I San Francisco. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIF'T OF" 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALS WORTH. 
 
 Received October, 1894. 
 ^Accessions No . JTT2L tf$~~ Class No . 
 
SCIENCE 
 
 WITNESS FOE THE BIBLE. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. W. N. PENDLETON, D.D. 
 
 
 UKIVBHSIT7] 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 I860, 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 
 J. B. LIPPIXCOTT & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
TO 
 
 THE CHURCHES, 
 
 AND TO 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC PUBLIC 
 IN GENERAL; 
 
 AND IN PARTICULABjrO HIS 
 
 GRATEFULLY REMEMBERED ALMA MATER, 
 
 THE MOST DISTINCTIVELY SCIENTIFIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF 
 THE COUNTRY, 
 
 THE U. S. MILITARY ACADEMY AT WEST POINT, 
 
 AND TO 
 THE MANY ACCOMPLISHED ALUMNI THEREOF, 
 
 HIS ESTEEMED FELLOW GRADUATES, 
 
 is 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY AND KINDLY INSCRIBED 
 BY THEIR FRIEND, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE topics discussed in the following pages may be regarded 
 either separately or in their mutual relations. With this two- 
 fold view, accordingly, the discussions are conducted. Each is 
 intended to be complete in itself, and yet to constitute an appro- 
 priate part of a larger whole. 
 
 Trusting that he may, in the series, have done something 
 toward promoting right convictions on great questions, with 
 regard to which science is sometimes represented as at issue 
 with Holy Scripture, the author commits it to His blessing, 
 " without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy." 
 
 LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA, June 1, 1860. 
 
 00 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DISCUSSION I. 
 
 PAGE 
 SCIENCE AND REVELATION 9 
 
 DISCUSSION II. 
 
 THE HUMAN FAMILY 62 
 
 DISCUSSION III. 
 
 THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION 145 
 
 DISCUSSION IV. 
 
 THE AGE OF MANKIND 199 
 
 DISCUSSION V. 
 
 THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES .. 287 
 
 (vii) 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 these," should be those, page 13, line 6 from top. 
 ; imperfect," should be impatient, page 147, line 11 from top. 
 ; sepultures," should be sculptures, page 322, line 5 from bottom. 
 : varieties," should be verities, page 341, line 4 from top. 
 
SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE, 
 
 DISCUSSION I. 
 
 SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 
 
 ONE of the greatest questions of our age is undoubt- 
 edly that respecting the actual relations between Natural 
 and Revealed Truth, between Science and Scripture. 
 
 Toward conveying, at the outset, a just impression of 
 the bearings of this great question, and of its controlling 
 importance at the present time, we shall need no apology 
 for quoting from the lamented Hugh Miller the following 
 instructive testimony : 
 
 "Before the churches can be prepared competently to 
 deal with the infidelity of an age so largely engaged as 
 the present in physical pursuits, they must greatly ex- 
 tend their educational walks into the field of physical 
 science. The mighty change which has taken place 
 during the present century in the direction in which the 
 minds of the first order are operating, though indicated 
 on the face of the country in characters which cannot be 
 mistaken, seems to have too much escaped the notice of 
 our theologians. Speculative theology and metaphysics 
 are cognate branches of the same science: and when, as 
 
10 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 in the last and the preceding ages, the higher philosophy 
 of the world was metaphysical, the churches took ready 
 cognizance of the fact, and, in due accordance with the 
 requirements of the time, the battle of the evidences was 
 fought on metaphysical ground. But, judging from the 
 preparations made in their colleges and halls, they do not 
 now seem sufficiently aware though the low thunder of 
 every railway, and the snort of every steam-engine, and 
 the whistle of the wind amid the wires of every electric 
 telegraph, serve to publish the fact that it is in the 
 departments of physics, not of metaphysics, that the greater 
 minds of the age are engaged, that the Lockes, Humes, 
 Kants, Berkeleys, Dngald Stewarts, and Thomas Brownes, 
 for the most part belong to the past; and that the philoso- 
 phers of the present time, tall enough to be seen all the 
 world over, are the Humboldts, the Aragos, the Agassizes, 
 the Liebigs, the Owens, the Herschels, the Bucklands, and 
 the Brewsters. In that educational course through which 
 candidates for the ministry pass, in preparation for their 
 office, I find every group of great minds which has in turn 
 influenced and directed the mind of Europe for the last 
 three centuries, represented more or less adequately, save 
 the last. It is an epitome of all kinds of learning, with 
 the exception of the kind most imperatively required, be- 
 cause most in accordance with the genius of the time. 
 The restorers of classic literature the Buchanans and 
 Erasmuses we see represented in our universities by the 
 Greek and what are termed the humanity courses; the 
 Galileos, Boyles, and Xewtons, by the mathematical and 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 11 
 
 natural philosophy courses; and the Lockes, Kants, 
 Humes, and Berkeleys, by the metaphysical course. But 
 the Cuviers and Huttons, the Cavendishes and Watts, with 
 their successors the practical philosophers of the present 
 age men whose achievements in physical science we find 
 marked on the surface of the country in characters which 
 might be read from the moon are not adequately repre- 
 sented ; it would be perhaps more correct to say, that they 
 are not represented at all ; and the clergy as a class suffer 
 themselves to linger far in the rear of an intelligent and 
 accomplished laity, a full age behind the requirements of 
 the time. Let them not shut their eyes to the danger 
 which is obviously coming. The battle of the Evidences 
 will have as certainly to be fought on the field of physical 
 science as it was contested in the last age in that of meta- 
 physics. And on this new arena the combatants will 
 have to employ new weapons, which it will be the privilege 
 of the challenger to choose. The old, opposed to these, 
 would prove but of little avail. In an age of muskets 
 and artillery, the bows and arrows of an obsolete school 
 of warfare would be found greatly less than sufficient in the 
 field of battle, for purposes either of assault or defense." 
 
 That this statement is in the main just cannot be 
 doubted, and it certainly indicates a misapprehension, as 
 perilous as it is prevalent, in regard to the relation which 
 subsists between the lessons of revelation and the teach- 
 ings of science. We would do somewhat toward arresting 
 this evil and averting the dangers that follow in its train. 
 And to this end we here present to notice certain great 
 
12 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 facts and principles going to show what is really and justly 
 the relative position of scientific achievement and of scrip- 
 tural teaching. 
 
 Just one hundred years have elapsed since a celebrated 
 philosopher of North Britain gave to the world an account 
 of certain remarkable researches, by which he had liberated 
 from a solid form in limestone, magnesia, and other sub- 
 stances, a peculiar gas, entirely different from atmo- 
 spheric air. This discovery, altogether due to a steady 
 application by Dr. Black, of the Baconian doctrine of 
 experiment and observation, may be regarded as the real 
 starting-point of modern chemistry. Nay, by the questions 
 which it forthwith suggested, and the impulse it gave to the 
 sagacious mind of its detector, this fact became the imme- 
 diate precursor of another scientific triumph of unrivaled 
 value, by the same great man, the discovery, that, when 
 water passes into steam, a vast amount of heat becomes 
 absorbed, and is rendered imperceptible or latent, but that 
 it is made again prodigiously effective for warming pur- 
 poses, when the steam is recondensed into water. 
 
 This law at once revealed the secret of many a grand 
 phenomenon of nature, and placed in human hands the 
 control of some of her mightiest powers. Here was seen 
 the sceptre of the storm-king, and the subtle energy whereby 
 are sent forth hail and snow. Here were disclosed the 
 processes of congelation and vaporization, and the pa- 
 rentage of rain and dew. And here mankind learned how 
 to make the vapor of water the most useful of servants, to 
 convey genial warmth through the largest dwellings, to 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 13 
 
 supply healthful baths at all seasons, to minister culinary 
 appliances for congregated crowds, and to furnish the arm 
 to color or to cleanse, and the breath to dry, all articles of 
 human apparel. And more than all, in this same discovery 
 was found the key, which Watt was at the very time seek- 
 ing, to these improvements in the steam-engine, which 
 have made it, this half century, the mightiest agent in man's 
 material progress. 
 
 This instance may serve to illustrate the diffusive influ- 
 ence and beneficent power of true science. How the accu- 
 rate ascertainment of even one great natural law opens to 
 the human mind a world of associated truths, and places 
 man in a condition to secure, for his well-being, that do- 
 minion over the whole lower creation, to which, the sacred 
 book tells us, he was at his birth ordained ! 
 
 And it is in this way that science has become so con- 
 trolling an element in modern civilization. It is undoubt- 
 edly one of the two prime agencies by which civilized man 
 is distinguished in these latter ages. It is the grand 
 material element of human progress. 
 
 We say science is one of two chief influences by which 
 the leading races of mankind are this day actuated. The 
 other is, of course, that moral element of culture which 
 has been given us in Revelation. It reaches far deeper 
 than the material in its bearings on the great interests of 
 human life. Farther back lies its-power, and incalculably 
 more essential is it to the right development and final re- 
 generation of our race. 
 
 Witness one instance of its benign operation, exactly 
 2 
 
14 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 coincident in time with Dr. Black's scientific discoveries. 
 The very year, now a fraction over a century past, which 
 witnessed the promulgation of the earlier of these achieve- 
 ments, saw captured, by a French privateer, a sick, be- 
 reaved, lonely Christian man, who was crossing the British 
 Channel, partly to recruit, in the genial air of Lisbon, 
 energies which had become enfeebled in his afflicted Eng- 
 lish home. 
 
 The prisoner, in common with many others, was con- 
 fined to a loathsome dungeon, and for months subjected to 
 treatment the most inhuman. And the experience there 
 gained ultimately directed the earnest devotion and un- 
 dying sympathies of an obscure servant of Christ, into that 
 course of heroic practical charity which has changed the 
 whole character of prison discipline in Christendom, and 
 which will impart to the name of John Howard the charm 
 of sweet music in the ear of a grateful world, so long as 
 our earth bears upon its bosom a receptacle for the lawless 
 or an asylum for the unfortunate. 
 
 This extract from his recorded meditations may show 
 the spirit in which he wrought. "0 my soul! in the 
 amiable light of redeeming love, keep close to Him whose 
 presence makes the happiness of every place. . . Remember 
 thou art a candidate for eternity . . . Lift up thine eyes to 
 the Rock of Ages, and then look down on the glory of this 
 world. A little while, and thy journey will be ended ; be 
 thou faithful unto death!" 
 
 And the work, in this spirit accomplished by the world- 
 renowned philanthropist, was, in the language of another, 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 15 
 
 this: "He saw that in the many-chambered dwelling, 
 framed for them by their Father, men could not live to- 
 gether and in peace. The roof and spires of that dwelling 
 seem to rest in sunshine ; in the higher apartments is the 
 voice of mirth and gladness ; lower down, the darkness of 
 sorrow begins to thicken; and beneath all, there have ever 
 been lightless dungeons, from which, through the whole 
 course of human history, have arisen the broken groans of 
 agony or the low wailings of despair. By a stern and 
 awful necessity, these dungeons were never empty; men 
 were compelled to chain down their brethren in the dark- 
 ness, lest, like maniacs, they should plunge their knives 
 into the hearts that pitied them, or, like fiends, bring on 
 all the destruction of Sodom. Never out of the ears of 
 humanity could pass the doleful voice of lamentation, cry- 
 ing, like the conscience of the race, 'Fallen ! fallen ! fallen !' 
 Meanwhile, they who had thus flung their fellow-men in fet- 
 ters out of their sight, looked down upon them with the fierce 
 glare of indignation, as if their chief duty was to load the 
 whip and whet the axe. Or they turned from the anguish, 
 whose existence they would forget, and deafened the walls 
 through which sounds of woe might ascend, and urged on 
 the dance, and the laugh, and the song, or listened to the 
 chantings of solemn organs, or the trembling of bridal 
 music, unsaddened by any cloud that floated up from 
 below. Yet calamity was waxing greater and greater 
 there, writing its pale emblems on too many faces ; famine, 
 pestilence, torture, and all injustice might enter unseen; 
 and groans of agony were going up to heaven, though 
 
1C SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 unheard by man on earth. Into these dungeons of the 
 world Howard penetrated, and compelled men to hear the 
 voice of agony beneath their feet. The result was a re- 
 sponse of pity throughout society, and a resolve among 
 civilized men that henceforward the lighted lamp of justice 
 should be committed to the kindly hand of love." 
 
 This is but one illustration of that benign energy which 
 Christianity exerts upon mankind, a single specimen of 
 efficacy in that great moral element of our civilization 
 which the Scriptures furnish, and which, reaching to lower 
 depths in human necessity than does any scientific dis- 
 closure, and bearing upon interests more intimate and 
 precious, limits not its benefits, as science ever must, to 
 this transitory life, but points onward to that endless ex- 
 istence, where purity is unimpaired and knowledge unim- 
 peded by the hindrances of earth. 
 
 Xow between these two grand elements of human well- 
 being, the material and the moral, so far from there being 
 essentially any antagonism, there is a most important rela- 
 tion of mutual service, which, as already indicated, is, to 
 this day, strangely misunderstood, not only on the infidel 
 side, but on the part of Christian people otherwise well 
 informed. 
 
 Emanating, as they do, from the all-wise Author of 
 nature and reason on the one hand, and of revealed dis- 
 closure on the other, it is of course impossible, not only 
 that they should really conflict the one with the other, but 
 that they should not sustain and enforce each other. The 
 works of God explained by a genuine science, and his 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. IT 
 
 word expounded by a just interpretation, not only cannot 
 be at issue, but each, when rightly understood, must both 
 harmonize with the other, and exhibit it to human view in 
 a light more glorious and worthier its divine origin. 
 
 And yet, plain as is this principle, there is more than 
 the depreciative neglect of which the Cromarty philosopher 
 gives warning. The attempt indeed is not seldom made 
 to array, as if in deadly opposition, these two mightiest 
 agents of man's welfare. Ever since the fatal Inquisition, 
 actuated by a timid and illiberal distrust, the direct oppo- 
 site of that noble freedom with which the Bible challenges 
 inquiry, dared to arm itself with the fierce energy of bigot- 
 ed delusion, and to torture old Galileo into a repudiation 
 of his senses, has something of a like spirit been exhibited 
 by not a few, who should have learned a better lesson, 
 from that calm, tolerant tone of conscious strength, which 
 breathes in every page of the inspired book they profess to 
 honor. And injustice so flagrant on the one side could not 
 but provoke more than retaliation on the other, until the 
 errors of certain of its advocates have, in no small measure, 
 subjected religion itself to the sneering reproach of being 
 the jealous, unworthy eneniy of thorough human cul- 
 ture. 
 
 If feebleness on the side of right, and harm to the great 
 interests of religion, result from the mere quiescence which 
 Hugh Miller justly deprecates, how much more serious the 
 mischief to be expected from this actual antagonism, 
 founded, as it demonstrably is, in a double mistake ! He 
 therefore who can, in any important measure, contribute 
 
 2* 
 
18 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 toward counteracting the evil, will be so far subserving 
 the best interests of mankind. 
 
 It is this conviction which induces us to submit the 
 views we are about to present concerning the actual rela- 
 tions between the disclosures of the Bible and the progress 
 of scientific inquiry. Of the correctness of these views we 
 have not the slightest doubt, nor of their tendency to re- 
 move prejudices which now hinder alike the material and 
 the moral elevation of our species. We would contribute 
 our mite toward the harmonious development of that 
 wisdom which makes man triumphant over nature, and 
 of that which fits him for heaven. So long as the leaders 
 in Christian thought remain indifferent to the advances of 
 physical research, and the body of Christian people retain 
 the idea that scientific investigation tends on the whole to 
 skepticism, and so long as the ungodly scientific mind both 
 has the field mainly to itself and can avail itself of the 
 pretext of persecution to brand religion as the foe of 
 science, so long must disparagement and defiance exist 
 between these mighty powers. And so long must detri- 
 ment accrue to those interests of our race which belong 
 only to this world, on the one hand, and on the other to 
 those which pertain to a future and eternal existence. 
 
 That there is, in truth, an entire harmony between the 
 moral and the material agencies that have been mentioned, 
 between the triumphs of Science and the teachings of 
 Scripture, nay more, that they are so thoroughly inter- 
 twined and blended in their relations to the human mind, 
 as to prove their common origin in the Source of all wisdom, 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 19 
 
 it will be our first endeavor to show. Perfectly clear is it to 
 our view, that discoveries in the wondrous plan of nature, 
 made by rightly-directed inquiry, have aided the human 
 faculties to a better understanding of the documents of in- 
 spiration, and a firmer grasp of the precious verities they 
 disclose. Nor is it less evident to ns, that influences 
 proceeding from Revelation have opened the way to those 
 right methods of investigation which constitute the basis, 
 and have resulted in the miracles of modern Science. 
 
 Indeed it must, we think, be to all obvious, on reflection, 
 that, addressed as are Natural and Revealed truth, to the 
 same creatures, and to faculties in them altogether in- 
 separable, reciprocal relations of action and reaction can- 
 not but exist in the mental processes by which they are 
 respectively realized. Hence may it be conceived how 
 Revelation, though embracing in its plan no direct in- 
 struction for mankind, in regard to things naturally cog- 
 nizable, has, nevertheless, through its influence upon the 
 cognitive faculties, incalculably promoted that amazing 
 scientific progress which we witness in Christendom, and 
 nowhere else. And hence may be understood the service 
 which scientific discovery is rendering the interpretation 
 and the evidences of the sacred records. 
 
 These views we now proceed to expand and illustrate. 
 We shall endeavor to establish the position that mankind 
 are largely indebted to influences derived from the Scrip- 
 tures for that intellectual revolution in modern Christen- 
 dom which has emancipated the mind, as it was never 
 liberated before, and which has placed the keys of nature 
 
20 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 even in the hands of children. And then it will be our 
 aim to point out, as only second to this, a debt on the 
 other side, to the all-wise Author of nature, for the scien- 
 tific methods to which he has adapted the faculties of 
 creatures made in his own image. To exhibit the recip- 
 rocal influence which Science exerts in correcting inad- 
 equate apprehensions of things revealed ; and in placing 
 divine truth in a fortress so strong that enemies, however 
 inveterate, must forever assail it in vain, and so lofty that 
 the celestial light thence emanating shall at length reach 
 every eye that will behold. 
 
 We maintain, then, in the first place, that, for that sim- 
 ple and humble process of inquiry into facts, and that sys- 
 tematic ascertainment and application of natural laws, 
 which constitute what we mean by Science in its every 
 department, man owes, incalculably more than the mere 
 scientific reason supposes, to influences connected with 
 Christianity. And in support of the position, we appeal 
 to the nature of things, and to the evidence of history. 
 
 That the scientific method of seeking truth is of com- 
 paratively recent introduction among men, and was, in fact, 
 never dreamed of, save in modern Christendom, is a cir- 
 cumstance as significant in the premises as it is in itself 
 undeniable. It is generally known to have been inaugu- 
 rated less than two and a half centuries ago, as the new 
 organ of investigation and discovery, announced by Lord 
 Bacon, in his celebrated "Xovum Organum," and substan- 
 tially contained in the first aphorism of that immortal 
 work. "Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 21 
 
 does, and understands, as much as his observations on 
 the order of nature, either with respect to things or the 
 mind, permit him, and neither knows nor is capable of 
 more." 
 
 Now, that this principle, obvious as it appears when 
 once established, and the systematic applications of it, 
 which constitute the various branches of modern science, 
 should have been so long undetected, by human intelli- 
 gence, is, of itself, a phenomenon sufficiently remarkable to 
 suggest, that there must have been in the nature of man, 
 or of the world, or of both, some cause or causes seriously 
 interfering with his thus applying his powers to the prob- 
 lems of the universe. And a slight attention to certain 
 indisputable facts in the general aspect of the material 
 world, and in man's own character, suffices, if we mistake 
 not, to reveal such causes with convincing certainty. 
 
 There is, for instance, in the vast array of material 
 things, a complexity so intricate as thoroughly to baffle 
 the conjectures of an uninstructed mind. Particulars so 
 infinitely various, and combined in ways apparently so con- 
 fused, disorderly, and fortuitous, present, to the uninitiated, 
 a scene which cannot but perplex thought, and make in- 
 quiry seem hopeless. Nor is it difficult to conceive how 
 potent the influence of this seemingly inextricable confu- 
 sion in the world must have been toward preventing those 
 systematic observations of associated facts, which might 
 have conducted the mind to a knowledge of certain gen- 
 eral laws, and thence, by a wider induction, to generaliza- 
 tions still more extensive, and so on, to an approximate 
 
22 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 understanding at last, of the grand and beautiful order 
 existing under such seeming chaos. The idea of such 
 ascertainable system in a universe so infinitely various and 
 complex, might well appear, we can readily understand, 
 about as reasonable or natural, as to expect to find an 
 orderly arrangement in the leaves scattered by autumn 
 winds, or to trace a definite meaning in the mazy dance of 
 insects on the summer air or on the tremulous bosom of a 
 rippling lake. 
 
 It is true that, amid this vast assemblage of seemingly 
 disarranged elements, certain obvious instances of order, 
 calculated more or less deeply to impress the mind, present 
 themselves to notice. But it is soon found that they are, 
 for the most part, such as rather increase than diminish 
 the perplexity occasioned by nature on the whole. The 
 recurrence of day and night, and of the seasons ; the lunar 
 phases, and other periodical changes in the heavens; and 
 the great diurnal heavings of the ocean, are of this char- 
 acter. Their very grandeur, however, and the immensities 
 which they involve, are well calculated, it is plain, not to 
 relieve, but the more to embarrass the mind, when an unin- 
 structed man turns from them to contemplate the things 
 more immediately about him. The intricacy or disorder 
 here, seems so out of keeping with the fixedness of system 
 there, that it is scarcely possible for thought, under the 
 circumstances supposed, of actual ignorance once existing, 
 to associate them together as elements of one great plan, 
 pervaded by order in every part. 
 
 Where he discerns order, uninformed man finds himself 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 23 
 
 impotent ; and where his energies can act, complexity and 
 confusion baffle his understanding. 
 
 Allow, then, all that can by any be claimed for human 
 reason, (and for it, under right guidance, much should in- 
 deed be allowed ; wonderful is it when thus conditioned,) 
 and it is still clear, that, apart from all other impediments, 
 these very circumstances in the constitution of nature, and 
 in man's relation to the world around him, must interpose 
 hindrances of the most formidable character, in the way of 
 his attaining a method of investigation which may unlock 
 for him the secrets of the universe. If, therefore, no other 
 adverse influences operated in this direction ; if there were 
 no impediment in the original approaches to the paths of 
 science, besides the complications of the material world, 
 and the limited power of direct penetration which the 
 human mind is known to possess, it might be safely 
 alleged, that many ages must pass (who shall say how 
 many ?) before the casual notices of successive generations 
 could, if indeed they ever could, furnish a clue whereby 
 the remotest approximation might be gained toward the 
 entrance of the mighty labyrinth of nature. 
 
 But these are very far from being the only or the most 
 formidable difficulties by which access to a true philosophy 
 of investigation, on the part of mankind, must, it would 
 appear, have been prevented. There are in man himself, 
 in the processes of his own constitution, and the elements of 
 his character, hindrances in the way to an effectual plan of 
 inquiry, which would seem to render its attainment well-nigh 
 hopeless. They consist riot so much in the feebleness, as in 
 
24 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 the complexity and disordered condition of his faculties. He 
 is notoriously a being of fitful, wayward, and impatient will, 
 and of turbulent passions, as well as of conscience, affec- 
 tion, and vague, but occasionally lofty, aspiration. And 
 such is the want of harmony among these elements, that 
 his breast is for the most part a scene of wild confusion ; 
 nay, of actual warfare, between the moral sense and the 
 selfish purpose, the dictates of reason and the promptings 
 of appetite, the groveling lust and the aspiration after 
 unknown good. But in this warfare, alas ! as the history 
 of the race has everywhere shown, the forces of downward 
 tendency, where man is left to himself, really enslave and 
 hold in bondage those that might otherwise elevate him to 
 knowledge and power. 
 
 Such, then, is the condition of the individual mind, and 
 considered by itself, without now bringing into view those 
 accumulated barriers, which are, as we shall presently show, 
 crowded in the way of truth, by the aggregation of such 
 minds in society, it is obviously most unpropitious for suc- 
 cessfully undertaking a search into the hidden things of 
 creation. Energies thus discordant are manifestly un- 
 adapted to that calm, patient, protracted, ever-vigilant 
 course of systematic observation, which alone could con- 
 duct previously uninformed man to a point whence, amid 
 hitherto unresolved confusion, he might behold even one of 
 those inner bands that connect the wheels of nature's vast 
 machinery. 
 
 And there is another characteristic of human intelli- 
 gence, somewhat different, which incalculably increases the 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 25 
 
 difficulty, namely, that an understanding so limited must aid 
 itself by general notions. It is the necessity of rational 
 faculty such as man's, that it must generalize. Under the 
 pressure of particulars endlessly accumulated, it sinks over- 
 burdened and exhausted. And hence, will it ever seek 
 relief in contrivances, however arbitrary or delusive, 
 for arrangement and combination, as the arm avails itself 
 of lever and pulley, to lift masses beyond its unassisted 
 strength. 
 
 Now this generalizing tendency, associated as it is with 
 impatience, and other disturbing influences in the mind, 
 not only prevents a true, but leads directly to a false phi- 
 losophy of investigation. And a false philosophy once 
 inaugurated by genius, especially if adapted to the very 
 conditions of mind and of nature out of which it arose, 
 as almost of necessity it must be, is little likely to be 
 rectified merely by advancing time. Rather would it be 
 fastened, most probably, on human thought for indefinite 
 ages. 
 
 How such delusive system would arise is obvious. Since 
 generalizations must be had, and there is neither induce- 
 ment in the appearances of nature, nor patience in restless 
 human beings, to seek for them by assiduous observations 
 on actual phenomena, they are assumed in certain abstract 
 conceptions of the mind. And then, arbitrary as are such 
 assumptions, and wide of the truth as they may be, they 
 become the very engines with which the mind, deluded by 
 their imposing show of potency, works, age after age, 
 
 3 
 
26 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 upon the great problems of nature, very much as a band 
 of the ancients might be conceived, battering with huge 
 catapult the fortress of Gibraltar, and with about the 
 same result, of impotence, failure, and despair. 
 
 Of such assumed generalizations, of the readiness with 
 which the mind of the race becomes enslaved by them, and 
 yet of their impotency toward opening the treasures of na- 
 ture, the celebrated system of Aristotle, which in this con- 
 nection we may appropriately designate physical logic, and 
 which gave law to mind in the civilized world for two thou- 
 sand years, is a perpetual monument. And the agreement 
 of that system with what our analysis has indicated as the 
 natural course of philosophy which man, as he is, unaided, 
 would evolve, in such a world as this, strikingly confirms 
 the truth of that analysis. 
 
 This is the way in which that greatest genius, perhaps, 
 of antiquity, solves the question respecting the immuta- 
 bility and incorruptibility of the heavens : 
 
 "Mutation is either generation or corruption. Genera- 
 tion and corruption only happen between contraries. The 
 motion of contraries is contrary. The celestial motions 
 are circular. Circular motions have no contraries. Be- 
 cause there can be but three simple motions to a centre, 
 from a centre, round a centre ; and of three things only 
 one can be contrary to one ; but motion to a centre is 
 manifestly contrary to motion from a centre; therefore 
 motion round a centre, that is, circular motion, remains 
 without a contrary. Therefore celestial motions have no 
 contraries; therefore among celestial things there are no 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 27 
 
 contraries; therefore the heavens arc eternal, immutable, 
 and incorruptible." 
 
 In this specimen of a method, the inevitable rise of 
 which we have just traced, we see indeed exercised certain 
 great capacities of -thought, but we see also a vain conceit 
 and proud self-confidence, which must only and forever 
 delude ignorant creatures in a world whose complexity, 
 like the adamantine walls of some grand temple, effect- 
 ually hides from view its inner wonders. Into that temple 
 there is only one entrance, and over its portals is inscribed, 
 in characters never to be effaced, the simple ordinance : 
 "Before honor is humility." "Access to the kingdom of 
 man, which is founded on the sciences," says Bacon, with 
 characteristic felicity, "resembles that to the kingdom of 
 heaven, where no admission is conceded except to chil- 
 dren." 
 
 But if the tendencies of the individual mind, amid intri- 
 cacies so perplexing, thus exclude man from the temple of 
 truth, how greatly do those tendencies, as they operate 
 among masses, multiply hindrances in the way to that inner 
 entrance. Here arise interests which sway him, complica- 
 tions which encompass, and necessities which control. 
 Here have birth endless influences which stimulate passion 
 and add inveteracy to prejudice. Here irregular desire 
 and impatient will, ambition and rivalry, antagonism and 
 malignity, while unchecked by influences which earthly wis- 
 dom never furnished, seethe, as dire elements of mischief, 
 in the mighty caldron of aggregated humanity. Hence 
 usurpation and tyranny, disquietude and contention, rest- 
 
23 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 lessness aud revolution, and the death-struggles of tribes 
 and nations, in perpetual round through all the centuries. 
 
 Surely, under such conditions, human intelligence, other- 
 wise, as we have seen, sufficiently disturbed, is about as 
 likely by its own glimmering to discover the way to wis- 
 dom's treasure-house, as the poor mariner in frailest 
 wicker-boat, by a feeble rushlight, safely to track the 
 dark, tempestuous ocean, lashed to fury by all the winds 
 of night. 
 
 Such, then, are the causes, deep seated in the nature of 
 things, in the structure of the world, and in man himself, 
 which so inveterately prevent the ascertainment of that 
 simple process, whereby modern science received being, 
 and was sent forth conquering and to conquer. They 
 include those "idols of the tribe, of the den, of the market, 
 and of the theatre," of which Bacon delineated the mis- 
 chiefs: the passions and prejudices common to all men, 
 which he calls the "idols of the tribe;" the special evils 
 incident to particular minds, which he characterizes as the 
 "idols of the den;" the distortions of reason occasioned 
 by disorders in society, which he designates the "idols of 
 the market;" and the power derived by false principles 
 from deceptive show before the multitude, which he de- 
 nominates the "idols of the theatre." 
 
 Now, if this be a representation of the case, even ap- 
 proximately correct, it must be admitted that any great 
 influence coming in to control these tendencies, to awaken 
 juster thoughts, to suggest principles of order not before 
 apprehended, to allay the strife in man's breast, and to 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 29 
 
 quiet the turmoil of society, to loosen the iron bands of 
 unlawful authority, and to whisper in the ear of reason 
 hints of a true method of inquiry, could not but tend to 
 open the way to the dwelling-place of truth, and assist the 
 mind in gaining access thereto. But whence could such 
 influence come? That brilliant speculative philosophy 
 nurtured beneath the shadow of the Athenian Pallas, 
 peerless acknowledged among achievements of unaided 
 intellect, proclaimed, as we have found, with voice that 
 may ring through all the ages: "It is not in me." And 
 he that will listen, hears ever echoed back this voice, from 
 the banks of the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Tiber. It 
 comes also to his ear from the frosty wilds where were 
 cradled Alaric, Attila, and Clovis, and from the sunny 
 clime that cherished the arch-imposter of the Koran. But 
 what neither Babylon, Egypt, Attica, Italy, Scythia, nor 
 Arabia could furnish, has gone forth from the hills of 
 Palestine, to illuminate the world and speak order into 
 the chaos of human opinion, to hush the tempest roar of 
 passion and bid away invincible prejudice, to exemplify 
 right processes of testing truth, and, in throwing open for 
 man the kingdom of heaven, to unbar to him also the 
 kingdom of nature. 
 
 This, we say, the Bible was adapted to do, ever tended 
 to accomplish, and ultimately did achieve. Its very first 
 sentence, received as from the Creator of heaven and 
 earth, could not fail to carry with it ideas of a plan that 
 must awaken inquiry. And then its whole series of provi- 
 dence, and prophecy, and law, could not fail, in the end, 
 
 3* 
 
30 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 fully to confirm such ideas. But if such suggestions con- 
 cerning the universe, indirectly given by its Maker, when 
 revealing himself for purposes moral and spiritual, were 
 calculated so to arouse the mind and present it with in- 
 ducements to seek for order in the Divine works, with what 
 inestimable efficacy to the same end are not those wondrous 
 doctrines invested, accompanied as they are by vital ener- 
 gies, which, in disclosing the great features of God's moral 
 government, both humble and elevate the human spirit! 
 Those admirable precepts, also, examples and promises, 
 which furnish alike the rule and the incentive to all excel- 
 lent action, can their ultimate influence be computed, toward 
 promoting effective intellectual exertion, by harmonizing 
 human breasts and securing peace in an agitated world ? 
 
 But, besides all these ways, in which the Bible, though 
 designed for other ends, was calculated to dispel a false 
 and develop a true philosophy of nature, there is in it one 
 other marked characteristic, more immediately operative 
 to this end, perhaps, than all the rest. The simple in- 
 ductive method of determining truth, is appealed to in all 
 its teachings. Significant facts agreeing in their indica- 
 tions, are adduced as the standard of a right judgment. 
 "The works that I do, they bear witness of me," was the 
 memorable dictum of unerring lips. And this lesson, as 
 mighty as it is simple, pervading too, as it does, the whole 
 Bible, could not go abroad in the world, especially in con- 
 junction with all else that the inspired word discloses, 
 without in the end overthrowing the "idols of the tribe," 
 "den," "market," xuid "theatre," emancipating the mind 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 31 
 
 from the chains of delusion and the dungeon of ignorance, 
 and putting in its hand the key of an humble but truthful 
 philosophy, wherewith to unlock the great palace of nature, 
 and give free access to its richly-furnished halls, where the 
 sciences wait as handmaids to dispense to mankind refresh- 
 ment and comfort. 
 
 And now, in verification of the argument thus derived 
 from the nature of man, of the world, and of the Holy 
 Scriptures, we appeal to the great facts embodied in the 
 history of our race. And as an appropriate connecting 
 link between the a priori proofs already given and the 
 evidence from facts presently to be offered, we adduce the 
 judgment, indirectly rendered, by one who is certainly not 
 prejudiced in favor of our view, and who will be recognized 
 as no less reliable for his intelligence than for his fairness 
 in the cause. In his statement, it will be seen that we 
 have not over-estimated the tendency of such disclosures 
 and influences as those contained in the Bible to guide 
 aright the human faculties in their relation to nature. 
 Humboldt, in his sketch of the intellectual phenomena of 
 the world, thus describes the state of the Hebrew and 
 Christian mind, as contradistinguished from that exhibited 
 among other portions of the human family : 
 
 " It is characteristic of the poetry of the Hebrews, that, 
 as a reflex of monotheism, it always embraces the universe 
 in its unity, comprising both terrestrial life and the luminous 
 realms of space. The Hebrew poet does not depict nature 
 as a self-dependent object, glorious in its individual beauty, 
 but always as in relation and subjection to a higher spiritual 
 
32 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 power. Nat are is to him a work of creation and order, the 
 living expression of the omnipresence of the Divinity in 
 the visible world. Hence the lyrical poetry of the Hebrews, 
 from the very nature of its subject, is grand and solemn; 
 and when it treats of the earthly condition of mankind, is 
 full of sad and pensive longing. Their epic or historical 
 narrations are marked by a graceful simplicity, almost 
 more unadorned than those of Herodotus, and most true 
 to nature; but their lyrical composition is more adorned, 
 and develops a rich and animated conception of the life of 
 nature. It might almost be said that one single Psalm 
 (104) represents the image of the whole Cosmos . . . We 
 are astonished to find in a lyric poem of such limited com- 
 pass the whole universe . . . Similar views of the Cosmos 
 occur repeatedly in the Psalms, and most fully, perhaps, in 
 the ancient, if not ante-Mosaic book of Job. The me- 
 teorological processes which take place in the atmosphere, 
 the formation and solution of vapor according to the 
 changing direction of the wind, the play of its colors, the 
 generation of hail and of the rolling thunder, are de- 
 scribed with individualizing accuracy; and many questions 
 are propounded which we, in the present state of our phy- 
 sical knowledge, may, indeed, be able to express under 
 more scientific definitions, but scarcely to answer satis- 
 factorily . . . When the feelings died away," continues the 
 great Prussian savan, "which had animated classical anti- 
 quity, and directed the minds of men rather to a visible 
 manifestation of human activity than to a passive contem- 
 plation of the external world, a new spirit arose. Chris- 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 33 
 
 tianity gradually diffused itself; and wherever it was 
 adopted as the religion of the state, it not only exercised a 
 beneficial influence on the condition of the lower classes, 
 by inculcating the social freedom of mankind, but also ex- 
 panded the views of men in their communion with nature. 
 The eye no loiger rested on the forms of the Olympic 
 gods. The Fathers of the Church, in their rhetorically 
 correct, and often poetically imaginative language, now 
 taught that the Creator showed himself great in inanimate, 
 no less than in animate nature ; and in the wild strife of the 
 elements, no less than in the still activity of organic de- 
 velopment. It was thus the tendency of the Christian 
 mind to prove, from the order of the universe and beauty 
 of nature, the greatness and goodness of the Creator ; arid 
 this tendency to glorify the Deity in his works gave rise 
 to a taste for natural observation. And although the 
 ancient world is not abruptly separated from the modern, 
 modifications in the religious sentiments and tenderest 
 social feelings of men, and changes in the special habits 
 of those who exercise an influence on the ideas of the mass, 
 must give a sudden predominance to that which might pre- 
 viously have escaped attention, 
 
 Incidental as is the testimony here rendered by the 
 venerable philosopher of Berlin to the important truth we 
 are exhibiting, it could scarcely be more striking or more 
 significantly to the point had his special object been to 
 establish that truth. He finds the Scriptures and their 
 great disclosures actually producing, on a scale no less 
 than grand, the very effects we have ascribed to them; 
 
34 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 placing the human faculties in a new relation to the phe- 
 nomena of nature, and starting mankind in a direction sure 
 ultimately to lead to a true philosophy and an all-conquer- 
 ing science. 
 
 But that the reality of this influence may be more fully 
 appreciated, let us glance at some of the decisive facts in 
 the history of ancient, middle, and modern ages. 
 
 In the earlier civilizations, Hindoo, Chinese, Chaldee, 
 Persian, and Egyptian, not immediately moulded by Divine 
 revelation, whatever else may be said of them, it is certain 
 that there were no approaches toward the beginning of a 
 process which might place the powers of nature in the 
 hands of men. In evidence, we adduce that land of tombs 
 and pyramids where the native tendencies of humanity 
 worked themselves out so soon and so signally. The cal- 
 culating and contriving faculties of the mind were, doubt- 
 less, exercised by a class in that remarkable country with 
 very considerable success ; and the more obvious movements 
 of the heavenly bodies were noticed more accurately, per- 
 haps, than elsewhere. Nor would we by any means under- 
 rate such attainments. As trophies of intellectual vigor, 
 they are undoubtedly entitled to respect. And when we 
 find Egypt resorted to by such students as Thales and 
 Pythagoras, Plato and Archimedes, as a university for all 
 the learning then to be acquired, we may readily admit 
 that, in the comparative quiet of the Nile valley, men 
 must very early have made no despicable progress in cer- 
 tain departments of thought and certain exercises of skill. 
 Still it is undeniable that, save in the one direction of ab- 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 35 
 
 stract mathematics, the world became not one whit the 
 wiser. As to awakening a single influence calculated to 
 evolve at last a true philosophy of nature, or to suggest to 
 mankind a true method of inquiry, it all amounted to ab- 
 solutely nothing. Of this, the proof is entirely conclusive, 
 even in the single specimen already given from Aristotle 
 of preposterous ingenuity and labored nonsense. For that 
 philosopher had at command all the lore of Egypt and of 
 the East, as well of his own more favored classic land. 
 
 Of Grecian culture, and its relation to physical investi- 
 gations, the illustration that has been given may readily 
 spare us the necessity of saying much. That culture, ad- 
 mirable as it was in the mere aspect of mental power and 
 polish, and memorable as will ever be its products of im- 
 aginative beauty and speculative genius, furnished not one 
 hint that might help humanity to a conquest over nature. 
 "While the earth bears upon its bosom intelligent creatures, 
 emanations will reach them from "the blind old bard of 
 Scio's rocky isle," to delight; from the brilliant intellect 
 of the sage of the Academy, to instruct ; and to arouse and 
 animate, from the fervid glow of that unrivaled orator 
 
 . . . " Whose resistless eloquence 
 Wielded at will the fierce Democratic, 
 Shook th' arsenal, and fulmined over Greece 
 To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne." 
 
 And so long as calculating faculty finds exercise in the 
 essential relations of abstract quantity, the works of Euclid 
 and Archimedes, Apollonius and Diophantus, will remain 
 the recognized foundation of the mighty structure of mathe- 
 
36 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 matics. But all this avails nothing in man's actual relation 
 to the intricacies of the external world. Nay, so far from 
 lighting him through these to the hiding-place of truth, 
 such culture, by the very direction in which it set the 
 mind, and the false confidence it engendered, hopelessly 
 despoiled man of his earthly heritage. The traveler 
 gazing upon the clouds misses the diamond that sparkles 
 at his feet. And the occupant of a stately hall, charmed 
 with its artistic adornment, loses the glorious prospect 
 of mountain and streamlet, and all the sweetness of earth 
 and sky, that may be spread around in richest profusion. 
 
 And if deficiency so signal as to any sure principle of 
 science pervaded all Greek civilization, that latter evolved 
 on the banks of the Tiber only served to perpetuate and 
 increase the evil. Intense action, personal and public, was 
 the very life of Roman progress. Born in strife, cradled 
 in armor, and nurtured amid conflicts, the people of Rom- 
 ulus took it as their mission to subdue the world. And 
 the spirit thence issuing could not but tell alike upon their 
 passions and their policy. No retreat was left for patient 
 wisdom with her ceaseless researches. Of the immolation 
 of truth on the altars of ambition and- cruelty by imperial 
 Rome, her armies and her amphitheatre tell the sad story. 
 " The peace establishment of Hadrian and his successors," 
 we are informed by the celebrated author of the "Decline 
 and Fall," "was composed of no less than thirty formidable 
 legionary brigades, and most probably formed a standing 
 force of three hundred and seventy-five thousand men." 
 And with this gigantic array bloody pastime well accorded. 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 37 
 
 "Here the buzz of eager nations ran, 
 In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, 
 As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. 
 And wherefore slaughtered? Wherefore, but because 
 Such were the bloody circus' genial laws." 
 
 Could wisdom find, even under the auspices of a Tully 
 and a Pliny, a home where multitudes were thus inces- 
 santly 
 
 Butchered to make a Roman holiday ? 
 
 No wonder Gibbon has himself to tell us, that native 
 philosophy there had not being. This is his decisive testi- 
 mony: "The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno 
 and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools, and their systems, 
 transmitted with blind deference from one generation of 
 disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to 
 exercise the powers or enlarge the limits of the human 
 mind." And this continued till, as decline progressed, he 
 adds more emphatically, "the Roman world was indeed 
 peopled by a race of pigmies, when the fierce giants of the 
 North broke in and mended the puny breed." 
 
 With the final extinction of the Roman empire of the 
 West, about five centuries after the Christian era, and 
 when the victorious Northern tribes had become established 
 in the countries of Western Europe, came into permanent 
 operation those influences which conducted the people 
 there settled through the dark and stormy night of the 
 middle ages to the dawn of modern civilization. And 
 of the agencies thus operating, Christianity undeniably 
 occupies the position of supreme control. Nay, without 
 
 4 
 
38 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 its tranquilizing and transforming power, no credulity 
 can conceive that from a deluge of barbarism so destructive 
 could have emerged a brighter intelligence, and a more 
 healthy social system, than the world had ever known. 
 Gibbon himself, strangely hateful to him as was the thought 
 of a Divine revelation, and restlessly ingenious as he was 
 to make occasions for discrediting it, if possible, in the 
 eyes of mankind, is obliged to admit this. In his own 
 words : 
 
 "The progress of Christianity has been marked by two 
 glorious and decisive victories; over the learned and 
 luxurious citizens of the Roman empire, and over the 
 warlike barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who subverted 
 the Roman empire, and embraced the religion of the 
 Romans. This introduced an important change in the 
 moral and political condition of the conquerors. They 
 received, at the same time, the use of letters, so essential 
 to a religion whose doctrines are contained in a sacred 
 book; and while they studied the divine truth, their 
 minds were insensibly enlarged by the distant view of his- 
 tory, of nature, of the arts, and of society. The version 
 of the Scriptures into their native tongue, which had 
 facilitated their conversion, must excite among their 
 clergy some curiosity to read the original text, to under- 
 stand the sacred liturgy of the church, and to examine, in 
 the writings of the fathers, the chain of ecclesiastical 
 tradition. These spiritual gifts were preserved in the 
 Greek and Latin languages, which concealed the ines- 
 timable monuments of ancient learning. The immortal 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 39 
 
 productions of Yirgil, Cicero, and Livy, which were access- 
 ible to the Christian barbarian, maintained silent inter- 
 course between the times of Augustus and the reigns of 
 Clovis and Charlemagne. The emulation of mankind was 
 encouraged by the remembrance of a more perfect state ; 
 and the flame of science was secretly kept alive, to warm 
 and enlighten the mature age of the Western world. In 
 the most corrupt state of Christianity, the barbarians 
 might learn justice from the law and mercy from the Gos- 
 pel ; and if the knowledge of their duty was insufficient to 
 guide their actions, or to regulate their passions, they were 
 sometimes restrained by conscience, and frequently pun- 
 ished by remorse. But the direct authority of religion was 
 less effectual than the holy communion which united them 
 with their Christian brethren in spiritual friendship, and 
 gradually produced the similar manners and common juris- 
 prudence which have distinguished from the rest of man- 
 kind the independent and even hostile nations of modern 
 Europe." 
 
 Testimony like this, from one so unfriendly to religion, is 
 surely doubly significant. 
 
 Even more decisive is that of a writer scarcely less* dis- 
 tinguished, but of very different character, whom we shall 
 now quote. M. Guizot uses this language : 
 
 "It was the Christian church, with its institutions, its 
 magistrates, its authority, which struggled so vigorously to 
 prevent the interior dissolution of the empire, which strug- 
 gled against the barbarians, and which, in fact, overcame 
 the barbarians. It was this church, I say, that became the 
 
40 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 great connecting link, the principle of civilization, between 
 the Roman and barbarian world. Had not the Christian 
 church at this time existed, the whole world must have 
 fallen a prey to mere brute force." 
 
 And again, after a wider survey, he proceeds : 
 
 "The church has exercised a vast and important influ- 
 ence upon the moral and intellectual order of Europe, 
 upon the notions, sentiments, and manners of society . . . 
 Notwithstanding all the evil, all the abuses, which may 
 have crept into the church, notwithstanding all the acts of 
 tyranny of which she has been guilty, we must still ac- 
 knowledge her influence upon the progress and culture of 
 the human intellect to have been beneficial ; that she has 
 assisted in its development rather than its depression, in 
 its extension rather than its confinement," 
 
 This is undoubtedly just So far as she departed from 
 the sacred guidance that had been left her in the Scrip- 
 tures, the church, beyond question, impaired her influence 
 for good. Abuses did thus creep in. Acts of folly and 
 tyranny were perpetrated by her in the name of the All- 
 wise and All-righteous. But still, the divine truth which 
 she lield, and in considerable measure promulged, illumin- 
 ated and moulded the world with unrivaled power. 
 
 And among other benefits conferred on mankind by rev- 
 elation, even as impeded by the errors of the church, and 
 tending to that intellectual revolution which liberated mod- 
 ern mind, first in the Reformation, and then in the birth of 
 Science, may be mentioned the two important facts, that 
 all the schools, and nearly all the authorship, of this 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 41 
 
 period, were due to influences derived from the Scriptures. 
 In illustration of this remark, the writings and the institu-^ 
 tions of the great Alfred may be referred to. With a 
 devout Christian spirit, and a wise executive energy, he 
 applied himself efficiently to such measures as might revive 
 that learning in England which the incursions of the Danes 
 had sadly impaired. And to this end he became both a 
 distinguished author and an extensive founder of seats of 
 learning. The influences under which he did this, may be 
 seen in one of his extant letters, written to the bishop of 
 London of his day. "Calling to mind what benefit had 
 been derived by all nations from the translation of the 
 Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, first into Latin, and then 
 into the various modern languages," he concludes, " there- 
 fore I think it better that we also translate some books the 
 most necessary for all men to know, that we may all know 
 them ; and we may do this with God's help very easily, if 
 we have peace ; so that all the youth that are now in Eng- 
 land, who are freemen, and possess sufficient wealth, may 
 for a time apply themselves to no other task." In such a 
 spirit he is said to have re-established many of the old 
 monastic and episcopal schools, in various parts of the 
 kingdom. Asser, his biographer, expressly mentions that 
 he founded a seminary for the sons of the nobility, to the 
 support of which he devoted no less than an eighth part of 
 his whole revenue. And this is believed to have been the 
 foundation of the illustrious University of Oxford. 
 
 Under influences very similar, and in nearly the same 
 age, were established the schools which, in a few genera- 
 
 4* 
 
42 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tions, matured into the magnificent Universities of Bologna, 
 of Paris, and of Cambridge. And of their effect in pro- 
 moting liberal learning in Europe, at the time when the 
 enthusiasm of the Crusades gave place to the enthusiasm 
 of study which succeeded them, some idea may be formed 
 from the fact that, at the beginning of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, "there are said to have been thirty thousand students 
 at the University of Oxford, while that of Paris could 
 boast the attendance of a still vaster multitude." 
 
 That the Arabian conquerors of Spain, by their peculiar 
 manifestation of activity, contributed to the mental im- 
 pulse thus received, is not to be denied. And the service 
 which they especially rendered to European mathematics, 
 by the introduction into the West of the old Eastern 
 numerals, should he candidly acknowledged. Still it is to 
 be remembered, that the potent element in their incom- 
 plete civilization was but a reflex of the Jewish and Chris- 
 tian revelations; that their highest culture was really 
 derived from sources which the Christian church had pre- 
 served ; and that their system, so far from being able to 
 infuse vitality into other forms of human society, carried 
 in itself the seeds of a sure and early decay. 
 
 Thus was it that Christianity, through many struggles, 
 moulded the mind and formed the genius of Europe, in its 
 transition age, and prepared the way for that double regen- 
 eration which ultimately purified religion and unbarred 
 nature. 
 
 To two great men, indeed, it was given to inaugurate 
 that revolution. Luther was doubtless, in some sense, the 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 43 
 
 prophet sent for the purification of the church, and Bacon 
 was the ordained herald of a true philosophy of investiga- 
 tion. But they were both, in fact, only the exponents of 
 that intellectual maturity to which, chiefly by the ramified 
 influences of His word, the Almighty had providentially 
 conducted the European races. And had no "Brother 
 Martin" appeared, or "Baron of Yerularn," the same age, 
 or one near at hand, would have witnessed a revolt both 
 from Rome and from Aristotle, a Protestant church and a 
 Novum Organum. 
 
 Wickliffe (1324-1384) had already appeared as the 
 morning star of the Reformation ; and Roger Bacon 
 (1214-1292) as the pioneer of experimental science. 
 And the mere juxtaposition of a few leading names will 
 show how that light was diffusing, which on us beans in 
 full day from an open Bible and an unvailed universe. 
 
 Copernicus appeared in 1413, and gave publicity to his 
 astronomical conclusions in 1543. 
 
 Luther was born in 1483, and published his theses in 
 1517. 
 
 Kepler lived between 1571 and 1630. 
 
 Galileo from 1564 to 1642. 
 
 And Bacon's great work appeared in 1620-21. 
 
 Thus we find coexisting in about one century the great 
 leaders in the mighty twofold movement of modern mind. 
 Some of them breathe the same air and look upon the 
 same skies. And not a generation intervenes between the 
 first and the last. Surely this simple fact speaks volumes 
 as to the common influences which evolved them all ; and 
 
44 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 exhibits almost to the eye the actual birth of modern sci- 
 ence, in the transforming agencies so long exercised by 
 revealed truth upon European mind. 
 
 And the principle thus exhibited, we may now see ex- 
 panding into wider compass. That branch of the great 
 European family, whose whole character has been most 
 thoroughly imbued with the lessons of the Bible, takes con- 
 spicuously the lead in every department of physical science. 
 The scientific labors of other nations have certainly been 
 in some instances exceedingly brilliant. The pure and 
 mixed mathematics of France must especially be so char- 
 acterized. And yet in physics it is undeniable that with 
 the exception of here and there a happy thought, as in the 
 memorable discovery of Yolta and Galvani, scarcely more 
 has been done elsewhere than extend English researches 
 and verify English theories. 
 
 In physiology, the two greatest discoveries ever made 
 were by philosophers of the British isle. (See these and 
 other facts forcibly urged in an able "Discourse on the 
 Baconian Philosophy," by Samuel Tyler, of the Maryland 
 bar.) Harvey, the contemporary and friend of Bacon, 
 detected the circulation of the blood as early as 1628. 
 And Sir Charles Bell, nearer our own times, distinguished 
 between the nerves of sensation and those of motion. 
 Sydenham laid the foundation of medical science, and 
 John ITunter that of comparative anatomy. And Jenner 
 evoked that simple but wondrous secret of vaccination, 
 which has disarmed the direst disease, perhaps that ever 
 afflicted humanity. 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 45 
 
 In chemistry, also, Britons have taken the lead. Dr. 
 Black, of Edinburgh, a hundred years ago, as already men- 
 tioned, astonished mankind by the discovery of carbonic 
 acid gas, and soon after by announcing the mysterious but 
 important doctrine of latent heat. And at the beginning 
 of the present century, Dalton, of Manchester, explained 
 the admirably adjusted law of chemical equivalents. 
 Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen gas, Watt and Caven- 
 dish, who ascertained the composition of water, and, above 
 all, Davy, the unrivaled analyst and founder of agricultural 
 chemistry, were all Britons ; as was Grey, who first gener- 
 alized electrical phenomena. 
 
 But, far more than all, that land of Bibles and of 
 churches gave to the world that wonderful man, the 
 enthroned prince of all the philosophers, to whose patient 
 and persuasive hand the bright sunbeam yielded the secret 
 of the painted bow and of all the sweet colorings of earth; 
 and to whose calm, attentive eye the invisible cords 
 revealed themselves which bind together the material 
 universe. 
 
 And while such has been the unparalleled progress of 
 physical research there, on our side of the Atlantic, under 
 similar auspices of Bible Christianity, we behold like 
 results, on a scale to attract the attention of mankind. 
 Our Franklin has disarmed the clouds. Our Fulton has 
 bridged the ocean, and freighted every river. Our Maury 
 has fenced the highways of the sea and written finger- 
 boards upon the fitful atmosphere. Our Brooke has 
 fathomed the great deep, and uncovered the monuments 
 
46 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 of its ancient dead. And our Morse, skillfully applying 
 the electro-magnetic discoveries of our accomplished 
 Henry, has taught the earth, with lightning speed, to 
 whisper messages from city to city and from continent to 
 continent. 
 
 And this is all, directly or indirectly, the fruit of that 
 simple, humble, observant philosophy, which, from disor- 
 dered faculty in a complex world, could receive no being; 
 to which neither Egypt, nor Greece, nor Rome, and far 
 less India or China could give existence, but which, born 
 in that sacred land where God spake with men, was nur- 
 tured through the ages on the bosom of Christianity. 
 
 Now, what arithmetic can calculate the debt due from 
 mankind to the Scriptures of truth for this single service ? 
 Take them away; go back through the centuries, and ob- 
 literate all records of heaven's glad tidings, leave man 
 only to himself and the impenetrable mysteries around 
 him ; then see Egypt buried, Greece in ruins, Rome en- 
 gulfed in a dark, destructive deluge, and naught remaining 
 but the wild roar of angry elements, without one tranquil- 
 izing breath, one ark of refuge, one ray of hope ; and tell 
 us where were all our boasted science and successful phi- 
 losophy ? Hopelessly gone ! Lost in boundless, irremedi- 
 able night ! But not so. He whose ways with man are 
 wise and merciful, had sent a messenger that could, with 
 silent yet controlling voice, speak to the tempest of human 
 passion, "Peace, be still !" had constructed a life-boat that, 
 safely riding the surging billows, should bear onward to a 
 stable resting-place the hopes of the world ; had provided 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 4t 
 
 a diffusive balm for the healing of the nations ; had issued 
 that word, whose first, last, and every utterance is with 
 power, "Let there be light I" 
 
 Hence the existence and the character of modern civili- 
 zation, the development of true philosophy, the emancipa- 
 tion of human intellect, the success of well-directed inves- 
 tigation, and the multiplied triumphs of advancing science. 
 
 Then let no delusive pride of intellect mislead the vota- 
 ries of scientific progress into irreverent depreciation of 
 that venerable volume, whose pregnant hints and signifi- 
 cant suggestions contain the germ of all physical discov- 
 eries, and whose transforming power has enabled regener- 
 ated society to achieve those discoveries, and with them 
 comfort and power. 
 
 But science has also,, as we have said, reciprocated the 
 service thus received from religion. She has rendered 
 honor to the source of her being; to adorn and defend 
 which, indeed, she has gathered materials from all the 
 recesses of creation. And though in some instances the 
 earlier disclosures seemed to threaten discredit rather than 
 confirmation to sacred truth, yet in proportion as research 
 has been complete in every department of physical inquiry, 
 the result has been to elucidate and corroborate, often most 
 surprisingly, the records of revelation. 
 
 The first example we adduce is furnished by the science, 
 which deals with the most obvious yet most remote of all 
 objects of contemplation, and which is perhaps the most 
 universally interesting, as it was the earliest considered 
 department of human inquiry. It is true that the Scrip- 
 
48 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tares and Astronomy have not many points of contact, 
 whereby agreement or disagreement between them may be 
 tested. But they have some. And these furnish very 
 striking indications. At first, indeed, through a contracted 
 interpretation given by some in authority, to that simple 
 and truthful language of appearance, employed in sacred 
 as in common narrative, men, "knowing neither the Scrip- 
 tures nor the power of God," feared lest Galileo's telescope 
 should reveal things in conflict with the Divine Word. 
 And that fear was the parent of much wickedness as well 
 as of much folly. But as mankind must credit the evidence 
 of their senses ; and as the sphere of vision now enlarged 
 by the tube of the old Tuscan seer, placed before the eyes 
 of men demonstration evident of those celestial motions, 
 which reflection had taught Copernicus to embody in the- 
 ory, the petty dogmas which ignorance attempted to chain 
 upon the Bible had to be given up ; and a more compre- 
 hensive view of certain grand indications, which the unri- 
 valed Book had always offered to notice, much more than 
 vindicated the superhuman wisdom of the ancient record. 
 While the absurd systems, like, that a specimen of which 
 has been adduced from Aristotle, laboriously constructed by 
 speculative genius in early ages, have, with advancing dis- 
 covery, been more and more signally exposed, it has been 
 found that the Scriptures, on the same subjects, so speak as 
 that every additional disclosure in the heavens lends greater 
 significancy to their language on the whole. Do they point 
 to the glorious luminary of day as the appropriate symbol 
 of the Sun of Righteousness ? Forthwith they exhibit 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 49 
 
 this Spiritual Sun as the center around which revolves the 
 entire system of Christian truth, and life, and blessedness. 
 And are not those great discoveries of Kepler and New- 
 ton, which show a mighty array of planets and satellites 
 moving forever round the sun, here shadowed forth ? At 
 the same time does not the grandeur of order and power 
 in this mechanism of worlds, wondrously expand, to human 
 appehension, the significance of the spiritual system, and 
 glorify Him, who is at once its bond, its light, and its life ? 
 Does the Bible propose to men the inquiry, "Knowest 
 thou the ordinances of heaven ?" And are there not inti- 
 mated in the words, realities of settled order and universal 
 law, the fullness of which human faculty, astonishing as 
 may be its achievements, can never explore ? And when, 
 with magic mirror, the Herschels, Lord Rosse, and kin- 
 dred explorers, have read the secrets of the stellar spaces, 
 have they not seen written there this very question put to 
 old Job ? When they have tracked revolving sun- worlds, 
 at distances that figures refuse to tell, and light itself almost 
 fails to traverse, and have resolved innumerable patches of 
 scattered star-dust and floating star-cloud into myriads of 
 sun-systems, regulated by laws which the Calculus of 
 Leibnitz, in the hands of Laplace, forever declines to 
 reveal, have they not read in that question a still grander 
 significance ? And when, by certain way-marks in the sky, 
 they have reckoned that incredible motion of nearly half a 
 million of miles per day, which is bearing our sun, with 
 all his retinue of planets, toward an unknown point in or 
 near the constellation Hercules, how or why, save to suggest 
 
 5 
 
50 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 it as a general result of universal gravitation, wildest conjec- 
 ture dares not answer, have they not learned, by a teaching 
 never to be forgotten, that after his last achievements in 
 the stars, man, as the Bible had told him it should be, 
 knows only in part the ordinances of heaven ? But this, 
 too, they have learned, just as the sweet Singer of Israel so 
 long ago chanted, though peradventure with a sublimity 
 of meaning even beyond that which had been caught by 
 his enraptured spirit, and a sublimity ever heightening as 
 more is known : "The heavens declare the glory of God !" 
 
 Thus does astronomy interpret and establish the Holy 
 Scriptures. 
 
