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nationalsecularsociety
HUMAN ORIGINS
�WORKS B y SAMUEL LAING
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT.
A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN.
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PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE.
HUMAN ORIGINS.
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R. P. A. SIXPENNY NET BOOKLETS
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOL: A Question of Ethics.
Allanson Picton, M.A.
THE NEW MORALITY.
By James
By Geoffrey Mortimer.
FAITH : ITS FREAKS AND FOLLIES.
By Charles T.
Gorham.
ON THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY OF THOUGHT DURING
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�HUMAN ORIGINS
BY
SAMUEL LAING
Author of “Modern Science and Modern Thoughtf “Problems of the Fzituref
“A Modern Zoroastrianf etc.
Revised by EDWARD CLODD
[issued for the rationalist
press association, limited.]
WATTS & Co.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
I9°3
��CONTENTS
Introduction -
PART I.—EVIDENCE FROM HISTORY
CHAPTER I.
Egypt -------
9
CHAPTER II.
Chald.la
......
22
CHAPTER III.
Other Historical Records
30
CHAPTER IV.
Ancient Religions
-
43
CHAPTER V.
Ancient Science
and
Art -
-
-
-
52
....
68
CHAPTER VI.
Prehistoric Traditions
CHAPTER VII.
The Historical Element
in the
Old Testament
■
PART II.—EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE
CHAPTER VIII.
Geology and Palaeontology
94
CHAPTER IX.
Quaternary Man
105
CHAPTER X.
114
Tertiary Man
CHAPTER XI.
Races of Mankind •
132
�*
�INTRODUCTION
The reception which has been given to
ffiy former works leads me to believe
that they have had a certain educa
tional value for those who, not being
specialists, wish to keep themselves
abreast of the culture of the day, and
to understand the leading results and
pending problems of Modern Science.
Of these results the most interesting are
those which bear upon the origin and
evolution of the human race. Thus far, I
have treated this question mainly from the
point of view of geology and palaeontology,
and have hardly touched on the province
which lies nearest to us, that of history
and of prehistoric traditions. In this
province, however, a revolution has been
effected by modern discoveries, which
is no less important than that made by
geological research and by the general
doctrine of Evolution.
Down to the middle of the last
century, and the belief is far from
extinct, the Hebrew Bible was held to
be the sole and sufficient authority as
to the early history of the human race.
It was believed, with a certainty which
made doubt impious, that the first man
Adam was created in the year 4004
B,C., or not quite 6,000 years ago; and
that 1,656 years later all human and
Other life, with the exception of Noah
and his wife, their sons and their wives,
and pairs of all living creatures, by whom
the earth was repeopled from the moun
tain-peak of Ararat as a centre, were
destroyed by a universal Deluge.
The latest researches bring to light
the existence of uninterrupted historical
records, confirmed by contemporary
monuments, carrying history back fully
3,000 years before the supposed Creation
of Man, and showing even then no trace
of a commencement; but populous cities,
celebrated temples, great engineering
works, and a high state of the arts and
of civilisation already existing. This is
of the highest interest, both as bearing
on the dogma of the inspiration of
the Bible, and on the still more im
portant question of the true theory
of man’s origin and relations to the
universe. The so-called conflict between
Religion and Science is at bottom one
between two conflicting theories of
the universe—the first that it is the
creation of a personal God who constantly
interferes by miracles to correct His
original work; the second, that whether
the First Cause be a personal God or some
Power inscrutable to human faculties, the
work was originally so perfect that the
whole succession of subsequent events
has followed by Evolution acting by
invariable laws. The former is the theory
of orthodox believers, the latter that of
men of science, and of liberal theologians
who, like the late Archbishop Temple, find
that the theory of “ original impress ” is
more in accordance with the idea of an
Omnipotent and Omniscient Creator,
to whom “ a thousand years are
as a day,” than the traditional theory
of a Creator who constantly intervenes
�8
INTRODUCTION
to supplement and amend His original
Creation
by supernatural
interfer
ences.
It is evidently important for all who
desire to arrive at truth, and to keep
abreast of the culture of the day, to have
some clear conception of what historical
and geological records really teach, and
what sort of a standard or measur
ing-rod they supply in helping us to
carry back our researches into the
depths of prehistoric and of geological
time.
I have therefore in this work begun
with the historic period, as giving us a
standard of time by which to gauge
the vastly longer periods which lie
behind, and have advanced from this
by successive steps through the Neoli
thic and Palaeolithic ages, and the
Quaternary and Tertiary periods, so far
as the most recent discoveries throw
any light on the mysterious question of
Human Origins.
If I have succeeded in stimulating
some minds, especially those of my
younger readers, and of the working
classes who are striving after culture, to
feel an interest in these subjects, and to
pursue them further, my object will have
been attained. They have been to me
the solace of a long life, the delight of
many quiet days, and the soother of
many troubled ones; and I should be
glad to think that I had been the means,
however humble, of introducing to others
what I have found such a source of
enjoyment, and enlisting, if it were only
a few, in the service of that “ divine
Philosophy ” in which I have ever found,
as Wordsworth did in Nature,
“The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”
�/
HUMAN ORIGINS
PART I.—EVIDENCE FROM HISTORY
CHAPTER I.
EGYPT
Historical Standard of Time—Short Date incon
sistent with Evolution—Laws of Historical
Evidence—-History begins with Authentic
Records—Records of Egypt—Manetho’s Lists
—Confirmed by Hieroglyphics—Origin of
Writing—The Alphabet—Phonetic Writing—Clue to Hieroglyphics—The Rosetta Stone
—Champoilion—Principles of Hieroglyphic
Writings—Language Coptic—Can be read
with certainty—Confirmed by Monuments
—Old, Middle, and New Empires—Old
Empire to end of Sixth Dynasty—Break be
tween Old and Middle Empires—Works of
Twelfth Dynasty—Fayoum—Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Dynasties—Hyksos Conquests—Duration of Hyksos Rule—Their Expulsion
and Foundation of New Empire—Conquests
in Asia of Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Dynasties—Wars with Hittites and Assyrians
—Persian and Greek Dynasties—Period prior
to Menes—-Horsheshu—Sphinx—Stone Age
—Neolithic and Palaeolithic Remains—Horner,
Haynes, Pitt-Rivers, and Flinders Petrie.
In measuring the dimensions of space we
have to start from some fixed standard,
Such as the foot or yard, taken originally
from the experience of our ordinary senses
and capable of accurate verification. From
this we arrive by successive inductions at
the size of the earth, the distance of the
sun, moon, and planets, and finally at the
parallax of a few of the so-called “ fixed ”
Stars. So in speculations as to the origin
and evolution of the human race, history
affords the standard from which we start,
through the successive stages of pre
historic, neolithic, and palaeolithic man,
until we pass into the wider ranges of geo
logical time.
Any error in theoriginal standard becomes
magnified indefinitely, whether in space or
time, as we extend our researches back
wards into remoter regions.
Thus whether the authentic records of
history extend only for some 4,500 years
backwards from the present time to the
scriptural date of Noah’s flood, as was
universally assumed to be the case until
quite recently ; or whether, as these appear
to warrant, Egyptian and Chaldaean records
carry us back for 9,000 or 10,000 years, and
show us then a highly advanced civilisation
already existing, makes a wonderful differ
ence in the standpoint from which we view
the course of human evolution.
To begin with, a short date necessitates
supernatural interferences. It is quite im
possible that if man and all animal life
were created only about 4,000 years B.C.,
and were then all destroyed save the few
pairs saved in Noah’s ark, and made a
fresh start from a single centre some 1,500
years later, there can be any truth in
Darwin’s theory of evolution. We know
for a certainty, from the concurrent testi
mony of all history, and from Egyptian
monuments, that the different races of men
and animals were in existence certainly
7,000 years ago as they are at the present
day; and that no fresh creations or marked
changes of type have taken place during
that period. If, then, all these types, and
all the different races and nations of men,
sprung up in the interval of less than 1,000
years, which is the longest that can by any
possibility be allowed between the Biblical
date of the Deluge and the clash of the
mighty monarchies of Assyria and Egypt
in Palestine, the date of which is proved
both by the Bible and by profane historians,
it is obviously impossible that such a state
of things could have been brought about by
natural causes.
But if authentic historical records cany
us back not for 3,000 or 4,000, but for 9,000
or 10,000 years, and then show no trace of
a beginning, the case is altered, and we
may assume the lapse of vast periods,
through historical, prehistoric, neolithic,
and palaeolithic ages, during which evolu
tion may have operated. It is of the first
importance, therefore, to inquire what these
records really teach in the light of modem
�IO
HUMAN ORIGINS
research, and what is the evidence for the
longer dates which are now generally ac
cepted.
Furnished with such a measuring-rod, it
becomes easier to attempt to bring into
some sort of co-ordination the vast mass of
facts which have been accumulated in
recent years as to prehistoric, neolithic,
and palaeolithic man ; and also the facts
respecting the origin, antiquity, and early
history of the human race, which have
come in from other sciences, such as astro
nomy, palaeontology, zoology, and philology.
To do this exhaustively would be an en
cyclopaedic task, which I do not pretend to
accomplish; but I am not without hope that
the following chapters, connected as they
are by the one leading idea of tracing
human origins backward to their source,
may assist inquiry, and create an interest
in this most fascinating of all questions,
especially among the young who are
striving after knowledge, and the millions
who, not having the time and opportunity
for reading technical works, desire to keep
themselves abreast of modern thought and
of the advanced culture of the nineteenth
century.
Before examining these records in detail
it is well to begin with the general laws
upon which historical evidence is based.
History begins with writings. All experi
ence shows that what may be transmitted
by memory and word of mouth consists
mainly of hymns and portions of ritual,
such as the Vedas of the Hindoos ; and to
a certain extent of heroic poems and ballads.
Moreover, the capacity of the memory is
limited. Further, the historical element in
these is so overlaid by mythology and
poetry that it is impossible to discriminate
between fact and fancy. Thus the legend
of Hercules is evidently in the main a solar
myth, and his twelve labours are related to
the signs of the zodiac; but it is possible
that there may have been a real Hercules,
the actual or eponymic ancestor of the
tribe of Heraclides. So, at a later period,
the descent of the Romans from the pious
Himeas, and of the Britons from another
Trojan hero Brute, are obviously fabulous ;
and, at a still more recent date, our own
Arthurian legends are evidently a mediaeval
romance, though it is possible that there
may have been a chief of that name of the
Christianised Romano-Britons,whoopposed
a gallant resistance to the flood of Saxon
invasion.
But to make real history we require
somethingvery different; concurrent and un
interrupted testimony of credible historians;
exclusion of impossible and obviously fabui
lous dates and events ; and, above all, con
temporary records, written or engraved on
tombs, temples, and monuments, or preserved in papyri or clay cylinders.
Another remark is, that these authentic
records of early history begin to appear
only when civilisation is so far advanced as
to have established powerful dynasties and
priestly organisations. The history of a
nation is at first the history of its kings,
and its records are enumerations of their
genealogies, successive reigns, foundation
or repair of temples, great industrial works,
and warlike exploits. These are made and
preserved by special castes of priestly
colleges and learned scribes, and they are
to a great extent precise in date and accu
rate in statement. Before the establishment
of such historical dynasties we have nothing
but legends and traditions, which are vague
and mythical, the mythological element
rapidly predominating as we go backwards
in time, until we soon arrive at reigns of gods,
and lives of thousands of years. But as
we approach the period of historical dynas
ties the mythological element diminishes,
and we pass from gods reigning 10,000
years, and patriarchs living to 900, to later
patriarchs living 150 or 200 years, and
finally to mortal men living, and kings
reigning, to natural ages.
In fact, with the first appearance of
authentic records the supernatural dis
appears, the average duration of lives,
reigns, and dynasties, and the general
course of events, are much the same as at
present, and fully confirm the statement of
the Egyptian priests to Herodotus, that
during the long succession of ages of the
345 high priests of Heliopolis, whose statues
they showed him in the great temple of the
sun, there had been, no change in the
length of human life or in the course of
nature, and each one of the 345 had been a
ftiromiS'W. mortal man,the son of a piromis.
The first question is how far back these
authentic historical records can be traced,
and to this, if we except the less precise
evidence from the inscribed tablets un
earthed at Nippur in Northern Babylonia,
Egypt affords the first answer.
The first step in the inquiry as to Egyptian
antiquity is afforded by the history of
Manetho. Ptolemy Philadelphus, whose
reign began 286 B.C., was an enlightened
king. He founded the great Alexandrian
library, and was specially curious in col
lecting everything which bore on the early
�EGYPT
ir
history of his own and other countries. which had reached Ionian Greece of the
With this view he had the Greek trans perhaps over-vaunted splendours of the
lation, known as the Septuagint, made of nineteenth dynasty. Herodotus visited
the sacred books of the Hebrews, and he Egypt about 450 B.C., and wrote a descrip
commissioned Manetho to compile a history tion of it from what he saw and heard. It
of Egypt from the earliest times, from the contains a good deal of valuable informa
most authentic temple records and other tion, for he was a shrewd observer. But
sources of information. Manetho was he was credulous, and not very critical in
eminently qualified for such a task, being a distinguishing between fact and fable ; and
learned and judicious man, and a priest of it is evident that his sources of information
Sebennytus, one of the oldest and most were often not much better than vague
popular traditions, or the tales told by
famous temples.
The history of Manetho is unfortunately guides, while even the more authentic
■lost, being probably the greatest loss the information is so disconnected and mixed
world has sustained by the burning of the with fable that it can hardly be accepted
Alexandrian library; but fragments of it as material for history. As far as it goes,
have been preserved in the works of however, it tends to confirm Manetho, as,
Josephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and for instance, in giving the names correctly
Syncellus, among whom Eusebius and of the kings who built the three great
Africanus profess to give Manetho’s lists pyramids, and in saying that he saw the
and dates of dynasties and kings from the statues of 342 successive high priests of the
first king Menes down to the conquest of great Temple of Heliopolis, which corres
Alexander the Great in 332 B.c. With the pond very well with Manetho’s lists of 370
curious want of critical faculty in almost kings.
Diodorus gives us very much the same
all the Christian fathers, these extracts,
though professing to be quotations from narratives as those of Herodotus ; and, on
the same book, contain many inconsis the whole, we have to fall back on Manetho
tencies, and in several instances they have as the only authority for anything like
obviously been tampered with, especially precise dates and connected history.
Manetho’s dates, however, were so in
by Eusebius, in order to bring their
chronology more in accordance with that consistent with preconceived ideas based
of the Old Testament. But enough remains on the chronology of the Bible that they
to show that Manetho’s lists comprised were universally thought to be fabulous.
thirty-one dynasties and about 370 kings, They were believed either to represent the
whose successive reigns extended over a exaggerations of Egyptian priests desirous
period of about 5,500 years, from the of magnifying the antiquity of their country,
accession of Menes to the conquest of or, if historical, to give in succession the
Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 B.c., names of a number of kings and dynasties
making the date of the first historical king who had really reigned simultaneously in
who united Upper and Lower Egypt, about different provinces. So stood the question
4800 B.C. There may be some doubt as to until the discovery of reading hieroglyphics
the precise dates, for the lists of Manetho enabled us to test the accuracy of
have obviously been tampered with to some
Manetho’s lists by the light of contem
extent by the Christian fathers who quoted porary monuments and manuscripts. This
them ; but there can be no doubt that his discovery is of such supreme importance
■Original work assigned an antiquity to that it may be well to show how it was
Menes of over 5,500 B.c.
made, and the demonstration on which it
The only other documentary information
rests.
a-s to the history of Ancient Egypt was
Reading presupposes writing, as writing
gleaned from references in the works of presupposes speech. Ideas are conveyed
Josephus and of Greek authors, especially
from one mind to another in speech through
Homer, Herodotus, and Diodorus Siculus.
the ear, in writing through the eye. The
Josephus, in his Antiquity of the Jews,
origin of the latter method is doubtless to
quotes passages from Manetho; but they
be found in picture-Writing. The palaeolithic
extend only to the period of the Hyksos
savage who drew a mammoth with the
invasion, the Captivity of the Jews, and
point of a flint on a piece of ivory was
the Exodus, which are all comparatively
attempting to write, in his rude way, a
recent events in Manetho’s annals. Ho record of some memorable chase. And
mer’s account of hundred-gated Thebes
the accounts of the old Empires of Mexico
does not carry us back beyond the echo
and Peru which were extant at the time cf
�12
HUMAN ORIGINS
the Spanish Conquest show that a con
siderable amount of civilisation can be
attained and information conveyed by the
pictorial method. But for the purpose of
historical record more is required. It is
essential to have a system of signs and
symbols which shall be generally under
stood, and by which knowledge shall be
handed down unchanged to successive
generations. All experience shows that,
before knowledge is thus fixed and re
corded, anything that may be transmitted
by memory and word of mouth fades off
into myth, and leaves no certain record of
time, place, and circumstance. A few
religious hymns and prayers like those of
the Vedas, a few heroic ballads like those
of Homer, a few genealogies like those of
Agamemnon or Abraham, may be thus
preserved, but nothing definite or accurate
in the way of fact and date. History,
therefore, is secured by writing, and writing
begins with the invention of fixed signs to
represent words. A system of writing is
possible, like the Chinese, in which each
separate word has its own separate sign ;
but this is extremely cumbrous, and quite
unintelligible to those who have not a
living key to explain the meaning of each
symbol. It is calculated that an educated
Chinese has to learn by heart the meaning
of some 15,000 separate signs before he
can read and write correctly. We have a
trace of this ideographic system in our own
language, as where arbitrary signs such as
1, 2, 3, represent not the sounds of one,
two, and three, but the ideas conveyed by
them. But, for all practical purposes, in
telligible writing has to be phonetic—that
is, representing spoken words, not by the
ideas they convey, but by the sounds of
which they are composed. In other words,
there must be an Alphabet.
The alphabet is the first lesson of child
hood, and it seems such a simple thing that
we are apt to forget that it is one of the
most important and original inventions of
the human intellect. To some genius,
musing on the meaning of spoken words,
there came the wonderful conception
that they might all be resolved, into a
few simple sounds. To make this more
easily intelligible, I will suppose the illus
trations to be taken from our own language.
“Dog” and “dig” express very different
ideas ; but a little reflection will show that
the primary sounds made by the tongue,
teeth, and palate, viz. ‘d’ and ‘g,’ are
the same in each, and that they differonly
by a slight variation in the soft breathing
or vowel, which connects them and renders
them vocal. The next step would be to
see that such words as “ good ” or “ God
consisted of the same root-sounds, only
transposed and connected with a slight
vowel difference. Pursuing the analysis,
it would finally be discovered that the
many thousand words of spoken language
could all be resolved into a very small
number of radical sounds, each of which
might be represented and suggested to the
mind through the eye instead of the ear by
some conventional sign or symbol. Here
is the alphabet, and here the art of writing.
The mysterious and magical character
with which the written signs were invested
was associated with legends that writing
was an invention of some god or culture
hero. Thus in Egypt, Thoth the Second,
known to the Greeks as Hermes Trismegistus, a fabulous demi-god of the period
succeeding the reign of the great gods, is
said to have invented the alphabet and the
art of writing.
The analysis of primary sounds varies, a
little in different times and countries in
order to suit peculiarities in the pronuncia
tion of different races, and convenience in
writing ; but about sixteen primitive sounds,
which is the number of the letters of the first
alphabet brought by Cadmus, so the
tradition runs, from Phoenicia to Greece,
are always its basis. In our own alphabet
it is easy to see that it is not formed on
strictly scientific principles, some of the
letters being redundant. Thus the soft
sound of ‘ c ’ is expressed by. ‘ s,’ and the
hard sound by ‘k’ ; and ‘x’ is an abbre
viation of three other letters, ‘ eks.’ Some
letters also express sounds which run so
closely into one another that in some
alphabets they are not distinguished, as ‘ f ’
and ‘v,’ ‘d’ and ‘t,’ ‘1’ and ‘r.’ Then,
some races have guttural and other sounds,
such as ‘kh’ and ‘ sj,’ which occur so
frequently as to require separate signs,
while they baffle the vocal organs of other
races ; and in some cases syllables which
frequently occur, instead of being spelt out
alphabetically, are represented by single
signs. But these are mere details ; the
question substantially is this—if a collec
tion of unknown signs is phonetic, and we
can get any clue to its alphabet, it can
be read ; if not, it must remain a sealed
book.
.
To apply this to hieroglyphics : it had
been long known that the monuments of
ancient Egypt were carved with.mysterious
figures, representing birds, animals, and
�EGYPT
13
stration, a great deal of ingenuity and
patient research were required.
The
principle upon which all interpretation of
unknown signs rests may be most easily
understood by taking an illustration from
our own language. The first step in the
problem is to know whether these un
known signs are ideographic or phonetic.
Thus, if we have two groups of signs,
one of which, we have reason to know,
stands for “Ptolemy” and the other for
“ Cleopatra,” if they are phonetic, the first
sign in Ptolemy will correspond with the
fifth in Cleopatra ; the second with the
seventh, the third with the fourth, the
fourth with the second,
and the fifth with the
third; and we shall
have established five
letters of the unknown
alphabet, ‘p, t, o, 1,’
and ‘ e.’ Other names
will give other letters,
as if we know “ Arsinoe ” its comparison
with “ Cleopatra ” will
give ‘ a5 and ‘ r,’ and
confirm the former in
duction as to ‘o’ and
‘e.’
And it will be ex
tremely probable that
the two last signs in
Ptolemy represent ‘ m ’
and ‘ y ’; the first in
the Cleopatra ‘c’; and
the third, fourth, and
fifth in Arsinoe, ‘ s, i,’
and ‘ n.’ Suppose now
that we find in an in
TABLET OF SENEFERU AT WADY MAGERAH.
scription on an ancient
(The oldest inscription in the world, probably 6,000 years old. The king conquering temple at Thebes a
an Arabian or Asiatic enemy.)
°
name which begins
with our known sign
army, when the French were driven out of for ‘ r,’ followed by our known ‘ a,’ then
Egypt, and is now lodged at the British by our conjectural ‘ m,’ then by the
Museum. It bears three inscriptions, one sign which we find third in Arsinoe,
in hieroglyphics, the second in the demotic or ‘ s,’ then by our known ‘ e,’ and
Egyptian character employed for popular ending with a repetition of ‘ s,’ we have no
use, and the third in Greek. The Greek difficulty in reading “ Ramses,” and identi
inscription records a meeting of the Priests fying it with one of the kings of that name
at Memphis in honour of Ptolemy V. mentioned by Manetho as reigningat Thebes.
Epiphanes, B.c. 195.
It sets forth the The identification of letters was facilitated
many good deeds of that king, and a by the custom of enclosing the names of
decree that his statue be erected in every kings in what is called a cartouche or oval.
temple of Egypt. It was an obvious con
Seneferu is the name of the king of the
jecture that the two Egyptian inscriptions fourth dynasty, who reigned about 4,000
were to the same effect, and that the Greek B.c., or about a century before the building
was a literal translation of this. To turn of the Great Pyramids. The tablet was found
this conjecture, however, into a demon at the copper mines of Wady Magerah,
Other natural objects ; but all clue to their
meaning had been lost. It seemed more
natural to suppose that they were ideo
graphic ; that a lion, for instance, repre
sented a real lion, or some quality asso
ciated with him, such as fierceness, valour,
and kingly aspect, rather than that his
picture stood simply for our letter- ‘1.’
The long-desired clue was afforded by the
famous Rosetta stone. This is a mutilated
Mock of black basalt, which was dis
covered in 1799 by an engineer officer of the
French expedition, in digging the founda
tions of a fort near Rosetta. It was cap
tured, with other trophies, by the British
�14
HUMAN ORIGINS
in the peninsula of Sinai, and represents
the victory of the king over an Arabian or
Asiatic enemy.
The first step towards the decipherment
of the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta stone
was made in 1819 by Dr. Young, one of the
most ingenious and original thinkers of the
nineteenth century, and also famous as the
first propounder of the undulatory theory
of light. In both cases he indicated the
right path and laid down the correct prin
ciples, but the development of his theories
was reserved for two Frenchmen ; Fresnel
in the case of Light, and Champoilion in
that of Hieroglyphics. The latter task was
one which required immense patience and
ingenuity, for the hieroglyphic alphabet
turned out to be one of great complexity.
Many of the signs were not only phonetic,
but also ideographic or determinative;
some of them stood for syllables, not
letters ; while the letters themselves were
not represented, as in modern languages,
each by a single sign or at most by
two signs, as A and a, but by several dif
ferent signs. The Egyptian alphabet was,
in fact, constructed very much as young
children often learn theirs, by—
A was an apple-pie,
B bit it,
C cut it;
with this difference, that several objects,
whose names begin with A and other
letters, might be used to represent them.
Thus some of the hieroglyphic letters had
as many as twenty-five different signs or
homophones. It is as if we could write for
‘ a ’ the picture either of an apple, or of an
ass, archer, arrow, anchor, or any word
beginning with ‘ a.’
.
However, Champollion, with infinite
difficulty, and aided by the discovery of
fresh inscriptions, notably one on a small
obelisk in the island of P hilus, solved the
problem, and succeeded in producing a
complete alphabet of hieroglyphics com
prising all the various signs, thus enabling
us to translate every hieroglyphic sign into
its corresponding sound or spoken word.
The next question was, What did these
words mean, and could they be recognised
in any known language ? The answer to
this was easy. The Egyptians spoke
Egyptic, or, as it is, abbreviated Coptic, a
modern form of which is almost a living
language, and is preserved in translations
of the Bible still in use and studied by the
aid of Coptic dictionaries and grammars.
This enabled Champoilion to construct a
hieroglyphic dictionary and grammar,
which have been so completed by the
A.
B.
'A'.vS &
‘a'tfJ'W-.
a
A.ATOM
*•
s.
T
SPECIMEN OF HIEROGLYPHIC ALPHABET.
(From Champoilion’s Egypt.)
labours of subsequent Egyptologists that
it is not too much to say that any
inscription or manuscript in hieroglyphics
can be read with nearly as much certainty
as if it had been written in Greek or m
Hebrew.
.
-c- r u
The above illustrations from English
characters are only given as the simplest
way of conveying to the minds of those
who have had no previous acquaintance
with the subject, an idea of the nature of
the process and force of the evidence
upon which the decipherment of hiero
glyphic inscriptions is based. In reality
the process was far from being so simple.
Though many of the hieroglyphics are
phonetics, like our letters of the alphabet,
they are not all so, and many of them are
purely ideographic, as when we write 1, 2,
3, for one, two, and three. All writing began
with picture-writing, and each character
was originally a likeness of the object
which it was wished to represent. lhe
next stage was to use the character not
only for the material object, but as a
symbol for some abstract idea associated
with it. Thus the picture of a lion might
stand either for an actual lion, or for fierce
ness, courage, majesty, or other attribute
of the king of animals. In this way it
became possible to convey meanings to the
mind through the eye; but it involved both
an enormous number of characters and
the use of homophones—z.^., of single
characters standing for a number of
separate ideas. To obviate this, what are
called “determinatives” were invented—t.e.,
special signs affixed to characters or groups
of characters to determine the sense m
which they were to be taken. For instance,
the picture of a star (*) affixed to a group
of hieroglyphics may be used to denote
that they represent the name of a. god, o
some divine or heavenly attribute ; and the
picture of rippling water ~~----- t0„
that the group means something connected
�EGYPT
with water, as a sea or river. Beyond this
the Chinese have hardly gone, and it is
reckoned that it requires some 1,358
separate characters, or conventionalised
pictures, taken in distinct groups, to be
able to read and write correctly the 40,000
words in the Chinese language. Even for
the ordinary purposes of life a Chinaman,
instead of committing to memory twentysix letters of the alphabet, like an English
child, has to learn by heart some 6,000 or
7,000 groups of characters, often distin
guished only by slight dots and dashes.
Such a system is cumbrous in the extreme,
and involves spending many of the best
years of life in acquiring the first rudiments
of knowledge. Indeed, it is only possible
when not only writing but speech has been
arrested at the first stage of its development,
and a nation speaks a language of mono
syllables. In the case of Egypt and other
ancient nations the standpoint of writing
went further, and the symbolic pictures
came to represent phonograms—i.e., sounds
or spoken words instead of ideas or objects;
and these again were further analysed into
syllabaries, or the component articulate
sounds which make up words ; and these
finally into their ultimate elements of a few
simple sounds, or letters of an alphabet,
the various combinations of which will
express all the complex sounds or words of
a spoken language.
Now, in the hieroglyphic writing of
ancient Egypt, along with those pure
phonetics or letters of an alphabet, are
found numerous survivals of the older
systems from which they sprung; and
Champoilion, who first attempted the task
of forming a hieroglyphic dictionary and
grammar, had to contend with all the diffi
culties of ideograms, polyphones, determi
natives, and other obstacles.
Those who wish to pursue this interest
ing subject further will do well to read
Dr. Isaac Taylor’s History of the Alphabet,
and Sayce on the Science of Writing; but
for my present purpose it is sufficient to
establish the scientific certainty of the
process by which hieroglyphic texts are
read. With this key a vast mass of con
stantly accumulating evidence has been
brought to light, illustrating not only the
chronology and history of ancient Egypt,
but also its social and political condition,
its literature and religion, science and art.
The first question naturally was how far
the monuments confirmed or disproved the
lists of Manetho. Manetho was a learned
priest of a celebrated temple, who must
15
have had access to all the temple and royal
records and other literature of Egypt, and
who must have been also conversant with
foreign literature, to have been selected as
the best man to write a complete history
of his native country for the royal library
in Greek. Manetho’s lists of the reigns of
dynasties and kings, when summed up, show
a date of 5,867 B.c. for the foundation of
the united Egyptian Empire by Menes—a
date which is, of course, absolutely incon
sistent with those given by Genesis, not
only for the Deluge, but for 'the original
Creation.
It is evident that the monuments alone
could confirm or contradict these lists, and
give a solid basis for Egyptian chronology
and history. This has now been done to
such an extent that it may fairly be said
that Manetho has been confirmed, and it is
fully established that nearly all his kings
and dynasties are proved by monuments to
have existed, and that successively and not
simultaneously, so that in the case of Menes,
Professor Flinders Petrie is able to fix his
date at 4,777 B.c., “ with a possible error of
a century.”
Egyptian history is divided into three
periods—the Old, the Middle, and the
New Empires, the Old Empire dating
from the reign of Menes. But the result
of Professor Flinder Petrie’s excavations
in the Royal Tombs of the first Dynasties
has revealed the fact that there were kings
before Menes. It was no unimportant con
firmation of Manetho’s tables to have dis
covered the tomb and hieroglyph of that
monarch, but this yields in interest to Pro
fessor Petrie’s discovery of relics of at least
five predecessors. How far the historical
horizon in Egypt may yet be pushed, only
further diggings will show; but meantime
the Professor gives cogent reasons for belief
in the existence of no mean state of culture
many centuries before the time of Menes.
That ruler carried out a great work of
hydraulic engineering, by which the course
of the Nile was diverted, and a site ob
tained on its western banks for the new
capital of Memphis. His immediate suc
cessor is said to have written a celebrated
treatise on medicine; under Den-setui, the
fifth king of the first dynasty, art reached
to an extraordinary perfection ; while the
extremely life-like portrait-statues and
wooden statuettes, which were never
equalled in any subsequent Stage of
Egyptian art, and with which Chaldsea has
nothing to compare, date back to the fourth
dynasty.
�16
HUMAN ORIGINS
It is singular that this extremely ancient
period is the one of which, although the
oldest, we know most, for the monuments,
the papyri, and especially the tombs in the
great cemeteries of Sakkarah and Gizeh,
give us the fullest details of the political
and social life of Egypt during the fourth,
fifth, and sixth dynasties, with sufficient
information as to the first three dynasties
to check and confirm the lists of Manetho.
We really know the life of Memphis 6,000
years ago better than we do that of London
under the Saxon kings, or of Paris under
the descendants of Clovis.
The sixth dynasty was succeeded by a
period which seems to have been one of
civil war and anarchy, during which there
was a complete cessation of monuments.
If they existed, they have not yet been
discovered. The probable duration of this
PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH
eleventh dynasty the seat of empire is ]
established at Thebes, and the state of the
arts, religion, and civilisation is different
and much ruder than it was at the close
of the great Memphite Empire with the
sixth dynasty. Mariette says ? “When
Egypt, with the eleventh dynasty, awoke
from its long sleep, the ancient traditions
were forgotten. The proper names of the
kings and ancient nobility, the titles of the
high functionaries, the style of the hieroglyphic writing, and even the religion, all
seemed new. The monuments are rude,
primitive, and sometimes even barbarous,
and to see them one would be inclined to
think that Egypt under the eleventh dynasty
was beginning again the period of infancy*
which it had already passed through 1,500
years earlier under the third.” The tomb
I of one of these kings of the eleventh
and sphinx.
eclipse of Egyptian records is somewhat
uncertain, as we cannot be sure, in the
absence of monuments, that the four dynas
ties of short reigns assigned to the interval
between the sixth and the eleventh dynas
ties by Manetho, and the numerous names
of unknown kings on the tablets, weie suc
cessive sovereigns who reigned over united
Egypt, or local chiefs who got possession of
power in different parts of the Empire. All
we can see is that the supremacy of Mem
phis declined, and that its last great dynasty
was replaced, either in whole or in part, by
a rebellion in Upper Egypt which intro
duced two dynasties whose seat was at
Heracleopolis on the Middle Nile. In any
case the duration of this period must have
been very long, for the eclipse was veiy
complete, and when we once more find our
selves in the presence of records m the
(From Champollion’s Egypt.)
dynasty, Antef I., is remarkable as show-1
ing on a funeral pillar the sportsman-king ■
surrounded by his four favourite dogs,?
whose names are given. They are of dif
ferent breeds, from a large greyhound to &
small turnspit.
However, the chronology of this eleventh
dynasty is well attested, its kings are known,
and under them Upper and Lower Egypt
were once more consolidated into a single
State, forming what is known as the Middle
Empire. Under the twelfth dynasty, which
succeeded it, this Empire bloomed rapidly
into one of the greatest and most glorious
periods of Egyptian history. The dynasty
only lasted for 213 years, under seven kings,
whose names were all either Amenemna|
or Usertsen ; but during their reigns the
frontiers of Egypt were extended far; to the
south. Nubia was incorporated with thi
�EGYPT
17
Empire, and Egyptian influence extended firm the general accuracy of Manetho’s
over the whole Soudan, and perhaps nearly statements. A colossal statue of the twentyto the equator on the one hand, and over• fourth or twenty-fifth king, Sebekhetep VI.,
I Southern Syria on the other. But the found on the island of Argo near Dongola,
dynasty was still more famous for the arts1 shows that the frontier fixed by the con
of peace.
quests of Amenemhat at Semneh had not
One of the greatest works of hydraulic only been maintained, but extended nearly
j engineering which the world has seen was fifty leagues to the south into the heart of
carried out by Amenemhat III., who took Ethiopia; and another statue found at
advantage of a depression in the desert Tanis shows that the rule of this dynasty
limestone near the basin of Fayoum to was firmly established in Lower Egypt.
I form a large artificial lake connected with But the scarcity of the monuments, and the
L the Nile by canals, tunnelled through rocky inferior execution of the works of art, show
ridges and provided with sluices, so as to that this long dynasty was one of gradual
admit the water when the river rose too decline ; while the rise of the next, or four
high, and let it out when it fell too low, and teenth, dynasty at Xois, transferring the
I thus regulate the inundation of a great part seat of power from Thebes to the Delta,
■of Middle and Lower Egypt, independently points to civil wars and revolutions.
of the seasons. Connected with this Lake
Manetho assigns seventy-five kings and
Moerjs was the famous Labyrinth, which 484 years to the fourteenth dynasty, and it
I Herodotus pronounced to be a greater is to this period that a good deal of uncer
wonder than even the great Pyramid. It tainty attaches, for there are no monuments
was a vast square building erected on a and nothing to confirm Manetho’s lists’
Small plateau on the east side of the lake, except a number of unknown names of
. constructed of blocks of granite which must kings of the dynasty enumerated amon«have been brought from Syene ; it had a the royal ancestors in the Papyrus of Turin5
f facade of white limestone; and contained What is certain is that the Middle Empire
in the interior a vast number of small sank rapidly into a state of anarchy and
Square chambers and vaults—Herodotus impotence, which prepared the way for a
| says 3,000—each roofed with a single large great catastrophe. This catastrophe came
slab of stone, and connected by narrow m the form of an invasion of foreigners
• ’ passages, so intricate that a stranger enter who, about 2000 B.C., broke through the
ing without a clue would be infallibly lost. eastern frontier of the Delta, and apparently
The object Seems to have been to provide without much resistance conquered the
a safe repository for statues of gods and whole of Lower Egypt up to Memphis, and
kings and other precious objects. In the 1 educed the princes of the Upper Provinces
■ centre was a court containing twelve to a state of vassalage. There is consider
hypostyle chapels, six facing the south and able doubt as to what race these invaders
six the north, and at the north angle of the who were known as Hyksos, or Shepherd
- square was a pyramid of brick faced with Kings, belonged. They consisted, so some
f stone forming the tomb of Amenemhat III. conjecture, mainly of nomad tribes of
. In addition to this colossal work, the Canaanites, Arabians, and other Semitic
kings of this dynasty built and restored races ; but the Hittites seem to have been
many of the most famous temples, and associated with them, and the leaders to
erected statues and obelisks, among the have been Mongolian, judging from the
latter the one now standing at Heliopolis. portrait-statues of two of the later kings
It was also an age of great literary activity,' of the Hyksos dynasty which have
i and the biographies of many of the priests,
been recently
nobles, and high officers, inscribed on their Bubastis, and discovered by Naville at
which are unmistakably
tombs and recorded in papyri, give us the of that type. Our information as to
f most minute knowledge of the history and this Hyksos conquest is derived mainly
social life of this remote period.
from fragments of Manetho quoted by
I
The prosperity of Egypt during the Josephus, and from traditions repeated by
Middle Empire was continued under the Herodotus, and is very vague and imper
f thirteenth dynasty of sixty Theban kings, fect. But this much seems certain, that at
to whom Manetho assigns the period of first the Hyskos acted as savage bar
I, 453 years. Less is known of this period barians, burning cities, demolishing temples,
| than of the great twelfth dynasty which massacring part of the population and
I preceded it; but a sufficient number of reducing the rest to slavery. But, as in
monuments have been preserved to con the parallel case of the Tartar conquest of
�18
HUMAN ORIGINS
effaced, and those of later kings chiselled
over them ; but enough remains to show
that they were in the hieroglyphic character,
and the names of two or three Hyksos
kings can still be deciphered, among which
are two Apepis, the second probably the
last of the dynasty. It was perhaps under
one of these Hyksos kings that Joseph
came to Egypt and the tribes of I srael
settled on its eastern frontier. The dura
tion of the Hyksos rule is thus left m some ■
uncertainty; in fact, the history of the whole
period until the rise of the seventeenth
dynasty remains obscure. Manetho, if
correctly quoted by
Cr'
Josephus, says they
ruled over Egypt for
511 years (2098-1587
B.C.), though his lists
show only one dynasty
of 259 years, and then
the Theban dynasty,
which reigned over
Upper Egypt for 260
years contemporane
ously with Hyksos
kings in Lower Egypt.
