, tN ig A 7 . 4 7 4 eS ny a ea : rs 2 rs Bet) é PARR a Ae) ee SUN \ Wy \ My x uU Ni eae f isi aN SES Pel MEVAL MAN An Examination of some Recent Speculations By tHE DUKE OF ARGYLL cnenee tn TIO IS, STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS 56 LUDGATE HILL, LONDON 1869 London: R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, Printers, Bread Street Hill. PREFACE. AVING now no immediate pros- pect of being able to expand or to illustrate the argument contained in the following pages, I republish it with very little alteration from the form in which it originally appeared in “Good Words.” I am well aware how much it requires both expansion and illustration. But I hope that at least the main lines of that argument are aed with sufficient clearness to enable others with more vi PREFACE. leisure to pursue them farther, and to test the results arrived at by our growing knowledge in the _ sciences which bear upon the early condition of Mankind. The distinctions here taken between different branches of the subject, have not, so far as I know, been elsewhere laid down with adequate precision. Yet all safe reasoning depends upon such distinctions being carefully observed. If they are sound, they place an insuperable bar in the way of cer- tain conclusions respecting Primeval Man, which have ea too hastily assumed as following from recently discovered facts. At all events these conclusions PREFACE. vii can only be reached by new arguments and by new methods of proof. Many of the questions which are in- volved in the reasoning of this Essay, are questions which touch upon the pro- foundest problems of our nature and of our history :—On the connection, seem- ingly inseparable, between all mental phenomena and physical organization; on the truthfulness of any system of classifi- cation which does not take equal cogni- zance of both; on the distinction between intellectual powers and moral character ; on the distinction, again, between the mere results of accumulated knowledge, and the working of the original facul- vill PREFACE. ties of Reason; on the question how far the first use and the first direction of his mental powers may have been as purely instinctive in Man as in the Bee or in the Beaver; on the relation between the two tendencies in Man to advance and to decline; on the causes of degradation which are born with him and seem to be inseparable from his nature; on the bearing upon the whole argument of existing facts respecting his distribution on the globe, and the obvious effects upon him of hardship and of suffering to produce, or to intensify, a barbarous condition ;—on each and all of these questions, which enter into the PREFACE. 1X reasoning of this Essay, whole volumes might be written without exhausting what is to be said upon them. I shall be content, in the meantime, if this slight sketch of so great a _ subject should be of any use in directing others into some well-defined paths of thought and of investigation in regard to it. LONDON, Dec. 9, 1868. fe Ee Ieetoh ah Jes bene} era CONTENTS: PART I. INTRODUCTORY PART II. THE ORIGIN OF MAN PART III. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN . PART IV. MAN’S PRIMITIVE CONDITION PAGE 76 . 129 | ay eal al Baal INTRODUCTORY. A T the meeting, in 1867, of the British Association for the Advancement Selence, a paper was read by Sir Lubbock upon “The Early © Condition Mankind.” It purports to be a reply a lecture on the “Origin of Civilization” of sie of to. by Dr. Whately, the late Archbishop of Dublin, which was published in 1854. The Arch bishop’s position is shortly this,—that mere savages—that is to say, “men in the lowest degree, or even anything approaching to the B 2 PRIMEVAL MAN. lowest degree, of barbarism in which they can possibly subsist at all—never did and never can, unaided, raise themselves into a higher ” condition ;” that even when they are brought into contact with superior races, it is ex- each, difficult to teach them the simplest darts; that they “seem mnever=to invent jor discover anything,” because even “necessity is not the mother of invention except to those who have somé degree of thoughtfulness and intelligence;” that whatever the natural powers of the human mind may be, they require to have some instruction from with- out wherewith to start. He holds it to be “a complete moral certainty that men left unassisted in what is called a state of nature—that is, with the faculties Man is born WHATELY’S ARGUMENT, 3 with not at all unfolded or’ exercised by education—never did, and never can, faise ’ themselves from that condition.” Therefore, “according to the present course of things, the first introducer of civilization among savages is, and must be, man in a more improved state.” But as “in the beginning of the human race there was no man to effect it,’ this must have been the work of another Being. “There must have been, in short, something of a revelation made to the first or to some subsequent generation of our species.” The conclusion is that, as Man must have had a Divine Creator, it seems equally certain that, to some extent also, he must have had a Divine Instructor. This is the argument which Sir J. Lubbock Br 2 4 PRIMEVAL MAN. has undertaken to refute. His conclusion is, that the “primitive condition of mankind was ” one of utter barbarism ;” that from this con- dition certain races have independently raised themselves; and, of course, that, instead of existing savages being the degenerate descen- dants of ancestors who were more advanced, all races now civilized are the children of men who were once in the same low con- dition. A further conclusion, though not formally asserted, is plainly indicated, viz. this, —that the “utter barbarism” of the first man was itself an advance on the condition of some progenitor. I infer that this idea is intended to be conveyed when the “first ’ men” are explained to mean the “first beings worthy to be so called.” SIR JOHN LUBBOCK’S PROPOSITIONS. 5 The two main lines of argument pursued by Sir J. Lubbock connect themselves with the two following propositions which he undertakes to prove:—list, “That there are indications of progress even among savages ;” and 2d, “That among the most civilized nations there are traces of original barbarism.” Sir J. Lubbock’s paper has confirmed an impression I have long had, that Whately’s argument, though strong at some points, is at others open to assault; and that, as a whole, the subject now requires to be differently handled, and regarded from a different point of view. On the other hand, the same paper has convinced me that the argument in favour of what may be called the Savage-theory is very much the weaker of the two, and rests. 6 PRIMEVAL MAN. upon a method of treatment much more in- adequate and incomplete. I propose in this, and in some following chapters, to set forth the reasoning upon which these convictions rest. There are, however, some preliminary con- siderations which it may be well to deal with before proceeding farther. It will be observed that both arguments are avowedly conducted irrespective of any belief in the Mosaic narrative of Creation. They both profess to be purely scientific ; that is, founded on natural knowledge, and using for the discovery of truth such facts and inferences as are ascertainable by reason. Whately expressly says that in his argument »he has not appealed to the Book of Genesis PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 7 as an authority, because he “thought it impor- tant to show, independently of that authority and from a monument actually before our eyes—the existence, namely, of civilized man —that there is no escaping such conclusions as agree with the Bible narrative.” The opposite argument is, of course, maintained always from the same basis of scientific in- dependence, and those who urge it do not generally profess or care to reconcile the conclusion arrived at, with the Mosaic narra- tive. Sir J. Lubbock at the close of his paper says emphatically, “These views follow, I think, from strictly scientific considerations.” No doubt, if the inquiry is to be pursued at all upon this basis, it must be conducted hon- estly, and the conclusions legitimately reached 8 PRIMEVAL MAN. must be accepted with just so much of conviction as is justified by the nature of the data, and the nature of the reasoning employed. The question may well arise in many minds in reference to this subject, whether it is a legitimate subject of speculation at all— whether it does not transcend our faculties to ascertain the truth. Respecting this question, there is one answer which is obvious, although it may not go far to satisfy those whose scruples are most sin- cere. When men in the position of the late Archbishop of Dublin enter upon this dis- cussion, and declare that, independent of all authority, certain conclusions a be shown to be unavoidable by natural reason, we cannot IS THE DISCUSSION LEGITIMATE? 