution in this country 
 must be taken as the reaping of what had been sown 
 
MODERN MATERIALISM. 47 
 
 by Hobbes and his disciples. Cromwell, as protector 
 of England, lost no time to bring into immediate 
 practice the principles of Hobbes, and in so doing he 
 acted consistently and conscientiously when he em- 
 ployed religious deception, political hypocrisy, and 
 murder to obtain his great ends ; or when he sold the 
 loyal Irish as slaves, confiscated their property, and 
 destroyed the population of prosperous cities, and 
 above all when he beheaded his Majesty the King of 
 the realm. 
 
 The last century had a similar sowing and reaping 
 of its own, though one would have thought that what 
 was so fresh in the memory of nations would have 
 been a lasting warning. The old notion that matter is 
 the mother of us all was revived, but the revival was 
 accompanied by a scorn for everything that is true, 
 good and pure ; hence, as the measure of iniquity 
 was filled up more quickly, the crisis, too, came the 
 more suddenly. 
 
 The centre of the movement, in the eighteenth 
 century, seems still to be in England ; hence, David 
 Hume, in 1776, a native of Edinburgh, takes up 
 the old position of materialism, that there is no 
 possibility of knowing God and things divine, that 
 morality is simply that which is utile cum dulce ; 
 which is nothing but the reproduction of the gross 
 materialism of older dates. If Hume's life was 
 unblameable, it only proved that he was better than 
 his theory, as is frequently the case with men of our 
 own days. 
 
 Hume's cotemporary, Bolingbroke, the great 
 master of Voltaire, saw in man nothing but a simple 
 product of nature, a fully developed animal ; and he 
 carried this notion so far that religion appeared to 
 him a clever adaptation to the ignorance of the 
 
48 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 masses, to lead them as their rulers might list ; and 
 it must be added that many works in the middle of 
 the last century inculcated these ideas upon the 
 minds of the higher classes. De la Mettrie, in 1751, 
 in his " System of Nature," transformed the existing 
 materialism more fully into a radical atheism. 
 Rochefoucauld, in 1680, and Helvetius, in 1771, ex- 
 plain all spiritual life and mental activity as the 
 result of the mechanism of the body. The Infinite 
 is simply an empty and negative conception, and 
 virtue in the end is only another term for selfishness ; 
 since he must be considered the most virtuous person 
 who achieves his own material advantage without 
 being detected or punished. 
 
 John Toland, 1722, in his work, "Christianity 
 not Mysterious," expounded our Belief as a simple 
 product of nature, similar to " wood, stone, water, 
 air," the Church is described as a network of decep- 
 tion, which has been framed on the part of politicians 
 and of the hierarchy, and which must be torn to 
 pieces by the common sense of the people. 
 
 The French Encyclopaedists, such as Diderot, 
 in 1784, and d'Alembert, in 1783, and especially 
 Voltaire, in 1778, surpassing his English master in 
 his blasphemous and vulgar atheism, speedily fin- 
 ished the cycle of the materialism of the eighteenth 
 century. The materialistic sentiments came to a 
 crisis just before the breaking out of the great 
 French Revolution ; and which were the immediate 
 fruits of the materialism of the last century ? 
 
 As the materialistic system of Lucianus and Em- 
 piricus destroyed the Roman empire, so the teachings 
 of ITobbes, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and others, pro- 
 duced a rehearsal on no mean scale of the abomina- 
 tions, the cruelties and the reign of terror which had 
 
MODERN MATERIALISM. 49 
 
 darkened the days of Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellus, 
 and that in the chief centres of intelligence and 
 refinement, all ending in the most perfect overthrow 
 of all law, government, religion, morality and 
 science. The abolishment of religion, the overthrow 
 of society, the introduction of the goddess of reason, 
 the executions of the million ; the desecration of 
 churches, and even of the grave ; the manufacture 
 of lard from the human flesh of those that had been 
 executed ; the binding of Mirabau's work, entitled 
 "Human Eights," in leather made of human skin ; 
 the peril to life and property, to honour, liberty 
 of conscience and piety, the tyranny of Robespierre, 
 Danton, Manuel, Marat, etc. ; the five new consti- 
 tutions of the State succeeding each other in twelve 
 short years ; — all these enormities prove that the 
 abolition of Church, State, matrimony, science, rights 
 of property and liberty of conscience, is fatal to the 
 well-being of human kind. 
 
 Scarcely was the thraldom crushed, beneath its 
 own terrible weight, than fresh moral and religious 
 life again burst out with extraordinary power. 
 Many new Universities were founded over the whole 
 world ; religious Societies, for the spread of Chris- 
 tianity abroad and for the diffusion of religious light 
 at home, were seen to spring up in every direction. 
 Slavery was abolished, and science encouraged as 
 never before. 
 
 But the lesson at the close of the last century 
 was too suddenly forgotten, and materialism revived 
 in the very midst of the almost unprecedented ma- 
 terial prosperity which had followed the whirlwind 
 of revolution and wars. In spite of the bitterness 
 which ensued upon every previous revival of the pure- 
 
50 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 ly Pagan element of materialism, the experiment must 
 needs be repeated by every succeeding generation, 
 and there followed not simply a repetition but a pro- 
 gress in this mortal disease which had laid such deep 
 hold upon the human race. The older materialists, 
 in general terms, ascribed a corporeal origin to the 
 workings of the mind, but at present all the opera- 
 tions of the human mind are attributed to certain 
 organs of the nervous system ; and thought is 
 reduced to the chemical action of the brain. 
 
 The dogmas, or rather the sum and substance of 
 modern materialism, are as follows : — Since matter 
 alone is divine and eternal, there can be neither 
 creator nor creation, and the mechanism of the 
 universe as it is without beginning, so it will be 
 without end. There is no agency in the world 
 beyond the physical powers, and there can be no 
 Divine Providence, and no divine revelation, because 
 there is no God. The Church is the community in 
 which the deceivers and the deceived are mingled 
 the one with the other. Money is the great 
 motive power of the universe. The first and 
 chief commandment is love to oneself. There is 
 death in life and life in death ; for all the blossoms 
 of the future repose in the air and in the act of 
 dissolution. The sole object of the State can only be 
 to ensure every possible enjoyment to the individual 
 citizen. But though the Bible is thought to be a 
 mixture of superstition and fable, well adapted to 
 restrain the ignorant masses, Diderot declared, in an 
 assembly of scoffers, that none of their own school 
 " could hope to write with so much power and talent 
 as the authors of the Bible," and he challenged his 
 companions to write an account so simple and exalted 
 as the account given of the Passion and death of 
 
DOGMAS OF MODERN MATERIALISM. 51 
 
 Christ, and which would produce a similar lasting 
 effect upon future ages. 
 
 The origin of organic beings dates from the acci- 
 dental combination of the powers which exist in 
 nature and are inherent in matter. The first cell 
 once existing passes through various metamorphoses, 
 till we have the perfect ape, " at whose breast man 
 sucked a mother's milk;" and as man is the che- 
 mical product of nature, his spirit is the pure activity 
 of his brain. There is no other soul but that which^- — 
 is identical with the action of the brain. Man's 
 body being the product of a physical combination of 
 atoms, is a machine and no more. 
 
 The great object and problem of life is to produce 
 as much phosphor as possible by good eating and 
 drinking, in order to heighten and to multiply the 
 enjoyments of life. Human thought, desire, and 
 action are understood to be necessary, but there is 
 no moral responsibility, nor difference between man 
 and the animal, or between reason and instinct. 
 
 As there is no access to the soul but by means of 
 the senses, all religious faith is hypocrisy and self- 
 deception. As there is no free will and no respond 
 sibility, there can be neither sin nor guilt ; and the 
 so-called laws of God are the mere fabrication of 
 Theologians. Matrimony is something purely acci- 
 dental, if not arbitrary ; certainly it is nothing more 
 than a human institution. All is permitted, provided 
 you take care that your acts are not detected. It is 
 folly to restrain any natural desire, when prudence 
 permits it. Honesty, chastity and truthfulness are 
 the production of egotism, and rewards and punish- 
 ments are the invention of the police. 
 
 There is no such thing as redemption, for death is 
 the end of all, and the notion of eternal life is in 
 
52 CHAP. I. MATERIALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 itself infinitely more repulsive than that of eternal 
 -annihilation. Immortality simply implies the con- 
 stant renewing of life on the face of the earth. 
 
 Such are some of the terrible dogmas of material- 
 ism, for each of which I am fully prepared to give 
 the authority. All must perceive that here it is 
 not a question of the acceptance or non-acceptance 
 of some scientific theory, the truth or falsehood of 
 which will bring neither good nor evil to any one 
 single individual, but it is a subject of the gravest 
 practical importance. It really is a mortal distemper 
 which threatens the very life of States no less than 
 of Churches, and never in the whole history of the 
 world has the distemper assumed so virulent a form 
 as it threatens to assume in this so-called en- 
 lightened age. 
 
 If swift has been the judgment with which ma- 
 terialism was visited, when raging in the Roman 
 empire ; if it could threaten the very existence of the 
 most powerful Church in Christendom ; if it was 
 the cause at once of the English Rebellion, and of 
 the French Revolution, must we not dread, that in its 
 present form, it will sooner or later produce a like 
 catastrophe in this and in other lands ? As the storm 
 petrel appears before the outbreak of the tempest, or 
 the carrion bird shows itself before the death of its 
 prey, so materialism has ever been the immediate 
 harbinger not of the pleasure it vainly promises, but 
 of some reign of terror, or some heavy judgment upon 
 the nations. It cannot be otherwise. 
 
 Whenever man ceases to honour the Creator in his 
 fellowman, the condition of all progress, the root of 
 all righteousness and of morality is virtually de- 
 stroyed. Let the relation be denied which exists 
 between man and his God, and the bonds of society 
 
MODERN MATERIALISM. 53 
 
 will suddenly give way, the bulwarks of public 
 order will be cast down ; for materialism, in all its 
 multiform aspects, is the parent of barbarism and 
 bestiality, as found only among cannibals, where 
 sensuality, the worshipping of matter, Fetish wor- 
 ship, yea the worship of matter in the shape of dung, 
 as in the case of a Hindu sect, are seen to reign 
 supreme. 
 
 Oppression and wrong, not liberty and equality, 
 are the immediate offspring of materialism, whilst 
 all great reforms have invariably sprung from Chris- 
 tianity. To recognise in the highest functions of the 
 human mind nothing beyond the action of physical 
 and natural laws is to undermine morality, charity 
 and loyalty. If sin be the mechanical process of the 
 action of the brain, then the murderer is no more 
 punishable than the stone which is hurled at the 
 head of his victim. One action of the brain is surely 
 no more than the other. There are two sorts of 
 mechanical or chemical actions of the brain, the one 
 innocent, the other fraught with evil consequences ; 
 but they are both the secretions of the same matter, 
 and who will decide which is to have the superiority ? 
 The communists have not scrupled to push materia- 
 listic principles to their legitimate issues ; but when 
 Enfantin, a disciple of St. Simon, urged the eman- 
 cipation of woman, thus touching the sanctity of 
 matrimony, there was a natural revolt, and " Eather 
 Enfantin ' ' was judicially condemned by a Court of 
 Justice. We all know the highly instructive experi- 
 ments of the Socialistic associations, and their miser- 
 able failure. Wherever materialism has been infused 
 it has poisoned the fresh springs of life, subverting 
 the foundations, not only of morality and religion, 
 but also of the public weal and of personal freedom, 
 
54 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 and Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Busk, and others, who, 
 more or less, advocate principles tending to material- 
 ism, would doubtless be dismayed, could they really 
 perceive what evil fires, even from their own point 
 of view, they are supplying with fuel by their books 
 and lectures. The poison prepared by the learned, 
 and this is the saddest of all, is fast filtering 
 down into the lower strata of Society, and there will 
 be, ere long, an upheaving which will alarm the 
 stoutest materialists, because they will then find it 
 beyond their power to control or to extinguish the 
 fire which they have kindled. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GKE1STESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 The philosophical conclusions of science, at the 
 present day, are said to be as follows : The potential 
 of all things terrestial, including man's whole nature 
 and powers, moral and intellectual, was originally 
 contained in the atoms. The present state of things 
 has been brought about, not by any previous or sub- 
 sequent intervention of a Supreme Cause, but through 
 the natural interaction of these atoms or atomic 
 forces. Combinations, and re-combinations through- 
 out unnumbered ages have, of their own accord, 
 ensued, and the fittest of them have survived. There 
 are nowhere recognisable any clear unmistakable 
 tokens of designs which could be taken as strictly 
 teleological in their character, and the wonderful 
 adaptations, which are in themselves undeniable, are 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 55 
 
 referred to the influence of successive environments 
 and to natural selection. If there be any intelligent 
 author of nature, he is to us unknowable. 
 
 In reply to these assertions, Professor Pritchard 
 says : — "If this be the ultimate result of the latest 
 combinations of atoms, and if this be all, then, so 
 far as man is concerned, human life is without an 
 adequate motive ; there are affections with no object 
 sufficient to fill them, hopes of immortality that are 
 never to be realised ; aspirations after God and god- 
 liness never to be attained ; thus myriads and myriads 
 of nebulae may still be the potentials of delusion, 
 and their outcome the kingdom of despair." Again, 
 " If creation by evolution were a very strongly pre- 
 sumable fact, I should logically accept it. With my 
 own hands I obtained, and any chemist might have 
 obtained, all the elements which I found in an egg 
 and in grains of wheat, out of a piece of granite and 
 from the air which surrounded it, element for 
 element. It has been one of the most astonishing 
 and unexpected results of modern science, that we 
 can unmistakably trace these very elements also in 
 the stars and partly also in the nebulae ; perhaps all 
 of them, when our instruments are improved. But 
 no chemist, with all his wonderful art, has ever yet 
 witnessed the evolution of a living thing from these 
 lifeless molecules of matter and force. Prom what I 
 know, of my own speciality, of the structure of lenses 
 and the human eye, I do not believe that any amount 
 of evolution could have issued in the production of 
 that most beautiful and complicated instrument, the 
 human eye. There are too many curved surfaces, 
 too many distances, too many densities of the media, 
 each essential to the other, too great a facility of 
 ruin by slight disarrangement, to admit of anything 
 
56 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 short of the intervention of an intelligent will at 
 some stage of the evolutionary process. The most 
 perfect and the most difficult contrivance known is 
 the powerful achromatic object-glass of a microscope ; 
 its structure is the long-unhoped-for result of the 
 ingenuity of many powerful minds ; yet in com- 
 plexity, and in perfection, it falls infinitely below 
 the structure of the eye. Disarrange any of the 
 curvatures of the many surfaces or distances, or 
 densities of the latter ; or worse, disarrange its in- 
 comprehensible, self-adaptive power, the like of which 
 is possessed by the handiwork of nothing human, 
 and all the opticians in the world could not tell you 
 what is the correlative alteration necessary to repair 
 it, and still less to improve it, as natural selection 
 is presumed to imply." These considerations alone 
 would prove the untenableness of the theory of evo- 
 lution at the very outset. But we must first inquire 
 into the origin of the theory we have to deal with 
 in this chapter. Whence came this hypothesis ? 
 
 1. The Develojrist Theory traced to its Source. 
 
 There is nothing unnatural in the inquiry as to the 
 beginning of things, and we can easily understand 
 why all philosophical systems should throw them- 
 selves upon the examination, not only of the mode 
 and the succession and the fact of being, but also of 
 its origin. Aristotle never assumed the possibility 
 of one organism evolving from the other, except by 
 homogeneous generation. Yet that great thinker has 
 been quoted wrongly as countenancing the theory 
 of evolution, since in his judgment the lowest 
 organisms only were evolved from inorganic matter, 
 whilst all the higher types of life, including man, 
 germinated and came to full maturity under the 
 
EVOLUTION TRACED TO ITS SOURCE. 57 
 
 potential influence of some supernatural power. 
 More materialistic was the evolution of Lucretius. 
 He says : — " The atoms which had been tossed 
 about from time immemorial, united eventually 
 to form the stars and the rest of the world. The 
 first thing on earth was the plant, then followed 
 the trees. The soil, in the next place, must have 
 produced thousands of animals of every species, since 
 these animals could not have fallen from heaven, nor 
 could they have risen from the depths of the sea. 
 To this day, indeed, multitudes of animals spring 
 from the earth, being produced or drawn forth by 
 the rain and by the warm vapours of the sun. Nor 
 can it seem remarkable that these productions should 
 have been richer at a time when both the air and 
 the soil were as yet fresh or young. Yet the earth 
 produced, first of all, many imperfect forms before 
 it put forth animals capable of living and of propa- 
 gating themselves. The creatures breathing the air 
 preserve the cunning, the shape, the swiftness, they 
 have had since the beginning of time. The lion is 
 protected by his courage, the fox by his cunning, the 
 deer by its swiftness, whilst the dog, the ox and the 
 sheep, commit themselves to the protection of man. 
 Man came forth from this earth like the other 
 animals. The embryo, which rooted to the soil, 
 burst its envelope, and nature nourished him with 
 the milk which issued from the ground " 
 
 Lucretius here sketches the broad outlines of the 
 Darwinian struggle for existence, the same self- 
 evolution of matter, through the same progression 
 of nature from the plant to the animal, and from 
 the animal to man. 
 
 If the nebular theory of Laplace were established, 
 which it is not, there would still remain the vast 
 
58 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 gulf between the elementary process of nature 
 and the origin of organic life. The great efforts 
 in the past to discover, if possible, the combining 
 links between living and unliving organisms, deserve 
 all commendation, but they have never yet been 
 successful, notwithstanding all the rumours to the 
 contrary from time to time. Fresh organisms 
 springing from decaying matter, and entozoic 
 parasites were assumed; but as far back as 1668, 
 Redi overthrew the hypothesis, and Reaumur exposed 
 the fallacies of the Jesuit, Father Kircher, born 1601, 
 who propounded a formal proposition to produce 
 scorpions and serpents, and of Bonnani, who asserted 
 that on the decay of a peculiar kind of wood in water, 
 worms, butterflies, and birds would originate. 
 
 Such generation, without germ, egg, or seed of any 
 kind in the lowest organisms was assumed by Aristotle, 
 and after him by many old Christian divines. The 
 technical term generatio cequivoca, which signifies 
 something diverse from what we should expect being 
 produced, is itself traced back to Aristotle, who applies 
 the Greek equivalent for homonymous to objects which 
 are alike in name, but unlike in character — e.g., cat, 
 board, bench, and similar words in English. In 
 translating Aristotle, Boethius gives the Greek term 
 homonymon with ceqnivocum. Equivocal generation is 
 otherwise described as heterogeneous, or spontaneous, 
 also as generatio originaria. In contradistinction to 
 these assumed heterogeneous productions there is the 
 homogeneous generation, by which every living thing 
 springs from another homogeneous living thing, 
 according to the ancient formula, omne vivum e vivo, 
 or, ex vivo. The heterogeneous generation was of 
 course taken as implying the principle of a higher 
 organism springing from a lower one, or in other 
 words, evolution in its modern sense. 
 
EVOLUTION TRACED TO ITS SOURCE. 59 
 
 The opinion that infusoria or animalcule are pro- 
 duced under the action of the galvanic battery has 
 been put forth in more recent days, and the author 
 of the " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," 
 whilst holding that all animals, together with the 
 flora, spring from a few primitive types, or even from 
 one type, gives a number of instances in which 
 insects have been generated under the influence of 
 galvanism, though on one occasion eleven months 
 were required to produce a few maggots. But no 
 naturalist worthy of the name is found now-a-day 
 who would venture to uphold the theory, it being 
 irrevocably established that no organisms can be 
 in anywise manufactured, and wherever formerly 
 discovered they had either conveyed themselves from 
 without into the microscope or the battery, or else 
 the germs existed in so minute a form that they 
 could not be discovered by the naked eye. The very 
 dust of the air is well known to be peopled with 
 living plants and animals, and life is discovered in 
 snow, in hot sand, in calcined lava, in brine, in ice, 
 in hot vapour of 210 deg. fahrenheit, and in hot 
 water. If the ditch happens to be found teeming with 
 life, it cannot be assumed that these living creatures 
 are the natural product of the mire. When Strauss 
 insisted that the tape-worm, which at times attains 
 the length of sixty yards, was the spontaneous pro- 
 duction of the human body, he quite overlooked that 
 even if that were really the case, which it is not, 
 it would simply indicate the descent of an inferior 
 being from one infinitely superior ; but the reverse 
 has clearly to be established by the permutation 
 theory. Even in the history of disease, spontaneous 
 generation is at length found to be a dream ; since 
 every unhealthy formation in the body can be traced 
 
60 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 to some normal type as given in the healthy frame 
 of the system. No cellular mis-formation is ever 
 produced which has not its like in the healthy 
 organism, there being simply a reproduction in all 
 physiological and pathological formations. 
 
 To trace the permutation or evolution theory to 
 its first roots, we shall have to go back beyond 
 Lucretius, and even beyond the Grecian philosophers. 
 In the Persian Dualism, Zeruana-Akarana, the 
 supreme being in the Zoroastian system, first creates 
 the prototypes of all created things, which might 
 serve as a starting point to the evolution theory, and 
 Ormuzd, the second deity, according to Plutarch, 
 created twenty-four original germs of substances, 
 from which all creatures date their origin. If we 
 go further back still to the Hindu Shastras, " The 
 Supreme Lord endowed the best of beings with the 
 seeds of all manner of qualities, noxious and inno- 
 cent, harsh and mild, just and unjust, true and false." 
 But all these properties were acquired in a previous 
 state, for as the soul's existence does not commence 
 with the body, so neither does it end with dissolution. 
 The proper destiny of every soul in transmigration 
 is to expiate guilt by means of suffering through 
 millions of forms throughout stupendous cycles of 
 duration, which constitute the life of Brahm, or in 
 other words, the duration of the present universe. 
 With the doctrine of metempsychosis the whole 
 existence of the Hindu is connected. Brahm is the 
 great centre of all. Around him are drawn the 
 several worlds, as the peripheries within which the 
 eternal transmigrations of the soul in search of bliss 
 are to be effected. Every individual has upon it his 
 own wearisome journey of evolution, until at last, 
 he returns to the central power of attraction from 
 which he proceeded. 
 
EVOLUTION TRACED TO ITS SOURCE. 61 
 
 According to the teaching of the Hindus the soul, 
 after having forfeited human existence, must pass 
 through eight millions of births of the lower 
 creation, until it can regain the station which had 
 been lost. Of these eight millions of births, the soul 
 attains two millions one hundred thousand births in 
 the inanimate creation, the mineral and vegetable 
 kingdom ; nine hundred thousand years more the 
 soul is detained amongst the insects and worms; 
 during another million it has to migrate through the 
 birds of heaven ; and in the next three millions the 
 soul passes through the animal world. If faithful in 
 this struggle for existence, manhood will at length be 
 recovered, but the soul will continue evolving through 
 the lower castes for 400,000 years more, and then at 
 last, after 400 births, it will ascend to the dignity 
 of a Brahmin, whence it is comparatively easy for the 
 soul to be united to Brahm. Brahm, although the 
 great source and root of all, cannot, however, be 
 regarded as a personal deity ; on the contrary, as the 
 name implies, which in Sanscrit is of neuter gender, 
 Brahm is a thing ; though eternal and indestructible, 
 yet Brahm is described as an atom, and " no bigger 
 than an atom, impenetrable to the needle's point." 
 Yet this wonderful atom in due time is seen to 
 expand into the enormous bulk of the famous 
 fourteen worlds, assuming, like any of the atoms 
 conceived by the modern evolution theory, every 
 shape, form, and species of being, divine, angelic, 
 demonaical, mineral, vegetable, animal, astral, and 
 all besides. Here is evolution with a vengeance, 
 and such as will satisfy any developist ; and I am 
 prepared to show that our modern theory has been 
 borrowed directly from Hinduism rather than from 
 other cognate systems in the East. 
 
62 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 It was in the year 1748 that a Frenchman, M. 
 Demaillet, or spelled reversely, Telliamed, published 
 a work under the title " Discourses between an 
 Indian Philosopher and a French Missionary, on 
 the diminution of the sea, the formation of the earth, 
 the origin of men and animals, and other various 
 subjects relating to natural history and philosophy." 
 This book treats less indeed of the transmigration 
 of the soul than the transmutation of matter, or less 
 of metempsychosis than metamorphosis, the only 
 spiritual element which there was in the former 
 being lost in the latter. Everything is made to 
 start from the sea : vegetation, animals, insects, birds, 
 beasts, and even man, the one evolving from the 
 other. Is there not a resemblance, it is asked, 
 between certain fish and certain animals ? Are there 
 not sea- weeds, sea-vegetation, sea-plants, sea-fruits, 
 sea-birds, sea-apes, sea-bears, sea-calves, sea-dogs ? 
 Is it not a fact, legally attested by a whole ship's crew, 
 and are not these attestations deposited in the Dutch 
 Admiralty, that at a given date, in a certain latitude, 
 a human being came on board out of the depths of 
 the sea, at once asking for a pipe and tobacco, and 
 whilst smoking it, he related, in a clear, lucid way, 
 that as a Dutch lad of seventeen years of age, he was 
 shipwrecked, and had ever since lived in the ocean ; 
 and when the pipe was finished he suddenly dis- 
 appeared in the sea ? Again, have we never heard 
 of Tritons and their flutes, of syrens and their music, 
 of mer-maids and sea-nymphs, of sea-men and sea- 
 women ? With such weapons as these the evolution 
 theory was defended more than a century ago ! 
 
 Demaillet, in his book which I have never yet 
 seen brought forward in this country in connection 
 with the Darwinian controversy, endeavours to show 
 
EVOLUTION TRACED TO ITS SOURCE. G3 
 
 how the more perfect forms of organisms had raised 
 themselves from the less perfect by the inherent 
 potential force of some great Brahm, as that wonder- 
 ful deity represented itself to the French mind ; how 
 shrubs and trees originated from plants and herbs ; 
 how the repeated and well- sustained efforts of a fish 
 to raise itself above the water might ultimately 
 result in its being turned into a flying fish, and how 
 the shoals of flying fish, driven among shrubs and 
 trees, by storms and tempests, become bona fide birds ! 
 It has been stated by Mr. Robson, that a full, 
 clear, collected exposition of the principles of Hindu 
 philosophy was just what we in the West were 
 always groping after, without ever grasping them as 
 India has done. But the above-named Brahminical 
 seed corn, deposited into French soil, was permitted 
 to slumber and die for some reason till 1809, when, 
 under the inspiration of Jean Lamark, it revived. Ger- 
 many caught the spark more quickly from Demaillet ; 
 hence the Pantheism of Oken, in his works published 
 in 1802 and 1805. According to his philosophy all 
 organisms proceed from slime. The primeval slime, 
 deposited and formed at the bottom of the sea, con- 
 sists of a mass of infusoria. As oxygen and hydrogen 
 not only mingle in water mechanically, but become 
 absolutely one, so these primitive formations inter- 
 penetrate each other in order to form higher organ- 
 isms, and out of the destruction of their single 
 blessedness result higher formations. In the water 
 these diminutive bladders, or infusoria, become 
 animals, in the air plants. Man, also, was formed 
 out of the primeval slime of the sea, and as a child 
 somewhere he stepped on shore from some warm and 
 shallow water, finding his food in worms, fish, fruit, 
 and game. The proof that all organisms are origin- 
 
64 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 ally formed of infusoria, is found in the fact that on 
 their dissolution they are again set free. 
 
 Lamark, who died blind in his eighty-fifth year, 
 quickened the evolution theory in Prance, by the 
 publication of his work, Philosophic Zoologique. 
 According to his theory there were originally only 
 two forms of living organisms, the infusorium and 
 the worm, both of which originated by spontaneous 
 self-evolution, and they became the parents of all 
 things living. But he found a little more difficulty 
 than Demaillet in working out his system. Hence 
 he shrewdly insisted upon the fact that use and 
 exercise strengthen and enlarge, but disuse and 
 neglect weaken certain faculties. He was greatly 
 supported by the older Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire ; 
 only the latter made the changes more dependent 
 upon external influences, such as the atmosphere. 
 Less carbon, for instance, converted reptiles into 
 birds. According to Lamark, an animal or a bird, 
 placed in certain circumstances, will seek to accom- 
 modate itself to them. Hence the origin of new 
 organs. A similar theory was propounded in the 
 " Vestiges,' ' no doubt in direct imitation of the theory 
 of Lamark. 
 
 Though it is said, on the Continent, that the 
 theory of evolution is afloat in the English air, it was 
 very late that Darwin and Wallace first accepted, 
 and then quickened it into fresh life by infusing the 
 famous principle of the so-called natural selection as 
 the chief cause of the variation of species. At nearly 
 the same time, 1859, Hudson Tuttle, an American 
 spiritualist, published his book, "Arcana of Nature," 
 which, whilst professing to be written by the aid of 
 the spirit world, leans unmistakably on the not very 
 spiritual 4 ' Vestiges of the Creation; " but with this 
 
CRITICISM OF THE E. THEORY. G5 
 
 difference, that the Arcana, although spiritual, are 
 decidedly more atheistical. Darwin himself, as is 
 well known, starts from the changes which are seen 
 to take place in domestic animals, through human 
 influences, and he urges that nature exercises such a 
 selection that the offspring might excel the parent 
 stock. Climate, food, the use of certain members, 
 and the disuse of others, produce changes ; these may 
 become stereotyped by being repeated, intensified, 
 prolonged, and might finally abolish the discre- 
 pancies between different species of animals. The 
 entire fauna is reduced to five primitive forms, and 
 the whole flora to about an equal number, holding 
 that all animal and vegetable life may possibly be 
 reduced to one being, whether infusorium, worm, or 
 a compound of both, is generously left an open ques- 
 tion. The rechauffement of these Brahminical ideas, 
 as imported into Europe by a Frenchman, was 
 regarded as a marvellous discovery in science, and it 
 will take fully ten years more before we shall have 
 heard the last of this metamorphologian or evolution 
 hypothesis, which, according to Agassiz, one of its 
 first opponents, is a scientific mistake, untrue in its 
 facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in 
 its tendency. 
 
 2. Criticism of the Transmutation Theory. 
 
 When truly physiolatrous materialistic sentiments 
 were once more becoming acceptable in the learned 
 circles, the evolution theory could not fail to be 
 enthusiastically received, as affording a favourable 
 opportunity of scientifically constructing a universe 
 without the miracle of Creation, or the incumbrance 
 of some unknowable first cause, forgetting that evo- 
 lution implies a marvel quite as incomprehensible, 
 
 E 
 
66 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 and more irrational than the orthodox view which 
 is to be superseded, because in the new theory the 
 effect is greater than the causality. Darwin, indeed, 
 at first appealed to a Creator of the first origin of 
 the germs of organisms ; but this was significantly 
 omitted in subsequent editions, though he still 
 pleaded that he could not see how the theory could 
 offend the religious sensibilities of his readers. In 
 his second work, strong doubts are raised against the 
 notion of an omniscient Creator. A theory so bald 
 would never have made any real impression on 
 scientific minds, had there not existed the strong 
 bias of the age, which warped the judgment and 
 predisposed men for its reception. It did not 
 really matter whether it was a new or an old theory, 
 whether of Lucretian, Hindu, or Zoroastian origin, 
 if only it were consistent with the spirit of the 
 age, and in harmony with the materialistic views of 
 many of the savants. Enough, if it suited and 
 satisfied the wants of the times, clearing away 
 whatever was distasteful in previously accepted 
 notions. Others were overawed by the learning it 
 displayed, or they were prevented from making a 
 protest, lest they should appear uninformed, ignorant, 
 or behind in the intelligence of the age ; altogether 
 overlooking how suicidal is the tendency of all such 
 theories, and how short-lived their existence. 
 
 The changes produced by domestication, upon 
 which great stress is laid, will certainly establish the 
 transformation theory, so soon as the varieties which 
 have been secured really amount to a distinct species ; 
 and science will then have to examine whether the 
 results of domestication justify the inferences which 
 have been drawn from it. Should it happen that 
 there is only a very limited change, the whole theory 
 
CRITICISM OF THE E. THEORY. 67 
 
 will naturally lose its value. It was not long before 
 this, the weakest side of the theory, was discovered and 
 attacked. To begin with the root of the matter, Sir 
 J. Herschel, from his contemplation of the remark- 
 ably constant, definite and restricted interactions of 
 the elementary molecules, came to the conclusion 
 that they possessed all the characteristics of manu- 
 factured articles. Professor Maxwell says, " No 
 theory of evolution can be formed to account for the 
 similarity of the molecules throughout all time, and 
 throughout the whole region of the stellar universe, 
 for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, 
 and the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of 
 generation or destruction." Again, "None of the 
 processes of nature have produced the slightest differ- 
 ence in the properties of any molecule. On the other 
 hand, the exact equality of each molecule to all 
 others of the same kind precludes the idea of its 
 being eternal and self-existent. We have reached 
 the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we 
 have admitted that, because matter cannot be eternal 
 and self-existent, it must have been created. These 
 molecules continue this day as they were created, 
 perfect in number, measure and weight, and from 
 the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may 
 learn that those aspirations after truth in statement, 
 and justice in action, which we reckon among our 
 noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are 
 the essential constituents of the image of Him, Who 
 in the beginning not only created heaven and earth, 
 but the materials of which heaven and earth consist." 
 And this, according to Professor Pritchard, is the 
 true outcome of the deepest, the most exact, and the 
 most recent science of our age. 
 
 Speaking more pointedly of the evolution theory • 
 
68 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Agassiz argues that identical animals exist every- 
 where on the surface of the globe, and although, under 
 different circumstances, physical influences may pro- 
 duce changes, yet these influences could not alter the 
 fundamental types of their organisation, which, co- 
 existing in the oldest fauna of the world, could not 
 have descended the one from the other. As a proof 
 that the species were originally established, he refers 
 to the fact that animals are gifted with organs ap- 
 parently without function, and the necessity of which 
 cannot be demonstrated; which, on the contrary, 
 could only exist to preserve the harmony and sym- 
 metry with regard to other species. 
 
 Murchison and Crawford join issue with Agassiz 
 against Darwin upon palseontological grounds, show- 
 ing that the evolution theory is not confirmed by the 
 changes which had taken place in the strata. 
 
 In his work on the fossil flora, 1864, in the Per- 
 mian formation, Goeppert shows that new species had 
 at all times risen and perished, but without being 
 connected with each other ; that the families reached 
 maturity soon after their coming into existence, and 
 that they maintained this maturity to the present 
 day ; that higher and less developed forms existed 
 cotemporaneously ; that generally speaking a deve- 
 lopment was not to be denied, but that it was strictly 
 limited within the legal bounds of the species, and 
 that not seldom relapses or retrogressions were to be 
 traced. What Goeppert did in respect to the flora, 
 was done by Reuss, in 1862, respecting the fauna, 
 showing the unsoundness of the theory under consi- 
 deration. 
 
 Dr. Hooker, though sympathising with Darwin, 
 disputed the applicability of the evolution theory to 
 the Hot a, which he had made his special study. 
 
CRITICISM OF THE E. THEORY 69 
 
 Though not stereotyped, yet species to him are a 
 reality, and they must be respected for ever as un- 
 changeable. Grisebach, in 1866, treating of the 
 flora of the West Indies, maintains that in the few 
 cases in which paleontology comprises a whole geolo- 
 gical period, no transition of one species to another 
 could be shown to have taken place, but every one 
 stood as independent of the other as they did in the 
 present order of things ; that every individual plant 
 was perfect in itself ; that the intermediate produc- 
 tions of hybridity were but temporary, and that there 
 was a constant tendency to relapse into the old and 
 long-established type of the species. 
 
 Oswald Heer, in Switzerland, 1865, shows that the 
 teaching of Darwin respecting the dying out of old 
 and the rising up of new species, was contrary to 
 facts. There exists, he holds, under the most varied 
 circumstances, such a unity and harmony of species, 
 through many thousands of years, that the flora of 
 the Swiss Alps could not be distinguished from those 
 of Greenland and Iceland. In the boundary strata, 
 he maintains, no traces could be found of the transi- 
 tion from one to the other. We observe a greater 
 tendency to hold fast to the natural type than to 
 that of a new species. Plants and animals, when 
 neglected, are more apt to relapse to their original 
 wild forms, as may be seen from the unfruitfulness 
 of bastards in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases. 
 Heer, believing in a periodicity of the earth and crea- 
 tion in general, corresponding to the seasons of the 
 year, is brought to the conviction that one great plan 
 underlies all development of nature. It appears to him 
 quite as childish to conceive creation as the result 
 of chance, or accident, as to conceive that one of the 
 symphonies of Beethoven could be explained by the 
 
70 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 accidental concurrence of so many dots upon the 
 paper. 
 
 M. Eaivre, whilst recognising among the ter- 
 mites from four to eight types within the same 
 normal polymorphistic species, yet asserts that this 
 variety was exceedingly rare, and instances the fact 
 that the royal tiger is the same from the Sunda 
 Islands to the North of Siberia. Nor is there any 
 plant known to botanists which, after being trans- 
 lated from one climate to another, or from the old 
 to the new world, has become the starting point of 
 a new species ; and, lastly, he urges that animals and 
 plants have for four or five thousand years re- 
 mained precisely the same. Hoffmann also, 1869, 
 has expressed himself most strongly against the 
 Darwinian theory. He holds that the acknow- 
 ledged variety within the species is 'less dependent 
 upon climate and chemical surroundings, than upon 
 some unknown internal potential cause ; and, judg- 
 ing from observations, extending over a period of 
 fourteen years, he gives it as his firm opinion that 
 the polymorphistic modifications never transgress 
 the typical boundary ; and that certain plants, both 
 cultivated and wild, have undergone no change 
 within historic periods. 
 
 More valuable than the " Examen du livre de 
 Darwin sur l'origine des esp^ces," 1864, by the 
 Physiologian Elourens, is the work of Rudolph 
 Wagner, who emphatically denies that there is 
 any sort of transition conceivable from the ape 
 to man, and that the existing affinities were of 
 a purely external character. The skull of the 
 Caucasian race is anatomically precisely the same 
 as that of the least favoured Negro, whilst that of 
 even the most favoured ape is infinitely remote ; the 
 
CRITICISM OF THE E. THEORY. 71 
 
 skulls recently discovered do not fill up the gap ; 
 the development of the brain in the human embryo 
 in a measure corresponds with that of the ape, but the 
 brain even of the greatest idiot is essentially different 
 from that of the ape, both in its convolutions and 
 the hemispheres. Wagner takes occasion from the 
 anthropological theories as they have shaped them- 
 selves in latter times, to show how suddenly a 
 hypothesis, such as that of universal evolution, can 
 fall into utter disrepute, though it may interest the 
 whole learned world for a given period ; and he pre- 
 dicts that it must be prepared for the same fate which 
 befel the geological theories of Werner and Elie de 
 Beaumont, which were at first received with uni- 
 versal acclamations by all sciologists, but abandoned 
 in a very few years. 
 
 Baer, in his lectures given in St. Petersburgh, says, 
 " No climate, food, or sickness can, in our experience, 
 convert the hind paw of the Orang-hutan into the 
 human foot, which in the whole creation is nowhere 
 repeated. Yea, if it were proved, which I believe is 
 possible, that the erect walk of man is due to the 
 development of the brain, and the higher develop- 
 ment of the brain to the higher spiritual faculties, 
 it may be asked, how such higher spiritual faculties 
 could possibly be attained by the Orang-hutan ? ' ' 
 
 Giebel, 1866, in his anti- Darwinian comparison of 
 the human skull and that of the Orang-hutan, comes 
 to this conclusion : — "As the result of our comparison, 
 we have to state that the skull of the so-called 
 anthropomorphous apes, the Gorilla, Chimpanse, and 
 Orang-hutan, * essentially and absolutely agrees 
 
 * Knowing something of Malay, I venture to state that Orang-hutan 
 is the more correct spelling than that of Orang-utan. Orang simply 
 means man, and hutan signifies wood, the man of the ivood. When 
 
72 CHAP, II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 with other mammals in every respect, but that it 
 essentially and absolutely differs in all respects 
 from that of man. Nowhere in the whole kingdom 
 of mammalia is there such a gulf as that separa- 
 ting the skull of man from the skull of the ape, and 
 as this same gulf exists in the entire organisation 
 of the bimana and quadrumana, we have to protest 
 against the one being grouped together with the 
 other." Karl Aeby declared, in 1867, after the 
 measurements of the skull by a new method, that 
 nowhere throughout the entire fauna was there a 
 similar gap, as the one which existed between man 
 and the ape ; nor were the fossil skulls of human 
 beings in any way calculated to diminish the gap. 
 
 The celebrated anatomist, Bischoff, 1867, cannot 
 bring himself to believe it possible that the differ- 
 ences in the skull, and the whole structure of the 
 organisms between man and the ape, could ever have 
 been overlooked ; and he protests against Huxley's 
 assertions as utterly untenable, that the brain of man 
 differed less from that of the Gorilla, Chimpanse 
 and Orang-hutan, than the brain of these differed 
 from the rest of the apes ; or that the lowest type 
 of man was not so far removed from the Gorilla as 
 the Gorilla was removed from the lowest ape ; or 
 that man differs more from man than from the 
 monkey. A powerful blow is inflicted to Darwinism 
 by Bischoff, when he thus argues :— " Had the organ- 
 isms power to transmit to their offspring certain 
 qualities of their own, it would not imply that they 
 could also transmit to their descendants qualities 
 
 Giebel speaks of Vergleiclmng der Menschen-und OrangscJuedel, it 
 so happens that one means just the same as the other, man or Mensch 
 being nothing more or less than Orang. Equally wrong is the spelling 
 of Orang-utang, which is still in use by some people. 
 
CRITICISM OF THE E. THEORY. 73 
 
 and properties not possessed by themselves ; the one 
 excluding the other, both powers could not be thought 
 to exist in one and the same being." Again, he 
 holds that from Darwin's reasoning it would further 
 follow, that as all former organisms were less perfect 
 than man, man as a matter of course, in the struggle 
 for existence, and to maintain his position, must have 
 remained alone upon earth ! 
 
 Virchow infers from the Egyptian, Assyrian, and 
 Arabian monuments, that no important changes have 
 been effected in either man or beast ; and, further 
 still, if the evolution hypothesis were to hold good, 
 it stood to reason that the palm-tree, the oak, the lion 
 and the eagle, must have developed themselves in 
 very different ways. If different, there was no 
 ground for assuming that the starting point was one 
 and the same. In the year 1870, the same sciologist 
 demonstrated that, whilst there was a similarity be- 
 tween the young ape and the child of man, that same 
 analogy decreased year by year and month after 
 month ; since all the subsequent development of the 
 monkey head was towards the organs of feed- 
 ing and breathing, and that the brain of the ape 
 grew less than any other part of the head. If, there- 
 fore, the brain of the ape represents the chief parts of 
 the human brain, and if the brain of the young ape 
 be seen to approximate to that of the human child, 
 it is very clear that from a certain period the deve- 
 lopment of the ape takes a contrary direction to that 
 of man, in which the one separates from the other 
 for ever. The legitimate, natural and progressive 
 development of the ape can, therefore, never make a 
 human being. The largest full-grown ape retains a 
 child's brain. The life, too, of the ape is generally 
 short ; the ape is born in maturity, as this almost 
 
74 OIIAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 constantly happens among animals, but never among 
 men, and the most advanced apes have obtained their 
 full age, when man has scarcely passed his childhood. 
 The microcephalics, according to Virchow, is a man, 
 whose head has been changed by sickness, but not of 
 an ape, and cannot, therefore, be considered as be- 
 longing to the same class. 
 
 Frederich Pfaff, 1868, puts the following dilemma : 
 One or other must take place, either the higher 
 organisation better fits the organisms for the struggle 
 of existence, or it does not. If the first be the case, 
 we cannot comprehend why. the lower organisms 
 should have prolonged their existence unchanged. 
 If the second be true, then the explanation which 
 Darwin gives of the formation of the higher 
 organisms is wholly unfeasible. Professor Eichte 
 shows that time, the shortness of which is deplored 
 by developists, could have no effect, since, if the laws 
 of nature were unchangeable, what is impossible now 
 was impossible at any other time. 
 
 3. The difficulties of the Evolution Hypothesis. 
 
 Some of the great difficulties have already been 
 pointed out. It remains to draw attention to some 
 other facts. A chief defect of the theory is that in 
 not starting from a given point marked out as the 
 beginning it has no historic basis. Both geology 
 and palseontology conclusively establish that the 
 universe has a commencement, and that it cannot 
 be eternal. Apart from this we are at last philo- 
 sophically certain that matter is not eternal, but that 
 from the beginning nature was endowed with very 
 wonderful properties by some intelligent will, and 
 this is the latest and grandest revelation of science 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE E. THEORY. 75 
 
 and nature conjointly. Professor Iluber, in his trea- 
 tise, "Die Lenre Darwin," argues that the inner 
 rind of the earth is as yet a sealed book, but that, as 
 far as we know, it is strictly azoic, or without fossil 
 inclosures. Hence it is clear that the organisms are 
 not without beginning, but there is a fixed term 
 when they commenced. 
 
 But natural philosophy goes a step further, and 
 proves that the entire cosmos is finite, not a perpe- 
 tuum mobile, not eternal, science, not theology, has 
 demonstrated that, judging from certain physical 
 laws, there must have been a beginning to the world, 
 and that there will be an end of it. In other 
 words, as there was a foundation of the world, it 
 will in due time pass away. Except some essential 
 points have been overlooked by science, the world 
 must have been created at no very remote period. 
 It is still further the undoubted result of exact 
 science, that the cosmos, as such, cannot have come 
 into existence by any purely physical process, and 
 this holds quite as good of the individual organisms 
 as of the universe itself ; and if this can be esta- 
 blished, the evolution theory is of necessity shown 
 to be a myth and a snare. 
 
 As regards the merits of the theory itself, it is 
 against all reason that the weaker and less developed 
 forms of organisms should have it in their power to 
 produce the stronger and more perfect ones, for what 
 I have not myself I cannot transmit to others. 
 Whenever matter surpasses itself there must be 
 stored up within it a power beyond its own. The 
 advocates of evolution cannot produce one single new 
 species to confirm its claims. On the contrary there 
 is everywhere a tenacity in nature to hold its own. 
 True, the developists object to our requiring proof of 
 
76 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the variation or constability from historic times, 
 because they are said to be too short to yield any 
 appreciable results. Yet if in the past few 
 thousand years these organisms have made no pro- 
 gress whatever in the upward ladder, we can scarcely 
 be made to believe in the progress they are said to 
 have made. The results may come about by the 
 smallest impulse, but in order to receive the doctrine 
 that vast changes have taken place, we must be able 
 to trace these small impulses. It is not fair to expect 
 us to believe that changes which have not taken 
 place as far as our knowledge goes, should have taken 
 place in those ages of which we can have no experi- 
 ence ; nor can we understand why the progress which 
 is said to have taken place in prior ages, should now 
 have stood still for some thousands of years. The de- 
 velopists feel that the force of experience is weighing 
 against them, hence they object that experience, 
 because too limited in their opinion, has no real 
 value. Instead of clinging to a few well-known 
 facts, and what really exists, they speak of what 
 might have been the case, resting their argument 
 upon a long chain of probabilities or possibilities in 
 by-gone ages. It is a stubborn fact, for instance, 
 that the corns of barley or oats now brought to light 
 in Egypt or Switzerland, and the forms of animals, as 
 still seen on the frescos of ancient monuments, are 
 precisely the same as those we now see. Then the 
 case of the hare and of the rabbit, which were for a 
 long time taken as of the same species, weighs 
 heavily against the theory of evolution. The two 
 have .become fertile in confinement ; but sterility 
 attaches to the offspring, and what is more, whilst 
 the rabbit is born naked and blind, and therefore 
 helplessly confined for a while to the cave, the hare 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE E. THEORY. 77 
 
 is born covered with hair, with his eyes wide open 
 and ready at once to run for its life. This seems to 
 reveal a wide chasm, which all the theories in the 
 world can never hope to fill up. 
 
 The natural selection theory rests upon two con- 
 ditions, which must be designated purely accidental ; 
 the one is a new formation in the existing organism, 
 by which the offspring is distinguished from its 
 parentage, the other is the retention and still further 
 development of that new formation. Darwin can 
 assign no foundation, or point out no law by which 
 the first is to take place. He ascribes the new forma- 
 tion to the influence of the reproductive powers of 
 the parents, but this influence makes itself felt not 
 by a rule but by the exception ; the rule is adverse 
 to the theory, and if the rule points to the existence 
 of a law, the existing law points clearly to the fact 
 that not the new formation, not the generatio 
 equivoca, but the generatio homogena, in other words 
 the likeness, not the unlikeness of the offspring with 
 its parents is the real law which prevails in nature. 
 The new formation is an accident, or a possible con- 
 tingency, which cannot be taken into account, in so 
 grave a matter, and with such issues at stake. 
 
 The less important the change in the organism 
 appears in itself — and all changes seem to be of the 
 most minute extent, — the more problematical must 
 needs be the further developing of that change in 
 future generations. If the rudimentary organs nre 
 left to lie dormant, instead of being exercised, they 
 will naturally die away, instead of being strength- 
 ened and developed. Only divine creative power 
 can produce what is not inherent in the organism 
 itself. If it be true that only useful changes are 
 produced by natural selection, how is it possible that 
 
78 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 during the slow process there should not occur 
 stages when the change is rather a hindrance than 
 a help and an acquisition ? 
 
 Again, as the new formation is purely accidental, 
 so is the maintenance, so also is the transmission to 
 the offspring and the further accummulation of the 
 variation which has been acquired. It is not enough 
 that the change is effected, but the two individuals 
 in which it has once taken place, must needs come 
 together to transmit it to their posterity. If acci- 
 dentally the gifted parents should have met, equally 
 fortuitous and fortunate circumstances would be 
 needed to perpetuate the variety once acquired and 
 to render them dominant. But such a chain of 
 favourable circumstances is too improbable and uncer- 
 tain a method by which the hopeful propagation of any 
 abnormity could be expected. Settegast observes that 
 abnormites, which had been accidentally acquired, 
 were rigidly excluded from being inherited, such as 
 mutilations of the body, or the piercing of the ear, 
 or of the nose, or the misshapen foot of the Chinese 
 lady, or the sign of circumcision. These, and other 
 artificial acquirements, though practised for thou- 
 sands of generations in each individual, have never 
 yet proved hereditary. A certain rare type of the 
 rook species of all crowing birds is alone without the 
 stiff feathers around the nostrils and the root of the 
 beak. They, too, have it whilst still in the nest, but 
 owing to their habit of boring into the earth for 
 food, they soon appear with a naked face, which they 
 preserve all their lives, no time being ever allowed 
 for the growth of the feathers ; yet no specimen is 
 ever fledged without them, though nature seems to 
 deny their having them long. 
 
 But nothing could surpass the inconsistency of 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE E. THEORY. 79 
 
 developists when all the results of artificial selection, 
 and of even greater ones, are unhesitatingly ascribed 
 to natural selection, since the direction given in the 
 former is altogether wanting in the latter case. In 
 ages gone by great changes may have taken place, 
 but to produce them no arresting of the steady pro- 
 gression must have intervened ; but the smallest 
 evidence that such a process has taken place does not 
 exist. Referring to Thomson's calculations, accord- 
 ing to which the earth has been inhabitable " for 
 only five hundred millions of years," a reviewer, in 
 the North British Review, holds that this period is 
 far too narrow to account for the changes said to 
 have been achieved by natural selection ; but Huber 
 and Seidel have mathematically demonstrated that 
 in no space of time, however wide, could such results 
 have been produced. 
 
 We will assume, for argument's sake, that among 
 a hundred individuals, there are four, two of each 
 gender, endowed with a certain new formation which 
 is to be transmitted ; and if we take one at random 
 out of this hundred, the probability that it belongs 
 to the chosen or specially gifted individuals would 
 be 4. 100 or 0,04, and that for both genders. If we 
 were to pick out an individual from the children of 
 the original hundred, the probability of its belonging 
 to the accidentally full-blooded descendants of the 
 first two pairs endowed with the peculiarity would 
 be 0,04 x = (0,04) 2 =0,0016... (Probability i.), and 
 this independent of the gender. 
 
 In taking asrain an individual at random out of 
 the second generation of descendants, the probability 
 of its being full-blooded would be equal to the square 
 figure of the probability of the preceding generation, 
 because now as then, the concurrence of the full- 
 
80 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 bloodedness of both the parents is indispensably 
 necessary. The probability is, therefore, now as 
 follows :— (0,0016) 2 =0,00000256... (Probability if). 
 In the third generation the analogous probability is 
 again the square of the previous figures and would 
 stand as follows :— (0,00000256) 2 = 0,00000000000 
 554... (Probability iii). In the fourth generation 
 there would be a further quadruplication of the 
 previous figures as follows : — 
 0,00000000000000000000004295 ... (Probability iv.) 
 etc., etc. 
 
 It will be seen that the numbers decrease very 
 rapidly, and more rapidly with each successive 
 generation. The decrease after a few stages by far 
 exceeds the increase of the full-blooded descendants 
 from generation to generation, so that after a few 
 stages the probability of full-blooded descendants 
 surviving wholly vanishes. If we take the usual 
 increase of population assumed by Malthus, that 
 every succeeding generation counts one hundred 
 times as many individuals as the preceding one, 
 which we assumed to be one hundred, the first 
 generation will count ten thousand individuals, the 
 second one million, the third one hundred millions, 
 etc. In order to obtain the probable number of the 
 full-blooded descendants in the first generation we 
 shall have to multiply the number under Probability 
 i. with 10,000 as follows :— 10,000 x 0,0016=16. 
 In other words, there are about 16 full-blooded ones 
 among the children. Just so we have to multiply 
 Probability ii. with the million of the grandchildren, 
 in order to obtain the probable number of the full- 
 blooded descendants, and we receive the following 
 figures, 100.0000 x 0,00000256=2,56. In other 
 words, it is highly improbable that there are three, but 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE EVOLUTION TD.EORY. 81 
 
 very probable that there are at least two full-blooded 
 descendants surviving. In the following generation 
 of great-grand-children, Probability iii. is to be 
 multiplied with 100,000,000 and we receive : — 
 0,000006554, already a very small figure. In other 
 words, it is highly improbable that a full-blooded 
 great-great-grandchild survives, and of course still 
 smaller will be the chance of such being the case in 
 the next generation. 
 
 There will be much the same result, if we substi- 
 tute a greater increase of a whole race, so as to mul- 
 tiply the numbers by 1,000 instead of 100 in each 
 succeeding generation. In this case we should receive 
 100,000 children, 100 millions of grandchildren, and 
 100,000 millions of great-grandchildren, and if the 
 numbers of Probabilities i. and ii., etc., are respec- 
 tively multiplied with the above figures we should 
 probably receive 160 full-blooded children, 256 
 full-blooded grandchildren, 0,6554 great-grand- 
 children, and 0,000000004295 great-great-grand- 
 children. In this case we could, therefore, expect 
 only one great-grandchild of the pure race, but 
 altogether improbable it would be that in the fourth 
 generation there would still subsist a trace of the 
 full blood. * 
 
 * Professor Seidel gives the following mathematical proof for the above, 
 which I insert in the origiual, from Huber's Lehre Darwins, page 253. 
 
 " Die Probabilitaet, dass irgend em unter der n ten Descendenz 
 herausgegriffenes Individuum von Vollblut befundeu werde, sei p n , 
 — bei der urspruenglichen Generation sei sic p (imBeispiel p = 0,04)- 
 So ist p n die Probabilitaet, dass gleichzeitig die beiden (der (n — l)ten 
 Descendenz angehoerigeu) Eltern des betreffenden Individuums von 
 Vollblut waren ; also p n = (pn— i) 2 , folglich pi = p 2 , p 2 =pi 2 = 
 p 4 ,...; allgemein p n = p 2n . Die Probabilitaet, dass ein ausgewaehltes 
 Individuum der n ten Descendenz kein Vollblut sei, ist dann 1 — p n . 
 Nimmt man 2 Individuen dicser n ten Generation, so ist die Proba- 
 
82 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 bilitaet, dass keines von ihnen Vollblut habe (1 — p H ) 2 , bei 3 
 (l_p n )3 bei M Individuen (1— p n ) M . Es werde nun angenommen, 
 dass die anfaengliche Anzahl der Individuen a sei, und dass jede 
 folgende Generation v mal mehr Individuen enthalte, als die 
 vorangehende, also die erste Descendenz a v, die zweite a v 2 , die 
 dritte a v 3 u. s. w.., die n te a v n . Man nehme jezt fuer M diese 
 Totalzahl der Individuen n*er Descendenz, also M = a^, so ist also 
 die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass unter ihnen kein einziges Vollblut 
 hat = (l — p n ja ^ n d. b., mit dem vorhin abgeleiteten Werthe von 
 p n = (1 — p 2n )a v n . Ich werde zeigen, dass bei wachsenden Werthen 
 von n (also wenn man zu immer spaeteren Generationen geht) dieser 
 Ausdruck sich sehr rasch der 1 naehert, d. h. class die Probabilitaet, 
 das Vollblut sei ausgestorben, sich sehr schnell der Gewissheit 
 annaehert. Ich betrachte zu dem Ende den Logarithmus des 
 gefundenen Ausdrucks, d. i. 
 
 log. (1 — p 2n ) a^n = av n l g. (1 — p 2n) 
 Da p ein aechter Bruch ist, kann man hier in eine Reihe entwickeln, 
 die wenn 2 n nur maessig gross ist, aeusserst rasch convergiren muss, 
 so dass nach bekannten mathematischen Betrachtungen die Summe 
 aller spaeteren Glieder viel kleiner ist als clas erste allein. Dies 
 erste ist aber (unter Boraussetzung des Gebrauchs natuerlicher 
 Logarithmen)— a v n p2 n . Ich setze v = 2 b oder b = g|; \ ; dann 
 ist v n = 2 b n oder wenn man zur Abkuerzung 2 n = N setzt, so ist 
 v n = N b und der Ausdruck wird — a N b p N - Da aber hier p ein 
 aechter Bruch ist, so wird nach einem bekannten Satze der Analysis 
 dieser Ausdruck bei zunehmenden Werthen von N (oder von n), 
 ungeachtet des Wachsens seinesFaktors N b , sehr rasch abnehmen ; 
 fuer maessige Werthe von n (welche bereits sehr grosse Werthe von 
 N bedingen) ist also das erste Glied des Logarithmus ueberaus 
 klein, — aind da die Summe aller folgenden, wie oben bemerkt, 
 noch viel kleiner sein muss, ist der Logarithmus der betrachteten 
 Wahrscheinlichkeit sehr nahe oder die Wahrscheinlichkeit selbst 
 sehr nahe 1 (sehr nahe der Gewissheit). 
 
 Only in the first generation, therefore, is an 
 increase to be expected ; then begins a sudden dying 
 out, as the figures will prove ; and yet Haeckel, the 
 fiery defender of Darwinism on the Continent, de- 
 clares that the origin of new species by the natural 
 selection, or their multiplication in the struggle for 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE EVOLUTION THEORY. 83 
 
 existence, was a mathematical certainty, forgetting 
 that he had himself allowed that the full-blooded 
 descendants could only secure their purity of race if 
 they were isolated and separated from the old stock. 
 
 But over and above these calculations, which alone 
 are sufficient to make men pause in advocating the 
 theory of evolution, there is the constant effort of 
 nature to return to its fundamental types, by which 
 new formations are constantly paralysed. This law 
 of compensation, demonstrated by Wagner as holding 
 good in all new formations which have come about 
 in the propagation of animals in a free state, has 
 been observed to be a general law in nature. All 
 mechanical oscillation is followed by compensation. 
 The moon, in its orbit around the earth, has its 
 librations, or oscillations ; the earth, in its revolu- 
 tions, has its nutations within each successive cycle 
 of 18 years ; there are likewise perturbations and 
 deviations in the planetary orbits, but in each case 
 there is the fullest compensation. Just so there 
 is a compensation by which new formations have 
 taken place, as it is called by natural selection, to 
 which Wagner first drew attention. Again, the 
 representatives of every type of organism, as seen 
 flourishing peaceably side by side upon every stage, 
 must be very perplexing to the developists, since 
 according to them only one organism could maintain 
 its position while all others are suppressed. On 
 examining fossil strata it is very plain that there are 
 only very few classes of animals or plants which 
 are not represented at present; and it will be 
 our fault if we fail to see that not only is there no 
 strusrsrle whatever for existence, but, on the contrary, 
 the most perfect harmony and concord. 
 
 As there is no struggle for existence between male 
 and female, between parents and children, so there 
 
84 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 is none between the species of the flora and fauna 
 which are seen to supplement and maintain each 
 other. The entire cosmos is so constructed that 
 the higher organism rests upon the lower, and 
 the lower in its turn reacts beneficially upon 
 the higher. I submit the following illustra- 
 tions of Huber:— The organisms depend not only 
 upon inorganic nature but they also live upon each 
 other. The elements from which the plant is formed 
 are not taken up in a pure and unmixed state, but 
 only in certain combinations of air, water, and earth. 
 The nature of the soil is known to affect the nature 
 of plants as well as the colour of the flowers or 
 blossoms. Like the plant, the animal substance also 
 consists mostly of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and 
 nitrogen, but the animal cannot assimilate these 
 elements in their pure state in the same way as the 
 plant ; it lives, on the contrary, on organic matter 
 which has been formed in vegetable or animal bodies, 
 and this food is subjected to a process of digestion 
 within its own system. As the life of the plant is 
 dependent upon the combination of inorganic matter, 
 so that of the herbivorous animal is dependent upon 
 the existence of the organic matter in the vegetable 
 kingdom. Again, the carnivorous animals depend 
 for existence upon the herbivorous. If there be rich 
 combinations of inorganic matter, the flora will be 
 rich ; again the herbivorous animals abound in pro- 
 portion to the richness of vegetation, just as the 
 carnivorous animals abound in proportion to the 
 herbivorous animals. The consumption of vegetation 
 by the herbivorous, and of these by the carnivorous 
 animals is a necessity in the economy of nature. 
 