We regain, however,
firm historical ground
with the rise of the
seventeenth Theban
dynasty of native
Egyptian kings, who
finally expelled the
Hyksos, after a IonJ
war, and founded what
is known as the New
Empire on the basis
of despotic rule. The
date of this event is
fixed by the best au
thorities at about 1587
B.C., and from this
time downwards we
FELLAH WOMAN AND HEAD OF SECOND HYKSOS STATUE.
have an uninterrupted
(From photograph by Naville in HarfieSs Magazine.-)
succession of un
doubted historical records, confirmed by
feature. At Bubastis two . colossal statues
contemporary monuments and by tne
of Hyksos kings, with their heads broken
annals of other nations, down to the
off, but one of them nearly perfect, were
Christian era. The reaction which fol
unexpectedly discovered by Naville m
lowed the expulsion of the Hyksos led
1887, and it was proved that they had
to campaigns in Asia on a great scale,
stood on each side of the entrance to an
in which Egypt came into collision with
addition made by those kings to the
powerful nations, and for a long time; was
ancient and celebrated temple of the the dominant power m Western Asia,
Egyptian goddess Bast, thus proving that
extending its conquests from the Per|ian|
the Hyksos had adopted not only the
Gulf to the Black Sea and Mediterranean,
civilisation, but also the religion of the
and receiving tribute from Babylon and
Egyptian nation. There are but few
Nineveh. Then followed wars,, waged on
inscriptions known of the Hyksos dynasty,
more equal terms, with the Hittites, who
for their cartouches have generally been
China, as time went on they adopted the
superior civilisation of their subjects, and
the later kings were transformed into
genuine Pharaohs, differing but little from
those of the old national dynasties. This
is conclusively proved by the discoveries
recently made at Tams and Bubastis,
which have revealed important monuments
of this dynasty. At Tanis an avenue of
sphinxes was discovered, resembling those
at Thebes and that of the Great Sphinx at
Gizeh, with lion bodies and human heads,
the latter with a different head-dress frorn
the Egyptian, and a different type o
�EGYPT
19
had founded a great empire in Asia Minor “Book of the Dead,” certainly date from
and Syria; and, as their power declined this period, and the great Temple of the
that of Assyria rose, with the long series
Sun at Heliopolis had been founded, for
of warlike Assyrian monarchs, who gradu we are told that certain prehistoric Helioally obtained the ascendancy, and not only politan hymns formed the basis of the
Stopped Egypt of its foreign conquests, sacred books of a later age. At Edfu the
but on more than one occasion invaded its later temple occupies the site of a very
territory and captured its principal cities. ancient structure, traditionally said to date
It is during this period that we find the back to the mythic reign of the gods, and
first of the certain synchronisms between to have been built according to a plan
Egyptian history and the Old Testament,
designed by Nuhotef, the son of Pthah.
(beginning with the capture of Jerusalem At Denderah an inscription found by
by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, and
Mariette in one of the crypts of the great
ending with the captivity of the Jews and
temple expressly identifies the earliest
temporary conquest of Egypt by Nebu sanctuary built upon the spot with the timechadrezzar. Then came
the Persian conquest by
Qambyses and alternate
periods of national inde
pendence and of Persian
rule, until the conquest of
Alexander and the estab
lishment of the dynasty of
the Ptolemies, which lasted
until the reign of Cleo
patra, and ended finally in
the annexation of Egypt
as a province of the Roman
Empire.
The history of this long
period is extremely in
teresting, as showing what
may be called the com
mencement of the modern
era of great wars, and of
the rise and fall of civi
lised empires ; but for the
present purpose I only
refer to it as helping to
establish the chrono
logical standard which I
am in search of as a
HYKSOS SPHINX.
measuring-rod to guage
(From photograph by Naville in Harpers Magazine.')
the duration of historical
time.
The glimpses of light into the pre of the Horsheshu. It reads: “There was
historic stages of Egyptian civilisation, found the great fundamental ordinance of
prior to the invasion of the country by the Denderah, written upon goat-skin in
Asiatic founders of the dynasties, are few ancient writing of the time of the Hor
and far between. We are told that before sheshu. It was found in the inside of a'
the consolidation of the Empire by Menes,
brick wall during the reign of King Pepi ”
Egypt was divided into a number of (z>., Pepi-Merira of the sixth dynasty).
separate nomes or provinces, each The name of Chufu or Cheops, the king of
gathered about its own independent city the fourth dynasty, who built the great
and temple, and ruled by the Shesu-Heru pyramid, was found by Naville in a
(or Horsheshu) or “Servants of Horus,” who restoration of part of the famous temple of
were apparently the chief priests of the Bubastis, and its foundation doubtless
respective temples, combining with the dates back to the same prehistoric period.
character of priest that of king, or local
But the most important prehistoric
ruler. Parts of the “Todtenbuch,” or monuments are those connected with the
�20
HUMAN ORIGINS
great Sphinx. An inscription of Chufu,
preserved, in the Museum of Boulak, says
that a temple adjoining the Sphinx, which
had been buried under the sand of the
desert, and forgotten for many generations,
was discovered by chance in his reign.
This temple was uncovered by Mariette,
and found to be constructed of enormous
blocks of granite of Syene and of alabaster,
supported by square pillars, each of a
single block of stone, without any mouldings
or ornaments, and no trace of hiero
glyphics. It is, in fact, a sort of transition
from the rude dolmen to scientific archi
tecture. But the masonry, and still more
the transport of such enormous blocks
from Syene to the plateau of the desert at
Gizeh, show a great advance already
attained in the resources of the country
and the state of the industrial arts. The
origin of the Sphinx is wrapped in mystery,
but it is mentioned on the above-named
inscription as being much older than the
great Pyramids, and as requiring repairs
in the time of Chufu. In addition to the
direct evidence for its prehistoric antiquity,
it is certain that, if such a monument had
'been erected by any of the historical kings,
it would have been inscribed with hiero
glyphics, and the fact recorded in
Manetho’s lists and contemporary records,
whereas all tradition of its origin seems to
have been lost in the night of ages.
It
is a gigantic work, consisting of natural
rock sculptured into the form of a lion’s
body with human head, this being the
incarnation which the Sun god Ra assumed
as protector of his friends and followers.
It is directed towards the east so as to face
the rising sun, and was an image of the
god Hormachis, the Sun of the Lower
World, the victor over darkness, the
approach to whose temple it guarded.
This appears to have been the object in
placing sphinxes before the temple
entrance.
In later centuries they were
placed near tombs for the same purpose.
Although there are no monuments of the
Stone Age in Egypt like those of the Swiss
lake villages and’ Danish kitchen-middens,
which enable us to trace in detail the
progress of arts and civilisation from rude
commencements through the neolithic and
prehistoric ages, there is abundant evi
dence to show that the same stages had
been traversed in the valley of the Nile
long prior to the time of Menes. _ Borings
have been made on various occasions and
at various localities through the alluvial
deposits of the Nile valley, from which
fragments of pottery have been brought up
from depths which show a high antiquity.
Horner sunk ninety-six shafts in four rows
at intervals of eight miles, across the valley
of the Nile, at right angles to the river
near Memphis, and brought up pottery
from various depths, which, at the known
rate of deposit of the Nile mud of about
three inches per century, indicate an
antiquity of at least 11,000 years. In
another boring a copper knife was brought
up from a depth of twenty-four feet, and
pottery from sixty feet below the surface.
This is specially interesting, as making it
probable that here, as in many other
countries, an age of copper preceded that
of bronze ; while a depth of sixty feet at the
normal rate of deposit would imply an
antiquity of 26,000 years.
Borings,
however, are not very conclusive, as it is
always open to contend that they may
have been made at spots where, owing
to some local circumstances, the deposit
was much more rapid than the average.
These objections, however, cannot apply
to the evidence which has been afforded
by the discovery of flint implements, both
of the neolithic and palaeolithic type,
in many localities and by various skilled
observers. Professor Haynes found, a few
miles east of Cairo, not only a number of
flint implements of the types usual in
Europe, but an actual workshop or manu
factory where they had been made, show
ing that they had not been imported, but
produced in the country in the course of
its native development. He also found
multitudes of worked flints of the ordinary
neolithic and palaeolithic types scattered oh
the hills near Thebes.
Lenormant and
Hamy saw the same workshop and remains
of the stone period; and various other finds
have been reported by other observers.
General Pitt-Rivers and Professor Haynes
found well-developed palaeolithic imple
ments of the St. Acheul type, not only on
the surface and in superficial deposits, but
from six and a half to ten feet deep in hard
stratified gravel at Djebel-Assas, near
Thebes, in a terrace on the side of one of
the ravines falling from the Libyan desert
into the Nile valley, which was certainly
deposited in early quaternary ages by a
torrent pouring down from a plateau wheie,
under existing geographical and climatic
conditions, rain seldom or never falls.
These relics, says Mr. Campbell, who
was associated with General Pitt-Rivers in
the discovery, are “beyond calculation
older than the oldest Egyptian temples
�EGYPT
21
and tombs,” and they certainly go far
to prove that the high civilisation of
Egypt at the earliest dawn of history
or tmlitron had been a plant of ex
tremely slow growth from a state of
brOvinciaiSaviigcr)-. Finally, on the
limestone plateau fourteen hundred feet
above the Nile, and situated thirty
iriilcs north of Thebes, Professor
Petrie found numbers of
btatlttfully*worked, and quite
unworn palaeoliths of exactly the same
as those found in the river
gravels K France and England.
The ethnology of Egypt is by no
^b-d, but authorities appear
tCftefipW- that the pre-dynastic race
akm to the Cushites, all of whom
ggWs a flight negro strain, infused at
a very remote date. We see these
ancient Egyptians depicted in wallpaintings as tall, spare, small-headed,
thick-lipped, and with high cheek-bones STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP’s WIFE. (Refined type.)
(Gizeh Museum.—
•
, ,
and almond-shaped eyes: the men Meydoon.—AccordingDiscovered in
to the chronological table of
coloured dark red, and the women is 5,800 years old.-From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo.jj ’
coloured yellow. Then, at a period
whose date is ever being pushed back,
■teftWy by century, appear the invading
T6 b-eing sPelIed’ one bv
founders of the great and famous dynasties one°^nd
one, and their duration brought into harmony with the requirements
comparative chronology.
Phe language and system of
writing, when we first meet with
them, are fully formed and
apparently of native growth, nM
derived from any Semitic, Aryan
or Mongolian speech of any hi^
tori cal nation. It shows some
distant affinities with Scinitid
or rather with what may have
been a proto-Semitic, before it
had been fully formed, and is
perhaps nearer to what may
have been the primitive lan
guage of the Libyans of North'
Africa. But there is nothing in
the language from which we
can infer origin, and the pictures
from which hieroglyphics arederived are those of animals
and objects proper to the Nile
valley, and not like those of the
Akkadians and Chinese, which
point to a prehistoric nomad
existence on elevated plains.
For any further inquiries as to
the origin and. antiquity of
Egyptian civilisation we have to
KilUFV4N'Klt AND HIS SERVANTS—EARLY EGYPTIANS. '
fall back on the state of religion,
(Coarse type.)
science, literature, and art which
�22
HUMAN ORIGINS
inferred, except that it bore some general
resemblance to that of Genesis, until the
complete Chaldman Cosmogony was de
ciphered by Mr. George Smith from tablets
in the British Museum. These record a
mythical period of ten gods or demi-gods,
reigning for 432,000 years, in the middle of
which period the divine fish-man, Ea-Han
or Oannes, was said to have come-up out of
the Persian Gulf, and taught mankind
letters, sciences, laws, and all the arts of
civilisation. 259,000 years after Oannes,
under Xisuthros (the Greek translation of
Hasisastra), the last of the ten kings, a Deluge is said to have occurred, which is
described in terms so similar to the narra
CHAPTER II.
tive of Noah’s deluge in Genesis as to
leave no doubt that they are different
CHALD2EA
versions of the same legend, probably
derived from Akkadian sources.
Chronology—Berosus—His Dates mythical—
Prior to the appearance of Oannes, BeroDates in Genesis—Synchronisms with Egypt
sus relates “ that Chaldsea had been colo
and Assyria—Monuments-—Cuneiform In
nised by a mixed multitude of men of
scriptions—How deciphered -Behistan in
foreign race, who lived without order like
scription—Grotefend and Rawlinson Layard
animals,” thus carrying back the existence
—Library of Koyunjik—How preserved—
of mankind in large numbers to some date
Akkadian Translations and Grammars His
anterior to 259,000 years before the Deluge.
torical Dates — Elamite,. Conquest — Com
There is also a legend resembling that of
mencement of Modern History—-Ur-Ea and
the Tower of Babel and the confusion of
Dungi—Nabonidus—Sargon I., 3800. B.C.—
Ur of the Chaldees—Sharrukin’s Cylinder—
languages, recorded in another fragment
His Library—His son Naram-Sin—Semites
of Berosus. These accounts are all so
and Akkadians—Period before Sargon I.—
obviously mythical that no historical value
Patesi—De Sarzec’s find at Sirgalla—Gud-Ea,
can be attached to them, and they have
4000 to 4500 B.c.—Advance of Delta—
only been preserved because early Christian
Astronomical Records—Chaldaea and Egypt
writers saw in them some sort of distorted
give similar results—Historic Period. 8000 or
confirmation of the corresponding narra
9000 years—and no trace of a beginning.
tives in the Old Testament.
For anything like historical aates, there
■Chald/ean chronology has within the last
fore, the Bible remained the principal
few years been brought into the domain of
authority until the discoveries of monu
history, and carried back to a date as
ments of Chaldeea and Assyria. This
remote as that of Egypt. This has been
authority does not carry us very far back.
effected partly by the decipherment of an
The first event which can advance any
unknown language in inscriptions on
claim—and this is shadowy, because it as
ancient monuments, and partly by esti
sumes that the patriarchs are historical—to
mating the age of the deposits in which
serious attention is that of the migration of
inscribed tablets have been found. Until
Terah from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran,
recently the little that was known of . the
and the further migration of his son Abra
early history of Chaldma was derived
ham from Haran to Palestine. This is
almost entirely from two sources : the
said to have taken place m the ninth
Bible, and the fragments quoted by later
o-eneration after Noah, about 290 years
writers from the lost work of Berosus.
after the Deluge, and it presupposes the
Berosus was a learned priest of Babylon,
existence of a dense population and a num
who lived about 260 B.C., shortly after the
ber of large cities both in Upper and Lower
conquest of Alexander, and wrote in Greek
Mesopotamia. It mentions also an event
a history of the country from the most
as occurring in Abraham’s time—-viz., a
ancient times, compiled from the annals
campaign by Chedorlaomer, King of Elam,
preserved in the temples, and from the
with four allies, one of whom is. a King ot
oldest traditions. Among the fragments
Shinar, against five petty kings m Southein
of his work which have survived there is a
Syria. By some scholars Chedorlaomer
creation legend, from which little could be
we find prevailing in the earliest records
which have come down to us, and which I will
proceed to examine in subsequent chapters.
But before doing so I will endeavour to
exhaust the field of positive history, and
inquire how far the annals of other ancient
nations contradict or confirm the date of
about 4,700 years B.C., which has been
shown to be approximately that of the
accession of Menes,
�CHALDEA
has been identified from inscriptions with
Khuder-lagomer, one of the kings of the
I ^Elamite dynasty, who conquered Chaldaea
about 2300 B.C., and were expelled before
2000 B.C. But that equation has no
fr basis.
A long interval occurs during which the
scattered notices in the Bible relate mainly
to the intercourse of the Hebrews with
Egypt, with the races of Canaan, with the
Philistines, with the Phoenicians of Tyre,
Band with the Syrians of Damascus. Meso
potamia first appears after the rise of the
Assyrian Empire had united nearly the
whole of Western Asia under the warlike
kings who reigned at Nineveh, and when
Palestine had become the battlefield beBhveen them and the declining power of
Egypt, which under the eighteenth and
nineteenth Egyptian dynasties had extended to the Euphrates. The capture of
Jerusalem in the reign of Rehoboam by
fShishak has been referred to already as
■ affording the first certain synchronism
between sacred and profane history. The
date may be fixed within a few years at
! $70 B.C. Assyria first appears on the
scene two hundred years later in the reign
’ of Menahem King of Israel, when Pul,
better known as Tiglath-Pileser III., came
| against the land, and exacted a large
ransom from Menahem, whom he con
firmed as a tributary vassal.
From this time forward the succession of
I Assyrian kings is recorded more or less
accurately in the Bible. Tiglath-Pileser, who
had accepted vassalage and a large tribute
from Ahaz to come to his assistance
against Rezin King of Syria and Pekah
King of Israel, who were besieging
Jerusalem, captured and sacked Damascus.
Shalmaneser came up against Hosea
King of Judah, who submitted, but was
deposed for intriguing with Egypt; and
Shalmaneser then took Samaria and
carried the ten tribes of Israel away into
Assyria, placing them in the cities of the
Medes. Sennacherib, in the fourteenth
year of Hezekiah, took all the fenced cities
of Judah, and his general, Rab-shakeh,
besieged Jerusalem, which was saved by
the repulse of the main army under the
king when marching to invade Egypt.
The murder of Sennacherib by his two
sons and the succession of Esarhaddon
are next mentioned.
Nineveh then disappears from the scene
(about 600 B.c.), and the great Babylonian
Conqueror, Nebuchadrezzar, puts an end to
the kingdom of Judaea, by taking Jerusalem I
23
and carrying the people captive to Babylon.
This historical retrospect carries us back a
very short distance, and little can be
gathered in the way of accurate chronology
from the few vague references prior to this
date. So stood the question until the date
of Chaldaean history and civilisation was
unexpectedly pushed back at least 3,000
years by the discovery of its monuments.
When the first Assyrian sculptures were
found by Botta and Layard not fifty years
ago in the mounds of rubbish which
covered the ruins of Nineveh, and brought
home to Europe, it was seen that they
were covered with inscriptions in an
unknown character.’ It was called the
cuneiform, because it was made up of
combinations of a single sign, resembling
a thin wedge or arrow-head. This sign was
made in three fundamental ways—■/.<?., either
horizontal
vertical |, or angular^,
and all the characters were made up of
combinations of these primary forms,
which were obviously produced by im
pressing a style with a triangular head on
moist clay. They resembled, in fact, very
much the strokes and dashes used in
spelling out the words conveyed by the
electric telegraph, in which letters are
formed by oscillations of the needle.
This mode of writing had apparently
been developed from picture-writing, for
several of the groups of characters bore an
unmistakable resemblance to natural ob
jects. In the very oldest inscriptions
which have been discovered the writing is
hardly yet cuneiform, and the primitive
pictorial character of the signs is appa
rent.
But the bulk of the cuneiform inscrip
tions not being pictorial, there could be
little doubt that they were phonetic, or
represented sounds. The question was,
what sounds these characters signified,
and, when translated into sounds, what
words and what language did the groups
of signs represent ?
The first clue to these questions was, as
in the parallel case of Egypt, afforded by
a trilingual inscription. The kings of the
Persian Empire reigned over subjects of
various races and languages. The three
principal were the Persians, an Aryan race
who spoke an inflectional language which
has been preserved in old Persian and
Zend ; Semites, who spoke Aramaic, a lan
guage closely allied to Hebrew; and
descendants of the older Akkadian races,
whose language belonged to the Mongolic
group. Hence the necessity for the issue
�24
HUMAN ORIGINS
of edicts, and for the recording of inscrip
tions, in the three languages.
It is almost the same at the present day
in the same region,' where edicts or
inscriptions, to be readily intelligible to all
classes of subjects, would require to be
in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish.
In the case of decipherment of the ancient
inscriptions the difficulty was, however,
great, for, though in different languages,
they were all written in the same cuneiform
characters, so that the aid afforded in the
case of the Rosetta stone by a Greek
translation of the hieroglyphic inscription
was not forthcoming.
The ingenuity of a German scholar,
Grotefend, furnished the first clue by dis
covering that certain groups of signs repre
sented the names of known Persian kings,
and thus identifying the component signs
in the Persian inscription as letters of an
alphabet.
A few years later Sir Henry. Rawlinson
copied, and succeeded in deciphering, a
famous inscription, high up in the face of a
precipice forming the.wall of a narrow defile
at Behistun. It was in old Persian, Susian
or Median, and Babylonian, and had been
engraved by order of the great Persian
monarch, Darius the First, the exploits of
whose reign it recorded. The clue thus
afforded was rapidly followed up by a host
of scholars, among whom the names of
Rawlinson, Burnouf, Lassen, and Oppert
were most conspicuous, and before long the
text of inscriptions in Persian and Semitic
could be read with certainty. The task
was one which required a vast amount
of patience and ingenuity, for the cuneiform
writing turned out to be of great complexity.
Though phonetic in the main, the charac
ters did not always represent the simple
elements of sounds, or letters of an alpha
bet, but frequently syllables containing one
or more consonants united by vowels, while
a considerable number were ideographic
or conventional representations of ideas, like
our numerals, i, 2, 3, which, as already re
marked, have no relation to spoken sounds.
Thus the simple vertical wedge J repre
sented “ man,” and was prefixed to proper
names of kings, so as to show that the signs
which followed denoted the name of a man ;
the sign
denoted country, and so on.
The difficulties were, however, surmounted,
and inscriptions in the two known languages
could be read, with considerable certainty.
The third language, however, remained
unknown until the finishing stroke to its
decipherment was given by the discovery
by Layard under the great mound of
Koyunjik near Mosul on the Tigris (the
site of the ancient Nineveh), of the royal
palace of Assurbanipal, or Sardanapalus, ’ 1
the grandson of Sennacherib, and one of
the greatest Assyrian monarchs, who Oved
about 650 B.C. This palace contained a
royal library like that of Alexandria or the
British Museum, the contents of which had •
been carefully collected from the oldest
records of previous libraries and temples,
and almost miraculously preserved. The
secret of the preservation of these Assyrian
and Ch aidman remains is that the district
contains no stone, all the great build
ings being constructed mainly of sun-dried
bricks, and built on mounds or platforms of
the same material to raise them above the
alluvial plain. These, when the cities were
deserted, crumbled, under the action of
the air and rains, which are torrential at
certain seasons, into shapeless rubbish
heaps of fine dry dust and sand, under
which everything of more durable material
was securely buried.
So rapid was the process that when
Xenophon, on the famous retreat of the ten
thousand, traversed the site of Nineveh only
two hundred years after its destruction, he
found nothing but the ruins of a deserted
city, the very name and memory of which
had been lost.
As regards the contents of the library, the
explanation of their perfect preservation is
equally simple. The books were written,,
not on perishable paper or parchment, but'
on cylinders of clay. It is evident that the
cuneiform characters were exceedingly well
adapted for this description of writing, and
probably determined by the nature of the
material. A fine tenacious clay cost nothing,
was readily moulded into cylinders, and
when slightly moist was easily engraved by
a tool or style stamping on it those wedge
like characters, so that when hardened by
a slow fire the book was practically inde
structible. So much so, indeed, that though
the palace, including the library with its
shelves and upper stories, had all fallen to
the ground, and the book-cylinders lay
scattered on the floor, they were mostly in a
state of perfect preservation. Other similar
finds have been made since, notably one of
another great library of the priestly college
at Erech, founded or enlarged as far back
as 2000 B.C. by Sargon II. But far sur
passing these in importance are the 26,000,
tablets unearthed by Mr. Haynes, from the
great mounds of Nuffar, the site of the
�CHALDEEA
sacred city of Nippur, whose foundations
were laid six or seven thousand years B.C.
Among the books recovered there are for
tunately translations of old Akkadian works
ihto the more modern Aramaic or Assyrian,
either interlined or in parallel columns, and
also grammars and dictionaries of the old
language to assist in its study. It appears
that as far back as 2000 years B.C. this old
language had already become obsolete, and
was preserved as Latin or Vedic Sanscrit
is at the present day, in ritual, and as the
language of the sacred books, historical
annals, and astrological and magical for
mulas. The ancient Akkadian writing
can now be read with almost as much
certainty as Egyptian hieroglyphics, and
the records are accumulating rapidly
with every fresh exploration. They
present to us a most interesting picture
of the religion, literature, laws, and
social life of a period long antecedent to
that commonly assigned for the destruction
of the world by Noah’s Deluge, or even to
that of the creation of Adam. To some of
these we shall have occasion subsequently
to refer ; but for the present I confine
myself to the immediate object in view,
that of verifying the earliest historical
dates.
The first certain date is fixed by the
annals of the Assyrian King Assurbanipal,
grandson of Sennacherib, who conquered
Elam and destroyed its capital, Susa, in the
year 645 B.C. The king says that he took
away all the statues from the great temple
of Susa, and, among others, one of the
Chaldasan goddess Nana, which had been
carried away from her own temple in the
city of Erech, by a king of Elam who con
quered the land of Akkad 1,635 years before.
This conquest, and the accession of an
Elamite dynasty which lasted for nearly
300 years, is confirmed from a variety of
other sources, and its date is thus fixed,
beyond the possibility of a doubt, at 2280
B.C.
This Elamite conquest of Chaldeea is a
memorable historical era, for it inaugurates
the period of great wars and of the rise
and fall of empires, w’hich play such a con
spicuous part in the subsequent annals of
nations. Elam was a small province
between the Kurdish mountains and the
Tigris, extending to the Persian Gulf; and
its capital, Susa, was an ancient and famous
city, which afterwards became one of the
principal seats of the Persian monarchs.
The Elamites were originally a race, like
the Akkads, with Mongolian affinities, and
25
spoke a language which was a dialect of
Akkadian; but, as in Chaldsea and Assyria,
the kings and aristocracy appear to have
been Semites from an.early period. It was
apparently an organised and civilised State,
and the conquest was not a passing irrup
tion of barbarians, but the result of a cam
paign by regular troops, who founded a
dynasty which lasted for more than 200
years. It evidently disturbed the equi
librium of Western Asia, and led to a
succession of wars. The invasion of Egypt
by the Hyksos followed closely on it.
Then came the reaction which drove the
Elamites from Chaldsea and the Hyksos
from Egypt. Then the great wars of the
eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, which carried
the arms of Ahmes and Thotmes to the
Euphrates and Black Sea, and established
for a time the supremacy of Egypt over
Western Asia. Then the rise of the Hittite
Empire, which extended over Asia Minor,
and contended on equal terms with Ramses
11, in Syria. Then the rise of the Assyrian
Empire, which crushed the Hittites and all
surrounding nations, and twice conquered
and overran Egypt. Finally, the rise of
the Medes, the fall of Nineveh, the short
supremacy of Babylon, and the establish
ment of the great Persian Empire. From
the Persian we pass to the Greek, then
to the Roman Empire, and find ourselves
on the threshold of modern history. It
may be fairly said, therefore, that modern
history, with its series of greatwars and revo
lutions, commences with this record of the
Elamite conquest of Chaldcea in 2280 B.C.
The next tolerably certain date is that of
Ur-ea and his son Dungi, two kings of
the old Akkadian race, who reigned at
Ur over the united kingdoms of Sumir
and Akkad. They were great builders
and restorers of temples, and have left
numerous traces in the monuments both at
Ur and at Larsam, Sirgalla, Erech, and
other ancient cities. Among other relics
of these kings there is in the British
Museum the signet-cylinder of Ur-ea him
self, on which is engraved the Moon-God,,
the patron deity of Ur, with the king and
priests worshipping him. The date of
Ur-ea is ascertained as follows ; Nabonidus,
the last king of Babylon, 550 B.C., was a
great restorer of the,old temples, and, as
Professor Sayce says, “a zealous anti
quarian who busied himself much with the
disinterment of the memorial cylinders
which their founders and restorers had
buried beneath their foundations.” The
results of his discoveries he recorded on
�26
HUMAN ORIGINS
special cylinders for the information of
posterity, which have fortunately been pre
served. Among others he restored the
Sun-temple at Larsa, in which he found
intact in its chamber under the corner
stone a cylinder of King Hummurabi or
Khammuragas, stating that the temple was
commenced by Ur-ea and finished by his
son Dungi, 700 years before his time.
Hummurabi was a well-known historical
king who expelled the Elamites, and made
Babylon for the first time the capital of
Chaldsea, about 2000 B.c. The date of
Ur-ea cannot, therefore, be far from 2700
B.c.
The royal custom of laying the founda
tion-stone, and of depositing some memento
beneath it, took the shape of placing,
in a secure chamber, a cylinder record
ing the fact. This has given us a still
more ancient date, that of Sharrukin or
Sargon I. The same Nabonidus repaired
the great Sun-temple of Sippar, and he
says “ that, having dug deep in its founda
tions for the cylinders of the founder, the
Sun-god suffered him to behold the founda
tion cylinder of Naram-Sin, son of Sharru
kin or (Sargon I.), which for three thousand
and two hundred years none of the kings
who lived before him had seen.” This
gives 3750 B.C. as the date of Naram-Sin,
or, allowing for the long reign of Sargon I.,
about 3800 B.C. as the date of that
monarch. This discovery revolutionised
the accepted ideas of Chaldsean chro
nology, and carried it back at one stroke
1,000 years before the date of Ur-ea,
making it contemporary with the fourth
Egyptian dynasty, who built the great
Pyramids. The evidence is not so conclu
sive as in the case of Egypt, where the
lists of Manetho give us the whole series
of successive kings and dynasties, a great
majority of which are confirmed by con
temporary records and monuments. The
date of Sargon 1. rests mainly on the
authority of Nabonidus, who lived more than
3,000 years later, and who may have been
mistaken ; but he was in the best position
to consult the oldest records, and had
apparently no motive to make a wilful mis
statement.
Moreover, other documents
have been found in different places con
firming the statement on the cylinder of
Nabonidus ; and the opinion of the best
and latest authorities has come round to
accept the date of about 3800 B.C. as
authentic. Professor Sayce, in his Hibbert
Lectures (1888), gives a detailed account
of the evidence which had overcome his
original scepticism, and forced him to
admit the accuracy of this very distant
date. Since the discovery of the cylinder
of Nabonidus there have been found and
deciphered several tablets containing lists
of kings and dynasties of the same char
acter as the Egyptian lists of Manetho.
One tablet of the kings who reigned at
Babylon takes us back, reign by reign, to
about 2400 B.c. Other tablets, though in
complete, give the names of at least
sixty kings not found in this record
of the Babylonian era, who presumedly
reigned during the interval of about 1,400
years between Khammuragas and Sargon I.
The names are mostly Akkadian, and if
they did not reign during this interval
they must have preceded the foundation
of a Semite dynasty by Sargon I., thus
extending the date of Chaldsean history still
further back. The probability of such a
remote date is enhanced by the certainty
that a high civilisation existed in Egypt
as long ago as 5000 B.c., and there is no
apparent reason why it should not have
existed in the valleys of the Tigris and
Euphrates as soon as in that of the Nile.
Boscawen, in a paper read at the Victoria
Institute in 1886, says that inscriptions
found at Larsa, a neighbouring city to Ur
of the Chaldees, show that from as early a
period as 3750 B.C. there existed in the
latter city a Semitic population speaking a
language akin to Hebrew, carrying on
trade and commerce, and with a religion
which, although not Monotheist, had at
the head of its pantheon a supreme god,
I lu or El, from whose name that of Elohim
and Allah has been inherited as the name
of God by the Hebrews and Arabs. There
can be no doubt that Sharrukin or Sargon
I. is a historical personage. A statue of
him has been found at Agade or Akkad,
and also his cylinder with an inscription
on it giving his name and exploits. It
begins, “ Sharrukin the mighty king am I,”
and goes on to say “ that he knew not his
father, but his mother was a royal princess,
who to conceal his birth placed him in a
basket of rushes closed with bitumen, and
cast him into the river, from which he was
saved by Akki the water-carrier, who
brought him up as his own child.” This
legend reappears in the story of Moses,
the finding of whom by Pharaoh’s daughter
lends romance to the incident. Similar
stories of rescue are told of Cyrus and
other great men, the chronicler thus
seeking to invest his subject with added
wonder. It is probable that Sargon was a
�27
CHALDEEA
military adventurer who rose to the throne;
but there can be no doubt that he was a
great monarch, who united the two
provinces of Sumir and Akkad, or of Lower
tajid Upper Mesopotamia, into one king
dom, as Menes did the Upper and Lower
Egypts, and extended his rule over some
Of the adjoining countries. He says “ that
i he had reigned for forty-five years, and
governed the black-headed (Akkadian)
race. In multitudes of bronze chariots I
Bode ©ver rugged lands. . I governed the
upper countries. Three times to the coast
Ef the sea I advanced.” If there is any
truth in this inscription, it would be very
interesting as showing the existence in
Western Asia of nations to be conquered
in great campaigns, with a force of horsechariots, at this remote period, 2,000 years
i earlier than the campaigns of Ahmes and
well known in the time of Berosus as to be
translated by him into Greek, was also com
piled for him.
Another king of the same name, known
as Sargon II., who reigned about 2000 B.C.,
either founded or enlarged the library of
the priestly college at Erech, which was one
of the oldestand most famous cities of Lower
Chaldma, and known as the “City of Books.”
It was also considered to be a sacred city,
and its necropolis, which extends over a
great part of the adjoining desert, contains
innumerable tombs and graves ranging
over all periods of Chaldaean and Assyrian
history, up to an unknown antiquity.
The exact historical date of Sargon I.
may be a little uncertain ; but, whatever its
antiquity may be, it is evident that it is
already far removed from the beginnings of
Chaldaean civilisation. That Sargon II. is
CYLINDER SEAL OF SARGON I., from agade.
Assyrians.)
Thotmes recorded in the Egyptian monu
ments of the eighteenth dynasty.
[ The reality of these campaigns is, moreover, confirmed by inscriptions and images
of this Sargon having been found in
Cyprus and on the opposite coast of Syria,
and by a Babylonian cylinder of his son
[Karam-Sin, found by Cesnola in the
Cyprian temple of Kurion.
In another
direction he and his son carried their arms
into the peninsula of Sinai, attracted
doubtless by the copper and turquoise
mines of Wady Maghera, which were
worked by the Egyptians under the third
dynasty. Sargon I. is also known to have
been a great patron of literature, and to
have founded the library of Agade, which
was long one of the most famous in Baby
lonia. A work on Astronomy and Astrology, in seventy-two books, which was so
(Hommel, Gesch. Babyloniens u.
historical, his library and the state of the
arts and literature in his reign prove con
clusively. He states in his tablets that 350
kings had reigned before him, and in such
a literary age he could hardly have made
that statement without some foundation.
If anything like this number of kings had
reigned before 2000 B.C., the date of Sar
gon II.’s Chaldaean chronology would have
to be extended to a date preceding that of
Egypt. Moreover, Sargon was a Semite,
who founded a powerful monarchy over a
mixed population, consisting mainly of the
older inhabitants of Mesopotamia, known
as the Akkadians, or, more correctly, the
Akkado-Sumerians, the Akkadians being
settled on the highlands (whence their
name), and the Sumerians on the plains of
that region. The racial affinities of either
are not definitely known, but they belonged
�HUMAN ORIGINS
to the Mongolian division of mankind.
They had immigrated into Chaldsea at an
unknown period, when they had probably
long passed the barbaric stage. For they
knew the use of metals ; they were skilful
architects, and, what was of great impor
tance in the marshy land where canals and
dams were indispensable, good engineers.
.ey were enterprising sailors ; their laws
evidence advanced social organisation; their
writing had become syllabic, and their
hteiature possesses great interest for us
because supplying the key to a religion
which deeply influenced the Babylonians,
through them the Hebrews, ultimately
affecting the whole of Christendom. That
religion was a blend of lower and higher
ideas—Shamanistic, that is, full of animistic
conceptions mixed with sorcery and magic,
and yet with vivid belief in spiritual beings,
to whom psalms and prayers, which equal
some of the finer utterances in the Hebrew
sacred books, were offered. A number of
verbal analogies, and certain correspond
ences in astronomical divisions and chro
nologies, have lent sanction to a theory of
very intimate connection between the Akka
dians and the Chinese in remote times.
But the evidence in support of a very
plausible and interesting hypothesis is at
present far from complete, and it may ulti
mately only prove an active intercourse
along old trading routes, when ideas as
well as merchandise were transported from
Western to Eastern Asia.
When the Semite Sargon I. founded the
united monarchy, the capital of which was
Agade in the upper province, he made no
change in the established state of things,
maintained the old temples, and built new
ones to the same gods. Before his reign
we have, as in the parallel case of Egypt
before Menes, little definite information
from monuments or historical records. We
only know that the country was divided
into a number of small states, each grouped
about a city with a temple dedicated to
some god ; as Eridhu, the sanctuary of
Ea, one of the trinity of supreme gods ;
Larsa, with its Temple of the Sun ; Ur, the
city of the Moon-god; Sirgalla, with
another famous temple. These small
states were ruled by patesi, or priest-kings,
a term corresponding to the Horsheshu of
Egypt > and a fortunate discovery by M.
de Sarzec in 1877 at Tell-loh, the site of
the ancient Sirgalla, has given us valuable
information respecting its patesi. To the
surprise of the scientific world, with whom
it had been a settled belief that no statues
were ever found in Assyrian art, M. de
Sarzec discovered and brought home nine
large statues of diorite, a very hard black
basalt of the same material as that of the
statue of Chephren, the builder of the
second pyramid, and in the same sitting
attitude. The heads had been broken off,
but one head was discovered which was of
unmistakably Mongolian type, beardless,
shaved, and with a turban for head-dress.
With these statues a number of small
works of art were found, of a highly artistic
design and exquisite finish, representing
men and animals, and also several cylinders.
Both these and the backs of the statues are
covered with cuneiform inscriptions in the
old Akkadian characters, which furnish
valuable historical information. The name
of one,of the patesi whose statues were
found was Gud-Ea, and his date is com
puted by some of the best authorities at
HEAD OF ANCIENT CHALD7EAN. FROM TELLLOH (SIRGALLA). SARZEC COLLECTION.
(Perrot and Chipiez.)
from 4000 to 4500 B.C., probably earlier
and certainly not later than 4000 B.c. This
makes the patesi of Sirgalla contemporary
with the earliest Egyptian kings, or even
earlier, and it shows a state of the arts and
civilisation then prevailing in Chaldseavery
similar to those of the fourth dynasty in
Egypt, and in both cases as advanced as
those of 2,000 or 3,000 years later date.
Before such a temple as that of Sirgalla
could have been built and such statues
and works of art made, there must have
been older and smaller temples and ruder
works, just as in Egypt the brick pyramids
of Sakkarah and the oldest temples of
Heliopolis and Denderah preceded the
�CHALDEA
great pyramids of Gizeh, the temple of
Pthah at Memphis, and the diorite statues,
wooden statuettes, and other finished works
of art of the fourth dynasty.
STATUE OF GUD-EA, WITH INSCRIPTION ; FROM
TEtL-LOH (SIRBURLA OR SIRGALLA). SARZEC
COLLECTION. (Hommel.)
r It is important to remark that in those
earliest monuments both the language and
art are primitive Akkadian, which must
have tollg prevailed before Sargon I. could
have established a Semitic dynasty over an
united papulation of Akkads and Semites
living together on friendly terms. The
nomad Semites must have settled gradually
»n Chaldeea, and adopted to a great extent
the higher civilisation of the Akkadians,
JMCh as the Tartars in later times did that
of the Chinese. It is remarkable also that
this pre-Semitic Akkadian people must have
had extensive intercourse with foreign regionSj for the diorite of which the statues of
Sirgalla are formed is exactly similar to
that of the statue of the Egyptian Chephren,
29
and in both cases is found only in the penin
sula of Sinai. In fact, an inscription on
one of the statues tells us that the stone was
brought from the land of Magan, which
was the Akkadian name for that peninsula.
This implies a trade by sea, between
Eridhu, the sea-port of Chaldma in early
times, and the Red Sea, as such blocks of
diorite could hardly have been transported
such a distance over mountains and
deserts by land ; and this is confirmed by
references in old geographical tablets to
Magan as the land of bronze from the
copper mines of Wady-Maghera, and to
“ ships of Magan ” trading from Eridhu.
In any case, it is certain that a very long
period of purely Akkadian civilisation must
have existed prior to the introduction of
Semitic influences, and long before the
foundation of a Semitic dynasty by Sargon I.
Combining these facts with quite recent
discoveries, there appears ample warrant
for assigning to Chaldaean civilisation as
old a date as that of Egypt.