9 prohibit others from entering upon the same ground, or from producing such arguments as they may be able to find in support of an opposite conclusion. But there are some better arguments than this. This, indeed, is enough to show that the discussion must, as a matter of necessity, be encountered, even though it should be deplored. But other considerations may perhaps convince us that it ought not to be avoided. It may be true, and I believe it to be true, that the desire of knowledge is capable of excess. The spirit which in the ordinary concerns of life is condemned as_ idle or _ vicious curiosity has, surely, its counterpart in the higher pursuits of intellect. David seems to imply as much when he pleads in favour of se) PRIMEVAL MAN. his own character and conduct before God— “JT do not exercise myself in things too high for me.” On the other hand, we must remem- ber that in nothing has the human race been more liable to the delusions of superstition than in the conception of the matters which were to be held, or were not to be held, as forbidden to investigation. Those physical laws of nature which are now so familiar to us as the peculiar field of observation and discovery—a field on which the march of in- tellect has been so rapid and so triumphant— were once held by the early Greek philo- sophers as belonging to the most secret things of God. They thought, perhaps not un- naturally, that a region which lay, or seemed to lie, so much nearer to themselves, even METAPHYSICAL SPECULATION. II their own mind and _ spirit—its phenomena and its methods of procedure—must be the ground most open to their search, and must afford results most comprehensible to the understanding. And so they plunged into all the problems of Metaphysics. But there are no mysteries so deep as these—none in which the human mind reaches so soon the limit of its powers—none in which the temptation is stronger to strain -after knowledge which is shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The greatest intellects which the world has ever seen have laboured at such problems, and, in respect at least to many of them, have left them as they found them. The same tendency of metaphysical speculation, blend- ing, through the school of Alexandria, with 12 PRIMEVAL MAN, the mysticism of the East, infected the Theology of the early Church, and heretics were not seldom divided from the orthodox upon questions which were not only beyond the reach of reason, but equally beyond the scope of Revelation. In the Confessions of St. Augustine there is a curious indication of this transposition of the questions which are deemed to be the most legitimate, and the most accessible, subjects of our research. In early life he had been, as is well known, led away by the curious and idle specula- tions which pass in ecclesiastical history under the name of the Manichzan heresy. He pours out his lamentations over the subtleties which had once engrossed and perplexed his mind—subtleties of which AUGUSTINE’S DEFINITION. 13 Christianity had revealed the folly. And among the temptations which he still desires to overcome is the appetite of knowledge —a “vain and curious desire hiding under the name of science”. (lib. x. c. 35).. This is the desire which pretends, he says, to reach the inmost secrets of nature—secrets which when discovered could have no value, and of which men desire and expect no- thing except to know. Now, here we have an exact definition of the true scientific spirit —a spirit which has, indeed, in its results, richly “endowed the human family with new mercies,” but which never has had this dower in view as its only, or even as its chief, inducement. It is not perhaps exactly relevant to observe that the glorious facts of Astro- I4 PRIMEVAL MAN. nomy are among the secrets of nature which Augustine rejoices to say he no longer desires to know; because, in his mind, Astronomy took the form of Astrology, to which in his youth he had been much addicted. But Augustine is right when he detects this same love of mere knowledge in the instinctive arrest of his attention by the commonest works of nature. He desires to be “de- livered even from this. He has given up many pleasures of the eye and curiosities of the mind in which he once delighted,—not only the transits of the heavenly bodies and the response of oracles, but even the public spectacles of the Roman world. Still, he deplores that this .wretched love of mere knowledge,—this lust of the eyes,—is ever AUGUSTINE'S DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 15 pursuing him as he walks and lives. Although no longer tempted to go to the Amphitheatre to see the race of hound and hare, he com- plains that the same sight, if seen accidentally in the fields, will divert his attention from some profound meditation. Even from the windows of his home his eye is caught by some little lizard catching flies upon the wall, or by some spider spreading for the capture her wondrous web. The smallness of these creatures, he confesses, does not diminish his instinctive curiosity. True it is that he might pass from these creatures to magnify the Creator of them all. But he is conscious that this was not present to his thoughts when they were arrested and fixed upon the things he saw. 16 PRIMEVAL MAN. Most true! and equally true was it that this desire of knowledge was burning in- tensely in him when it wrung from him no confession; or rather, when it was interwoven into the very tissue of which his immortal Confessions are composed. In them no more splendid passages occur than those in which he turns the eye of his curiosity inwards upon the secrets of his own nature, and asks a thousand unanswerable questions on the structure and the power of Memory. What and where are those innumerable chambers,— those vast halls,—which hold in perpetual imagery not only all he had ever seen, but all he had ever conceived and known? How can the immensities of Time and Space, of earth, and sky, and ocean, be thus contained ? MEMORY. 17 How can they be recalled into what seemed a lost existence? What depths and mysteries of being! How little can we understand our- selves! Does it not seem then as if the mind were too narrow to comprehend itself? And so, through pages of most subtle and eloquent analysis, he revels in that faculty of Wonder, which is the very root and principle of all curious inquiry. I do not say that these questions are wholly vain. But they are use- ful only as all knowledge may be useful, in teaching us—if it be nothing else—how small that knowledge is. St. Augustine was right in thinking that this wonderful power of Memory lies close to the final secrets on which our very being and personality depend. An eminent philosopher of our own time has Cc 18 PRIMEVAL MAN. found in Memory the only insuperable diffi- culty in the way of reducing the definition of ourselves into that of mere “ Possibilities of Feeling.” * ‘But in pursuing these speculations into the most inscrutable of all subjects, St. Augustine is but following the instincts of the same restless and curious intellect which had once struggled with the questions, What Matter is, and How Evil came to be? There is no inquiry in which the human mind comes so immediately to the limit of its powers, as in the analysis of itself. Inscrutable questions may indeed be asked as to what Man once was. But questions much more inscrutable * Mr. J.S. Mill. I have discussed elsewhere the logic and the adequacy of this definition:—‘‘ The Reign of Law.” Fifth Edition. Note D. IMPOTENCE OF HUMAN UNDERSTANDING., 19 may be asked, and are habitually asked, as to what Man now is. No conclusions in respect to the original condition of our race can be more shocking to reason and common sense, than many conclusions which meta- physicians have pretended to establish respect- ing its condition now. Another reason against declining this in- quiry, is to be found in the fact that the plea of impotence against the human under- standing, is a plea which may be urged in the service of the most irrational error, as easily as, perhaps more easily than, in the service of the most certain truths. Men en- grossed by some particular theory are under immense temptation to denounce the power of faculties whose function it is to apprehend C2 20 PRIMEVAL MAN. ideas differing from their own. At the pre- sent moment this is the habitual practice of a whole school of thinkers, who have eyes for nothing but a particular class of facts, and ‘who therefore very naturally resort to the assertion that all eyes with a wider range of vision are eyes of “phantasy.” And if this has been sometimes the result of the anatomy of Mind, what are we to say of the anatomy of the Body? We cannot even think of our bodily frames without encountering at once all the facts which connect the phenomena of Mind with the structure and condition of Material Organs. And then our Organism as a whole, how close it stands to that of the beasts that perish! Are we to close these paths of investigation also, because some MANY FORMS OF PRIESTCRAFT. 21 minds have been led by them to a gross materialism? It is not on one subject of inquiry, but in all, that we come speedily to questions which cannot be answered. The’ result therefore is, that we should never be jealous of research, but always jealous. of presumption, —that on all subjects Reason should be warned to keep within the limit of her powers, but from none should Reason be warned away. Men who denounce any particular field of thought are always to be suspected. The presumption is, that valuable things which these men do not like are to be found there. There are many forms of Priestcraft. The same arts, and the same delusions, have been practised in many causes. Sometimes, though perhaps not so 22 PRIMEVAL MAN. often as is popularly supposed, men have been warned off particular branches of physical in- quiry, in the supposed interests of Religion. ‘But constantly and habitually, men are now warned from many branches of inquiry, both physical and psychological, in the interests— real enough—of the Positive Philosophy! “Whatever,” says Mr. Lewes, “is inaccessible to reason, should be strictly interdicted to research.” Here we have the true ring of the old sacerdotal interdicts. Who is to define beforehand what is, and what is not, “inaccessible to reason?” Are we to take such a definition on trust from the priests of this new philosophy? They tell us that all proofs of Mind in the order of the universe, all evidences of purpose, all conceptions of RESEARCH DEFENDED. 