 And no less striking, while still more numerous, are the 
 explanations and confirmations of the sacred record fur- 
 nished by that science which evokes from the bosom of the 
 earth her buried secrets. Here, too, rigid and restricted 
 system had narrowed to a hand-breadth the mighty mean- 
 ing of the grand old documents. And a timid faith, fee- 
 ble because fearful, dishonored the very cause it professed 
 to serve, by distrusting its ability to stand every test, and 
 protecting its trembling belief by embittered denunciation. 
 But again, mankind must credit their senses. And the 
 history of pre-Adamite ages, found written on the uncov- 
 ered rocks, enforced a more candid and comprehensive 
 reading of the entire Scriptures; and then was seen, in all 
 the astonishing precision and fullness of its meaning, that 
 marvelous series of intimations which the Bible had all 
 along given of ante-human cycles of being; and with 
 which some of the old fathers had been so deeply im- 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 51 
 
 pressed. Does Moses speak of successive intervals in the 
 progress of creation ? It is the most conspicuous fact 
 in all geology. Does he describe a certain order of ad- 
 vance in organized forms, from "the herb yielding seed 
 after its kind," to "the creeping thing that had life," and 
 "the great sea-monsters," and "winged fowl," and from 
 these to the "great beasts of the earth," and "cattle 
 after his kind," and then lastly to man, the crown and lord 
 of all ? Geology, with precision truly wonderful, displays 
 altogether the same advance, and in exactly the same 
 order. Here are seen characterizing lower formations, 
 certain simple botanical species and low animal forms, am- 
 plifying upward into the enormous carboniferous flora and 
 its accompaniments ; then the huge fish, reptiles, birds, and 
 other egg-bearing creatures, during many ages ; next, the 
 mighty mastodon, and mammoth and gigantic beasts of 
 various kinds, and, lastly, existing flower and fruit-bearing 
 plants, and the animal forms associated with man, and 
 himself latest and highest of all. Assuredly this corre- 
 spondence between the strata of geology and the narrative 
 of Genesis is one of the most surprising confirmations con- 
 ceivable of the Divine verity of the Mosaic history. 
 
 But again, do the Scriptures, in repeated instances, 
 speak so remarkably of the creative ages in the sense of 
 worlds, as if there had been a succession of forms given 
 at different times to the same world ; and do they variously 
 repeat the idea, by grand allusions to an unmeasured anti- 
 quity, and a transformed earth? Geology finds those pro- 
 digious ages, those extended and recurring periods, and 
 
52 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 those successive transformations, indelibly recorded in the 
 monumental rocks. And more instructively still, if possi- 
 ble. Does the Bible continually exhibit those interposi- 
 tions of immediate agency, on the part of the Almighty, 
 which modify the general course of natural laws, and 
 which we designate Providence ; nay, does it, in fact, con- 
 sist of a history of such interpositions in regard to man- 
 kind ? And what more conclusive illustration of special 
 agency, precisely similar in principle, can be imagined, 
 than the fossil history furnishes ? Here is seen occurring, 
 again and again, what no general laws have ever produced. 
 A whole universe of living creatures disappear, buried 
 beneath the sands of the seas in which they have sported, 
 or the ruins of the hills on which they have roamed ; and 
 races appear, not only unlike, and of altogether different 
 species, but absolutely opposite in almost every attribute of 
 being. How is this ? There is, certainly, by natural law, 
 no transformation of species. It can only occur by imme- 
 diate creative power. If physiological research has settled 
 any point beyond controversy, it is, that such are the uni- 
 versal laws of vegetable and animal life, that no one dis- 
 tinct species can ever, by mere natural agencies, be trans- 
 muted into another. As well might the earth be expected, 
 merely by the operation of gravity and other like proper- 
 ties, to clothe itself with a resplendent ether, and send 
 forth controlling powers of light and life upon a new sys- 
 tem of worlds, as that from the ruins of primeval ferns 
 should have sprung our forest oaks; our eagle, soaring to 
 the sun, from the insect that sipped some humble flower in 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 53 
 
 the early world ; or man, with all his faculties, from some 
 groveling reptile of a past existence. These changes, then, 
 revealed by geology, these destructions and reproductions, 
 these burials of old, and creations of new races, exhibit in 
 a light which science fully recognizes, that very direct 
 agency of God in the government of the world, the history 
 of which, in its relation to mankind, constitutes the great 
 burden of Scripture. So that, never has the human mind 
 been called to contemplate a more signal confirmation of 
 truth than is furnished to the Scriptures by the accumula- 
 ting developments of geology. 
 
 So, again, is it in the department of meteorology. Lieut. 
 Maury, after all that research has disclosed concerning the 
 phenomena of the atmosphere, sums up his conclusions in 
 these emphatic words : " The Bible tells it all in a single 
 sentence ! ' The wind goeth toward the South and turneth 
 about unto the North: it whirleth about continually; and 
 the wind re turneth again according to his circuits.'" 
 
 Nor are such testimonials rendered alone by the sciences 
 separately. There are surprising relations between dif- 
 ferent branches of science, which no less strikingly eluci- 
 date and corroborate the Bible. For instance, all readers 
 have remarked how very characteristic are certain repeti- 
 tions of numbers, in the Scriptures, as 7, 10, 12, 40, etc. 
 And there have not been wanting those who were ready to 
 regard this feature of the sacred books as a sure mark of 
 human contrivance in the narrative. But many sciences 
 at once appear, bearing concordant testimony to the ex- 
 istence of a numerical adjustment, precisely similar, in the 
 
 5* 
 
54 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 heavens, in the earth, and among all creatures. In the 
 planetary motions, Kepler's third law has long since an- 
 nounced a double multiplication of times in constant pro- 
 portion to a triple multiplication of distances. In botany 
 it is found that the leaf appendages of all plants are 
 arranged according to the numerical series, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 
 etc., in which any two consecutive numbers, added to- 
 gether, make the next succeeding. And in physiology it 
 is ascertained that 10 marks the digits of all creatures 
 with hands or divided feet, and 7, the number of bones in 
 the neck of all mammalian vertebrata, whether whale or 
 giraffe, elephant or human subject. Chemistry tells us 
 that there is not a breath of air that trembles in the great 
 atmospheric ocean, nor a drop of spray that sparkles on 
 the briny deep, nor a particle of any compound substance 
 on the globe, which is not constituted according to a defi- 
 nite law of numbers. And optics assures us that there is 
 a like numerical constancy in the colors of heaven's beau- 
 teous bow. Thus has general science, to such inquirers 
 as Kepler and Xewton, and Cuvier and Dalton, and De 
 Candolle, revealed, as pervading all nature, a numerical 
 system precisely analogous to that which constitutes so 
 remarkable a feature of the Bible. And such principles of 
 co-ordination in the word and works of God, we can 
 readily perceive to be admirably adapted to the constitu- 
 tion of man's mind. It is an arrangement in each case 
 exactly suited to finite intelligence. It lends distinctness 
 to the association of facts ; it helps the intellect to grasp 
 truth, and the memory to retain it. It strikes the fancy 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 55 
 
 of youth, interests the mature niind, and so wraps salutary 
 recollections around the decaying faculties of age as to 
 lighten its burdens and irradiate its gloom. 
 
 One other instance we adduce, of peculiar correspondence 
 between the teachings of Scripture and the conclusions of 
 general science. The inspired history, as is familiar to all, 
 affirms that " God made of one blood all nations that dwell 
 on the face of the earth;" that however now diverse in 
 feature, color, and other subordinate characteristics, and 
 of speech, how various soever the human tribes that 
 people the globe, they all constitute but one family, de- 
 scended from a common ancestry. This, scientific research 
 in its earlier and partial stage seemed to discredit, by the 
 apparently radical and irreconcilable differences of structure, 
 capacity, and language, between extreme races, which it ex- 
 hibited. Nor were there wanting those who eagerly seized, 
 as some indeed still do, such indications, as a pretext for 
 indulging a relentless enmity against the moral system of 
 revelation. But just in proportion as investigation has 
 been complete in every branch of inquiry bearing upon the 
 question of national or tribal origin, as the whole range of 
 ethnology has become really scientific, its testimony has 
 proved thoroughly corroborative of the Scripture doctrine. 
 It is a wide field, embracing in its scope applications of 
 almost every branch of human knowledge. But ably has 
 it been explored. Nor is there left a shadow of doubt, as 
 to the truth, on the minds of the first men of the world, 
 in every department of the investigation. Comparative 
 anatomy and physiology through their great high-priests, 
 
56 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Cuvier and Owen, have spoken with oracular voice, "Man 
 is one." Travel, custom, and minutely verified archaeology, 
 as traced by the admirable Prichard, have delivered the 
 same declaration. And monumental history has, with 
 response precisely accordant, replied to the interrogatives 
 of the Humboldts and Lepsius, Bunsen, Schoolcraft, and 
 Gallatin. 
 
 And particularly striking is the evidence furnished by 
 that branch of monumental history which is contained in 
 language. The scientific methods by which this has been 
 elicited, first suggested by the sagacious mind of Leibnitz, 
 have, within our generation, been pursued with an enthu- 
 siasm and success second to that exhibited in no other 
 pursuit. It has been but a few years since a Russian 
 grammarian, the heroic Castren, (see seq. Human 
 Family, p. 81,) although in delicate health, left his study, 
 traveled for months alone in his sledge through the snowy 
 deserts of Siberia, coasted along the borders of the Polar 
 Sea, lived whole winters in caves of ice, or in the smoky 
 huts of greasy Samoieds, then braved the sand-clouds of 
 Mongolia, passed the Baikal, and returned homeward by 
 the frontiers of China ; that he might, in so vast a sweep, 
 gather materials for the expanding science of comparative 
 philology. From such an instance, we at once perceive 
 with what zeal this branch of knowledge has been recently 
 pursued. And the result is thus glowingly sketched by a 
 distinguished German scholar: 
 
 "If, now, we gaze from our native shores over that vast 
 ocean of human speech, with its waves rolling on from 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 57 
 
 continent to continent, rising under the fresh breezes of the 
 morning of history, and slowly heaving in our own more 
 sultry atmosphere, with sails gliding over its surface, and 
 many an oar plowing through its surf, and the flags of 
 all nations waving joyously together ; with its rocks and 
 wrecks, its storms and battles ; yet reflecting serenely all 
 that is beneath, and above, and around it; if we gaze, 
 and hearken to the strange sounds rushing past our ears 
 in unbroken strains, it seems no longer a wild tumult, or 
 J wrjpt0fjiov y&aff/jia, but we feel as if placed within some 
 ancient cathedral listening to a chorus of innumerable 
 voices, and the more intensely we listen, the more all dis- 
 cords melt away into higher harmonies, till at last we hear 
 but one majestic trichord or a mighty unison, as at the end 
 of a sacred symphony. Such visions will float through the 
 study of the grammarian, and in the midst of toilsome 
 researches his heart will suddenly beat, as he feels the con- 
 viction growing upon him, that men are brethren in the 
 simplest sense of the word, the children of the same father, 
 whatever their country, their color, their language, or their 
 faith." 
 
 This, from Professor Miiller, is the latest utterance of 
 linguistic science. 
 
 Thus it is that the heavens and the earth, the atmosphere 
 and the ocean, and all the processes of life, and all the 
 monuments of history, return, in answer to the calm, saga- 
 cious, impartial cross-questionings of scientific inquiry, one 
 clear, full, harmonious, decisive testimony to the truth, 
 grandeur, and preciousness of Divine revelation. 
 
58 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 But this is not the only tribute received by religion from 
 advancing science. It is the untiring scribe, with magic 
 finger, to copy for all the tribes of earth, in their several 
 tongues, the messages sent them by their Maker. And it is 
 the dauntless colporteur, of swift foot and unflagging 
 energy, to bear those recorded messages to every isle of 
 the ocean and every land of the globe. 
 
 Such, then, are the relations which the Scriptures and 
 Science sustain toward each other and to the welfare of 
 mankind. The one is the mighty moral, the other the 
 great material element of human progress. The one is 
 primary and essential, the other subordinate, but greatly 
 subsidiary. The one, though mainly designed as man's 
 guide to a higher and more blessed existence, has, by 
 direct suggestion, and by a regulating influence over dis- 
 ordered faculties, placed reason in a position to grapple 
 with the problems of the world. The other, in solving 
 those problems, has not only evoked from Nature's trea- 
 sure-house, and placed in human hands, vastest appliances 
 for efficiency and enjoyment, but has brought from every 
 corner of creation lights to illuminate the sacred pages, 
 voices to swell the chorus of praise to their Divine Author, 
 and hands to bear to the remotest habitation of our planet 
 the venerable records of revelation. By the one, is opened 
 the way to spiritual, by the other, to natural good. That 
 tells us of our unseen but gracious Father in heaven, and 
 of a future glorious home with Him. This shows us 
 tokens of His greatness and goodness, in the wondrous 
 structure of our probationary dwelling-place. Upon the 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 59 
 
 dark mystery of mortality the revealed Word sheds a 
 blessed light. In tones of authority it bids into submis- 
 sion wayward and unhallowed passion. It whispers peace 
 to the troubled breast, and on the anxious, trembling spirit, 
 binds the wings of eternal hope. It takes the soul into the 
 very presence of that " Friend who sticketh closer than a 
 brother," and kindles in the heart that flame of love which 
 is earth's sweetest blessing and heaven's highest bliss. To 
 our children it gives the first, best, and grandest lessons, 
 while over all domestic joy it casts a sacred shield. It 
 secures our sabbath rest, and charges with sweet music 
 every breeze that wafts the sound of the "church-going 
 bell. " Of all wholesome law it is the strength, and of all 
 social order the guardian. It is the pledge of gladness in 
 the bridal scene, and at the bedside of death the only 
 voice of comfort. It sweetens all existence, and surrounds 
 even the grave with bright visions of faith. Unhappy the 
 people, and most wretched the man, to whom the Divine 
 word is not thus wisdom and life 1 But without the 
 triumphs of Science, too, there is amazing loss. By these 
 are opened the portals of nature's mighty temple, and men 
 behold there mirrored forth the glory of their Maker. By 
 these fire and air, earth and sky, winds and waves, with 
 energies exhaustless, are made willing servants to human 
 creatures. By these we have victory over darkness and 
 distance, over Arctic frost and tropical drought, and over 
 sterile soils and unpropitious seasons. These minister to 
 the hungry, food; covering to the unclothed; and to the 
 houseless, shelter. Here heart and intellect may find ex- 
 
60 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 ercise in a boundless field, and heroic enterprise can gather 
 richest rewards. Here wealth immeasurable is poured into 
 the lap of civilization, and the church finds multiplied 
 without limit the means of fulfilling her Lord's last com- 
 mand to "preach the gospel to every creature." 
 
 And since this is the real truth of the case between 
 Science and Religion, since they actually sustain relations so 
 significant toward each other and toward Heaven's benign 
 purposes for mankind, we may certainly conclude, in the 
 language of so sound a thinker and so forcible a writer as 
 Dr. McCosh, that 
 
 "It is, assuredly, no useless or profane work that is 
 engaged in by those who would, with proper humility, 
 endeavor to remove jealousies between parties whom God 
 hath joined together, and whom no man is at liberty to 
 put asunder. . . . We are not lowering the dignity of science 
 when we command it to do, what all the objects it looks at 
 and admires do, when we command it to worship God. 
 Nor are we detracting from the honor which is due to 
 religion when we press it to take science into its service. . . . 
 Let not science and religion be reckoned as opposing 
 citadels, frowning defiance upon each other, and their 
 troops brandishing their armor in hostile attitude. Each 
 has its own foundation. These let them unite, and the 
 basis will be broader, and they will be two compartments 
 of one grand fabric reared to the glory of God. Let the 
 one be the outer and the other the inner court. In the 
 one let all look, and admire, and adore ; and in the other 
 let those who have faith kneel, and pray, and praise. Let 
 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 61 
 
 thjs one be the sanctuary where human learning may pre- 
 sent its richest incense as an offering to God; and the 
 other the holiest of all, separated from it by a vail now 
 rent in twain, and in which, on a blood-sprinkled mercy- 
 seat, we pour out the love of a reconciled heart, and hear 
 the oracles of the living God." 
 
DISCUSSION II. 
 
 THE HUMAN FAMILY. 
 
 THE scientific determination of an actual family relation- 
 ship among all varieties of human beings, has been briefly 
 stated in the foregoing essay. On a subject, however, of 
 such importance, an additional discussion, simple and yet 
 full, clear but condensed, may be useful. Especially in 
 view of the strenuous claims in behalf of the diversity 
 theory, put forth before the American, and particularly 
 the Southern public, within the last few years, and urged 
 with triumphant confidence, alike in winged pamphlet and 
 ponderous quarto, under cover of an immense parade 
 of boasted science; and recently sanctioned, though with 
 apologetic caution, by at least one of the writers admitted 
 to the dignified associations of the " Smithsonian Contri- 
 butions to Knowledge." (See vol. viii. pp. 1, 105, 159.) 
 
 In the present essay, therefore, we propose to investigate 
 with some thoroughness the issue thus presented; to ex- 
 amine the subject in several aspects; and to indicate the 
 general considerations and the special scientific processes 
 by which such great master-models of vast and accurate 
 research as the Humboldts, Prichard, Chevalier Biinsen, 
 and Professors Lepsius and Owen, have been brought to 
 the conclusion, fully agreeing with the established senti- 
 ment of Christendom, that men, under all varieties, are 
 (G2) 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 63 
 
 but of one stock; that the human race is, iu fact, one 
 family from a common ancestry. 
 
 The alternative to this doctrine, proclaimed in the recent 
 publications referred to, is sufficiently distinct. Their 
 authors contend that "men were created in nations, and 
 not in a single pair." (Types of Mankind, p. 82.) That 
 they have no common original nature, no essentially agree- 
 ing rational constitution, and no comprehensively designed 
 merciful arrangement for their general improvement in the 
 present life and for their joint participation of a higher 
 future existence. That some are absolutely, and uncon- 
 ditionally, "inferior," and not only "born to be ruled," 
 but "destined to live and prosper," merely, "till a superior 
 destroying race shall come to exterminate and supplant 
 them, and that no philanthropy, no legislation, no mission- 
 ary labors, can change this law." (pp. 19, etc.) 
 
 That these sentiments are seriously in conflict with the 
 admirable moral tone of the Scriptures, the equitable spirit 
 of modern civilization, and the benign energy of Christian 
 heroism, need scarcely be suggested. And it must be 
 acknowledged that if scientific processes, fairly conducted, 
 do really, in this instance and in this manner, utterly break 
 up the moral fabric which the wisdom of ages has sanctioned, 
 and put a final extinguisher upon the best motives and 
 highest hopes of humanity, it is not only a "new thing 
 under the sun," but a most strange and portentous 
 anomaly in the course of human experience. 
 
 For this controlling reason, then, at the outset, we are 
 constrained to distrust the conclusions now referred to, as 
 
64 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 unsound, and the methods by which they are reached as 
 not genuinely scientific. And here we are reminded of 
 what, with his accustomed felicity, a distinguished author 
 characterizes as a species of superstition attached to the 
 notion of science, as if it were an indescribable magical 
 something, different in itself from accurate and classified 
 knowledge systematically deduced from unquestionable 
 principles and established facts. A moderate acquaint- 
 ance with the habitual tendencies of the superficial, though 
 so-called scientific speculation of the day, may satisfy any 
 mind of the justness of this profound remark. 
 
 Science, it should be remembered, is a very humble as 
 well as calm and patient laborer; whether with Newton 
 gathering pebbles on the shore of the great ocean of truth, 
 or with Bacon seeking admission to the kingdom of nature, 
 as it is said a higher kingdom must be sought, with the 
 docile spirit of a simple-hearted child. When, therefore, 
 we find large claims proudly put forth in the name of 
 science, tending to revolutionize the practical moral con- 
 victions of mankind, and to annihilate the benignant sym- 
 pathies and actuating motives of humanity, the very incon- 
 gruity of the procedure brings it at once into suspicion as 
 erroneous and unreliable. 
 
 In addition to this general consideration requiring the 
 most serious questioning of the proposed theory, we have 
 a further special but kindred reason, in its bearing upon 
 our peculiar Southern institution, for meeting it with dis- 
 trust and subjecting it to unconfiding scrutiny. 
 
 The sacred code which guides the conscience of Chris- 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. C5 
 
 tendom, and which is, beyond question, incomparably the 
 surest directory to duty, in all human relations, is at once 
 our authoritative reply to all misguided assailants of our 
 position as providentially in charge of a form of servitude 
 every way remarkable, and our acknowledged standard of 
 the obligations connected with that position. And so long 
 as we abide by the sanctions of this code, whatever de- 
 luded enthusiasts and corrupt agitators may pretend, we 
 have with us not only the decisive voice of constitutional 
 law, but the undisturbing acquiescence, if not the full ap- 
 proval, of the enlightened Christian mind throughout the 
 world. Right-minded people may indeed believe that the 
 golden Christian rule tends toward the abatement of as- 
 perity and the remedying of oppression in all human rela- 
 tions, and cherish the pleasing hope that as the spirit of 
 Christianity more and more prevails, equity and kindness 
 will more and more ameliorate, everywhere, the condition 
 of the more burdened portions of society. But they can- 
 not on any scriptural ground believe in a wild theory of ab- 
 solute personal equality, destructive of social order, and 
 rushing headlong into universal anarchy. Nor, despite 
 the fervid declamation and fiery denunciation so much in- 
 dulged within the last half century, can they believe that 
 the Creator sanctioned sin, when he legislated for slaves, 
 in old Abraham's house, and under the Jewish common- 
 wealth. (See Genesis, xvii. 12; Exodus, xxi. 21, etc.) 
 And when he caused to be recorded in the New Testament 
 such reiterated injunctions to masters to treat their slaves 
 considerately and kindlv and to servants religiously to 
 
 G* 
 
G3 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 obey, even under the severest species of bondage. (See 
 Eph. vi. 5; Col. iii. 22; 1 Tim. vi. 1 ; Titus, ii. 9; 1 Peter, 
 ii. 18, etc. 
 
 It is a striking and instructive fact that the fierce 
 assailants of the South, and its institution so peculiar 
 and so effective in elevating the negro race, should have 
 found it necessary to direct their batteries against the 
 Sacred Scriptures, either in the way of insane transcen- 
 dentalism, with one class of contestants, or of "higher- 
 law" atheism and " irrepressible-conflict" instigation, with 
 another, or of atrocious blasphemy, with a third, or with 
 perhaps a still more numerous assemblage, of pious senti- 
 mentalism conjoined with applauded falsehood, treason, 
 and murder. 
 
 Thoroughly satisfied, as we are, by the intrinsic and ex- 
 trinsic evidences attending the sacred code evidences 
 profoundly reverenced by the giant intellects of Bacon, 
 Xewton, Milton, and Locke, and unhesitatingly admitted 
 by the common sense of the leading portion of mankind 
 that the sanctions of that code rest on an immovable basis 
 of truth, we cannot deem it right or wise or becoming, 
 and we cannot consent, that the defenses of our posi- 
 tion be transferred from this foundation of rock to the 
 shifting quicksands of less than doubtful theories. It is in 
 our view wholly untrue, and we will not even tacitly allow 
 ignorance and prejudice the moral advantage of represent- 
 ing, that Southern servants are held only as a higher race 
 of qurangs, not really contemplated in the authoritative 
 precepts on which the morality of Christendom is founded. 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 6t 
 
 The question, then, as presented, is one which does not 
 admit of indifference, on account of its obvious bearing 
 upon our special position as Southerners, as well as upon 
 the moral and higher relations of men everywhere. 
 
 At the same time, however, it is very far from necessary 
 to mingle in its treatment passion and prejudice. Indeed, 
 under various conditions has it been again and again exam- 
 ined by naturalists, with entire dispassionateness, as a gen- 
 eral matter of scientific interest; and although, in the 
 progress and result of these inquiries, "we observe," as 
 remarked by Dr. Morton, (Crania Americana, p. 2,) "that 
 diversity of opinion which is so frequent in human re- 
 searches," yet has the investigation been, for the most part, 
 conducted as a fair search after truth, Yirez supposing 
 he had ascertained two species, Desmoulins eleven, Borey 
 thirteen, and others a still greater number of original 
 kinds, among men ; while Linnaeus, Blumenbach, Cuvier, 
 and other distinguished students of nature became settled 
 in the conviction of a strict unity in the human family. 
 
 Among investigators in this department of research, the 
 celebrated Dr. James Cowles Prichard stands unrivaled as 
 a model of freedom and fairness of mind, associated with 
 virtuous reverence for everything good, cautious examina- 
 tion conjoined with discriminating sagacity, and the most 
 amazing accumulation of intelligence covering the whole 
 field of inquiry. Setting out with full confidence in the 
 great principle, that "truth can never be found ultimately 
 in opposition to truth, "he devoted the energies of a sound 
 mind, sustained erudition, and the persistent endeavors 
 
SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR TIIE BIBLE. 
 
 of a long life, to exploring the wide range of fact in all 
 branches of knowledge affecting his ultimate problem, phy- 
 sical, physiological, psychological, historical, and philologi- 
 cal ; and after the most copious induction of this kind, un- 
 der the requirements of an inexorable logic, he was brought 
 to a result thus announced in the closing words of his last 
 work: "We are entitled to draw confidently the conclusion, 
 that all human races are of one species and one family." 
 
 "Prichard," says Biinsen, "will not be forgotten in the 
 annals of history. His works contain the best and clear- 
 est discussion of all the elements of natural philosophy 
 which bear upon the great question of the unity of the 
 human race. His ethnological inquiry is conducted on the 
 basis of a clear geographical and ethnological exposition, 
 in which the critical reforms introduced by Hitter, Klap- 
 roth, and others, are adopted with independent judgment. 
 In the linguistic portion he availed himself, generally, of 
 the most thorough critical researches, and made use of the 
 best materials which continental and English glossaries 
 and observations offered to him. He had sound knowl- 
 edge of Greek, Latin, German, etc., and good taste in 
 selecting and naming his authorities. But his great merit 
 is his excellent good sense and sound judgment. ... As it 
 stands, his work is the best of its kind. . . . Up to the 
 present moment, (1854,) there is no book which treats the 
 question with equal depth and candor." 
 
 These characteristics of Prichard's mind, method, and 
 conclusions, we wish to be particularly marked: his "ex- 
 cellent good sense, and sound, independent judgment;" 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 69 
 
 his care to collect the most abundant "observations," and 
 avail himself of "the most thorough critical researches;" 
 his substantial "knowledge," the "depth" of his convic- 
 tions," the "clearness" of his thoughts, and, above all, the 
 "candor" of his spirit. 
 
 It is in association with precisely this style of character, 
 this order of mind, and this reliable application of the in- 
 ductive philosophy, that genuine scientific results are to be 
 looked for in the future, as they have been displayed in the 
 past. 
 
 And it is with unfeigned regret that we find ourselves 
 constrained to remark upon the characteristics, so opposite 
 to these, of certain industriously circulated and insidiously 
 indorsed (see Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. 
 viii. p. 81,) publications of the last year or two, which, 
 especially as the production in part of Southern talent, 
 we had very much rather find worthy of unqualified com- 
 mendation. In these, for the most part, there are not 
 only blemishes of the most serious nature, but improprie- 
 ties of tone and purpose so marked and so extensive as un- 
 avoidably to weaken, if not actually to neutralize, their 
 claims to scientific authority. Prejudice and passion are 
 stamped too conspicuously on their pages to be overlooked 
 by the most casual observer; and it must always be in vain 
 for the noble triumphs of science to be claimed by authors 
 who exhibit such tokens of disturbed or clouded reason. 
 In proof that we censure thus not unadvisedly, and that 
 the cause of truth requires these traits to be understood, 
 we adduce a few specimens. 
 
TO SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 One of these writers, Dr. Patterson, in his memoir of 
 the distinguished naturalist, Dr. Morton, thus mingles in- 
 tense feeling with philosophical discussion ; alluding to an 
 instance of violence by one of the Western tribes, in which 
 a valuable life was lost, he says : " We have had too much 
 of sentimentalism about the red man. It is time that cant 
 was stopped now. Not all the cinnamon-colored vermin 
 west of the Mississippi are worth one drop of that noble 
 heart's blood." Here is stereotyped passion in the terms 
 "cant" and "vermin." 
 
 In like manner, and in reference to a higher subject, an- 
 other, Dr. Xott, gives vent to a spirit of no little bitter- 
 ness: "On former occasions we had attempted to con- 
 ciliate sectarians, and to reconcile the plain teachings of 
 science with theological prejudices. In return, our opin- 
 ions and motives have been misrepresented and vilified by 
 self-constituted teachers of the Christian religion. We 
 have, in consequence, now done with all this ; and have no 
 longer any apologies to offer, nor favors of lenient criticism 
 to ask. The broad banner of science is herein nailed to 
 the mast. Even in our own brief day, we have beheld one 
 flimsy religious dogma after another consigned to oblivion, 
 while science, on the other hand, has been gaining strength 
 and majesty with time." 
 
 Abusive epithets are here accumulated with an angry 
 energy that almost pants in its eagerness. "Sectarians," 
 " theological prejudices," "vilified," "apologies," "fa- 
 vors," "flimsy religious dogmas" bespeak an excitement 
 of mind manifestly inconsistent with the self-possession of 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. l 
 
 reason, the composure of philosophy, and the dignity of 
 science. A calm, clear intellect, assuredly is indispensable 
 to trustworthy scientific investigation. And though we 
 may not absolutely hold that your true philosopher is 
 
 "A man whose blood 
 Is very snow-broth ; one who never feels 
 The wanton stings and motions of the sense, 
 But doth rebate, and blunt his natural edge 
 With profits of the mind, study, and fast ;" 
 
 yet must he be in general, and doubly in reference to great 
 questions he professes to elucidate, 
 
 "Free from gross passion." 
 
 Another individual, less distinguished but more notorious 
 than the writers already quoted, makes arrogant mockery, 
 profane jesting, and boastful denunciation the chief staple 
 of his contributions to ethnology, as if they were legiti- 
 mate adjuncts of scientific inquiry. And he has actually 
 had the fatuity to stamp upon his own pages with his own 
 hand the brand of a revengeful and belligerent temper. 
 "It has so happened," says Mr. Gliddon, on the last page 
 of his book, " that my surname has been frequently made 
 the target for indiscreet allusions on the part of certain 
 theologastii, without any provocation having been given 
 on my side, through a single personality, in the course of 
 ten years' lectureship upon Oriental Archeology in the 
 United States. To treat such in any other manner than 
 with silent indifference, would have been unbecoming, as 
 well as at the moment of each offense unavailing. I pre- 
 ferred my own convenience, and in the foregoing pages I 
 
72 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 have indicated an easy way of 'carrying the war into 
 Africa.'" Whatever may be said of this in other aspects, 
 no one can question that it indicates a most unreliable state 
 of micd for a man who professes to deal scientifically and 
 destructively with the most important verities embraced in 
 the range of human intelligence. 
 
 Xor are these the only prima facie reasons for distrusting 
 the processes and conclusions of the class of works under 
 consideration. In them all there is implied, and in some 
 avowed, discipleship of the phenomenal atheistic philoso- 
 phy of Comte, known as positivism. And this necessarily 
 throws the theory of "creation in nations" into the cate- 
 gory of Lamarck's development hypothesis, and the specu- 
 lations of the "Yestiges of Creation." Since it is clear, 
 that, if no Creator is acknowledged, there can be no 
 "creation" meant in any true sense. And the notion, after 
 all, involved in the scheme really is, that in some inexpli- 
 cable, inconceivable way, men merely appeared in nations, 
 without having been created at all. They only happened 
 without a true causation or waked up from sleeping 
 stocks, unaccountably animated, or grew out of ourangs, 
 which had grown out of frogs, which had been developed 
 from eternal monads under the blind decrees of a Dead 
 Fate. 
 
 The issue of the theory that every region had originally 
 its tribal autochthons in some such absurdity as this, 
 might, indeed, have been inferred from the consideration 
 that such theory is directly in conflict with the relations of 
 means and ends involved in any economy of creation and 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 73 
 
 providence. It being well-nigh incredible that a presiding 
 intelligence would, in the act of endowing an order of 
 creatures with energies and impulses adapted to endless 
 self-multiplication, produce them in countless numbers. 
 
 But though the Lamarckian hypothesis might thus have 
 been inferred as involved in the indefinite autochthon the- 
 ory, it is the avowal of atheism under the guise of Comte's 
 phenomenal scheme, which converts that inference into 
 something of an acknowledged conclusion. 
 
 A conclusion, however, so universally rejected by the 
 common sense of mankind, as well as thoroughly refuted 
 by the demonstrations of logic and the proofs of science, 
 (see the admirable discussions in Sir Charles Lyell's Ele- 
 ments of Geology, and in Hugh Miller's Footprints of the 
 Creator,) is not of course willingly and fully confessed. 
 And it is, perhaps, but justice to the parties, to admit that 
 they have not fully considered the relation between their 
 theory and the atheistic philosophy to which some of them 
 have committed themselves. This is the less unlikely, from 
 the indications they give that their acquaintance with 
 Comte's system is derived mainly from the meagre and 
 partial synopsis contained in G. H. Lewes's "Biographical 
 History of Philosophy." This is the only exposition of pos- 
 itivism which they quote. If fully aware, moreover, of the 
 position they were assuming, they could hardly have ranged 
 themselves so complacently among those whom a well-in- 
 formed reviewer (North British Review, May, 1854,) so 
 justly characterizes as " a cohort of narrow-minded enthu- 
 siasts and half-believing admirers, who, on the authority 
 
74 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 of Mill and Lewes, are taking the atheistic positivism as 
 their creed, while it is unnoticed by the profoundest minds 
 of the age." 
 
 Xor could they have claimed, with such supreme satis- 
 faction, to have passed, under Comte's leadership, "beyond 
 that undeveloped stage of the reasoning faculties classified 
 as theological," and to have taken their place "among the 
 educated who are creating new religions for themselves," 
 had they not been ignorant of the pregnant fact, that the 
 latest development of their master's system, and of the 
 vaunted process of education toward "creating new reli- 
 gions," is an actual return to the very lowest form of "the- 
 ological" folly. That Comte himself, the denier of a God, 
 under the desolation of bereavement, when Madame Clo- 
 tilde de Yaux, the object of his love, was torn from him 
 by death, sought relief for an aching heart in the most 
 absurd Fetischism of his own construction ; human beings, 
 and the higher beasts, in the aggregate of their vitality, 
 constituting his god, and Madame Clotilde, under some 
 fanciful notion, a supreme goddess. 
 
 Whether, however, aware or unaware of all this, these 
 writers are, by the simple fact of giving it unconditional 
 indorsement, more than abundantly discredited as trust- 
 worthy explorers of truth. If in possession of the whole 
 case, they have deceived ; if not so possessing it, they have 
 trifled with their readers. And in either event there is 
 most culpable unfairness. Authors who venture to deal 
 destructively with the practical groundwork of human con- 
 victions, and to substitute what they are bold enough to pro- 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 75 
 
 claim a better system, which, notwithstanding, they have 
 not half examined, are egregiously misleading, and may 
 be fatally deluding all who accept their proffered guid- 
 ance. 
 
 In all these improprieties of tone, manifestations of tem- 
 per, and proofs of prejudice, which we are compelled to 
 notice as pervading the discussions connected with the 
 diversity doctrine in its latest phase, we find inevitable 
 considerations of conclusive cogency, forbidding any ready 
 acceptance of that doctrine. And these considerations, 
 superadded to the associations which it involves, as we 
 have seen, with the absurdities of Lamarck's hypothesis 
 and to its injurious bearing, previously indicated, upon the 
 moral code of Christendom and the securest sanctions of 
 our Southern social organization, make out so strong a 
 case of priina facie practical impossibility against the 
 theory, that every right-minded man may at once feel justi- 
 fied in setting it aside as satisfactorily shown to be unten- 
 able and untrue. 
 
 This mode of reaching the conclusion, however, though 
 doubtless sound, and perhaps satisfactory to those every- 
 where-to-be-respected individual minds whose determina- 
 tions are governed by the seldom-erring practical logic of 
 common sense, may not suffice as an ultimate exposition 
 for that class of inquirers who look to a scientific solution 
 of the important problem. We shall therefore need no 
 apology for going more thoroughly into an analytical exam- 
 ination of the entire question, to the full extent, indeed, of 
 the moderate limits we believe best adapted to usefulness. 
 
76 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Our method will be, to scrutinize the principal considera- 
 tions relied upon by the advocates of the diversity theory ; 
 and then to adduce, in order, the chief evidences which 
 establish, in our judgment conclusively, the specific unity 
 and organic identity of all varieties of the human family. 
 
 The first proposition urged in support of the diversity 
 doctrine is, that some very marked and otherwise unac- 
 countable relation exists, throughout the habitable globe, 
 between the flora and fauna of different districts, as 
 grouped by nature, independently to a great degree of 
 climate, and the distribution of human varieties. This 
 proposition rests mainly upon the authority of Professor 
 Agassiz, a gentleman for whose abilities and attainments 
 we, in common with all who are even partially acquainted 
 with the scientific achievements of the age, entertain very 
 high respect, but whose suggestions on points touching the 
 natural history of man must be regarded as far from con- 
 clusive. Partly because his special range of study has 
 lain in another field ; partly because he has exhibited in 
 this department a fanciful and fluctuating genius, now in- 
 clining to one and now to another opinion ; and partly be- 
 cause in the very act of lending his name and influence to 
 the doctrine that men " were created in nations," he admits 
 an enduring doubt as to an original diversity at all. "/ 
 still hesitate," are his words, in the very paper announcing 
 the proposition now in view, on " Provinces of the Animal 
 World, and their Relations to the Types of Man, 1854," 
 "/ still hesitate to assign to each (variety) an inde- 
 vendent origin." To appreciate the force of this doubt, 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 77 
 
 we must take it in connection with a favorite and elo- 
 quently urged conviction of this eminent zoologist. "We 
 recognize," he says, (Christian Examiner, January, 1850,) 
 "the fact of the unity of mankind. It excites a feeling 
 that raises men to a most elevated sense of their connection 
 with each other. It is but the reflection of that divine na- 
 ture which pervades the whole being. It is because men 
 feel thus related to each other, that they acknowledge those 
 obligations of kindness and moral responsibility which rest 
 upon them in their mutual relations. Where the relation- 
 ship of blood has ceased, do we cease to acknowledge that 
 general bond which unites all men of every nation ? By 
 no means. This is the bond which every man feels more 
 and more the farther he advances in his intellectual and 
 moral culture, and which in this development is continually 
 placed upon higher and higher ground so much so, that 
 the physical relation, arising from a common descent, is 
 finally lost sight of in the consciousness of higher moral 
 obligations. It is this consciousness which constitutes the 
 true unity of mankind." Nobly said, certainly, in vindica- 
 tion of oneness of nature in all men, and in inconsistency, 
 most sound-judging persons will think, with strenuous 
 advocacy of diversity of origin. For, why the needless 
 multiplication of miracle in giving being to a prolific crea- 
 ture, indeutical in nature, in a thousand, or a hundred, or 
 ten simultaneous or successive different pairs, or "nations," 
 in so many regions of the earth ? Such expenditure of 
 special power is assuredly not in accordance with the anal- 
 ogies of Providence. No wonder the distinguished phi- 
 7* 
 
78 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 losopher "hesitates to assign to each human variety an in- 
 dependent origin." To his main proposition, therefore, 
 sustaining the idea of manifold autochthon tribes, no great 
 weight can be attached, nor to the particulars supposed to 
 establish it. 
 
 The exact words of Agassiz, in stating his thesis, are: 
 " That the boundaries within which the different natural 
 combinations of animals are known to be circumscribed 
 upon the surface of our earth, coincide with the natural 
 range of distinct types of man." Here, at the outset will 
 be noticed an immense fallacy, under the single phrase 
 "natural range," which vitiates the entire proposition. It 
 either involves the assumption of an original starting up 
 of earth-born nations, each in its own "natural" district, a 
 doctrine about which the learned professor declares that to 
 the end he "hesitates;" or, it asserts some other fixed 
 relation between regions and races, irreconcilably in con- 
 flict with the plainest facts. If it be meant that Europe, 
 for instance, had native clans anterior to the immigration 
 of Teutons, Celts, etc., or their earliest wandering prede- 
 cessors, and that our Indian tribes sprang up in their 
 several "natural ranges," without connection with other 
 parentage, then what is it but the most obvious petitio 
 principii, the merest taking for granted the very thing 
 sought to be proved through the laborious processes of 
 massive volumes, without at last dispelling the mists of 
 doubt from this very leading mind? But if this be not 
 what is meant, then may it be unanswerably urged, what 
 original and fixed relation England and its flora and fauna 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 79 
 
 sustain to the present Anglo-Saxon population, or to any 
 other people that have entered the island from abroad? 
 And what is the " natural range" of the spreading popu- 
 lation of the United States ? 
 
 But not to dwell upon this radical unsoundness of the 
 proposition in question, let its alleged supports be exam- 
 ined. They are such affirmations as these : "Among the 
 animals which compose the fauna of a country, we find 
 types belonging exclusively there, and not occurring else- 
 where;" "the grand divisions of the animal kingdom are 
 primordial, independent of climate." And upon these 
 affirmations, in connection with the general proposition of 
 coincident human types and zoological groups, it is sweep- 
 ingly alleged, "that the laws which regulate the diversity 
 of animals, and their distribution upon earth, apply equally 
 to man, within the same limits, and in the same degree" 
 
 Now, granting, as is undoubtedly true, that instances 
 occur of very restricted existence of certain classes, alike 
 in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and that, apart 
 from human agency, neither plant nor animal of any one 
 kind can be found indiscriminately scattered through every 
 region where it could exist; yet, is it not plain that the 
 fact bears directly against the assertion, that men are con- 
 trolled within the same limits, and in the same degree, as 
 other living things, by the laws which regulate diversity ? 
 And that it bears also very strikingly in favor of an ori- 
 ginal creation of men in only one centre ? Why, it may 
 be confidently urged, should it be supposed that unlimit- 
 edly migratory man was "created in nations," the world 
 
80 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 over, when the unwielclly walrus is confined to the Arctic 
 shores, the awkward kangaroo, under whatever varieties 
 that exist, to the arid wastes of Australia, and the scarcely 
 locomotive sloth to a limited district of Southern America ? 
 And how did it happen that not a horse, cow, sheep, goat, 
 hog, dog, or cat, of all the numerous varieties of these 
 creatures elsewhere domesticated by man, was found in 
 1492, existing on the American islands and continent, 
 in companionship with the men there supposed to have 
 once waked up "in nations" out of dust, or metamor- 
 phosed lizards, or something of that sort? Why, if the 
 laws which regulate diversity apply equally in the same 
 limits and degree to man and to the lower creatures, did 
 not the "nations" that happened to rise up somehow in 
 America, find, on rubbing their eyes and looking about 
 them, some of these very useful, voiceless servants at hand, 
 which they might tame and turn to good account ? The 
 instinctive sagacity of a sound mind at once determines 
 these questions against the diversity theory. An inference 
 from analogy is immediately suggested, that if other orders 
 of animals were originally given being in only one locality, 
 so, probably, was man. That if the lower creatures, so 
 universally adapted to his use, had not their "natural 
 range "in America, in the sense of being created there, 
 neither had he, but that he found his way thither by 
 routes which admitted not of their transfer. A conclu- 
 sion, which, as will be presently seen, is remarkably con- 
 firmed by Lieut. Maury's discoveries respecting air and 
 ocean currents, and by linguistic and other facts copiously 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 81 
 
 furnished in the valuable national work edited by Dr. 
 Schoolcraft. 
 
 The statement that the grand divisions of the animal 
 kingdom are altogether independent of climate, cannot be 
 maintained in any sense subsidiary to the notion of like 
 " primordial" diversities among men. It is no doubt true 
 that climate alone did not determine the original positions 
 assigned different classes of plants and animals, and yet is 
 it equally certain that every organized form does sustain a 
 very marked relation to climate. " The migration of quad- 
 rupeds from one part of the globe to another," observes Sir 
 Charles Lyell, (Elements of Geology, vol. iii. p. 16, etc.) 
 "is prevented by uncongenial climates, and the branches of 
 the ocean which intersect continents. . . . Where the conti- 
 nents of the Old and New World approximate toward each 
 other on the North, the narrow straits which separate 
 them are frozen over in winter, and the distance is further 
 lessened by intervening islands. Thus a passage from one 
 continent to another becomes practicable for such quadru- 
 peds as are fitted to endure the intense cold of the Arctic 
 circle ; accordingly the whole Arctic region has become one 
 of the provinces of the animal kingdom, and contains many 
 species common to both th.e great continents. But the 
 temperate regions of America, which are separated by a 
 wide extent of ocean from those of Europe and Asia, con- 
 tain each a distinct nation of indigenous quadrupeds." 
 Yet man is there, under only "such variation of form, 
 color, and organization," remarks the same widely-informed, 
 unprejudiced, and coolly-judging author, "as has been con- 
 
82 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 vincingly proved to be perfectly consistent with the gener- 
 ally received opinion of an origin from a single pair." 
 And, continues the same philosophic investigator, "were 
 the whole of mankind now cut off with the exception of 
 one family, inhabiting the Old or the New Continent, or 
 Australia, or even some coral islet of the Pacific, we 
 might expect their descendants, though they should never 
 become more enlightened than the South Sea Islander, or 
 the Esquimaux, to spread in the course of ages over the 
 whole earth, diffused partly by the tendency of popula- 
 tion to increase, in a limited district, beyond the means 
 of subsistence, and partly by the accidental drifting of 
 canoes by tides and currents to distant shores." 
 
 With this unmistakable announcement, by one admitted 
 to have no superior in this department of science, might 
 safely be left the refutation already given of the notion, 
 that well-defined distinctions between human races coin- 
 cide with corresponding limits of definitely circumscribed 
 zoological realms, independently of climate, and only ex- 
 plicable on the theory of original diversities. 
 
 But there are other facts of so striking a character, in 
 irreconcilable conflict with that notion, that it is scarcely 
 allowable to pass on without listening a moment to their 
 decisive utterance. One of these facts is the established 
 unity of the whole American race, notwithstanding im- 
 mense diversities of form, color, and appearance, from the 
 misshapen and miserable occupants of Terra del Fuego, 
 to the lordly Iroquois, whom our fathers found so formid- 
 able, and the half-torpid Esquimaux still gorging them- 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 83 
 
 selves with blubber on the Arctic coasts. To this fact the 
 venerable Mr. Gallatin, so long and so remarkable an 
 investigator of -the Indian dialects, bears the following 
 testimony, in perhaps the last public document penned by 
 his hand: "The several languages of the aborigines 
 of America, as far as they have been examined, seem to 
 leave no doubt of the unity of that race." (See Letter in 
 Dr. Schoolcraft's Work, vol. iii. p. 9*1.) To the same fact, 
 Dr. Morton also, in the last paper ever prepared by himself 
 for publication, and the completion of which was even pre- 
 vented by his death, thus bears witness : "A certain same- 
 ness of organization among such multitudinous tribes 
 seems to prove, in the geographical sense, the origin of 
 one to have been equally the origin of all." (Paper in 
 Schoolcraft, vol. ii. p. 316. And even Agassiz does not 
 deny this fact; on the contrary, he assumes the American 
 race, in its totality, as one of the eight originally "created 
 nations," which he arbitrarily adopts for his purpose; 
 though other authors claim a different, and some an in- 
 definite, number of such "nations." Now with this great 
 fact of human oneness throughout so vast a region, there is 
 plainly no reconciling the learned professor's asserted same- 
 ness of localities for groups of animal species and types 
 of men. Such reconciliation is attempted indeed by 
 sweeping into one group the endlessly diversified, and in 
 some instances irreconcilably dissociated classes of animals 
 between Labrador and Cape Horn. But such classification 
 is too manifestly a forcing of facts to suit a theory to be 
 other than worthless. 
 
84 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 When the formidable grisly bear of the Rocky Mount- 
 ains, and the bison multitudes of the Northwestern prairies, 
 with their associated far and feather clad companions, are 
 discovered dwelling beneath the same skies as the ferocious 
 jaguar of Brazil, the strange ant-eater and sloth, and the 
 gorgeous feathered tribes of inter-tropical America, then, 
 and not till then, can anything like a unity of animal 
 species be affirmed as coinciding with that of the human 
 variety pervading the continent. 
 
 Another fact of the same character, and conducting to 
 the same conclusion, is the unity also established of the 
 human families, dwelling in the broad area between the 
 delta of the Ganges, the Pillars of Hercules, and the 
 shores of the Baltic. Comparative philology, of which in 
 another connection we shall adduce the testimony, has 
 placed this fact beyond all question. In the language of 
 one of Biinsen's coadjutors, in his great work, Christianity 
 and Mankind, vol. iii. p. 180, "there was a time when 
 the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Sclavonians, 
 the Greeks and Italians, the Persians and Hindoos, were 
 living together beneath the same roof." Yet who has ever 
 heard of animal forms in the wilds of Scotland and Scan- 
 dinavia analogous to the tigers and their associates amid 
 the jungles of Bengal? 
 
 Still another circumstance, controverting in just the 
 opposite way the notion of coterminous human types and 
 animal groups, is the very extensive coexistence of Papuan 
 and other varieties of negroes, and nations of totally dif- 
 ferent characteristics, in the great Malayan range of Poly- 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 85 
 
 nesian Oceanica. " Black, woolly-haired people, resembling 
 in their features and color the negroes of New Guinea, are 
 widely spread in the Indian Archipelago. They inhabit 
 the interior of many islands, from New Guinea, New 
 Britain, and New Ireland, northward to the Philippines, 
 and eastward to the Hebrides," (Prichard's Nat. Hist, of 
 Man, p 346 ;) while the Malayans occupying other por- 
 tions of the same islands, and in Tahiti and other districts 
 of the Polynesian Paradise, improved into some of the 
 finest specimens of physical man, reaching round in an 
 immense circuit, are found furnishing residents to the 
 African islands of Madagascar, as proved by Humboldt. 
 {Ibid., 341.) Any one who will turn to the portrait of a 
 Nigrito boy, given by Commander Wilkes, of the United 
 States Exploring Expedition, vol. v. p. 306, as a specimen 
 of that race in the Philippines, will at once recognize a 
 head and face the counterpart to which may be seen by 
 scores on any Southern plantation. Yet the true Poly- 
 nesian tribes of the same islands, especially the Irogotes 
 and Pampagnons, are represented by Wilkes as a fine 
 race. 
 
 Now; either these two varieties of men must be admitted 
 to be not both autochthons of that sweep of islands, or it 
 must be acknowledged that human varieties are not coterm- 
 inous with certain localities and zoological realms. It 
 matters little which horn of the dilemma be chosen by the 
 advocates of the diversity theory. Either way the fact 
 bears directly against their hypothesis, that all the more 
 marked varieties of men belong strictly to regions where, 
 
 8 
 
86 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 in common with coincident groups of plants and animals, 
 they were originally developed. 
 
 All these facts, and they might be almost indefinitely 
 extended, prove, beyond question, that the accomplished 
 Agassiz has permitted himself to yield to the temptation, 
 offered, by a certain facility of escape from difficulty, in 
 this adjustment, to arrange an arbitrary classification of 
 human varieties, on the one hand, and, on the other, a fan- 
 ciful grouping of animals into realms, so as to force them 
 into a semblance of agreement, on his artificial plan, which 
 is actually denied in the distributions of nature. No 
 wonder, we repeat, he "hesitates" about the doctrine of 
 original diversity, aware, as he cannot but be, of such 
 radical unsoundness in the theory of distribution which he 
 has been persuaded to throw off from a most ingenious and 
 versatile mind. We have deemed it proper, on account of 
 the influence of his name as a naturalist unsurpassed in 
 his peculiar department, thus to indicate the total incon- 
 clusiveness of his speculations concerning the origin, dis- 
 tribution, and varieties of mankind. We close the refuta- 
 tion of those speculations with another extract from the 
 well-nigh decisive judgment of Sir Charles Lyell. 
 
 "It is unnecessary," he says, (Elements of Geology, 
 vol. iii. pp. IT, 121,) "to accumulate illustrations in order 
 to prove that the stations of different plants and animals 
 depend on a great complication of circumstances, on an 
 immense variety of relations in the state of the animate 
 and inanimate worlds. Every plant requires a certain 
 climate, soil, and other conditions, and often the aid of 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 87 
 
 many animals, to maintain its ground. Many animals feed 
 on certain plants, being often restricted to a small number, 
 and sometimes to one only; other members of the animal 
 kingdom feed on plant-eating species, and thus become 
 dependent upon the conditions not only of their prey, but 
 of the plants consumed by them. . . . The possibility of the 
 existence of a certain species in a certain place, or of its 
 thriving more or less therein, is determined not merely by 
 temperature, humidity, elevation, and other circumstances 
 of the like kind, but also by the existence or non-exist- 
 ence, scarcity or abundance, of a particular assemblage of 
 other plants and animals in the same region. . . . Whereas 
 the power of existing and multiplying in every latitude, 
 and in every variety of situation and climate, which has 
 enabled the great human family to extend itself over the 
 habitable globe, is partly the result of the physical con- 
 stitution, and partly of the mental prerogative of man. If 
 he did not possess the most enduring and flexible corporeal 
 frame, his arts would not enable him to be the inhabitant 
 of all climates, and to brave the extremes of heat and 
 cold, and the other destructive influences of local situation. 
 Yet, notwithstanding this flexibility of bodily frame, we 
 find no signs of indefinite departure from a common 
 standard. And the intermarriages of individuals of the 
 most remote varieties are not less fruitful than between 
 those of the same tribe." 
 
 The distinct judgment expressed in the latter portion of 
 this quotation, concerning the specific oneness of the human 
 family under all the endlessly varying gradations of form, 
 
88 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 occasioned, within certain limits, by the operation of climate 
 and other influences, on an original extraordinary flexibility 
 of constitution furnishes a suitable point of transition 
 from one of the main propositions of the diversity ad- 
 vocates, to its other leading affirmation concerning a 
 pristine, well-defined, non-transitional, unchangeable dis- 
 tinction of species, in the diverse portions of our world's 
 human population. The several statements embodying 
 this affirmation may be expressed in the following proposi- 
 tion, derived from Dr. Nott's Synopsis, Types of Mankind, 
 p. 465: 
 
 11 There exists a genus Homo, embracing many primor- 
 dial types or species, which have remained permanent, 
 and untransitional, through all recorded time, and despite 
 the most opposite moral and physical influences" 
 
 The stress of this proposition lies obviously in the 
 asserted definiteness and permanence of the types spoken 
 of. If there be, as alleged, clearly-marked boundaries be- 
 tween unlike races, allowing of no intermediate gradations, 
 which seem by insensible blendings to affiliate them, accord- 
 ing to the diversified conditions of climate, habit, etc.; and 
 if adequate proof be furnished, that such distinctions have 
 existed since man appeared upon the earth, then it must 
 be conceded that the proposition is not only plausible, but 
 probably sustained. But if there be any failure of evidence 
 as to either of these subordinate elements, the proposition 
 at once, be it noted, loses its claimed position as a truth 
 scientifically established. For if there be any insensible 
 blending of grades between the extreme varieties, so that 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 89 
 
 no line of division can be truly drawn between one and 
 another, then the affirmed non-transitional distinctness of 
 types is immediately shown to be a merely arbitrary as- 
 sumption, not authorized by the facts of nature. Or, 
 supposing such separate, ungradational, clearly-defined 
 diversities of race to be made out, and that they have 
 existed for a very long time; still, if the whole term of 
 human existence be not clearly embraced in the evidence 
 if there occur any gap in the testimonies of time 
 if any ancient period be left to doubtful conjecture then 
 again is the proposition vitiated. Since no one can in that 
 case allege the impossibility, or even improbability, of the 
 introduction of strongly-marked varieties into one family, 
 by some such secondary divine appointment as that of 
 Genesis, ix. 25-2 T, to which the prevalent impression of a 
 very remarkable tri- partition of human destiny is com- 
 monly, and with reason, attributed. 
 
 Now, the question is, can either of these two branches 
 of the main proposition be fairly made out ? We are well 
 assured, after very careful examination, that they cannot 
 that there exists indeed an absolute impossibility in the 
 way of such proof, as to each of the points involved 
 that it is altogether, and in the nature of the case, im- 
 practicable, with any certainty to trace cranial relics, or 
 monumental delineations, or historical records, those of 
 revelation being excluded, up within any definite approxima- 
 tion of man's primeval age and consequently impossible 
 to trace diversities of race up to the beginning ; that it is 
 equally impracticable to point out races of men the most 
 
90 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 extreme in diversity, which have not, ranging between 
 them, indefinite varieties so closely approximating either 
 limit, as to constitute an insensibly blending gradational 
 series, with no break in the progression, no interval admit- 
 ting of a natural line of deinaikation; and that conse- 
 quently it is doubly impossible scientifically to establish 
 the proposition, in support of which crania are piled on 
 crania, and diagram on diagram, in the multiplied pages 
 of massive volumes. 
 
 Let us, however, examine the argument under each 
 head, and see if the general allegation be indeed sustained 
 by facts. 
 
 We take up the point of absolute, definitely bounded 
 types without interblending varieties. Is it established? 
 Is it true? Does nature so speak? 
 
 Let the types, as they are called, be looked at separately, 
 and then collectively. And here it occurs to remark upon 
 this delusive term in a professedly scientific discussion. 
 Types are marks, figures, modes ; species, in the scientific 
 sense, are classes intrinsically distinct. And although, 
 like almost all other general terms, this may be, and has 
 been questioned as to its exact scope whether it embraces 
 sameness of parentage as well as correspondence of gov- 
 erning qualities yet is its meaning sufficiently agreed 
 upon to make it the best general designation, in such in- 
 quiries. Whereas, the introduction of another term, and 
 one apparently indicating a fallacious mode of determining 
 specific diversity, viz., by a few superficial marks, is calcu- 
 lated to embarrass instead of elucidating the question, and 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 91 
 
 seems, indeed, to involve a sort of tacit admission that at 
 last the differences contended for as existing among men, 
 are not exactly of the same kind as these scientifically ad- 
 mitted in determining species among lower creatures. Not, 
 however, to dwell on this. We summon the American 
 type. Agassiz assumes this to be a unit. Mr. Gallatin 
 declares, "no doubt is left of its being one race." Dr. 
 Morton affirms "the origin of one to have been equally the 
 origin of all." Yet what are the facts as to some of the 
 most striking peculiarities which characterize varieties of 
 men? The very marked differences between the warlike 
 hunting tribes, that disputed inch by inch with our fathers 
 the possession of this great country, and the more com- 
 pactly settled, and therefore more artificially cultivated but 
 less vigorous people so cruelly oppressed and butchered by 
 Cortez and Pizarro, who has not had occasion to notice ? 
 Now, Dr. Morton testifies of the old Peruvians, "that they 
 possessed a brain no larger than that of the Hottentot 
 and New Hollander, and far below that of the barbarous 
 hordes of their own race : 155 crania gave but 75 cubic 
 inches for the average bulk of the brain. ... Of 22 Mex- 
 ican crania the mean capacity was 79 cubic inches, 4 above 
 that of the Peruvians. . . . While of 161 crania belonging 
 to the nomadic tribes of North America, the average was 
 84 cubic inches, 5 above that of the Aztecs and 9 beyond 
 that of the Peruvians." (Dr. Schoolcraft's Work, vol. ii. 
 p. 329.) 
 
 Here, then, is an item of structure on which all advocates 
 of specific diversity lay great stress, as strongly marking 
 
92 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 different types. Yet the highest authorities in this case 
 testify that it is not specific or primordial, but only circum- 
 stantial, and incident to habits of life. This is Dr. 
 Morton's account of the matter. (Schoolcraft, vol. ii. p. 
 239.) "We know that the government of the Incas was 
 of the kind called paternal, and their subjects, in the moral 
 and intellectual sense, were children, who seem neither to 
 have thought or acted except at the dictation of a master. 
 Theirs was an absolute obedience that knew no limit. 
 Like the Bengalese, they made good soldiers in their 
 native wars, not from any principle of valor, but from the 
 mere sense of passive obedience to their superiors. But 
 the condition of the savage is wholly different. His life is 
 a sleepless vigilance, a perpetual stratagem ; and his brain, 
 always in a state of activity, should be larger than that of 
 the docile Peruvian, even though it ceased to grow after 
 adult age." 
 
 Again, as to shape of head, it is of a certain general 
 standard, only "in greater or less degree," says the same 
 eminent comparative physiologist. And it has exceptions ; 
 "a more elongated form being seen among the Missouri 
 tribes, and among the Iroquois and Cherokees." 
 
 In stature there is a like deviation, e.g.: "Some of the 
 tribes of Patagonia embrace a remarkable number of 
 tall men, and perhaps their average stature exceeds that of 
 any other of the affiliated natives;" while "whole tribes 
 which possess a comparativelv low stature exist in South 
 America." 
 
 In co lor there are still wider differences. "The Char- 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 93 
 
 roas, (ibid.) on the southern shores of the Rio de la Plata, 
 are almost black, as are some of the California tribes; 
 while the Batocudys of Brazil and the Borroas of Chili 
 are examples of a comparatively fair tint. And we are 
 told that, among the islanders of St. Catharine's, on the 
 coast of California, young persons have a mixture of white 
 and red in their complexions, presenting a singular contrast 
 to the inhabitants of the adjacent mainland. . . . The fair- 
 ness of the Mandans of the Upper Missouri is proverbial." 
 "There are many of these people," says Catlin, (Customs 
 of North American Indians, vol. i. p. 94,) "whose com- 
 plexions appear as light as half-breeds; and among women 
 especially there are many whose skins are almost white, 
 with the most pleasing symmetry and perfection of fea- 
 tures, with hazel, with gray, and with blue eyes." 
 
 With regard to hair, Mr. Catlin also states, concerning 
 that of the tribe just mentioned, that it is generally "as 
 fine and as soft as silk," while the usual characteristic 
 of this appendage to the Indian ensemble, is its long, 
 black, and coarse texture. And even conceding to the 
 microscopic observations of Mr. Browne of Philadelphia 
 an authority altogether discredited by later and fuller 
 researches, this variation in the head-covering of the red 
 men may still be noticed. A circular section is exhibited 
 by Mr. Browne as generally belonging to the Indian hair, 
 while the slightly oval marks that of the European, and 
 the flattened ellipse that of the negro ; yet specimens are 
 given by him of the oval section from the Indian head, 
 and of a measurement not exceeding that exhibited in the 
 
94 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 best Caucasian blood, e.g. the two diameters of the oval 
 section of a hair from the head of a Choctaw Indian, 
 are given as respectively ^J-j and 3-^ of an inch; and the 
 corresponding measurement of a hair from the noble head 
 of Washington ^} 2 and ^ j g . (Schoolcraft, vol. iii. p. 383.) 
 Nor can it be doubted that the soft and silken locks of the 
 Mandans, described by Catlin, correspond, in minute struc- 
 ture, with the auburn tresses of our own bright beauties. 
 