This high antiquity is confirmed by other
deductions. The city of Eridhu, which was
generally considered to be the oldest in
Chaldsea, and was the sanctuary of the
principal god, Ea, appears to have been
a sea-port in those early days, situated
where the Euphrates flowed into the Per
sian Gulf. The ruins now stand far in
land, and Sayce computes that about 6,000
years must have elapsed since the sea
reached up to them.
Astronomy affords a still more definite
confirmation. The earliest records and
traditions show that, before the commence
ment of any historic period, the year had
been divided into twelve months, the
course of the sun mapped out among the
stars, and a zodiac, which has continued
in use to the present day, established of the
twelve constellations. The year began
with the vernal equinox, and the first
month was named after the “ propitious
•Bull,” whose figure constantly appears on
the monuments as opening.the year. The
sun, therefore, was in Taurus at the vernal
equinox when this calendar was formed,
which could be only after long centuries
of astonomical observation; but it has
been in Aries since about 2500 B.C., and
first entered in Taurus about 4700 B.C.
Records of eclipses were also kept in the
time of Sargon I., which imply a long pre
ceding period of accurate observation;
and the Ziggurat, or temple observatory,
built up in successive stages above the
alluvial plain, which gave rise to the
�3°
HUMAN ORIGINS
legend of the Tower of Babel, is found in
connection with the earliest temples. The
diorite statues and engraved gems found
at Sirgalla also testify to a thorough
knowledge of the arts of metallurgy at
this remote period, and to a commercial
intercourse with foreign countries from
which the copper and tin must have been
derived for making bronze tools capable of
cutting such hard materials.
The existence of such a commercial in
tercourse in remote times is confirmed by
the example of Egypt, where bronze im
plements must have been in use long
before the date of Menes ; and although
copper might have been obtained from
Sinai or Cyprus, tin or bronze must have
been imported from distant foreign coun
tries alike in Egypt and in Chaldaea.
Chaldeean chronology, therefore, leads
to almost exactly the same results as that
of Egypt. In each case we have a
standard or measuring-rod of authentic
historical record, of certainly not less than
8,000, and more probably 9,000 or 10,000
years, from the present time ; and in each
case we find ourselves at this remote
date, in presence, not of rude beginnings,
but of a civilisation already ancient and
far advanced. We have populous cities,
celebrated temples, an organised priest
hood, an advanced state of agriculture and
of the industrial and fine arts ; writing and
books so long known that their origin is
lost in myth ; religions in which advanced
philosophical and moral ideas are already
developed ; astronomical systems which
imply a long course of accurate observa
tions. How long this prehistoric age may
have lasted, and how many centuries it
may have taken to develop such a civilisa
tion, from the primitive beginnings of
neolithic and palaeolithic origins, is a
matter of conjecture. All we can infer is,
that it must have required an immense
time, much longer than that embraced by
the subsequent period of historical record.
And we can say with certainty that during
the whole of the historical period of 8,000
or 9,000 years there has been no change
in the established orderofnature. Theearth
has rotated on its axis and revolved round
the sun, the moon and planets have pursued
their courses, the duration of human life
has not varied, and there have been no
destructions of old forms, and creation of
new forms, or any other traces of miracu
lous interference. More than this, we can
affirm with absolute certainty that 6,000
years and more have not been enough to
alter in any perceptible degree the existing
physical types of the different races of men
and animals, or the primary linguistic
types. The Negro, the Mongolian, the
Semite, and the Aryan all stand out as
clearly distinguished in the paintings on
Egyptian monuments as they do at the
present day ; and the agglutinative lan
guages are as distinct from the inflectional,
and the Semite from the Aryan forms of
inflections, in the old Chaldaean cylinders as
they are in the nineteenth century.
For evolution neither implies nor involves
continuous development. Its keynote is
adaptation ; harmony between the race and
its environment; and only when this is dis
turbed does readjustment come into play J
CHAPTER III.
OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
China—Oldest existing Civilisation—but Re
cords much later than those of Egypt and
Chaldsea.
Elam—Very Early Civilisation—Susa, an old
City in First Chaldaean Records—Conquered
Chaldaea in 2280 B.c.—Conquered by Assy
rians 645 B.c.—Statue of Nana—Cyrus—
His Cylinder.
Phoenicia—Great influence on Western Civilisa
tion—but date comparatively late—Traditions
of Origin—First distinct mention in Egyptian
Monuments 1600 B.c.—Great Movements of
Maritime Nations—Invasions of Egypt by
Sea and Land, under Menepthah, 1330 B.C.,
and Ramses II., 1250 B.c.—Lists of Nations
—Show advanced Civilisation and Inter
course.
Hittites—Great Empire in Asia Minor and
Syria—Mongolian Race—Great Wars with
Egypt — Battle of Kadesh — Treaty with
' Ramses III. —Power rapidly declined—
but only finally destroyed 717 B.c. by
Sargon II.—Capital Carchemish—Great
Commercial Emporium—Hittite Hieroglyphic
Inscriptions and Monuments—Bilingual key
to them awaited.
Arabia — Recent Discoveries — Inscriptions —
Sabaeans—Minaeans—Thirty-two Kings known
—Ancient Commerce and Trade-routes—In
cense and Spices—Literature—Old Traditions
—Oannes—Punt—Seat of Semites—Arabian
Alphabet—Older than Phoenician—Bearing
on Old Testament Histories.
Troy, Mycena, and Crete—Dr. Schliemann’s
Excavations—Hissarlik — Buried Fortifications, Palaces, and Treasures of Ancient Troy
�3i
OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
_ Mycense and Tiryns—Proof of Civilisation
and Commerce—Tombs—Date of Mycenaean
Civilisation—School of Art—Type of Race
Crete—Mr. Arthur Evans’s Excavations—City
of Minos—Cretan Script—Cradleland of Euro
pean Civilisation.
CHINA.
from the mountains and plateaux of Tibet
to the fertile valleys of China.
Reference has been made already to
some remarkable identities in words and
in calendars between the Akkadian and
the Chinese, but,, although these must be
more than coincidences, they as yet form
no sufficient basis for theories of a common
origin. Possible early intercourse explains
much. We must remember that caravans do
travel, and have travelled from time imme
morial, over enormous distances, across
the steppes of Central and Northern Asia,
and that within quite recent historical
times a whole nation of Calmucks migrated
under every conceivable difficulty from
hostile tribes, pursuing armies, and the
extremes of winter cold and summer heat,
first from China to the Volga, and then
back again from the Volga to China. Nor
must we overlook the fact that Ur and
Eridhu were great seaports at a very
remote period, and that the facilities for
pushing their commerce to the far east
were great, owing to the regular monsoons
and the configuration of the coast.
We must be content, however, to take
the facts as we find them, and admit that
China gives us no aid in carrying back
authentic history for anything like the time
for which we have satisfactory evidence
from the monuments and records of Egypt
and Chaldaea.
The first country to which we might
naturally look for independent annals
approaching in antiquity those of Egypt
and Chaldaea is China, Chinese civilisation is in one respect the oldest in the
world; that is, it is the one which has
come down to the present day from a
remote antiquity with the fewest changes.
Its continuity borders on the marvellous.
What China is to-day it was more than
4,000 years ago : a populous empire with a
peaceful and industrial population devoted
to agriculture and skilled in the arts of
irrigation; a literary people acquainted
with reading and writing ; orderly and
obedient, organised under an emperor and
official hierarchy ; paying divine honours
to ancestors, and a religious veneration to
the moral and ceremonial precepts of sages
and philosophers; addicted to childish
superstitions, and yet eminently prosaic,
practical, and utilitarian. Their annals
tell of an epoch of “ Three Rulers,” when
wild and savage conditions prevailed,
corresponding to those of the Ancient
Stone Age in Europe. They tell also of
the epoch of “Five Emperors,” culture
heroes of the race. To these are attributed
the arts and sciences.. They taught the
people (here the utilitarian character of the
Chinese stamps itself) to make nets for
fishing and snares for hunting, to found
markets for the sale of produce, and
bequeathed treatises on the medicinal
virtues of plants, and the sciences of
astrology and astronomy. Fu-Hi, the
reputed founder of the Empire, is credited
with the institution of marriage, an allimportant state among a people where
the family is the social unit. Chinese
annals do not, however, go further back
than about 3000 B.C.—that is, to a period
some three or four thousand years later
than the epigraphic evidence furnished by
Egypt and Chaldaea. The times of the
Three Rulers may survive among the
barbaric hill tribes who are living at this
day in the southern and western border
lands, the remnant of descendants of the
races conquered by the ancient Chinese
who poured down in irresistible numbers I
ELAM.
As regards other nations of antiquity,
their own historical records are either
altogether wanting or comparatively recent,
and our only authentic information respect
ing them in very early times is derived
from Egyptian or Babylonian monuments.
One of the most important of them is Elam,
which was evidently a civilised State at a
remote period, contemporary probably with
the earliest Akkadian civilisation, and
which continued to play a leading part in
history down to the time of Cyrus.
Elam was a small district between the
Zagros mountains and the Tigris, extend
ing to the south along the eastern shore of
the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. Its
capital was Shushan or Susa, an ancient
and renowned city,, the name of which
survives in the Persian province of Shusistan, as that of Persia proper survives in
the mountainous district next to the east of
Elam, known as Farsistan. The original
population had Mongolian affinities, speaking an agglutinative language, akin to,
�32
HUMAN ORIGINS
though not identical with, Akkadian, while
its religion and civilisation were apparently
the same, or closely similar. As in Chaldaea
and Assyria, a Semitic element seems to
have intruded on the Mongolian at an
early date, and to have become the ruling
race, while much later the Aryan Persians
to some extent superseded the Semites.
The name “ Elam ” is said to have the
same significance as “ Akkad,” both mean
ing “ Highland,” and indicating that both
races may have had a common origin in
the mountains and steppes of Central Asia.
The native name was Anshan, and Susa
was “the City of Anshan.” Elam was
always considered an ancient land, and
Susa an ancient city, by the Akkadians,
and there is every reason to believe that
Elamite civilisation must have been at
least as old as Akkadian. This much is
certain, that as far back as 2280 B.c. Elam
was a sufficiently organised and powerful
State to conquer the larger and more popu
lous country of Mesopotamia, and found
an Elamite dynasty which lasted for
nearly 300 years, and carried on campaigns
in districts as far distant as Southern Syria
and the Dead Sea.
The dynasty was subverted and the
Elamites driven back within their own
frontiers ; but there they retained their
independence, and took a leading part in
all the wars waged by Chaldsea and other
surrounding nations against the rising
power of the warlike Assyrian kings of
Nineveh. The statue of the goddess
Nana, which had been taken by the
Elamite conquerors from Erech in 2280
B.c., remained in the temple at Susa
for 1,635 years, until the city was . at
length taken by one of the latest Assyrian
kings, Assurbanipal, in the year 645
B.C.
We have already pointed out the great
historical importance of the Elamite con
quest of Mesopotamia in 2280 B.c. as
inaugurating the era of great wars between
civilised States, and probably giving the
impulse to Western Asia, which hurled the
Hyksos on Egypt, and by its reaction first
brought the Egyptians to Nineveh, and
then the Assyrians to Memphis. A still
more important movement at the very close
of what may be called ancient history
originated from Elam. To the surprise of
all students of history, it has been proved
that the account we have received, from
Herodotus and other Greek sources, of the
great Cyrus is to a large extent fabulous.
A cylinder and tablet of Cyrus himself, in
which he commemorates his conquest of
Babylon, were quite recently discovered by
Mr. Rassam and brought to the British
Museum. He describes himself as “ Cyrus
the great King,, the King of Babylon,
the King of Sumir and Akkad, the King of
the four zones, the son of Cambyses the
great King, the King of Elam ; the grand
son of Cyrus the great King, the King of
Elam ; the great-grandson of Teispes the
great King, the King of Elam ; of the
Ancient Seed-royal, whose rule has been
beloved by Bel and Nebo ”; and he goes on
to say how by the favour of “ Merodach
the great lord, the god who raises the dead
to life, who benefits all men in difficulty
and prayer,” he had conquered the men of
Kurdistan and all the barbarians, and also
the black-headed race (the Akkadians), and
finally entered Babylon in peace and ruled
there righteously, favoured by gods and
men, and receiving homage and tribute
from all the kings who dwelt in the high
places of all regions from the Upper to the
Lower Sea, including Phoenicia. And he
concludes with an invocation to all the gods
whom he had restored to their proper
temples from which they had been taken
by Nabonidus, “ to intercede before Bel and
Nebo to grant me length of days ; may
they bless my projects with prosperity ;
and may they say to Merodach my lord,
that Cyrus the King, thy worshipper, and
Cambyses his son deserve his favour.”
This is confirmed by a cylinder of a few
years earlier date, of Nabonidus the last
King of Babylon, who relates how “ Cyrus
the King of Elam, the young servant of
Merodach,” overthrew the Medes, there
called “Mandan” or barbarians, captured
their King Astyages, and carried the spoil
of the.royal city Ecbatana to the land of
Elam.
How many of our apparently most firmly
established historical dates are annihilated
by these little clay cylinders! It would seem
that Cyrus was not a Persian at all, or an
adventurer who raised himself to power by
a successful revolt, but the legitimate King
of Elam, descended from its ancient royal
race through an unbroken succession of
several generations.
He was a later
and greater Kudur-Na-hangti, like the
early conqueror of that name who founded
the first Elamite empire some 1,800 years
earlier. His religion was Babylonian, and
thus we must dismiss all Jewish traditions
of him as a Zoroastrian Monotheist, the
servant of the most high God, who favoured
the chosen race from sympathy with their
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
33
religion. On his own showing he was as
devoted a worshipper of Merodach, Bel,
and Nebo, and the whole pantheon of
local gods, as Nebuchadrezzar or TiglathPileser.1
What a lesson does this teach us as to
the untrustworthiness of the scraps of
ancient history which have come down
to us from traditions, but which are not
confirmed by contemporary monuments !
Herodotus wrote within a few generations
of Cyrus, and the relations of Greece to
the Persian Empire had been close and
uninterrupted. His account of its founder
Cyrus is not in itself improbable, and is
full of details which have every appearance
of being historical. It is confirmed to a
considerable extent by the Old Testament,
and by the universal belief of early
classical writers, and yet it is shown by the
testimony of Cyrus himself to be in essential
respects legendary and fabulous.
ancient Akkadians. According to their
own tradition, they came from the Persian
Gulf; and the island of Tyros, now Bahrein,
in that Gulf, is quoted as a proof that it
was the original seat of the people who
founded Tyre. There is no certain date
for the period when they migrated from
the East, and settled in the narrow strip of
land along the coast of the Mediterranean
between the mountain range of Lebanon
and the sea, stretching from the promontory
of Carmel on the south to the Gulf of
Antioch on the north. This little strip of
about 150 miles in length, and ten to
fifteen in breadth, possessed many advan
tages for a maritime people, owing to the
number, of islands close to the coast and
small indented bays, which afforded
excellent harbours and protection from,
enemies, and which were further secured
by the precipitous range of the Lebanon
sending down steep spurs into the Mediter
ranean, thus isolating Phoenicia from the
military route of the great Valley of CceloPHOENICIA.
Syria (between the parallel ranges of the
Phoenicia is another country which Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon), which was
exercised a great influence on the civilisa taken by armies in the wars between
Egypt and Asia. Here the Phoenicians
tion and commerce of the ancient world,
though its history does not go back to the founded nine cities, of which Byblos or
extreme antiquity of the early dynasties of Gebal was reputed to be the most ancient
and first Sidon and then Tyre the most
Egypt and of Chaldma. The Phoenicians
spoke a language which was almost important. They became fishermen,
identical with that of the Hebrews and manufacturers of purple from the dye
Canaanites, and closely resembled that of procured from the shell-fish on their
Assyria and Babylonia, after the Semite shores, and, above all, mariners and mer
language had superseded that of the chants. They established factories along
the coasts, of Asia Minor, Greece, and
Italy, and in all the islands of the ZEgean
1 Sayce, in his Fresh Light from Ancient
and the Cyclades. They founded colonies
Monuments, says: “ Both in his cylinder and in
in Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, and on the
the annalistic tablet, Cyrus, hitherto supposed
mainland of Greece at Boeotian Thebes.
to be a Persian and Zoroastrian Monotheist,
They mined extensively wherever metals
appears as an Elamite and a polytheist.” It is
were to be found, and, as Herodotus states,
pretty certain, however, that, although descended
from Elamite kings, these were kings of Persian
had overturned a whole mountain at
race, who, after the destruction of the old
Thasos by tunnelling it for gold. They
monarchy by Assurbanipal, had established a
even extended their settlements into the
new dynasty at the city of Anshan or Susa.
Black Sea, along the northern coast of
Cyrus.always traces his descent from Achsemenes,
Africa, and somewhat later to Spain, passed
the chief of the leaaing Persian clan of Pasargadae,
the Straits of Gibraltar, and appear to have
and he was buried there in a tomb visited by
finally reached the British Isles in pursuit
Alexander. But as regards religion, it is clear
of tin.
that Cyrus professed himself, and was taken by
. It is reasonably certain that this Phoe
his contemporaries to be, a devoted servant of
nician commerce was, a principal element
Merodach, Nebo, and the other Babylonian
in introducing not only an alphabet, but
deities. Zoroastrian Monotheism came in with
many of the early arts of civilisation,
Darius Hystaspes, the founder of the purely
Persian second dynasty, after that of Cyrus
among the comparatively rude races of
became extinct with his son Cambyses. (It
Greece, Italy, Spain, and Britain. It pro
should be stated that, in the article on “ Cyrus,”
bably dates from the destruction of Tiryns
in the Encyclopedia Biblica, his Persian origin
and Mycenae, about 1200 B.C., when Phoe
% reaffirmed.)
nicia established depots throughout the
©
*
�34
HUMAN ORIGINS
>Egean and secured supremacy in Mediter
ranean waters. But through her lack of
political unity, and her dependence on
mercenary aid when troubles came, she
finally succumbed to the powerful arm of the
re-invigorated Greek. And it was between
their rise and fall that the ingenious
“colossal pedlars” had put the alphabet
into practically its present form, and
secured its adoption by the Greeks.
Compared with Egypt and Chaldsea,
Phoenicia can have claimed no high
antiquity.
. .
The first distinct mention of Phoenician
cities in Egyptian annals is in the enumera
tion of towns captured by Thotmes III.,
B.C. 1600, in his victorious campaigns in
Syria, among which are to be found the
names of Beyrut and Acco ; and two cen-
SEA-FIGHT in the time OF ramses ill.
turies later Seti I., the father of Ramses
II., records the capture of Zor or Tyre,
probably the old city on the mainland.
The first authentic information, however,
as to the movements of the Mediterranean
maritime races is afforded by the Egyptian
annals, which describe two formidable in
vasions by combined land armies and fleets,
which were with difficulty repulsed. The
first took place in the reign of Menepthah,
son of the great Ramses II., of the
eighteenth dynasty, about 1330 B.C.; the
second under Ramses III., of the twen
tieth dynasty, about 1200 B.C. The first
invasion came from the West, and was
headed by the King of the Libyans, a white
race, who have been identified by some with
the Numidians and modern Kabyles. There
was formed a confederacy of nearly all the
Mediterranean races, who sent auxiliary
contingents both of sea and land forces.
Among these appear, along with Dardanians, Teucri and Lycians of Asia Minor,
who were already known as allies of the
Hittites in their wars against Ramses II.,
a new class of auxiliaries from Greece,
Italy, and the islands, whose names have
been identified by some Egyptologists as
Achaeans, Tuscans, Sicilians, and Sar
dinians.
The second and more formidable attack
came from the East, and was made by a
combined fleet and land army, the latter
composed of Hittites and Philistines, with
the same auxiliaries from Asia Minor, and
the fleet of the same confederation of
Maritime States as in the first _ invasions,
except that the Achaeans have disappeared
(From temple of Ammon at Medmet-Abou.)
as leaders of the Greek powers. The
Phoenicians alone of the Maritime States
do not seem to have taken any part
in these invasions, but, on the contrary, to
have lived on terms of friendly vassalage
and close commercial relations with Egypt
ever since the expulsion of the Hyksos,
and the great conquests of Ahmes and
Thotmes III. in Syria and Asia. It is
probably during this period that the early
commerce and navigation of Phoenicia
took such a wide extension.
The details of these two great invasions,
which are fully given _ in the Egyptian
monuments, together with a picture of the
naval combat, in which the invading fleet
was finally defeated by Ramses III., after
having forced an entrance into the eastern
branch of the Nile, are extremely inter-
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
esting. They show an advanced state of
civilisation already prevailing among
nations whose very names were unknown
or legendary. Centuries before the siege
of Troy it appears that Asia Minor and
the Greek mainland and islands were
already inhabited by nations sufficiently
advanced in civilisation to fit out fleets
which commanded the seas, and to form
political confederations, to undertake dis
tant expeditions, and to wage war on equal
terms with the predominant powers of Asia
and of Egypt.
HITTITES.
35
It is in Egyptian records, however, that
we meet with the first definite historical
data respecting this ancient Hittite ^Empire.
In these they are referred to as “ Kheta,”
and probably formed part of the great
Hyksos invasion ; but the first certain men
tion of them occurs in the reign of Thotmes
I., about 1600 B.c., and they appear as a
leading nation in the time of Thotmes III.,
who defeated a combined army of Canaan
ites and Hittites under the Hittite King of
Kadesh, at Megiddo, and in fourteen vic
torious campaigns carried the Egyptian
arms to the Euphrates and Tigris.
For several subsequent reigns we find the
Hittites enumerated as one of the nations
paying tribute to Egypt, whose extensive
Empire then reckoned Mesopotamia,
The history of another great but more
mysterious Empire, that of the Hittites
has been partially brought
’
to light. It was destroyed
In 717 B.c. by the progress
of Assyrian conquest, after
having lasted more than
1,000 years, and long exerQsing a predominant influ
ence over Western Asia.
The first mention of the
Hittites in the Old Testa
ment appears in Patriarchal
tipies, when we find them
in Southern Syria, mixed
with tribes of the Canaanites
and Amorites, and grouped
principally about Hebron.
They are represented as
on friendly terms with
Abraham, selling him a
piece of land for a sepul
chre, and intermarrying
with his family, Rebecca’s KING of the Hittites. (From photograph by Flinders Petrie,
from Egyptian Temple at Luxor.)
soul being vexed by the
contumacious behaviour of
her daughters-in-law, “the daughters of Assyria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Cyprus, and
Heth.” This, however, was only an out the Soudan among its tributary States.
lying branch of the nation, whose capital
Gradually the power of Egypt declined,
cities, when they appear in history, were
and in the troubled times which followed
further north at Kadesh on the Orontes,
the attempt of the heretic king Ku-en-Aten
and Catchemish on the Upper Euphrates,
to supersede the old religion of Egypt, by
commanding the fords on that river on the the. worship of the solar disc, the conquered
great commercial route between Babylonia nations threw off the yoke, and the frontiers
and the Mediterranean.
of Egypt receded to the old limits. As
The earliest mention of the Hittites is
Egypt declined, the power of the Hittites
found in the tablets which were compiled evidently increased, for when we next meet
for the library of Sargon I, of Akkad, in
with them it is as contending on equal terms
which reference is made to the Khatti,
in Palestine with the revival of the military
Which probably means Hittites, showing
power of Egypt under Ramses III., the
that at this remote period, about 3800 B.c.,
founder of the nineteenth dynasty, and his
they had already moved down from their
son Seti I.
northern home into the valley of the
The contest continued for more than a
Euphrates and Upper Syria.
century with occasional treaties of peace
�3®
HUMAN ORIGINS
and various vicissitudes of fortune, and at
last culminated in the great battle of
Kadesh, commemorated by the Egyptian
epic poem of Pentaur, and followed by the
celebrated treaty of peace between Ramses
II. and Kheta-Sira, “the great King of the
Hittites.” The alliance was on equal
terms, defining the frontier, and providing
for the mutual extradition of refugees, and
it was ratified by the marriage of Ramses
with the daughter of the Hittite King.
The peace lasted for some time ; but in
the reign of Ramses III., of the twentieth
dynasty, we find the Hittites again heading
the great confederacy of the nations of Asia
Minor and of the islands of the Mediterra
nean, who attacked Egypt by sea and land.
The Hittites formed th’e greater part of the
land army, which was defeated with great
slaughter after an obstinate battle at Pelusium, about 1200 B.c. From this time
forward the power both of the Hittites and
of Egypt seems to have steadily declined.
We hear no more of them as a leading
power in Palestine and Syria, where the
kingdoms of Judah, Israel, and Damascus
superseded them, until all were swallowed
up by the Assyrian conquests of the warriorkings of Nineveh. Finally, the Hittites
disappear altogether from history with the
capture of their capital Carchemish by
Sargon III. in 717 B.C.
The wide extent, however, of their
Empire when at its height is proved by the
fact that at the battle of Kadesh the Hittite
army was reinforced by vassals or allies
from nearly the whole of Western Asia.
The Dardanians from the Troad, the
Mysians from their cities of Ilion, the
Colchians from the Caucasus, the Syrians
from the Orontes, and the Phoenicians
from Arvad are enumerated as sending
contingents ; and in the invasion of Egypt
in the reign of Ramses III. the Hittites
headed the great confederacy composed,
with themselves, of Teucrians, Lycians,
Philistines, and other Asiatic nations, who
attacked Egypt by land, in concert with
the great maritime confederacy of Greeks,
Pelasgians, Tuscans, Sicilians, and Sar
dinians, who attacked it by sea.
The mere fact of carrying on such cam
paigns and forming such political alliances
is sufficient to show that the Hittites must
have attained to an advanced state of civili
sation. But there is abundant proof that
this was the case from other sources. They
were a commercial people, and their capital,
Carchemish, was for many centuries the
great emporium of the caravan trade
between the East and West. The products
of the East, probably as far as Bactria and
India, reached it from Babylon and Nine
veh, and were forwarded by two great com
mercial routes, one to the south-west to
Syria and Phoenicia, the other to the north
west through the pass of Karakol, to Sardis
and the Mediterranean. The commercial
importance of Carchemish is attested by
the fact that its silver maneh became the
standard of value at Babylon and through
out the whole of Western Asia. The Hit
tites were also great miners, working the
silver mines of the Taurus on an extensive
scale, and having a plentiful supply of
bronze and other metals, as is shown by the
large number of chariots attached to their
armies from the earliest times. They were
also a literary people, and had invented a
system of hieroglyphic writing of their own,
distinct alike from that of Egypt and from
the cuneiform characters of the Akkadians.
Inscriptions in these peculiar characters,
associated with sculptures in a style of art
different from that of either Egypt or Chaldsea, but representing figures identical in
dress and features with those of Hittites in
the Egyptian monuments, have been found
over a wide extent of Asia Minor, at Hamath
and Aleppo ; Boghaz-Keni and Eyuk in
Cappadocia ; at the pass of Karakol near
Sardis, and at various other places. Several
of those attributed by the Greeks to Sesostris, or to fabulous passages of their own
mythology, are held to be Hittite—as, for
instance, the figure carved on the rocks of
Mount Sipylos, near Ephesus, and said to
be that of Niobe, is held to be a sitting
figure of the great goddess of Carchemish.
Some details in the foregoing brief sketch
may be corrected or expunged as further
research into Hittite history yields more
definite results. For, in truth, although
some portly volumes on that subject have
appeared within recent years, we really
know no more about the Hittites than we
do about the Phoenicians, which means
that we know but little. We have glimpses
of a Hittite kingdom which was a formid
able power for centuries against Egypt and
Assyria, but as to who the Hittites were,
and what was their language, we can speak
with no certainty. Thirty years back not
a monumental remain of an empire whose
high place among ancient nations .is
established by documents had come to
light, and, now that the hieroglyphs which
are indubitably Hittite have been dis
covered, we sorely need the unearthing of
some bilingual relic which shall do for them
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
what the Rosetta stone did for Egyptian
hieroglyphs, and the inscribed rock at
Behistun for cuneiform writing.
ARABIA.
The best chance of finding records
which may vie in antiquity with those of
Egypt and Chaldaea has come to us quite
recently from an unexpected quarter.
Arabia has been from time immemorial
one of the least known and least accessible
regions of the earth. Especially of recent
years Moslem fanaticism has made it a
dosed country to Christian research, and
it is only quite lately that a few scientific
travellers, taking their lives in their hands,
have succeeded in penetrating into the
interior, discovering the sites of ruined
cities, and copying numerous inscriptions.
Dr. Glaser especially has three times
explored Southern Arabia, and brought
home no less than 1,031 inscriptions, many
of them of the highest historical interest.
By the aid of these and other inscrip
tions we are able to reduce to some sort of
certainty the vague traditions that had
come down to us of ancient nations and
an advanced state of civilisation and
commerce, existing in Arabia in very
ancient times. In the words of Professor
Sayce, “the dark past of the Arabian
peninsula has been suddenly lighted up,
and we find that long before the days of
Mohammed it was a land of culture and
literature, a seat of powerful kingdoms and
wealthy commerce, which cannot fail to
have exercised an influence upon the
general history of the world.”1
The visit of the Queen of Sheba to
Solomon affords one of the first glimpses
into this past history. It is evident that
she either was, or was supposed to be by the
compiler of the Book of Kings who wrote
not many centuries later, the queen of a
well-known, civilised, and powerful country,
which, from the description of her offerings,
could hardly be other than Arabia Felix,
the spice country of Southern Arabia, the
Sabaea or Saba of the ancient world,
and that her kingdom, or commercial
relations, may have extended over the
opposite coast of Abyssinia and Somali
land, and probably far down the east coast
of Africa. Assyrian inscriptions show that
1 The facts of this section are taken mainly
from two articles by Professor Sayce in the
Contemporary Review, entitled “ Ancient
Arabia” and “Results of Oriental Archeology.”
31
Saba was a great kingdom in the eighth
century B.C., when its frontiers extended
so far to the north as to bring it in contact
with those of the Empire of Nineveh
under Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon III. It
was then an ancient kingdom, and, as the
inscriptions show, had long since under
gone the same transformation as Egypt
and. Chaldsea, from the rule of priest-kings
of independent cities into an unified
empire. These priest-kings were called
“ Makarib,” or high-priests of Saba, show
ing that the original State must have been
a theocracy, and the name Saba, like Assur,
that of a god.
But the inscriptions reveal this unex
pected fact that, old as the kingdom of
Saba may be, it was not the oldest in this
district, but rose to power on the decay of
a still older nation, whose name of Ma’in
has come down to us in dim traditions
under the classical form of Minaeans.
We are already acquainted with the
names of thirty-two Sabaean or Minaean
kings, and as yet comparatively few in
scriptions have been discovered. Some
of these show that the authority of the
Minaean kings was not confined to their
original seat in the south, but extended
over all Arabia and up to the frontiers of
Syria and of Egypt. Three names of these
kings have been found at Teima, the Tema
of the Old Testament, on the road to
Damascus and Sinai ; and a votive tablet
from Southern Arabia is inscribed by its
authors, “in gratitude to Athtar (Istar or
Astarte), for their rescue in the war between
the ruler of the South and the ruler of the
North, and in the conflict between Madhi
and Egypt, and for their safe return to
their own city of Quarnu.” The authors of
this inscription describe themselves as
being under the Minaean King “ Abi-yadd.
Yathi,” and being “ governors of Tsar
and Ashur and the further bank of the
river.”
Tsar is often mentioned in the Egyptian
monuments as a frontier fortress on the
Arabian side of what is now the Suez
Canal, while another inscription mentions
Gaza, and shows that the authority of the
Minaean rulers extended to Edom, and
came into close contact with Palestine and
the surrounding tribes. Doubtless the pro
tection of trade-routes was a main cause of
this extension of fortified posts and wealthy
cities over such a wide extent of territory.
From the most ancient times there has
always been a stream of traffic between
East and West, flowing partly by the Red
�HUMAN ORIGINS
discoveries and researches have led to the
Sea and Persian Gulf, and from the ends of
result, which is principally due to Dr.
these Eastern waters to the Mediterranean,
Glaser, that the so-called Himyaritic in
and partly by caravan routes across Asia.
scriptions fell into two groups, one of which
The possession of one of these routes by
is distinctly older than the other, contain
Solomon in alliance with Tyre led to the
ing fuller and more primitive grammatical
ephemeral prosperity of the Jewish king
forms. These are Minsean, while the in
dom at a much later period ; and the wars
scriptions in the later dialect are Sabsean.
waged between Egyptians, Assyrians, and
It is apparent, therefore, that the Mina?an
Hittites were doubtless influenced to a
rule and literature must have preceded
considerable extent by the desire to com
those of Sab sea by a time sufficiently long
mand these great lines of commerce.
to have allowed for considerable changes
Arabia stood in a position oi great
both in words and grammar to have grown
advantage as regards this international
up, not by foreign conquest, but by evolu
commerce, being a half-way house between
tion among the tribes of the same race
East and West, protected from enemies by
within Arabia itself. Now, the Sabsean
impassable deserts, and with inland and
kingdom can be traced back with consider
sheltered seas in every direction. Its
able certainty to the time of Solomon, 1000
southern provinces also had the advantage
years B.C., and had in all probability
of being the chief, and in some cases the
existed many centuries before; while we
sole, producers of commodities of great
have already a list of thirty-two Mmsean
value and in constant request. Frank
kings, which number will probably be en
incense and other spices were indispensable
larged by further discoveries; and the oldest
in temples where bloody sacrifices formed
inscriptions point, as in Egypt, to an ante
part of the religion. The atmosphere of
cedent state of commerce and civilisation.
Solomon’s temple must have been that of a
It is evident, therefore, that Arabia must be
sickening slaughter-house, and the fumes
classed with Egypt and Chaldaea as one of
of incense could alone enable the priests
the countries which point to the existence
and worshippers to support it. This would
of highly civilised communities in an
apply to thousands of other temples
extreme antiquity ; and that it is by no
through Asia, and doubtless the palaces of
means improbable that the records of
kings and nobles suffered from uncleanliness
Southern Arabia may ultimately be carried
and insanitary arrangements, and required
back as far as those of Sargon I., or even
an antidote to evil smells to make them
of Menes.
endurable. The consumption of incense
This is the more likely as several
must therefore have been immense m the
ancient traditions point to Southern Arabia,
ancient world, and it is not easy to see
and possibly to the adjoining coast of
where it could have been derived from
North-eastern Africa, as the source of the
except from the regions which exhaled
earliest civilisations. Thus Oannes is said
to have come up from the Persian Gulf and
“ Sabsean odours from the shores of Araby
taught the Chaldseans . the first arts of
the blest.”
civilisation. The Phoenicians traced their
The next interesting result, however, of
origin to the Bahrein Islands in the same
these Arabian discoveries is that they dis
Gulf The Egyptians looked with rever
close not only a civilised and commercial
ence and respect to Punt, which is gene
kingdom at a remote antiquity, but that
rally believed to have meant Arabia Felix;
they show us a literary people, who had
and Somali-land; and they placed thetheir own alphabet and system of writing at
origin of their letters and civilisation, not
a date comparable to that of Egyptian
in Upper or Lower, but in Middle Egyptz.
hieroglyphics and Chaldman cuneiforms,
at Abydos, where Thoth and Osiris were said
and long prior to the oldest known inscrip
to have reigned, and where the Nile is only
tion in Phoenician characters. The first
separated from the Red Sea by a narrow;
Arabian inscriptions were discovered and
land pass, which was long one of the prin
copied by Seetzen in 1810, and were classed
cipal commercial routes between Arabia,
together as Himyaritic, from Himyar, the
and Egypt.
_
,
country of the classical Homerites. It was
The close connection between Egypt and
soon discovered that the language was
Punt in early times is confirmed by theSemitic, and that the alphabet resembled
terms of respect in which Punt is spoken
that of the Ethiopic or Gheez, and was a
of in Egyptian inscriptions, contrasting^
modification of the Phoenician written
with the epithets of “ barbarian ” and vile,'
vertically instead of horizontally, r urtiier
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
which are applied to other surrounding
nations such as the Hittites, Libyans, and
Megroes. And the celebrated equipment
of a fleet by the great queen Hatasu of the
nineteenth dynasty, to make a commercial
voyage to Punt, and its return with a rich
freight, the king and queen of that country
accompanying it with offerings, on a visit to
the Pharaoh, reminding one of the visit of
the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, shows that
the two nations were on friendly terms, and
that the Red Sea and opposite coast of
Africa had been navigated from a very
early period. The physical type also of
the chiefs of Punt as depicted on the '
CHIEF OF JUNT AND TWO MEN.
Egyptian monuments is very like that of
the aristocratic type of the earliest known
Egyptian portraits.
Evidence points to the conclusion that the
original seat of the Semites was in SouthWestern Asia, perhaps in Arabia. Every
where else, we can trace them as an immigrating or invading people, who found prior
populations of different race, but in Arabia
they seem to have been aboriginal. Thus,
in Chaldaea and Assyria the Semites are
represented in the earliest traditions
as coming from the South, partly by
the Persian Gulf and partly across the
39
Arabian and Syrian deserts, and by degrees
amalgamating with and superseding the
previous Akkadian population. In Egypt
the Semitic element was a late importation
which never permanently affected the old
Egyptian civilisation. In Syria and Pales
tine the Phoenicians, Canaanites, and
Hebrews were probably all immigrants
from the Persian Gulf or Arabian frontier,
either directly or through the medium of
Egypt and Assyria, who did not even pre
tend to be the earliest inhabitants, but
found other races, as the Amorites and
Hittites, in possession, whose traditions
again went back to barbarous aborigines
of Zammumim, who seemed to them to
stammer their unintelligible language. The
position of Semites in the Moslem world
in Asia and Africa is distinctly due to the
conquests of the Arab Mohammed and the
spread of his religion.
In Arabia alone we find Semitesj and
Semites only,from the very beginning; and
the peculiar language and character of the
race must have been first developed in the
growing civilisation which preceded the
ancient Minaean Empire, probably as the
later stone age was passing into that of
metal, and the primitive state of hunters
and fishers into the higher social level of
agriculturists and traders.
To return from these remote speculations
to a subject of more immediate interest, the
discovery of these Minaean inscriptions
shows the existence of an alphabet older
than that of the earliest known inscriptions
in Phoenician letters. The alphabets of
Greece, Rome, and all modern nations are
more or less directly derived from that of
Phoenicia, the probable varied sources of
which are dealt with in the last section of
this chapter. But the Minman script, re
vealing a more primitive form than the
oldest known Phoenician characters, has
caused some philologists to- ask whether
these may not be derived from Arabia.
The Minaean language and letters are
certainly older forms of Semitic speech and
writing, and it seems more likely that they
should have been adopted, with dialectic
variations, by other Semitic races, with
whom Arabia had a long coterminous
position and constant intercourse by cara
vans, than that these races should have
remained totally ignorant of letters until
Phoenicia borrowed them from Egypt.
Moreover, as Professor Sayce shows, this
theory gives a better explanation of the
names of the Phoenician letters, which in
many cases have no resemblance to the
�40
HUMAN ORIGINS
symbols which denote them.
Thus the
first letter Aleph, “ an ox,” really resembles
the head of that animal in the Minaean
inscription, while no likeness can be traced
to any Egyptian hieroglyph used for “ a.”
Should these speculations be confirmed,
they will considerably modify our concep
tions as to the early history of the Old
Testament. It would seem that Canaan,
before the Israelite invasion, was already
a settled and civilised country, with a dis
tinct alphabet and literature of its own,
older than those of Phoenicia ; and it may
be hoped that further researches in Arabia
and Palestine may disclose records, buried
under the ruins of ancient cities, which
may vie in antiquity with those of Egypt
and Chaldaea.
TROY, MYCEN2E, AND CRETE.
To the enthusiasm of one man—Dr.