23 plan or of design, in the history of Creation, are the mere product of special “infirmities” of the human intellect. In opposition to these attempts—come from what quarter they may—to limit arbitrarily the boundaries of knowledge, let us maintain the principle that we never can certainly know what is “inaccessible to reason” until the way of access has been _ tried. In the highest interests of truth, we must resist any and every interdict against research. The strong presumption is that every philosophy which assumes to issue such an interdict, must have reason to fear inquiry. On these principles it may be affirmed generally that all subjects are legitimate sub- jects of reasoning in proportion as they are 24 PRIMEVAL MAN. accessible to research; and that the degree in which any given subject is accessible to research cannot be known until research has been attempted. Within certain limits it is not open to dis- pute that the early condition of Mankind is accessible to research. | Contemporary history reaches back a certain way. Existing monu- ments afford their evidence for a considerable distance farther. Tradition has its own pro- vince still more remote; and latterly Geology and Archeology have met upon common ground—ground in which Man and the Mammoth have been found together. It has not, however, been sufficiently ob- served that the inquiry into the Primitive Condition of Mankind resolves itself into three THREE SUBJECTS OF INQUIRY. 25 separate questions,—that is to say, three questions which, though connected with each other, can be, and indeed must be, separately dealt with :— Ist. The Origin of Man considered simply as a Species,—that is to say, the method of his creation or introduction into the world. 2d. The Antiquity of Man, or the time in the geological history and preparation of the globe at which this creation or introduction took place. 3d. His Mental, Moral, and Intellectual Con- dition when first created. No doubt the theory as to the Origin of Man at which Sir J. Lubbock glances when he speaks of the “first being worthy to be called a man” (which is obviously the theory 26 PRIMEVAL MAN. that this first man was born from some pre- existing creature not worthy to be so called), is most naturally connected with the farther theory that his mental condition was one of “utter barbarism.” But this is not at all a necessary consequence. The first man, how- ever created, may have had special knowledge conveyed to him as well as a special material organization. Special powers of acquiring knowledge he certainly must have had, since we know that these are inseparably connected with the organization which made him “worthy to be called a man.” The two questions, therefore, of the oben of Man, and of his Primitive Condition, are clearly separable. In like manner, as regards Anti- quity, the question of Time has no neces- MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 27 sary connection either with his Origin or his Primitive Condition. There is another point connected with this division of the whole subject into three sepa- rate questions, which has not perhaps been sufficiently considered, and that is the different degrees of connection which these questions have respectively, with the Mosaic narrative. I have already said that the inquiry as con- ducted both by Archbishop Whately and Sir J. Lubbock is avowedly conducted on a purely scientific basis. It is in the same light that it will be considered here. But it may be useful to observe in passing, that in regard to some of these questions the Mosaic account of Creation (apart altogether from any suggestions which have been raised as to the allegorical 28 p PRIMEVAL MAN. elements it may contain) leaves room, even according to its most literal interpretation, for a much wider latitude of speculation than seems to be generally supposed. As regards the Origin of Man, undoubtedly, the im- pression conveyed is that the Creation of Man was a special act—which indeed, what- ever may have been its method, it must in a sense have been; but, as regards the Primitive Condition of Mankind, it must be remembered that, according to the narrative in Genesis, there never was any generation of men which lived and walked in the primal light. It was the first man who fell. The second man was a murderer. The causes, therefore, of degra- - dation are represented as having begun, so far as the race is concerned, at once; and it DEFINITION OF TERMS NEEDED. 29 is a special peculiarity of the account that those causes are said to have gone on in an accelerating ratio until the Flood. Even after that event there was no immunity from the ope- ration of the same causes, and existing races, therefore, may have passed through stages of any degree of barbarism since the days of Adam without involving any necessary incon- sistency whatever with the Mosaic account. It is farther to be observed that writers on the Primitive Condition of Man are generally guilty of the oversight of forget- ting to define the sense in which they use the words “civilized” and “uncivilized.” This is a strange oversight on the part of such a logician as Dr. Whately. Sir J. Lubbock naturally enough feels himself relieved from an 30 PRIMEVAL MAN. inconvenient obligation. But implicitly, if not explicitly, the Savage-theory and the reasoning in support of it assume that civilization con- sists mainly if not exclusively in a knowledge of the arts. Knowledge, for example, or igno- rance, of the use of metals, are, as we shall see, characteristics on which great stress is laid. Now, as regards this point, as Whately truly says, the narrative of Genesis distinctly states that this kind of knowledge did not belong to Mankind at first, but was the fruit of subsequent discovery, through the ordinary agency of those mental gifts with which Man at his. creation was endowed. It is assumed in the Savage-theory that the presence or absence of this knowledge stands in close and natural connection with the presence or MAN DIVINELY TAUGHT. 31 absence of other and higher kinds of know- - ledge, of which an acquaintance with the metals is but a symbol and a type. Within certain limits this is true, and we may assume, therefore, that in Genesis also, the intimation given on this subject implies that so far as civilization means a command over the powers of nature, Man was left to make his own way, through his powers of reason, and through his instincts of research. Whately has indeed inferred, from the de- scription given of Cain as a tiller of the ground, and of Abel as a keeper of flocks, that the great economic principle of the division of labour was at the first divinely taught to Man. But, if we are to understand this literally, not of tribes tracing their descent PRIMEVAL MAN. ios) to from Cain and Abel, but of the individual men who were the third and fourth human beings upon earth, then we must suppose that the pos- session of domestic animals and acquaintance with artificial cultivation were either divinely communicated to Man, or instinctively dis- covered by him, at once. It may have been so, and it may be the intention of the narrative to assert it; but, at all events, it is perfectly conceivable, that beyond a knowledge of the simplest arts which were necessary for the sustenance of life, Man’s primitive condition may have been a condition of mere childhood. As regards the third element in the whole question—the element of Time—it is well known that all calculations in regard to it rest upon data respecting which there has THE QUESTION OF TIME. 33 always been much doubt and difficulty, and that similar data taken from the three existing versions of the Old Testament,— the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septua- gint,—give results which vary from each other, not by years, or even by tens of years, but by many centuries. Where differ- ences exist of such magnitude, no confidence can be felt in any of the results. It seems more than questionable how far the history of Man given in the Old Testament either is, or was intended to be, a complete history, or more than the history of typical men and of typical generations. At all events, it would be worse than idle to deny that this ques- tion of Time comes naturally and necessarily within the field of scientific investigation, in D 34 PRIMEVAL MAN. so far as science can find a firm foundation for any conclusions in regard to it. Having already quoted St. Augustine upon the general subject of the desire of knowledge, I cannot close even this cursory reference to the relation in which the Mosaic narrative stands to scientific research, without dwelling for a moment on the very striking passage in which that great man deals with the only account which the world possesses of the history of Creation. St. Augustine was not the man to be dead to all those curious speculations and inquiries which that account excites, and which it does not profess to satisfy. His Confessions, he says, would not be the humble confessions he desires them to be, were he not to confess that as regards AUGUSTINE’S DECLARATION. 35 many of those questions, he does not under- stand the sense in which Moses wrote. All the more does he admire his words, “so sublime in their humility, so rich in their reserve” (alta humiliter, pauca copiose); then follows (lib. xii. c. 31) a passage which,— considering the age in which it was written, considering also the vague notions entertained by St. Augustine himself, and by all the world in his time, on the rank and import- ance of the natural sciences,—is surely one of the most remarkable passages ever written by Theologian or Philosopher. “For myself,” he says, “I declare boldly, and from the bottom of my heart, that if I were called to write something which was to be invested with supreme authority, I should desire most so to D2 36 PRIMEVAL MAN. write that my words should include the widest range of meaning, and should not be confined to one sense alone, exclusive of all others, even of some which should be inconsistent with my own. Far from me, O God, be the temerity to suppose that so great a Prophet did not receive from Thy Grace even such a favour! Yes; he had in view and in his spirit, when he traced these words, all that we can ever discover of the truth—even every truth which has escaped us hitherto, or which escapes us still, but which nevertheless may yet be dis- covered in them.” Certain it is, that whatever new views may now be taken of the origin and authorship of the first chapter of Genesis, it stands alone among the traditions of mankind in the wonderful simplicity and grandeur of THE GROUND CLEARED. 