 Here, then, is a single race of men presenting in itself a 
 very wide range of variation in almost every one of the 
 great features regarded as marking one type from another, 
 indefinitely approximating, on the one hand, the structure 
 and appearance of well-developed Europeans, and on the 
 other, those of the more degraded, unintellectual, and 
 swarthy portions of the human family. The first support 
 of the diversity proposition under review seems fairly to 
 break down under the pressure of this one fact. 
 
 But the great Indo-European family exhibits a precisely 
 similar scene of almost endless variation. Who is not 
 familiar with the characteristic features of the sons of 
 Erin, in contrast with those of the countrymen of Kosci- 
 usko, and those of the kinsmen of Palafox ? London and 
 Paris, Naples and Athens, St. Petersburg and Madrid, 
 present each its own standard of a great human variety; 
 and yet how widely different are they all from the ancient 
 people of Sanscrit speech in that vast peninsula of South- 
 ern Asia, where 
 
 "The rich soil, 
 
 Washed by a thousand rivers, from all sides 
 Pours on the nations wealth without control !" 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 95 
 
 "The inhabitants are swart, and in their locks 
 Betray the tint of the dark hyacinth." 
 
 So, again, with the prodigious multitudes of ever-vary- 
 ing human creatures spread over the immense area from 
 Finland and Hungary, through the wide tract of Northern 
 and Central Asia. These, all that can be included under 
 the general appellations of Finns, Hungarians, Tartars, 
 Turks, Samoieds, Mongolians, and Tungusians, have been 
 shown, by the untiring researches of Ilask, Schott, and 
 Castren, into their speech, to constitute one great family 
 of men. "After studying," says Castren, "for a long 
 number of years, Finnic, Samoiedic, Turkic, Mongolic, 
 and Tungusic dialects, it seems, as far as I can see from 
 my own researches, that there exists between them both a 
 formal and a material congruence, . . . and that they be- 
 long to one class or race." (Biinsen, vol. iii. p. 278.) 
 Yet, who that looks upon the specimens of these various 
 tribes, as rudely given in our common illustrated modern 
 geographies, but must be struck with the interminable 
 gradations with which they blend into each other, between 
 extreme limits, which themselves blend, on the one side, 
 into the highest European, and, on the other, into the 
 lowest form of broad-cheeked, narrow-headed, low-statured, 
 fish-eating barbarians ! 
 
 Passing over the great Malayo-Polynesian range, already 
 alluded to, of blended varieties, between limits approxima- 
 ting the Caucasian in Tahiti and elsewhere, and the dark, 
 crisp-haired Hawaiians and others verging negroward ; 
 
96 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 and the Shemitic stock, varying between the traits of the 
 fair daughters of Judah and those of the black Bedouins 
 of Arabia ; we next view the generally tanned and often 
 woolly-haired, but still endlessly varied inhabitants of 
 Africa, undistinguishably blended between the Berber 
 and Egyptian of one extreme, and the Guineans, Hot- 
 tentots, and Caffres of the other. The following is the 
 strong testimony of so thoroughly informed a witness 
 as Professor Lepsius: "You speak," he says to the 
 authors of Types of Mankind, p. 233, "of a gradation 
 in the people of the continent of Africa, from the Cape 
 to the North. It is a very curious fact that the lan- 
 guages of the Hottentots and Bushmen . . . bear some 
 characteristic traits, which are found in the tongues of 
 Northeastern Africa. . . . The whole African continent 
 had, in my view, within a certain time a parent popula- 
 tion, and its languages were consequently analogous. I 
 understand what you designate a negroid type in the 
 Egyptian figures, and I have nothing against that observa- 
 tion. But the fact does not interfere with their principal 
 character being Asiatic." So also Mr. Birch, of the British 
 Museum, (ibid.:) "You are quite right as to the interme- 
 diate relation of Egypt to the Asiatic and Nigritian races." 
 In connection with the above expression of Lepsius, we 
 quote from him a still more striking fact, (Letters from 
 Egypt, xxvi.) "I have prepared the grammar and vocab- 
 ulary of the language of the Bischaribas, inhabiting the 
 eastern portion of the Soudan, . . . and both with refer- 
 ence to its grammatical construction, and its position in the 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 91 
 
 development of languages, it proves itself to be a very re- 
 markable member of the Caucasian stock." 
 
 "Moreover," says Biinsen, (vol. iii., p. 185,; the roots 
 of the Egyptian language are, in the majority of cases, 
 monosyllabic, and on the whole identical with the corre- 
 sponding roots in Sanscrit and Hebrew." 
 
 Here, therefore, entering Africa by the valley of the 
 Nile, we find that early civilized and intelligent, though 
 strangely idolatrous people, so much dealt with by the 
 Scriptures and the old classic writers, blending, by lan- 
 guage and many physical and intellectual characteristics, 
 with the Japhetic and Shemitic stocks. Passing southward, 
 the same race is tracked, by the sure guidance of affiliated 
 tongues, through Soudan and Abyssinia. The predomi- 
 nant color of the ancient Egyptians is represented, as is 
 well known, on their monumental tablets, etc., as of a 
 peculiar red. And all the Nubians of the Nile, or Ber- 
 berines, are, for the most part, (Prichard's Nat. Hist. Man, 
 p. 285,) "of a red-brown complexion, sometimes approach- 
 ing black, but still different from the ebony hue of the 
 negroes proper. Their hair often frizzled and thick, yet 
 not precisely similar to that of the negroes of Guinea." 
 Of the Abyssinians, Baron Larrey says, (ibid., 287,) "that 
 they belong to the same general class with the Berberines 
 and Egyptians: countenances full, without being puffed; 
 eyes beautiful, clear, almond-shaped, languishing; cheek- 
 bones projecting; noses nearly straight, rounded at the 
 ends ; nostrils dilated ; mouth of moderate size ; lips thick ; 
 
 9 
 
93 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 teeth white, regular, and scarcely projecting; beard and 
 hair black and crisp ; and complexion the color of cop- 
 per." 
 
 " Connected with the Abyssinians are the Gallas, a race 
 extensively spread in eastern inter-tropical Africa, and one 
 of those holding an intermediate place between the Ara- 
 bian on the one side and the negro on the other." 
 
 "Their countenance," says Dr. Ruppell, "is rounder 
 than that of other Abyssinian nations : noses straight, but 
 short; lips thick, but not yet like those of the negroes; 
 hair thick, and strongly frizzled, and almost woolly." (Ibid., 
 pp. 285-87.) 
 
 From the lower Xile, tracing westward the Mediterranean 
 border of Africa to the Straits, we note various Berber 
 tribes, spread over the region of ancient Lybia. Here the 
 Tyrian colonists of old found both fixed and desert-roving 
 tribes 
 
 "Hinc Getulse urbes, genus insuperabile bello, 
 
 Et Numidse infreni cingtmt, et inhospita Syrtis ; 
 
 Hinc deserta siti regio, lateque furentes 
 
 Barcsei." .... 
 
 And here African chiefs 
 
 .... "larbas, 
 
 Ductoresque alii, quos Africa terra triumphis 
 Dives alit " 
 
 deemed themselves fit suitors for fair Dido's hand. 
 
 These Berbers are described as "in general of a swar- 
 thy color, with dark hair; but those who inhabit the moun- 
 tains of Auress, or Mons Aurarius, though they speak the 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 99 
 
 same language, are of a fair and ruddy complexion, and 
 their hair is of a deep yellow." (Ibid., p. 265.) The 
 Tuarik Berbers, consisting of many different tribes spread 
 through all the habitable part of the great plain of Sahara, 
 are especially remarkable, since they are found to "differ 
 from each other most strikingly in physical traits, accord- 
 ing to the climates where they dwell : being in some parts 
 white, in others black, but without the features of negroes." 
 (Ibid.) 
 
 Southward, to the mountain chain which ranges nearly 
 parallel to the equator and at a distance of some 10 
 therefrom nearly bisecting the continent, including all that 
 can be occupied of the vast sandy sea, is an immense ex- 
 panse over which are spread a still greater variety. Some 
 of the people of the interior are described as "very hand- 
 some;" the nations of Haiissa, for example, whom Mr. 
 Jackson declares to "possess a peculiarly open and noble 
 countenance, with prominent noses, and expressive eyes." 
 (Ibid., p. 294.) While others, for instance the Barnawi, 
 are reputed to be more like the ideal negro. And as to 
 the intellectual capacities of these tribes, the description 
 which the celebrated Mungo Park gives of Lego, the capi- 
 tal of Bambarra, may serve as an illustration. " The view 
 of this extensive city, numbering some 30,000 inhabitants, 
 with its flat-roofed, two-story houses ; its mosques seen in 
 every quarter ; the ferries conveying men and horses over 
 the Niger; the numerous canoes upon the river; the 
 crowded population; and the cultivated state of the sur- 
 rounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civiliza- 
 
100 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tion and magnificence which I little expected to find in the 
 bosom of Africa." {Ibid.) 
 
 Toward the Atlantic extremity of the great equatorial 
 mountain chain are found still other varieties of men. On 
 the northward slope range the Mandingoes, one of the 
 most powerful, numerous, and intelligent of the African 
 races. Golberry affirms of them that "they resemble the 
 blacks of India more than those of Africa." (Ibid.) 
 Though Park states that they are not so handsome as the 
 Joloffs, who are the most beautiful and at the same time 
 the blackest people in Africa, and with hair of the kind 
 termed completely Foolly. The color of the Mandingoes 
 is a yellowish black. Some of them, according to Major 
 Laing, resemble the ancient Romans in many of their cus- 
 toms. 
 
 On the western declivity of the Hong chain occur in 
 power the Fulahs, a people identical with the conquering 
 Felatahs in Central Africa. The intelligent French trav- 
 eler, M. Golberry, describes them as "fine men, robust, 
 and courageous ; possessing a strong mind ; cautious and 
 prudent; understanding commerce, and traveling in the 
 capacity of merchants even to the extremity of the Gulf 
 of Guinea." "Their women," he says, "are handsome 
 and sprightly. The color of their skin is a kind of red- 
 dish black. Their countenances are regular, and their 
 hair is longer than, and not so woolly as, that of the com- 
 mon negroes. Their language also is more elegant and 
 sonorous than are those of the nations -by whom they are 
 surrounded." (Ibid.) From their appearance, and other 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 101 
 
 circumstances connected with the Felatahs and Fulahs, M. 
 d'Eichthal, in an elaborate memoir, maintains that they are 
 an offset from the Polynesian race. 
 
 On the southern slope of the great range of mountains 
 which terminates in the Sierra, and reaching round 
 through a vast circuit of maritime country, to the inner 
 angle of the Bight of Benin, are found the people present- 
 ing the negro traits in full development. Upon these it is 
 needless to dwell, familiar as they are to almost every resi- 
 dent in the United States. 
 
 The interior of Africa south of the equator has of 
 course been less satisfactorily explored than its northern 
 expanse ; still, reliable researches have also been here made, 
 and especially have the recent discoveries of Dr. Living- 
 stone thrown important light upon the geographical, eth- 
 nological, and kindred questions connected with this part 
 of the continent. 
 
 Professor Ritter had, some time since, after the fullest 
 investigation then practicable, represented the great pla- 
 teau of Southern Africa as rising in every part at no great 
 distance from the coast, supported on each side by a moun- 
 tainous border, which offers an immense barrier in front 
 of the surrounding ocean. "This elevated basin, it is 
 believed, like all other regions so situated, contains 
 vast lakes and immense mountain plains, a theatre where 
 mankind must have formed themselves into peculiar races, 
 during immemorial times, as they received the impress 
 which physical agents were fitted to produce. In a coun- 
 try so analogous in its conditions to the high regions of 
 
 9* 
 
102 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Eastern Asia, we should expect to find some points of re- 
 semblance in the tribes of people to the inhabitants of the 
 last-named region. Accordingly, in the nations of South 
 Africa there are many points, both in their physical and 
 moral character, which bear a comparison with the great 
 nomadic tribes of Mongolia and Daouria." (Prichard.) 
 
 These conclusions, though in part modified by Dr. Liv- 
 ingstone's discovery, that "the interior of Southern Africa 
 is a vast, fertile, watery plateau of less elevation than 
 flanking hilly ranges," (see Livingstone's Trav. and Res. 
 in S. Africa, pp. 281 and 539,) are much more than con- 
 firmed by his observations on the characteristics of the 
 various tribes spread over this region. 
 
 We can only glance at the peculiarities of these South- 
 ern races. The Hotentots, like our Indians, have deterio- 
 rated and dwindled before the devastations of a vitiated 
 civilization. They were a pastoral people, active and 
 courageous, though, under a peculiar patriarchal govern- 
 ment, mild and contented. Now, through severe treat- 
 ment, they have become the most degraded of men. 
 
 Their descendants, the miserable Bushmen, as described 
 by the missionary Bonatz, are "of small stature, dirty- 
 yellow color, prominent forehead, much depressed nose, 
 and thick projecting lips. Their constitution is so much 
 injured by dissolute habits, and constant smoking of duhra, 
 that both old and young look wrinkled and decrepit." 
 Dr. Knox testifies, from abundant personal observation, 
 that the face of the Hottentot resembles that of the Kal- 
 muc, except in the greater thickness of the lips ; and he 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 103 
 
 sets them down as a branch of the Mongolian race. In 
 some important points their crania resemble those of the 
 Northern Asiatics, and Esquimaux. (Prichard.) 
 
 "The people," says Livingstone, p. 366, "who inhabit 
 the central region of South Africa are not all quite black 
 in color. Many incline to that of bronze, and others are 
 as light in hue as the Bushmen, who, it may be remem- 
 bered, afford a proof that heat alone does not cause black- 
 ness, but that heat and moisture combined do very mate- 
 rially deepen the color. Wherever we find people who 
 have continued for ages in a hot, humid district, they are 
 deep black. . . . The Batoka who live in an elevated region, 
 are, when seen in company with the Batoka of the rivers, 
 so much lighter in color that they might be taken for 
 another tribe." 
 
 The Caffres, north and east of the Hottentots, are thus 
 described by Professor Lichtenstein : "The universal char- 
 acteristics of all the tribes of this great nation consist in 
 an external form and figure, varying exceedingly from the 
 other nations of Africa. They are taller, stronger, and 
 better proportioned. Their color is brown; their hair 
 black and woolly. They have the high forehead and 
 prominent nose of the Europeans, the thick lips of the 
 negroes, and the high cheek-bones of the Hottentots." 
 (Prichard.) This, Dr. Livingstone not only confirms, but 
 extends. Of the entire central southern region, he says, 
 p. 408 : "All the inhabitants have a certain thickness and 
 prominence of lip, but many are met with in every village 
 in whom thickness and projection are not more marked 
 
104 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR TIIE BIBLE. 
 
 than in Europeans. All are dark, but the color is shaded 
 off in different individuals from deep black to light yellow. 
 As we go westward, we observe the light color predom- 
 inating over the dark, and then again, when we come 
 within the influence of damp from the sea air, we find the 
 shade deepen into the general blackness of the coast pop- 
 ulation. The shape of the head, with its woolly crop, 
 though general, is not universal. The tribes on the eastern 
 side of the continent, as the Caffres, have heads finely 
 developed and strongly European." 
 
 Of a tribe in the very centre of the southern plateau, 
 about south latitude 10, and east longitude 19, he adds, 
 p. 486: "The people in these parts seemed more slender 
 in- form, and their color a lighter olive, than any we had 
 hitherto met. Several were seen with the upward inclina- 
 tion of the outer angle of the eye. The mode of dressing 
 the great masses of woolly hair which lay upon their 
 shoulders, together with their general features, reminded 
 me of the ancient Egyptians." 
 
 Ascending northward along the Eastern coast, are 
 people analogous to the Caffres, and speaking cognate 
 tongues. "The farther our travelers advanced from the 
 coast," says Captain Owen, "the more they observed the 
 natives to improve in appearance. Of those of Moroora, 
 some are perfect models of the human form ; their hair is 
 not woolly, but grows long, turns in slender curls, and is 
 neatly plaited." (Prichard.) 
 
 In his "".Researches," Prichard has shown that there are 
 strong grounds for concluding that all the nations known 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 105 
 
 to inhabit Africa, south of the equator, with the exception 
 of the Hottentots, speak idioms, which, if not dialects of 
 one mother tongue, may be considered as belonging to one 
 family of languages. And the exception thus noticed will 
 be at once associated with the fact, before quoted from 
 Lepsius, that the dialects of the Hottentots and Bushmen 
 are of the same family with those of Northeastern Africa. 
 Here again later exploration has confirmed and extended 
 such well-grounded conclusions. "The dialects spoken in 
 the extreme south," says Livingstone, p. 361, "whether 
 Hottentot or Cafifre, bear a close affinity to those of the 
 tribes living immediately on their northern borders; one 
 glides into the other, and their affinities are so easily de- 
 tected that they are at once recognized to be cognate. If 
 the dialects of extreme points are compared, as that of the 
 Caffres and those of the tribes near the equator, it is more 
 difficult to recognize the fact, which is really the case, that 
 all the dialects belong to but two families of languages." 
 
 We have thus made a rapid circuit of the vast African 
 continent; glancing at its multitudinous tribes, some of 
 whom deviate more widely from the fine European stand- 
 ard than perhaps any other human varieties, the negroes 
 of Australia possibly excepted, who are allied to those 
 of New Britain, etc., and originally derived, most prob- 
 ably, as will be seen, from Africa. And in the whole range 
 we discover the same endless variations, and gradational 
 blendings between the widest extremes, exhibited by all the 
 other people of the earth. 
 
 In color they vary through every shade, between the 
 
106 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 appropriate European that sometimes appeared in Egypt, 
 and still exists in the neighborhood of Mount Atlas, and 
 the polished ebony of the thoroughly dyed negro. In 
 physiognomy, they range between the elegant Grecian 
 outline and the exaggerated monstrosity of prognathous 
 development. In texture, etc. of hair, they exhibit every 
 grade, from the soft Asiatic, and even auburn locks of some 
 Egyptians, and of the Aurarian Berbers, through the long 
 and plaited ringlets of the Moroorian Caffres, the short 
 and crisp curls of the Nubian Berberines, the thick and 
 frizzled half wool-like covering of the diffused Galla, and 
 the still more woolly head-growth of the sagacious Fulahs, 
 and of most of the southern races, to the thoroughly de- 
 veloped negro tufts of the Guinea tribes. 
 
 In every important particular that marks varieties of 
 men, the inhabitants of Africa vary with such indefinite 
 blendings of one grade into another, between the Caucasian 
 standard and the lowest negro specimen, that it is im- 
 possible to draw a line of divison at any point of the scale, 
 and affirm here one type ends and another begins. 
 
 This, then, is the decision of America, of Europe, of 
 Asia, of Oceanica, and of Africa. There are no absolute, 
 definitely bounded types of men, without undistinguishably 
 interblending varieties ; no such unconditionally fixed bound- 
 aries, circumscribing precisely marked families, separating 
 them from all others, and allowing of no transitional in- 
 stances, as assumed in the diversity proposition ; and con- 
 sequently the first postulate of that proposition neither is, 
 nor can be sustained. 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 107 
 
 We pass therefore to its other affirmation, permanence 
 of type through all time. And here it is of course to be 
 noticed, that with the evidence just adduced full in view, 
 so entirely discrediting the assumption of definitely bounded, 
 unblending varieties of men, we can only use the term type 
 in this connection as designating an ideal model, supposed 
 to be more or less approximated by individuals through 
 some indefinite range. The point alleged, however, we 
 wish distinctly and fairly to examine. It is, not only that 
 there have been negroes in the world from the beginning, 
 as well as Hindoos and Europeans, Mongolians, Samoied- 
 ans, and North American Indians, but that Greek, Roman, 
 and Celt, Scandinavian, Saxon, German, and Sclave, etc., 
 and indeed almost every traceable people on the globe, are 
 now, without change, save perhaps a little increase, just 
 such as they were when first waking up to conscious 
 being. 
 
 "Nothing short of a miracle," is the strong and bold 
 assertion, (Types Mankind, p. 89,) "could have evolved all 
 the multifarious Caucasian forms out of one primitive 
 stock." And attempts are seriously made to extort from 
 history some support for the idea, that each tribe always 
 had been what it subsequently was. So extravagant a 
 doctrine, however, directly in the teeth of the most com- 
 monly known historical facts, and totally disproved by 
 undeniable linguistic affiliations, is not worth considerate 
 refutation. It is immediately set aside by its own absurdity. 
 Nor is this all; the earnest advocacy of a notion so 
 obviously untrue, carries with it something more than 
 
108 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 suspicions for the whole theory. How can authors who 
 blunder so seriously on points open to universal apprehen- 
 sion, be relied upon as "knowing whereof they affirm," in 
 matters of more recondite character? 
 
 But not to take advantage of this extravagance in detail, 
 we accept the question in its more prominent features, and 
 candidly meet the inquiry concerning human forms the 
 most widely separated. Has it been made out document- 
 ally, monumentally, craniologically, or in any other way ? 
 can it be made out, that the white race has remained un- 
 changed, and the negro race unvarying, through all time, 
 "in spite of all the climates of the globe?" 
 
 The first consideration on the subject that at once 
 occurs is, if it be so, it is a very wide departure from the 
 general laws of specific existence. The following, says 
 Lyell, may be admitted as laws prevailing in the economy 
 of animated nature: "First, that the organization of in- 
 dividuals is capable of being modified to a limited extent 
 by the force of external causes ; secondly, that these mod- 
 ifications are, to a certain extent, transmissible to their 
 offspring; thirdly, that there are fixed limits, beyond 
 which the descendants from common parents can never 
 deviate from a certain type; fourthly, that each species 
 springs from one original stock, and can never be per- 
 manently confounded, by intermixing with the progeny of 
 another stock." (Elements of Geology, vol. ii. p. 433.) If, 
 then, it can be shown of the white race, or of the black, 
 that no modification of organization has ever been pro- 
 duced by extremes of climate, food, and other commonly 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 109 
 
 operative influences, that can be demonstrated concerning 
 them which can be exhibited in no other extensively dis- 
 tributed species of animals on our planet. 
 
 But the advocates of this theory, discerning the bearing 
 of analogy against their scheme, very positively repudiate 
 it as a legitimate element of scientific investigation, not- 
 withstanding the implied necessity of relying on analogy 
 at the very basis of every inductive method. " The diver- 
 sity of races must be accepted by science as a fact," they 
 say, (Types, p. 65,) "independently of theology, and of all 
 analogies or reasons drawn from the animal kingdom." 
 This is said, be it remarked, as a sort of preliminary to a 
 most elaborate discussion, aiming to disprove the Bible, 
 and show that "men were created in nations," and at last 
 so utterly failing in the proof, that the leading scientific 
 mind engaged, in spite of fanciful tendencies and strong 
 partialities, pleads guilty to final doubt on the subject. 
 
 But, passing by analogy, we address ourselves to the 
 alleged evidence of facts. The Jews are adduced as a 
 specimen of permanence. They certainly do stand mar- 
 velously among the nations, unabsorbed, unobliterated, 
 untransformed a fossil people in the deposits of time. 
 But the Christian derives from this instance what he justly 
 deems a vastly better lesson than that suggested. And 
 the physiologist finds influences kept in operation on the 
 Jewish mind and habit, well calculated to react upon the 
 physiognomy and preserve some of its marked features, 
 under considerable changes of other kinds which the peo- 
 ple are known to have undergone in different regions. 
 
 10 
 
110 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Stress is also laid upon the correspondence between "the 
 crania gotten from ancient places of sepulture, and the 
 modern heads of races in the same locality, supposed to be 
 descended from those there buried. This, however, is 
 plainly inconclusive to the purpose, since, in such cases, 
 the former and the recent have existed under conditions 
 too similar to necessitate a wide deviation. 
 
 The main evidence, after all, relied upon, is the exist- 
 ence of negro delineations on the monuments of Egypt. 
 And we frankly acknowledge there is, at first view, some- 
 thing in this circumstance apparently favoring the asserted 
 original existence, even from the very first, of negro races ; 
 but it is only on a superficial view, and merely in appear- 
 ance. 
 
 Nobody knows how many years or centuries elapsed be- 
 tween the creation of man, or the flood of Noah, and the 
 construction of those monuments. There may have been 
 abundant time for the Nisus Formativi, or constitutional 
 vital tendencies, severally imparted to the sons of one 
 father, to be developed, under circumstances favorable to 
 the introduction and transmission of the forms contem- 
 plated in such imparted tendencies, to a very extreme 
 degree. It by no means necessarily requires a very enor- 
 mous period for peculiar influences to work out, in a spe- 
 cies possessing some special tendencies, the extreme results 
 which they are capable of producing. "It follows," says 
 Sir Charles Lyell, (Elements of Geology, vol. ii. p. 464,) 
 "from many facts, that a short period of time is generally 
 sufficient to effect nearly the whole change which an alter- 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. Ill 
 
 ation of external circumstances can bring about in the 
 habits of a species." 
 
 It may very well have been, therefore, that the descend- 
 ants of one son of a family, who had received a certain 
 constitutional tendency, according to a great providential 
 plan, passing into Egypt, occupied the rich valley of the 
 Nile, and, after a moderate period, multiplying greatly, 
 spread themselves to the southward, and experienced, un- 
 der the operation of causes adapted to develop it, the evo- 
 lution in varying measure of that general tendency they 
 had inherited; until, ere long, the diversified grades of 
 dark skin, crisped hair, and prominent lips were produced, 
 terminating in the extreme of thorough negro peculiari- 
 ties. And that individuals of the race thus developed 
 should, in the course of no great number of centuries, 
 considering the course of the Nile valley and the general 
 relations of the country, be introduced into Egypt by 
 curiosity, trade, or war, could hardly be otherwise than 
 inevitable. 
 
 Of this probability, some very remarkable confirmations 
 are furnished in certain of Dr. Livingstone's late discov- 
 eries. First, that the sources of the Nile occur, it seems, 
 not in a lofty mountain region, difficult of access, but in 
 the elevated, humid, southern plateau between south lati- 
 tude 6 and 12. (See Livingstone's Trav. p. 514.) Second, 
 that the peculiar customs of flour and bread making, and 
 of spinning and weaving, which he met with in the heart 
 of Southern Africa, are the exact counterpart of pro- 
 cesses delineated in the old Egyptian sketches. (See those 
 
112 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 sketches, as given from Wilkinson by Livingstone, pp. 213 
 and 434.) 
 
 Now, it is worthy of remark, in this connection, that 
 while Biinsen and Lepsius, certainly the best Egyptolo- 
 gists of this or any other age, from the monuments assign 
 to the old Egyptian monarchy an antiquity reaching back 
 to 3893 B.C. (See Egypt's Place in Univ. Hist., passim.) 
 Even the industrious propounders of the permanent-type 
 doctrine, after scrutinizing the records from Memphis to 
 Meroe, can find no negro delineation more ancient than 
 "the twenty-fourth century B.C." (Types, p. 239.) It is 
 true these authors claim the right to "infer that these 
 Nigritian types were contemporary with the earliest Egyp- 
 tians." But it is manifest that an inference filling so pro- 
 digious a gap as sixteen centuries, is the mere substitution 
 of bold assumption for non-existing evidence. Science no 
 more allows such random leaps to conclusions, than justice 
 would sanction the procedure of a jury hastening to con- 
 sign a perhaps innocent fellow-creature to the gallows, by 
 bridging with inferential guesses vast chasms in testimony. 
 
 The truth is, the utter absence of all negro representa- 
 tions, from the oldest Egyptian monuments, through a 
 period, as yet ascertained, of sixteen hundred years, is a 
 most significant fact in contravention of the very inference 
 and theory of absolute original contemporaneousness. The 
 very occurrence of a negroid form in those sketches, only 
 at the end of a considerable period, during which the 
 delineating art was practiced, is a striking indication that 
 not till then had these forms become familiar in Egypt, 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 113 
 
 a singular confirmation of the view entertained by Lepsius 
 and Biinsen from their own researches, and of the proba- 
 bilities we just now exhibited on independent grounds, that 
 the African races were developed only in the course of 
 ages from Egypt downward. 
 
 In arguing thus, from the Manetho-monumental chro- 
 nology, we neither admit nor deny its absolute correctness. 
 It may be generally true. It may be partially erroneous. 
 But we are authorized to suppose that through its entire 
 range it is proportionally the one or the other So as, in 
 either view, to leave the argument entirely valid. 
 
 Nor, in conditionally admitting the most extended 
 Egyptian chronology, or even some reasonable indefinite 
 period between its farthest limit and the Noachian deluge, 
 do we intend the slightest disrespect to the time-calcula- 
 tions heretofore founded on the genealogical lists of the 
 Bible. While believing with Biinsen (Egypt's Place, etc., 
 p. 160,) and Lepsius (Letters from Egypt, p. 361,) that 
 the Old Testament, as well as the New, was designed for 
 practical religious benefit, and not by revelation to con- 
 vey a full account of ancient chronology, or any other 
 branch of mere human knowledge; and with Michaelis 
 and Prichard, that the genealogical lists between Noah 
 and Abraham may be incomplete, as indicated by a com- 
 parison of Genesis, x. 24, and Luke, iii. 36; 1 Chronicles, 
 vi. 1-4, and vii. 23-2*7, we also believe with them all, that 
 there is in the world no other history so truthful, and, 
 where it professes to give a complete, unbroken narrative, 
 so accurate as that of the Bible. 
 10* 
 
114 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Egypt and its monuments furnish, then, no reliable evi- 
 dence for the contemporaneousness and permanence, ab 
 initio, of the white and black varieties of men, or of pri- 
 mordial specific distinctions between them. How else, 
 indeed, should the most recent and most consummate 
 Egyptologists be among the most earnest advocates, 
 in the history of science, of a strict unity in the human 
 family ? 
 
 Another weak support for the primitive and ever-con- 
 tinued diversity doctrine is derived from ancient human 
 relics variously exhumed, and referred not only to a very 
 remote age, but to races diverse as those now existing. 
 For instance, a supposed Indian skull dug up from among 
 buried stumps, etc., some sixteen feet below the surface, at 
 Xew Orleans, and by a most credulous calculation assigned 
 to an imaginary date 57,000 years ago. Of such instances 
 and their bearings we shall have more to say in our dis- 
 cussion of "the age of mankind;" here it is sufficient to 
 make a single remark. Inferences, founded on a fanciful 
 scheme so totally in conflict with the known progress of 
 history and of human development ; with the mature con- 
 victions of Lyell, Murcheson, and the most accomplished 
 geologists, at least up to a very recent period, to be noticed 
 in the sequel ; with the candid admission of so able a sym- 
 pathizer in the diversity doctrine as Dr. Jos. Leidy, (see 
 his letter in the preface to " Indigenous Races of the Earth," 
 1857,) "that no satisfactory evidence has been adducedin 
 favor of this early appearance of man;" with the com- 
 paratively recent dates of the oldest recorded astronomical 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 115 
 
 observations, the most ancient of which ever heard of, 
 Laplace tells us in his Systeme du Monde, are some rude 
 Chinese notices of eclipses 2000 years B.C., and the first 
 that can be relied on at all only 1100 years B.C. ; and with 
 the limited range of even Egyptian chronology, are too 
 preposterous to require serious refutation. 
 
 One other statement, adduced in behalf of unchangeable 
 permanence and primordial distinction of races, remains 
 to be considered, viz., that the negroes in America have 
 not improved, and are not improvable, save in some lower 
 particulars scarcely worthy of notice. 
 
 The remark of Sir Charles Lyell, that they are undergo- 
 ing a manifest improvement, is pronounced "an unscientific 
 assertion." " One or two generations of domestic culture," 
 it is affirmed, "effect all the improvement of which the 
 negro organism is susceptible." 
 
 Respecting this, as a question of fact, most readers in 
 the United States, certainly all residents of our Southern 
 section, have some means of judging from personal obser- 
 vation. Such observations, it is true, embrace too brief a 
 'period to furnish any satisfactory solution of the question; 
 still, they may give an impression entitled to some credit, 
 as to the tendencies in the case, and especially when the 
 observed characteristics of our blacks are compared with 
 descriptions or delineations of the traits still prevalent in 
 Guinea. Our own impression, derived from such sources 
 and from life-long familiarity with Southern plantation- 
 life, and intimate acquaintance with hundreds of the race, 
 some of whom, as known by us in infancy, were natives of 
 
116 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Africa, is, that Lyell was not so much mistaken on this 
 point; and that, notwithstanding exaggerated specimens 
 of the lowest standard not unfrequently to be seen, there 
 is on the whole, and apart from all suggested suspicions of 
 mixed blood, a very marked improvement of the race 
 physically, intellectually, and morally. 
 
 The accomplishment of such a result, indeed, may be 
 regarded as among the final causes by which the destiny 
 of that race in America has been determined. A principle 
 which Southerners may, on the most solid basis of truth, 
 triumphantly maintain against all opposers, in vindication 
 of their moral position, as part of a vast scheme of an all- 
 wise and benign Providence. Xay, the benefit has been 
 incalculably beyond the improvement mentioned. For 
 thousands, even millions, of these otherwise degraded 
 heathen, have, in this peculiar situation, become, to all 
 human appearance, partakers of the highest blessings of 
 the everlasting gospel. This, indeed, is no excuse for the 
 covetousness and cruelty commonly involved in their orig- 
 inal capture and transportation, but it is, in connection 
 with the lessons of Scripture already referred to, a full* 
 vindication of the general beneficence of this system of 
 bondage, as in existence, and of the Christian virtue of 
 those pious masters, who, holding their servants as under 
 Divine sanction, endeavor faithfully to discharge the duties 
 of their station under a sacred sense of responsibility to 
 their "Master in heaven." (Col. iv. 1.) 
 
 But in thus giving our impression on the particular 
 point of a considerable degree of actual elevation, already 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 117 
 
 effected, and to be still more accomplished for the raco, 
 through their experience in onr Southern country, we are 
 by no means committing ourselves to a general theory of 
 possible upward development in this or any other race. 
 
 * 
 
 Elevation and degradation are very opposite processes, in 
 individuals, families, and races. The one, according, as it 
 would seem, to a prevalent constitution of nature, is for 
 the most part comparatively easy to be effected, and soon 
 consummated. The other, even when practicable, as often 
 it is not, is extremely difficult and of slow attainment. 
 Nor does it at all follow that because one set of influences 
 rapidly evolves a deteriorating tendency to its lowest limit, 
 influences of an opposite character can fully, if at all, 
 restore the depreciated individual or class. A constitution 
 seriously impaired by exposure or excess can seldom be by 
 any means completely renovated ; and the taints of blood, 
 fixed by repeated transmission, under circumstances adapted 
 to the tendency, are sometimes ineradicable by any remedial 
 measures. As the converse of a proposition is not neces- 
 sarily true in logic, so the reverse of a deteriorating process 
 may not be attainable in nature. The divine plan, though 
 having admitted, under given conditions, a downward 
 deviation from a stock coincident with the best Shemitic 
 or Japhetic, to the lowest negro, may not, even under oppo- 
 site conditions, admit a complete return to such coinci- 
 dence. A very extensive range of improvability, indeed, 
 in creatures of almost every class, under favorable in- 
 fluences, must be admitted as a general law of nature. 
 And such instances as the Mandan Indians, the Malayans 
 
118 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 of Tahiti, the Aurarian Berbers, etc., actually exhibit that 
 improvability in varieties of men of very marked character, 
 and on a scale to which no low limit can be justly assigned. 
 So that there is good reason to expect, under the contin- 
 uance of favorable influences, a very considerable elevation 
 of the negro race. It is our belief, moreover, that such 
 improvement is to be wrought out very much through their 
 relation to our own Southern States. Still, we know not 
 that it is other than an unauthorized assumption to suppose 
 that they can, under any combination of circumstances, ever 
 be restored to the physical, intellectual, and social condition 
 of the highest European standard. And hopeful as we are 
 concerning the gradual elevation of the masses of mankind, 
 of all varieties, under the great ameloriating agencies of 
 Christianity and modern civilization, till this, and every 
 other race shall attain the best standard of which it is 
 susceptible, we have little expectation of their fully recover- 
 ing the structural symmetry, cuticular texture, complexional 
 beauty, and ornamental locks, which, in their pristine state, 
 distinguished, we may believe, 
 
 "Adam the goodliest man of men since born 
 His sons, and fairest of her daughters Eve.'' 
 
 But, however this may be, it is clear that observations 
 are altogether too incomplete to authorize dogmatism 
 either way in this incidental poiut. And it is still more 
 obvious that even if negroes should in the future, however 
 by favorable influences elevated in the human scale, always 
 continue negroes, it will furnish no necessary proof that 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 119 
 
 they always have been. They may have been developed 
 downward, and yet never be allowed in all respects to 
 redevelop upward. The possibilities of the future, apart 
 from revealed sanctions, constitute however a mere spec- 
 ulation, with which it is no appropriate concern of scien- 
 tific investigation to amuse or perplex itself. Its proper 
 sphere is the actual, and in that sphere the hypothesis of 
 absolute permanence of type through all past time finds 
 no support. Facts abundant, in the phenomena of vari- 
 ation among lower animals, and in the history of human 
 varieties, and even significant tokens in the early Egyptian 
 monuments, array themselves invincibly against the notion 
 of unvarying continuance of the white and black, and all 
 other races, as they now are, from the very dawn of human 
 existence. 
 
 And nature, in reply to the interrogatory of science, 
 returns a distinct negative to each branch of the unvarying 
 primordial type proposition. 
 
 Having thus scrutinized, as proposed, the main argu- 
 ments adduced by the supporters of the diversity doctrine, 
 and found them unsubstantial and delusive, we proceed 
 briefly to present the chief considerations which satisfy us 
 of the specific unity of the human family. Such consider- 
 ations, in addition to many already incidentally adduced, 
 are, first, affiliations of language ; second, discernible pro- 
 cesses of distribution ; third, physical, physiological, and 
 psychological correspondences among men of all varieties ; 
 and, fourth, the doctrines of the Bible. Our limits admit 
 of the merest sketch of evidence under these several heads. 
 
120 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 The proof from affiliated language, in spite of extraor- 
 dinary suggestions to the contrary thrown out by Agassiz 
 and others, is really decisive of the question of the common 
 origin of the tribes of our race, it being plainly incred- 
 ible, that, among the infinitely diversified combinations of 
 sound of which the human organs are everywhere capable, 
 systematic coincidences in the structure of words and 
 sentences, among different people, should endlessly occur 
 by mere accident. It is vain also to attribute this agree- 
 ment to the natural tendencies of organs similarly con- 
 structed. No unprejudiced man, in his senses, can be 
 made to believe that while the Greek machinery for utter- 
 ance evolved the word "a/rroc," to express what the 
 English and American speaking apparatus denotes by 
 "bread," and the Latin organs of sound suggested by 
 "panis," all widely distinct, and especially the last utterly 
 unlike the other two, the French mouth should have de- 
 veloped, solely by the correspondence of its structure with 
 that of the old Roman, the articulation "pam," for the 
 identical thing. Every mind immediately discovers that 
 the French word is really the Latin, adopted and slightly 
 changed ; and so in a thousand instances. 
 
 The occurrence of a few such coincidences in any two 
 tongues shows manifestly some connection between the 
 people speaking them ; and the appearance of a great 
 many proves a very close connection, as in the case of the 
 Italian, French, etc., with the Latin. But, when, besides 
 corresponding words, the very mode of arranging the 
 elementary sounds to produce words is found coincident in 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 121 
 
 two languages, and the method of varying words in ex- 
 pressing the relations of things is discovered to be mainly 
 the same, not only is a close connection between these 
 nations indubitably proved, but it is distinctly shown that 
 their two classes of utterance are pervaded by a common 
 contrivance, and therefore emanated from one mental in- 
 fluence, that they are in fact parallel streams flowing from 
 the same source. The radical consonantal arrangements 
 so extensively prevailing, for instance in the Latin and 
 Greek, and the diffused parallelism of their declensions 
 and conjugations, constitute the most reliable historical 
 documents concerning their common ancestry. So in like 
 manner with the French and English. Such exactly agree- 
 ing modes of expressing thought as " L'homme-de- 
 guerre," and " The-man-of-war," pervading the two lan- 
 guages, are but part of the family likeness transmitted from 
 the same parentage. 
 
 Thoroughly to explore the tongues of the earth is, then, 
 the true way to determine the great question of origin, as 
 a scientific question. But this is a laborious process, not 
 to be pursued without untiring patience, accumulated efforts, 
 and vast erudition. No wonder it is depreciated by the 
 impatient, superficial, and unlearned theorists, claiming to 
 be scientific, who can so easily substitute for it a few half- 
 observed appearances, a crude hypothesis, a bold utter- 
 ance, and an abundant amount of dogmatism and denun- 
 ciation ; and by dint of defiant assertion palm it upon the 
 prejudiced, the busy, and the credulous, as science. 
 
 11 
 
122 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 "Languages," says Baron Humboldt, (Kosmos, vol. ii. 
 p. 4Y1,) "compared together, and considered as objects 
 of the natural history of the mind, and when separated 
 into families according to the analogies existing in their 
 internal structure, have become a rich source of historical 
 knowledge ; and this is probably one of the most brilliant 
 results of modern study in the last sixty or seventy years. 
 From the very fact of their being products of the intel- 
 lectual force of mankind, they lead us, by means of the 
 elements of their organism, into an obscure distance, un- 
 reached by traditionary records. The comparative study 
 of languages shows us that races now separated by vast 
 tracts of land are allied together, and have migrated from 
 one common primitive seat; it indicates the course and 
 direction of all migrations, and, in tracing the leading 
 epochs of development, recognizes, by means of the more 
 or less changed structure of the language, in the perma- 
 nence of certain forms, or in the more or less advanced 
 distinction of the formative system, which has retained 
 most nearly the language common to all who had migrated 
 from the general seat of origin." 
 
 " The largest field for such investigations into the ancient 
 condition of language, and consequently into the period 
 when the whole family of mankind was, in the strict sense 
 of the word, to be regarded as one living whole, presents 
 itself in the long chain of Indo-Germanic languages, 
 extending from the Gauges to the Iberian extremity of 
 Europe, and from Sicily to the North Cape." 
 
 "The same comparative study of languages leads us 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 123 
 
 also to the native country of certain products, which from 
 the earliest ages have constituted important objects of 
 trade and barter. The Sanscrit names of genuine Indian 
 products, as those of rice, cotton, spikenard, and sugar, 
 have, as we find, passed into the language of the Greeks, 
 and, to a certain extent, even into those of Shemitic 
 origin." 
 
 "From these considerations, and the examples by which 
 they have been illustrated, the comparative study of lan- 
 guages appears an important rational means of assistance 
 by which scientific and genuinely philological investigation 
 may lead to a generalization of views regarding the af- 
 finity of races, and their conjectural extension in various 
 directions from one common point of radiation." 
 
 The processes thus indicated, originating in the saga- 
 cious intellect of Leibnitz, have been since pressed forward, 
 and especially within the last two generations, with amaz- 
 ing industry and ability by the leading scientific linguists 
 of the world. Adelung and Yater, Schlegel and Bopp, 
 Rask and Guinon, William Yon Humboldt and Lepsius, 
 Gyarmathi and Schott, Furst and Delitzch, Miiller and 
 Biinseu, etc., and, most memorable of all, that unrivaled 
 martyr to learning, already mentioned, Alexander Castren, 
 "who, after his prodigious tour of exposure and labor in 
 pursuit of linguistic knowledge, returned to his duties as 
 professor at Helsingfors, to die, after he had given to the 
 world but a few specimens of his rich treasures." (Biinsen's 
 Christianity and Mankind, vol. ii. p. 274.) 
 
 Some of the results reached by these thorough explorers, 
 
124 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOE THE BIBLE. 
 
 and attested by such sure witnesses, have been already 
 referred to ; we add a few others of striking character. 
 
 " The evidence of language," says Professor Max Miiller, 
 (ibid.,) "is irrefragible, and it is the only evidence worth 
 listening to, with regard to ante-historical periods. It 
 would have been next to impossible to discover any traces 
 of relationship between the swarthy nations of India and 
 their conquerors, whether Alexander or Clive, but for the 
 testimony borne by language. What authority would have 
 been strong enough to persuade the Grecian army that 
 their gods and their hero ancestors were the same as those 
 of King Porus, or to convince the English soldier that the 
 same blood was running in his veins and in those of the 
 dark Bengalee? And yet there is not an English jury 
 now-a-days, which, after examining the hoary documents 
 of language, would reject the claim of a common descent 
 and a legitimate relationship between Hindoo, Greek, and 
 Teuton." 
 
 But the results of such investigations extend very far 
 beyond the obvious affiliations in the several branches of 
 the great Iranian stock. 
 
 "The heads," says Biinsen, (vol. iii. p. 1T2,) "of the 
 critical Hebrew school, Gesenius and Ewald, had thrown 
 out a hint that, by the reduction of the tri-literal . Hebrew 
 roots to bi-literal ones, (proposed already in the seven- 
 teenth century,) we might find strong reason to suspect a 
 radical affinity between Hebrew and Sanscrit. Klaproth 
 had pronounced, without reserve, that it was so. And, in 
 1838-40, two masters of the Hebrew tongue Furst, of 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 125 
 
 Leipsic, (himself a Jew,) and more especially Delitzch, of 
 Halle accepting the method adopted by Indo-Gerinanic 
 scholars, maintained and exemplified the constant and 
 undeniable analogy between Indo-Germanic and Sanscrit 
 
 roots And Lepsius and Dr. Charles Meyer have 
 
 established the fact beyond all doubt, that there exists an 
 undeniable community of living roots between the two 
 families. They have further shown that, in many in- 
 stances, the Egyptian roots present the intermediate links 
 between both, as well in words as in forms." 
 
 From his own researches into the Babylonian, Egyptian, 
 and other tongues, Biinsen adds, (ibid.) : 
 
 " If the Indo-European languages exhibit undeniable proof 
 of the gradual extension of these races from the eastern 
 part of Central Asia, the Shemitic tongues present no less 
 striking evidences of their being derived from the western 
 part of the primitive seat of mankind. The range of the 
 Shemitic branch is less extended than that of the Iranian, 
 but it forms a more compact and not less interesting mass. 
 The Shemitic tribes never extended into Europe, except by 
 temporary incursions. They have, however, not lost their 
 ground in Asia, Armenia excepted, and have penetrated 
 into Africa, at various epochs, even in the historical times, 
 in which, assuredly, no traces of Japhetic origin are dis- 
 cernible. It is a fact which can be philologically proved, 
 that the Shemitic formation constitutes the ground-work of 
 African languages, from the Mediterranean coast of Africa 
 into the interior of that mysterious country even beyond 
 the eouator, in an uninterrupted line." 
 
 11* 
 
126 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOE THE BIBLE. 
 
 This remark may be extended through a statement, by 
 William Yon Humboldt, of singular interest in connection 
 with the Nigrito races of Polynesia and New Holland, 
 already spoken of. 
 
 " To judge correctly," he says, " of the negro races in 
 their pure form, we must always commence with the inhab- 
 itants of the great southern continent; as between these 
 and the brown races no direct contact is conceivable, and., 
 according to their present condition, it is difficult to con- 
 ceive any kind even of indirect connection. The remark- 
 able fact, however, still remains, that many words in the 
 languages of these races, although we certainly possess 
 only a few of them, bear an evident likeness to words of 
 the South Sea Islands." 
 
 The languages of the latter are, from critical examina- 
 tion, classed by Miiller, Biinsen, etc., in that vast circle of 
 non-Iranian and non-Shemitic dialects, to which they give 
 the general name Turanian. This, it will be remembered, 
 is the immense sweep of kindred families, to the investiga- 
 tion of whose tongues Castren so heroically devoted him- 
 self. 
 
 Of this great assemblage, Miiller, after a most elaborate 
 analysis, affirms: "Two nuclei may be distinguished, a 
 Northern and a Southern ; and of these, still farther back, 
 a coalescence in one common form. Here," he adds, 
 (Biinsen, vol. iii.,) "where the differences between the Tura- 
 nian languages cease, the first stamina of the ancient 
 Shemitic and Arian are found to converge toward the same 
 centre of life. Radicals applied to certain definite but 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 12f 
 
 material meanings in common by all Turanian dialects, 
 belong to this primitive era, and some of them can even 
 now be proved the common property of the Turanian, the 
 Shemitic, and the Arian branches." 
 
 Among the numerous dialects comprehended under the 
 general term Turanian, spoken by more than a third of the 
 human race, may be reckoned the Chinese, and cognate, so 
 termed, monosyllabic tongues. The peculiarities which 
 these present have been much dwelt upon by diversity 
 authors, as supposed to offer insuperable difficulties in the 
 way of scientific critical affiliation with other forms of hu- 
 man speech. (See Mr. Maury's paper, on the classification 
 of tongues, in Nott and GHddon's Indigenous Races.) 
 ]STor have explorers holding different views been indisposed 
 candidly to admit more or less of difficulty in those pecu- 
 liarities. So late as 184T, Biinsen, in his celebrated paper 
 of that year before the British Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Science, said : " The difficulties are immense. . . . 
 Nor do we undertake to answer the question whether that 
 wreck of the primitive language, that monument of inor- 
 ganic structure, the Chinese, can be linked, by any scien- 
 tific method, to the other families of human speech, and 
 thus, directly or indirectly, connected with the great tripar- 
 tite civilizing family of mankind, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. 
 But we add, there is no scientific proof that it cannot. . . . 
 There is a gap between that formation (Chinese) and all 
 others, and that gap corresponds probably to that caused 
 in the general development of the human race by great 
 destructive floods, (we pause not to notice questions here 
 
128 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 suggested,) which separate the history of our race from its 
 primordial origins." 
 
 Later and fuller researches, however, exhibited in Ban- 
 sen's more recent and important work, Christianity and 
 Mankind, have removed some of the difficulties before 
 admitted, and have shown undeniable bonds of affinity 
 between the Chinese and cognate languages and the other 
 tongues of the earth. (See Max Miiller's masterly exposi- 
 tion of "the last results of Turanian researches, "especially 
 his chapter on the relation of the Ta'i to the Lohitic lan- 
 guages, and their connection with the Bhotiya class and 
 Chinese. Biinsen, vol. iii. pp. 390-402.) 
 
 "As to the formal elements, or the grammatical growth 
 of language," he maintains, "no difficulty exists in con- 
 sidering the grammatical system of Sanscrit, the most per- 
 fect of the Arian dialects, as the natural development of 
 Chinese an admission made even by those who are most 
 opposed to generalizations in the science of languages." 
 
 He further insists : " These two points comparative phi- 
 lology has gained 
 
 " 1. Nothing necessitates the admission of different in- 
 dependent beginnings for the MATERIAL elements of the 
 Turanian, Shemitic, and Arian branches of speech; 
 nay, it is possible even now to point out radicals which, 
 under various changes and disguises, have been current 
 in these three branches ever since their first separation. 
 
 "2. Nothing necessitates the admission of different 
 beginnings for the FORMAL elements of the Turanian, 
 Shemitic, and Arian brandies of speech; and, though it 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 129 
 
 is impossible to derive the Arian system of grammar 
 from the Shemitic, or the Shemitic from the Turanian, 
 we can perfectly understand how, either through individ- 
 ual influences, or by the wear and tear of grammar in 
 its own continuous working, the different systems of 
 grammar of Asia and Europe may have been produced." 
 
 "Translated into historical language," he continues, in 
 accordance with the convictions of Humboldt, "these gram- 
 matical conclusions establish the following facts: 
 
 " The first migration from the common centre of man- 
 kind proceeded eastward, where the Asiatic language was 
 arrested at the first stage of its growth, and where Chinese, 
 as a broken link, presents to the present day a reflection 
 of the earliest consolidation of human speech," etc., etc. 
 (Ibid., pp. 479-480.) 
 
 With these important facts and conclusions, Biinsen, 
 by means of the abundant data furnished in Schoolcraft's 
 elaborate collection, has been enabled, in the most un- 
 doubting manner, to connect the dialects of the North 
 American Indians. "The linguistic data," he declares, 
 "thus, furnished, combined with the traditions and customs, 
 and particularly with the system of mnemonic writing, 
 (first revealed in Schoolcraft's work,) enable me to say 
 that the Asiatic origin of all these tribes is as fully proved 
 as the unity of family among themselves." 
 
 Thus are all the languages of the earth, however at first 
 view apparently dissociated and incongruous, traceable to 
 one source ; and, by consequence, all human tribes have pro- 
 ceeded from one centre and descended from one parentage. 
 
130 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 And the unity thus traced, as justly and eloquently re- 
 marked by the copiously furnished author last quoted, "is 
 not simply a physical, external one ; it is that of thought, 
 wisdom, arts, science, and civilization. By facts still more 
 conclusive than the succession of strata in geology, com- 
 parative philology proves what our religious records pos- 
 tulate that the civilization of mankind is not a patch-work 
 of incoherent fragments, not an inorganic complex of vari- 
 ous courses of development, starting from numberless 
 beginnings, flowing in isolated beds, and destined only to 
 disappear in order to make room for other tribes running 
 the same course in monotonous rotation. For beyond all 
 other documents, there is preserved in language that sacred 
 tradition of primeval thought and art which connects all 
 the historical families of mankind, not only as brethren by 
 descent, but each as the depository of a phasis of one and 
 the same development. In language are deposited the 
 primordial sparks of that celestial fire which, from a once 
 bright centre of civilization, has streamed over the inhab- 
 ited earth, and which now already forms a galaxy round 
 the globe a chain of light from pole to pole." (Vol. iv. p. 
 112.) 
 
 Immediately connected with these demonstrative utter- 
 ances of scientific comparative philology, are the indica- 
 tions of the same general truth furnished by the traceable 
 processes of human distribution. The relation of many 
 of the tongues of the earth to each other constitutes, as 
 we have seen, a very sure guidance to some of the other- 
 wise undiscoverable traces of paths along which tribes of 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 131 
 
 men have trod, in wandering from their primitive Asiatic 
 home to distant regions. There is much in the affiliation 
 of dialects, and in the observed relative development of 
 speech, to indicate, in the words of Baron Humboldt, "the 
 course and direction of all migrations." These, however, 
 are not the only means by which man may be traced in his 
 farthest rovings. 
 
 There are highways on this globe, constructed by higher 
 than human art, whose courses, though definite as a planet's 
 path, have remained as undetected till mapped by modern 
 skill, and that chiefly under the guidance of one of our 
 distinguished countrymen, an American, and a Southerner. 
 And those highways give tokens, engraved by a finger 
 whose marks are equally ineffaceable and undeniable, of 
 the human travelers they have conducted to remotest 
 climes. 
 
 The great streams that flow unceasingly through the 
 ocean constitute such highways ; and the great atmospheric 
 currents above the sea furnish an additional and unerring 
 locomotive power, for transportation, more ancient than 
 the human race. 
 
 This is the testimony of Lieut. Maury, in reply to cer- 
 tain queries proposed by Dr. Schoolcraft. Alluding in the 
 first place to the use made by Colonel Hamilton Smith, in 
 his "Natural History of the Human Species," of the Mexi- 
 can legend of "seven caves" communicated by Montezuma 
 to Cortez, in relation to a traditionary connection between 
 the Aztec race and the nations of the Old World : 
 
 "The colonel had a stronger case than he imagined, in 
 
132 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 conjecturing that the Chichimacs might have been Aleu- 
 tians, and that 'caves,' if not denoting islands, might have 
 referred to canoes. The Aleutians of the present day 
 actually live in caves or subterranean apartments. They 
 are the most bestial of the species, in their habits copying 
 after the seal and the whale." 
 
 "These islands grow no wood. For their canoes, fish- 
 ing implements, and cave-hold utensils, the natives depend 
 upon the drift-wood which is cast ashore, much of which 
 is camphor wood. Another link in the chain, which is 
 growing quite strong, of evidence which for years I have 
 been seeking, in confirmation of a gulf stream, near there, 
 and which runs from the shores of China over toward 
 our Northwest coast.'' 1 
 
 Next, in reply to the question whether the Pacific and 
 Polynesian waters could have been navigated in early 
 times : 
 
 " Yes ! if you had a supply of provisions, you could run 
 down the trades on a log. 
 
 "There is no part of the world where nature would 
 tempt savage man more strongly to launch out upon the 
 open sea, with his bark, however frail ; then, there is the 
 island in the distance to attract and allure ; and the next 
 step would be to fit out an expedition. . . . The native 
 finds a hollow log. This is split in two, and a dam made 
 across either end with knead of clay. He puts in a few 
 cocoa-nuts, a calabash of water, breaks a green branch thick 
 with foliage, sticks it up as a sail, and goes before the wind 
 at the rate of three or four miles the hour. I have seen 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 133 
 
 them actually do this, their little fleets, like 'Birnam wood 
 coming to Dunsinane,' by water. But by some mishap, 
 in the course of time this frail bark misses the island 
 or falls to leeward ; the only chance then is to submit to 
 the wind and waves to go where they will bear. 
 
 "But the South Sea Islander would soon get above 
 vessels with clay bows and mud sterns. As fissures in 
 bread-trays, in negro-cabins of the South, are sewed up 
 with white-oak splits, so the Marquesas Islanders make 
 large canoes out of little slats of wood sewed together with 
 cords of cocoa-nut fibre, the holes being puttied up with 
 clay. These canoes will sometimes hold twenty rowers." 
 
 " In the Pacific, between 25 and 30 south, it is easy 
 for such vessels to sail in any direction between north 
 round by west to southwest; and north of the equator, 
 to the 25th or 30th parallel, it is likewise easy for such 
 rude vessels to sail in any course between northwest round 
 by the west to south. It is difficult to get to the eastward 
 within the trade-wind region." 
 
 Again, in reply to the inquiry whether, before the inven- 
 tion of the compass, long voyages were possible : 
 
 " Such chance voyages were not only possible, but more 
 than probable. When we take into consideration the 
 position of North America with regard to Asia, and of 
 New Holland with regard to Africa, and with the winds 
 and currents of the ocean, it would have been more re- 
 markable that America should not have been peopled from 
 Asia, or New Holland from Africa, than that they should 
 have been." 
 
 12 
 
134 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 "Captain Ray, of the whale-ship Superior, fished two 
 years ago in Behring's Straits. He saw canoes going 
 from one continent to the other. . . . Along the course of 
 the ' Gulf Stream,' from the shores of China, already alluded 
 to, westerly winds prevail ; and we have well-authenticated 
 instances in which these two agents have brought Japanese 
 mariners in disabled vessels to the coasts of America." 
 
 "In the Indian Ocean an immense surface of water is 
 exposed to the heat of the torrid zone, without any escape, 
 as it becomes expanded, but to the south. Accordingly 
 we have here the genesis of another 'gulf stream,' which 
 runs along the east coast of Africa, bearing to the south 
 of New Holland." 
 
 " There was then, in the early ages, the Island of Mada- 
 gascar to invite the African out with his canoe, his raft, or 
 more substantial vessel. There was this current to bear 
 him along at first, at the rate of nearly, if not quite, one 
 hundred miles a day, and by the time the current began to 
 grow weak, it would have borne him into the region of 
 westerly winds, which, with the aid of the current, would 
 finally waft him to the southern shores of New Holland. 
 Increasing and multiplying here, he would travel north to 
 meet the sun, and in the course of time he would extend 
 himself over to the other islands, as Papua and the like." 
 
 "When we look at the Pacific, its islands, the winds and 
 currents, and consider the facilities there that nature has 
 provided for drifting savage man, with his rude implements 
 of navigation, about, we shall see that there the induce- 
 ments held out to him to try the sea are powerful. With 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 135 
 
 the bread-fruit and the cocoa-nut, man's natural barrels 
 there of beef and bread, and the calabash, his natural 
 water-cask, he had all the stores for a long voyage already 
 at hand." (Schoolcraft, vol. i. p. 23.) 
 
 Upon the first part of this, and other particulars of like 
 character, the learned American ArchaBologist remarks: 
 " Thus we have traditionary gleams of the foreign origin 
 of the race of North American Indians. . . . They point 
 directly to an Oriental origin. Such has from the first 
 been inferred. At whatever point the investigation has 
 been made, the eastern hemisphere has been found to con- 
 tain the physical and mental prototypes of the race. 
 Language, mythology, religious dogmas, the very style of 
 architecture, and their calendar, as far as it is developed, 
 point to that fruitful source of nationality and dispersion." 
 (Ibid.) 
 
 In relation to other points suggested by Maury, bearing 
 upon the question of the diffusion alike of men and of the 
 lower animals, much information is given by Lyell. We 
 make room for only a single fact. "Kotzebue, when 
 investigating the coral isles of Radak, and the eastern 
 extremity of the Caroline Isles, became acquainted with 
 a person by the name of Kadu, who was a native of Ulea, 
 an isle fifteen hundred miles distant, from which he had 
 been drifted with a party." (El. of Geol., vol. iii. p. 92.) 
 
 Such are the paths along which population has been 
 conducted to our globe's remotest extremity. Thus 
 
 " Wise to promote whatever end he means, 
 God opens fruitful nature's various scenes." 
 
136 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 And thus has he conducted to every region children of 
 Adam, and diffused 
 
 " Soul, passion, intellect ; till blood of man 
 Through every artery of nature ran ; 
 O'er eastern islands poured its quickening stream, 
 Caught the warm crimson of the western beam ; 
 Beneath the burning line made fountains start 
 In the dry wilderness of Afric's heart ; 
 And through the torpid north, with genial heat ; 
 Taught love's exhilarating pulse to beat; 
 Till the great sun, in his perennial round, 
 Man, of all climes, the restless native found." 
 
 This is not merely poetry; it is sound philosophy. And 
 it opens at once the next branch of evidence respecting 
 the family relationship between the most widely separated 
 tribes of men; that presented in the mental phenomena 
 and physical characteristics of every variety of human 
 kind. 
 