Schliemann—is chiefly due the impetus to
exploration in South - Eastern Europe
which has resulted in the verification of a
history long held to be mythical, and in the
demolition of hitherto accepted theories of
the sources of Western civilisation.
Only once in his History of Greece does
Grote refer to the city of Mycenae, and
then in an incidental way as the seat of a
legendary dynasty. The Rev. Sir G. W.
Cox, in his Mythology of the Aryan
Nations, endorses Professor Max Muller’s
theory that “ the siege of Troy is a reflec
tion of the daily siege of the East by the
solar powers that every evening are robbed
of their brightest treasures in the West ”;
and he adds that this theory is “ supported
by a mass of evidence which probably
hereafter will be thought ludicrously
excessive in amount.” The laugh is on
the other side now. The Iliad and Odyssey
are no longer the shuttlecocks of solar and
meteorological battledores. For in 1870
Schliemann, making wise use of money
acquired in trade, went to the Troad to
find the bones of Priam and the cup from
which Nestor drank. His credulity caused
him to discover the relics for which he
looked, but none the less were his achieve
ments momentous.
In the mound of
Hissarlik he uncovered the traces of seven
towns superimposed one above another—
the lowest a settlement of. the late
Neolithic or early bronze period; and,
immediately above this, and most important
of all, the ruins of a fortress-city, the ram
parts of which enclosed the remains of a,
palace, and which had been destroyed by
fire. This, Schliemann believed, was the
veritable Troy of Homer which the
Achaeans had looted and then fired.
Notwithstanding the destruction and
probable plunder of the city, the quantity
of gold and silver found was very con
siderable, chiefly in the vaults of casemates
built into the foundations of the walls,
which were covered up with debris when
the citadel was burnt, and when the roofs and
upper buildings fell in. In one place alone
Dr. Schliemann found the celebrated
treasure (was it Priam’s own ?) containing
sixty articles of gold and silver, which
had evidently been packed together in a
square wooden box, which had disappeared
with the intense heat. The nature of these
citadels shows a high degree of wealth
and luxury, as proved by the skill and taste
of jewellers’ work displayed in the female
ornaments, which comprise three sump
tuous diadems, ear-rings, hairpins, and
bracelets.
There are also numerous vases and cups
of terra-cotta, and a few of gold and silver,
and bars of silver which have every
appearance of being used for money, being
of the same form and weight. The frag
ments of ordinary pottery are innumerable;
the finer and more perfect vases are
often of a graceful form, moulded into
shapes of animals or human heads, and
decorated with spirals, rosettes, and other
ornaments of the type which is more fully
illustrated as that of the pre-Hellenic
civilisation of Mycense.
The jealousy of the Porte, which looked
on Schliemann as a spy, drove him from
Hissarlik to Greek soil, where more
pregnant discoveries awaited his spade.
The result of explorations at Mycenae
showed that a still larger and more wealthy
city existed here, and that its art and
civilisation were widely diffused over the
whole of the eastern coast of Greece and
the adjoining islands. Specimens of that
art have been found on the opposite coasts
of Asia Minor, and in Cyprus and Egypt,
where they were doubtless carried by
commerce. The existence of an extensive
trade is proved by the profusion of gold
which has been found in the vaults and
tombs buried under the debris of the ruined
city, for gold is not a native product, but
must have been obtained from abroad, as
also the bronze, copper, and tin required
for the manufacture of weapons. As to
the Mycenaean religion, no sacred texts
exist as data for ascertaining its character,
but there are monumental remains that tell
us much—e.g., sacrificial pits or altars, tablets
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
showing acts of sacrifice, human and
animal; rude images of women clasping
children—goddesses of generation—who
are varied manifestations of the great
Earth-Mother, of Aphrodite, with her
dove-emblem, and of gods with the aegis
or the thunderbolt.
From these and
other evidences there may be constructed
a picture, faint at the best, of the old
Mycenaean faith as expressed in the
worship of ancestors and of native deities—
a faith which had correspondences through
out the mainland and isles of ancient
Greece.
The city evidently owed its importance
to its situation on the Isthmus of Corinth,
commanding the trade route between the
Gulfs of Argos and of Corinth, and thus
connecting the Eastern Mediterranean
and Asia with the Western Sea and
Europe.
As a question of dates, we know that the
supremacy of Mycenae and its civilisation
came to an end with the invasion of the
Dorians, which is generally placed some
where near the middle of the twelfth cen
tury B.C.. The invaders, in their southward
march, reached Tiryns and Mycenae, and
sacked and burnt both cities. We know
also that it must have had a long existence,
but for anything approaching to a date we
must refer to the few traces which connect
it with Egypt. Mycenaean vases have been
found in Egypt and Egyptian scarabs in
Mycenaean deposits. They prove an inti
mate intercourse between the two countries
2500 B.C., and there was intercourse further
afield. The imitation of Babylonian cylin
ders, the sculptured palms and lions, the
figures of Astarte and her doves, show that
1,500 years before the date ascribed to the
Homeric poems Assyria and Greece had
come into contact. But these examples of
Oriental art which had found their way to
the soil of Argolis remained more or less
exotic, the independent features of Myce
naean art being retained unaltered.
We are pretty safe, therefore, in suppos
ing this Mycenaean civilisation to have
flourished between the limits of 2500 and
1200 B.C. The still older city of Tiryns, of
which Mycenae was probably an offshoot,
stood nearly on the shore of the eastern
gulf, while Mycenae was in the middle of
the isthmus about eight miles from either
gulf. Tiryns was also explored by Schlie
mann, and showed the same plans of
buildings and fortifications as Troy and
Mycenae, and the same class of relics, only
less extensive and more archaic than those
4i
of Mycenae, which was evidently the more
important city during the golden period of
this great Mycenaean civilisation.
Those who wish to pursue this interesting
subject further will find an admirable account
of it in the English translation of Schlie
mann’s works and essays, with a full descrip
tion of each exploration, and numerous
illustrations of the buildings and articles
found ; while for the results of more recent
explorations in Pre-Homeric Greece,
Tsountas’ and Manatt’s Mycencean Age
and Mr. Hogarth’s chapter on Pre-historic
Greece—A uthority andArcheology—should
be read. For my present object I refer to
it only as an illustration of the position that
Egypt and Chaldaea do not stand alone in
presenting proofs of high antiquity, but that
other nations, such as the Chinese, the
Hittites, the Minaeans of Southern Arabia,
the Mycenmans, Trojans, Lydians, Phry
gians, Cretans, and doubtless many others,
alsp existed as populous, powerful, and
civilised states at a time long antecedent
to the dawn of classical history. If these
ancient empires and civilisations became so
completely forgotten, or survived only in
dim traditions of myths and poetical
legends, the reason seems to be that they
kept no written records, or at any rate
none in the form of enduring inscriptions.
We know ancient Egypt from its hierogly
phics, and from Manetho’shistory; Chaldea
and Assyria from the cuneiform writing on
clay tablets ; China, up to about 3000 B.C.,
from its written histories ; but it is singular
that nearly all the other ancient civilisations
have left few or no inscriptions. This is
the more remarkable in the case of the
Mycenaean cities explored by Dr. Schlie
mann, for their date is not so very remote,
their jewellery, vases, and signet-rings are
profusely decorated, and their dead interred
in stately tombs with large quantities of
gold and silver. Yet, as Tsountas tells us,
of all the finds at Mycenae itself, only three
objects bear inscriptions. These, however,
as will presently appear, are of the highest
importance.
This Mycenaean civilisation had not
sprung, Minerva-like, into sudden efflores
cence and beauty. There were long stages
of development behind it; the eyes of
archaeologists have been opened to new
documents in ALgean lands, whether walls
or tombs, pottery or work in metals, gems,
ivory, sculptured stone or modelled clay,
and it was not long before the revelation,
first made by Schliemann at Hissarlik and
Mycenae, came to be extended far beyond
�42
HUMAN ORIGINS
the point contemplated by him or any one this latter constituting by far the larger
number. In Mr. Evans’s words, these
else in 1876.
The result is that, within the last few tablets “prove that a system of writing
years, further research in the Eastern existed on the soil of Greece at least 600
Mediterranean has brought to light the years before the introduction of the
existence of factors in civilisation very Phoenician alphabet into that country,” and
much older than the Mycenaean—factors that already at that remote date this
which, as already remarked, will revolution indigenous system had attained a most
ise long-accepted theories of the origin of elaborate development, the tablet inscrip
European culture. Egypt and Chaldaea will tions being the work of practised scribes
never lose their fascination for the student following conventional methods and
of the past, because both hold secrets arrangements which indicate traditional
which may never be wrested from their usage. This script is “neither Babylonian
tombs and temples. In each there are nor Egyptian, neither Hittite nor Phoe
numberless sites yet to explore, while in nician ; it is the work on Cretan soil of an
Asia Minor, notably in Elam and Armenia, ^Egean people, the true Eteocretans of the
Odyssey.”
•
undeciphered monuments of antiquity
Our alphabet comes from the Greek
abound. But the influence of these, al
though great and abiding, is less direct through the Latin, and is traceable to a
Semitic source, for to those “colossal
than has been thought ; their history
touches us less closely than that of lands pedlars,” the Phoenicians, belongs the
nearer home. We now know that44 far into credit of having highly perfected it. They
the third millennium B.C. at the very least, did not, as has hitherto been held, derive
and probably much earlier still, there was it from the Egyptian hieroglyphics, but
modified, with consummate
a civilisation in the ZEgean and on the selected andprimarily for commercial pur
shrewdness,
Greek mainland which, while it contracted poses, various characters,from divers sources.
many debts to the East and to .Egypt,
as
was able to assimilate all that it bor of Water is the birthplace of civilisation,the
life itself, and the original home of
rowed, and to reissue it in individual JEgean or Mycaenean civilisation is pro
form.” And, in this matter, interest bably to be found in the island of Crete.
centres round the island of Crete. The
It is crammed with remains of pre-Hellenic
discoveries made there since 1897 by culture. It is a big stepping-stone from
Mr. Arthur Evans establish the facts of an Greece to Asia Minor. It it m the line of
indigenous culture and of an active com communication with Cyprus, Syria, and
merce between Crete and Greece, Egypt,
the
Sicily and
Syria, and other lands, centuries before the Egypt onlines East, and with Mediterra
of the Western
Phoenicians appeared in the Mediterranean. the coast earliest Greek tradition looks
nean. The
The explorations at Cnossus, or Knossos, "back to Crete as “ the home of divinelycity of Minos, “have revolutionised our inspired legislation and the first centre of
knowledge of prehistoric Greece, and to
find even an approach to the results maritime dominion.” have enlarged treat
The subject cannot
obtained we must go back to Schliemann s ment here, but the reader may pursue it in
great discovery of the royal tombs at Mr. Evans’s Cretan Pictographs, published
Mycenae.” There has been disinterred a in 1895, and in subsequent numbers of the
palace beside which those of Tiryns and lournal of Hellenic Studies, while keeping
Mycenae sink in significance. It has great in mind the result of these discoveries in
courts and corridors, innumerable chambers, the ZEgean, which, in Mr. Hogarth’s words,
chief among which is the 44 actual Throne come to. this: That before the epoch at
Rooms and Council Chamber of Homeric which we are used to place the beginning
kings.” This apartment is enriched with of Greek civilisation—that is, the opening
frescoes, beautifully carved friezes, a centuries of the last millennial period B.C.
marble fountain, and an alabaster vase. _ we must allow for an immensely l^pg
But what surpasses all in significance was period of human existence, productivity
the discovery in this same palace, which going back into the neolithic age, and
Mr. Evans speaks of as a sanctuary of the culminating towards the close of the age
Cretan Zeus, of a number of clay tablets, of bronze in a culture more fecund and
somewhat like the Babylonian in form, but more refined than any we are to find again
inscribed with two distinct types of in the same lands till the age of iron was
indigenous prehistoric script, one hiero far advanced. Man in Hellas was more
glyphic or quasi-pictorial, the other linear,
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
highly civilised before history than when
history begins to record his state, and
there existed society in the Hellenic area,
organised and productive, to a period so
remote that its origins were more distant
from the age of Pericles than that age is
from our own. We have probably to deal
with a total period of civilisation in the
^Egean not much shorter than that in the
Mesopotamian and in the Nile Valleys—
that is to say, some seven thousand years
or more before Christ.
CHAPTER IV.
ANCIENT RELIGIONS
Egypt—Mystery investing its Religion—Book of
the Dead—Origins of Religions—Ghosts—
Animism—Astronomy and Astrology—Moral
ity—Ideas of Future Life and Judgment—
Triads, Solar, and other Gods.
Chaldaean Religion—Oldest Form Akkadian—
Shamanism—Akkadian Trinities—Anu, Mullil, Ea—Bel-Ishtar—Merodach—Assur—Pan
theism—Wordsworth—Magic and Omens—
Penitential Psalms—Conclusions.
As with the Egyptian race, so with its reli
gion, no clear and consecutive account is
possible. The more smoothly the expo
sition runs, the more is it to be sus
pected. We have to be ever on guard
against the danger of reading our own
ideas into ancient records, and the more so
when ignorant of the language, and, there
fore, at the mercy of translators who are
themselves not free from bias. It is. easy
enough to pick out passages here and there
which, detached from their context, have
quite a different meaning from that which
they convey when taken as parts of a creed
or cult; and the defect of most popular ex
positions of the Egyptians and of other reli
gions is the overlooking of this fundamental
principle.
As for the Egyptian, the old and new, the
gross and refined, are hopelessly inter
mixed. The Egyptians were a conservative
people, conservative in the art of which
they were most justly proud, and conserva
tive in their beliefs. Therefore the old,
and, presumably, the lower, was never
wholly superseded by the higher ; hence
the result was an incongruous amalgam, so
that while, as Wiedemann says, we may
-speak of the religious ideas of the Egyptians,
we must not speak of the Egyptian religion.
We cannot label it, or place it in any class,
43
as polytheistic, or monotheistic, or pan
theistic, although it most nearly approaches
this last. We find nature-worship, animal
and plant-worship, ancestor-worship, and
other cults. We find beliefs in sacred bulls
born of virgin cows, on which, as evidence
of the divine offspring they were to bring
forth, a ray of moonlight descended from
the deity ; we find nature-gods with heads
of hawks, jackals, and crocodiles, and, as if
there were not enough animals in the Nile
valley, an addition of fabulous monsters in
the shape of the phoenix and the sphinx ;
we find magic and sorcery, omens from
dreams and other phenomena, in full swing
through all the ages; and, side by side
with these, we have sacred writings rich in
exalting spiritual conceptions, charged with
ethical maxims, whose high, ennobling
features challenge comparison with the
teaching of the Hebrew prophets and of the
Sermon on the Mount. We are probably
near the explanation of such bewildering
materials in seeing in them the representa
tives of the cults that prevailed in the
small states or nomes which ultimately
became fused into one empire. For we
know that each nome had its own god, and
that cities and temples were also dedicated
to specific deities, while each month was
presided over by a special deity. And
each in his own domain was supreme, not
coming into collision with others, although
not excluding them. “ The god of a nome
was within it held to be Ruler of the Gods,
Creator of the World, Giver of all good
things, and it mattered little to his adher
ents that another deity played a precisely
similar part in some adjacent nome where
their own god was relegated to a subordinate
place.” It is in the misinterpretation of
these terms of address to this or that god
that the notions of the Egyptians as mono
theists instead of henotheists have found
currency. There was found at El Amarna,
in the tomb of Ai, a high official, a hymn
to the sun-god Atea (who, by the way, is
always represented under the form of the
solar disc, and never in human shape),
which for sublimity equals the higher
flights of Hebrew poetry. This, isolated
from other hymns to other gods, might
well have warranted the theory that the
Egyptians believed in One Supreme Being.
Of course, with the dominance of any one
nome, with its college of priests eager to
aggrandise their deity, it is obvious that
the deity would come to the front, and
establish a sort of supremacy, as in the
case of Amen-R^, whose prominence dates
�44
HUMAN ORIGINS
only when a high intellectual and moral
from the eighteenth dynasty, when the
standard is reached that the claims of
Hyksos were expelled by the Theban
women to an equality begin to be recog
kings. But the minor deities held their
own, as minor and local deities do else nised. Now, in the earliest records of
domestic and political life in Egypt we find
where, among the people, and the old
this equality more fully recognised than it
cults lost none of their influence among the
is perhaps among ourselves in the nine
uneducated.
Turning to the documents which, out teenth century. Quoting again from Birch:
side the wall-paintings and contents of “ The Egyptian woman appears always as
the equal and companion of her father,
tombs, throw light on the religious ideas
and practices of the Egyptians, the most brethren, and husband. She was never
secluded in a harem, sat at meals with
famous, as it is the most important and
them, had equal rights before the law,
venerable, is that known as tne 4 Chapters
served in the priesthood, and even mounted
of the Coming Forth by Day,” or, more
the throne.”
popularly, <l The Book of the Dead.”
The highly metaphysical nature of some
Its origin and age remain matters of
speculation, but its antiquity is such that features of the Egyptian creed is proof of
the antiquity of the religion, since such
the oldest copies known show that when
elements are among the later products of
they were made, some six thousand years
every theology. Among existing races we
ago, the exact meaning of parts of the text
find similar religions corresponding to
had become obscure to the transcribers. It
similar stages of civilisation. With the very
first existed as oral tradition ; then, set
rudest races, religion consists mainly of
down in writing, became -the subject of a
ghost worship and animism. Mr. Herbert
series of recensions, so that the text,
Spencer has shown how dreams lead to the
embodying the different ideas of different
belief that man consists of two elements, a
periods, typifies the religion which it more
body and a spirit, or shadowy self, which
or less expounds. It contains, among a
wanders forth in sleep, meets with strange
mass of trivialities, or what appear so to
be to us, the hymns, prayers, and magic adventures, and returns when the body
awakes. In the abiding sleep of death this
formulae against all opposing foes and evil
shadowy self becomes a ghost which haunts
spirits, to be rqcited by the dead Osiris (for
the soul was conceived to have such affinity its old abodes and former associates, mostly
with evil intent, and which has to be deceived
with the god Osiris as to be called by his
or propitiated, to prevent it from doing mis
name) in his journey to Amenti, the underchief. Hence the sacrifices and offerings, and
world that led to the Fields of the Blessed.
the many devices for preventing the return
It had already acquired such an authority
of the ghost by carrying the dead body by
in the times of Pepi and Teta, of the
devious paths to some safe locality. Hence
sixth dynasty, about 3800 B.C., that the
also the superstitious dread of evil spirits,
inner walls of their pyramids are covered
and the interment of food and implements
with hieroglyphics of chapters taken from
with the corpse to induce the ghost to
it. From this time forward, almost every
remain tranquilly in the grave, or to set
tomb and mummy-case contains quotations
out comfortably on its journey to another
from it, just as passages of the Bible are
world.
inscribed on our own gravestones.
Animism is another, and, probably, still
. Birch, in his Ancient History of Egypt
older, tap-root of the lower religions. As
from the Monuments, which I prefer to
quote from, as, being published by the the child sees life in the doll, so the savage
sees life in every object, animate or inani
Societyfor Promoting Christian Knowledge,
mate, which comes in contact with him, and
it cannot be suspected of any bias to dis
affects his existence. Animals, and even
credit orthodoxy, says that t£ in their moral
stocks and stones, are supposed to have
law the Egyptians followed the same pre
souls, and who knows that these may not
cepts as the Decalogue (ascribed to Moses
be the souls of departed ancestors, and
2,500 years later), and enumerated treason,
murder, adultery, theft, and the practice of have some mysterious power of helping or
of hurting him? In any case the safer
magic as crimes of the deepest dye.” The
plan is to propitiate them by worship and
position of women is one of the surest tests
sacrifice.
of an advanced civilisation ; for in rude
From these rude beginnings _ we see
times, and among savage races, force reigns
nations as they advance in civilisation rising
supreme, and the weaker sex is always the
to higher conceptions, developing, as in
slave or drudge of the stronger one. It is
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
some parts of India to this day, their
ghosts into gods, and confining their opera
tions to the greater phenomena of nature,
such as the sky, the earth, the sun,
the stars, seasons, and so forth. By
degrees the unity of nature begins to
be felt by the higher minds; priestly
castes are established in which there is
leisure for meditation; ideas are trans
mitted from generation to generation ; and
the vague and primitive nature-worship
passes into the phase of philosophical and
scientific religion. The popular rites and
superstitions linger on with the mass of the
population, but an inner circle of hereditary
priests refines and elevates them, and begins
to ask for a solution of the great problems
of the universe ; what it means, and how it
was created; the mystery of good and
evil; man’s origin, future life and destiny;
and all the questions which, down to
the present day, are asked though never
answered by the higher minds of the
highest races. In this stage of religious
development metaphysical speculations
occupy a foremost place. Priests of Helio
polis, magi of Eridhu and of Ur, reasoned
like Christian fathers and Milton’s devils
of
“ Fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,”
and, like them
“ Found no end, in wandering mazes lost.”
Theories of theism and pantheism, of
creations and incarnations, of trinities and
atonements, of polarities between good and
evil, free-will and necessity, were argued
and answered, now in one direction and
now in another. Science contributed its
share, sometimes in the form of crude cos
mogonies and first attempts at ethnology,
but principally through the medium of
astronomy. An important function of the
priests was to form a calendar, predict the
seasons, and regulate the holding of reli
gious rites at the proper times. Hence the
course of the heavens was carefully watched,
the stars were mapped out into constella
tions through which the progress of the
sun and planets was recorded ; and myths
sprang into existence based on the sun’s
daily rising and setting, and its annual
journey through the seasons and the signs
of the zodiac. Mixed up with astronomy
was astrology, which, watching the sun,
moon, and five planets, inferred life from
motion, and recognised gods exerting a
divine influence on human events. The
sacred character of the priests was con
45
firmed by the popular conviction that they
were at the same time prophets and
magicians, and that they alone were able
to interpret the will of personified powers
of nature, and influence them for good or
evil.
Ethical codes are among the latest
to appear. It is only after a long
progress of civilisation that ideas of
personal sin and righteousness, of an over
ruling justice and goodness, of future
rewards and punishments, are developed
from the cruder conceptions and supersti
tious observances of earlier times. It was
a long road from the jealous and savage
local god of the Hebrew tribes, who smelt
the sweet savour of burnt sacrifices and
was pleased, and who commanded the
extermination of enemies, and the slaughter
of women and children, to the supreme
Jehovah, who loved justice and mercy
better than the blood of bulls and rams.
It is one great merit of the Bible, intelli
gently read, that it records so clearly the
growth and evolution of moral ideas, from
a plane almost identical with that of the
Red Indians, to the supreme height of the
Sermon on the Mount and St. Paul’s defini
tion of charity.
The elevated moral code of portions of the
Book of the Dead may be cited as another
proof of the great antiquity of Egyptian
civilisation. The prayer of the soul pleading
in the day of judgment before Osiris and
the Celestial Jury, which embodies the
idea of moral perfection entertained by the
contemporaries of Menes, contains the
following articles :—
“ I have told no lies; committed no
frauds ; been good to widows ; not over
tasked servants ; not lazy or negligent;
done nothing hateful to the gods ; been
kind to slaves ; promoted no strife ; caused
no one to weep; committed no murder;
stolen no offerings to the dead; made no
fraudulent gains ; seized no lands wrong
fully ; not tampered with weights and
measures ; not taken the milk from suck
lings ; not molested sacred beasts or birds;
not cut off or monopolised water courses ;
have sown joy and not sorrow ; have given
food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty,
and clothed the naked :
“ I am pure; I am pure.”
It is evident that such an ideal of life,
not imported from foreign sources, but the
growth of an internal civilisation, must be
removed by an enormous time from the
crude ideas and revolting customs of bar
baric ages.
�46
HUMAN ORIGINS
There is one phenomenon to be noted i mainly chronological, these vicissitudes in
religious beliefs are not important. If, at
in these ancient religions, that of degenera
the earliest date to which authentic history
tion.
After having risen to a certain
extends, we find a national religion which
height of pure and lofty conceptions they
has already passed from the primitive into
cease to advance, become corrupted by
the metaphysical stage, and which embodies
degrading myths, by cruel and immoral
abstract ideas, astronomical observations,
rites, and finally decay and perish. Thus
and a high and pure code of morals, it is a
do they prove that subjugation to the
legitimate inference that it is the outcome
law of birth, growth, maturity, decay, and
of a long antecedent era of civilisation.
death, which accompanies all sublunary
This is eminently the case with the
things.
ancient religions of Egypt and Chaldaea.
“ The old order changes, giving place to new.”
The ancient Egyptians were the most
religious people ever known.
Their
Environment changes, and religions, laws,
thoughts were so fixed on a future life
and social institutions must adapt them
that, as Herodotus says, they looked upon
selves thereto, or perish. Empires rise
their houses as temporary inns, and their
and fall, old civilisations disappear, old
tombs as their true permanent homes.
creeds become incredible, and often, for
The idea of an immediate day of judgment
a time, the course of humanity seems
to be retrograde.
But as the flowing , for each individual soul after death was so
JUDGMENT OF THE SOUL BY OSIRIS.—WEIGHING GOOD AND BAD DEEDS.
(From Champoilion’s Egypt.}
fixed in their minds that it exercised a
tide rises, though the successive waves on
constant practical influence on their life
the shore advance and recede, evolution,
and conduct. Piety to the gods, loyalty to
or the law of progress, in the long run pre
the throne, obedience to superiors, justice
vails, and, amid the many, oscillations of
and mercy to inferiors, and observance of
temporary conditions, carries the human
all the principal moral laws, and especially
race ever towards higher things.
that of truthfulness, were enforced by the
In the case of ancient religions it is easy
conviction that no sooner had the breath
to see how processes of degeneration are
departed from the body, which was forth
aided.
Priests who were the pioneers
with deposited as a mummy, with its
of progress and leaders of advanced
Ka or second shadowy self, in the tomb,
thought, became first conservatives, and
than the soul would appear before the
then obscurantists.
Pantheistic concep
supreme judge Osiris, and the forty-two
tions, and personifications of divine attri
heavenly assessors, to whom it would
butes, lead to polytheism. As religions
have to confess the naked truth, and be
become popular, and pass from the learned
rewarded or punished according to its
few to the ignorant many, they become
merits.
vulgarised, and the real meaning of myths
The theory was that man consisted of
and symbols is either lost or confined to a
| three or more parts : the body or ordinary
select inner circle.
.
.
But for my present purpose, which is I living man; the Ka or double, a sort
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
of shadowy self which came out of the
body and returned to it, as in dreams ; and
the soul, a still more subtle essence, which
at death went to the gods, was judged, and
either rewarded for its merits by living
with them in heaven, or punished for its
sins by being sent to the nether world of
torment. But this soul still retained such
a connection with its former body as to
come down from time to time to visit it ;
while the Ka or double retained the old
connection so closely as to live habitually
in it, only coming out to eat, drink, and
repeat the acts of its former life, but
incapable of existing without a physical
basis in the old body or some likeness of
it. The same doctrine of the double was
applied to all animated and even to inani
mate objects, so that the shadowy man
could come out of his mummy, live in his
own shadowy house, feed on shadowy food,
be surrounded by shadowy geese, oxen, and
other simulacra of his former possessions.
Hence arose the extraordinary care in pro
viding a fitting tomb and preserving the
mummy, or, failing the mummy, which in
course of time might decay, providing a
portrait-statue or painted likeness, which
might give a point d'appui for the Ka, and
a receptacle for the occasional visits of the
soul. . While these were preserved,
conscious personal life was continued
beyond the grave, and the good man who
went to heaven was immortal.
But if
these were destroyed and the physical
basis perished, the Ka and soul were left
without a home, and either perished also
or were left to flit like gibbering ghosts
through the. world of shadows without a
local habitation or a name. The origin of
this theory as. regards the Ka is easily
explained. It is, as Mr. Herbert Spencer
has conclusively shown, a natural inference
from dreams, and is found everywhere
from the stone period down to the
crude beliefs of existing savages. It
even survives among many civilised races
in the belief in ghosts, and the precautions
taken to prevent the Ka of dead men
from returning to haunt their former
homes and annoy their relatives. The
origin of the third element or soul is not so
clear. It may either be a relic of the
animism which among savage races attri
butes life to every object in nature, or a
philosophical deduction of more advanced
periods, which sees an universal spirit
underlying all creation, and recognising in
man a spark of this spirit which is indesJructibl^ and migrates either into fresh
47
forms or into fresh spheres of celestial or
infernal regions, and is finally absorbed in
the great ocean from which it sprang.
We. find almost the precise form of this
Egyptian beliefamong many existing savage
or semi-civilised men separated by wide
distances in different quarters of the world.
The Negroes of the Gold Coast believe in
the same three entities, and they call the
soul which exists independently of the man,
before his birth and after his death, the
Kra. The Navajos and other tribes of
Red Indians have precisely the same
belief. . It seems probable that, as we
find it in the earliest Egyptian records, it
was a development, evolved through ages
of growing civilisation by a succession of
learned priests, from the primitive fetichism
and fear of ghosts of rude ancestors ; and
in the animal worship and other supersti
tions of later times we find traces of these
primitive beliefs still surviving among the
mass of the population. Be this as it may,
this theory of a future life was firmly rooted
at the dawn of Egyptian history, and we
are indebted to the dryness of the
climate for the marvellous preservation
of records which give us such an intimate
acquaintance with the history, the religion,
the literature, and the details of a domestic
and social life which is distant from our
own by an interval of more than 6,000
years.
. No other nation ever attained to such a
vivid and practical belief in a future exist
ence as these ancient Egyptians. Taking
merely the material test of money, what an
enormous capital must have been expended
in pyramids, tombs, and mummies ; what
a large proportion of his income must every
Egyptian of the upper classes have spent in
the preparations for a future life; how
shadowy and dim does the idea of immor
tality appear in comparison among the fore
most races of the present day!
I return for a brief space to the Egyptian
pantheon (a summary of whose contents
would more than fill this chapter) to refer
to the honours paid by the one deity of nome
or temple to his two companion deities,
usually one god and one goddess, son and
wife respectively,because in this we have the
formulating of triads or, trinities, in which
Wiedemann sees “ the earlier outcome of
the effort after a systematic grouping of the
deities,” and because it is impossible for us
to see the figures of Isis and her son Horus
without being reminded of the Virgin Mary
and Jesus, a comparison giving emphasis
to the words of Scripture : ‘ Out of Egypt
�4»
HUMAN ORIGINS
horoscopes, and “ in the later papyri-,” so
have I called my Son.’ But the Christian
Wiedemann tells us, we find “ spheres ” or
Trinity is simplicity itself as contrasted
“ tables by which the fortune of a man
with the three-in-one groups of the Egyptian
could be calculated from certain data,
creed.' For its gods were mortal, and
such as the hour of his birth, and the like.
when the father died the son became the
From the Egyptians and the Chaldaeans,
father, and became the husband of his
who also held similar ideas, these practices
mother, and so on, in a pretty confusion
were passed on to the Greeks, and from
worse confounded when we arrive at the
them to the learned men (astrologers ?) of
expansion of triads into Enneads or
the Middle Ages, and in their last outcome
cycles of time, of which some of the
temples had two sets, ‘ the great and the —far removed indeed from their original
religious nature—they still play a great part
small.’ ”
The varying and the regular phenomena in modern books of prophecy.” The priests
of nature alike supplied conceptions of the had doubtless long studied astronomy;
functions of the several gods. The dif they had watched the stars, traced the
annual course of the sun, divided the year
ferent phases of the sun were studied and
received different names, as Horus, when into months and the circle into 360°, and
constructed calendars for bringing the civil
on the horizon rising or setting ; Ra in its
into correspondence with the sidereal year.
midday splendour; Osiris during its journey
They not only had intercalated the five
in the night through the underground world
supplemental days, bringing the duration
of darkness. Of these Ra naturally had
of the year from 360 to 365, but they had
the pre-eminence; the title of Pharaoh
invented a sothic cycle for the odd quarter
given to kings, t£ belief in whose divinity
of a day, by which at the end of every
was maintained throughout Egyptian
1,460 years a year was added, and the sun
history,” was probably derived, however,
not from Ra, but from Per-oa = great brought back to rise on the first day of the
first month of Thoth in the same place in
house—a title corresponding to Sublime
the heavens, determined by the heliacal
Porte. The Osiris myth, which was
risings of the brightest of the stars, Sothis
the basis of belief in a future life and
or Sirius.
. .
day of judgment, was clearly solar. This
It is to be observed that the religion of
barbaric cosmogony held its ground among
the Egyptians as tenaciously as the Mosaic ancient Egypt seems to be of native growth.
cosmogony among Western illiterates. To No trace is to be found, either in record, or
them the firmament was an ocean or a tradition, of any importation from a foreign
source, such as may be seen in the Chalcelestial Nile running through a metal sky,
on either of which the sun made passage dsean legend of Oannes and other religions
from his rising to his setting. Or the great of antiquity. On the contrary, all the
Egyptian myths and traditions ascribe the
vault was a celestial cow upheld by four gods
invention of religion, arts, and literature, to
(as in Hindu cosmogony the earth rests
Thoth, Osiris, Horus, and other native
upon an elephant), and it was over the
Egyptian gods.
surface of the cow’s body that the sun made
The development of the art of writing
his daily journey. His annual course through
from hieroglyphics affords strong confirma
Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter,
tion of this view. It is native to the soil;
translated itself as applied to man into the
the symbols are taken from Egypt and not
ideas of birth, growth, manhood, decline,
and are essentially
and death, to be followed by a day of judg from foreign objects, the Chaldasan cunei
different from those of
ment, a sojourn in the under-world, and a
form, which is the only other form of writing
resurrection.
...
that might possibly compare in point of
In fact, the Egyptian religion seems to
antiquity with the Egyptian hieroglyphics
have concentrated itself mainly on the Sun.
and hieratic.
The planets and signs of the zodiac did not,
In all other ancient systems of writing,
as with the Chaldees, afford a principal
such as Chaldaean and Chinese, we see the
element of their sacred books and mytho development from the original picture
logies, star-worship being extremely rare.
writing into conventional signs, syllabaries,
Nevertheless, all the heavenly bodies were
and finally into ideographs and phonetics ;
believed to control the destiny of those
in the case
when we
born under them, although the fate of the but sight of it inof Egyptian, dynasties, first
get
the earliest
it is
individual was determined by laws which
already fully formed, and undergoes no
the stars and planets must themselves obey.
essential changes during the next 5,ooq
These were ascertainable by means of
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
49
years. . Even the hieratic, or cursive hier
oglyphic for ordinary purposes, was current
in the Old Empire, as is proved by the cele
brated Prisse papyrus, the date of which
is supposed to be about 3580 B.c.
so on. This character of magicians and
soothsayers clung to the Chaldsean priests
even down to a later period, and under the
Roman Empire Chaldaean rites were
identified with sorcery and divination.
From what may, speaking broadly, be
The Chaldaean religion went through
called early Akkadian times, we find a belief
more changes in the course of its evolution.
in great gods who are personifications of the
In the case of Egypt,. the influences of forces of nature. They are departmental
Semitic and other foreign conquests and
deities ; henotheistic, that is to say, each
intercourse left few traces, and the only is supreme in the element which he repre
serious attempt at a radical religious revo sents ; and, as already shown, the intense
lution by the heretic king who endeavoured language with which he is addressed has
to dethrone the old Egyptian gods, and sub led to the erroneous inference of One God
stitute a system more nearly monotheistic of Gods, and consequently to misleading
under the emblem of the winged solar-disc, theories of monotheism as a feature both
produced no permanent effect, and dis of Egyptian, as already noted, and of
appeared in one or two generations. But
Chaldaean theology. This applies es
in Chaldaea, Semitic influences prevailed pecially to the tutelary deities of the
from a very early period, and when we
several cities, who, within their own limits,
reach the historical periods of the great were regarded as supreme ; and the same
Babylonian and Assyrian empires, the
theory has to be extended to the guardian
kings, priests, and nobles were Semite,
god of each individual, who, in all times of
and the Akkadian had become a dead
trouble and peril, sought supernatural aid,
language, which could be read only as we repairing to priest and temple as vehicles
read Latin or Hebrew, by the aid of of help.
translations and . of grammars and dic
. The Chaldseans. invented a whole
tionaries. Still, its records remained, as hierarchy of Trinities, rising one above
the Hebrew Bible does to us, and the
the other, while below them were an
sacred books of the old religion and its indefinite number of minor gods and
fundamental ideas were only developed
goddesses taken for the most part from
and not changed.
astronomical myths of the sun, moon,
In the background of this Akkadian planets, and seasons. For the religion of
religion we perhaps make a nearer approach the Chaldees was, even more than that of
than in that of Egypt to the primitive the Egyptians, based on astronomy and
superstitions, peculiar to the Mongolian
race. To this day the religion of the semi- astrology, as may be seen in their national
epic of Gilgamesh,
barbarous races of that stock is “ Sha the passage of thewhich is a solar myth of
sun through the twelve
manism ” ; a fear of ghosts and goblins, a signs of the zodiac, the last chapter but one
belief that the universe swarms with being a representation of the passage
myriads of spirits, mostly evil, and that through the sign of Aquarius, in the legend
the only escape from them is by the aid of of a universal deluge.
conjurer-priests, who know magical rites
composed
and formulas which can baffle their of The first Akkadian triad was or Ana, is
Anu, Mull-il, and Ea. Anu,
malevolent designs. These incantations,
the word for
and the interpretation of omens and scribed as the heaven, and the god is de
Lord of
auguries occupy a great part of the oldest and “ the first-born, thethe starry heavens,”
oldest, the Father
sacred books, and more than 100 tablets
of the gods. It is the same idea as that
have been already recovered from the expressed by” the Sanscrit Varuna, the Greek
great, work on Astronomy and Astrology O.uranos. Mull-il, the next member of this
compiled from them by the priests of triad,
Ea is the god
Agade, for the royal library of Sargon I. of theis the earth-god, while and personifies
abyss or underworld,
Tliey are for the larger part of the most
absurd and puerile character; as, for the wise and beneficent side of the Divine
Intelligence,
order and
instance, “ if a sheep give birth to a lion harmony, thethe maintainer ofVery early,
friend of man.
there will be war”; “if a mare give birth
with the introduction of Semitic influences,’
r° -a £%.„there .wiI1 be disaster and
Mull-il dropped out of his
the
famine ; if a white dog enter a temple trinity, and was superseded place in who
by Bel,
its foundation will subsist; if a grey dog
was conceived as being the son of Ea, the
the temple will lose its possessions,” and*
personification of the active and combative
E
�5°
HUMAN ORIGINS
energy which carries out the wise designs
of Ea by reducing the chaos to order,
creating the sun and heavenly bodies, and
directing them in their courses, subduing
evil spirits and slaying monsters. His name
simply signifies “ the Lord,” and is applied
to other inferior deities as a title of honour,
as Bel-Marduk, the Lord Marduk or Merodach, the patron god of Babylon. In this
capacity Bel is associated with the mid-day
sun, as the emblem of a terrible yet bene
ficent power, the enemy of evil spirits and
dragons of darkness.
The next triad is more distinctly astrono
mical. It consists of Uruk the moon, Ud
the sun, and Mermer the god of the air, of
rain and tempest. These are the old
Akkadian names, but they are better known
by the Semitic translations of Sin, Samas,
and Ramman. The next group of gods is
purely astronomical, consisting of the five
planets, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and
Saturn, personified as Nergal, Nebo, Mar
duk, I star, and Nindar. The number of
gods was further increased by assigning a
wife to each male deity. Thus Belit, or
“ the Lady,” was the wife of Bel, he repre
senting the masculine element of nature,
strength and courage ; she the feminine
principle of tenderness and maternity. So
also Nana the earth was the wife of Anu,
the god of the strong heavens ; Annunit
the moon the wife of Samas the sun ; and
Istar (Astarte, Astoreth, or Aphrodite), the
planet Venus, the Goddess of Love and
War, though a great goddess in her own
right, was fabled to have wooed the youthful
lover Tammuz or Thammuz, at whose death
she descended to the underworld, that she
might bring him back. Their return sym
bolised the advent of spring. The worship
of Istar and Tammuz spread over the whole
of Western Asia ; and the beautiful myth
has its variant in the descent of Demeter in
search of Persephone in the realms of Pluto.