37 its words, Specially remarkable—miraculous it really seems to be—is that character of reserve which leaves open to reason all that reason may be able to attain. The meaning of those words seems always to be a meaning a-head of science—not because it anticipates the results of science, but because it is inde- pendent of them, and runs, as it were, round the outer margin of all possible discovery. Having now cleared the ground of some preliminary difficulties which might otherwise have impeded us in a proper access to the subject, I shall proceed in the next Part to deal with the first of the three questions into which that subject is divided—viz. the Origin of Man considered as a Species, in so far as this question appears to be accessible to reason. PakRT iL THE ORIGIN OF MAN. HE Human Race has no more know- ledge or recollection of its own origin than a child has of its own birth, But a child drinks in with its mother’s milk some knowledge of the relation in which it stands to its own parents, and as it grows up it knows of other children being born around it. It sees one generation going and another generation coming, so that long before the years of childhood close the ideas of birth IDEAS OF BIRTH AND DEATH. 39 and death are alike familiar. Whatever sense of mystery may, in the first dawnings of reflection, have attached to either of these ideas, is soon lost in the familiar experience of the world. The same experience extends to the lower animals—they, too, are born and die. But no such experience ever comes to us casting any light on the Origin of our own Race, or of any other. Some varieties of form are effected in the case of a few animals, by domestication, and by constant care in the selection of peculiarities transmissible to the young. But these variations are all within certain limits; and wherever human care re- laxes or is abandoned, the old forms return, and the selected characters disappear. The founding of new forms by the union of 40 PRIMEVAL MAN. different species, even when standing in close natural relation to each other, is absolutely forbidden by the sentence of sterility which Nature pronounces and enforces upon all hybrid offspring. And so it results that Man has never seen the origin of any species. Creation by birth is the only kind of creation he has ever seen; and from. this kind of creation he has never seen a new species come. And yet he does know (for this the science of Paleontology has most certainly revealed), that the introduction of new species has been a work carried on constantly and continuously during vast but unknown periods of time. The whole face of animated nature has been changed, not once, but frequently ; not suddenly for the most part, perhaps not METHOD OF CREATION. 41 suddenly in any case, but slowly and gradually, and yet completely. When once this fact is clearly apprehended—whenever we become familiar with the idea that Creation has had a History, we are inevitably led to the con- clusion that Creation has also had a Method. And then the further question arises;—What has this method been? It is perfectly natural ‘that men who have any hopes of solving this question should take that supposition which seems the readiest; and the readiest sup- position is, that the agency by which new species are created is the same agency by which new individuals are born. The difficulty of conceiving any other compels men, if they are to guess at all, to guess upon this founda- tion. Such is the origin and genesis of all 42 PRIMEVAL MAN. the theories of Development, of which Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis is only the latest form. It is not in itself inconsistent with the Theistic argument, or with belief in the ultimate agency and directing power of a Creative “Mind. This is clear, since we never think of any difficulty in reconciling that belief with our knowledge of the ordinary laws of animal and vegetable reproduction. Those laws may be correctly, and can only be adequately, described in the language of religion and theology. “He who is the alone Author and Creator of all things,” says the present Bishop of Salisbury, “does not by separate acts of creation give being and life to those creatures which are to be brought forth, but employs His living creatures thus to give effect to His ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 43 will and pleasure, and as His agents to be the means of communicating life.”* The same language might be applied, without the altera- tion of a word, to the origin of species, if it were indeed true that new kinds as well as new individuals were created by being born. The truth is, that the argument which has so often been employed to elevate our conception of the wisdom hid in secondary causes, is an argument which only gains increasing strength ’ and force in proportion to the number and involution of those causes, and to the extent and scope of their effects. If it does not diminish, but only augments the wonder of Organic Life, that it has been so contrived as to be capable of propagating itself, neither * Charge, 1867. 44 PRIMEVAL MAN. would it diminish that wonder, but rather enhance it to an infinite degree, that Organ- isms should be gifted with the still more wonderful power of developing Forms of Life other and higher than their own. So far, therefore, as belief in a Personal Creator is concerned, the difficulties in the way of accepting this hypothesis are not theological. The difficulties are scientific. The first funda- mental difficulty is simply this,—that all the theories of Development ascribe to known causes unknown effects—unknown as regards the times in which we now live, and unknown so far as has hitherto been ascertained in all the past times of which there is any record. It is true that this record—the geo- logical record—is imperfect. But, as Sir THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD. 45 Roderick Murchison has long ago proved, there are parts of that record which are singularly complete, and in those parts we have the proofs of Creation without any indication of Development. The Silurian rocks, as regards Oceanic Life, are perfect and abundant in the forms they have pre- served, yet there are no Fish. The Devonian Age followed, tranquilly, and without a break ; and in the Devonian Sea, suddenly, Fish appear—appear in shoals, and in forms of the highest and most perfect type. There is no trace of links or transitional forms between the great class of Mollusca and the great class of Fishes. There is no reason whatever to suppose that such forms, if they had existed, can have been destroyed in deposits 46 PRIMEVAL MAN. which have preserved in wonderful perfection the minutest organisms. So much for the Past. As regards the Present, Organisms are known to reproduce life, but always life which is like their own. And if this likeness admits of degrees of difference, the margin of variety is not known to be ever broad enough for the foundation of a new species. This, too, is remarkable,—that such margin of variety as does ever exist among the offspring of the same parents becomes smaller and smaller in proportion as we rise in the scale of Organic Life. That any organism, therefore, can ever produce another which varies from itself in any truly specific character, is an assumption not justified by any known fact. No organism THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 47 is ever seen to exert such a power now. There are many indications which tend to show that all organisms have been equally incapable of modification since the earliest monuments of Man. There is no proof that any organism ever did fulfil such functions at any time. The hypothesis is resorted to because of the difficulty of conceiving any method of creation except creation by birth. But this is no adequate standing-ground for a scientific theory. It would be well for those who speculate upon this subject to remember, that whenever a new species or a new class of animal has begun to be, something must have happened which is not in the “ordinary course of nature,” as known to us. Some- thing, therefore, must have happened which 48 PRIMEVAL MAN. we have a difficulty, probably an insuperable difficulty, in conceiving. If, therefore, the theory of Development can be shown to involve difficulties of conception which are quite as great as those which it professes to remove, then it ceases to have any standing- ground at all. An hypothesis which escapes from particular difficulties by encountering others which are smaller, may be tolerated at least provisionally. But an hypothesis which, to avoid an alternative supposed to be incon- ceivable, adopts another alternative encom- passed by many difficulties quite as eee is not entitled even to provisional acceptance. Now, the difficulties attending the theory of Development, or of creation by birth, attain their maximum in the case of Man. Some DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING IT. 49 of them are referred to in a cursory manner by Dr. Whately. Let us examine them a little nearer. ~ “Man’s place in nature” has long been, and still is, the grand battle-ground of anatomists. and physiologists; but the points on which they are disagreed among themselves have not really any importance corresponding to the vehemence with which they have been disputed. The great French anatomist, Cuvier, was of opinion that the distinctions between Man’s organism and the organism of the highest among the beasts are of such magni- tude and importance, that the human race cannot be classified as belonging to the same “Order” with any other creature, but must be held to constitute an “Order” by itself. In E 50 PRIMEVAL MAN. our own time Professor Owen holds the same opinion. Professor Huxley, on the other hand, has undertaken to prove that the anatomical differences between the hurhan frame and the frame of the Gorilla, or Chim- panzee, are not such, either in kind or in degree, as to justify this wide distinction. But he specially limits this conclusion to the differences of physiology, and confesses that, if in defining Man we are to take into account the phenomena of Mind, there is between Man and those beasts which stand nearest to him in anatomy, a difference so wide that it cannot be measured—an “enormous gulf”— “a divergence immeasurable” and “practically infinite.’ But this last conclusion is really incompatible with the first. There is an MIND CORRELATED WITH ORGANIZATION. 51 inseparable connection between the phenomena of Mind and the phenomena of Organization. They must be taken together, and be inter- preted together. The structure of every creature is correlated with the functions which its several parts are fitted to discharge; and the mental character, dispositions, and instincts of the creature are again strictly correiated with these functions. We must accept from anatomists all the facts which anatomy can teach; but the value to be placed on these facts is a very different question. All classification is ideal, and depends on the relative value to be placed on facts which are in themselves indisputable. On this question of the comparative value of anatomical facts we have other facts to go by which do not E2 52 PRIMEVAL MAN. belong to the science of Physiology. Nature is her own interpreter, and her evidence is clear. Whatever may be the anatomical difference between Man and the Gorilla, that difference is the equivalent, in physical orga- nization, of the whole mental difference between a Gorilla and a Man. This is the measure of value which Nature has set upon the kind and degree of divergence which separates these two Material Forms. Any other measure of value which may be set on that divergence must be founded on an arbitrary and partial selection among the facts of which all sound classification must take account. Imperfect as all existing systems of classification are, they are not so bad in the case of any group of the lower animals as to separate organs CUVIER’S CLASSIFICATION. 53 from the functions they discharge, and from the mental habits which peculiarities of struc- ture merely represent, embody, and subserve. Although the resemblances which have been seized upon for the purpose of grouping together a certain number of animals into Classes, or Families, or Orders, have been for the most part resemblances arbitrarily selected, and have borne no consistent refer- ence to any one standard of comparison throughout the creatures to be arranged, yet those resemblances have not been so arbitrary nor so fallacious. as to join together in one common “Order” animals separated from each other in powers and habits by an impassable gulf. Of the eight “Orders” (exclusive of Man) into which Cuvier 54 PRIMEVAL MAN. divided all the animals whose young are suckled (Mammalia), one is distinguished from the others by the prehensile character of both feet and hands (Quadrumana); another Order is distinguished by the nature of its food (Carnivora); the third is distinguished by peculiarities in the production of the young (Marsupiaia); the fourth and fifth are distin- guished by the nature of their teeth (Rodentia and Edentata); the sixth are distinguished by the texture of their skin (Pachydermata); the seventh by peculiarities of the digestive system (Ruminantia); and the last by the fish-like form and fish-like habitat of the Whales and Dugongs (Cetacea). Now, although it is obvious that no one principle of classifi- cation is consistently adhered to in this system, MAN AND THE CHIMPANZEE. 55 —although there is no common. standard to which they are all referred,—yet, as a matter of fact, the peculiarities chosen are not only the most salient and the most character- istic peculiarities of the animals as a whole, but they are connected with others which run through the whole organism, and with some corresponding similarities of instinct and dis- position. But no such defence can be offered for the system which groups Man in the same Order with the Chimpanzee or the Ourang- outang, upon the ground merely that the limbs of those animals are terminated by organs which are anatomically “true feet and b true hands;” or because they have the same number of teeth; or because the same primary divisions exist in the structure of the brain. 56 PRIMEVAL MAN. The difference between the hand of a monkey and the hand of a man may seem small when they are both placed on the dissecting table ; but in that difference, whatever it may be, lies the whole difference between an organ limited to the climbing of trees or the plucking of fruit, and an organ which is so correlated with man’s inventive genius that by its aid the Earth is weighed, and the distance of the Sun is measured. In like manner let us assume it to be true that the difference between the brain of Man and the brain of the Gorilla may be reduced to a difference of volume, to that visible difference alone, and even as regards volume to a difference in quantity comparatively small. “Cranial capacity” is measured by the cubic inches of space which CRANIAL CAPACITY. 57 a skull contains, Professor Huxley tells us,* on the authority of Professor Schaafhausen, that some Hindu skulls have as small a capacity as 46 cubic inches, whilst the largest Gorilla yet measured contained upwards of 35 _cubic inches. This represents a difference of volume of less than 11 cubic inches. But the difference between this Hindu skull and the largest European skull (114 cubic inches) amounts, according to the same authority, to no less than 68 cubic inches. Nevertheless the significance set by the facts of nature upon that difference of 11 cubic inches between the Gorilla and the Man, is the difference between an irrational brute confined to some one climate and to some limited area * Lyell’s “Antiquity of Man,” p. 84. 58 PRIMEVAL MAN, of the globe,—which no outward conditions can modify or improve,—-and a Being equally adapted to the whole habitable world, with powers, however undeveloped, of comparison, of reflection, of judgment, of reason, with a sense of right and wrong,—and with all these . capable of accumulated acquisition, and there- fore of indefinite advance. It is not true to affirm that these characteristics stand wholly apart—separated by an “enormous gulf ”— from his physical organization. There is an adjustment between these peculiarities of Mind and the special peculiarities of his Frame as nice, and as obvious to sense and reason, as there is between the ferocious disposition of a Tiger and his powerful claws, or between the retractile character of these and his soft and INCONSISTENCY OF ANATOMISTS. 59 stealthy tread. When anatomists object to erect a separate “Order” for Man on the plea that it is an attempt to reconcile two different orders of ideas,—namely, ideas of ana- tomical structure, and ideas of mental power,— they are simply refusing to place that value on anatomical differences which nature puts on them. They find no similar difficulty as regards other animals in co-ordinating ana- tomical structure with mental powers and instincts. The canine teeth of the Carnivora stand in close and consistent relation with their dispositions. The prehensile character of the feet or tail in monkeys is a true and adequate expression of their arboreal habits ; and the small and simple brains of the Marsupials (Kangaroos, &c.) are strictly cor- 60 PRIMEVAL MAN. related with their low intelligence. We may not—and we do not—understand how these phenomena of Matter and of Mind are thus dependent on each other; but as a fact we see that this dependence is universal, and the distinctions which we found on anatomical structure have their value corroborated and confirmed by close and inseparable corre- spondences of instinct and intelligence. Man is no exception whatever to this. universal law; and any system of classification which places a value on his anatomical peculiarities, separating by an impassable gulf between his Body and his Mind, is a system altogether inconsistent with philosophy. The value set upon any given anatomical peculiarity, or group of peculiarities, in a sound system of SOUNDNESS OF OWEN’S ARGUMENT. 61 classification, ought evidently to correspond as nearly as possible with the value assigned to those peculiarities in the system of nature. The significance of any anatomical feature hinges on the number and variety of other peculiarities to which it stands related. Pro- fessor Owen’s argument is therefore clearly sound in principle,—that the “consequences” of any such peculiarity must be considered in estimating its systematic value. Take the case of the differences, anatomically small, which distinguish the arms of Man from the arms of a monkey “The consequences,” says Professor Owen, “of the liberation of one pair of limbs from all service in station and progression, due to the extreme modification of the other pair for the exclusive discharge 62 PRIMEVAL MAN. of those functions, are greater, and involve a superior number and quality of powers than those resulting from the change of an ‘ungu- late’ (hoofed, one of Cuvier’s sub-class divisions) into an ‘unguiculate,’ or claw-bearing, condi- tion of limb, and they demand therefore an equivalent value in a zoological system.” Accordingly, Professor Owen has attempted to found a system of classification on the degrees of cerebral development, as being the anatomical feature which on the whole stands in the most governing relation to other peculiarities of structure. This proposal has been vehemently contested; but the contest seems to have turned on a point not really vital to the question. Objectors do but aim at proving that all the leading divisions in the OWEN’S CLASSIFICATION. 