 On the latter and lower, but in some respects more ob- 
 viously presented point, the most searching investigations, 
 in spite of all the circumstantial diversities urged by a 
 certain class of observers, have issued in what amounts in 
 fact to a strict demonstration of human unity. 
 
 Facts connected with the phenomena of hybridity ap- 
 proach very closely this demonstrative character. Ques- 
 tions, indeed, are raised respecting these phenomena, and 
 assertions not a few most energetically advanced. But 
 facts will yield neither to perplexed speculation nor to 
 headlong boldness: still less, can they be expected to 
 submit, when the challenging parties are themselves at 
 issue. 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 137 
 
 Dr. Yan Evrie and Dr. Nott, recent controversialists on 
 this subject, agree in maintaining that mnlattoes are strictly 
 hybrids; but they differ quite widely in regard to the 
 general laws of nature respecting hybrids. The latter 
 contends that in the hybridity which takes place between 
 proximate species, as he holds varieties of men to be, 
 although the earlier generations appear more delicate, yet 
 " prolificacy is unlimited." (Types, p. 376.) The former 
 affirms, (Essay, p. 29,) with characteristic but unverified 
 confidence, "the mulatto of the fourth generation is as 
 sterile as the mule of the first." These opposite state- 
 ments, which it is almost self-evident neither of the learned 
 gentlemen could on his own side substantiate, they may be 
 left to reconcile; meanwhile, the long-admitted and un- 
 questionable fact remains a patent verity, that mixed races 
 of men, as the Griquas of South Africa, descended from 
 the Dutch and Hottentots; the Cafusos of Brazil, and 
 similar mestizoes elsewhere, from negroes and Indians ; the 
 Papuans of New Guinea, etc., from negroes and Malayans ; 
 and the mulattoes and Creoles of the West Indies and of 
 our own country, not only exist in great numbers, but, 
 according to wide observation, continue, wherever circum- 
 stances permit, rapidly to multiply. From our last census 
 returns we find that "the mulattoes in the United States, 
 numbering, in 1850, 405,751, are about one-eighth as 
 numerous as the blacks, and the free mulattoes are more 
 than half the number of free blacks." (Census Kept., 
 p. 82.) 
 
 It is one thing then, and may serve a purpose, to speak 
 12* 
 
138 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 of rnulattoes as " mules," but it is altogether a different 
 thing scientifically to establish their hybridity. And even 
 if something approaching it could be proved, it would be 
 nothing more than might be expected, under the wide 
 deviation from the white standard, so early developed and 
 so long perpetuated in the negro, and would be therefore 
 no satisfactory evidence of specific diversity. But real 
 hybridity in the case cannot be proved. The fact quoted 
 from our last census is of itself decisive. But further : 
 
 "If we search the whole world," says Prichard, (Xat. 
 Hist., p. 12,) "we shall probably not find one instance 
 of an intermediate tribe produced between two distinct 
 species, ascertained to be such." 
 
 "I cannot share the opinion," says M. de Candolle, 
 (Essai Elementaire, 8me partie,) "that between species 
 of the same genera hybrid species may be found." 
 
 "I have never yet seen a hybrid plant," says Mr. T. A. 
 Knight, (Observations on Hybrids, p. 253,) "capable of 
 affording offspring, which has been proved, with anything 
 like satisfactory evidence, to have sprung from the origin- 
 ally distinct species." 
 
 "There is no satisfactory proof," says Lyell, (Elements 
 of Geology, vol. iii. p. 14,) "that a single permanent species 
 has ever been produced by hybridity." 
 
 And Professor Wagner, of Germany, is said to have 
 shown that the sterility of hybrid animals is generally 
 secured by an organic impediment. 
 
 It is plain, indeed, that such a law in nature is needed, 
 toward preserving the order of the organized creation. 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 139 
 
 Since, in the language of Prichard, "if hybrid races were 
 produced and continued without impediment, the organ- 
 ized world would soon present a scene of universal con- 
 fusion." 
 
 Facts, then, are all against the notion of mixed races 
 among men being hybrids. They are but intermediate 
 varieties. Physiologically, man is really proved to be one. 
 This is the latest utterance of perhaps the master phys- 
 iologist now living Professor Owen. (Lect. before Brit. 
 Association for Adv. Science, Liverpool, Sept. 1854.) 
 
 "With regard to the number of known species of apes, 
 it is not without interest to observe that, as the generic 
 form of the quadrumana approaches the bimanous order, 
 they are represented by fewer species. The unity of the 
 human species is demonstrated by the constancy of those 
 osteological and dental characters brought to view in 
 investigating the corresponding structural particulars in 
 the higher quadrumana. Man is the sole species of his 
 genus, the sole representative of his order, and, in reference 
 both to the unity of the human species and to the fact of 
 man being the latest as he is the highest of all animal 
 forms upon our planet, the interpretation of God's works 
 coincides with what has been revealed to us, as to our own 
 origin and zoological relation, in his word." 
 
 It is not, therefore, too much to say, in the words of 
 Professor Miiller, " From a physiological point of view, we 
 may speak of varieties of man, but no longer of races. 
 Man is a species, created once, and divided into none of 
 its varieties by specific distinctions. In fact, the common 
 
140 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOE THE BIBLE. 
 
 origin of the negro and of the Greek admits not of a 
 rational doubt" 
 
 The mental phenomena to which we have alluded, if 
 furnishing proof less palpable to the senses, are, in their 
 specific correspondences, when carefully examined, equally 
 decisive of essential oneness in mankind. 
 
 Vast as is the interval between the towering intellectual 
 proportions of a Shakspeare, a Milton, a Bacon, a Newton, 
 or, beyond these, of a Paul, and those of the groveling 
 creatures known as Esquimaux or Fuegans, Hottentots or 
 Guineans, there are not only countless links binding them 
 to the same common kind, but certain great psychological 
 features making manifest their family relationship. 
 
 A ratiocinative and logical faculty marks man wherever 
 he is found, and a creative genius varying with circum- 
 stances. On every soil and beneath every sky is he char- 
 acterized by the sense of responsibility which renders 
 government possible, and binds him to the moral system 
 of the universe. The outworking, too, of this element of 
 his being, in some form of religious belief and custom, is 
 coterminous with his diffusion. 
 
 Against this it is vain to urge, as indicating specific 
 difference, the favorite allegation of diversity advocates, 
 that the brain of the Indian, etc., is comparatively small, 
 and that no instance can be adduced of a negro who has 
 made high attainments in literature or philosophy. 
 
 Dr. Morton himself teaches, in an extract already given, 
 that the Indian brain has, by peculiar habit of exercise, 
 been in some tribes considerably enlarged. A fact, indeed, 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 141 
 
 falling in with the commonly observed tendency of all hu- 
 man tissues to enlargement, within moderate limits, through 
 a given process of action. Size of brain, however, at any 
 rate, is no final test of mind. The quality of material 
 must surely be quite as important as its quantity. Dr. 
 Wyman testifies that other heads in Boston were notori- 
 ously larger than Daniel Webster's. 
 
 To demand instances of superior intellect among races 
 long degraded is, then, plainly unreasonable, and amounts 
 in truth to a begging of the question, by the opponents of 
 unity. Can they furnish such instances among the forty or 
 fifty millions of native Sclavonian serfs spread over the 
 vast plains of European Russia ? 
 
 Instances can certainly be adduced, though they are 
 rare, of pure-blooded negroes making very considerable 
 attainments in high learning. J. II. B. Latrobe, Esq., of 
 Baltimore, has described one whom he knew, who became 
 a quite profound mathematician. The census returns also 
 exhibit some singular statistics, as to the education and 
 employment of many negroes, alike in New Orleans and 
 New York. And the sound judgment, good feelings, and 
 steady principle which observant masters so often discover 
 in their well-trained servants, certainly speak favorably of 
 their position in the extended scale of humanity. Our 
 laws themselves, moreover, by assuming the rational and 
 responsible nature of the negro, and regulating him by 
 such serious sanctions, bear testimony incontestible to a 
 universal conviction on the subject. 
 
 The truth unquestionably is, that while habit and other 
 
142 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 causes have greatly modified and extensively degraded the 
 one mental as well as the one bodily constitution of the 
 greater part of mankind, not only are the lowest tribes im- 
 provable in the latter respect as well as in the former, but 
 the mind, in its most degraded state, by unmistakable 
 movements, vindicates its high connections. How strik- 
 ingly does the emotional nature of man everywhere respond 
 to the stroke of grief or the touch of delight ! Smiles 
 and tears, laughter and groans, may be witnessed equally 
 in the hovel and the palace, in the ice-burrow of the oil- 
 fed Sarnoied and the star-canopied sand-home of the half- 
 starved Bushman. And there is something in this single fact 
 more convincing than whole volumes of materialistic spec- 
 ulation. The great poet of mankind has fitly celebrated, 
 in words that can never die, this instinctive demonstration 
 of the heart 
 
 "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 
 
 To this entire argument from nature, conclusive as it is, 
 the Bible sets the seal of revealed verity. It not only 
 affirms, in plainest terms, that God "hath made of one 
 blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the 
 earth," (Acts, xvii. 26,) but it traces them down from one 
 created pair, and one preserved household. It not only 
 makes known, as its supreme, all-comprehending disclosure, 
 one "Son of man," at once the "Second Adam," and "the 
 Lord from heaven," mysteriously accomplishing a great 
 scheme of mediation for mankind, but it addresses its en- 
 couragements and admonitions, its precepts and promises, 
 
THE HUMAN FAMILY. 113 
 
 with undiscriminating benignity, and, with universal com- 
 prehensiveness, commands them to be conveyed to every 
 variety and every grade of human creatures as constitut- 
 ing one great brotherhood, children of one vast family. So 
 thoroughly, indeed, is the doctrine of one actual blood rela- 
 tionship between all human beings interwoven with the high- 
 est announcements and most practical inculcations of revela- 
 tion, that it must be pronounced impracticable to reject the 
 one and retain the other. It certainly is not possible to 
 admit ordinary fairness, far less inviolable veracity, in the 
 fundamental lessons of Scripture, and yet reject their uni- 
 form teaching concerning the co-ordinate relations of men. 
 toward each other, and to their common Father and one 
 Mediator. 
 
 Accordingly, we find the most frivolous air of levity, the 
 bitterest tone of mockery, and the fiercest spirit of hos- 
 tility directed against the belief of anything supernatural 
 in the Bible, associated with the diversity theory. At the 
 same time, with strange inconsistency, the attempt is made 
 to represent the issue, so far as revelation is concerned, as 
 a mere question of interpretation, like those involved in 
 the solution of astronomical and geological facts, scrip- 
 turally described under their phenomenal instead of their 
 scientific relations. 
 
 This alternative is prudently urged by some of the more 
 considerate claimants of diversity, and it is even in part 
 mingled by others with their dire denunciations. But it 
 cannot be admitted. Man, his relations, his duties, his 
 prospects, his origin, and his destiny, constitute the essen- 
 
144 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tial, the all-pervading topic of revelation. And there is 
 no interpretation that can change these in the manner pro- 
 posed, without rending to its base the whole fabric and 
 scattering to the winds its dishonored fragments. 
 
 In the Bible, as in common parlance, there is no neces- 
 sary connection between incidental mention of natural 
 events, according to their appearances, and the scientific 
 realities of the case. JSTot so, however, with its account of 
 the position and relations of the human family. If its his- 
 torical, preceptive, and spiritual exhibitions, on this ground 
 so distinctly conveyed, be not reliable, it is discredited 
 throughout. There is, in fact, nothing left to credit. 
 
 Could science necessitate such interpretation, it would 
 really prove Christianity a fable, and revelation an impos- 
 ture ; Bacon a dupe, Newton a driveler, and the sober 
 judgment of the Christian world an insane infatuation or a 
 childish delusion. " 
 
 Of all this, however, there' is, as we have seen, happily 
 not the remotest possibility. Science really speaks here, as 
 everywhere, in harmony with Scripture. And truth, now 
 as heretofore, is found like its Author, One. 
 
DISCUSSION III. 
 THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 
 
 THE era of onr world's creation is a question, in our 
 time, by the progress of knowledge, invested with an inter- 
 est which it has not heretofore possessed. Geological sci- 
 ence has now reached a position from which it claims to 
 pronounce with confidence, respecting the prevalent time- 
 interpretations of Genesis i, that they cannot be true. 
 And the enlightened Christian student, at once trustful 
 toward genuine science, as the heaven-lit lamp by whose ra- 
 diance human reason is to trace in nature the orderings of 
 an All-perfect mind ; and reliant on Scripture, as attested 
 divine revelation, full of all that is most precious for man- 
 kind, finds himself constrained to review those interpreta- 
 tions. He remembers that the doctors of Salamanca, 
 however much in earnest, were equally in error, when they 
 urged their view of certain expressions in the Bible, 
 against the geography of Columbus; and that vastly 
 wide of the truth was that infallible tribunal, which so 
 grievously condemned the immortal old Tuscan and his 
 grand astronomical discovery, as at war with what they 
 pronounced the meaning of the sacred records. Nor had 
 the divine Author of the Holy Book committed it, he is 
 well persuaded, to a false astronomy, though the learned 
 Turretin and other Protestant theologians could find in such 
 
 13 (145) 
 
146 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 passages as Ecclesiastes, i. 5, "The sun also ariseth, and 
 the sun goeth down," and Psalm xciii. 1, " The world 
 also is established that it cannot be moved," what was to 
 them complete disproof of the Copernican system. 
 
 Of the evils occasioned by errors of this kind, the con- 
 siderate inquirer is well aware. How they prejudice men 
 of mere science against the Bible, and men of exclusive 
 piety against science ; and furnish the excuse of perplex- 
 ity to the uninformed and indifferent on either side. To 
 guard against such harm, therefore, he deems a duty of 
 supreme importance. Hence, in the great question, now 
 pending between the record of creation as read from the 
 rocks and that given in Genesis, as commonly understood, 
 he regards it as a serious -obligation to trace, if possible, 
 the whole truth, that its harmony may be discerned, and 
 its excellence vindicated. What, then, the monumental 
 masses beneath his feet, freely and fairly examined, and 
 what the inspired narrative, thoroughly studied, really 
 do teach, severally and unitedly, respecting the antiquity 
 of our world, and the course of its pre- Adamite changes, 
 becomes to him an inquiry of deep significancy. 
 
 The very nature and history of the question at once sat- 
 isfy him that its adequate solution is not to be reached by 
 any superficial views, hasty conclusions, vague generaliza- 
 tions, or arrogant dicta as to the meaning of Scripture, 
 or of the rocky archives of the world. A faithful and 
 large induction is, he well knows, the only key that can 
 open the secrets of the earth's primeval history. Every- 
 thing short of this, therefore, he promptly rejects. The 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 147 
 
 Scripture language, he also sees, must be phenomenal, in 
 order to be true always and for all men, since the great 
 appearances appeal to all senses alike, while philosophic 
 expression must vary with degree of culture ; yet so con- 
 structed must that language at the same time be, he can- 
 not but judge, since truth cannot be at war with truth, as 
 essentially to violate no ultimate disclosure of science. To 
 trace under the phenomenal from this deeper construction, 
 so as to find the true meaning, as evinced in its being 
 every way consistent, is a task not to be performed, he is 
 sure, by an imperfect, unfurnished, or fanciful mind. From 
 such guidance he instinctively turns in seeking the truth. 
 He sees the largest, freest, best furnished men mainly 
 agreed respecting the rank and conclusions of geological 
 science. The Cuviers and Brogniarts, the Chalmerses and 
 Pye Smiths, the Bucklands and Lyells, the Sedgwicks and 
 Murchesons, the Mantells, Sillimans, Agassizes, and Hugh 
 Millers, most of them equally eminent as Christians and as 
 explorers of natural truth. Individuals of less calibre and 
 attainments, he finds, either admitting their own ignorance 
 while depreciating geology, or exhibiting in extravagant 
 schemes of reconciliation between it and assumed meanings 
 of Scripture, strange deficiency of knowledge and judg- 
 ment. To the dicta of these, however positive, his mind 
 cannot satisfactorily yield. He is obliged to look for some- 
 thing more clearly and consistently adequate. And the 
 question recurs with redoubled force, What is true on the 
 subject ? What is the consistent and reliable explanation 
 of the petrified and of the inspired documents ? 
 
118 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 The simple answer is, in our judgment, contained in the 
 period-day reading of Genesis i. We believe that the six 
 periods (Heb. Yoms) of the creative history, are really in- 
 tended to be read not as "days," but as "ages." This 
 reading is, we are satisfied, beyond comparison, most accord- 
 ant with the entire range of facts that have been elicited 
 from the monumental records within the earth, and with 
 the structure of the sacred history, as well as with striking 
 intimations in other parts of the Bible. Reasons for this 
 judgment we shall briefly give, using, as occasion requires, 
 some of the best authorities on both branches of the argu- 
 ment, the biblical and the scientific. 
 
 The question is not only of grave importance as con- 
 nected with a supposed issue between the scientific and the 
 scriptural chronology of creation, but it is suggestive of 
 some very curious facts in the history of associated theo- 
 logical and geological opinion. 
 
 The rigidly literal mode of Scripture interpretation, 
 already referred to, by which the grand ideas of Columbus 
 and of Galileo were in their day opposed, has, by not a 
 few, and up to a date quite recent, been insisted on, in 
 regard to geology. All animal forms, and their rock-en- 
 tombed remains or effigies, are, by this class of judges, 
 pertinaciously referred to an origin only a day or two 
 ante-dating that of man. And our whole mundane system 
 is held, under the same principles of construction, to be 
 only of about the age of the human race; that is, some 
 six thousand years, or a few decades of centuries more. 
 Here one supposition is, of course, that multitudes of the 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 149 
 
 fossil forms were original creations. That the rocks con- 
 taining them were simply thus called into being, by an 
 instantaneous divine fiat. But a wild assumption of this 
 nature, without a particle of support in Scripture or 
 reason, setting aside the whole observed order of Nature 
 and Providence, and frustrating forever all rational inves- 
 tigation, were now scarcely worthy of mention. Seriously 
 to oppose it were like arguing against the fancies of a 
 patient in delirium. An alternative hypothesis, on this 
 chronological plan, refers all the phenomena of strata and 
 fossils directly or indirectly to the deluge, however ration- 
 ally inexplicable they may be on such grounds, nay, by the 
 clearest induction absolutely discrediting any such ex- 
 planation. Even the learned Kirby could be so imbued 
 with the infatuation of this kind of scriptural application 
 as to quote Ps. xliv. 19, "Th,ou hast sore broken us in the 
 place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of 
 death," in proof of the existence now, of some subter- 
 ranean home where multitudes yet survive of those mon- 
 strous saurians, specimens of which, in skeleton, have been 
 so abundantly discovered in certain ancient formations! 
 A mode like this of dealing with the dignified wisdom of 
 recorded Revelation is really so unworthy of a sound and 
 reverential mind, that we cannot but experience in the 
 contemplation of it a painful sense of human weakness. 
 
 The once favorite idea of this class of constructionists, 
 that all the thousand traces of ancient submergence under 
 water, observed all over the globe, were to be referred 
 directly to the deluge, has become at the present day so 
 
 13* 
 
150 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 absolutely untenable in the light of abundant facts, as to 
 be given up, we believe, on all hands. But a modified 
 form of the theory is still held, the deluge being sup- 
 posed indirectly to explain the facts of geology. The 
 hypothesis is, that between the dates of creation and of 
 the flood, vast accumulations of sediment were borne from 
 time to time by streams and inundations, from the land 
 into the sea; and that the upheaval of all this, at the 
 time of the deluge, and the corresponding subsidence of 
 what had been the land, buried all that had previously 
 been occupied by terrestrial creatures, and provided, as 
 their home from that date, the variously compounded sur- 
 face over which the antediluvian sea had rolled. But this 
 indirect diluvial hypothesis, though in some respects more 
 plausible than that once prevalent, which supposed the 
 mere passage of the Noachian waters over the continents 
 to have left all the aqueous traces noticed by geologists, is 
 in fact not more credible, in the light of modern discovery; 
 while it is directly at war with certain historical details of 
 the Scripture itself. In Genesis ii. 10-14, we read of the 
 rivers which watered Eden. And the continued existence 
 of two at least of them, the Hiddekel or Tigris, and the 
 Euphrates, to this day, fully disproves the imagined sub- 
 sidence of that part of the earth. Geological facts, which 
 we shall incidentally exhibit, will be found even more 
 thoroughly to discredit this theory. 
 
 Here, however, we meet a prejudice by which good 
 and otherwise well-informed men are, on this subject, alto- 
 gether blinded. Without having fairly examined the case, 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 151 
 
 they insist that what is claimed for geology as a science 
 cannot be admitted. That it is merely a crude mass of 
 speculations, and not a coherent system of results, carefully 
 reached by a large induction of facts. "We deny their 
 facts," say these opponents of the scientific geologists. 
 "Grant them their facts, and of course they will make 
 good their theory." Grant them their facts! A con- 
 cession, truly, from persons who almost boast that they 
 know little or nothing of the subject! Deny their facts, 
 indeed! The blind obstinately persisting to all around 
 them, " we believe nothing you allege about the sun. No 
 doubt if we admit your facts, you can make good your 
 solar theory." Something requiring a much stronger 
 characteristic designation than "unreasonableness," is evi- 
 dent here. How quickly would these worthy but prejudiced 
 deniers of authenticated truth perceive, and how deeply 
 feel, the weakness and unworthiuess of a course the counter- 
 part of their own, though in relations more solemn, were 
 unbelievers to reply to their Christian appeals, "we deny 
 your facts," and then refuse candidly to examine the 
 evidences by which they are authenticated ! 
 
 Even, then, if none of the more important geological 
 facts were patent to our own eyes, if we were simply 
 dependent upon the testimony of such men as Lyell, and 
 Humboldt, and Miller, as to the particulars traced by 
 themselves in the strata of the earth, just as the vast 
 majority of even the cultivated are dependent on the 
 Keplers and Herschels for the details of astronomic ob- 
 servations, it were most unreasonable, and at variance with 
 
152 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 all the sound principles of evidence for which we in other 
 things contend, for us to talk about denying their facts. 
 Cautious and sagacious men, whose well-disciplined facul- 
 ties have through long years been devoted to a minute, 
 methodical, and extensive examination of the soils and 
 rocks, caves and cliffs, mines and mountains, yet explored 
 on the globe, may surely be believed capable of describing 
 what they have discovered, and what they really know in 
 the case. And when we are certain that, whatever their 
 scientific enthusiasm, they have, for the most part, no con- 
 ceivable motive for misrepresenting appearances or per- 
 verting truth, it would really seem something worse than 
 folly to say, "we deny your facts." 
 
 But, as in the case of controlling truths of astronomy, 
 which are sufficiently obvious to all intelligent and ob- 
 servant minds to furnish a basis of undoubting confidence 
 in the testimony, borne by accomplished explorers of the 
 heavens, concerning the wonderful results they have veri- 
 fied, so facts, the most striking and convincing, in the 
 structure of our earth's crust, are so commonly noticeable, 
 as not only to claim the attention of all reasonable men, 
 but to furnish a secure basis for proper reliance upon the 
 achievements of able and faithful investigations in this 
 department of research. 
 
 The truth is, almost every man may discover for him- 
 self, alike in great utterances of the Bible, and in strange 
 tokens everywhere presented by the earth's strata, much 
 more than enough to discredit every form of the six-thou- 
 sand-year hypothesis. And this is one of the instances in 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 153 
 
 which liberal inquiry has done essential service to the one 
 cause of truth, by manifesting the grand harmonies be- 
 tween Nature and Revelation. 
 
 The Bible, in not a few passages, indicates, as im- 
 pressively as do the monumental rocks themselves, that the 
 earth is incalculably older than the human race. In Psalm 
 xc., entitled in our version, "a Prayer of Moses, the man 
 of God," we read: "Before the mountains were brought 
 forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, 
 even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Here 
 the inspired writer, laboring apparently with the idea of 
 boundless past duration, expressed by the phrase "from 
 everlasting to everlasting," introduces, as an aid to the 
 mighty conception, the period since the mountains were 
 brought forth and the earth and the world were formed. 
 Its very introduction, by way of comparison, for such a 
 purpose, conveys, perhaps more strikingly than any form 
 of statement could have done, his own impression of the 
 immensity of that period. Still more significant, if pos- 
 sible, to the same effect, is the remarkable personal address 
 of "Wisdom," in Prov. viii. 22-30: "The Lord possessed 
 me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. 
 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever 
 the earth was. When there were no depths I was brought 
 forth ; when there were no fountains abounding with water. 
 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I 
 brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, 
 nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.' 
 When he prepared the heavens, I was there ; when he set 
 
154 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 a compass upon the face of the depth; when he established 
 the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of 
 the deep ; when he gave the sea his decree, that the waters 
 should not pass his commandment ; when he appointed the 
 foundations of the earth ; then I was by him, as one brought 
 up with him." Here the highest descriptive power seems 
 taxed to the utmost in carrying the mind back toward the 
 era of the going forth of creative wisdom. And the period 
 since our planet was called into being is again employed, 
 as, by its vastness, the only fit term of comparison in such 
 an estimate. 
 
 Intimations like these are not rare, and they seem to 
 render altogether insignificant, under the mere aspect of 
 extent, the past term of human existence, in the great 
 chronology of creation. 
 
 On that vast chronological scale there are, as we have 
 intimated, natural marks even more specific and not less 
 impressive. So various are the aspects in which these 
 may be exhibited, that the chief difficulty in offering 
 them to view, within a moderate space, is so to group 
 them as that some adequate effect on the mind may be 
 produced. We select, however, a mode suggested by ob- 
 jects that meet the eye at one of the most interesting spots 
 on the globe. 
 
 The intelligent observer who is permitted to feast his 
 higher being on the grand scenes of Xiagara, finds his 
 mind wondrously impressed, and borne on to great 
 thoughts, by the sublimities of time no less than by those 
 of dimension and of power. He cannot, indeed, address 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 155 
 
 the mighty torrent, in words so beautifully applied to the 
 hoary ocean it hastens to meet : 
 
 " Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow ; 
 Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now ;" 
 
 for time has furrowed there a thousand seams. But the 
 very marks so indelibly registered speak of ages rolled 
 away, no less surely than does the tracery beneath whitened 
 locks reveal the ravages of threescore years and ten. 
 
 There is the yawning chasm, in rock exceedingly hard, 
 hundreds of feet in depth, and extending in length not less 
 than eight miles; and there are the recent ruins of the 
 slowly-receding wall, which tell of the process by which 
 the enormous scooping has been effected. And when the 
 agency and its observed results are compared with the 
 total achievement, the period for such wear and tear is 
 found really to baffle calculation. 
 
 But there are, at this instructive spot, traces of a chro- 
 nology that was already inconceivably old when the bosom 
 of Erie was laid bare, and the waters of that emerald cur- 
 rent began to cut a passage through the limestone. The 
 attentive visitor finds imbedded in that rock numberless 
 effigies of creatures that once tenanted the waters of a free 
 ocean ; beings that in their time, longer or shorter, passed 
 through the various stages of sentient existence which we 
 observe to characterize animated forms. And their fossils, 
 thus brought to light, tell the simple story of ancient 
 vicissitude, and unregistered ages. They make known, not 
 only the extended lifetime of such creatures, but the 
 gradual advance of calcareous deposit in which those 
 
156 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 denizens of the deep were entangled and entombed, at all 
 depths, through a range of more than hundreds of feet. 
 They speak of the enormous pressure which could convert 
 so immense an accumulation of mud into rock of hardest 
 texture. And then, their elevation to the light of day, 
 and their final exhibition to human eyes, tell of those un- 
 known times of internal throe and progressive upheaval, 
 which eventuated in rolling elsewhere the briny waves, for 
 other service, and establishing the conditions under which 
 lake and cataract have been since performing their part in 
 the magnificent phenomena of nature. 
 
 But immensely distant as is the past age to which these 
 facts and these inductions have borne the thoughtful ob- 
 server, he is not permitted to stop there. Tokens are at 
 hand, apart from the special character of the stone, and 
 supposing it of a kind elsewhere prodigiously developed in 
 connection with such indications, of an earlier and pro- 
 tracted period, claiming his attention. Issuing with the 
 jet of a cool and gentle stream from a fissure in the rock, 
 near the margin of the Canadian bank, and on its upper 
 reach, he finds a ceaseless current of inflammable gas, pre- 
 cisely analogous to that which modern skill has educed from 
 coal and bitumen for the illumination of our cities. Fol- 
 lowing, then, this current of combustible air, as Theseus the 
 thread of Ariadne, he treads securely the hidden pathway 
 along which that subtle fluid has traveled, till, far beneath 
 the tombs of ages, over which the mighty waterfall forever 
 reverberates, he enters a world of wonders, incalculably 
 more ancient than all he has left behind. Here is before 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 15T 
 
 him one of the vast storehouses in which compact fuel for 
 unborn generations has, for countless centuries, been piled 
 away, in masses well-nigh immeasurable. And these 
 masses bear a registry of events that transpired long before 
 depths were opened there for the ocean, in which those crea- 
 tures were born, lived, died, and were put away in marble, 
 whose history tells so much of the ages that preceded the 
 beginning of the cataract's evasive power. Here he reads 
 of a vegetation that, at an epoch fancy herself reaches only 
 on tired wing, burdened the warm and steaming earth, a 
 vegetation characterized by gigantic proportions and ex- 
 haustless abundance, such as no soil or climate belonging 
 to these later times, not even the nutritive alluvium of the 
 Amazon under the stimulating blaze of an equatorial sun, 
 can parallel. Here he finds recorded notices, not only 
 of the foundation of fertile land already provided for 
 the matted roots of great tree-ferns and greater forest- 
 pines, and of the heated, misty air that ministered to their 
 luxuriance, but also of the flood-seasons, which tore these 
 mighty growths from their stations, and bore them onward 
 to some great estuary, and laid them there in vast heaps, 
 to be heavily covered, in the progress of centuries, by sedi- 
 ment derived from adjacent shores, and thus be preserved 
 under conditions preventive of wasteful decomposition, but 
 admitting such change of elements as might, in an ex- 
 tended period, convert fibrous into <?w<m-mineral fuel. 
 The same registry sketches for him an outline of other 
 events, succeeding these in series that years cannot meas- 
 ure, ere yet preparation was made for that sea in which 
 
 14 
 
158 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 the great formation was deposited which now constitutes 
 the bed and barrier of the splendid cascade ; movements 
 in the frame-work of the globe, convulsive perhaps, like 
 those which yet at times cause a continent to tremble ; or 
 gradual, like those which are in our day slowly but surely 
 lifting the coast of Norway and depressing that of Green- 
 land; alternate heavings and sinkings, as it were, of the 
 bosom of our "Alma Mater;" beatings of her vital pulse; 
 throbbings of her mighty heart. Thus at length the great 
 sea-cavity is adjusted, above the storehouse of future 
 flame, where may settle the wafer-layers of that calcareous 
 paste, which after-generations of an uncounted age look 
 upon as enormous piles of imperishable rock. 
 
 Thus do the stupendous gorge, the mighty masses of 
 fossil-marked stone, and the carbureted exhalation of "the 
 burning spring," to one but moderately acquainted with 
 the authenticated and generalized facts of geology, and 
 visiting this unrivaled locality, speak, with a distinctness 
 that can scarcely be mistaken, of the long ages registered 
 in the carboniferous formation, and of those succeeding 
 periods of animated tribes, sedimentary deposit, petrifying 
 process, subsequent upheaval, and prolonged erosion, evi- 
 dences of which, in other places, have been so often traced 
 by sagacious observers.* 
 
 * In principle this time-argument is strictly true. In fact it is 
 true only by accommodation. The Niagara rock belongs not, as 
 supposed in our illustration, and as for any known physical reason 
 to the contrary it might have done, to a formation above, and 
 newer than the great coal deposits, but to a member of the lower 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 159 
 
 That the conclusions thus grouped may be seen to be 
 altogether different from fanciful speculations, some of the 
 evidences substantiating the main points may be briefly 
 brought to notice. 
 
 Great grooves, channeled, like the lower Niagara bed, 
 in hardest rock, may be seen marking some part of the 
 course of almost all large rivers. And the ruins thus ap- 
 propriated by the waters, and borne onward in their flow, 
 are found, in many cases, to be gradually packed away in 
 alluvial accumulations, of which the deltas of the Missis- 
 sippi, the Ganges, and the Nile are well-known instances. 
 Now, of these accumulations, there are some tokens that, 
 in a general way, mark the rate of increase. Such are 
 certain fixed objects, connected with the outlet of the 
 Egyptian stream, to which the ancient and the modern 
 condition of the delta may be referred. The whole term 
 of these deposits is, by such criteria, found to reach very 
 far back of our historical period. 
 
 But above the river beds lie terraces of diversified con- 
 figuration, composed of those outspread heaps of soil, sand, 
 clay, and gravel, that so generally constitute the terrestrial 
 surface on which we tread, and which, when laid open by 
 some natural or artificial cut, we find for the most part to 
 consist of adjusted layers, evidently deposited in succession, 
 at a remote date, from water in which, from time to time, 
 they were borne. This general process was manifestly long 
 
 and older vast Silurian system. So that the carbureted gas 
 there appearing must, in all likelihood, be referred to some very 
 partial and exceptional store of bituminous matter. 
 
160 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 anterior to that of the river alluvium. Its greatly higher 
 antiquity is indicated, not only by all the circumstances of 
 position, but by the enormous extent of the beds, as ascer- 
 tained, in some cases, by boring and by the evidence which 
 the pebbles furnish of prolonged attrition previous to 
 burial. Already, then, we are here conducted, probably, 
 far beyond the human era. (See in the "Smithsonian Con- 
 tribution^ to Knowledge," vol. ix., 1857, an important 
 paper, by Professor Hitchcock, on "Surface Geology.") 
 
 Now, however, additional marks of age claim atten- 
 tion. Indurated strata, marked by perfectly definite and 
 characteristic peculiarities, present themselves to notice. 
 They are found everywhere to constitute a vast frame- 
 work of variously-textured rock, sometimes underlying 
 plains, sometimes swelling into hills, sometimes piled in 
 huge mountain-ridges, or shooting up into towering pin- 
 nacles. This rocky frame of our world has also been, 
 by nature and art, in many places exposed to observa- 
 tion. And it is proved to consist, not of one jumbled 
 mass, but of very distinct layers or beds of different kinds, 
 and sometimes of immense thickness, lying one above 
 another, in a regular order, ascertained to be mainly the 
 same all over the globe, and reaching down to prodigious 
 depths. In no one place, it is true, have many of these 
 layers been exposed to view at once. Nor has any natural 
 chasm or artificial cut penetrated at all near the depth to 
 which these strata may, by other means, be traced. And yet, 
 tilted up as the strata are, by violent heavings from within, 
 especially in the neighborhood of mountains, one may be 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 161 
 
 seen showing itself at a considerable distance behind and 
 under another, as, in a pile of books, one may rest on 
 
 another. And although a, b, c, and d may not be all seen 
 at one view, yet c being found to rest on d, whenever they 
 occur together, 6 on c, and a on b, the actual order of the 
 whole is known. 
 
 By a great number of observations, over a vast extent 
 of the earth, the relations of upper and lower strata have 
 thus been ascertained, and designated in about this order 
 downward: 1, Alluvium and diluvium or drift; 2, ter- 
 tiary series, a partially indurated system reaching down as 
 low as the chalk ; 3, secondary, from the chalk, through 
 the oolite, to the new red sandstone ; 4, paleozoic, from 
 the coal-beds to the slates. And while the uppermost 
 layers of rock give tokens of an antiquity greatly exceed- 
 ing that of the unindurated beds overlying them, those 
 that are lower furnish abundant evidences of still greater 
 age, in proportion as they are farther down. 
 
 Although no human search has yet reached into the 
 earth half a mile below the surface of the sea, yet these 
 various rocky formations may be traced, by methods well- 
 nigh as reliable as those of astronomy, to their profoundest 
 depths. London, for example, rests on a great bed of clay, 
 belonging to the class of accumulations designated the 
 
 4* 
 
162 
 
 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tertiary system; but, underlying that clay is found, by 
 repeated borings, at depths from 200 to 600 feet, the 
 remarkable chalk concretion which, at certain points on 
 the north and west of the great metropolis, appears at the 
 surface, and again on the south rises into the Surrey hills. 
 Xo\v, supposing the dip of the chalk strata to be accu- 
 rately ascertained at both the northern and southern points 
 of emergence, and the distance between these points to be 
 known, it is obvious that data will be possessed for calcu- 
 lating, with trustworthy precision, the greatest depression 
 of the chalk basin. It is a case of simple trigonometry. 
 
 The distance a b being known, and the angles of depres- 
 sion at a and b, to find c d. It will also be seen, from this 
 example, not only how the continuity of a formation is 
 proved by its reappearance, but how a measurement of its 
 edge b e, at the surface, is an approximate criterion of its 
 lowest thickness d f. The thickness of the chalk is, by 
 such process, as well as by measurements in some cases 
 more direct, found to be about 1000 feet. 
 
 Estimates of this kind may be, and have been, applied to 
 the vast oolitic and liassic formation found to underlie the 
 chalk in the London basin ; and equally well to the saliferous 
 or later red sandstone strata, on which the lias rests, and to 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 
 
 163 
 
 the great coal deposits below the saliferous sandstone. Of 
 these last, says Baron Humboldt, (Kosmos, vol. i. p. 158,) " I 
 have found, after repeated examinations, that the lowest coal- 
 stratum which is known in the vicinity of Puttweiler, near 
 Bettingen, northeast of Saarlouis, must descend to depths 
 of 20,000 to 22,000 feet below the level of the sea." Un- 
 der the coal lies the old red sandstone. And beneath that 
 the great Silurian limestone beds, lower than which again 
 are the slates and gneiss. Last of all, the original granite 
 is reached, at a total depth of perhaps as far below the 
 lowest coal, as that is beneath the surface. Thus the 
 strata may be measured to a depth of from eight to ten 
 miles. And gradually formed, as they obviously were, 
 who shall measure the enormous periods employed in their 
 production ? 
 
 A general idea of the whole may be gotten from a sim- 
 ple diagram. 
 
 Tertiary 
 
 Besides the unraeasurable ages indicated for the deposi- 
 tion of the whole series of sedimentary strata, there is that 
 known in connection with the granite itself and its asso- 
 
164 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 elated so-called plutonic rocks, which carries the mind 
 even farther toward the trackless past. Repeated borings 
 into the earth, to from 500 to 2000 feet, reveal the fact, 
 that there is a rise of temperature within, at the rate of 
 about 1 Fah., for every 54 feet of perpendicular descent. 
 (Kosmos, iv. p. 113.) Eight miles down, then, a glowing 
 heat must exist. This indication falls in with several other 
 important facts. First, the oblateness of the earth its 
 polar compression and equatorial protrusion proving 
 that, at some age, it must have been in a fluid condition, 
 susceptible of receiving form under the operation of cen- 
 trifugal force; second, its moderate aggregate density 
 ascertained by carefully observing its attractive power 
 in comparison with that of mountain masses, etc. only 
 about five and a half times that of water, (ibid., p. 32,) 
 indicating some internal repulsive energy counteracting 
 the immense condensation which, otherwise, gravity would 
 seem to necessitate; and third, the circumstance that the 
 scoriae from furnaces, and similar products furnished by 
 chemists, as the result of fusion, often exhibit the very 
 minerals which compose the original rocks. Such facts, 
 together with the peculiar crystalline structure of the gran- 
 itic mass, enforce the conclusion, that that universally un- 
 derlying support of all other rocks, is, itself, but the slowly 
 cooled crust of a once molten world. Immense, indeed, 
 under existing laws of heat, must have been the time em- 
 ployed in such reduction of temperature. 
 
 Thus, by a regular but general and simple series of in- 
 ductions, are we carried irresistibly backward, from the 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 165 
 
 order of things now existing, through vast periods of 
 formative change in the earth, to that unknown date, too 
 remote for the most adventurous surmise, when all was 
 "without form and void." 
 
 Another class of facts, however, now comes into view, 
 connected with this course of inquiry into the time-records 
 of the rocks, and furnishing the most reliable relative 
 chronometry for those ante-human ages, that embracing 
 the entire series of discovered fossils. These relics of the 
 past are witnesses which, after the most searching cross- 
 questioning, furnish one, consistent, unequivocal testimony, 
 to the occurrence of successive orders of beings, in periodic 
 course, with marked diversities gradually introduced, one 
 after another, through prolonged intervals and ages. 
 
 Descending from the surface through such comparatively 
 recent debris-beds, as those of the London clay, the geol- 
 ogist finds animal forms gradually changing, from those of 
 existing species, into new and strange varieties; and by 
 the time he has reached the chalk, nearly the whole organ- 
 ized system with which he started has been left behind. 
 To express this class of facts, in the super- cretaceous beds, 
 now referred to, known as the tertiary system, from its 
 order in the grand ages of life, classifying Greek designa- 
 tions adapted to certain general proportions of displaced 
 forms, have been proposed, and adopted into scientific 
 nomenclature. They are pleiocene more recent, meiocene 
 less recent, and eocene the dawn of recent life ; these divi- 
 sions, however, being carefully distinguished from any deposit 
 of the human period. For, as will be shown in the next dis- 
 
166 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 cussion, they have been satisfactorily proved to contain 
 no traces of simultaneous human existence. It is in the 
 pleiocene, or upper division of the tertiary system, that, 
 with instances of mammalian species belonging to the 
 present time, we find so abundantly remains of the mas- 
 todon and elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus, ox, 
 horse, and deer, which, though specifically different from, 
 are generically akin to families of our own time. In the 
 mewcene portion of the tertiary formation, among forms 
 more distinctly separated from the mammalia coexisting 
 with mankind, occurs the great dinotherium, or gigantic 
 tapir of Cuvier, exceeding in size the largest fossil elephant. 
 And in the lowest or eocene section of the tertiary de- 
 posits, with other creatures diverse from any found in the 
 higher divisions, are discovered those strange, thick-skinned 
 pioneers of the tapir, elephant, rhinoceros, and horse fami- 
 lies, specimens of which may be seen in the best museums, 
 labeled with such names as " Palaotherium," and "Ano- 
 plotherium." 
 
 Xow, when the gradual and successive changes in the 
 order of animal life, thus brought to view, are considered 
 in connection with the prodigious extent of the system 
 through which the progression is witnessed ; and when the 
 whole is compared with what we know of the laws of per- 
 manence in the species around us, we are, by our mental 
 constitution, compelled to assign to the tertiary period a 
 duration to which we dare affix no definite numbers. 
 Who, then, shall measure the antecedent term of the great 
 secondary period of life ? Here, first, we see a powder, 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 167 
 
 worn down from coralline structures, and deposited in 
 paste, imbedding its own curious memorials of life and 
 change, built up into those enormous heaps of chalk, 
 which, when afterwards upheaved, and in due time looked 
 upon by intelligent human eyes, supply to Albion her 
 classic name. Next, we here behold the still earlier oolite, 
 in masses even more extensive, bearing in its deep recesses 
 the tombs of those amphibious monsters, whale-lizards, 
 and serpent-lizards, and bird-lizards, from twenty to seventy 
 feet in length, that tenanted indifferently marshy shore or 
 mighty wave, and multiplied, and fulfilled their cycle of 
 existence, and found protecting graves, during the period 
 of this vast accumulation. And here, in the yet more 
 ancient, though not most ancient, and therefore called 
 new red sandstone, the great salt-bearing deposit of the 
 world, we meet with those footprints of great birds, and 
 of frogs rivaling our ox in size, which reveal some of the 
 strange secrets of that ancient time. 
 
 And what shall we say of that great paleozoic, or 
 primary life-period, to which belong the coal-measures, 
 the old red sandstone, and the Silurian limestones? Of 
 the first of these, the coal formation, it may here suffice 
 simply to mention in proof of its prodigious extent, and 
 of the term its preparation required, the incalculable bene- 
 fits which, as mighty reservoirs of comfort and power, they 
 are conferring, and are destined yet more abundantly to 
 confer, upon mankind. Of the second, the old red-sand- 
 stone system, the most thoroughly informed observer and 
 most competent judge, (Hugh Miller, in his "Old Red 
 
168 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Sandstone,") testifies: "There are localities in which the 
 thickness of the old red sandstone fully equals the eleva- 
 tion of Mount JEtna above the sea, (over ten thousand 
 feet,) and in which it contains three distinct groups of 
 organic remains, the one rising in beautiful progression 
 above the other." And of the last member of this 
 old life division, the Silurian series, Murchison, its most 
 reliable explorer, estimates the extent and age-tokens as 
 existing on no smaller scale. 
 
 Anterior, however, as we have seen, to all this incipiency, 
 progress, and endless change of life, must be reckoned an 
 unknown but vastly extended lifeless age, a period of ad- 
 justment in the frame- work of the globe, indicated, accord- 
 ing to Humboldt and others, by the evidences of internal 
 heat yet existing, and by the phenomena of crystallization, 
 which the lowest and infossiliferous rocks always exhibit. 
 
 When all these inductions are combined, we have a 
 series of ages of which our measures of duration furnish 
 no standard. 
 
 This series of ages is so well described by the profound 
 and distinguished Dr. Harris, in his "Pre-Adamite Earth," 
 that we feel justified in giving the passage in full, by way 
 of recapitulating the view we have presented. He says, 
 p. 70, etc.: 
 
 "Knowing about the date of man's introduction on the 
 earth, we proceed to examine the globe itself. And here 
 we find that the mere shell of the earth takes us back 
 through an unknown series of ages, in which creation fol- 
 lowed creation at the distance of vast intervals between. 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 169 
 
 "But though in the progress of our inquiries we soon 
 find that we have cleared the bounds of historic time, and 
 are moving far back among the periods of an unmeasured 
 and immeasurable antiquity, the geologist can demonstrate 
 that the crust of the earth has a natural history. That 
 he cannot determine the absolute chronology of its suc- 
 cessive strata, is quite immaterial. We only ask him to 
 prove the order of their position from the newest deposit 
 to the lowest step of the series ; and this he can do. For, 
 nature itself, by a force calculable only by the God of 
 nature, lifting up in places the whole of the stupendous 
 series in a slanting ladder-like direction to the surface, has 
 revealed to him the order in which they were originally 
 laid, and invites him to descend step by step to its awful 
 foundations. 
 
 "Let us then descend with him, and traverse an ideal 
 section of the earth's crust. Quitting the living surface 
 of the green earth, and entering on our downward path, 
 our first step may take us below the dust of Adam, and 
 beyond the limits of recorded time. From the moment 
 we leave the mere surface-soil and touch even the newest 
 of the tertiary beds, all traces of human remains disap- 
 pear. So that let our grave be as shallow as it may, in 
 even the latest stratified bed, we have to make it in the 
 dust of a departed world. Formation now follows forma- 
 tion, composed chiefly of sand and clay and lime, and pre- 
 senting a thickness of more than a thousand feet each. As 
 we descend through these, one of the most sublime fictions 
 of mythology becomes sober truth, for at our every step 
 
 15 
 
170 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 an age flies past. We find ourselves on a road, where the 
 lapse of duration is marked not by the succession of 
 seasons and years, but by the slow excavation, by water, 
 of deep valleys in rock-marble ; by the return of a con- 
 tinent to the bosom of an ocean in which ages before it 
 had been slowly formed ; or by the departure of one world 
 and the formation of another. And, accordingly, if our 
 first step took us below the line which is consecrated by 
 human dust, we have to take but a few steps more before 
 we begin to find that the fossil remains of all those forms 
 of animal life with which we were most familiar are 
 diminishing, and that their places are gradually supplied 
 by strange and yet stranger forms ; till in the last fossil- 
 iferous formation of the division, traces of existing species 
 become extremely rare, and extinct species everywhere pre- 
 dominate. 
 
 " The secondary rocks receive us as into a new fossil- 
 iferous world, or into a new series of worlds. Taking 
 the chalk formation as the first member of this series, we 
 find a stratification of a thousand feet thick. Who shall 
 compute the tracts of time necessary for its slow sediment- 
 ary deposition? So vast was it, and so widely different 
 were its physical conditions from those which followed, 
 that scarcely a trace of animal species still living is to be 
 found in it. Crowded as it is with conchological remains, 
 for example, not more than a shell or two of all the seven 
 thousand existing species are discoverable. Types of 
 organic life before unknown arrest our attention, and pre- 
 pare us for still more surprising forms. Descending to the 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 171 
 
 system next in order, the oolite, with its many divisions, 
 and its thickness of about half a mile, we recognize new 
 proofs of the dateless antiquity of the earth. For, enor- 
 mous as this bed is, it was obviously formed by deposition 
 from sea and river water. And so gradual and tranquil 
 was the operation that, in some places, the organic re- 
 mains of the successive strata are arranged with a shelf- 
 like regularity, reminding us of the well-ordered cabinet 
 of the naturalist. Here, too, the last trace of animal 
 species still living has vanished. Even this link is gone. 
 We have reached a point when the earth was in the pos- 
 session of the gigantic forms of Saurian reptiles, monsters 
 more appalling than the poet's fancy ever feigned; and 
 these are their catacombs. Descending through the later 
 red sandstones and saliferous marls of two thousand feet 
 in thickness, and which exhibit, in their variegated strata, 
 a succession of numerous physical changes, our subter- 
 ranean path brings us to the carboniferous system, or coal 
 formations. These coal strata, many thousands of feet 
 thick, consist entirely of the spoils of successive ancient 
 vegetable worlds. But in the rank jungles and luxuriant 
 wildernesses which are here accumulated and compressed, 
 we recognize no plant of any existing species. Nor is 
 there a single convincing indication that these primeval 
 forests ever echoed to the voice of birds. But between 
 these strata, beds of limestone of enormous thickness are 
 interposed ; each proclaiming the prolonged existence and 
 final extinction of a creation. For these limestone beds 
 
It 2 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 are not so much the charnel houses of fossil organisms, as 
 the remains of organisms themselves. 
 
 " The mountain masses of stone which now surround us, 
 extending for miles in length and breadth, were once 
 sentient existences ; tastaceous and coralline ; living at the 
 bottom of ancient seas and lakes. How countless the 
 ages necessary for their accumulation ; when the formation 
 of only a few inches of the strata required the life and 
 death of many generations. Here the mind is not merely 
 carried back through immeasurable periods, but while 
 standing amid the petrified remains of this succession of 
 primeval forests and extinct races of animals piled up into 
 sepulchral mountains, we seem to be encompassed by the 
 thickest shadow of the valley of death. 
 
 "In quitting these stupendous monuments of death, we 
 leave behind us the last vestige of land plants, and pass 
 down to the old red sandstone. Here, too, we have passed 
 below the last trace of reptile life. The speaking foot- 
 prints impressed on the carboniferous strata are absent 
 here. The geological character of this vast formation 
 again tells of ages innumerable. For, though many 
 thousand feet in depth, it is obviously derived from the 
 materials of more ancient rocks, fractured, decomposed, 
 and slowly deposited in water. The gradual and quiet 
 nature of the process, and therefore its immense duration, 
 are evident from the numerous 'platforms of death' which 
 mark its formation, each crowded with organic structures 
 which lived and died where they are now seen, and which 
 consequently must have perished by some destructive 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 1*73 
 
 agency, too sudden to allow of their dispersion, and yet 
 so subtle and quiet as to leave the place of their habitation 
 undisturbed. 
 
 "Immeasurably far behind us as we have already left 
 the fair face of the existing creation, while traveling into 
 the night of ancient time, we yet feel, as we stand on the 
 threshold of the next, or Silurian system, and look down 
 toward 'the foundations of the earth,' that we are not half 
 way on our course. Here, on surveying the fossil struc- 
 tures, we are first struck with the total change in the petri- 
 fied inhabitants of the sea, as compared with what we 
 found in the mountain limestone; implying the lapse of 
 long periods of time during the formation of the interven- 
 ing old red sandstone which we have just left. But still 
 more are we impressed with the lapse of duration, while 
 descending the long succession of strata, of which this pri- 
 mary fossiliferous formation is composed, when we think 
 of their slow derivation from more ancient rocks ; of their 
 oft-repeated elevation and suppression ; of the long periods 
 of repose, during which hundreds of animal species ran 
 through their cycle of generations and became extinct; 
 and of the continuance of this stratifying process, until 
 these thin beds had acquired, by union, the immense thick- 
 ness of a mile and a half. Next below this, we reach the 
 Cambrian slate system, of almost equal thickness, and 
 formed by the same slow process. Here the gradual 
 decrease of animal remains admonishes us that even the 
 vast and dreary empire of death has its limits, and that we 
 are now in its outskirts. But there is a solitude greater 
 
 15* 
 
174 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 than that of the boundless desert, and a dreariness more 
 impressive than that which reigns in a world entombed. 
 On leaving these slate rocks, we find that the worlds of 
 organic remains are past; and that we have reached a 
 region older than death, because older than life itself. 
 Here, at least if life ever existed, all trace of it is obliter- 
 ated by the fusing power of the heat below. But we have 
 not even yet reached a resting-place. Passing down 
 through the great beds of mica schist, many thousands of 
 feet in depth, to the great gneiss formation, we find that 
 we have reached the limits of stratification itself. The 
 granitic masses below, of a depth which man can never 
 explore, are not only crystallized themselves, but the igne- 
 ous power acting through them has partially crystallized 
 the rocks above. Not only life, but the conditions of life, 
 are here at an end. 
 
 " Now, is it possible for us to look from our ideal posi- 
 tion backward and upward to the ten miles' height, sup- 
 posing the strata to be piled regularly, from which we have 
 descended, without feeling that we have reached a point of 
 immeasurable remoteness in terrestrial antiquity ? Can we 
 think of the thin soil of man's few thousand years, in con- 
 trast with the succession of worlds we have passed through ; 
 of the slow formation of each of these worlds on worlds, 
 by the disintegration of more ancient materials, and their 
 subsidence in water; of the leaf-like thinness of a great 
 portion of the strata ; of the consequent flow of time neces- 
 sary to form only a few perpendicular inches of all these 
 miles; or of the long periods of alternate elevation and 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 175 
 
 depression, action and repose, which mark their formation, 
 without acknowledging that the days and years of geology 
 are ages and cycles of ages ?" 
 
 That the chronology of creation is thus to be estimated 
 on a scale of vast proportions ; that the grandeur of im- 
 mense duration is offered to our contemplation in the past 
 history of the material universe, as the grandeur of im- 
 mense extent is exhibited in the compass of its mighty 
 mechanism, is as clearly the conclusion of science as it is 
 impressively the intimation of those noble utterances of 
 ancient inspired poetry, to which reference has been made. 
 
 But with the truths thus indubitably indicated, how is 
 the record of Genesis i. to be reconciled ? What is the 
 adequate understanding of that brief but beautiful intro- 
 duction to the great volume of revelation, which shall 
 harmonize it with the subsequent disclosures of that vol- 
 ume, and with the registry that is so deeply inscribed, as 
 we have seen, all over the volume of nature ? Two such 
 interpretations have been proposed. The one that which 
 we have already mentioned as in our view satisfactorily 
 established on exegetical grounds, in connection with the 
 geological facts now adduced the construction which 
 reads "ages" as the true meaning of the recurring "yoms" 
 of that initial chapter ; a reading which we shall presently 
 endeavor to show is alone authorized, even by the struc- 
 ture of the record itself. The other, a suggestion offered by 
 Dr. Chalmers, and admitted for near half a century, as well 
 by great Christian naturalists as by able theologians, which 
 supposes an interval of ages passed over in silence between 
 
1T6 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 the first verse of Genesis and the second, and the existing 
 condition of our world to have been effected in six natural 
 days, described from the second verse onward. 
 
 Of this last view, Dr. Harris is among the ablest recent 
 advocates. And it is on this account, and for the sake of 
 showing its inadequacy in part from his own statement, 
 as well as because of its intrinsic excellence, that we have 
 given from him the foregoing extract. Within a few pages 
 of the passage quoted, he uses this language: "From a 
 careful consideration of the subject, my full conviction is, 
 that the sublime affirmation, * In the beginning God created 
 the heaven and the earth, 1 was placed by the hand of in- 
 spiration, at the opening of the Bible, as a distinct and 
 independent sentence ; that it was the divine intention to 
 affirm by it, that the material universe was primarily organ- 
 ized by God out of elements not previously existing ; and 
 that this originating act was quite distinct from the acts 
 involved in the six natural days of the Adamic creation." 
 
 That the first verse of the inspired record has the mean- 
 ing here assigned, we make no question ; but that it is to 
 be separated by the vast unnoticed interval of multi- 
 plied ages from all that follows, supposed to belong to the 
 mere Adamic creation, and that such creation only is 
 meant to be described in the second and succeeding verses, 
 and as accomplished in six natural days, we think disproved 
 by considerations of irresistible force. 
 
 In the first place, we ask, is it in accordance with the 
 wondrous structure of revelation, in regard to other and 
 kindred topics, that so incalculable a sweep of ages and 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 17*7 
 
 events should be thus passed over without one allusion ? 
 Admitting, as we do in full, that the Bible was not in- 
 tended to teach natural science in any of its branches, we 
 cannot but believe that it was intended to manifest, with 
 increasing clearness, inimitable harmony in all the relations 
 of truth. The great disclosures of astronomy are not 
 detailed in the Scriptures. Yet when, by the light of her 
 glorious discoveries in the heavens, Science sits down to a 
 reperusal of the inspired volume, and reads there, repeated 
 in forms so various and striking, the sublime utterances, 
 (Psalm xix. 1,) "The heavens declare the glory of God," 
 and (Job, xxvi. 7,) " He stretcheth out the north over the 
 empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing," she 
 cannot but find in them a significance most impressively 
 harmonizing with the revelations she has traced in the out- 
 ward world. It is one of the soul-subduing proofs of the 
 divine origin of the Bible. And is it to be supposed she 
 will find no such affecting relations between the story she 
 has seen undeniably written on the age-monuments beneath 
 us, and the time-intimations of that wonderful Book ? 
 
 But, again, we ask, what is to be done with that great 
 fact of progression in the creative order, which Dr. Harris 
 has himself so distinctly recognized and so justly sketched 
 in liis account of the geological periods ? He truly speaks 
 of "the total change from the petrified inhabitants of the 
 sea," belonging to the Silurian system, to those of the 
 "platforms of death," in the old red sandstone; and from 
 these to those "spoils of rank jungles and luxuriant wilder- 
 nesses, accumulated and compressed in the coal-series." 
 
178 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Here, he affirms, moreover, is "no trace of bird or reptile 
 life;" and yet, in the next higher formation, he admits, as 
 existing in abundance, those feathered giants whose foot- 
 prints yet abide on the later red sandstone; and in the 
 oolite above, "those Saurian monsters, more appalling than 
 poet's fancy ever feigned." And with these begin to appear 
 "traces of animal species still existing." Still ascending, 
 he finds in the lower tertiary system another fossiliferous 
 world, containing additional, though as yet "rare traces 
 of existing species." He is in the eocene range the 
 dawn of recent life has opened. Higher up, he meets with 
 more frequent "remains of those animal forms with which 
 we are familiar," but mingled with many that to us are 
 strange. He is in the meiocene or less recent age. And 
 proceeding on his upward way, he recognizes, just below 
 "the line consecrated by human dust," types of many 
 familiar animal species, and some identical with man's con- 
 temporaries. Is it credible that all this means nothing, in 
 connection with the sacred narrative? That it is all 
 ingulfed in one dark, sealed cavern of oblivion? And 
 that a like general progress from lower to human life, so 
 remarkably though so briefly set forth in the record, 
 imagined to belong only to the Adamic creation, is a mere 
 casual circumstance of no grand significancy ? We cannot 
 so believe. 
 
 That three great master life-divisions should be so dis- 
 tinctly marked in the grand geological scale as to estab- 
 lish, in the fundamental nomenclature of that science, the 
 terms primary, secondary, and tertiary, to indicate the 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 119 
 
 general advance toward our present system ; and that the 
 Mosaic history should exhibit also three life-stages, we 
 cannot deem a merely casual coincidence. But when we 
 find a correspondence of the most striking character be- 
 tween each of the great geological divisions and the 
 parallel stages of the sacred narrative, and the relative 
 position of the parts identical in the two series, our im- 
 pression of a designed coincidence begins to assume the 
 force of a decided conviction. In the primary life-division, 
 says Hugh Miller, (The Two Records,) "we find corals, 
 crustaceans, molluscs, fishes, and in its later formations a 
 few reptiles, but none of these classes of organisms give its 
 leading character to the paleozoic ; they do not constitute 
 its prominent feature, or render it more remarkable as a 
 scene of life than any of the divisions which followed. 
 That which chiefly distinguished the primary from the sec- 
 ondary and tertiary periods, was its gorgeous flora." It 
 was emphatically the period of plants. Of "herbs yield- 
 ing seed after their kind." In no other age did the world 
 ever witness such a flora. Of this extraordinary age of 
 plants every coal-piled grate or stove, and every gas- 
 illumined city, is a cheerful remembrancer and speaking 
 witness, and no less every glowing furnace and ponderous 
 engine. It is patent to all that the first great division on 
 the geological scale of organized being was, like that first 
 described in the Mosaic record, peculiarly a period of herbs 
 and trees, "yielding seed after their kind." 
 
 So again with the next great division on the geological 
 scale, the secondary life-period. It had herbs and plants, but 
 
180 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 not as they had been. In its course there lived also corals, 
 crustaceans, molluscs, and fishes, and a few dwarfed mam- 
 mals had been introduced on the stage. But none of these 
 marked this age. Those huge birds and Saurian mon- 
 sters of which we have spoken, distinguished from all 
 others the secondary life-period; egg-bearing animals, 
 winged, and wingless. And in marvelous agreement with 
 all this, the second life-creation of Genesis is, of " moving 
 (or creeping) creatures, and fowl, and great whales," or, as 
 the margin has it, "great sea monsters." 
 