 But instead of the elements thus treasured up in 
 the organisms lying fallow, they are again profitably 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE EVOLUTION THEORY. 85 
 
 exchanged. The animal world gives back to vegeta- 
 tion what it has borrowed, and thus it provides indi- 
 rectly for the maintenance of vegetation, whilst 
 directly it provides for its own maintenance. The 
 plants are nourished by the animal, and the animals 
 again are nourished by the plants. As the animal 
 world depends upon the vegetable, so innumerable 
 animals, especially insects, begin and end their 
 existence upon plants, and so intimate is their 
 connection with the plants that the body of the 
 animal, as in the case of the leaf-insect, and stick- 
 insect, has limbs similar to that of plants, its air 
 vessels resemble those of the spiral vessels of the 
 plant ; even the colour of the animal is the same as 
 that of the plant. Many, too, are the services which 
 these insects render to the vegetable world, by 
 distributing the pollen as widely as it is intended. 
 Parasites always take the existence of those bodies 
 for granted upon which they themselves subsist. 
 The climbing plants have need of others for their 
 support ; innumerable specimens can only prosper 
 under the protection and shade of other plants ; and, 
 again, very many animals enjoy the hospitality of 
 others. 
 
 It is known to most people in what important 
 ways vegetation subserves the animal, by exhala- 
 tions as well as by affording nourishment, just 
 as the animals, in their turn, subserve vegetation. 
 By respiration the animal endeavours to repay to the 
 plant some of the elements it has borrowed ; then 
 there is the manure of the living, and the decom- 
 position of the dead body. Enough to show that 
 instead of there being a simple warfare, or a fierce 
 and deadly struggle for existence, there is a constant 
 friendly exchange and ministering to each other of 
 
86 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the members of the cosmos ; yea, animals which 
 appear loathsome in themselves have their high and 
 necessary function in the great economy of life. 
 Even beasts of prey have their beneficent share in 
 the working out of the purposes of the universe, and 
 they become as needful in their way as the harmless 
 plant, which subserves the process of life in the 
 animal kingdom. 
 
 Lastly, what can render the evolution theory more 
 untenable than the well-known fact, that all the 
 elements needed for the higher organisms must, first 
 of all, pass through the vegetable spheres before they 
 can be of service to us, yea for thousands of animals 
 they have to pass through other animals, and that of a 
 certain class of animals, before they can become food 
 to them. Erom this plan, by which man is not 
 brought into direct contact with the rudimentary 
 elements in creation, but can obtain his food only 
 through higher vegetable and animal forms, it is 
 clear beyond all doubt that there is a strong sym- 
 pathy between the plant, the animal and man, 
 revealing a state of dependence of the one upon the 
 other, and showing that the one cannot exist without 
 the other. In other words, instead of the grim 
 strus;cHe for life and existence, there is the fullest 
 
 DO 
 
 harmony and union in which one member ministers 
 to the other. And if the whole cosmos be an organism 
 of a higher sort, in which all the members are helpful 
 to each other, it also stands to reason, that one 
 member could not evolve out of the other, nor at 
 different times from each other. The brain is not 
 formed from the heart, nor does the eye ever grow 
 out of the ear. 
 
HOW THE MONKEY BECAME A MAN. 87 
 
 4. General Appreciation of the Hypothesis. 
 
 Before adding a single observation of my own on 
 the fully developed materialism and physiolatry of 
 the evolution hypothesis, I shall give the outlines of 
 a sketch by Eraw, purporting to describe the tedious 
 process by which the ape became gradually endowed 
 with a human body and with a reasonable mind. 
 The sketch confines itself to one special section of 
 the inquiry, but the principles which govern the 
 whole may be most conveniently tested by applying 
 them to any special part. In the year 187,100 
 before our era, we are told, there lived a Chimpanse 
 in Africa, to whom posterity gave the name of 
 Charles. In keeping with the ape's unchange- 
 able instinct, Charles one morning greatly desired 
 some of the delicious nuts which abounded on the 
 surrounding lofty trees. He quickly climbed one of 
 them, but as he was reaching a branch covered with 
 ripe fruit he fell, and with the act of falling com- 
 menced the struggle for existence. When he reached 
 the bottom he not only felt sadly bruised, but disco- 
 vered to his dismay that his left hinder leg was 
 broken. Though quickly surrounded by his wife 
 and children, they could not assist him ; yet, thanks 
 to the providence of Natural Selection, the struggle 
 he was engaged in produced a change for the good of 
 himself and his race. The longing for something 
 was considerably enhanced ; it was no longer the 
 longing only for nuts, but to prolong his existence ; 
 and ere long he was empowered to transmit the 
 feelings and longings which then filled his own 
 bosom, to his posterity. 
 
 The next period of 7,000 years was exclusively 
 devoted to the study of natural selection, with a 
 
88 CHAP II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 view to bring about some advantageous change in 
 the shape of his limbs. The accident of Charles, in 
 which his hind paw was fractured, directed attention 
 to those parts ; indeed, there seemed to be an improve- 
 ment of the limb when restored, compared with what 
 it was before the fall. Charles himself, too, felt con- 
 vinced that, come what may, he must not venture 
 on trees as heretofore. So, by degrees, the hinder 
 paws became more and more adapted for walking, 
 and less suited for climbing purposes. At all events, 
 a beginning of improvement was made. 
 
 Another Chimpanse, of great fame, was born in 
 the year 180,000 before our era ; he was destined, 
 though we are not told by whom, to advance still 
 further in the way of improvement, so auspiciously 
 commenced by Charles and his race. The wise and 
 learned pithekists, as Eraw calls them, or Pithe- 
 kosonians, as I should prefer calling them, ape in 
 Greek being ipitliekos, who regard the monkey as the 
 great patriarch of their illustrious race, in their 
 palseontological records give him the name of Karl, 
 who was to carry on the struggle for existence and 
 to advance by all lawful means in the interests of 
 natural selection. 
 
 One day Karl sat before his hut of palm 
 branches, looking out into the blue sky, engaged 
 inwardly in the great struggle for existence, and 
 longing outwardly for something, he himself knew 
 not what. He suddenly observed something float- 
 ing towards him on a wave ; when it came near 
 it proved to be one of the erratic blocks, or one of 
 the large masses of rock, which were frequently seen 
 afloat in those days, and upon the erratic block sat a 
 live specimen of the northern bear. As the flood 
 came rushing from the North over the great Sahara, 
 
HOW THE MONKEY BECAME A MAN. 89 
 
 towards Central Africa, the bear was in his proper 
 place, sailing towards the South, Karl threw himself 
 bravely into the struggle for existence ; it was some- 
 thing to rouse his attention, and observing the peril 
 which threatened him, fled to the top of the nearest 
 mountain, which he reached just in time to see 
 the floating mass settle upon his hut, the bear jump- 
 ing down as soon as the waters disappeared. Karl 
 in the struggle acquired the gift of observation, and 
 he found no difficulty whatever in handing it down 
 to his son and heir. 
 
 The observations, made for many centuries after 
 the event, could not fail to influence the bodily 
 appearance of the Chimpanse ; the ears gradually 
 rounded, the world, the great object of his ob- 
 servation being round; the eyes were set in his 
 head more straight, for a straight line is the shortest 
 way between the observer and the things observed ; 
 and thus for 40,000 years the privileged race of 
 Karl moved forward on the road of improvement, 
 observing not only erratic blocks floating from 
 north to south and from east to west, but even com- 
 mon objects, a true gain for the future pithe- 
 kosonians. And yet, compared with the progress 
 made by another hero, Louis, who appeared on the 
 scene in the year 140,000 before our era, it was com- 
 paratively trifling. 
 
 Louis inherited the struggle for existence from his 
 ancestors, and to revenge the murder of some of his 
 children by a bear, he commenced his career by 
 killing the murderer. On coming to the spot 
 shortly after he observed nothing but the mere 
 skeleton of the bear, the ants having devoured every 
 morsel of flesh. Louis paused in deep, solemn 
 thought ; he observed the skeleton well, and presently 
 
90 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the image of the bear as he was came before his 
 mind's eye ; he could supply from his recollection 
 all that was lacking. That was not all. The sight 
 of the naked skeleton, with the unstuffed, unuphol- 
 stered bones of the bear, had inspired a sort of terror, 
 and as he yielded to the feeling of alarm, Louis felt 
 a smart pricking sensation in that part of the body 
 where human beings now carry a covering of flesh, 
 called the calf of the leg. What this pricking sensa- 
 tion signified his descendants happily lived to enjoy, 
 for, according to Ly ell's calculation, the calves were 
 satisfactorily developed after some 40,000 years 
 more ; the first impulse having been given when 
 Louis contemplated the skeleton of the bear who had 
 murdered his children. 
 
 Thus it will be seen how, in the successive stages 
 of the simple struggle for existence, a being had come 
 into existence, half-ape, half-man, the creature 
 standing on his hind legs adorned with calves, with 
 all but human eyes and ears, furnished with intense 
 longing desire, possessing the gift of not only obser- 
 vation but also of imagination, and all this was the 
 happy result of 87,100 years. It may seem slow 
 work to some people ; but still there was progress, and 
 we cannot feel surprised that the Pithekosonians 
 contemplate raising a joint monument in every 
 great city of Europe and America to the memory of 
 Charles, Karl, and Louis, the three great patriarchs 
 of pre-historic apedom. 
 
 Yet all was not accomplished ; hence the intense 
 longing with which the ape-man looked out and 
 glanced upward to the blue sky of the perpetual 
 summer of his native land. The mutation which 
 had taken place in his limbs prevented his climbing 
 trees, and it was difficult to find food on the ground. 
 
HOW THE MONKEY BECAME A MAN. 91 
 
 The faculty of observing had its advantages ; but 
 then it made him fear where no fear was ; and 
 many of the changes which had taken place were 
 not practically conducive to his personal comfort. 
 The struggle for existence seemed to get hotter every 
 day, and we must consider it as a result of this struggle 
 that Rudolf, the true father of logic, was born 
 on the banks of the Niger. The river swelling dur- 
 ing the rainy season, several times nearly brought 
 ruin to Rudolf and his family. He set to work, 
 therefore, to study the ins and outs of the dangerous 
 river ; he formed notions, ideas, conceptions, and made 
 his observations about its level, its shores, and the 
 increase and decrease of its waters. The result was 
 the happy thought of driving piles into the ground, 
 and of building his hut sufficiently high upon them, 
 so as not to be molested in future by the overflowing 
 of the river. The lasting memorials of this happy 
 thought of Rudolf are the famous Pfahlbauten in 
 various parts of the world. 
 
 Rudolf's posterity was greatly benefited by the 
 discovery of these logical conceptions, and to stimu- 
 late the reflections of later Pithekosonians they cast 
 into various rivers flint instruments, bones and frag- 
 ments of earthenware, or they buried them carefully 
 in kjoekkenmoeddings and other heaps of rubbish. 
 It was now felt that the time had come to give more 
 attention to the personal appearance of the race of 
 ape-men, and this became the great object during the 
 next 50,000 years. Rudolf's posterity could not fail 
 observing that further modifications must take place, 
 especially in the hip-bone, to harmonise with the 
 steady progress of evolution. The subject of the 
 hip-bone had caused Rudolf himself much anxious 
 thought, but it was onlv in the third generation that 
 
92 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 a certain individual, with a great deal of phosphor in 
 his brain, discovered that to walk upright it needed a 
 certain balance attached to the body itself. Once 
 rightly conceived nothing further was needed but 
 to lay these acts of longing for this natural balance 
 into future acts of generation. The grandson of 
 Hudolf did so ; and behold he had the satisfaction 
 of perceiving at once the necessary improvement in 
 his children. This greatly promoted the position 
 of Rudolf's descendants, but something occurred 
 towards the close of the year 50,000 before our era, 
 which seemed even more important than the an- 
 atomical change just named. 
 
 In the early part of that year Ernest was sitting 
 in the dusk of the evening, before his hut, waiting 
 for Ernestine, his spouse, to prepare his supper, when 
 to his dismay he saw a snow-white figure making its 
 way towards the tent, and in his fright he was about 
 to smite the strange apparition to the ground. It 
 was Ernestine, who had fallen into a lime-pit ; hence 
 the marked change in her appearance. When he 
 recognised his wife he exclaimed, " The monkey is 
 black, — my wife is white." Here was the first step 
 towards forming a correct judgment upon the things 
 observed, and it was formed in the struggle for 
 existence. Ernestine was not slow to appreciate the 
 compliment thus given, and she failed not at once to 
 transmit to her offspring not only the faculty of 
 judging, but also to many of them the whiteness of 
 skin which she had so unexpectedly acquired ; and 
 endless are the judgments which have since been 
 formed among the Pithekosonians, most of whom, 
 moreover, inherited the white skin of their mother 
 Ernestine. 
 
 It will not be surprising to learn that it soon be- 
 
HOW THE MONKEY BECAME A MAN. 93 
 
 came desirable that the new race of ape-men should 
 separate from the original stock, with whom 
 neither the struggle for existence, nor natural 
 selection, had produced the progress acquired by 
 themselves. Still, there were some things needing 
 improvement ; and not the least was the removal of 
 the ugly monkey hair, which still stuck to the race. 
 Calling his wife and children around him, he made 
 them all set to work gently to pull out the obnoxious 
 hair, and from what we know from other instances, 
 recorded in the history of natural development, it 
 will not surprise us to learn that the beautiful 
 hairless form thus produced soon repeated itself in 
 the children of his posterity. It certainly did not 
 prove an unmixed benefit, for even in Africa there 
 are chilly nights and cold winds, as well as hot burn- 
 ing rays of the sun, all of which sadly tried the 
 beautiful naked skin of the ape-man. lie did all 
 he could to mitigate the evil, but it often nearly cost 
 him his life. 
 
 Some 3,760 years before our era, a further change 
 was effected in the bodily appearance of the 
 Pithekosonian race. Nature kindly turned back the 
 uncomely snout, modified the cheek-bones, and made 
 the cheeks come out round and rosy, the tongue, 
 too, became shorter and thicker, to prepare for future 
 articulation ; but, strange to say, the nose was left in 
 its true position, so as conveniently to be poked into 
 things which do not concern him. Thus the ape- 
 man, or, better, the Pithekosonian, in his struggle 
 for existence, completed his development, with 
 the exception of one serious deficiency. lie had 
 acquired the faculty of longing, of observing, and of 
 judging, but these qualities happen to be possessed 
 by dogs, horses, elephants, and other animals ; the 
 
94 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 chief point, however, by which man became later 
 distinguished from the brute is his capacity for appre- 
 hending spiritual things. The struggle for existence 
 seems only to have become fruitful amidst danger 
 or want, but never when there was blessing and 
 enjoyment. Hence, the total absence in the Pithe- 
 kosonian of the faculty of perceiving spiritual things, 
 or of power to believe in the existence of a Divine 
 Being as the first cause of all things. It might, 
 indeed, be urged that the term for the acquisition 
 of such an exalted faculty was too short, being only 
 5633 years. Since the immense ages required, accord- 
 ing to Lyell, to produce the smallest bodily change, 
 we need not despair of this new Pithekosonian race 
 yet raising themselves to the knowledge of the 
 unseen, the supernatural, and the divine. 
 
 If, however, this hope were not to be fulfilled there 
 is some consolation in the fact that just about the time 
 when the Pithekosonians made the discovery that 
 they were no longer real monkeys, another race seems 
 to have sprung up, professing to have been made 
 by God, and this human race seem to have possessed 
 the faculties of longing, observing, and judging 
 from the very beginning, and to have started their 
 career with the power of perceiving spiritual and 
 supernatural truths, of which the Pithekosonians 
 are to this day utterly destitute. In spite of deep 
 research into their palseontological records, we are 
 quite unable to ascertain whence the ape-man ob- 
 tained the same language which has been spoken by 
 the human race from the beginning. Darwin, indeed, 
 in his work, treating of the " Descent of Man," writes 
 as follows : — " Some extraordinarily wise ape-like 
 animal might, perhaps, have hit upon the idea of 
 imitating the roaring of a beast of prey to direct the 
 
HOW THE MONKEY BECAME A MAN. 95 
 
 attention of its fellows to the danger which was 
 threatening ; and this, perhaps, was the first step to 
 the formation of a language !" We may throw out 
 the hint that language might possibly have from 
 man been acquired by the Pithekosonians, for the 
 explanation here given can scarcely be meant to be 
 serious. 
 
 Such are some of the happy conjectures of Eraw 
 on the merits of the evolution theory. The value of 
 a satire depends on the real amount of truth which 
 it embodies to preserve the actual likeness ; and no 
 one can fail to perceive the force of the well- 
 merited sarcasm contained in the above sketch. The 
 same inconsistencies which adhere to the evolution 
 of man from the ape attach to other branches of 
 organisms. In order to account for the existence of 
 the mane in the male lion, Haeckel assumes that once 
 it happened accidentally that a lion was endowed 
 with this ornamental mane ; and in a certain 
 struggle for existence at a season which need not 
 fully be specified, that individual lion was protected 
 from the ferocious bites of his rivals, and so 
 succeeded in handing down the glorious mane to 
 his posterity. The abnormal shape of the leaf of the 
 Begonia has its analogy in a certain well-known 
 crooked-mouthed fish ; but the origin of the one-sided 
 
 mouth of the little fish is described as follows : 
 
 Some millions of years ago (Haeckel assumes) the 
 fish having laid down at the bottom of the sea, 
 turned its head to look upward, until by dint of 
 unceasing practice it acquired its present shape! 
 Such is the character of the hypothesis of develop- 
 ment or evolution. 
 
 In adding further proof of the inconsistency of 
 the evolution theory, I suggest that if the principle 
 
96 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 hold good in the organic, it must hold good in the 
 inorganic world. In other words, if the animal 
 organisms of the fauna he evolved from something 
 more simple and primitive, it stands to reason that 
 the sixty-five chemical elements should in like 
 manner he educed from one or two more simple and 
 more primitive elements ; hut the man who is to 
 trace that evolution has not yet appeared ; nor is he 
 likely ever to appear. The argument, therefore, 
 would he, that if nature commenced its course with a 
 great variety of inanimate chemical ohjects, there is 
 no reasonable cause why this variety and multiplicity 
 should not exist in the sphere of living organisms. 
 As long as no process he hinted at which would imply 
 the transmutation of the chemical elements into one 
 another, which underlie the formation of our earth 
 as the mother of all organisms, it will likewise appear 
 more rational to admit the like variety in the 
 beginnings of the flora and the fauna. 
 
 Again, if natural selection produce certain effects 
 (though the mystery of being is not in the least 
 solved by assuming that one being evolves out of the 
 other being), it must not be forgotten, that there is also 
 a natural resistance or a tendency in nature to re- 
 main in static quo ; hence the mysterious sterility of 
 bastards. If man have gradually evolved from the 
 lower strata of existence, we must of necessity be 
 able to trace specimens of the human kind, if not 
 whole races which are in a state of transition, or 
 which stand at least much nearer the lower kind of 
 animals than to the fully developed man. Which are 
 they ? "Where shall we look for these half-developed 
 human beings, either in the strata of the rocks or 
 among the living organisms which now fill the 
 earth ? They are nowhere to be seen ; hence the 
 
GENERAL ESTIMATE OF EVOLUTION. 97 
 
 missing links are never produced. Darwin assumes 
 that all plants and animals spring from four or 
 five different types, but thinks it possible that all 
 originated from one single form. That man raised 
 himself from the original type, he has not the wild 
 courage to assert ; but no one can escape from this 
 most necessary conclusion ; and what he is diffident 
 in claiming, his disciples proclaim from the house- 
 tops. Nor has Lamark maintained any such reserve ; 
 on the contrary, he deemed it simply prejudice which 
 resisted the natural inference. We need not blush, 
 we are told, to receive the pious lessons evolution 
 teaches. The dog inculcates fidelity, the ant and the 
 bee diligence, the ass patience, etc., etc. Indeed, in 
 this country the same lessons were taught as far back 
 as the publication of the book called the " Vestiges of 
 the Creation." Possibly, it will be objected to our 
 strictures that none but a natural philosopher, who 
 is deeply versed in all the mysteries of nature, can 
 appreciate their deep truths. We simply reply 
 that it is easy enough to believe ourselves more 
 clever than our neighbours ; and most certainly this 
 will never do away with the grave objections which 
 weigh against the transmutation hypothesis. 
 
 Some sharp-witted critic has reminded the develop- 
 ists, in rather more explicit language than I am 
 inclined to use, that a certain small creature belong- 
 ing to the species of the zoophytes, can only live 
 and thrive on the human body ; and he insists upon 
 this fact alone as sufficiently potent to overthrow 
 the entire theory of the evolution. But there is 
 something really sad and melancholy, which will 
 not admit of the subject being treated lightly. It 
 is the practical injury and moral wrong which is 
 perpetrated by the theory against the human race. 
 
98 CHAP. II. GENESIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 If man be thus rudely deprived of his manhood, we 
 shall very quickly perceive not an upward progres- 
 sive, but a retrogressive, downward evolution and 
 development, which will cover those with dismay 
 that have done their utmost to spread these senti- 
 ments of natural evolution. A tediously slow pro- 
 gress is assumed, which is said to have taken place 
 by imperceptible stages. But speedy shall be the 
 advent of terror in which the whole theory or system 
 shall finally collapse, when there shall suddenly 
 "evolve" a race of human tigers, foxes, dragons, 
 scorpions, snakes, wolves, and crocodiles, which, 
 like a terrible scourge, shall fall upon society, the 
 State, the Church, and the family ; for man will 
 hold his own only so long as he holds his noble origin, 
 which the heathen sage proclaimed when he said, 
 " We are his offspring." Is it likely that the " Bible 
 of the Future," of which the following specimen 
 is published by an American paper, will practically 
 cure the ills of humanity, and establish its happiness 
 upon an everlasting foundation ? I almost shrink 
 from inserting what sounds like blasphemy ; yet, as 
 it contains the most withering sarcasm that can fall 
 upon the advocates of the evolution hypothesis, it 
 shall be inserted : — 
 
 GENESIS.— Chapter 1. 
 
 " 1. Primarily the Unknowable moved upon cosmos and evolved 
 protoplasm. 
 
 2. And protoplasm was inorganic and undifferentiated, contain- 
 ing all things in potential energy ; and a spirit of evolution moved 
 upon the fluid mass. 
 
 3. The Unknowable said, Let atoms attract ; and their contact 
 begat light, heat, and electricity. 
 
 4. And the Unconditioned differentiated the atoms, each after 
 its kind ; and their combinations begat rock, air, and water. 
 
 5 - And there went out a spirit of evolution from the TTncon- 
 
THE BIBLE OP THE FUTURE. 99 
 
 ditioned, and working in protoplasm, by accretion and absorption, 
 produced the organic cell. 
 
 6. And cell by nutrition evolved primordial germ, and germ 
 developed protogene, and protogene begat eozoon, and eozoon begat 
 monad, and monad begat animalcule. 
 
 7. And animalcule begat ephemera ; then began creeping things 
 to multiply on the face of the earth. 
 
 8. And earthy atom in vegetable protoplasm begat the molecule, 
 and thence came all grass, and every herb in the earth. 
 
 9. And animalcule in the water evolved fins, tails, claws, and 
 scales ; and in the air wings and beaks ; and on the land they 
 sprouted such organs as were necessary, as played upon by the 
 environment. 
 
 10. And by accretion and absorption came the radiata and 
 mollusca; and mollusca begat articulata, and articulata begat 
 vertebrata. 
 
 11. Now these are the generations of the higher vertebrata, in 
 the cosmic period that the Unknowable evoluted the bipedal 
 mammalia, 
 
 12. And every man of the earth, while he was yet a monkey, 
 and the horse while he was an hipparian, and the hipparian before 
 he was an oredon. 
 
 13. Out of the ascidian came the amphibian, and begat the 
 pentadactyle ; and the pentadactyle, by inheritance and selection, 
 produced the hylobate, from which are the simiada3 in all their 
 tribes. 
 
 14. And out of the simiadse the lemur prevailed above his 
 fellows, and produced the platyrhine monkey. 
 
 15. And the platyrine begat the catarrhine, and the catarrhine 
 monkey begat the anthropoid ape, and the ape begat the 
 longimanous orang, and the orang begat the chimpanze, and the 
 chimpanze evoluted the what-is-it. 
 
 16. And the what-is-it went into the land of Nod, and took him 
 a wife of the longimanous gibbons. 
 
 17. And in process of the cosmic period were born unto them 
 and their children the anthropomorphic primordial types. 
 
 18. The homunculus, the prognathus, the troglodyte, the 
 autochthon, the terragene — these are the generations of primeval 
 man. 
 
 19. And primeval man was naked and not ashamed, but lived 
 in quadrumanous innocence, and struggled mightily to harmonise 
 witli the environment. 
 
100 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 20. And by inheritance and natural selection did he progress 
 from the stable and homogeneous to the complex and heterogeneous 
 — for the weakest died and the strongest grew and multiplied. 
 
 21. And man grew a thumb for that he had need of it, and 
 developed capacities for prey. 
 
 22. For, behold, the swiftest men caught the most animals, and 
 the swiftest animals got away from the most men : wherefore the 
 slow animals were eaten and the slow men starved to death. 
 
 23. And as types were differentiated the weaker types continually 
 disappeared. 
 
 24. And the earth was filled with violence : for man strove with 
 man, and tribe with tribe, whereby they killed off the weak and 
 foolish, and secured the survival of the fittest." 
 
 It is recorded of Count Zinzendorf , that sitting on 
 horseback in one of the fields on his estate, he was 
 seen in tears looking intently upon a toad ; on being 
 asked the reason of his emotion, he replied that he 
 was overwhelmed by a sense of God's great goodness 
 and of his own ingratitude, since in all his life he 
 had never yet thanked God for not making him so 
 hideous a creature as the toad he was contemplating. 
 And to this, not inaptly, may be added some remarks 
 of Professor Pritchard, respecting the anti-teleological 
 tendency of the evolution theory. He says : "Among 
 other arguments, Mr. Wallace observes that the 
 lowest type of savages are in possession of capacities 
 far beyond any use to which they can apply them in 
 their present condition, and therefore they could not 
 have been evolved from the mere necessities of their 
 environments. Prolepsis or anticipation, I may add, 
 involves intention and a will. For my own part, I 
 Avould carry Mr. Wallace's remark upon savages 
 much further, and apply it to ourselves. We, too, 
 possess powers immeasurably beyond the necessities 
 of any merely transitory life. There stir within 
 us yearnings irrepressible, longings unutterable, a 
 curiosity unsatisfied and insatiable by ought we see. 
 
ORIGIN AND SPECIES OF MANKIND. 101 
 
 These appetites and passions come to us, not as 
 Socrates and Plato supposed, or as our own great poet 
 sings, from the grim recollection of some former state 
 of our being, still less from the delusive inheritance 
 of our progenitors : they are the indications of some- 
 thing within us, akin to something immeasurably 
 beyond us ; tokens of something attainable, yet not 
 hitherto attained ; signs of a potential fellowship 
 with spirits nobler and more glorious than our own ; 
 they are the title-deeds of our presumptive heirship 
 to some brighter world than any that has yet been 
 found among the starry spangles of the skies." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 1. The Origin, Species, and Unity of Mankind. 
 
 The polygenistic theory, which has suffered a 
 great shock by the hypothesis treated in the previous 
 chapter, assumes a plurality of progenitors. The // 
 Caucasians, Mongols, Negroes, Red Indians, and 
 Papuas are supposed to spring from so many Adams. 
 The so-called prce-adamite theory was first pro- 
 pagated by the Swiss alchymist and theosopher, 
 Paracelsus, in the sixteenth century ; and a hundred 
 years later it was warmly advocated by Isaac de la 
 Peyrere. Still more recently, the school of thought 
 represented by Charles Lyell reproduced the theory 
 in order to support their claims for the high antiquity 
 of man ; but it is now generally acknowledged to be 
 destitute of either historical, scientific, or theological 
 proof. Yet without prejudging the question from a 
 
102 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 purely theological or historical point of view, can we 
 uphold the polygenistic origin of our race as most in 
 accordance with the scientific results of anatomical 
 and physiological science? 
 
 Andreas Wagner, after twenty years of hard 
 labour and careful observation, has arrived at the 
 conclusion that a species consists of individuals 
 severally resembling each other, all reproduc- 
 ing their like, and all transmitting the power 
 to their offspring of propagating themselves and of 
 producing their like. This being the case with all 
 the different sections of the whole human family, 
 we naturally take for granted that they are all of 
 the same species. Different species of animals belong- 
 ing to the same genus may in a domesticated state 
 mingle their blood, but it is of rare occurrence. 
 The horse and the mule, for instance, are of the 
 same genus, but not of the same species ; hence 
 mules, if left to themselves, would cease to exist 
 within less than a hundred years. 
 
 Where unions beyond the limits of species take 
 place, their offspring invariably are sterile. All 
 the contrary assertions of different genera having 
 mingled their blood is destitute of truth. Applied 
 to the members of the human family, this principle 
 places their organic unity beyond a doubt ; at all 
 events it becomes highly probable that all families 
 descend from one and the same primitive stock. To 
 this, the main proof, we may add, that there is perfect 
 harmony in the external and internal structure of the 
 human body. There are the same number of inward 
 parts as well as of bones, vertebrae, teeth, toes, and 
 fingers. Again, there is everywhere the fullest 
 agreement in the average length of human life, in 
 the advent of the period of womanhood, in the 
 
FALLACIOUS CLASSIFICATION. 103 
 
 duration of pregnancy, the same amount of heat in 
 the body, the same average figure of pulsation and 
 respiration in all sections of the human family — all 
 conditions which are not to be found in any one 
 species of the animal kingdom. Climate and mode 
 of life may, indeed, influence the stages of growth 
 and the period of the maturity of the human frame ; 
 but such modifications are found in all races. 
 
 A species is capable of modifications, as may be 
 seen in the almost incredible variety of the dog 
 species, yet all are capable of transmitting to their 
 immediate offspring the power of reproducing their 
 like. The only divergence in the different races of 
 man consists in the colour of the skin, the condition 
 of the hair, and the conformation of the skull. But 
 so undefined and undecisive are these points in them- 
 selves, that no two leading men who have devoted 
 their lives to the subject, come to the same conclusion. 
 If anything be proved it is that none are right and 
 all are wrong, or that no specific, sharply-defined 
 races exist. Take the hair. This is a most uncertain 
 criterion for classification, since the condition and 
 colour of the hair are no where fixed. Not only 
 does the hair change colour in the life of the same 
 individual more than once, but we observe a variety 
 of shades and kinds of hair. Sheep in the West 
 Indies have been known to change their wool into 
 long rough hair, and in Guinea they are not to be 
 recognised without being heard to bleat, as they have 
 long brown or black hair like dogs ; indeed, there 
 men may be said to carry wool on their heads, and 
 sheep hair on their bodies. We know that in the 
 extreme North many animals, such as the bear, fox, 
 and hare, assume white hair. Hair can, therefore, 
 never form a safe criterion as regards descent. 
 
101 CHAP, III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 Take the skin. We find black hair usually con- 
 nected with a dark skin, and that even among white 
 people. Blumenbach assumed white, yellow, red, 
 brown, and black as the respective colours of his 
 assumed five races. But the tint of the skin can as 
 little form a criterion as the colour of the hair, since 
 we have uniformly a gradual transition from the clear 
 complexion of the Northern European to the yellow 
 Mongol type, and thence again to the dark Ethiopian 
 and Bed Indian. Even in the same tribe we frequently 
 find branches of the same race some of this, some 
 of that colour, thus Arab emigrants in Nubia are 
 quite black, yet retain their physiognomy, language 
 and customs, and among the Berbers white, dark, and 
 black persons are to be found. In Sudan we have 
 reddish brown complexions. The Galla tribes, some 
 of whom inhabit the equatorial regions, have a 
 complexion almost as fair as the inhabitants of the 
 Mediterranean. The tropical highlands of America 
 have no black inhabitants, but they are found in the 
 lower parts of California. The races in East India 
 present the greatest variety of colour. 
 
 Though not dependent on climate, the colour of 
 the skin becomes more intensified in the torrid 
 zone. That colour cannot be regarded as decisive in 
 favour of the theory of a different origin may be 
 proved from the fact that Albinoes have been found 
 among Negroes and Papuas, also that the skin of the 
 whitest European is occasionally in some parts of the 
 body as dark as that of a Negro. This phenomenon 
 is specially observable during pregnancy. In the 
 museum of Guy's Hospital is seen an infant with a 
 pyebald skin. Dr. Pruner, from observations I had 
 the opportunity of verifying on the spot, speaks of 
 the most surprising climatic changes in the skin of 
 
FALLACIOUS CLASSIFICATION. 105 
 
 those who emigrate from the northern to the north 
 eastern portion of Africa. The Jews in South 
 Arabia, I have remarked, have precisely the same 
 tint peculiar to the Arab, though retaining in all 
 other respects their marked nationality. 
 
 Take the skull. To divide the human family by 
 means of the skull is at once impossible and absurd. 
 And lest it be thought that time has been wanting 
 to complete the investigations of ethnographers, we 
 remind the reader that it is more than a century ago 
 since Kamper commenced the measurement of skulls, 
 and all the measurements from 1765 till now have 
 failed to lead to any definite result. The simple 
 reason of this failure is, that no particular style of 
 skull exclusively prevails within a certain given 
 race. Prom the hair, the colour of the skin and the 
 shape and dimensions of the skull, Cuvier assumed 
 three races, Blumenbach five, Lesson six, Fischer 
 seven, Bory de St. Vincent fifteen, Desmoulins sixteen, 
 Morton thirty-two families, and his disciples, Nott 
 and Gliddon, the last the son of my friend, go as far 
 as one hundred and fifty families or races. 
 
 To show to what absurdities the skull question has 
 led, I subjoin the division into gentes dolichoce- 
 phalce and gentes brachyce^halw with the sub-division 
 orthognathy and prognathce. To the dolichocep- 
 halis orthognathis belong the Celtic, Germanic, 
 Romanic and Hindu tribes. Amongst dolichocephalis 
 jprognathis are reckoned the Australian, Chinese, 
 Japanese, Negroes, Greenlanders, and most of the 
 American tribes. Amongst the hrachycephalis ortho- 
 gnathis are counted the Slavonians, Lapps Afghanes, 
 Persians, Turks, South Sea Islanders and Papuas. 
 Lastly, among the brachycephalis prognathis are 
 found the Tartars, Kalmucks, Mongols, Malays and 
 
106 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 the West American tribes. Thus, on the one hand, 
 the Negro and Chinese are made to fall in together ; 
 and, on the other, the Japanese, Slavonians, Persians 
 and Papuas ! 
 
 Amongst the purest Negro type we have samples 
 of a perfectly opposite character. The Red Indians, 
 in America, represent not only the colours of all the 
 other races in the world, but their type of skull 
 would connect them on the one hand with the Mon- 
 golian, and on the other with the Malay, as it exists 
 in the Islands of the Indian Archipelago, with which 
 I am personally acquainted. Amongst a Caucasian 
 collection of skulls we have, strictly speaking, the 
 types of all the rest. As there is no colour peculiar 
 to any one given race, so is there no peculiar kind 
 of skull. Baron von Humboldt recognised in these 
 transitions of colour and of skull a most striking 
 proof of the original unity of mankind. The greatest 
 differences which can be found do not amount to 
 any specific diversities. 
 
 Par greater diversities are observable among the 
 offspring of domestic animals, e.g., the horse, dog, 
 sheep and cattle, and these are produceable in a com- 
 paratively short time. However widely the races of 
 men differ from each other they never differ as much 
 as the races of dogs, as regards either the hair, colour, 
 or skull. What can be more diverse than the grey- 
 hound and the bulldog ? The same is true of cattle 
 and horses. A breeder of cattle finds that a new 
 type, with short horns or without horns, may be 
 produced in the course of several generations by 
 choosing varieties having the most stunted horns in 
 the stock from which to breed. 
 
 Can it be disputed, for a moment, that throughout 
 the globe there is a greater diversity in the ^ora and 
 
FALLACIOUS CLASSIFICATION. 107 
 
 fauna, in the different zones, than in the various 
 types and races of men ? There is even a greater 
 difference between the different kinds of cabbage in 
 use among us now, than can be found between a 
 European and a Negro. The supposed different races 
 are nowhere so marked as to enable us to say, here 
 begins one and there ends another. We cannot 
 affirm that there exists any number of races with 
 any one single exclusive peculiarity. The colours 
 are dissolved the one into the other. Hence, there 
 exists but one great human family, in which the 
 divers shades of difference merge into one another ; 
 it is by gradual stages only we come to the Negro 
 physiognomy. The Abyssinian and the Pullah, in 
 North Africa, form the transition from the Caucasian 
 to the Negro ; and the clearer tint of the Hottentot 
 of South Africa — in whose skull the learned have 
 recently perceived an approximation to the Chinese, 
 — graduates from the Negro to the Caucasian. On 
 the other hand, we may regard the Hindu as an 
 intermediate link between the Malay and the white 
 man. The Tartar, and some of his neighbours, may 
 be regarded as a medium between the Hindu and 
 the Mongol. 
 
 Not only have we such local transitions, but in 
 the middle of the same country, and the same sup- 
 posed race, we have types of other races. The 
 Negroes differ in colour, hair, and physiognomy, 
 combining every possible shade of other races, and a 
 comparison of the Negro with the tribes of the South 
 Seas, or with the Papuans, will prove that a black 
 skin, woolly hair, and Negro physiognomy are not 
 necessarily united. Take the supposed Caucasian 
 and Negro type as the most remote from each other ; 
 the colour of the former, in some parts, approximates 
 
108 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 to that of the latter. I have traced the gradual 
 transition from the Mediterranean to the equatorial 
 regions, and have found that the Negro is nowhere 
 separated from those who are considered of a different 
 race. 
 
 Had the different races a different origin, a clear 
 demarcation of their distinctive peculiarities must 
 naturally exist, and science would be able to point 
 out the centres from whence each race originally 
 emanated ; or, as nations from time to time migrated, 
 their respective peculiarities might attach to certain 
 nationalities. Nowhere do we find all the differences 
 united which separate the Negro from the Caucasian, 
 and nowhere all the differences which separate other 
 races from one another. So long as no nation stands 
 out as the type of a certain race we have simply 
 theories without foundation ; and the infinite inter- 
 mediate stages by which one race merges with the 
 other make it not only probable but almost im- 
 possible that mankind could have more than one 
 origin. Especially it is to be observed that the two 
 principal criteria of race, i.e., skull and colour of 
 skin in many cases do not fall together ; so that many 
 tribes, if classified by the skull, would be assigned to 
 one race, and if classified by the skin woulci be ranked 
 with another. 
 
 At the onset of this enquiry immense mischief 
 was done by putting forth certain skulls, say from 
 Guinea or elsewhere, as the true type of the whole 
 Negro family. Just as we find Negro skulls belong- 
 ing to Europe, so we have woolly hair on European 
 heads. Indeed, the several races are not more dif- 
 ferent from each other than the types within the 
 same race diverge from one another. That the 
 human family consists of one species, and of no 
 
FALLACIOUS CLASSIFICATION. 109 
 
 strictly definable distinction of races, may be inferred 
 from the central position of the Caucasian type. 
 Taking three races — the Caucasian, the Mongol, and 
 the Ethiopic, we do not observe any regular descent 
 of the second from the first, and of the third from 
 the second ; but the first clearly appears to be the 
 direct source of both Mongol and Negro types. The 
 central position of the Caucasian race is chiefly ex- 
 pressed in its skeleton, of which the details need not 
 be given in this place. 
 
 Boudin has satisfactorily proved that the Jews 
 belonging to the Caucasian type are, of all races, the 
 only one which could most easily acclimatize them- 
 selves in all the different zones of either hemisphere, 
 and maintain their position without mingling with 
 other races. This not only implies a central position, 
 but shows the high destiny of that people as first 
 missionaries of the world. 
 
 On account of the wide difference between the 
 Mongolian and the Ethiopian races, we never meet 
 with Negro physiognomies amongst Mongols, or the 
 Mongolian type among the Negroes. But every observ- 
 ing traveller must remember seeing European faces 
 among Ethiopeans, Malays, or Mongols, where no 
 possible crossing of blood could have taken place. 
 This is as little surprising as the occasional appear- 
 ance of signs of the Ethiopic and Mongol type among 
 Europeans. 
 
 As within the Caucasian race we see approaches 
 to either of the other races, we notice how, from their 
 central position, there are such gradual transitions 
 as to render it altogether impossible to say where one 
 race ends and where the other begins. Even in a 
 geographical point of view the Caucasian race main- 
 
110 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 tains its central position, both uniting and separating 
 the other extremes. 
 
 The Caucasian race, with regard to colour, also 
 preserves its central position, since from the clearest 
 white it slides gradually into the tints of other races ; 
 and for this the condition of the skin has fully pre- 
 pared them. There are, indeed, partial tints on the 
 body, well-known to the anatomist, which show that 
 only an impulse from without is required to bring 
 out the various colours of the other races. As regards 
 the European skin assuming the appearance of the 
 Ethiopian, Blumenbach reports a strange meta- 
 morphosis in the person of a lady of quality, who 
 naturally had a beautiful teint and a very white 
 skin. Soon after pregnancy her skin began to get 
 brown, and towards the end of that period she 
 became a perfect negress. After her confinement 
 the black colour gradually disappeared, her natural 
 whiteness returned, and her child showed no trace of 
 a dark colour. 
 
 We now ask, which was the original form of the 
 human species, if all the so-called races came from 
 one origin ? It is impossible to say whether the 
 now existing races may not severally have departed 
 from the type of the original pair, especially as the 
 Bible and Tradition both ascribe a much longer life 
 to the first men than is now enjoyed. Yet many 
 reasons lead us to infer that the central stock, not 
 locally and morally only, but the original one of all 
 the others is, Caucasian. 
 
 The greatest portion of the human family belongs 
 to this variety or race ; again, the Caucasian, or 
 white race, being located in the centre of the globe, 
 the remaining portions of it could be easily populated. 
 In the white man we have, physiologically, the most 
 
FALLACIOUS CLASSIFICATION. Ill 
 
 perfect expression of the species, which in the Mon- 
 golian or Ethiopic types would seem to be degene- 
 rated. But other reasons can be brought forward 
 to attest the purity of this type. It is not suffi- 
 ciently remembered, if widely known, that all Negro 
 babes are born white ; this applies more especially to 
 Malay infants ; and it is only after ten days that 
 they assume their dark hue. The children of all 
 other coloured people are also born whiter than their 
 parents. The legends of various savage nations in- 
 form us that their progenitors were originally white 
 people. Such is the case with the natives of Aus- 
 tralia. The Fetish images of the natives in Congo 
 are white, with hooked noses and open foreheads, and 
 as these probably represent their ancestors, we may 
 infer that they consider these their progenitors to 
 have been white people ; an admission, surely, in 
 all these facts, that with the degeneracy of man was 
 closely connected a change in his moral and even in 
 his physical condition, extending to the colour of his 
 skin, and as a rule, the most degenerate are of the 
 darkest colour. All dark nations esteem the white 
 skin as superior, and it is this white skin which the 
 Arabian poets love to celebrate in their effusions. 
 The white men are generally regarded as the race 
 destined to rule. The Negro takes a white leaf, or 
 white bird, in his hand when sacrificing. Many of 
 them believe they are destined to transmigrate into 
 white people when they die. 
 
 The yellow and red coloured tribes also preserve 
 traces of having originally been white. Not only 
 are the children born white, but those who are not 
 exposed to the sun retain a perfectly white com- 
 plexion. This holds good especially among the 
 higher families. Thus in India the Sanscrit word 
 
112 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 varna, or colour, signifies the same as caste, which 
 is too significant to be overlooked. The traditions 
 of the aborigines of America abound with allusions 
 to the originally white colour of mankind, and the 
 progenitors of some of the South Sea Islanders are 
 said to have been white people. 
 
 2. TJie Causality and Permanency of Race. 
 
 We now turn to enquire into the causes which 
 first favoured the formation of the peculiarities of 
 race, and which, secondly, established them after 
 their formation. Abode and climate doubtless exert 
 a very marked influence upon living organisms, and 
 our observation, seldom extending over more than a 
 few hundred years, is too limited to calculate what 
 thousands of years might have effected. We have 
 seen that in India, and in the Indian archipelago, 
 the Portuguese may become blacker than even the 
 generality of natives in the space of 300 years. The 
 Hindus speak languages allied to our own, which 
 indicates an original relationship of race, yet how 
 marked is the difference between the people speaking 
 these tongues! The Jews in Arabia, India and 
 Africa, have become as dark as the natives of the 
 several countries in which they are domiciled. By 
 their language the Abyssinians belong to the so-called 
 Semitic family ; and yet they form a bridge or point 
 of transition from the Caucasian to the Negro type. 
 Though the Turks are evidently of Mongol origin, 
 yet they subsequently assumed the characteristics of 
 the Caucasian type. Ancient writers greatly extol 
 the fair complexion of the ancient Germanic races, 
 yet in these days they are scarcely to be distinguished 
 from any of their neighbours. Intermarriages have 
 
THE CAUSALITY OF RACE. 113 
 
 done much to bring about these changes, but cannot 
 wholly account for them. 
 
 In plants and animals we find a remarkable facility 
 in producing varieties and modifications within the 
 limits of the species, and those capable of the greatest 
 variety are able to spread themselves over the widest 
 extent, whilst the wild species of animals and plants 
 which are less varied are least capable of change. 
 As regards the causes which have combined to pro- 
 duce this great variety, we stand before a great 
 mystery of the past, of which we can but trace a few 
 faint points, or catch some transient glimpses from 
 analogous cases. They who assume the principle of 
 autochthones indeed, span over the difficulties of 
 deriving the varieties from one common centre, but 
 they encounter still greater ones which do not exist 
 when a primal and original stock is assumed. If the 
 enquiry be made, how and when the peculiarities of 
 race came to be formed, we must confess that we 
 know but little. If, however, our domestic animals 
 are taken into consideration, we notice that when 
 brought into other climates, and under other influ- 
 ences, they frequently become subject to a sudden 
 change, which becomes permanent if the stock is not 
 renewed from the old home. In other words, though 
 no new species, or new race is formed, the influence 
 of external circumstances upon the organisation of 
 the animals is inexplicable. We also observe that 
 some of the domestic animals are changed under new 
 and foreign influences, but others are not ; and the 
 change which does take place occurs when the animals 
 become wild. There is, therefore, a different degree 
 of tenacity in cleaving to distinctive characteristics, 
 but the mystery itself is unsolved. Wild horses will 
 become smaller and soon acquire a coat of longer 
 
 H 
 
Ill CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 hair. Pigs, in America, have sometimes longer, 
 sometimes shorter ears than those of their parents, 
 but how the changes are produced by climate, etc., 
 it is impossible to explain. Nor can we explain why 
 one species is subject to fresh varieties in one country 
 but not in another. It would seem that it depends 
 not only on the quantity but also on the quality of the 
 influence brought to bear on the subject. We know 
 as little of this as of the so-called miasma which, 
 amidst otherwise similar physical and climatic con- 
 ditions, produces cholera in one country, in another 
 intermittent fever, and elsewhere yellow fever. In 
 spite of all efforts to grasp these causes, the quali- 
 tative character of these influences eludes discovery. 
 
 It has been often asserted that acquired abnor- 
 mities do not propagate themselves, but die out with 
 the individual who had acquired them ; this is not 
 invariably true ; on the contrary, we know of indivi- 
 dual abnormities having propagated themselves in 
 some cases, though not in others, and it cannot be 
 determined which will and which will not be propa- 
 gated. Certain diseases of parents will be conveyed 
 to the children whilst others will not, and we cannot 
 account for the irregularity. There are instances on 
 record of a supernumerary finger having been here- 
 ditary for several generations. It cannot, therefore, 
 be denied that certain peculiarities, which now belong 
 to certain races, may originally have belonged to 
 certain individuals, perhaps to the three sons of Noah. 
 Such abnormities in time might assume stability and 
 perpetuity. In the case of many domestic animals 
 these peculiarities may be maintained for a long 
 period, where the climate is changed. 
 
 It may here be objected, that certain races which 
 have been transplanted from their original soil and 
 
THE CAUSALITY OF RACE. H5 
 
 climate to another have not altered their peculiari- 
 ties ; to which we reply that this objection is not 
 valid as it stands. We have seen Arab tribes who 
 have, from their emigration to Africa, become quite 
 black. In Aden, Jews may be seen who have ac- 
 quired the dark tint of the Arabs to perfection, 
 though they have never intermarried with that race. 
 Among the Berbers some tribes may be found in 
 whom the colour of the skin is changed. And even 
 supposing that the Portuguese, in Goa, and in the 
 Indian archipelago, have derived their unusual 
 blackness of skin, which surpasses that of the Hindus, 
 Malays, and Javanese, from intermarriages with the 
 natives, it still serves to prove that a great change 
 of complexion is capable of taking place under cer- 
 tain circumstances. It has yet to be proved whether 
 the Fallashas of Abyssinia are descended from the 
 house of Israel, as some have asserted. Among cog- 
 nate American tribes the greatest variety of colour 
 and complexion exists. But the Magyars afford one 
 of the most remarkable instances of the .transforma- 
 tion of the physical and intellectual features of a 
 race. These Magyars, who in the ninth century- 
 emigrated from the Ural mountains, originally be- 
 longed to the ugly race of Ostjaks, of whom some 
 remained in their native abodes ; yet who could 
 possibly conceive any relationship between these 
 miserable-looking Kurmen and the noble Hungarian ? 
 It has been satisfactorily established by Pritchard, 
 that a very marked change for the better is per- 
 ceptible in the Negroes of America, after the third or 
 fourth generation, both in the formation of the face 
 and condition of the hair, especially where they have 
 not been forced to the hardest field labour. 
 
 In turning to the Jews every observer will be 
 
116 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 struck with the great difference between the Jews in 
 Germany, Prussia, Poland, and Bohemia, who often 
 have red hair, a short beard, a heavy nose, small, 
 grey, sly-looking eyes, round faces, broad cheek- 
 bones, resembling the Slavonian tribes of the North, 
 and those in Spain who have a purely Semitic appear- 
 ance ; black hair, black beard, black almond-shaped 
 eyes, with a melancholy expression, long faces, high 
 noses, etc. In order to escape the necessity of admit- 
 ting the influence of climate, etc. (for intermar- 
 riages are out of the question), Vogt assumes the 
 Jewish tradition, that there were two primitive types 
 of Jews, one of the Abrahamic type, another from the 
 mixed multitude who followed them at the Exodus. 
 We know well there are black Jews in Asia and 
 Cochin China, and dark Jews at Aden, which clearly 
 proves the fact that the colour of the skin and of 
 the eyes changes in the same people when spread 
 over different latitudes. 
 
 Dr. Pruner has demonstrated that the Anglo- 
 k\ American assumes as early as in the second genera- 
 ' ^ tion the marked features of the Indian natives of 
 America. The glandular system becomes gradually 
 reduced to the minimum of its normal development ; 
 the skin becomes as dry as leather ; freshness and 
 colour disappear from the cheek, and are replaced in 
 males by a clayey tint, and in women by a tawny 
 pallor. The head becomes smaller, round, or even 
 pointed, and is covered with dark long hair. The 
 neck becomes elongated, there is a marked develop- 
 ment of the cheek-bone and munch muscles, the 
 temple cavities deepen, the jaw-bones enlarge, the 
 eyes sink deeper into the head, the bridge between 
 becomes narrower, the iris darkens, the expression is 
 piercing and wild. In the upper limbs the longer 
 
THE CAUSALITY OF RACE. 117 
 
 bones become more elongated, the nails become long 
 and pointed, and the pelvis of the woman assimilates 
 more to that of the man. Gloves manufactured in 
 France and England are made with longer fingers 
 for the American market than for their own con- 
 sumption. Thus America changes the pure Anglo- 
 Saxon type, and a new race is produced, called by 
 Quatrafrages, the Yankee-race. Such changes taking 
 place before our eyes in many cases both of man 
 and beast, goes a long way to explain the variety 
 of race. Vogt maintains that the German type in 
 Pennsylvania exhibits no such changes ; but this 
 only shows, that when the type is not yet fixed a 
 diversion of race is more easily accomplished. In 
 that branch of the Irish who were mercilessly 
 driven from their homes in Armagh and South 
 Down to the mountainous regions, during the 
 Rebellion of 1649 and 1689, one sees the exact 
 reverse of the noble Magyars descending from the 
 Ostiakes ; the degeneration bodily and mentally of 
 these unhappy Irish is perfectly revolting and dis- 
 tressing. 
 
 Experience extends over too short a period to 
 entitle us to the assumption that races with their 
 several peculiarities are totally independent of 
 external influences. Analogies from the animal 
 kingdom suggest caution, since, we repeat, not 
 only the quantitative but the qualitative amount 
 of influences must be taken into calculation. The 
 changes effected are as mysterious as they are certain. 
 Above all things we must bear in mind that the 
 world was not always what it now is. Creative days 
 must mot be confounded with our days. That there 
 are now no fresh formations of races does not prove 
 that there were none in days gone by. There may 
 
118 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 have been influences which originated what is now 
 a mystery to us. When and how did the heavenly 
 bodies, including our earth, assume their spheroid 
 shape ? 
 
 As in nations and individuals we recognise 
 different ages of the national and individual life, so 
 do we in the human species, taken collectively. 
 Our race had its childhood, youth, manhood, and old 
 age. Yet whatever age may now be assigned to the 
 human race, all will agree that the period of child- 
 hood is long passed. Childhood being the time of 
 great susceptibility and pliability, is the time for the 
 most surprising changes to take place ; in a later age 
 there is more continuity of position, less startling 
 transformations are seen, and our minds and bodies 
 become more firm and steadfast. Those influences 
 which change a child so as to render it almost 
 irrecognisable leave scarcely a trace upon the adult. 
 Thus, with regard to the human family, it is not 
 surprising that we do not observe such extraordinary 
 changes as were effected in its childhood. 
 
 The very body of man is a witness against the 
 absurd assumption that the changes of race, as we 
 now have them, required immense periods for their 
 accomplishment. The human body within nine 
 months acquires one-fourth of his whole length. For 
 the second fourth he requires three years ; for the 
 third fourth he requires six years; and for the last 
 fourth he requires twelve years. If we were to 
 watch the growth of the human frame only for the 
 twelve years during which he acquires the last 
 fourth of his full growth, we might take it naturally 
 for granted that he had been growing for some 
 centuries, or perhaps for a thousand years. A lesson 
 surely to inspire caution in making calculations as 
 
THE PERMANENCY OF RACE. 119 
 
 to the need of gigantic periods for bringing about 
 the changes of hair and colour and skull which now 
 exist. What may now demand protracted periods 
 may have been achieved in the childhood of man's 
 existence in a marvellously short term. When in the 
 days of Peleg, the earth was rent asunder by some 
 geognostic catastrophe, the age of man for the second 
 time sank by one half ; for whilst the average age 
 between the flood and this catastrophe was 400 years, 
 it dropped down to 100 — 200. Perhaps we may 
 judge by this alone what great unknown influences 
 must have been at work in those early days which 
 were never to be repeated in after ages, and of which 
 now we can have no conception. 
 
 Changes in the physical condition of single 
 branches of the human family which in the lapse of 
 time have become permanently fixed, are, therefore, 
 just what we should not expect to see. The fact 
 that certain races on being transplanted to other 
 climes change but slowly, does not prove that a very 
 long period was required to effect the change. We 
 are unacquainted with the peculiar circumstances 
 under which the races were originally formed, hence 
 we cannot possibly hope to define those under which 
 they can be reversed. We cannot say whether the 
 emigrated Arabs who have become black in Africa 
 would again become brown were they to return to 
 Arabia ; nor are we prepared to state whether the 
 Hungarians would relapse to the condition of their 
 brethren in the Ural Mountains. 
 
 There is a point in certain natural substances up 
 to which a given body will retain its original 
 condition and appearance, but the slightest addition 
 beyond this, say, of heat or cold, will produce a most 
 perceptible and radical change. Admitting such an 
 
120 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 intensity of climatic influences as are requisite for 
 the production of the phenomena of races, it may 
 be said that the effects must relax as the cause 
 ceases to act. But physical science contradicts this 
 assumption distinctly. Ice remains ice till o degree 
 heat, and water remains water till 12o degrees cold. 
 Even phosphor which only melts at 44o can he 
 cooled down to 4o, when once melted, without becom- 
 ing cold. Here we observe a marked effort in nature 
 to maintain its own position when once obtained. 
 May it not be thus with the peculiarities of race ? 
 Originated under a high pressure of climatic in- 
 fluences race may seek to maintain its ground, even 
 when the original causes have ceased to operate on 
 them ; this is in perfect agreement with the inertia 
 peculiar to all bodies. As we have seen, the conser- 
 vative law of nature is sometimes maintained even 
 in the production of abnormities, such as the posses- 
 sion of six fingers or six toes inherited for several 
 generations. Trees transplanted into foreign soils 
 remain true to their original peculiarities. Thus, 
 trees imported in Venezuela produce leaves a month 
 before the rainy season, and English trees^ trans- 
 planted to Australia shed their leaves even though 
 there is no winter. Is it therefore remarkable that 
 races distinct from each other should preserve their 
 peculiar characteristics intact ? Pfaff, who is an 
 impartial witness, says : " We are not justified to 
 judge from the present pertinacity in clinging to 
 peculiarities as to what might have been the case in 
 primitive days ; in the one case these peculiarities 
 have been maintained for so many thousand years ; 
 in the other they were still in formation. In every 
 case it is an unjustifiable assertion, by natural philo- 
 sophy, destitute of proof, that it was not possible 
 
THE PERMANENCY OF RACE. 121 
 
 in five hundred years for the Egyptians to develop 
 themselves physically as a race." 
 
 3. The Unity 'proved from the Gift of Language, of 
 Reason, and of Faith. 
 
 Language forms the most striking proof of the 
 unity of mankind. Let any one attempt to fabricate 
 a language and he will soon be convinced that the 
 power of language is the gift of God, and not the 
 least of His wonderful works. In the beginning man 
 had the word, and the word was from God. No people 
 on earth are known to be without a language, and no 
 tradition exists of any race or tribe having invented 
 a language. All the arts and sciences, as inventions 
 of man, have made a steady progress; yet no one 
 language can be proved to have enriched its original 
 capital. The so-called Semitic alphabets are still 
 without vowels. They have never had the present 
 tense or the subjective mood, nor have any of these 
 languages attempted the addition of a new conjuga- 
 tion, nor of any particle to save the constant and 
 extensive employment of the copulative vau. 
 
 The American Indians, who speak the Massa and 
 Betoe, have two tenses, the one expressing time, the 
 other the relation between the attribute and the sub- 
 ject. By what means have these savages discovered 
 these logical distinctions ? The Indian has a different 
 word for the verb to " wash " according as it is em- 
 ployed for the hands, feet, face, or clothes, and the 
 Papuas of New Guinea have seven different words for 
 "to beat." Why have all attempts to forma uni- 
 versal tongue failed ? Rousseau himself acknowledged 
 that language is the gift of the Deity. Dupunceau 
 says : " The construction of the American languages 
 appears more the work of philosophers than that of 
 
122 CHAP, III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 The Academy of St. Petersburg, to which we 
 are indebted for the most important ethnogra- 
 phical researches, came to the conclusion that 
 all known tongues are the dialects of a lost lan- 
 guage. Indeed, there is unquestionable evidence 
 that some original bond of union existed among the 
 nations of the world. As a rule, the tongues of 
 the human race have been classified into Arian 
 or Indo-Germanic, Semitic and other families of 
 languages; it is not my intention to upset this 
 division, but the term Semitic can not be adhered 
 to for ever. It is nearly a century ago that 
 two German theologians, Schlozer and Eichhorn, 
 succeeded in establishing the notion, as if all nations 
 were Semitic in their descent who spoke tongues 
 of the same family as the Hebrew, and this in direct 
 contradiction to the Old Testament, which reckons 
 many of them to the Hamites — e.g., the Canaanites, 
 Phoenicians, Ethiopians or Cushites, and the Phutites 
 and Lybians. The argument is, that the Hebrews, 
 Chaldeans, and Canaanite Phoenicians speak the same 
 languages or dialects ; and as the Hebrews profess to 
 be Shemites, their language must be Semitic. But 
 this is not the case. Germanic peoples, such as the 
 Pranks, Burgundians, West Goths, Sueves, and Longo- 
 bards, penetrated Boman provinces, and adopted 
 the language of the land. Zosimus, in the fifth 
 century, speaks of Paris as a German town, and 
 according to Sidonius Appollinaris, German was 
 spoken at that time in Lyons. Slavonian nations 
 adopted the Greek and the German language. But 
 this change of tongue did not change their original 
 nationality. 
 
 The Babbis, and after them Origen, St. Jerome 
 and St. Augustine, asserted that Hebrew was 
 
UNITY PROVED FROM LANGUAGE. 123 
 
 the original language, and in more recent days 
 the Hebrew has been assumed to be the root of 
 the Semitic languages. But the Old Testament 
 nowhere represents the Hebrew as the language of 
 Shem, or of Abraham, or of Israel, but the Hebrew 
 tongue is termed with historical accuracy the lan- 
 guage of the Canaanites, " The language of Canaan." 
 Is. xix. 18. The Jews evidently adopted the language 
 of the Hamites; or rather the Shemites before 
 their emigration spoke the language of Ham. 
 The Greeks called Hebrew the Phoenician tongue. 
 Since the poet Choirilos allows the Solymans to 
 speak Phoenician ; Hecataeus of Abdera, Manethos, 
 Eupolemos, Agatharchides, and Elavius Josephus 
 regard them as Jews ; whence Jerusalem was called 
 by the Greeks and Romans Hierosolyma. 
 
 We find in the table of nations that the so-called 
 Semitic tongues were spoken not only by the 
 Shemites, but also by the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, 
 Canaanites, sections of the Arabs, as well as of the 
 Ethiopians, and also in a measure the Egyptians and 
 Lybians, who were not Shemites, but descendants of 
 Ham ; hence the commonly adopted term of Semitic 
 languages cannot be justified. But if other branches 
 of the human family besides those of Shem speak the 
 so-called Semitic languages ; or if it be proved that 
 Semitic is placed where we should expect Hamitic, 
 this does not affect our present argument, and to 
 avoid confusion I shall adhere to the term of 
 Semitic in its accepted signification. 
 
 Though no classification can be perfect since 
 one language passes into the other, still we can 
 speak of the Turanian family of tongues, with the 
 Assyrian, the Accadian, Susianian, Elamite, Tongusic 
 and other idioms. Then the Arian, or so-called 
 
124 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 Indo-Germanic, family embraces the Sanscrit, the 
 Persian or Zend, the German, the Slavonian, the 
 Greek, the Latin and the Romanic branches ; so that 
 with the exception of the tongues of the Finnish and 
 Lap in the north, and the Hungarian in the south, 
 all European languages, with most of the tongues of 
 the very remote Asiatic nations, belong to one great 
 family. 
 