63 brain of Man exist also in the brain of monkeys; and thus, that the difference is reduced to one of volume or quantity alone. But this difference of quantity, relative to the size of the organism, even if no other Bai be detected by the knife, is correlated with a whole host of other anatomical peculiarities which span the whole breadth of the chasm that yawns between the brutes and Man. These peculiarities must be taken as a whole, in their assemblage, and in their actual connection. The size of Brain is but the index of many other differences, all closely related to one Purpose, and contributing to one result. It is no answer to this argument to say that an equal amount, or even a greater amount, of difference in mere bulk is 64 PRIMEVAL MAN. found to exist between the lowest and the highest human brain, because the fact with which we have to deal is this, that a certain minimum quantity of that mysterious sub- stance is constantly and uniformly associated with all the other anatomical peculiarities of Man. Below that minimum the whole accompanying structure undergoes far more than a corresponding change,—even the whole change between the lowest Savage and the highest Ape. Above that minimum, all subsequent variations in quantity are accom- panied by no changes whatever in physical structure. In placing, therefore, a high value —a value in classification of Order, or even of Class—upon the eleven cubic inches of brain-space which lie between the Hindu and CHASM BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMALS. 65 the Gorilla, when we place no such value on the sixty-eight cubic inches which lie between the Hindu and Sir Isaac Newton, we are but accepting the evidence of Nature—following where she leads, and classifying according to her award. The bearing of this conclusion on the Origin of Man is simply this, that in proportion as the difference between Man and the lower animals is properly appreciated in the light of nature, in the same proportion will the difficulty increase of conceiving how the chasm could be passed by any process of Transmutation or Development. This difficulty is still further increased if we advert for a moment to the direction in which the human frame diverges from the F 66 PRIMEVAL MAN. structure of the brutes. It diverges in the direction of greater physical helplessness and weakness. That is to say, it is a divergence which of all others it is most impossible to ascribe to mere “Natural Selection.” The unclothed and unprotected condition of the human body, its comparative slowness of foot, the absence of teeth adapted for prehension or for defence, the same want of power for similar purposes in the hands and fingers, the blunt- ness of the sense of smell, such as to render it useless for the detection of prey which is concealed,—all these are features which stand in strict and harmonious relation to the mental powers of Man. But, apart from these, they would place him at an immense disadvantage in the struggle for existence. This, therefore, LUBBOCK’S PROGENITOR OF MAN. 67 is not the direction in which the blind forces of Natural Selection could ever work. The creature “not worthy to be called a man,” to whom Sir J. Lubbock has referred as the pro- genitor of Man, was, er hypothesz, deficient in those mental capacities which now distinguish the lowest of the human race. To exist at all, this creature must have been more animal in its structure; it must have had bodily powers and organs more like those of the beasts. The continual improvement and _per- fection of these would be the direction of variation most favourable to the continuance of the species. These could not be modified in the direction of greater weakness without inevitable destruction, until first by the gift of reason and of mental capacities of con- F 2 68 PRIMEVAL MAN. trivance, there had been established an adequate preparation for the change. The loss of speed or of climbing power which is involved in the fore-arms becoming useless for locomotion, could not be incurred with safety until the brain was ready to direct a hand. The foot could not be allowed to part with its prone or prehensile character until the powers of reason and reflection had been pro- vided to justify, as it now explains, the erect position and the upward gaze. And so through all the innumerable modifications of form which are the peculiarities of Man, and which stand in indissoluble union with his capacities of thought. The lowest degree of intelligence which is now possessed by the lowest Savage, is not more than enough to compensate him AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES, 69 for the weakness of his frame, or to enable him to maintain successfully the struggle for existence. With many Savages it is a hard struggle, despite senses of sight and hearing trained by necessity so as almost to approach the instincts of the lower animals; despite also all those powers of reasoning which, however low, are yet peculiar to himself, and separate him, as is confessed, by an impassable gulf from the highest of the beasts. Many of the Aborigines of Australia could do no more at times than support a_ precarious existence by scraping up roots, and eating snakes and other reptiles. The rotten blubber of a dead whale cast upon the beach was, and is often, not only a luxury and a feast, but deliverance from actual starvation. Sir 7O PRIMEVAL MAN. J. Lubbock’s theory is, that in these Savages we see something rather above than under the primitive condition of Mankind. But it may be safely said that a very small diminution of mental capacity alow that of an Australian Savage, would render Man’s characteristic structure incompatible with the maintenance of his existence in most, if not in all, of the countries where he is actually found. If that frame was once more bestial, it may have been better adapted for a bestial existence. But it is impossible to conceive how it could ever have emerged from that existence by virtue of Natural Selection. Man must have had human proportions of mind before he could afford to lose bestial pro- portions of body. If the change in mental THE THEORY OF TRANSMUTATION. 71 power came simultaneously with the change in physical organization, then it was all that we can ever know or understand of a new creation. There is no ground whatever for supposing that ordinary generation has been the agency employed, seeing that no effects similar in kind are ever produced by that agency, so far as is known to us. The theory of Transmutation in all its forms, even as applied to the lower animals, is exposed to many difficulties greater than those which it professes to remove. But as applied to Man, those difficulties are accumulated to an in- calculable degree. Most of them, too, are altogether of a special kind, because the divergence which ordinary generation is sup- posed to have produced in the case of Man is 72 PRIMEVAL MAN. a divergence, to use Professor Huxley’s words, “immeasurable—practically infinite.” It needs only to be added to this sketch, that such as Man now is, Man, so far as we yet know, has always been. Two skeletons at least have been found respecting which there is strong ground for believing that they belong to the very earliest human race which lived in Northern Europe. I defer any refer- ence to the probable epoch of time when those skeletons were clothed with flesh and blood. This belongs to the next division of our subject, which is the Antiquity as distinguished from the Origin of Man. Suffice it here to say that although one of those skeletons indicates a coarse, perhaps even what we should call—as we might fairly ANCIENT SKELETONS. 73 call some living specimens of our race—a brutal man, yet even this skeleton is in all its proportions strictly human. Its cranial capacity indicates a volume of brain, and some peculiarities of shape not materially different from many skulls of Savage races now living. The other skeleton, respecting which the evidence of extreme antiquity is the strongest, is not only perfectly human in all its proportions, but its skull has a cranial capacity not inferior to that of many modern Europeans. This most ancient of all known human skulls is so ample in_ its dimensions that it might have contained the brains of a philosopher. So conclusive is this evidence against any change whatever in the specific characters of Man since the oldest Wee PRIMEVAL MAN. Human Being yet known was born, that Professor Huxley pronounces it to be clearly indicated: “that the first’ M4races\qieiy the primordial stock whence Man has proceeded need no longer be sought, by those who entertain any form of the doctrine of progressive development, in the newest ter- tiaries,’—(that is, in the oldest deposit yet known to contain human remains at_ all.) ‘But,’ he adds, “they may be looked for in an epoch more distant from the age of those tertiaries than that is from us.”’* So far, therefore, the evidence is on the side of the originality of Man as a species, nay, even as a Class by himself, separated by a gulf practically immeasurable from all the crea- * Lyell, “ Antiquity of Man,” p. 89. MAN AN ORIGINAL SPECIES, 75 tures that are, or that are known ever to have been, his contemporaries in the world. In possession of this ground, we can wait for such further evidence in favour of Trans- mutation as -may be brought to _ light. Meanwhile at least we are entitled to remain incredulous, remembering, as Professor Phillips has said, that “everywhere we are required by the hypothesis to look somewhere else ; which may fairly be interpreted to signify that the hypothesis everywhere fails in the first and most important step. How is it conceivable that the second stage should be everywhere preserved, but the first nowhere ?”