 In like manner, we find in the tertiary period a charac- 
 teristic class of creatures. Certain genera that had ex- 
 isted before had their term extended into this age ; and 
 others appeared in its course that were to outlast its close. 
 But there was one order of beings peculiar to it, by 
 which it was marked off from the ages going before, and 
 from the human era to come after its great mammalian 
 giants, beasts of the field, such as in size and number the 
 world has in no other age witnessed. And here, as in the 
 previous instances, the narrative, so to speak, equally joints 
 into the natural order. The third and last life-creation 
 before man, is of "cattle and beasts of the earth after 
 their kind." Surely coincidences like these cannot reason- 
 ably be considered merely casual correspondences between 
 two things entirely unconnected, the grand order of all 
 mundane creations engraved upon the rocks, and a sketch of 
 one fractional part thereof which interpreters would call the 
 Adamic creation given by inspiration. How much more 
 satisfactory to a comprehensively considerate and sober 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 181 
 
 judgment is that view which exhibits the record as won- 
 drously fitting the whole creative series ! 
 
 But there is another fact in the case, respecting which 
 we have again to ask, what is to be done with it on the 
 day hypothesis ? In the successive geological periods, we 
 find a certain overlapping of organized forms, a continu- 
 ance, more or less extensive, of some species which belong 
 properly to one age, among the forms which become com- 
 mon in the next cycle. Creatures beginning in the primary 
 division may be traced into the secondary, and in excep- 
 tional cases into the tertiary, though the species peculiar 
 to the latter gradually rise into great preponderance. But 
 there is no instance of a creature that has become extinct 
 in an earlier formation being reproduced in a later. Says 
 Lyell, (Principles of Geology,) quoting Buffon, "races 
 die out, because time fights against them, and new species 
 are from time to time called into being," not the old re- 
 stored. A race, clearly noticed as having once passed 
 away, returns upon the stage no more. The grand flora 
 of the coal measures, when once buried, appeared not 
 again. The frightful monsters of the oolite fulfilled their 
 cycle, and disappeared, to show their hideous forms no 
 more forever. And the gigantic beasts of the tertiary age, 
 mastodon and mammoth, massive cave-bear and formidable 
 cave-hyena, have not, we may gratefully thank Heaven, 
 risen up again to terrify us and consume the harvests of 
 the earth, since their ancient burial. This, then, is a 
 natural law, written all over the geological monuments. 
 Races once destroyed return not again. 
 
 16 
 
182 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Xow, however, by the side of this law, we meet the 
 remarkable fact, that numerous species which ranged 
 along in the tertiary period, greatly anterior to our time, 
 are found coexisting with ourselves. Xot only are the 
 remains of trees, under which the mammoth roamed, and 
 which are found with the bones of that animal, of pre- 
 cisely the same species with some that grow in our own 
 forests, but such creatures as the badger, the fox, and the 
 wild cat, to say nothing of numerous shell-fish, identical 
 with those now existing, are proved by their relics to have 
 lived during the pre-Adamite tertiary age. Either, then, 
 as in previous cases, such races have lived on continuously, 
 from the tertiary into the human period, or before the 
 Adamic time they were destroyed, and at that time re- 
 created. The latter supposition is, as we have seen, con- 
 trary to the uniformly observed law of divine procedure ; 
 and is therefore altogether improbable. The former must 
 then be accepted as the fact. That is, while a large portion 
 of the creatures that existed during the tertiary age became 
 extinct before man appeared, others lived on in unbroken 
 series into the human age, and actually occupied the earth 
 when man was called into being. But if this was so, there 
 was no such annihilating catastrophe, as the day hypothesis 
 assumes, immediately preceding the human term. ]S"o utter 
 overthrow, breaking-up, and oblivion-working ruin of all 
 former creations, just before man was made. Then, the 
 tohu and bohu, the "without form and void" of the second 
 verse of the inspired history, cannot be justly, as on the 
 hypothesis in question they are, construed as denoting the 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 183 
 
 results of such a catastrophe. But instead, they must be 
 read as really descriptive of the world's condition next after 
 its primary creation. This reduces to a mere chimera, a 
 vanishing dream, the notion of that mighty gulf between 
 the first grand sentence of our Bible and all that follows. 
 But when that dream is dispelled, the day hypothesis is 
 gone. It has neither room nor resting-place. It must be 
 abandoned. 
 
 These several considerations seem abundantly to discredit 
 the day rendering of the Hebrew Yom. But in doing that, 
 they do very much more. They clearly establish the great 
 probability of that reading which considers the successive 
 Yoms, ages of indefinite extent. 
 
 This probability must, however, be subjected to tests of 
 another kind before it can be admitted into the rank of 
 established verities. Scripture, by its own nature, and by 
 its independent position, as a great system of revealed truth, 
 must at last be its own interpreter. It must, indeed, be- 
 cause from the same Author, harmonize with all other 
 truth certainly known. And a true interpretation may be 
 thus suggested from without ; but no sense that it will not 
 fairly bear in its own structure can be forced upon it, no 
 matter how otherwise probable. The probability may be 
 delusive. The really forced construction cannot be true. 
 Ultimately, then, the Bible must interpret itself. And our 
 extended Chronology of Creation, probable as it is ren- 
 dered by the foregoing considerations, must be brought to 
 the test of a fair scriptural examination. 
 
 We take up, therefore, the Sacred History of Creation. 
 
184 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 And the first thing that strikes us, relative to the point in 
 question, is the peculiar indefiniteness of its tone and ex- 
 pressions. No definite date for "the beginning" is hinted; 
 no exact boundary for "the heavens and the earth." The 
 whole history of visible created being is introduced in one 
 brief but grand statement, abundantly specific as to the 
 world's actual creation by the Almighty, but altogether 
 general as to the secondary points of space and time. 
 The whence for the world is settled once and forever, but 
 the when and the where are left fully open to human 
 inquiry. 
 
 Next, we discover nowhere in the record any token of a 
 transition from the grandly indefinite to the contracted and 
 precise. There is no notice whatever of any commence- 
 ment to the exact periods of twenty-four hours that have 
 been imagined; while the idea of a leap, so sudden and 
 unnoticed, from the noble comprehensiveness of the intro- 
 duction to a scale of such diminutive proportions, is at 
 once destructive of the consistency of the record, and 
 unworthy of its grandeur. From this general spirit of the 
 history, therefore, we gather that it makes no mention of 
 precise, petty periods of twenty-four hours. 
 
 Pass we, then, to particulars; and here a fact which 
 every reader has observed immediately claims attention. 
 Until the fourth Yom, no mention whatever is made of the 
 luminaries by which natural days and all our divisions of 
 time are marked. From the first, indeed, as intimated in 
 the opening verse, we believe those luminaries to have 
 existed, and only to have been made peculiarly manifest in 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 185 
 
 the fourth Yom, perhaps by the clearing up of the atmo- 
 sphere. But total silence respecting their office during 
 the earlier Yoms seems unmistakably to indicate that those 
 periods, at least, were not intended to be described as 
 natural days. This particular in the narrative long ago 
 occasioned questionings concerning the Yoms. St. Augus- 
 tine, on account of it, was constrained to ask, (see Professor 
 Lewis's "Six Days of Creation," for this and other sug- 
 gestions,) " Quis ergo animo penetret quo modo illi dies 
 transierint, antequam inciperent tempora quae quarto die 
 dicuntur incipere ?" 
 
 But the particular time designations employed are in 
 themselves, and in the manner of their use, no less sig- 
 nificant against a natural-day interpretation. The " even- 
 ing," "morning," and "day" are not only, according to 
 their etymology in the original, and according to scriptural 
 and common usage, terms of very general signification, 
 but they are, in this history, so employed as really to 
 forbid any special sense. The Hebrew word ereb, " even- 
 ing," undoubtedly the mother of the Greek epsfios, is de- 
 rived from a verb which signifies to mingle. So that a 
 mingling or blending time would seem intended to be 
 described under that term. In like manner, the Hebrew 
 boker, "morning," is derived from a verb meaning to 
 cleave or separate, indicating that by that term a dis- 
 tinguishing time was meant to be characterized. These 
 terras, then, are precisely analogous to Spring and Fall. 
 They indicate not specified duration, but modes of being. 
 And, accordingly, the Scriptures, as we do, speak of the 
 
 16* 
 
186 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 morning and evening of the year, or of life, or of the 
 world. Nor are the relations of these two words in the 
 account less remarkable than their etymological meanings. 
 In every instance the evening is placed first; and there is 
 nothing, in the remotest degree, to intimate its beginning 
 or its end. Had creation and its record opened with the 
 gleaming light, there .had been marked an initial moment. 
 And had any hint been given of some recurring phenomena, 
 termini for the evenings and mornings were possibly imag- 
 inable. But there is nothing of the kind. It is here, as 
 Hesiod later wrote, Mzkawa. vbz tylveTn, "black night came 
 into being;" and Ovid sung, Lucis egens aer, "the ether 
 was void of light." 
 
 Similar, precisely, are the indications of the Tom. It 
 is a general term descriptive of no particular duration, and 
 applied in many senses; as "the Yom of the Lord," "the 
 Tom of Jerusalem," "the Tom of justice, or mercy." 
 And in the history before us, this word is actually used 
 in four distinct senses, viz.: (1) To specify the light-time, 
 in v. 5, as we speak of daylight or daytime. (2) To 
 denote the phenomenal days, which, with seasons and 
 years, the sun was to mark off, as stated in v. 14. Indeed 
 in that single verse the word is used in both these senses. 
 (3) To characterize, as in ch. ii. v. 4, the sum-total of the 
 whole series of creative periods. And (4) To express 
 those strange, unphenomenal intervals, of whatever extent 
 and however divided, indicated in vss. 5, 8, 13, as not 
 marked off by rising or setting sun. Certainly for such a 
 word, and in a document where it is thus variously used, 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 1ST 
 
 no one precise and exclusive sense can be claimed, without- 
 some more significant condition than its periodical repe- 
 tition. It assuredly may, and for reasons already given 
 and others to be adduced, we think it should here as in 
 other places it must, be read age. As in Micah, iv. 6, 
 " In that Yom, (age,) saith the Lord, will I gather the out- 
 casts of Israel;" and Isaiah, xii. 1, "In that Yom (age) 
 shall ye say, I will praise the Lord, for he is become my 
 salvation," etc. 
 
 But the manner in which these several terms are here 
 used is, in another respect, still more remarkable. The 
 literal translation in the first instance is, "there was an 
 evening, and there was a morning, one day." And the 
 affirming statement is in every case repeated, though the 
 form of the numeral is varied. It is, as if, after describing 
 a term of repose and an interval of change, an extended 
 darkness and a succeeding progress of illumination, or a 
 season of mingled and a term of divided life, it had been 
 demonstratively said, "this was the evening and this was 
 the morning." 
 
 The peculiar "one day," of the first statement, receives 
 some light from a singular instance in Zechariah, xiv. 6-9: 
 "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall 
 not be clear nor dark ; but it shall be one day, which shall 
 be known to the Lord, not day nor night; but it shall 
 come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. And 
 it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from 
 Jerusalem ; half of them toward the former sea, and half 
 of them toward the hinder sea; in summer and in winter 
 
188 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 shall it be. And the Lord shall be king on the earth ; in 
 that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." 
 Nothing can be more obvious than that the "one day" 
 here is something widely different from an ordinary interval 
 of twenty-four hours. And the parallelism of expression 
 would indicate that something also greatly differing from 
 the minute section of time is meant for the beginning of 
 Yonis. Josephus, master as he was of the Hebrew idiom, 
 noticed the peculiar intimation contained in this extraor- 
 dinary phraseology, (Antiq., book i. ch. 1.) He says: 
 "This was the first day, but Moses called it one day, the 
 reason of which I am able to give even now, but shall put 
 off its expression until another time." The promised ex- 
 planation, if ever given, has not come down to us ; but this 
 reference to the case is enough to show that the account 
 before us was, by so competent a judge, regarded as one 
 of very peculiar significancy. 
 
 There is yet another circumstance in the history con- 
 firming the age interpretation. No evening and morning 
 are assigned the seventh Tom. They are in every case 
 before invariably repeated; here, however, they are very 
 singularly omitted. Why is this ? Does it not mark 
 something, in the course of this period, distinguishing it 
 from the others ? And what is such time-distinction, if not 
 that the other terms were finished, but this unfinished ? Iii 
 each instance, certainly, when the "evening" and "morning" 
 are assigned to the Yom, that term is represented as 
 brought to an end, closed, completed. Would that in- 
 variable form have been departed from in the seventh 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 189 
 
 period, had the Yom in this case been also completed? 
 The very omission of the formula of completion seems 
 strikingly to intimate that the seventh Yom is not closed, 
 that it is yet in progress. If so, this is not a brief term 
 of terrestrial rotation, but a prolonged age, the grand 
 cycle of man's earthly existence; a period of mighty 
 meaning in the history of creation; consecrated to pur- 
 poses not before developed ; devoted mainly to a being of 
 high faculty and immortal essence ; and appropriated to a 
 wondrous scene of discipline and redemption whose issue 
 is to be in the moral universe boundless good, and glory 
 unutterable to the Everlasting Father. 
 
 Of the creative history there are two other associated 
 traits of great importance, which together co-nduct to the 
 same conclusion; its quasi prophetic character, and its 
 peculiar optical aspect. It is a description of events in 
 the distant past knowable only by revelation, just as pro- 
 phecy is a description of events in the distant future know- 
 able only by revelation ; and, like many exhibitions of the 
 prophets, it is the statement of an eye-witness. Both of 
 these facts are very significant. 
 
 The remarkable visual distinctness imparted to the nar- 
 rative would seem to indicate that the grand old processes 
 of creation were revealed to Moses, as so many divine dis- 
 closures are said in the Bible to have been made, viz., 
 through a series of visions, or pictorial representations. 
 Of course, if this were so, if the vast serial drama of 
 creation were made to pass thus representatively before 
 the eye of the Prophet-Historian, he would describe the 
 
190 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 events exhibited as one who had witnessed them in person, 
 and infuse into his account the very vividness which really 
 marks the record. But whether this distinguishing feature 
 of the history were thus or otherwise produced, one thing 
 at least is certain, this peculiar mode of description by 
 obvious appearances adapts the narrative most marvel- 
 ously to every stage of natural knowledge, and renders it 
 for the most scientific as well as for the least inquisitive 
 age "optically true in all its details." He, surely, needs 
 something more than reason to influence his judgment, who 
 can see in this adjustment between the simple story of 
 creation and the indefinite progress of scientific discovery, 
 no impressive evidence of divine truth. 
 
 So, again, with the history in the general character of a 
 prophecy to be read backward. The principle, sanctioned 
 alike by experience and by direct scriptural authority, that 
 prophetic statement is to be rightly understood only when 
 fulfillment has shed the full, light of verification on the 
 predicting page, seems as instructive toward our con- 
 clusion as it is justly applicable to the case. "History," 
 well says the gifted author of the "Mosaic Vision of 
 Creation," "is the surest interpreter of the revealed prophe- 
 cies which referred to events posterior to the times of the 
 prophet. In what shall we find the surest interpretation 
 of the revealed prophecies that referred to events anterior 
 to his time ? In what light, or on what principle, shall we 
 most correctly read the prophetic drama of creation ? In 
 the light, I reply, of scientific discovery ; on the principle 
 that the clear and certain must be accepted, when attain- 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 191 
 
 able, as the proper exponents of the doubtful and obscure. 
 What fully developed history is to the prophecy which of 
 old looked forward, fully developed science is to the 
 prophecy which of old looked backward." Here, then, 
 also, the only sure canon of prophetic interpretation con- 
 ducts us to the same great truth of divinely adjusted 
 harmony between the inimitable creative record and the 
 hoary monumental rocks. 
 
 Thus does the creative history itself, in every part and 
 in every aspect, deny the partial, and declare the grandly 
 comprehensive sense. But the- scriptural evidence in favor 
 of this sense is very far from being confined to this history. 
 It is scattered, indeed, all through the Bible. The inspired 
 Hebrew poets abound in references to creation and its 
 sacred record. And yet 'in vain shall we look among all 
 these allusions for one hint of a circumstance so remark- 
 able as the compression of the mighty manifestations of 
 infinite power and goodness into a term of days less than 
 the lifetime of an ephemeral insect. On the contrary, they 
 labor, as we have seen, to convey, in connection with it, 
 ideas of vast duration. In carrying us back to those 
 ancient ages, they are conducting us as far as mortals can 
 go, toward the interminable "from everlasting to ever- 
 lasting." 
 
 And when those wonderful Hebrew and Greek words, olam 
 and eon, whose simple meaning is merely prolonged time, 
 are found so commonly applied in the Scriptures, as such 
 words are applied nowhere else, to describe creations and 
 worlds, another and a most striking testimony is rendered, 
 
192 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 by the peculiar structure of inspired language, to the 
 grand chronology of creation. One instance of this may 
 here suffice. In Hebrews, i. 2, the phrase, " He made the 
 worlds," is, ruv~ aia>-,as l-oir^sv, "he made the ages." 
 Now this usage with alwv, as has been justly remarked, 
 (Professor Lewis, p. 354,) "is not in the classical Greek. 
 We find nothing like it in Homer, or Plato, or JEschylus. 
 They never use this word for the world, much less the 
 plural for a plurality of worlds in space or time. But no 
 mode of speech is better settled in the New Testament, as 
 it had previously been in the Old. The inference seems 
 unavoidable, that plurality of worlds in time, or creations 
 in successive ages, must have been an idea conveyed by in- 
 spiration, and early entertained by the Hebrew mind." 
 
 Xow when all these proofs are taken together, direct 
 and indirect, general and special, from structure of lan- 
 guage, and order of statement, in grandeur of thought 
 and harmony of meaning, from the Bible as interpreting 
 itself, and from nature as interrogated by science, and from 
 amazing coincidences between the utterances of revelation 
 and the last disclosures of scientific research, candor can 
 scarcely be supposed capable of demanding, on such sub- 
 jects, a nearer approach to demonstration. 
 
 But to the whole, it is objected that the reason given, 
 Exodus, xx. 11, for the human Sabbath, in connection 
 with what is said, Genesis, ii. 3, requires the Toms, in- 
 cluding the seventh, to be understood, as just such days as 
 the six on which men are required to work, and the 
 seventh on which they are commanded to keep a sacred 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 193 
 
 rest. In this, however, there is little weight. The word 
 Tom may very well be used in two different senses in the 
 fourth commandment, just as we have seen it is used in 
 four senses in the creative history. The creature's may 
 well be a Sabbath-day, the Creator's a Sabbath-age. And 
 this, as before suggested, is indicated by a remarkable 
 omission in the earliest mention of the seventh Yom. 
 
 So far, indeed, is the fourth commandment from fur- 
 nishing any serious objection to the estimate presented, 
 that the relation between this view and that divine ordi- 
 nance becomes an additional illustration of the truth we 
 have been exhibiting. A weight of meaning is hereby 
 added to the commandment immeasurably transcending 
 that of the common exposition. This estimate imparts to 
 the present cycle a significance no less impressive than is 
 the grandeur with which it invests the past and the future. 
 It exhibits as the Divine Sabbath man's whole earthly 
 term. It makes his entire period here a season divinely 
 ordained for sacred purposes ; of which, and of a still more 
 sacred state of being in the future, the weekly hallowed 
 rest enjoined him is a perpetual type. Thus regarded, 
 how supremely important is the fourth commandment I 
 How greatly instructive the reason given for its appoint- 
 ment ! This thought it were unjust not to permit its 
 sagacious and devout propounder to illustrate in his own 
 felicitous way of persuasive genius. 
 
 "What I ask, (see 'Two Records,') viewed as a whole, 
 is the prominent characteristic of geological history, or of 
 that corresponding history of creation which forms the 
 
 It 
 
194 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 grandly-fashioned vestibule of the sacred volume ? Of 
 both alike the leading characteristic is progress. In both 
 alike do we find an upward progress from dead matter to 
 the humbler forms of vitality, and from thence to the 
 higher. And after great cattle and beasts of the earth 
 had, in due order, succeeded inanimate plants, sea mon- 
 sters, and moving creatures that had life, the moral agent, 
 man, enters upon the scene. Previous to his appearance 
 on earth, each succeeding elevation in the long upward 
 march had been a result of creation. The creative fiat 
 went forth, and dead matter came into existence. The 
 creative fiat went forth, and plants, with the lower animal 
 forms, came into existence. The creative fiat went forth, 
 and the oviparous animals, birds, and reptiles came into 
 existence. The creative fiat went forth, and the mam- 
 miferous animals, cattle and beasts of the earth, came into 
 existence. And, finally, last in the series, the creative 
 fiat went forth, and responsible, immortal man, came into 
 existence. But has the course of progress come, in con- 
 sequence, to a close ? No ! God's work of elevating, 
 raising, heightening, of making the high in due progression 
 succeed the low, still goes on. But man's responsibility, 
 his immortality, his God-implanted instincts respecting an 
 eternal future, forbid that the work of elevation and prog- 
 ress should be, as in all other instances, a work of creation. 
 To create would be to supersede. God's work of elevation 
 now is the work of fitting and preparing peccable, imper- 
 fect man, for a perfect, impeccable, future state. God's 
 seventh day's work is the work of redemption. And, 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 195 
 
 read in this light, his reason vouchsafed to man for the 
 institution of the Sabbath is found to yield a meaning of 
 peculiar breadth and emphasis. God, it seems to say, 
 rests on his Sabbath from his creative labors, in order that 
 by his Sabbath day's work he may save and elevate you ; 
 rest ye also on your Sabbaths, that through your co-opera- 
 tion with him in this great work, ye may be elevated and 
 saved. Made originally in the image of God, let God be 
 your pattern and example. Engaged in your material and 
 temporal employments, labor in the proportions in which 
 he labored; but in order that you may enjoy an eternal 
 future with him, rest also in the proportions in which he 
 rests." 
 
 " One other remark, ere I conclude. In the history of 
 the earth which we inhabit, molluscs, fishes, reptiles, mam- 
 mals, had each in succession their periods of vast duration ; 
 and then the human period began, the period of a fellow- 
 worker with God, created in God's own image. What is 
 to be the next advance ? Is there to be merely a repetition 
 of the past? An introduction the second time of man 
 made in the image of God ? No ! The geologist, in those 
 tables of stone which form his records, finds no examples 
 of dynasties, once passed away, again returning. There 
 has been no repetition of the dynasty of the fish, of the 
 reptile, of the mammal. The dynasty of the future is to 
 have glorified man as its inhabitant; but it is to be the 
 dynasty, "the kingdom," not of glorified man made in the 
 image of God, but of God himself in the form of man. 
 In the doctrine of the two conjoined natures, human and 
 
196 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 divine, and in the further doctrine that the terminal dynasty 
 is to be peculiarly the dynasty of Him in whom the natures 
 are united, we find that great progression beyond which 
 progress cannot go. We find the point of elevation never 
 to be exceeded, meetly coincident with the final period, 
 never to be terminated ; the infinite in height harmoniously 
 associated with the eternal in duration. Creation and the 
 Creator meet at one point and in one person. The long 
 ascending line from dead matter to man has been a prog- 
 ress God-ward, not an asymptotical progress, but des- 
 tined from the beginning to furnish a point of union ; and 
 occupying that point as true God and true man, as Creator 
 and created, we recognize the adorable monarch of all the 
 Future." 
 
 Thus does the great chronology of creation, whose gran- 
 deur is only equaled by the evidences of its truth, conduct 
 the mind by stages, that suitably exercise its best powers, 
 to a vantage position, where the lessons of wisdom ap- 
 pear like the light-adorned landscape from the mountain's 
 summit. Standing there, and listening to the great har- 
 monies of nature and revelation, we look backward along 
 the track of ages, and learn more of the wonders of His 
 being who is "from everlasting to everlasting." We look 
 downward upon the crowded monuments of untold buried 
 generations of lower creatures, and we are taught more of 
 the exhaustless riches of His benignity, who "openeth his 
 hand and filleth all things living with plenteousness." We 
 survey the vast array, as, in one mighty procession, cycle 
 follows cycle of ascending grades of being, and we discover 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY OP CREATION. 19f 
 
 more of order in that all-wise plan, which, by such majestic 
 steps, marches on toward consummation in the appearance, 
 trial, recovery, and final experience of a race endowed 
 with attributes akin to divine. More of those attributes 
 do we also behold, in the very opening of the pathway that 
 has led us to this summit. Thus to have traced the great 
 chain of life through many and profound burials, and even 
 to have groped along the thread of creative order beyond 
 the dawn of organized existence, through preparatory ages 
 of convulsion and erosion, up to that state of mingled ele- 
 ments in our globe, next subsequent to the primal creative 
 fiat, we perceive to be an achievement not less magnifying, 
 in our view, the wondrous endowments of the human mind 
 than does the kindred exploit of scaling the heavens, and 
 circling with planets and suns in their mighty rounds 
 through space. 
 
 But we see more than this. Divine goodness we here 
 discover, through a vast series, arranging not only for the 
 comfort of the highest animated creature, and for the capa- 
 cities and exercise of a philosophic mind, but for the 
 delight of an imaginative and the culture of a religious 
 soul. Chaos and consolidation, convulsion and subsidence, 
 the growth and the grave of many a race, have, with con- 
 summate skill, been made subservient alike to the conve- 
 nience and the adornment of this human habitation. They 
 have furnished a bounteous soil and a genial air, gushing 
 fountains and perennial fires, a home of safety, a treasury 
 of truth, and a world of beauty. Besides every supply for 
 his wants to be drawn by man, with "the sweat of his 
 17* 
 
198 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 brow," from the bosom of his "Alma Mater," in the folds 
 of her vestments are stored, for his discovery and extrac- 
 tion, mines of wealth and charmed mirrors of truth. And 
 those vestments, how rich they are in beauteous adornment ! 
 The robe of nature is traced all over with poetry from 
 Paradise. Mountain peak and ocean tide, leaping cataract 
 and flashing cloud, rolling hill and sloping plain, smiling 
 vale and frowning crag, laughing stream and mournful 
 shade, pleasant landscape and delightful scenes, the grand, 
 the picturesque, and the lovely, almost everywhere dis- 
 played, and awakening in human bosoms those sympathies 
 which swell responsive to the touch of genius, and rise to 
 rapture as 
 
 "Bright-eyed Fancy 
 Scatters from her silver urn 
 Thoughts that breathe and words that burn." 
 
 But more than all this, from so grand an eminence of 
 harmonized truth appear higher and wider views of that 
 great purpose of creative plan, whose issue is "an eleva- 
 tion not to be exceeded, a period never to be terminated." 
 The abolition of change, the destruction of death, and the 
 exaltation of once fallen creatures into union with the ever- 
 blessed Creator, through the wondrous mediation, and in 
 the everlasting kingdom of that Divine man, who is alike 
 "the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end," 
 the "Ancient of days," and the Lord of all coming ages. 
 
DISCUSSION IY. 
 
 THE AGE OF MANKIND. 
 
 THE common belief, derived from the Bible, that about 
 six thousand years have elapsed since our planet witnessed 
 that great miracle which ushered human creatures into be- 
 ing, is regarded by certain philosophers as untenable in the 
 light of modern science. They estimate the past human 
 period as vastly more extended. Just hi proportion, there- 
 fore, as their views seem to be sustained, the chronology 
 of Scripture would appear to be discredited. And this 
 admitted, confidence in the higher relations of revelation 
 could not but be more or less impaired. We are entering, 
 then, upon no superfluous task in undertaking to investi- 
 gate the grounds of these two chronologies ; in endeavor- 
 ing to trace what science really does teach as to the age of 
 mankind, and what the Scriptures, under the scrutiny of 
 learned criticism, disclose on the same subject. 
 
 Part of the field we have to survey has often been more 
 or less carefully explored. Recent researches have, how- 
 ever, shed upon it so much additional light, that the exam- 
 ination may be now more satisfactorily conducted. These 
 researches, especially as conducted by two eminent German 
 scholars, Biinsen and Lepsius, whom we have already had 
 occasion to quote, will be suitably used in elucidating our 
 subject. As the most thoroughly informed of all Egyp- 
 
 (199) 
 
200 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tologists, these learned men have had access to all that 
 the old Nile monuments have thus far made known respect- 
 ing ancient ages. At the same time they are savans of 
 almost universal erudition. And, in addition to these 
 qualifications, they have brought to their work a spirit 
 much more than usually characterized by a simple love of 
 truth. These qualities the reader will, we are sure, observe 
 in some of the extracts we shall give, when we reach that 
 branch of the subject to which their investigations more 
 specifically pertain. 
 
 At present our inquiry relates to the scientific evidence 
 in the case. We propose to examine the grounds on which 
 Professor Agassiz, Dr. Usher, Dr. Leidy, and recently Sir 
 Charles Lyell, etc., rest their claim for the indefinite 
 antiquity of our race ; and not only to trace, with them, 
 indications in the one field they have chosen, but to bring 
 testimony from other departments of science. What is on 
 the whole substantiated, or rendered most probable, in the 
 entire scientific view, will then be evident to the reader. 
 This is the instance of evidence offered by Agassiz : 
 " The fossil remains of the human body I possess from 
 Florida, were discovered in a bluff upon the shores of Lake 
 Monroe. The mass in which they were found is a conglom- 
 erate of rotten coral-reef limestone and shells, mostly 
 ampularias of the same species now found in the St. John's 
 River, which drains Lake Monroe. The question of their 
 age is difficult to answer. The point to settle is the rate 
 of increase of the peninsula of Florida in its southward 
 progress. ... If we assume, from evidence we now have of 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 201 
 
 the additions forming upon the reefs and keys, the rate 
 of growth to be one foot in a century, it would require 
 135,000 years to form the southern half of the peninsula. 
 .... Assuming, further, that the northern half of the 
 peninsula, already formed, continued for nine-tenths of 
 that time a desert waste, before the fossiliferous conglom- 
 erate could be formed, there would still remain 10,000 
 years, during which it should be admitted that the main 
 land was inhabited by man." 
 
 The very remarkable assumptions in this case cannot 
 but strike the reader, as they have surprised ourselves. 
 That a philosopher of such world-wide reputation should 
 hazard his standing, by committing himself to mere 
 guesses of this kind, is to us matter for wonder. Let 
 us concede each guess but the last, still there will remain 
 a question which the learned Helvetian must find it impos- 
 sible to answer. Why assume T 9 ,j rather than T 9 9 or -f^fo 
 of 135,000 as the period daring which Florida may have 
 remained uninhabited by man ? And shall this process of 
 assumption pass for scientific investigation ? Is it not a 
 species of desecration, when the noble name of Science is 
 claimed for such sheer fancies ? Science, with her calm, 
 severe, penetrating eye, and her step careful and sure as 
 the march of truth ! 
 
 But we have more to say of the case itself. Professor 
 Agassiz fairly admits that his conglomerate consists 
 mostly of ampularias of the same species now found in 
 the St. John's River. The instance is therefore precisely 
 analogous to that of the well-known fossil skeletons of 
 
202 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Guadaloupe, the comparatively recent age of which Lyell 
 years ago established : 
 
 " The lens shows," he says, (Principles of Geology, vol. 
 iii. p. 265,) "that some of the fragments of coral compos- 
 ing this stone, still retain the same red color which is seen 
 in the reefs of living coral surrounding the island. The 
 shells belong to species of the neighboring sea, intermixed 
 with some terrestrial kinds which now live on the island. 
 Yet the rock in which these skeletons are imbedded is 
 harder than statuary marble. Similar formations are in 
 progress in the whole of the West Indian Archipelago; 
 and they have greatly extended the plain of Cayes, in St. 
 Domingo, where fragments of vases and other human 
 works have been found at a depth of twenty feet. In 
 digging wells, also, near Catania, in Sicily, tools have been 
 discovered in a rock somewhat similar." 
 
 The guess, then, of one-tenth, or one-hundredth of a 
 previous guess of so many years, as a possible period dur- 
 ing which Florida has been inhabited, and its fossiliferous 
 conglomerate accumulating, is, we hazard nothing in say- 
 ing, utterly unreliable. It rests on no scientific foundation. 
 It is entitled to none of the credit due to veritable science. 
 It may therefore be set aside as really showing nothing 
 respecting the antiquity of our species. 
 
 The instance adduced by Dr. Usher is, in many respects, 
 similar to this of Agassiz, though on a grander scale and 
 given more in detail : 
 
 "The plain on which the City of New Orleans is built 
 rises only nine feet above the sea, and excavations are often 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 203 
 
 made far below the level of the Gulf of Mexico. In these 
 sections, several successive growths of cypress timber have 
 been brought to light. In digging the foundations for the 
 gas-works, the Irish spadesmen, finding they had to cut 
 through timber instead of soil, gave up the work, and 
 were replaced by a corps of Kentucky axemen, who hewed 
 their way downward through four successive growths of 
 timber, the lowest so old that it cut like cheese. Abra- 
 sions of the river banks show similar growths of sunken 
 timber; while stately live oaks, flourishing on the bank 
 directly above them, are living witnesses that the soil has 
 not changed its level for ages. No less than ten distinct 
 cypress forests have been traced at different levels below 
 the present surface in parts of Louisiana, where the range 
 between high and low water is much greater than it is at 
 New Orleans. These groups of trees, the live oaks on the 
 banks, and the successive cypress beds beneath, are arranged 
 vertically above each other, and are seen to great advant- 
 age in many places in the vicinity of New Orleans." 
 
 "An ingenious calculation has been made of the last emer- 
 gence of the site of that city, in which these cypress forests 
 play an important part. The history of this event is thus 
 divided into three eras : 1. The era of colossal grasses, 
 trembling prairies, etc., as seen in the lagoons, lakes, and 
 sea-coast. 2. The era of the cypress basins. 3. The era 
 of the present live-oak platform. Existing types from the 
 Balize to the Highlands show that these belts were succes- 
 sively developed from the water in the order named ; the 
 grass preceding the cypress, and the cypress being sue- 
 
204 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOB THE BIBLE. 
 
 ceeded by the live-oak. Supposing an elevation of five 
 inches in a century, which is about the rate recorded for 
 the accumulation of detrital deposits in the valley of the 
 Nile, during seventeen centuries, by the nilometer men- 
 tioned by Strabo, we shall have 1500 years for the era of 
 aquatic plants until the appearance of the first cypress 
 forest; or, in other words, for the elevation of the grass 
 zone to the condition of a cypress basin." 
 
 " Cypress-trees of ten feet in diameter are not uncom- 
 mon in the swamps of Louisiana; arid one of that size 
 was found in the lowest bed of the excavation at the gas- 
 works in New Orleans. In timber of this kind from 95 to 
 120 rings of annual growth have been measured in an 
 inch ; and, according to the lower ratio, a tree of ten feet 
 diameter will yield 5700 rings of annual growth ; indicat- 
 ing that number of years as the age of the tree. Though 
 many generations of such trees may have grown and perished 
 in the present cypress region, yet to avoid all ground of 
 cavil only two generations are assumed, giving 11, 400 years." 
 
 " The maximum age of the oldest tree growing on the 
 live-oak platform is estimated at 1500 years, and only one 
 generation is counted. These data yield the following 
 table : 
 
 "Geological Chronology of the Last Emergence of the Site of 
 New Orleans. 
 
 Era of the aquatic plants 1,500 years. 
 
 Era of the cypress basin 11,400 " 
 
 Era of the live-oak platform 1,500 " 
 
 Total period of elevation 14,400 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 205 
 
 "Each of these sunken forests must have had a period 
 of rest and gradual depression, estimated as equal to the 
 1500 years of the live-oak era, which of course occurred 
 but once in the series. We shall then certainly be within 
 bounds, if we assume the period of such elevation to have 
 been equivalent to the one above arrived at; and, inas- 
 much as there were at least ten such changes, we reach the 
 following result : 
 
 Last emergence, as above 14,400 years. 
 
 Ten elevations and depressions, each equal to this... 144,000 " 
 
 Total age of the delta 158,400 " 
 
 "In the excavation at the gas-works above referred to, 
 burnt wood was found at the depth of sixteen feet ; and, at 
 the same depth, the workmen discovered the skeleton of a 
 man. The cranium lay beneath the roots of a cypress tree, 
 belonging to the fourth forest level below the surface, and 
 was in good preservation. The other bones crumbled to 
 pieces on being handled." 
 
 "If we take, then, the present era at 14,400 years, 
 
 and add three subterranean groups 43,200 " 
 
 we have a total human period at least of 57,600 " 
 
 "From these data it appears that the human race 
 existed in the delta of the Mississippi, more than 57,000 
 years ago." 
 
 In all this there may be, as its propounder alleges, 
 ingenuity, but it is undoubtedly entitled to no credit as a 
 
 13 
 
206 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 specimen of scientific investigation. Nearly every element 
 of the calculation is again vitiated by the most unwarrant- 
 able assumption. 
 
 The authority for ten successive beds of cypress forest, 
 grown over one another, is vague and worthless. The 
 idea of alternate elevations and depressions of such sunken 
 forests, is an enormous assumption, involving the supposi- 
 tion of prodigious volcanic forces. These, if real, leave no 
 room for regular guess-work, immensely fitful as they are. 
 
 That such buried trees actually grew where they are 
 found imbedded, is also an assumption, by no means to be 
 admitted. 
 
 "When timber," says Lyell, "is drifted down by a river, 
 it is often arrested by lakes ; and, becoming water-logged, 
 it may sink and become imbedded in the lacustrine strata, 
 ... In the course of the Mackenzie River we have an ex- 
 ample of the vast accumulations of vegetable matter now 
 in progress. ... As the trees retain their roots, which are 
 often loaded with earth and stones, they readily sink, and, 
 accumulating in the eddies, form shoals, which ultimately 
 augment into islands. . . . Yast quantities of drift timber 
 are buried under the sand at the mouth of the river, and 
 it has formed a barrier of islands and shoals." 
 
 Occurrences of this kind, repeated in the floods of no 
 great number of centuries, abundantly explain the phe- 
 nomena of the Mississippi delta, "Por," adds Lyell, 
 " the trunks of trees borne down by the Mississippi, many 
 of them subside, and are imbedded in the iiew strata which 
 form the delta." 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 207 
 
 There is, therefore, no support for the assumption of 
 cypress forests growing one over another in interminable 
 succession. 
 
 And the further demand that four gigantic growths of 
 the kind be allowed in the trifling vertical range of sixteen 
 feet, is nothing less than preposterous. 
 
 As to skeletons in such cases, they may be of com- 
 paratively recent deposit. "At the distance of fifty miles 
 from the base of the delta of the Ganges," says the eminent 
 geologist already quoted, "there is a circular space of 
 about fifteen miles in diameter, where soundings of a thou- 
 sand feet sometimes fail to reach the bottom. As, during 
 the flood season, the quantity of mud and sand poured by 
 the great river into the bay of Bengal is so great that the 
 sea only recovers its transparency at the distance of sixty 
 miles from the coast, this depression must be gradually 
 shoaling. Now, if a human body sink down to the bottom 
 in such a spot, it is by no means improbable that it may 
 become buried under a depth of three or four thousand 
 feet of sediment in the same number of years." And if by 
 the gradual or sudden action of internal force, this deposit 
 were upheaved, and subsequently by some casualty laid 
 open to human inspection, how many millions of ages 
 would it not mark on the unscientific chronological scale 
 of the instances we are examining ? 
 
 The ingenious estimate of 57,000 years for the New 
 Orleans skeleton is probably about as accurate. 
 
 "In the delta of the Ganges," Lyell further states, 
 "bones of men have been found, in digging a well, at the 
 
208 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 depth of ninety feet; but as that river frequently shifts its 
 course, and fills up its ancient channels, we are not called 
 upon to suppose that these bodies are of extremely high 
 antiquity, or that they were buried when that part of the 
 surrounding delta, where they occur, was first gained from 
 the sea." The parallel between such cases and the New 
 Orleans exhumations may be judged of from the following 
 fact, stated by Flint, in his " Geography of the Mississippi 
 Yalley." "At every flood, the Mississippi River over- 
 spreads a vast country, principally on its western sides, 
 from ten to fifty miles in breadth, through the last five 
 hundred miles of its course ; and most of the water which 
 overflows below Red River goes to the Gulf of Mexico 
 without returning to the river." 
 
 No estimate of fifty thousand or five thousand years, in 
 such cases, can justly claim the slightest confidence. It 
 is not sustained by probability, it is repudiated by science. 
 
 Nor is less to be said in regard to other so-termed 
 instances of indefinitely old human relics. "The human 
 bones," says Lyell, quoting with approbation the judg- 
 ment of Desnoyers, "associated in certain caverns, etc., 
 with the fossil rhinoceros, hyena, bear, and several other 
 lost species, must belong, not to the antediluvian periods, 
 but to a people in the same stage of civilization as those 
 who constructed the tumuli and altars of the primitive in- 
 habitants of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. Since the flint- 
 hatchets, and arrow-heads, and the pointed bones, and 
 coarse pottery of such caves, agree precisely in character 
 with those found in the tumuli and under the dolmens, 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 209 
 
 (altars of unhewn stone.) It is not/ therefore, on such 
 evidence that we ought readily to admit the high antiquity 
 of the human race." 
 
 Dr. Leicly, more cautious and more candid than the phi- 
 losophers we have reviewed, fairly admits that no such high 
 antiquity is scientifically established. That "primitive 
 races of men may have inhabited the intertropical re- 
 gions," in a vastly remote age, he indeed supposes. And 
 that evidence of the fact will yet be discovered, he is 
 " strongly inclined to suspect." Still his candid avowal is, 
 "No satisfactory evidence has been adduced in favor of 
 this early appearance of man." "While engaged in 
 pala3ontological researches," he states, "I sought for ear- 
 lier records of the aboriginal races of man than have 
 reached us through vague traditions, or through later 
 authentic history, but without being able to discover any 
 positive evidences of the exact geological period of the 
 advent of man in the fauna of the earth. The numerous 
 facts which have been brought to our notice, touching the 
 discovery of human bones, and rude implements of art, in 
 association with the remains of animals of the earlier plei- 
 ocene deposits, are not conclusive evidence of their con- 
 temporaneous existence." 
 
 This, from so accomplished a palaeontologist, who is suf- 
 ficiently disposed, as his declarations show, to find, if pos- 
 sible, a high antiquity for mankind, is well-nigh conclusive 
 as to the negative relations of science in the case. He is, 
 in fact, an authority of great weight against the instances 
 of Agassiz and Dr. Usher, and all others like them, that 
 18* 
 
210 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 have been urged. His admissions afford also no slight 
 support to the considerations we have been pressing, on 
 the basis of fact, according to witnesses of the most un- 
 questionable character. 
 
 Other instances cf ancient deposit, supposed to indicate 
 a high antiquity for the human race, now, however, claim 
 our attention; instances recently accepted by observers 
 of largest experience in this department of research, and 
 though much discussed pro and con in the scientific world 
 at the present time, no less than eighteen communications, 
 on one or the other side of the questions involved, having 
 appeared within the last six months in the London Ath- 
 enaeum alone more or less relied upon, as sustaining the 
 idea of a past term for mankind much more extended than 
 that commonly assigned. These cases are significant in 
 themselves, but become doubly important by reason of the 
 weighty names which give them no inconsiderable author- 
 ity. Among these, that of Sir Charles Lyell carries of 
 course most influence, especially in connection with the 
 fact that heretofore his caution on this particular subject 
 has been not less remarkable than his scientific judgment 
 has been generally careful, comprehensive, and in the main 
 reliable. The instances referred to, we shall first exhibit 
 and then scrutinize. They cannot, perhaps, be better pre- 
 sented than in a late statement of the distinguished votary 
 of geological science last mentioned. 
 
 At the meeting of the British Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Science, September, 1859, in the section geology, 
 the president, Sir Charles Lyell, read the opening address, 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 211 
 
 which, so far as relates to the question before us, we give 
 entire : 
 
 "No subject has lately excited more curiosity and gen- 
 eral interest among geologists and the public than the 
 question of the antiquity of the human race : whether or 
 no we have sufficient evidence to prove the former coexist- 
 ence of man with certain extinct mammalia, in caves or in 
 the superficial deposits commonly called drift or diluvium. 
 For the last quarter of a century, the occasional occur- 
 rence, in various parts of Europe, of the bones of man or 
 the works of his hands, in cave-breccias and stalactites, 
 associated with the remains of the extinct hyena, bear, 
 elephant, and rhinoceros, have given rise to a suspicion 
 that the date of man must be carried farther back than we 
 had heretofore imagined. On the other hand, extreme re- 
 luctance was naturally felt on the part of scientific reasoners 
 to admit the validity of such evidence, seeing that so many 
 caves have been inhabited by a succession of tenants, and 
 have been selected by man as a place not only of domicile 
 but of sepulture, while some caves have also served as the 
 channels through which the waters of flooded rivers have 
 flowed; so that the remains of living beings which have 
 peopled the district at more than one era may have subse- 
 quently been mingled in such caverns, and confounded 
 together in one and the same deposit. The facts, however, 
 recently brought to light during the systematic investiga- 
 tion, as reported on by Falconer, of the Brixham Cave, 
 must, I think, have prepared you to admit that skepticism 
 in reference to the cave-evidence in favor of the antiquity 
 
212 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 of man had previously been pushed to an extreme. To 
 escape from what I now consider was a legitimate deduc- 
 tion from the facts already accumulated, we were obliged 
 to resort to hypotheses requiring great changes in the rela- 
 tive levels and drainage of valleys, and, in short, the whole 
 physical geography of the subsequent regions where the 
 caves are situated changes that alone imply a remote an- 
 tiquity of the human fossil remains, and make it probable 
 that man was old enough to have coexisted, at least, with 
 the Siberian mammoth. But, in the course of the last fif- 
 teen years, another class of proofs has been advanced, in 
 France, in confirmation of man's antiquity, into two of 
 which I have personally examined in the course of the 
 present summer, and to which I shall now briefly advert. 
 
 "First. So long ago as the year 1844, M. Aymard, an 
 eminent palaeontologist and antiquary, published an account 
 of the discovery, in the volcanic district of central France, 
 of portions of two human skeletons (the skulls, teeth, and 
 bones) imbedded in a volcanic breccia, found in the Mount- 
 ain of Denise, in the environs of Le Puy en Velay, a breccia 
 anterior in date to one, at least, of the latest eruptions of 
 that volcanic mountain. On the opposite side of the same 
 hill the remains of a large number of mammalia, most of 
 them of extinct species, have been detected in tufaceous 
 strata, believed, and I think correctly, to be of the same 
 age. The authenticity of the human fossils was from the 
 first disputed by several geologists, but admitted by the ma- 
 jority of those who visited Le Puy, and saw with their own 
 eyes the original specimen now in the museum of that 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 213 
 
 town. Among others, M. Pictet, so well known to you 
 by his excellent work on palaeontology, declared, after his 
 visit to the spot, his adhesion to the opinions previously 
 expressed by Aymard. My friend, Mr. Scrope, in the sec- 
 ond edition of his "Volcanoes of Central France," lately 
 published, also adopted the same conclusion, although after 
 accompanying me this year to Le Puy, he has seen reason 
 to modify his views the result of our joint examination. 
 . . . But while I have thus failed to obtain satisfactory evi- 
 dence in favor of the remote origin assigned to the human 
 fossils of Le Puy, I am fully prepared to corroborate the 
 conclusions which have been recently laid before the Royal 
 Society by Mr. Prestwick, in regard to the age of the flint 
 implements associated in undisturbed gravel, in the north 
 of France, with the bones of elephants, at Abbeville and 
 Amiens. These were first noticed at Abbeville, and their 
 true geological position assigned to them by M. Boucher de 
 Perthes, in 1849, in his "Antiquites Celtiques," while those 
 of Amiens were afterwards described, in 1855, by the late 
 Dr. Rigollot. For a clear statement of the facts, I may 
 refer you to the abstract of Mr. Prestwick's memoir in the 
 Proceedings of the Royal Society for 1859, and have only 
 to add that I have myself obtained abundance of flint im- 
 plements during a short visit to Amiens and Abbeville. 
 Two of the worked flints of Amiens were discovered in 
 the gravel pits of St. Acheul, one at the depth of ten, and 
 the other of seventeen feet below the surface, at the time of 
 my visit ; and M. Georges Pouchet, of Rouen, author of a 
 work on the Races of Man, who has since visited the spot, 
 
214 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 has extracted with his own hands one of these implements, 
 as Messrs. Prestwiek and Flower had done before him. 
 The stratified gravel resting immediately on the chalk in 
 which these rudely-fashioned implements are buried, belongs 
 to the- post-pliocene period, all the fresh-water and land 
 shells which accompany them being of existing species. 
 The great number of the fossil instruments which have 
 been likened to hatchets, spear-heads, and wedges, is truly 
 wonderful. More than a thousand of them have already 
 been met with in the last ten years, in the valley of the 
 Somrne, in an area fifteen miles in length. I infer that a 
 tribe of savages, to whom the use of iron was unknown, 
 made a long sojourn in this region ; and I am reminded of 
 a large Indian mound, which I saw in St. Simond's Island, 
 in Georgia a mound ten acres in area, having an average 
 height of five feet, chiefly composed of cast-away oyster- 
 shells throughout which arrow-heads, stone axes, and 
 Indian pottery are dispersed. If the neighboring River 
 Altamaha, or the sea which is at hand, should invade, 
 sweep away, and stratify the contents of this mound, it 
 might produce a very analogous accumulation of human 
 implements, unmixed perhaps with human bones. Al- 
 though the accompanying shells are of living species, I 
 believe the antiquity of the Abbeville and Amiens flint im- 
 plements to be great indeed, if compared to the times of 
 history and tradition. I consider the gravel to be of flu- 
 viatile origin ; but I could detect nothing in the structure 
 of its several parts indicating cataclysmal action, nothing 
 that might not be due to such river-floods as we have wit- 
 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 215 
 
 nessed in Scotland during the last half century. It must 
 have required a long period for the wearing down of the 
 chalk which supplied the broken flints for the formation of 
 so much gravel at various heights, sometimes 100 feet 
 above the present level of the Somme, for the deposition 
 of fine sediment, including entire shells, both terrestrial and 
 aquatic, and also for the denudation which the entire mass 
 of stratified drift has undergone, portions having been 
 swept away, so that what remains of it often terminates 
 abruptly in old river-cliffs, besides being covered by a 
 newer unstratified drift. To explain these changes, I 
 should infer considerable oscillations in the level of the 
 land in that part of France slow movements of upheaval 
 and subsidence, deranging but not wholly displacing the 
 course of the ancient rivers. Lastly, the disappearance of 
 the elephant, rhinoceros, and other genera of quadrupeds 
 now foreign to Europe, implies, in like manner, a vast 
 lapse of ages, separating the era in which the fossil imple- 
 ments were framed and that of the invasion of Gaul by the 
 Romans." (Athenaeum for September 24th, 1859, p. 404.) 
 In this whole statement, it will be observed, there are 
 three several classes of deposit adduced, in connection with 
 the supposed age of mankind. That of the cavern accu- 
 mulations, that of the volcanic region of Central France, 
 and that of the diluvian or modified drift-beds of the Somme 
 Yalley, and of corresponding localities in England, and 
 perhaps elsewhere. Each of these it is proper to examine 
 with as much fullness yet succinctness as may comport with 
 a fair elucidation of truth. 
 
216 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Before doing so, however, we direct attention to the 
 general conclusion derived by the eminent philosopher from 
 all the instances together. It is given in a double form : 
 first, in connection with the cave deposits, which are said 
 "to make it probable that man was old enough to have co- 
 existed, at least, with the Siberian mammoth;" and, second, 
 as an inference from the circumstances attending the Abbe- 
 ville and Amiens flint instruments, which "imply," he con- 
 siders, " a vast lapse of ages, separating the era in which 
 those fossil implements were framed, and that of the in- 
 vasion of Gaul by the Romans," or which, as previously 
 expressed in another form, induce him to "believe the 
 antiquity of those instruments to be great indeed if com- 
 pared to the times of history and tradition." 
 
 On this general conclusion these remarks occur; first, 
 everything like dogmatic decision is, with accustomed pro- 
 priety, avoided by this distinguished observer. He thinks a 
 certain result rendered "probable," "implied," by given 
 circumstances, and therefore he "infers," and "believes;" 
 but there is no positive dictum, no arrogant disregard of 
 other and what may be more than counterbalancing oppo- 
 site evidence. Every term employed involves more or less 
 a consciousness of liability to error, something of lingering 
 doubt in the mind, and leaves room for subsequent cor- 
 rection. 
 
 Next, the indefinite expressions applied to the antiquity 
 supposed differ widely from the specifications of Millenia 
 attempted in the instances already examined. The several 
 phrases certainly denote, on the part of the learned in- 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 21 f 
 
 vestigator, an opinion which we are satisfied can be proved 
 extreme if not wholly erroneous. Still, taken together, 
 and regarded as modifying each other, we do not know 
 that these expressions, even in the sense of their author, 
 necessarily involve any greater extension of the past human 
 period than, as will presently appear, the Scriptures them- 
 selves seem to authorize. Several decades of centuries might, 
 perhaps, as we shall see, be admitted here, or in any other 
 case, on adequate grounds, without violence to the sacred 
 records, or to the great facts of human history. Such 
 interval would undoubtedly, as an item in man's past ex- 
 istence, be, if not hyperbolically " a vast lapse of ages," 
 yet soberly "a period great indeed if compared with the 
 times of (authentic profane) history or tradition," and 
 might readily leave man "old enough to have coexisted, at 
 least, with the Siberian mammoth." 
 
 This moderate range, however, while apparently not 
 commensurate with Lyell's inferences, would not, it may be 
 confidently assumed, satisfy the exorbitant demands of a 
 large class of Scripture opponents. It becomes, therefore, 
 doubly proper to examine in detail the reasons given by 
 so influential a writer for his opinion, and to exhibit the 
 grounds of a different estimate. The reader will judge on 
 which side lies the truth. 
 
 How far the latest cave-evidence alone would have in- 
 fluenced Lyell's mind it may not be possible to determine. 
 His own words respecting it are characteristically cautious. 
 Recent facts reported by Falconer, from the Brixham Cave, 
 "have prepared" him and others "to admit that skepticism," 
 
 19 
 
218 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 in regard to such "evidence in favor of human antiquity, 
 had been pushed to an extreme." He "now" considers 
 man's being "old enough to have coexisted, at least, with 
 the Siberian mammoth," a legitimate deduction "from cave 
 instances" "already acccumulated," only to be escaped by 
 supposing "changes in the level of regions where the caves 
 are situated, which "alone imply a remote antiquity for the 
 human fossil remains." 
 
 As to this last suggestion, of an extended age being 
 implied in great and repeated changes of level; a sug- 
 gestion also applied, it will be remembered, to the appear- 
 ances of the Somme Valley, we shall of course make no 
 issue, so far as the general truth is concerned. The entire 
 range of geological phenomena unquestionably proves that, 
 on the whole, vast elevations and depressions of land or 
 sea have required for their development immense periods ; 
 that the superficial structure admitting, and the internal 
 forces producing them, exist on a scale, arid operate under 
 conditions, which make time an important element toward 
 the final result. (See particularly on the subject, Hitch- 
 cock's able paper in the Smithsonian Contributions to 
 Knowledge, vol. ix.) But as to the invariable application 
 of this general law to all cases of considerable change, 
 supposing such established, so as to found thereon any- 
 thing like a reliable conclusion in a question so much con- 
 troverted, and so important as that respecting the age of 
 mankind, we are by abundant and undeniable facts author- 
 ized confidently to raise the most unequivocal issue. The 
 truth is, this seems to be, like his persistent opposition to 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 219 
 
 the doctrine of internal heat, established by so many facts, 
 and received by such philosophers as Humboldt as scarcely 
 less certain than the conclusions of astronomy, one of the 
 instances in which Lyell, with all his ability and attain- 
 ments, exhibits participation in the weaknesses of human- 
 ity, a case in which he pushes to an erroneous extreme 
 his favorite theory of the sameness of terrestrial energies 
 in different ages. He has witnessed and described the 
 slow emergence of the shores of Northern Europe, at the 
 rate of from one to three feet in a century, (Principles of 
 Geology, vol. ii. p. 280,) and the fact is too readily general- 
 ized, too specifically applied. Even such a rate, however, 
 might introduce, in no very long time, all the changes of 
 level alleged as necessary to be supposed if the cave-evi- 
 dence is to be harmonized with a moderate human period. 
 This single consideration seems at once to neutralize a 
 main element of the great geologist's difficulty. 
 
 But the case is very much stronger against his inferences. 
 For, while the land is thus in our day rising in Northern 
 Europe, it appears to be sinking on the shores of the Med- 
 iterranean. Breislack mentions (Mantell's Wonders of 
 Geology, vol. i. p. 118,) that "numerous remains of build- 
 ings are to be seen in the Gulf of Baias; ten columns of 
 granite, at the foot of Mount Nuovo, are nearly covered 
 by the sea, as are the ruins of a palace built by Tiberius in 
 the Island of Caprea. Thus while the level of the sea is 
 becoming lower in the North from the elevation of the land, 
 it is rising in the Mediterranean from the sinking of its 
 coasts."" 
 
220 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOE THE BIBLE. 
 
 Nor is this all ; but snch changes may take place, and do 
 take place, at times, much more rapidly, and over immense 
 tracts of country, so as utterly to forbid, as derived 
 from them alone, all sweeping generalizations respecting a 
 mighty past for mankind. A region of country along the 
 western coast of South America, equal in extent to half of 
 France, experienced thus a considerable elevatory move- 
 ment in 1822-3, and again in 1835 : the result, including 
 effects of previous but recent similar disturbances, being a 
 total elevation of more than fifty feet. (Mantell, vol. i. p. 
 112.) Nor let it be said that these movements occur only 
 in the vicinity of active volcanoes. In such relations they 
 may of course be most commonly looked for, but not ex- 
 clusively there. As all countries exhibit proofs of such 
 action in the distant past of the world's chronology, so the 
 present constitution of the earth's crust seems to be such, and 
 such the condition of its internal forces, that no extensive 
 region can be pronounced at any time exempt from liability 
 to agitations of the kind. Indeed, comparatively modern 
 instances are not unfamiliar. The instructive author last 
 quoted says of them that they "occur in almost every part 
 of the world, and there is perhaps no considerable extent 
 of country which does not afford some proof that similar 
 physical mutations have taken place in modern times." 
 The case of the British coast, from Brighton to Rotting- 
 dean, he adduces and examines, with this result, (p. 115:) 
 "Here then we have unquestionable evidence that the 
 Sussex shores have been subjected to changes similar to 
 those produced by earthquakes on the Chilian coast." 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND 221 
 
 With these facts in view, it is plainly delusive to attempt 
 to rest an estimate of prodigious antiquity for mankind 
 on the mere circumstance of even considerable changes of 
 level. 
 
 In reference, however, to these and other questions con- 
 nected with the cave accumulations, it should be borne in 
 mind that the main facts have been for a number of years 
 familiar to leading scientific minds, without, in their esti- 
 mation, necessitating any such conclusion as that now in- 
 dicated by Lyell. Dr. Leidy, assuredly as unprejudiced 
 in favor of our views as he is well-informed and able, was 
 fur from ignorant of the general cave-indications, when, in 
 1857, in language we have already had occasion to quote, 
 he affirmed with a decision as honorable to his candor as to 
 his intelligence, "the numerous facts which have been 
 brought to our notice touching the discovery of human 
 bones, and rude implements of art, in association with the 
 remains of animals of the earlier pleiocene deposits, are 
 not conclusive evidence of their contemporaneous exist- 
 ence." A conviction almost identical with this has, by Sir 
 Charles Lyell himself, been avowed and defended up to the 
 present time. It is even alluded to in his recent address 
 Nor does he therein intimate what decisive peculiarity, 
 what experimentum crucis in the case of the Brixham Cave, 
 co-operated with the Abbeville and Amiens flint hatchets, 
 etc., to shake his long-settled judgment. We are at 
 liberty, therefore, in the absence of such special explana- 
 tion of that instance, to suppose that though in some 
 respects, perhaps, more striking than other receptacles of 
 
 10* 
 
SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 the kind, it furnished no conclusive additional proof, nothing 
 decisive of its own authority, or of the cave-evidence in 
 general, toward a real determination of human antiquity. 
 
 Of this general evidence the value may, therefore, be 
 still reasonably estimated by each considerate mind, in view 
 of the leading facts. They are well summed up by Man- 
 tell, (vol. i. p. 184.) "As mankind, in an uncivilized state, 
 commonly inhabit caves, traces of their having occupied 
 recesses which had previously been the retreat of wild 
 animals, might be expected. But as bones of extinct 
 species occurred with these relics of man, it was assumed 
 that they were coeval with each other ; more accurate ob- 
 servations have, however, rendered it probable that the 
 human remains were introduced at a later period. "We 
 have historical proof that the early inhabitants of Europe 
 often resided, or sought shelter in caves. Thus Florus 
 records that CaBsar ordered the inhabitants of Aquitania 
 to be inclosed and suffocated in the caverns to which they 
 had fled for safety, (an atrocious cruelty imitated in Algeria 
 within our time by the troops and commander of a so-called 
 Christian nation !) Many tribes of the Celtic race occu- 
 pied these subterranean retreats, not only as a refuge in 
 time of war, but also for shelter from cold, and as magazines 
 for their corn, and for the products of the chase, and as 
 places of concealment for the animals they had domesti- 
 cated. The bones of such of these people as perished, or 
 were buried in the caverns, would become blended with the 
 mud, gravel, and debris of the animals already entombed ; 
 and a stalagmite paste might in some places be formed by 
 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 223 
 
 the infiltration of water, as at Bize, and cement the whole 
 into a solid aggregate. In concretionary masses of stone 
 of this kind, containing bones of the bear and other ex- 
 tinct species, human bones, fragments of pottery, terrestrial 
 shells, and bones of animals of modern times, may there- 
 fore be associated. Some of the bones found in these 
 accumulations exhibit marks of having been gnawed, 
 probably by hyenas ; they belong to the tiger, bear, wolf, 
 fox, weasel, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, 
 and deer, imbedded with which are also bones of a species 
 of hare or rabbit, water-rat, and mouse, with fragments 
 of the skeletons of ravens, pigeons, larks, and ducks . . . 
 From these facts it is inferred that such caves had been 
 inhabited by hyenas for a considerable period, and that 
 many of the remains found there were species which had 
 been carried in and devoured by these animals, and that in 
 some instances the hyenas preyed upon each other. The 
 gnawed portions of elephants' bones serve to show that 
 occasionally the large mammalia served as food. It is 
 probable that many of the smaller animals were drifted in 
 by currents, or fell into the chasm through fissures now 
 closed by stalactitical incrustations. . . . Such are the con- 
 tents of numerous caves, and this explanation shows how 
 they may have been accumulated." 
 