 In the extreme East of Asia we meet with what 
 has been termed the monosyllabic system of tongues, 
 of which the Chinese is the most perfect type. 
 
 The nations scattered over the South Sea Islands, 
 with the exception of the inhabitants of the interior 
 of the Malay Archipelago, of New Guinea and Aus- 
 tralia, have all one and the same stock of languages, 
 with vastly differing dialects or idioms. 
 
 Marsden found that from Madagascar to the 
 Christinas Islands there prevailed but one tongue, so 
 that Islands which geographically are as remote from 
 each other as Madagascar and the Philippines spoke 
 dialects no more remote from one another than those 
 spoken in the adjacent provinces of the same country. 
 All the languages spoken in northern Asia, e.g., the 
 Mantshu, Mongol and East Turkish tongues have 
 been proved to be related to each other as well as the 
 Einnish and Tongusish dialects. 
 
 Though the languages of America and Africa are 
 as yet too little known to admit of anything like a 
 detailed classification, still enough is known to trace 
 a close connection between them. Professors Barton 
 and Vater, in examining 85 languages, discovered 
 137 roots which occur in European and Asiatic 
 languages among the Mantshus, Mongols, Celts, 
 Baskians and Estlanders. Malte-Brun has also 
 clearly traced the links between the old and the now 
 
UNITY PROVED FROM LANGUAGE. 125 
 
 world. In Africa, the roots of the language spoken 
 on the coast of Mozambique and in the Kaffir lands 
 are related to those on the West Coast, Congo Loango 
 and Angola. From the Canary Islands to the Oasis 
 of Siwa only one tongue prevails. Lepsius has 
 demonstrated the connection not only between the 
 Coptic and the old Egyptian languages, but also 
 between those Egyptian tongues and the two great 
 Semitic and Indo-Germanic or Asian families as 
 regards roots in general, and the pronouns and 
 numericals in particular. Bentley more recently 
 discovered the so-called Semitic element in the 
 grammatical structure of the Coptic, and Pritchard 
 traced the analogy between the Coptic and the Negro 
 family of languages. 
 
 Thus we find classes of tongues, as we found races 
 of man, yet these two do not fall together ; for 
 instance, the dark-skinned Abyssinians speak a 
 Semitic language, which confirms our previous dis- 
 covery that a different corporeal formation does not 
 prove a different descent. On the contrary, as the 
 colour and conformation of the human body have 
 nowhere a fixed line of demarcation, neither have the 
 languages. 
 
 There are a considerable number of identical or 
 cognate roots in all languages, which clearly point 
 back to a period in which a connection existed between 
 the nations that use the languages, and when the 
 grammatical structure designated by Klaproth as 
 ante-diluvian was not yet developed. 
 
 Thus the words abba, baba, or papa and mama, 
 are universally the same, and lest it be objected that 
 these are the most easy sounds for infants to pro- 
 duce, we remind the objectors that it is unaccount- 
 ably strange that the names of father and mother 
 
12G 
 
 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 are never interchanged, papa never being used for 
 mania, nor mama for papa. Let us take the words 
 father, mother and God as examples of the same 
 root being traceable to one parent stock : — 
 
 
 FATHER. 
 
 
 Latin 
 
 . . . Papa 
 
 Gallas 
 
 ... Abbo 
 
 Brazils 
 
 ... Papa 
 
 Danakil 
 
 ... Abba 
 
 Guiana 
 
 ... Pape 
 
 Moxas, in Peru ... Tata 
 
 Kamtshada 
 
 ... Papa 
 
 Greenland .. 
 
 . . . Atta-tak 
 
 Korjaks 
 
 ... Papa 
 
 Bretonian .. 
 
 ... Tat 
 
 Karaibians 
 
 ... Baba 
 
 Anglice 
 
 ... Dad 
 
 Saliva Indians 
 
 ... Babba 
 
 Finnish 
 
 ... Tato 
 
 Kalmucks ... 
 
 . . . Babai 
 
 Susian 
 
 ... Dada 
 
 Bengalee . . . 
 
 ... Bap 
 
 Turkish 
 
 ... Ata 
 
 Madagascar 
 
 ... Baba 
 
 Mosambique 
 
 ... Tete 
 
 Niger Joriba 
 
 ... Babba 
 
 Congoer 
 
 ... Tata 
 
 Fullah Negroes ... Baba 
 
 Japan 
 
 ... Titi 
 
 Hebrews 
 
 ... Aba 
 
 Tibet 
 
 ... Pa 
 
 Siberia 
 
 . . . Abam 
 
 Anarn 
 
 ... Pu 
 
 Jeniseir 
 
 ... Ab, obo 
 
 Malay 
 
 Bapa or Pa 
 
 Koreans 
 
 ... Aba-shi 
 
 Javanese . . . 
 
 . . . Bapa 
 
 Bornu 
 
 ... Abbah 
 
 Kurds 
 
 ... Baw 
 
 Somalis 
 
 ... Abbai 
 
 MOT 
 
 Kaffirs 
 HER. 
 
 ... Bao 
 
 Peru 
 
 ... Mama 
 
 Japanese Islands ... Umma 
 
 Finns 
 
 ... Mam mo 
 
 Hebrews ... 
 
 ... Em 
 
 Albanese . . . 
 
 . . . Mamme 
 
 Tibet 
 
 ... Ma 
 
 Mosambique 
 
 , . . Mama 
 
 Chinese 
 
 ... Mu 
 
 Conguer 
 
 . . . Mama 
 
 Malay 
 
 Ma and Mama 
 
 Jeniseir 
 
 ... Ama 
 
 Siani 
 
 ... Me 
 
 Samoyedes 
 
 . . . Emma 
 
 Anam 
 
 ... Mau 
 
 Mantshu 
 
 . . . Erne 
 
 Koptic 
 
 ... Mau 
 
 Indians 
 
 . . . Immes 
 
 GC 
 
 Kaffirs 
 D. 
 
 ... Mao 
 
 Persia 
 
 Koda, Cbudai 
 
 Javanese 
 
 .. Deva 
 
 Samoyedes . . . 
 
 Cbudai 
 
 Malay 
 
 .. Dewa 
 
 Kamtfchada 
 
 Kut or Kutka 
 
 Greek 
 
 .. Theos 
 
 Vancouver .. 
 
 Kuat-zl 
 
 Japan 
 
 .. Dai 
 
 or 
 
 
 Mexican 
 
 ... Teo-tl 
 
 Latin 
 
 Deus 
 
 South Sea 
 
 ... Tua or Atua 
 
 Sanscrit 
 
 Dew 
 
 Chinese 
 
 ... Tien 
 
 Any one acquainted with the mere rudiments of 
 philology cannot fail to see that these examples 
 
UNITY PROVED FROM LANGUAGE. 127 
 
 might be multiplied ad infinitum, even amongst quite 
 distinct families of tongues. 
 
 This analogy is most copious and surprising among 
 the cognate tongues. I have myself traced the 
 affinity, in the so-called Semitic family, from Hebrew 
 to the Syraic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Amharic, and Chal- 
 dean languages, and the result fills 41 folio pages 
 of tables setting forth the roots. In going through 
 the so-called Arian family of tongues I pursued the 
 Sanscrit roots through the Marathi, Hindustani, 
 Persian, Greek, Latin, German, and other modern 
 European languages, in tables extending over 108 
 folio pages. 
 
 Though less conversant with the Malay -Polynesian 
 family of languages, yet I found that in the Javanese, 
 Sundanese, and Malay we have a sort of medium 
 which connects this whole tribe of tongues directly 
 with the Indo-Germanic or Arian family, so that 
 partially, at least, we may assume the branching 
 out of the Malay-Polynesian languages from the 
 Sanscrit. 
 
 That there is nothing unphilosophical in the 
 Biblical record which traces the confusion of tongues 
 originally to a religious degeneracy, will appear from 
 the fact that to this hour the greatest confusion of 
 tongues 'prevails where morally and religiously the 
 human race lapsed most deeply. 
 
 A few illustrations will suffice. Humboldt 
 counted among the 80,000 savages on the Orinoko 
 about 200 tribes, who spoke 8—10 different 
 languages. The degraded Papuas in New Guinea 
 are split up into numerous tribes, and not less 
 numerous are their languages. Their degraded 
 brethren in the interior of the Peninsula of Malacca, 
 though few in number, yet have in use among 
 
128 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 themselves an astounding variety of tongues. On 
 the Island of Timor, I have ascertained from the 
 best possible authority, that some forty idioms are 
 spoken, and in the Isle of Borneo, about one hundred 
 idioms are supposed to be in use in the various 
 parts. "In those days the earth was divided," and 
 when some geognostic catastrophe introduced fresh 
 barriers between man and man, the rupture of the 
 one "lip" or tongue was lastingly established. 
 
 But there is language because there is reason ; and 
 the one is the gift of God as well as the other. 
 Without the great gift of reason there could be no 
 language, and reason no less than language estab- 
 lishes the unity of mankind. If man be destined 
 to subdue the earth, there must be inherent in his 
 nature a power superior to the earth. And besides 
 man there seems to be no other being for whom the 
 treasures of the earth are laid up. There are 
 other eyes to see the beauty of nature, and other 
 ears to hear its melody, yet except in man there is 
 do reason to understand the meaning, and no heart 
 to feel the force of nature's language. Reason 
 observes the scale of being as it rises from the death- 
 like form of the crystal to the plant, and from the 
 plant to the animal, and from the sentient animal to 
 the rational consciousness and liberty of the rational 
 human being. 
 
 But there is a third characteristic gift by which 
 man is distinguished and linked to his fellow man 
 more than by any other bond. It is that of faith. 
 More than language and reason, faith raises mankind 
 as a distinctive body. The question may be asked 
 whether and in how far the animal is gifted with 
 reasoning powers; but man alone has the gift of 
 faith. His existence is not fettered to this earth or 
 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 129 
 
 to this present life, and the thought of immortality 
 has been described as the first act of immortality. 
 Nature and scripture alike teach that in death we 
 cease not to exist. As there could be no beginning 
 of the organic world except by the creative power 
 which lies beyond matter, so without immortality 
 there could be no ending which would be at all in 
 keeping with its beginning. Faith, conscience, 
 reason, religion, capacity to know, love, revere 
 and serve God, — these are distinctive peculiarities 
 which elevate man far beyond the level of ordinary 
 organisms ; and here we pause. Should it be possible 
 that in making and endowing every creature with 
 its own legitimate desire and object in life, God 
 should have put into our hearts hopes, desires, and 
 aspirations which it is impossible could ever be 
 realised? But it is just here where science and 
 reason reach the threshold beyond which they dare 
 not venture, and where faith assumes its own proper 
 rights and functions which the former dare not 
 dispute. If this bright light of the future were 
 extinguished, nothing but everlasting despair would 
 remain. 
 
 4. The Question of the Antiquity of Man. 
 
 Klein, in 1868, endeavoured to prove the age of 
 our globe as being about 2000 millions of years; 
 others argued that some 50,000 years were absolutely 
 necessary, for instance, for the migration of the lied 
 Indians from Asia to America. Even some of the 
 opponents of the evolution hypothesis are dissatisfied 
 with the narrow span of 6000 which the Biblical 
 chronology offers them, and they welcome the fact 
 that the Septuagint reckons nearly 5000 years where 
 the Hebrew chronology has only 4000. But 
 critically speaking, the wider chronology of the 
 
 I 
 
130 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 Septuagint has very little value, and even if this 
 were not a serious objection, such a concession of a 
 thousand years would scarcely be appreciated by 
 geologians. 
 
 But the simplest mode of meeting the claims of 
 geology as to the high antiquity of man, is to dis- 
 pute them. If men have existed on this earth for 
 stupendous ages, consisting of millions of years, we 
 must surely have seen or found some records or 
 histories, in poems and traditions of their doings, on 
 papyrus, lead, or rocks ; for it is impossible that they 
 should have passed away without leaving a trace 
 of their activity, extending over some 50,000 years, 
 if indeed they were beings of the same passions as 
 ourselves. The monsters which are supposed to have 
 ruled over the pre-historic world prior to the advent 
 of man, have left their relics and preserved their 
 memories in the rocks, and should man alone have 
 lived and toiled upon the earth without leaving a 
 vestige of his life and toil behind? 
 
 1. It has been argued that to explain the changes 
 which had taken place in the features of our race, 
 in the structure of their languages, and generally 
 on the surface of the globe, morally, politically, and 
 physically, it demanded a far higher antiquity than 
 Genesis allows. It is thought, for instance, that some 
 4000 years at least were needed to account for the 
 extent of the iron mines on the Island of Elba. 
 Yet the Etonians had occasion to dig many a deep 
 hole into the earth for the iron wherewith to conquer 
 the world. Again, science as cultivated in Egypt, 
 it is thought, must have taken a longer period to 
 develop than Genesis allows ; but I would ask, how 
 many thousand years have intervened between the 
 Copernican and the Ptolemcean systems of astronomy ? 
 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 131 
 
 And how many ages of scientific toil were needed to 
 introduce steam, the art of printing, the use of 
 electricity? Marcel de Serres shrewdly observed 
 that two good mathematical heads among the 
 ancients could have achieved all the astronomical 
 knowledge of the old world. 
 
 2. As one of the chief evidences is adduced the 
 existence of the so called flint implements, discovered 
 in diluvial strata in connection with the so called 
 ante-diluvial animal bones. But some of these same 
 flint hatches have holes, which of course must have 
 been made by some sort of iron or steel instruments, 
 and if it be asked why these iron instruments were 
 not found in situ with the flint instruments, we 
 reply, simply because the people who used them, 
 knew their value and wisely carried them away with 
 them. When these flints first made their appearance 
 they were generally regarded as lithological curi- 
 osities, liisus natures, without the slightest suspicion 
 that they were the work of man. Hence, the 
 workmen in England and Prance on their dis- 
 covery considered them as natural formations. A 
 gentleman who for twelve years collected flint imple- 
 ments all over England, declares that all the types 
 put forth by archaeologists, could be found among the 
 flints crushed by a stone crusher for the purpose of 
 road mending. Some of these flints, it is allowed, 
 have been touched up by the human hand, but it 
 was the natural shape of the flint which sug- 
 gested both the use of them in their natural con- 
 dition and their being touched up. It required the 
 fantastic imagination of Boucher de Perthes to 
 distinguish them as works of art, and it has been 
 shrewdly observed that the natural coating of the 
 palaeolithic forms of flint still adhering to the flint 
 
132 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 hatches on being dug up from the chalk beds, is 
 certainly against their being manufactured by 
 human hands. It was the same learned Frenchman 
 who recognised heads of men and animals in 
 ordinary pebbles ; in others he saw the instruments 
 used in primitive ages for cutting the hair and 
 nails ! And it has been facetiously observed that the 
 French antiquarian went begging with his rare 
 discoveries, till some Englishman came to the rescue 
 to confirm his theory. There are strong symptoms 
 that this hypothesis is fast falling into utter discredit, 
 for the more cautious sciologists begin to see that 
 the simple fact of these flakes being found over so 
 large an area, and in such vast quantities, is alone 
 sufficient to destroy the hope of their being proved 
 what they were said to be. 
 
 3. The rubbish heaps in Denmark, known 
 as Kjoekken-moed dings, sometimes as much as 
 1000 feet long, 4 feet thick, and about 200 wide, 
 have been carefully examined, and the result was 
 a wild claim for a fabulous antiquity. They contain 
 stone implements, bones of fish, the beaver, the 
 seal, the red-deer, the roe, the wild swan, the 
 penguin, and the urus. It is doubtful whether 
 these rubbish heaps reach back to the time of the 
 Romans, or the great southward migrations of 
 northern peoples, though an age of at least 10,000 
 years was once claimed for them. 
 
 4. Again, neither the discoveries of Lund in the 
 Brazils, nor the exploration of the Belgian caverns 
 in 1833, nor of the Kent-hole about the same period, 
 nor the somewhat later discoveries in the valley of 
 the Somme, nor yet the recent unearthing of the 
 important remains in Wurtemberg have furnished 
 any other data than, that man was contem- 
 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 133 
 
 poraneous with what are considered pre-historic 
 animals. It will suffice at present to state that they 
 were originally deemed ante-diluvian and pre- 
 historic, because no human fossils or bones were found 
 in connection with them. But when human bones 
 were later found, together with these supposed pre- 
 historic animal bones, instead of ascribing them to 
 the only period to which they both could belong, the 
 antiquity of man was in consequence thrown farther 
 back. That man perished in the same caverns with 
 the so called ante-diluvian animals is indisputable. 
 
 5. Again, how many men of true science begin to 
 feel that the once celebrated hypothesis of a 
 succession of ages of stone, bronze, and iron, is 
 altogether chymerical and destitute of any solid 
 foundation. Eor example, no iron is found in Egypt, 
 yet, who will deny that the Egyptians must have 
 used it very largely ? The blue colour of the sword 
 and other weapons I noticed in the frescoes of 
 Thebes, and the representations of butchers sharpen- 
 ing their knives upon what seems to be steel fastened 
 to their aprons, settles the question. Indeed, with 
 what other metal could the stones have been prepared 
 for their gigantic buildings? The most degraded 
 tribes of Africa have iron in use, and the question 
 arises when they could have had their ages of stone 
 and of bronze ? It is scarcely needful to remind the 
 reader that the uphill march of intellect through 
 ages of stone, bronze, and iron, is exactly the reverse 
 of the more rational classical succession of the 
 golden, the silver, the bronze, and the iron ages. 
 Hence it is significant that at Meulen, near Zurich, 
 the three supposed successive ages of stone, bronze, 
 and iron were discovered reposing together in the 
 mud. 
 
? 
 
 134 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 6. The "glacial period" was also called upon to 
 contribute its share of evidence to establish the high 
 
 y antiquity of man. This famous period is the so 
 called "culminating point of a series of ages, 
 beginning in the latter part of the tertiary era," 
 during which our more southern regions are supposed 
 to have shared the climate of the north pole. No 
 sooner was this theory of the "glacial period" set 
 afloat, than grooves or furrows, produced by the 
 glacial abrasions, were diligently sought, and were 
 thought to have been discovered several times in 
 various places, especially in Saxony, and great 
 was the satisfaction expressed at the discovery of 
 the proof. But these supposed traces of the glacial 
 period proved to be the veritable ruts of the large 
 two wheeled cars of the Saxon boors, and of the 
 timber dragged after them from the wooded heights 
 of the forest. The glacial theory has not yet been 
 fully consigned to the resting place of all exploded 
 speculations, but very few scientific men persist in 
 advocating it. 
 
 7. The oldest fossil bones of man which have 
 come to light, are found together with primeval 
 elephants and other extinct animals, from which 
 circumstance the existence of man prior to the 
 diluvial crisis was considered probable; yet the 
 absurd claim of 50,000 years for the Diluvium has 
 been long ago rejected. The fossil jawbone of 
 Florida, for which 135,000 years were at first 
 demanded, is no longer heard of. Dowler's famous 
 skull of the Mississippi, which was estimated some 
 57,000 years, has been quietly put out of the way. 
 The fossil bones near Natchez, to which American 
 savants ascribed an age of 10,000 years, have been 
 declared not to belong to the supposed pre-adamite 
 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 135 
 
 race of the new world. Lyell, who examined them 
 on the spot, set his face wholly against their high 
 antiquity. 
 
 8. The inferences which have been drawn from 
 the structure of the globe touching the time when 
 man made his appearance, must of necessity be 
 fallacious, since the condition of the earth has not 
 always been the same. Besides the fully developed, 
 and consolidated conditions in any given body will 
 offer more resistence than those not yet matured, or 
 consolidated ; as for instance, a wall just reared, or 
 the tender shoot of a tree just come out. Hence no 
 dates and figures can have the least value in the 
 estimation of a truly scientific mind, however 
 imposing they may appear to vulgar eyes. 
 
 The assumption of a higher temperature will 
 account for many results which may seem incredible. 
 Goeppert, as we shall see in a later chapter, pro- 
 duced coal within a period from two to six yea 3. 
 Ehrenberg, by means of increased temperature, ob- 
 served in his own particular line, equally marvellous 
 results in a comparatively short time in the develop- 
 ment and transmutations of infusoria. The French 
 geologian Daubree observed near the hot springs at 
 Plombieres, the accelerated formations of eolith 
 and other mineral metamorphoses ; and he produced 
 artificially several kinds of silicious stalactite in a 
 marvellously short period. Hence we may infer 
 what must have been the glowing energies of nature 
 in the springtide of her existence. 
 
 9. Fallacious, too, are the calculations as to ages 
 which have been made from the successive deposits 
 on the shores of rivers and at the bottom of lakes 
 and in the sea. In Auvergne, deposits are formed 
 of marl in the sweet-water lakes, consisting of thin 
 
136 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 leaves about the thickness of a paper, containing 
 multitudes of the crustaceous coverings of the cypris 
 and of small shells ; and for the vertical thickness 
 of the marl strata which is from 60 to 100 feet, it 
 would require protracted ages, from 14,000 to 24,000 
 years ! Judging from the rate at which rocks are 
 now forming in lakes and seas, we are told it would 
 require 12,560,000 years to form the entire thick- 
 ness of the earth strata ; but if the rate of oceanic 
 deposits is taken as a standard of comparison, they 
 must have occupied some 52,800,000 years ! Such 
 theories deserve no refutation. In 1859 an old 
 Scandinavian ship was dug up on the east coast of 
 Sleswig containing implements, weapons, bones of 
 horses, etc., which, to judge from the depth, 
 appeared to have been buried for many thousand 
 years, but these were mixed up with the con- 
 tents, coins of Roman Emperors, some of them 
 from the vears 138 — 168, together with other 
 articles which date as late as the 4th century 
 of our era. We all know that the storm of a single 
 night, or the tempests of a single season, may 
 produce what may seem the work of thousands of 
 years. Hence, the 135,000 years which Dowler 
 gave to the Florida jawbone, might be reduced to a 
 comparatively short period; just as the 12,000 years 
 of Horner's bricks and fragments of earthenware 
 discovered in the Nile deposits near Memphis, were 
 suddenly brought down to the early centuries of our 
 era. Even the otherwise safe criterion of the 
 concentric rings in trees, have proved worthless, 
 since the same year which produces but one ring in 
 Europe, will in tropical countries produce three, 
 four, five, and even six rings ; so that the giant trees 
 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN DETERMINED. 137 
 
 in California are only about one quarter as old as 
 they were thought. 
 
 10. It has been a favourite subject with palaeonto- 
 logists and archaeologists to refer to the Lake Dwell- 
 ings, as if the discoveries connected with them could 
 serve to determine the age in which man came upon 
 the scene. It stands to reason that most uncertain 
 must be the calculations based upon the contents of 
 the supposed layers which are revealed, especially if 
 the turf formations which superimpose, be made the 
 starting point. The best informed students of this 
 special branch of archaeological research have at last 
 agreed, that some of the oldest Lake Dwellings date 
 back to the time when the Phoenician colonies spread 
 themselves westward. Certain it seems that in some 
 of the oldest are discovered remains which point to 
 commercial intercourse between Europe and the 
 Phoenician colony at Carthage. Some of the later 
 Lake Dwellings may have been cotemporaneous with 
 the Cranogens in Ireland, many of which existed 
 between the ninth and the seventeenth centuries. 
 As monuments of antiquity they are important, but 
 they fail to prove the fabulous antiquity claimed for 
 man, and from them it will be difficult, if not 
 impossible, even to fix the probable age in which 
 civilization dawned in Europe. 
 
 5. Infallible Method of fixing the Antiquity of Man. 
 
 Hebrew chronology is, as is well known, identical 
 with Hebrew genealogy. The one rests upon the 
 other. Granting that it be fragmentary and that it 
 may therefore admit of different combinations, yet 
 even in this imperfect form it has totally destroyed 
 the extravagant pretensions of the heathen chrono- 
 logies, and we may add of the not less extravagant 
 
138 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 modern geological eras. Geology cannot fix the 
 antiquity of man, since the crust of the earth 
 nowhere presents a complete record of the past. 
 Nor is there any hope of the settlement of some of 
 the gravest questions, as long as the leading geologians 
 have not yet settled among themselves at what 
 period man entered upon the scene. On the other 
 hand, neither the skulls which have been discovered, 
 nor the successive ages of stone, bronze, and iron, 
 which are supposed to have been discovered, can 
 definitely help us in fixing the antiquity of man. 
 Our only hope is in the speedy and entire rescue of 
 the study of physical science from the hands of 
 unscrupulous and rash speculators, and in its being 
 resumed under the guidance of ancient history and 
 true philosophy, not excluding that oldest historical 
 record in the world, contained in the Old Testament. 
 If this be done, we shall in due time be brought 
 back once more to the dictum of such men as De Luc, 
 D'Aubisson, Dolomieu, Schlotheim, Blumenbach, 
 Wagner, Cuvier, and Schubert, who hold that as far 
 as science can come to any approximate dates, it 
 establishes the Biblical chronology as rational and 
 trustworthy. If it be asked what has been discovered, 
 or what has happened to bring about the great 
 change of opinion now prevalent, we find there are 
 no scientific grounds which could have induced 
 thoughtful minds to abandon the conclusions come 
 to by those great men. The only mode of account- 
 ing for it is this, that the spirit of the age is changed, 
 and that scepticism, instead of remaining sporadic, 
 is gradually becoming epidemical. 
 
 It is universally admitted that no ancient nation 
 possesses any sort of historical record as old as the 
 Hebrews, and that there is no book of any antiquity 
 
ANTIQUITY OF MAN DETERMINED. 139 
 
 except the one of the Hebrews which could claim to 
 be of a strictly historical character. Yet, extra- 
 vagant as are the claims of the Egyptians, Chinese, 
 Hindus, and Babylonians, they will help us greatly 
 in ascertaining the real antiquity of our race, if we 
 carefully eliminate the purely mythical from the 
 historical legends. Most ancient nations assume 
 mythical and historical ages, during the former of 
 which, gods and demi-gods are supposed to have 
 reigned. The rule of gods and demi-gods among 
 the Egyptians, according to Manetho, lasted 10,985, 
 according to Diodorus, 18,000, according to others 
 33,984 years. The Chaldees, according to some 
 authorities, reckon 432,000 years before the Deluge ; 
 according to others 468,000 years from the beginning 
 of the world till Alexander the Great ; according to 
 others, 473,000 years. The Chinese allow ten hi, or 
 periods, of mythical ages in which gods and demi- 
 gods ruled for two or three millions of years. The 
 Japanese also know of a period of several millions 
 of years during which seven heavenly spirits 
 governed the earth, prior to the commencement of 
 their national history. 
 
 Klaproth insists upon the very late period at 
 which the historical era of most ancient nations 
 commenced, and this period of course differs with 
 different nations. The bona fide historical epoch 
 began : — 
 
 With the Arabs in the fifth 
 „ Persians in the third 
 
 Persians in the third ... l 
 
 Turks in the fourteenth ,. \ Century 
 
 Mongols in the twelfth ... | after Christ - 
 
 Tibetans in the first ... J 
 
140 
 
 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 With the Chinese in the eighth 
 
 Egyptians in the eighth .. 
 Japanese in the seventh .. 
 Armenians in the second ... , Century- 
 Georgians in the third ... ' before Christ. 
 Hindus in the third 
 Babylonians in the eighth... 
 Assyrians in the eighth ... 
 
 In the historical myths or legends which embody 
 the primitive traditions, we are furnished with the 
 records of their first kings and princes, and to what 
 I specially desire to draw attention is, that under 
 their national progenitor or first king, a great flood 
 invariably takes place, as we shall notice in the flood 
 legends, and very often this is the only event 
 recorded in connection with their beginnings; a 
 proof that it was a most important event in their 
 earliest recollections. After that event all recollec- 
 tion fails, and all that remains is a dry list of 
 supposed kings; or it branches out into mythical 
 reminiscences of the national life. But not only do 
 all nations of antiquity commence their national 
 life with a great flood; there is something more. 
 All ancient nations in their way signify a date when 
 the flood took place, which, after making allowance 
 for solar, lunar, and other calculations, in a general 
 way agree severally with the date of the Biblical 
 Deluge. Not as if we could make the Pentateuch 
 responsible for any one finished system of chronology, 
 much less are we called upon to reconcile the dis- 
 crepancy between the Hebrew text according to 
 which the flood took place 2253, and the Samaritan 
 text which fixes it 2903, and the Septuagint which 
 places the Deluge at 3134 B.C. No cogent reason, 
 however, has as yet been adduced why we should not 
 abide by the lower figures of the Hebrew text, which 
 
ANTIQUITY OF MAN DETERMINED. 141 
 
 gives, moreover, as nearly as possible the date to 
 which the ancients adhered. 
 
 The Chinese Noah, or "the son of the rainbow, 
 and the sacrificer of the seven clean animals," is 
 placed in the year 2357 B.C., which agrees generally 
 with the Mosaic date of the flood ; but others make 
 it 2637 years. The Assyrian Bel-Cham, or Chom, 
 the progenitor of Assyrians, Babylonians, and 
 Phoenicians, who in the myths becomes the saviour 
 from the waters, is placed 2316, according to the 
 chronographia of Syncellus. Ninus, the first king, 
 reigns 2175, or, according to Callisthenes, the history 
 of the Babylonians and Assyrians begins in the year 
 2234, neither of which dates greatly deviates from 
 Genesis. The semi-mythical Phoenician records point 
 to the year 2700 B.C. The Kaliyug of the Hindus, 
 or the beginning of their present cosmical era, falls 
 3101, and all seems to hinge upon this figure in the 
 chronological systems of the Pooranas. The 
 Kashmere flood under Kassiapa, is placed at 2448, 
 and though there were reasons why the Hindus 
 should place Manu and Kassiapa further back, they 
 belong to the opening of the Kaliyug, 3101 B.C. The 
 Armenians allow their progenitor, Haik, to emigrate 
 from Babylonia after the building of the tower in 
 the year 2200 B.C. 
 
 In Egypt also the reign of Menes, after deduct- 
 ing the reign of the gods and demi-gods, falls into 
 the year 2600. Lastly, the Grecian Noah, Ogyges, 
 according to Varro, lived about 2300 B.C., and 
 Censorinus fixes the flood 1600 before the Olympiade, 
 i.e. 2376 B.C. The Mexicans fix the time of the 
 flood about the year 2658 B.C., and in the year of the 
 world 1325. 
 
 Thus the historical legends of antiquity are seen 
 
142 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 pushing back their beginnings to the great 
 catastrophe of the flood of Genesis, which forms 
 the boundary of the known and the unknown. 
 Even the date could not be wholly wiped out; on 
 the contrary, it became the corner-stone of their vast 
 chronological edifice, although there is little indeed 
 to fill up the great gap which lies between that 
 event and their real beginning. 
 
 To the same period of 2500 B.C. points the 
 Inscription of Borsippa, decyphered by Oppert, but 
 discovered and somewhat differently interpreted by 
 Rawlinson. Oppert' s version, which is preferred by 
 M. Maury, is given as follows in the Journal 
 Asiatique, 1857. 
 
 "Nabuchodonosor, roi de Babylone, serviteur de l'Etre eternel, 
 temoin de l'immuable affection de Merodach, le puissant empereur 
 qui exalte Nebo, le sauveur, le sage qui prete son oreille aux 
 iujonctions du dieu supreme; le vicaire des dieux qui n'abuse pas 
 de son pouvoir, le reconstructeur de la Pyramide et de la Tour, 
 fils aine de Nabopallassar, roi de Babylone, moi. Nous disons: 
 Merodach, le grand seigneur, m'a lui-nieme engendre; il m'a 
 enjoint de reconstruire ses sanctuaires. — La Tour, la maison 
 eternelle, je l'ai refondee et rebatie; eu argent, en or, en autres 
 metaux, en pierre, en briques vernissees, en cypres et en cedre, 
 j'en ai acheve la magnificence. — Nous disons, qui est cet edifice-ci : 
 Le temple des sept lumieres de la terre, et auquel se rattache le 
 plus ancien souvenir de Borsippa), fut bati par un roi antique 
 (on compt, de la quarante-deux vies humaines), mais il n'en eleva 
 pas le faite. Les homines l'avaient abandonne depuis les jours du 
 deluge (?), en desordre proferant leurs paroles. Le tremblement 
 de terre etletonnerre avaient ebranle la biique crue, avaient fendu 
 la brique cuite des revetements ; la brique crue des massifs s'etait 
 eboulee en formant des collines. Le grand Dieu Merodach a 
 engage mon coeur a le rebatir; je n'en ai pas change l'emplacement, 
 je n'en ai pas attaque les fondations. Dans le mois du salut, au 
 jour heureux, j'ai perce par les arcades la brique crue des massifs 
 et la brique cuite des revetements. J'ai inscrit la gloire de mon 
 nom dans les frises des arcades. J'ai mis la main a reconstruire 
 la Tour et a en elever le faite : comme jadis elle dut etre ainsi je 
 
ANTIQUITY OF MAN DETERMINED. 143 
 
 l'ai refondee et rebatie ; comme elle dut etre dans tes temps 
 eloigned, ainsi j'en ai eleve le somraet," etc. 
 
 This inscription confirms at once the chronology 
 of Genesis, and the Biblical account of the flood, 
 the building of the tower, and the confusion of 
 tongues. Of the construction of the tower more 
 detailed accounts have recently been discovered in 
 the cuneiform inscriptions. Nebuchadnezzar reckons , 
 the above inscription 42 generations. If the flood 
 took place in the year 1656, the confusion of tongues 
 in the year of the birth of Peleg, or 101 years after 
 the flood, we find that the year 3437, as the sum 
 total of 1656 + 101, and 40 x 42, falls into the reign 
 of Nebuchadnezzar. Hence we see that the figure 
 or date placed at the head of their beginning is with 
 all ancient nations 2000 till 3000 years B.C. 
 
 The further we go back into the history of our 
 childhood, the less we know of ourselves, and the 
 more dim become our recollections. We recollect 
 things which occurred perhaps in the fourth or fifth 
 year of our life, but the further we go back the less 
 we remember. Just so it is with the nations and 
 with the human race in general. Whenever the 
 recollections of a people fail, you may be sure that 
 you are not far from the beginning of their national 
 existence. 
 
 Now it is admitted that towards the end of 2000 
 years before Christ, the history of most nations 
 ceases, and nothing remains but fables and myths ; 
 all consciousness and recollection seems to fail them. 
 If this be so, we need not go back much further for 
 the real beginning of these peoples and nations. 
 According to Moses there was a great and universal 
 flood, which destroyed the whole human race, with 
 the exception of a very few individuals, after which 
 
144 CHAP. III. GENESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 there was to be a re-formation, and re-construction 
 of national life. If we give 300 years to this 
 process, we find that history begins just where 
 Genesis made it begin. Were the oldest nations of 
 Asia and Africa older than 2300 years, their history 
 would as a matter of course go back beyond the 
 2000 B.C. As their history does not go farther back, 
 we have a proof that they were then in their infancy, 
 not far removed from their cradle or the very earliest 
 dawn of consciousness. "Whatever is recollected of 
 earlier traditions, is myth, fable, mythology, in 
 which, however, some of the earliest traditions are 
 incrusted. 
 
 As there was a childhood of mankind, so there 
 was a youth, and it is from the youthful days those 
 colossal edifices and structures, such as the Pyramids 
 of Egypt, the tower of Babylon, and the cyclopic 
 walls of Greece and Italy show as much daring 
 courage as presumption. The works found in Syria, 
 Hauran, Petrea, India, Persia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, 
 severally show that they were undertaken by an 
 energetic and juvenile zeal, not in an age when 
 thoughtful calculation had taken the lead. 
 
 Thus in the united testimony of all the ancient 
 nations, we have an infallible evidence as to the real 
 antiquity of man. The united recollections of the 
 most ancient and the most civilized nations repudiate 
 any antiquity of man beyond that fixed by the 
 Pentateuch ; and should not these recollections of the 
 oldest and wisest sections of the human race have 
 more weight than the vast numbers of modern 
 theories and speculations, which succeed each other, 
 as one wave succeeds the other in the ocean ? 
 
COSMOGONICAL LEGENDS. 145 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 1. Legends Respecting the Origin of all Things. 
 
 Mythos or myth in Greek signifies speech, conver- 
 sation, then fable, myth as mingling truth with 
 error, historical facts with fiction, human opinions 
 with divine revelations. Hence myths cannot be 
 regarded as wholly destitute of all the elements of 
 truth ; we must consider them rather as combining 
 fiction with historical events, or in some cases with 
 revealed truths. The myths of the ancients, like 
 golden threads of truth, run back to the beginning 
 of time, and in the lapse of ages fanciful accretions 
 and additions have imperceptibly crystallized around 
 them. Regarded in this light, the legends and 
 sagas of ancient nations are intensely interesting, 
 both to the Historian and to the Theologian. As 
 the spurious could not exist, if it were not for the 
 pre-existence of the true, and as the shadow necess- 
 arily proves the substance, so the ancient myths are 
 a lasting and incontrovertible evidence that there 
 was a revelation more ancient, and the actual occur- 
 rence of historical events more pure than them- 
 selves. 
 
 If we were to discover among nations, cut off 
 from each other for thousands of years, the same 
 legends or traditions which could not possibly be 
 invented or borrowed, we should rightly infer, that 
 they all drew from one and the same central primi- 
 tive source ; and we should recognise in these myths 
 
 K 
 
146 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 reminiscences of days when certain great events 
 were fresh in the memory, of the still undivided 
 human race. It will be absurd to assume that the 
 ancients invented everywhere the same story, but 
 altogether rational to believe with Cicero "that 
 traditions in which all nations agree, must be true."* 
 Whilst protesting against the immoral tendency 
 of many of the Grecian myths, Plato deplores that 
 "after educating the first man in the days of Kronos, 
 and after tending our progenitors as men tend 
 inferior creatures, the deity should have forsaken 
 the world, and that mankind should thus have for- 
 gotten the truths which were originally communi- 
 cated to them." He also blames those who alto- 
 gether rejected the stories of their ancestors, "who 
 stood so much nearer the primitive source of all 
 truth;" and he suggests to his cotemporaries that 
 they should suspend their judgment concerning these 
 myths, " till one should come who would teach us 
 more accurately." This leads us at once to the root 
 of all ancient myths. As far back as Artemidorus 
 it was known to the ancient Greeks that there is no 
 people without a god or religion of some kind; it 
 was also the common belief of all ancient nations, 
 that at the beginning the deity was pleased to make 
 some revelation of himself and His will. Such a 
 conviction underlies every ancient mythology, and 
 
 * In 1856, after 15 years labour, Dr. Liiken in Germany 
 published, "Die Traditionen des Menschen Geschlechts oder die 
 Uroffenbarung Gottes unter den Heiden." It is a most valuable 
 work; re-published in 1869 in 537 pages, the only fault is its 
 being too diffuse in its style and scope to be translated, though I 
 see it has been turned into French. I shall give a condensed view 
 of Liiken's book, as well as of the less complete collection of 
 myths by Dclitzsch, Rougemont, Zockler, Neve, Spiegel, Binde- 
 wald, and others. 
 
COSMOGONICAL LEGENDS. 117 
 
 without exception all spurious creeds are based upon 
 the assumption that they were divinely ordained. 
 
 Ask whence their primitive religion, first cul- 
 ture and civilization were derived, and they will 
 answer that it came from God. Thus the Hindus 
 trace their religious system back to the flood-patri- 
 arch Manu or Manus, who is said to have received 
 it direct from the deity. The Babylonians receive 
 the divine law originally through the mediation of 
 Oanncs, or through the flood-patriarch Xisuthrus. 
 The Phoenicians and Egyptians believe their know- 
 ledge of divine things was communicated to them 
 by Thout or Thoth, or direct from Osiris. Even 
 Euhemerus, who had the repute of an atheist among 
 the Greeks, endeavoured to show from monuments 
 and inscriptions, that Zeus had chronicled his own 
 deeds to reveal them to the people. But this truth, 
 which according to an Indian philosopher was 
 originally implanted in man's heart, was "forgotten 
 and allowed to go to sleep." Hence, Sancara the 
 author of an allegorical drama among the Hindus, 
 declares that " it was not by means of philosophical 
 argumentation, but by the help of the traditions 
 handed down, that we could hope to reach God." 
 The Greeks also held, that the present religion was 
 given to man by those heroes and demi-gods who 
 stood nearest to the deity. Thus Herodotus speaks 
 of a purer faith having existed among the Pelas- 
 gians, and he accuses both Hesiod and Homer of 
 having created the far less pure and more popular 
 mythology. 
 
 Then we trace a decided Monotheism at the root 
 of ail Pagan mythologies, which was, doubtless, part 
 of the primitive revelation; and all the leading 
 modern mythologians of note, have long since agreed 
 
 t 
 
148 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 that monotheism, not polytheism, was the original 
 creed of mankind. Truth is always more ancient 
 than error. Among the Greeks the primitive creed 
 was thought to have been purer, deeper, and more 
 exalted than even the theology of Pythagoras, Aris- 
 totle, and Plato ; for in the beginning the deity was 
 believed to have had personal interview with mortal 
 man, and if there be the merest spark of truth in 
 these strongly-marked traditions, how false must be 
 the modern theory which allows men gradually to 
 evolve from a condition of savage barbarism ? The 
 Zoroastrian creed starts with the belief in the 
 supreme deity, Zeruana Akarana ; Hinduism begins 
 with Brahm ; the ancient Egyptians with Kneph, 
 i.e., the Spirit ; the Chinese with Tien ; the Greeks 
 and Romans with Jupiter-Zeus ; the Germans with 
 Alfadur. Yet, sooner or later, the supreme deity in 
 each case was neglected, and became " the unknown 
 God" of heathenism. That the original creed was 
 monotheistic may be inferred from less-advanced 
 Pagans. The American Indian believes in the 
 Great Spirit, whose abode is in the sun. The 
 supreme deity of the Peruvians was Pachakamak ; 
 that of the Mexicans, Teotl ; and the negroes still 
 regard their fetish as the mere representative of 
 some superior spirit or demon, upon whom they call 
 in time of need, as Zamba, M'Poonga, Woorah, Aga 
 Nana, or Til, all names of the supreme deity. 
 Among the Hottentots, Gounya Tekquoa is regarded 
 the chief god ; among the Bushmen, Pora, the 
 Betchuans, Muhrimo ; among the South Sea 
 Islanders, Eatua Rahai ; among the Sandwich 
 Islanders, Atua Bono ; among the Kamtshadales 
 in the north, Kutka, and among the Samoyedes, 
 Num or Nap or Ileumbartje, which last signifies 
 
COSMOGONICAL LEGENDS. 149 
 
 " the guardian of cattle." The highest god among 
 the Finns was Yamula ; the Karians in Birmah call 
 the supreme deity, Phukere, i.e., the Father, the 
 Eternal, or the Almighty. Hence the great force 
 of the words of Maximus Tyrius, a heathen philo- 
 sopher, as far back as the second century, when he 
 says, " In all the conflict and amidst all the difference 
 and disagreement existing among men upon earth, 
 there yet prevails one law and one rule, which is 
 that there is one god, the King and Father of all, 
 and that there be many gods, who being the sons of 
 God, are his co-regents. This is the belief alike of 
 the Greek and of the Barbarian, of the inhabitants 
 of continents, no less than those of isles, of the wise 
 as well as of the unwise." This great common in- 
 heritance of monotheistic belief, was, of course, 
 materially impaired as myths multiplied, and where 
 God was not worshipped as God, it was altogether 
 lost. 
 
 No marvel that we should miss any very great 
 uniformity in the cosmological legends respecting 
 the creation of the world. Yet who will deny that 
 these ancient cosmogonies have some features in 
 common ? All cosmogonies commence with a chaos, 
 or with a mundane egg ; everywhere darkness pre- 
 cedes lis-ht, even the words of the thohu, i.e., without 
 form, and bohu, i.e., void, seem to be preserved in 
 the Phoenician creation legend. The Assyrian 
 tablets, containing the Creation story, now being 
 translated by Mr. George Smith, speak of such a 
 chaos producing monsters, and being presided over 
 by a female power named Tisalat, which evidently 
 personifies the Spirit brooding upon the waters 
 of the deep. This moving or brooding of the 
 Spirit clearly suggested the mundane egg, and the 
 
150 CHAI\ IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 mythical bird, so common in ancient cosmogonies. 
 In Egypt Kneph is represented as breathing the 
 mundane egg of the world out of his mouth ; in 
 Greece the deity deposits the egg in chaos. Even 
 the South Sea Islanders speak of a time "when all 
 was sea, and when a large bird descended upon the 
 water to lay an egg from which originated the 
 island Hanai." In the Einnish national Epos we 
 have these lines — 
 
 " Aus des Hies oberer Halfte 
 Wird des /when Ilimmels Bogen." 
 
 On the other side of the Behring Strait, both the 
 mundane egg, and the mythical bird reappear, the 
 latter being transformed into the raven. The West 
 Indians relate that " in the beginning all was sea, 
 and a large bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances 
 were lightning, and the action of whose wings 
 caused the thunder, descended into the sea, upon 
 which the earth made its appearance, and out of the 
 newly-made earth the bird called forth all the 
 animals. ' ' Manu speaks of the golden eggs contain- 
 ing the seed of all things living ; indeed, Brahm 
 himself reposes in the egg till it bursts, dividing 
 into two hemispheres. Bougement recognises in 
 the custom of the breaking of eggs at Easter the 
 symbolic commemoration of the breaking of the 
 mundane egg in the springtide of the universe. 
 
 The ancients had a distinct recollection of the six 
 creation days, or the hexaenieron ; for how otherwise 
 could we account for the all but universal adoption, 
 in spite of its practical inconvenience, of the heb- 
 domadal division among the Bomans, Greeks, 
 Egyptians, Hindus, Chinese, Arabs, Assyrians, and 
 even among the Peruvians ? As the seven-days- 
 week does not agree with the motion of the sun, or 
 
COSMOGONICAL LEGENDS. 151 
 
 of the moon, or of the stars, the Romans and Greeks 
 had, in addition, weeks of eight, nine, and even of 
 ten days. Yet the hebdomadal division was retained 
 together with the additional tradition that one of 
 the seven days gives sanctity and blessing to the 
 rest ; thus Sunday was sacred with the Hindus, 
 Monday with the Greeks, Tuesday with the Persians, 
 Wednesday with the Assyrians, Thursday with the 
 Egyptians, and Friday with the Arabs before they 
 embraced Islam. Even some of the negroes observe 
 the seven-days- week ; and lest it should appear that 
 they are indebted to either the Mohammedans, Jews, 
 or Christians, they keep Thursday sacred. When 
 the ancients subsequently agreed to make the sun, 
 the moon, and the five original planets preside over 
 the week of seven days, it was simply a perversion 
 of the original institution in Paradise, just as now-a- 
 day the Sabbath of the Jew or the Sunday of the 
 Christian is turned into a day of pleasure and simple 
 recreation. 
 
 That the Pagan nations retained a recollection of 
 the hexaemeron of the Creation is certain from the 
 fact that the ancient Persians speak of festivals called 
 Gahanbars, ascribing them to Djemshid, the ante- 
 diluvian king and lawgiver, in commemoration of 
 the hexaemeron of the Creation. Ormuzd himself is 
 said to have kept these Creation festivals at the end 
 of the Creation with the whole heavens. At a later 
 period these festivals were distributed over the whole 
 year, and to this day they are kept sacred by the 
 Parsees. According to the Bundehesh and the Afrin 
 Gahanbar, which treats largely of the celebration of 
 these six festivals, it is said that Ormuzd made 
 heaven on the first day ; on the second, water ; on 
 the third, the earth ; on the fourth, trees ; on the 
 
152 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 fifth, animals ; and on the sixth day, man. Suidas 
 records a legend of the ancient Etruscans, in which 
 the hexaemeron is likewise reproduced. The De- 
 iniurgos assigns 12,000 years as the duration of the 
 world ; and these twelve centuries are respectively 
 placed under the rule of the twelve zodiacal signs ; 
 but the Creation itself is made to extend over 6,000 
 years. During the first thousand years heaven and 
 earth were made, in the second, the firmament, in 
 the third, seas and waters ; then the two great 
 lights, then the souls or prototypes of animals, and 
 last of all, man. 
 
 The Hindus, according to a commentary to Manu 
 or Manus, believe that the firmament was blown out 
 of the waters in the shape of an egg by a large tube, 
 and that the earth was formed out of the deposit 
 thus produced. The sun and moon were next made 
 to divide time into days and seasons of the year. 
 Then animals were produced by the earth and the 
 sea. Lastly man was created ; whom God quickened 
 by giving him a living soul. In the Bagavadam it 
 is stated that Vishnu, in the beginning, remained 
 alone on the waters, then followed the six creations 
 of the five elements, and of the creative principle, 
 Prakruda. After this came the three creations of 
 plants, animals, and man. In the Chinese Book 
 Fong-su-tong is found this legend: "When heaven 
 and earth were created, man was yet wanting. Mu- 
 hoa then took yellow earth, of which he formed 
 man. This is the true origin of the human race." 
 And this leads us to the legends recording the crea- 
 tion of man, from clay, or from the dust of the 
 ground. 
 
LEGENDS RESPECTING MAN'S CREATION 153 
 
 2. Myths respecting Mans Creation, his Original 
 Felicity, his Fall and his Hope of Recovery. 
 
 Most traditions, like those of the Chinese just 
 named, hand down the record that man was made 
 last of all, and that he was formed from clay. The 
 Egyptian Ivneph was called, "the fashioner of men." 
 At Elephantine, a fresco is to be seen representing a 
 man being formed or fashioned upon a potter's 
 wheel. At Philce I have seen the figure of Kneph 
 with a heap of clay before him, out of which he is 
 shaping human bodies. Thoth Trismegistos pre- 
 pares the clay, moistening it to make it sufficiently 
 pliable. In the Chaldean legend, Bel commands the 
 head of one of the gods to be struck off, and with 
 the blood the clay was made, from which man and 
 beast were to be created. The German Tuisko is 
 said to have proceeded from the earth; and the 
 woman springs from under the arm of Ymer (whence 
 she was called the rib of Ymer), whilst he lies in 
 deep sleep, with a heavy perspiration upon him. In 
 the Hindu legends, man is formed from earth, and 
 the soul was added to enable him to know God. 
 
 The Greeks called or designated the first men 
 " earth-born," in contra-distinction of the Olympian 
 gods and heroes. In a fragment ascribed to Hesiod, 
 it is said that Prometheus made the first man of 
 clay, and Minerva gave him the soul. Aeschylus 
 exiled the first woman " the mortal wife formed from 
 clay-fashioned seed." Aristophanes calls man "the 
 workmanship out of clay." In a temple in Phocis, 
 Pausanias was shown 200 years B.C., a relic of clay 
 from which Prometheus was said to have fashioned 
 man. The deity Taroa, according to the legend of 
 Otahiti, on finishing the creation of heaven and 
 earth, made man from red clay. The Mexicans 
 
151 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 believed the first man to be formed from earth, and 
 the Peruvians call man, "alpakamarcha," which 
 signifies the earth-soul. In the Brazils the follow- 
 ing legend was picked up by a German traveller : — 
 "After the mountains and valleys were made, God 
 formed man. He first made the small figure of a man 
 from clay, then breathed upon it, when it became 
 alive, and grew up a perfect man." In North 
 America men called themselves metok theniake, or 
 earth-born, like the Greeks. The Persians, and 
 Mexicans too, knew of the earthy origin of man. 
 
 Again, all ancient legends agree that man was 
 created before woman; and that the woman was 
 made differently ; besides many ancient nations have 
 a tradition that the woman was made out of a bone 
 or rib of the first man. Ellis relates that accordino* 
 to an ancient local traditions in the Society Islands, 
 the deity Taroa made the first man literally from 
 red earth, which also was man's food till the bread- 
 fruit came to be made. Connected with this is the 
 legend that Taroa called man one day to him, put 
 him into a deep sleep, and whilst asleep removed 
 one of his bones, from which he made the woman to 
 be his wife. And this, they insist, was a tradition 
 of their people before a stranger came among them. 
 To show the genuine character of the myth, it may 
 be added that it was found among other islanders, 
 e.g., in New Zealand. The natives of Madagascar 
 believe that the Creator drew out of the body of 
 the first man, seven women; this number is ac- 
 counted for by the fact that there are seven principal 
 tribes in the island, who all claim the same origin. 
 In Orenoko, Pater Gili found a legend of the origin 
 of woman, which differs but very slightly from the 
 record in the book of Genesis. The Mexicans 
 
LEGENDS RESPECTING MAN'S CREATION. 155 
 
 believed Cihuacohuatl i.e., the woman with the 
 serpent, to have been formed from a bone and there- 
 fore called her, " Tonacacihua" u., woman of our 
 flesh. Another tradition is, that at the besrinnino* 
 of this age, Xolotl brought from Hades the bone of 
 a dead man, and by sprinkling it with his blood he 
 formed a woman. The Greenlanders have a legend, 
 that the first man, kallah, was formed from earth, 
 that his wife sprang from his thumb and became 
 the mother of the human race. The Karaibes relate 
 that their god Luoguo descended from heaven to 
 earth, that a deep cut was made in his navel and 
 thigh, out of which two places proceeded the first 
 pair of man. 
 
 The Yu inula negroes teach that Til the great 
 Creator, cut the knee-caps from the hermaphrodite- 
 Venus, and made from them a black and white 
 human pair. Other negro tribes speak of the first 
 woman being called lye, or life. The hellenistic 
 myths also knew of a creation of the woman from 
 the rib. It is related of Pelops, that on Demeter 
 having consumed one of his shoulder-blades, Zeus 
 put one of ivory in its place. According to another 
 tradition the lost bone was a rib, and the ivory rib 
 was subsequently shown as a relic in Elis. Again, 
 Leda, the celebrated mother of Sparta, was surnamed 
 pleuronia, which implies that she was taken from 
 the rib-man. Artemidorus speaks of women as ribs, 
 saving, "women are ribs." 
 
 In the Zendavesta the first man is represented to 
 spring from the right front thigh of the dying bull 
 Abudad. In the Hindu myths the essence of the 
 first woman was a bone, and at her death, Shiva 
 takes back the bone as belonging to him. Sarasvadi, 
 the first woman, is made out of the body of Brahma, 
 
156 CBAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 and ere long she becomes the cause of his fall, by 
 which his body, formerly glorious, becomes mist and 
 darkness, and the goddess herself becomes the 
 wicked giantess Sandia-devi. Thus it will appear that 
 among the most remote nations, the first woman was 
 believed to have been made •frorn the body of the 
 first man ; whether from the rib, or the arm, or the 
 loins, or the thumb, the origin mainly is the same, 
 and must have been drawn originally from the same 
 source. 
 
 All nations tell of some abode of bliss, or paradise, 
 which belonged to the first man, but which is now 
 unknown to mankind. It is situated on a high 
 mountain ; the Atlas by the Greeks, Meru or Su- 
 meru by the Hindus; Albors or Albordsh by the 
 Persians; and Caf by the Arabs; by others it is 
 conceived as a blissful island, now lost like the 
 Atlantis. Among the Hindus it is affirmed that four 
 large streams, the Ganges, Sita, Bhadra and Dshaksha, 
 issue from Nandana, or paradise, and that Kalpaurk- 
 sham, the tree of immortality, grows there. This 
 paradise is watched by dragons who, like the flam- 
 ing sword, keep all sinners away. The Persian 
 paradise also has four rivers, Arg, Veh, Arduisur 
 Putih, and contains the tree of immortality called 
 Horn, from which the first human beings were 
 nourished. They believe that the dead at the last 
 day will be quickened by the juice of this sacramen- 
 tal tree of life. 
 
 The paradise of the Chinese is situated on theKuen- 
 lun and the Thian-shan mountains. In the centre 
 of the mountain is a garden where soft zephyrs 
 continually blow. The garden itself lies before the 
 closed gate of heaven. The yellow fount of immor- 
 tality springs from the four rivers, which water the 
 
LEGENDS RESPECTING PARADISE. 157 
 
 soil. There are in it wonderful fountains, and trees 
 of marvellous beauty, and on the fruit of Tong, one 
 of the trees, life is said to depend. 
 
 The Greeks maintain that on mount Atlas is the 
 garden of the Hesperides, with the celebrated 
 wonder-tree and its golden fruits, surrounded by 
 walls, and carefully guarded by a dragon. In it live 
 the makrobians, who, subsisting entirely on fruits, 
 attain the age of one thousand years. The German 
 paradise, Asgard, the garden of the gods, was said 
 to lie in the centre of the world. There the golden 
 age was passed, and in it grew the sacred ash tree 
 Ygdrasill, from the three roots of which sprang 
 three rivers or fountains, Urdhar, Mimis, and 
 Huergelmir. The serpent Nidhoggr continually 
 gnaws at the root of the sacred tree. In Asgard 
 grew the apples of immortality of which only the 
 gods may eat in order to preserve their youth. 
 
 The Phoenician legends, knew of an ambrosian 
 floating paradisical island, and they also represent 
 the sacred tree of paradise as being guarded by a 
 flying dragon. The paradise of the Mexicans lies 
 upon the summit of the highest mountain. The first 
 man under whom the golden age transpired, returned 
 thither to obtain the nectar of immortality, and he 
 was to come back to restore the golden age ; but to 
 this hour he has never yet reappeared among the 
 expectant Mexicans. 
 
 Some of the Celtic nations conceive paradise 
 to have been a blissful island in the world's 
 ocean, called Mathinnis, on which immortal youth 
 prevails, and there too are rivers of wondrous beauty, 
 and trees bearing all manner of fruit. The Tonga 
 Islanders believe that this paradisical island called 
 Bolotuh, which was the first thing created, was also 
 
158 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 the abode of the first man, and abounding with trees 
 bearing immortalizing fruits, which are seen bending 
 down, and which no mortal can approach. The 
 paradise lies to the west of Tonga. The natives of 
 Hawaii hold that in the same island flows a river 
 which renews and quickens all with which it comes 
 in contact ; it is called wai ora roa, or the water of 
 eternal life. 
 
 Thus we see that Paradise, with its trees and 
 rivers of life, and the nectar of immortality, is no- 
 where forgotten. In Egypt the Tree of Life has a 
 serpent entwined around the trunk ; Buddha was 
 born under the Bodhi tree. This tree, called Horn 
 by the Persians, Tong by the Chinese, Soma by 
 the Hindus, Somi by the Egyptians, reappears in 
 Mexico as the Tonacaquahuitl, or the " tree of our 
 flesh." Though not stated in every single myth 
 that this paradise was the abode of the first man, 
 yet the original condition of man is uniformly re- 
 presented as one of intelligence, happiness, and bliss. 
 To use the words of Voltaire, " la chute de I'homme 
 deg mere est le fondement de la theologie de presqve 
 toutes les anciennes nations-/'' and the original state 
 of innocency and subsequent degeneracy of man is 
 the leading dogma of ancient paganism. 
 
 Mr. George Smith has recently added fresh 
 evidence from the Assyrian tablets. He says: — 
 " Whatever the primitive account may have been 
 from which the earlier part of the Book of Genesis 
 was copied, it is evident that the brief narration given 
 in the Pentateuch omits a number of incidents and 
 explanations — for instance, as to the origin of evil, 
 the fall of the angels, the wickedness of the serpent, 
 &c. Such points as these are included in the Cunei- 
 form narrative ; but of course I can say little about 
 
LEGENDS RESPECTING MAN'S FALL. 159 
 
 them until I prepare full translations of the legends. 
 We are told, in the inscriptions, of the fall of the 
 celestial being who appears to correspond to Satan. 
 In his ambition, he raises his hand against the sanc- 
 tuary of the God of heaven, and the description of 
 him is really magnificent. He is represented riding 
 in a chariot through celestial space, surrounded by 
 the storms, with the lightning playing before him, 
 and wielding a thunderbolt as a weapon. This 
 rebellion leads to a war in heaven, and the conquest 
 of the powers of evil, the gods in due course creating 
 the universe in stages, as in the Mosaic narrative, 
 surveying each step of the work and pronouncing it 
 good. The divine work culminates in the creation 
 of man, who is made upright and free from evil, 
 and endowed by the gods with the noble faculty of 
 speech. The Deity then delivers a long address to 
 the newly-created being, instructing him in all his 
 duties and privileges, and pointing out the glory of 
 his state. But this condition of blessing does not 
 last long before man, yielding to temptation, foils ; 
 and the Deity then pronounces upon him a terrible 
 curse, invoking on his head all the evils which have 
 since afflicted humanity." 
 
 This doctrine of man's original integrity, and of the 
 subsequent moral and religious degeneracy of man- 
 kind underlies the doctrine of the four ages of the 
 world. Beginning with the Medes, Persians, and 
 Bactrians, the first age which lasts 3000 years is 
 free from all evil ; the land is full of blessing ; the 
 primal king, Djemshid, cleaves the soil with a golden 
 plough ; there is no oppression, no poverty, no 
 beggar, no deceiver, no enemy, no police; the 
 people worship Horn, and take of it as much as they 
 please. In the second 3000 years the struggle 
 
160 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 between good and evil commences. In the third 
 3000 years Ormuzd and Ahriman equally divide the 
 sovereignty. In the fourth age, evil shall prevail, 
 and at the end of the last 3000 years a universal 
 conflagration will close the entire scene. The be- 
 ginning of all evil was when Meshia and Meshiane, 
 the first pair, were deceived by Ahriman. He first 
 put evil thoughts into their hearts, and then placed 
 the forbidden fruit into their hands, in eating which 
 " a hundred happinesses hitherto enjoyed, are lost, 
 saving one." 
 
 With the Hindus also the first age is the 
 age of Truth, or the Krita Yug, in which Truth is 
 represented as walking upon four legs ; the earth 
 being then as full of the finest wheatnower as now 
 of dust. Some of the fountains flowed with water, 
 some with milk, some with honey, some with wine, 
 and some with oil. Man having fallen, Truth in the 
 second age, or the Treta Yug, walked on three legs 
 only. In the third age, or in the Dwcqmra Yug, 
 which is the age of doubt, Truth walked on two 
 legs, and in the present fourth age, or the Kali 
 Yug, Truth begins to walk on one leg, evil being 
 triumphant, and the general burning up of the 
 universe is at hand. 
 