* * “Tife—the Origin and Succession,” by Professor John Phillips, P AR e eae THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. |e passing from the subject of Man’s Origin to the subject of his Antiquity, we pass from almost total darkness to a question which is comparatively accessible to reason and open to research. Evidence bearing upon this question may be gathered along several different walks of science, and these are all found tending in one direction, and pointing to one general result. First comes the evidence of History, embracing under that name all VARIETY OF THE EVIDENCE. Teal literature, whether it professes to record events, or does no more than allude to them in poetry and song. Then comes Archeology, the evidence of Human Monuments, belonging to times or races whose voice, though not silenced, has become inarticulate to _ us. Piecing on to this evidence, comes that which Geology has recently afforded from human remains associated with the latest physical changes on the surface and in the climates of the globe. Then comes the evi- dence of Language, founded on the facts of Human Speech, and the laws which regulate its development and growth. And lastly, there is the evidence afforded by the existing physical structure, and the existing geogra- phical distribution of the various Races of 78 PRIMEVAL MAN. Mankind. According as we may have made one or other of these great branches of inquiry our favourite pursuit, we may be disposed to place a different estimate on their com- parative value. But perhaps we shall not go far wrong if we arrange them in the order here given, as the order in which they stand relatively to the directness and certainty of the testimony they afford. One distinction, however, it is important to bear in mind. Chronology is of two kinds, —first, Time measurable by years,—and secondly, Time measurable only by an ascertained order or succession of events. The one may be called Time-absolute, the other Time-relative. Now, among all the sciences which afford us evidence on the TWO KINDS OF CHRONOLOGY, 79 Antiquity of Man, one, and one only, gives us any knowledge of Time-absolute; and that is History. From all the others we can gather only the less definite information of Time-relative. They can tell us of nothing more than of the order in which certain events took place. But of the length of interval between those events, neither Archeology, nor Geology, nor Ethnology can tell us anything. Even History, that is, the records of Written Documents, carries us back to times of which no contemporary account remains, and the distance of which in Gls from any known epoch is, and must be, a matter of con- jecture. No other history than the Hebrew History even professes to go back to the Creation of Man, or to give any account of 80 PRIMEVAL MAN. the events which connect existing generations with the first Progenitor of their Race. And of that History, the sole object appears to be, to give in outline the order of such transac- tions as had a special bearing on Relea ® Truth, and on the course of Spiritual Belief. The intimations given in the earlier chapters of the Book of Genesis on all matters of purely secular interest, are incidental only, and exceedingly obscure. And yet it is not a total silence. Enough is said to indicate how much there lay beyond and outside of the narrative which is given. The dividing of the Tribes of the Gentiles among the descendants of Japheth,* conveys the idea of movements and operations which probably occupied long peGen.tx Fe: GENEALOGY OF SHEM. 81 intervals of time, and many generations of men. The same impression must arise from the condensed abstract given of the origin and growth of communities capable of building such cities as Resen and Calah and Nineveh are described to be.* In the genealogy of the family of Shem, we have a list of names, which are names and nothing more to us. It is genealogy which neither does, nor professes to do, more than to trace the order of succession among a few families only out of the millions then already existing in the world. Nothing but this order of succession is given, nor is it at all certain that this order is consecutive or complete. Nothing is told us of all that lay behind * Gen. x. II, 12, G 82 PRIMEVAL MAN. that curtain of thick darkness, in front of which these names are made to pass. And yet there are, as it were, momentary liftings, through which we have glimpses of great movements which were going on, and had long been going on, beyond. No shapes are distinctly seen. Even the direction of those movements can be only guessed. But voices are heard which are as the voices of many nations. The very first among the descen- dants of Noah whose individuality and personality is clear to us,—the very first whose doings can be brought into relation with events otherwise known or recognizable in the History of Man,—is introduced in a manner which reveals the fact that different races of the human family had then already ABRAHAM. 83 been long established and widely spread. The memorable and mysterious journey which brought Terah into Haran on his way to Canaan,* was a journey beginning in that ancient home, Ur, already known as “of the Chaldees.” And when the great figure of his son Abraham appears upon the scene, we find ourselves already in the presence of the Monarchy of Egypt, and of the advanced civilization of the Pharaohs. In the same narrative, on another side, we come into the presence of one of those great military Kingdoms of the East which in succession occupy so large a space in the history of the ancient world. Chedor- laomer, with his tributary Princes, was then * Gen. xi. 31. G2 84 PRIMEVAL MAN. the ruler of nations capable of waging wars of conquest at great distances from the seat of their government, and the centre of their power. We see in him therefore the Sovereign of a long-established and powerful race. And yet these migrations and wars of Abraham stand, if not at the very beginning of History, at least at the very beginning of Historical Chronology. They mark the very earliest date in the history of Man, on which, within moderate limits of discrepancy, all chronologists are agreed. That date may be fixed at 2,000 B.C. This is the boundary, in looking backwards, of Time-absolute. All beyond, is Time-relative. We have, indeed, other evidence of an historical character to show that the Monarchy of Egypt had been THE EGYPTIAN MONARCHY, 85 founded long before the time of Abraham. But how long, is a question on which there is the widest discrepancy of opinion. The most moderate computation, however, carries the foundation of that Monarchy as far back as 700 years before the visit of the Hebrew Patriarch, Some of the best German scholars hold that there is evidence of a much longer chronology. But seven centuries before Abraham is the estimate of Mr. R. Stuart Poole, of the British Museum, who is one of the very highest - authorities, and certainly the most cautious, upon questions of Egyptian chronology. This places the beginning of the Pharaohs in the twenty- eighth century B.c. But according to Ussher’s interpretation of the Hebrew Pentateuch, the 86 PRIMEVAL MAN. twenty-eighth century B.C. would be some 400 years before the Flood. On the other hand, a difference of 800 years is allowed by the chronology which is founded on the Septuagint Version of the Scriptures. But the fact of this difference tells in two ways. A margin of variation amounting to eight centuries between two versions of the same document, is a variation so enormous, that it seems to cast complete doubt on the whole system of interpretation on which such computations of time are based. And yet it is more than questionable whether it is possible to reconcile the known order of events with even this larger estimate of the number of years. It is true that, according to this larger estimate, the Flood would be CHEDORLAOMER. 87 carried back about four and a half centuries beyond the beginning of the Pharaohs. But is this enough? The founding of a Monarchy is not the beginning of a race. The people amongst whom such Monarchies arose must have grown and_ gathered during many generations. Nor is it in regard to the peopling of Egypt alone that this difficulty meets us in the face. The existence in the days of Abraham of such an_ organized government as that of Chedorlaomer, shows that 2,000 years B.C. there flourished in Elam, beyond Mesopotamia, a nation which even now would be ranked among “the Great Powers.” And if nations so great had thus arisen, altogether unnoticed in the Hebrew narrative—if we are left to gather as best 88 PRIMEVAL MAN. we may from other sources, all our know- ledge of their origin and growth, how much more is this true of far distant lands over which the advancing tide of human population had rolled, or was then rolling its mysterious wave? If the most ancient and the most sacred literature in the world tells us so little of the early history of the men who lived and flourished on the banks of the Euphrates, the Tigris, or the Nile, what information can we expect to find in it respecting those who were probably already settled on the Indus and the Ganges, or were spreading along the banks of the Brahmaputra and of the Yellow River? What of those tribes who were following the Volga and the Oxus, or the Danube LONGER CHRONOLOGY NECESSARY. 89 and the Rhine? What of that vast Continent whose secrets are being revealed at last only in our own day—the Continent of Africa? When and how did that Negro Race begin, which is both one of the most ancient and one of the most strongly marked among the varieties of Man? And what again can we learn from Genesis of the peopling of the New World? When did Man first come upon the inland seas of America, and follow the great rivers which fall into the Gulf of Mexico? It is not possible to suppose that some 450 years before the foundation of the Egyp- tian Monarchy is a period long enough to account even for the few facts which are implied in the Mosaic narrative itself, respect- ing the dispersion and geographical distribution go PRIMEVAL MAN. of Mankind. And to those facts must be added others resting on evidence which is still historical. There is another civilization which appears to have been almost as ancient as that of Egypt, and which has been far more enduring. The authentic records of the Chinese Empire are said to begin in the twenty-fourth century B.c.