But of these only Belit and Istar were
admitted into the circle of the great gods,
consisting of the two triads and the planets,
who held the foremost place in the Chaldaean and Assyrian mythology. Of the
minor gods, Meri-dug or Marduk, the
Merodach of the Bible, is the most remark
able, for, according to some interpreters, he
represents the idea which, some 5)000 years
later, became the fundamental one of the
Christian religion — that of a Son of
God, who acts the part of mediator and
friend of man. He is the son of Ea and
Damkina, ?.<?. of heaven and earth, and an
emanation from the Supreme Spirit con
sidered in its attribute of benevolence.
The tablets are full of inscriptions on which
he is represented as applying to his father
Ea for aid and advice to assist suffering
humanity, most commonly by teaching the
spells which will drive away the demons
who are supposed to be the cause of all
misfortunes and illness. It is not surpris
ing, therefore, to find that he and Istar, the
lovely goddess, were the favourite deities,
and occupied much the same position as
Jesus and the Virgin Mary do in the
Catholic religion of the present day, while
the other deities were local gods attached
to separate cities where their temples stood,
and where they occupied a position not
unlike that of the patron saints and holy
relics of which almost every considerable
town and cathedral boasted in mediaeval
Christianity. Thus they rose and fell in
rank with the ascendancy or decline of
their respective cities, just as Pthah and
Ammon did in Egypt according as the seat
of empire was at Memphis or Thebes. In
one instance only in later times, in Assyria,
which had become exclusively Semitic, do
we find the idea of one supreme god, who
was national and not local, and who over
shadowed all other gods, as Jahve in the
later days of the Jewish monarchy, and as,
in the conception of the Hebrew prophets,
did the gods of the surrounding nations.
Assur, the local god of the city of Assur,
the first capital of Assyria, became, with
the growth of the Assyrian Empire, the
one supreme god, in whose name wars
were undertaken, cities destroyed, and
captives massacred or mutilated. In fact,
the resemblance is very close between
Assur and the ferocious and vindictive
Jahve of the Israelites during the rude
times of the Judges. They are both jealous
gods, delighting in the massacre and torture
of prisoners, women, and children, and
enjoining the extermination of nations who
insult their dignity by worshipping other
gods. We almost seem to see, when we
read the records of T. iglath-Pilesei and
Sennacherib and the Books of Judges and
of Samuel, the origin of religious wars, and
the spirit of cold-blooded cruelty inspired
by a gloomy fanaticism, which is so charac
teristic of the Semitic nature, and which
in later times led to the propagation of
Mohammedanism by the sword. With the
Hebrews this conception of a cruel and
vindictive J ahve was beaten out of them by
persecutions and sufferings, and that of a
one merciful god evolved from it; but
Assyria went through no such schooling,
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
and retained its arrogant prosperity down to
the era of its disappearance from history
with the fall of Nineveh ; but it is easy to
see that the course of events might have
been different, and monotheism might have
been evolved from the conception of Assur.
These, however, are speculations relating
to a much later period than the primitive
religion with which we are principally con
cerned.
It is remarkable how many of our modern
religious conceptions find an almost exact
counterpart in those of this immensely
remote period. Incarnations, emanations,
atonements, personifications of Divine attri
butes, are all there, and also the subtle
metaphysical theories by which the human
intellect, striving to penetrate the mysteries
of the unknowable, endeavours to account
for the existence of good and evil, and to
reconcile multiplicity of manifestation with
unity of essence. If Wordsworth sings
of a
5i
confesses his sins, pleads ignorance, and
sues for mercy, almost in the identical words
of the “sweet singer of Israel.” In one
of these, headed “The complaints of the
repentant heart,” we find such verses as
these—
“ I eat the food of wrath, and drink the
waters of anguish.”
*****
“ Oh, my God, my transgressions are
very great, very great my sins.
‘ The Lord in his wrath has overwhelmed
me with confusion.”
*****
“ I lie on the ground, and none reaches
a hand to me. I am silent and in tears,
and none takes me by the hand. I cry
out, and there is none who hears me.”
*****
“ My God, who knowest the unknown,1
be merciful to me. My Goddess, who
knowest the unknown, be merciful.”
- “sense sublime
*****
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
“ God, who knowest the unknown, in the
And the round ocean and the living air,
midst of the stormy waters take me by the
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ;
hand ; my sins are seven times seven, for
A motion and a spirit that impels
give my sins !”
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
Another hymn is remarkable for its artis
And rolls through all things,”
tic construction. It is in regular strophes,
he conveys the fundamental idea which was the penitent speaking in each five double
at the bottom of these earliest religions, lines, to which the priest adds two, support
and which has been perpetuated in the ing his prayer. The whole is in precisely
East in the idea of Pantheism, or of the same style as the similar penitential
an universe which is one with its First psalms of the Hebrew Bible, as will
Cause, and not a mechanical work called appear from the following quotation of
into existence from without by a personal one _ of the strophes from the translation
of Zimmern:—
Creator.
Penitent. “ I, thy servant, full of sighs,
An ancient priest of Egypt or Chaldsea
might have written these verses of the call to thee. Whoso is beset with sin, his
philosophic poet of the nineteenth century, ardent supplication thou acceptest. If thou
only he would have written Horus or Bel lookest on a man with pity, that man liveth.
for the “ setting sun,” Ea for the “ round Ruler of all, mistress of mankind, merciful
ocean,” Anur for the “sky,” and so on. one to whom it is good to turn, who dost
Side by side with these intellectual and receive sighs.”
Priest. “ While.his god and- his goddess
philosophical conceptions of ancient reli
gions we find the element of personal are wroth with him he calls on thee. Thy
countenance turn on him, take hold of his
piety occupying a place which contrasts
wonderfully with the childish and super hand.”
These hymns are remarkable, both as
stitious idea of evil spirits, magical spells,
and omens. We read, in the same collec showing that the sentiments of personal
tions of tablets, of mares-bringing forth dogs piety and contrition for sin as a thing hate
and women lions ; and psalms which in ful to the god might be,as intense in a poly
their elevation of moral tone and in theistic as in a monothestic religion, and
tensity of personal devotion might readily as illustrating the immense interval of time
be mistaken for the Hebrew Psalms attri
buted to David. There is a large collection
of what are known as “the Penitential that Or, as some translators read,Who knowest
I knew not”—i.e., that I sinned in
Psalms,” in which the Chaldsean penitent ignorance.
�52
HUMAN ORIGINS
which must have elapsed before such senti
ments could have grown up from the rude
beginnings of savage or semi-civilised
superstitions. The two oldest religions of
the world, those of Egypt and Chaldaea,
tell the same story, that of the immense
interval which must have elapsed prior to
the earliest known historical date of 7000
B.C. to allow of such ideas and civilisation
having grown up from a state of things
which, perchance, prevailed even in the
neolithic period, and still prevails among
the races of the world who have remained,
isolated and unchanged, in the hunting or
nomad condition.
I have dwelt at some length on the
ancient religions, for nothing more tends to
open the mind and break down the narrow
barriers of sectarian prejudice than to see
how the ideas which we have believed to be
the peculiar possession of our own religion
are in fact the inevitable products of the
evolution of the human race from barbarism
to civilisation, and have appeared in sub
stantially the same forms in so many ages
and countries. And surely, in these days,
when faith in direct inspiration has been so
rudely shaken, it must be consoling to many
enlightened Christians to find that the funda
mental articles of their creed, as trinities,
emanations, incarnations, atonements, a
future life and day of judgment, are not the
isolated conceptions of a minority of the
human race in recent times, but have been
held from a remote antiquity, by other
nations which have taken a leading part in
civilisation.
To all enlightened minds also, whatever
may be their theological creeds, it must be
a cheering reflection that the fundamental
axioms of morality do not depend on the
evidence that the Decalogue was written
on a stone by God’s own finger, or that the
Sermon on the Mount is correctly reported,
but on the evolution of the natural instincts
of the human mind. All advanced and
civilised communities have had their Deca
logues and Sermons on the Mount, and it
is impossible for any dispassionate obseiver
to read them without feeling that in sub
stance they are identical, whether con
tained in the Egyptian Todtenbuch, the
Babylonian hymns, the Zoroastrian Zendavesta, the sacred books of Brahmanism and
Buddhism, the Maxims of Confucius, the
Doctrines of Plato and the Stoics, or the
Christian Bible.
None are absolutely perfect and com
plete, and of some it may be said that they
contain precepts of the highest practical
importance which are either omitted or
contradicted in the Christian formulas. For
instance, the praise of diligence, and the
injunction not to be idle, in the Egyptian
and Zoroastrian creeds, contrast favourably
with the behest, “ Take no thought for the
morrow,” of the Sermon on the Mount.
But in this, as in all summaries of moral
axioms, apparent differences arise not from
fundamental oppositions, but from truth
having two sides, and passing over readily
into
“The falsehood of extremes.”
Even the injunction to “take no thought
for the morrow ” is only an extreme way of
stating that the active side of human life,
strenuous effort, self-denial, and foresight,
must not be pushed so far as to stifle all
higher aspirations. Probably if the same
concrete case of conduct had been sub
mitted to an Egyptian, a Babylonian, or
Zoroastrian priest, and to the late Bishop
of Peterborough, their verdicts would not
have been different. Such a wide extension
does the maxim take, “ One touch of
Nature makes the whole world kin,” when
we educate ourselves up to the general
idea that civilised man has everywhere felt
and believed since the dawn of history
very much as we ourselves do at the close
of the nineteenth century.
CHAPTER V.
ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
Evidence of Antiquity—Pyramids and Temples
— Arithmetic — Decimal and Duodecimal
Scales—Astronomy—Geometry reached in
Egypt at earliest Dates—Great PyramidPiazza Smyth and Pyramid Religion—Pyra
mids formerly Royal Tombs, but built on
scientific plans—Exact Orientation on Meri
dian-Centre in 30° N. Latitude—Tunnel
points to Pole—Possible use as an Observatory
—Proctor—Probably Astrological—Planetary
Influences—Signs of the Zodiac Mathema
tical coincidences of Great Pyramid —Chaldaenn Astronomy—Ziggurats—Tower. of
Babel—Different Orientation from Egyptian
Pyramids — Astronomical
Treatise
from
Library of Sargon I., 3800 B.C.—Eclipses
and Phases of Venus—Measures of Time
from Old Chaldsean—Moon and Sun—Found
among many distant Races—Implies Com
merce and Intercourse—Art and Industry
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
Embankment of Menes—Sphinx—Industrial
Arts—Fine Arts—Sculpture and Painting—
The Oldest Art the best—Chaldsean Art—De
Sarzec’s Find at Sirgalla—Statues and Works
of Art—Imply long use of Bronze—Whence
came the Copper and Tin—Phoenician and
Etruscan Commerce—Bronze known 200
years earlier—-Same Alloy everywhere—
Possible Sources of Supply—Age of Copper
—Domestic Animals—Horse—Ox and Ass—
Agriculture—All proves Extreme Antiquity.
The conclusion, drawn from the religions
of Egypt and Chaldsea, as to the existence
of a very long period of advanced civilisa
tion prior to the historical era, is fully
confirmed by the state of the arts and
sciences at the commencement of the
earliest records. A knowledge of astro
nomy implies a long series of observations
and a certain amount of mathematical
calculation. The construction of great
works of hydraulic engineering and of
such buildings as temples and pyramids,
also proves an advanced state of scientific
knowledge. Such a building, for instance,
as the Great Pyramid must have required
a considerable acquaintance with geometry,
and with the effects of strains and pressures;
and the same is true of the early temples
and ziggurats, or temple-towers or observa
tories, of Chaldaea. There must have been
regular schools of astronomers and archi
tects, and books treating on scientific sub
jects, before such structures could have
been possible.
The knowledge of science possessed by a
nation affords a more definite test of its
antecedent civilisation than its religion.
It is always possible to say that advanced
religious ideas may have been derived from
some supernatural revelation, but in the
case of the exact sciences, such as arith
metic, geometry, and astronomy, this is no
longer possible, and their progress can be
traced step by step by the development of
human reason. Thus there are savage
races, like the Australians at the present
day, who cannot count beyond “ one, two,
and a great number ” ; and some philolo
gists tell us that, from the prevalence of
dual forms which seem to have preceded
those of the plural, traces of this state can
be discovered in the origin of civilised
languages.
The next stage is that of counting by the
fingers, which gives rise to a natural
system of decimal notation, as shown by
such words as ten, which invariably means
two hands ; twenty, which is twice ten,
and so on. Many existing races, who are
53
a little more advanced than the Australians,
use their fingers forcounting, and canreckon
up to five or ten. Even the chimpanzee Sally
could count to five. But when we come to a
duodecimal system we may feel certain that
a considerable advance has been made, and
that arithmetic has come into existence as
a science; for the number 12 has no natural
basis of support like 10, and can only have
been adopted because it was exactly divis
ible into whole numbers by 2, 3, 4, 6.
The mere fact, therefore, of the existence of
a duodecimal system shows that the nation
which adopts it must have progressed a long
way from the primitive “ one, two, a great
many,” and acquired ideas, both as to the
relation of numbers and a multitude of
other things, such as the division of the
circle, of days, months, and years, of
weights and measures, and other matters,
in which ready division into whole parts
without fractions had become desirable.
And at the very first in Egypt, Chaldasa,
and among the Mongolian races generally,
we find this duodecimal system firmly
established. The circle has 360 degrees,
the year 360 days, the day 24 single or 12
double hours, and so on. But from this
point the journey is a long one to calcula
tions which imply a knowledge of geometry
and mathematics, and to observations of
celestial bodies which imply a long ante
cedent science of astronomy, and accurate
records of the motions of the sun, moon,
and planets, and of eclipses and other
memorable events.
The earliest records, both of Egypt and
Chaldasa, show that such an advanced
state of science had been reached at the
first dawn of the historical period, and we
read of works on astronomy, geometry,
medicine, and other sciences, written, or
compiled from older treatises, by Egyptian
kings of the old empire, and by Sargon I.
of Akkad from older Akkadian works. But
the monuments prove still more conclusively
that such sciences must have been long
known. The Great Pyramid of Cheops
affords a very definite proof of the progress
which must have been made in geometrical,
mechanical, and astronomical science at
the time of its erection. If we were to
believe Professor Piazzi Smyth, and the
little knot of his followers who have founded
what may be called a Pyramid-religion,
this remarkable structure contains a revela
tion in stone for future ages of almost all
the material scientific facts which have been
discovered since through 6,000 years of
unwearied research by the unaided human
�54
HUMAN ORIGINS
intellect. Its designers must have known
and recorded, with an accuracy surpassing
that of modern observation, such facts as
the dimensions of the earth, the distance of
the sun, the ratio of the area of a. circle to
its diameter, the precise determination of
latitude and of a true meridian line, and
the establishment of standards of measure
taken, like the metre, from a definite division
of the earth’s circumference. It is argued
that such facts as these could not have
been discovered so accurately in the infancy
of science, and without the aid of the
telescope, and therefore that they must
have been made known by revelation ; and
the Great Pyramid is looked upon, therefore,
as a sort of Bible in stone, which is, in
some not very intelligible way, to be taken
as a confirmation of the inspiration of the
Hebrew Bible, and read as a sort of supple
ment to it.
This is of course absurd. A supernatural
revelation to teach a chosen people the
worship of the one true God is at any rate
an intelligible proposition, but. scarcely
that of such a revelation to an idolatrous
monarch and people, to teach, details of
abstruse sciences, which in point of fact
were not taught, for the monument on which
they were recorded was sealed up by a
casing of polished stone almost directly
after it was built, and its contents were
discovered only by accident, long after the
facts and figures which it is supposed to
teach had been discovered elsewhere by
human reason. The only thing approach
ing to a revelation of religious import which
Piazzi Smyth professed to have discovered
in the Pyramid was a prediction, which is
now more than twenty years overdue, of the
advent of the millennium in 1881.
But these extravagances have had the
good effect of giving us accurate measure
ments of nearly all the dimensions of the
Great Pyramid, and raising a great, deal of
sober discussion as to its aim and origin. In
the first place, it is quite clear that its primary
object was to provide a royal tomb; a tomb
of solid masonry with a base larger than
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and 130 feet higher
than St. Paul’s. When the interior both
of this and other pyramids is explored
nothing is found but one or two small
sepulchral chambers containing the stone
coffins of a king or queen. The Great
Pyramid is not an exceptional monument,
but one of a series of some seventy
pyramid-tombs of kings, beginning with
earlier, and continued by later, dynasties
of the Old Empire. The reason of their
construction is obvious. It originates from
the peculiar ideas, which have been already
pointed out, of the existence of a Ka or
shadowy double, and a still more ethereal
soul or spirit, whose immortality depended
on the preservation of a material basis
in the form of a mummy or likeness
of the deceased person, preferably, no
doubt, by the
preservation of the
mummy. This led to the enormous
outlay, not by kings only, but by private
persons, on costly tombs, which, as
Herodotus says, were considered to be
their permanent habitations.
With an
absolute monarchy in which the divine
right of kings was strained so far that the
monarch was considered as an actual god,
it was only natural that their tombs should
far exceed those of their richest subjects,
and that unusual care should be taken to
prevent them from being desecrated, in
future ages by new and foreign dynasties.
Suppose a great and powerful monarch to
have an unusually long and prosperous
reign, it is quite conceivable that he should
wish to have a tomb which should not only
surpass those of his predecessors, but any
probable effort of his successors, and be
an unique monument defying the attacks
not only of future generations, but of time
itself.
This seems, without doubt, to have been
the primary motive of the Great Pyramid,
and in a lesser degree of all pyramids,
sepulchral mounds, and costly tombs.
But the pyramids, and especially the Great
Pyramid, are not mere piles of masonry
heaped together without plan or design,
and upon this matter we may, without
committing ourselves to acquiescence
of what now follows, refer to recent
theories. Each pyramid, it is argued, is
built on a settled plan, which implies an
acquaintance with the sciences of geometry
and astronomy, and which, in the case of
the Great Pyramid, is carried to an extent
showing very advanced knowledge of those
sciences, and going far to prove that it
may have been used, during part of the
period of its construction, as a national
observatory. The full details of this plan
are given by Proctor in his work on the
Great Pyramid, and, although the want of
a more accurate knowledge of Egyptology
has led him into some erroneous specula
tions as to the age and object of this
pyramid, his authority on the scientific
facts and the astronomical and geometrical
conclusions which are to be drawn from
them is not to be lightly set aside.
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
It appears that the first object of all
pyramid builders was to secure a correct
orientation ; that is, that the four sides
should face truly to the north, south, east,
and west, or, in other words, that a line
drawn through the centre of the base
parallel to the sides should stand on a true
meridian line. This, with our modern
instruments, would be a comparatively
easy task, but before the invention of the
telescope it must have required great
nicety of observation to obtain such
extremely accurate results in all the sides
and successive layers of such an enormous
building. There are only two ways in
of the Great Pyramid is correct, and the
centre of its base corresponds with the
thirtieth degree of north latitude within a
slight error which was inevitable, if, as is
probable, the Egyptian astronomers were
unacquainted with the effect of atmos
pheric refraction in raising the apparent
above the true place of celestial bodies,
or had formed an insufficient estimate
of its amount.
The centre of the
base is 2,328 yards south of the real
thirtieth parallel of latitude, which is 944
yards north of the position which would
have been deduced from the pole-star
method, and 3,459 yards south of that from
which it could be attempted—one by
observing the shadow cast by a vertical
gnomon when the sun was on the meridian,
and the other by keeping a standard line
constantly directed to the true north pole
of the heavens. In the case of the Great
Pyramid another object seems to have
been in view which required the same class
of observations—viz., to place the centre of
the base on the thirtieth degree of north
latitude, being the latitude in which the
pole of the heavens is exactly one-third of
the way from the horizon to the zenith.
Both these objects have been attained
with wonderful accuracy. The orientation
the shadow-method, by astronomers igno
rant of the effect of refraction. The
shadow-method could never have been so
reliable as the polar method, and it is
certain therefore a priori that the latter
must have been adopted either wholly or
principally; and this conclusion is confirmed
by the internal construction of the pyramid
itself, which is shown by the subjoined
diagram.
The tunnel A B c is bored for a distance
of 350 feet underground through the solid
rock, and is inclined at an angle pointing
directly to what was then the pole-star,
Alpha Draconis, at its lower culmination.
�56
HUMAN ORIGINS
As there is no bright star at the true pole, its this supposition is negatived by the fact
position is ascertained by taking the point that the grand gallery must have been shut
half-way between the highest and lowest up, and the building rendered useless for
positions of the conspicuous star nearest astronomical purposes in a very short time,
to it, which therefore revolves in the by the completion of the pyramid, which
smallest circle about it. This star is not was then covered over by a casing of
always the same on account of the preces polished stone, evidently with a view of
sion of the equinoxes, and Alpha Draconis concealing all traces of the passages which
supplied the place of the present pole-star led to the tomb. The solution seems to be
about 3440 B.c., and practically for several that suggested by Proctor, that the object
centuries before and after that date.
was astrological rather than astronomical,
Now, the underground tunnel is bored and that all those minute precautions were
exactly at the angle of 26° 17' to the horizon, taken in order to provide, not only a secure
at which Alpha Draconis would shine down tomb, but an accurate horoscope for the
it at its lower culmination when 30 42' from reigning monarch. Astrology and astro
the pole ; and the ascending passage and nomy were, in fact, closely identified in the
grand gallery are inclined at the same ancient world, and relics of the superstition
angle in an opposite direction, so that the still linger in the form of Zadkiel almanacks.
image of the star reflected from a plane When the sun, moon, and five planets had
mirror or from water at B would be seen
been identified as the celestial bodies pos
on the southern meridian line by an observer sessing motion, and therefore, as it was
in the grand gallery, while another very inferred, life, and had been converted into
conspicuous star, Alpha Centauri, would at gods, nothing was more natural than to
that period shine directly down it. The suppose that they exercised an influence on
passages therefore would have the double human affairs, and that their configuration
effect—(1) of enabling the builders to orient affected the destinies both of individuals
the base and lower layers of the pyramid and of nations. A superstitious people who
up to the king’s chamber in a perfectly saw auguries in the flight of birds, the
true north and south line ; (2) of making movements of animals, the rustling of
the grand gallery the equivalent of an leaves, and in almost every natural occur
equatorially-mounted telescope of a modern rence, could not fail to be impressed by the
observatory, by which the transit of heavenly higher influences and omens of those
bodies in a considerable section of the sky majestic orbs which revolved in such mys
comprising the equatorial and zodiacal terious courses through the stationary stars
regions, across the meridian, and therefore of the host of heaven. Accordingly, in the
at their highest elevations, could be observed very earliest traditions of the Akkadians
by the naked eye with great accuracy.
and Egyptians we find an astrological sig
Those who wish to study the evidence in
nificance attached to the first astronomical
detail should read Proctor’s work on the facts which were observed and recorded.
Problems of the Pyramids; but for the pre The week of seven days, which was doubt
sent purpose it may be sufficient to sum up
less founded on the first attempts to measure
the conclusions of that accomplished astro time by the four phases of the lunar month,
nomer. He says : “ The sun’s annual course became associated with the seven planets
round the celestial sphere could be deter in the remotest antiquity; and the names of
mined much more exactly than by any
their seven presiding gods, in the same
gnomon by observations made from the order and with the same meaning, have
great gallery. The moon’s monthly path descended unchanged to our own times,
and its changes could have been dealt with as will be shown more fully in a subsequent
in the same effective way. The geometric chapter.
paths, and thence the true paths of the
Observations on the sun’s annual course
planets, could be determined very accu led to the fixing of it along a zodiac of
rately. The place of any visible star along twelve signs, corresponding roughly to
the zodiac could be most accurately deter twelve lunar months, and defined by con
mined.”
stellations, or groups of stars, having a
If, therefore, the pyramid had only been fanciful resemblance to animals or deified
completed up to the fiftieth layer, which
heroes. Those zodiacal signs are of im
would leave the southern opening of the
mense antiquity and range. We find them
great gallery uncovered, the object might in the earliest mythology of Clialdasa and
have been safely assumed to be the erec Egypt, in the labours of Hercules, in the
tion of a great national observatory. But traditions of a deluge associated with the
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
sign of Aquarius, and even, though in a
somewhat altered form, in such distant
countries as China and Mexico. We have
so many examples of the origin of corre
sponding ideas among peoples between
whom there can have been no contact for
ages, that it is perilous to theorise about
the source whence these signs were derived.
But we know that the oldest records and
universal tradition show the primitive
Akkadians to have been astronomers, who
from time immemorial had made observa
tions on the heavenly bodies, .and who
remained down to the Roman Empire
the most celebrated astrologers.
Even if we admit, however, Proctor’s
suggestion that the pyramids had an astro
logical origin in addition to their primary
object as tombs, it is difficult to understand
how such enormous structures could have
been built. The Great Pyramid must have
been built on a plan designed from the
first, and not by any haphazard process of
adding a layer each year according to the
number of years the monarch happened to
reign. How could he foresee the exact
number of years of an unusually long life
and reign, or what security could he have
that, if he died early, his successor would
complete his pyramid in addition to erect
ing one of almost equal magnitude for him
self?
Herodotus has apiece of gossip, probably
picked up from some ignorant guides, which
represents Cheops and Chephren as detested
tyrants, who shut up the temples of the gods,
and which confounds the national hatred of
the shepherd kings, who conquered Egypt
some 2,000 years later, with that of these
pyramid-builders ; but this is confuted by
the monuments, which show them as
pious builders or restorers of temples of
the national gods in other localities, as, for
instance, at Bubastis, where the cartouche
of Chephren was lately found by M. Naville
on an addition to the Temple of Isis. All
the records also of the fourth or pyramid
building dynasty, and of the two next
dynasties, show it to have been a period
of peace and prosperity.
Although some matters relating to the
structure of the pyramids may thus warrant
conjecture, enough is certain from the
astronomical facts disclosed in their con
struction to show the advanced state of
this science at this remote period. Nor is
this all, for the dimensions of the Great
Pyramid, when stripped of fanciful coinci
dences and mystical theories, still show
enough to prove a wonderful knowledge of
57
mathematics and geometry. The following
may be taken as undoubted facts from the
most accurate measurements of their dimen
sions.
1st. The triangular area of each of the
four sloping, sides equals the square of the
vertical height. This was mentioned by
Herodotus, and there can be no doubt that
it was a real relation intended by the
builders.
2nd. The united length of the four sides
of the square base bears to the vertical
height the same proportion as that of the
circumference of a circle to its radius. In
other words, it gives the ratio, which under
the symbol ir plays such an important part
in all the higher mathematics. There are
other remarkable coincidences which seem
to show a still more wonderful advance in
science, though they are not quite so certain,
as they depend on the assumption that the
builders took as their unit of measurement
a pyramid inch and sacred cubit different
from those in ordinary use, the former being
equal to the 500,000,000th part of the earth’s
diameter, and the latter containing twentyfive of those inches, or about the 20,000,000th
part of that diameter. To arrive at such
standards it is evident that the priestly
astronomers must have measured very accu
rately an arc of the meridian or length of
the line on the earth’s surface which just
raised or lowered the pole of the heavens
by i°, and inferred from it that the earth
was a spherical body of given dimensions.
Those dimensions would not be quite accu
rate, for they must have been ignorant of
the compression of the earth at its poles
and protuberance at the equator ; but the
measurement of such an arc at or near 30°
of north latitude would give a close ap
proximation to the mean value of the earth’s
diameter. Proctor thinks, from the scientific
knowledge which must have been possessed
by the builders of the pyramid, that
it is quite possible that they may have
measured an arc of the meridian with con
siderable accuracy, and calculated from it
the length of the earth’s diameter, assum
ing it to be a perfect sphere. And if so
they may have intended to make the side of
the square base of the pyramid of a length
which would bear in inches some relation
to the length of this diameter; for it is
probable that, at this stage of the world’s
science, the mysterious or rather magical
value which was attached to certain words
would attach equally to the fundamental
facts, figures, and important discoveries of
the growing sciences. It is quite probable,
�58
HUMAN ORIGINS
could not have been known with any ap
proach to accuracy before the invention of
the telescope, it is forgotten that this height
had been already determined by a totally
unconnected consideration—viz., the ratio of
the diameter of a circle to its circumfer
ence. The coincidence, therefore, of the
sun’s distance must be purely accidental.
A still more startling coincidence has
been found in the fact that the two
diagonals of the base contain 25,824 pyra
mid inches, or almost exactly the number
of years in the precessional period. This
also must be accidental, for the number of
inches in the diagonals follows as a matter
of course from the sides being taken at
365% cubits, corresponding to the length
of the year ; and there can be no connec
tion between this and the precession of the
equinoxes, which, moreover, was unknown
in the astronomy of the ancient world
until it was discovered in the time of the
Ptolemies by Hipparchus.
But with all these doubtful coincidences,
and the many others
which have been dis
covered by devotees
of the pyramid religion,
quite enough remains
to justify the conclu
sion that between 5,000
and 6,000 years ago
there were astrono
mers, mathematicians^!
and architects in
Egypt who had car
ried their respective
sciences to a high
degree of perfection
corresponding to that
shown by their en
gineers and artists.
When we turn to
Chaldaea we find simi
lar evidence as to the
advance of science, and
especially of astrono
mical science, in the
earliest historical
times. Babylonia was
the birthplace of astro*!
nomy. Every impor
tant city had its temple,
and attached to its
temple its ziggurat,
which is in some
respects the counter
part of the pyramid,
being a pyramidal
structure built up in
THE TOWER OF BABEL.
therefore, that the sacred inch and cubit
may have been invented, like the metre,
from an aliquot part of the earth’s supposed
diameter, so as to afford an invariable stan
dard. But there is no positive proof of this
from the pyramid itself, the dimensions of
which may be expressed just as well in the
ordinary working cubit; and it must remain
open to doubt whether the coincidences
prove the pyramid inch, or whether the inch
was invented to prove the coincidences.
Assuming, however, for the moment that
these measures were really used, some of
the coincidences are very remarkable. The
length of each side of the square base is
365% of these sacred cubits, or equal to
the length of the year in days. The height
is 5,819 inches, and the sun’s distance from
the earth, taken at 91,840,000 miles, which
is very nearly correct, is just 5,819 thousand
millions of such inches. It has been
thought, therefore, that this height was in
tended to symbolise the sun’s distance. But
independently of the fact that this distance
ZIGGURAT RESTORED (Perrot and Chipiez),
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
successive stages or platforms super
imposed on one another and narrowing as
they rose, so-as to leave a small platform
on the top, on which was a small shrine or
temple, and from which observations could
be made. These ziggurats being built
entirely of bricks, mostly sun-burnt, have
crumbled into shapeless mounds of
rubbish; but a fair idea of their size and
construction may be obtained from the
descriptions and pictures of them pre
served in contemporary tablets and slabs,
especially from those of the great ziggurat
of the seven spheres or planets at Borsippa,
a suburb of Babylon, which was rebuilt by
Nebuchadrezzar about 500 B.C., on the site
of a much more ancient ruined con
struction. This, which was the largest
and most famous of the ziggurats, became
identified in after times with the tower of
Babel and the legend of the confusion of
tongues; but it was in fact an astronomical
building in seven stages dedicated to the
sun, moon, and five planets, taken in the
order of magnitude of their respective
orbits, and each distinguished by their
respective colours. Thus the lowest or
largest platform was dedicated to Saturn,
and coloured black ; the second to Jupiter
was orange ; the third to Mars red ; the
fourth to the Sun golden; the fifth to
Venus pale yellow ; the sixth to Mercury
an azure blue, obtained by vitrifying the
facing bricks ; and the seventh to the
Moon was probably coated with plates of
silver. The height of this ziggurat was 150
feet, and, standing as it did on a level allu
vial plain, it must have been a very impos
ing object.
It may be affirmed of all these ziggurats
that they were not tombs like the Egyptian
pyramids, but were erected for astrono
mical and astrological purposes. The
number of stages appears to have had re
ference to some religious or astronomical
fact, as three to symbolise the great triad ;
five for the five planets ; or seven for those
and the sun and moon; the number of
seven being never exceeded, and the order
being the same as that adopted for the days
of the week—viz., according to the magni
tudes of their respective orbits. They were
oriented with as much care as the pyramids,
which is of itself a proof that they were
used as observatories, but with this differ
ence, that their angles instead of their faces
were directed towards the true north and
south. To this rule there are only two ex
ceptions, probably of late date after Egyp
tian influences had been introduced; but the
59
original and national ziggurats invariably
observe the rule of pointing angles and not
sides to the four cardinal points. This is a
remarkable fact, as showing that the astro
nomies of Egypt and Chaldsea were not
borrowed one from the other, but evolved
independently in prehistoric times. An ex
planation of it has been found in the fact
recorded on a geographical tablet, that the
Akkadians were accustomed to use the
terms north, south, east, and west to denote,
not the real cardinal points, but countries
which lay to the N.W., S.E., and S.W. of
them. It is inconceivable, however, that
such skilful astronomers should have sup
posed that the North Pole was in the north
west, and a more probable explanation is to
be found in the meaning of ziggurat, which
is said to signify holy mountain.
• It was a cardinal point in their cosmo
gony that the heavens formed a crystal
vault, which revolved round an exceedingly
high mountain as an axis. The ziggurats
were miniature representations of this
sacred mountain of the gods. The early
astronomers must have known that this
mountain could be nowhere but in the true
north, as the daily revolutions of the
heavenly bodies took place round the North
Pole. It was natural, therefore, that they
should direct the apex or angle of a model
of this mountain rather than its side to the
position in the true north occupied by the
peak of the world’s pivot.
Be this as it may, the fact that the
ziggurats were carefully oriented, and cer
tainly used as observatories at the earliest
dates of Chaldaean history, is sufficient to
prove that the priestly astronomers must
have already attained an advanced know
ledge of science, and kept an accurate
record of long-continued observations. This
is fully confirmed by the astronomical and
astrological treatise compiled for the royal
library of Sargon I., date 3800 B.C., which
treats of eclipses, the phases of Venus, and
other matters implying a long previous
series of accurate and refined astronomical
observations.
The most conclusive proof, however, of
the antiquity of Chaldsean science is afforded
by the measures of time which were estab
lished prior to the commencement of his
tory, and have come down to the present
era in the days of the week and the signs
of the zodiac. There can be no doubt that
the first attempts to measure time beyond
the single day and night were lunar, and
not solar. The phases of the moon occur
at short intervals, and are more easily
�6o
HUMAN ORIGINS
discerned and measured than those of the
sun in its annual revolution. The beginning
and end of a solar year and the solstices
and equinoxes are not marked by any
decided natural phenomena, and it is only
by long-continued observations of the sun’s
path among the fixed stars that any tolerably
accurate number of days can be assigned
to the duration of the year and seasons.
But the recurrence of new and full moon,
and more especially of the half-moons when
dusk and light are divided by a straight
line, must have been noted by the first
shepherds who watched the sky at night,
and have given rise to the idea of the month,
and its first approximate division into four
weeks of seven days each. Hence “moon”
takes its name from a root which signifies
“the measurer,” while the sun is the
“ bright ” or shining one.
A relic of this superior importance of the
moon as the measurer of time is found in
the old Akkadian mythology, in which the
moon-god is masculine and the sun-god
feminine ; while with other nations of a later
and more advanced civilisation the genders,
with some few exceptions, are reversed.
For, as observations multiplied and science
advanced, it would be found that the lunar
month of twenty-eight days was only an
approximation, and that the solar year and
months defined by the sun’s progress through
the fixed stars afforded a much more accurate
chronometer. Thus we find the importance
of the moon and of lunar myths gradually
superseded by solar, which, connecting
themselves with the sun’s daily risings and
settings, his assumed death in winter and
resurrection in spring, and his passage
through the signs of the solar zodiac,
assumed a preponderating part in ancient
religions. Traces, however, of the older
period of lunar science and lunar mythology
survived, especially in the week of seven
days, and the mysterious importance
attached to the number seven. This was
doubtless aided by the discovery which
could not fail to be made with the earliest
accurate observations of the heavens, that
there were seven moving bodies, the sun,
moon, and five planets, which revolved in
settled courses, while all the other stars
appeared to be fixed. Scientific astrology,
as distinguished from a mere superstitious
regard of the flight of birds and other
omens, had its origin in this discovery. The
first philosophers who pondered on these
celestial phenomena shared the common
belief that motion implied life, and, in the
case of such brilliant and remote bodies,
divine life ; and that as the sun and moon
exerted such an obvious influence on the
seasons andother human affairs, so probably
did the other planets or the gods who pre
sided over them. The names and order of
the days of the week, which have remained
similar among a number of ancient and
modern nations, show how far these astro
logical notions must have progressed when
they assumed their present form, for the
order is a highly artificial one.
Why do we divide time into weeks of
seven days, and call the days Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday, and why are these
names of special planets, or of the special
gods associated with them, identical, and
present in the same order among so many
different nations? For whether we say
Thor’s-day or Jove’s-day,and call it “Thurs
day” or “Jeudi,” the same god identified
with the same planet is meant, and
so for the others.
It is clear that the
names of the seven days of the week were
originally taken from the seven planets—
e.,
i. from the seven celestial bodies which
were observed by ancient astronomers to
move, and, therefore, to be presumably
endowed with life, while the rest of the
host of heaven remained stationary.
These bodies are in order of apparent
magnitude
1. The Sun.
2. The Moon.
3. Jupiter.
4. Venus.
5. Mars.
6. Saturn.
7. Mercury.
And this is the natural order in which we
might have expected to find them appro
priated to the days of the week. But,
obviously, this is not the principle on
which the days have been named ; for, to
give a single instance, the nimble Mercury,
the smallest of the visible planets, comes
next before the majestic Jupiter, the ruler
of the heavens and wielder of the thunder
bolt.
Let us try another principle, that of
classifying the planets in importance, not
by their size and splendour, but by the
magnitude of their orbits and the length
of their revolutions. This will give the
following order :—
1. Saturn.
2. Jupiter.
3. Mars.
4. The Sun (?.<?., really the earth).
5. Venus.
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
6. Mercury.
7. The Moon.
We are now on the track of the right
solution, though there is still apparently
hopeless discord between this order and
that of the days of the week. The true
solution is such an artificial one that we
should never have discovered it if it had
not been disclosed to us by the clay tablets
exhumed from ancient royal libraries in
the temples and palaces of Chaldma.
These tablets are extremely ancient, going
back in many cases to the times of the old
Akkadians who inhabited Chaldasa prior to
the advent of the Semites. Some of them,'
in fact, are from the royal library of
Sargon I., of Akkad, whose date is fixed by
the best authorities at about 3800 B.c.
As has been said, these Akkadians were a
civilised people, well versed in astronomy,
but extremely superstitious, and addicted
beyond measure to astrology. To some
of their ancient priests it occurred that the
planets must be gods watching over and
influencing human events, and that, as
Mars was ruddy, he was probably the god
of war; Venus, the lovely evening star,
the goddess of love ; Jupiter, powerful ;
Saturn, slow and malignant; and Mercury,
quick and nimble. By degrees the idea
expanded, and it was thought that each
planet exerted its peculiar influence, not
only on the days of the week, but on the
hours of the day; and the planet which
presided over the first hour of the day was
thought to preside over the whole of that
day. But the day had been already
divided into twenty-four hours, because
the earliest Chaldseans had adopted the
duodecimal scale, and counted by sixes,
twelves, and sixties. Now, twenty-four is
not divisible by seven, and, therefore, the
same planets do not recur in the same
order, to preside over the same hours of
successive days. If Saturn ruled the first
hour, he would rule the twenty-second hour;
and, if we refer to the above list of the
planets, ranged according to the magnitude
of their orbits, we shall find that the Sun
would rule the first hour of the succeeding
day, and then in succession the Moon,
Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus, round
to Saturn again, in the precise order of our
days of the week. This order is so artificial
that it cannot have been invented sepa
rately, and wherever we find it we may feel
certain that it has descended from the
astrological fancies of Akkadian priestly
astronomers at least 6,000 years ago.