 The Buddhists tell us that before man fell he lived 
 to an "incalculable ' ' age, or was immortal. Though 
 dwelling upon the earth, men, whilst moving, did not 
 use their limbs, but hovered lightly in the air. 
 Their food then was not unclean, but they fed upon 
 the fruit of the tree of life, and were born by a pro- 
 cess of emanation. They had no need of the sun or 
 the moon, but walked in their own glorious light. 
 They were not yet called "men," but "Living 
 Beings." But when one of these Living Beings 
 
THE FALL OF MAN. 161 
 
 lusted after a certain food called "earth butter," 
 and actually had eaten of it, the heavenly food, 
 Shamadhi, suddenly disappeared. They also lost 
 their power to walk in the air, their glory vanished, 
 and darkness and strife commenced on earth. 
 
 All the ancient legends among the Chinese as- 
 sume a thoroughly worldly, ordinary, and local 
 character, yet they do not lack recollections of the 
 original happiness and subsequent fall of man. In 
 the golden age all things grew spontaneously. Man 
 was everywhere at home. All animals fed in flocks 
 and herds together. The universe was as one family. 
 The sin which destroyed this peace and unity 
 originated in man's great desire for knowledge. 
 "A tree to be desired to make one wise," When 
 lie became corrupted, the animals, birds, in- 
 sects, and reptiles, commenced war with man. 
 "In a few hours," writes Lo-pi, "heaven was 
 changed, and man was no more the same, for the 
 great dragon of the deep for the first time taught 
 man the differences between yu and yang, or man 
 and woman." The woman is said to be the source 
 and root of all evil. In the old book of hymns, 
 Chi-hing, the poet, sings of the mythical women of 
 the first dynasties in these words: — "We dwelt in a 
 happy region, but woman has robbed us of all. We 
 were lords of all, but a woman has brought us into 
 slavery. Oh, how rational is she now, resembling a 
 bird of bad omen, whose voice foretells of death." 
 
 The Burates in Siberia, after telling the story of 
 the chaos and the birds flying to and fro upon it, 
 till one of them dived below to bring up a bit of red 
 earth from which the continent was formed, relate 
 that of all creatures the dog was made first, then 
 the deity created man's body, which was exceedingly 
 
 L 
 
162 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 beautiful, but as yet without soul. When the god 
 Burchan was about to ascend to heaven to fetch the 
 soul still missing, he charged the dog to guard the 
 glorious body of man. But Erlling or Albihu, a 
 wicked spirit, greatly desired to see the beautiful 
 frame ; he saw it by a strategem and being 
 moved with envy, he spat upon it. On his return 
 the deity saw the body denied, and though the 
 soul was not withheld, yet the body lost its beauty, 
 and became at once subject to sickness and death. 
 The dog also lost its beauty, and was thenceforth 
 covered with rough hair. 
 
 Among the Greeks we have the well-known ages 
 of gold, silver, brass, and iron, which need not 
 further be described. Eve is variously reproduced 
 in the mythical mothers of Grecian mythology. 
 Demeter as Persephone eats of the apple she received 
 from the lord of Hades. As Leto or Latona she falls, 
 and being driven into exile is pursued by Python. 
 Like Eve, she is the mother of two sons, and receives 
 the promise that one of her seed should kill the 
 dragon Python. The Is of the Argivians represents 
 the fallen Eve, being doomed to wander in conse- 
 quence of her fall. Prometheus, the first man 
 among the Greeks, deceives Zeus ; and the first woman 
 Pandora, formed from earth, becomes the source of 
 all evil. In her desire for knowledge, she opened a 
 box containing all the ills of life, which, flying out, 
 spread over the world ; Prometheus is soldered to a 
 pillar where a ravenous eagle eats his ever-renewed 
 liver until Hercules brings deliverance. 
 
 The Romans, who inherited the traditions of the 
 four ages from the Celts and Etruscans, annually 
 commemorated the primitive golden age under 
 Saturn in the well-known Saturnalia, when slaves 
 
THE FALL OP MAN. 163 
 
 were served by their masters, and both masters and 
 slaves gave themselves up to unbounded pleasure. 
 The Edda of the north tells of a golden age when 
 a hall called Gladsheim, or the home of gladness, 
 was built of gold, and all implements made of 
 pure gold. But the happiness of this golden age 
 was destroyed by the advent of the women from 
 Jotanheim. Saxo-Grammaticus relates how Odin 
 banished Frigga from Asgard, i.e. paradise, in conse- 
 quence of her fall. Odin himself was deposed for 
 being addicted to witchcraft, but he was subse- 
 quently reinstated on the throne. Thus paradise 
 was lost through the witchcraft of man and the 
 avarice of the woman, and all happiness came to an 
 end. The Edda also relates that in the days of king 
 Frodo, peace reigned on the earth, none hurting 
 the other, there was no thief, and gold uncared for 
 lay upon the fields. This state of bliss and pros- 
 perity came to a close by the women of a giant 
 country. 
 
 The Egyptians commence their history with a 
 golden age, under Osiris and Isis, who represent the 
 first pair, when man's happiness was perfect, trees 
 were in eternal bloom, and fountains and rivers 
 abounded ; but Osiris, in search of the nectar of im- 
 mortality, was overcome by Typhon, the evil demon, 
 and thus the golden age came to an untimely end. 
 The legend of Apollodorus relates that man was 
 induced to taste of a certain fruit, under the persua- 
 sion that it would make him strong, but it proved 
 to be the fruit of "perishableness." Isis is repre- 
 sented as holding in one hand a spear, in the other a 
 serpent. 
 
 In Africa, as everywhere besides, Islam has extin- 
 guished most of the traditions of primitive days, 
 
161 CnAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 yet some few ancient legends have been preserved 
 in the interior. In Yumala, a tradition exists that 
 because mankind degenerated, the god Til doomed 
 them to destruction, causing them to forfeit their 
 immortality. The Panti negroes believe that man 
 was not created in the condition in which he now 
 exists, his original happiness being lost by his falling 
 into sin. 
 
 According to the traditions on the Aleutes, islands 
 between Asia and America, man was originally 
 created immortal, and it was owing to the anger of 
 the deity, who had been offended by the woman, that 
 death came into the world. The Greenlanders had a 
 well-defined tradition of the fall of the woman, and of 
 death being the consequence of sin. The West 
 Indians relate long stories of the wonderful supply 
 of fruit enjoyed by the first man who, on showing 
 his children two kinds, one black, the other white, 
 forbade them to eat of the former. Franklin says 
 the children ate of the black fruit, and as a punish- 
 ment bad fruits were produced by the earth, and the 
 offenders were visited with sickness and death. 
 Another tribe of Indians somewhat vary the ancient 
 legend, by affirming that the earth was " once-upon- 
 a-time ' ' a flat oven, a single bird being the sole 
 occupant, the eyes of which resembled fire, its glances 
 shone like lightning, and the movement of the 
 win^s in flying sounded like thunder ; there is also 
 a distinct allusion to the immortality of the first 
 man. According to their legend he was created with 
 a tail, from which, instead of the rib, the woman was 
 formed. Man, having provoked the Great Spirit, lost 
 this monkey-like appendage, then supposed to be an 
 ornament. The Irokesian Indians, in the north 
 west of America, preserve the following tradi- 
 
THE FALL THROUGH WOMAN. 165 
 
 tion : — " Ata-entsik, or the old grandmother, was cast 
 out from heaven because she ate of the fat of a bear, 
 being tempted to do so under a tree. She had two 
 sons, one of whom killed the other." 
 
 The Mexicans also are acquainted with the four 
 ages, calling the last the "Age of Eire," when the 
 world will be burned up. The first age was that of 
 water, and closed with the Deluge. In this age of 
 happiness the ears of corn were so heavy that one 
 ear could scarcely be carried by a strong man. Cotton 
 in those days conveniently dyed itself. But when 
 Quetsaleotl went in search of the nectar of immor- 
 tality, all this happiness ceased, the trees even being 
 changed into dry stumps. There are many striking 
 resemblances to the first chapters in the Book of 
 Genesis, such as the exile from Paradise through the 
 serpent; the fall, and the two brothers living in 
 enmity with each other. They have a baptism, 
 which seems to refer to the fall. Children were to 
 be baptised or washed "from the sin committed 
 before the foundation of the world." The fall of 
 the mother of mankind is supposed to have preceded 
 the creation of the earth. 
 
 According to a South American legend, the beau- 
 tiful but wicked wife of the first man was the cause 
 of the Deluge. In Guinea the loss of man's immor- 
 tality is traced to an old woman being incredulous 
 about it. Had she believed it there would have been 
 no death. The Karaibes, whom the Spaniards met 
 as a conquering people in the West Indian Archi- 
 pelago, believe that Luoguo, the first man, created 
 the earth and the sea, and that in Paradise man 
 neither grew old nor sickened. One of their first 
 men, Hacumon, was changed into a serpent with a 
 human head, who lived in a high tree, feeding on its 
 
166 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 delicious fruits, which he gave to all passers by, but 
 ou his sinning a flood was sent as a punishment. 
 A tribe in New Granada, called the Salivas, relate 
 the story of a serpent which destroyed the people of 
 Orenoko, being conquered by the god Parva. He, 
 descending from heaven, killed the serpent, to the 
 great joy of the surrounding nations. Parva said to 
 the serpent, " Go down into hell, thou cursed one, 
 and enter not my house again." In a Mexican 
 hieroglyphical painting the Great Spirit is repre- 
 sented as cutting a huge serpent in pieces. The 
 Brazilian Indians also had their legend of man's 
 fall, and the curse which fell upon the world in 
 consequence, but with the variation, that the instru- 
 ment of the demon was a fox instead of a serpent. 
 The South Sea Islanders remember a period when 
 there was no death, and of its introduction into 
 the world by an envious spirit, since which time 
 death is eternal. The Sandwich Islanders speak of 
 the water of life which renewed everything ; and of 
 a fall, caused by the wife of the first man, when the 
 golden age terminated, and human sacrifices began. 
 
 But if the fall was thus promulgated among all 
 nations, are there no traces of the great and blessed 
 hope of deliverance which was given on the occasion 
 of the first fall? 
 
 Let us inquire and point out some of the traces, 
 if existing. All Pagan nations seemed to recog- 
 nise the great truth, that fallen man was not 
 hopelessly lost. Kronos is recovered from Tartarus 
 and is placed in an abode of bliss. Prometheus, 
 chained to a rock, is finally set free. Brahma, after 
 the expiation of his guilt, is restored. Meshia and 
 Meshiane are not for ever to remain in the Duzakh, 
 or place of punishment. Odin was to be delivered 
 
TIIE HOPE OF RECOVERY. 167 
 
 from his prison-hell beneath the Caucasian moun- 
 tains. The Pagans of every nation profess to base 
 their expectations that the evil demon who has 
 gained the ascendancy shall ultimately be overcome, 
 and that the golden age shall be restored, upon some 
 old prophecy or oracle ; and what is very remarkable, 
 this oracle is always mentioned in connection with 
 the first man and his fall. 
 
 Another striking instance of the distinct preserva- 
 tion of the primitive promise is, that the deliverer 
 is universally believed to be of the woman s seed, 
 whilst the supreme deity is invariably the father of 
 the deliverer. This is the case both in Indian and 
 Grecian mythologies. 
 
 The work of the promised deliverer consisted in the 
 bruising of the serpent's head, as in the case of the 
 Hindu goddess Bhavani, and in the recovery of the 
 paradisical happiness lost by sin. Sometimes it is 
 the golden apples of the Hesperides which are to be 
 regained, sometimes the Golden Pleece, sometimes the 
 nectar of immortality. Yet a speedy attainment 
 of any of these blessings was never looked for. 
 Prometheus had to wait three myriads of years for 
 the redeemer, and Brahma had to prolong his 
 penance for a million of mortal years. The blissful 
 period was always to be expected at the close of the 
 desperately wicked age, being the fulness of time. 
 
 The promise and hope of the Messiah is forcibly 
 expressed in the Persian mythology. By a 
 redeemer, promised from the beginning, Ahriman 
 and his evil devs are to be overcome; and as the 
 reformer Zoroaster was mistaken for the promised 
 redeemer, the legends present him as miraculously 
 born, and persecuted as a child ; indeed, the life of 
 Zoroaster is surrounded with a halo which he neither 
 
168 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 claimed nor deserved ; certainly the ancient Persians 
 looked far beyond him for the real destroyer of the 
 Evil One. He is to appear in the last thousand 
 years, or the worst part of the iron age, when sin, 
 war, pestilence, and famine, shall do their worst. 
 The name of the deliverer is Sosiosh, and before him 
 will appear the prophets Osheder Mah, and Osheder 
 Bami. When the last shall appear he shall bind 
 the sun ten days and ten nights, and the half of 
 mankind shall receive the law, to which he shall 
 add "the twenty-second part of the Law." 
 
 After some 400 years more Osheder Mah is to 
 appear to bind the sun twenty days and twenty 
 nights, adding "the twenty- third part to the Law," 
 and a third part of the human race shall receive it. 
 In the end of the thousand years, Sosiosh himself 
 appears to bind the sun for thirty days, adding "the 
 twenty-fourth part of the Law," and the whole 
 
 . id shall be converted to the Zendavesta. This 
 Sosiosh was to be born of a virgin, who was to 
 conceive whilst bathing in the water kause, in 
 which was dissolved the seed emanating from the 
 wounded side of the dying Kayomords, the primal 
 man. Though we are not told how this was to be 
 clone, yet according to the legend three virgins were 
 concerned in the miraculous birth of Sosiosh, during 
 whose time the comet Gurtsher was to make its 
 appearance. 
 
 More fully this hope of deliverance is expressed 
 in the avatars, or the incarnations of the deity 
 among the Hindus. They are the combined mythi- 
 cal personification of the woman's seed bruising the 
 serpent's head. Vishnu is to have a son who is to 
 conquer the wicked giants, and the future tenth, or 
 last incarnation is pictorially represented by a 
 
THE HOPE OF RECOVERY. 169 
 
 saddled horse, which is ever standing in readiness 
 for the advent of this last and great deliverer. 
 When he comes, caste will be abolished, all men 
 shall be brethren, there will be but one religion, and 
 a perfect deliverance will speedily follow. The 
 Chinese also looked for a deliverer, who is generally 
 styled the "Holy One" who was to appear from the 
 West, of whom it was said: "The nations expect 
 the Holy One, as the fading, drooping plants expect 
 the clouds and the winds." This Holy One was not 
 expected for "a hundred generations," i.e. 3000 
 years ; his example was to teach virtue, and in him 
 all the rays of wisdom were to unite. This expecta- 
 tion among the Chinese dates back at least 600 years 
 before Christ, and was the cause of the mission of 
 the Emperor Mingdo in the 65th year a.d., consist- 
 ing of two mandarins who were to go westward and 
 not return till they found the Holy One, or at least 
 his religion. On reaching India, we know they 
 became acquainted with Buddhism, which not 
 unnaturally, they mistook for the religion of the 
 Holy One, and carried it to China. In his Dis- 
 courses M. Ramsay says : "The books Li-ky-ki speak 
 of a time when all shall be restored to glory by the 
 advent of a hero Ki-un-tse, which signifies shepherd 
 or prince, whom they also call the Most Holy, the 
 general teacher, and the highest truth. The Chinese 
 books even speak of the sufferings and struggles of 
 this Ki-un-tse." 
 
 Noteworthy also is the tradition of the so called 
 prse-adamite Solymans, and of the mystic bird 
 Simmorg, which speaks of the world having passed 
 through seven periods, in which it was seven times 
 filled with living creatures, and seven times emptied. 
 The period of Adam was to last 7000 years; and 
 
170 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 speaking of the seven Solymans who preside over 
 the seven periods, the bird revealed to Tamurads, 
 the primeval Persian king, as follows: "Another 
 Solyinan shall yet rise out of the generation of Adam, 
 who shall surpass all in majesty and power, and 
 after him no other shall appear upon earth." 
 Simmorg, it will be remembered, is the paradisical 
 bird, and is here made to utter a repetition of the 
 paradisical promise of the future deliverer. 
 
 Greek mythology records that the first woman, 
 Leto or Latona, according to Diodorus, received the 
 promise that out of her seed should be born a 
 deliverer who would finally destroy the serpent, 
 Python. Prometheus was to be redeemed by a son 
 of Jupiter-Zeus, born of a mortal woman ; and she, 
 the Dike, is the virgin, now the virgo in the zodiac. 
 There is also a promise to Io, i.e., Eve, that after her 
 many wanderings, she, as a virgin, should bear a 
 son, Epaphas, i.e. one received by the touch of the 
 Almighty, who should redeem her out of all her 
 misery. Again, the Germanic as well as the Celtic 
 legends, establish the fact, that Paganism, both in 
 the old and new world, was in possession of a 
 prophecy made to the first parent, that at the close 
 of a long period, in which iniquity should reach its 
 climax, redemption should come, and the gods who 
 had reigned over mankind as tyrannical demons, 
 together with the old Mitgard serpent, should be 
 overthrown. Eor this purpose there would appear 
 a mighty king and hero, born of the seed of the 
 woman, but of divine origin, who should crush the 
 head of Mitgard, and once more open an era of 
 bliss on earth. In the South Sea Islands a legend 
 concerning the first man, Ronoloho, exists to this 
 effect : That he forsook Tahite after the fall of his 
 
MYTHS RESPECTING ANTE-DILUVIANS. 171 
 
 wife, promising to return, and has been expected 
 back for many generations. When Cook first landed 
 he was mistaken for Bono by the natives, just as the 
 Indians in America looked upon the Spanish on 
 their first appearance as the "promised ones" who 
 were to restore the golden age. 
 
 Because the whole world knew of a promise which 
 dated from our first parents, according to which 
 there was to be an end of sin and misery on the 
 coming of a great hero, kins£, saint, and deliverer, 
 we read of the universal expectation of the nations 
 at the commencement of our era. The time was 
 fulfilled ; and when the Chinese looked for the Holy 
 One from the west ; when the Hindus were expect- 
 ing a fresh incarnation ; when the Persians waited 
 for "the man of the world," in the promised Sosiosh, 
 when the Sibylline oracles announced a mighty 
 deliverer from the east; and when the wise men in 
 the east watched for the star of the king of the 
 Jews, Christ was born of a pure virgin in Bethlehem 
 of Judea. 
 
 3. Myths respecting the Ten Patriarchs before the 
 Flood, and the subsequent Dispersion of Mankind. 
 
 Though the memory of the nations fails, as we 
 have seen, within a few centuries after the flood, yet 
 this could not prevent the antediluvian ages becom- 
 ing richly stocked with legends and myths touching 
 the patriarchs before the flood. Nor could these fail 
 to embody some few historical elements of the ante- 
 diluvian age. Hesiod speaks of the fathers prior to 
 the flood as the "blessed mortals of the second rank, 
 who were greatly honoured ; ' ' and in harmony with 
 the book of Genesis, these pagan myths ascribe to 
 
172 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 them the invention of arts and sciences. The 
 Phoenician mythology speaks of the first man, Aeon, 
 as the discoverer of the nourishment derived from 
 trees. The first Egyptians, according to Diodorus, 
 lived upon herbs, till they came to know the useful- 
 ness of animals, and samples of these herbs were 
 carried in their hands when they addressed their 
 petitions to the deities. A Persian legend speaks of 
 the people before the flood as subsisting exclusively 
 on the produce of the tree Horn. Less surprising 
 is it that the Hindus should have a similar tradition, 
 since the Brahmins to this day wholly abstain from 
 animal food. Similar traditions are found among 
 the Chinese, the Greeks, and the Mexicans. Accord- 
 ing to Ovid, the degeneracy of the world commenced 
 with their tasting animal food. 
 
 Again, in harmony with the Bible, the legends of 
 the old nations speak of ten antediluvian patriarchs. 
 The names of the antediluvian kings among the 
 Chaldees, according to Eusebius and Synvellus, are 
 as follows, Alorus, Alaparus, Almelon, Ammenon, 
 Amegalorus, Daon, Andorachus, Amempsinus, 
 Otiartes, and Xisuthrus. The ten primeval kings in 
 the Persian legend, are called Peshdadi, or " men of 
 the old law." They were first, Kayomords, then 
 Hushing, the inventor of arts and science, and the 
 regulator of divine worship. He is the reputed 
 author of Djawidani Chired, the book of eternal 
 wisdom, and is supposed to be the same as Henoch, 
 to whom Jewish tradition also attributes the writing 
 of a book. Then Tamurads, the inventor of 
 witchcraft; he is supposed to be the same as Jared, 
 the descendant of Cain, under whom, according to 
 the Rabbinical traditions, demons visited the earth 
 to teach men the black art. Djemshid, the next, is 
 
MYTHS RESPECTING ANTE-DILUVIANS. 173 
 
 the originator of agriculture, and the builder of the 
 fort Ver. He is followed by his murderer Zohak, 
 "with his three throats, three girdles, six eyes, and 
 a thousand powers." Eeridun, the next king, 
 destroys the giant monster, Zohak, with a weapon 
 made by the Kawi, the first smith, whose son was 
 called Kawun, in which Tubal-Cain seems to re- 
 appear. The three remaining kings are Minotsheher, 
 Huder his son ; then Zu or Zab, and the last of all 
 Gershap. Equally great are the ten mythical Hindu 
 pitris, patriarchs, saints, or kings; the disciple of 
 one of them, Druwen, is carried in a chariot of light 
 or fire to heaven. In the Phoenician, the Arabian, 
 and the Chinese legends, we have likewise ten ante- 
 diluvian patriarchs; one of the ten among the 
 Chinese is taken to heaven in a shining cloud. Ten 
 patriarchs, including Menes, who is saved in Egypt 
 from the deluge, occur likewise in the myths of the 
 Egyptians, and even in those of Scandinavia. 
 
 The Persians, Hindus, Chaldeans, Arabians, Phoe- 
 nicians, and Mexicans, speak alike of the gigantic 
 frame of the antediluvians, as well as of their 
 longevity ; Varro, in the time of Cicero, to account 
 for this longevity, assumes that each year was only 
 of one month's duration. Equally universal is the 
 belief that a race of giants existed before the flood, 
 who had rebelled against God ; and some records of 
 their struggles are discernible in all ancient myths 
 relating to antediluvian times. The character of 
 Seth, represented by Josephus as the inventor of 
 science, becomes Thauth in Egypt, the reputed 
 author of books, and the inventor of writing, in- 
 deed, by simply changing Th into S, the very name 
 is almost identical. Cain and Abel are reproduced 
 with great fidelity in most of the myths of anti- 
 
174 CHA.P. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 quity. In no instance, however, are the myths of 
 antiquity more detailed, minute, precise, and uni- 
 versal than in respect of the Noachidian deluge. 
 Yet, as this subject will be specially treated in the 
 next chapter, we shall not enter into it at present. 
 
 As regards the building of the tower of Babylon, 
 Eerosus speaks of a proud race of men aspiring to 
 ouild a tower which should reach into heaven, but 
 the gods, being assisted by the winds, overthrew 
 their work ; and those who till then spoke but one 
 language, " by the will of the gods " received dif- 
 ferent tongues. The traces of the tower in the 
 Assyrian inscriptions will be noticed in another 
 place. Alexander Polyhistor, transcribing from the 
 Sibyl, states that, in order to ascend into heaven, 
 men constructed a tower, but that the gods confused 
 their tongues, threw down the tower by a strong 
 wind, and gave to each one his own language, on 
 which account the tower was called Babylon. 
 Somewhat different is the account of the historian, 
 Eupolemus, in his now lost works. The tower of 
 Babylon is built, according to him, by those who 
 escaped the deluge. The builders were giants, but 
 on their constructing a tower, which, by the will of 
 God was thrown down, they were dispersed over the 
 whole earth. An Armenian legend (for Moses 
 Choreniensis had borrowed it from Mar Ibas) speaks 
 of giants, who, in their pride, resolved to build a 
 tower, but a fierce wind, caused by the wrath of 
 God, destroyed their work, and threw unknown 
 words among the people, which produced confusion 
 and disunion. 
 
 The Grecian legends not only know of an original 
 unity of languages, but also of a subsequent con- 
 fusion in connection with the building of the first 
 city, and of the division or dispersion of the nations 
 
THE TOWER OP BABYLON. 175 
 
 by the wrath of Jupiter. Hygin, the collector of 
 fables in the days of Augustus, speaks of one uni- 
 versal language, of a separation of mankind into 
 nations, and of the discord which had spread in con- 
 sequence. The old Persian fable describes Ahriman 
 as dividing the language and giving thirty different 
 tongues to mankind. The Hindus, when speaking 
 of the three sons of the flood-patriarch Manus, make 
 mention of the dispersion of mankind over the 
 whole earth. The Chinese book of Li-ki, treating 
 of ancient laws and customs, speaks of the " uni- 
 verse having transgressed from its right way, since 
 the lan<ma£?es were divided into branches and 
 leaves." In Korea it is recorded by a sect of Bud- 
 dhists, "That formerly all men spake the same 
 tongue. Only whilst building a tower, whence the 
 people hoped to ascend into heaven, commenced the 
 confusion of languages." 
 
 One would almost feel inclined to doubt the 
 genuine nature of this myth, if it were not for the 
 equally surprising statements found in the still 
 more remote regions of North America, where the 
 Irokese Indians relate that once all people had one 
 lansma^e, but discord and confusion succeeded. The 
 Mexicans have the legend of the tower as well as 
 that of the subsequent confusion of languages, which 
 naturally resulted in the people being dispersed, as 
 they could no longer understand one another. 
 Only fifteen heads of families were fortunate 
 enough to understand each other. Upon a fresco 
 found in Mexico, is represented the act of disper- 
 sion, by a bird distributing thirty-three tongues 
 among the departing groups of people. But 
 the tradition of the tower is still more striking. 
 The inhabitants of Cholula relate the following 
 
176 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 tradition : after the ending of the flood, one of the 
 giants went to build a pyramid in memory of the 
 mountain Tlalok, which served his six brothers as 
 a place of refuge. The building was to reach the 
 clouds, but the gods threw fire upon the pyramid. 
 The fable was contained in a song which the natives 
 sang at certain festivals, and which commenced 
 with the words, tulanian hululaez, which, however, 
 do not occur, or are not known in any of the Mexi- 
 can tongues. Other legends, in the south of Mexico, 
 speak of a large edifice, at the building of which 
 Votan, the grandson of him who was in the ark, was 
 present, and which was to reach the heavens ; and 
 connected with this building was the division of 
 tongues. In the Brazils the Akroas speak of a 
 legend representing the Great Spirit as building a 
 high house to reach to the heavens, and at its fall, 
 the different nations originated. 
 
 The negroes of Aquapim relate that their fore- 
 fathers attempted to ascend to heaven by means of 
 putting Tufu mortars, which are a couple of feet 
 high, upon each other. Only one Tufu mortar being 
 wanting to accomplish the object, they drew forth 
 the lowest of all to put it on the top, when all fell, 
 and they could only save themselves by flight. 
 Livingstone relates that the Mokololo, on the lake of 
 Nyami, had a legend similar to the story of the 
 tower of Babylon, only with this difference, that the 
 presumptuous people perished in the act of rebellion. 
 The Fiji islanders still show the spot where a large 
 tower was built with a view to ascertain the 
 nature of the heavenly bodies, but when very near 
 the end the whole structure gave way, and the 
 builders were scattered over the whole of the island. 
 
MYTHS RESPECTING REVEALED TRUTHS. 177 
 
 4. Myths respecting Truths which must have been 
 Originally Revealed. 
 
 That myths should embody recollections of great 
 events or catastrophes in the history of our race, 
 and of the globe, is perhaps less surprising than that 
 there should be known among Pagan nations certain 
 truths which are deemed to be revealed. Not only 
 is it known to pagan mythology that there will be 
 an end of the present state of things, just as there 
 was a beginning, but in accordance with Holy 
 Scripture, it is believed that that end will be by fire, 
 preceded by a fierce struggle between good and evil, 
 the resurrection of the dead, and the universal 
 judgment. 
 
 Plato spoke of it as one of the mysteries of the 
 Egyptian priests, that there were to be two baptisms, 
 or lustrations of the earth, the one of water, the 
 other of fire. According to the books of Hermes, 
 the apokatastasis, or the renovation of the world, was 
 to take place at the close of the great year of the 
 gods, which was to endure for 36,525 mortal 
 years. Lactantius, quoting one of the books, which 
 specially treats of the end of the world, gives some 
 of the signs which shall precede the last day. To 
 show how deeply the idea of the end of the world 
 by fire was impressed upon the western portion of 
 the old world, Josephus refers to the ancient legend 
 respecting the so called pillars of Seth, upon which 
 his descendants engraved the sciences ; one of them 
 was made of burnt bricks, so as to withstand the 
 general conflagration which the first man is said to 
 have prophesied. 
 
 Seneca tells us that according to Berosus, the 
 Chaldeans regarded the destruction of the earth by 
 
 M 
 
178 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 water as ushering in the winter, and its dissolution 
 by fire as opening the summer of the great year of 
 the universe ; and the latter was to take place when 
 all the planets were in the sign of the Scorpion. 
 The 12,000 years of the ancient Persians will close 
 with a general conflagration, and be accompanied by 
 the restoration of all things, the resurrection of the 
 dead, and the final judgment, from whence the just 
 shall enter Gorotmen, or paradise, and the wicked 
 shall be thrown into the Dutzak, or hell. The 
 details, as given in the Bundehesh, one of the later 
 books of the Persians, are so minute and striking, 
 that in it some of the elements of Christian gnosti- 
 cism have been suspected. But whatever be the 
 truth of this suspicion, the Fathers of the Church 
 knew of a certain oracle from Hystaspes, or Gusktap, 
 under whom Zoroaster lived, according to which, 
 the wickedness of the last days will be great; but 
 in answer to their prayers the just will be separated 
 from the wicked before God's judgment falls upon 
 them. 
 
 The Hindus also know of a great final disso- 
 lution, Mahapralaya, which is indeed personified 
 as the goddess "Kala," or time, who is represented 
 as swallowing worlds, towns, gods, and finally her 
 own self, so that nothing remains except Parabrahma. 
 The Chinese chronological dynasties, which are 
 classified according to the elements, earth, metals, 
 water, wood, and fire, severally end in a universal 
 conflagration. In the ninth hour of the great day 
 of the world, there will be great confusion and 
 misery, when all shall return to the primeval chaos. 
 The dynasty of the earth is to endure 1000 years 
 with 50 generations; that of metal 900, with 49 
 generations ; that of water 600, with 20 generations ; 
 
MYTHS RESPECTING REVEALED TRUTHS. 179 
 
 that of wood 800, with 30 generations ; that of fire 
 700 years, with 20 generations ; and this last ends 
 with the burning up of the universe. The Karians 
 in Birma, teach that the moon and the stars are to 
 be destroyed, but in their stead will appear a second 
 sun, and these two suns which will never set, will 
 throw out so great a heat, that the universe shall be 
 burnt up, and all men shall die; but before it comes 
 to this, God will separate the good from the wicked. 
 That the Greeks and Romans also knew of such a 
 conflagration of the universe is well known ; though 
 it was mainly left to their philosophers to work it 
 out. The orphic theologians taught the great year 
 of the gods, which Aristotle deemed the greatest 
 cycle of time. The winter of this vast year of the 
 gods was ushered in by the cataclysmus, or the 
 flood; the summer, by the ehpyrosis, which is the 
 burning up of the universe. Aristarchus considered 
 this year to consist of 2484 mortal years, Aretes of 
 5552, Heraclitus of 1800, Dion of 10,884, Orpheus 
 of 120,000, and Cassandrus of 630,000 mortal years. 
 After the flood of Deucalion Jupiter, in Ovid, speaks 
 of a time written in the book of fate, when the 
 whole universe shall be dissolved in lire; and with 
 this great crisis the stoic philosopher Chrysippus 
 connects the resurrection of the dead. He says, 
 according to Lact. de beat, vita vi. 23 : " We, also, after 
 our departure, when certain ages have passed by, 
 shall rise again in the form we now have." Plato 
 speaks of a time when, according to "old traditions," 
 the souls which have gone into the realms of the 
 dead, shall come back to the earth, and shall be born 
 again from the dead : Pindar and Virgil speak of a 
 repeated resurrection at the close of each great year 
 of the gods. 
 
180 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 The sagas of the Edda also foretell such an end 
 of the world by fire. There are, indeed, two Eddas ; 
 what the elder Edda tells in verses, the younger re- 
 lates in prose. In the older, Volwpsa, the Northern 
 Sibyl, or the prophetic Vole, speaks of both the 
 origin and of the end of the world.* Troubles with- 
 out end come towards the close, the sun is swallowed 
 by one wolf and the moon by another, the stars dis- 
 appear, the great serpent Mitgard throws out 
 streams of poison, and Surtr vomits fire by which 
 the world is consumed. A new earth comes into 
 existence, and while the just enter abodes of bliss, 
 the wicked are thrust into Nastrand, which 
 abounds with serpents. Heaven is thus described : 
 " More beautiful than the sun in the high heavens, 
 is the hall covered with gold. Then comes the 
 Almighty to the judgment of the gods, the Strong 
 One from above, who rules over all, reconciles judg- 
 ments, settles disputes, and affixes rewards as it 
 should be." We know less of the Celtic nations, 
 but they held the destruction of the world by fire ; 
 and the Lithauans believed that their souls 
 would return to their bodies when "a God unknown 
 to them upon a high mountain would call the whole 
 race of man out of their graves to judge them." 
 
 * How important the influence of the Sibyl in the middle ages 
 upon Christian thought, will appear from the lines — 
 
 " Dies ira?, dies ilia, 
 Solvet ssecrum in favilhi, 
 Teste David cum Sibylla." 
 
 The Sibyls themselves, of which ten are assumed, must be taken, 
 not as personal or individual prophetesses, but as the personifica- 
 tion of the oldest primeval traditions, embodiments of the primi- 
 tive oracles, as diffused among mankind, which, indeed, afforded 
 the staple of all the myths which are now under consideration. 
 
MYTHS RESPECTING REVEALED TRUTHS, 181 
 
 Not very different are the myths of the Green- 
 landers and Mexicans respecting the close of their 
 dispensation. The last clearly taught that after 
 fifty-two cycles the world would perish by fire; 
 whence at the close of each of these cycles they 
 smashed all their vessels, extinguished all their 
 fires, knelt down on the roof of their houses Avith 
 the face towards the East, to see whether the sun 
 would rise again. On its rising they beat drums, 
 played upon instruments of music in honour of the 
 god of the fire who had spared them for the time 
 being. The inhabitants of Peru undoubtedly believed 
 in the resurrection of the dead before they became 
 Christians. When the Spaniards had opened the 
 graves of their princes, and were scattering the bones, 
 they entreated them to desist, lest the dead on their 
 reviving should have difficulty in finding them. The 
 Greenlanders believed that pirksoma, i.e., " he that 
 is above," shall breathe upon the dead bodies, and 
 they shall become alive. On the occasion of a solar 
 eclipse, a missionary was told by a Pagan Green- 
 lander that when the sun shall once be wholly 
 darkened, then shall the dead rise from their graves. 
 The Peruvians deposited their hair and their nails 
 in safe hiding-places, and when pressed for the 
 reason of this practice by Garcilasso, they replied : — 
 " Do you know that all we who are born here below 
 shall revive again after death, and that the souls, 
 with 'all that belongs to their bodies, shall rise from 
 the graves ? Now to save trouble to our relations in 
 seeking long for their nails and for their hair — for 
 there shall be a great commotion on that day — we 
 put them safely together, so that they may be easily 
 found, and if we could, we certainly would always 
 spit on the same spot." 
 
182 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 It need scarcely be added, that the immortalitg of 
 the soul is one of the uniformly accepted dogmas 
 which the myths of nations have generally fastened 
 upon ; and the notion of future rewards and punish- 
 ments has also been engrafted into the human mind 
 from the very commencement of time. That the 
 body is not the soul and the soul is not the body, 
 was a belief held, according to Cicero, by all, " and 
 the nearer man was to his divine origin, the clearer 
 was the perception of this truth." Socrates, in 
 Phgedon, advises that we accept the best and most 
 trusty of human opinions respecting the immortality 
 of the soul, upon which, as it were, we might swim 
 through life as upon the fragment of a wrecked 
 vessel, till a safer conveyance offered itself in some 
 divine oracle. Aristotle says : — " We not only think 
 of the departed as blessed and happy, but we deem 
 it impiety to utter either untruths or offensive words 
 respecting them, because they are already in a higher 
 and better condition. This is the belief existing 
 among us since primeval days, the origin of which 
 is as little known as he who first started it, but it is 
 one which has never ceased to exist from the begin- 
 ning of time." 
 
 Naturally, none can tell of the first origin 
 of this dogma, since it is as old as the human race. 
 Certainly to the reproach of our present materialists, 
 Cicero says, " There is inherent in the soul a certain 
 foreboding of a future life, and this lives most and 
 becomes most manifest in those who are most gifted 
 and most excellent among men. And who would 
 be so foolish, without such a belief, as to bear up 
 against the toil and burden of life ? " It was the 
 belief in the future which reared those giant struc- 
 tures in the East and West ; which gave courage to 
 
MYTHS RESPECTING REVEALED TRUTHS. 183 
 
 Socrates to drink the poisoned cup, and which in- 
 spired the northern barbarians with that indomitable 
 bravery by which they were distinguished. When 
 Columbus landed on the island of Cuba, and Mass 
 having been performed on the beach, he was addressed 
 by a Kazike in these words : — " Understand clearly 
 that in the other world, as we know quite well, there 
 are two kinds of places for departed souls. One 
 dreadful and full of darkness, this is the place allotted 
 to the evil ones. The other good and pleasant, ap- 
 pointed for those that love peace and promote the 
 happiness of mankind. If thou believe that thou 
 must die, and that the good and the evil thou hast 
 done shall be rewarded unto thee, I hope thou wilt 
 not offend those that have not offended thee." 
 
 The Egyptians were much engrossed by their belief 
 of a future existence after death, of which their rites 
 of sepulture abundantly testify. They taught that 
 when the soul is conducted to the world of spirits by 
 Anubis, it has to appear before Osiris for judgment. 
 If found wanting, it has to return into animal forms 
 and transmigrate to purge away the stain. If pure, 
 the soul rests with the gods till they shall inhabit 
 bodies of higher grades among men. At funerals 
 the following prayer was said over the vessel con- 
 taining the bowels, which were deemed to be the 
 seat of sinful desires : — " O thou sun, our Lord, and 
 all ye gods that give life, receive me into the society 
 of the eternal ones ; for I obeyed the deity as taught 
 by my parents. Likewise I honour those to whom 
 I owe my existence. I killed no one, never stole, 
 but if I ever sinned in my life, by eating or drinking 
 what is forbidden, the guilt falls not upon me but 
 upon this which is in this vessel." The vessel was 
 then thrown into the river, and the body was mum- 
 
184 CRAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 imfied, if the priestly tribune which ordered the burial 
 ceremonies, counted the departed worthy of them. 
 If the embalmed bodies showed symptoms of dissolu- 
 tion, it was a sign of the departed soul not being in 
 a state of bliss. The negroes also believe in a future 
 life, and after the death of their kindred speak of 
 the souls as taken to God. As a terrible evidence of 
 the belief in future existence may be named the 
 slaughter of the wives, servants, and slaves of de- 
 parted kings, to follow them into the spirit world. 
 
 That the Assyrians believed in the future punish- 
 ment of the wicked has lately been decyphered from 
 cuneiform inscriptions. The ancient Persians held 
 that after death there is a struggle, which lasts for 
 three days, respecting the disembodied soul, between 
 the devs, or evil spirits, and the good spirits, and only 
 on the fourth day the soul can pass the bridge, 
 Tshinavad, into the other world. There, Ormuzd and 
 Bahman give judgment, after Rashuerast has 
 weighed the good and evil deeds. If acceptable, the 
 celestial dog who watches the bridge, allows the 
 soul to pass, and it is safely conducted to glory by 
 the angelic spirits. The evil ones are thrust over 
 the bridge into the Dutzak. There is, however, 
 Hamestan, a third intermediate place, for those that 
 are neither good nor evil. In some respects the 
 ideas of the Hindus are very similar. With them 
 the soul in death has to appear in the Yama-log, 
 the place of Yama, where his deeds are examined 
 and weighed in a balance. After this, the soul has 
 to return for ten days to the earth, and food is on 
 that account deposited for that term for the departed 
 spirit. Then follows the judgment ; after which, if 
 not accepted, the soul is thrown into Narak or hell, 
 where it is tormented till a fresh course of transmi- 
 
MYTHS RESPECTING REVEALED TRUTHS. 185 
 
 gration begins ; if accepted the soul enters one of 
 the blessed abodes of Brahma-log, i.e., the place of 
 Brahma. 
 
 The belief of the Chinese in this respect is similar 
 to that of the Shamans, consisting of a worship of 
 demons and the souls of the departed. Although 
 this element has been greatly repressed by Confucius, 
 there is no reason to believe that the Chinese have 
 no faith in the immortality of the soul. The souls 
 of the departed Emperors are said to be in heaven, 
 where they are rewarded. In every city there is a 
 public building, and in it upon a tablet is the 
 inscription: "O! Cong-fu-dsu, may it please thee to 
 descend in thy spiritual part, and be rejoiced by this 
 our homage or gifts, which we give in humility ; ' ' 
 fruits, wine, flowers and incense, being offered by 
 the worshipper. According to the Tao-tse system, 
 1300 good acts must be done to become worthy of 
 beino- counted with the immortals of heaven. The 
 wicked after death are doomed to dwell with evil 
 spirits. The nectar of immortality, Tchang-sing, 
 ensures the immortality of the body. 
 
 The place of the departed among the Greeks and 
 Romans is Hades or Orkus, with its two great 
 divisions, the Elysium and the Tartarus, all too well 
 known to require any details in this place. Enough 
 to add that their intellectual achievements never led 
 them, like our modern materialists, to deny a future 
 state. Go where we will, we find everywhere some 
 Paradise, Elysium, Walhalla, or some Tartarus, 
 Nastrand, Huergelmir, Onderah, Dutzak or Hell, only 
 with this difference, that none of the places of 
 punishment is represented in these myths as eternal 
 or never-ending, though in some it is not so clearly 
 
186 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 stated that they are simply places of purgation and 
 purification. 
 
 5. Belation of Pagan Myths to the Booh of Genesis. 
 
 The bona fide record of the beginnings of all 
 things given in Genesis, must not be confounded 
 with Pagan mythology ; it cannot be explained by 
 any mythology, nor can they be compared together, 
 the one being specifically and absolutely different 
 from the other. In relation to the Book of Genesis, all 
 myths are what the dark and misty perception of 
 the animal is to the clear and rational consciousness 
 of man. Admitting the possibility of plagiarism 
 in the Persian legends as contained in those later 
 portions of the Zendavesta, called the Bundehesh, 
 where the temptation of the human pair is recorded, 
 such plagiarism is absolutely impossible in the case 
 of the Babylonian, Phoenician, or other traditions 
 respecting the creation and many other antediluvian 
 events. Even if these legends be not derived from 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, but transmitted by some 
 other channel, it would only prove that the Biblical 
 records must rest upon an historical basis, because it 
 is psychologically impossible that large numbers of 
 individuals and nations, separated by seas and con- 
 tinents, as well as by time and language, should 
 have concocted legends so strikingly similar and 
 uniform, without assuming that the same historic 
 facts, and the same revelation of pre-historic facts 
 gave rise to them all. Several explanations are 
 possible. "Where the sporadic legends of the Gentiles 
 resemble the traditions of the Hebrews, they may 
 either have been copied from the Book of Genesis ; 
 or the Hebrew traditions may be taken to represent 
 one such legend out of many ; or, Moses may describe 
 
RELATION TO EACH OTHER. 187 
 
 traditions that were well known before his time; 
 lastly, the Mosaic account may have followed the 
 legends of the Gentiles. 
 
 In reply to these surmises it will be hard in the 
 first place to prove that the Book of Genesis is the 
 original of the legends; but it is not so hard to 
 prove that these legends are a degenerated edition of 
 some more original primeval tradition which found 
 its faithful expression in the Mosaic account. If, for 
 argument's sake, we assume that the Biblical account 
 is simply one of many legends, it will require little 
 discernment to point out the original one from which 
 the others sprang. If we recognize certain peculi- 
 arities in the Biblical account which the legends lack, 
 and if by their light we can explain the mythological 
 additions attached to the legends, we then prove 
 that the Bible contains a correct transcript of the 
 original tradition, and thus secure its historical 
 veracity. Were the traditions recorded by Moses 
 received from the patriarchs of the Hebrews, they 
 cannot be mythical, but must be historical. 
 
 A myth as such never can be a pure invention. 
 Again, a myth cannot exist unless the event to 
 which it refers has happened sufficiently long to 
 have acquired some uncertainty or obscurity in 
 its details. Thus if the traditions handed down by 
 Moses were in the possession of the Hebrew patri- 
 archs, they cannot be mythical, there being no 
 possibility of a myth developing in so short a period. 
 The Greeks wisely judged that there was first an 
 unknown, secondly a mythical, and thirdly an his- 
 torical age in their chronology. With the Hebrews 
 there can be no such division, since they do not 
 recognize an unknown or a mythical age. With all 
 other nations the historical period is preceded by the 
 
188 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 mythical. But there was neither time nor oppor- 
 tunity for the formation of a Hebrew mythology. 
 If any element of mythology were to run through 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, then there can be no history, 
 since it would be impossible to define the period 
 when the mythical epoch ended and the historical 
 era began. 
 
 The last case assumed as possible is, that the 
 Mosaic account of antediluvian days might be 
 derived from the fictions that were in circulation at 
 the time when the Book of Genesis was written. 
 The case of one nation borrowing myths from 
 another is not unprecedented. The mythology of 
 the early Greeks was compiled from the mythical 
 lore of nations more ancient than their own, which 
 they appropriated to themselves. That the Israel- 
 itish theoracy should have been borrowed from 
 Paganism, is a theory perfectly untenable in itself, 
 and irreconcileable with history, there being no 
 instance on record to support such an hypothesis. 
 The antediluvian legends of ancient nations are, 
 moreover, in many points as unlike the narration 
 given by Moses, as in many they resemble it; and 
 this dissimilarity, as well as analogy, must be duly 
 taken into consideration in order to ascertain the 
 mythical or historical character of the Mosaic 
 account. 
 
 No Pagan myth or legend ever ventured to make 
 such an announcement as this; — "In the beginning 
 God created heaven and earth." On the contrary, 
 every legend assumes the eternity of matter, in 
 harmony with our modern materialistic philosophers. 
 In its very nature Paganism implies a practical 
 denial of the Deity as Creator. Except in the 
 cosmogony of Moses, there exists no record whatever, 
 
RELATION TO EACH OTHER. 189 
 
 or any intimation even, of the creation being 
 wrought out of nothing ; and no legend or tradition 
 seems to apprehend in the least degree the difference 
 between the Creator and the creature. In the Book 
 of Genesis there is no eternity of matter, no 
 demiurgical co-operation, no pantheistic emanation 
 or evolution, no dualistic principle of creation, 
 nothing but the creative act of God. Thus the 
 Mosaic cosmogony proves itself to be historical, by 
 faithfully handing down the primitive revelation so 
 as to render the origin of all the cosmogonic legends 
 perfectly intelligible. The first line of the first 
 chapter of Genesis, by introducing the Deity, not as 
 an abstract object of metaphysical speculation, but 
 as the Creator of heaven and earth, at once leads 
 from an unknown, dead, or imaginary being, to the 
 revealed, living, and true God. Even were the 
 cosmogony of Genesis what our opponents assert it 
 to be, it would still justify what Jean Paul says 
 concerning it, " The first leaf of Genesis has more 
 weight than all the folios of naturalists and philo- 
 sophers." 
 
 And how did the author of Genesis obtain his 
 materials? He received them either by direct and 
 immediate revelation, or through the channel of 
 written or oral tradition. The remarkable similarity 
 between the sagas of the Gentile world and the 
 account given by Moses, would indicate that the 
 facts had reached him through tradition, and that 
 the legends of the Pagan world were founded upon 
 recollections retained after the dispersion of mankind. 
 But it was revealed tradition, for God alone could 
 tell what happened before there were eye-witnesses 
 of His majesty, as revealed in the act of creation, 
 for as little is known of man's condition before the 
 
190 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 fall, as we know of his condition after death. God 
 was to teach His children, and as Adam was taught 
 of God, so was the writer of this cosmogony re- 
 taught when the primitive revelation became subject 
 to endless metamorphoses among different nations. 
 "Speaking face to face, as a man speaketh to his 
 friend," Jehovah commanded Moses to secure from 
 oblivion all that remained true in tradition, by 
 committing it to writing. We have the highest 
 sanction to reason from the greater to the smaller. 
 "Is not life more than meat, or the body than rai- 
 ment? " If God revealed the process of creation to 
 man, would He not provide for a safe transmissoin 
 of the original tradition to Moses ? Those who deny 
 that Moses was inspired, must remember that Adam 
 lived till the days of Lamech, Noah's father, and 
 Shem till the days of Abraham, thus there were only 
 a few members in the sacred line required to trans- 
 mit the treasure. It has been pertinently remarked 
 that the charge of Moses to commit a certain song 
 to memory was equivalent to our sending an article 
 to the press. 
 
 Genesis records tradition, which reaches back to 
 primitive days, and such a 5 was not preserved among 
 any other people besides the Jews, though originally 
 the common heritage of the as yet undivided race. 
 Supposing the myths of the ancients and the record 
 of Genesis dated from one and the same original 
 tradition, it is still true that holy men of God spake 
 and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 
 Considering the myths as briefly set forth in this 
 chapter, we must see that there was a common origin. 
 The source of all tradition belongs to a time when 
 mankind was as yet united, and even the legends of 
 the ancients bear the undoubted signature of having 
 
ARE THESE MYTHS IN GENESIS? 191 
 
 originally come from the same God who was the 
 first teacher of His children in the garden of Eden. 
 The most intelligible way to account for the existence 
 of these myths as we have them, as well as for 
 the existence of the record of Genesis, is by 
 assuming that it was revealed to Adam, and handed 
 down as tradition, till among the Hebrews it was put 
 into writing, the Gentile world making it the sub- 
 stance of their national myths and mythologies. 
 
 6. Are Myths embodied in the Booh of Genesis ? 
 
 Neology, true to its nature, is always bent upon 
 destruction, and treats the Bible as if it resembled 
 the ima^e of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, "whose head 
 is of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his 
 body and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, and 
 part of potter's clay." If the head of fine gold be 
 fairly represented in the Gospel, and the feet and 
 toes in the first ten chapters or the first forty 
 Parashioth of Genesis, it follows that the whole 
 Bible must share the fate of the great image seen 
 in the royal dream. With such issues at stake, is it 
 too much to ask for a patient hearing of fresh 
 arguments, or of the reiteration, it may be, of old 
 ones in support of the old way of thinking, even in 
 days when writers are deemed learned and books 
 original, only in proportion as they subvert all 
 previously established ways of thought or belief ? 
 Yet it is only by our not taking foregone conclusions 
 for granted as matters of fact, that we can be brought 
 to see that as the Gospel "head is of fine gold," so 
 also are Pentateuchal "feet and toes" in the first 
 ten chapters of Genesis, which, for greatness, simpli- 
 city, antiquity, and depth, have no parallel in 
 
102 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 literature, sacred or profane, in spite of the majestic 
 nonchalance of which Krummacher writes: — ■ 
 
 "Die heilige Klio kann nicht in hohen Worten die Geschichte 
 der Menschheit reden, sondern sie fuhret ihren Griffel in Demuth, 
 und indem sie sehnsiichtig ihr Haupt gen Himmel richtet, beachtet 
 sie nicht den nachlassigen Gang ihrer Hand und die kindlioh 
 hingeworfenen Ziige des Griffels." 
 
 I cannot resist the impression that it was the alle- 
 gorising exegesis of patristic theology, which first of 
 all suggested both the philosophico-mythical, and the 
 rationalistic interpretation. Is it safe to follow St. 
 Augustine, when he puts beatitudo hominis for 
 Paradise ; quatuor virtutes, for the four rivers ; 
 diabolus, for serpent ; vitce imortalitas, for the 
 coats of skin ; scientice plenitudo, for the Cheru- 
 bim ; temporales pcence, for the naming sword ? 
 Years ago, when arguing in favour of the Mosaic 
 authorship of the Pentateuch against Doctor 
 Colenso,* I objected that if the Pentateuch embody 
 myths, the Hebrew literature constitutes the most 
 intricate of all literary mysteries, to which no key 
 can be found. The post-Mosaic period in that case 
 would resemble a tree without root. Yet, the Patri- 
 archal history, the Exodus, and the sojourn in the 
 wilderness, form the necessary condition of the 
 subsequent Jewish polity. Not once, but a hundred 
 times, the facts and marvels of the Pentateuch are 
 reiterated in the Psalms and Prophets. Even 
 after foretelling the approaching dissolution of the 
 Theocratical constitution, the Prophets recur to the 
 marvellous beginnings, prophesying a repetition of 
 these primitive marvels in connection with the 
 expected kingdom of the Messiah. "According to 
 
 * See English Biblical Criticism and Authorship of the 
 Pentateuch. Second Edition, page 21. 
 
ARE THERE ANY MYTHS IN GENESIS? 193 
 
 the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt, 
 will I show unto him marvellous thing's. ' ' 
 
 Hence it will appear that these things were known 
 to the whole nation as history, exactly as we have it 
 in the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. This 
 original history was, moreover, kept alive by the 
 festivals of the Passover and of Tabernacles, and 
 by the ordinances of the sabbath and circumcision, 
 just as we keep alive the facts of our redemption by 
 annual and weekly festivals, by sacraments, and 
 other means of grace. Israel knew God only as the 
 Creator of heaven and earth, as the "God of 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," as Jehovah who brought 
 his people out of Egypt, just as we know God as the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The very names 
 of God are memorials of the great epochs of Penta- 
 teuchal history. Indeed the chief means of grace 
 was the history of creation, of the Patriarchs, and 
 of the nation in after ages, by which Israel was 
 taught, quickened, rejoiced, and enlightened, as much 
 as by the precepts and testimonies which were then 
 given in connection with it. 
 
 Among all nations, according to Dr. Auberlin, 
 two distinct literary periods are observed which may 
 be styled heroic-epical, and historico-philosophical. 
 But just where we expect analogy between the 
 Hebrew and other nations, the greatest difference in 
 the formation of the two respective periods of 
 literature is observed. In point of chronological 
 order, the poetical, didactical, and prophetical litera- 
 ture of the Jews is, in relation to the Pentateuch, 
 what the works of Pindar, Sophocles, Herodotus, 
 and Plato, are in respect to Homer and Hesiod 
 among the most important representatives of the 
 Gentiles; and what much of our modern Literature 
 
 N 
 
194 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND MYTHS. 
 
 is, in comparison with the Nibelungenlied, and 
 similar productions of our Saxon forefathers. The 
 heroic-epical period of Greek Literature is the crea- 
 tion of their mythology by their poets. The second 
 epoch was that of a critical and sceptical Philosophy, 
 which dissolves the mythical element, reveals the 
 unreal nature of the mythological element, and 
 lays bare its pernicious effects upon religion and 
 morality. 
 
 Classical Paganism, just before our era, had become 
 convinced of the falsehood of its popular mythology 
 as furnished by the epic poems, and of its practically 
 unfavourable effects upon the people. Pythagoras 
 580 B.C., Heraclitus 500 B.C., Xenophanes 456 B.C. 
 and others severally protested against the gods and 
 myths of Homer ; and Socrates 400 B.C. bravely died 
 a martyr in the cause. But it was reserved to Plato, 
 his pupil, to protest more emphatically against the 
 mythical creations of Homer in the shape of gods, 
 heroes, and men. Plato's Republic was written 
 towards the end of his life, and contains a summary 
 of his whole ethical system. Speaking of the 
 education of the guardians of the state that was to 
 be formed, he continues, Book II., cap. xvii. : — "And 
 know you not, that the beginning of every work is 
 most important, especially to any one young and 
 tender, because then, that particular impression is 
 most easily instilled and formed which any one may 
 wish to imprint on each individual. Entirely so. 
 Shall we then let children hear any kind of fables 
 composed by any kind of person, and receive into 
 their minds opinions, in a great measure, contrary 
 to those which we think they should have when they 
 are grown up? We should by no means allow it. 
 First of all, then, as it seems, we must exercise 
 
ARE THERE ANY MYTHS IN GENESIS: 195 
 
 control over the fable-makers, and whatever fables 
 they may invent, we should select from them, and 
 what is not beautiful we should reject: and very 
 many of those that they now tell must be cast aside. ' ' 
 
 The whole is summed up in Book X., chap. i. : — 
 "That I may tell it to you, — for you will not 
 denounce me to the composers of tragedy and the 
 rest of the imitative class, — all such things as these 
 seem to be the ruin of the intellect of the hearers, 
 that is, of such of them as have not a test to enable 
 them to discern their peculiar nature. 7S nat con- 
 sideration, said he, leads you to say this? It must 
 be stated, said I, although a certain friendship, at 
 least, and reverence for Homer, which I have had 
 from my childhood, almost restrains me from telling 
 it ; for he seems truly both to have been the first 
 leader and teacher of all the good composers of 
 tragedy ; but still the man must not be honoured in 
 preference to truth." In Book X., cap. vii., Plato 
 censures the effusion of the poets, because it "nur- 
 tures and irrigates the passions, whereas they ought 
 to be governed, in order to our becoming better and 
 happier, instead of being worse and more miserable." 
 
 Let us now notice the contrast. The Pentateuch 
 has been compared with Homer, and designated the 
 Theocratical epos of the Israelites with symbolical, 
 judicial, etymological, and didactical myths. The 
 marvellous in the one was placed parallel to the 
 marvellous in the other. Was there mythology in 
 the one case, why should there not be in the other? 
 But amidst the accidental analogy between the 
 Mosaic and the Homeric theophanies, and between 
 Jewish and Pagan tradition, customs, &c, &c, one 
 thing is most certain. If there be any reason for 
 placing the Pentateuch on the same level as the 
 
196 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 Illiad, and for considering it a parallel collection of 
 myths, it would necessarily follow, that the second 
 literary period of the Hebrews, would judge similarly 
 of these supposed Mosaic myths as the second 
 Hellenic period judged of the Homeric productions; 
 but here the analogy entirely fails. 
 
 Instead of condemning the earliest writing of 
 their forefathers, the Hebrew sages, historians, poets, 
 and seers of later ages, — who were by no means 
 inferior in power and spirit to the corresponding 
 Greek authors of the second period, — hold fast to 
 the historical matter-of-fact records of the Penta- 
 teuch. This is done with a tenacity and conviction 
 which cannot be mistaken. David, and the prophets 
 judge very differently of Moses from what Plato 
 does of Homer. And this with all justice. Plato 
 would not have judged differently of the Pentateuch 
 from what the Hebrew prophets did, as we can infer 
 to a certainty from his criticisms of Homer. Have 
 not many noble-minded Greeks, at a later time, 
 taken refuge as proselytes in Judaism after they had 
 despaired of their own creed? 
 
 What offended Plato in the popular mythology of 
 the Greeks was, not the metaphysical side of the 
 question as regarded the marvels they recorded ; it 
 was not with him the impossibility of the marvellous, 
 which now forms the main objection of our modern 
 Bible critics, but the real stumbling-block of the 
 Great Thinker arose upon ethical grounds. Plato 
 betook himself to a critical examination of Homer's 
 work, not in the name of reason, but, to his praise 
 be it said, in the name of conscience. He objected, 
 not to the gods having wrought marvels, but, to their 
 having wrought wickedness. It was the distinction 
 between good and evil, which led Plato to a distinc- 
 
WHO ARE THE SONS OF GOD IN GEN. VI.? 197 
 
 tion between true and false. Whilst he rejects the 
 myths, as such, and rebukes the defects of the 
 national creed as a deception, from a conscientious 
 conviction of its falsity, the Prophets and the 
 Apostles agree, saying: " We have not followed cun- 
 ningly devised fables or myths." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GENESIS ^NI3 THE DELUGE. 
 
 1. The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men. 
 
 The flood account in Genesis was deemed to em- 
 brace mythological elements because the introduc- 
 tion to that account is said to represent the sons 
 of God as haying contracted marriages with 
 the daughters of men. It was always a disputed 
 point among theologians whether the sons of God, 
 Genesis vi., are the angels of God, or whether they 
 signify the pious descendants of Seth. In favour of 
 the last opinion the following reasons have been set 
 forth : Pirst, it is considered most in harmony with 
 the context to take them as Setbites ; for it is 
 argued that Genesis iv. gives an account of the 
 family of Cain, Gen. v. deals with the family of 
 Seth, and Genesis vi. records the results of the fatal 
 commingling of these two lines which till then had 
 been kept wholly distinct. Secondly, the words 
 "taking to wife," are said to apply always to ordi- 
 nary, natural matrimonial alliances, but never to 
 unnatural or criminal connections. Thirdly, the 
 
1S8 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND TEE DELUGE. 
 
 addition, " all which they chose," is said to imply 
 that their marrying was according to their lusts, 
 which could not be applied to angelic beings. Lastly 
 it is added, and I consider, upon the most doubtful 
 grounds, that the beauty of the daughters of Cain 
 was very great. 
 
 The other view, according to which the sons of 
 God are the angels of God, was generally espoused 
 by the whole ancient synagogue, both in Palestine 
 and in Babylonia ; also by the Book of Henoch, 
 about 110 years B.C., and the Book of Jubilees, the 
 so-called Little Genesis of the first century of our 
 era. The Pseudo-Jonathan and Bashi evidently 
 hesitated between this theory and the other, which 
 recognised the sons of princes in the sons of God. 
 This last view was also taken by Onkelos, the Sama- 
 ritan Pentateuch, later Saadia Gaon and Aben Esra. 
 
 The only Jewish advocate for the Sethite theory 
 was Abarbanel, in the fifteenth century. Hence it 
 may be said that generally and as a body, the Jews 
 in all ages advocated the angel-theory in preference 
 to any other explanation of Gen. vi. ; and although 
 the hellenistic section cling to the same view, the 
 Septuagint manuscripts seem divided between the 
 readings of "sons of God" and "angels of God." 
 Philo, Josephus, and others, firmly adhere to the 
 oldest, most orthodox, and favourite angel-theory. 
 