 The view thus presented seems satisfactorily sustained by 
 the most recent instances. Of the bone-cave at Brixham, 
 Devonshire, referred to by Lyell, Prof. Owen, in his "Palae- 
 ontology," just issued, says (p. 136) that, "during its careful 
 exploration by a committee of the Geological Society of 
 
224 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 London, in 1858-9, a stone weapon or implement (of hu- 
 man construction) was met with beneath a fine antler of a 
 reindeer, and a bone of the cave-bear, imbedded in the 
 superficial stalagmite." And he adds, "Dr. Falconer, 
 F. G. S., has communicated (proceedings of the Geologi- 
 cal Society, June 22, 1859,) the results of his examination 
 of ossiferous caves at Palermo ; and, in respect to the ' Ma- 
 ceognone Cave,' he draws the following inferences : 'That 
 it was filled up to the roof within the human period, so that 
 a thick layer of bone-splinters, teeth, land-shells, coprolites 
 of hyena, and human objects, was agglutinated to the roof 
 by the infiltration of water holding lime in solution ; that 
 subsequently, and within the human period, such a great 
 amount of change took place in the physical configuration 
 of the district as to have caused the cave to be washed out 
 and emptied of its contents, excepting the floor-breccia and 
 the patches of material cemented to the roof, and since 
 coated with additional stalagmite.'" 
 
 This whole class of indications, therefore, clearly exhibits 
 nothing to prove the supposed enormous human period, 
 but tends instructively to an opposite conclusion. 
 
 On the case of the few remains found in the volcanic dis- 
 trict of central France, we need not dwell. Ly ell's own state- 
 ment suffices. That Mr. Scrope, after fuller examination, 
 had ceased to rely upon their previously imagined age, and 
 that he has himself ''failed to obtain satisfactory evidence 
 in favor of the remote antiquity assigned them." But 
 this very avowal, so creditable to the philosopher's fairness 
 of mind, in view of the bias his judgment was experiencing 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 225 
 
 from other quarters, suggests the significant fact, that opin- 
 ions of scientific men on minute particulars of this kind 
 are, and from the nature of the case must be, exceedingly 
 variant, and should therefore be received with caution and 
 canvassed with freedom. While some geologists have dis- 
 puted the relation of these remains to the issue claimed, 
 M. Aymard, M. Pictet, Mr. Scrope, and others, have ac- 
 cepted them as decisive; yet the latter gentleman finds 
 reason to modify his first impressions, and his illustrious 
 friend discovers in all the circumstances at last "no satis- 
 factory evidence I" A more striking illustration of the un- 
 reliableness of single instances, of inferences and dicta 
 founded thereon, and of the mere authority of individual 
 names, need not be desired. 
 
 The old flint instruments lately discovered in the Sornme 
 Valley, and kindred deposits found or supposed to exist in 
 other localities similarly situated, in connection with a 
 leaning he has acquired toward a late development-hypoth- 
 esis, presently to be noticed, after all, plainly constitute 
 the main ground of Lyell's new impressions as to the long 
 ages of man's past existence. The other cases are to this, 
 apparently, but as the feather that turns the balance al- 
 ready weighted, the drop that overflows the goblet just 
 quivering to the full. Yet in the Amiens case, etc., Lyell's 
 inferences seem certainly more than a little extreme. Not 
 that we mean to question the general credit due to the 
 opinion of such a man as to the character, in the main, of 
 deposits he has personally inspected; but, that we must 
 maintain he is very far from infallible, and that the argu- 
 
226 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 ments on which he here rests his conclusion are delusive. 
 He seems to go considerably farther than Mr. Prestwick, 
 a gentleman regarded as possessing superior qualifications 
 for a reliable estimate. "After a careful study of the geo- 
 logical relations of this (Somme Valley) bed, he," says 
 Prof. Owen in his recent work, (Paleontology,) "refers it 
 to the post-pleiocene age ; and to a period anterior to the 
 surface assuming its present outline, so far as some of its 
 minor features are concerned." This, it will be perceived, 
 is much more general and moderate than Lyell's "vast 
 lapse of ages," etc. Nor does it at all necessarily involve 
 an enormous human period. 
 
 In presenting his reasons for inferring from the deposits 
 of the Somme Valley an immensely long human term, Lyell 
 lays great stress upon "the wearing down of the chalk 
 which supplied the broken flints for the formation of so 
 much gravel at various heights, sometimes 100 feet above 
 the present level of the river, . . . and for the denudation 
 which the entire mass of stratified drift has undergone, etc. 
 To explain which changes (he) infers considerable oscilla- 
 tions of level," etc. 
 
 Now to these several particulars in themselves we 
 have not one word of objection to offer. Yet we beg 
 leave, most confidently, to demur to their application here 
 in evidence of any reliable trace of a prolonged human 
 age. And their being so applied by Sir Charles Lyell is, 
 and to the reader must, we think, appear, when his atten- 
 tion is directed to the facts, one of the most extraordinary 
 instances either of unguarded expression, suggesting a seri- 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 221 
 
 ous error, or of inconsistent judgment, ever adventured 
 by a philosopher of world-wide renown. That there have 
 been, in the remote past, mighty and long-continued agen- 
 cies operating on these old cliffs of early drift, and upon the 
 older chalk that supports them, who can doubt? Agen- 
 cies of water dashing, dissolving, denuding, crushing, 
 rounding, and readjusting ancient structures and agencies 
 lifted or lowered, it may well have been, by the internal 
 forces supposed. Nor does it in one iota affect the pres- 
 ent question, how long all those agencies may have thus 
 operated. But is it not marvelous that Lyell should, 
 whether intentionally or not, drag them into the human 
 period, or thrust it into them, as he has done ? 
 
 In some of the gravel thus anciently and mightily 
 scooped, as great flint nodules, out of vast chalk-barriers, 
 and crushed into fragments, and then ground, and rolled, 
 and polished by resistless power, he finds old stone -imple- 
 ments, wrought by human hands, still retaining such dis- 
 tinctive marks that not only can their original purposes 
 be for the most part discerned, but even some difference 
 between the culture of the tribe that produced them and 
 that of the Celtic family in general, is inferred, by Lyell 
 himself, as by M. De Perthes and others, from their peculiar- 
 ities. And yet these implements belong to the age of the 
 formation of that gravel I The venerable and potent energy 
 that through ages of strenuous action irresistibly reduced 
 it, all that while laid gently deferential and kindly careful 
 hands upon them; shielded from assault alike their sub- 
 stance and their shape, and kept them unharmed in the 
 
223 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 quiet resting-places where they had dropped from the 
 fainting grasp of their artificers ! Sir Charles Lyell cer- 
 tainly does not believe this. Nobody can believe it. And 
 strange as it is that so genuinely scientific a man, and one 
 usually so careful, should have made so serious a mistake, 
 nothing is more certain than that he has here thus erred ; and 
 that the clear exhibition of this goes very far toward reducing 
 into moderate limits his extreme inferences respecting the age 
 of mankind. Can anything be more indubitably evident than 
 that, had these human instruments been in existence in that 
 region during the extended period of agitating energy sug- 
 gested, exposed to all the violent action alleged to have 
 worn down the old diluvial cliffs, washed the flints out of 
 chalk, crushed them, and rounded them into prodigious piles 
 of pebbles, they too must have been indefinitely abraded, 
 broken, rolled, and reduced undistinguishably into pebbles 
 or paste ? The fact that nothing of the kind has happened 
 with them, that not one trace of any such long course of 
 rough treatment is left upon their structure or dimensions, 
 dispels in an instant the magnificent illusion of the re- 
 nowned Englishman's hypothesis as to the age of those 
 buried hatchets and of their fashioners, the venerable 
 Celts. 
 
 Those instruments, beyond peradventure, had never seen 
 the light when the ages of heaving and dashing were roll- 
 ing on, supposed by the philosopher. The eyes beneath 
 whose gaze they were shaped never surveyed, the hands 
 that wrought them never buffeted those continued and 
 mighty surges. We need no prophetic voice reaching 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 229 
 
 through the past to tell us this, no authoritative utter- 
 ance of some venerated sage of science to affirm it. The 
 etones themselves give forth the declaration with a clear- 
 ness of statement not to be misunderstood. It is patent in 
 the very revelations adduced by Lyell from the gravel pits 
 of the Somme Yalley. 
 
 Nor is this the only inconsistency in these inferences of the 
 great geologist. He supposes the age of the implements 
 in question immensely remote, because, moreover, numbers 
 of them are buried beneath so many feet of mud, sand, 
 clay, etc., and it must take a great while, "in comparison 
 with the ages of history and tradition," " for the deposi- 
 tion of so much fine sediment, including entire shells, both 
 terrestrial and aquatic." Yet there is "nothing that might 
 not be due to such river-floods as we have witnessed in 
 Scotland during the last half century I" 
 
 But even this is not all. There is, if possible, a still 
 stranger self contradiction in these inferences of the eminent 
 Briton. He finds those mighty agencies, through so long 
 a period, tearing and wearing in this valley, and those 
 river-floods tenderly putting to rest little shells in slowly 
 settled inclosures of sand and, coexisting with all this, 
 during the same measureless ages imagined, "a tribe of 
 savages making a long sojourn in this (identical) region." 
 Shaping and depositing their strange implements, with 
 the successive ages, just as the floods do their layers of 
 mud, and in those ascending beds, now thirty, now seven- 
 teen, and now ten feet below what has become the surface 
 of our time I If Sir Charles Lyell does not mean this, his 
 
 20 
 
230 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 supposition on the point is inconsequential. If he does 
 mean it, he seems to endow with very wonderful qualities 
 a tribe of early savages, who could witness all those sublim- 
 ities, brave all those vicissitudes, and emerging, genera- 
 tion after generation, through so many overwhelming floods 
 that had been certain destruction to other mortals, could 
 cling with undying fondness to the home of their fathers, 
 and, spite of all recurring desolations, await there the 
 time of their own tardy extinction ! 
 
 There is an explanation of all the circumstances con- 
 nected with those old flint instruments, we venture to sug- 
 gest, which brings them readily within the moderate period 
 commonly accredited as man's past term. They occur, it 
 should be noticed, in a low river valley ; a fact which of 
 itself indicates that the accumulations are not original 
 diluvium or drift of at least the early part of the long 
 post-pleiocene age supposed by Lyell, but that they are all 
 secondary rearrangements which the river has made of 
 those old materials. Suppose the pebbles thus produced 
 during the agitations of the earlier part of the drift-period, 
 and somewhere near in the deposits of a later division of 
 that cycle, collections of relics belonging to the larger mam- 
 malia: suppose, also, some old Celtic tribe of a subse- 
 quent age, yet of centuries before Cresar, if you please, to 
 have occupied for a considerable time what they deemed a 
 secure part of this fertile district, heaping their debris for 
 generations in some such way as that of the Indian mound 
 in Georgia, referred to by Lyell : then suppose some of 
 those unusual seasons to occur, of which repeated instances 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 231 
 
 are known in modern history, or some such change in the 
 river-bed as is now not unfrequently witnessed, and in con- 
 sequence floods a.t various intervals to invade, here the 
 human heap, and there the diluvial pile, how immediately 
 would the several elements begin to be mingled, scattered, 
 and readjusted, precisely as they are found to be in the 
 deposits around those low-standing cities on the northeast- 
 ern border of the British Channel ! 
 
 Nor is this mere supposition. The broad facts of the case 
 exhibited in the "Antiquites" of M. De Perthes would seem 
 satisfactorily to indicate this as the actual process. 
 
 In the first place, he shows (vol. i. p. 165) that the 
 valley-surface about and between the two cities, with trifling 
 inequalities, possesses "an average or mean elevation of 
 only some two metres (less than seven feet) above the 
 present level of the river." 
 
 In the next place, he details a number of circumstances 
 which prove, beyond a doubt, that the stream and its bor- 
 ders now stand at some appreciable elevation above the 
 range they occupied no very great while ago. For in- 
 stance, this section exhibits the ascertained condition of 
 things near one of the gates of Abbeville. (Vol. i. p. 188.) 
 
 A mere glance at the cut suffices to show a change of a 
 good many feet in the relative level of the river and its 
 surroundings since the sepultures were deposited in the peat 
 d, and especially since the wooden frame-work between / 
 and h was constructed ; and yet the comparatively recent 
 age of those sepultures and that frame-work, as will pres- 
 ently be seen, is indubitable. 
 
232 
 
 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOE THE BIBLE. 
 
 Plan of the deposits at Portelette, showing their arrange- 
 ment, and the sepultures they contain. 
 
 The arrow indicates the present 
 level of the Somme. Depth 
 about ten feet. - 
 
 a. Alluvial and vegetable earth. 
 
 b. Calcareous tufa, porus and 
 
 friable, containing hard and 
 compact masses. 
 
 c. Very fine blue sand. 
 
 d. Peat, containing Celtic se- 
 
 pultures, designated by the 
 marks. 
 
 e. Another bed of muddy sand. 
 /. Alluvial detritus, rounded -si- 
 lex, etc. 
 
 g. Foundation chalk-bed. 
 Between / and A, open-work 
 platforms of rough oak planks 
 or beams, trimmed apparently 
 with stone instruments. 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 233 
 
 Certain circumstances, indicating how the river floods 
 have been quieted in the vicinity of both these cities, so as 
 to occasion immense deposits of less weighty matter, are 
 brought to notice in an extract quoted (p. 223) from a 
 Geological Memoir, by M. Ravin, on the basin of Amiens. 
 "It is in the broadest and lowest localities of the Somme 
 Yalley where the waters were deepest and least agitated, 
 in the sites at this day occupied by Abbeville and Amien-s, 
 that those old bones, etc., are accumulated in the greatest 
 number. They have been deposited with the alluvium of 
 that epoch, at the mouths of the larger tributaries which 
 then emptied into such lakes; at the confluence of the 
 Celle with the Somme, on the southwest of Amiens; and 
 at that of the Scardon, toward Menchecourt at Abbe- 
 ville. 
 
 The rate at which this process of filling up, this exten- 
 sive change, has been going on in modern times, is evinced 
 by tokens too significant to be misunderstood. One or 
 two instances we present in M. De Perthes's own words, 
 (vol. ii. p. 126.) "In 1844, when excavations were made 
 between the Somme and one of the gates of Abbeville, the 
 gate of Macarde, toward constructing there the founda- 
 tions of a gasometer, and when a depth of six metres 
 (about twenty feet) below the surface of the surrounding 
 ground had been reached, in a bed of peat, remains of 
 amphorae, (well-known Roman jars,) and other vases of 
 Roman or Gallo-Roman origin, were met with. Under this 
 peat was a bed of sand, with ashes, charcoal, funeral pot- 
 20* 
 
234 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tery, and many shaped stones." These latter "indicate," 
 thinks M. De Perthes, perhaps correctly, "a population 
 anterior to the Romans, and probably to the Gauls." Xine 
 or ten years later, in 1853, as excavations were going on 
 in another locality, and had reached a point about seven 
 metres (over twenty-three feet) beneath the soil of the 
 town, and say eighteen inches below the level of the river, 
 the same bed of peat was recognized ; and here, (ibid., 131,) 
 "as at the gasometer, many remains of amphorae were dis- 
 covered. But what was not there found presented itself in 
 this instance, a considerable quantity of that beautiful red 
 Roman pottery of which each piece bears the name of the 
 potter. Cianvari, ma. Tiiini, etc., etc. . . . The amphora 
 were of different sizes ; many must have been one metre in 
 height, and two in circumference," (over a yard high and 
 two feet in diameter.) 
 
 Now with such facts in view, the rationale which we 
 have suggested, of the sand and gravel pits containing, 
 variously associated, the mammalian remains and the old 
 hatchets, etc., seems abundantly more satisfactory than 
 the incongruous explanation proposed by Lyell. Especially 
 when some additional circumstances are taken into account, 
 connected with those ancient bones. "These," says M. 
 Baillon, in a letter to M. De Perthes, (vol. i. p. 224,) "are 
 first found at the depth of ten or twelve feet in the sands 
 of Menchecourt, but they are found in much larger quantity 
 at eighteen or twenty fe-et. Some of them were crushed 
 before being buried. Others have the angles rounded, with- 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 235 
 
 out doubt because they have been rolled by the water?, 
 but they have not been buried as deeply as those which 
 have remained entire. These last are disposed at the bot- 
 tom of the sandpits." (Just as our explanation would 
 suppose, for these would have been the latest of the former 
 deposits in the drift beds, nearest the surface, least injured, 
 soonest reached and washed out by river floods, and so 
 deposited first and unbroken in the Amiens and Abbeville 
 basins.) "They are entire, without fracture or friction, and 
 it is probable that they were still articulated when thus 
 covered over. I have found a hind limb of the rhinoceros, 
 the bones of which were still in their ordinary relative 
 situation. They must have been joined by their ligaments, 
 and even surrounded with muscle at the epoch of their 
 burial. The complete skeleton of the same animal lay 
 scattered within a short distance." Why these should lie 
 at the bottom of the series, on Sir Charles Lyell's theory, 
 seems wholly inexplicable. They should rather have been 
 broken into minutest fragments, and rolled into tiniest bone 
 beads, if not reduced to impalpable powder, and borne off 
 irrecoverably by the waters. 
 
 The general relation of the deposits in the sand pits 
 may be seen in the annexed section, (M. De Perthes's 
 "Antiq.," etc., vol. i. p. 234.) 
 
SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 a. Vegetable earth, etc. 
 
 b. Upper bed of silicious pebbles, 
 
 containing parcels of rolled 
 chalk fragments, etc. 
 
 c. Brown ferruginous potter's 
 
 clay. 
 
 d. Marly clay, interspersed with 
 
 silicious fragments of white 
 surface. 
 
 e. Marly sand, traversed by beds 
 
 of pea-form chalk fragments, 
 
 and silicious grit. 
 /. Yellowish clay streaked with 
 
 ochry sand. 
 g. Bed of sharp yellow sand, 
 
 rolled chalk fragments, and 
 
 broken shells. 
 h. Potter's clay, veined gray and 
 
 yellow, and both pure and 
 
 sandy. 
 
 t. A thin ochry vein. 
 k. Alternate beds of gray and 
 
 white sand, and collections 
 
 of shells. 
 
 It is chiefly in this sand that 
 the shells and bones are found. 
 L Lower bed of rolled silex. 
 . Sites of discovered stone 
 implements. 
 
 The arrow marks the river 
 level. 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 237 
 
 On the hypothesis of Lyell, how is it possible to account 
 for the occnrrence of these stone instruments at depths 
 varying so widely as here exhibited ? 
 
 Nor in this view does the idea of M. De Perthes seem 
 tenable. His facts, carefully collected through years of 
 diligent research, after the manner of Layard at Nineveh, 
 and Lepsius in Egypt, are valuable, and entitled to atten- 
 tive consideration. But his supposition that an antediluvian 
 race shaped those ancient flints, a race here by the deluge 
 destroyed and buried, in common with a world of gigantic 
 mammifers, appears to be in conflict alike with the dispo- 
 sition of these beds and their strange contents, and with 
 the general range of facts in all superficial geology. 
 Neither does it, to our apprehension, square with the 
 scriptural account of the miraculous Noachian flood. 
 
 The universal tradition of such a catastrophe, found 
 wherever man now exists, insisted on by this diligent in- 
 vestigator, is no doubt a striking confirmation of the scrip- 
 tural statement concerning the event in question. And 
 some of the traces of water-action on the globe may pos- 
 sibly be referred to that occasion. But while it would 
 seem from the account that no portion of the human family 
 had then so distantly wandered, or, in knowledge, at least, 
 quite so far degenerated, it would also appear that the 
 Noachian waters arose too gently, remained too briefly, 
 and subsided too quietly, to accomplish the abrasions, sepa- 
 rations, and accumulations here, as well as elsewhere, wit- 
 nessed. The olive leaf (Genesis, viii. 11) speaks instructively 
 on this subject, as does the nutriment found by the crea- 
 
238 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tures with Noah, when (v. 17) they went forth again 
 upon the green earth. That the human race (save one 
 family) then perished, together with a vast number of ani- 
 mals associated with them, is rendered unquestionable ; 
 and that the compass of the desolation must have been 
 coextensive with human diffusion. But that beyond this 
 the brute creation was destroyed, and all the world over- 
 whelmed, is a construction of the narrative not necessitated 
 by its hyperbolical forms of speech, and distinctly denied 
 by many geological facts. That man previously dwelt, 
 and was then overwhelmed, and the brute creation with 
 him, in Western Europe, can scarcely be credited without 
 proof much more substantial than has yet appeared. Still, 
 this hypothesis appears on the whole considerably less im- 
 probable than that of Sir Charles Lyell. Especially in 
 connection with certain other facts it may be well to recall. 
 That immense mutations, attended by animal burials on 
 an enormous scale, have occurred in that part of the world, 
 at no very remote age, there are convincing proofs. To 
 some of these reference has been made ; others are found in 
 the numberless remains lying in the alluvial silt of the 
 Thames Valley, and along the east coast of England, 
 which indicate that the British Islands were formerly in- 
 habited by multitudes of elephants and other gigantic crea- 
 tures, and render it (Mantell, Wonders of Geology, vol. i. 
 p. 149,) "probable that the land of Britain was united to 
 the continent many centuries before the Roman advent." 
 The time of this separation may perhaps be associated with 
 that also indicated in the Isle of Man. The Irish elk, there 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 239 
 
 in skeleton in surprising numbers, tells of a great change 
 in the relative extent of land and sea, since such herds of so 
 bulky a race could not have subsisted in so limited a dis- 
 trict. And the known modern age, presently to be shown, 
 to which specimens of this creature may be traced, fur- 
 nishes a criterion for determining that the mutations re- 
 ferred to occurred within a comparatively moderate period. 
 Nor can it be easily, we presume, if at all, proved, that the 
 date of those changes was more ancient than the era at 
 which the Scriptures, as will be found, allow us to reckon 
 the deluge. Although, therefore, so far as time alone is 
 concerned, we might adopt this hypothesis, still, for reasons 
 already intimated, we do not attribute to those agencies 
 and to that epoch the appearances of the Somme Yalley. 
 
 The considerations last adduced connect themselves with 
 one of the elements in Lyell's time-argument yet to be 
 more specifically noticed. His allegation that "the disap- 
 pearance of the elephant, rhinoceros, and other genera of 
 quadrupeds, now foreign to Europe," "implies a vast lapse 
 of ages, separating the era in which the Amiens flint in- 
 struments were formed, and that of the invasion of Gaul by 
 the Romans." 
 
 This assumes as settled by the circumstances, that these 
 quadrupeds coexisted with the fashioners of the Abbeville 
 flints. Whereas it may be affirmed, we think, with some 
 confidence, that such coexistence is anything but proved 
 by the case; that the probabilities rather preponderate 
 the other way. So that this inference is, perhaps, like the 
 others, illusory. 
 
240 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 But suppose it otherwise ; let it be admitted here, let it 
 be proved, if possible, anywhere, that some of these ex- 
 tinct mammalia for a season coexisted with man ; does it 
 necessarily throw indefinitely backward the epoch of Adam's 
 birth ? Assuredly not ! Why may not certain of these 
 creatures have lingered on into the cycle succeeding that 
 which was distinctly their own, and to an age that may 
 readily be embraced within our received human chronology? 
 That theirs was in the main an antecedent period is cer- 
 tain. That the meridian of their day had long passed ere 
 yet the earth was given in charge to human beings. But 
 that their evening was closed before man's morning dawned, 
 even as registered in our sacred books, who shall affirm? 
 If the idea be well founded, (Mantell,) that "the termina- 
 tion of a race, like the death of individuals, may be the 
 natural and inevitable result of their organization," the 
 disappearance of species and genera may well, under the 
 divine laws, proceed, as does individual decay, gradually. 
 So that the declining stage of one group might be pro- 
 tracted far into the youthful term of a higher race. Indeed 
 there are not wanting indications that it may actually have 
 been so with some of those very extinct mammalia, that 
 instances of their continuance may have occurred up to a 
 date within the accredited period of human existence. 
 
 The great Irish elk, for example, just now mentioned, 
 though unknown upon earth these many centuries, was, 
 there can scarcely be a doubt, in part contemporary with 
 the early human population of the British Islands. "Be- 
 sides the good state of preservation conspicuous in certain 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 
 
 241 
 
 skeletons taken from marshes, as of Curragh, Ireland, a 
 skull of one was discovered in Germany, associated with 
 urns and stone hatchets; and in the County of Cork, a 
 human body was exhumed from a wet and marshy soil, be- 
 neath a bed of peat eleven feet thick, the body in good 
 preservation, and enveloped in a deer skin covered with 
 hair, which appeared to be that of the gigantic elk. . . . 
 Yet beds of gravel and sand containing recent species of 
 marine shells, with bones of the Irish elk, have been ob- 
 served in the vicinity of Dublin at an elevation of two 
 hundred feet above the level of the sea. This extinct 
 quadruped, though found in peat bogs and marshes of 
 comparatively very recent date, must have been, therefore, 
 an inhabitant of Ireland antecedently to some of the last 
 changes in the relative position of land and water." (Man- 
 tell.) But remains of this creature, thus partially con- 
 temporary with Adam's descendants, are also in some 
 places " found extensively associated with those of the ex- 
 tinct elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, deer, 
 bear, and hyena." (Ibid.) Moreover, " with the relics of 
 such extinct animals are found those of many species which 
 still inhabit England, as the badger, otter, weasel, and of 
 others which are known to have been contemporary with 
 the earliest British tribes, as the bear, boar, and wolf." 
 (Ibid.) Nor is it at all certain (see Sir R. J. Murchison's 
 " Geology of Russia") that all the specimens of the Siberian 
 mammoth had passed away before the era usually allowed 
 for man's advent. So too with the mastodon and other 
 gigantic creatures whose remains have been found associated 
 
 21 
 
242 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 in comparatively recent deposits in North America : as at 
 Bigbone Lick, in Kentucky; in the bogs of Louisiana; on 
 the Hudson, in New York, etc. 
 
 "Even, then, if it be admitted, though yet requiring 
 proof," as Hitchcock well says, (Smithsonian Contributions, 
 vol. ix., art. 3, p. 64,) "that his remains (undisplaced) 
 are found with those of such extinct animals, this by no 
 means throws back man's origin to what is usually under- 
 stood by the drift period ; for many races of animals have 
 disappeared since alluvial agencies have been at work." 
 
 This is corroborated by Prof. Owen's later and signifi- 
 cant statement, (Palaeontology.) "A future generation 
 of geologists may have to record the final disappearance 
 of the arctic buffalo, (Ovibos Moschatus.) Remains of 
 Ovibos and Eytena show that they were contemporaries of 
 Elephas primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorrhinus. But 
 recent discoveries (as in the Somme Yalley, and previously 
 at Hoxne in Suffolk,) indicate that in the case of the last 
 tw-o extinct quadrupeds, a rude primitive human race may 
 have finished the work of extermination begun by antece- 
 dent and more general causes." 
 
 From a careful review, therefore, of the whole case on 
 which Lyell founds his argument for the extreme antiquity 
 of mankind, we submit with deference, but with confidence, 
 that his inferences are altogether unsustained ; that the 
 question as to the age of our race is left very much where 
 it was before; and that the probabilities suggested by 
 science still remain, that the human term has been about 
 what the sacred books, interpreted with neither rigidness on 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 243 
 
 the one hand nor violence on the other, exhibit. With this 
 additional positive testimony, the instances adduced cor- 
 roborate all others in regard to the great truth originally 
 set forth with exclusive and characteristic prominence in 
 the Scriptures, that, in the language of Professor Owen, 
 " man is the latest as he is the highest creature known to 
 have been called into being on this planet." 
 
 Here, however, we meet another and kindred question 
 brought to notice in Sir Charles Lyell's address of Sep- 
 tember, 1859, and one which bears, as upon almost all 
 departments of thought and inquiry, so especially upon the 
 controversy respecting the age of mankind, the question 
 whether men and other living beings around them are 
 really creatures at all, in any appreciable or practical 
 sense; whether they are not rather developments, which 
 nature has somehow in the course of countless ages effected, 
 by the slow operation of her laws changing some ancient 
 low organic form, equally unknown in its character and 
 origin, into, first, fish, then reptiles, then birds, then mam- 
 malian brutes, and finally into human beings ! 
 
 To this latter hypothesis, discredited alike by the require- 
 ments of inductive philosophy, by the established laws of 
 evidence, by the moral instincts, the individual aspirations, 
 und the social interests of mankind, and by all the sacred 
 realities of religion, Lyell incredible as it would have 
 appeared, in direct conflict with his own unretracted and 
 unanswered arguments, under some strange influence has 
 permitted himself to lend at least the qualified support of 
 his great scientific name. Alluding to the since published 
 
244 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 work of Darwin, on the "Origin of Species," which had 
 then been only in manuscript submitted to his inspection, 
 he, in the address referred to, used this language : " On 
 this difficult and mysterious subject," (why so difficult and 
 mysterious, we ask, except on the assumptions of atheistic 
 materialism?) "a work will very shortly appear, by Mr. 
 Charles Darwin, the result of twenty years of observation 
 and experiments in zoology, botany, and geology, by which 
 he has been led to the conclusion, that those powers of 
 nature which give rise to the races and permanent varieties 
 in animals and plants are the same as those which, in much 
 longer periods, produce species, and, in a still longer series 
 of ages, give rise to differences in generic rank. He 
 appears to me to have succeeded, by his investigations 
 and reasonings, in throwing a flood of light on many classes 
 of phenomena connected with the affinities, geographical 
 distribution, and geologic succession of organic beings, for 
 which no other hypothesis has been able, or has even 
 attempted to account." 
 
 In this brief and cautious statement, Darwin's theory, 
 now before the public, is perhaps as adequately represented 
 as was to be expected in so partial a notice. And yet from 
 it the reader would gather not only a very imperfect, but a 
 most erroneous idea of that theory. In the first place, to 
 an attentive student of Darwin's volume, it is clear beyond 
 all question that his system, instead of being a "conclu- 
 sion to which he has been led by twenty years of observa- 
 tion and experiments," etc., was long ago with him a fore- 
 gone conclusion, to the ingenious defense of which he has 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 245 
 
 for years devoted the resources of an active, and, in one 
 direction, well-furnished mind ; an original belief, or abstract 
 conception, like a hundred others in the history of opinion, 
 assumed as true, and then acted on as a governing influ- 
 ence in the mind, toward reducing into a system accordant 
 with itself facts and phenomena of every kind, how incon- 
 sistent soever with the assumption ; a case in principle 
 not unlike Aristotle's labored ratiocination in defense of the 
 old idea of the incorruptibility of the heavens. In the 
 next place, the monstrous character of Darwin's "conclu- 
 sion," "hypothesis," or whatever it may be called, would 
 hardly, save by the most practiced minds, be imagined 
 from Lyell's carefully-worded account and approval. This 
 is the summing up of the theorist himself, (p. 419, nearly 
 the last page of his book:) "I believe that animals have 
 descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and 
 plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would 
 lead me one step farther, namely, to the belief that all ani- 
 mals and plants have devscended from some one prototype. 
 
 I should infer that probably all the organic beings 
 
 which have ever lived on this earth have descended from 
 some one primordial form, into which life was first 
 breathed"!! 
 
 The blackness of atheism here seems relieved by one 
 little ray of light, let in through the figurative phrase 
 'life breathed into the one primordial form;" but exam- 
 ination shows that it is only a delusive phosphorescent 
 glimmer mistaken for heaven's own beam. That "life 
 
 21* 
 
246 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 breathed," is only a figure; not supposed to represent any 
 real occurrence in the early time, but only serving to 
 occupy attention and mislead thought. Else why its ap- 
 plication to the " one primordial form," assumed as the 
 progenitor of the lowest class of vegetable existences, no 
 less than of the half-reasoning brutes and the heaven- 
 aspiring intelligences by which our planet has been peo- 
 pled ? 
 
 Still, we do not mean to charge absolute atheism on Mr. 
 Darwin or his theory. It is due to him to recognize the 
 fact that he does once or twice refer to a Deity as very 
 remotely concerned in the processes of the universe. And 
 of the old scheme, which he issues in renovated form, it 
 should be conceded that it does not necessarily involve the 
 total negation of a Great First Cause, since it is undenia- 
 ble, as has been urged, that " God might as certainly have 
 originated the human species by a law of development, as 
 he maintains it by a law of development." 
 
 But if not absolutely, the hypothesis is at least relatively 
 and practically atheistic, and annihilative of some of the 
 most important beliefs entertained by men. To this for a 
 moment we direct attention, and then one or two consider- 
 ations will be presented, going to show how obviously this 
 volume, notwithstanding its high indorsement, is in the 
 truest sense unscientific; how it virtually repudiates the 
 sound inductive method of inquiry, and for ascertained fact 
 substitutes imagined possibility, ingenious speculation, and 
 an enormous use of the vast unknown. 
 
 That any theory, whatever its scientific pretensions, tends 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 247 
 
 to the destruction of those essential convictions which lie 
 at the basis of individual character, social order, and 
 domestic happiness, is a consideration that ought assuredly 
 to discredit it, and must be regarded as adequate primary 
 proof of its being utterly untrue. Let us see how it is 
 with Darwin's development idea, indorsed by Lyell in con- 
 nection with his impression that savage man appeared on 
 earth " a vast series of ages" ago. 
 
 "If," as has been well argued, "during a period so vast 
 as to be scarce expressed by figures, the creatures now hu- 
 man have been rising by almost infinitesimals from com- 
 pound microscopic cells, minute vital globules within glob- 
 ules, begot by electricity on dead gelatinous matter," as 
 former developmentarians held, or "from some one primor- 
 dial form," at the unknown lowest point of the organic 
 scale, as Darwin, with Lyell's sanction, now holds until 
 they have at length become the men and women whom we 
 see around us, we must hold either the monstrous belief 
 that all the vitalities, whether those of monads or of mites, 
 of fishes or of reptiles, of birds or of beasts, are individually 
 and inherently immortal and undying, or that human souls 
 are not so. The difference between the dying and undy- 
 ing between the spirit of the brute that goeth downward, 
 and the spirit of the man that goeth upward is not a dif- 
 ference infinitesimally, or even atomically small. It pos- 
 sesses all the breadth of the eternity to come, and is an 
 infinitely great difference. It cannot, if one may so ex- 
 press it, be shaded off by infinitesimals or atoms ; for it is 
 a difference which, as there can be no class of beings inter- 
 
248 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 mediate in their nature between the dying and the undy- 
 ing, admits not of gradation at all. What mind, regulated 
 by the ordinary principles of human belief, can possibly 
 hold that every one of the thousand vital points whbh 
 swim in a drop of stagnant water, are inherently fitted to 
 maintain their individuality throughout eternity ? Or how 
 can it be rationally held that a mere progressive step, in 
 itself no greater or more important than that effected by 
 the addition of a single brick to a house' in the building 
 state, or of a single atom to a body in the growing state, 
 could ever have produced immortality ? And yet, if the 
 spirit of a monad or of a mollusk be not immortal, then 
 must there either have been a point in the history of the 
 species at which a dying brute differing from its offspring 
 merely by an inferiority of development, represented by a 
 few atoms, perhaps by a single atom produced an undy- 
 ing man, or man in his present state must be a mere ani- 
 mal, possessed of no immortal soul, and as irresponsible 
 for his actions to the God before whose bar he is, in conse- 
 quence, never to appear, as his presumed relatives and 
 progenitors, the beasts that perish. Nor will it do to 
 attempt escaping from the difficulty, by alleging that God, 
 at some certain link in the chain, might have converted a 
 mortal creature into an immortal existence, by breathing 
 into it "a living soul;" seeing that a renunciation of any 
 such direct interference on the part of Deity in the work of 
 creation forms the prominent and characteristic feature of 
 the scheme, nay, that it constitutes the very nucleus round 
 which the scheme has originated. Thus, though the devel- 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 249 
 
 opment theory be not atheistic, it is at least practically 
 tantamount to atheism. For, if man be a dying creature, 
 restricted in his existence to the present scene of things, 
 what does it really matter to him, for any one moral pur- 
 pose, whether there be a God or no ? If, in reality, on the 
 same religious level with the dog, wolf, and fox, that are 
 by nature atheists a nature most properly coupled with 
 irresponsibility to what one practical purpose should he 
 know or believe- in a God whom he, as certainly as they, 
 is never to meet as his Judge ? or why should he square 
 his conduct by the requirements of the moral code, farther 
 than a low and convenient expediency may choose to 
 demand ? 
 
 Fatal as the hypothesis appears in this view, it is in 
 other aspects fraught with mischiefs scarcely secondary, 
 though of a kind calculated more signally, if possible, to 
 expose its absurdity. The cattle on which he feeds, if not 
 a man's brethren, are, on this theory, at least his first 
 cousins, and the trees he fells at pleasure or the plants he 
 consumes, his kindred, removed only one additional step. 
 Against the latter he may without a thought whet the axe 
 and the scythe, and the knife against the former without a 
 pang ! Why should the petty circumstance of kinship a 
 trifle nearer give men impunity from similar treatment? 
 What harm what so great wrong, to knock one on the 
 head ? To cut him down ? Nay, if pleasant to the palate 
 of some dainty epicure, to convert his muscle into steak 
 and surloin? The dignity, safety, or satisfaction of hu- 
 man existence were somewhat questionable, could Sir 
 
250 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Charles Lyell's authority, backing Mr. Darwin's ingenuity, 
 make this doctrine the ruling belief of the world ! 
 
 Respecting the scientific relations of a scheme involving 
 moral issues so portentous, its history is more than a little 
 significant. The hypothesis is very far from being, as 
 seems intimated in Lyell's brief statement, a purely 
 original and very fresh emanation from the mind of so 
 competent a naturalist as Mr. Darwin. In some of its 
 accompaniments, as presented by him, it -is of course new, 
 and his own ; but in characteristic idea it is as old as some 
 of the oldest speculative systems of the world. Epicurus, 
 following, perhaps, earlier dreamers, (see Cudworth's In- 
 tellectual System, chap. ii. sec. 22, and Fenelon's Lives of 
 Ancient Philosophers,) maintained that "the sun, gradually 
 warming the fat and nitrous early earth, soon covered it 
 with herbage and shrubs ; there also began to rise on the 
 surface of the ground a great number of small tumors like 
 mushrooms, which, having in time come to maturity, the skin 
 burst and there came forth little animals, which, by-and-by 
 retiring from the place where they had been produced, be- 
 gan to respire;" and so in process of time our globe was 
 peopled ! Ruther more than a hundred years ago the 
 notion was reproduced by Maillet, in his Telliamed, a sort 
 of scientific romance, characterized as "a popular work, as 
 wild and amusing as a fairy tale," addressed to the lively 
 French mind, then agitated by the demoralizing influences 
 transmitted from the age of the Fourteenth to that of the 
 Fifteenth Louis, and by the latter even exaggerated, as if 
 in preparation for the convulsion of the next half century. 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 251 
 
 In preparing his readers for the theory of transmutation of 
 species, Maillet insisted that the change from marine to 
 terrestrial vegetation amounted to very little; and in proof 
 made his Indian philosopher affirm that "the fishermen of 
 Marseilles are in the habit of dragging up from the sea 
 flowers colored like the rose and fruits flavored like the 
 grape." Fifty years later, the celebrated Jean Baptiste 
 Antoine Pierre Monet, Chevalier De Lamarck, under simi- 
 lar influences, but with larger though still very incomplete 
 knowledge, issued to the same people, while yet in the whirl 
 of their revolution, the notorious development hypothesis, 
 which has since borne, and will probably, whatever varying 
 phases it may assume, continue to bear his name. Not only 
 was he necessarily ignorant of some of the governing facts 
 in the history of organic beings which geological research 
 has brought to light since his time, but, in common with 
 Maillet and others, he speculated on the supposition, now 
 abundantly disproved, of a primitive universal ocean. " That 
 the philosopher who perfected the development dream occu- 
 pied this position, is a fact," as Hugh Miller has convinc- 
 ingly urged, " sufficient in itself to show how certainly it is 
 indeed but a dream," and nothing approaching a genuine 
 evolution of inductive science. With another generation 
 came the " Physio-Philosophy," etc. of the German Pro- 
 fessor Oken, extending Lamarck's system. It was com- 
 posed, the author alleges, (see preface to translation,) "in 
 a kind of inspiration," and "modified," as he confesses, 
 "in its arrangement of plants and animals," to suit the ex- 
 igencies of the development scheme, "just as discoveries 
 
252 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 and anatomical investigations rendered some other position 
 of the objects a matter of necessity." This was succeeded 
 some years ago by the plausible and popular though anony- 
 mous "Vestiges of Creation," the false assumptions, un- 
 sustained pretensions, and, on the whole, shallow sophistry 
 of which, in common with those of all the existing works 
 of the class, were so unanswerably exposed by Hugli Miller 
 in his "Footprints of the Creator." 
 
 The scientific claims of Mr. Darwin's developmentism 
 would certainly seem to be rather poorly sustained by its 
 antecedents. Nor is its relation to the general judgment 
 of leading scientific mind, past and present, less significant. 
 The author, though by adducing the "grave doubts" now 
 "entertained" by Sir Charles Lyell, and otherwise, attempt- 
 ing to diminish the force of the fact, is obliged to admit 
 (p. 271) that "all the most eminent paleontologists, 
 namely, Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, Falconer, E. 
 Forbes, etc., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, 
 Murchison, Sedgwick, etc., have unanimously, often vehe- 
 mently (?) maintained the immutability of species." 
 
 This, however, well-nigh conclusive as it is, may not be 
 sufficient toward the truth we wish to exhibit as fairly as 
 our limits allow. A glance, then, at the system in its latest 
 phase becomes proper. 
 
 That Mr. Darwin's discussion is skillful and able, no in- 
 telligent reader will deny. Indeed the fact is patent, from 
 the impression which even in manuscript it made on such 
 a mind as Sir Charles LyelPs. Already known as an 
 extensive inquirer and suggestive writer, the author has 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 253 
 
 unquestionably brought to the advocacy of an old idea new 
 and large resources of knowledge as a naturalist and of in- 
 genuity as a theorist. Hence, of course, he has in several 
 respects improved upon the doctrines of his predecessors. 
 The machinery of the system he has considerably varied. 
 And some of the difficulties, to which previous advocates 
 had exposed the cause by claiming to know too much, he 
 sagaciously avoids, partly by an adroit use of manifold in- 
 formation, and partly, where this fails, by a still more adroit 
 resort to the boundless and yet ever-at-hand unknown. 
 
 The main-spring of the machinery constructed by this 
 ingenious author is what he designates "natural selection." 
 It is represented as composed of two elements, viz., variabil- 
 ity in living organisms, and a general struggle for existence. 
 Thus, (pp. 63-77:) "As more individuals are produced 
 than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a 
 struggle for existence, either one individual with another of 
 the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, 
 
 or with the physical conditions of life How will this 
 
 act in regard to variation ? . . . Can it be thought improb- 
 able that variations, useful in some way to each being in 
 the -great and complex battle of life, should sometimes 
 occur in the course of thousands of generations ? If such 
 do occur, can we doubt, remembering that many more indi- 
 viduals are born than can possibly survive, that individuals 
 having any advantage, however slight, over others would 
 have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their 
 kind ? On the other hand, we may be sure that any varia- 
 tion in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. 
 
 22 
 
254 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 This preservation of favorable variations and the rejection 
 of injurious variations, I call natural selection." 
 
 Such is the principle of the apparatus. How does it 
 work ? By the one exclusive law of protection to the in- 
 dividual. Every consideration of ends more remote, of 
 relation to other purposes, of connection with a great 
 providential plan, of the bearing of what are known as 
 final causes, is by the nature of the case shut out ? and 
 accordingly by the propounder of the system wholly re- 
 jected. Each living thing is what it is, or very slowly 
 changes from what it was to something else, solely under a 
 chance variation, which is perpetuated exclusively by its 
 becoming available for the continuance of individual life in 
 the ceaseless strife of being. If, then, other ruling pur- 
 poses in the relations of any organism can be satisfactorily 
 shown, the theory is not only discredited, but well-nigh dis- 
 proved. This is distinctly admitted. Reference is made 
 (p. IT 7) to those who consider extreme and deceptive the 
 idea that "every detail of structure has been produced for 
 the good of its possessor;" "who believe that very many 
 structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, 
 (or for his benefit,) or for mere variety," or for some other 
 general end. And the author adds, "this doctrine, if 
 true, would be fatal to my theory." Now we press home 
 the question, is it not true ? At any rate, a thousand times 
 more satisfactorily sure than the antagonist scheme ? Can 
 considerate men, in their right minds, be made to believe 
 that the nutritious qualities of our harvest grains are mere 
 accidental results of a struggle for life through uncounted 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 255 
 
 ages on the part of cereal plants, having no reference to 
 the supply of bread for human kind ? That the delicious 
 fruits clustering in vineyard and orchard are only similar 
 chance products, simply happening to be pleasant to the 
 taste, constituted, however, not at all with reference to 
 that, but exclusively on account of their helping to per- 
 petuate the tree ? That the exquisite grace of the rose 
 and fragrance of the violet are, in like manner, nothing 
 but casualties, continued solely through the circumstance 
 that they, in some inconceivable way, aid against a thou- 
 sand foes the plants that bear them ? May it not be quite 
 as rationally held, that coal and iron, with all their won- 
 derful adaptations to human comfort and culture, are but 
 hap-hazard productions, packed away and preserved alone 
 because of some hidden influence limited to those sub- 
 stances ? Or that the gorgeous coloring of morning and 
 evening vapors and the matchless beauty of the rainbow 
 exist partly by chance and partly for the good of the 
 clouds ? 
 
 The positive supports of such a system are a few truths 
 generalized greatly beyond knowledge or probability. 
 As, for instance, the fact that the universe is regulated 
 by law that considerable variations, often by mankind 
 turned to account, occur in species that naturalists are 
 sometimes puzzled to determine between specific differ- 
 ences and those which belong only to varieties that dis- 
 tricts peculiarly insulated have occasionally been found 
 with a peculiar flora and fauna and that there is a singu- 
 lar parallelism between the phenomena of embriology and 
 
256 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 the general order of advance in animated nature. Con- 
 siderations of this character have of course from the first 
 constituted the staple of developmentarians. And though 
 abundantly shown to furnish no adequate ground for their 
 hypothesis, they are still presented as its foundation. 
 Without pausing to consider them, we direct attention to 
 the negative aspect of the scheme, the difficulties which 
 are acknowledged to lie in its way. 
 
 Respecting these, Mr. Darwin even admits, (p. 154,) 
 "some of them are so grave, that to this day I can never 
 reflect on them without being staggered." "But," he adds, 
 as the utmost to be yet ventured, "to the best of my judg- 
 ment, the greater number are only apparent, and those that 
 are real, are not, I think, fatal to my theory." Let it be 
 considered only as thus stated by paternal partiality, simply 
 that opposing facts are just "not fatal" to the doctrine, it 
 is at least clear, that, after all thus far said in its behalf, 
 any claim for the theory, as approximating a conclusion of 
 science, is wholly inadmissible. 
 
 Two of these difficulties we adduce by way of illustration, 
 viz.: First, the readily occurring reflection that transitional 
 instances might be expected to abound among organic 
 forms, if the doctrine be true; and, second, the fact that 
 numerous species some of them so elevated in structure, 
 that Hugh Miller was able, with a few of their relics, to 
 slay the philosophies of Lamarck, Oken, and the "Ves- 
 tiges," as Samson did a thousand Philistines with an 
 ass's jaw are traced in the lowest fossil-bearing strata 
 of the geological scale. Are these objections removed? 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 257 
 
 Not at all. But the hypothesis is carried round them 
 through the trackless region of the infinite unknown. Tran- 
 sitional form ? Oysters converted into sturgeon 1 turnips 
 into toads ! butterflies into nightingales ! snakes into grey- 
 hounds ! oxen into elephants ! and ourang-outangs into 
 men ! Why, it takes millions of ages to do all this ; and 
 since rational beings, though partially developed an im- 
 mense while ago, have existed for a period compared with 
 the whole life-term but as yesterday, it is of course im- 
 possible that we should really know anything about these 
 changes. One would, however, suppose Mr. Darwin's 
 accidental variations and "natural selection" might have 
 scope for some appreciable influence in species spread over 
 millions of acres of space as readily as in those descending 
 through millions of years of time. Yet the beetles and 
 bulls of the remotest quarter of the earth are to-day not 
 one whit more like eagles and lions, or any other species, 
 than were those which the Egyptians embalmed forty or 
 fifty centuries ago. But if this is to be reckoned nothing, 
 how with the geological ages? Are there any cases of 
 transmutation registered in the rocks ? Not one has been 
 found. Why not, if the truth be as Mr. Darwin sup- 
 poses ? Because the record, he answers, is too imperfect. 
 This is the case in few words, (p. 246 :) ''Geology assuredly 
 does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain ; 
 and this is, perhaps, the most obvious and gravest ob- 
 jection which can be urged against my theory. The 
 explanation lies, I believe, in the extreme imperfection of 
 the geological record." 
 
 22* 
 
258 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Here, then, the whole inquiry loses itself in unrelieved 
 darkness, through which there is no groping, save boldly 
 by guess. 
 
 Nor is it otherwise with "the allied and even graver 
 difficulty," (p. 268,) "the sudden appearance in the lowest 
 known fossiliferous rocks of numerous species." The sup- 
 position is ventured, that the dawn of life was inconceivably 
 earlier, and that "during vast ages preceding the Silurian, 
 the world swarmed with living creatures." But to the 
 question, why we do not find records of those immense 
 primordial periods? the confession is returned, "I can 
 give no satisfactory answer. . . . The case at present must 
 remain inexplicable. ... To show that it may hereafter 
 receive some explanation, I will give the following hypo- 
 thesis." And the possible or conceivable is again ex- 
 plored. 
 
 Such is the scheme. Theory built upon supposition, 
 inference supported by hypothesis, till a structure is 
 devised that shall obliterate moral responsibility, destroy 
 all the more elevated sentiments of humanity, and convert 
 the world into a great menagerie, subject only to laws of 
 life. Dr. Johnson's severe but just censure of speculation 
 thus conducted may well be here brought to mind. "He 
 who will determine against that which he knows, because 
 there may be something which he knows not he that 
 can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged 
 certainty is not to be admitted among reasonable 
 beings." 
 
 Palaeontology, however, and geology are not the only 
 

 THE AGE OF MANKIND. 259 
 
 sciences which afford information on the question before 
 us. There is also a registry derived from the heavens, 
 which may aid us toward some approximate solution of 
 our problem. Astronomy furnishes, at least indirectly, 
 one standard by which, generally, if not definitely, to 
 measure the probable age of mankind. 
 
 Laplace tells us, in his "Systeme du Monde," that "the 
 Chinese are, of all people, those whose annals offer the 
 most ancient observations which we can employ in astron- 
 omy. The first eclipses which they mention can serve 
 only for chronology, on account of the vague manner in 
 which they are described. But those eclipses show that at 
 the epoch of the Emperor Tao, some two thousand years 
 before our era, astronomy was thus cultivated in China as 
 the basis of religious ceremonies. The first useful Chinese 
 observations belong to about eleven hundred years before 
 our era." 
 
 "The earliest Chaldean observations transmitted are 
 eclipses of the moon, observed at Babylon, 7 19-20 before 
 our era." 
 
 " We have very few authentic documents relating to the 
 astronomy of the Egyptians. . . . The astronomers of Alex- 
 andria were forced to recur to Chaldean observations, 
 though some time previously Thales, Pythagoras, etc. had 
 been attracted to Egypt by the reputation of its priests for 
 astronomical and other knowledge." 
 
 "The Indian tables suppose an astronomy considerably 
 advanced, but everything leads us to suppose they are not 
 of such high antiquity. The impossibilty of the general 
 
200 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 conjunction which they require, proves that they have been 
 constructed in modern times." 
 
 AVith these declarations of a philosopher of the past 
 age, whose position in his department remains without ap- 
 proach to any claim of rivalry, may be associated a state- 
 ment recently attributed to a gentleman of our country 
 who has won for himself a distinguished name among exist- 
 ing practical astronomers. The papers have just announced, 
 as lately affirmed by Professor Mitchell, in one of his lec- 
 tures : " He had not long since met, in the City of St. Louis, 
 a man of great scientific attainments, who, for forty years 
 had been engaged in Egypt in deciphering the hieroglyphics 
 of the ancients. This gentleman had stated to him that he 
 had lately unraveled the inscriptions upon the coffin of a 
 mummy now in the London museum, and that in them, by 
 the aid of previous observations, he had discovered the key 
 to all the astronomical knowledge of the Egyptians. The 
 zodiac, with the exact position of the planets, was de- 
 lineated on this coffin, and the date to which they pointed 
 was the autumnal equinox in the year IT 22 before Christ, 
 or nearly thirty-six hundred years ago. Professor Mitchell 
 employed his assistants to ascertain the exact positions of 
 the heavenly bodies belonging to our solar system on the 
 equinox of that year, (1722 B.C.;) and to his astonish- 
 ment, on comparing the result with the statement of his 
 scientific friend, already referred to, it was found that on 
 the 7th October, 1722 B.C., the moon and planets had 
 occupied the exact points in the heavens marked upon the 
 coffin in the London museum." 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 261 
 
 This, if reliable, both confirms Laplace's allusion to early 
 astronomical attainments in Egypt, defective as they were 
 in a later age, and shows a striking correspondence between 
 the times of the earliest known observations there and in 
 China. 
 
 If to these statements be added the significant fact, that, 
 since the unknown age when our signs of the zodiac, and the 
 constellations with which they then corresponded, received 
 the names they bear, the retrograde motion of the equi- 
 noctial points upon the ecliptic, which is at the rate of 
 about an entire circuit in twenty-five thousand years, has 
 caused a recession of the signs from their constellations of 
 only about thirty degrees, answering to a period of a little 
 over two thousand years, the evidence is conclusive that 
 astronomical records are of very limited antiquity. 
 
 The bearing of this conclusion upon our immediate 
 inquiry is obvious. It is not to be believed that the mag- 
 nificent spectacle of the heavens, so peculiarly resplendent 
 over the plains of Chaldea, Egypt, and India, could long 
 have remained without special notice by human creatures. 
 The ever-varying and impressive phenomena exhibited in 
 those serene skies must have attracted the attention of 
 rational beings within a moderate age after their establish- 
 ment in countries so situated. Nor is it much more likely 
 that observation, once begun, could have proceeded for any 
 protracted period, without some effort, however rude, to- 
 ward registering the result for subsequent use. Such efforts, 
 again, could scarcely fail, in a moderate series of genera- 
 tions, to exhibit defects in the methods employed, and sug- 
 
262 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 gest improvements, which should issue in a system capable 
 of being transmitted to after-ages. The age, therefore, at 
 which astronomical records begin to be thus transmitted is 
 no insignificant index of the age at which the people, 
 handing them down, became established. And the general 
 agreement of that record-age, among the widely separated 
 nations mentioned by Laplace, seems not a little to favor 
 this conclusion. It is, undoubtedly, a fact of some im- 
 portant meaning, that the early astronomical notices, 
 handed down in China and Babylon should be dated 
 within about four centuries of each other; and that those 
 transmitted in the venerable chronicles of India should be 
 found, when adequately sifted, to correspond, perhaps, as 
 nearly wiih such as have been preserved among the mys- 
 terious monuments of the Nile. 
 
 Xot to make this era of astronomical records an ap- 
 proximate measure for the whole past term of human 
 existence, to suppose that men could have looked upon the 
 skies for hundreds of centuries, without having curiosity 
 quickened into observation, and observation preserved in 
 records, would imply a degree of intelligence in primitive 
 man scarcely above that of the very brutes. Indeed, a 
 process of development is involved in the supposition, 
 which agrees only with the exploded speculations of La- 
 marck, and the " Vestiges of Creation ;" or with the scarcely 
 less anti-inductive as well as morally destructive theory of 
 Mr. Darwin. 
 
 That all reliable tradition accords with the positive in- 
 dications thus gathered from two leading departments of 
 

 THE AGE OF MANKIND. 263 
 
 science, is an additional circumstance entitled to its own 
 weight. The Bible excepted, there is not, as every reader 
 knows, a written history in the world reaching back three 
 thousand years. Nor does the creative genius of Homer, 
 from his distant position, venture to deal with events beyond 
 that term. The oldest inscription ascertained by Layard, 
 Hincks, and Rawlinson, at Nineveh, ascends only to 1250 
 before Christ ; and Manetho himself, with all his extrava- 
 gances, does not pretend to claim for the Egyptian empire 
 an origin earlier than about 3570 years before Alexander. 
 Still considerably less than six thousand years before our 
 time. 
 
 The moderate human period thus concurrently indicated 
 by geology, astronomy, and history, derives additional con- 
 firmation from the known course of development of the 
 leading nations, within the historical period, in numbers, 
 intelligence, and social culture. No unprejudiced mind, 
 clearly discerning that general progress during one or two 
 thousand years, can readily be persuaded that the ancestors 
 of these branches of the human family could have lain in 
 darkness, feebleness, and stagnation, for uncounted antece- 
 dent ages. 
 
 Nor, in this view, apart from any question of Scripture 
 chronology, and even supposing his free interpretation of 
 its earlier data admissible, does Biinsen's inference, (vol. iv. 
 p. 12, etc.) from what he considers indications contained 
 in the development of language, seem at all satisfactory, 
 that "about ten millenia before our era are demanded for 
 
264 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 the Xoachian period, and for the beginning of our race 
 another ten thousand years." 
 
 The conclusion reached in these several ways is, however, 
 but a general one. A few decades of centuries are indi- 
 cated as summing the generations since man appeared 
 upon earth ; but specifically how many, is not even sug- 
 gested. There is no token in the skies or the earth, none 
 in legendary or monumental lore, that points decisively to 
 the birthday of our race. No guidance but that of Scrip- 
 ture can conduct us to the dawn of time, as related to our- 
 selves. Turn we now, therefore, to the sacred books, to 
 learn what they teach as to the entire age of our species. 
 
 To those who have given no special attention to the 
 early chronology of the Bible, it may seem an easy task to 
 obtain from them a solution of our problem. But further 
 examination will soon satisfy them that there are perplex- 
 ities in the case, they had not supposed : real difficulties, 
 which have long exercised the genius and learning of Chris- 
 tendom, and which can scarcely yet, if they ever may, be 
 satisfactorily solved. 
 
 It is in reference to some of these difficulties that we iu- 
 troduce the researches of Biinsen and Lepsius. Not that 
 their views or conclusions seem to us altogether unobjec- 
 tionable, but because their works on the subject are the 
 most recent and able known to us; because they bring 
 criticism to bear upon the questions at issue, in its scien- 
 tific rather than its theological aspects; because they 
 furnish from the old registries of Egypt some tests, for the 
 time-measures of the Bible, not heretofore accessible ; and 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 265 
 
 because they have conducted their investigations in a spirit 
 of reverence as well as of freedom. "With reverence and 
 freedom must science be pursued," says Lepsius, in dedi- 
 cating to Biinsen his "Chronology of the Egyptians." 
 "Reverence for everything that is venerable, sacred, noble, 
 great, and approved ; freedom, wherever truth and a con- 
 viction of it are to be obtained and expressed. Where 
 the latter is wanting, there fear and hypocrisy will exist ; 
 where the former, insolence and presumption will luxuriate 
 in science as in life." 
 
 In justice to the subject as well as to them, we must 
 permit these eminent men to present somewhat in detail 
 their own views. 
 
 "There is, probably," says Biinsen, (Egypt's Place in 
 Universal History, vol. ii. p. 160,) "no subject upon 
 which, during these two thousand years, so much talent and 
 learning have been expended, by the most intellectual 
 nations of the earth, Greeks and Byzantines, Romans, 
 Germans, and their kindred races, as upon the solution 
 of the several chronological questions connected with 
 Egyptian and Jewish history." And this he explains by a 
 most important remark, which may suggest instructive 
 reflections concerning the providential purpose of the ex- 
 isting form of Scripture history. Human culture has been 
 incalculably promoted by the investigation of great issues 
 involved in the structure of biblical narrative. And to 
 stimulate intellectual enterprise in such directions was, 
 doubtless, part of the purpose for which difficulties were 
 permitted to enter as incidental elements of the sacred 
 23 
 
266 SCIENCE A "WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 record. "We must not forget," continues Biinsen, "that 
 to the progress of enlightened culture at every period of 
 Christianity, and its effectual resistance to the opposing 
 influence of barbarism, a far deeper and more comprehen- 
 sive range of critical research is indispensable than was 
 required at any period of the ancient world. This neces- 
 sity arises not only from the more advanced state of uni- 
 versal history, but more especially from the fact, that the 
 research of every Christian period must come to a previous 
 understanding with a tradition, which, in itself essentially 
 historical, is also of standard importance in universal his- 
 tory. We must therefore endeavor, by comparing sacred 
 with profane history, on the one hand, and with the laws 
 of reason on the other, to find a common basis for recon- 
 ciling its principles of truth with the world and with 
 science. It was this consideration which first opened to 
 Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine, the 
 philosophy of history, with more enlarged views of general 
 chronology." 
 