Now for the Sabbath. The same clay
61
tablets, older by some chiliads than the
accepted Biblical date of the creation of the
world, mention both the name and the in
stitution, not as a day of rest for man, but
as a day when the gods rested from their
wrath, and might be pacified. The “ Sab
bath ” was the day ruled over by the gloomy
and malignant Saturn, as shown by his
wider orbit, the oldest of the planetary gods,
but dimmed with age, and morose at having
been dethroned by his brilliant son Jupiter.
It was unlucky in the extreme, therefore, to
do any work, or begin any undertaking, on
the “ Sabbath ” or Saturday. Hence, long
centuries before Jewish Pharisees or Eng
lish Puritans, rules of Sabbatarian strict
ness were enforced at Babylon and Nine
veh, reminding one of the man who
“ Hanged his cat on Monday
For killing a mouse on Sunday.”
The king was not allowed to ride or walk on
the Sabbath, and, even if he fell ill, had to
wait till the following day before taking
medicine. This superstition as to the un
luckiness of Saturn’s day was common to
all ancient nations, including the Jews ; but
when the idea of a local deity, one among
many others, expanded, under the influence
of the later prophets and the exile, unto that
of one universal God, the compilers of the
Old Testament dealt with the Sabbath
as they did with the Deluge, the Creation,
and other myths. That is to say, they
revised them in a monotheistic sense,
wrote “ God ” for “ gods,” and gave them
a religious rather than an astronomical
or astrological meaning. Thus the origin
of the Sabbath, as a day when no work was
to be done, was transferred from Saturn to
Jehovah, and the reason assigned was that
“ in six days the Lord created the heaven
and the earth, and all that therein is, and
rested on the seventh day.”
One more step only remains to bring us
to our modern Sunday, and this also, like
the last, is to be attributed to a religious
motive. The early Christian Church wished
to wean the masses from Paganism, and
very wisely, instead of attacking old-estab
lished usages in front, turned their flank by
assigning them to different days. Thus
the day of rest, based on the legend of
the rising of Jesus from the tomb, was
shifted from Saturday to the first day
of the week, which was made the Chris
tian Sabbath, and the name changed
by the Latin races from the day of
the sun to the Lord’s Day, “Domi
nica Dies.” It has remained Saturday,
�62
HUMAN ORIGINS
however, with the Jews, and it is quite clear an organised society, we find the oldest
that it was on a Saturday, and not a Sun traces of it everywhere in the science of
astronomy. They watched the phases of
day, that Jesus walked through the fields
the moon, counted the planets, followed
with his disciples, plucking ears of corn,
the sun in its annual course, marking it
and saying, “ The Sabbath was made for
first by seasons, and, as science advanced,
man, and not man for the Sabbath.” It is
by its progress through groups of fixed
equally clear that our modern Sabbatarians
stars fancifully defined as constellations.
are much nearer in spirit to the Pharisees
Everywhere the moon seems to have been
whom Jesus rebuked, and to the old
Akkadian astrologers, than to the founder taken as the first standard for measuring
time beyond the primary unit of day and
of Christianity.
night. This is natural, for, as has been
It is encouraging, however, to those who
shown, the monthly changes of the moon
believe in progress, to observe how in this,
as in many other cases, the course of evolu come much more frequently, and are more
tion makes for good. The superstitions of easily measured, than the annual courses
Akkadian astrologers led to the establish of the sun. But, as observations accumu
late and become more accurate, it is found
ment of one day of rest out of every seven
that the sun, and not the moon, regulates
days—an institution which is in harmony
the seasons, and that the year repeats on a
with the requirements of human nature,
and which has been attended by most larger scale the phenomena presented by
day and night, of the birth, growth,
beneficial results. The religious sanctions
which attached themselves to this institu maturity, decay, and death of the sun,
followed by a resurrection or new birth,
tion, first as the Hebrew Sabbath, and
when the same cycle begins anew. Hence
secondly as transformed into the Christian
Sunday, have been a powerful means of the oldest civilised nations have taken from
the two phenomena of the day and year the
preserving this day of rest through so
same fundamental ideas and festivals. The
many social and political revolutions. Let
us, therefore, not be too hasty in condemn ideas are those of a miraculous birth, death,
and resurrection, and of an upper and lower
ing everything which, on the face of it,
world, the one of light and life, the other of
appears to be antiquated and absurd.
darkness and death, through which the sun
Millions will enjoy a holiday, get a breath
god and human souls have to pass to
of fresh air and a glimpse of nature, or go
emerge again into life. The festivals are
to church or chapel cleanly and respectable
those of the four great divisions of the year :
in behaviour and attire, because there were
Akkadian Zadkiels 6,000 years ago who the winter solstice, when the aged sun sinks
into the tomb and rises again with a new
believed in the maleficent influence of the
birth ; the spring equinox, when he passes
planet Saturn.
definitely out of the domain of winter into
When we find that these highly intricate
and artificial calculations of advanced that of summer ; the summer solstice, when
he is in full manhood, “ rejoicing like a
astrological and astronomical lore existed
at the dawn of Chaldtean history, and are giant to run his course,” and withering up
found in so many and such widely-separated vegetation as with the hot breath of a
races and regions, it is impossible to avoid raging lion ; and, finally, the autumnal
equinox, when he sinks once more into the
two conclusions.
wintry half of the year and amid storms
1st. That an immense time must have
and deluges fades daily to the tomb
elapsed since the Akkadians first settled in
and reclaimed the alluvial valleys and from which he started. Of these festivals,
Christmas and Easter have survived to the
marshy deltas of the Tigris and Euphrates.
2nd. That the intercourse between remote present day, and the last traces of the feast
of the summer solstice are still lingeringin
regions, whether by land or sea, and by
the remote parts of Scotland and Ireland in
commerce or otherwise, must have been
the Bel fires, which, when I was young,
much closer in prehistoric times than has
were lighted on Midsummer night on the
been generally supposed.
As in the days of the week, so in the highest hills of Orkney and Shetland. As
a boy, I have rushed, with my playmates,
festivals of the year, we trace their origin
through the smoke of those bonfires with
to astronomical observations. When
nations passed from the condition of out a suspicion that we were repeating the
savages, hunters, or nomads, into the homage paid to Baal in the Valley of
Hinnom.
agricultural stage, and developed dense
When we turn from science to art and
populations, cities, temples, priests, and
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
industry, the same conclusion of immense
antiquity is forcibly impressed on us. In
Egypt the reign of Menes, 4700 B.C., was
signalised by a great engineering work,
which would have been a considerable
achievement at the present day. He built
a great embankment, which still remains,
by which the old course of the Nile close to
the Libyan hills was diverted, and a site
obtained for the new capital of Memphis
oa the west side of the river, placing it
between the city and any enemy from the
east. At the same time this dyke assisted
fe regulating the flow of the inundation,
awl it may be compared for magnitude and
utility to the modern barrage attempted by
Liaant Bey and carried out by Sir Colin
Moncrieff. Evidently such a work implies
great engineering skill and great resources,
and it prepares us for what we have seen a
few centuries later in the construction of
the Great Pyramids.
Many of the most famous cities and
temples of Egypt also date their original
foundation to a period prior to that of
Menes. It has been shown already that
one of the most colossal and remarkable
monuments, the Sphinx, with the little
temple of granite and alabaster between its
paws, is older than the accession of Menes.
There is abundant proof that at the
dawn of Egyptian history, some 7,000
years ago, the arts of architecture, engi
neering, irrigation, and agriculture had
reached a high level corresponding to that
Shown by the state of religion, science,
and letters. A little later the paintings on
the tombs of the Old Empire show that all
the industrial arts, such as spinning,
weaving, working in wood and metals,
rearing cattle, and a thousand others,
which are the furniture of an old civilised
country, were just as well understood and
practised in Egypt 6,000 or 7,000 years
ago as they are at the present day.
This being the case, I must refer those
who wish to pursue this branch of the
subject to professed works on Egyptology.
F©? my present purpose, if the oldest
records of monuments prove the existence
df a long antecedent civilisation, it is superfltlOus to trace the proofs in detail through
the course of later ages.
When we turn to the fine arts we find
the same evidence. The difficulty is not
to trace a golden age up to rude beginnings,
but to explain the seeming paradox that
the oldest art is the best. A visit to the
Museum of Boulak, where Mariette’s
collection of works of the first six dynasties
63
is deposited, will convince any one that the
statues, statuettes, wall-pictures, and other
works of art of the Ancient Empire, from
Memphis and its cemetery of Sakkarah,
are in point of conception and execution
superior to those of a later period. None
of the later statues equal the four de force
by which the majestic portrait statue of
Chephren, the builder of the second great
pyramid, has been chiselled out from a
block of diorite, one of the hardest stones
known, and hardly assailable by the best
modern tools.
Nor has portraiture in
wood or stone ever surpassed the ease,
grace, and life-like expression of such
THE VILLAGE SHEIK, A WOODEN STATUETTE.
Boulak Museum, from Gizeh.—According to the
chronological table Oi Mariette, this statue is over 6,000
years old. From a photograph by Brugsch Bey.
statues as that known as the Village Sheik,
from its resemblance to the functionary
who filled that office 6,000 years later in
�64
HUMAN ORIGINS
the village where the statue was dis
covered ; or those of the kneeling scribes,
one handing in his accounts, the other
writing from dictation. And the pictures
on the walls of tombs, of houses, gardens,
fishing and musical parties, and animals
and birds of all kinds, tame and wild, are
equally remarkable for their colouring and
drawing, and for the vivacity and accuracy
with which attitudes and expressions are
rendered. In short, Egypt begins where
most modern countries seem to be ending,
with a very perfect school of realistic
art.
For it is remarkable that this first school
of art of the Old Empire is thoroughly
naturalistic, and knows very little of the
ideal or supernatural. And the tombs tell
the same story. The statues and paintings
represent natural objects and not theo
logical conventions ; the tombs are fac
simile representations of the house in
which the deceased lived, with his mummy
and those of his family, and pictures of his
oxen, geese, and other belongings, but no
gods, and few of those quotations from the
Book of the Dead which are so universal in
later ages. It would seem that at this early
period of Egyptian history life was simple
and cheerful, and both art and religion less
fettered by superstitions and conventions
than they were when despotism and priest
craft had been for centuries stereotyped
institutions, and when originality of any
sort was little better than heresy. War
also and warlike arms hardly appear on
these earliest representations of Egyptian
life, conflicts being probably confined to
frontier skirmishes with Bedouins and
Libyans, such as we see commemorated on
the tablet of Seneferu (p. 13).
In Chaldaea the evidence for great anti
quity is derived less from architectural
monuments and arts, and more from books,
than in Egypt, for the obvious reason that
stone was wanting and clay abundant in
Mesopotamia. Where temples and palaces
were built of sun-dried bricks, they rapidly
crumbled into mounds of rubbish, and
nothing was preserved but the baked clay
tablets with cuneiform inscriptions. In
like manner sculpture and wall-painting
never flourished in a country devoid of
stone, and the religious ideas of Chaldsea
never took the Egyptian form of the con
tinuance of ordinary life after death by the
Ka or ghost requiring a house, a mummy,
and representations of belongings. The
bas-relief and fringes sculptured on slabs of
alabaster brought home by Layard and
others belong mostly to the later period of
the Assyrian Empire.
Accordingly, the oldest works of art from
Chaldaea consist mainly of books and
documents in the form of clay cylinders,
and of gems, amulets, and other small
articles of precious stones or metals. But
the recent discovery of De Sarzec at
Sirgalla shows that in the very earliest
period of Chaldaean history the arts stood
at a level which is fairly comparable to
that of the Old Empire in Egypt. He
found in the ruins of the very ancient
Temple of the Sun nine statues of Patesi
or priest-kings of Akkadian race, who had
ruled there prior to the consolidation of
Sumir and Akkad into one empire by
Sargon I., somewhere about 3800 B.c. The
remarkable thing about these statues is
that they, like the statue of Chephren,
are of diorite, which is believed to be
found only in the peninsula of Sinai,
and is so hard that it must have taken
excellent tools and great technical skill to
carve it. The statues are much of the
same size and in the same seated attitude
as that of Chephren, and have the appear
ance of belonging to the same epoch and
school of art. This is confirmed by the
discovery along with the statues of a number
of statuettes and small objects of art which
are also in an excellent style, very similar
to that of the Old Egyptian dynasty, and
showing great proficiency both in taste and
in technical execution.
The discovery of these diorite statues at
such an early date, both in Egypt and
Chaldaea, raises an interesting question as
to the tools by which such an intractable
material could be so finely wrought. Evi
dently they must have been of the hardest
bronze, and the construction of such works
as the dyke of Menes and the Pyramids
shows that the art of masonry must have
been long known and extensively practised.
But this again implies a large stock of
metals and long acquaintance with them
since the close of the latest stone period.
Perhaps there is no test which is more
conclusive of the state of prehistoric civili
sation and commerce than that which is
afforded by the general knowledge and use
of metals. It is true that a knowledge of
some of the metals which are found in a
native state, or in easily fusible ores, may
co-exist with very primitive barbarism.
Some even of the cannibal tribes of Africa
are well acquainted with iron, and know
how to smelt its ores and manufacture tools
and weapons. Gold also, which is so
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
extensively found in the native state, could
not fail to be known from the earliest
times and in certain districts pure copper
presents itself in native and malleable
form.
But when we come to metals
which require great knowledge of mining
to detect them in their ores and to produce
them in large quantities, and to alloys
which require a long practice of metallurgy
to discover and mix in the proper pro
portions, the case is different, and the stone
period must be already far behind. Still
more is this the case when tools and
weapons of such artificial alloys are found
in universal use in countries where Nature
has provided no metals, and where their
presence can be accounted for only by the
existence of an international commerce
with distant metal-producing countries.
Iron was no doubt known at a very early
period, but it was extremely scarce, and
even as late as Homer’s time was so valu
able that a lump of it constituted one of
the principal prizes at the funeral games of
Patroclus. Noris there any reason to sup
pose that the art of making from it the best
steel, which alone could have competed
with bronze in cutting granite and diorite,
had been discovered. It may be assumed,
therefore, that bronze was the material
universally used for the finer tools and
weapons by the great civilised empires , of
Egypt and Chaldaea during the long in
terval between the neolithic stone age and
the later adoption of iron.
Evidently, then, both the Egyptians and
the Chaldaeans must have been well pro
vided with bronze tools capable of hewing
and polishing the hardest rocks. Now,
bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Copper
is a common metal, easily reduced from its
ores, and sometimes occurring, as remarked
above, in a metallic state, as in the
mines of Lake Superior, where the Red
Indians hammered out blocks of it from the
native metal. And we have proofs that the
ancient Egyptians obtained copper at a very
early date from the mines of Wady Magerah
in the peninsula of Sinai, and probably also
from Cyprus. But where did they get their
tin, without which there is no bronze ? Tin
is a metal which is found only in a few
localities, and in the form of a black oxide
which requires a considerable knowledge
of metallurgy to detect and to reduce.
The only considerable sources now known
are those of Cornwall, Malacca, Banca, and
Australia. Of these, the last was of course
unknown to the ancient world, but there
is significance in the fact that “kassiteros ”
65
the Greek name for tin, is derived from
“ kestira,” the Sanskrit name for that
metal; and the island Cassitera must have
been in the Straits of Malacca, whence tin
may have been brought by prehistoric sea
routes to India, thence to Egypt by the Red
Sea, and to Chaldaea by the Persian Gulf.
This is the conjecture of one of the latest
authorities in a very interesting work just
published on The Dawn of Ancient Art.
But the existence of tin in the Iberian
mainland and in Britain was known to
ancient traders at a remote period. In his
valuable summary on the various sources
of tin and on the trade-routes of the
Phoenicians given in his Origins of English
History, the late Mr. Charles Elton remarks
that the “knowledge of the tin-deposits
was the most valuable secret of Tyre and
Carthage. The Phoenician sailors busied
themselves in all known regions of the
world in seeking for the precious ore. The
seas were covered with their sails, and the
harbours full of their ships, which they
loaded with metal smelted from the tinbearing gravels of the Malayan Cassitara.”
The transfer of the name “ Cassiterides ”
(wrongly assumed to be the Scilly Isles)
to the islands off the Lusitanian coast shows
how their enterprise extended from the far
East to beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
In the celebrated 27th chapter of Ezekiel,
which describes the commerce of Tyre
when in the height of its glory, tin is
mentioned only once as being imported
along with silver, iron, and lead from
Tarshish—?>., from the emporium of
Gades or Cadiz. The only other refer
ence to tin is, that Javan, Tubal, and
Meshech—the Ionians, and tribes of
Asia Minor in the mountainous districts to
the south of the Black Sea—traded with
slaves and vessels of brass ; and if brass
meant bronze, this would imply a know
ledge of tin. Another considerable supply
of tin came from the Etruscans, who worked
extensive mines in Northern Italy. But
the evidence of these does not go back
farther than from 1000 to 1500 B.C., and it
leaves untouched the question how Egypt
and Chaldaea had obtained large stocks of
bronze, certainly long before 5000 B.c.; and
how they kept up these stocks for certainly
more than 2,000 years before the Phoeni
cians appeared on the scene to supply tin
by maritime commerce. It is in some
other direction that we must look, for it is
certain that neither Egypt nor Chaldaea
had any native sources of this metal. They
must have imported, and that from a
F
�66
HUMAN ORIGINS
distance, either the manufactured bronze,
or the tin with which to manufacture it
themselves by alloying copper. The latter
seems most probable, for the Egyptians
worked the copper mines of Sinai from a
very early date, and drew supplies of
copper from Cyprus, which could have
been made useful only by alloying it with
tin ; while, if they imported all the immense
quantity of bronze which they must have
used, in the manufactured state, the pure
copper would have been useless to them.
A remarkable fact is that the bronze
found throughout most of the ancient world,
from the earliest monuments downwards,
including the dolmens, lake villages, and
other prehistoric monuments in which metal
begins to appear, is almost entirely of
uniform composition, consisting of an alloy
of io to 15 per cent, of tin to 85 or 90 per
cent, of copper. That is for tools and
weapons where great hardness was required,
for objects of art and statuettes were often
made of pure copper, ox with a smaller
alloy of tin, showing that the latter metal
was too scarce and valuable to be wasted.1
Evidently this alloy must have been dis
covered in some locality where tin and
copper were both found, and trials could
be made of the proportions which gave the
best result; and the secret must have been
communicated to other nations along with
the tin which was necessary for the manu
facture. Where can we fix the precise
localities which supplied this tin, and the
knowledge how to use it, to the two great
civilised nations of Egypt and Chaldaea ?
Where can we say with certainty that
bronze was in common use prior to 5000
B.C. ? The knowledge both of bronze
and of other metals, such as iron and
gold, seems to have been universally
diffused among the Mongolian races who
were the primitive inhabitants of Northern
Asia. How could Egypt have got its tin
even from the nearest known source ?
Consider the length of the caravan route;
the number of beasts of burden required ;
the necessity for roads, depots, and
stations ; the mountain ranges, rivers, and
1 This normal alloy does not seem to have
been in general use in Egypt before the eighteenth
dynasty, and the bronze of earlier periods con
tains less tin. But evidently a very hard alloy
of copper must have been used from the earliest
times, to chisel out statues of granite and diorite;
and, although tin was too scarce for common use,
the tools for such purposes must have contained
a considerable percentage of it.
deserts to be traversed : such a journey is
scarcely conceivable either through dis
tricts sparsely peopled and without re
sources, or infested by savage tribes and
robbers. And yet if the tin did not come
by land, it must have come for the greater
part of the way by water, floating down the
Euphrates or Tigris, and being shipped
from Ur or Eridhu by way of the Persian
Gulf and Red Sea.
We are driven to the conclusion that
nations, capable of conducting extensive
mining operations, must have been in
existence in the Caucasus, the HindooKush, the Altai, or other remote regions ;
and that routes of international commerce
must have been established by which the
scarce but indispensable tin could be
transported from divers regions to the dense
and civilised communities which had grown
up in the alluvial valleys and deltas of the
Nile and the Euphrates.
It is very singular, however, that, if such
an intercourse existed, the knowledge of
other objects of what may be called the
first necessity should have been so long
limited to certain areas and races. For
instance, in the case of the domestic
animals, the horse was unknown in Egypt
and Arabia till after the Hyksos conquest,
when in a short time it' became common,
and these countries supplied the finest
breeds and the greatest number of horses
for exportation. On the other hand, the
horse must have been known at a very
early period in Chaldaea, for the tablet of
Sargon I., B.C. 3800, talks of riding in
brazen chariots over rugged mountains.
This makes it the more singular that the
horse should have remained so long
unknown in Egypt and Arabia, for it is
such an eminently useful animal, both for
peace and war, that one would think it
must have been introduced almost from the
very first moment when trading caravans
arrived. And yet tin would appear to have
arrived from regions where in all proba
bility the horse had been long domesti
cated before the time of Menes. The only
explanation I can see is, that the tin must
have come by sea ; but by what maritime
route could it have come prior to the rise
of Phoenician commerce ? Could it have
come down the Euphrates or Tigris and
been exported from the great sea-ports of
Eridhu or Ur by way of the Persian Gulf
and Red Sea?
This seems the more probable, as Eridhu
was certainly an important maritime port
at the early period of Chaldsean civilisation,
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
The diorite statues found at Tell-loh by
M. de Sarzec are stated by an inscription
on them to have come from Sinai, and
indeed they could have come from no other
locality, as this is the only known site of
the peculiar greenish-black basalt or diorite
of which those statues and the similar one
of the Egyptian Chephren of the second
pyramid are made. And in this case the
transport of such heavy blocks for such a
distance could have been effected only, by
sea. There are traces also of the maritime
commerce of Eridhu having extended as
far as India. Teak wood, which could
have' come only from the Malabar coast,
has been found in the ruins of Ur; and
“ Sindhu,” which is Indian cloth or muslin,
was known from the earliest times. It
seems not improbable, therefore, that
Eridhu and Ur may have played the part
which was subsequently taken by Sidon
and Tyre, in the prehistoric stages of the
civilisations both of Egypt and of Chaldaea;
and this is confirmed by the earliest
traditions of the primitive Akkadians,
which represent these cities on the Persian
Gulf as maritime ports, whose people were
well acquainted with ships, as we see in
their legend of the Deluge, which, instead
of the Hebrew ark of Noah, has a wellequipped ship with sails and a pilot.
The instance of the horse is the more
remarkable, as throughout a great part of
the stone period the wild horse was the
commonest of animals, and afforded the
staple food of the savages whose remains
are found in all parts of Europe. At one
station alone, at Solutre in Burgundy, it is
computed that the remains of more than
40,000 horses are found in the vast heap of
debris of a village of the stone period.
What became of these innumerable horses,
and how is it that the existence of the
animal seems to have been so long
unknown to the great civilised races? It
is singular that a similar problem presents
itself in America, where the ancestral tree
of the horse is most clearly traced through
the Eocene and Miocene periods, and
where the animal existed in vast numbers
both in the Northern and Southern
Continent, under conditions eminently
favourable for its existence; and yet it
became so completely extinct that there
was not even a tradition of it remaining at
the time of the Spanish conquest. On the
other hand, the ass seems to have been
known from the earliest times, both to the
Egyptians and the Semites of Arabia and
Syria, and unknown to the Aryan-speaking
peoples, whose names for it are all
borrowed from the Semitic. Large herds
of asses are enumerated among the
possessions of great Egyptian landowners
as far back as the fifth and sixth dynasties,
and no doubt it had been the beast of
burden in Egypt from time immemorial.
It is in this respect only—viz., the intro
duction of the horse—that we can discern
any foreign importation calculated to
materially affect the native civilisation of
Egypt, during the immensely long period
of its existence. It had no doubt a great
deal to do with launching Egypt on a
career of foreign wars and conquests under
the eighteenth dynasty, and so bringing it
into closer contact with other nations, and
subjecting it to the vicissitudes of alternate
triumphs and disasters, now carrying the
Egyptian arms to the Euphrates and Tigris,
and now bringing Assyrian and Persian
conquerors to Thebes and Memphis. But
in the older ages of the First and Middle
Empire the ox, the ass, the sheep, ducks
and geese, and the dog, seem to have been
the principal domestic animals. Gazelles
also were tamed and fed in herds during
the Old Empire, and the cat was domesti
cated from an African species during the
Middle Empire.
Agriculture was conducted both in Egypt
and Chaldsea much as it is in China at the
present day, by a very perfect system of
irrigation depending on embankments and
canals, and by a sort of garden cultivation
enabling a large population to live in a
limited area. The people also, both in
Egypt and Chaldaea, seem to have been
singularly like the modern Chinese, patient,
industrious, submissive to authority, unwar
like, practical, and prosaic. If, therefore,
the influence of any foreign race on a
relatively high plane of civilisation be
excluded, we have sufficing period from
prehistoric times to the dawn of history for
the conversion of the aborigines, who left
their rude stone implements in the sands
and gravels of these localities, into the
civilised and populous communities which
we find existing there long before the
reigns of Menes and of Sargon.
�HUMAN ORIGINS
68
CHAPTER VI.
PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
Short Duration of Tradition—No Recollection
of Stone Age—Celts taken for Thunderbolts
—Stone Age in Egypt—Palaeolithic Imple
ments—Earliest Egyptian Traditions—Extinct
Animals forgotten—Their Bones attributed to
Giants—Chinese and American Traditions—
Traditions of Origin of Man—Philosophical
Myths—Cruder Myths from Stones, Trees,
and Animals—Totems—Recent Events soon
forgotten — Autochthonous Nations — Wide
Diffusion of Myths — The Deluge — Im
portance of, as Test of Inspiration—More
Definite than
Legend of Creation—
Account of the Deluge in
Genesis
—Date—Extent—Duration—All Life des
troyed except Pairs preserved in the Ark—Such a Deluge impossible—Contradicted by
Physical Science—By Geology—By Zoology
'—By Ethnology—By History—How Deluge
Myths arise—Local Floods—Sea Shells on
Mountains—Solar Myths—Deluge of Parnapishtim—Noah’s Deluge copied from it—Re
vised in a Monotheistic Sense at a compara
tively Late Period—Rational View of Inspira
tion.
In passing from the historical period, in
which we can appeal to written records
and monuments, into that of palaeontology
and geology, where we have to rely on
scientific facts and reasons, we have to
traverse an intermediate stage in which
legends and traditions still cast a dim and
glimmering twilight. The first point to
notice is that this, like the twilight of
tropical evenings, is extremely brief, and
fades almost at once into the darkness of
night.
It is singular in how short a time all
memory is lost of events which are not
recorded in some form of writing or
inscription, and depend solely on oral tradi
tion. Thus it may be safely affirmed that
no nation which has passed into the metal
age retains any distinct recollection of that
of polished stone, and a fortiori none of
the palaeolithic period, or of the origins of
their own race or of mankind. The proof
of this is found in the fact that the stone
axes and arrow-heads which are found so
abundantly in many countries are every
where taken for thunderbolts or fairy arrows
shot down from the skies. This belief was
well-nigh universal throughout the world ;
we find it in all the classical nations, in
modern Europe, in China, Japan, and India.
Its antiquity is attested by the fact that
neolithic arrow-heads have been found
attached as amulets in necklaces from
Egyptian and Etruscan tombs, and palaeo
lithic celts in the foundations of Chaldaean
temples. In India many of the best speci
mens of palaeolithic implements were
obtained from the gardens of ryots, where
they had been placed on posts, and offer
ings of ghee duly made to them. Like so
many old superstitions, this still lingers in
popular belief, and the common name for
the finely-chipped arrow-heads which are so
plentifully scattered over the soil from Scot
land to Japan is that of elf-bolts, supposed
to have been shot down from the skies by
fairies or spirits.
Until the discoveries of Boucher-dePerthes were confirmed only half a century
ago, this ignorance as to the origin of stone
implements was shared by the learned men
of all countries, and many volumes have
been written to explain how the “ cerauni,”
or stone-celts, taken to be thunderbolts,
were formed in the air during storms.
They are already described by Pliny, and a
Chinese Encyclopaedia says that “ some of
these lightning stones have the shape of a
hatchet, others of a knife, some are made
like mallets. They are metals, stones, and
pebbles, which the fire of the thunder has
metamorphosed by splitting them suddenly
and uniting inseparablydifferent substances.
On some of them a kind of vitrification is
distinctly to be observed.”
The Chinese philosopher was evidently
acquainted with real meteorites and with
the stone implements which were mistaken
for them, and his account is comparatively
sober and rational. But the explanations
of the Christian fathers and mediaeval
philosophers, and even of scientific writers
down to a very recent period, are vastly
more mystical. A single specimen may
suffice which is quoted by Tylor in his
Early History of Mankind. Tollius in
1649 figures some ordinary palaeolithic
stone axes and hammers, and tells us that
“ the naturalists say they are generated in
the sky by a fulgurous exhalation conglobed
in a cloud by the circumfused humour, and
are as it were baked hard by intense heat,
and the weapon becomes pointed by the
damp mixed with it flying from the dry part,
and leaving the other end denser, but the
exhalations press it so hard that it breaks
out through the cloud and makes thunder
and lightning.”
But these attempts at scientific explana
tions were looked upon with disfavour by
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
theologians, the orthodox belief being that
the “cerauni” were the bolts by which
Satan and his angels had been driven from
heaven into the fiery abyss. These specula
tions, however, of later ages are of less im
portance for our present purpose than the
fact that in no single instance can anything
like a real historical tradition be found con
necting the stone age with that of metals,
and giving a true account of even the latest
forms of neolithic implements.
The fantastic theories of the causes of
the worked flints are paralleled by those as
to the origin of the remains of the great
extinct quaternary animals which are con
temporary with man. Everywhere we find
the fossil bones of the elephant and
rhinoceros explained as those of monsters
and giants.
St. Augustine denounces
infidels who do not believe that “ men’s
bodies were formerly much greater than
now,” and quotes, in proof of the assertion,
that he had seen himself “ so huge a molar
tooth of a man that it would cut up into a
hundred teeth of ordinary men ”—doubtless
the molar of a fossil elephant. Marcus
Scaurus brought to Rome from Joppa the
bones of the monster who was to have
devoured Andromeda.
The Chinese
Encyclopaedia, already referred to, describes
the “ Fon-shu, an animal which dwells in
the extreme cold on the coast of the
Northern Sea, which resembles a rat in
shape, but is as big as an elephant, and
lives in dark caverns, ever shunning the
light. There is got from it an ivory as
white as that of an elephant ” ; evidently
referring to the frozen mammoths found, in
Siberia. Similar circumstances gave rise
to the same myth in South America, and
the natives told Darwin that the skeletons
of the mastodon on the banks of the
Parana were those of a huge burrowing
animal, like the bizchaca or prairie-rat.
If fossil animals have thus given rise
everywhere to legends of giants, fossil
shells have played the same part as regards
legends of a deluge. These fossils are in
many cases so abundant at high levels that
they could not fail to be observed, and
to be attributed to the sea having
once covered these levels and inundated
all the earth except the highest peaks.
The tradition of an universal deluge is,
however, so important that I reserve it for
separate consideration at the end of the
present chapter.
If, then, all memory of a period so com
paratively recent as that of the neolithic
stone age and of the latest extinct animals
69
was completely lost when the first dawn of
history commences, it follows as a matter
of course that nothing like an historical
tradition of the immensely longer palaeo
lithic period and of the origin of man
survives anywhere. Man in all ages has
asked himself how he came here, and. has
indulged in speculations as to his origin.
These speculations have taken a form
corresponding very much to the stage of
culture and civilisation to which he had
attained. They are of almost infinite
variety, but may be classed generally under
three heads. Those nations which had
attained a sufficient degree of culture to
personify first causes and the phenomena
of Nature as gods, attribute the creation of
the world and of man to some one or more
of these gods; and, as they advance
further in philosophical reasonings, em
bellish the myth with allegories embody
ing the problems of human existence.
Thus, if Bel makes man out of clay, and
moulds him with his own blood; or J ehovah
(Jahve) fashions him from dust, and breathes
into his nostrils the breath of life ; in each
case it is an obvious allegory to explain the
fact that man ha& a dual nature, animal
and spiritual.
So the myth of the Garden of Eden,
the Temptation by the Serpent, the Trees
of Knowledge and of Life, and the Fall of
Adam, which we see represented on a
Babylonian cylinder, is obviously an alle
gorical attempt to explain the origin of
evil.
These philosophical myths are,
however, very various among different
nations.
Thus the orthodox belief of
200,000,000 of Hindoos is that mankind
were created in castes, the Brahmins by an
emanation from Brahma’s head, the
warriors from his chest, the traders and
artisans from his legs, and the sudras or
lowest caste from his feet; obviously an
ex post facto myth to account for the
institution of caste, and to stamp it with
divine authority.
But before reflection had risen to this
level, and among the savage and semibarbarous people of the present day, we
find much more crude speculations, which,
in the main, correspond with the kindred
creeds of Animism and Totemism. When
life and magical powers were attributed to
inanimate objects, nothing was more natural
than to suppose that stones and trees might
be converted into men and women, and con
versely men and women into trees and
stones. Thus we find the stone theory very
widely diffused. Even with a people so far
�70
HUMAN ORIGINS
advanced as the early Greeks, it meets us
in the celebrated fable of Deucalion and
Pyrrha peopling the earth by throwing
stones behind them, which turned into men
and women ; and the same myth, of stones
turning into the first men, meets us at the
present day in almost every barbaric
cosmogony brought home by missionaries
and anthropologists from Africa, America,
and Polynesia. In some cases trees take
the place of stones, and transformations of
men into both are among the commonest
occurrences. From Daphne into a laurel,
and Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, down to
the Cornish maidens transformed into a
circle of stones for dancing on Sunday, we
find everywhere that wherever natural
objects present any resemblance to the
human figure, such myths sprung up spon
taneously in all ages and countries.
Another great school of creation-myths
originates in the widespread institution of
the totem. It is a step in advance of the
pure fetich-worship of stocks and stones, to
conceive of animals as having thought and
language, and being in fact men under a
different form. From this it is a short step
to endowing them with magical attributes
and supernatural powers, adopting them as
patrons of tribes and families, and finally
considering them as ancestors. Myths of
this kind are common among the lower
races, especially in America, where many
of the tribes considered themselves as
descendants of some great bear or elk, or
of some extremely wise fox or beaver, and
held this belief so firmly that intermarriage
among members of the same totem was for
bidden as incestuous. The same system
prevails among most races at an equally
low or lower stage of civilisation, as in
Australia ; and there are traces of its having
existed among old civilised nations at
remote periods. The animal-worship of
Egypt may have been a survival of the old
faith in totems, differing among different
clans, which was so firmly rooted in the
popular traditions that the priests had to
accommodate their religious conceptions to
it, as the Christian fathers did with many
pagan superstitions. The division of the
twelve tribes of Israel may have been
originally totemic, judging from the old
saga in which Jacob gives them his bless
ing, identifying Judah with a lion, Dan with
an adder, and so on.
But in all these various and discordant
myths of the creation of man it is evident
there are no echoes of a possible historical
reminiscence of anything that actually
occurred ; and they must be relegated to
the same place as the corresponding myths
of the creation of the animal world and of
the universe. They are neither more or less
credible than the theories that the earth is
a great tortoise floating on the water, or the
sky a crystal dome with windows in it to let
down the rain, and stars hung from it like
lamps to illuminate a tea-garden.
Even when we come to comparatively
recent periods, and have to deal with
traditions, not of how races originated, but
how they came into the abodes where we
find them, it is astonishing how little we
can depend on anything prior to written
records. Most ancient nations fancied
themselves autochthonous, and took a pride
in believing that they sprang from the soil
on which they lived. And this is also the
case with ruder races, except where the
migrations and conquests recorded are of
very recent date. Thus Ancient Egypt
believed itself to be autochthonous, and
traced the origin of arts and sciences to
native gods. Chaldaea, according to
Berosus, was inhabited from time imme
morial by a mixed multitude, and, though
Oannes brought letters and arts from the
shores of the Persian Gulf, he taught them
to a previously existing population. This
is the more remarkable as the name of
Akkad and the form of the oldest Akkadian
hieroglyphics make it almost certain that
they had migrated into Mesopotamia from
the highlands of Kurdistan or of Central
Asia. The Athenians also and the other
Greek tribes all claimed to be autoch
thonous, and their legends of men spring
ing from the stones of Deucalion, and
from the dragon’s teeth of Cadmus, all
point in the same direction. The great
Aryan-speaking races also have no tradi
tions of any ancient migrations from Asia
into Europe, or vice versa, and their
languages seem to denote a common
residence during the formation of the
different dialects in those regions of
Northern Europe and Southern Russia in
which we find them living when we first
catch sight of them. The only exception
to this is in the record in the Zendavesta of
successive migrations from the Pamer or
Altai, down the Oxus and Jaxartes into
Bactria, and thence into Persia. But this
is not found in the original portion of the
Zendavesta, and only in later commentaries
on it, and is very probably a legend intro
duced to exemplify the constant warfare
between Ormuzd and Ahriman. The
Vedas contain no history, and the
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS.
inference that a people of Aryan speech
lived in the Punjaub when the Rig-Veda
was composed, and conquered Hindostan
later, is derived from the references con
tained in the oldest hymns which point to
that conclusion, rather than from any
definite historical record. Rome again had
no tradition of Umbrian pile-dwellers
descending from neolithic Switzerland,
expelling Iberians, and being themselves
expelled by Etruscans.
It may appear singular, considering the
almost total absence of genuine historical
traditions, how certain myths and usages
have been universally diffused, and come
down to the present day from a very remote
antiquity.'\ The identity of the days of the
week, based on a highly artificial and complicated.GftlGulation of Chaldsean astrology,
has been already referred to as a striking
instance of the wide diffusion of astrono
mical myths in very early times. Then,
too, many of the most popular nursery
tales also, such as Jack the Giant-killer,
Jack and the Beanstalk, and Cinderella,
are found almost in the same form in the
most remote regions and among the. most
various races, both civilised and uncivilised.
■ One explanation of puzzling identities is
that the human mind, at the same level of
culture, explains like phenomena in the
same way, just as, in prehistoric times, man
everywhere made shift with similar tools
and weapons.
I come now to the tradition of a Deluge,
which is important both on account of its pre
valence among a number of different races
and nations, often remote from one another,
and because it affords the most immediate
and crucial test of the claim of the Bible to
be taken as a literally true and inspired
account, not only of matters of moral and
religious import, but of all the historical
and scientific statements recorded in its
pages. The Confession of Faith of an able
and excellent man, the late Mr. Spurgeon,
and adopted by fifteen or twenty other Non
conformist ministers, says :—
“ We avow our firmest belief in the verbal
inspiration of all Holy Scripture as origi
nally given. To us the Bible does not merely
contain the Word of God, but is the Word
of God.”
Following this example, thirty - eight
clergymen of the Church of England
put forward a similar Declaration. They
say:—
“ We solemnly profess and declare our
unfeigned belief in all the Canonical Scrip
tures of the Old and New Testaments, as
handed down to us by the undivided Church
in the original languages. We believe that
they are inspired by the Holy Ghost ; that
they are what they profess to be ; that they
mean what they say ; and that they declare
incontrovertibly the actual historical truth
in all records, both of past events and of
the delivery of predictions to be thereafter
fulfilled.”