 As in the Jewish, so also in the Christian Church, 
 the angel-theory was the most ancient and the most 
 orthodox. Indeed, some modern divines have even 
 recognised an allusion in Cor. xi. 1 — 4, to Gen. vi. 
 1 — 4. Further still, the passages Jude v. 7, and 2 
 Peter ii. 4, 5, are quoted as direct evidence that the 
 angel-theory was currently believed in the beginning 
 of our era. In the two Epistles a parallel is evidently 
 
THE ANGEL-THEORY IN GEN. VI. 199 
 
 drawn between the sin of the angels and the sin of 
 the people of Gomorrha, both being charged with 
 having gone after strange flesh ; for the words of the 
 authorised version of Jude verse 7, " in like manner 
 giving themselves over," can only be translated, "in 
 a similar manner like those (i.e., the angels, verse 6) 
 giving themselves over to fornication.'.' In short, 
 till the latter part of the fourth century, the 
 Fathers of the Church only knew of the angel- 
 theory. Amongst the Fathers who treat the sub- 
 ject are Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tatian, Iren- 
 seus, Clemens Alexandra nus, Methodius, and Euse- 
 bius of Csesarea. Amongst the Latins may be 
 named Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Ambrosius, 
 Sulpitius Severus, etc. The same view is taken by 
 the Judceo-Christian Testaments of the twelve 
 Patriarchs, which date from the second century ; and 
 by the pseudo-Clementine homilies. 
 
 But a revulsion from the view that the sons of 
 God were the angels of God, seems to have taken 
 place towards the latter part of the fourth century, 
 when Theodoretus, Chrysostom, Cyrillus of Alex- 
 andria, Augustine, Basilius of Selucia and Philas- 
 trius, took the sons of God as the descendants of 
 Seth. In more recent times, theology, in several 
 quarters, seems to have gone back to the angel- 
 theory. When Chrysostom says that the angels 
 were never styled the sons of God, it can only be 
 accounted for by the tact that in the Septuagint ac- 
 cessible to him, the passages Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7, 
 read not sons, but angels of God ; though that very 
 same Septuagint retains sons of God, in Psalm 
 xxix. 1, lxxxix. 7, also in Dan. iii. 25. Altogether 
 inadmissible is Theodoretus, when he says that Seth, 
 on account of his great piety, was himself called 
 
200 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 God, for he evidently misinterpreted the passage, 
 Gen. iv. 26. Among the probable reasons why the 
 more ancient angel-theory was abandoned in the 
 fifth century, may be named the worshipping of 
 angels, which at that time was coming into vogue, 
 together with the ever-growing reputation of celi- 
 bacy in the fourth century. The monk was thought 
 to live the life of angels, who neither marry nor are 
 given in marriage. Yet the orthodox teaching of 
 the Jewish and the Christian Church till then was 
 clearly this, that according to Genesis vi., the angels 
 had come down to mingle with the daughters of 
 men. 
 
 The following reasons are given on behalf of the 
 angel-theory: First, the usus loquendi in Scripture is 
 uniformly in favour of this interpretation. In Job 
 i. 6, ii. 1 ; and xxxviii. 7, the term of Bene Elohim, 
 or the sons of God, is applied to the angels of 
 God. Again, in Psalm xxix. 1, and lxxxix. 7, the 
 term "sons of the Mighty" is given to the angels 
 of God. It is therefore natural that the same 
 meaning should attach to Gen. vi. where it first 
 occurs. If Bene Elohim in Gen. vi. meant the 
 posterity of Seth, the same term, Bene Elohim 
 cannot signify angels in other places. Wherever 
 the Old Testament speaks of the human, or the 
 adopted sons of God, they are called sons of Jehovah, 
 not the sons of Elohim, which was the proper name 
 for the angels of God. It is further said that if the 
 term, "sons of God" were applicable to men, the 
 corresponding expression of "daughters of men," 
 would be wholly stript of the contrast which it is 
 clearly meant to express. If "men" in Gen. vi. 1, 
 signifies the whole human family, including the 
 Sethites and the Cainites, it cannot be taken in 
 
THE AXGEL-THEORY IN GBX. VI. 201 
 
 verse 2, in the restricted sense of the daughters of 
 Cain. The angels of God left their own habitation, 
 not keeping their first estate, deeming that their 
 second estate among men was more attractive. Nor 
 is it by any means possible to limit the female beauty 
 to the daughters of Cain. The sons of Elohim cast 
 their eyes upon "strange" flesh, and it cannot be 
 supposed that the best and most pious branch of the 
 human family had all the ugly women, whilst the 
 family with a curse upon their race enjoyed all the 
 beauty. 
 
 The view that the sons of God were the angels of 
 God, is said to be confirmed in the Epistle of St. 
 Jude, the brother of our Lord, and in that of St. 
 Peter, the chief of the Apostles; both passages 
 speaking of angels who sinned and kept not their 
 first estate, their object of leaving it being indicated 
 in verse 7. "As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the 
 cities about them, who in like manner, as those (the 
 angels) have given themselves over to fornication, 
 and have gone after other flesh, are set forth for an 
 example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 
 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh." 
 Again, in these two passages, written at a time 
 when the view in question was well known to the 
 readers, the Apostles could not have expressed them- 
 selves more clearly than they did, if they meant to 
 refer to the angelic sons of God, whose natural name, 
 or nomen natural was sons of God, whilst their name 
 of office, nomen officii, was angels, or messengers. 
 Asrain, it is admitted that the book of Henoch, or 
 its contents, were fully known to St. Jude, who quotes 
 from it verses 14, 15, and if it stood there, why 
 should not the Apostle refer to it in verses 6 — 8, 
 touching the fall of angels, not of those who fell 
 
202 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE, 
 
 originally, but who fell just before the flood, and the 
 alleged cause of which fall is recorded Gen. vi.? 
 Again, the word Nephilim, translated giants, ty- 
 rants, signifies literally, "fallen ones," i.e., fallen 
 down from heaven, their former habitation which 
 they failed to keep. The Nephilim are thus not 
 identical with " the Gibborim, mighty men," or giants, 
 but with the sons of God. These antediluvian giants 
 or heroes, became the semi-gods of Pagan mythology. 
 The Church in the first four centuries recognized in 
 Gen. vi., the mysterious origin of the heathen gods, 
 whom the Apostles describe as devils, deeming them, 
 it would seem, a generation of semi-gods, or semi- 
 devils. 
 
 Again, when the unnatural, contra-natural, supra 
 or supernatural element had been infused into 
 humanity, the destruction of the whole human race, 
 with a few exceptions, became absolutely necessary. 
 When Abraham was chosen like Noah out of a corrupt 
 world, that world was not to be destroyed, as in the 
 parallel of the great Deluge, but reserved with a 
 view to partake of the universal blessing with which 
 all nations should finally be blessed. Not the mix- 
 ture of the Sethites and Cainites, otherwise very 
 closely related, but the entrance of a totally strange 
 and foreign element of a higher order, could produce 
 the Gibborim, or giants of the antediluvians. It was 
 this supernatural power of the Nephilim, or of the 
 fallen sons of God, which fully accounts for the 
 mighty men of renown. The heroes of Pagan 
 mythology were the unnatural offspring of the sons 
 of God, and of the daughters of men. 
 
 Further still, the expression of Christ, in Matt. 
 xxii. 30, that the angels neither marry nor are given 
 in marriage, is met with the assertion that it is just 
 
THE ANGEL-THEORY IN GEN. VI. 203 
 
 because it was not natural, but against their nature 
 and destiny, that the unheard of judgment was 
 suddenly brought upon the human race, by which, 
 with the exception of one family, they were rooted 
 out, that this mysterious alliance was not more 
 impossible on their leaving their first estate and 
 habitation, than was their human-like eating and 
 drinking, and their speaking with a human voice, as 
 men among men. Granted, that the angels are not 
 competent by their original nature to marry, yet it 
 is not thereby proved that on forsaking their first 
 estate they might not have become capable of so 
 doing. Man was not created that he might fall and 
 die, and yet leaving his first estate man both fell and 
 died. Man was to multiply in God's image, but 
 having fallen, Adam "begat a son in his own like- 
 ness." The possibility of a given event stands firm 
 till its impossibility has been fairly proved. How, 
 for instance, is it possible that there should be such 
 a thing as possession ? There is a spiritual body, 
 and there is a natural body, but who will define 
 what is the real difference between them? "We 
 know it was by the power of the Holy Ghost that 
 the Virgin Mary conceived and brought forth a son. 
 The angels on leaving their own habitation, and 
 sinking down upon this earth, may have assumed 
 bodies to suit their new fallen estate. 
 
 The angels have no human body, but they can 
 assume the semblance of a human body. The Fathers 
 of the Church held that these heavenly messengers 
 were not altogether incorporeal. They have a glory 
 which might be called their body ; at all events they 
 possess the power of assuming the appearance of a 
 body. The Bible neither teaches expressly that the 
 angels have bodies, nor that they have not. They 
 
201 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 have, indeed, no flesh and blood, but bodies imma- 
 terial, spiritual, or pneumatic ; and the question is 
 worth considering whether the fall of angels did not 
 involve a tendency to materialization of some sort. 
 Such are some of the arguments in favour of the 
 sons of God being the angels of God. 
 
 The most weighty objection against the theory seems 
 to be, that as the angels were neither meant to marry 
 or to be given in marriage, they were in consequence 
 never endowed by God with this special gift, nor is it 
 probable that God would bestow the gift upon them 
 after they had fallen. Nature can only develop, 
 pervert, and abuse God's gifts, but it cannot pro- 
 duce them. Yet if angels were not destined to marry, 
 neither was man destined to commit sin, and 
 thus fail to attain his high destiny. The angels 
 must be regarded as a stage in advance of man, and 
 if the children of the resurrection are to be like 
 them, the question might arise, whether it was not 
 possible for the angels to sink down or to fall back 
 upon a lower infeiior stage, and subsequently 
 manifest on that lower stage, or in that lower 
 sphere, some latent power, such as the assum- 
 ing of a body, which in some respects corresponded 
 to the human body, just as the "children of the 
 resurrection ' ' will assume hereafter bodies answer- 
 ing those of the holy angels of God ? 
 
 Granting that this is a mystery of iniquity and a 
 paradox without equal, and allowing, moreover, for 
 argument's sake, that if the angel-theory, as the most 
 difficult and mysterious signification of Gen. vi. 
 were to be adopted, yet mythology there could be 
 none ; on the contrary, it would point to the great 
 source of all heathen mythology, and explain that 
 there was more than an ordinary excess of human 
 
THE ASIATIC FLOOD LEGENDS. 205 
 
 wickedness, which rendered such a unique judg- 
 ment indispensable. If, whilst faithful to their 
 first estate, the angels desire to look into the mys- 
 teries of grace 1 Peter i. 12, is it not possible that, 
 on leaving that first estate, they might have desired 
 to look into the deepest mysteries of nature ? The 
 fall of man by eating some forbidden fruit, is quite 
 as mysterious as the fall of angels, even if it had 
 been caused by the beauty of the daughters of men. 
 Lastly, as there are divers orders of angels, endowed, 
 no doubt, with divers natures, and with different 
 kinds of spiritual bodies, is it unreasonable to assume 
 that some of their natures or some of their spiritual 
 bodies may have been more congenial to our own 
 nature than others ? Yet whatever we may now 
 think of the view of angels intermarrying with 
 the daughters of men before the flood, it is the view 
 which was espoused by the whole Jewish synagogue 
 and by the undivided Christian Church for the first 
 four centuries. 
 
 2. The Flood Legends of Asiatic Nations. 
 
 Though localised and national, the flood legends of 
 the nations point more or less to Armenia, as the 
 great centre from whence the new race made a fresh 
 start after the Deluge. The precise mountain upon 
 which the ark landed is not determined in Genesis. 
 Some think of Arar Djudi or the Snowy Arar. 
 Others point to the Gordyan or Taurian mountains, 
 known as the Masis, and called by the Turks, Agri- 
 depe, i.e., the strong mountain, or Saad-depe, i.e., 
 the blessed mountain ; the Persians have given it 
 the name of Koh-Nuh, i.e., the mountain of Noah. 
 It is 16,000 feet high, and at the base of it a cloister 
 is pointed out by tradition in which Noah made his 
 abode. In the neighbourhood is the oldest town in 
 
206 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 Armenia, Nakidskewan, which existed as early as 
 the days of the Median king Astyages, and which, 
 my young Armenian friend, Petrus Aganoor, tells 
 me, signifies, " the place of descent." The Arme- 
 nians formerly kept their new year in the month of 
 Nawasart, which means " the ark is landed," and on 
 it they sprinkled themselves with water and sent 
 forth doves. 
 
 Most striking are the flood legends of the Chaldeo- 
 Babylonians as they have been preserved to us by 
 the Belus priest Berosus, who lived in the third 
 century before Christ. We seem to listen to the 
 same story as in Genesis, only with a variation of 
 names. Xisuthrus, the Babylonian Noah, received 
 a warning in a dream from Bel, Baal, or Belus, 
 that mankind would be destroyed by a flood on the 
 15th of the month Dyesios. He commanded 
 Xisuthrus to write all the sciences and the know- 
 ledge of men and to hide the document in Siparis. 
 After that, he was to build a ship, more than 2800 
 feet long, and 1100 to 1200 feet broad; he was to 
 enter into it with his family, to provide it with 
 food, and to take with him all kinds of animals and 
 birds. 
 
 When the flood subsided, Xisuthrus sends forth a 
 bird, but it comes back to the ship, not finding a 
 place upon which to settle down. A second bird 
 sent out, returns with mud on its feet. The third 
 bird never returns. When the ship lands upon a 
 mountain in Armenia, Xisuthrus, with his wife and 
 daughter and the pilot, is said to have built an 
 altar unto the gods, and after offering up sacrifices 
 he is translated to heaven. When Berosus wrote, 
 remnants of the gigantic ship were still to be seen 
 on the mountain, and from them amulets were cut, 
 
THE ASIATIC FLOOD LEGENDS. 207 
 
 which were thought to possess healing virtue. Zoro- 
 vanus, Titan, and Japetosthes, the three successors of 
 Xisuthrus, divided the rule of the world among 
 them. 
 
 A parallel account has recently been brought to 
 light by Mr. George Smith, who translated the 
 Deluge tablet of the cuneiform inscriptions found 
 in the palace of Assurbanipal, at Nineveh. It pro- 
 fesses to be written in the days of Jzdubar soon 
 after the flood. The name itself is only known 
 in monogram, and cannot as yet be read pho- 
 netically, but the translator thinks it is to be 
 read, Nimrod, the cuneiform characters pointing to 
 Namur and E-adu, Namurradu. But more decided 
 than the phonetic reading of the name of Izdubar, 
 is his character ; he is called the " powerful giant," 
 and " ffiant kin<?." This Izdubar-Namuradu, as we 
 may call him provisionally, lived in the city of 
 Erech, now called Worka, which must have been 
 one of the most ancient cities of the world. 
 
 The father of the flood patriarch is Ubara-tutu, 
 which ought to correspond with the Otiartes, or more 
 correctly Opart es, and Adartes, of the Greek text of 
 Berosus. Yet although there is an agreement be- 
 tween these names respectively, there is none with 
 the Hebrew Lamech. Yet, taking Lamech in the 
 sense of overthrower, there is, at least, a similar 
 meaning, if not a similar sound, for Ubara-tutu may 
 mean reducer or subduer, or " reducer to slavery." 
 
 The name of the flood-patriarch himself in the 
 cuneiform writing, is Adrahasis or llasisadra; 
 Berosus makes it Sisuthrus, Sisithrus, or Xisuthrus, 
 which is not very unlike Hasisadra. As many 
 ancient names with two elements were used with 
 either element first, as Assur-duri and Duri-assur, 
 
208 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 Iriba-vul and Vul-iriba, or among the Jews 
 Jehoahaz or Ahaziah, the inscriptions give Xisuthrus 
 both as Adrahasis and Hasisadra. Still more remote 
 and altogether unlike is the Bible name, Noah. Yet 
 as there is a similar meaning in Izdubar and Nimrod, 
 and in Ubaru-tutu and Lamech, so there is a similar 
 meaning in the names Hasisadra and Noah, the 
 former signifying, attentive to worship, reverential, 
 intimating the pious character of the Chaldean 
 patriarch, in direct contrast with the father Ubaru- 
 tntu, reducer to slavery. Noah, with whom he is 
 to correspond, signifies rest or peace; this also in 
 direct contrast to his father Lamech, which expresses 
 strife, or signifies the overthrower. Thus although 
 Noah's name does not tally in sound with Xisuthrus, 
 Xisithrus, Adrahasis or Hasisadra, the character 
 of piety in both is the same. The following is a 
 literal version by Mr. Smith, of the deluge tablet, 
 the injured parts being indicated by dots. 
 
 "Izdubar said to Xisithrus the remote: I am 
 burdened with the matter Xisithrus, why thou 
 repeatest not to me from thee, and thou repeatest 
 not to me from thee; thy ceasing, my heart to 
 
 make war presses of thee, I come up after 
 
 thee .... how thou hast done, and in the assembly 
 of the gods, alive thou art placed. Xisithrus to 
 him also said to Izdubar: Ee revealed to thee 
 Izdubar the concealed story ; and the judgment of 
 the gods to thee, be related to thee. The city 
 Surippak the city where thou standest . . placed 
 that city is ancient . . . the gods within it . . . 
 their servant the great gods .... the god 
 Anu . . . the god Elu, . . . the god Ninip, 
 and the god . . . lord of Hades their will be 
 revealed in the midst . . . and [I] his will was 
 
THE ASSYRIAN FLOOD LEGENDS. 209 
 
 hearing, and he spake [to me], Surippakite, son of 
 Ubaratutu . . make a ship after this . . I destroy (?) 
 the sinner and life . . cause to ascend the seed 
 of life all of it, to the midst of the ship. The 
 ship which thou shalt make (600) cubits shall be 
 the measure of its length and (60) cubits the 
 amount of its breadth and its height . . . Into 
 the deep launch it. I perceived and said to Hea 
 my lord, the ship-making which thou commandest 
 me thus . . [when?] by me it shall be done . . 
 [I shall be derided by] young men and old men. 
 Hea opened his mouth and spake, and said to me 
 his servant . . thou shalt say unto them . . he has 
 turned from me and . . fixed over me . . like caves . . 
 above and below . . close to the ship . . the flood 
 which I will send to you ; [into it] enter and the 
 door of the ship turn. Into the midst of it thy 
 grain, thy furniture, and thy goods, thy wealth [?] 
 thy women servants, thy female slaves, and the 
 young men, the beasts of the field, the animals of 
 the field, all I will gather, and I will send to thee, 
 and they shall be inclosed in thy door. Xisithrus 
 his mouth opened and spake and . . said to 
 Hea his lord : Any one the ship will not make . . 
 on the earth fixed . . I may see also the ship . . on 
 the ground the ship . . the ship making which thou 
 commandest me . . which in . . strong . . on the fifth 
 day . . it in its circuit 14 measures . . its frame 14 
 measures it measured . . over it. I placed its roof, it . . 
 I inclosed it. I rode in it on the sixth time, I exa- 
 mined its exterior on the seventh time, its interior I 
 examined on the eighth time ; with planks the waters 
 from within it I stopped, I saw rents and the want- 
 ing parts I added, three measures of bitumen I 
 poured over the outside, three measures of bitumen 
 
 o 
 
210 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE, 
 
 I poured over the inside; 3. . . men carrying its 
 baskets (?) they constructed boxes, I gave (?) the boxes 
 for which they had sacrificed an offering (?) two mea- 
 sures of boxes I had distributed to the boatmen . . 
 to . . were sacrificed oxen, as . . for every day, 
 in . . . wine in receptacles, and wine [I col- 
 lected] like the waters of a river, also [food] .... 
 like the dust (?) of the earth, also .... [I collected 
 in] boxes, with my hand I placed .... Shamas . . . 
 material of the ship completed .... strong and the 
 reed oars (?) of the ship I caused to bring above and 
 below . . they went in two thirds of it. All I 
 possessed the strength of it, silver, gold, .... the 
 seed of life, the whole I caused to go up into the 
 ship, all my male servants, and my female servants, 
 the beast of the field, the animal of the field, the 
 sons of the people, all of them I caused to go up. 
 A flood Shamas made and he spoke saying, (?) In 
 the night I will cause it to rain from heaven heavily, 
 enter to the midst of the ship and shut thy door. 
 That flood happened [of which] he spake saying: 
 In the night I will cause it to rain, and it will rain, 
 from heaven heavily. In the day I celebrated his 
 festival, the day of watching, fear I had. I entered 
 to the midst of the ship and shut my door. To close 
 the ship to Buzur-sadirabi, the boatman, the palace 
 I gave with its goods. 
 
 The raging of a storm in the morning arose, from 
 the horizon of heaven extending and wide. Vul in 
 the midst of it thundered, and Nebo and Saru went 
 in front, the throne bearers went over mountains 
 and plains, the destroyer Nergal overturned, Ninip 
 went in front and cast down, the spirits carried des- 
 truction, in their glory they swept the earth ; of Vul 
 the flood reached to heaven. The bright earth to a 
 
TBE ASSYRIAN FLOOD LEGENDS. 211 
 
 waste was turned, the surface of the earth like . . . 
 
 it swept, it destroyed all life from the face of 
 
 the earth the strong deluge over the people, 
 
 reached to heaven. Brother saw not his brother, it 
 did not spare the people. In heaven the gods feared 
 the tempest and sought refuge ; they ascended to the 
 heaven of Anu. The gods like dogs fixed in droves 
 prostrate. Spake Ishtar like a child (in fulness?) 
 uttered Rubat her speech: All to corruption are 
 turned and then I in the presence of the gods 
 prophesied evil. As I prophesied in the presence of the 
 gods evil, to evil were devoted all my people, and I 
 prophesied, I the mother have begotten my people, 
 and like the young of the fishes they fill the sea. 
 The gods concerning the spirits were weeping with 
 me [with her ?], the gods in seats, seated in lamenta- 
 tion, covered with their lips for the coming evil. 
 
 Six days and nights passed, the wind, deluge, and 
 storm overwhelmed. On the seventh day in its 
 course, the rain from heaven, and all the deluge 
 which had destroyed like an earthquake, quieted. 
 The sea he caused to dry, and the wind and deluge 
 ended. I perceived the sea making a tossing, and 
 the whole of mankind turned to corruption ; like 
 reeds the corpses floated. I opened the window and 
 the light broke over my face, it passed, I sat down 
 and wept, over my face flowed my tears. I per- 
 ceived the shore at the boundary of the sea, for 
 12 measures the land rose. To the country of 
 Nizir went the ship ; the mountain of Nizir stopped 
 the ship, and to pass over it it was not able. The 
 first day and the second day the mountain of Nizir 
 the same. The third day and the fourth day, the 
 mountain of Nizir the same. The fifth and the 
 sixth the mountain of Nizir the same. On the 
 
212 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 seventh day in the course of it I sent forth a dove 
 and it left. The dove went and turned, and a rest- 
 ing place it could not enter, and it returned. I sent 
 forth a swallow and it left. The swallow went and 
 turned, and a resting place it could not enter, and it 
 returned. I sent forth a raven and it left. The 
 raven went, and the corpses which were on the 
 water it saw, and it did eat, it swam and wandered 
 away, and it did not return. I sent [the animals] 
 forth to the four winds, I poured out a libation. I 
 built an altar on the peak of the mountain, by sevens 
 jugs of wine (?) I took, at the bottom of them I 
 placed reeds, pines, and spices. The gods collected 
 at its burning ; the gods like flies over the sacrifice 
 gathered. From of old, also, Uubat (the lady of 
 the gods) in her course carried this great brightness 
 which Anu had created. When the glory . . . those 
 gods on the charm round my neck I would not leave ; 
 in those days I desired that for ever I might not 
 leave them. May the gods come to my altar, may 
 Elu not come to my altar, for he did not consider, 
 and had made a deluge and my people he had 
 consigned to the deep. Prom of old, also, Elu in his 
 course saw the ship, and went, Elu, with anger 
 filled to the gods and spirits, saying : Let not any- 
 one come out alive, let not a man be saved from the 
 deep. Ninip, his mouth opened and spake, and said 
 to the warrior, Elu : Who then will ask Hea the 
 matter he has done, and Hea knowing also all 
 things .... Hea, his mouth opened and spake, and 
 said to the warrior, Elu : Thou just prince of the 
 gods, warrior .... when thou angry becomest a 
 deluge thou makest ; the doer of sin does his sin, 
 the doer of evil does his evil. The just prince let 
 him not be cut off, the faithful let him not be ... . 
 
THE SYRIAN FLOOD LEGENDS. 213 
 
 Instead of thee making a deluge, may lions increase 
 and men be reduced ; instead of thee making a 
 deluge, may leopards increase and men be reduced ; 
 instead of thee making a deluge, may famine happen 
 and the country be destroyed ; instead of thee making 
 a deluge, may pestilence increase and men be des- 
 troyed. 
 
 I did not peer into the judgment of the great gods. 
 Adrahasis, a dream they sent, and the judgment of 
 the gods he heard. When his judgment was accom- 
 plished Elu went up to the midst of the ship. He 
 took my hand and raised me up, he caused to raise 
 and to bring my wife to my side ; he made a bond, 
 he established in a covenant and gave this blessing in 
 the presence of Hasisadra and the people, thus : 
 When Hasisadra and his wife and the people, to be 
 like the gods, are carried away ; then shall dwell 
 Hasisadra in a remote place at the mouth of the 
 rivers." Thus far the version of Mr. George Smith, 
 as given in the volume of the Biblical Archaeology. 
 
 In his Syrian history, Nicolaus of Damascus names 
 a high mountain in Armenia, to which many had fled 
 for safety during a deluge. He says : "Some person, 
 sailing over the highest point, stuck fast to it, the 
 wood remained for a long time, and this probably 
 may refer to the same event, described by the Jewish 
 historian Moses." Molo, an old writer who is 
 quoted by Eusebius, speaks of a man who had 
 escaped the flood with his sons, and who had come 
 from Armenia into Syria when that country was as 
 yet uninhabited. Lucian, the Syrian, records a myth 
 of "Deucalion the Scythian," which he says he 
 heard in Greece, and according to which the present 
 race was not the first, but had sprung later from 
 Deucalion, who being wise and just, was saved when 
 
214 CHAP. IV. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 all the wicked perished. He built a big ark, into 
 which he entered with his wife and children. " Then 
 came to him in pairs, pigs, horses, lions, snakes, and 
 all kinds of animals, and he received them. They 
 hurt him not, for Zeus caused them to dwell peace- 
 ably together as long as the water lasted." Lucian 
 next alludes to the temple Deucalion built near a 
 cleft or chasm at Hierapolis, in which the water was 
 said to have disappeared. Into that cleft sea water, 
 twice a year, was being poured by the priests to 
 commemorate the event ; and pilgrims came from 
 all parts of Syria, Arabia, and from beyond Euphrates 
 to be present at the ceremony. 
 
 The same flood story recurs among the Phoenicians 
 and Arabs. Among the former, according to Josephus, 
 several historians related flood legends, especially 
 Hieronymus and Mnaseas, whose works are lost. 
 Damarus was saved from a great deluge, and at the 
 close of it he divided the government over the three 
 parts of the world with two others. The modern 
 Arabs draw their notions of the deluge chiefly from 
 the Jewish Thorah, as reflected in the Koran ; but 
 they were not without indigenous flood legends, which 
 spoke of the wicked giants, the Adites, being de- 
 stroyed by a great deluge, the prophet Hud alone 
 being saved. This deluge was known in the legends 
 of Arabia as the Deluge of Iram. We can quite 
 conceive how the origin of the deluge should shrink 
 into a fierce storm, and a big thunder cloud, with 
 the accompanying flood, among a people living in 
 a desert country. 
 
 Enoch re-appears among the Phrygians in Asia 
 Minor as king Annakos in Iconium. He living 
 over 300 years, prophesied with tears of the coming 
 of a great flood, earnestly entreating God at the same 
 
THE PERSIAN FLOOD LEGENDS. 215 
 
 time that mankind might he spared. There are still 
 coins of the city of Apamena, dating from the days 
 of Emperor Septimus Severus, which represent a 
 swimming ark in which are seated a man and a 
 woman. Upon it sits a bird, and another with a 
 branch between its feet is seen flying abont it. It 
 bears the inscription, in Greek letters, the name of 
 NO. The city Apamena besides bore the surname, 
 hibiios, the Greek word for ark. 
 
 The Persian myths record a deluge caused by 
 Tashtar, in which the earth was purified and the 
 evil serpent conquered. Tashtar, according to the 
 Bundehesh, " caused the water to be poured down 
 for 30 days and 30 nights ; by another account 90 
 days and 90 nights. Every drop of water was of 
 the size of a large cup, or according to another 
 account as big as a man's head. To the height of 
 man the waters covered the whole earth. All 
 living things upon earth died of this rain. After- 
 wards a mighty wind carried away these waters in 
 the clouds, as the soul carries away the body. Upon 
 this Ormuzd gathered the waters and restrained 
 them, and thus was formed the Zare Eerakh Kand, 
 or the sea of the world." There is evidently a con- 
 fusion of the creation with the deluge, for the Persian 
 Adam seems to take the place of Noah; nor is the 
 deluge, caused by Tashtar, chronologically placed 
 under the first king Eeridun, the cotemporary of 
 Xisuthrus or Manus ; but such anachronisms are 
 easily accounted for. 
 
 The Hindu mythology is singularly rich in legends 
 of great floods which repeated themselves. But the 
 Biblical Deluge is most recognised in that of Manus 
 and the seven Bishis. The present seventh Mavan- 
 tara is introduced by a general deluge confined to 
 
216 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 this earth. Immediately before the deluge, towards 
 the end of the Kaliyug of the last Mahayug of the 
 preceding Mavantara, the holy Satyavrata, like Noah, 
 stood almost alone in the midst of universal depravity, 
 which figuratively is represented by the giant 
 Hajagriva having stolen the holy Vedas. To him 
 Vishnu appeared in the form of a fish, and foretold 
 the coming of a deluge ; he commanded him to build 
 a ship, and to go on board with seven sages. Manu, 
 being forewarned that the deluge was to come in 
 seven days, went into the ship, bearing with him, 
 according to one account, the seminal principles of 
 all existing things ; and agreeably to another, the 
 pairs of birds and beasts after their kinds. As the 
 time appointed drew nigh, Manu, with his illustrious 
 companions, embarked. The horned fish appeared 
 in form, "like a mountain huge and high." 
 Lashed to the prominent horn of the fish, Manu's 
 ship commenced its perilous voyage. Earth was 
 seen no more ; all was water only ; and except the 
 ship with the seven sages, nothing remained to be 
 seen for years and years. When the ship at length 
 came to the loftiest peak of Himavan, the fish 
 addressed Manu, asking him to bind the ship to the 
 said peak. The sage obeyed, and ever since the 
 loftiest peak of Himavan is called Naubandhanam, 
 or, " the binding of the ship!" There is a point 
 of the Himalaya mountains which is known as 
 Manu avarsarpanarn, the descent of Manu. The 
 king Manu, with his seven saints, left the ship, 
 offered sacrifices, and worshipped the Deity. It is 
 curious that according to the Talmud, king Og, of 
 Bashan, (Deut. iii. 11,) alone remained as one of the 
 great giants ; and it is said he rode over the flood 
 upon an unicorn, tied by Noah to the ark. 
 
HINDU AND CHINESE FLO°D LEGENDS. 217 
 
 In the Shu-king, a historical work of the Chinese 
 which dates from the sixth century B.C., we have 
 the record of a flood which takes place under the 
 three primeval emperors, Yao, Si, and Ki, which 
 covered nine parts of the world, surpassing the 
 highest mountains, and threatening the heavens. 
 Only the emperor Yao, with his two assistants, 
 escapes in a vessel to the summit of the mountain 
 called Yo-Lie, and after their escape Yao offered up 
 a sacrifice, and then follows the division of the 
 people into countries. Again, the eating of the 
 flesh of animals, is specially named only after this 
 flood, which implies that it was a new thing which 
 had not been in use before. The names of the three 
 above-named emperors seem etymologically to ap- 
 proach Japhet, Shem and Ham, or Cham. A second 
 flood legend is given, which not only speaks of the three 
 emperors as the counterpart of the sons of Noah, but of 
 Noah himself, under the name of JSin-hoa, as the 
 builder of the ark, and mention is made of a polished 
 stone of huge dimensions with five colours, remind- 
 ing one of the rainbow ; indeed, Yao had eyebrows 
 of the shape and colour of the rainbow ; and in 
 another legend the rainbow actually appears. 
 
 Upon the island Kamtchatka, north of Japan, we 
 learn from the Tibetans, that Kutka, who is both 
 deity and progenitor, experienced a great flood, in 
 which a few only were saved upon rafts, with their 
 substance and their provisions ; and the natives 
 point out the very spot on the top of a mountain 
 where Kutka at last landed in a boat. The Tartars 
 and Laplanders have a flood story, during which 
 only one brother and sister were saved on the Mount 
 Passaware. The flood, which was announced by a 
 voice from heaven, lasted till all the wicked were 
 
218 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 washed into the ocean. When asked whence came 
 the first man, the Bannars, east of Hindustan, 
 related that he was saved in a chest or ark during a 
 universal deluge. 
 
 3. The Flood Legends of Europe, America and 
 
 Africa. 
 Very numerous are the hellenic myths of the 
 deluge ; indeed, each tribe had its own original 
 story, but all agree in the destruction of the whole 
 human race, excepting only a few individuals, and 
 the purely Greek type of these legends forbids the 
 thought of their being obtained through the Biblical 
 channel at a later period. The Argivians relate of 
 Poseidon that he caused the land to be overflooded, 
 whence his surname Poseidon jiroklystios, the one 
 who inundated. As in Syria, so also in Greece, a 
 temple was built on the spot where the waters were 
 said to have disappeared. The Athenians represent 
 the land goddess Athene as having planted the olive 
 tree on the spot where the sea god Poseidon had 
 previously caused the flood to rise. The Lacedae- 
 monians relate of their first king Eurotas, that he 
 caused the flood to subside, and that as a memorial 
 of that event, their river was called Eurotas. 
 Megarus, the progenitor of the Megarians, is said to 
 have saved himself in a great flood by taking refuge 
 on mount Geraneia. The Pelasgians remember a 
 flood which had taken place prior to the floods re- 
 corded by other nations, and they offered sacrifices 
 on stones erected for the purpose in memory of that 
 event. 
 
 The antediluvian Telchines, the reputed inventors 
 of arts, on the island of Bhodus, after they had pre- 
 dicted the deluge, like Enoch, were translated, being 
 
HELLENIC FLOOD LEGENDS. 219 
 
 seen no more. All perish in the flood, few only 
 escaping to the mountains. The flood occurs at a 
 time when three kings happen to reign on the island. 
 Again, Dardanus came to Troy after a great flood. 
 Lykophron, 280 B.C., in his Cassandra, sings, of a time 
 Avhen Jupiter covered the whole earth with a flood. 
 It is well known that Varro, 116 B.C., divided the 
 Grecian history, and even general history, into three 
 sections, the unknown, the mythical, and the his- 
 torical periods. The unknown period ended with 
 Oxyges, and the flood under him took place 2300 B.C. 
 Oxyges crossed the stormy waves of the universal 
 deluge in a ship. Still more distinct is the Deucalion 
 flood. Jupiter resolves on the destruction of the 
 giant sinners, and for this purpose he covered Hellas 
 with a flood in which all perished, Deucalion, 
 the son of Prometheus, and his wife, Pyrrha, only 
 being saved in an ark which he had been instructed 
 to build. On entering the finished ark the flood 
 came, and for nine days and nights the ark was 
 driven about till they landed on mount Parnassus, 
 where, after the exit from the ark, Deucalion offered 
 sacrifices. Plutarch writes that the mythologians 
 record of Deucalion having sent forth a dove to 
 ascertain the state of things. The Greeks, indeed, 
 kept an annual festival to commemorate those 
 who perished by the flood. Even the profane 
 Boulanger could not but acknowledge that all these 
 floods of Samothracia, Boeotia, Achelous, Arcania, 
 together with those of Oxyges and Deucalion, were 
 identical with the Noachidian deluge. 
 
 Less distinct are the flood legends of the Romans, 
 though Saturnus is said to have landed in a boat on 
 the shores of Italy ; and Aurelius Victor speaks of 
 a time when all lands were covered with a flood, and 
 
220 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 when some few only were saved who had fled upon 
 a mountain. Hence really the derivation of the 
 word Aborigines, from the Greek word, signifying 
 mountain, and Umbrians from the Greek word, signi- 
 fying rain. 
 
 Not less striking is the Celtic legend of the deluge. 
 Llyn Llion — i.e., the sea of seas, overflooded and 
 destroyed all, excepting only Dwyvan and Dwy wach, 
 who escaped in a naked ship — i.e., without sail. 
 Neivion, the heavenly lord, with Hu, who is girded 
 with a rainbow, Tydain and Dylan, apparently the 
 three sons of Noah, are the builders of the artf, into 
 which were received a pair of each species of animals. 
 The ship, which was to be stored with provender and 
 supported by giant snakes or sea-serpents, comes to 
 rest upon a mountain peak, in memory of which an 
 artificial hill is shown near Pemble, the largest lake 
 in Wales, called Tomen y Bala — i.e., hill of exit. 
 The cause of the flood was Avanc, a monster corres- 
 ponding to the Chinese Kong-kong or the Indian 
 giant Hajagriva ; and the end of the flood is brought 
 about by Hu dragging it out of the Llyn Llion, and 
 the final recovery of the stones of Gwiddon Ganhe- 
 bon, upon which all the sciences were engraven. 
 
 Like several other flood legends the Scandinavian 
 and German myths commingle their cosmogonies 
 with the deluge, or the first with the second beginning 
 of the world. The wicked are drowned in the blood 
 of Ymer, who has three sons, Odin, Vile, Vande, the 
 Scandinavian names apparently of the three sons of 
 Noah. Bergelmir, "the old one from the mountain,' ' 
 alone escapes with his spouse in a boat. Like 
 Deucalion, Odin sends out two ravens after the deluge 
 as messenger-birds, of which the second never 
 returned. 
 
CELTIC AND OTHER FLOOD LEGENDS. 221 
 
 The Pagan Russians believed the earth to repose 
 on four huge whales, and when one of them died, a 
 fearful deluge took place which covered the highest 
 mountains. Pramzimus, the deity of the Lithauans, 
 when crime and injustice prevailed, sent two 
 giants "VVandu and Weyas, wind and water, which in 
 the course of twenty days destroyed everything. 
 Looking out of his window in heaven and just eating 
 heavenly nuts, he threw down one of the shells, 
 which fell upon the top of a mountain, where some 
 had taken refuge. They all rushed into the nut- 
 shell, and so were saved from drowning. When 
 later they were old and sad, God sent a rainbow to 
 comfort them, and making them jump nine times 
 over certain bones, nine pairs came into existence, 
 from whom the nine tribes of the Lithauans date 
 their origin. 
 
 The flood legends in America appeared so striking 
 to the first discoverers, that it was ascribed to the 
 preaching of St. Thomas in the West Indies. The 
 Esquimo Greenlanders know of a flood caused by the 
 "upsetting" of the earth, in which only one man 
 was saved alive, and when he beat the ground with 
 his stick, a wife came forth to be his helpmate. 
 The Koloshes, a pagan people on the Russian 
 western coast of North America, call the first man 
 Kitkh-ughia-si. He punished the world for their 
 sins by a great flood, but he failed in his intention 
 to destroy them all, because some escaped in barges 
 to the mountain summits, where the remnants of 
 their vessels and of the ropes with which they bound 
 them together, are still to be seen, according to Lutke 
 in his Voyage autour du monde. 
 
 The dog-rib Indians on the Mackenzie river, 
 relate that their progenitor saved himself, and all 
 
222 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 kinds of four-footed animals and of birds, in a boat 
 from the perils of a general flood. After many days' 
 floating upon the waters he was anxious to see land, 
 and he sent out a beaver, which was drowned. Then 
 he dismissed a musk-rat, which after a long absence, 
 returned, tired to death, bringing a little earth in 
 one of its paws. From this earth a large island was 
 formed in the midst of the ocean. 
 
 The Chapewyans know of a flood which covered 
 the earth, with the exception of a few mountain tops, 
 upon which their forefathers were saved alive. 
 Among the Tacullies on the west coast of New 
 Georgia, a deluge is remembered in which only one 
 pair was saved, and the musk-rat again shares in the 
 recovery of the earth. The Montagnais speak of 
 giants upon earth, and of the coining of a great 
 flood, with the subsequent dispersion of mankind in 
 various directions. In the flood story they substitute 
 a floating island for the ark, upon which four persons 
 and the animals and birds found refuge, 
 
 Among the Algonquins, Irokese and Sioux tribes 
 of Canada and the northern parts of the United 
 States, there exists this legend. The Almighty to 
 punish the wicked giants, caused a flood, in which 
 they all perished. One man alone escaped in a 
 " great boat," called Micinapikavan. From this 
 great boat he dismissed a raven, when he thought he 
 espied land, which never returned. As a punish- 
 ment it became black. Then he sent forth a white 
 dove, which came back with mud on its feet, from 
 which he inferred that the waters were assuaged. 
 In Upper Canada, the legends again speak of wicked 
 giants ; of a command to a good man to build a boat 
 to save himself from the deluge. The beaver cast 
 into the water returns with some earth, which the 
 
AMERICAN FLOOD LEGENDS. 223 
 
 man takes, and whilst breathing upon it, grew into 
 a large island ; still breathing upon it, it became a 
 large continent with mountains, rivers, and lakes, 
 upon which he finally disembarked. 
 
 The Sioux tribe knows of the ark of Numank- 
 machana, the first man who landed upon a high 
 mountain at the end of a great deluge, and of the 
 dove bringing a green willow-branch. When the 
 willow begins to sprout these tribes keep an annual 
 festival in commemoration of the first man's 
 deliverance from the flood. A large canoe may be 
 seen in the midst of the village, representing the 
 ark of the first man. A man then appears from the 
 mountains, painted white, to rehearse the flood story. 
 He asks for a cutting instrument, as an offering 
 to be made to the water, which, if it were neglected, 
 would surely cause a repetition of the deluge. 
 
 The Apalachites, in Florida, who seem to have 
 been allied to the Peruvians, and who worshipped the 
 sun, speak of a time when, owing to its not rising for 
 twenty-four hours, a great deluge came upon the 
 earth, overflowing the highest mountains, with the 
 exception of mount Olaimy, which escaped on account 
 of having a temple sacred to the sun upon it. All who 
 succeeded to reach it were saved from the general 
 ruin, and from them the earth was re-populated, 
 after the sun had brought back life and light to the 
 world. 
 
 The same story appears in Central America. Ac- 
 cording to an old legend in Peru, just before Manco 
 Capak and his sister founded the old Inka Empire 
 with its solar worship, four men and four women, 
 or eight souls took refuge in the caves of the highest 
 mountain to escape the perils of a universal flood ; 
 and they only came forth when a dog which had been 
 
224 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 sent as a spy, returned to them no longer with wet, 
 but with dirty paws. In Mexico there is the verbal 
 tradition, also the pictorial representation depicted 
 on stone monuments, that only one pair, Coxcox 
 and Cihuakoatl, were saved in a boat from a great 
 deluge. There is the usual sending forth of birds to 
 ascertain the condition of the world after they had 
 landed on one of the mountains of Colhuacan, which 
 surround the Mexican lake. In the painting in 
 which the flood is represented, Coxcox is seen to 
 swim upon an ark, above the ark is a tree, and upon 
 the tree a bird, which divides thirty- three different 
 tongues among the people. There is also a view of 
 the mountain upon which the ark came to rest, and 
 of the subsequent dispersion of mankind. 
 
 In Puebla we have the old town Cholula with its 
 Teokalli, or pyramidal temple, dedicated to the first 
 man, and the legend speaks of a great flood in which 
 all perish or were changed into fish, excepting only 
 seven souls who had taken refuge in a cave. After 
 the subsiding of the flood, one of the giants went to 
 Cholula and built the pyramid in memory of the 
 mountain which served him and his six brethren as 
 a refuge. An allusion, clearly, to the building of the 
 tower of Babylon. 
 
 The inhabitants of Mechoacan, one of the pro- 
 vinces of Mexico, cherish the following legend : — 
 " God made man and woman out of the earth. "When 
 mankind degenerated a flood came to destroy them 
 all. Only one priest, Tezbi, was spared, and he 
 escaped in an ark with his wife and children, taking 
 with him at the same time all kinds of animals and 
 seeds." When the flood subsided, the vulture Aura, 
 which lives upon carrion, was sent forth, according 
 to Antonio de Herrera, but did not return, nor did 
 
AMERICAN FLOOD LEGENDS. 225 
 
 the other birds he sent out : only the smallest bird 
 which was then set forth, the Colibri (a bird much 
 esteemed for its colour by the Indians), returned 
 with a green branch in its beak, on which the priest 
 left the ship. Others relate that the people who 
 took refuge on the mountain during the flood be- 
 came apes ; however, they gradually recovered their 
 reason, and with it the faculty of speech. 
 
 In Yucatan, Votan,theprogenitor of the Chiapanese, 
 was the grandson of the old man who had built the 
 ark before the coming of the great flood, and with 
 this flood legend is again mixed up the story of the 
 tower of Babylon, or " the great house which should 
 reach to heaven," and how on their dispersion each 
 received his own language. The number of families 
 amongst whom the earth was divided are seven. 
 Thus, according to Humboldt, the deluge is remem- 
 bered by every single tribe among the Indians in 
 America as part of a whole system of traditions. 
 The Achaguas call their deluge Catena Manua — i.e., 
 the general inundation of the earth. In Peru, we 
 have four pairs saved from the general flood, and 
 Inka, their progenitor and king, sends out the 
 birds as usual to ascertain the condition of the new 
 earth. Giants, whose bones are shown, but which 
 are really the bones of extinct giant animals, are 
 stated to have been the great cause of the floods in 
 consequence of the murders they committed. In 
 addition, the Peruvians have a singular reverence for 
 the rainbow in connection with the temple which 
 was built when the flood subsided. Among the 
 Brazilians it is one pair only that escape universal 
 destruction ; but the Macusi Indians, the Arankanes, 
 and other tribes inhabiting South America as far as 
 the Straits of Magellan, severally speak of a flood 
 
 p 
 
226 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 which surpassed all mountains, excepting only those 
 with three peaks. 
 
 But for the fear of being tedious we might pass 
 through all the South American Indian tribes, and 
 find the same story repeated with very slight 
 variations. On the Island of Cuba we hear of the 
 prophecy of the deluge ; of the building of the ark 
 which was to receive the prophet and builder, his 
 family, and the chosen animals ; of the messenger 
 birds, the raven and the dove, the last of which 
 returns with a branch of the Hoba tree ; of the 
 accidental intoxication of the flood patriarch, and of 
 other items, which would suggest plagiarism, were 
 it not that we find the same legends where borrow- 
 ing was impossible. Among the islands of the 
 Southern Archipelago missionaries have discovered 
 these flood stories on their arrival, with some of the 
 usual details to guarantee their identity with the 
 Noachidian deluge. There is the Owahu legend with 
 the story of the fisherman and his wife who were 
 saved on the mount of Roa ; of Hawaii, with only 
 the top of the mount Kea remaining uncovered ; of 
 the Society and Fiji Islands, in which only eight 
 persons are saved alive ; of the Samoa Islands, in 
 which the messenger bird sent forth is turned into a 
 snipe. 
 
 The flood legends of Asia, Europe, and America 
 are repeated in Africa. It has been said that Egypt, 
 the oldest country, alone knows nothing of a universal 
 deluge. Of this only so much is true, that there was 
 a tradition among the Greeks, that in Egypt nothing 
 was known of the Deucalion deluge, and this cer- 
 tainly greatly helped to raise the pretended antiquity 
 of the Egyptians, their sacred books being supposed 
 to date from before the flood. Yet if we can trust 
 
THE FLOOD LEGENDS OF AFRICA. 22 7 
 
 Manetho, there must have been flood legends in 
 Egypt, for he speaks of having drawn his materials 
 from the inscriptions which " the son of the 
 second Hermes had transcribed after the flood into 
 hieroglyphic writing." The first great Hermes, 
 indeed, prophesied the deluge, and because he dreaded 
 the loss of the sciences, he is said to have constructed 
 the pyramids for their preservation. Again, on a sar- 
 kophagus discovered by Belzoni, eight human beings 
 are seen in a ship, whilst others are surrounded by 
 the waves of the sea in the act of perishing. Again, 
 Menes, the flood patriarch, brought the people to 
 offer sacrifices, and Herodotus adds that under 
 Menes, who lived in the year 2600 B.C., the whole of 
 Egypt, with the exception of Thebes, was under 
 water. According to Seyffarth, the murder of Osiris 
 by his brother Typhon, is itself a personification of 
 the sea overwhelming the continents. Typhon 
 having killed his brother, places his remains in the 
 ark, until Horus, the shipman, subdued Typhon, and 
 cast him five times into the salty sea. Edouard 
 Naville, in furnishing a translation of the mytholo- 
 gical inscription on the tomb of Seti, speaks of a flood 
 of blood, as in the northern legend, which was 
 assuaged at the intercession of one of the inferior 
 deities. This inscription, which belongs to the 
 archaic period, represents RA, as the creator of men, 
 who, being so disgusted with their insolence, 
 resolved to exterminate them, which is done by 
 so universal a massacre that the country was covered 
 by a deluge of blood. Ra afterwards repents, and 
 orders certain deities to drink up the deluge which 
 inundated the country. The human race reappears, 
 and Ra swears with uplifted hand not to kill man- 
 kind again. 
 
228 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 Very little is as yet known of the traditions of 
 Central Africa, and the legends of the negroes are 
 of course few and meagre compared with those of 
 other nations ; and Islam naturally suppressed 
 the indigenous myths which the people possessed 
 prior to their conversion. Yet in Sudan they 
 know of a flood which finally emptied itself into 
 the ocean, and alluding to this native tradition, 
 the lake Kaudi in Bornu is spoken of as the Bahar 
 el Nuh, i.e., the sea of Noah, because into it the 
 deluge was thought to have poured its waters. The 
 Yumala negroes also speak of the great wickedness 
 of men in murdering each other, being punished by 
 a universal flood, only one, Musikden, " the prince 
 of the mountain," being spared for his great piety. 
 Less distinct are other traditions of a general de- 
 luge, such, for instance, as are found among the 
 Hottentots. 
 
 This consensus gentium, touching the flood legends 
 of the world, can alone be interpreted by the account 
 of the book of Genesis. In the account of Genesis 
 and in the flood legends of the world, we have the 
 same difference which exists between the genuine and 
 apocryphal gospels. Without the account in 
 Genesis these traditions would be most perplexing. 
 " Sidera contendebant de principatu, sol oritur cessat 
 omnis contention Who would imagine that all 
 the world should have agreed to think out the same 
 story ? Whence the agreement ? Everywhere 
 there is a deluge, an ark, or a ship resting on a 
 mountain. Even the birds and the rainbow are 
 commemorated. Such coincidences of a legend 
 among nations separated from each other from time 
 immemorial by tongues, seas, lands, etc., cannot be 
 accidental. Except we take for granted that the 
 
THE AGREEMENT OF LEGENDS EXPLAINED. 229 
 
 idea was inborn in human nature, the flood must 
 have happened not long before the dispersion of the 
 human family. Then how characteristic, simple, 
 pure, and sober is the record in Genesis compared 
 with the most sober of the flood legends. It has 
 been noticed that the ark of Noah instead of finally 
 reposing on mount Sinai, or mount Sion, in accord- 
 ance with the localised and national flood legends, 
 rests upon some remote mountain in Central Asia. 
 There are no theophanies in the form of a fish ; no 
 struggle with giants, snakes, and vultures, who 
 live upon the carcase of a drowned world, no renewal 
 of mankind by jumping over bones or throwing 
 stones or fruits. There are, indeed, anthropomor- 
 phisms and anthropopathisms, but no myth, legend, 
 or fiction, and who can doubt that in Genesis we 
 have the historical essence of all the mythical tradi- 
 tions of the nations of the earth ? 
 
 4. The Physical Cause and the Universality of the 
 Noachidian Deluge. 
 
 The French Encyclopedists once set the fashion 
 of smiling at the Mosaic deluge, but in the face of 
 the above legends it can show its face ; and, instead 
 of questioning the possibility of a great flood any 
 longer, geologists now-a-day assume not only one, 
 but several such floods. As to the possibility of the 
 flood having taken place, Genesis gives an all-suffi- 
 cient cause, when it is said that Elohim, the 
 Creator of the world, Himself would bring a flood 
 upon the earth to destroy all flesh ; and although 
 there is no detailed account of the combination of 
 secondary causes, yet enough seems indicated to 
 account for it. When we read of the " fountains of 
 the deep" being opened, there can be no disputing 
 
230 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 such a statement, since physical science has long 
 since ratified the existence of such fountains. In 
 the so-called tertiary strata of Perpignan and the 
 chalk formations near Paris, subterraneous streams 
 are known to flow, which exercise a pressure up- 
 wards. In Roussillon an artesian well throws up 
 the water 30 to 50 feet high ; and according to the 
 calculation of Arago, a cannon-ball brought into the 
 pipe at Perpignan and Tours would be violently 
 expelled. Beudant speaks of masses of water in the 
 interior of the globe, producing impetuous streams, 
 which in many places, e.g., at Soiret, Orbe, Vau- 
 cluse, Ninnes, and other places burst through the 
 surface. 
 
 Campbell, in his travels in South Africa, mentions 
 mighty streams emanating from the interior of the 
 earth, such as the Kuhruman river, whilst others are 
 absorbed in vast caves and caverns. We may 
 estimate the cavities of the earth from the fact that 
 the fountains in the public gardens at Ninnes begin 
 to swell when the atmosphere is agitated some 
 eighteen miles distant. The fountain at Vaucluse 
 swells as soon as rain falls among the remote hills. 
 When its crystal waters turned blood-red for some 
 weeks, it was found to have been caused by the 
 collapse of a cavern of iron ore at mount Ventoux, 
 some twenty miles distant. The Ibera Lake gives 
 origin to four considerable streams, and as there is 
 not enough contribution of waters in the neighbour- 
 hood to account for it, the supply must come from 
 some great fountains in the deep. At the earthquake 
 at Lisbon several fountains, one at Teplitz, not only 
 ceased to flow, but the shock was felt at the lakes of 
 Switzerland, and over an area of 700,000 square 
 miles, signifying some subterraneous connection 
 between the localities. 
 
PHYSICAL CAUSE OF THE DELUGE. 231 
 
 Again, the pendulum experiments of Condamine 
 made it probable that there is a cavity under Quito, 
 which if it were immediately below the surface 
 would amount to 68,000 cubic fathoms, or the quarter 
 of a cubic mile, whilst, if deeper, it would be com- 
 paratively larger in its dimensions. The space equal to 
 the two hundred and sixth part of our planet would 
 contain ten millions of cubic miles of water ; and 
 these cavities may have been larger before the flood 
 than they are even now. 
 
 But besides the breaking up of these fountains of 
 the deep, spoken of in Genesis, we read that " the 
 windows of heaven were opened." It is quite certain 
 that we cannot think here alone of ordinary rain. 
 Supposing the height of the flood was 16,000 feet, 
 and assuming that 10,000 feet were to be furnished 
 by the fountains of the deep, there would still 
 remain 6,000 feet to be supplied from the win- 
 dows of heaven. I allow that if the atmosphere 
 were constituted as at present, it could not embrace 
 or retain so vast a mass of water, yet we have reason 
 to think that it was wholly different, and many 
 assume that there was no rain prior to the flood ; 
 besides the deluge being an event prceter naturam, 
 it cannot be judged by the laws of nature. 
 
 A scientific man may say that such and such an 
 event has no analogy in what he himself observed or 
 can himself explain, but to deny the existence of 
 what he has not observed, is unscientific. A shower of 
 stones was considered a wild fable 60 years ago, in 
 direct contradiction of all the laws of nature, and 
 when in 1790 the eminent physicus, Bertholon, heard 
 of a rain of stones having taken place in a certain 
 Departement in France, he pitied the weakness of 
 every one who could believe it ; yet only four years 
 
232 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 later the same phenomena repeated itself in Siena, 
 in a way to afford the opportunity of witnessing this 
 physiquement impossible, as it was termed by the 
 French savant, to a whole province. I have before 
 me a list carefully worked out, of meteorite stones, 
 giving the date when, and the locality in which they 
 fell, together with a brief chemical description of 
 every known specimen from the year 1492 to the 
 present day. 
 
 In producing the rain of forty days and forty 
 nights, other laws beyond what science as yet 
 knows, must have co-operated ; if so, then the 
 deluge falls into the same category as the widow's 
 cruise of oil, or the feeding of the 5,000 by a few 
 loaves and fishes. Apart from the fact that the atmos- 
 phere may have been different, physical science has 
 still to abide by the dictum of De Luc, that we do 
 not know the cause of rain, and another learned 
 man disputes the general assumption that it is pro- 
 duced by condensation, for, says he, the cause of the 
 conditions and the conditions themselves are two 
 very different things. The air generates rain as the 
 plant generates fruit and juices, and as animal 
 organisms generate blood, but the atmosphere 
 cannot produce rain without the water existing in 
 the elements, as little as plants and animals can 
 produce juices and blood without food and water. 
 
 There is still further the opening of " the win- 
 dows of heaven." As the work of the second day's 
 creation is named the dividing of the heavens 
 from the earth by what is called in the original 
 rakia, the firmament, which was to separate the 
 waters above and below ; and as the waters above 
 cannot mean the waters in the clouds which in- 
 stead of being separated from the waters below, are, 
 
PHYSICAL CAUSE OF THE DELUGE. 233 
 
 on the contrary, continually being interchanged, it 
 must refer to the heavenly bodies, some of which 
 till then were probably still in a fluid condition, 
 just as the original earth. Hence, Gen. i. 16, we 
 read of the heavenly bodies being, not created, but 
 made, or formed, probably from "the waters 
 above the firmament," which were kept in re- 
 serve for this great and unique judgment upon the 
 earth, just as the fires within this globe are reserved 
 as the element for its future baptism with fire. 
 
 But some of the other elements may have been at 
 war with each other. It has been assumed by some 
 that the flood was produced by change of the axis of 
 our globe. The earth, according to an English geo- 
 logian, obtained its spheroid shape by a sudden rise 
 on the equatorial regions, which would naturally 
 produce a change of land and sea, as well as of 
 climatic seasons of the year, an event which would 
 of itself produce a flood such as is recorded to 
 have taken place. If it was due to a change in the 
 earth axis, and if that change was effected suddenly, 
 we have at once a rational cause for the Deluge, and 
 no one can prove that such a change has not taken 
 place. Lalande, too, has calculated that the approach 
 of a comet of the same size of the earth within 
 13,290 miles, would raise the ocean 2000 fathoms, 
 and thereby produce a deluge. I name these things 
 simply to show that it can be proved hypothetically 
 that the deluge was not physically impossible. 
 
 One other hypothetical agency must not be for- 
 gotten. We may assume that volcanic agencies 
 aided the fearful convulsions of nature which have 
 taken place ; and this by itself would be sufficient 
 to account for the flood. In 1822 a thousand miles 
 of coast in Chili were raised four foot in a single 
 
231 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 night, and every one of the more recent fearful 
 earthquakes in the AVest Indies, and elsewhere, have 
 been accompanied first by a receding of the ocean, 
 and then by a fearful inundation which followed. 
 The suddenness of the coming of the flood seems 
 greatly to favour the idea of volcanic agencies having 
 aided in the great crisis which overtook this globe ; 
 and of this we have modern illustrations. 
 
 Since the 28th of June, 1831, an island, succes- 
 sively graced with the names of Ferdinand, Graham, 
 Hotham, Nerita, and Julia, has several times ap- 
 peared and disappeared off Palermo, and is now on 
 the point of getting above water again. There is no 
 doubt that this carious phenomenon is attributable 
 to volcanic agency ; nor is this the only instance of 
 the kind on record. In the neighbourhood of the 
 Philippine Islands, and on other points of the 
 Chinese waters, small islands occasionally rise and 
 make their exit again without attracting much notice. 
 Take the following instance recorded in the 
 Patrie: — "A German skipper, Captain Hilmacher, 
 who had passed many years of his life in those parts, 
 and knew every shoal and sandbank within 100 
 miles of the Chinese coast, suddenly, about 20 years 
 ago, discovered an island which he was perfectly cer- 
 tain did not exist on that spot before. He took his 
 soundings, determined the latitude and longitude, 
 sailed all round it, and found that it was from twelve 
 to thirteen miles in length and breadth. There 
 were several springs of fresh water in it, and it con- 
 sisted of the richest pasture-ground imaginable. 
 Captain Hilmacher instantly returned to Europe, 
 recruited a number of German emigrants, bought 
 all kinds of seeds, agricultural implements, poultry, 
 and cattle, set out again for this new world, and in 
 
UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE. 235 
 
 a couple of years there might be seen on the desert 
 island a flourishing village, fields waving with corn, 
 meadows peopled with oxen, goats, and sheep, every- 
 thing, in short, that might constitute a thriving 
 colony. This happy state of things lasted about 
 five years, when a British merchant vessel unex- 
 pectedly made its appearance. The captain gave 
 them a quantity of brandy in exchange for their 
 produce. This unfortunate circumstance proved the 
 ruin of the colony; drunkenness grew into a habit, 
 insubordination was the consequence, and Captain 
 Hilmacher, was obliged to make his escape in a boat 
 to avoid being murdered. He succeeded in reaching 
 a vessel, which took him home again. There he 
 easily obtained the command of a ship, which he 
 took care to provide with plenty of arms, for the 
 purpose of punishing his unruly subjects, but on 
 arriving within the latitude where his island had 
 once existed, not a vestige of land was to be seen ; 
 the island had gone as it had come." 
 
 "Whatever were the means or secondary causes of 
 the flood, there is no mistake as to its universality 
 being asserted, Gen. vi. 7, 17, 19, vii. 4, 15, 18, 
 21 — 32. It has been allowed from an exegetical 
 point of view, that it need not have been abso- 
 lutely universal, since it was only the inhabited, 
 not the uninhabited globe, upon which the judgment 
 was meant to fall. The deluge was to be universal, 
 as far as " all flesh " was concerned. The restriction 
 or limitation to the inhabited parts of the earth, is 
 justified from passages, such as Deuteronomy ii. 25, 
 where it is asserted that only in a tropical, not in an 
 absolute sense, could it be said that all nations 
 should hear and tremble. See also Deut. iv. 19. 
 Again it is held, that no theologian would take 
 
236 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 Acts ii. 5, in an absolute sense. Thus the worlds, 
 "all high mountains under the whole heavens" were 
 to be limited to the horizon of Noah, not necessarily 
 including the Chimborazo and the Dewalugori. 
 