 Then, in order to justify himself, under the acknowledged 
 difficulties with which the items of Scripture chronology are 
 invested, by certain disagreeing numbers in the Hebrew, 
 Samaritan, and Septuagint texts, by the many various 
 readings of ancient manuscripts in regard to numerals, 
 and by the apparent conflict between such enumerations as 
 those of 1 Kings, vi. 1, which makes the fourth year of 
 Solomon only four hundred and eighty years after the 
 Exodus, and Acts, xiii. 20, which assigns four hundred and 
 fifty years to the Judges alone up to Samuel, for thor- 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 26f 
 
 onglily examining the subject, "in a spirit of reverence as 
 well as of liberty," the learned critic thus proceeds: 
 
 "Whoever adopts as a principle that chronology is a 
 matter of revelation, is precluded from giving effect to any 
 doubt that may cross his path, as involving a virtual 
 abandonment of his faith in revelation. He must be pre- 
 pared not only to deny the existence of contradictory 
 statements, but to fill up chasms; however irreconcilable 
 the former may appear, by the aid of philology and his- 
 tory, however unfathomable the latter. He who, on the 
 other hand, neither believes in a historical tradition as to 
 the immortal existence of man, nor admits a historical 
 and chronological element in revelation, will either con- 
 temptuously dismiss the inquiry, or, by prematurely reject- 
 ing its more difficult elements, fail to discover those threads 
 of the research which lie beneath the unsightly and time- 
 worn surface, and which yet may prove the thread of 
 Ariadne." 
 
 " The ground taken up in this work is one of exclusively 
 historical research, but entered upon with a deep feeling 
 of the respect due to the general chronological statements 
 of Scripture, which have been considered, during so many 
 centuries, as forming the groundwork of religious faith, 
 and are even at the present moment intimately connected 
 with the Christian faith. It will, therefore, still remain 
 our safest method, starting from the assumption that the 
 centre of revelation is of a historical character, to admit 
 as established the truth of all facts in the civil history of 
 the Jews, however remotely they may be connected with 
 
268 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 revealed religious truths, until the contrary has been 
 demonstrated. But historical science neither can, nor will, 
 in any such case, permit the exclusion or obstruction of 
 critical research." 
 
 Pursuing, therefore, such research, Biinsen finds that 
 from the dedication of Solomon's temple, "all the Scrip- 
 ture data accord in the most satisfactory manner with the 
 traditions and contemporary monuments of Egypt." But, 
 "beyond the building of the temple the continuous narrative 
 of Scripture ceases, and consequently here also ceases the 
 up to this point reasonable harmony in the chronological 
 system of the critics. And we have two great periods to 
 pass through, in which the Jewish and Egyptian chro- 
 nology must be compared ; and the pivots of these two 
 periods are nothing less than the pivots of the history of 
 Egypt, and perhaps of the world." These two periods 
 are from Solomon to Moses, and from Moses to Abraham. 
 With regard to them he examines minutely Judges, Gen- 
 esis, and other sacred books, arriving at last at this con- 
 clusion: "Xo systematic chronological tradition was in 
 existence for the times prior to Solomon, and that the 
 general sums total met with in 1 Kings, vi. 1, etc., must 
 be considered as matters of adjustment and not of tra- 
 dition." 
 
 By applying similar processes to still more remote times 
 in the biblical narrative, the erudite Chevalier adjusts them 
 to the extended periods indicated by Manetho and the 
 Egyptian monuments. 
 
 Upon certain of these points we presently shall have 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 
 
 269 
 
 something to say. First, however, the other accomplished 
 Prussian must be permitted to speak for himself. 
 
 In full agreement with Biinsen, he is, after careful ex- 
 amination, satisfied that Manetho and the Egyptian monu- 
 ments are to be credited for the existence of an Egyptian 
 monarchy, as far back as 3893 years B.C. Notwithstanding 
 that the estimate of Archbishop Usher, founded chiefly on 
 an arrangement of the Masoretic Hebrew numbers, allows 
 only 2348 years B.C. for the time of the deluge, and the 
 calculation of Dr. Jackson, based on an adjustment of the 
 figures of the Septuagint, admits but 3160 years, and a 
 recent computation by Dr. Seyffarth, (Summary of Recent 
 Discoveries in Biblical Chronology, etc., 1859, S. E. 
 Quarterly Review, April, I860,) based upon a different 
 adjustment of the Septuagint, and upon certain alleged 
 astronomical data, assigns at furthest not more than 344t 
 years B.C., as the date of that event. This obvious con- 
 flict between the Egyptian age, which he finds substan- 
 tiated, and the three disagreeing post-diluvian ages pro- 
 fessedly derived from inspired authority, Lepsius endeav- 
 ors to search out and explain, in his own spirit of min- 
 gled "reverence and freedom." And of his effort to this 
 end he thus speaks, ("Chronology of the Egyptians:" 
 Dedication.) 
 
 "The section of my volume which endeavors to establish 
 the relation of the Egyptian to the old Hebrew chronology 
 will meet with most opposition. Considering the intimate 
 connection that necessarily subsists between the philological 
 and dogmatical methods of examining the sacred records, 
 
 23* 
 
270 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 it is perfectly natural that whenever a step in advance, or 
 an error, strives to obtain a place on the philological side, 
 theological interest, so much more universally distributed, 
 takes a part either for or against it. Whoever would dis- 
 pute its right to do this, must deny to theology in general 
 its character as a science. The Christianity w r hich derives 
 its origin and its sustenance from the Bible is essentially 
 and intrinsically wholly independent of all learned con- 
 firmation. Still, it is the duty of theology, whose task it 
 is to fathom Christianity in a rational manner, and prove 
 its results, to decide scientifically what are the essential 
 points in the Holy Scriptures on which it founds its system 
 of Christian belief. Should its true supports not be recog- 
 nized, but imaginary ones placed in their stead, it w r ill not 
 injure Christianity, but the theological system, or that por- 
 tion of it which was built on unstable ground. That truth 
 which is discerned by the sound progress of any science 
 whatever cannot be hostile to Christian truth, but must 
 promote it ; for all truths, from the very beginning, have 
 formed a compact league against everything that is false 
 and erroneous. Theology, however, possesses no other 
 means than every other science to distinguish scientifically, 
 in any department, between truth and error, namel}', only a 
 reasonable and circumspect criticism. "Whatever is brought 
 forward, according to this method, can only be corrected 
 or entirely refuted by a still better and more circumspect 
 criticism. It seems to me also that the practical, religious 
 meaning which the Old Testament possesses for every Chris- 
 tian reader is very independent of the dates of periods, 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 271 
 
 the exact knowledge of which could only have been im- 
 parted by means of a purposeless inspiration to the authors 
 and elaborators of those writings, many of whom lived sev- 
 eral centuries later." 
 
 Noting, then, the conflict between the 430 years of 
 Exodus, xii. 40, as the time of Israel's sojourn in Egypt, 
 (the 70 interpolate, "and Canaan,") and the 430 of Gal- 
 atians, iii. 17, as the interval between the Abrahamic Cove- 
 nant and the Law, and the discrepancy, already mentioned, 
 between the 450 years of Acts, xiii. 20, and the 480 of 1 
 Kings, vi. 1, and the disagreement again of these with the 
 sum of the individual numbers in Judges, and observing 
 that the 430 is just double the period (215) from Abraham 
 to Jacob, and the 480 equivalent to 12 generations of 
 40 years each, Lepsius supposes that there may be in 
 these instances " a play of numbers involving some higher 
 providential meaning," or that "this external garb of 
 numbers is to be regarded as unessential for the religious." 
 
 "On the other hand," he adds, "I have clung to the 
 Levitical registers of generations as a far more certain 
 guide ; and thus, in place of a chronological fabric which 
 had been already long considered untenable, I immediately 
 obtained a true historical foundation, and a chronology 
 bordering, at least, on a perfectly reliable one, as far back 
 as Abraham, and this not only coincided with all the other 
 historical relations in the writings of the Old Testament, 
 but also with the already established Manethonic-Egyptian 
 computation of time. . . . And this is no slight satisfaction 
 
272 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 to me, as affording one more guarantee of the genuineness 
 of the Egyptian chronology." 
 
 - . . . " I do not believe that a sound critical examina- 
 tion can consider so many and such universal agreements 
 and confirmations to be accidental, or the result of an 
 artificial correction . . . We therefore believe, that by a 
 new path, namely, the Manethonic chronology, we have 
 found the key to the relative portions of time in the Old 
 Testament so far as these are connected with Egypt ; and 
 in an inverse manner we may now consider the agreement 
 that subsists between the chronology of the Hebrew his- 
 tory both the true chronology, represented in the geneal- 
 ogies, and the false one, which was afterwards erroneously 
 adopted and the Egyptian numbers, to be indeed strongly 
 confirmatory of the authenticity of these last, as they ap- 
 pear according to our restoration of them." 
 
 "It is very evident that our carrying back the Old Testa- 
 ment chronology to its natural relations, as far back as 
 Abraham, must be not merely of chronological, but of 
 truly historical importance in the highest meaning of the 
 term. ... It cannot be denied that the agreement we have 
 pointed out between the true chronological thread, as it 
 is represented to us by the genealogies, and the Egyptian 
 history, as well as the confirmation of so many notices 
 respecting Egypt, from the time of Moses and Joseph, 
 establishes a far greater historical character for the Hebrew 
 accounts, as far back as Abraham, than would have ever 
 been allowed them by a strict criticism, had we been obliged 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 213 
 
 to ascribe to the old authorities themselves the numbers 
 which were inserted at a later age." 
 
 The reader will, no doubt, share with us the gratification 
 of finding this accomplished man a witness so unimpeach- 
 able at the last for the historical truthfulness of the Mosaic 
 books, and not only rendering his rare acquisitions tributary 
 to the general support of ancient Scripture, but, whatever 
 corrections he feels called on to make in certain conflicting 
 numerals, actually deriving from the Hebrew genealogies 
 the very best tests of his own monumental restorations. 
 
 Nor is the remark here out of place, how surely all 
 thorough research is found in the end to corroborate the 
 Bible on the whole. Difficulties may indeed be exhibited 
 in a clearer light, and errors made more manifest, which 
 have, in some way, during the progress of ages, found 
 place in the documentary vehicles of revelation, but the 
 reality of the truth itself, and the general accuracy of its 
 accompanying narrative, never fail to be in the end more 
 and more signally established. Strikingly is this exem- 
 plified in the case before us. Lepsius, as a later and more 
 advanced explorer of the monuments and their associated 
 questions than Biinsen, has not only verified the Scripture 
 history up to the time of Solomon, but has satisfactorily 
 traced its chronology up to Abraham. He has discovered, 
 it is true, that certain numbers, heretofore relied upon as 
 pertaining to the inspired history, must have some other 
 than a chronological meaning, or must be regarded as in- 
 cidental errors, through imperfection in the channels by 
 which revelation is transmitted from age to age ; but after 
 
214* SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 thus eliminating the error, he finds the narrative not only 
 trustworthy, but standard truth. Such researches, free, 
 full, and withal reverential, are of incalculable value. They 
 interfere sometimes, indeed, with favorite yet erroneous 
 ideas, by furnishing means for a truer comprehension of the 
 elements of Scripture ; but they never contradict its actual 
 utterances. So far otherwise, they always expand and 
 harmonize them. Just, then, as the structure of the sacred 
 narrative respecting the physical world, though adapted 
 not to scientific but to ordinary intelligence, according to 
 the common appearances of things, has been ascertained 
 fairly and marvelously to admit, and to be, on the whole, 
 illustrated and confirmed by the grand discoveries of 
 astronomy, geology, etc., a fact of itself well-nigh con- 
 clusive respecting the superhuman character of such nar- 
 rative, since no other ancient cosmology can, and none other 
 merely human could, face modern science without absolute 
 and irreconcilable contradictions, even so do the fullest 
 results of Egyptian research and the latest developments 
 of universal history fall in with, illustrate, and more con- 
 vincingly display the general fidelity of even minute 
 Scripture history. 
 
 Gladly, however, as we pause to notice another trium- 
 phant vindication of the sacred oracles, in the coincidences 
 brought to light by Lepsius, we must now proceed with 
 our inquiry into the Scripture record of ancient times. 
 And to do so satisfactorily we have to look a little into 
 the diverse periods assigned by the Hebrew, Samaritan, 
 and Septuagint texts, to the pre-Abrahamic Patriarchs, 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. "215 
 
 before the births of their eldest sons ; periods which con- 
 stitute the only Scripture basis for any chronological 
 estimate of the era of the deluge, or of the creation of 
 man. 
 
 On the questions connected with these, which have for 
 two thousand years called forth, on opposite sides, all the 
 resources of genius and learning, any dogmatism is im- 
 pertinent folly. We can only say that after due care Jbe- 
 stowed upon the inquiries of Usher, Jackson, Hales, and 
 others, and patient investigation for ourselves, we are satis- 
 fied to adopt the Hebrew numbers, as least likely to have been 
 systematically changed, though Dr. Seyffarth and others as- 
 sign this very reason for preferring the Septuagint. Nor are 
 we disturbed, as there is no good reason why we should be, 
 by the fact that such variations occur in unessential elements 
 of the documents of revelation, as if the credit to which those 
 documents are entitled, because of their inspired character, 
 were thereby impaired. That a very special guardianship 
 of Divine Providence has been, is, and ever will be, ex- 
 tended over the inspired books, to preserve them from all 
 ruinous, or even serious corruption, we have abundant 
 reason to believe ; but that such guardianship is conducted 
 through human vigilance, we also know, and that as to 
 visible modes of preservation and transmission, the sacred 
 records have been left subject to some, at least, of the 
 vicissitudes incident to human infirmity. No other mode, 
 indeed, of conveying a revelation to all parts of the world 
 and all generations of men could, so far as we know, be 
 adopted, without interfering with the conditions of a moral 
 
276* SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 probation. Such limited contingency, however, on the oue 
 hand, and such presiding care on the other, are at once 
 consistent with the undisturbed relations of human respons- 
 ibility, and with the absolute integrity of all that is essen- 
 tial in revealed truth. 
 
 This consideration is particularly applicable to the whole 
 system of numbers found in the Bible. While they con- 
 stitute no essential part of revealed truth, but stand only 
 as adjuncts incidentally associated with it, they are, of all 
 forms of idea or expression, least likely to remain unvaried 
 in frequent quotations and transcriptions. And especially 
 was this the case when figures had not come into use, and 
 the ordinary alphabetical signs had to be employed as 
 numerals. No one can glance at a Hebrew or Greek 
 alphabet, without remarking how minute a change would 
 substitute one letter for another, and how 'very liable 
 ancient transcribers must have been to omit or introduce 
 some dash or point, thereby occasioning an unobserved 
 numerical disagreement, which might afterwards have a 
 serious aspect. By so simple and obvious a reflection 
 much of the perplexity is removed, which otherwise at- 
 taches to the diversities between the old texts, and to the 
 apparent discrepancies in the same text. 
 
 But this is not all that may be justly said respecting 
 such instances of seemingly erroneous numerations as those 
 dwelt upon by our critics. And we think it well to add a 
 suggestion or two concerning these, before examining the 
 period anterior to Abraham. 
 
 The distinct mention of 480 years, 1 Kings, vi. 1, (sup- 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 277 
 
 posing no mistake,) to Solomon's temple, '"'after the chil- 
 dren of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt," we 
 cannot regard with Lepsius as merely intended in some 
 symbolical sense. Nor can we see, as Bunsen seems to do, 
 though he rather admits the 480 years to be historical, that 
 there is any necessary conflict between that period and the 
 430 years of St. Paul. (Acts, xiii. 20.) The Apostle evi- 
 dently embraces the whole period from Moses to David in 
 a general and not exact enumeration, describing it as 
 "about the space" of so many years; whereas the be- 
 ginning of the time specified 1 Kings, vi. 1, may have been 
 reckoned from some date unknown to us, considered as 
 marking the establishment of the Israelites in Palestine, 
 that being only the completion of their removal from 
 Egypt. Again, in regard to the 400 years affliction, 
 Genesis, xv. 13 ; the 430 years sojourn in Egypt, Exodus, 
 xii. 40; the 400 years evil, Acts, vii. 6; and the 430 
 years, from the Abrahamic Covenant to the Law, Gal. iii. 
 17, the discrepancies may very well be only apparent. 
 The prophecy in Genesis is manifestly only in general 
 terms, and it is strictly quoted in Acts ; while the state- 
 ment in Exodus may, according to the form given it by the 
 70, be understood as embracing the whole time from 
 Abraham. And as St. Paul's argument in Galatians de- 
 pends not at all on any particular number, he may speak 
 only hypothetically of some computation then commonly 
 received from the Septuagint. Nor are the statements 
 respecting that period invalidated by the circumstance, 
 remarkable as it is, that the interval between Abraham's 
 
 24 
 
278 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 arrival in Canaan and Jacob's going down into Egypt is 
 found, by adding the several ages which compose it, to be 
 exactly half of the 430 years of Exodus xii. and Gal. iii. 
 The coincidence must, no doubt, quicken the eye of criti- 
 cism, but the correspondence is not therefore unreal. 
 
 But whatever else may be said of these cases, they do 
 certainly seem to render this much clear, that the Scrip- 
 tures, as they have reached us, do not furnish a positive 
 systematic chronology for the periods between Solomon 
 and Moses, and Moses and Abraham, though they do, 
 as certainly, afford approximate data the most reliable for 
 a general estimate of that entire interval. Central history 
 is given, with a margin for adjustment in details. 
 
 And this, there is reason to infer, is still more remark- 
 ably the case with the brief scriptural sketch of the pre- 
 Abrahamic ages. Circumstances connected with the trans- 
 mitted genealogies of those ages, the analogies of other 
 genealogical registers given in the Bible, and the general 
 Eastern custom in such matters, afford at least room for 
 the supposition, that all the individuals who existed in the 
 series are not mentioned in the record. If this principle 
 of interpretation be admitted, the era of the deluge may 
 readily be removed backward to suit the old Egyptian 
 chronology, believed by Biinsen and Lepsius to be sub- 
 stantiated, or to meet any other fairly established claim of 
 history. Indeed, on this supposition the epoch of man's 
 creation has no specific determination in the Scriptures. 
 If so, our ordinary estimates, "Anno mundi," are not ab- 
 solute measures, from the starting-point on the track of 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 279 
 
 time, but merely convenient relative indexes, like highway 
 mile-posts, marked from no known beginning. We may 
 count them as we travel, and note how we progress, but 
 they tell us not how far back lies the unknown origin of 
 the route. 
 
 Respecting the opening for such interpretation, we ob- 
 serve that the 70 introduce a Cainan between Arphaxad 
 and Sala in Genesis, x. 24, though on what authority we 
 do not know, as no mention of him is made in our Hebrew 
 copies of Genesis, x., and the 70 do not repeat his name 
 in their register, 1 Chronicles, i. IT. Yet St. Luke in- 
 cludes him in the family succession from Noah to Abraham, 
 recorded in the third chapter of his gospel. This record 
 must of course be admitted as of highest authority, under 
 the safest view of New Testament inspiration. One name 
 was, it must then be admitted, passed over in the Hebrew 
 registers of Abraham's ancestors, and in the Septuagiiit 
 lists, except in a single instance. That other names may 
 not have been similarly omitted can hardly be made out; 
 for, although the Evangelist found reason to restore this 
 individual to his place between Sala and Arphaxad, it by 
 no means follows that he must necessarily have been in- 
 structed to restore every other name that might have been 
 omitted in the original patriarchal family tables. The 
 reality of succession, which, apparently, he chiefly intended 
 to convey, is the same, whether reckoned from father to 
 son, or from grandfather to grandson, or great-grandson. 
 This we see exemplified in the line of priests, 1 Kings, iv. 
 2, and 1 Chronicles, vi. 8, 9. In the one case "Azariah, 
 
280 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 the son of Zaclock the priest/' is designated ; in the other, 
 the form of record is, "Zadock begat Ahiinaaz, and 
 Ahiraaaz begat Azariah," making Azariah not strictly the 
 son, but the grandson of Zadock. Similar instances occur 
 in other places. In fact, as Layard states in his last 
 volume, chap, xxvi., "The term 'son of appears to have 
 been used throughout the East in those days, (the early 
 Nineveh period,) as it still is, to denote connection gen- 
 erally." Consecutive names, therefore, are not necessarily 
 given in the genealogical tables. Indeed, some singular 
 examples of apparent omissions in such tables force them- 
 selves upon attention. For example, 1 Chronicles, vi. 1-4, 
 gives only six generations from Levi to his descendant 
 Phineas ; whereas in chapter vii. of the same book, verses 
 23-27, eleven generations are given from Joseph, who was 
 contemporary with Levi, to his descendant Joshua, who was 
 contemporary with Phineas. 
 
 Gaps, then, may exist in the patriarchial lists nay, it 
 would even seem to be rendered probable by such consid- 
 erations, that they do exist. If so, those lists give no full 
 view of the series or its time, though they undoubtedly fur- 
 nish a general historical succession, as elevation beyond 
 elevation may unerringly mark for the traveler his distant 
 way, while no glimpse is gotten of interlying valleys. 
 
 There seems, therefore, no conclusive objection to the 
 idea suggested by Michaelis and adopted by the sagacious 
 Prichard, that generations have been omitted in the earlier 
 genealogies. On the contrary, this supposition appears, as 
 we have seen, to be sustained by the greater probability. 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 281 
 
 At any rate, it is sufficiently likely, to cast the gravest 
 doubt over the customary computation of the Adamic era. 
 Scripture itself, therefore, we conclude, does not specify 
 the number of centuries that have rolled over mankind. 
 Not even the venerable sacred history tells, with voice un- 
 mistakable, how far we now are from the dawn of human 
 time. No record, then, has handed down all the reckon- 
 ing from the first, and it has not pleased Him whose glance 
 embraces all time to supply the ancient omissions. Hence 
 we know not, we probably never shall know on earth, at 
 what age, before our day, this planet received 
 
 "A creature, who, not prone 
 And brute as other creatures, but endued 
 With sanctity of reason, might (erect 
 His stature, and upright with front serene,) 
 Govern the rest, self-knowing, . . . 
 And worship God supreme, who made him chief 
 Of all His works." . . . 
 
 We cannot even find with certainty the date of the later 
 day, when 
 
 "The voice that taught the deep his bounds to know, 
 *Thus far, oh sea! nor farther shalt thou go, 
 Sent forth the floods, commissioned to devour, 
 With boundless license and resistless power." 
 
 But though we think this conclusion fairly indicated by 
 a careful examination of the whole case, and are prepared 
 to recognize, as allowable, a considerably more extended 
 chronology than that in common use, we do not feel called 
 upon to admit that the Egyptian periods are so made out 
 as to require or even sanction a departure from the estab- 
 
 24* 
 
282 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 lished conventional reckoning. Biinsen and Lepsius are 
 indeed very confident concerning those periods, and they 
 havo had opportunities of investigation which we do not 
 pretend to have approximated. Yet we have carefully ex- 
 amined their researches, as well as those of Rossellini and 
 Wilkinson, and we cannot but see reason for still withhold- 
 ing a confident assent to their system. Dr. Seyffarth 
 gives also, we find, significant reasons for allowing to the 
 Egyptian empire only 2781 years B.C. We acknowledge 
 that Lepsius makes out a strong case, especially from the 
 agreement of his restorations with the extended Levitical 
 registers, and that as we accept this as a collateral testi- 
 mony in favor of the Bible history, so it bears forcibly in, 
 favor of his Pharaohnic ages, so far as the parallel goes. 
 That, however, is not very far. And for the rest, we can- 
 iiot but have misgivings. The very elaborate arguments 
 on the subject imply that the matter is far from being clear. 
 And it is obvious that, in the nature of the case, grave 
 doubts attach to the authorities on which, in part at least, 
 our learned friends rely. Manetho, the so-described Egyp- 
 tian priest, who is reported to have written in Greek, under 
 one of the Ptolemies, accounts of the ancient annals pre- 
 served in hieroglyphics on the monuments of the temples, 
 etc., is known only in fragments of his works handed down 
 by one or two authors of the succeeding centuries, and 
 chiefly conveyed to our time through Syncellus, a Byzan- 
 tine monk of about A.D. 800. And these fragments of 
 Manetho furnish the general guidance to Egyptologists, in 
 their endeavors to construct a connected chain, from the 
 
THE AGE OP MANKIND. 283 
 
 scattered links of information found within a few years on 
 the monuments. But, in the first place, if Manetho were 
 a genuine Egyptian author, a point seriously mooted by 
 Hengstenberg and others, he may not be correctly re- 
 ported; indeed, his advocates acknowledge that in some 
 cases he is not, In the next place, he may not have accu- 
 rately given the ancient records; and Biinsen contends 
 that there was a pseudo-Manetho, who perpetrated enor- 
 mous fictions. And, in the third place, it is no slight tax 
 on belief, that the makers of the monuments were alto- 
 gether truthful in their representations. Over and above 
 which considerations, is the further doubt unavoidably at- 
 taching to the interpretation of records still so imperfectly 
 comprehended as the Egyptian. 
 
 It may be, indeed, that the doubts raised by these con- 
 siderations would disappear, or greatly diminish, were our 
 acquaintance with the facts as full as that of Professor 
 Lepsius. But with the light we have, it is impossible for 
 us to receive, as established, the very high antiquity claimed 
 for the old Egyptian empire. At the same time, we have 
 great respect for the researches and conclusions of such 
 men as Lepsius, and are very far from being indisposed to 
 accept his results when satisfactorily established. Nay, we 
 are free to admit that the ancient term thus claimed for the 
 Egyptian polity seems to be rendered less improbable by 
 the evidence of a like remote past in the old Chinese 
 records and calendar. (See Williams's " Middle Kingdom," 
 vol. ii. p. 146.) There is, in our view, no necessary con- 
 flict between the remotest chronology that may be made 
 
284 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 out from Egypt, or any other quarter, and the Scriptures, 
 as they may be fairly interpreted. 
 
 Time and advancing knowledge will doubtless make 
 some things clear that are now obscure on these subjects; 
 and such elucidation we are content to await, with full con- 
 fidence in the everlasting verities of the blessed Bible, and 
 in the wonderful adaptedness of the inspired oracles to 
 whatever real discoveries may be made in any department 
 of human inquiry. 
 
 But although there be some indefiniteness in the old 
 time-records of the sacred books, they undoubtedly furnish 
 the only reliable data for approximating the past term of 
 our species. They may not supply the means by which we 
 can ascend, in regular course, the current of time, and 
 measure its entire length, but they place us on an eminence 
 whence one, and another, and another extended reach of 
 the mighty stream can be distinctly seen, and whence, not- 
 withstanding some meanderings which may be hidden from 
 view, a satisfactory general estimate may be formed of its 
 whole extent. The six thousand in use as the standard 
 expression for this measure may be within the fact by a 
 good many centuries, and yet it may be wholly unnecessary 
 to change the received mode of reckoning based on the 
 estimate that the human family is about six thousand years 
 old. 
 
 If, however, the inspired history does not specify our 
 exact age, it shows the birthday of mankind as an event 
 not only very recent, relatively, in the history of our planet, 
 but most conspicuous amid the wonders of which it has 
 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 285 
 
 been the scene. It takes us to a point not distant from 
 our passing day, where we look upon that miracle of crea- 
 tion, the first man. It bids us view the vast solitude of 
 nature all untenanted by a single creature that can think, 
 or speak, or love. The heavens are lit with glory, but 
 there is no eye to gaze delighted on their splendor. The 
 ocean rolls in power, but there is no ear to measure its ma- 
 jestic music. The fields groan with yellow grain and the 
 trees with golden fruits, but there is no hand to gather in 
 their treasures. The flowers bloom and beautify the world, 
 but there is no appreciative sense that catches their fra- 
 grance or that rejoices in their loveliness. The inspired 
 word then bids us look again : Eden is occupied by know- 
 ing, conversing, adoring creatures. The fiat has gone 
 forth, "Let us make man in our image;" the clay has 
 taken form and proportion unparalleled on earth; the Lord 
 has breathed thereinto the breath of life, and living souls, 
 amid priceless privileges, have entered upon their charge 
 and destiny. 
 
 As we look upon that miracle, the mighty issues it in- 
 volves come crowding on the sight. Sin, sorrow, death, in 
 ever-extending course, through all the ages. Forbearance, 
 mercy, grace, in long and wondrous exercise. Iniquity at 
 length subdued. A Saviour recognized in all lands. The 
 Father's kingdom come, and his will done on earth as in 
 heaven. Then the great consummation ! 
 
 In the presence of that ancient miracle, catching glimpses 
 of this new creation, faith may well kindle into glowing utter- 
 ance : 
 
286 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 "Oh scenes surpassing fable, and yet true! 
 Scenes of accomplished bliss, which who can see, 
 Though but in distant prospect, and not feel 
 His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?" 
 
 And however far in the future may be the realization of 
 this, or however unsustained, in reference to the past, the 
 old idea of a Sabbatical age, we may still anticipate the 
 day when, if not numerically, yet essentially, the sketch of 
 the sweet bard of Olney shall be more than realized : 
 
 "The time of rest, the promised Sabbath, comes. 
 Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh 
 Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course 
 Over a sinful .world; and what remains 
 Of this tempestuous state of human things 
 Is merely as the working of a sea 
 Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest." 
 
DISCUSSION Y. 
 
 THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 
 
 THAT extensive communities of men have, at various 
 periods, disappeared from the regions which they pre- 
 viously occupied, and given place to or become merged in 
 others of different characteristics, is a fact exhibited in 
 nearly every quarter of the globe, and every age of his- 
 tory. We have almost seen with our own eyes the waning 
 of Indian council-fires, the extinction of once powerful 
 aboriginal tribes, and the rise of the mightiest of civilized 
 nations, where, but as yesterday, the red man reared his 
 rude wigwam and fashioned his simple armor. Our an- 
 cestors of the imperial island had, at no very distant age, 
 experienced changes which, if less marked, were, on the 
 whole, scarcely less significant. The stern, inflexible Celt, 
 whom the genius of Caesar and the disciplined energy of 
 Rome failed at last to subdue, yielded, in time, to the 
 enterprising, dauntless, progressive Teuton ; and the more 
 than semi-barbarous Britain of Caractacus and Boadicea, 
 became the enlightened England of Alfred, of Wickliff'e, 
 and of Bacon. 
 
 But change, the reader need scarce be reminded, has not 
 always been improvement. On the contrary, in instances 
 not a few has civilization gone backward. Revolution has 
 resulted in disaster; and darkness has supervened where 
 
 (287) 
 
288 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR TH V . BIBLE. 
 
 the culture of ages had diffused no despicable light. Thus 
 was it when the iron empire of Romulus and Augustus, 
 enfeebled by long corrosions of vice, crumbled beneath the 
 assaults of undisciplined barbarians. And thus was it 
 when successive convulsions overwhelmed Babylon and 
 Thebes, Jerusalem and Athens, Antioch and Byzantium, 
 and resigned their ancient glories to be trampled in the 
 dust by the lawless Arab and the sensual Turk. 
 
 To describe these great alternations in society, not only 
 truthfully but with vividness, to trace them satisfactorily to 
 their causes, and so to exhibit the lessons they teach, as at 
 once to convince the judgment and move the heart, is the 
 appropriate office of history. And it is as they thus ex- 
 emplify the influences which determine man's weal or woe, 
 that the records of the past become no less instructive than 
 they are fascinating. 
 
 Our historical delineations are, however, very far from 
 embracing all the mighty vicissitudes which are otherwise 
 evidenced as having been experienced by mankind. The 
 Sacred Scriptures themselves, clear, comprehensive, satis- 
 factory as they are in regard to certain great leading facts 
 pertaining to humanity, deal mainly with but a single, and 
 that a comparatively obscure, people. Only in a way frag- 
 mentary and incidental, do they touch upon the concerns 
 of a few other nations, as they came in contact with the 
 race chosen to be the medium of heaven's communications 
 with our world. But restricted as are these notices, they 
 are all we have throughout a long series of primitive ages. 
 Profane history everywhere presents the phenomenon of 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 289 
 
 its own birth when the world's population was already 
 venerable with uncounted years. It everywhere found 
 tokens of antecedent changes, and monuments of races 
 whose career was shrouded in the mists of fable, while 
 their origin was lost in the depths of mystery. This phe- 
 nomenon, it is true, we can explain. It was the natural 
 result of a single practical deficiency among the nations, 
 during an indefinite period. Their failure to contrive the 
 elements of a written language, or to recover them where 
 they had been lost. During the period, whatever its ex- 
 tent, through which this great want prevailed, occurrences 
 could be transmitted 'only by oral tradition. But, as foot- 
 prints on the sand are obliterated by wind or wave, so is 
 truth lost that is committed only to tradition ; or it is 
 thoroughly corrupted by admixture with fictions of every 
 kind, as the crystal stream becomes defiled by confluence 
 with impure, turbid waters. Thus to explain, however, 
 the mystery which envelops the pre-historical ages and 
 non-historical races is not by any means to supply their 
 lost annals, nor find the links which connect them with 
 the known system of human development. And yet some- 
 thing of this kind may be done. There are means by 
 which thoughtful research may restore, and has restored, 
 more than a little of lost history. There are appliances 
 through which the resolute spirit of truth-seeking inquiry 
 may, as it were, summon back to reliable utterance many a 
 mouldered generation, and gather from lips long silent the 
 story of their times. These means are the monuments 
 which buried races of men have left behind them, in almost 
 
290 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR TIIE BIBLE. 
 
 every quarter of the globe. These appliances are extensive 
 critical examinations of those monuments, after the sure 
 method of inductive science. It is to a brief investigation 
 of this kind that attention is now invited. 
 
 The importance of the subject appears from one or two 
 plain considerations. In the first place, these monumental 
 relics of ancient races have been appealed to by the ad- 
 versaries of revelation as furnishing evidence in conflict 
 with the teachings of our holy books. But more ample 
 examination is here, as in other departments of inquiry, 
 showing that the sum total of testimony is greatly in favor 
 of the disclosures originally presented in the Bible. This 
 evidence it is certainly desirable to have presented in some 
 clear and condensed form. Ar,d in the next place, the at- 
 tentive contemplation of such memorials of the past is, 
 on many accounts, calculated to promote the high pur- 
 poses of rational culture. It enlarges the sphere of thought 
 and sympathy. It carries the mind back into ages where 
 it cannot but experience the double influence of the strange 
 and the ancient. It quickens interest in the common des- 
 tiny of the great brotherhood of mankind. And it stirs 
 generous emotions by placing the spectator in the very 
 midst of the struggles, the sufferings, and the achievements 
 of his long-forgotten brethren. It was under the expe- 
 rience of emotions of this kind, excited by the view of an 
 old ruin in the British Islands, that Dr. Johnson recorded 
 that utterance of wisdom, which is as strikingly beautiful 
 as it is emphatically just: "Whatever withdraws us from 
 the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 291 
 
 distant, or the future, predominate over the present, ad- 
 vances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me 
 and from my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may con- 
 duct us unmoved over any ground which has been dignified 
 by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be 
 envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the 
 plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
 among the ruins of lona." 
 
 Assured, then, that the theme is worthy of attention, we 
 proceed to its development. 
 
 Our plan is simple. We shall first survey, with as rapid 
 a glance as may consist with profit, specimens of the 
 monuments which decayed races have left in different parts 
 of the world ; endeavoring so to group them, that a bird's- 
 eye view may be gotten of their characteristics and rela- 
 tions. We shall then suggest the inferences they seem 
 clearly to warrant, and urge the conclusions they fairly 
 establish. 
 
 We begin with relics in our own country. These are, 
 undoubtedly, as we shall see, memorials of races akin, in 
 general character, to the red men who occupied the con- 
 tinent, at the time of its discovery, from Cape Horn to the 
 Arctic Circle. In glancing at these monuments, it is 
 proper to notice the prejudice which certain writers in- 
 terested in discrediting the great principle of human 
 brotherhood, have endeavored to attach to the red race. 
 They have been represented as creatures so low in the 
 scale of rational endowment, as to be entitled to the 
 epithet "cinnamon-colored vermin," etc. This is, assur- 
 
292 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 edly, an unamiable misrepresentation. The Indian is, in- 
 deed, under every variety, confessedly an example of the de- 
 grading effects of ignorance and want, and of the fixed- 
 ness, also, with which hereditary traits are stamped upon 
 communities, by influences habitually operating through 
 long ages. But he is very far from being the cipher or the 
 wretch, relationship with whom should be indignantly 
 scorned. He has often exhibited qualities of both mind 
 and character immensely above the average European 
 standard. De Witt Clinton, in his discourse before the 
 Xew York Historical Society, in 1811, did not overstate 
 the case, when he said of the Iroquois: "No part of 
 America contains a people which display the energies 
 of the human character in a more conspicuous manner, 
 whether in light or shade, in the exhibition of great vir- 
 tues or talents, or of great defects." The remark might 
 certainly be extended to other tribes. Who is not familiar 
 with the high endowments of the celebrated Pocahontas 
 her feminine tenderness her devoted fidelity? Who is 
 surprised that distinguished families claim it as an honor 
 that they inherit the blood of this Indian heroine ? Who 
 imagines that the proudest pedigree of the world has 
 anything to boast over the descendants of this noble char- 
 acter ? 
 
 The American aboriginal monuments are of various 
 kinds, and appear in every extensive region of the conti- 
 nent. They may be regarded as radiating from Mexico 
 and Central America, to the lowest point of the Old Em- 
 pire of the Incas, on the south ; and on the north, through- 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 293 
 
 out the whole extent of what is now the magnificent domain 
 of the United States. 
 
 Rather more than a hundred years ago, a party of 
 Spanish travelers, crossing the Mexican province of Chi- 
 apas, unexpectedly discovered, in an extensive forest, the 
 ruins of immense stone buildings, which covered an area 
 of many miles. The place had been previously unheard 
 of. Its name, with its people, had disappeared. From an 
 Indian village, however, not far distant, a name was bor- 
 rowed ; and the forgotten ruins have since been known as 
 the City of Palenque. 
 
 The extent and magnificence of these remains conclu- 
 sively prove that here must have stood, in some ancient 
 time, a great city the capital of a people, numerous, 
 powerful, and possessing more than a few appliances of 
 art. When the busy hum of life filled these halls; at 
 what date their dispossessed occupants, fleeing from ruth- 
 less invaders, looked for the last time upon the homes of 
 their fathers, or, awaiting attack, perished around their 
 hearths and altars, no record remains to tell. The old 
 stones themselves must be interrogated for the story. 
 
 It seems clear that the people who left behind them these 
 traces preceded the Aztecs, or Mexicans of Cortes' time. 
 This is evidenced not only by the vast accumulation of 
 earthy mould at the base of the ruins, and by the pro- 
 digious forest growth among them, but by the fact that 
 when the great Spanish conqueror passed within a few 
 leagues of this spot, nearly three and a half centuries ago, 
 he heard not a whisper of any such city, as then astir with 
 25* 
 
294: SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 an active population. It was, no doubt, at that day, as 
 now, a heap of mouldering ruins. These ruins, and others 
 like them in several parts of Central America, have been 
 repeatedly explored ; and the result is a historical restora- 
 tion, to some reliable extent, of the lost race which pre- 
 ceded that of Moutezuma's empire. That it was a kindred 
 race, is evident from the characteristic features of the 
 buildings. 
 
 The principal structure remaining among the ruins of 
 Paleuque stood on a great pyramidal mound of nearly 
 three hundred feet square, and forty feet high, faced with 
 stone. Upon this foundation rose the building, covering 
 a space of about two hundred feet square. The walls, of 
 massive stone laid in mortar, were carefully adjusted to the 
 points of the compass; and the entire front was stuccoed 
 and painted. On this stucco were represented human 
 figures, some of them colossal, in various and significant 
 attitudes, with hieroglyphics near, which, no doubt, origin- 
 ally explained their meaning. These figures, in facial 
 outline, resemble the Choctaw and Flathead Indians of our 
 own country. On the interior walls remain similar repre- 
 sentations, of which some are very striking; and gen- 
 erally, though disproportioned, they indicate considerable 
 conceptive power and mechanical skill in the artist. The 
 extensive floor of the building is of cement, as hard as 
 that seen in the remains of the best Roman baths and 
 cisterns. 
 
 In this region there exist also other monuments of a 
 most remarkable character : vast truncated pyramids, faced, 
 
THE MONUMENTS OP LOST RACES. 295 
 
 generally, with stone ; huge sculptured, monolithic altars ; 
 and obelisks, also of a single block, from five to seven feet 
 on the side, and twelve to thirty high, elaborately carved, 
 sometimes into colossal human figures, and sometimes orna- 
 mented with hieroglyphics and strange devices. Among 
 these ornamental carvings, Mr. Stephens was struck by 
 representations of the elephant's trunk ; and in one place 
 he discovered, near the base of an obelisk idol, a colossal 
 stone head of a crocodile. Neither of these creatures, it 
 will be remembered, belonged, at the age of the discovery, 
 to the American continent. 
 
 Around, all these works, that so strangely tell the tale 
 of other days and an ancient race, the deepest silence now 
 reigns. For generations giant forests have shed over them 
 the gloom of a shaded solitude; and, until a recent day, 
 man had lost the knowledge of their existence. 
 
 But although the voices which once echoed among them 
 be hushed, and the hands which wrought them have long 
 since crumbled into dust, there are witnesses yet surviving 
 to explain the meaning of these works. The very struc- 
 tures looked upon by Cortes and his veterans, in the heart 
 of the Mexican capital, were of the same type. The 
 pyramidal mound, the stuccoed and painted palace, the 
 sculptured idol and altar, and the hieroglyphic tablet, were 
 all there. The difference in detail indicates, indeed, another 
 hand, and a succeeding age. But the correspondence 
 proves kindred ideas and a common descent. 
 
 There is, however, stronger evidence "even than this. 
 On the way between Yera Cruz and the capital, not far 
 
 Of THT5 
 
296 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 from the modern City of Puebla, the traveler yet sees some 
 venerable piles, which mark the spot where stood the mighty 
 City of Cholula, the most imposing, perhaps, of the several 
 great capitals on the Mexican plateau, which were crowded 
 with inhabitants at the time of the Spanish conquest. This 
 populous and comparatively refined city, said by Cortes to 
 have contained twenty thousand houses within its walls, 
 and as many more in its environs, was admitted by the 
 Aztecs to be of high antiquity, and to have been founded 
 by the race which possessed the land before themselves. 
 The inhabitants of this town excelled in such arts as work- 
 ing in metals, manufacturing cotton and agave cloths, and 
 producing a delicate kind of pottery, said to have rivaled 
 in beauty that of Florence. But this capital, so con- 
 spicuous for its refinement, and its great antiquity, was 
 even more venerable as the centre of the old religion of the 
 country. There stood the vast temple dtdicated to the 
 "God of the air," (the reader who will take the trouble to 
 turn to Ephesians, ii. 2, will note a singular significance 
 in this designation,) with all its colossal paraphernalia of 
 symbolic sculpture and costly ornament the mightiest 
 mass, by far, ever erected by human hands on this con- 
 tinent, and scarcely surpassed in dimensions by any other 
 work of man upon the globe. Of this structure, the base 
 was an enormous truncated pyramid, whose sides faced 
 the cardinal points. These sides were much over a thou- 
 sand feet in length, and the height of the mound was 
 nearly two hundred feet. On the summit rose the walls 
 of the sumptuous temple, to whose shrine, venerated 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 297 
 
 throughout the land, pilgrims continually resorted from 
 the farthest recesses of the valley. The undying fires 
 which here shed a dreadful glare upon hecatombs of human 
 victims, in the time of the conquest, and flung their radiance 
 far and wide over the devoted region, may light us to the 
 reading of those other monuments of the primitive race at 
 Palenque, Uxmal, and Copan. And thus read, those 
 ruins reveal much that may be relied upon of that ancient 
 people. Room, indeed, is scarcely left for doubt, that 
 they belonged to the Toltec family, the almost historical 
 race, which is known to have preceded the Aztecs, in 
 taking possession of the Mexican plateau. An old 
 Mexican annalist, relied upon by Prescott, relates, from 
 interpretations derived from their monuments, and from 
 tradition, that this early race, the Toltecs, had come from 
 the north into the pleasant valley before the seventh 
 century of our era; that after several centuries they were 
 pressed upon by successive warlike tribes, which came, as 
 they had done, from the northwest; that under this pressure 
 they left many of their ancient homes, and migrated to 
 other lands, yielding the country to the occupancy of the 
 invaders; and that the Aztecs, as the last and most power- 
 ful of these, succeeded, about the middle of the fifteenth 
 century, in establishing that extensive empire which the 
 Spaniards, within the next hundred years, found so re- 
 markably consolidated under the sceptre of Montezuma. 
 
 In the southern section of the continent exist memorials 
 of the past, not less striking than are those at which we 
 have glanced. They are also, in some respects, like them. 
 
293 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR TILS BIBLE. 
 
 And the correspondence is sufficient to indicate a common 
 element in their origin : yet they so differ as to suggest a 
 separation of centuries in their development, even under 
 the moulding influence of that dominant family which gave 
 character to the great works of the Peruvian empire. The 
 traveler, especially in the central portions of the southern 
 table-land, still meets with ancient monuments, remains of 
 temples, palaces, fortresses, terraced mountains, great mili- 
 tary roads, and other public works, which, how unscientific 
 soever may be their execution, astonish him by their num- 
 ber, the massive character of their materials, and the gran- 
 deur of the design. Upon most of these, however, it is 
 not necessary for us here to dwell, because the Inca dynasty, 
 under whose presiding genius they were mainly contrived, 
 and the obedient multitudes by whom they were constructed, 
 were yet in possession of the country when Pizarro hurled 
 from their lofty seat the children of the sun, and crushed the 
 credulous race over whom they ruled. To only one of the 
 oldest and most impressive of these relics would we direct 
 attention. It is found on the shores of Lake Titicaca, was 
 a venerable pile in the time of the conquest, and is thus 
 described by M. D'Orbigny, (L'Homme Americain, t. i. p. 
 323 :) "These monuments consist of a mound raised nearly 
 a hundred feet, surrounded with pillars ; of temples from 
 six to twelve hundred feet in length, opening precisely 
 toward the east, and adorned with colossal angular col- 
 umns ; of porticoes of a single stone, covered with reliefs of 
 skillful execution, though of rude design, displaying sym- 
 bolical representations of the sun, and the condor, his mes- 
 
THE MONUMENTS OP LOST RACES. 299 
 
 senger; of basaltic statues loaded with bas-reliefs, in which 
 the design of the carved heads is half Egyptian ; and lastly, 
 of the interior of a palace formed of enormous blocks of 
 rock completely hewn, whose dimensions are often twenty- 
 one feet in length, twelve in breadth, and six in thickness. 
 In the temples and palaces the portals are not inclined, as 
 among those of the Incas, but perpendicular; and their 
 vast dimensions, and the imposing masses of which they 
 are composed, surpass in beauty and grandeur all that were 
 afterwards built by the sovereigns of Cuzco." 
 
 Ill connection with vast remains of this kind there are 
 two significant facts to be borne in mind, namely, that sun- 
 worship had here absorbed nearly all other elements of 
 religion, and that the mummied dead were generally buried 
 in a sitting posture, whether in rock-hewn sepulchral 
 chambers or in galleries beneath vast mounds of earth or 
 stone. 
 
 Turning northward from the Mexican valley, we trace 
 the monumental history of the old races throughout the 
 wide extent of the United States, amid elements again 
 changed in character, according to the different features of 
 the country, yet still exhibiting significant correspondences 
 with those of the centre and south. Evidences of ancient 
 culture considerably beyond anything found among the 
 forest tribes by the early European settlers present them- 
 selves to notice all along the Mississippi valley. Among 
 these are very imposing remains of large defensive, indus- 
 trial, sacred, and sepulchral works. Of such structures, 
 their most competent early observer, Virginia's celebrated 
 
300 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 commander against the western Indians in revolutionary 
 times, General George Rogers Clarke, thus speaks : " These 
 works are numerous in every part of the Western country, 
 . . . but are larger as you descend toward the Mississippi. 
 Many of them wouM require fifty thousand men for their 
 occupancy. Some of them have been fortified towns, others 
 encampments entrenched ; but the greater part have been 
 common garrison forts, many of them with towers of con- 
 siderable height, to defend the walls with arrows and other 
 missile weapons. . . . That the people had commerce is evi- 
 dent, because the mouth of every river has been fortified. 
 . . . That they were a numerous people is also evident, not 
 only from their many works, but also from their habitations 
 being raised in low lands. . . . Covered ways to water are 
 common, and causeways across marshes frequent. The 
 Indians," adds General Clarke, "give an account of these 
 works. They say they were the work of their forefathers, 
 that they were as numerous as the trees in the wilderness, 
 that they affronted the Great Spirit, and he made them kill 
 one another." 
 
 These statements are much more than sustained by 
 recent explorations. Especially do the carefully pre- 
 pared descriptions of such ancient works by Mr. Squier 
 and others, accompanied by splendid illustrations, in the 
 first and some subsequent volumes of the "Smithsonian 
 Contributions to Knowledge," exhibit the astonishing sig- 
 nificance of structures like these, so long ago noticed. 
 
 "They consist," say these authorities, (vol. i. pp. 3-7, etc.) 
 "of constructions of earth or stone, in immense numbers. 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 301 
 
 and often of prodigious dimensions. The lines of embank- 
 ment are from five to thirty feet in height, and inclose 
 areas of from two to four and even six hundred acres." 
 
 Some industrial .remains of these ancient races corre- 
 spond with their great military works. In the copper dis- 
 trict of the Northwest, they have left traces of mining 
 operations on a large scale. (Schoolcraft, i. 96.) Many 
 of their excavations, following the course of the veins with 
 singular accuracy for long distances, are from ten to fifteen 
 feet wide, and from twenty to twenty-five feet deep. In 
 the bottom of one of these cuts, covered by fifteen feet of 
 accumulated earthy rubbish, in which were growing trees 
 of probably five hundred years of age, was found, not long 
 since, an enormous mass of pure copper, of about six tons 
 weight, with every particle of rock hammered clean from 
 it, supported by underlying timbers, and surrounded by 
 traces of the use of fire. Near it were picked up several 
 implements of copper, showing that those old miners pos- 
 sessed the arts of welding and hardening copper arts now 
 unknown. Still, they were ignorant of the use of iron, 
 and worked with comparative awkwardness. Either they 
 failed at last to break or lift out this immense boulder, or 
 the exigencies of war, of pestilence, or of famine, com- 
 pelled them to desist from their labors. 
 
 That the numerous population, implied by these works, 
 and those before mentioned, must have been maintained, to 
 a great extent, by agriculture, would of course be at once 
 inferred. But the fact is singularly evidenced by a very 
 peculiar kind of industrial remains, in some of the most 
 
 26 
 
302 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 fertile regions of the West. There are curious appear- 
 ances, known as antique garden-beds, (ibid., 54,) or traces 
 of ancient field-husbandry, which seem to denote a remote 
 period of fixed agriculture. Some of these fields are said 
 to embrace hundreds of acres, and the area in which they 
 occur covers more than hundreds of square miles. Trees 
 of the largest kind are standing amid certain of these old 
 trenched grounds, but in general the preservation of their 
 remarkable outlines is due to the prairie grass, which forms 
 a compact sod over them as firm and lasting as if they 
 were impressed in rock. 
 
 In connection with these traces of the ancient popula- 
 tion, something also remains of their system of worship 
 and modes of sepulture. Of architecture in wood or stone 
 they seem to have known, indeed, but little. At least they 
 have left no such tombs or temples as those of the old Tol- 
 tecs. Still, they did construct, both for worship and for 
 burial, large mounds of earth, which are now covered by 
 the sod or the forest, and which, if not mutilated by axe 
 and spade, may yet stand as long as the old fortress of 
 Cuzco or the pyramids of Cholula. 
 
 "These mounds," say the Smithsonian Contributions, 
 (vol. i. pp. 5-140,) "are of all dimensions, from those of a 
 few feet in height and a few yards in diameter to those 
 which, like the celebrated structure at the mouth of Grave 
 Creek, in Virginia, rise to the height of seventy feet, and 
 measure at the base one thousand feet in circumference. 
 Indeed, the truncated pyramid at Chahokia, Illinois, has 
 an altitude of ninety feet, and is at the base upwards of 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 303 
 
 two thousand feet in circumference. ... To say that they 
 are innumerable, in the ordinary sense of the term, would 
 be no exaggeration. They may be literally numbered by 
 thousands and tens of thousands. They prevail from the 
 great lakes of the north, through the valley of the Missis- 
 sippi, and the seats of semi-civilization in Mexico, Central 
 America, and Peru, even to the waters of the La Plata on 
 the south. We find them also on the shores of the Pacific 
 Ocean, near the mouth of the Columbia River, and on the 
 Colorado of California. In form they are simple cones or 
 pyramids, frequently truncated, and sometimes terraced. . . 
 . . They are the principal depositories of ancient art ; they 
 cover the bones of the distinguished dead of remote ages; 
 and hide from the profane gaze of invading races the altars 
 of the ancient people." The traces of fire always accompa- 
 nying these latter reveal a predominant element in the reli- 
 gion of the tribes that constructed them, while the examined 
 tombs exhibit tokens scarcely less suggestive. "Burial by 
 fire," (vol. i. p. 161,) "seems to have been frequently prac- 
 ticed by the mound builders; urn burial also appears to 
 have prevailed; . . . and, as elsewhere, in the bottom of 
 the great Grave Creek Mound, ten skeletons were discov- 
 ered, all in a sitting posture." 
 
 Fire burial was, we know, common among the Mexicans. 
 Clavigero states, (vol. ii. p. 108,) that "many ordered their 
 ashes to be buried near some temple or altar." While in 
 cases of inhumation the sitting posture was generally 
 adopted. 
 
 Practices very similar to these have notoriously prevailed 
 
304 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 among the North American Indians, from the earliest date 
 of European acquaintance with them. Among some tribes, 
 however, other customs respecting the dead exist well-nigh 
 as remarkable ; for instance, the gathering of such remains 
 as have been exposed on scaffolds and in the forks of trees, 
 and depositing them, with various ceremonies, in the huts 
 of relatives, etc., (Smithsonian Contributions, vol. i. p. 
 172;) the provisions, etc., deposited with the inhumed, and 
 the periodical offering of libations and viands at the graves 
 of ancestors, "a duty," says Dr. Schoolcraft, (i. 38,) "ob- 
 ligatory on every Indian in good standing with his tribe." 
 That the precursors of the modern red men had, more- 
 over, methods of recording events, not indeed in alphabeti- 
 cal or even hieroglyphical writing, but by means of rude 
 symbolical pictures, is certain. The fact that all the more 
 intelligent Indians now existing use such pictography, 
 would place this beyond dispute. But it is exhibited in 
 various specimens, which successive explorers have brought 
 to light. The best known of these will suffice as an illus- 
 tration. On a rock near the mouth of the Taunton River, 
 which flows between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 
 there is a very old inscription, part of which seems to be 
 of this symbolic Indian character, while another part is 
 Scandinavian. The inscription having been copied by 
 Schoolcraft, (i. pp. 114-118,) and referred to the scholars 
 of Copenhagen, one of them, Mr. Magnusen, read from it 
 a brief record of the landing and defeat of a body of North- 
 men at this point in 1001. From portions of it, however, 
 a venerable Indian of high intelligence, and well versed in 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 305 
 
 the pictographic systems of his race, rendered for the 
 archaeologist a consistent statement of some other events ; 
 the two interpretations not interfering the one with the 
 other. 
 
 The monuments of old races in Central, Southern, and 
 Northern America, at which we have thus glanced, seem un 
 mistakably to indicate an original relationship in the ances- 
 tral stocks of the several families. The diversities are such 
 as naturally to result from extensive geological, climatic, 
 and other like influences, while the correspondences cannot, 
 without violence to reason, be attributed to chance. The 
 grade of civilization, the mound and temple system, the 
 fire and sun worship, the tumulus over the dead, and pecu- 
 liar processes of sepulture, etc., and the pictorial methods 
 of record, belong to them all. 
 
 Besides these there are two other classes of remains re- 
 markably agreeing in the whole region the red man him- 
 self, and his system of speech. In all the old representa- 
 tions, as now however variant, however affected by soft airs 
 and sunny slopes that invite to stationary life, or by the 
 vast plains and mighty forests which beckon to hunter- 
 wanderings, the Indian is the Indian still ; and whether he 
 speak amid the rumbling of southern volcanoes, or among 
 the breezes that ripple northern lakes, on the summit 
 of the Andes, or the shores of the Chesapeake, one hered- 
 itary plan of utterance directs his tongue. The late dis- 
 tinguished Mr. Gallatin, who, during many years, devoted 
 the energies of his fine intellect to this among other sub- 
 jects, says, in perhaps the last public document ever penned 
 
 26* 
 
306 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 by his hand, (see ante "Human Family," p. 83:) "The 
 grammar or structure of the several languages of the abo- 
 rigines of America, seems to leave no doubt of the general 
 unity of the race." 
 
 Passing now from our western coast to the islands of the 
 great Pacific, we look a moment at some of their ancient 
 monuments. Like those of our own country, they consist 
 of old defensive works, temple mounds, and memorials of 
 the dead. 
 
 Of the old fortresses in the Sandwich Islands, "several 
 are," says Ellis, (Polynesian Researches, vol. iv. p. 81, etc.) 
 " very extensive. That at Maeva in Huahiue, near Mouna 
 Tabui, is probably the most imposing. It is a square of 
 about half a mile on each side, and incloses many acres of 
 ground well stocked with bread-fruit, containing several 
 springs, and having within its precincts the principal tem- 
 ple of their tutelar deity. The walls are of solid stone- 
 work, twelve feet in height. On the top of the walls, 
 which are even and well paved, and in some places ten or 
 twelve feet thick, the warriors kept watch and slept." 
 
 One of the sacred structures is thus described: "It was 
 an irregular parallelogram, over seven hundred feet long and 
 four hundred broad. The walls were twelve feet high and 
 fifteen thick. Holes were still visible in the top of the wall 
 where large images had formerly stood. Within this inclo- 
 sure were three large heiaus, (temple^mounds,) two of which 
 were considerably demolished, while the other was nearly 
 entire. It was a compact pile of stones laid up in a solid 
 mass, one hundred and twenty-six feet by sixty-five, and 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 30T 
 
 ten feet high. Many fragments of rock, or pieces of lava, 
 of two or more tons each, were seen in several parts of the 
 wall, raised at least six feet from the ground. The erec- 
 tion of such a place, under the circumstances, and with the 
 means employed, must have been a Herculean task, and 
 could not have been completed but by the aid of many 
 hands. We could not learn how long it had been stand- 
 ing." 
 
 " Their rites of sepulture," adds Mr. Ellis, (vol. iv. p. 262,) 
 "corresponded exactly with those practiced by some of the 
 tribes on the opposite coast of North America. Sometimes 
 piles of stone were erected over the body ; sometimes burn- 
 ing was practiced, and parts of the skeleton were deposited 
 in temples for adoration, or distributed among relatives, 
 who guarded them with religious care; and sometimes 
 graves were made, and the bodies deposited, generally in a 
 sitting posture, in their houses." 
 
 The Society Islands are marked by remains in most re- 
 spects similar. Of the pyramidal temples it is said, (ibid., 
 i. p. 262:) "These piles are often immense. That which 
 formed one side of the square of the large temple of Ate- 
 huru, was two hundred and seventy feet long and ninety- 
 four wide at the base, and fifty feet high ; being at the 
 summit one hundred and eighty long and six wide. The 
 outer stones of the pyramid, composed of coral and basalt, 
 were laid with great care, and hewn or squared with im- 
 mense labor." 
 
 Here prevailed (ibid.) an imperfect process of embalm- 
 ing, and here, too, bodies when interred were not laid out, 
 but placed in a sitting posture. 
 
308 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Proceeding onward toward the eastern border of the Old 
 World, we fiud other objects of interest. In the Island of 
 Java (Crawford's Indian Archipelago, vol. ii. p. 196,) are 
 remains of many ancient temples. " One group, known as 
 the ruins of Prambanai, and spoken of by the natives as 'the 
 thousand temples,' occupies a rectangular area six hundred 
 feet long and five hundred and fifty broad, and consists of 
 four rows of small pyramidal structures, inclosing a court, 
 in which is placed a large pyramidal edifice." 
 
 Farther north, the Lew Chew Islands, as recently ex- 
 plored by officers of our government, offer one or two 
 objects that claim our attention. The present inhabitants, 
 like those of Japan, belong mainly, it appears, to the Chi- 
 nese variety of the Mongolian stock. And yet the ex- 
 plorers met with several remarkable traces of an older race 
 connected with Hindostan : neglected rock-tombs like those 
 of Syria and Egypt, and emblems most significant of Brah- 
 min mythology. (See U. S. Expdn. to Japan, Com. Perry, 
 p. 173.) They also noticed instances of the peculiar Egyp- 
 tian arch, and massive remains in that remarkable style of 
 architecture known in Europe as the old Cyclopean. The cus- 
 tom of burying the dead in a sitting posture was here also 
 observed. "Great reverence," says the narrative, (p. 319,) 
 " is paid to the dead in Lew Chew. They are put in coffins 
 in a sitting posture, and are interred in well-built stone 
 vaults, or tombs constructed in the sides of the hills." And 
 two other circumstances are mentioned, which will be seen 
 to connect this singular practice with some of the most 
 characteristic features of the Chinese social system. "Peri- 
 odical visits are paid by surviving friends and relatives to 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 309 
 
 the burial places, where they deposit offerings upon the 
 tombs. And on the burial of the rich dead, articles of 
 food are offered, and, after being allowed to remain for a 
 short time, are distributed among the poor." 
 
 The religious edifices and pyramidal shrines of the 
 Japanese are described by Koempfer as " sweetly seated" 
 in the midst of large square inclosures, approached by 
 spacious avenues, and embracing within their walls springs, 
 groves, and pleasant walks. "The empire," remarks this 
 author, (Koampfer's Japan, vol. ii. p. 416,) "is full of these 
 temples." 
 
 Of this ancient, and in many respects interesting peo- 
 ple, the antiquities, customs, and general monumental 
 history, including their physical peculiarities and the rela- 
 tions of their language, more abundant information than 
 has heretofore been accessible will, it may be hoped, soon 
 be obtained through the free intercourse towards which an 
 opening has been made in their present embassy to the 
 "United States. As a specimen of what may be thus 
 expected, the reader is requested to turn to the interesting 
 note of Lieut. J. M. Brooke, U.S.N., which throws more 
 than a little light on several questions involved in our 
 discussions. 
 