It is perfectly obvious that for those who
accept these Confessions of Faith, not only
the so-called “ higher Biblical Criticism,”
but all the discoveries of modern science,
from Galileo and Newton down to Lyell
and Darwin, are simple delusions. There
can be no question that if the words of the
Old Testament are “ literally inspired,” and
“ mean what they say,” they oppose an in
flexible non possnmus to all the most certain
discoveries of Astronomy, Geology, Zoology,
Biology, Egyptology, Assyriology, and other
modern sciences. Now, the account of the
Deluge in Genesis affords the readiest
means of bringing this theory to the test,
and proving or disproving it, by the process
which Euclid calls the reductw ad absurdum.
Not that other narratives, such as those
of the Creation in Genesis, do' not contain
as startling contradictions, if we keep in
mind the assertion of the orthodox thirty
eight, that the inspired words of the Old
Testament ‘ mean what they say”—z.^., that
they mean what they were necessarily taken
to mean by contemporaries and long subse
quent generations ; for instance, that if th®
inspired writer says days defined by a
morning and an evening, he means natural
days, and not indefinitely long periods. But
this is just what the defenders of orthodoxy
always ignore, and all attempts at recon
ciling the accounts of Creation in Genesis
with the conclusions of science turn on the
assumption that the inspired writers do not
“mean what they say,” but something
entirely different. If they say “ days,” they
mean geological periods of which no reader
had the remotest conception until the
present century. If they say that light was
made before the sun, and the earth before
the sun, moon, and stars, they really mean,
in some unexplained way, to indicate
Newton’s law of gravity, Laplace’s nebular
theory, and the discoveries of the.spectro
scope. By using words, therefore, in a non
natural sense, and surrounding them with
a halo of mystical and misty eloquence,
they evade bringing the pleadings to a dis
tinct and definite issue such as the popular
mind can at once understand. But in the
�HUMAN ORIGINS
case of the Deluge no such evasion is pos
sible. The narrative is a specific statement
of facts alleged to have occurred at a com
paratively recent date, not nearly so remote
as the historical records of Egypt and
Chaldsea, and therefore must be either true
or false. If false, there is an end of any
attempt to consider the whole scientific
and historical portions of the Bible as
written by Divine inspiration; for the
narrative is not one of trivial importance,
but of what is really a second creation of
all life, including man, from a single pair or
very few pairs miraculously preserved and
radiating from a single centre.1
Consider, then, what the narrative of the
Deluge really tells us. First, as to date.
The Hebrew Bible, from which our own is
translated, gives the names of the ten
generations from Noah to Abraham, with
the precise dates of each birth and death,
making the total number of years 297 from
the Flood to Abraham. The Septuagint
version assigns 700 years more than that of
the Hebrew Bible for the interval between
Abraham and Noah ; but this is only done
by increasing the already fabulous age of
the patriarchs. Accepting, however, this
Septuagint version, though it has been
constantly repudiated by the Jews them
selves and by nearly all Christian authori
ties from St. Jerome down to Archbishop
Usher, the date of the Deluge cannot be
carried further back than to about 3000
B.C., a date at least 2,000, and more pro
bably 4,000, years later than that shown by
the records and monuments of Egypt and
Chaldasa, when great empires, populous
cities, and a high degree of civilisation
already existed in those countries. The
statement of the Bible, therefore, is that, at
a date not earlier than 2200 B.c., or at the
very earliest 3000 B.c., a deluge occurred
which “ covered all the high hills that
were under the whole heaven,” and pre
vailed upon the earth for 150 days before
it began to subside; that seven months
and sixteen days elapsed before the tops of
the mountains were first seen ; and that
1 The following arguments so closely resemble
those of Professor Huxley in a recent article in
the Nineteenth Century that it may be well to
state that they were written before I had seen
that article. I insert them not as attempting to
vie with one of the greatest masters of English
prose, but as showing that the same con
clusions inevitably force themselves on all
who understand the first rudiments of Modern
Science.
only after twelve months and ten days
from the commencement of the flood was
the earth sufficiently dried to allow Noah
and the inmates of the Ark to leave it.
Naturally all life was destroyed, with the
exception of Noah and those who were
with him in the Ark, consisting of his wife,
his three sons and their wives; and pairs,
male and female, of all beasts, fowls, and
creeping things ; or, as another account
has it, seven pairs of clean beasts and of
birds, and single pairs of unclean beasts and
creeping things. The statement is abso
lutely specific : “ All flesh died that moved
upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle,
and of beast, and of every creeping thing
that creepeth upon earth, and every man.”
And again : “ Every living substance was
destroyed which was upon the face of the
ground, both men and cattle, and the
creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven,
and they were destroyed from the earth ;
and Noah only remained alive, and they
that were with him in the Ark.” And
finally, when the Ark was opened, “ God
spake unto Noah and said, Go forth of the
Ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons and
sons’ wives with thee. Bring forth with
thee every living thing that is with thee,
of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and
of every creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth, that they may breed abundantly
on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply
upon the earth.”
It is evident that such a narrative cannot
be tortured into any reminiscence of a
partial and local inundation. It might
possibly be taken for a poetical exaggera
tion of some vague myth or tradition of a
local flood, if it were found in the legends
of some early races, or semi-civilised
tribes.
But such an interpretation is
impossible when the narrative is taken, as
orthodox believers take it, as a Divinelyinspired and literally true account contained
in one of the most important chapters in
the history of the relations of man to God.
In this view it is a still more signal
instance than the fall of Adam, of God’s
displeasure with sin and its disastrous
consequences, of his justice and mercy in
sparing the innocent and rewarding
righteousness ; it establishes a new depar
ture for the human race, a new distinction
between the chosen people of Israel and
the accursed Canaanites, based not on
Cain’s murder of Abel, but on Ham’s
irreverence towards his father; and it
introduces a covenant between God and
Noah which continued through Abraham
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
and David, and became the basis of Jewish
nationality and of the Christian dispensa
tion. If in such a narrative there are
manifest errors, the theory of Divine
inspiration obviously breaks down, and the
book which contains it cannot be excepted
from the ordinary rules of historical
criticism.
Now, that no such Deluge as that
described in Genesis ever took place is as
certain as that the earth moves about the
sun. Physical science tells us that it never
could have occurred; geology, zoology,
ethnology, and history all tell us alike that
it never did occur. Physical science tells
us two things about water : that it cannot
be made out of nothing, and that it always
finds its level. In order to cover the
highest mountains on the earth and remain
stationary at that level for months, we must
suppose an uniform shell of water of six
miles in depth to be added to the existing
water of the earth. Even if we take
Ararat as the highest mountain covered,
the shell must have been three miles in
thickness over the whole globe. Where
did this water come from, and where did it
go to ? Rain is simply water raised from
the seas by evaporation, and is returned to
them by rivers. It does not add a single
drop of water to that already existing on
the earth and in its atmosphere. The
heaviest rains do nothing but swell rivers
and inundate the adjacent flat lands to a
depth of a few feet, which rapidly subside.
The only escape from this law of nature
is to suppose some sudden convulsion, such
as a change in the position of the earth’s
axis of rotation, by which the existing
waters of the earth were drained in some
latitudes and heaped up in others. But
any such local accumulation of water
implies a sudden and violent rush to. heap
it up in forty days, and an equally violent
rush to run it down to its old level when
the disturbing cause ceased, as it must
have done in 150 days. Such a disturbance
in recent times is not only inconsistent
with all known facts, but with the positive
statement of the narrative that the whole
earth was covered, and that the Ark floated
quietly on the waters, drifting slowly north
wards, until it grounded on Ararat. The
only other alternative is to suppose a sub
sidence of the land below the level of the
sea. But a subsidence which carried a
whole continent 15,000, or even 1,500 feet
down, followed by an elevation which
brought it back to the old level, both accom
plished within the space of twelve months,
73
is even more impossible than a cataclysmal
deluge of water. Such movements are now,
and have been throughout all the geological
periods, excessively slow, certainly not
exceeding, at the very outside, a few feet in
a century.
And, if physical science shows that no
such Deluge as that described in Genesis
could have occurred, geology is equally
positive that it never did occur. The drift
and boulders which cover a great part of
Europe and North America are beyond all
doubt glacial, and not diluvial. They are
strictly limited by the extension of glaciers
and ice-sheets, and of the streams flowing
from them. The high-level gravels in which
human remains are found in conjunction
with those of extinct animals are the result
of the erosion of valleys by rivers. They
are not marine, they are interstratified with
beds of sand and silt, containing often deli
cate fluviatile shells, which were deposited
when the stream ran tranquilly, as the
coarser gravels were deposited when it ran
with a stronger torrent. And the gravels of
adjacent valleys, even when separated by a
low water-shed, are not intermixed, but
each composed of the debris of its own
system of drainage, by which small rivers
like the Somme and the Avon have, in the
course of ages, scooped out their present
valleys to an extent of more than 100 feet
in depth and two miles in width. Masses
of loose sand, volcanic ashes, and other in
coherent materials of tertiary formation
remain on the surface, which must have
been swept away by anything resembling a
diluvial wave. And, above all, Egypt and
other flat countries adjoining the sea, such
as the deltas of the Euphrates, the Ganges,
and the Mississippi, which must have been
submerged by a slight elevation of the sea
or subsidence of the land, show by borings,
carried in some cases to the depth of 100
feet and upwards, nothing but an accumu
lation of such tranquil deposits as are now
going on, continued for hundreds of cen
turies, and uninterrupted by anything like a
marine or diluvial deposit.
Zoology is even more emphatic than
geology in showing the impossibility of
accepting the narrative of the Deluge as a
true representation of actual events. Who
ever wrote it must have had ideas of science
as infantile as those of the children who are
amused by a toy ark in the nursery. His
range of vision could hardly have extended
beyond the confines of his own country.
And, if a reductio ad absurdum were needed
of the fallacies to which reconcilers are
�74
HUMAN ORIGINS
driven, it would be afforded by Sir J. W.
Dawson’s comparison of the Ark to an
American cattle-steamer. Recollect that
the date assigned to the Deluge affords no
time for the development of new species
and races, since every “living substance
was destroyed that was upon the face of the
ground,” except the pairs preserved in the
Ark. It is a question, therefore, not of one
pair of bears, but of many—polar, grizzly,
brown, and all the varieties, down to the
pigmy bear of Sumatra. So of cattle :
there must have been not only pairs of the
wild and domestic species of Europe, but
of the gaur of India, the Brahmin bull, the
yak, the musk-ox, and of all the many
species of buffaloes and bisons. If we take
the larger animals only, there must have
been several pairs of elephants, rhinoce
roses, camels, horses, oxen, buffaloes, elk,
deer and antelopes, apes, zebras, and
innumerable others of the herbivora, to say
nothing of lions, tigers, and other carnivora.
Let any one calculate the cubic space
which such a collection would require for a
year’s voyage under hatches, and he will see
at once the absurdity of supposing that
they could have been stowed away in the
Ark. And this is only the beginning of the
difficulty, for all the smaller animals, all
birds, and all creeping things have also to
be accommodated, and to live together for
a year under conditions of temperature and
otherwise which, if suited for some, must
inevitably have been fatal for others. How
did polar bears, lemmings, and snowy owls
live in a temperature suited for monkeys
and humming-birds ?
Then there is the crowning difficulty of
the food. Go to the Zoological Gardens,
and inquire as to the quantity and bulk of
a year’s rations for elephants, giraffes, and
lions, or multiply by 365 the daily allow
ance of hay and oats for horses, and of
grass or green food for bullocks, and it will
soon be found that the bulk required for
food is far greater than that of the animals.
And what did the birds and creeping
things feed upon ? Were there rats and
mCce for the owls, gnats for the swallows,
worms and butterflies for the thrushes, and
generally a supply of insects for the lizards,
toads, and other insectivora, whether birds,
reptiles, or mammals? And of the humbler
forms which live on microscopic animals
and on each other, were they also included
in the destruction of “ every living sub
stance,” and was the earth repeopled with
•them from the single centre of Ararat ?
Here also Zoology has a decisive word to I
say. The earth could not have been
repeopled, within any recent geological
time, from any single centre, for in point of
fact it is divided into distinct zoological
provinces. The fauna of Australia, for
instance, is totally different from that of
Europe, Asia, and America. How did the
kangaroo get there, if he is descended
from a pair preserved in the Ark? Did
he perchance jump at one bound from
Ararat to the Antipodes ?
Ethnology again takes up a limited
branch of the same subject, but one which
is more immediately interesting to us—
that of the variety of human races. The
narrative of Genesis states positively that
“ every man in whose nostrils was the'
breath of life ” was destroyed by the Flood,
except those who were saved in the Ark,
and that “ the whole earth was overspread”
of the three sons of Noah—Shem, Ham,
and Japheth. That is, it asserts distinctly
that all the varieties of the human race
have descended from one common ancestor,
Noah, who lived not more than 5,000 years
ago. Consider the vast variety and diver
sity of human races existing now, and in
some of the most typical instances shown
by Egyptian and Chaldaean monuments to
have existed before Noah was born—the
black and woolly-haired Negroes, the
yellow Mongolians, the Australians, the
Negritos, the Hottentots, the pygmies of
Stanley’s African forest, the Esquimaux,
the American Red Indians, and an immense
number of others, differing fundamentally
from one another in colour, stature,
language, and almost every trait, physical
and moral. To suppose these to have all
descended from a single pair, Noah and
his wife, and to have “spread over the
whole earth ” from Ararat, since 3000 years
B.C., is simply absurd. No man of good
faith can honestly say that he believes it to
be true ; and, if not true, what becomes of
inspiration ?
If anything were wanting to complete
the demonstration, it would be furnished
by history. We have perfectly authentic
historical records, confirmed by monu
ments, extending in Egypt to a date
certainly 3,000 years older than that
assigned for Noah’s Deluge ; an.d similar
records in Chaldaea going back as far.
In none of these is there any mention of
an universal deluge as an historical event
occurring within the period of time
embraced by those records. The only
reference to such a deluge is contained in
one chapter of a Chaldaean epic poem
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
based on a solar myth, and placed in an
immense and fabulous antiquity. In Egypt
the case is, if possible, even stronger, for
here the configuration of the Nile valley is
such that anything approaching an
universal deluge must have destroyed all
traces of civilisation, and buried the country
thousands of feet under a deep ocean.
Even a very great local inundation must
have spread devastation far and wide, and
been a memorable event in all subsequent
annals. When remarkable natural events,
such as earthquakes, did occur, they are
mentioned in the annals of the reigning
king, but no mention is made of any
deluge. On the contrary, all the records
and monuments confirm the statement
made by the priests of Heliopolis to
Herodotus when they showed him the
statues of the 360 successive high priests
who had all been “mortal men, sons of
mortal men,” that during this long period
there had been no change in the average
duration of human life, and no departure
from the ordinary course of nature.
When this historical evidence is added
to that of geology, which shows that
nothing resembling a deluge could have
occurred in the valleys of the Nile or
Euphrates without leaving unmistakable
traces of its passage which are totally
absent, the demonstration seems as con
clusive as that of any of the propositions of
Euclid.
It remains to consider why so many
traditions of a deluge should be found
among so many different races often so
widely separated. There are three ways in
which deluge-myths must have originated.
1. From tradition of destructive local
floods.
2. From the presence of marine shells
on what is now dry land.
3. From the diffusion of solar myths
like that of Izdubar.
There can be no doubt that destructive
local floods must have frequently occurred
in ancient and prehistoric times as they do
at the present day. Such an inundation
as that of the Yang-tse-Kiang, which
destroyed half a million of people, or the
hurricane wave which swept over the
Sunderbunds, must have left an impres
sion which, among isolated and illiterate
people, might readily take the form of an
universal deluge. And such catastrophes
must have been specially frequent in the
early post-glacial period, when the ice
dams, which converted many valleys into
lakes, were melting.
75
But I am inclined to doubt whether the
tradition of such local floods was ever pre
served long enough to account for deluge
myths. All experience shows that the
memory of historical events fades away
with surprising rapidity when it is not pre
served by written records. If, as Xenophon
records, all memory of the great city of
Nineveh had disappeared in 200 years after
its destruction, how can it be expected that
oral tradition shall preserve a recollection
of prehistoric local floods magnified into
universal deluges ?
And when the deluge-myths of different
nations are examined closely, it generally
appears that they have had an origin rather
in solar myths or cosmogonical specula
tions than in actual facts. For instance,
the tradition of a deluge in Mexico has
often been referred to as a confirmation of
the Noachian flood. But when looked into
it appears that this Mexican deluge was
only a part of their mythical cosmogony,
which told of four successive destructions
and renovations of the world by the four
elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The
first period being closed by earthquakes,
the second by hurricanes, the third by vol
canoes, it did not require any local tradition
to ensure the fourth being closed by a flood.
Again, deluge-myths must have inevitably
arisen from the presence of marine shells,
fossil and recent, in many localities where
they were too numerous to escape notice.
If palaeolithic stone implements and bones
of fossil elephants gave rise to myths of
thunderbolts and giants, sea-shells on
mountain-tops must have given rise to
speculations as to deluges. At the very
beginning of history, Egyptian and Chaldsean astronomers were sufficiently advanced'
in science to endeavour to account for such
phenomena, and to argue that where sea
shells were found the sea must once have
been. Many of the deluge-myths of anti
quity, such as that of Deucalion and Pyrrha,
look very much as if this had been their
origin. They are too different from the
Chaldaean and Biblical Deluge, as for
instance in repeopling the world by stones,
to have been copied from the same original,
and they fit in with the very general belief
of ancient nations that they were autoch
thonous.
In a majority of cases, however, I believe
it will be found that deluge-myths have
originated from some transmission, more or
less distorted, of the very ancient Chaldaean
astronomical myths of the passage of the
sun through the signs of the zodiac. For
�76
HUMAN ORIGINS
example, in the Hindoo mythology the
fish-god Ea-han, or Oannes, is introduced
as a divine fish who swims up to the Ark
and guides it to a place of refuge.
The legend in Genesis is much closer to
the original myth, and, in fact, almost iden
tical with that of the deluge of Parnapishtim (formerly read as Hasisadra) in the
Chaldaean epic, discovered by Mr. George
Smith among the clay tablets in the British
Museum. This poem was obviously based
on an astronomical myth. It was in twelve
chapters, dedicated to the sun’s passage
through the twelve signs of the zodiac. The
adventures of Gilgamesh (formerly read as
Izdubar), like those of Heracles, have
obvious reference to these signs, and to the
sun’s birth, growth, summer splendour,
decline to the tomb when smitten with the
sickness of approaching winter by the in
censed Nature-goddess, and final new birth
and resurrection from the nether world.
The Deluge is introduced as an episode
told to Gilgamesh during his descent to the
lower regions by his ancestor Parnapishtim,
one of the God-kings, who are said to have
reigned for periods of tens of thousands of
years. It has every appearance of being a.
myth to commemorate the sun’s passage
through the rainy sign of Aquarius, just as
the contests of Izdubar and Heracles with
Leo, Taurus, Draco, Sagittarius, etc.,
symbolise his passage through other
zodiacal constellations.
It forms the
eleventh chapter of the Epic of Gilgamesh,
corresponding to the eleventh month of
the Chaldaean year, which was the time of
heavy rains and floods.
Now, this deluge of Parnapishtim, as
related by Berosus, and still more distinctly
by Smith’s Izdubar tablets, corresponds so
closely with that of Noah that no doubt can
remain that one is taken from the other.
All the principal incidents and the order of
events are the same, and even particular
expressions, such as the dove finding no
rest for the sole of her foot, are so identical
as to show that they must have been taken
from the same written record. Even the
name Noah is that of Nouah, the Semitic
translation of the Akkadian god who pre
sided over the realm of water, and navi
gated the bark or ark of the sun across it,
when returning from its setting in the west
to its rising in the east. The chief differ
ence is the same as in the Chaldaean and
Biblical cosmogonies of the creation of the
universe—viz., that theformer is Polytheistic,
and the latter Monotheistic. Where the
former talks of Bel, Ea, and Istar, the I
latter attributes everything to Jehovah or
Elohim. Thus the warning to Parnapish
tim is given in a dream sent by Ea, who is
a sort of Chaldaean Prometheus, or kindly
god, who wishes to save mankind from the
total destruction contemplated by the
wrathful superior god, Bel; while in
Genesis it is “Elohim said unto Noah.”
In Genesis the altar is built to the Lord,
who smells the sweet savour of the sacrifice,
while in the Chaldaean legend the altar is
built to the seven gods, who “ smelt the
sweet savour of sacrifice, and swarmed like
bees about it.”
The Chaldaean narrative is more prolix,
more realistic, and, on the whole, more
scientific. That is, it mitigates some of the
more obvious impossibilities ofthe Noachian
narrative. Instead of an ark, there is a
ship with a steersman, which was certainly
more likely to survive the perils of a long
voyage on the stormy waters of an universal
ocean. The duration of the Deluge and of
the voyage is shortened from a year to a
little more than a month; more human
beings are saved, as Parnapishtim takes
on board not his own family only, but
several of his friends and relations ; and
the difficulty of repeopling the earth from a
single centre is diminished by throwing the
date of the Deluge back to an immense and
mythical antiquity. On the other hand,
the moral and religious significance of the
legend is accentuated in the Hebrew
narrative. It is no longer the capricious
anger of an offended Bel which decrees the
destruction of mankind, but the righteous
indignation of the one Supreme God
against sin, tempered by justice and mercy
towards the upright man who was “ perfect
in his generations.”
I have dwelt at such length on the Deluge
because it affords a crucial test of the dogma
of Divine inspiration for the whole of the
Bible. The account of the Creation may
be obscured by forced interpretations and
misty eloquence ; but there can be no mis
take as to the specific and precise state
ments respecting the second creation of
man and of animal life. They are either
true or untrue ; and the issue is one upon
which any unprejudiced mind of ordinary
intelligence and information can arrive at a
conclusive verdict. If there nevei" was an
universal Deluge within historical times ; if
the highest mountains were never covered ;
if all life was never destroyed, except the
contents of the Ark; if the whole animal
creation, including beasts, birds, and creeping things, never lived together for twelve
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
months cooped-up in it ; and if the earth
was not repeopled with all the varieties of
the human race, and all the orders, genera,
and species of animal life, from a single
centre at Ararat, then the Bible is not in
spired as regards its scientific and historical
statements. This, however, in no way
affects the question of the inspiration (as
this is defined in the next chapter) of the
religious and moral portions of the Bible.
I have sometimes thought how, if 1 were
an advocate stating the case for the inspi
ration of the Bible, I should be inclined to
put it. I should start with Archbishop
Temple’s definition of the First Cause, a
personal God, with faculties like ours, but
so transcendentally greater that he had no
occasion to be perpetually patching and
mending his work, but did everything by
an “original impress,” which included all
subsequent evolution, as the nucleolus in
the primitive ovum includes the whole evo
lution and subsequent life of the chicken,
mammal, or man. I should go on to say
that the Bible has clearly been an important
factor in this evolution of the human race ;
that it consists of two portions—one of
moral and religious import, the other of
scientific statements and theories, relating
to such matters of purely human reason as
astronomy, geology, literary criticism, and
ancient history ; and that these two parts
are essentially different. It is quite con
ceivable that, on the hypothesis of a Divine
Creator, one step in the majestic evolution
from the original impress should have
been that men of genius and devout
nature should write books containing juster
notions of man’s relations to his Maker
than prevailed in the polytheisms of early
civilisations, and thus gradually educating
a peculiar people who accepted these
writings as sacred, and preparing the
ground for a still higher and purer religion.
But it is not conceivable that this, which
may be called inspiration of the religious
and moral teaching, should have been
extended to closing the record of all human
discovery and progress, by teaching, as it
were by rote, all that subsequent genera
tions have, after long and painful effort,
found out for themselves.
In point of fact, the Bible does not teach
such truths, for in the domain of science it
is full of the most obvious errors, and
teaches nothing but what were the primitive
myths, legends, and traditions of the early
races. It is to be observed also that, on
the theory of “ original impress,” those
errors are just as much a part of the
77
evolution of the Divine idea as the moral
and religious truths. Those who insist
that all or none of the Bible must be
inspired, remind me of the king who said
that, if God had only consulted him in his
scheme of creation, he could have saved
him from a good many mistakes. It is not
difficult to understand how even if we
assume the theory of inspiration, or of
original impress, for the religious portion
of the Bible, the other or scientific portion
should have been purposely left open to all
the errors and contradictions of the human
intellect in its early strivings to arrive at
some sort of conception of the origin of
things, and of the laws of the universe.
And also that a collection of narratives of
different dates and doubtful authorship
should bear on the face of them evidence
of the writers sharing in the errors and
prejudices, and generally adopting points
of view of successive generations of con
temporaries.
Assuming this theory, I can only say for
myself that the removal of the wet blanket
of literal inspiration makes me turn to the
Bible with increased interest. It is a most
valuable record of the ways of thinking,
and of the early conceptions of religion
and science in the ancient world, and a
most instructive chapter in the history of
the evolution of the human mind from
lower to higher things. _ Above all, it is a
record of the preparation of the soil, in a
peculiar race, for Christianity, which has
been and is such an important factor in
the history of the foremost races and
highest civilisations. With all the errors
"and absurdities, all the crimes and cruelties
which have attached themselves to it, but
which in the light of science and free
thought are rapidly being sloughed off, it
cannot be denied that the European, and
especially our English-speaking races,
stand on a higher platform than would have
been reached had the Saracens been vic
torious at Tours, with the result, in Gibbon’s
words, that “ perhaps the interpretation of
the Koran would now be taught at Oxford,”
while her pulpits demonstrated “ to a cir
cumcised people the sanctity and truth of
the revelation of Mohammed.”
�78
HUMAN ORIGINS
CHAPTER VII.
impress,” though possibly, with our limited
faculties. and knowledge, I might think
“ Evolution” a more modest term to apply
to that “increasing purpose” which the
poet tells us—
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE
OLD TESTAMENT
“ Thro’ the ages runs,
Ana the thoughts of men are widened with the
process of the suns.”
Moral and Religious distinct from Historical
Inspiration—Myth and Allegory—The Higher
Criticism—-Ancient History and Monuments
—Cyrus—Composite Structure of Old Testa
ment—Elohist and Jehovist—Priests’ CodeCanon Driver—Book of Chronicles—Methods
of Jewish Historians—Post-Exilic References
— Tradition of Esdras—Nehemiah and Ezra—
Foundation of Modern Judaism—Different
from Pre-Exilic—Discovery of Book of the
Law under Josiah—Deuteronomy—Earliest
Sacred Writings—Conclusions—Aristocratic
and Prophetic Schools—Triumph of Pietism
—Pre-Abrahamic and Patriarchal Period
mythical—Discordant Chronology—Josephus’
Quotation from Manetho—Doubtful Traces
of Egyptian Influence—Future Life—Legend
of Joseph—Moses—Osarsiph—Life of Moses
full of Legends—-His Birth—Plagues of
Egypt—The Exoci us — Colenso — Contradic
tions and Impossibilities •— Immoralities —
Massacres — Joshua and the Judges—Bar
barisms and Absurdities—Only safe Conclu
sion no Authentic History before the
Monarchy—David and Solomon—Compara
tively Modern Date.
But, admitting this, I do not see how
any one who is at all acquainted with the
results of modern science and of historical
criticism can doubt that the materials with
which this edifice was gradually built up
consist, to a great extent, of myths, legends,
and traditions of rude and unscientific ages
which have no pretension to be true state
ments or real history.
After all, this is only applying to the Old
the same principles of interpretation which
are applied to the New Testament. If the
theory of literal inspiration requires us to
accept the manifest impossibilities ofNoah’s
Deluge, why does it not equally compel us
to believe that there really was a rich man
who fared sumptuously every day, a beggar
named Lazarus, and that there are definite
localities of a Heaven and Hell within
speaking distance of one another, though
separated by an impassable gulf? The
assertion is made positively and without
any reservation. There was a rich man ;
Lazarus died, and was carried to Abraham's
bosom; and Dives cried to Abraham, who
answered him in a detailed colloquy. But
common-sense steps in and says all this
never actually occurred, but was invented
to illustrate by a parable the moral truth
that it is wrong for the selfish rich to
neglect the suffering poor.
Why should not common sense equally
step in, and say of the narrative of the
Garden of Eden, with its trees of Knowledge
and of Life, that here is an obvious allegory,
stating the problem which has perplexed so
many generations of men, of the origin of
evil, man’s dual nature, and how to recon
cile the fact of the existence of sin and
suffering with the theory of a benevolent
and omnipotent Creator? Or again, why
hesitate to admit that the story of the
Deluge is not literal history, but a version
of a chapter of an old Chaldaean solar epic,
revised in a monotheistic sense, and used
for the purpose of impressing the lesson
that the ways of sin are ways of destruc
tion, and that righteousness is the true path
of safety ? This is in effect what Conti
nental critics have long recognised, and
what the most liberal and learned Anglican
Divines of the present day are beginning
In dealing with the historical portion of
the Old Testament, it is important to keep
clearly in view the distinction between the
historical and the religious and moral
elements which are contained in the collec
tion of works comprised under that title. It
is open to any one to hold that there runs
through the whole of these writings a
certain moral and religious idea, which is
gradually developed from rude beginnings
into pure and lofty views of an Almighty
God who created all things, and who loves
justice and mercy better than the blood of
mules and rams. It is open to him to call
this inspiration, and to see it also in the
series of influences and events by which
the Jews were moulded into a peculiar
people, through whose instrumentality the
two great Monotheistic religions of the
world, Judaism and Mohammedanism, and
the quasi-Monotheistic (for it is in essence
Tritheistic) Christianity, superseded the
. older forms of polytheism.
With inspiration in this sense I have no
quarrel, any more than I have with Arch
bishop Temple’s definition of “original
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
to recognise; for we find Oxford Pro
fessors like Canon Driver and Canon
Cheyne insisting on “the fundamental im
portance of disengaging the religious from
the critical and historical problems of the
Old Testament.” We hear a great deal
about the “ higher criticism,” and those who
dislike its conclusions try to represent it as
something very obscure and unintelligible,
spun from the inner consciousness of
German pedants. But there is nothing
obscure about it. It is simply the criticism
of common sense applied from a higher
point of view, which embraces, not the
immediate subject only, but all branches of
human knowledge which are related to it.
This new criticism bears the same relation
to the old as Mommsen’s History of Rome
does to the school-boy manuals which used
to assume Romulus and Remus, Numa and
Tarquin, as real men who lived and reigned
just as certainly as Julius Caesar and
Augustus.
This criticism has now been so systema
tised by the labours of a number of earnest
and learned men in all the principal
countries of Europe that it has risen to the
dignity and security of a science; and,
although there are still differences as to
details, its leading theories are no more in
dispute than those of Geology or Biology.
The conclusions of enlightened English
divines like Driver, Sayce, and Cheyne are
practically the same as those of Kuenen,
Wellhausen, Dillmann, and Renan, and
any one who wishes to have any intelli
gent understanding of the Hebrew Bible
must take those conclusions into con
sideration.
Although the Old Testament does not
carry history back nearly as far as the
records of Egypt and Chaldasa, it affords
a very interesting picture of the ways of
thinking of ancient races, of speculations
about their origin and diffusion, of their
manners and customs, of their popular
legends and traditions, and of their first
attempts to solve problems of science and
philosophy.
It is with these historical matters only
that I propose to deal, and this not in the
way of minute criticism, but of the broad,
common-sense aspects of the question, and
in view of the salient facts which rise up
like guiding pillars in the vast mass of
literature on the subject, of which it may
be said, in the words of St. John’s Gospel,
that, if all that has been written were
collected, “ I suppose that even the world
itself could not contain the books.”
79
I may begin by referring to the extreme
uncertainty that attaches to all ancient
history unless it is confirmed by monu
ments, or by comparison with annals of
other nations which have been so confirmed.
The instance of Cyrus, which has been
already given, is a most instructive one, since
it teaches us to regard with considerable
doubt all history prior to the fifth or sixth
century B.c. which is not confirmed by
contemporary monuments.
The historical portion of the Old Testa
ment is singularly deficient in this essential
point of confirmation.
But we are
somewhat anticipating matters which fall
more fitly into place later on, and the first
thing necessary is to have some clear idea
of what this Old Testament really consists.
Until the recent era of scientific criticism,
it was assumed to constitute, in effect, one
volume, the earlier chapters of which were
written by Moses, and the later ones by a
continuance of the same Divine inspiration,
which made the Bible from Genesis to
Chronicles one consistent and infallible
whole, in which it was impossible that
there should be any error or contradiction.
Such a theory could not stand a' moment’s
investigation in the free light of reason.
It is only necessary to read the first two
chapters of Genesis to see that the book is
of a composite structure, made up of
different and inconsistent elements. We
have only to include in the first chapter the
first two verses printed in the second
chapter, and to write the original Hebrew
word “Elohim’’for “God,” and “Yahve”
or Jehovah for “Lord God,” to see this at
a glance.
The two accounts of the creation of the
heaven and earth, of animal and vegetable
life, and of man, are quite different. In
the first, man is created last, male and
female, in the image of God, with dominion
over all the previous forms of matter and
of life, which have been created for his
benefit. In the second, man is formed
from the dust of the earth immediately
after the creation of the heavens and earth
and of the vegetable world; and subse
quently all the beasts of the field and fowls
of the air are formed out of the ground, and
brought to Adam to name, while, last of all,
woman is made frorfi a rib taken from
Adam.
The two narratives, Elohistic and Jehovistic, thus distinguished by the different
names of God and by a number of other
peculiarities,run almost side by side through
a great part of the earlier portion of the
�8o
HUMAN ORIGINS
Old Testament, presenting often flagrant
contradictions.
Thus Lamech, the father of Noah, is re
presented in one as a descendant of Cain,
in the other, of Seth. Canaan is in one the
grandson of Adam, in the other the grand
son of Noah. The Elohistsays that Noah
took two of each sort of living things, a
male and a female, into the ark ; the Jehovist that he took seven pairs of clean, and
single pairs of unclean, animals.
The difference between these narratives,
the Elohistic and Jehovistic, is, however,
only the first and most obvious instance of
the composite.character of the Pentateuch.
These narratives are distinguished from
one another by a number of minute
peculiarities of language and expressions,
and they are both embedded in the much
larger mass of matter which relates mainly
to the sacrificial and ceremonial system of
the Israelites, and to the position, privi
leges, and functions of the priests and
priestly caste of Levites. This is com
monly known as the “ Priests’ Code,” and
a great deal of it is obviously of late date,
having relation to practices and ceremonies
which had gradually grown up after the
foundation of the Temple at Jerusalem.
A vast amount of erudition has been
expended in the minute analysis of these
different documents by learned scholars
who have devoted their lives to the subject.
I shall not attempt to enter upon it, but
content myself with taking the main results
from Canon Driver, both because he is
thoroughly competent from his knowledge
of the latest foreign criticism and from
his position as Professor of Hebrew, and
because he cannot be suspected of any
adverse leaning to the old orthodox views.
In fact he is a strenuous advocate of the
inspiration of the Bible, taken in the
larger sense of the religious and moral
purpose underlying the often mistaken
and conflicting statements of fallible
writers.
The conclusions at which he arrives, in
common with a great majority of competent
critics in all countries, are :—
1. That the old orthodox belief that the
Pentateuch is one work written by Moses
is quite untenable.
2. That the Pentateuch and Book of
Joshua have been formed by the combina
tion of different layers of narrative, each
marked by characteristic features of its
own.
3. That the Elohistic and Jehovistic
narratives, which are the oldest portion of I
the. collection, have nothing archaic in
their style, but belong to the golden period
of Hebrew literature, the date assigned to
them by most critics being not earlier than
the eighth or ninth century B.c., though of
course they may be founded partly on older
legends and traditions ; and, on the other
hand, they contain many passages which
could only have been introduced by some
post-exilic editor.
4. That Deuteronomy, which is placed.
almost unanimously by critics in the reign
of either Josiah or Manasseh, is absolutely
inconsistent in many respects with the
Priests’ Code, and apparently of earlier
date, before the priestly system had crystal
lised into such a definite code of minute
regulations as we find it in the later days
of Jewish history after the Exile.
5. There is a difference of opinion, how
ever, in respect to the date of the Priests’
Code, Kuenen, Wellhausen, and Graf hold
ing it to be post-Deuteronomic, and pro
bably committed to writing during the
period from the beginning of the exile to
the time of Nehemiah, while Dillmann
assigns the main body to about 800
B.c., though admitting that additions
may have been made as late as the time
of Ezra.
Being concerned mainly with the his
torical question, I shall not attempt to
pursue this higher criticism further, but
content myself with referring to the prin
cipal points which, judged by the broad
conclusions of common sense, stand out
as guiding pillars in the mass of details.
Taking these in ascending order of time,
they seem to me to be—
1. The Book of Chronicles.
2. The foundation of modern Judaism as
described in the Books of Ezra and Nehe
miah.
3. The discovery of the Book of the Law
or Deuteronomy in the reign of Josiah.
The Book of Chronicles is important
because we know its date—viz., about 300
B.c., and to a great extent the materials
from which it was compiled—viz., the Books
of Samuel and Kings. We have thus an
object-lesson as to the way in which a
Hebrew writer, as late as 300 B.c., or nearly
300 years after the exile, composed history
and treated the earlier records. It is totally
different from the method of a classical or
modern historian, and may be aptly de
scribed as a “ scissors and paste ” method.
That is to say, he makes excerpts from the
sources at his disposal; sometimes inserts
them consecutively and without alteration ;
�81
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
at other times makes additions and changes
of his own ; and, in Canon Driver’s words,
“does not scruple to omit wha^ is not
required for his purpose, and in fact treats
his authorities with considerable freedom.”
He also does not scruple to put into the
mouth of David and other historical
characters of the olden time speeches which,
from their spirit, grammar, and vocabulary,
are evidently of his own age and composi
tion.
If this was the method of a writer as late
as 300 B.C., whose work was afterwards
received as canonical, two things are evi
dent. First, that the canon of the earlier
Books of the Old Testament could not have
been then fixed and invested with the same
sacred authority as we find to be the case
two or three centuries later, when the Thora,
or Book of Moses and the Prophets, was
regarded very much as the Moslems regard
the Koran, as an inspired volume which it
was impious to alter by a single jot or tittle.
This late date for fixing the canon of the
Books of the Old Testament is confirmed
by Canon Cheyne’s learned and exhaustive
work on the Psalter, in which he shows that
a great majority of the Psalms; attributed
to David, were written in the time of the
Maccabees, and that there are only one or
two doubtful cases in which it can be
plausibly contended that any of the Psalms
are pre-exilic.
Secondly, that if a_writer, as late as 300
B.C., could employ this method, and get his
work accepted as a part of the Sacred
Canon, a writer who lived earlier, say any
time between the Chronicler and the founda
tion of the Jewish Monarchy, might pro
bably adopt the same methods. If the
Chronicler put a speech of his own compo
sition into the mouth of David, the Deuteronomist might well do so in the case of
Moses. According to the ideas of the age
and country, this would not be considered
to be what we moderns would call literary
forgery, but rather a legitimate and praise
worthy means of giving authority to good
precepts and sentiments.
A perfect illustration of the “scissors
and paste” method is afforded by the
first and second chapters of Genesis,
and the way in which the Elohistic
and Jehovistic narratives are so strangely
intermingled throughout the Pentateuch.