 Granted that earth, in Palestine, like the Greek 
 terms for the inhabited world, and the Roman orbis 
 terrarum does not always mean the whole world, yet 
 it stands to reason that a flood which covered Ararat 
 with 15 cubits of water, could not be local or partial, 
 but must have been general and universal ; nor is 
 the appearance of the olive branch, and the cultiva- 
 tion of the vine immediately after the flood a proof 
 to the contrary, since a few days, especially on the 
 mountain side, would revive vegetation with sur- 
 prising rapidity. 
 
 It has been remarked that the flood stood to the 
 bulk of the earth in no greater proportion than the 
 ordinary sweat in the human body, and that the 
 mountain heights, with the greatest inequalities of 
 the surface of the earth, are in proportion no more 
 than a needle scratch on the artificial globe. Be- 
 sides, it has been calculated that a mile of water 
 depth all round the earth, would only be equal to 
 the 272nd. part of the entire bulk; whilst 15 cubits 
 of water above the highest mountains does not 
 exceed in dimensions the 286th. part of the entire 
 cubic extent of the globe. But we have positive 
 proof of the universality of the flood, besides the 
 written authority. 
 
 The universality of the deluge has been traced 
 in Tertullian's time, for he says, " The shells of 
 the sea are found as strange travellers among the 
 mountains, desiring to prove to Plato that even 
 high places have been under water." We have 
 deluvial deposits in Europe, America, Australia, 
 
UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE. 237 
 
 Africa, and Asia, covering the entire surface of 
 the globe, and frequently these alluvial deposits 
 are more than 400 feet above the river beds. Near 
 Santa Fe de Bogola, the remains of a Mastodont 
 were found 7800 feet feet above the level of the sea. 
 Humboldt found another sample of the same species 
 near Quito, about 7,200 feet high. Captain Webb 
 bought the bones of a horse and deer from the 
 Tartans, which had been carried down from the 
 Himalaya by avalanches from a height of 16,000 
 feet, the natives esteeming them the bones of fallen 
 demons which had dropped from the clouds. Hum- 
 boldt found the remains of forests and of water and 
 land plants in Huanoco, in South America, at a 
 height of 13,800 feet, near the modern line of per- 
 petual snow. Bones of what are termed antedi- 
 luvian animals are generally found in the highest 
 mountains of the globe, such as Mont Blanc, 
 Himalaya, and the Cordilleras. Shells which still 
 inhabit the sea are found in most remote localities 
 from the ocean, at 8000 feet high in the Pyrenees, 
 10,000 feet high in the Alps, 13,000 in the Andes, 
 and above 18,400 feet high in the Himalaya. 
 
 Then the deposits of immense masses of animal 
 bones which have been of late years discovered as em- 
 bedded in the caves of EngLand, Belgium, Prance, and 
 Germany, which give the impression of the various 
 animals having congregated there in terror, or being 
 flooded as carcases into the caverns ; again, the 
 carcases of animals like the rhinoceros, the ele- 
 phant, which have been so entirely preserved in 
 the ice of Siberia, with hair, skin, and flesh, that the 
 wolves and dogs would eagerly devour them, their 
 very eyes retaining their wonderful construction — all 
 surely bear witness to the universality of the flood. 
 
238 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 If animals in America perished in a flood at the 
 height of from 7 to 13,000 feet high, and on the 
 Himalaya 16,000 feet high, and if tropical animals 
 were flooded to the north pole, we may safely infer 
 that all the world was under water. If our oppo- 
 nents were to question that these are the witnesses 
 of the Noachidian flood, they will allow that at one 
 time or another such a flood has taken place, and if 
 it took place once, the possibility of the deluge in 
 question is proved and admitted. What has taken 
 place must be possible, and what took place in pre- 
 historic times, may again have taken place in the 
 days of Noah. 
 
 But there is another set of witnesses. Buckland 
 argues that the so called erratic blocks, carried from 
 Mont Blanc, for instance, to the Jura, prove that 
 both were under water. The transport of these so- 
 called erratic blocks has been a sore point to be 
 accounted for, and the so-called glacial period has 
 I believe, been mainly concocted to explain their 
 travels. Yet who will fail to recognise in their 
 position the force of the great flood ? On the 
 occasion of the eruption of the Vulcano Coto- 
 paxi suddenly melting the snow, the flood, which 
 lasted no more than a minute or two, car- 
 ried away rocks of ten or twelve feet diameter, 
 to a distance of eighty or ninety feet. In other 
 cases still more enormous masses of rocks were 
 carried to greater distances. If the deluge was what 
 we should expect from the description, we shall not 
 be surprised to see that similar masses should be 
 carried to immense distances from their original 
 position. 
 
 Though some of these blocks have a cubic measure 
 from 300 to 10000 feet (there is a chalk block upon a 
 
UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE. 239 
 
 hill near Bex, which is 51 feet high, 54 long, and 49 
 broad, containing 160,000 cuhic feet,) yet, judg- 
 ing from analogy, their transport does not seem 
 impossible. If water-spouts, or the bursting of 
 lakes and reservoirs, can produce the effects we now- 
 a-days witness, what may we not expect from the 
 intensified fury of the great deluge of the world, of 
 which no conception can be formed, and during 
 which all the powers of destruction seemed to be set 
 free ? If the raging sea can lift masses of rock of 
 30 cubic feet, as was the case when the Bell-rock 
 Lighthouse was destroyed ; if storms could tear away 
 three blocks of 300, 315, and 334 cubic feet, and 
 transport them 18, 30, and 150 feet from their 
 original position, we may judge of the effects of 
 gigantic floods of the Deluge, when the waters from 
 above and the waters from beneath broke up moun- 
 tains, and volcanic convulsions enhanced the powers 
 of destruction. 
 
 The universality of the flood has been disputed 
 ad nauseam, on the grounds of the deposits of 
 sconce and lava in Auvergnie and Languedoc, ex- 
 tending over many miles, and in some places 50 to 
 100 feet deep, which, it is said, must have taken 
 thousands of years in forming, and which could not 
 have been submerged, else they would have been 
 swept away ; and that these scorice existed before 
 the flood, Lyell inferred from the remains of 
 animals belonging to the tertiary period. Without 
 saying a word upon these assumptions, which by 
 this time have seen their best days, I would only 
 ask, who watched the birth of these cones, and who 
 registered their growth, remembering that nothing, 
 except the waves of the sea, is more changeable 
 than the shape or form of volcanos ? They may 
 
240 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 have been destroyed and re-formed many a time. It 
 strange that common sense should be so often out- 
 raged in those who profess to be the leaders of 
 thought in the paths of what are termed the exact 
 sciences. 
 
 5. The alleged Difficulties of the Ark and its 
 internal Arrangements. 
 
 First as regards the size of the ark, we allow that 
 it was large, but so are all the constructions of anti- 
 quity, and yet we have nothing of the fabulous 
 dimensions of the ark of Xsisuthrus, described by 
 Berosus, which was fifteen arrow shots long, and two 
 arrow shots in breadth. Noah's ark has only 30,000 
 cubits of ground floor, the Babylonian ark has 
 7,128,100, so that the latter is like 2376 : 10. 
 Since the plan of the ark was given to Noah in its 
 details, just as the plan and size of the tabernacle 
 was given to Moses, there could be no incongruity 
 either in the one or in the other. 
 
 The ark, 300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high, 
 was never intended for nautical purposes, but- rather 
 for freight, and the Dutchman, Peter Jansen, in 
 1604, built a ship upon the dimensions of the ark, 
 i.e., 120 feet long, 20 broad, and 12 high ; and though 
 ridiculed, it was found capable of carrying one- third 
 more than vessels built in the usual way of the 
 same tonnage, but naturally, it proved less fit for 
 the purposes of navigation for which it was never 
 intended, and one of the main points in architecture 
 is comfort or adaptation. The ark was a house 
 without sail or rudder, or a "naked ship" as the 
 Celtic legend describes it. It was to swim, where it 
 was built, and lest it should be deemed that these 
 divinely given proportions were offensive to the eye, 
 
THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE ARK. 211 
 
 it may be added that all the normal proportions of 
 the human body can be traced in it. The length is 
 to the breadth like six to one, and the breadth to the 
 height like five to three, so that the ark afloat upon 
 the waters represented the form and dimensions of 
 the human body in a lying posture. 
 
 But whilst some consider the ark too stupendous, 
 others find it too small for the purpose for which it 
 is built, stating that it could not accommodate the 
 animals with provender; though it is absurd to 
 feel perplexed with measurements and figures, 
 where all is begun, continued, and ended under the 
 immediate supervision of God. The ark was not 
 constructed by angels, but Noah was to build it in 
 the fashion he was told. Again, God might have 
 fed the animals by a miracle, but everything seems 
 to have been planned in the most rational and busi- 
 ness-like manner. 
 
 If the measure of a cubit be taken at 18 inches, 
 the ark was 5,400 inches long, 900 broad, and 540 
 high. It was thus five times longer, and twice as 
 broad as Solomon's temple, embracing on the whole 
 3,600,000 cubic feet. The question arises, did an 
 ark of these dimensions afford sufficient space to 
 accommodate those that were to be saved ? 
 
 If we reserve nine tenths of the space for the 
 victualling department, and assign 54 cubic feet to 
 every species of animal, there is room for 7000 
 species ; fishes and other things living in the water, 
 were of course excluded from the ark, Gen. 
 vii. 21, 22. Many living creatures again were 
 probably preserved out of the ark in the form of 
 eggs ; and as we cannot determine in all cases the 
 number of types from which all those present sprang, 
 we cannot say that Noah had to provide 2000 species 
 
 R 
 
242 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 of mammals, and 6500 of birds. An eminent 
 physicist only counts 67 species of Mammalia, and 
 the space for these is put down as 47,028 cubic feet. 
 But since Noah, according to the original, was not 
 to take 14 heads, but seven individuals of the pure 
 animals, the number is considerably reduced in our 
 favour. Yet, even taking the larger number, we 
 have still accommodation enough and to spare ; the 
 creeping things and the birds needing only a very 
 small section in the ark. 
 
 Dean Wilkins, for argument's sake, converted all 
 the larger animals into oxen, the smaller ones into 
 sheep, and the carnivora into so many wolves. We 
 thus get 120 oxen, 80 sheep, and as many wolves. 
 For the flesh-eaters, let 3650 sheep be taken as food. 
 The space allotted would be as follows, 60 stalls 
 five cubits long and four broad, for 120 oxen; and 
 these being placed on the opposite side from the 
 entrance, would occupy the whole length of the ark, 
 and four cubits of its breadth. On the other side 
 we place to the right, 40 stables for the tame, and 
 40 for the wild animals, each being three cubits 
 broad ; those for the wild being four and a half, and 
 for the tame three cubits long. These stables occupy 
 the length of 294 cubits, and three broad, so that 
 there remains a passage of six cubits broad. The 
 remaining space of 43 cubits' breadth, and of the 
 whole length of the ark, remains for the accom- 
 modation of 3650 sheep intended for food, as well as 
 for passages and stores. 
 
 The second storey would be chiefly for magazines 
 with food for man and beast ; and as the 3650 sheep 
 are daily decreasing, they need not be provided with 
 food for a whole year. If there were no oats, barley, 
 and other grains, but only hay, which takes most 
 
THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE ARK. 243 
 
 room, the daily food for all animals would demand 
 400 cubic cubits, and for a whole year 146,000 cubic 
 cubits, but in the second storey containing 180,000 
 cubic cubits, there remain 34,000 cubic cubits over 
 and to spare. 
 
 The third storey is given up, in this imaginary 
 arrangement, to man and birds, and there is 
 abundance of room for both. Still more space will 
 be saved if the carnivora did not eat flesh during 
 their imprisonment, and many can subsist upon 
 other food, there being a saving in that case of the 
 3650 sheep, and of their provisions. As regards the 
 supply of fresh water for the inhabitants of the 
 ark, swimming upon brackish waters, there could be 
 no deficiency during the constant rains which 
 descended, though not sustained in the same intensity 
 with which they commenced. 
 
 Silberschlag, a celebrated architect at Berlin, 
 nearly a century ago, gave an elaborate plan of the 
 ark, which enters into the most minute provisions, 
 and he accommodated all the animal species of the 
 Linnean system. He housed the larger animals in 
 the lowest etage, with the needful magazines, for 
 obvious reasons. The smaller animals live, together 
 with man, in the second Stage, and the birds are 
 put in the third storey. In detailed plans of the 
 whole ark, everything has its own place, and the 
 feeding is divided among the eight persons with 
 considerable minuteness. As much has been made 
 of this point, I wish to add that, ten head of cattle 
 require not ten times as much attention and time as 
 one head. I know of a farm-yard in a former 
 parish, where about 300 fowls and chickens were fed 
 in as short a time as is given to a single canary in 
 a room. 
 
244 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND THE DELUGE. 
 
 Without assuming that the wild beasts remained 
 in a state of torpor, it is reasonable to suppose that 
 they were perfectly tractable during that time, when 
 God's terror was upon them. How tame and timid 
 the wildest horses appear when on a floating bridge ; 
 and how terrified some animals are always in a storm ! 
 They would naturally be equally accommodating in 
 respect of their food, especially in cases where that 
 food may be either animal or vegetable. It was not 
 to be expected that the survivors should not have to 
 pass through some kind of death, when judgment 
 had fallen upon all things living. In addition, it 
 will be pointed out in the last chapter, that Noah 
 was neither directed to receive the wild beasts of the 
 field, Gen. vi. 19, 20., nor are they specified among 
 the living creatures which came out of the ark, 
 viii. 17. 
 
 Light and ventilation were not overlooked in the 
 construction of the ark of Noah. Gen. vi. 16 runs 
 thus in the original : " Light shalt thou make to the 
 ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it from above." 
 Now, to confound this window with that named in 
 chap. viii. 6, is an offence which certainly manifests 
 malice prepense. In the first passage it signifies an 
 opening for air and light, which should rise a cubit 
 high below the roof along the entire length of the 
 ark. The opening was not to run nearer to the pro- 
 jecting roof than one cubit. Hence, to think in 
 chapter vi. 16 of a window a cubit square is 
 simply absurd, for the term does not signify a 
 window, but an opening for the penetration of light ; 
 whilst in chap. viii. 6, it signifies a lattice window, 
 through which Noah could see, but through which 
 the birds could not pass without its being opened. 
 Is there no criminal impropriety in putting the 
 
THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE ARK. 215 
 
 worst possible construction upon chap. vi. 16, as if 
 it were expressly stated that only one window was to 
 be made ? As it stands, the size of the ventilation 
 window is not mentioned at all, except in so far that 
 the opening is not to run nearer the projecting roof 
 than one cubit, and that for obvious reasons. That 
 chap. vi. 16 means more than one window appears 
 from the term used in the Syriac version, which is 
 clearly to be taken as a collective ; and it further 
 appears from the term that it was never shut, or 
 meant to be shut. 
 
 But could this ark swim upon the waters ? It 
 could only sink if its freight were heavier than the 
 water which occupies the same space, which was 
 2,624,400 cubic feet. As one cubic foot of water 
 weighs about 63 pounds, the weight of the water 
 which could come into the space of the ark would 
 amount to 149,967,279 pounds. Being built of light 
 gopher wood, the weight of the ark was about half 
 that burden, and having, moreover, a flat bottom 
 there was comparative safety against ever upsetting ; 
 the shape of the ark being that of a beam six feet in 
 length, one in breadth, and five inches thick. The 
 objection that the inhabitants of the ark were not 
 able to live in an altitude such as the ark occupied, 
 in consequence of the rarity of the air, could only be 
 made when unscientifically it was forgotten that the 
 whole body of the atmosphere naturally rose with 
 the waters. 
 
 The objection raised, for instance, that Noah's 
 family alone could not build the ark is equally 
 groundless ; as if the carpenters could not have been 
 the very sinners who were to be destroyed, just as 
 Pagan workmen assisted in building Solomon's 
 temple, or as ungodly ministers may now build up 
 
246 CHAP. V. GENESIS AND TIIE DELUGE. 
 
 the Church. Besides, there were many pious persons 
 alive just hefore : Lamech died five years previously, 
 Methusalah in the very year of the flood. Then the 
 process of collecting the wild animals becomes very 
 simple, when we remember how the animals gene- 
 rally press round man as their natural protector, in 
 anticipation of any great catastrophe which is im- 
 pending. If the stork knoweth her appointed time, 
 and the swallow and the crane observe the time of 
 their coming, if the insect world prophesy the least 
 change in the weather, and if earthquakes, the fall 
 of mountains and the bursting of volcanos are 
 prognosticated by the brute creation, is it irrational 
 to think that so great an event as the Deluge, 
 which combined everything, should have been antici- 
 pated ? When it is said that God brought the beasts 
 to Noah, it may have been by this very presentiment 
 that their coming was to preserve both their life and 
 species. It is distinctly said to Noah, chap. vi. 20, 
 "They shall come unto thee." Hence, vii. 9, we 
 read, •' These went in two and two unto Noah into 
 the ark." According to St. Augustine it was not 
 man's act but God's prompting them. "Intrabunt 
 ad te, non scilicet hominis actu, sed Dei nutu ; " 
 besides all, this entrance lasted for seven days, which 
 was no short term. 
 
 The entrance into the ark was also effected in the 
 very centre of the world of men and beasts, from 
 which they had not, as yet, strayed too far into 
 remoter latitudes. 
 
 As everything in the ark had its measure, and the 
 flood itself its limited duration, so was the landing 
 pre-determined on one of the mountains of the 
 district, called the Ararat, in 2 Kings xix. 37. In 
 Jer. li. 27, it is said to be a kingdom near Minni. 
 
THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE ARK. 247 
 
 The mountain supposed to be the Ararat has a 
 conical shape, with a flat surface of ice 400 feet in 
 circumference, and was ascended by Parrot in 1829; 
 about 3000 feet of snow and ice cover the mountain. 
 The dark base of 10,000 feet forms a majestic memo- 
 rial pyramid of the landing of the family of Noah, 
 and seems to indicate the fittest point upon the globe 
 for the fresh starting of the human family, and of 
 the fauna of the new world, the re-peopling of 
 which was doubtless much easier than has been 
 imagined. There is moreover the probability that 
 the bridges which existed after the flood to facilitate 
 their spread, were broken down in the days of Peleg, 
 when no longer needed. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 1. The Earth a Star among Stars. 
 
 The supposed dissonance between the Cosmogony 
 of the Bible and modern astronomy was first urged, 
 not by wise and learned astronomers, but by 
 theologians. This is an important fact. The 
 greatest astronomers are not sceptics, but earnest 
 believers in the truth of Divine Revelation. 
 Newton's great piety was universally acknowledged, 
 and Copernicus was equally distinguished by his 
 simple, childlike faith, as will appear from the 
 touching epitaph written by himself, which can 
 
248 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 still be seen inscribed over his peaceful resting-place 
 in St. John's Church at Thorn: — 
 
 Non parent Pauli gratiam requiro, 
 Vetiiam Petri neque posco, sed quam, 
 In cruets ligno dederas latroni, 
 iSeditlus oro. 
 
 Lalande indeed is frequently quoted for having 
 stated that he had searched the firmament and yet 
 found no God. But the astronomer who searches for 
 God with the telescope is scarcely more advanced in 
 divine knowledge than the sailor who said his 
 prayers through the speaking-trumpet. 
 
 The result of modern astronomy, with its helio- 
 central conception of the universe, according to 
 which our earth is a planet among planets, is not 
 likely to be disturbed by any fresh discovery.* 
 
 The earth is accompanied by one moon, Neptune, 
 as far as we know, has two, Jupiter four, Uranus 
 eight, Saturn eight, besides the mysterious ring which, 
 according to Proctor, is supposed to consist of a con- 
 glomeration of smaller and larger satellites. But 
 the system of which the earth is a small member 
 seems only to be the introduction to still vaster worlds 
 of light, our sun pointing to still more remote 
 
 * In addition to what has been stated in the first chapter of 
 the unity and harmony of the planetary system, I wish to state 
 the following striking facts by way of supplement. On multiplying 
 every succeeding nuxnber by two we receive the following figures. 
 0. 3. 6. 12. 24. 48. 96. 192. 384. 
 On further adding four to each of the above figures, we receive 
 the exact relative distances of the several planets from the a\u\, as 
 follows. 
 
 4. 7. 10. 16. 28. 52. 100. 196. 388.' 
 
 Mercury. Venus. Earth. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune. 
 
 The missing planet corresponding to 28 is found in the planet- 
 oides which revolve around the sun in all but equal distances from 
 Mars and Jupiter. 
 
THE EARTH A STAR AMONG STARS. 219 
 
 centres of the universe, and this our system to other 
 systems inconceivably remote from one another. 
 Whether other suns form the like centres to other 
 planetary systems can scarcely be doubted, if we 
 may judge from analogy. If no planet in our system 
 resembles the other, and if the satellites all differ 
 the one from the other, as far as we can see, it stands 
 to reason that the same variety would exist in other 
 systems. 
 
 The Milky Way seems to be the outer boundary* 
 the hoop, so to speak, which holds together the end- 
 less worlds of fixed stars, or the remotest solar worlds 
 of which our sun may be a very inferior member, 
 and of which the real solar sun, as being central of 
 all other suns, is as yet undiscovered. Beyond the 
 Milky Way, astronomers surmise the existence of 
 2,500 other groups of astral systems of equal magni- 
 tude among the nebular spots first brought to light 
 by the elder Herschell. 
 
 If it be urged against Genesis, that it restricts 
 rational inhabitants to this earth, whilst it denied 
 that the astral worlds are inhabited, we simply reply 
 that this cannot possibly be proved. Considering 
 that the earth is full of life, and every leaf, sandcorn, 
 drop of water, or section of the air we breathe is full 
 of living creatures, reason and analogy naturally 
 suggest that the 30 millions of suns in the Milky 
 Way, with their planetary systems, are not desolate 
 wastes. But where has Scripture declared that they 
 are not inhabited ? We allow that Genesis, and the 
 Bible at large, teach that there is only one human 
 race, but they also teach that there are, besides, innu- 
 merable hosts of other and more exalted beings which 
 inhabit the heaven of heavens. It is well known 
 that Scripture seldom speaks of heaven in the 
 
250 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 singular, but almost exclusively of the heavens, and 
 of the multitudinous heavens, " the heavens and the 
 heaven of heavens," I. Kings viii. 27, the centre of 
 which is Paradise, I. Cor. xii. 2 — 4, the Most Holy, 
 Heb. ix. 12, Heb. xi. 19, the throne of God, Matt, 
 v. 34, Rev. iv. 2. We read of the vast astral worlds 
 as " the Father's house with many mansions," John 
 xiv. 2, or as "the everlasting habitations," into 
 which the righteous are to be received, Luke xvi. 9- 
 The land of glory is represented as inhabited not 
 only by the " spirits of just men made perfect," and 
 the pious who have received their reward, Heb. xii. 
 23, Rev. vii. 9, xiv. 13, but also by other holy beings 
 specifically different from ourselves, Heb. i. 14, I. 
 Cor. vi. 3 ; compare also Rev. xix. 10. 
 
 These heavenly beings are meant when Heb. 
 xii. 22 speaks of "the innumerable company of 
 angels," and Daniel records of "thousand thousands, 
 and ten thousand times ten thousand ministering" 
 before God. The Son of Man will come with all His 
 holy angels, Matt, xxv. 31, xxiv. 3, 2 Thess. 1, 7., 
 nor is that all. The Scriptures speak of hierarchies 
 of angelic beings, prepared and organised for all 
 holy services, Heb. i. 14. There are Cherubim, Gen. 
 iii. 24, Ezek. i., Rev. iv., and Seraphim with six 
 wings, Is. vi. 2, and principalities, powers, mights, 
 thrones and dominions; Eph. i. 21, iii. 10, Col. i. 18. 
 in heavenly places. There is, further, the distinction 
 between angels and archangels, 1 Thess. iv. 16, 
 Jude 9; between the angel hosts seen by Jacob, 
 Gen. xxxii. 2, and princes of angelic hosts, Josh, 
 v. 14, Dan. x. 13, some of whose names, such as 
 Michael and Gabriel, are known to us. 
 
 These are glimpses, but they are enough to shuw 
 
THE EARTH A STAR AMONG STARS. 251 
 
 that there is some connection between the heavenly 
 hosts of angelic beings, and the heavenly hosts of 
 the astral worlds. What more rational than that 
 the angelic beings should have certain local habita- 
 tions, whilst they act as the swift messengers of 
 their King and Lord ? Ps. civ. 4, Matt, xxviii. 3, 
 La. ii. 13, Rev. xiv. 6. 
 
 Together with these countless worlds of light, 
 peace, and blessedness, there are, according to 
 astronomical data, abodes of darkness suited for evil 
 spirits, and the spirits of wicked men on their 
 departure out of this world. Astronomy tells of 
 places which might well be adapted to the prisons 
 of evil men and evil angels. Matt. xxv. 41, I. Cor. 
 xi. 14, Col. ii. 15, Rev. xix. 20, xx. 3, 10, 14. 
 What may not the moon hide from our eyes, or the 
 planets far removed from their central suns \ The 
 above may be mere guesses, but certain it is, that in 
 Scripture the heavens are made to declare the glory 
 of G-od. He is called the Father of lights; the 
 Father who is in the heavens; who dwelleth in light 
 which no man can approach unto ; and no other part 
 of the universe is so fitted to represent the infinite, 
 eternal, unchangeable, and imperishable glory of 
 God, as the countless worlds of light. It is the 
 world of fixed stars, no longer measured by dia- 
 meters of this or that planet, or by the distances of 
 the sun, and it is those unresolvable nebulse in the 
 Milky Way, which will then help us to understand 
 passages like these, "For the whole world before 
 Thee is a little grain of the balance, yea, as a drop of 
 the morning dew that falleth down upon the earth." 
 What can give us a more exalted conception of Him 
 who inhabiteth eternity, than the vast courses of the 
 
252 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 suns and stars which seem to mock at human 
 calculations ? * 
 
 It is further objected that the avowed purpose in 
 the creation of our planetary system, viz., that they 
 should he "/'or signs and for seasons, for days and 
 for years ' ' was altogether unworthy of their im- 
 mensity and glory. But it is nowhere stated that 
 they exist merely for this purpose. Then, who will 
 deny that the heavenly bodies have a surprising in- 
 fluence not only upon our seasons and years, but 
 even upon our days and life ? 
 
 It is well known that in the early ages there 
 were two methods in use, for computing time ; the 
 one following the sun, the other the revolutions of 
 the moon. The attempt to reconcile these two 
 modes of reckoning; has caused some confusion. 
 The difference of computation can alone solve the 
 occasional discrepancy between the chronology of the 
 Hebrew text of the Old Testament and that of the 
 Septuagint. Hence the diversity in the accounts of 
 the famine in Egypt, which some writers state to 
 have lasted 7, others 9 years, is to be adjusted. 
 Again, whilst sacred and profane writers estimate 
 human life at 70 or 72 years, others, computing by a 
 different method, speak of 96 years. Hence alone can 
 
 * Instead of there being a dissonance between astronomy and 
 Scripture, the former only serves to amplify and to expound the 
 declarations of the latter. The Bible evidently knew more than 
 is generally allowed- it knew that the earth was an orb floating in 
 the universe. Job xxvi. 7, Prov. viii. 27 — 31, Is. xl. 22. See the 
 original; it also knew that the firmanent is simply an expanse; 
 that tbere was light before the sun; that there were central 
 fires within the centre of the globe, Job xxviii 5; that the 
 earth is very specially related to the moon, and that the air had 
 weight, Job xxviii. 25 ; which had been denied by Aristotle, and 
 which was only discovered by Galileo in 1643, and by his two 
 disciples, Tirocelli and Pascal. 
 
FOR SIGNS AND FOR SEASONS. 253 
 
 we solve the difficulty which arises, when Josephus 
 writes at one time that the 22 books of the Jews 
 embraced a period of 5,000 years, whilst in another 
 place he himself reckons only 3,727 ; because 5,000 
 ten-monthly lunar, make 3,726 solar years. And it 
 is just this double-motion of the clock of the 
 Universe, which seems to adjust itself in man's 
 nature and history. 
 
 Ten complete revolutions of the moon make nine 
 solar months, or three-quarters of a year. And this 
 period of nine solar, or ten lunar months, which con- 
 sists of 273 days, is properly the human year, man 
 being born into the world at the expiration of that 
 time. During this period, man generally attains the 
 fourth part of his stature. In four times 273 days, 
 or in three years more, he attains another quarter, 
 or one half of his total stature. In eight times 273 
 days, or in six years more, he attains a third quarter ; 
 whilst in sixteen times 273 days, or in twelve years 
 more, he reaches his full stature. How intimately, 
 therefore, is man concerned in the revolutions of the 
 heavenly bodies, as to his growth, could not remain 
 a secret to the ancients. And we know, for a 
 certainty, that the ten-monthly lunar year, was 
 adopted amongst them, with special reference to the 
 measure of time, which was given in the nature and 
 history of man. 
 
 Again, the general age of man is supposed to be 
 seventy years, and this is exactly the 365th part, or 
 one day of the great astronomical period of 25,920 
 earthly years. Scripture considers the average age 
 of man to be one of these days. " In the morning it 
 flourisheth and groweth up ; in the evening it is cut 
 down and withereth."- — Psalm xc. 6. The Jews 
 divided the day into 25,920 parts, which is the 
 
251 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 average amount of the respiration of a healthy 
 individual per day. There is likewise in the age of 
 man an equal number of risings and settings of the 
 sun, that great light which ruleth the day ; for 
 seventy years amount to about 25,920 days. 
 
 Thus the starry firmament is to man, as it were, 
 a stupendous clock, which regulates his very breath, 
 the number and length of his days and months, and 
 the average number of his years. The smallest 
 hand, which points out the hour of the day, moves 
 on the dial-plate one degree in four minutes. That 
 which regulates the month advances one degree 
 every day. And the third hand, which points out 
 his full age, advances, in about seventy-two years, 
 one larger degree, and perambulates the whole of the 
 heavens in 25,920 years. 
 
 When the planet Venus returns as evening-star 
 to the same position at the same season of the year, 
 it indicates that a ninth part of the average age of 
 man has elapsed to return no more. The re-appear- 
 ance of Jupiter, and still more of Mercury, under 
 the same circumstances, points out the lapse of one 
 quarter of the average age of man. The re-appear- 
 ance of Mars announces the lapse of a fifth part of 
 his earthly existence. When Saturn is recognised 
 in the same position at the same hour, then the days 
 of man will be fast declining; and lastly, when 
 Uranus is again discovered in the same sign of the 
 Zodiac in the spring, and when the hand of the large 
 clock of the heavens has thus passed over one of its 
 large degrees, then the hour -glass will have run 
 down, and dust return unto dust ! 
 
 It has been discovered, of late, by eminent conti- 
 nental astronomers that the heavenly bodies which 
 were to be "for signs and for seasons," pointed to 
 
THE JUBILEE OF TTJE STARS. 235 
 
 the great jubilee of the world, " the fulness of time," 
 in which God had appointed to visit His people. 
 We find accordingly that the relative position of the 
 different planets at the time of the advent of Christ 
 was for the first time again exactly the same as it 
 was at the period of their creation ; the different 
 wheels and hands in the great clock of the Universe 
 having from the very commencement been put into 
 motion in such a manner as to point out the birth 
 of the Redeemer of the world. 
 
 When Christ was born in the city of David, our 
 planet counted 4320 lunar years. Mars had fully 
 completed his 2222 revolutions. 
 
 Saturn finished his twelve times twelve, or his 
 144th rotation. Jupiter counted as many years as 
 the ancient lunar and ritual year counted days, viz. 
 354. The Asteroids completed nineteen times the 
 Jubilee number of 50 in their revolutions. Mercury 
 had numbered seven times seven, or forty-nine times 
 the amount of Jupiter; or, in other words, whilst 
 the Asteroids had celebrated nineteen Jubilees, 
 Mercury celebrated seven times seven Jubilee periods 
 of fifty years. Venus numbered as many years as 
 one of the most eminently important astronomical 
 periods counted days, viz 6797. And finally, 
 Uranus, the remotest but one of all planets whose 
 distance from the sun amounts to 4320 solar semi- 
 diameters, had just completed the fiftieth of his revo- 
 lutions around the sun, each of them being- a 
 complete theocratical year of the planetary system, 
 celebrating a theocratical Jubilee at the completion of 
 4191 solar, or 4320 lunar years of the world, when 
 Christ was born "in the city of David." When 
 Uranus had traversed his orbit fifty times, the multi- 
 tude of the heavenly host sounded the evangelical 
 
256 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 silver trumpets of a universal Jubilee on the fields of 
 Bethlehem, "praising God, and saying, Glory to God 
 in the highest, and on earth peace, and goodwill 
 towards men!"* 
 
 It may he added that according to calculations, it 
 was at the vernal equinox when the first sabbath was 
 celebrated, so that the great sabbath, which gave 
 type, sanctity, and blessing to every other sabbath, 
 was astronomically distinguished from other days by 
 those heavenly bodies which were to be "for signs 
 and for seasons, and for days and for years." 
 Seyffarth, speaking of this first Sabbath, quotes 
 Dubeux who says : — 
 
 "Les maitrcs, dont nous avons pai'le (Aristotle, Hippocritus kc. 
 Sic.) rapportent que, lorsque le Dieu puissant et incomparable crea 
 la lune, le soleil et les etoiles, chacun de ces astres demeura arrete 
 a sa place jusqu'au moment ou l'ordre de Dieu arriva." 
 
 "Saturn etait arrete a, l'orient a 21° dans la Balance; 
 Jupiter „ „ „ 
 
 Mars ,, ., ,, „ 
 
 Le Soleil „ „ „ „ 
 
 Venus „ „ „ „ 
 
 Mercure „ 
 La Lime „ 
 
 "Tous ces astres se trouvaient places a l'orient, quaud l'ordre du 
 Dieu puissant et incomparable arriva, chacun d'eux se mit a 
 m archer. Tel fut la commencement du monde &c. &c." 
 
 Need w 7 e remark how much the heavenly bodies 
 "were for signs and for seasons, for clays and for 
 years" in the life of Christ, whose advent had been 
 prophesied in the heavens! The annunciation of 
 our Lord fell upon a sabbath day, and that also at 
 
 * It is with the most painful regret I refer to the loss of a slip 
 of poper on which the late Sir John Herschell sent me the result 
 of his examination of the above statements, respecting the astral 
 or planetary Jubilee at the birth of Christ; the more so as he 
 corrected one or two figures, which, however, did not affect the 
 general accuracy of the above calculations, which are not my own. 
 
 15° 
 
 )» 
 
 le Cancer ; 
 
 28« 
 
 >> 
 
 ,, Capri corne 
 
 190 
 
 ?> 
 
 ,, Belier; 
 
 27° 
 
 j) 
 
 les Poissons; 
 
 15° 
 
 jj 
 
 la Vierge; 
 
 3° 
 
 >> 
 
 „ Taureau. 
 
THE JUBILEE OF THE PLANETS. 257 
 
 the vernal equinox. The birth of Jesus fell upon a 
 similar day on the 25th of December, which was 
 also the sabbath clay, and that in a sabbatical year. 
 The resurrection fell on the day of the vernal equi- 
 nox. And as Christ's first coming, as well as certain 
 great events in His life upon earth, were clearly 
 marked out by the heavenly bodies, so there shall be 
 once more "signs in the sun, and in the moon, and 
 in the stars," when He shall come again a second 
 time, and "the sign of the Son of Man shall appear 
 in the heaven, and all the tribes of the earth shall 
 see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven 
 with power and great glory." Luke XXL, 
 Matthew XXIV. 
 
 2. The supposed Conflict between Genesis and 
 Astronomy further examined. 
 
 There was a time when the Mosaic cosmogony 
 was rejected as unhistorical because it spoke of light 
 before the sun. But we have at last come to know 
 of countless sources of light apart from the sun ; and 
 besides this, it has been discovered that the light 
 created on the first day is termed Or, whilst the lights 
 finally made on the fourth day are called maor, 
 plural, meoroth, light-bearers. Hence, without being 
 scientific, Genesis plainly solved a great problem. 
 Still further, it has been scientifically proved that 
 without pre-existing light the light-bearers them- 
 selves could not have been formed or made. If the 
 eartli still possesses the power of generating light, 
 even after the fixing of the relation of the sun to the 
 earth, how much more must this have been the case 
 before light was stored away on the fourth day, and 
 before the sun became the main source of light ? 
 Since Moses could neither have overlooked the 
 
 s 
 
258 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 apparent inconsistency of his account, nor anticipated 
 the great scientific discovery, the objection that light 
 was created before the light-bearers, is converted into 
 a proof of the inspired character of his narrative. 
 The polar light has been deemed sufficient to explain 
 the alternation of light and darkness, which produced 
 the morning and the evening prior to the creation of 
 the sun on the fourth day ; and in it we have, linger- 
 ing as it were, the last glimmer of the twilight of 
 creation. The light created on the first day is distinct 
 from the light-bearers created on the fourth day, 
 since the sun is said to be a dark, not a luminous 
 body. 
 
 Without controverting any astronomical state- 
 ments, we simply hold that it is by no means certain 
 that a ray of light which traverses the ether of our 
 system at the rate of nearly 192,000 miles in a 
 second, is limited in other parts of the universe to 
 the same pace. Then if it be once admitted that the 
 Almighty power concentrated the primal light in the 
 heavenly bodies, it is also granted that the same 
 power would remove every physical obstacle to 
 their at once assuming their functions and intended 
 relations to our earth. The power which created the 
 light and stored it away in these light-bearers, would 
 surely so finish the work, that these bodies might 
 shine then and there cotemporaneously upon the 
 planet which was the moral centre of the universe. 
 To assume that the heavenly bodies were not visible 
 on this planet at once, would imply that the other 
 objects of creation had to pass through the ordinary 
 stages which the laws of their respective natures 
 prescribed. A creation ex nihilo repels such an 
 assumption. The laws of the universe could not 
 come into action before the universe was complete, 
 
SUPPOSED CONFLICT. 259 
 
 and they were part of this completion. Who will 
 presume to say what is possible or impossible with 
 God ? If one of the magnificent photographs of the 
 present day had been shown to an artist one hundred 
 years ago, and he had been asked how long it would 
 take to finish so elaborate a work of art, he would 
 naturally have guessed many months of close applica- 
 tion. If true, as has been stated, that the fixed stars 
 are always named as the "host of heaven," whilst the 
 stars, hohabim, refer to the planets and our planetary 
 system with the sun for its centre, and if the former 
 were created in the beginning, whilst the latter were 
 completed on the fourth day, the objection would of 
 itself fall to the ground. 
 
 The central position which is ascribed to the 
 earth is urged as another grave objection to the 
 Biblical Cosmogony. It is stated that Moses repre- 
 senting the earth as the grand centre of the world 
 was inconsistent with the ideas of the scientifically 
 constructed universe, since the former was the merest 
 speck in comparison. Yet bulk and magnitude are 
 not qualities of supreme importance. If the earth 
 be held subordinate to the heavenly bodies on account 
 of its small proportions, then must man be held 
 immensely inferior to the ground he treads, and the 
 elephant is entitled to claim a vast superiority over 
 man. How large are the seas compared with the 
 continents ! Of the continents how much is desert, 
 how much frozen regions, and how small the surface 
 of the so-called temperate zones ! Look into the 
 organic world. Are there not a billion of animals to 
 one man, and among living creatures we nowhere 
 see quantity go hand in hand with quality. If we 
 remember that a single thread of the spider consists 
 of 3 — 8000 finer threads, or that the skin of the human 
 
260 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 eye contains eleven millions of pigment cells, or that 
 there are seven millions of pores in the entire human 
 body, which are as essential as the lungs, is it not 
 plain that in nature nothing is great and nothing 
 small or insignificant ? If the earth be small, so is 
 the brain of man, so also is the tongue, and the helm 
 of a ship, so was Bethlehem among the thousands of 
 Juda. What Bethlehem was among its sister-cities 
 in Juda, the earth may be to its sister- planets. 
 
 If there be a negative in the Cosmogony of Moses, 
 parallel to the one in photography, that negative is 
 speedily turned into a positive. The negative reverses 
 the natural order of things by a law in optics, and so 
 does the Mosaic Cosmogony. In the group of our 
 planetary system, the earth is put forward, though 
 by this arrangement the due order of things is 
 reversed, the world is put upside down, so to speak. 
 Yet constituted as we are, the universe could not be 
 placed before us in a different order without doing 
 violence to our senses. In spite of all our modern 
 lights we colloquially ignore the scientifically con- 
 structed universe, or an astronomical heaven, hence 
 the custom of our still speaking of the rising and 
 setting sun. Yet we are required to reject the book 
 of Genesis because it describes things from this 
 popular view ! And why do we not see God's universe 
 as it really exists ? Why do we not perceive that 
 the sun is the fixed centre and that the earth 
 revolves ? It is the magnitude and distance of the 
 heavenly bodies which hide from our eyes the naked 
 truth and produce the illusion. We are, indeed, 
 loathe to realise the fact that our notion, as it sur- 
 vives in the language of the Bible, of people generally, 
 and even of astronomers themselves, is an illusion ; 
 but it tells also in an opposite direction. There is 
 
SUPPOSED CONFLICT. 261 
 
 a restless transformation of matter not only in its 
 organic, but also in its inorganic substances. 
 
 Tims a piece of iron is turned into rust, and this 
 endless solution and reunion of matter would be 
 brought home to us in much greater force, were our 
 eyes at once like telescopes and microscopes. We fancy 
 we perceive stability where mutability prevails ; and 
 this is owing on the one hand to the all but infinite 
 magnitude and distance of some bodies, and to the all 
 but infinite minuteness and proximity of others. 
 If then our bodily senses subject us to an optical 
 illusion, and if science destroy that illusion, how 
 comes it that we still hold fast to it in thought and 
 word ? Because our eyes cannot look differently 
 upon the universe from what they do, and science 
 will never succeed in supplanting the impressions of 
 this optical illusion, because the latter is part of our 
 nature, and it will last as long as this refraction of the 
 actual condition of the astronomical heaven continues. 
 The earth is regarded as central, but the sacred 
 historian does not speak of it as the mathematical 
 centre of our system. To our view these heavenly 
 bodies rise and set ; and since we speak of it in this 
 way in daily life, the account regards the heavenly 
 bodies in the same light, speaking in language which 
 man could understand. This was acknowledged by 
 Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages, who said that 
 Scripture adapted itself to the capacity of man. 
 Kepler declared that the Bible must have adhered to 
 this mode of speaking, even if the readers from the 
 commencement had been conscious of the optical 
 delusion. The Mosaic Cosmogony adopts the language 
 of appearance ; it describes the history of creation, 
 as it appears to an ordinary spectator, placed on the 
 surface of our globe without being furnished with the 
 
262 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 mechanical apparatus of an observatory. Our account 
 was written for men like ourselves, and as the Gospel 
 of our redemption was preached to the poor in 
 language they could understand, so the Gospel of 
 the creation is addressed to the poor. It speaks 
 a language of truth and simplicity ; and which of 
 our wisest men would suggest the adoption of an 
 opposite course ? 
 
 4. We admit that Genesis i. 16, gives to the earth 
 a position which is truly pre-eminent and peculiar, 
 but that it is the mathematical centre of our system 
 is nowhere asserted. The creation of the sun and 
 the moon and stars is described with reference to the 
 earth. This brings us to the teleological central 
 position of the earth, which has nothing to do with 
 mathematical relations. Whatever God desired to do 
 with our planetary system was, as far as we know, 
 to be accomplished on this earth. Man is allowed 
 to be the crown and end of the visible creation. If 
 then our planet be found of all others so organised, 
 that man could exist upon it to the greatest advan- 
 tage, then the earth would approve itself as the crown 
 of our planetary system. In order to establish the 
 central position given to the earth by Genesis, let us 
 take a comparative view of the other planets. 
 Beginning with the moon, the lunar day is equal to 
 fourteen of our own days, during which the ground 
 becomes burning hot ; and in the equally long 
 intensely cold nights. The sky overhead, instead of 
 looking blue, is pitchy black, owing to the absence 
 of an atmosphere like our own. There is no cloud, 
 no rain, no wind, not even the slighest breeze, and 
 not a sound can be heard in the thousands of miles 
 on its surface. There is no water, but all is dreary, 
 silent, desolate. Were it not so, it would not appear 
 
CENTRAL POSITION OF THE EARTH. 263 
 
 as beautiful as it does to us. Hence it is clear that 
 the moon would have been unfit for a human abode, 
 and unsuitable for the purposes for which the earth 
 was made. 
 
 Uranus is so remote from the sun that man, if 
 placed there, would require eyes like those of an owl. 
 The alternation of day and night scarcely exists 
 there. The year of Jupiter, as is well known, con- 
 sists of eighty-four earthly years ; and the climate 
 during one-half that period would resemble that of 
 our north-pole, and during the other, that of the 
 equator. This could scarcely be deemed a fit abode 
 for man. 
 
 On Saturn the seasons are more equally divided. 
 Yet whilst on our earth the temperate zones extend 
 about half over the surface of the globe, on Saturn 
 they are limited to one-third. As each year of 
 Saturn consists of more than 28 earthly years, and 
 its days are only 10 — 1 1 hours long, a winter day on 
 Saturn would last scarcely three hours. Again, as 
 the power of attraction is said to be so small, as to 
 render heavy objects as light as cork, and to cause 
 rocks to swim upon the water ; and since the ring 
 around this planet in addition is said to attract bodies 
 in the opposite direction, the planet is altogether 
 devoid of gravitation, and we shall easily see how 
 unfit such a planet is for a human habitation. If 
 there be inhabitants in that planet they must leave 
 their abodes each half of the Saturnal year, and travel 
 to the antipodes to escape destruction from cold. 
 
 Each year of Jupiter is equal to twelve of our own, 
 but the days amount only to about five hours. Its 
 poles have always the same winter, and the equator 
 is exposed to the same heat without change of seasons. 
 The nights and days are not only uniformly alike, 
 
264 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 but painfully short for any particular purpose. 
 Besides this monotony, man would have to contend 
 with storms which would render it altogether unfit 
 for a human abode. Each year of this planet has 
 10,476 days, and if these days were divided into 
 twelve months, the inhabitants would have to date 
 a letter from the 870th of January. 
 
 Neptuna the most remote of all planets, in the 
 recent discovery of which mathematical analysis 
 has celebrated one of its most glorious triumphs, 
 completes its orbit round the sun in 218 years. It 
 is of much the same size as Uranus, but the light of 
 the sun upon it is 1300 times weaker than upon our 
 own planet, and this alone would render it a most 
 unsuitable dwelling-place for the human race. 
 
 Altogether out of the question is a settlement 
 upon any of the 73 Asteroides, such as the Vesta, 
 Juno, Ceres, Pallas, Astnea and others. The attrac- 
 tion upon these is said to be so small that a muscular 
 motion to lift the foot would send the reader into 
 the air as high as the spire of a church, so that men 
 without wings could not exist upon it with any 
 safety, apart from the very small surface, which 
 would in itself be a serious objection. 
 
 Mars would certainly suit better for a human 
 habitation since the climate, atmosphere, and seasons 
 of this planet, approach nearer our own than that of 
 any other in our system. There are supposed to exist 
 seas, and snow regions. The annual revolution is 
 accomplished in 686 of our days, which days are 
 very nearly as long as ours. But the earth possesses 
 the same advantages, only in a higher degree of 
 perfection. 
 
 Mercury has days of 24 hours, and years of 87 of 
 our davs. It is nine times smaller than the earth. 
 
CENTRAL POSITION OF THE EARTH. 265 
 
 Venus is nearly as large as the earth, the days are 
 nearly like our own, but the year counts only 224 
 days. All the disadvantages of change of seasons, 
 we found in Uranus, exist here, which renders all 
 higher organic life or vegetation impossible. Besides 
 this planet, like the moon, is supposed to be without 
 water. 
 
 Prom the above analysis it will appear that our 
 earth is not simply an important planet in the 
 system, but the planet without its equal. It is per- 
 fection to all intents and purposes. Of all planets 
 only the earth is adapted for the high purposes of 
 being the abode of man. If the body exists for the 
 sake of the spirit, then the planets exist for the sake 
 of the earth, intended as the abode of immortal 
 beings. Astronomy, therefore, in exact harmony 
 with the Bible, represents the earth as the central 
 point of our planetary system, and every leaf of 
 astronomical science bears evidence that the other 
 planets were as much created for the sake of the 
 earth, as the animal world for the sake of man. If 
 there be joy in heaven over one sinner that re- 
 peuteth, we may infer that more interest will attach 
 to the one planet upon which a whole fallen race is 
 bein^ redeemed, than to the millions of worlds, into 
 which sin and death never entered ; or if one of the 
 hundred sheep be gone astray, shall not the good 
 shepherd leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness to 
 seek and to bring it back ? If one province of the 
 kingdom rise in rebellion, however small, shall not 
 the king go in person and put forth his whole power 
 to restore it ? If the inhabitants of one planet have 
 fallen under a foreign power, shall not God recover 
 His supremacy ? The Lord seeth not as man seeth, 
 fur man looketh to the outward appearance. Who 
 
266 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 will say what is worthy of God and what is not 
 worthy of His greatness? His free grace is not 
 measured by distances of the moons from the sun, 
 or His love by the magnitude of the stars. We 
 cannot calculate how many cubic miles a planet or 
 a fixed star must possess, before God can become 
 incarnate upon it. 
 
 3. The Significance of the Appearance of the Light 
 Bearers on the fourth day of the Ilexa'emeron. 
 
 When the Jews strove among themselves, saying, 
 " How can this man give us his flesh to eat ?" Jesus 
 abstains from telling them, how it is to be done, 
 though it seemed most desirable that He should give 
 such an authoritative explanation as would prevent 
 all future strife, uncertainty, confusion, and doubt. 
 Our Lord repeats in stronger terms that it must be 
 done, yet he absolutely declines to explain how it is 
 to be done ; a hint that we are not always meant 
 to understand the fulness of God's ways and the 
 whole depth of His thought. Nor must we expect 
 to be taught fully, how all was done in the beginning 
 of besdnninj^s. 
 
 Prom the account, Genesis i., it will appear that 
 the li^ht-bearers were created when the waters above 
 and the waters under the firmament were divided. 
 Physical science, as far as possible, has recently 
 demonstrated that the Cosmogony iu Genesis i. could 
 not speak of the sun and the stars and the present 
 order of things before the separation of the two latest 
 or youngest planets, Venus and Mercury, was com- 
 pleted, and before the globe of the sun came into its 
 present form. The earth, on scientific grounds, is 
 assumed to have had its form and density before the 
 solar body, but the details cannot be given in this 
 
THE LIGHT-BEARERS. 207 
 
 place. That the heavenly bodies on the fourth day 
 were not created, but finally made, fashioned, or 
 formed, will appear from the very term which is 
 used in the original. When thus made, God, accord- 
 ing to the original, gave, determined, set, or 
 appointed them in the firmament to give light upon 
 the earth. Hence if it be objected that these vast 
 worlds should be represented as the absolute work of 
 the fourth day, the objection is made to what really 
 is nowhere asserted in Genesis. Nor is it needful to 
 explain here that light itself was needful before 
 the originally dark heavenly bodies could constitute 
 themselves, for the formation itself implies physical 
 and chemical processes from which the existence and 
 the action of light could not possibly be excluded. 
 
 But Avhy was not the final making of the heavenly 
 bodies accomplished during the first day of creation, 
 as sciologists now-a-day assume it to have taken 
 place ? The dividing of the heavens and the earth 
 on the second day, it is said, seemed to require it, 
 and it would have appeared only natural that the 
 heavenly world should be completed before the 
 account of creation proceeded to the origin of vege- 
 tation of the earth below. This would undoubtedly 
 have been the case if the Cosmogony had been 
 the invention of human brains. Not one of our 
 sciologists would so far have forgotten himself as to 
 allow the earth to be clothed with verdure under 
 the primeval light, and before the photosphere had 
 been formed itself around the solar body. But God, 
 it would seem, chose to act differently, and wisdom 
 is justified of her children. 
 
 The final setting, appointing, or making as lights 
 in the firmament, of what had been created before, 
 takes place between the work of the third day on 
 
268 CHAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 which the flora is produced, and between the fifth 
 day, on which the fauna is called forth from mother 
 earth. Hence we must recognise a step in this 
 work of the fourth day, which divides the flora from 
 the fauna, and actually prepares for the advent of 
 the latter. 
 
 The object of the setting of the heavenly bodies as 
 light-bearers is stated in verse iv., to divide the day 
 from the night, and secondarily, also, to be for signs, 
 and for seasons, and for days, and for years. The 
 division between day and night is less important for 
 vegetation, which has need of light only in a general 
 way, but the cycle of 24 hours for animal life is of 
 extreme importance. The flora has no need of these 
 changes of day and night, but it is indispensable for 
 the fauna. What unspeakably deep philosophy in 
 this wondrously simple story of creation ! Before 
 the animal appears, the conditions for his existence 
 are made perfect ! 
 
 Hence cosmogonical hymn. Psalm civ., in reflect- 
 ing upon the creation, combines the w T ork of the 
 fourth, fifth, and sixth day-work of the hexaemeron, 
 in these words : " He appointed the moon for seasons, 
 the sun knoweth his going down ; thon Inakest 
 darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of 
 the forest do creep forth ; the young lions do roar 
 after their prey, and seek their meat from God. 
 The sun ariseth, and they gather themselves together 
 and lay them down in their dens. Man gceth forth 
 to his work and to his labour until evening." Here 
 we have the answer to the question, why the change 
 of day and night is followed by the creation of 
 the animal world. 
 
 The vegetable world is, indeed, affected by the 
 night, but the change of day and night is not need- 
 
THE LIGHT-BEARERS. 269 
 
 fill to the flora as it is to the fauna. The waking 
 and the sleeping of the animal is not made to corres- 
 pond with the annual revolution of the earth around the 
 sun, nor with the revolutions of the moon around the 
 earth, but the animal organism is intimately con- 
 nected with the dally rotation of the earth around 
 its own axis. Man cannot wake three quarters of 
 the year, nor yet three quarters of a month, and he 
 cannot sleep one quarter of a year nor yet one quarter 
 of a month, but his constitution is so organised, 
 that he wakes three quarters of a day and sleeps one 
 quarter of the day of twenty-four hours. 
 
 Let us briefly notice the difference between 
 vegetable and animal life. The plant simply vege- 
 tates, and its life suffers no interruption. Day and 
 night it draws its nourishment out of the earth and 
 the air, perpetually changing inorganic into organic 
 matter, but its life cannot ascend higher than this. 
 The animal has a vegetable, but it has also a higher 
 animal life, to which the former is made subservient. 
 The life which the plant and the animal has in 
 common may be termed the vegetable or organic life ; 
 the life which is peculiar to the animal may be termed 
 the animal life. The vegetable or organic life has 
 its main function in the stomach, the bowels, the 
 heart, the lungs, etc. The animal life has its chief 
 functions in the brain, the senses, the feet, the 
 hands, etc. The organs of the vegetable or organic 
 life are said to be irregular, unsymmetrical in their 
 construction, and to differ widely in different indi- 
 viduals. But the organs of the animal life, the 
 senses, the brain, the muscles are strictly precise and 
 rigorously uniform in their construction, form, size, 
 or position. If there be any marked deviation, 
 the functions are either interrupted or destroyed ; 
 
270 CITAP. VI. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 not so in the organs of the vegetable or organic life. 
 Again, the organs of our vegetation-life never rest. 
 The heart, the lungs, the stomach are incessantly 
 active waking or sleeping. The food is constantly 
 assimilated, and the process of exhalation, respiration, 
 and circulation unceasing. Whenever these organs 
 cease to work, death immediately supervenes ; whilst 
 our animal life cannot subsist without repose, rest, 
 or sleep, our vegetable life in heart, lungs, and 
 stomach works uninterruptedly, and whilst the heart 
 performs its functions alike in the child and in the 
 grown-up man, the senses and the brain require 
 education. Yet the vegetable life of man, in K>me 
 respects, seems to be of more value than the animal 
 life, since we can live without eyes, ears, arms, and 
 feet, but not without a stomach or heart. Hence 
 the fitness of the parable which demands the cutting 
 off of the hand and the foot, and the plucking out of 
 the eye, if they happen to become a snare to the life 
 in the heart, for the heart can beat without them, 
 but if the heart die, the hand, foot, and eye must die 
 at the same time. 
 
 The necessity of sleep is regarded as self-under- 
 stood, but no one has, as yet, learned its true 
 secret. The plant and the vegetable portion of our 
 existence have no need of sleep, nor does rest of itself 
 brin°- us any new powers, as little as the stone 
 acquires fresh power by its unceasing rest. All that 
 has been said of the physiological necessity of sleep 
 is simply guess work. We know we need rest and 
 sleep, and whilst our vegetative functions — i.e., the 
 circulation of blood, digestion, and respiration go on 
 their way without intermission, the concentration 
 of the soul within itself is an absolute necessity, and 
 the deprivation of it leads to madness. We have to 
 
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT. 271 
 
 withdraw ourselves from the outer world, lest we he 
 swallowed up in it. It is not simply a question of a 
 fair distribution of labour among members of the 
 same body, but of a division of labour and rest. 
 
 4. The Physical development of our Planetary 
 System, and of our Earth when first created. 
 
 There can be no presumption in showing upon 
 what principles the outward act of creation may 
 possibly have taken place. As early as 1795, we read 
 of no less than fifty theories, yet among all specula- 
 tions, ancient and modern, the hypothesis of Laplace 
 seems to have received the greatest favour among 
 philosophers, though surrounded with difficulties of 
 its own. This theory of Laplace had been advocated 
 by Kant, as early as 1755, who assumes that there was 
 a time when our entire solar system was as yet 
 enveloped in one immense gas-ball, dark, shapeless, 
 suspended in boundless space. According to the law 
 of gravitation, first condensation took place ; then by 
 the action of heat and light followed circular motion 
 of the entire mass from east to west ; — the Spirit 
 moving upon the waters. 
 
 In consequence of its revolutions the orb assumed 
 more and more the spheroid and then the orbicular 
 shape, and when the centrifugal force exceeded the 
 centripetal power, a ring was thrown off at the 
 equatorial region, which, on being cast off, carried on 
 an independent rotation, finally forming itself into a 
 separate globe. Upon the same principle all the plan- 
 ets were said to have been formed, fresh rings being 
 thrown off, which became independent bodies, with 
 an independent rotary motion which they inherited 
 from the parent mass. The three rings of Saturn, 
 which are supposed might in time form themselves 
 
272 CITAP. IV. GENESIS AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 into a ninth, tenth, and eleventh moon, are pointed 
 out as an illustration of the process assumed in this 
 theory. As a still further evidence of the truth 
 of the theory, it is quoted that the more remote 
 planets are, as a rule, specifically of less weight than 
 those thrown off at a later period. Hence we may 
 infer that the velocity of the revolution of the 
 planet will increase in proportion to its approxima- 
 tion towards the centre of the system. 
 
 The seven planetoides, as we have seen at the 
 beginning, revolve between Jupiter and Mars in just 
 the locality, where to judge from the harmonious 
 mechanism of the system, we should expect a large 
 planet ; and the fact that all the planets move in the 
 same direction, and almost in the same plane of the 
 solar equator, can scarcely be otherwise explained, 
 than that all formed originally part of the solar body. 
 To illustrate how the several members of the system 
 were thrown off, M. Platean made experiments 
 with a drop of oil, put into a mixture of water 
 and spirits of wine. Yet hence it must not be in- 
 ferred that there is a purely accidental combination 
 of matter, or a blind necessity of so-called laws of 
 nature. The law of gravitation, indeed, supplies the 
 simplest rule of cosmical development, but this law is 
 not identical with the originator, the prime mover, 
 former, and maintainer of the universe. As there 
 can be no law without a law-giver, and no govern- 
 ment without an executive power, the creation, such 
 as it exists, without a Creator, would be wholly un- 
 intelligible. But the rationalitv of the above theorv 
 is considered established — first, by the regulated 
 distances of the planets from the sun ; secondly, by 
 the uniform motion of all planets from east to west 
 within a narrow plane, which coincides with the 
 
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT. 273 
 
 equator of the sun ; thirdly, by the increase in the 
 velocity in their orbits as they approach the sun, and 
 in the corresponding decrease of the velocity in the 
 rotation round their own axis ; fourthly, by the in- 
 creasing density of the bodies of the planets as they 
 approach the sun ; fifthly, by the spheroid shape of 
 the earth and of other planets ; sixthly, by the in- 
 crease of the temperature towards the centre of our 
 globe, which is 1° every 30 meters ; seventhly, by 
 the ring formations of Saturn, and of the system of 
 the fixed stars ; and, lastly, by the so-called light- 
 kernels of the comets and the ring-shaped nebulae 
 in the systems. And how are these assumptions to 
 be reconciled with the Bible cosmogony ? 
 
 In Genesis i. 1, we read that "In the beginning 
 God created the heavens and the earth." The 
 heavenly universe, therefore, was made in the 
 beginning, and when that beginning was, none but 
 He that inhabiteth eternity can know. Nor can 
 we know what other systems might have preceded 
 of which no record was given, and which may have 
 reached back into a past eternity, far beyond man's 
 grasp. But after that great beginning, in which the 
 heavenly universe was created, God created the sun 
 and stars of the planetary system, of which this our 
 earth is a member. That the world of fixed stars 
 was made prior to our planetary system is shown by 
 Job xxxviii. 4 — 7. The stars of the morning, of the 
 dawn, of the beginning, that were made first, are 
 said to have sung together when the foundations of 
 the earth were laid. And even these light-bearers of 
 our system may, possibly, have co-existed with the 
 light if, indeed, they did not precede the light, just 
 as the body in the case of Adam, and in every child 
 of Adam, invariably precedes the living soul. It 
 
 T 
 
274 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 is marvellous, at all events, that as the creation of 
 light is placed at the head of the first triduum, or 
 three days, so the setting or appointing of the 
 heavenly bodies as the light-hearers of our system, 
 is placed at the head of the second triduum, or the 
 second half of the creation week. 
 