— that is, more than 300 years before the time of Abraham.* They begin, too, apparently with a Kingdom already established, with a capital city, and with a settled government.f Yet this civili- zation first appears at the farthest extremity * “The Chinese ;” G. T. T. Meadows, p. 34. + Since this passage was published I have been favoured with an interesting letter from the Rev. James Legge, who has spent many years as a Missionary in China, and has published valuable editions of the Historical works of the Chinese. CHINESE HISTORY. gti of Asia, separated by many thousands of miles, and by some of the most impassable regions of the world, from the cradle of the Human Race, and from the country where Noah and his family were saved. Such facts seem to point to one or other of two con- clusions—either that the Flood must have happened at a period in the history of Man vastly earlier than any that has been usually supposed, or else that the Flood destroyed only a small portion of the Human Family. That the Deluge affected only a small portion It is this gentleman’s opinion that the Chinese Tribe was only beginning to grow into a kingdom about 2,000 B.C. and, that 1,200 years later, the kingdom did not extend nearly so far south as the Yang-tsze river. The general conclusion to which these dates point, is not, I think, materially affected by this somewhat shortened estimate of Chinese Historical Chronology, 92 PRIMEVAL MAN. of the globe which is xow habitable is almost certain. But this is quite a different thing from supposing that the Flood affected only a small portion of the world which was ¢hen inhabited. The wide, if not the universal prevalence among the heathen nations, of a tradition preserving the memory of some such great catastrophe, has always been con- sidered to indicate recollection carried by descent from the surviving few. And _ this tradition seems to be curiously strong and definite among tribes which are now separated by half the circumference of the globe from the region affected by the Flood. At all events this is clear, that the difficulty of reconciling the narrative of Genesis with an indefinitely older date is a very small diffi- AREA OF THE FLOOD. 93 culty indeed, as compared with the difficulty of reconciling it with a very limited destruc- tion of the Human Race. The evidence for a higher antiquity of Man is derived from countries in comparatively close proximity with those which, under any possible supposi- ‘tion as to the area of a Deluge, must have been then submerged. On the other hand, we have seen how utterly uncertain and how enormously different are the chronologies’ which profess to be founded on the Penta- teuch. They all involve suppositions as to the principle of interpretation, and as to the import of words descriptive of descent, which are in the highest degree doubtful, and which it is evident cannot be applied consistently throughout. Thus, when we 94 PRIMEVAL MAN. read* of Canaan, the grandson of Noah, that he “begat Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth,” we seem to have the names of individual men ; but, when it is immediately added that he also “begat the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite,” &c. &c., it is clear that we are dealing not with single generations, but with a condensed abstract of the origin and growth of Tribes. No definite information is given in such abstracts as to the lapse of time. The chronology of changes not specially included in the narrative, can only be gathered from the general character of the events described. And that general character is such as fully to corroborate the evidence we have * Gen, x. 15—18. A TWILIGHT TIME. 95 from other sources—that long before the Call of Abraham, that is: to say, long before the twentieth century B.c., the Human Race had been increasing and multiplying on the earth from such ancient days that in many regions, far removed from the centre of their dis- persion, great nations had arisen, powerful and civilized governments had been established. So far, then, we have the light of History shining with comparative clearness over a period of 2,000 years before the Christian era. Beyond that we have a twilight tract of time which may be roughly estimated at 700 years—a period of time lying in the dawn of History, at the very beginning of which we can dimly see that there were already Kings and Princes on the earth. 96 PRIMEVAL MAN. But this is the outer margin of Time-absolute. No farther, with even an approximation to the truth, can we measure the order of events by the lapse of years. But there is a point at which the evidence of Archzology begins before the evidence of History has closed. There is a border-land where both kinds of evidence are found to- gether, or rather, where some _ testimony exists of which it is difficult to say whether it is the testimony of written documents or of the inarticulate monuments of Man. It was the habit of one of the most ancient nations in the world to record all events in the form of pictorial representation. Their domestic habits, their foreign wars, their religious beliefs, are thus all presented to ORIGIN OF RACES. 97 the eye. And one of the questions on which this testimony bears is a question of para- mount importance in determining the anti- quity of the Human Family. That question is not the.» rise of ) Kingdoms, but) the origin of Races. The varieties of Man are a great mystery. The physical dif- ferences which these varieties involve may be indeed, and often are, much exaggerated. Yet, these differences are distinct, and we are naturally impelled to ask When and How did they begin? These are two separate questions ; but the one bears upon the other. The question When stands before the ques- tion How. The fundamental problem to be solved is this: Can such varieties have descended from a single stock? And if H 98 PRIMEVAL MAN. they can, then must not a vast and indefi- nite lapse of time have been occupied in the gradual development of divergent types ? On this question we have no datum on which to reason, unless we can ascertain how far back in Time-absolute these diver- gences had already become established. Now, this is the datum which Egypt gives us. In one of the most perfect of the paintings which have been preserved to us, a great. Egyptian monarch is symbolically represented as ruling with the power of life and death over subject races: and these are depicted with accurate and characteristic likeness. Conspicuous in this group is one figure, painted to the life both in form and colour, which proves that the race which THE NEGRO. 99 departs most widely from the European type, had then acquired exactly the same characters which mark it in the present day. The Negro kneels at the feet of Sethos L., in the same attitude of bondage and sub- mission which typifies only too faithfully the enduring servitude of his race. The blackness of colour, the woolliness of hair, the flatness of nose, the projection of the lips, which are so familiar to us,—all these had been fully established and developed thus early in the known history of the world. And this was about 1,400 years before the Christian era—that is to say, more than 3,200 years ago. I am informed by Professor Lepsius (through the kindness of Mr. Poole) that there are some still Hi 2 100 PRIMEVAL MAN. earlier representations of the Negro—referable to the “Twelfth Dynasty,” or to about 1,900 B.C. In these it is curious that the Negro colour is strongly marked, but not the Negro feature. This, however, may be due to the unskilfulness of early art, or to the fact, too often forgotten, that some African tribes —as, for example, the Nubians—have not the low flat nose or the projecting lips. Nor is this the whole evidence afforded by the Egyptian pictures. At periods not much later in the history, we have elaborate representa- tions of battles with Negro nations,—represen- tations which go far to show that the race was then more able to maintain a contest with other races than it has ever been in recent times. And of this a further proof MR. BONOMI’S DRAWINGS. IOI eee eee is to be found in the fact, that at a period at least 2,000 years B.C.—that is about the 102 RRIMEVAL MAN. time of Abraham—mention is made in hiero- glyphic writings of Black or Negro troops being raised by an Egyptian king, to assist him in the prosecution of a great. war.* Since, then, the Negro race was already, in the days of Abraham, just what it is now, what is the time we must allow for the development of this variety of Man, supposing it to have descended from a common stock? We have absolutely no measurement of time by which to estimate the growth of such varieties. We know that changes of climate and of food do * Drawings by the skilful hands of Mr. Bonomi are given on p. Ior and on the Frontispiece in illustration of the facts stated in the text. They are taken from an Egyptian temple at Beyt-el-Welee, in Nubia, of the reign of Rameses II., son and successor of Sethos I. THE ELEMENT OF COLOUR. 103 produce upon Mankind some modifications of colour, and of features. But we know also that such changes are extremely _ slow. Colour is in all the lower animals one of the least constant—that is to say, one of the most variable, —.of external characters; and under circumstances of domestication changes of colour are sometimes sudden, and are connected with causes altogether unknown. But we have no evidence to show that human colour is liable to changes of a like kind. On the contrary, all ex- perience seems to point to the conclusion that varieties of complexion can only be established very gradually, and we have no absolute proof that a change from white to negro blackness is possible at all.