 Entering, however, the Asiatic continent, and looking 
 over the crowded Empire of China, we find no memorials 
 indeed of "lost races," but numerous tokens of buried gen- 
 erations whose social development must have been of high 
 antiquity; so that some of the phenomena here properly 
 fall within the range of our subject. 
 
 The great defensive wall bounding the empire on its 
 
310 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 northern frontier presents itself among these as the most 
 conspicuous if not, as has been said, (Williams's " Middle 
 Kingdom," vol. i. p. 25.) "the only artificial structure 
 which would arrest attention on a hasty survey of the 
 globe." It is indeed a work of herculean labor. A mound 
 of from twenty to thirty feet high, with about an equal 
 average thickness, over twelve hundred miles long, gen- 
 erally faced with masonry or covered with tiles, defended 
 by massive towers at suitable intervals, and dating back 
 more than two thousand years, certainly testifies, beyond 
 mistake, to the vastness of population and grade of civili- 
 zation here existing centuries before our era. 
 
 The other prodigious national achievement in China, its 
 immense canal, is of too recent an age to fall strictly within 
 our purview, venerable as are its six hundred years in com- 
 parison with the age of similar commercial channels among 
 Western nations. Still, it is connected at least in idea 
 with the northern rampart, and with the old highways of 
 the country; since it is related of the renowned ancient 
 emperor who built the wall, (Middle Kingdom, i. 212,) that 
 "he made progresses through his dominions with great 
 splendor, built public edifices, and opened roads and canals 
 to facilitate intercourse and trade between the provinces." 
 
 Few if any remains of large substantial buildings have 
 been here, from whatever causes, left by the old races; but 
 there are in the aspect of the country features that ex- 
 hibit not less surely the peculiarities of ancient custom. 
 "A lofty solitary pagoda, an extensive temple shaded by- 
 trees in the opening of a vale or on a hill-side, etc., are 
 some of the peculiar lineaments of Chinese scenery." 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 311 
 
 (i-35.) In some places also, relics of the past do appear, 
 which seem to link this strange people with other hoary 
 nations. For instance, at Nanking, once the most cele- 
 brated city of the empire, (i. 82,) "there still exist some 
 remarkable monuments, in the form of sepulchral statues. 
 These statues are near an ancient cemetery, called the 
 'Tombs of the Kings,' and formed an avenue leading up to 
 the sepulchres ; they consisted of gigantic figures like war- 
 riors, cased in a kind of armor, standing on either side of 
 the road. . , . Situated at some distance from the statues 
 are a number of rude colossal figures of horses, elephants, 
 and other animals, placed without any distinct arrange- 
 ment, whose purpose may have been to ornament particular 
 tombs, but which have been scattered by other hands. 
 There is a peculiar antique Egyptian cast about them all." 
 These remains point to some of the most universally 
 distinguishing traits of this aged people ; the ideas con- 
 cerning the dead, which they strangely mingle with a 
 prevalent atheism, and the worship they address to their 
 ancestors. Sentiments involved in this form of idolatry 
 supply, undoubtedly, the actuating principle in the entire 
 system of popular superstition. "The doctrines of Con- 
 fucius (ii. 258) and the ceremonies of the state religion 
 exhibit the speculative intellectual dogmas of the Chinese ; 
 the tenets of Lautsz, and the sorcery and invocation of his 
 followers, may be regarded as the marvelous and subtle 
 part of the popula* creed ; while the idle, shaven priest of 
 Budha impersonates its sensual and scheming features; but 
 the heart of the nation reposes more upon the rites offered 
 at the family shrine to the two 'living divinities' who pre- 
 
312 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 side in the hall of ancestors, than all the rest. This sort 
 of family worship has been popular in other countries, but 
 in no part of the world has it reached the consequence it 
 has received in Eastern Asia." And great as are the follies 
 and vices with which it is associated, this course of senti- 
 ment seems to have been connected also, from a very early 
 age, with protective if not virtuous influences. Certain at 
 least is it, that human corruption, fearful as it is here as 
 everywhere, has not developed two of the most fatal forms 
 of wickedness witnessed in so many other regions human 
 sacrifices and the actual deification of vice. Nor is the 
 fact less than impressive, in view of the promise attached 
 to the fifth commandment, that even a pagan people, in 
 many respects vile to loathsomeness, yet marked among 
 the nations by filial reverence, although in a greatly cor- 
 rupted guise, should, beyond all comparison, have had its 
 "days long in the land" originally given to its ancestors. 
 
 Certain facts here presented in the processes of sepul- 
 ture are remarkable in connection with customs elsewhere 
 prevalent, e.g. "On the day of burial (ii. 264-6) a sacri- 
 fice of cooked provisions is laid out and the coffin placed 
 near it. ... And at the grave everything he can possibly 
 want in the land of shadows is burned for the use of the 
 deceased. The sacrifice is then carried back, and the 
 family feast on it, or distribute it among the poor." The 
 strange sitting posture of the corpse, associated with 
 arrangements like these in Lew Chew^and with proceed- 
 ings in part akin to them among the aborigines of America, 
 if ever here prevalent, has not been perpetuated as a custom. 
 And yet it is to some extent employed, particularly in as- 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 313 
 
 sociation with certain phases of Budhism. Of the Lamas 
 in Thibet it is said (i. 196) that, "as soon as the breath has 
 departed, the body is seated in the attitude in which Budha 
 is represented, and in this posture of contemplation the 
 corpse is burned." 
 
 Two other memorials of the old generations here exist- 
 ing we briefly mention, viz., their venerable annals and the 
 uncouth, cumbrous character in which they are recorded. 
 That the former reach back reliably to 2852 B.C., seems to 
 be conceded (ii. 199 ;) while the latter is probably the oldest 
 form of writing now in common use on earth. It is known 
 also to have been derived in part, like the old hieroglyphic 
 and other systems, from rude primitive attempts at pictorial 
 delineation. "Most of the original forms (i. 461) are 
 preserved in the treatises of native philologists, where the 
 changes they have gradually undergone are shown." 
 
 India, the sunny, irrigated, fertile home of hoary mul- 
 titudes, venerable culture, and wild mythology, as of ex- 
 uberant nature in her every kingdom, next claims attention. 
 The primitive race here, if not "lost" in a material sense, 
 has undoubtedly, since the Mussulman conquest, so decayed, 
 as to present a phenomenon adapted to our subject. The 
 old tombs and temples are those of a people to be seen in 
 India no more. Such venerable remains, including innu- 
 merable gigantic and gorgeous pagodas, piled upon huge 
 pyramids whose sides face the cardinal points, the traveler 
 beholds everywhere, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya, 
 and from the Ganges to the Indus. Some of the older of 
 these monuments are among the most noticeable of all the 
 
 27 
 
314 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 works left by early races. One or two of them will suffice 
 for our illustration. 
 
 About thirty-five miles south of Madras are extensive 
 ruins, known as "the Seven Pagodas," also bearing the 
 name " Mahabalipoor. " This name signifies "the city of 
 the great Bali," and the sculptures refer chiefly to the ex- 
 ploits of that deified hero, celebrated in the Sanscrit epic 
 narratives known as the Mahabarat. " While the structures 
 in the west of India are dedicated almost exclusively to 
 Seva, the destroyer, this is sacred to Yishnu, the pre- 
 server, of whom in the principal temple there appears a 
 colossal image, sleeping on an enormous hooded snake." 
 (Murray's excellent Sketch of India, in Harper's Family 
 Library, vol. ii. p. 225.) "This has been a place of con- 
 siderable importance" (says Bishop Heber, Journal, vol. 
 ii. p. 213,) "as a metropolis of the ancient kings of the 
 race of Pandion ; and its rocks, which in themselves are 
 picturesque, are carved into porticoes, temples, bas-reliefs, 
 etc., many of which are of great spirit and beauty. The 
 ruins cover a great space. . . . Here the surf, according to 
 the Hindoos, rolls and roars over the city of the Great 
 Bali ! One very old temple of Yishnu certainly stands im- 
 mediately on the brink, and amid the dash of the spray; 
 and there are really some remains of architecture, among 
 which a tall pillar is conspicuous, which rise from amid 
 the waves, and give proof that in this particular spot, as 
 at Madras, the sea has encroached on the land, though in 
 most other parts of the Coromandel coast it seems rather 
 receding than advancing. There are also many rocks 
 rising through the white breakers, and peculiar desolation 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 315 
 
 marks the surrounding scenery." Standing amid these 
 old monuments, we might therefore truthfully apply, in 
 part at least, Southey's poetic sketch : 
 
 " Well might the sad beholder ween from thence 
 What works of wonder the devouring wave 
 Had swallowed there, when monuments so brave 
 Bore record of their old magnificence. 
 And on the sandy shore, beside the verge 
 Of ocean, here and there a rock-hewn fane 
 Resisted in its strength the surf and surge 
 That on their deep foundations beat in vain. 
 In solitude the ancient temples stood, 
 Once resonant with instrument, and song, 
 And solemn dance of festive multitudes ; 
 Now as the weary ages pass along, 
 Hearing no voice, save of the ocean flood, 
 Which roars forever on the restless shores ; 
 Or visiting their solitary caves, 
 The lonely sound of winds that moan around, 
 Accordant to the melancholy waves." 
 
 From this desolate spot we proceed to another, in some 
 respects much more impressive. 
 
 Penetrating a hundred or two miles into the interior, 
 from Bombay, on the northwest coast of the Peninsula, 
 toward the ancient City of Deoghir and the modern Dow- 
 latabad, we reach the granite mountains in which are 
 excavated the wondrous temples of Elora. These we find 
 among the most stupendous works ever executed by man. 
 A single temple of one hundred feet high, sixty wide, and 
 one hundred and fifty deep, cut out of solid granite, is an 
 achievement of industry truly astonishing. But when we 
 behold similar works crowded together through an extent 
 
316 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 of two leagues, the mind cannot but pause in amazement, 
 to realize the incredible labor. Here, too, are thousands 
 of figures of ancient Hindoo sculpture, whose age, like 
 that of the structures they adorn, is lost in the darkness 
 that preceded the dawn of history. The chief temple still 
 bears the name of a more than mortal architect, whom 
 Brahma is said to have assisted. Its vault is supported 
 by several rows of columns. Numerous colossal monoliths, 
 representing Indian gods, stand in conspicuous places; 
 and on each side of the colonnades are hewn sphinxes, 
 quite in Egyptian style. In view of which, the statement 
 may well be credited, as years ago published, that Indian 
 soldiers of the English army in Egypt, at the close of the 
 last century, exclaimed, while gazing with astonishment at 
 some of the old images of the Xile Yalley, that "Hindoos 
 must have inhabited Egypt." "The first view," says Mr. 
 Erskine, "of this desolate religious city is grand and 
 striking, but melancholy. The number and magnificence 
 of the subterraneous temples, the extent and loneliness of 
 the same, the endless diversity of sculpture in others, the 
 variety of curious foliage, of minute tracery, highly-wrought 
 pillars, rich mythological designs, sacred shrines, and colos- 
 sal statues, astonish and distract the mind. The empire 
 whose pride they must have been has passed away, and 
 left not a legible memorial behind." 
 
 Sepulture, in this vast peninsula, was, it is well known, 
 extensively substituted by the destructive agency of fire. 
 The funeral pile is one of the characteristic features of 
 Hindoo custom. And yet there are tokens which seem to 
 
THE MONUMENTS OP LOST RACES, 317 
 
 indicate the probable origin, here, of the old idea of a sit- 
 ting posture for the dead. Mention has been already made 
 of the peculiar attitude in which the Lamas of Thibet were 
 placed as soon as they had expired, in correspondence with 
 the posture of repose in which Budha is represented. But 
 the latter, it appears, is only a secondary exhibiton of older 
 representations, with which Budha and his system are be- 
 lieved to be connected. In the first volume of Sir William 
 Jones's Asiatic Researches may be seen delineated, in char- 
 acteristic sketches, the elder forms of Brahma, Yishnu, etc., 
 in this very strange position, supposed adapted to contem- 
 plation. And it is far from improbable that from these 
 representations, and the ideas associated with them, was 
 derived the custom, so diffused, as we have seen, of placing 
 human bodies in the tomb sitting instead of recumbent. 
 
 Of the old races in India, there are monuments more 
 remarkable than all the wonders of the chiseled granite. 
 Those venerable documents of theology, of law, and of 
 poetry, which oriental scholars within the last century 
 brought to light. Significant, indeed, are these, as records 
 of ancient thought, as memorials of the early intellectual 
 struggles of a heathen race singularly ideal and imagina- 
 tive. A people, of whom, as they were in the days of 
 Alexander and before, as in some measure they have been 
 ever since, it has been strikingly, perhaps justly said : 
 " There never was a nation believing so firmly in another 
 world, and so little concerned about this ; whose past was 
 the problem of creation, whose future the problem of exist- 
 ence ; while the present, which ought to be the solution of 
 27* 
 
318 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 both, seeins never to have attracted their attention or called 
 forth their energies." 
 
 It is, however, the old language itself which constitutes 
 the most instructive memento of the original proprietors 
 of that southern clime; a language now proved to be the 
 elder sister of Saxon, Gothic, Latin, and even venerable 
 Greek ; so that widely separated in essential qualities as 
 their tribes have become under diverse influences, in the 
 course of ages, Europe and India must be acknowledged 
 to have originally received a kindred population ; and the 
 inhabitants of these distant regions are justly designated 
 under one term, as the great Indo-European family. The 
 testimony of the learned Professor Max Miiller, on this 
 subject, (ante, " Human Family,") will be recollected : 
 "Many words still live in India and England that have 
 witnessed the first separation of the northern and southern 
 Arians, (as originally from Aram,) and these are witnesses 
 not to be shaken by any cross-examination. The terms for 
 God, for house, for father, mother, son, daughter, for dog 
 and cow, for heart and tears, for axe and tree, identical 
 in all the Indo-European idioms, are like the watchwords 
 of soldiers. We challenge the seeming stranger; and 
 whether he answer with the lips of a Greek, a German, 
 or an Indian, we recognize him as one of ourselves. 
 Though the historian may shake his head, though the phy- 
 siologist may doubt, and the poet scorn the idea, all must 
 yield before the facts furnished by language. There was a 
 time when the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the 
 Sclavonians, the Greeks and Italians, the Persians and 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 319 
 
 Hindoos, were living together beneath the same roof, separate 
 from the ancestors of the Shemitic and Turanian races." 
 
 From India proceeding to the interior of Asia, we need 
 not linger long about the material remains of ancient Per- 
 sia. Altogether to overlook this region, source as it was 
 of mighty influences in former ages, may not, indeed, be 
 allowable, in connection with our subject. Here was the 
 centre of that great system of sun and fire worship, which 
 seemed to permeate the ancient world. Here were cradled 
 energies which, in many a fierce contest, strove for empire 
 with Babylon, with Egypt, and with Greece. And here, 
 on one spot at least, the site of that gorgeous Persepolis, 
 which was a wonder of the world when the Macedonian 
 conqueror applied the torch of vengeance, the traveler may 
 still behold, in singular perfection of art, and bearing 
 many a strange old inscription, spite of all the ravages of 
 fire and of time, piles of masonry scarcely rivaled on the 
 earth. But to follow even Niebuhr in his explorations of 
 these, were needless for our purpose, because we are in the 
 main acquainted with the ancient Persians and their neigh- 
 bors through the old historical races, and through their 
 own sacred books now given to Europe. And we thus 
 know them to have been intermediate, no less in character 
 than in position, between India and Babylon. 
 
 If from Central Asia we follow the known track of early 
 migration toward its farthest limits in Western Europe, 
 monuments of other races, which antedate history, present 
 themselves again to view. In some places old rock-inscrip- 
 tions are discernible, in a rude symbolic pictography, which 
 
320 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 tends more or less toward some development of a hiero- 
 glyphic system, and which, by its peculiar complexity of 
 outline, in certain instances, suggests association with the 
 originals of the interminably involved Chinese character. 
 Altars, too, are found, on which the early wanderers kin- 
 dled their sacrificial fires. Conspicuous among these are 
 the old Druid temples of Stonehenge in England, and Car- 
 nac in Brittany, which, with others that remain, both in 
 Britain and Gaul, are supposed, from their significant form, 
 to have been dedicated to the united worship of the sun 
 and the serpent. 
 
 Xor are the tumuli less remarkable which, in Scythia, 
 Germany, Scandinavia, and the British Isles, forgotten 
 generations heaped upon their ancient dead. The Scy- 
 thians, whose tumuli are scattered in great abundance over 
 the plains of Russia, Southern Siberia, and Tartary, 
 "labored," says Herodotus, "to raise as high a monument 
 of earth for their dead as possible," (Melpomene, Ixxi.) 
 The richness of these Scythian barrows is remarkable; and, 
 according to Strahlenberg, (Siberia, p. 366,) the local gov- 
 ernors of Siberia used formerly to authorize caravans or ex- 
 peditions to visit and ransack the tombs, reserving to them- 
 selves a tenth of the treasures. In the second volume of 
 the British ArchaBologia is an account of the opening of 
 one of the larger tumuli in Southern Siberia. Within the 
 mound were found three vaults, constructed of unhewn 
 stones, and of rude workmanship. The central and largest 
 vault contained the remains of the individual over whom 
 the tumulus had been erected, also his sword, spear, bow, 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST EACES. 321 
 
 quiver, arrows, etc. In the vault at his feet were the skel- 
 eton and trappings of a horse ; in that at his head was a 
 female skeleton, supposed to be that of his wife. The 
 male skeleton reclined (something like the sitting posture) 
 against the head of the vault, on a sheet of pure gold, ex- 
 tending from head to foot ; and another of like dimensions 
 was spread over it. It had been wrapped in a rich mantle, 
 studded with rubies and emeralds. The female was envel- 
 oped in like manner: a golden chain of many links, set 
 with rubies, went round her neck, and there were bracelets 
 of gold upon her arms. The four sheets of gold weighed 
 forty pounds. (Smithn. Cont., ii. art. ix. p. lit.) In the 
 Scandinavian monumental history, the earlier and later 
 periods have been designated as an "age of fire," and an 
 "age of hills." Odin is said to have introduced the prac- 
 tice of burning, and also that of the wife sacrificing herself 
 with her deceased lord. (Mallet's Northn. Antiq.,chap. xii.) 
 The Germans, says Tacitus, added to the funeral pile the 
 arms of the deceased and his horse. And Caesar relates 
 that the inhabitants of Belgium and Gaul buried or burned 
 with the dead whatever was valued by them in their life- 
 time. The burial mounds of the ancient Britons evince 
 similar practices. They are very numerous, and some of 
 them of great size. At New Grange, in the County of 
 Meath, Ireland, there is a structure of this kind seventy 
 feet high, whose base covers two acres ; and within it, as 
 left from old times, there is a gallery sixty feet long, con- 
 ducting to a great cavernous chamber, containing originally, 
 as do the mounds generally, many interesting relics, ashes 
 and urns, spears, shields, and mirrors. 
 
322 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 But we must hasten to the central monuments of the Old 
 World. Races that were more than ancient ere yet Athens 
 had received a name, have left along the Italian shores, as 
 well as in Greece, imperishable memorials of so vast a char- 
 acter as to have given rise to fables of Cyclopean giants. 
 If, however, the ruins of Mycenae, and other like cities 
 of the olden time, furnished the earliest Greeks of history 
 material only for wild conjecture, well may they have 
 attributed to demigods such vastly greater achievements as 
 the wonderful tunnels of the forgotten race. That which was 
 made for the purpose of draining Lake Copais, in Argolis, is 
 affirmed (see Niebuhr's Lectures) to have been cut to the 
 sea, through the solid rock underlying the pro-Eubean hills, 
 a distance of four miles. And similar works, executed 
 in Italy, to reduce the swollen Lake of Alba, and some 
 others, are of scarcely inferior dimensions or more recent age. 
 
 The Cyclopean buildings, left by these pre-Hellenic and 
 ante-Roman races, seem to present a remarkable connecting 
 link between the earlier civilization of southeastern Europe 
 and that of the Euphrates and Nile valleys. " They have," 
 says Niebuhr, "a great resemblance in style to those of 
 ancient Egypt, especially to the peculiar colossal nature of 
 Egyptian architecture. We, moreover, find in them pointed 
 arches instead of vaults, just as in Egyptian buildings. . . . 
 The sepultures in what is called the lion-gate at Mycenae, 
 which is noticed even by Pausanias, (in Hadrian's time,) 
 have quite a foreign character. Notwithstanding all the 
 ravages of barbarians, that gate is still standing undis- 
 turbed, and its ruins are perhaps now as completely pre- 
 
THE MONUMENTS OP LOST RACES. 823 
 
 served as they were at the time when Pausanias described 
 them." 
 
 But if Italy and Greece received thus from Egypt a 
 strange influence, at so early a day, to mould their archi- 
 tecture, vastly more important toward their own and the 
 world's elevation was the influence they received, be it at a 
 later day, from Asia, in the gift of letters a gift without 
 which history had remained lost in fable, and religion must 
 have continued debased by superstition. 
 
 We linger, then, a moment around the graves of those 
 old races that lie silent in the once teeming plains of 
 southwestern Asia, before giving attention to the more 
 wonderful remnants of antiquity, the most wonderful of 
 the world, which lift their hoary heads over the mysterious 
 land of the Pharaohs. 
 
 The ancient capital of Assur, and Nimrod, and Ninus, 
 on the Tigris, "that exceeding great city of three days' 
 journey," to which Jonah was sent with warning message, 
 and whose requiem Nahum sung, lost for centuries almost 
 from the map of the world, rises before us, as if to life 
 again. And from the ruins we hear the story of her great- 
 ness and her desolation. The Median, the Greek, the 
 Roman, the Persian, the Turk, the Arab, have been there, 
 but only to trample Nineveh in the dust. It was Nineveh 
 no more : a vast sweep of shapeless mounds, nothing 
 besides. Opening, however, at last before intelligent 
 search, those mounds reveal, as at magical touch, the 
 realities of the old ages. The huge figures that stood as 
 stone sentinels before palace-halls, colossal winged lions and 
 
324 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 bulls with human heads, come forth as if living creatures 
 from their lurking-places. The herald-office of Sargon 
 and Sennacherib produces its registers on slabs of alabas- 
 ter; and the archives of their state department are read 
 from libraries of engraved tile. The race is gone, yet 
 restored. We see the Eastern despot, and the abject 
 people. He wields authority, unchecked, over property 
 and life : they rather adore him as a god than obey him 
 as a man. The restoration, in whole and in part, fits 
 precisely the delineation found in our old Scriptures. 
 
 Before the monumental piles on the Euphrates, which 
 mark the grave of Nebuchadnezzar's later empire, we 
 pause only to listen to Mr. Layard's statement: "On all 
 sides fragments of glass, marble, pottery, and inscribed 
 brick, are mingled with that peculiar nitrous and blanched 
 soil which, had from the remains of ancient habitations, 
 checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the site of 
 Babylon a naked and hideous waste. Owls start from the 
 scanty thickets, and the foul jackal skulks through the 
 furrows." We cannot but remember, as this is testified, 
 how, when she was in the pride of her power, the prophets 
 had written : "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty 
 of the Chaldee's excellency, shall be as when God over- 
 threw Sodom and Gomorrah. Wild beasts of the desert 
 shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful 
 creatures, and owls shall dwell there." 
 
 We now approach that marvelous monumental valley of 
 Northern Africa whose genial climate, fertilizing streams, 
 and impregnable natural defenses of inclosing rock and 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES 325 
 
 surrounding desert, rendered it the earliest home of quiet 
 labor and progressive art; and whose serene atmosphere, 
 embalming, as it were, the works of its inhabitants, from 
 the very primitive time, has preserved them for the amazed 
 contemplation of every age of mankind. We follow the 
 track trodden by old Abraham, when, wending his obedient 
 way from Mesopotamia, he sought a Syrian home the 
 path we still pursue, along which traveled himself and 
 descendants, across the sands of Southern Palestine, when 
 they went to obtain supplies from the granaries of Egypt. 
 The venerable city of the priests of On, which rose before 
 the patriarch's eyes, as, with his little caravan, he entered 
 the wondrous valley, no longer lifts above the desert dust 
 its massive battlements. An obelisk is there, the oldest 
 of the world, bearing characters in which scholars read 
 the epitaph of ages; and innumerable relics lie around its 
 base, in the mounds heaped by desert winds. Nothing 
 more remains. The minarets of modern Cairo, not far 
 distant, glitter in the sun, but not on these does the eye rest. 
 Over them, beyond the mighty Nile, against the western 
 horizon, the great pyramids of Cheops arid Cephrines lift 
 their giant forms above the Lybian hills; and on these 
 majestic memorials of more, perhaps, than forty, or even 
 fifty centuries, the beholder cannot but gaze in mute aston- 
 ishment. He sees them as they stood when Joseph and 
 Mary, with the infant Saviour, found refuge here from 
 Herod ; as the boy Moses saw them from Pharaoh's palace ; 
 as Abraham and Sarah viewed them in their early sojourn ; 
 and the mind pauses amazed, solemnized. 
 
 23 
 
326 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Egypt being thus before us, we cast a rapid glance over 
 its unique features, and then for a moment contemplate its 
 mightiest works. We see the sacred Nile rolling its vast 
 flood from the far south toward the middle sea of the 
 ancient world. On its borders we behold a narrow level 
 strip of alluvial soil, constituting a peculiar valley, not 
 exceeding, above or south of the delta, an average breadth 
 of four miles. On either side of this valley rise the strange 
 verdureless hills, whose undulating outline slopes off into 
 the Arabian or Red Sea wilderness on the east, on the 
 west into the vast desert of Lybia. These hills, towering 
 sometimes into lofty heights of naked rock, here advance 
 their sombre forms to the river's edge, as if to lave them 
 in the ancient stream ; there, as it were, doing homage to 
 the liquid divinity, they recede again with graceful sweep. 
 Over their crest full often pours the desert dust, driven by 
 winds that seem impatient to bury the old monuments from 
 the desecrating hands which have mutilated them for ages. 
 This valley is the ever-replenished garden which, during 
 the early centuries, furnished food and homes for countless 
 millions. Those hills supplied the material for enduring 
 structures, and contain the chambers wherein the old 
 generations laid their venerated dead. 
 
 Around these sepulchres we see no longer the children 
 of those ancient dead. The race, over whom reigned 
 Menes and Sesostris, exists no more. Here and there 
 appears, indeed, a small community of oppressed and 
 inferior creatures, though nominally Christians known as 
 Copts, who claim descent from the early possessors of the 
 land, and retain something of their language; but the 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 327 
 
 Egyptian is in Egypt no longer. More than two thousand 
 years have rolled away since he became subject to other 
 races ; and for more than half that time he has really 
 ceased to be known. The Persian hurled his gods from 
 their throne. The Greek in part restored them, but only 
 as subsidary to his own. He protected the people, it is 
 true, and their ancient works, but it was with a spirit 
 necessarily foreign. The genius which made Alexandria 
 the centre of Greek letters, and gave the Septuagint to 
 the world, could not, if it would, have left undisturbed the 
 stationary system of the old castes and their avocations. 
 But it was when the Roman came that the glory of Egypt 
 departed. Of her ancient literature, gathered into that 
 great library of the Ptolemies which Livy characterized 
 as elegantise regum curaque egregium opus, and which 
 contained, it is said, not less than 700,000 volumes, more 
 than half was unintentionally destroyed by Julius Caesar. 
 (Plutarch.) And the remainder, replenished by the 
 splendid Pergamian contribution of Antony, and by 
 subsequent additions, was again devastated in the cele- 
 brated destruction of the Serapium by Theophilus the 
 Archbishop under sanction of the Emperor Theodosius, 
 A.D. 389, (Gibbon, xxviii.) When the Saracen followed, 
 A..D. 638, with a culture scarcely less destructive than his 
 own cimeter to all that opposed, the annihilation of this 
 invaluable treasury of old learning was completed, (Gibbon, 
 li., and Bishop Newton, xii.,) and rapidly failed the ancient 
 population. And when the Mameluke succeeded, the work 
 of Egypt's ruin was done. In contemplating here, there- 
 
328 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 fore, the remains of antiquity, we are literally looking 
 upon the monuments of a lost race. 
 
 The famed pyramid of Cheops first demands attention. 
 Bearing in mind its gigantic proportions and nice adjust- 
 ment, a base of nearly eight hundred feet on the side, ranged 
 with the cardinal points, and covering some thirteen acres, 
 and a perpendicular height of a little less than five hundred 
 feet, we suppose ourselves to visit this in company with 
 Lepsius, the most accomplished of explorers, and let him 
 describe the scene : "A number of Bedouins gather around 
 us, and wait for the moment when we shall ascend the 
 pyramid, in order to raise us, with their strong brawny 
 arms, up the steps, which are between three and four feet 
 high. Scarcely is the signal given, when immediately each 
 of us is surrounded by several Bedouins, who drag us up 
 the rough, steep path to the summit, as in a whirlwind. A 
 few minutes and our flag is unfurled on the summit of the 
 oldest and highest of known human works. The panoramic 
 view of the landscape spread at our feet now rivets our 
 attention. On the one side the Nile valley, intersected by 
 long serpentine dams, here and there dotted with villages 
 and cultivated fields, over to the Hoquottam hills, opposite, 
 on whose most northerly point the citadel of Cairo rises 
 above the town stretched out at their base. On the other 
 side, the Lybian desert, a vast sea of sandy plains, and 
 barren, rocky hills, boundless, colorless, noiseless, enlivened 
 by no creature, no plants, no trace of the presence of man, 
 not even by tombs ; and between these scenes on the right 
 and left, the ruined Necropolis, whose general position 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 329 
 
 and simple outline lie spread out clearly and distinctly as on 
 a map. What a spectacle ! and what recollections does it 
 call forth ! When Abraham came to Egypt for the first 
 titoe, he saw these very pyramids, which had been already 
 built several centuries. In the plain before us lay ancient 
 Memphis, the residence of the kings, on whose tombs we 
 are standing; there dwelt Joseph, and ruled the land under 
 one of the wisest and most powerful Pharaohs of the newly 
 restored monarchy. Farther away, to the left of the Mo- 
 quottam hills, where the fruitful low ground extends on 
 the eastern arm of the Nile, beyond Heliopolis, (On,) dis- 
 tinguished by its obelisk, begins the blest region of Goshen, 
 out of which Moses led his people to the Syrian desert. 
 It would not, indeed, be difficult, from our position, to 
 recognize that ancient fig-tree on the road to Heliopolis, 
 at Matarieh, under whose shade, according to the tradition 
 of the country, Mary rested with the Holy Infant. How 
 many thousand pilgrims of all nations have since visited 
 these wonders of the world, down to ourselves, who, the 
 youngest in time, are yet but the predecessors of many 
 other thousands who will succeed us, ascend these pyramids, 
 and contemplate them with astonishment ? 
 
 The accomplished savan has disappeared, we suppose, 
 while we have been gazing on this scene. We therefore 
 descend the enormous slope, and find ourselves safely at 
 its base. Dr. Lepsius, however, imagine, rejoins us, and 
 describes an exploration: "I descended to the elevated 
 entrance of the pyramid, and providing myself and attend- 
 ants with lights, we entered, like miners, the steeply-sloping 
 
 28* 
 
330 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 shaft, and reached the gallery, and so-called king's cham- 
 ber. We admired the infinitely fine seams of the enormous 
 blocks, and examined the quality of the stones of the pas- 
 sages and chambers. In the spacious hall, whose floor, 
 walls, and ceilings are entirely built of granite, and there- 
 fore return a metalic-sounding echo, we sang a national 
 hymn, which sounded so powerfully and solemnly that our 
 guides afterwards told the remaining Bedouins that we had 
 selected the innermost part of the pyramid to perform 
 divine service and utter a loud prayer." 
 
 Let us listen a little longer to one so competent to in- 
 struct on these subjects. As we look around upon the 
 tombs over which the mighty pile, as it were, keeps watch, 
 he tells us: "Almost all of these were built during, or 
 shortly after, the erection of the great pyramids. The 
 painting within them, on a very fine coating of lime, is 
 often beautiful beyond conception, and is sometimes pre- 
 served as fresh and as perfect as if it had been done yester- 
 day. The representations on the walls chiefly contain 
 scenes from the life of the deceased, and appear especially 
 intended to place before the eyes of the spectator his 
 wealth in cattle, fish, game, boats, domestics, etc. We 
 thus become familiar with all the details of his private life. 
 The numerous inscriptions describe or designate these 
 scenes, or they exhibit the often widely-branching family 
 of the deceased, and all his titles and offices, so that I 
 could almost compose a court and state calendar of King 
 Cheops, or Cephren. The most splendid tombs, or rock- 
 sepulchres, belonged principally to the princes, their rela- 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 331 
 
 tives, or the highest official persons under the kings, beside 
 whose pyramids they are laid ; and not unfrequently I have 
 found the tombs of father, son, and grandson, even great- 
 grandson, so that whole pedigrees of these distinguished 
 families, who, above 5000 years ago, formed the nobility of 
 the land, are brought to light. The most beautiful of the 
 tombs, which, with many others, I myself discovered be- 
 neath the sand, that here buries all things, belongs to a 
 prince of the family of King Cheops." 
 
 The unhesitating confidence with which our renowned 
 instructor thus declares the meaning of these old, and, to 
 us, totally unintelligible inscriptions, has of course been 
 observed. And we may not be offending, perhaps, against 
 the intelligence of our readers, if we presume that, to 
 some of them at least, it will not be uninstructive to have 
 here presented an outline of the process by which the long- 
 lost art of reading the hieroglyphics has been, to a great 
 extent, recovered. 
 
 While some French troops, in Egypt, in the year 1799, 
 were engaged upon excavations for the Fort St. Julien, 
 near Rosetta, they dug up a mutilated slab of black basalt, 
 marked with various characters. This was the since cele- 
 brated Rosetta stone. It contained an inscription in three 
 forms, one of which was Greek, and proved to be a decree 
 in favor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, concluding with these 
 words: "This decree shall be engraved on hard stone, in 
 sacred, common, and Greek characters." The stone fell 
 into the hands of the English, after the French troops in 
 Egypt had capitulated, and was deposited in the British 
 
332 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 Museum. Copies of the inscriptions were, at an early day 
 thereafter, distributed to learned men in Europe and Amer- 
 ica. And through the combined efforts and suggestions 
 of several of these, Champollion at length succeeded in 
 detecting the alphabetical nature of the symbols. In 1824 
 he published a system of reading them. And this has 
 been since so extended by Rossellini, Lepsius, and other 
 distinguished men, that the results have become indeed 
 surprising. 
 
 In magic boat we now fancy ourselves borne rapidly up 
 the mighty Nile to ancient Thebes. Three hundred miles 
 are measured, and where stood the renowned city of a 
 hundred gates we step ashore. The prospect we again sur- 
 vey with borrowed eyes: "Nowhere in all Egypt do such 
 rugged hills embrace so beautiful a plain, and nowhere is 
 there a spot so well suited for the capital of a great nation. 
 The mountains are here, and the river flows between them, 
 and Memnon sits calmly on his throne, and looks calmly 
 over the river with stony eyes, unused to tears, and nothing 
 appears to lament the dead glory. Neither sun nor moon 
 shines less brilliantly, less joyously, that kings and princes, 
 matrons and virgins, wise and foolish, weak and strong, are 
 all alike dead in the past, dead in the valley, dead in the rock- 
 hewn sepulchres ; the palaces ruins, the temples ruins, the 
 homes gone, the hearth-fires ashes long ago, the hearts of 
 the men of Thebes dust, insensible, still, silent dust. You 
 can scarce believe it the site of a ruined capital, once the 
 wonder of the world for magnificence. There is nothing 
 to indicate it, except immediately around Luxor and Kar- 
 
THE MONUMENTS OP LOST RACES. 333 
 
 nak. Solitary on the eastern side stands Karnak ; a ma- 
 jestic solitude indeed, among heaps of earth that may 
 cover the floors of ancient habitations. Luxor, about two 
 miles south, or higher up the river, has only near its own 
 vast ruins, and the bereaved obelisk, whose mate was taken 
 years ago to Paris. Karnak is a greater wonder than the 
 pyramids. The heaping of stone together in such a mass 
 was indeed a kingly idea of Cheops ; but here was the 
 same royal thought, the same masses of rock, hewn into 
 graceful forms and shapes that indicated taste and design, 
 and grouped in a temple that surpassed even the pyramids 
 in extent. Approaching the great front from the river, we 
 have before us the two propylon towers, whose vast size 
 and height surpass all others in Egypt. Long before 
 reaching the gateway between them, we are passing 
 through an avenue of sphinxes, which are in fact rams of 
 colossal size, facing the worshiper on each side as he 
 approaches the temple. Passing through the pylon, or 
 gateway, we enter a court of nearly 300 feet each way, 
 with a corridor on each side, and the remains of a double 
 row of columns through the centre. On the opposite 
 side of this court stand two other lofty and grand pro- 
 pylon towers, passing between which we enter the great 
 hall of columns. This hall is over 300 feet in breadth by 
 nearly 200 in depth. In it there are still standing a hun- 
 dred columns, while others lie prostrate. Of these col- 
 umns, the central row, including base and capital, are 90 
 feet high, with a diameter of 12 feet. The others are 60 
 feet high and 9 feet in diameter ; and for the most part, 
 
334 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 be it observed, they are of single blocks of stone. On the 
 southern side of this great hall it was that Champollion 
 discovered the since celebrated cartouche of Sheshonk, or 
 Shishak, and the remarkable delineation representing his 
 sack of Jerusalem, recorded in 1 Kings, xiv. 25, and 
 2 Chronicles, xii. Other courts of like character, save here 
 and there a mighty obelisk, lie beyond, and still others, be- 
 fore reaching the sanctuary in which the gods sat of old to 
 receive homage and sacrifice; and beyond it, the build- 
 ings stretch even farther to the east than this prolonged 
 approach on the west. All these vast courts, and areas, 
 obelisks, towers, and halls, are or were surrounded by 
 columns, sphinxes, and statues, and every column and 
 stone is covered with carving, and brilliantly painted. 
 Not only was the temple colossal in its proportions, cover- 
 ing a space of more than half a square mile, but it was 
 gorgeous beyond all description in its furniture and adorn- 
 ments." 
 
 Such are specimens of the monuments of this ancient 
 race only specimens ; for the land is full of others, some 
 of which are well-nigh more wonderful. And what a story 
 do they tell of crowded population, protracted toil, grand 
 design, mechanical skill, and developed art ! Yet what, 
 also, of strange delusion, misapplied energy, cruel oppres- 
 sion, and incredible suffering ! 
 
 Our imperfect survey of the old races is now done. We 
 have sought them not indeed in every inhabited region of 
 the globe. For so extended an exploration, we have 
 neither the adequate information, nor, as yet, the means of 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 335 
 
 obtaining it; nor, if we had, would oar limits authorize so 
 full a discussion. We have, however, viewed the monu- 
 mental records of ancient tribes in all the great divisions 
 of the earth. We have traced them in our own country ; 
 along the great Polynesian Paradise, across the Pacific to 
 the Eastern Asiatic islands; through China, India, and 
 Persia ; then along the ancient Scythian track to Western 
 Europe; drawing inward thence, we have viewed them 
 near the centres of early history, in Italy and Greece, As- 
 syria and Egypt. It now only remains to gather up the 
 results to derive from these hoary monuments just con- 
 clusions. In doing this, with the facts mainly before us, 
 we may be very brief. 
 
 The first inference we suggest, as clearly indicated by the 
 concurrent testimony of these venerable witnesses, is, that 
 they fortify other evidence proving the essential unity of 
 the human family. The great principle is, indeed, as we 
 have formerly shown, established in many ways. The 
 masters of physiology and comparative anatomy have 
 traced it in the special laws of animal function. The psy- 
 chologist has found it in instinctive sentiment, and in intel- 
 lectual, moral, and spiritual faculty. The ethnologist has 
 beheld it in the ascertained facts of tribal origin, circum- 
 stantial variation, and transmitted peculiarities, among the 
 dispersed people of the earth. And the learned philolo- 
 gist has proved it from the undeniable sameness of ele- 
 ments, grammatical and verbal, which he has discovered in 
 all the examined languages of mankind. And the import- 
 ant truth we here see engraved on the imperishable tombs 
 
336 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 of the early races. The correspondent facts are too numer- 
 ous and significant to admit of being supposed mere casual 
 coincidences. Idea and custom, so singularly concurrent, 
 point unmistakably to a common sgurce. The elevated 
 mound, often square and adjusted in one direction, often 
 symbolically circular, and sometimes, by a compromise be- 
 tween these, constructed in the octagonal form, is almost 
 everywhere. The sacrificial fire well-nigh universal. The 
 mystical worship of nature, especially of the sun, of the 
 heavens, and the earth, degenerating into gross forms of 
 idolatry, sometimes cruel, sometimes groveling, is all around 
 the globe. The same general sentiments toward the dead 
 exist in every quarter, and kindred practices regarding 
 them. In all we see the same out-working mind, variant, 
 indeed, in energy and action, yet still the same, not only in 
 general character, but in dominant idea and significant 
 peculiarity. Especially does one great aspiration after 
 immortality go up from the graves that surround the tem- 
 ples of the Toltec and the Druid, from Cuzco, Xanking, 
 Elora, Nineveh, and Karnak. 
 
 Xor is the conclusion at all weakened, by whatever 
 reasonable allowance may be made for the principle urged 
 with anti-Christian purpose by certain writers, Mr. Squier, 
 for instance, (see his paper, Smithn. Contribn., vol. ii. art. 
 ix. p. 99,) that, to a certain extent, "these resemblances 
 
 are the inevitable results of similar conditions That 
 
 human development must be, if not in precisely the same 
 channels, in the same direction, and must pass through the 
 same stages." The statement is no doubt partially true, 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 337 
 
 but very far otherwise the suggested inference. For just 
 in so far as it is true, it carries in itself the admission of a 
 common human nature, and that involves, as we have seen, 
 (ante, "Human Family," p. 62, etc.) almost demonstratively 
 a common origin. In no unscriptural sense, assuredly, can 
 the principle account for some of the surprising correspond- 
 ences found in the old customs of the world. Certain of 
 the more special of these undoubtedly necessitate the con- 
 clusion of an identical origin. To two of them we would 
 for a moment direct particular attention. 
 
 That remarkable sitting posture of the dead, so general 
 among the old American races, and traced back through 
 the Pacific islands, not only to the eastern coast of Asia, 
 but even in certain forms to Thibet and Siberia, is, beyond 
 question, a most significant circumstance. It adds convinc- 
 ing proof to the many other evidences of common descent 
 in all tribes of the red man, and plainly presents one mark 
 of the track along which his ancestors made their way to 
 the American shore. Not only so, but it would seem to 
 render certain the fact of early association of some kind 
 between all the people among whom it in any measure pre- 
 vailed. "Who can doubt the existence of an affinity," 
 asks Prescott, with great force, "or, at least, intercourse, 
 between races that had this strange habit of burying their 
 dead ? 
 
 The other fact we adduce, is the even more remarkable 
 
 series of correspondences connected with time divisions. 
 
 The week of seven days, affirmed to have prevailed over 
 
 so large a part of the ancient world, is one of the elements 
 
 29 
 
338 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 in this series. It existed, says Laplace, (Systerae du 
 Monde,) "in India among the Brahmins, and was in use 
 among the Arabs, the Jews, the Assyrians, the Chinese, 
 and in all the East." If, as would seem, the celebrated 
 savan makes this statement on reliable evidence, it must 
 be conceded that it indicates the existence in a very early 
 period, long prior to history of some great common in- 
 fluence among that vast range of people, determining 
 custom in regard to the practical perplexities of reckoning 
 time. Nor is this consequence affected by difference of 
 opinion respecting the origin of so remarkable a cycle of 
 days. If philosophers, disinclined to the sacred system of 
 the Scriptures, and regard'.ess of the mighty array of evi- 
 dences of every kind attesting them, will reject their simple 
 and rational account of this primitive week, (see Genesis, 
 i. and ii. 1-3,) an account collaterally confirmed, in the 
 most remarkable manner, as we have seen, by the disclo- 
 sures of geology let them cherish the idea of its deriva- 
 tion from early subtle astronomical knowledge. It will not 
 affect the testified fact of the singular ancient custom, 
 though it may exemplify the credulity of unbelief; for 
 nothing is more obvious than that opinion can seldom rest 
 on a slenderer basis. That the inconspicuous planets, 
 Mars and Saturn, and the seldom seen bright little Mer- 
 cury, so commonly lost in the sun's light, should have been 
 so nicely noticed as to have been associated with the sun 
 and moon, the beautiful Venus and the brilliant Jupiter, 
 in an intricate astronomical system, and that such system 
 should have been applied to the purpose of designating 
 
THE" MONUMENTS OP LOST RACES. 339 
 
 days in this peculiar cycle previously to the separation of 
 Egyptians, Hindoos, Chinese, etc., or that such system 
 could have been, by one of these people, diffused over the 
 rest at the age supposed must be regarded as altogether 
 improbable. Nor is the source of this idea worthier of 
 credit. It is referred (see Syste'me du Monde) to the 
 Roman historian, Dion Cassius, who wrote as late as the 
 latter part of the second century of our era, and who, there- 
 fore, if otherwise of highest character, as notoriously he is 
 not, and if not discredited on this very point by the earlier 
 testimony of Josephus, as he is, (see Contra Apion, book 
 ii. 6-8,) was too far from the origin of this custom to be 
 at all trustworthy respecting it. He certainly could not 
 have known, and must have mainly speculated, concerning 
 such a matter pertaining to from twenty to fifty centuries 
 before his time ; and, in all probability, applied backward 
 the convenient designations for the days assigned at an 
 age long subsequent to the origin of the week. Strange 
 that evidence like this can be preferred to that of the 
 Bible ! 
 
 The mere circumstance that these commonly and occa- 
 sionally visible heavenly bodies together make seven in 
 number, adds really nothing to the probability of such 
 astronomical introduction of the weekly cycle, because it 
 is demonstrable that the number seven sustains relations 
 to the constitution of nature and the history of human 
 thought incomparably more impressive, in connection with 
 the part it performs in the Scriptures, than any such single 
 instance of correspondence suggested in opposition to 
 
310 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 sacred statement. The singular prominence given this 
 numeral in Holy Writ is familiar to every reader. It 
 marks the completing of creation, the recurrence of 
 sacred seasons, the fullness of spiritual blessings, and the 
 terribleness of divine inflictions. From the first of Gen- 
 esis to the last of Revelation, we have "the seventh day," 
 "the seventh year," "the seven spirits of God," "the seven 
 vials," etc. etc. In nature and history it is scarcely less 
 prominent. The notes of the musical scale, the seven 
 colors of the solar spectrum, the seven neck-vertebras of 
 mammalian creatures, the seven decades of human life, etc., 
 are instances in the structure of the world. And the old 
 sentiments of mankind we find handed down in proverbial 
 phrases of universal usage, "the seven wise men," "the 
 seven wonders," and "the seven senses." These sentiments 
 are, however, otherwise testified. No number is so pecu- 
 liarly used by the ancient bards. Virgil's "bis septem 
 Nymphce," "septem collectis navibus," "septem ingentia 
 corpora," etc., are familiar; while, from the Greek poets, 
 Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria quote passages show- 
 ing the prevalent impression of a certain sacredness in 
 this number, especially as applied to the last day of the 
 week. The Pythagoreans styled it a number worthy of ven- 
 eration, Gpaffii.ou a'ws, as referred to by Cicero, when he 
 says, (Tusculan Questions, i. x. 20,) that Xenocrites, and 
 before him Pythagoras, "numerum dixet esse, cujus vis, in 
 n at nra maxima esset." 
 
 In all this there is, certainly, something very remarkable. 
 It would seem to be ti manifold testimony human and 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 841 
 
 divine, in history and in nature to some extraordinary 
 significance originally assigned this number. And what 
 that meaning but the office of rendering perpetually mem- 
 orable the great varieties and the important duties con- 
 nected with the Sabbath of the Patriarch and the Jew, 
 and the Lord's day of the Christian ? 
 
 Still, if to it all, and vastly more sustaining the incom- 
 parable disclosures of the Bible, opposite and most im- 
 probable hypotheses be preferred, the fact remains, that 
 ancient week of seven days, affirmed to have existed from 
 Egypt through Asia to the extremity of China; and it 
 undoubtedly indicates some potent common influence of 
 old, through that immense compass. 
 
 This, however, is not the only, perhaps not the most 
 striking fact of the kind. In some of these regions the 
 week seems to have been conveniently and yet singularly 
 abbreviated. According to Sir Stamford Raffles, the old 
 Hindoos had a peculiar week of five days, that is, every 
 fifth day with them was a market day. Among the Chi- 
 nese, according to Dr. Morrison, there existed the same 
 custom of a fifth-day market. And with the old Mexi- 
 cans, singularly enough, there was a like week of five days. 
 Every fifth day was also peculiarly their market day. (See 
 Antonio de Solis's Conquest of Mexico, quoted by Nor- 
 man on Yucatan, p 185.) Moreover, in their chronologi- 
 cal records or calendar, the Chinese employ two sets of 
 characters or hieroglyphics, designated stems and roots; 
 and the old Mexican calendar was also distinguished by a 
 
342 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 double hieroglyphical system. Dr. Schoolcraft, who gives 
 these facts, (vol. i. p. 345,) very justly urges them in sup- 
 port of our conclusion ; and in connection with them presses 
 the further question, founded upon others scarcely less sig- 
 nificant, "How is it that the Mexicans had a cycle of 60 
 years, or a double cycle of 120 years, exactly corresponding 
 with that of the Chinese ?" 
 
 But interesting and important as is the great verity of a 
 common parentage for all races, both as related to revela- 
 tion and as bearing on the destinies of the world, and cer- 
 tain as it is that "the recognition of this bond of humanity 
 becomes," in the language of both the great Humboldts, 
 " one of the noblest leading principles in the history of 
 mankind," we cannot here elaborate it further, as evidenced 
 by the old monuments. The distinct suggestion, the 
 strongly testified conclusion, we leave to rest on the basis 
 of facts already adduced. 
 
 The next inference we deduce from the monumental story 
 is the existence of a far higher than rude condition of intel- 
 ligence, and adaptation to art, among primitive men. The 
 earlier races in general were certainly very far from being 
 the savage creatures supposed in anti-scriptural theories. 
 This, if the old monuments prove anything, they would 
 seem to place beyond dispute. Nor is it a fact of trifling 
 import. It tallies most remarkably with revealed teaching. 
 It speaks of the original dignity and high endowments of 
 human kind, though it declares something, too, of their 
 downward tendency and wide-spread degradation. If early 
 man were thus, as his oldest obvious works affirm, and as the 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES 343 
 
 Bible tells, a creature not only of high gifts, but of no 
 mean knowledge, bestowed at his birth, the contemplation 
 of him there places us in the immediate presence of his 
 Almighty Father, giving to the earth a son stamped with 
 at least his own intellectual image. But as we gaze upon 
 the scene of that gift, and look up to the great Source of 
 that impress, the intellectual becomes, in our view, blended 
 with the moral; and the conviction fastens on the mind, 
 that not a sagacity enabling him to fashion matter, and 
 subjugate brutes, and battle with physical antagonists, was 
 man's prime distinction, but a large capacity for the true, 
 the beautiful, and the good an earnest, deathless longing 
 after the Infinite, the Eternal, and the Holy. And when 
 this conviction is received, the final purpose of such a 
 nature, the great destiny of creatures whose pre-eminence 
 is their spiritual essence, beckons thought inward to an- 
 other sphere. The solemn, endless future rises up to 
 view, with its unmeasured retributions ; and religion, spite 
 of all the philosophies, and all the unbeliefs of the world, 
 is seen to be of necessity the all-pervading influence among 
 men. 
 
 But this deduction from the remains of ancient races 
 stands immediately connected with another, no less fur- 
 nished by the monuments: the fact of a strange moral 
 perversion in every early community the existence of a 
 strictly universal bias toward the false and the bad, in those 
 very relations where the true and the right were of inestim- 
 able import. What tremendous significancy there is in the 
 great grooves for blood (human undoubtedly) cut in the 
 
344 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 old altar-stones of Central America ! What abominations 
 are revealed by the monstrous idols of India ! What 
 degradation in the sacred bulls and embalmed reptiles 
 found under the shadows of Karnak and the pyramids ! It 
 is a phenomenon we see, indeed, every day the intellect 
 working with energy often surprising, and achieving much 
 that is serviceable, sometimes what is even great and en- 
 during, while the moral being gravitates toward corrup- 
 tion, and grovels in the dust. But nowhere is the spec- 
 tacle more sadly conspicuous than in the old home of the 
 Pharaohs. Besides her wonders in architecture, her early 
 literature, and her renown for that wisdom which brought 
 the fathers of Grecian thought to her halls for instruction, 
 her skill in metallurgic and other like operations has 
 stamped Egypt's home name "Chemi" upon the subtlest 
 of physical sciences, chemistry; and yet the people bowed 
 down to images of stone, yea, worse, to very brutes, and 
 even insects ! 
 
 As we contemplate this, the mind turns instinctively to 
 that higher instruction which explains the phenomenon, 
 while it furnishes the needed remedy. That better teach- 
 ing tells of this lapse from the holy in the olden time, and 
 of its progressive mischiefs ; but it points out, too, its 
 actual character and its provided cure Place the tent of 
 heavenly-minded old Abraham by the proudest palace ever 
 reared of Egyptian granite, and which is really the greater ? 
 Which sends out the influences that have shaped, and are 
 yet to shape, the destinies of the world? Which is iden- 
 tified with the precious truths and holy agencies that train 
 
THE MONUMENTS OP LOST RACES. 345 
 
 our children, support us in sorrow, arm us for duty and 
 death, and make home so sweet a word? How poor, to 
 minds instructed like the patriarch's, to spirits lifted up to 
 communion with Him who fills heaven and earth, must 
 have appeared, yea, how unutterably sad, those masses of 
 stone so laboriously piled by idolatry in the land of Ham ! 
 How significant is the almost total silence respecting them 
 in the inspired narrative ! 
 
 The debt, then, we owe our Bibles for the readjustments 
 they effect in the lost relations of truth and of the human 
 faculties, comes up as another obvious lesson from the old 
 tombs of the world. Here is the agency that has not only 
 severed the chains which bound intelligence to a loathsome 
 mass of moral corruption, but has imparted the spirit of 
 heaven and the vigor of hope to the great benefactors of 
 the species these hundreds of years. This was the power 
 which tranquilized Europe, when the barbarian hurricane 
 had ingulfed the empire of the Caesars ; and this imparted 
 to modern civilization its distinctive character and its 
 progressive energy. Influences hence emanating opened 
 the eyes of Kepler, trained the genius of Bacon, and 
 placed the torch of discovery in the hands of Newton. 
 Truth, as taught in these sacred pages, and the spirit they 
 inculcate, have given to Britain her chief glory ; and the 
 same truth, the same spirit, have founded in the old home 
 of the red man a mighter than British empire. May our 
 people so cling to those vital truths, so cherish that wise 
 and heaven-favored spirit, as to convert into enduring fact 
 what was at best but probable conjecture a hundred years 
 
346 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 ago, when Bishop Berkeley wrote, with a singular intuition 
 that more than atones for defective harmony : 
 
 "Westward the star of empire takes its way, 
 The first four acts already past, 
 The fifth shall close the drama with the day: 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last." 
 
 But this suggests a final thought, arising also from the 
 old monuments : the end that comes to human things. It 
 may be that Divine Providence sees best to order change 
 for nations as for individuals, even irrespective of their vice 
 or virtue. It may be that in its best condition, yet to be 
 expected, the great moral atmosphere of the world, like its 
 physical, demands the ventilating energy of storm and 
 tempest, though in the rush many a valuable structure fall. 
 But however this be, one thing is certain : the lost races 
 tell it, as history tells it, as the Bible declares, nations, like 
 individuals, suffer for their sins. Yice buried Babylon and 
 Thebes. Wickedness shivered the sceptre of the Caesars. 
 Nor can any people long survive the ravages of moral 
 gangrene. Be it ours, then, as we love our country, as we 
 feel for mankind, by example, and by every good influence 
 we can exert, to battle wisely against every form of wrong, 
 to cherish whatsoever is right, and to secure, if so it may 
 be, what ten righteous men would have secured for Sodom. 
 
 Even if so, however, let us not, writer and readers, for- 
 get an end that cannot be averted. Everything tells of a 
 change coming, greater far than the rise and fall of nations, 
 more solemn than the mouldering of generations. The old 
 tombs contain many a bony finger that points to that com- 
 
THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 347 
 
 ing consummation. The old temples meant it when in 
 their prime; their shattered columns are of it prophetic 
 symbols. Of such an issue, deep, mysterious forebodings 
 of the human spirit give warning. To it the past convul- 
 sions of the globe awaken attention; and its whole cer- 
 tainty, with all its mighty import, the Bible authoritatively 
 proclaims. Yes, this entire planet shall one day be the 
 funeral pile of all that is consumable in whatsoever has 
 had part with humanity, or it shall be the purified, reno- 
 vated scene of a different existence, the enduring memorial 
 of all generations of men. Let us see to it that, if so, it 
 be not for us, in a terrible sense, the monument of a lost 
 race. 
 
348 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 309. 
 
 x 
 
 THE facts stated in the following note were furnished in 
 this form at the request of the author, and are here intro- 
 duced as corroborating the conclusions we have derived 
 from many kindred indications. 
 
 Distinguished as an officer of rare merit, and entitled to 
 the gratitude of civilized nations for the benefits, scientific 
 and practical, to be derived from his invention of the 
 "deep-sea sounding apparatus," Lieutenant Brooke is still 
 more remarkable as a man of original thought and active 
 interest in the great questions of the age. Having been 
 lately in charge of an exploring expedition which involved 
 his sojourn for some time in Japan, and subsequently in 
 command of their own war-steamer which brought to this 
 country the Japanese Embassy, so as to become familiar 
 with some leading characters among them, Mr. Brooke is 
 perhaps as well qualified to speak concerning this people 
 as any man living. 
 
 May 14th, 1860. 
 REV. DR. PE.NDLETOX. 
 
 Dear Sir: Upon the arrival of the Japanese war-steamer 
 Candmmarmh at San Francisco, the Admiral Kini-moo-rah-set- 
 to-no-Cami and his officers were invited to visit the plantation 
 
SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 349 
 
 of Captain Frisbie, son-in-law of General Vallejo. After the 
 excursion, the Admiral and his suite partook of a collation at 
 Captain Frisbie's residence. At table, I remarked incidentally 
 to Captain Frisbie, that the Japanese word for milk was " Tche- 
 che." He replied, "that is singular; 'tis the same in Spanish." 
 His brother, Dr. Frisbie, said, "No; Tche-che is the Indian word 
 adopted by the Spanish settlers of California." 
 
 While I was thinking of this coincidence, an Indian boy, 
 "Martinez," who had been taken into the family of Captain 
 Frisbie when a child, entered the room. Captain Mangiro 
 tapped me on the shoulder, and, pointing to Martinez, inquired, 
 " Where you get him ?" I replied, he is an Indian boy, a Cali- 
 fornian. Mangiro, shaking his head incredulously, exclaimed, 
 " No, no ! Nippon ! Nippon !" At the same instant, Captain 
 Katslintarro inquired of Captain Frisbie where the boy came 
 from, and when the Captain replied, California, he also shook 
 hi head, and said, " Nippon ! Nippon !" We had not before 
 noticed the strong resemblance Martinez bore to the Japanese ; 
 but, our attention being called to it by Mangiro, Katslintarro, 
 and the other Japanese, some eight or nine, who were present, 
 and who all concurred in the opinion expressed by Mangiro and 
 Katslintarro, we perceived a strong resemblance. 
 
 Mangiro then said, <; I will speak to that boy ; he is a Japan- 
 ese." But Captain Frisbie informed him that Martinez could 
 not speak the language of his tribe, as he had been taken from 
 them when a mere child. " But," said he, " it is probable that 
 one of General Vallejo's daughters, now in the house, remem- 
 bers some words, and I will introduce Mangiro to her." 
 
 Nothing more was said at the time, although the Japanese 
 
 kept their eyes upon Martinez, who was somewhat annoyed by 
 
 the scrutiny to which he was subjected. Soon after, Mangiro 
 
 came to me, saying, "Captain, what I say is true; these Indians 
 
 30 
 
350 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 
 
 come from Japan, I think, long time ago. I have spoken to the 
 lady, and I find many words the same. I find more than six 
 -words the same. I think this people come long time ago in 
 junk from Japan ; you know junks very often have typhoons, 
 and are blown away from Japan. I told you of Japan sailors I 
 met in Sandwich Islands, and I know plenty junks go that way. 
 Therefore I think this Indian come first from Japan." 
 
 I had not at the time leisure to investigate this interesting 
 subject. It is probable that if a vocabulary of the Martinez 
 tribe could be compared -with a Japanese vocabulary, an import- 
 ant relation would be established. The subject is worthy of in- 
 vestigation. I shall write to Captain Frisbie, with reference to 
 it. I have in my possession an English and Japanese diction- 
 ary, and it only remains to procure a vocabulary of the Mar- 
 tinez tribe to enable us to determine whether the Japanese 
 were right in their conjectures. 
 
 Mangiro, who is a very intelligent man, was wrecked uptm 
 an island in the Pacific, was rescued by Captain Whitfield of 
 Fairhaven, and spent several years in the United States, where 
 he acquired the English language. 
 
 Taking into consideration the fact that westerly winds and cur- 
 rents to the eastward prevail between Japan and California, Man- 
 giro's supposition, apart from the apparent relation of the lan- 
 guages, is quite rational. We know that Japanese junks have 
 drifted from the coasts of Japan to the mouth of the Columbia, 
 and nearly midway several have been, by our whalemen, found 
 dismasted, drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves. 
 
 Yours, truly, 
 
 JOHX M. BROOKE, 
 
 Lieut. U. S. Navy. 
 

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