 Again, if the theory of the gas-hall, before noted, 
 could be assumed to be correct, how significant the 
 brooding or moving of the Spirit of God upon the 
 dark fluidum of matter ! The Biblical account, in 
 speaking of light before the light-bearers were 
 brought into requisition, leads us to think that con- 
 densation was connected with the first action of 
 light. In Job xxvi, 7—10, we read literally, "He 
 scattered the darkness over the shapeless desolation, 
 He suspended the earth upon nothing ;" that is, in 
 the endless space of the vast universe. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GENESIS, GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 Geology and its Geognostic Eras, 
 
 1. When, in his Principia Philosphiae, 1641, Rene 
 Descartes had propounded his theory of metaphysics, 
 according to which our planet was originally a fiery 
 star, Amerpoel, in Cart esius Mosaizans,l669, under- 
 took to reconcile his speculations with the Bible. 
 Thomas Burnet, in his Telluris theoria sacra, 1681, 
 and Leibnitz, in his Protogaea, 1693 and 1749, so far 
 adapted their speculatio ns concerning the origin of 
 
HISTORY OF GEOLOGY. 275 
 
 the earth to the Bible that both ascribed its present 
 form with Cartesius to the flood. In like manner 
 when petrified or fossil organisms first attracted 
 attention, most of the learned men of the age ascribed 
 them to the Biblical deluge. Thus John Wood- 
 ward, in his "Natural History of the Earth," 1696. 
 The waters were assumed to have dissolved the crust 
 of the earth, and the strata with their petrifactions 
 were ascribed to its effects. This theory had satisfied 
 Christendom for more than 1700 years, and even Strabo 
 attributed the shells and fossils to the deluge which 
 was known to all ancient nations. Suetonius speaks of 
 a collection of the fossil remains of large animals at 
 his villa in Capri, which were called the bones of 
 giants and the weapons of the heroes. Josephus 
 speaks of such remains being found at Hebron, and 
 St. Augustine saw a large " tooth ' ' near Utica, of 
 which as many as a hundred common teeth might 
 have been made, and he recognised in it a strong 
 proof that there were giants before the flood. It 
 was not before 1721, that Ant. ValisDeri propounded 
 a new system by which the fossils were considered 
 antediluvian, on the ground of their being too well 
 preserved to owe their origin to such a violent revo- 
 lution as the deluge. His disciples went still further 
 in teaching that there were several floods instead of 
 one. 
 
 Werner, with great ability, asserted the Neptunic 
 Theory towards the end of the last century ; but in 
 classifying the strata, which he pronounced to have 
 been formed in so many successive epochs, the oppo- 
 sition to Genesis acquired strength. The position of 
 Werner seemed to assume confirmation from Cuvier's 
 Becherches sur les ossemens-fossiles, 1808, who 
 classified the petrifactions according to the principles 
 
276 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 of Natural History ; hence the famous theory of suc- 
 cessive creations or periods of formation. Meanwhile, 
 Hutton, in his "Theory of the Earth," 1795, advocated 
 the most determined Plutonic theory which explained 
 the geogonic process from the action of fire ; but at 
 the time it was published, it excited little attention. 
 Buckland, in his Beliquice Dihivianw, 1823, 
 collected a mass of evidence, on which he founded his 
 judgment of the universality of the flood. But such 
 was the very strong counter current of the day that 
 ere long he was driven to publish his "Geology and 
 Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural 
 Theology," in which he recalled his former views of 
 the Diluvium, and asserted that the traces he once 
 thought referred to our flood, must refer to one of 
 prior date. With this the Noachidian deluge, as 
 connected with the fossils, was shelved for the time. 
 Geology as an inductive science can only reason from 
 existing facts and known laws. In this all geologists 
 agree ; hence they decline to entertain any hypothesis 
 which takes for granted any other laws not known at 
 present. From the scientific point of view this is 
 quite rational and consistent ; but the question arises 
 whether the same causes and laws worked then, at 
 the same ratio, to the same extent, and with the 
 same strength as now ; or whether the results were 
 different in different ages, and therefore immensely 
 greater at the beginning. Again, other causes and 
 other laws might have operated then, which have 
 now ceased to work. Still, geology in order to main- 
 tain its character as one of the natural sciences, must 
 take nothing for granted. This will show at the 
 outset that we must distinguish between geognostic 
 facts and geological assumptions. Facts are prover- 
 bially stubborn, and cannot be questioned ; but 
 
THE GE0GN0ST1C ERAS. 277 
 
 geological theories cannot be received as facts, and are 
 wholly different from simple probabilities and pos- 
 sibilities. As the "records of the rocks " are written 
 in ever changing dialects, and we are told, in different 
 ages, we cannot wonder if they be read and inter- 
 preted in different ways. Yet while geological 
 theories are still as antagonistic to each other as 
 Plutonism and Neptunism, many of our best natural- 
 ists and divines hold that geology and Genesis are 
 not at variance. 
 
 Geology classifies the strata of the earth as they 
 appear in different places, into primary, secondary, 
 and tertiary, or more recently into azoic, palaeozoic, 
 7iiesozoic, and cainozoic formations. Upon the earth- 
 strata and their fossiliferous inclosures of petrified 
 organisms, is founded the theorv of different creation- 
 periods. Partly from the successive layers of strata, 
 which are said to be found in the same order ; partly 
 from the assumed fact that the lower strata embody 
 only plants and animals of a less perfect order, it 
 was inferred that long periods had elapsed between 
 them. In the revolutions, or as some will have it, 
 in the evolutions of our globe, the existing fau na and 
 flora are supposed to perish, and in each case a fresh 
 fauna and flora are assumed to succeed, till the last 
 catastrophe, or the diliviiim, gave our earth its present 
 form. All seems based upon the assumption of a 
 succession of mechanical geogonies, each of which re- 
 quired a certain cycle of time for its formation. But 
 where is the proof that none but ordinary influences 
 were at work to produce certain results ? Who 
 can say whether these results were brought about 
 under conditions with which we are acquainted ? Is 
 it not possible that another atmosphere, another 
 mixture of heat and damp, another proportion of 
 
278 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 oxygen and nitrogen were at work in the air sur- 
 rounding the newly-created earth ? What may 
 require a century now, may have been accomplished 
 in a couple of years. Things were less consolidated 
 and established. A fresh wall has less power to 
 resist than one long finished, and young wood than 
 wood seasoned. Creation is a mystery, and science 
 can draw no line where it ended, and where the laws 
 of nature entered upon their appointed work. 
 
 If creation be a mystery, it is impertinent in science 
 to seek to exhaust its workings. Life every where 
 withdraws from the gaze of the naturalist. The 
 origin of life is a mystery, and it is folly to argue 
 that such and such ages were necessary to produce 
 certain formations, when modern formations are seen 
 to be accomplished with wonderful rapidity before 
 our eyes, which, hereafter may be supposed to have 
 required immense periods for shaping themselves 
 into their present form and condition. It has been 
 observed that in exhausted mines which have been 
 abandoned, new minerals were formed, and salt- 
 mines, when exhausted, have been found to replenish 
 themselves. 
 
 Caves in chalk formations have been known to 
 become smaller, and at St. Verena one closed up 
 within twenty years. Sulphur has been found to 
 reproduce itself with astounding rapidity, as for 
 instance at Siansano. About thirty miles from 
 Batavia, on the estate of Mr. Denison, two cones of 
 lime formations rise in the midst of rice fields, and 
 they continue to re-form with astounding rapidity, 
 though constantly diminished by blasting for build- 
 ing purposes. On the coast of Messina a most rapid 
 formation of sandstone is going on, by sand being 
 mixed with ferrifreous " mergel," and with such 
 
GEOGNOSTIC THEORIES. 279 
 
 swiftness and consistency that, within the brief space 
 of thirty years from its first sediment, it is used for 
 mill-stones. We expect the days will come when 
 men will blush for having so easily surrendered their 
 faith in the Mosaic cosmology, because it seemed 
 too narrow to embrace the monstrous figures of 
 geologists. 
 
 I question the proposition that the strata were 
 formed by a mechanical or chemical process. But if 
 these agencies were at work we cannot tell what 
 other unknown powers may have co-operated, of 
 which we have as yet no idea, and which may remain 
 a secret to the end of time. Have we not rapid 
 formations of cement of all kinds, and even instan- 
 taneous formations in the case of the meteorolithes, 
 formerly considered mythical, but which have long 
 been proved a reality ? 
 
 These masses of aereolithes or meteorolithes formed 
 instantaneously, have been discovered in every 
 possible shape and size ; one of them is described as 
 weighing about 20,000 cwts. Ainsworth speaks of 
 meteorolithes being found in a valley in America of 
 three feet long and one and a half foot thick. Is it 
 not possible, or rather probable, that the strata of the 
 earth were formed upon a similar principle, as sud- 
 denly and actually, after the creation of the chaos ? 
 Various analogies 1 jet ween the meteorolithes and the 
 older trap rocks, basalts, and modern lava have been 
 observed. 
 
 Since science has obtained no satisfactory insight 
 into the real modus operandi, and has not been able 
 to pass beyond rough guesses or vague conjec- 
 tures as to the order of the strata and the sequence 
 of their formation, we need not fear that the 
 Bible chronology prove too narrow to embrace 
 
 ? 
 
280 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 the whole truth. One thing must not be forgotten. 
 During her hour of travail at the beginning of time, 
 the earth worked upon other principles and in other 
 proportions, than we now see. As sometimes a 
 stream causes more sediment and destruction on its 
 banks in a single day, than has occurred in the 
 memory of several generations ; as every formation 
 has its subsequent quick growth at first, and of 
 subsequent repose ; as nations first have their 
 periods of great political convulsions, then of peace- 
 ful prosperity ; so the earth, the scene of all these 
 transformations, had her hour of travail, then of 
 comparative repose, when only faint pulsations 
 remain of her first colossal efforts. 
 
 Are not the surprising changes which the human 
 frame has to pass through in childhood beyond all 
 proportion, if compared with those of mature age ? 
 Does not the body of man grow fastest in the 
 beginning ? Is it, therefore, unlikely that the earth 
 should have passed through corresponding changes ? 
 Why should not the lateral changes in the crust of 
 the earth and her organisms have been brought 
 about in a comparatively brief period ? 
 
 Who will venture to say what was and what was 
 not possible, in ages of which we have really not the 
 faintest idea ? Suppose I have 40,000 slates on my 
 roof, and of these 400 require to be annually renewed, 
 it would be ridiculous thence to infer that it required 
 100 years to bring the whole house under cover, 
 because 100 x 400 = 40,000 ! The whole business of 
 slating the building may have been the work of a 
 few brief days. To build a house, different agencies 
 are employed from what are subsequently set to work 
 to keep it in repair. It may sound learned to over- 
 
GEOGNOSTIC THEORIES. 281 
 
 whelm the reasoning faculties with monstrous calcu- 
 lations as to the ages required to produce certain 
 strata, or certain depths of lava, or a certain sediment 
 in a river bed, or to produce the coal-deposits in 
 England and Belgium ; but suppose a great fallacy 
 were to underlie all these calculations ? Take for 
 granted that coal-deposits were the result of a 
 prostrated vegetation, and of that alone, which adhuc 
 sub jitdice Us est, is it not possible that the entire 
 flora of some thousand square miles were flooded 
 together in a certain locality and embedded in sand- 
 strata ? in this case what appears to have been 
 stratified successively, may have been rapidly and 
 simultaneously accomplished. 
 
 Most ingenious calculations are made to ascertain 
 how many millions of years were needful to produce 
 the coal- formation. The only point however in which 
 all geologians agree, is, that all such calculations are 
 not to be trusted. Yet we may here note that 
 Groppert made experiments, in which he saw 
 vegetables turned into coal within If year, and this, 
 in water very close to the seething point. Likewise 
 cloth exposed to water exhalation was turned into 
 shining black coal ; we recall these long acknow- 
 ledged facts to the memory of those who seek 
 to give a zest to their geological speculations 
 by quotations of millions and billions of years. 
 Not geology as such, but the unscientific theories 
 and systems of geologists produce the apparent 
 contradictions of Science and llevelation. As Sir 
 Charles Ly ell's theory of the gradual formation of 
 strata was the natural reaction from the previously 
 assumed succession of violent catastrophes, it was 
 scarcely to be expected that it would find general 
 
282 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 acceptance, and it was easy for Elie de Beaumont, 
 whilst acknowledging the truth in Ly ell's theory, 
 to insist upon local catastrophes, combined with 
 the more natural development as still observed. 
 
 " All matter," says Dr. Payne, "when brought into 
 being, even in the chaotic state of the earth, was im- 
 pressed with those properties and laws which, in its 
 condition of mineral substances, were destined to take 
 it in charge through all future time. But, these pro- 
 perties and laws were wholly incapable of bringing 
 the earth into its present state from any condition in 
 which it may be supposed to have existed originally. 
 Nevertheless it is philosophically probable that these 
 properties and laws were brought into operation 
 under the direct control of Creative Energy, although 
 there is nothing in the primary rocks to show that 
 the organisation of the earth might not have been as 
 wholly owing to the exercise of that Energy as the 
 original creation itself. Theoretical geology, to make 
 out its problem of long periods of time, declares for 
 the exclusive operation of one or the other, and 
 cutting loose from all the analogies in Scripture, and 
 assuming the properties of matter as the ground of 
 its logic, it spurns interpretations that admit the 
 Creator to any participation in the completion of 
 a work which the necessity of things obliges it to 
 acknowledge as bavins; originated in Creative Power. 
 The sacred writings abound with examples of the 
 co-operation of Creative Power with second causes, 
 or with instrumentalities which are equivalent to 
 such causes, and with many miraculous events in 
 which natural processes were apparently imitated." 
 
THE STRATA EXAMINED. 283 
 
 2. Examination of the Strata, and of the Fossils 
 ■which they inclose. 
 
 In proceeding to the examination of geological and 
 geogonotic theories, we find that successive-creation 
 periods are inferred, partly from the order in which 
 the strata are found to follow each other, partly from 
 the different fossil remains, whilst embedded in them ; 
 whilst the sequence of their respective origin, deve- 
 lopment, and decay of the petrifactions is inferred 
 from the order in which the formations succeed each 
 other. The object of this paragraph is to examine 
 these theories fairly, and to see whether there be any 
 one of the various assumptions which has not been 
 upset by professional geologists 
 
 We notice first that the sciologists are divided into 
 two hosts, the Neptunists and the Vulcanists, res- 
 pecting the formation of the strata, and as long as 
 geologists have not passed beyond the line of theoris- 
 ing as to the origin of the formations, the inferences 
 drawn from them cannot be received as bona fide 
 results. To this must be added that the succession 
 or order of the strata by which all is to be determined, 
 is no where established. Not even the chief forma- 
 tions of primary, secondary, and tertiary formations, 
 much less the different intermediate strata, though 
 the most important, are in any two localities found 
 to overlie each other in the same order, but frequently 
 they are found altogether reversed 
 
 The theory holds that primary formations come 
 first, then the secondary, and tertiary as more recent 
 in proportion. But this theory is not in accord- 
 ance with fact. We nowhere find all the strata 
 in perfect order of succession, so that we are at once 
 put out. The best authorities admit that both in 
 
281 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 kind and order the strata alter in different countries. 
 The condition is said by the advocates to afford no 
 criterion for determining the age of the formations. 
 Pfaff candidly allows that in our seas, chalk deposits 
 are found in one part, in others sand and clay ; also 
 that different strata had formed at the same time, 
 just as similar ones were formed at different times. 
 The same inundation, will deposit stones in one place, 
 wood, sand, and earth-sediment in other places. The 
 pivot of all geological science is the assumed regular 
 succession of the strata, hut this succession happens to 
 be only local, so that there is something at fault at the 
 very root of the system. To use an illustration, these 
 layers do not enfold the globe as the leaves of an 
 onion, but they appear only partial. Many members 
 of the series are said to fall out, so that either the 
 upper ones are altogether wanting, whilst the lower 
 are present, or some of the intermediate ones are 
 missing whilst the upper ones are present. 
 
 It is a well known fact that the Jurassic and Lias 
 formations fall out in America. Of the Silurian and 
 Devonian strata we have the former only in a few 
 places in Germany, and in Bohemia, but tbey re- 
 appear in Scandinavia and Russia, without being 
 covered by any of the more recent formations. The 
 Trias formations are mainly developed in England 
 and in Central Europe. The differences of the 
 tertiary strata are said to be so great, that geologists 
 do not venture to fix any standard which would be 
 applicable to any given number of regions. 
 
 In very many places, granite, gneiss, mica, etc., 
 rest upon grauwacke, and even upon Jurassic 
 and chalk formations. On the left shore of the Elba 
 ponderous masses of granite repose upon clay. In 
 Norway the same formation is seen embedded upon 
 
THE STRATA EXAMINED. 285 
 
 the transition Uebergangsschiefer. Near Predazzo in 
 the Southern Tyrol, chalk, said to belong to the Trias 
 formation, is covered by granite and Syenite. In the 
 Pyrenees a granite stratum of 37 meters forms a 
 massive layer between chalk formations. From no 
 other reason thin because the theory fails when 
 brought in contact with facts, geologists assume 
 older and younger granite, gneiss, and slate formations. 
 There is no independent criterion by which the 
 formations themselves could be distinguished from 
 each other, except it be in their position or order of 
 succession, which, of course, overturns the theory. 
 
 Naumann frankly admits that no eruptive power 
 could have dislocated these layers and placed them 
 where they now are ; in other words, that there was 
 no saving of a theory which was supposed to inva- 
 lidate the book of Genesis. These adverse layers are 
 stated by this eminent authority to be altogether 
 problematical and inexplicable. That the strata are 
 frequently reversed and far from what we are taught 
 they ought to be, is also admitted by Dickenson, who 
 repeatedly examined in situ every formation in 
 Europe, and whose professional calling enables him 
 to make his observations not only on the surface, 
 but also in many hundreds of mines. He says : 
 "Coal, for instance, lies not only in the ordinary 
 coal measures, but also in other positions. The 
 lignite is upon no particular formation ; jet or cannel, 
 as well as other coal, is found as high up as the 
 oolitic ; and anthracite far below, as in the 
 metamorphic or transition. The division also 
 of the lowest rocks into the granite, meta- 
 morphic, cambrian, silurian, and the Devonian 
 or old red sandstone, which in some instances has 
 been found practicable and convenient, is, in others, 
 
286 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 impossible, there being frequently no distinctive line 
 of demarcation showing where one of the series 
 begins and the other ends, and the consecutive order in 
 certain localities becomes modified when far distant. 
 Prom the way in which the granite is generally 
 found sloping under the surrounding grauwacke, it 
 has been commonly supposed that the granite forms 
 the foundation on which all the other rocks rest. It 
 may be so; but there is no clear data for the sup- 
 position. The apex-like form in which the granite 
 often protrudes, is common also to the metamorphic, 
 Cambrian, and silurian, or, as they are sometimes 
 termed, the killas, or the grauwacke. It is the per- 
 vading form of these rocks, whether seen at the out- 
 crop, or when cut into deep under the surface. It 
 is also common to the masses of quartz, limestones, 
 &c, which occur in the grauwacke. There appears 
 an intimate relation between the granite and grau- 
 wacke ; probably it will ultimately be found that 
 not only these, but also other rocks associated with 
 them, and to which distinctive names have been 
 given, such as hypersthene, serpentine, diallage, por- 
 phyry, syenite, mica, and chlorite, schists and slates, 
 hornblende, greenstone or whin, basalt, and the trap 
 rocks in general, are only local modifications of the 
 same kind of rock, and that the whole forms the 
 grand base or matrix in which the more perfectly 
 stratified rocks have been generated." 
 
 Schilling judiciously established the following facts 
 as altogether indisputable : "First, no sedimentary 
 formation has been found to extend over the whole 
 globe ; secondly, the formations of the same period 
 differ from one another in various ways ; thirdly, the 
 complete system of strata, as assumed, nowhere 
 exists." Thus the Jura formations may have come 
 
TIIE STRATA EXAMINED. 287 
 
 about at the same time as the chalk formations, only 
 in different places. 
 
 If none of the strata can be sharply defined, then 
 it is clear that the theory cannot stand. The 
 secondary group of formations is called transitory 
 from the very fact that it is as closely connected 
 with the supposed later or tertiary group. Wagner 
 admits, and his authority is binding, that in a 
 petrographic point of view, the transitory formations 
 reproduce the chief samples of the primitive rocks, 
 together with others peculiar to themselves. The 
 only important difference which he recognises is to 
 be found in the petrifactions. Pfaff, an impartial 
 authority, asserts that there is no difference between 
 the tertiary strata aud the earliest formations. 
 Buckland, von Leonhard, and Wilhelm Hoffmann, 
 hold that no safe line can be 'drawn between one 
 formation and another. 
 
 Then as regards the relation of the tertiary 
 formations to those of the diluvial and alluvial or 
 post-tertiary layers, Naumann says that it would 
 frequently depend upon the opinion of the individual 
 observer, or the united opinion of the several 
 observers, whether a certain stratum should be con- 
 sidered quartiary or tertiary, or be deemed a so-called 
 recent formation. In all such cases, therefore, the 
 decision depends upon the preconceived theory of 
 the observer. In cases where the formations are 
 determined by their petrifactions, the theory is 
 equally overthrown. The non-sequence in point 
 of order, and the absence of certain members in 
 localities where we should expect them, are fully 
 admitted by the authorities ; it only remains to say 
 that the theory cannot stand in the face of these 
 facts. If anything is to be inferred from the 
 
288 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 preceding remarks, it is that the differences in the 
 formations afford no ground for the construction of a 
 systematic succession of creative periods. 
 
 The strata, which are never twice deposited ex- 
 actly alike as to their assumed order, have come to 
 stratify merely in the heads of geologians, like many 
 a system before. The formations were regarded as 
 the leaves and the petrifactions were considered the 
 writings of a book ; but, then, these leaves are 
 nowhere found complete, so as to furnish an integral 
 copy of the whole work. Therefore, what geology 
 has assumed for many a day nowhere exists. There 
 are indeed fragments of leaves of different sizes, in 
 different places, and in a more or less perfect con- 
 dition. We find the corner of a leaf here, and 
 a piece there, and are told that a system of 
 geology can be made out from these scattered frag- 
 ments. In other words, a theory was formed, and a 
 system constructed, and then diligent search was 
 made over and under the earth, to make the system 
 probable and consistent. 
 
 As, therefore, the strata cannot be exactly de- 
 fined ; and as moreover they are frequently reversed 
 in different countries, it was impossible to determine 
 their respective ages. But it was hoped that the fossil 
 remains themselves would have afforded distinctive 
 features to identify certain strata, no matter how far 
 away any member of the same group might be 
 situated ; and, based upon this view, the old and 
 convenient classification of primary, secondary, and 
 tertiary, has been set aside, and a zoic classification, 
 based upon the supposed ages of the fossils, has been 
 introduced. But the fossils have proved less reliable 
 than was anticipated. 
 
 Pfaff sums up the result of his labours by stating 
 
THE FOSSIL INCLOSURES. 289 
 
 that there was a progress in the development of our 
 globe and its living inhabitants ; that each of the 
 periods into which the history of the earth was 
 divided, had its own fauna and flora, the majority of 
 the samples being peculiar to each formation; 
 that there were no gradual transitions from the 
 animal forms of one formation to that of another, 
 but that the new forms appeared suddenly; and 
 lastly, that the nearer we come to our own period 
 the more the forms approximate those now living." 
 
 But all these points instead of being bona fide re- 
 sults of geognostic labours, are simply the inferences 
 from the Plutonic theory of the author. The assertions 
 are based upon the supposition that the several strata 
 of the crust of the earth contained evidence of 
 several periods or epochs in the history of our globe. 
 But we have found the assumption at variance with 
 facts. The only thing which is true, is, that a con- 
 nection has been found to exist between certain form- 
 ations and certain fossils. But even this is not the pure 
 result of observation, and is only true according to 
 the very doubtful principle that what is true in 
 many, must be true in all cases. Many formations 
 of the same mineral quality and structure contain 
 the same petrifactions, but others of the same char- 
 acter make an exception. Hence it happens that 
 formations of exactly the same quality are classed 
 differently, simply on account of the fossil inclosures. 
 
 Yet, if we grant, for argument's sake, that the 
 strata always contain the same fossils, ivhich they 
 do not, this would prove nothing as regards the 
 periods during which the strata were formed, so long 
 as their age was not established upon other grounds. 
 Then again, it requires yet to be proved that each of 
 the main divisions embodies a flora and fauna which 
 
 u 
 
290 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 are peculiar to those formations, and that there are 
 no transitions from one to the other. Wagner 
 admits that some have survived the imaginary des- 
 truction which succeeded the imaginary creation, at 
 the opening of each fresh era. If, he further adds, 
 many of the new living types did not exist in 
 the early strata, we must take it in the sense that 
 they were not yet discovered, when he wrote his good 
 and great book. 
 
 As regards the supposed entire change of the 
 organisms in each formation, opinions are greatly 
 divided. Naumann says: "Numberless cases are 
 known where the remains of one and the same 
 species re-appear, not only in two, but in several 
 formations in succession ; and the idea that there 
 was a progressive rise towards perfection, has 
 never yet been universally received by professional 
 geologists." 
 
 It is recorded in all geological works as an article 
 of faith, that the older formations embedded only 
 fossils of the lower order of the flora and fauna ; that 
 the mammalia appeared as late as the trias, jura, 
 and chalk formations, and warm-blooded ones as late 
 as the tertiary of kainozoic period. But what is the 
 fact ? No geologist will deny that the finest 
 specimens of fossil mammalia are found in the 
 Devonian sandstone. Cuvier laid great stress upon 
 the fact that no fossil ape had as yet been found in 
 his day in the tertiary formation, but now divers 
 kinds of apes have been discovered in India, South- 
 America, and Europe, as far back as the eocene 
 formation. Again, much has been made of the fact, 
 that no whales were found in the secondary strata, 
 but as time rolled on, specimens were found in a 
 formation which must be reckoned part of it. Before 
 
GEOLOGICAL FALLACIES. 291 
 
 the year 1844 it was considered beyond a doubt that 
 reptiles only existed as far back as the Permian 
 period, but in the year 1852, they were discovered in 
 the coal formation ; and later, in still older strata. 
 These are only a few instances to show what little 
 reliance we can place on theories which are hastily 
 constructed from a few isolated observations. 
 
 No inferences, therefore, can be drawn from the 
 fossil remains. Were we to assume that the organic 
 creation had to pass through divers stages in the 
 lapse of ages, so as to produce first, simpler, and 
 afterwards, more delicately constructed organisms, 
 we should expect traces of this, and where we meet 
 the simplest and rudest forms we might hope to have 
 before us the oldest formation. But this is not in 
 accordance with fact. We observe nothing of a 
 sequence of time ; for we find the remains of verte- 
 bral animals in rocks which would seem much older 
 than the strata in which mollusca are entombed. 
 
 Another geognostic fallacy is, that many of the 
 primeval types have died out and that many of the 
 now living ones are not found in a fossil state. We 
 are certainly far from being in a position to settle 
 such a point. We know too little to say that because 
 certain species have not been found out, they do not 
 exist. We shall only be able to tell how many of 
 our living types then existed, when all parts of the 
 surface of the globe have been accurately searched 
 out. Till now we have only the most superficial 
 knowledge of a vast subject. This must not be 
 forgotten. The bottom of the seas, which occupy 
 nearly three-fourths of the earth's surface, is all but 
 unknown to us ; and the proportion of the greatest 
 depths yet made into the crust of the globe are no 
 more than fly-stings compared with the entire 
 
292 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 bulk. We have as yet no exact knowledge of our 
 globe, and the main structure of our geologists is 
 based upon a groundless hypothesis. 
 
 The ocean may hide many a living form, which as 
 yet has not been discovered. It has been argued 
 with some ability that we find in the so-called sea- 
 serpent the closest affinities with those extraordinary 
 Enaliosauria, or marine Lizards, whose fossil 
 skeletons are richly scattered through the oolite and 
 the lias. Examples are by no means rare of animals 
 older geologically than the Enaliosauria being still 
 extant. The very earliest forms of fishes are of the 
 placoid type, and it is remarkable that not only is 
 that type still living in considerable numbers, but 
 the most gigantic examples of this class belong 
 to it— viz : sharks and rays, and these exhibit 
 peculiarities, by no means far removed from the 
 ancient types. 
 
 Again, the Chimcera appears in oolite, in wealden, 
 and in chalk ; it disappears, or rather is not yet 
 found in any of the tertiary formations, but it re- 
 appears somewhat rarely in the modern seas. It is 
 represented by two or more species inhabiting the 
 northern and southern oceans. 
 
 Again, the Iguanodon, a vast Saurian, which was 
 cotemporaneous with the Plesiosaur, though transmit- 
 ing no marked representative of its form through 
 the tertiary era, is yet well represented by the 
 existing Iguanodce of the American tropics. The 
 Iguana is not an Iguanodon, yet the forms are 
 closely allied : likewise the so-called sea-serpent is 
 not an actual Plesiosaur, but it is found to bear a 
 similar relation to that ancient type. We must 
 know all the species now alive as well as those 
 
GEOLOGICAL FALLACIES. 293 
 
 buried in the strata, before we can hope to give 
 a final judgment. 
 
 Wagner writes as follows : "As the imagination 
 loves to ornate the stories of antiquity and to 
 present them more grotesque than they are, it 
 has constructed forms out of the fossil remains 
 which go far beyond the reality. It is now 
 quite common to conceive superlative paradoxical 
 and even gigantic forms, and yet this conception is 
 not in harmony with the reality. Certainly we have 
 the very strange forms of the Trilobites, Ichthyosauri, 
 Plesiosaari, Pterodactyli, and others. Yet the pre- 
 sent world is not without such strange forms. As 
 regards the magnitude of the petrified animals, we 
 have certainly no living amphibiae, which could be 
 compared with the giant forms of the fossils ; yet 
 our seas nourish in their bosom the gigantic types 
 of the whale, which in magnitude surpass all beings 
 of the former world. Even the primeval Mammoth 
 has not surpassed the largest samples of our modern 
 elephant. If the colossal forms of the old world 
 are no more represented in the present order of 
 things, other giant frames have taken their place, 
 so that as regards multiplicity and magnitude of 
 the organic forms, our present forms are no wise 
 thrown into the shade by those of the former." 
 The difference can be no proof of different creations 
 or creation-periods. Much is doubtful as yet, but 
 what is certain clearly shows that the theory of 
 successive periods of the earth's formations and of 
 renewed creations of plants and animals has no 
 justification in the fossil organisms. 
 
 As one of the most powerful proofs that the fossil 
 remains date to a period prior to the appearance of 
 man, the absence of fossil-men was early adduced. 
 
294 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 Yet Buckland wisely pointed to the fact that Asia 
 as the centre of man's original abode had not yet been 
 examined. Wagner, whilst holding that the petrified 
 fauna and flora date prior to our present world, yet 
 admits that examinations in those remote parts 
 might at once furnish a totally different view, and 
 overthrow all pre-established theories. 
 
 But the remains of man have appeared in the 
 caves of Gailenreuth, Liittich, and in Brazil, together 
 with fossils which were always regarded as prior to 
 man, just because no fossil- man had previously 
 appeared in their company. Naumann, Marcel de 
 Serres, Tournal, de Christol, Boue, Austin, Lund, and 
 other geologians have admitted that man lived 
 together with certain species of mammalia which 
 have now died out. 
 
 Wagner argues that if man had been witness to 
 the catastrophe which buried the fossil remains, we 
 should expect that his bones would reappear in the 
 diluvial formations ; that even his products of art 
 in metal or stone would make themselves seen. 
 What is here wanted has been found by Lyell, 
 however far we may differ as to the age ascribed to 
 these remains. The history of Somme, near Abbeville, 
 whatever may have been the frauds, clearly proves 
 that human bones have been found mixed with the 
 fossils of certain animals which before were boast- 
 fully described as being much older than the human 
 period. Both were buried and stratified together, 
 and the existence of extinct fossil animals in 
 tertiary formations can no longer prove that these 
 formations were completed before the appearance of 
 man upon the earth. 
 
 The result is that the theory of the creation- 
 periods is unsound and untenable. So-called primary 
 
GEOLOGICAL FALLACIES. 295 
 
 formations rest frequently upon the so-called transi- 
 tion and secondary strata. This mystery is 
 not solved by assuming later and cryptogene for- 
 mations, but simply avoided. When these theories 
 are therefore at variance with our cosmogony, 
 theology need not sacrifice the historical matter- 
 of-fact sense of Biblical history. Natural science in 
 general, and geology in particular, has not yet pro- 
 gressed so far, as to allow these theories and com- 
 binations any weight or authority whatsoever. 
 Any day may bring forward fresh discoveries which 
 would overthrow the speculations of half a century, 
 and bear down a host of conjectures. 
 
 So long as it is undetermined whether the species 
 of fauna and flora are really fixed, and thus render 
 a fresh creation needless, and so long as the 
 time of the appearance of man is undecided, the 
 fossil remains can in no way be opposed to the Bible 
 cosmogony. 
 
 A well-founded difficulty from these fossils could 
 arise only in two cases, first, were it possible to 
 render it probable, if not certain, that the earth 
 had undergone no change since the seventh day 
 of the creative week ; and, secondly, if science could 
 fix a boundary between what belonged to creation 
 and what belonged to the process of the subsequent 
 development. But neither the one nor the other 
 can ever take place. 
 
 Take the first case. It appears from the book of 
 Genesis that there was at the beginning a separation 
 of land and water, but there is no light given 
 whether the division of continents and water were 
 then as they are now, or, whether — e.g., the Black 
 and Caspian Seas were separated on the third day ; 
 or whether the Mediterranean was then already 
 
296 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 united by the Straits of Gibralter with the Atlantic 
 Ocean ; or whether the localities of London, Paris, or 
 Mayence were laid dry immediately after the crea- 
 tion, or remained under water for centuries after, 
 forming bays of oceans or inland lakes. 
 
 Again, the Bible records that after the separation 
 of land and water, the earth was covered with herbs, 
 grass, and trees, that the water and the air were 
 replenished with the living creatures of our fauna 
 and flora. But the number of these species is no 
 where given, nor are we supplied with a scientific 
 account of these beings, so that we might compare 
 them with the catalogues of the present day. 
 
 Again, the Bible records three events, which made 
 a lasting impression upon the earth and its organic 
 creatures ; the first is the curse, which affecte l tl e 
 whole animal world, and subjected them to vanity — 
 Genesis iii. 17, and Romans viii. 20 ; and the second 
 is the flood, by which the whole earth was put under 
 water, and all living creatures destroyed, with the ex- 
 ception of those saved by the ark. Yet the Biblical 
 accounts respecting these two events are so brief, 
 and so entirely religious, if we might say so, that 
 we can make no inferences from them as regards the 
 extent of the changes,and the nature of the alterations 
 thereby affected. These two catastrophes science 
 may ignore. The first is, indeed, altogether beyond 
 the province of science, and the flood may also be 
 shelved with the remark, that there was no stratum 
 which could be assigned to such a general flood. 
 The third historical event which produced a great 
 change on the surface and in the configuration of 
 the earth, is that alluded to in Genesis x. 25. When 
 the flood retired, the Persian Gulf, the Bed Sea, 
 the Mediterranean, the Caspian and Black Seas, the 
 
THREE EVENTS WHICH BEFEL OUR GLOBE. 297 
 
 Bay of Biscay, the North Sea, and the Baltic, are 
 supposed not to have existed. Australia was not 
 yet separated from Asia, nor Asia from America. 
 " And unto Eber were born two sons, the name of 
 one was Peleg, for in his days was the earth divided" 
 The earth till then was one whole. We read only 
 of Egypt at a later time. That this dividing of the 
 earth could not mean the dividing of the people 
 thereon, is clear from the peculiar expression which is 
 used in Genesis xi. 8 ; moreover Peleg did not 
 live in Shinar. Most probably, then, this division 
 was what it expresses, a terrestrial event, and to 
 commemorate that event Eber named his son 
 Peleg to recall the catastrophe. Europe and Africa 
 could not easily become inhabited from Asia, had 
 they been as difficult of access as now from the land 
 of Shinar. After this division of the earth, the new 
 portions were quickly formed into independent em- 
 pires, amongst which we recognize the Egyptians 
 as if they had existed from times immemorial. 
 Erom Genesis x. we learn that the partition of the 
 earth surprised the ancients. The Deucalion flood 
 seems to refer to this catastrophe, which gave origin 
 to the Mediterranean ; and it will indeed be diffi- 
 cult to tell how many of the local flood-legends of 
 antiquity may have taken their origin from this 
 division of the earth. If the earth was divided, and 
 if this is recorded and commemorated, it is clear 
 that from the beginning it was not so. 
 
 This passing glance at geognostic theories will 
 show how much confusion has been caused by 
 mistaking fact for fiction, and fiction for fact. As 
 yet all is uncertain, contradictory, and unestablished. 
 The theory of creation-periods as founded upon the 
 strata with their fossil inclosures, is, for the present, 
 
298 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 at least, built upon sand. More than this, it is in 
 direct contradiction to the fact that the formations are 
 frequently reversed in their order, without any 
 warrant of this reversal being attributable to vol- 
 canic action. 
 
 If the days in Genesis were days, and not periods, 
 the fossil remains must date from a period pos- 
 terior to the creation. But it in no way follows 
 that all formations without petrifaction date their 
 origin from creation itself. We have formations of 
 all classes devoid of fossils ; and some of these may 
 have been formed as late as those which contain them. 
 The geological lines drawn between strata are purely 
 imaginary, and, in many instances, it will require a 
 bold man to decide to which formation a given sec- 
 tion of the earth's crust really belongs. 
 
 3. Facts and Fictions of Palwontoloc/y. 
 
 It is both useless and absurd to guess in which of 
 the many possible states the earth was originally 
 created, since no science can possibly pass the line of 
 conjecture. We are not left in the dark as regards 
 the condition in which the flora and fauna were 
 created, and hence we may argue from what we actually 
 know, as to what we do not know. We rationally as- 
 sume that the flora and fauna were created in a state 
 of maturity, without passing through what are now 
 considered the preliminary stages of their existence. 
 
 By observing men in different stages from infancy 
 to old age, we may form certain rules for estimating 
 the age of man generally, and are thus usually able 
 to guess the age of a person, otherwise unknown to 
 us. We may very possibly make a mistake, but 
 no one would guess a full grown-man to be only six 
 years old. These rules are applicable to all man- 
 
ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY. 299 
 
 kind, excepting only Adam and Eve who were 
 created in a state of maturity. 
 
 From analogy, any observer, who had seen our 
 first parents on the day of their creation, would 
 have said that they must he, at least, from sixteen 
 to twenty years of age. Whilst, therefore, we can 
 infer the previous stages which an individual has 
 passed through from childhood to manhood, we find 
 in the case of our first parents that the analogy 
 completely fails. The time needed for the develop- 
 ment of their frame, the expansion of their organs, 
 the consolidation of their bones, the results of certain 
 marks of age, intelligence, and strength, if calcu- 
 lated upon the known principles of physiology, must 
 in their case be obviously erroneous. 
 
 Take another instance. We calculate the age of a tree 
 by its rings, and even from its general size. Thus 
 according to analogy we should say of an oak which 
 we can no longer embrace, that it was at least more 
 than ten or thirty years old. But are these modes 
 of reasoning applicable to the trees of Paradise ? Is 
 it not rational and most probable that the first 
 vegetation was created full-grown, so that there may 
 have been trees which seemed perhaps hundreds of 
 years old ? The grass, the herb yielding seed, and 
 the fruit-tree yielding fruit were created on the 
 third day. There was the simultaneous creation of 
 plants and trees in all their perfection, bearing fruit 
 fit for man and beast, who very shortly would have 
 need of them. Years of sunshine and rain were nut 
 required to produce the effects of trees in maturity. A 
 botanist of our day, if introduced to these larger speci- 
 mens of vegetation, would doubtless miscalculate their 
 respective ages and the previous history of that flora. 
 What under ordinarv circumstances would need 
 
300 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 centuries may have been the result of a single day. 
 
 Again, the moving creature in the water and the 
 fowl flying in the air were not produced in the 
 ordinary way ; the latter, for instance, were not 
 reared and hatched as those we know of. They were 
 all created, at once moving in the water and flying 
 in the air. There were birds before there were eggs, 
 and scientific calculations as to the stages these crea- 
 tures would have passed through on the evening of 
 the fifth day would have been utterly at fault. The 
 same holds good of the animals created a few hours 
 only, it may be, before man. Adam saw them 
 brought to him by God, and had Adam then possessed 
 the experience in zoology which he naturally soon 
 acquired, he would have inferred from the appearance 
 of these full-grown animals, that they must have at 
 least been several years old. 
 
 I argue from this, that the earth alone could 
 make no exception to this general rule, and I hold 
 that the surface of the globe was as fully developed, 
 as was Adam himself when made in the image of 
 God. If all things were created fully developed, with 
 every sign and symptom of an age which they did 
 not really possess, why should not the earth be made, 
 as it were, in full bloom, in full development, bearing 
 marks in its formations of an age which in reality it 
 never possessed ? The geologist would have made 
 the same mistakes as to the age of certain rocks and 
 their stratifications, which the physiologist would 
 have made in his examination of the first man the 
 day after his creation. This argument ought to have 
 some weight with scientific men. 
 
 Having read the leading books, English, Con- 
 tinental, and American, on the subject, and weighed the 
 arguments on each side, I have come to the conclusion 
 
WHENCE OUR GEOLOGICAL AGES. 301 
 
 that the geognostic ages are as essentially unreal, 
 unhistorical, and mythical, as are the chronological 
 eras of the Hindus with their succession of deluges, 
 Mahayugs, and Kalpas. The whole system of modern 
 geology is a reproduction of Brahminical geogonies 
 and Maha Pralayas, or great floods. Had we an 
 account of how the first thought of geological ages 
 sprang up in the mind of some European sage, 
 we should find that it was as directly imported from 
 the Hindu Pooranic cosmogony, as the transmuta- 
 tion hypothesis was imported from Hindustan into 
 France in 1749. Let us now glance at the ancient 
 Hindu geogonies for a few moments. 
 
 An ordinary year is considered to be equal to a day 
 and a night of the gods. Three hundred and sixty 
 of these divine days and nights constitute a " year 
 of the gods." Twelve hundred such years form an 
 "age of the gods," or, as it is generally termed, a 
 Mahayug, or great age. One of these ages is, there- 
 fore, equal to 432,000 years of mortals ! 
 
 Each of these great ages of the gods is sub- 
 divided into four smaller ones, the Satya or Krita, 
 Treta, Dwapar, and Kali, which correspond in 
 succession and in character to the golden, silver, 
 brazen, and iron ages of the Greek and Homan 
 Mythologies. 
 
 Seventy-one of the great ages of the gods make a 
 Mavantara, during which one Manu or Saint, with 
 his posterity, is supposed to be invested with the 
 sovereignty of the earth. As there are fourteen 
 Manus, there are fourteen Mavantaras of equal 
 length. 
 
 Those fourteen grand periods of time, equal in all 
 to 1,000 Mahayugs, make together one Kalpa. The 
 Kalpa, consisting of 4,320 millions of common years, 
 
302 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 is again looked upon as " a day of Brahma, and his 
 night also has the same duration." Then 360 of 
 these enormous days and nights compose a year of 
 Brahma, a period which exceeds in length three 
 hillions of the years of mortals. A hundred such 
 years is the duration of Brahma, and of the universe ; 
 or, in other words, the age of Brahma and the 
 duration of the world is calculated at upwards of 
 300 hillions of common years ! Above half of this 
 time has already expired ; and we are now living 
 in the 4954 th year of the Kali Yug, of the 28 th 
 Mahayug, of the seventh Mavantara, of the first 
 Kalpa or day of the fifty-first year of Brahma's age. 
 In other words, we are considerably beyond the 
 150 billionth year of the creation ! 
 
 Having thus ascertained the age, and estimated 
 the duration of the universe, we proceed to the 
 changes which have taken place in the world. At 
 the commencement of each important cycle of time, 
 such as the Mahayug, mankind was declared to be 
 virtuous and happy. The latent predispositions to 
 evil are made manifest and come to a crisis ; accord- 
 ingly, at the termination of each cycle of time, there 
 are great changes, ushered in by floods and storms, 
 designed for the destruction of a degenerate race of 
 men. These catastrophes affect only the terrestrial 
 globe, which is re-peopled by the righteous, whose 
 lives have been preserved by a miraculous inter- 
 position of the Deity. 
 
 But there are greater changes recurring at wider 
 intervals. At the close of each Kalpa, or day of 
 Brahma, commences his night. The Deity, when 
 about to enter upon his repose, surrounds himself 
 with darkness. The heavenly bodies are shrouded 
 in gloom ; torrents of rain pour down from the sky, 
 
WHENCE OUR GEOLOGICAL AGES. 303 
 
 and mighty tempests trouble the ocean. The seven 
 lower worlds are at once submerged, as well as the 
 earth which we inhabit. The waters even rise to 
 the two worlds next in order of ascent above the 
 earth. In the midst of this tremendous abyss, 
 Brahma, as Vishnoo, reclines on the huge serpent 
 Ananta, with closed eyes, reposing in mysterious 
 slumber! Here, then we have a deluge, which 
 rises above the Polar Star, according to the position 
 assigned to it by the Hindus. The wicked perish ; 
 the righteous, with the progenitors of mankind, and 
 the gods inhabiting the third world, rush in conster- 
 nation and terror into the fourth world. Those most 
 distinguished for virtue may ascend still farther 
 into one or other of the highest worlds, where they 
 remain until Brahma's night is over. 
 
 When he awakes, the heavenly bodies shine again, 
 the waters disappear, and the earth reappears ; every 
 form of being is renewed, by a process which, in 
 many respects, is only a repetition of that which had 
 taken place before. A partial destruction of the same 
 kind, or a disorganisation of the ten lower worlds, 
 recurs at the close of every Kalpa, or day of Brahma, 
 and a similar renovation at the termination of every 
 succeeding night. And as Brahma's life counts 
 36,000 days and nights, there must be as many 
 partial destructions and reconstructions of the larger 
 moiety of the universe. But when Brahma's life 
 comes to a close, a Maha Pralaya takes place, or the 
 destruction of the entire universe. 
 
 This catastrophe is said to be ushered in by a 
 hundred years of rain, and for one hundred years 
 more there will be storms and hurricanes, fiercely 
 drifting dismal vapours darkening the atmosphere ; 
 the sun drinking up the sea and the rivers of 
 
301 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 water. Circling masses of flame will envelope the 
 world in a universal conflagration. When all shall 
 thus be re-fused into the essence of the Supreme 
 Brahm, all souls, good or evil, all spirits, just or 
 unjust, will find a speedy absorption in Brahm. 
 In short, all things corporeal or incorporeal, 
 animate or inanimate, gods and men, angels and 
 devils, animals, vegetables, minerals, earth, sea, and 
 sky, fire and water, sun, moon, and stars, all things 
 visible or invisible, will shrink away till wholly re- 
 absorbed into the impersonal essence of the Supreme 
 Spirit, the sole-existent incomprehensible Brahm ! 
 
 When myriads of ages have thus passed away, 
 compared with which, " the life of Brahm is but a 
 grain of sand in proportion to the solar system," 
 Brahm awakes again, and then all things are 
 reproduced. Every successive universe is but a 
 repetition of that which preceded it. During the 
 existence of each, it is subjected to the same periodic 
 disorganisations at the close of every day of Brahm ; 
 and to a corresponding series of renovations at 
 the close of every night of Brahm. The first six 
 Mavantaras having come to a close, the present, 
 or seventh Mavantara, was introduced, as usual, 
 by one of the inferior deluges ; that is, by a general 
 deluge confined to this earth. Of this deluge, 
 accounts are given in the Pooranas, which as we 
 have seen, strongly resemble the Mosaic flood. 
 
 We shall, I think, hit upon the truth if we con- 
 vert the primary, secondary, tertiary, and diluvial 
 periods into the four lesser Yugs into which each 
 Mahay ug is subdivided ; if we turn the geological 
 floods into Brahminical deluges, and transcribe the 
 azoic, palaeozoic, mesozoic, and kainozoic ages into 
 the Satya, Treta, Dwapar, and Kali Yug, if 
 
WHENCE OUR GEOLOGICAL ERAS. 305 
 
 we regard the fourteen Mavantaras of the Brahmin 
 as the counterpart of the fourteen geognostic 
 periods of modern geologists, embracing 1) the Gneiss, 
 2) the Cumbrian, 3) the Silurian, 4) the Devonian, 
 5) the Coal, 6) the Permian 7) the Trias, 8) the Jura, 
 9) the Chalk, 10) the Eocene, 11) the Miocene, 
 12) the Plioscene, 13) the Pleistocene, 14) the Alluvial 
 period. 
 
 Fossils — i.e., things, dug out of the earth, are taken 
 to describe the organic remains of plants or animals 
 which may, or may not be, in a petrified state. Paige- 
 ontology, with all the present knowledge of chemistry, 
 is to this day ignorant of the real process of such 
 petrifaction, nor has any attempt succeeded to imitate 
 or reproduce it. 
 
 When first discovered, as already shown, they were 
 considered the memorials of the Biblical deluge, or 
 the effects of a vis plastica or vis formativa, produced 
 by some inherent powers in nature, plays of nature, 
 lusus naturce, pulsations of creative omnipotence, 
 which were only blessed with an ephemeral existence. 
 That these lapides figurati bore resemblance in their 
 singularly shaped forms to created objects had not 
 escaped observation ; and the case of a German 
 professor is still remembered for whom the students 
 prepared the rare satisfaction of digging up stars, 
 suns, moons, which they had manufactured of stone, 
 and buried where they knew- the learned man 
 was likely to order his excavations. The discovery 
 strengthened his impression that these petrifactions 
 were freaks of nature, and he discovered the cruel 
 trick only after a folio with the most beautiful 
 engravings of his fossils was published ! 
 
 When the skeleton of a Mammoth was exhumed 
 near Burgtonna, in the year 1669, the Collegium 
 
 v 
 
306 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY, 
 
 wiedicum declared it to be a freak of nature. It 
 might not be out of place to state here that divines, 
 not scientific men, first exposed the idea of nature 
 freaks. 
 
 After the real character of organic petrifaction was 
 once acknowledged they were unanimously regarded 
 as remnants of the flood. This view was first advocated 
 by Woodward, and by the Swiss medical man 
 Scheuchzer, who declared part of a fossil skeleton 
 found near the Lake of Constance to be homo dilnvii 
 testis ; but the fragment proved to be the remains 
 of a species of Salamander, which in consequence 
 retains the name Andreas Scheuchzeri in the 
 catalogues of Palaeontology. 
 
 A still later view deserves to be named. We are 
 told that they were beings of a different order and 
 structure from our own. It is argued that they 
 were types of our flora and fauna, and as such 
 preparatory to another and more perfect stage of 
 existence, and that they disappeared so soon as the 
 more perfect stage, for which they formed the 
 transition, had come about. It is asked by the 
 advocates of this theory, When the mammal is born 
 into life, where remains the placenta ? When the 
 butterfly comes forth from the caterpillar, where 
 remain the organs of the larva ? And when the 
 disposition ceases to exist, which favours the generat- 
 ing of entozoa in the animal body, or the growth of 
 infusoria in a drop of water, where remain then the 
 animalcula3 ?" 
 
 We have on a previous occasion noticed that the 
 old and convenient classification of Primary, Second- 
 ary, and Tertiary, had been set aside and that a zoic 
 classification based upon the supposed ages of the 
 fossils had been substituted. Eor the sake of 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE STRATA. 307 
 
 elucidating the subject for the less informed reader 
 we submit the following table exhibiting both ways 
 of classification side by side. 
 
 I. Azoic Period. A. Primary. 
 
 (1—2) I. Gneiss (1—4) 
 
 2. Cumbrian 
 3.- Silurian 
 
 4. Devonian 
 
 5. Coal 
 
 II. Palaeozoic Period. B. Secondary. 
 
 (3 — 6) 6. Permian (5 — 9) 
 
 7. Trias 
 
 8. Jura 
 
 III. Mesozoic Period. C. Tertiary. 
 
 (7—9) 9. Chalk (10—12) 
 
 10. Eocene 
 
 11. Miocene 
 IV. Kainozoic Period. 
 
 (10—13) 12. Pliocene 
 
 13. Pleistocene D. Diluvium. 
 (13) 
 V. Recent Period, 14. Alluvial E. Alluvium. 
 
 There have till now been discovered 25,000 
 animal species of petrifactions, the living ones being 
 estimated 100,000 ; and about 4,000 — 5,000 specimens 
 of the vegetable world. The question is, how are 
 these species divided among the various formations ? 
 
 a. The fauna of the palceozoic group in its supposed 
 oldest formations, the Silurian and Devonian, is 
 restricted to the inhabitants of the sea, and a few 
 specimens of amphibia; also a few samples of 
 mammals. The flora would naturally be scanty 
 where no land animals have been conserved, and 
 whatever appears of vegetation belongs mostly to the 
 
308 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 sea. In America some land plants are said to have 
 been discovered. According to Sharpe and Bimbury, 
 Silurian fossil animals have been discovered in Spain 
 in the coal formation, so that the line of demarcation 
 is at once destroyed. The idea of plants appearing 
 earlier than animal fossils is purely imaginary. 
 
 In the Coal formation, according to Pfaff, there is 
 no marked difference in the animal fossils from what 
 appears in the preceding formations. We have rep- 
 tiles, fish, shells, tribolites, and others. Here we 
 have the first traces of land animals. But more 
 important are the 800 species of the flora. In the 
 permian formation the poverty of fossils has been 
 universally deplored. 
 
 b. In the mesozoic formations we begin with the 
 Trias, which presents more vegetable than animal 
 forms. Of the latter 24 species of Sauria deserve 
 particular mention. The predominant petrifactions 
 are still those of the sea. In the Jura formation we 
 have a rich harvest of animal remains, 4,000 species 
 being already known, and in the chalk stratum, 
 which is said to be the last of this group, though no 
 one can say where it begins and where it ends, we 
 have 1,000 species of the fauna, and only 7 of the 
 flora. One particular kind of chalk yielded only one 
 specimen of the flora, whilst there were as many as 
 111 species of animal life. 
 
 c. In the tertiary or kainozoic formations we can 
 perceive no sharply defined periods as in what are 
 considered the palaeozoic and mesozoic strata. The 
 tertiary strata are so diverse and uncertain that they 
 preclude their ever being classified anywhere but in 
 the text-books of geologists. Deshayes and Lyell, 
 however, were not so easily confounded, and rather 
 than confess themselves perplexed by the chaos they 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE STRATA. 309 
 
 encountered, they take refuge in the per cent relation 
 in which the extinct species of conchylia stand to the 
 existing ones. Hence the three periods, eocene, 
 miocene, and pliocene. The very principle of this 
 division, according to which from 1 — 17 per cent 
 identical shells are called eocene ; 17 — 35 miocene ; 
 and 35 — 90 pliocene, and 90 — 95 pleistocene, is 
 arbitrary, and inspires distrust. Hence it was easy 
 for Philippi, Bronn, Wagner, and Vogt to destroy 
 the whole theory. One thing alone is sufficient 
 to show the untenableness of it, that there are not 
 two places in which the percentage either of the 
 fossil or the living shells are the same. 
 
 d. In the Recent period, the Diluvium and Allu- 
 vium, the mammals for the first time abound ; the 
 sea monsters of the Sauria are more scarce, and land 
 monsters multiply, such as the Pachydermata, the 
 sloth, the megatherium, the dinotherium, mammoths, 
 elephants, rhinoceri, hyppopotami, the camel, giraffe, 
 and others. To this class also belonq- the bone-caves 
 of which we heard so much of late. 
 
 4. The identity of many Species, and the Difference 
 or the utter Extinction of others. 
 
 We now inquire as to the relation which these 
 fossils have to each other in the different strata. 
 Some geologians deny the recurrence of identical 
 species in the primary and post-diluvian strata, but 
 these are the very people who assume the interposi- 
 tion of a long flood at the end of the tertiary period, 
 which in their judgment prevented the preserva- 
 tion of a single species. Between the tertiary and 
 post-tertiary strata interposes the flood, recorded in 
 Genesis i. 2, with prolonged darkness, and frost more 
 severe than now exists at the poles. 
 
310 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 Agassiz, amongst others, insists upon a total 
 difference of all fossil remains ; but Bronn denies 
 that this can be proved except in a few cases of 
 shells. Alcide d'Orbiny, though on the side of 
 Agassiz, asserts that he could not see the slightest 
 difference between the conchylia species of the 
 deiitalina communis and rotalina umbilicata, after a 
 most minute comparison. 
 
 Lyell insists on the identity of many of the tertiary 
 and modern shells. He also convinced himself that 
 the shells of Genestro, New York, found near the 
 skeleton of a mastodon, were such as occur now 
 commonly in that locality. Near the Niagara Falls, 
 shells were seen with a perfect skeleton of the 
 mastodon, which belong severally to the living 
 species. At Ilford, shells buried together with fossil 
 quadrupeds, belong, with two or three exceptions, to 
 living ones. Very nearly the same is true of .those found 
 in various parts of the island, the details of which are 
 taken for granted as already known to the reader. 
 Burmeister considers eleven-twelfths of the fossil 
 conchylia on the Rhine identical with living species. 
 Bronn found in the same regions 84 species in soil 
 which abounds with Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros 
 tichorhinvs, and others, of which only three-fourths 
 were extinct. Buckland found that the fossil sea- 
 plants of the oldest formations belong to a species 
 which still survive, or are at least closely related 
 with such as still thrive in warm climates. 
 
 In the West Indian Archipelago, shells were 
 found in older post-pliocene formations which were 
 identified with such as now live in the same latitudes. 
 In the valley of Mississippi, land and sweetwater 
 shells are found in clay together with the fossil 
 mastodon, the elephant and the megalonyx, and 
 
IDENTITY OF SPECIES. 311 
 
 these shells are identical with those now found in 
 the adjoining marshes and woods. 
 
 Deshayes compared 3000 tertiary fossil shells with 
 5000 living ones. The result was that 3-| per cent 
 of the lower tertiary strata were identical with 
 existing ones. In the meso- tertiary strata about 13 
 per cent were found to be the same. In still more 
 modern ones there were about 90 — 95 per cent 
 identical. 
 
 Philippi found that of 99 species of shells found 
 near Naples as belonging to the old fauna, only one, 
 pecten meclius, was extinct in the Mediterranean, but 
 I picked it up many years ago on the shores of the 
 Red Sea. The same savant identified the 25 sea- 
 shells dug up near Palermo with living ones, ex- 
 cepting three only. The bones near which they 
 were found, belong to the Elephas jyrimigenius. A 
 still more favourable result was obtained in Calabria 
 by Philippi, Michelotti, and Sismonda. 
 
 Lamark ascertained that the tertiary strata contain 
 a multitude of fossil shells, some of these identical 
 with living ones, others simply varieties from the 
 latter, which by the rules of classification are per- 
 mitted to bear the same names. Other species he 
 found so nearly allied to living forms that they could 
 not fail to have been connected by a common bond 
 of. descent. Lest it should be considered that this 
 identity of species between many of the fossil and 
 the living shells is advocated only by a few, we add 
 that the opinion is shared by Leonhard, Barrande, 
 Evrald, Murchison, Davidson, Edward Forbes, James 
 Hall, M. Edwards, Haine, Joh. Mllller, M'Coy, 
 Semenov, Cotteau, Quenstedt, Hebert, Bayle, Owen, 
 Pictet, Pveuss, and others. 
 
 What is thus true of the shells, is also true of the 
 
312 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 tertiary flora. The exhaustive catalogue of Goppert, 
 containing 1914 species, shows that the eocene and 
 miocene flora had 90 per cent in common; and 
 Oswald Heer admits the identity of the tertiary- 
 flora in general, as identical with our own. The 
 existence of these identical species refutes altogether 
 the hypothesis that a previous flora and fauna which 
 perished at the flood, is to be assumed in Gen. i. 2. 
 
 This is also true of the fossil species oi fish. 
 J. Miiller has first shown that many of the species, 
 said to be new by Agassiz, were in fact identical 
 with living ones. Of the 75 species found at Monte 
 Bolca, and described by Blainville, 58 seem local, 
 but 17 are identical with those now moving in the 
 Mediterranean. This alone will suffice to break 
 through the partition built between the fossil and 
 living species. Besides, as the number of living fish 
 have increased from 8000 to 10,000 since the publi- 
 cation of the work of Agassiz, it is not unlikely 
 many others will prove identical, on being carefully 
 collated. 
 
 One of the most trustworthy palaeontologists, 
 IT. von Meyer, states in his catalogue of 1852, that 
 the number of fossil mammalia amount to 782 
 species ; of these he considers sixth sevenths extinct, 
 and the rest as surviving. Hence, 111 fossil and 
 recent species are identical, and some, for instance, 
 the remains of the marsh-tortoise, the emys tectum 
 and the gavialis longisortis cannot be distinguished. 
 A crocodile found in the diluvium of the Sivalic 
 mountains, agrees with a living Ganges species to 
 perfection. Two of the fossil Sauria species are the 
 same as are now seen in India. After Wagner had 
 separated the later species in the Muggendorfer cave, 
 there remained 19 species of diluvial fossils, four or 
 
IDENTITY OF SPECIES. 313 
 
 five of which quite agreed with recent kinds, but 
 others were doubtful. 
 
 Professor Owen was not sure of any identical 
 species in the Red Crag and mammaliferous crag 
 which embodies so many living conchylia, but of 53 
 pleistocene or diluvial mammalia, he acknowledged 
 about half belonging to living samples. Cotton also 
 found 20 living species of 42 mammalia in English 
 caves alone. Ehrenberg recognised a large number 
 of the poly grastric a snidforamiuifera in chalk and 
 tertiary formations the same as our present ones. 
 After such testimonies of all the greatest authorities, 
 it ivill not be doubted that the fossil shells, fish, and 
 mammals are the same as our own, with rare excep- 
 tions. 
 
 Pfaff and Wagner agree that a closer comparison 
 of the now living organisms with the fossil ones of 
 former periods, will show that both are related to 
 each other more or less. They belong to the same 
 classes, orders, families, and kinds, in which the 
 living ones have long ago been arranged without 
 any reference to the former. 
 
 Bronn, in his gigantic work, Lethea Geognostica, 
 asserts that many species belong alike to different 
 formations, and he proves that there were tertiary 
 strata, which have specimens in common with living 
 ones, some 0,95, some 0,90, some 0,80, some 0,50, 
 some 0,02. This is true, quite independently of 
 the fact that no line can possibly be drawn between 
 tertiary, pre-tertiary , and post-tertiary strata. Grate- 
 loup insists upon chalk- fossils reappearing in the 
 tertiary strata. The commixture of the formations 
 has often surprised geologists ; we only remind the 
 reader of the mixture of the fossils of divers forma- 
 tions observed by Schafhautl in the Krcssenbeig. 
 
314 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 The sandstone of Gosau yielded, besides the tertiary 
 petrifactions, Pecten quinqueco status and Trigonia 
 scabra, and according to Murchison, ten other kinds 
 of chalk-formation. The green sand of Aachen 
 contains amongst 23 — 33 species, 5 — 7 tertiary ones. 
 In the Crimea many kinds of the tertiary strata 
 transpire into chalk formations, according to M. 
 Dubois. According to Phillipps, the Knapton and 
 Sperton clay in Yorkshire yields 107 fossils — viz., 
 99 out of Chalk and 8 out of the Kimmeridge clay, 
 which belongs to Oolithe. There are other mixtures 
 of Jurassic and cretaceous petrifactions. 
 
 Asrain very remarkable is the formation of St. 
 Cassian in* Southern Tyrol. Among 422 species, 
 389 are quite peculiar ; but it has 7 identical and 5 
 analogous species with those in the Permian and 
 Chalk formations ; with the Trias it has 4 identical 
 and 6 analogous, with the Lias 4 identical and 7 
 analogous, with the Jura, one identical and 2 of an 
 analogous kind. 
 
 Hence the theory that each formation contains a 
 distinct fauna or flora is a groundless hypothesis, 
 which is fast wearing out. We have, with some 
 few exceptions, the same fauna or flora as those 
 buried in the strata. Not only run the formations 
 everywhere into each other, but as we have just seen, 
 the petrifactions do not, as has been assumed, confine 
 themselves to certain strata. Assumptions of this 
 sort will pass away, and men will marvel how the 
 immense chasm which existed in the assumed system 
 of the strata, could be attempted to be bridged over 
 by scientific men. 
 
 But if many of our mammals are identical with 
 the fossil ones, how must we dispose of the differences 
 which exist, where they are alike ? If the diluvial 
 
DIFFERENCE OF SPECIRS. 315 
 
 fossils represent the originals of our mammals, whence 
 the dissimilarity ? It is now admitted that animals 
 may degenerate, and plants if transplanted into 
 other climates will alter. Cuvier contests the as- 
 sumption by reference to the Ibis in its mummified 
 state as not differing from the now living species ; 
 also from the figures of quadrupeds and birds en- 
 graven upon the obelisks. But Savigny and Schubert 
 prove from the skeletons that the old Ibis had a 
 shorter neck, amongst other minor differences, and 
 whilst the old Ibis lived upon poisonous amphibia, 
 the modern one with smaller head and back is satisfied 
 with worms and mollusca. 
 
 Again, there are the modifications among animals. 
 Compare the Kashmere sheep, those on the Senegal 
 without wool ; the fat-tailed sheep of Africa and Asia, 
 and the horned ones in the Wallachai. The wild 
 bull has fourteen ribs, the common one only thirteen. 
 Cuvier examined skulls of oxen in the post diluvial 
 strata, and found them larger than the living ones, 
 their horns, too, having a different direction. The 
 wolf has a different formation from the dog ; having 
 7 vertebra?, the dog only 6. In our domestic 
 animals such changes are effected as even to alter 
 the skeleton. 
 
 In cases where the tame pig descends from the 
 wild swine we have considerable modifications. The 
 latter never has a fat tail, its forehead is more 
 formed, its ears shorter and rounder, and the snout 
 longer. In Columbia the now wild swine have lost 
 all traces of former domesticity. The ears are raised, 
 the head is broader, and its colour fixed. Again, the 
 difference between the wild and tame cat is very 
 conspicuous. The head greatly differs. The latter 
 has countless variations of colour, the former has 
 
316 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 none ; the iliac in proportion to the length total of 
 the body is altered, and appears in the wild cat as 3 
 to 1 , in the tame one as 5 to 1 . 
 
 The wild horse of South America is as different 
 from its progenitor the Spanish horse, as the tame 
 ass from the Kulan, or the domestic pig from the wild 
 swine. Among birds similar changes are noticed. 
 The wild goose, if over fed, becomes unfit to fly. 
 
 The flora and fauna of the Gallipagos islands are 
 quite peculiar yet they cannot deny their American 
 type. If we could watch the changes how much 
 might there be to record, of what has taken place in 
 the lapse of ages ! Taking for granted that changes 
 do take place, the differences between the fossil and 
 the living species need not surprise. Rather it would 
 surprise, if they had remained the same amidst all 
 the changes which have affected the surface of the 
 globe. According to Humboldt the larger types of 
 these fossil giants are quite in their place, and he 
 holds that our lizard under a southern sun would 
 soon be converted into the colossal and harnessed 
 crocodile. 
 
 If the temperature of our globe underwent great 
 changes, if sea and land have not always been in the 
 same relations to each other in which they now are, 
 the physiognomy of nature and her organisms must 
 have experienced analogous changes. Schubert con- 
 siders the great changes which were ushered in by 
 the deluge, sufficient to account for all the transforma- 
 tions and differences seen to exist between the fossil 
 and the living organisms of the present day. 
 
 But if we can account for the difference existing 
 in many cases between petrified and living organisms, 
 how are we to account for the fact that so many of 
 the fossil animals are extinct now a day? To 
 
EXTINCTION OF SPECIES. 317 
 
 answer this question, first notice the character of 
 these missing links, and thus pave our way. They 
 are gigantic monstrosities, endowed pre-eminently 
 with murderous propensities. According to Schu- 
 bert, the Jura-formations are more particularly dis- 
 tinguished by extinct giant lizards and sauria of 
 immense size, and furnished with the most terrible 
 teeth. 
 
 The first monster which appears is the Rhinoceros- 
 Lizard or the Iguanodon. It carried a mighty horn 
 upon its forehead. We may guess its gigantic pro- 
 portions from the remains which have been dug up. 
 A bone of the front leg was found in the Isle of 
 Wight, twice as broad as the corresponding one of 
 the Elephant, and weighing sixty pounds. Buck- 
 land estimated the whole length of the monster to 
 have been from 70 — 80 feet, of which about 25 came 
 to the tail. 
 
 The Plesiosaurns is another of those monstrosities. 
 It had the head of a lizard and the teeth of a 
 crocodile, with a long neck something like the body 
 of a snake, the trunk and the tail of a mammal, the 
 ribs of camaelion, and the paddles of a whale. It 
 has been described in general appearance as if a 
 serpent were thrust through the body of a tortoise. 
 Its neck had 33 vertebrae, whilst even the giraffe, 
 the camel, and the Lama, have only ten; the total 
 number of its vertebras being about 90. Cuvier 
 says that if anything could justify the hydras and 
 other monsters of antiquity, the forms of which con- 
 stantly reappeared in the architectural monuments 
 of the middle ages, it would be the form of the 
 Plesiosaurus. 
 
 The Pterodactilus, or flying Saurus, is so marvel- 
 lously constructed, that when first discovered it was 
 
318 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 regarded as a bird by one naturalist ; as a species of 
 a gigantic bat by another ; as a flying reptile by a 
 third, being a monster-compound of all these forms. 
 The beak was furnished with not less than 60 
 sharply pointed teeth. Its enormous eyes enabled the 
 monster to fly by night. The very skeleton is awe- 
 inspiring and dreadful. It could walk upon its hind 
 legs like a human being, although its balancing 
 point fell into the region of the neck. The fore- 
 finger was bent backward. It is supposed to have 
 lived in the air, on land, and in the water. Cuvier, 
 in his Ossemens fossiles p. 379 says: "Ce sont 
 incontestablement de tous les etres dont le livre 
 nous rewele 1'ancienne existence, les plus extra- 
 ordinaires, et ceux qui, si on les voyait vivans, parai- 
 traient les plus Granges a toute la nature actuelle." 
 
 Not less terrible is the Ichthyosaurus, or the 
 monster fish-lizard, with its immense eyes, a head 
 something like a dolphin, having a long beak sharply 
 pointed, the fins of a whale, an immense tail, being 
 a reptile monster of about 30 feet in length. The 
 eyeholes measure about 14 inches in diameter. The 
 extentability of the jaw, provided with terrible 
 teeth, is sometimes calculated over six feet. 
 
 Still more appalling are the Mosasaurus and the 
 Megalosaurus ; the former 40 — 50 long and armed 
 with strong teeth down the very throat, the latter a 
 lizard, as large as a whale. The latter had a throat 
 bristling with teeth, which, by their mechanical 
 arrangement resembled a knife, a dagger, and a saw. 
 The head and throat are 5 — 6 feet lon^, and still 
 larger in circumference, so that the monster could 
 crush an ox with a single bite. 
 
 From the remains of these monster reptiles with 
 their colossal weapons of destruction we may guess 
 
EXTINCTION OF SPECIES. 310 
 
 what dreadful battles must have been fought by 
 them. There were also flying serpents, passing 
 noiselessly through the air, living both on fish and 
 insects, upon which they descended like the swallows 
 upon the gnats. 
 
 Land mammalia also counted among them monster 
 forms of which we can have but a faint idea. Think 
 of the Mylodon robusfus, the Dinotherium, the 
 Mastodon, and the Megatherium, the last of which 
 having shoulders five feet broad, and the rest of their 
 frame in proportion. Though there are still living 
 representative forms among living species of the 
 fossil world, yet the Sauria and the Pachydermata, 
 seem to have nothing in common with the present 
 order of things. 
 
 It is indeed not so much the vast magnitude of 
 tli is monstrous reptile tribe which inspires terror, as 
 the destructiveness of their murderous apparatus. 
 The flying Sauria remind us especially of those flying 
 dragons of which the old world fabled so much. The 
 Scriptures also make the dragon the symbol of a 
 deadly and poisonous power. See Psalms lxxiv. 13, 
 and xci. 13 ; Rev. xii. 3, 4, 9, 13, 16, 17 ; xiii. 2, 4, 
 11 ; xvi. 13 ; xx. 2. In Rev. xii. 9 ; xx. 2, the devil 
 is called the Old Serpent. 
 
 This shows at least so much, that murder and 
 malice were typified more than anywhere else in 
 serpents and in the dragon-like animal types. And 
 this explains why these creatures could be taken as 
 types of Satan's character and work of murder. The 
 colossal serpent-like murderers among fossil remains 
 could not fail to explain that all flesh had corrupted 
 its ways before God. 
 
 In Genesis vi. we read of an unnatural commixture 
 of the Sons of God and the daughters of men, the 
 
320 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 offspring of whom were giants, mighty men, men of 
 renown. In consequence of this commingling of the 
 two branches, we hear that wickedness abounded, 
 and God determines to destroy from the " earth, 
 both man and beast, the creeping thing and the 
 fowls of the air." Lest it should appear unjust to 
 doom the irrational creatures to destruction, it is 
 added, verse 11, that " the earth was filled with 
 violence, and God looked upon the earth and it was 
 corrupt, for all flesh (not only men as before stated) 
 had corrupted his ivay upon the earth," and " God 
 said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, 
 for the earth is filled with violence through them ; 
 literally, from their faces or presence — {i.e., the 
 several constituents of that fles has named in verse 7) 
 and I will destroy them — (i.e., man, beast, and bird) 
 with the earth." 
 
 None can fail to perceive that the earth is here 
 threatened to be destroyed on account of the violence 
 which had filled it. Those that have done so are 
 named, verse 7, in their individualities, and col- 
 lectively as all flesh, " all living things, wherein is the 
 breath of life." See verses 12, 13, 17. 
 
 All flesh, literally " the totality of flesh " had cor- 
 rupted its way. As the corrupting of their ways 
 resulted in giant forms among men, so a parallel 
 corrupting of the way among the brute creation, 
 may have produced giant beasts. Unnatural mix- 
 tures in both respects produced monstrosities. These 
 giant monsters among the animal world Avould have 
 hastened the filling of the earth with violence, es- 
 pecially with the vast numbers, which to judge from 
 their remains, must have filled the earth. In the 
 Gailenreuth cave alone were found 800 bears, 130 
 wolves, hyenas, lions, and gluttons ! But we go a 
 
EXTINCTION OF SOME SPECIES. 321 
 
 step further, and add, that the direction given to 
 Noah to preserve seed of the animals, positively- 
 excluded the monster forms, in whatever way 
 originated, from the ark. Which were the animals 
 to he admitted ? In Genesis i. four classes of living 
 creatures are named — I) chajjah hadrez, the wild 
 beasts of the earth ; 2) behemah, cattle, tame domestic 
 animals; 3) remes, creeping things, and 4), birds. 
 When Noah, Genesis vi. 19, was first commanded 
 to take to him" of every living thing," the 
 command was more fully explained in verse 20, 
 1) fowls; 2) cattle; and 3) creeping things. In 
 Genesis vii. 8, we are told that Noah took 1) of the 
 cattle; 2) of the birds, and 3) of the creeping 
 things. The chajjath hadraz, the beasts of the earth, 
 are not named in either place. But when, chap, 
 vii. 21, the record speaks of the animals which remain 
 without the ark, the chajjath, beasts, are named with 
 the birds, cattle, and creeping things. When the 
 animals come out of the ark, the beasts of the earth, 
 are again missing ; only birds, cattle, and creeping 
 things come forth. Noah, therefore, received no 
 command to take wild beasts, or degenerated mon- 
 sters into the ark. And it cannot surprise us that 
 they have not survived. * 
 
 There may be other fossil organisms which 
 have not survived the deluge, and that without their 
 being of a monstrous degeneracy. In Exodus ix. 6, 
 all the cattle of Egypt died ; yet in verse 19, we have 
 
 * The Hindu Pooranas tell of Manu tying his ship to the 
 horned fish, which had appeared to him " like a mountain huge 
 and high ;" and according to the Talmud, King Og of Bashan, 
 Deut. iii. 9, remained as one of the great giants, and he is said to 
 have saved himself by riding over the flood upon an unicorn, which 
 was tied by Noah to the ark. 
 
 W 
 
322 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 still cattle in Egypt that are to be gathered. In 
 like manner, the command of Noah to gather species 
 of all living creatures does not imply that this was 
 to he carried out in its literality; only those that 
 seek occasion to reject it, will insist upon this. 
 
 That there should he fossils of beiugs now extinct 
 cannot surprise, as it is quite certain that many 
 species which survived the deluge are found no 
 more. The Behemoth and Leviathan, which are not 
 sufficiently intelligible, as well as the Dodo, which 
 disappeared in America, and the sea cow on the 
 Behring Island, which hecame extinct within the 
 last thirty years, and the Bhytina belong to this 
 class. To these animals, become extinct, since the 
 flood, allusions seem to be made in the Mbelun- 
 genlied. * 
 
 Having thus been led back to the idea held for 
 ages by the Jewish and Christian Churches, that the 
 fossil remains brought to light appertain to the 
 delude of Genesis, it remains to be seen whether 
 there be any further means either to shake or cor- 
 roborate these impressions. Dickinson writes : — 
 " There is a freshness about the earth, cut into it 
 where we will, which shows it has seldom been dis- 
 turbed beyond pre-historic times, and which altoge- 
 ther refutes the theories of any older age than that 
 
 * A vent. xvi. we read : — 
 
 935. Er (Sifrit) was an alien dingen biderbe genuoc, 
 sin tier was daz erste daz er ze tode sluoc, 
 ein vil starkez h a 1 p f u 1 , mit der sinen hant : 
 darnach er vil sciere einen ungefuegen lewen vant. 
 937. Darnach sluoc er sciere einenwisent und einen elch 
 starker ure viere und einen grimmen scelch. 
 sin ros truoc in so balde, daz ir im niht entran. 
 hirze oder hind en kunde im wenic engan. 
 
 PfeifferD. CI. d. M. III. 173, u. f. 
 
THE ANCIENT VIEW OF THE FOSSILS. 323 
 
 accorded to it by the Bible. The confirmation is so 
 strong that instead of any disagreement, the truth of 
 the whole Scriptures might be rested upon the literal 
 account to which I have referred, and which upon 
 careful examination with observed facts, will dispel 
 many of the current crude geological theories." 
 
 In another part, Mr. Dickinson reminds us that 
 " the washing away of Continents would not produce 
 distinct deposits like these, but rather a mixture ; 
 and the deposits are not such as we now find pro- 
 duced by any known washing away. Had the earth 
 been thus built up piecemeal, we should have found 
 the central parts of basins, where the strata are 
 thickest, to be more compressed than where they are 
 thinner. But all are of the same specific gravity, 
 depending only upon the material of which each is 
 composed. Underground beds of rivers might also 
 have been found, and similar indications, if there 
 had been previous surfaces to the earth. But nothing 
 like the present surface or its covering has been met 
 with. Something like the bed of a river has been 
 traced out in one of the coal seams in the Forest of 
 Dean, and a paper was once read upon it, ascribing 
 it to the running off of water ; but extended re- 
 searches have since shown that even this isolated 
 instance is only a want in the seam occasioned by a 
 fault." 
 
 Again, he says : " If rocks, such as hard silicious 
 sandstone, limestone, &c, had been denuded, to the 
 extent supposed, and which would be required to 
 account in this way for what is to be seen, what has 
 become of them ? Many thousands of feet in depth 
 are wanting. On a line bet ween Bolton and Pendleton, 
 the strata are thrown down 3000 feet to the north, 
 by a fault, but the surface is levelled down, and does 
 
 
324 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 not indicate the fault. Granite, metamorphic, and 
 sometimes the carboniferous formations also are 
 found alike, the one upon as high an elevation as 
 the other. That which has disappeared would not 
 all be reduced to dust, if it had been denuded. Im- 
 mense blocks must have been dislodged, pieces of 
 some of which would be left. But no such lumps 
 are to be found in any of the supposed since-formed 
 strata. There are pebbles in the present surface 
 covering of the earth, but these are far from being 
 sufficient in quantity to account for what is wanting. ' ' 
 
 Wagner maintains that geology is not able to dis- 
 tinguish two or more general deluges which have 
 been assumed, since even the last of the cataclysms 
 would naturally rouse the surface of the sediment 
 which may have preceded it. This is very intelligible, 
 and very important to remember since it breaks up 
 the notion of a succession of floods. He adds that 
 the Noachidian deluge increased not simply the 
 diluvial formations by adding a fresh layer, but it 
 overthrew the previous ones, if they existed, and 
 united them so as to render it impossible for geology 
 to separate them and to arrange them chronologically. 
 If then we cannot determine which is this diluvial or 
 alluvial sediment, the whole theory falls to the 
 ground. I remind the reader that only secondary 
 and tertiary formations, which were formed by water, 
 embody fossil remains. 
 
 The last flood must have destroyed the combina- 
 tions of previous floods, and the Mosaic deluge would 
 also have destroyed the fossil deposits in the interior 
 of previous strata, which are supposed to have 
 existed. Not less in harmony with our view that 
 the deluge is the sole cause of the entire change in 
 the crust of the earth, is the fact that sea organisms 
 
ANCIENT VIEW VINDICATED. 325 
 
 in a fossil state are often found in a stratum which 
 superimposes upon strata with land fossils. 
 
 Again the bone caves lie mostly at an altitude in 
 which ordinary floods and inundations could not 
 have been the cause of their being replenished. 
 Near Bogota fossil bones are found 7 — 8000 feet 
 high. Many have been washed down from the 
 Bolivian Cordilleras. In Portland the teeth of a 
 mastodon were discovered 12,000 feet high. Fossil- 
 bones of a horse, deer, &c, &c, were brought down 
 from the Himalaya by lavines 16,000 feet high. If 
 animals were destroyed at such a height by water, 
 if the Cordilleras stood under water 13,000, and the 
 Himalaya 16,000 feet, Genesis supplies the records of 
 such a flood ; and what should hinder us from assum- 
 ing that the animals there buried were driven up 
 by the rising waters, or if not driven up before the 
 waters, they were deposited there after floating upon 
 its surface ? It is vain to surmise that these animals 
 ever lived at such altitudes and that the atmosphere 
 was differently constituted. We know that the 
 water reached such heights from other observations, 
 and it is far more likely that they were either flooded 
 there, or that in the hour of their terror they sought 
 to escape death by ascending and hiding in the caves 
 where they are found. 
 
 Prom this also we explain the equal distribution 
 of the fossil remains over the whole surface of the 
 earth. Only on the assumption of the mighty flood 
 of Genesis, can we explain the fact that tropical 
 animals, such as elephants, should now be found in 
 the coldest zones. 
 
 Books have been written without number enlarg- 
 ing upon the progression which is said to be observed 
 in the fossil strata from the lowest to the highest 
 
326 CHAP. VIL GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 organisms ; though it is admitted by Wagner, " that 
 the idea that the primeval organisms ascended the 
 ladder of progression from the less to the more per- 
 fect types has after more accurate researches not 
 been confirmed as altogether correct." And what is 
 the real outcome as regards this famous theory of 
 progression ? We do indeed notice a certain order, 
 out such as is altogether consistent with our view of 
 the fossil world at large. If there be any order it is 
 simply this ; we first discover sea vegetation and 
 water organisms. This seems natural enough since 
 the sediments of former seas could not rise, nor was 
 it possible that the land vegetation of an over-flooded 
 surface could escape the coming flood. According 
 to Hainlen, there is no type with respiratory organs 
 among the species in the paleozoic or secondary 
 strata. Again, the mass of organic animal fossils are 
 mainly found in the Jura and in chalk formations. 
 In the Jura strata we have about 1,000 species of 
 animals, and only seven species of plants. In the 
 still higher chalk formations we count 111 kinds of 
 animals, and only one of plants ! But in the Per- 
 mian and Trias formations below them, and that 
 apart from the conifer tribes, we have 148 kinds of 
 plants, and only ten of animals. Still lower in the 
 coal strata we have only 13 species of fossil animals 
 to 250 species of fossil plants. 
 
 All this is not proof of the progression theory, 
 but simply that all the living creatures either sought 
 to escape the water as long as possible, or when over- 
 taken, they floated upon the surface till deposited. 
 Such an instinct to escape the perils of the water 
 doubtless drove the extraordinary number of the 
 heterogeneous animals together to the caves where 
 they are still found entombed. Persons who have 
 
ANCIENT VIEW VINDICATED. 327 
 
 never witnessed an inundation cannot conceive the 
 terror excited in animals, in which they press up 
 steep hills; cattle and pigs have been known 
 to climb steep narrow staircases, scarcely fit for 
 human beings to ascend, and remain perfectly 
 quiet under the very roof of the house. This also 
 explains the total absence of fossil birds in the lower 
 strata, which cannot be expounded in any other way, 
 than by the fact that all the formations are the 
 result of one catastrophe, in which the birds most 
 naturally betook themselves to higher regions. 
 
 We noticed ere this that Buckland first ascribed 
 all the fossils to the Noachidian deluge, but that he 
 was driven from this view. It may here not be out 
 of place to ask what were his reasons for shifting 
 his ground. There is often much to learn from 
 examining the reasons which induce great men to 
 change their opinion. The Dean candidly allows 
 that discoveries made, since the publication of his 
 Reliquiae diluvince, prove first, that many of the 
 animals described therein existed during more than 
 one period, which preceded the catastrophe by which 
 they were destroyed. Secondly, the flood of Genesis 
 he holds was described as having been so gradual 
 and so short as to produce only a very slight impres- 
 sion upon the globe. Thirdly, the prevalence of ex- 
 tinct animals found in caves and in the upper 
 layers of the diluvium, as also the not finding of 
 human remains amongst them, affords to his mind 
 another reason for ascribing these species to a period, 
 older than the creation of man. 
 
 It remains now to test the arguments which 
 induced Buckland to give up the idea that the dilu- 
 vium was caused by the last great deluge, and to 
 
328 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 consider the diluvial flood and that of Noah as two 
 distinct phenomena. 
 
 The weakest of all is the ground that the general 
 inundation recorded by Moses had transpired so 
 calmly. Who can tell how it was ? Where do 
 we read that it was so tranquil ? What havoc 
 the simple bursting of a single lake or reser- 
 voir, or the inroad of the sea upon the mainland, 
 or the bursting of a common waterspout, is known 
 to make, not to speak of a deluge which overflooded 
 the highest mountains ! 
 
 We know that the waters burst forth from the 
 bowels of the earth. Is it not reasonable that the 
 primal cause of these outpourings of the subterraneous 
 waters were bond fide earthquakes, and the cause of 
 earthquakes is very intelligible. In describing the 
 events of the flood, much was naturally omitted. 
 The Hindu Pooranas in recording their floods, speak 
 of the heavenly bodies being shrouded in gloom, 
 mighty tempests trouble the ocean ; the catastrophe 
 is ushered in by a hundred years of rain, and whilst 
 for a hundred years more storms and hurricanes are 
 fiercely drifting, dismal vapours darken the sky, 
 circling masses of fire envelop the world in a uni- 
 versal conflagration. The Arabian and Persian flood 
 legends also speak of terrible commotions, of thunder 
 and lightning, and earthquake, of the heavenly 
 bodies being shaken, and boiling water poured 
 forth ; the Jews even dated the boiling fountains 
 of Gadara, Biram, and Tiberias from the flood. 
 
 Another reason Buckland gave to justify his 
 change was the finding of diluvial animals in deeper 
 lying strata than the diluvium. We have given 
 evidence out of the mouths of leading geologists that 
 the theory of strata is a mere myth. The very fact 
 
ANCIENT VIEW VINDICATED. 329 
 
 that there is no such marked line anywhere, which 
 could be fixed as a boundary of one or another fossil, 
 shows that the whole fabric is a spider's web. 
 
 The last objection respecting the non-existence of 
 human remains in the diluvial formation, could, even 
 in Buckland's time, have no weight at all, since at 
 any moment it might be overthrown, as Buckland 
 indeed himself admitted, that the cradle of mankind 
 had not yet been examined. Our part of the world 
 may not yet have been inhabited. The not finding 
 of bones even would not prove that man had not 
 lived before the flood, whenever it may have taken 
 place. In addition it must be remembered that two- 
 thirds of the surface of the globe, we may say almost 
 three-fourths, are under water ; and of the last third, 
 nine-tenths bear self-evident signs that they were 
 once standing under water, at least for a time. 
 What may be hidden in those depths is hard to 
 guess. 
 
 But human remains have been found, and that in 
 conjunction with the extinct animals above alluded 
 to, and not once or twice, but on many occasions. 
 Dr. Schmerling, forty- five years ago, discovered 
 human remains in the Belgian caves in the valley 
 of the Meuse, together with what are called ante- 
 diluvian beasts, and amongst those human remains, 
 the skull of Engis caused special attention, though 
 less importance was attached to it at the time than 
 it deserved. Under similar conditions a skull was 
 found in the Neanderthal ; another in the Arno 
 valley, which is still preserved in the museum at 
 Florence. Human remains and human products 
 were further discovered in various parts of France, 
 and that not simply in the diluvium, but also in 
 the tertiary strata. At Aurignac, in the Departe- 
 
330 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 ment Haute-Garonne, on the northern slope of 
 the Pyrenees, not less than seventeen fossil skele- 
 tons, and human products were revealed, toge- 
 ther with so-called tertiary animal remains, in 
 the year 1852 ; but as the Maire had them buried 
 in the churchyard without even marking: the spot, 
 they were for ever withdrawn from further exami- 
 nation. At Abbeville human bones were found 
 fifteen feet beneath the ground ; and Boucher de 
 Perthes recognised human workmanship near Amiens 
 in a locality known as a Mammoth bed. In the 
 south of Prance the Mammoth strata revealed 
 human products with certain figures made upon 
 them, the most remarkable of them being an ivory 
 plate with the figure of several mammoths carved 
 upon it, and though done in very simple outlines, 
 a child will recognise them. 
 
 In 1859 was found in a lower miocene stratum at 
 Colle de Vento, near Savona, in the north of Italy, a 
 lower jaw-bone, with every mark of a fossil char- 
 acter. In California human remains were dis- 
 covered in the tertiary strata 130 feet deep. Again, 
 we read of the discovery of human remains by Lund 
 in the Brazils, also in Essequibo in Guiana, and on 
 the Mississippi by Natchez ; and most of these re- 
 posed in the tertiary strata. 
 
 Near llegensburg, in 1872, in a cave pierced by a 
 railway, human remains were found with animals of 
 the palaeotherian period, such as the Rhinoceros, the 
 Mammoth and others. The same is true of Bohemia, 
 and especially of Wiirtemberg, of which little has been 
 known till quite recently. Since 1870 were exhumed 
 in the Hohlefels, in the Achtthal, by Dr. Praas, human 
 remains, portions of human hands and fragments of 
 human products, together with so-called antediluvian 
 
ANCIENT VIEW VINDICATED. 331 
 
 animals. In 1861, in the Lonethal, in another cave, 
 among 40 complete skeletons, and 375 lower jaw- 
 bones of the bear, were discovered human bones and 
 human products. In one of the many other bone 
 caves of Wiirtemberg, 50 human skeletons were 
 discovered among cartloads of animal bones, belong- 
 ing mostly to the ursus spelceus. There may be 
 seen the femur of a male, bones of the arm and of 
 the head, interspersed with the bones of the Pachi- 
 dermata, the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, and of car- 
 nivorous animals. 
 
 In short, human remains are coming to light more 
 and more every day, in all parts of the world. That 
 they are not more frequent is no marvel, when we 
 remember the greater destructibility of the human 
 body compared with other bodies. Under certain 
 conditions the body of man decays far more rapidly 
 than that of animals. Human bones are proved to 
 be more destructible than animal bones, owing to 
 the greater amount of phosphor in the former. Nor 
 could bones of antediluvians be compared with those 
 of the post-diluvians, since, as far as I know, it has 
 not yet been proved what effect animal food, 
 which was only introduced after the flood, is likely 
 to have upon the body of man. If we confine our- 
 selves to science, we find that the question of man 
 existing together with fossil animals has as often 
 been answered in the affirmative as the negative. 
 
 Buckland did not alter his opinion expressed in 
 his famous book, Eeliqitice diluvianos, without a pang. 
 "VVe have briefly seen that not one of his reasons 
 given for altering stands good at the present hour. 
 If the reasons which prompted him to alter, fall to 
 the ground, such, more especially, as the not finding 
 human remains, all the previous arguments hold 
 
332 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 good, and I therefore claim the full authority of that 
 learned man in support of the opinion which is re- 
 asserted in this treatise — namely, that all the main 
 petrifactions are witnesses of the Biblical deluge. 
 
 5. Alleged Difficulties of Genesis reviewed, and 
 Methods suggested for solving them. 
 
 Since science has at length admitted the absolute 
 necessity of the physical universe having had a 
 beginning, Genesis can no longer be objected to on 
 that score ; but its not giving any account of the fossil 
 strata of our globe, is deemed a serious defect. The 
 question arises, Do they date from a period prior to 
 the hexaemeron, or from the creation week itself, or 
 have we to ascribe them to the Noacliidian deluge ? 
 Three methods have suggested themselves to answer 
 the threefold inquiry, the last of which, as far as I 
 know, will be new to the reader. 
 
 1. The first method to reconcile the alleged dis- 
 sonance between the Bible and science recognises in 
 Genesis i. 1, the account of the creation of a far more 
 glorious world than the present, and our planet is re- 
 garded as the former abode of holy angels. When 
 they fell from their high estate, their abode became 
 without form and void ; and the real work of the 
 hexaemeron was the renewal of the fallen and ruined 
 earth to render it a fit dwelling place for the human 
 race, created as a substitute for the fallen angels. This 
 Restitution theory, has been adopted by many distin- 
 guished theologians and sciologists, as furnishing ample 
 scope for the most extravagant geological theories. 
 The theory itself was known to the early gnostics, who 
 held that the creation of the material world was in 
 itself the result of the fall of the spirit world. It was 
 taught by Origen in a modified sense ; and was well 
 
THE RESTITUTION HYPOTHESIS. 33:5 
 
 known in the fifth century in this country as will 
 appear from the fragment of a hymn by Csedmon, the 
 celebrated Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastic, as it is preserved 
 in King Alfred's translation of Bede. When Edgar 
 confirmed the code of Oswald, he declared that God 
 drove the fallen angels from this planet, and ordained 
 kings, that under their influence righteousness might 
 again flourish in the earth. It was also the teaching of 
 the Hebrew Sohar and of the Kabbala, and of the 
 Book of the Jubilees. The simple grammatical sense 
 of the words in Genesis will not allow us to assume 
 that the earth became "void and without form," as 
 it plainly states that the earth in a certain stage of 
 its genesis was void and without form. Besides, if 
 the fossil inclosures were to date from a period prior 
 to the creation week, it will be hard to conceive that 
 the monsters they reveal were suitable companions 
 for the pure and holy angel spirits that are supposed 
 to have inhabited this globe. On the contrary, the 
 monster forms seem to point rather to satanic, than 
 to angelic beings. It was stated with considerable 
 plausibility that providentially two blank leaves 
 were left between the three first verses of chapter i., 
 the one between the first and the second, the other 
 between the second and third verses, which it was 
 intended science should fill up, and no geologist it 
 was thought, could possibly hinder those leaves being 
 filled up. All the concession asked from geology 
 was one great general deluge prior to the advent of 
 man, together with the flora and fauna created for 
 his more especial use. 
 
 But the advantage of this theory is not so 
 great as might have seemed at first sight, for 
 we are not at liberty to interpose anything we 
 choose between those opening verses. When it 
 
334 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 is stated that God created the heaven and the 
 earth, we at once expect some details as to the 
 nature of that creation, which are immediately 
 given. Besides, the words of Exodus xx. 9 — 11, 
 xxxi. 12 — 17, forbid our attaching any meaning to 
 them which could he reconciled with this mode of 
 procedure. Nor could we reconcile the creation of 
 animals on the fifth day with a like creation at any 
 previous period, more especially as the supposed old 
 fossil animals are not so wholly different from those 
 created on the fifth day as was at first assumed. 
 The fossil flora, too, we have seen was not so different 
 from what we now have, and neither the one nor the 
 other could have existed before there was light. 
 
 After doing violence to the text in various ways 
 which is in itself a proof of the falsity of the theory, 
 it could not after all satisfy geology, since the new 
 creation of the hexaemeron must be taken to have 
 been accomplished in a few brief periods of twenty- 
 four hours. We cannot assume that part of the 
 creation should have demanded immeasurable ages, 
 and part of it within the narrow span of an ordinary 
 week ; science at least would demand the same slow 
 measured process of growth and evolution in both 
 creations, in the second no less than the first. We 
 save ourselves the inconvenience of crowding the 
 fossil strata into the six days of creation, if we place 
 the mountains with their fossil inclosures before the 
 hexaemeron, and assume that they only appeared 
 on the third day on the retiring of the waters. But 
 this would satisfy neither the divine nor the 
 geologist. 
 
 Geology cannot be satisfied because the petri- 
 factions are not only found in the mountains, 
 but also in the so-called tertiary and post-tertiary 
 
THE RESTITUTION IIYrOTHESIS. 335 
 
 strata, and the most important are found in the 
 sediment of valleys. The fossils, therefore, cannot 
 date from a period prior to Genesis i. If any prior 
 date be admitted, the animals whose remains are 
 buried in the strata, must have lived, if not before 
 the creation of the sun and the heavenly bodies, yet 
 certainly before they commenced their regular func- 
 tions ; but it is clear that these animals lived, and 
 the flora flourished under circumstances very much 
 resembling our own. If so, then their ruin must 
 have extended to the solar system. If a former solar 
 system was dissolved by fire or some other agency 
 unknown to us, then we cannot see how any remains 
 of organic fossils could possibly have come down to 
 us. The bare idea that a former universe was dis- 
 solved, is inconsistent with the preservation of the 
 petrifactions. This theory of reconciliation was 
 advocated by thoughtful and gifted men, such as 
 Chalmers, Buckland, Stier, von Schubert, Hengsten- 
 berg, Kuntz, Wagner, Delitsch, Victor de Bonald, 
 Rougemont, and many others. 
 
 2. Another method of reconciliation between 
 Genesis and science, the Bay-period theory, which 
 dates the fossils from the creation days or the 
 hexaemeron itself, has been suggested by de Luc, 
 Cuvier, Marcel de Serres, Beudent, Steffens, Pfaff, 
 Hugh Miller, Bossuet, Nicolas, Ebrard, Martensen, 
 and Delitzsch. The theory suggested itself when 
 geology and palaeontology pressed sore upon what 
 must be taken as the literal sense of the book of 
 Genesis, and it was plausibly started stating 
 that the term day, like hour, or year, in Scripture, 
 had another besides the first and most literal mean- 
 ing. But granting that "day of the Lord," "the 
 day of wrath," " the day of salvation," " the accept- 
 
33G CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 able year " have a wider sense, yet the literal sense 
 of any Scripture term must be adhered to, unless the 
 very strongest objections exist against it. In this 
 case the abandoning of the literal sense will cause 
 endless confusion. For instance, in Genesis i. the 
 plants appear on the third day, the water-animals 
 and birds on the fifth, and the land-animals on the 
 sixth. In geology the animals appear as early as the 
 plants. Again, the Bible only recognises a single 
 flora and fauna, but geology demands several of these. 
 Lastly, if the days be periods, the life of Adam 
 becomes mythical in its duration, and his age itself 
 would be made up of geological periods. 
 
 God called the light day, Genesis i. 5. A day, there- 
 fore, was light, separated from darkness, and as the 
 morning which preceded, and the evening which fol- 
 lowed it, were regarded as parts of such a day, it came 
 to designate the natural day, measured by the natural 
 change of light and darkness, or day and night. This 
 applies to all the six days. The non-existence of the 
 sun during the first days, can create no difficulty ; was 
 there not light before the light-bearers were created, 
 and is it not possible to conceive an alternation of 
 light and darkness before the creation of the sun ? 
 The first four days may have differed, but they were 
 days nevertheless. The revolutions, if there were 
 such, may have been slower, yet the globular shape 
 of the earth shows that it commenced at an early 
 term of its existence and before it had attained the 
 consistency it now possesses. But whether the first 
 days were longer or not, they were probably in no 
 very great disproportion to those which were after- 
 wards fixed, when the sun and the moon began to 
 rule the day and the night, instead of the primitive 
 
 light. 
 
THE DAY-PERIOD THEORY. 337 
 
 The acceptation of the literal day is lastly 
 alone in accordance with the institution of the 
 seventh day of rest. If God made this earth for 
 man, and if the narrative of its being made was 
 meant for man, the very duration of the creative 
 agency must have been typical, giving scope 
 for man's future life, for he was made in the 
 image of God. This is suggested by the law of the 
 Sabbath, Exodus xx. xxxi. If some have attri- 
 buted the origin of the " seven- day-week " to the 
 division of the lunar month into equal periods 
 of duration, of which each contains 7-J , or without a 
 fraction, seven days, and if others derive it directly 
 from the cosmogonic tradition, the " fundamental 
 tones of which," according to Tuch, " are heard echo- 
 ing in the most varied harmonies, from the Ganges to 
 the Nile," we have the same difference of principle 
 which now a day causes one person to devote 
 Sunday to rest and pleasure, and another to 
 rest and devotion.* 
 
 The prophets speak of days in a sense not literal, but 
 nowhere, as in the book of Genesis is it added that 
 those days consisted of morning and evening. Much 
 less have we given in the prophets a fixed number of 
 days which extend from evening to evening, but they 
 always speak of days indefinitely. The prophetic use 
 of the term " day " does not therefore justify us in 
 regarding fixed days limited by morning and evening 
 as longer than our own days. The divine institution 
 
 * I am not prepared to charge Dr. Colenso either with bad 
 faith or with ignorance, bnt I protest when Delitzsch, Com. Genesis 
 p. 82, is so far mistranslated as to make him express Dr. Colenso's 
 own sentiments, and I request in all fairness that the mistake 
 be corrected. Delitzsch says exactly the contrary of what he is 
 made to say. 
 
 X 
 
338 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 of the seven-day- week was clearly to be the founda- 
 tion of the days of the human Aveek of labour and 
 rest. Not the seventh part of any indefinite period, 
 but definitely the seventh day was to be kept holy ; 
 and with this an ordinary week of creation will far 
 better agree than day-periods. Besides, Israel, least 
 of all nations, was accustomed to think of ages of 
 creation periods. This might better suit the Pagan 
 cosmogonies with their interminable cycles. To 
 Israel, it was true, what is written, Psalm xxxiii. 9 : 
 " He spake and it was done ; He commanded and it 
 stood fast." 
 
 Science also is against the theory before us. 
 Geology cannot submit to such a vast interim, 
 between the flora and the fauna ; the petrifactions, 
 on the contrary, were entombed by a catastrophe 
 which overtook both simultaneously ; and it is idle for 
 Hugh Miller to speak of the first azoic day or period ; 
 of the second Silurian and old red sandstone day or 
 period ; of the carboniferous third day or period ; 
 of the fourth Permian and triassic day or period ; of 
 the fifth oolitic and cretaceous day or period, and 
 of the sixth tertiary day or period. 
 
 Some have appealed to the Fathers of the Church 
 in favour of the day period theory, but their opinion 
 seems rather to have inclined in an opposite direction. 
 Whenever they abandoned the literal sense of the 
 term "day," it was not because they considered the 
 days too short, but rather too long for accomplishing 
 the several acts of creation. It might indeed appear 
 from the Epistle of St. Barnabas, chap, xi., that the 
 Fathers were in favour of the theory, but the 
 Epistle simply assumes that since a day with God is 
 as a thousand years, the world created in six days 
 will come to an end in 6,000 years, and that the 
 
THE DAY-PERIOD THEORY. 339 
 
 great Sabbath will then immediately follow. This 
 was also the view of St. Augustine and Basilius, who 
 were both equally far from believing that each 
 creation-day extended over thousands of years. 
 Philo, Clemens, and others taught that the work of 
 creation was the act of a moment, and though the 
 several acts of creation were divided into six days, 
 yet that actually they fell together into one and the 
 same omnipotent act. Origen infers from Genesis 
 ii. 4, that Celsus had no cause to mock at Moses for 
 teaching that there were days before the creation 
 of the sun and the moon. An instantaneous crea- 
 tion of the universe is also taught by Athanasius, 
 Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine ; 
 and this seems to have been encouraged by the 
 version of Aquila which gives the words: — "In the 
 beginning," as if it stood: — "At once, as a whole." 
 The six days' works in this case were simply 
 regarded from a pedagogical point of view, as so 
 many glimpses, aspects of the creation which was 
 effected in a moment before the commencement of 
 time. The same views maintained their ground, 
 not only as far down as Thomas Aquinas and 
 Cajetan, but in a few isolated cases even to our 
 own days. Dr. Payne writes in America: — We may 
 quote the very high authority of Bishop Newton, 
 who had no sinister object in view, and who was 
 quite as well qualified to determine the import of 
 the original language, or to analyse a Hebrew root, 
 as the best of our geologists. Thus the Bishop : — 
 "The answer is (Dan. 8, 14): — 'Into two thousand 
 and three hundred days ; then shall the sanctuary 
 be cleansed.' In the original it is, 'Into two 
 thousand and three hundred evenings and morn- 
 ings,' an evening and morning being in Hebrew 
 
310 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 the notation of time for a day. Afterwards 
 it is said, 'evening and morning,' (v. 26). Again: 
 the circumstance of the exact repetition of the words 
 'evening and morning' throughout the six days of 
 creation, is, prima facie, a proof that natural days 
 were intended ; and the absence of this repetition 
 on the seventh day is clearly a matter of common 
 sense, as there was no work done upon that day, 
 and its duration was established by the length of 
 the antecedent days. But, in respect to the six 
 preceding days, had the word day or morning 
 occurred alone, it might have been more readily 
 perverted in its meaning, and have been as well 
 extended into the geological ages as into a year." 
 
 But why is the word "evening" associated with 
 the word "morning"? Why was one called 
 "night" and the other "day"? They must be 
 interpreted in some sort of consistency with long 
 indefinite periods, especially the words " evening " 
 and "night" ; and they must be interpreted, too, 
 in perfect consistency with the true intent and 
 meaning of the fourth Commandment. It must be 
 also shown by analogies drawn from the present 
 races of animals and plants, that long periods of 
 darkness as well as of light were most conducive to 
 their growth, multiplication, and general well being. 
 That there was absolute night, positive darkness, 
 and day-light also, is specifically stated : — "And God 
 called the light Day and the darkness He called 
 Night," and this was pronounced on the first day of 
 creation, and all these Divine names, with only one 
 possible meaning in their aggregate relations, have 
 been regularly perpetuated by every generation 
 down to our own day. And is not this a very exact, 
 even a two-fold definition of the words "evening" 
 
THE DAY-PERIOD THEORY. 341 
 
 and "morning"? Do all these expressive terms, 
 "evening-" and "morning," "darkness" and 
 "light," "night" and "day," each denning the 
 others, stand for "long indefinite periods"? Let 
 the child answer. And why has theoretical geology 
 expended so much labour upon the word " Day " and 
 utterly neglected the word " Night " ? Why has it 
 not brought them into apposition ? But those were 
 not the only means taken by the Creator to enable 
 Himself to be understood ; for He also declared that 
 He " divided the light from the darkness." There 
 is probably nowhere, in all the Bible, so much 
 circumstantial, various, and precise definition of the 
 Creator's intentions as relates to the first six days 
 of time. Thus far Dr. Payne. 
 
 Had the third day lasted sufficiently long to in- 
 close the petrifactions, we might possibly account 
 for the vegetable fossils ; but how should we explain 
 the circumstance that specimens of the fauna are 
 embedded in the same strata, quite as early as those 
 of the flora ? Indeed, petrifactions of the flora are 
 less developed apparently than those of the fauna, 
 in places where they exist together. If Geology 
 teaches anything it is this, that the beginnings of 
 the flora and fauna were not removed far from each 
 other ; and the second chapter of Genesis, instead of 
 separating them further than the first, on the con- 
 trary, brings them still closer together. 
 
 3. A third method, which recognises in tlie 
 Mosaic cosmogony a perfect analogy to the pro- 
 phetical writings of the Old Testament, has been re- 
 cently set forth, and that mainly by Professor Schultz. 
 All difficulties are to be met by assuming that the 
 nature and the duration of the days of the hexaemeron 
 were elements which were in themselves quite non- 
 
342 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 essential. The cosmogony, it is said, embodies 
 eternal truths, and it could not by any means in- 
 validate the historical veracity of the account, if the 
 drapery belonging to the record were not literally 
 to accord with the matter of fact events, or if the 
 record were to compress events into one brief day, 
 which may in reality have occurred during longer 
 periods. In support of the statement that in Scrip- 
 ture events the accident of time is made as of no 
 great moment, a confident appeal is made to ana- 
 logous cases in prophetical works. 
 
 The record in Genesis i., it is argued, descends 
 into depths of the past " which eye hath not seen, 
 and of which ear hath not heard," and the only 
 analogy available to us is to be looked for in the 
 prophetical writings. In their penetrations into the 
 future, the prophets, except in a few instances, are 
 said to abstain from minutely signifying either time 
 or place. Very often, indeed, the prophets compress 
 a whole course of events in one single prophecy. 
 Pacts which take ages to unroll, are seen and repre- 
 sented as being exceedingly brief in duration. To 
 substantiate this view the following illustrations are 
 given. Prom the first conquest of Babylon by the 
 Medes and Persians to its final overthrow, we have 
 nearly a thousand years. Yet the prophet Isaiah 
 beholds a destruction of Babylon by the Medes as 
 complete as that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Is. xiii. 
 Again, it took nearly a thousand years till the pro- 
 phecy of Jeremiah respecting the destruction of 
 Edom was altogether fulfilled, vet Jeremiah seems 
 to suggest the advent of that destruction, 
 as early as the days of Nebuchadnezzar. See 
 Jer. xlix. 28 — 30 ; compare also Is. xxxiv. 
 
 The judgments upon the Jews are presented in 
 
THE THIRD AND MOST EECENT THEORY. 343 
 
 one common view, yet Judah was first corrected by 
 the Assyrians, Is. x., and a century later Jerusalem 
 was actually destroyed by the ■ Chaldeans, but the 
 measure of their sins became not really full till the 
 final destruction by the Romans. The prophet 
 Isaiah knew, see chaps. x.,xiv. 24 — 27, that the 
 Assyrians would be repelled for the time, yet, looking 
 beyond these interludes of deliverance, he prophesies 
 nothing short of utter ruin ; see Is. xxxi. 2, xxxii. 13, 
 etc. Thus the prophet had before his eyes one great 
 general vision of a succession of judgments, inter- 
 spersed with deliverances, which appeared to the 
 prophet's eye as one grand catastrophe, and the fall 
 of the forest of Assyria, and the springing up of the 
 branch of the stem of Jesse growing out of his roots, 
 are put in the closest proximity in two successive 
 verses. See Is. x. 34, and xi. 1. 
 
 Micah, the cotemporary of Isaiah, leaves it un- 
 certain by which of the many enemies Zion shall 
 be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become 
 heaps, yet the thought of the Assyrians seemed still 
 to be nearest to his mind, and so it was understood 
 by the elders of Jerusalem, Is. xxvi. 19, when Micah 
 prophesied that Israel was not to be carried to 
 Assyria, but to Babylon, chap, iv. 10, Yet in chap. v. 
 he seems still to anticipate that Assyria would con- 
 tinue a great power as late as the days of the 
 Messiah, and invade Judah, chap. v. 4. Indeed, 
 Assyria, as the first enemy of Israel, became the 
 type of all future enemies, including Antichrist 
 himself at the close of the present dispensation. 
 
 As a rule, the prophets before and even after the 
 exile, compress the pre-Messianic days into the 
 exile itself, representing one great period of judg- 
 ment upon which the days of the Messiah arc in- 
 
344 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 variably made to follow, Is. iv. 2., Jer. xxiii. 1 — 5, 
 Is. xlix. lii. lxii, yet most of the prophets give hints 
 that the new era would not immediately succeed the 
 period of judgment, and that as Israel once passed 
 through the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan, 
 so they were to pass through another wilderness, 
 and such a passage through the wilderness appears to 
 be clearly anticipated, Hos. xxxiv. 38, Is. xl. 3, 
 xliv. xlix. 9, lii. 5, Jer. xxxi. 1, 2. Ez. xx. 34, 38. 
 In accordance with this view, the ministry of John 
 the Baptist is placed in the wilderness. Again, 
 as the judgments are compressed into one catas- 
 trophe, so are the future gracious visitations in 
 the days of the Messiah. All comes suddenly ; no- 
 where is the time specified, nor are the stages inti- 
 mated in which the events were to transpire. 
 Micahv. 4. Is. xi. 
 
 Thus it is the spirit of prophecy to represent 
 successive events as if they constituted but one 
 event, and what transpired successively is often 
 described as taking place simultaneously. This is 
 indeed the characteristic feature of prophecy, 
 and to a certain extent of Christ's, own pro- 
 phecy, see Matt, xxiv., where the destruction 
 of Jerusalem and the end of the world are so 
 blended together, that it could be seen fully only 
 after the former had taken place, how much really 
 referred to the latter. 
 
 From these and similar facts which cannot be 
 disputed, it has been argued that we must assume 
 something similar in the Mosaic Cosmogony ; that 
 events which may have taken ages to transpire are 
 compressed as if they had happened within the 
 comparatively short space of a day or of six days ; 
 that these days are in themselves immaterial to an 
 
THE MOST RECENT THEORY. 315 
 
 account which purports to reveal the fundamental 
 truth that God made heaven and earth. The ques- 
 tion, however, will arise whether this method of 
 reconciling Genesis and science, if adopted, will not 
 on the whole, entail more loss as regards the whole 
 question, than we can hope to gain in point of detail. 
 It was not the office of a prophet to write history 
 before it happened ; it is also true many features 
 could without inconvenience be omitted, and events 
 far from each other may have been compressed 
 together within narrow limits ; but the author of 
 Genesis records bond fide history, and what in 
 history is thus stated in plain language to have taken 
 place within a day, cannot, without offending against 
 the literal sense of the text, be construed as if it 
 meant, or could mean, a long period. The Apostles 
 we find compress the entire period between the first 
 and second advent within so narrow a space of time 
 as if they expected Christ's second coming within 
 their natural life, and they, like the prophets, seem 
 almost to lose sight of the great dimensions of time ; 
 but how is it possible to apply this to the cosmogony 
 of the book of Genesis ? 
 
 There are some other ways which have been 
 suggested to heal the supposed breach between faith 
 and science, yet all of them even less satisfactory 
 than any one of these three methods which have 
 now been touched upon. But since no perfect 
 agree. nent is obtained in any of these attempts of 
 modern date, shall we not pause for a while and 
 suspend our judgment till we have re-examined 
 once more, calmly, patiently, but boldly and fear- 
 lessly, whether the old paths have not been relin- 
 quished too suddenly ( The world, Christianity, 
 Theology, Science, can surely lose nothing by such a 
 
316 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 pause, or such a resolve to re-examine what were 
 deemed the old foundations. If the cosmogony 
 were eventually to be abandoned as a hopeless 
 wreck, let it be abandoned by brave men, who 
 stood by it as long as it was wise, safe, and honest 
 to do so. The laws of thought demand a sufficient 
 cause for every change of feeling on any given 
 subject. We ask, therefore, not without some 
 surprise, what has of late been discovered, revealed, 
 proved, and incontrovertibly established, to induce 
 some earnest thinkers to run off the line with such 
 perilous and precipitate haste, on which our fathers 
 have walked safely to their dying day ? 
 
 6. Tlie first eleven Chapters, or the corresponding 
 first forty Hebrew Parashioth in Genesis. 
 
 Great indeed would be our loss if these first eleven 
 chapters, which are the equivalent of the first forty 
 Hebrew Parashioth, were either non-existing, or 
 if by any means they could be proved mythical and 
 non-historical. Herodotus has given us the history 
 of ancient nations, but his account lacks a real solid 
 foundation, since what is needed is not so much an 
 account of single nations as of mankind at large, and 
 nothing short of an account embracing the beginnings 
 and endings of all mankind can satisfy the demands 
 of philosophy or reason. The classical historians, how- 
 ever, never could raise themselves above national 
 interest or grasp the unity of the entire human race, 
 simply because they had more or less lost the truth 
 of the unity of the Godhead. And in this res- 
 pect Moses, not Herodotus, is the real father of 
 history. It is the peculiarity of Israel that these 
 historical reminiscences are severally based on the 
 
THE FIRST ELEVEN CHAPTERS. 347 
 
 widest and broadest catholicity and universality. 
 Among heathen nations we find nothing of the sort. 
 Each nationality traces out its own history, but it 
 goes no higher. The most civilised nations — e.g., the 
 Athenians, considered themselves as autochthones. 
 The people are regarded as the children of the native 
 soil, and all others barbarians, with whom they have 
 no connection. If other nations are brought into 
 account, they are treated as Herodotus treated them. 
 There is not t e remotest idea of there being any 
 connection between the several nations, either in 
 their beimmin^s or in their future. Whenever there 
 was any sort of connection with a remote past beyond 
 the limits of the national reminiscences, it was in 
 the shape of a mythological theogony, or of a perplex- 
 ing cosmogony in which gods and demi-gods take a 
 leading part. 
 
 The barbarians in some sense were to the Greek 
 what the Gentiles were to the Hebrew, since there 
 was no commingling of the one element with the 
 other, and when the heathen nations were drawn 
 into connection with Israel, it was not to do away 
 with the middle wall of partition ; on the contrary, 
 Israel was more a separate people towards the end 
 of its national existence, than were the Greeks. 
 Yet there was no Herodotus in Israel to write the 
 history of the Persians, Egyptians, Assyrians, and 
 Babylonians, though they had a vast deal to do with 
 these and other nations. General or universal history, 
 in this sense, was a purely worLdly, not a Hebrew 
 science. The distinguishing feature of Israel lay not 
 in its culture, but in something which was prior 
 to all human culture. Israel had not only a more 
 perfect knowledge of its own beginnings since 
 Abraham than any other nation, but it goes back 
 
318 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 beyond its own origin to the beginnings of the 
 hnman race, from Abraham to Noah and from Noah 
 to Adam. In Genesis all national boundaries are 
 broken down, and the Hebrews, with all their marked 
 particularism, are the most catholic people in the 
 whole world. This, clearly, is owing to their religion. 
 Since the Hebrews were raised by revelation above 
 nature and above the world, their horizon instantly 
 passed the limits of their national existence, and 
 fastened upon mankind at large. Jehovah the God of 
 the nation is also Elohim the God of the universe. 
 From the commencement of their separation it was 
 plainly set forth that the final object of their choice 
 was the universal happiness of all nations, Genesis 
 xii. 3, Exodus xix., 6, and this, their relation to the 
 Gentiles, is far above that of the Greeks to barbarians. 
 Israel has a universal past and a universal future. It 
 tells of days when there was but one human family, 
 and it speaks of a future when, through it, all the 
 families of the earth shall be blessed alike as one 
 family. What Hellas feebly recognised at the close 
 of its history, the Hebrew nation possessed from its 
 very commencement, and what the Greeks faintly 
 obtained by dint of their wonderful civilisation, from 
 the beginning belonged to the Hebrews by virtue of 
 their religion ; a hint surely that there is a con- 
 nection between religion and history. By means of 
 their knowledge of the true God, Israel had pre- 
 served the primeval traditions of the human race ; 
 hence the truth of their religion is a guarantee for the 
 truth of the traditions and of the history of which 
 they are the guardians. 
 
 If we were without the first eleven chapters of 
 Genesis, there would remain only the myths of the 
 pagan world and the speculations of philosophy, and 
 
THE FIRST ELEVEN CHAPTERS. 349 
 
 we should as yet be wholly ignorant of the origin 
 and scope of the world, and of man in the world. 
 These chapters are for the past what the prophetical 
 books are for the future. The former tell whence we 
 came, and the latter whither we are going. And 
 this great end is obtained by the very simplest 
 means. 
 
 The characteristic peculiarity of Genesis is not the 
 artistic historiography of the Greeks, but the whole 
 seems to centre in those genealogical tables which 
 to Western nations appear so infinitely barren, but 
 which impress upon these Tholedoth or genealogies 
 the stamp of the remotest antiquity. Genealogies are 
 the most simple mode of transmitting history ; and 
 they serve more especially as the guides to establish 
 the chronology of the past, especially when the years 
 of birth and death are signified, as in the case of 
 Genesis v. and xi. They are indeed history in its 
 broad and general outlines ; for names and figures 
 are the skeletons of history, and these genealogies 
 are to the Hebrew, and in a sense to the Arab, what 
 the picture galleries of family likenesses of former 
 generations are to the great families of the land. 
 And how suitable they were to convey other historical 
 facts of the greatest moment will appear from 
 Genesis v. 21 — 24. And is not this genealogical 
 form the most suitable for the book which deals 
 with the beginnings of the chosen people not only, 
 but also with the beginnings of the nations from 
 amongst whom they were chosen? Hence the 
 book of Genesis in its structure is divided into ten 
 Tholedoth, or genealogies, each beginning with the 
 words : " These are the generations," &c, &c. 
 
 The genealogies themselves, which are un- 
 doubtedly the oldest records we possess of written or 
 
350 CHAP. VII. GENESIS AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
 
 oral tradition, trace the history of man to the day 
 when the first Adam was created in the image of 
 God ; and they point forward to the time when that 
 image was to be restored by the second Adam. Hence 
 the great significance that all nations were carefully 
 recorded by name in these first chapters ; also 
 that after the appearance of the last Tholedoth 
 or genealogy in the Gospel, and after the woman's 
 seed was duly enrolled in that universal taxing 
 under Caesar Augustus, the study of endless 
 genealogies should be deemed unprofitable. 
 
 The table of nations, Genesis x., dismisses the 
 families of the earth after carefully registering their 
 names, and signifying their abodes for future evan- 
 gelistic or missionary purposes in the economy of a 
 universal salvation. Before they are allowed to go 
 their own ways, they are carefully recorded in God's 
 book, to show where they shall ultimately be found 
 when the messengers of a universal Gospel should 
 go forth to call them to repentance. 
 
 The three great events recorded in the first eleven 
 chapters of Genesis are, the fall, the deluge, and 
 the dispersion of the nations. All three have im- 
 pressed themselves upon our race, morally, spirit- 
 ually, physically, ethnographically, philologically, in 
 simply colossal dimensions ; and we have to deal in 
 those opening chapters, with the first beginnings of 
 sin, of races, of nations, of empires, of religions, of 
 languages, as they exist to this present hour. 
 
 Lastly, as the so-called " Booh of the genesis of the 
 ivorld ' ' stands at the opening of the Old Testament, 
 so the corresponding " Booh of the genesis of Jesus 
 Christ" as it is called in the original, is fitly placed 
 at the opening of the New Testament ; the one giving 
 the Alpha of divine Revelation in the beginning, the 
 
THE FIRST ELEVEN CHAPTERS. 351 
 
 other supplying the Omega at the end, for what can be 
 more surprising than that the first three, and the 
 last three chapters of the Bible should so dovetail 
 together in their teaching of the first and of the 
 last things, as to bring every single incident re- 
 corded in the first three chapters in Genesis into 
 immediate connection with some parallel incident 
 recorded in the last three chapters of the Book of 
 P^evelation ? * 
 
 * Compare the following passages by way of examples : — 
 Gen. i. 1, and Rev. xxi. 1; Rev. xxi. 2, and Gen. i. 3; Gen. i. 14, 
 and Rev. xxi. 23; Gen. i. 9, 10, and Rev. xxi. 1; Gen. ii. 9, and 
 Rev. xxii. 2; Gen. ii. 10, and Rev. xxii. 1; Gen. ii. 7, and 
 Rev. xx. 13; Gen. ii. 22, and Rev. xxi. 1; Gen. iii. 8, and 
 Rev. xxi. 3; Gen. ii. 2, 3, and Rev. xxii. 14; Gen. i. 28, and 
 Rev. xx. 4; Gen. iii. 3, and Rev. xxi.; Gen. iii. 15, and Rev. 
 xx. 2, 10; Gen. iii. 1G — 19, and Rev. xx. 12; Gen. iii. 1G, 17, and 
 Rev. xxi. 4; Gen. iii. 17, and Rev. xxii. 3; Gen. iii. 19, and Rev. 
 xxi. 4; Gen. iii. 21, and Rev. xix. 7, xxi. 2; Gen. iii. 24, and Rev. 
 xxii. 14. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Emily Faitiifull, Printer in Ordinary to Her Majesty, 85, Praed St., W. 
 


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