No attempt is made to blend the two narraifives into one harmonious and consistent
whole, but excerpts, sometimes from one and
sometimes from the other, are placed
together without any attempt to explain
away the evident contradictions, Clearly
the same hand could not have written both
narratives, and the compilation must have
been made by some subsequent editor, or
editors, for there is conclusive proof that
the final edition, as it has come down to us,
could not have been made until after the
Exile. Thus in Leviticus xxvi. we find, “ I
will scatter you among the heathen, and
your land shall be desolate, and your cities
waste,” and “ they that are left of you shall
pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’
land.” And in Deuteronomy xxix., “ And
the Lord rooted them out of their land in
anger, and in wrath, and in great indigna
tion, and cast them into another land, as it
is to this day.” Even in Genesis, which
professes to be the earliest Book, we find
(xii. 6), “ and the Canaanite was then in the
land.” This could not have been written
until the memory of the Canaanite had
become a tradition of a remote past, and
this could not have been until after the
return of the Jews from the Babylonian
Captivity, for we find from the Books of
Ezra and Nehemiah that the Canaanites
were then still in the land, and the Jewish
leaders, and even priests and Levites, were
intermarrying freely with Canaanite wives.
The Apocryphal Book of Esdras contains
a legend that, the sacred books of the Law
having been lost or destroyed when Jeru
salem was taken by Nebuchadrezzar, they
were re-written miraculously by Ezra dic
tating to five ready writers at once in a
wonderfully short time. This is a counter
part of the legend of the Septuagint being
a translation of the Hebrew text into Greek,
made by seventy different translators, whose
separate versions agreed down to the
minutest particular. This legend, in the
case of the Septuagint, is based on an
historical fact that there really was a Greek
translation of the Hebrew Sacred Books
made by order of Ptolemy Philadel/phus;
and it may well be that the legend of
Esdras contains some reminiscence of an
actual fact, that among the other reforms
introduced by Ezra a new and complete
edition of the old writings was made and
stamped with a sacred character.
These reforms, and the condition of the
Jewish people after the return from the
Captivity, as disclosed by the Books of
Nehemiah and Ezra, afford what I call the
second guiding pillar, in our attempt to
trace backwards the course of Jewish his
tory. Those books were indeed not written
in their present form until a later period,
and, as most critics think, by the same hand
G
�82
HUMAN ORIGINS
as Chronicles; but there is no reason to
doubt the substantial accuracy of the his
torical statements, which relate, not to a
remote antiquity, but to a comparatively
recent period after the use of writing had
become general. They constitute, in fact,
the dividing line between ancient and
modern Judaism, and show us the origin of
the latter.
Modern Judaism—that is, the religious
and social life of the Jewish people, since
they fairly entered into the current of
modern history, has been marked by many
strong and characteristic peculiarities.
The Jews have been zealously, almost
fanatically, attached to the idea of one
Supreme God, Jehovah, with whom they
had a special covenant inherited from
Abraham, and whose will, in regard to all
religious rites and ceremonies and social
usages, was conveyed to them in a sacred
book containing the inspired writings of
Moses and the Prophets. This led them
to consider themselves a peculiar people,
and to regard all other nations with aver
sion, as being idolaters and unclean, feel
ings which were returned by the rest of the
world, so that they stood alone, hating and
being hated. No force or persuasion was
required in order to prevent them from
lapsing into idolatry or intermarrying with
heathen women. On the contrary, they
were inspired to the most heroic efforts,
and ready to endure the severest sufferings
and martyrdom for the pure faith. The
belief in the sacred character of their
ancient writings gradually crystallised into
a faith as absolute as that of the Moslems
in the Koran; a canon was formed, and
although, as we have seen in the case of
the Chronicles and Psalms, some time
must have elapsed before this sacred cha
racter was fully recognised, it ended in a
theory of the literal inspiration of every
word of the Old Testament down even to
the commas and vowel points, and in the
establishment of learned schools of Scribes
and Pharisees, whose literary labours were
concentrated on expounding the text in
synagogues, and writing volumes of Tal
mudic commentaries of unsurpassed
tediousness.
Now, during the period preceding the
Exile all this was very different. So far
from being zealous for one Supreme God,
Jehovah was long recognised only as a
tribal.or national god, one among the many
gods of surrounding nations, but primus
inter pares, or “ first among equals.” When
the idea of a Supreme Deity, who loved
justice and mercy better than the blood of
bullocks and rams, was at length elaborated
by the later prophets, it received but scant
acceptance. The great majority of the
kings and people, both of Judah and Israel,
were always ready to lapse into idolatry,
worship strange gods, golden calves, and
brazen serpents, and flock to the alluring
rites of Baal and Astarte in groves and
high places. They were also always ready
to intermarry freely with heathen wives,
and to form political alliances with heathen
nations. There is no trace of the religious
and social repulsion towards other races
which forms such a marked trait in modern
Judaism. Nor, as we shall see presently,
is there any evidence, prior to the reign of
Josiah, of anything like a sacred book or
code of divine laws, universally known and
accepted. The Books of Nehemiah and
Ezra afford invaluable evidence of the time
and manner in which this modern Judaism
was stamped upon the character of the
people after the return from exile. We are
told that when Ezra came to Jerusalem
from Babylon, armed with a decree of
Artaxerxes, he was scandalised at finding
that nearly all the Jews, including the
principal nobles and many priests and
Levites,had intermarried with the daughters
of the people of the land, “of the Canaanites,
Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites,
Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites.”
Backed by Nehemiah, the cup-bearer and
favourite of Artaxerxes, who had been
appointed governor of Jerusalem, he per
suaded or compelled the J ews to put away
these wives and their children, and to
separate themselves as a peculiar people
from other nations.
It was a cruel act, characteristic of the
fanatical spirit of priestly domination,
which, when these conflict with its aggran
disement, never hesitates to trample on the
natural affections and the laws of charity
and mercy. But it was the means of crystal
lising the Jewish race into a mould so rigid
that it defied wars, persecutions, and all
dissolving influences, and preserved the
idea of Monotheism which was to grow up
into the world-wide religions of Christianity
and Mohammedanism. So true is it that
evolution works out its results by un
expected means often opposed to what
seem like the best instincts of human
nature.
What is important, however, is to ob
serve that clearly at this date the popu
lation of the Holy Land must have
consisted mainly of the descendants of
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
the old races, who had been con
quered, but not exterminated, by the
Israelites. Such a sentence as “for the
Canaanites were then in the land” could
not have been written till long after the
time when the Jews were intermarrying
freely with Canaanite wives. Nor does it
seem possible that codes, such as those of
Leviticus, Numbers, and the Priests’ Code,
could have been generally known and
accepted as sacred books written by Moses
under Divine inspiration, when the rulers,
nobles, and even priests and Levites acted
in such apparent ignorance of them. In
fact, we are told in Nehemiah that Ezra
read and explained the Book of the Law,
whatever that may have included, to the
people, who apparently had no previous
knowledge of it.
By far the most important landmark,
however, in the history of the Old Testa
ment is afforded by the account in 2 Kings
xxii. and xxiii. of the discovery of the Book
of the Law in the Temple in the eighteenth
year of the reign of Josiah. It says that
Shaphan the scribe, having been sent by
the king to Hilkiah the high priest, to
obtain an account of the silver collected
from the people for the repairs of the
Temple, Hilkiah told him that he had
“ found the Book of the Law in the house
of the Lord.” Shaphan brought it to the
king and read it to him ; whereupon Josiah,
in great consternation at finding that so
many of its injunctions had been violated,
and that such dreadful penalties were
threatened, rent his clothes, and, being con
firmed in his fears by Huldah the pro
phetess, proceeded to take stringent
measures to stamp out idolatry, which,
from the account given in 2 Kings xxiii.,
seems to have been almost universal. We
read of vessels consecrated to Baal and to
the host of heaven in the Temple itself,
and of horses and chariots of the Sun at its
entrance ; of idolatrous priests who had
been ordained by the kings of Judah to
burn incense “unto Baal, to the Sun, and
to the Moon, and to the planets, and to all
the host of heaven and of high places
close to Jerusalem, with groves, images,
and altars, which had been built by Solo
mon to Ashtaroth, the goddess of the
Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moab
ites, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites,
and had apparently remained undisturbed
and places of popular worship ever since
the time of Solomon.
On any ordinary principles of criticism it
is impossible to doubt that, if this narrative
83
is correct, there could have been no pre
vious Book of the Law in existence,
and generally recognised as a volume
written by Divine inspiration. When even
such a great and wise king as Solomon
could establish such a system of idolatry,
and pious kings like Hezekiah, and Josiah
during the first eighteen years of his reign,
could allow it to continue, there could have
been no knowledge that it was in direct
contravention of the most essential pre
cepts of a sacred law dictated by Jehovah
to Moses. It is generally admitted by
critics that the Book of the Law discovered
by Hilkiah was Deuteronomy, or rather
perhaps an earlier or shorter original of the
Deuteronomy which has come down to us,
and which had already been re-edited with
additions after the Exile. The title
“ Deuteronomy,” which might seem to
imply that it was a supplement to an earlier
law, is taken, like the other headings of the
books of the Old Testament in our Bible,
from the Septuagint version, and in the
original Hebrew the heading is “ The Book
of the Law.” The internal evidence points
also to Deuteronomy, as placing the threats
of punishment and promises of reward
mainly on moral grounds, in the spirit
of the later prophets, such as Isaiah, who
lived shortly before the discovery of the
book by Hilkiah. And it is apparent that,
when Deuteronomy was written, the Priests’
Code, which forms such an important part
of the other books of the Pentateuch, could
not have been known, because so many of
the ceremonial rites and usages are clearly
inconsistent with it.
It is not to be inferred that there were
no writings in existence before the reign of
Josiah. Doubtless annals of the principal
events of each reign from the foundation
of the Monarchy had been kept, and many
of the old legends and traditions of the
race had been collected and reduced to
writing during the period from Solomon to
the later kings.
The Priests’ Code also, though of later
date in its complete form, was doubtless
not an invention of any single priest, but a
compilation of usages, some of which had
long existed, while others had grown up in i
connection with the Second Temple after
the return from exile. So also the civil
and social legislation was not a code pro
mulgated, like the Code Napoleon, by any
one monarch or high priest, but a compila
tion from usages and precedents which had
come to be received as having an established
authority. But what is plainly inconsistent
�84
HUMAN ORIGINS
with the account of the discovery of the
Book of the Law in the reign of Josiah is
the supposition that there had been, in
long previous existence, a collection of
sacred books, recognised as a Bible or
work of Divine inspiration, as the Old
Testament came to be among the Jews of
the first or second century B.c.
It is to be observed that, among early
nations, such historical annals and legisla
tive enactments never form the first stratum
of a sacred literature, which consists invari
ably of hymns, prayers, ceremonial rites,
and astronomical or astrological myths
Thus the Rig Veda of the Hindoos, the
early portions of the Vendidad of the
Iranians, the Book of the Dead of the
Egyptians, and the penitential psalms and
invocations of the Chaldaeans, formed the
oldest sacred books, about which codes and
commentaries, and in some cases historical
allusions and biographies, gradually accu
mulated, though never attaining to quite
an equal authority.
There is abundant internal evidence in
the books of the Old Testament which
profess to be older than the reign of Josiah,
to show that they are in great part, at any
rate, of later compilation, and could not
have been recognised as the sacred Thora
or Bible of the nation. To take a single
instance, that of Solomon. Is it conceiv
able that this greatest and wisest of kings,
who had held personal commune with
Jehovah, and who knew everything
il even unto the hyssop that springeth
out of the wall,” could have been ignorant
of such a sacred book if it had been
in existence? And if he had known
it, or even the Decalogue, is it conceivable
that he should have totally ignored its first
and fundamental precepts, “Thou shalt
have no other gods but me,” and “Thou
shalt not make unto thyself any graven
image”? Could uxoriousness, divided
among 700 wives, have turned the heart
of such a monarch so completely as to
make him worship Ashtaroth and Milcom,
and build high places for Chemosh and
Moloch ? And could he have done this
without the opposition, and apparently with
the approval, of the priests and the people ?
And again, could these high places and
altars and vessels dedicated to Baal and
the host of heaven have been allowed to
remain in the Temple, down to the
eighteenth year of Josiah, under a succes
sion of kings several of whom were reputed
to be pious servants of Jehovah ? And the
idolatrous tendencies of the ten tribes of
Israel, who formed the majority of the
Hebrew race, and had a common history
and traditions, are even more apparent.
In the speeches put into the mouth of
Solomon in 1 Kings, in which reference is
made to “ statutes and commandments
spoken by Jehovah by the hand of Moses,”
there is abundant evidence that their com
position must be assigned to a much later
date. They are full of references to the
captivity in a foreign land and return from
exile (1 Kings viii. 46-53 and ix. 6-9).
Similar references to the Exile are found
throughout the Book of Kings, and even in
Books of the Pentateuch which profess to
be written by Moses. If such a code of
sacred writings had been in existence in the
time of. Josiah, instead of rending his
clothes in dismay when Shaphan brought
him the Book of the Law found by Hilkiah,
he would have said, “ Why, this is only a
different version of what we know already.”
On the whole, the evidence points to this
conclusion. The idea of one Supreme
God who was a Spirit, while all other gods
were mere idols made by men’s hands ;
who created and ruled all things in heaven
and earth; and who loved justice and
mercy rather than the blood of rams and
bullocks, was slowly evolved from the crude
conceptions of a jealous, vindictive, and
cruel anthropomorphic local god, by the
prophets and best minds of Israel after it
had settled down under the Monarchy into ■
a civilised and cultured state. It appears
for the first time distinctly in Isaiah and
Amos, and was never popular with the
majority of the kings and upper classes, or
with the mass of the nation until the Exile;
but it gradually gained ground during the
calamities of the later days, when Assyrian
armies were . threatening destruction. A
strong opposition arose in the later reigns
between the aristocracy, who looked on the
situation from a political point of view and
trusted to armies and alliances, and what
may be called the pietist or evangelical
party of the prophets, who took a purely
religious view of matters, and considered
the misfortunes of the country as a conse
quence of its sins, to be averted only by
repentance and Divine interposition.
It was a natural, and, under the circum
stances of the age and country, quite a
justifiable, proceeding on the part of the
prophetic school to endeavour to stamp
their views with Divine authority, and re
commend them for acceptance as coming
from Moses, the traditional deliverer of
Israel from Egypt. For this purpose no doubt
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
numerous materials existed in the form of
legends, traditions, customs, and old records,
and very probably some of those had been
collected and reduced to writing, like the
Sagas of the old Norsemen, though without
any idea of collecting them into a sacred
volume.
The first attempt in this direction was
made in the reign of Josiah, and it had only
a partial success, as we find the nation
“ doing evil in the sight of the Lord ”—that
is, relapsing into the old idolatrous prac
tices, in the reigns of his three next suc
cessors, Jehoiachin, Jehoiachim, and Zedechiah. But the crowning calamity of the
capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar,
and the seventy years’ exile, seems to have
crushed out the old aristocratic and national
party, and converted all the leading minds
among the Jews of the Captivity, including
the priests, to the prophetical view that the
essence of the question was the religious
one, and that the only hope for the future
lay in repentance for sins and in drawing
closer to the worship of Jehovah and the
Covenant between him and his chosen
people. Prophets disappear from this
period because priests, scribes, and rulers
had adopted their views, and there was no
longer room for itinerant and unofficial
missionaries. Under such circumstances
the religion, after the return from the Exile,
crystallised rapidly into definite forms.
Creeds, rituals, and sacred books were
multiplied down to the third century B.C.,
or later, when the canon was closed with
the Books of Chronicles and Daniel and
the later Psalms, and the era began of
commentaries on the text, every word of
which was held to be infallibly inspired.
The different crystals in solution have
now united into one large crystal of fixed
form, and henceforward we are in the full
age of Talmudism and Pharisaism.
It is not to be supposed, however, that
the books which thus came to be considered
sacred were the inventions of priests and
scribes of this later age. Doubtless they
were based to a great extent on old tradi
tions, legends, and written annals and
records, compiled perhaps in the reigns of
Solomon and his successors, but based
on still older materials. The very
crudeness of many of the representa
tions, and the barbarism of manners, point
to an early original. It is impossible to
conceive any contemporary of Isaiah, or of
the cultured court of Solomon, describing
the Almighty ruler of the universe as show
ing his hinder part to Moses, or as sewing
85
skins to clothe Adam and Eve; and the
conception of a jealous and vindictive
Jehovah who commanded the indiscriminate
massacre of prisoners of war, women and
children, must be far removed from that of
a God who loved justice and mercy. These
crude, impossible, and immoral representa
tions must have existed in the form of
Sagas during the early and semi-barbarous
stage of the people of Israel, and become
so rooted in the popular mind that they
could not be neglected when authors of
later ages came to fix the old traditions in
writing, and hence religious reformers used
them in endeavouring to enforce higher views
and a purer morality. It is from this jungle
of old legends and traditions, written and
re-written, edited and re-edited, many times
over, to suit the ideas of various stages of
advancing civilisation, that we have to pick
out as we best can what is really historical
prior to the foundation of the Monarchy,
from which time downwards we doubtless
have more or less authentic annals, which
meet with confirmations from Egyptian
and Assyrian history.
To the two accounts of the creation of
the universe and of man in Genesis, contra
dictory with one another, and each hopelessly
inconsistent with the best established con
clusions of astronomy, geology, ethnology,
and other sciences, there follows the story
of ten antediluvian patriarchs, who live on
the average 847 years each, and who
correspond with the ten gods or demi
gods in the Chaldaean mythology ; while
side by side with this genealogy is a
fragment of one which is entirely different,
mentioning seven only of the ten patriarchs,
and tracing the descent of Enoish and Noah
from Adam through Cain instead of through
Seth.
Then comes the Deluge, with all the
flagrant impossibilities which have been
pointed out in a preceding chapter ; the
building of the Tower of Babel, with the
dispersion of mankind and confusion of
languages, equally opposed to the most
certain conclusions of history, ethnology,
and philology. The descent from Noah to
Abraham is then traced through ten other
patriarchs, whose ages average 394 years
each; and similar genealogies are given for
the descendants of the other two sons of
Noah, Ham and Japheth. It is evident
that these genealogies are not history,
but ethnology of a very rude and
primitive description, by a writer with im
perfect knowledge and a limited range of
vision. A great majority of the primitive
�86
HUMAN ORIGINS
races of the world, such as the Negroes
and the Mongolians, are omitted altogether,
and Semitic Canaan is coupled with Hittite
as a descendant not of Shem but of Ham.
It is unnecessary to go into details, for
when we find such an instance as that
Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, it is
evident that this does not mean that two
such men really lived. It is an Oriental
way of stating that the Phoenicians were of
the same race as the Canaanites, and that
Sidon was their earliest sea-port on the
shore of the Mediterranean.
The whole Biblical literature to the
time of the Exodus is clearly myth and
legend, and not history ; and whoever will
compare it dispassionately with the much
older Chaldaean myths and legends known
to us from Berosus and the tablets can
hardly doubt that both are derived from a
common source, and revised at a later date
—that of the Hebrew in a monotheistic
sense. The cuneiform tablets discovered
at Tel-el-Amarna in Egypt in 1887, evi
dencing the use of the Babylonian language
in Canaan at a date not later than 1700
B.C., warrant the inference that Babylonian
legends may have been imported thither,
and that on the settlement of the Israelites
in that country these legends were incor
porated with their traditions, and, abiding
among them, were woven into the Penta
teuch when priestly and prophetic hands
gave it final shape. As an example of the
changes which the materials underwent,
where the Chaldaean solar epic of Izdubar,
in the chapter on the passage of the sun
through the rainy sign of Aquarius, which
describes the Deluge, says that “ the gods
smelt the sweet savour of the sacrifice
offered by Parnapishtim on emerging from
the ark, and flocked like flies about the
altar,” Genesis says simply that “ the Lord
smelled a sweet savour”; and where the
mixture of a divine and animal nature in
man is symbolised in the Chaldaean legend
by Bel cutting off his own head and knead
ing the clay with the blood into the first
man, the Jehovist narrative in Genesis ii.
says that “ the Lord God formed man from
the dust of the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life.”
When we arrive at Abraham we feel as if
we might be treading on really historical
ground. There is the universal tradition of
the Hebrew race that he was their ancestor,
and his figure is very like what in the un
changing East may be met with to the
present day. We seem to see the dignified
sheik sitting at the door of his tent dis
pensing hospitality, raiding with his retainers
on the rear of a retreating army and cap
turing booty, and much exercised by
domestic difficulties between the women of
his household. Surely this is an historical
figure. But when we look closer, doubts
and difficulties appear. In the first place,
the name “ Abram ” suggests that of an
eponymous ancestor, like Shem for the
Semites, or Canaa-n for the Canaanites.
Abram, Sayce tells us, is the Babylonian.
Abu-ramer or “ exalted father,” a name
much more likely to be given to a mythical
ancestor than to an actual man. This is
rendered more probable by the fact that, as
we have already seen, the genealogy of
Abraham traced upwards consists mainly of
eponyms, while those which radiate from
him downwards are of the same character.
Thus two of his sons by Keturah are Jokshan and Midian; and Sheba, Dedan, and
Assurim are among his descendants. Again,
Abraham is said to have lived for 175
years, and to have had a son by Sarah when
she was ninety-nine and he was one hun
dred ; and a large family by Keturah, whom
he married after Sarah’s death. Figures
such as these are a sure test that legend
has taken the place of authentic history.
Another circumstance which tells strongly
against the historical character of Abraham
is his connection with Lot, and the legend
of Lot’s wife. The history of this legend
is a curious one. For many centuries, in
fact, down to quite modern times, the vol
canic phenomena of the Dead Sea were
appealed to as convincing confirmations of
the account in Genesis of the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrha, and hundreds of
pious pilgrims saw, touched, and tasted the
identical pillar of salt into which Lot’s wife
was changed. It is now certain that the
volcanic eruptions were of an earlier geo
logical age, and that the story of Lot’s wife
is owing to the disintegration of a stratum
of salt marl, which weathers away under
the action of wind and rain into columnar
masses, like those in a similar formation in
Catalonia described by Lyell. Innumer
able travellers and pilgrims from early
Christian times down to the seventeenth
century returned from Palestine testifying
that they had seen Lot’s wife, and this was
appealed to by theologians as a convincing
proof of the truth of the Scripture narra
tive. Some saw her big, some little, some
upright, and some prostrate, according to
the state of disintegration of the pillars,
which change their form rapidly under the
influence of the weather ; but no doubt was
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
entertained as to the attestation of the
miracle. It turns out, however, to be one
of those geological myths of precisely the
same nature as that which attributed the
Devil’s Dyke near Brighton to an arrested
attempt of the Evil One to cut a trench
through the South Downs, so as to let in the
sea and submerge the Weald. The episode
of Lot and his daughters is also clearly a
myth to account for the aversion of the
Hebrews to races so closely akin to them
as the Moabites and Ammonites, and it
could hardly have originated until after the
date of the Book of Ruth, which shows no
trace of such a racial aversion.
(
Many of the events recorded ofAbraham s
life, though not so wildly extravagant as
those attributed to Noah, are still clearly
unhistorical. That a woman getting on
towards one hundred years old should be
so beautiful that her husband passes her oft
as his sister, fearing that, if known to be
his wife, the king would kill him in order to
take her into his harem, does not seem to
be very probable. But when precisely the
same thing is said to have occurred twice
over to the same man, once at the court of
Pharaoh and again at that of Abimelech ;
and a third time to his son Isaac, at the
* same place, Gerar, and to the same king
Abimelech, the improbability becomes im
possibility, and the. legendary character
is obvious. Nor is it very consistent with
the character of the pious patriarch, the
father of the chosen people, to have told
such lies, and apparently connived at his
wife’s prostitution, so that he could save his
own skin, and grow rich on the . sheep and
oxen, asses, manservants, maidservants,
and camels ” given him by the king on the
supposition that he was Sarah s brother.
Nor can we take as authentic history
Abraham talking with the Lord, and hold
ing a sort of Dutch auction with him, in
which he beats down from fifty to ten the
number of righteous men who, if found in
Sodom, are to save it from destruction.
On the whole, I do not see that there is
anything in the account of Abraham and
his times which we can safely assume to be
historical, except the general fact that the
Hebrews were descended from a Semitic
family or clan, who migrated from the dis
trict of Ur in Lower Chaldma. probably
about the time, and possibly in conse
quence, of the Elamite conquest, about
2200 B.C., which set in motion so many
wars, revolutions, and migrations in
Western Asia. But it is needless to further
pursue this matter, since we have admis
Sy
sions as to the mythical character of the
patriarchal age by every orthodox scholar
whose name carries weight. Animadvert
ing on the assumptions of pseudo-concessionists of the type of Professor Sayce,
Canon Driver says : “ Mr. Tomkins and
Professor Sayce have produced works on
The Age of Abraham and Patriarchal
Palestine, full of interesting particulars,
collected from the monuments, respecting
the condition, political, social, and religious,
of Babylonia, Palestine, and Egypt, m the
centuries before the age of Moses; but
neither of these volumes contains the
smallest evidence that either Abraham or
the other patriarchs ever actually existed.
Patriarchal Palestine, in fact, opens with a
fallacy. Critics, it is said., have taught
4 that there were no Patriarchs and no
Patriarchal age, but, the critics notwith
standing, the Patriarchal age has actually
existed,’ and ‘ it has been shown by modern
discovery to be a fact.’ Modern discovery
has shown no such thing. It has shown,
indeed, that Palestine had inhabitants
before the Mosaic age; that Babylonians,
Egyptians, and Canaanites, for instance,
visited it, or made it their home ; but that
the Hebrew patriarchs lived in it there is
no tittle of monumental evidence whatever.
They may have done so ; but our know
ledge of the fact depends at present entirely
upon what is said in the Book of Genesis.
Not one of the many facts adduced by Pro
fessor Sayce is independent evidence that
the Patriarchs visited Palestine, or even
that they existed at all.”
To the like effect writes Dr. G. A. Smith
in his Modern Criticism and the Preaching
of the Old Testament: “While archaeology
has richly illustrated the main outlines of
the Book of Genesis from Abraham to
Joseph, it has not one whit of proof to offer
for the personal existence or characters of
the Patriarchs themselves. This is the
whole change archaeology has wrought; it
has given us a background and an atmo
sphere for the stories of Genesis ; it is
unable to recall or to certify their
heroes.”
The legendary character of the patri
archal age, which may be compared with
the heroic age in Greece, was demonstrated
by Kuenen, Knappert, and other Conti
nental scholars thirty years ago.
Actual
ancestors are never distinctly traceable,
says Dillmann—a sound statement pushed
to extremes by Goldziher, who, following
the late Professor Max Muller’s philological
methods, resolved Abraham, Isaac, and
�88
HUMAN ORIGINS
Jacob into sun and sky myths, Jacob’s
twelve sons being the moon and eleven
stars. Steinthal, with more warrant, con
verted Samson, the “ shining one,” into a
solar hero whose labours correspond to
those of Hercules. But such specula
tions are of slight importance, since the
major fact of the unhistorical founda
tion of the early Hebrew narratives is
admitted.
There is no period of Jewish history so
obscure as that of the sojourn in Egypt.
The long date is based entirely on the dis
tinct statement in Genesis xii., that the
sojourning of the children of Israel was
430 years, and other statements that it was
400 years, all of which are hopelessly
inconsistent with the genealogies. Gene
alogies are perhaps more likely to be pre
served accurately by oral tradition than by
dates and figures, _ which Oriental races
generally deal with in a very arbitrary way.
But there are serious difficulties in the way
of accepting either date as historical.
There is no mention of any specific event
during the sojourn of the Israelites in
Egypt between their advent in the time of
Joseph and the Exodus, except their
oppression by a new king who knew not
Joseph, and the building of the treasure
cities, Pi-thom and Ramses, by their
forced labour. But there is no confirma
tion, from Egyptian records or monuments,
of any of the events related in the Penta
teuch, until we come to the passage quoted
from Manetho by Josephus, which describes
how the unclean people and lepers were
oppressed ; how they revolted under the
leadership of a priest of Hieropolis, who
changed his name from Osarphis to
Moyses; how they fortified Avaris and
called in help from the expelled Hyksos
settled at Jerusalem ; how the Egyptian
king and his army retreated before them.
into Ethiopia without striking a blow, and
the revolters ruled Egypt for thirteen
years, killing the sacred animals and dese
crating the temples; and how, at the end
of this period, the king and his son returned
with a great army, defeated the rebels and
shepherds with great slaughter, and pursued
them to the bounds of Syria.
This account is evidently very different
from that of Exodus, and does not itself
read very like real history, nor is there
anything in the Egyptian monuments to
confirm it, but rather the reverse. Menepthah certainly reigned many years after he
was said to have been drowned in the Red
Sea, and his power and that of his imme
diate successors, though greatly diminished,
still extended with a sort of suzerainty over
Palestine and Southern Syria. It is said
that the Egyptians purposely omitted all
mention of disasters and defeats, but this
is distinctly untrue, for Manetho records
events such as the conquest of Egypt by
the Hyksos without a battle, and the
retreat of Menepthah into Ethiopia for
thirteen years before the impure rebels,
which were much more disgraceful than
would have been the destruction of a pur
suing force of chariots by the returning
tide of the Red Sea.
The question therefore of the sojourn of
the Israelites in Egypt and the Exodus has
to be considered solely by the light of the
internal evidence afforded by the books of
the Old Testament. The long period of
430 years is open to grave objections. It
is inconceivable that a people who had
lived for four centuries in an old and highlycivilised empire, for part of the time at any
rate on equal or superior terms under the
king who “knew Joseph,” and who appear
to have been so much intermixed with the
native Egyptians as to have been borrow
ing from them as neighbours before their
flight, should have been influenced so
little, if at all, by Egyptian manners and
beliefs. And where the positive evidence
is scanty, the negative appears to be
conclusive. This is most remarkable
in the absence of all belief in a resur
rection of the body, future State, and
day of judgment, which were the car
dinal axioms of the practical daily life
of the Egyptian people. Temporal rewards
and punishments to the individual and his
posterity in the present life are the sole
inducements held out to practise virtue and
abstain from vice, from the Decalogue down
to the comparatively late period of Eccle
siastes, where Solomon the wise king is
represented as saying, “ There is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge in the grave
whither thou goest.” Even down to the
Christian era the Sadducees, who were the
conservative aristocracy standing on the
old ways and on the law of Moses, and
from whose ranks most of the high priests
were taken, were opposed to the new
fangled Pharisaic doctrine of a resurrec
tion. How completely foreign the idea
was to the Jewish mind is apparent from
the writings of the Prophets and the
Book of Job, where the obvious solution
of the problem why goodness was not
always rewarded and wickedness punished,
afforded by the theory of a judgment after
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
death and future lire, was never even
hinted at by Job or his friends, however
hardly they might be pressed in argu
ment.
.
If the sojourn in Egypt really lasted for
430 years, it must have embraced many of
the greatest events in Egyptian history.
The descendants of Jacob must have wit
nessed a long period of the rule of the
Hyksos, and lived through the desolating
thirty years’ war by which these foreign
conquerors were gradually driven back by
the native armies of Upper Egypt. They
must have been close to the scene of the
final campaigns, the siege of Avaris, and
the expulsion of the Hyksos. They must
have been subjects of Ahmes, Thotmes,
and the conquering kings of the eigh
teenth dynasty, who followed up the
fugitive Hyksos, and carried the con
quering arms of Egypt not only over
Palestine and Syria, but up to the
Euphrates and Tigris, and over nearly the
whole of Western Asia. They must have
witnessed the decline of this empire, the
growth of the Hittites, and the half-century
of wars waged between them and the
Egyptians in Palestine and Syria.
The victory of Ramses II. at Kadesh
and the epic poem of Pentaur must have
been known to the generation before the
Exodus as signal events. And if there is
any truth in the account quoted by
Josephus, they must have been aware that
they did not fly from Egypt as a body of
fugitive slaves, but as retreating warriors
who for thirteen years had held Egypt up
to Ethiopia in subjection. And yet of all
these memorable events there is not the
slightest trace in the Hebrew annals which
have come down to us.
An even greater difficulty is to under
stand how, if the children of Israel had
lived for anything like 400 years in such a
civilised empire as Egypt, they could have
emerged from it at such a plane of low
civilisation, or rather of ferocious savagery
and crude superstitions as are shown by
the books of the Old Testament, where
they burst like a host of Red Indians, on
the settlements and cities of the Amorites
and other more advanced nations of Pales
tine. The discoveries at Lachish already
referred to show that their civilisation
could not have exceeded that of the rudest
Bedouins, while their myths and legends are
so similar to those of the North American
Indians as to show that they must have
originated in a very similar stage of mental
development.
89
If we adopt the short date of the
genealogies, we are equally confronted by
difficulties. If the Exodus occurred in the
reign of Menepthah, 180 years back from
that date would take us, not to the Hyksos
dynasty, where alone it would have been
possible for Joseph to be a vizier and for a
Semitic tribe of shepherds to be welcomed
in Egypt, but into the midst of the great
and glorious eighteenth dynasty who had
expelled the Hyksos, and carried the
dominion of Egypt to the Euphrates.
Nor would there have been time for
the seventy souls, who, we are told, were all
of the family of Jacob that migrated into
Egypt, to have increased in three genera
tions into a nation numerous enough to
alarm the Egyptians and conquer the
Canaanites.
The legend of Joseph is very touching
and beautiful, but it may just as well be
romance as history; and this suspicion is
strengthened by the fact that the episode
of Potiphar’s wife is almost verbatim the
same as in one of the chapters of the
Egyptian novel of the Two Brothers.
Nor does it seem likely that such a seven
years’ famine and such a momentous
change as the conversion of all the land
of Egypt from freehold into a tenure held
from the king subject to payment of a rent
of one-fifth of the gross produce, should
have left no trace in the records. Again,
the age of no years assigned to Joseph,
and 147 to his father, are a sufficient proof
that we are not upon strictly historical
ground ; so that, on the whole, this narra
tive does not go far, in the absence of any
confirmation from monuments, in assisting
us to fix dates, or enabling us to form any
consistent idea of the real conditions of
the sojourn of the people of Israel in
Egypt. It places them on far too high a
level of civilisation at first, to have fallen
to such a low one as we find depicted in
the Books of Exodus, Joshua, and Judges.
Further excavations in the mounds of
ruined cities in Judaea and Palestine, like
those of Schliemann on the sites of Troy
and Mycenae, can alone give us anything
like certain facts as to the real condition of
the Hebrew tribes who destroyed the older
walled cities of the comparatively civilised
Amorites and Canaanites. If the con
clusions of Mr. Flinders Petrie, from the
section of the mound of Lachish, as to the
extremely rude condition of the tribes who
built the second town of mud-huts on the
ruins of the Amorite city, should be conI firmed, it would go far to negative the idea
�90
HUMAN ORIGINS
that the accounts of their having been
trained in an advanced code of Mosaic
legislation have any historical founda
tion.
We come next to Moses. It is difficult
to refuse an historical character to a
personage who has been accepted by
uniform tradition as the chief who led the
Israelites out of Egypt, and as the great
legislator who laid the foundations of the
religious and civil institutions of the
peculiar people. And if the passage from
Manetho is correctly quoted by Josephus,
and was really taken from contemporary
Egyptian annals, and is not a later version
of the account in the Pentateuch modified
to suit Egyptian prejudices, Moses is clearly
identified with Osarsiph, the priest of Hieropolis, who abandoned the worship of the
old gods, and headed the revolt of the
unclean people, which probably meant the
heretics. It may be conjectured that this
may have had some connection with the
great religious revolution of the heretic
king of Tel-el-Amarna, which for a time
displaced the national gods, worshipped in
the form of sacred animals and symbolic
statues, by an approach to Monotheism
under the image of the winged solar disc.
Such a reform must have had many
adherents to have survived as the State
religion for two or three reigns, and must
have left a large number of so-called
heretics when the nation returned to its
ancient faith ; and it is quite intelligible
that some of the more enlightened priests
should have assimilated to it the doctrine
of one Supreme God, which, as has been
shown, without sufficient warrant, some
authorities detect in the religious meta
physics of the earliest ages in Egypt.
This, however, must remain purely a con
jecture, and we must look for anything
specific in regard to Moses exclusively to
the Old Testament.
And here we are at once assailed by
formidable difficulties. As long as we con
fine ourselves to general views it may be
accepted as historical that the Israelites
really came out of Egypt under a great
leader and legislator; but when we come
to details, and to the events connected with
Moses, and to a great extent supposed to
have been written by him or taken from
his journals, they are for the most part,
more wildly and hopelessly impossible than
anything related of the earlier patriarchs,
Abraham and Joseph. As already noted,
the story of his preservation in infancy, as of
an infant hero or god, is a variation of the
myth common among many nations. When
grown up he is represented first as the
adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and
then as a shepherd in the wilderness of
Midian talking with the Lord in a fiery
bush, who for the first time communicates
his real name of Jehovah, which he says
was not known to Abraham, Isaac, or
Jacob, although constantly used by them,
and although men began to call him by
that name in the time of Enos, Adam’s
grandson. At Jehovah’s command Moses
throws his rod on the ground, when it
becomes a serpent from which he flies,
and when he takes it up by the tail
it becomes a rod again; and as a
further sign his hand is changed from
sound to leprous as white as snow, and
back again to sound, in a minute or two
of time.
On returning to Egypt, Moses is repre
sented as going ten times into the presence
of Pharaoh, demanding of him to let the
Hebrews depart, and inflicting on Egypt a
succession of plagues, each one more than
sufficient to have convinced the king of the
futility of opposing such supernatural
powers, and to have made him only too
anxious to get rid of the Hebrews from the
land at any price. What could have been
the condition of Egypt if for seven days
“the streams, the rivers, the ponds and
pools, and even the water in the vessels of
wood and of stone, through all the land
of Egypt,” had been really turned into
blood ? And what sort of magicians must
they have been who could do the same with
their enchantments ?
The whole account of these plagues has
distinctly the air of being an historical
romance rather than real history. Those
repeated interviews, accompanied by taunts
and reproaches of Moses, the representa
tive of an oppressed race of slaves’, in the
august presence of a Pharaoh who, like the
Inca of Peru or the Mikado of Japan, was
half monarch and half deity, are totally
inconsistent with all we know of Egyptian
usage.
The son and successor of the
splendid Ramses II., who has been called
the Louis XIV. of Egyptian history, would
certainly, after the first interview and
miracle, either have recognised the super
natural power which it was useless to resist,
or ordered Moses to instant execution.
It is remarkable also how the series of
plagues reproduce the natural features of
the Egyptian seasons. Recent travellers
tell us how at the end of the dry season,
when the Nile is at its lowest, and the
�the historical element in the old testament^
9i
and other matters, which are involved
adjacent plains are arid and lifeless^ < the supposition that a population, half as
suddenly one morning at sHn^se *7 It j large as that of London, wandered about
the river apparently turned into blood, it
under tents from camp to camp for forty
s the phenomenon of the red Me, which
.years in a desert. No attempt has ever
is caused by the first flush of the Abyssinian
been made to refute him, except by vague
highland flood, coming from banks o: red
suppositions that the deserts of Sinai and
marl After a few days the real use com
Arabia may then have been m a very
mences, the Ni\res?m%\VSthe “Lnks
different condition, and capable of support
percolates its banks, fills *he /an
ing a large population. But this is impos
and ponds, and finally overflows and satu
sible in the present geological age and
rates^the dusty plains. The first signal
under existing geographical conditions.
the renewal of life is the cro£f a°e
These deserts form part of the great rain
innumerable frogs, and soon the plains^are
less zone of the earth between the north
alive with flies, gnats, and all manner o
tropical and south temperate zones, where
creeping and hopping insects, as if the
cultivation is only possible when the means
dust had been turned into lice. Then, afte
of irrigation are afforded by lakes, rivers,
the inundation, there foUow *e
or melting snow. But there aJe no“eJ"
ulagfues which in the summer and autumn
these in the deserts of Sinai and Northern
seasons frequently afflict the young. crop
Arabia, and therefore no water and no
and the inhabitants—local hah-storms,
vegetation sufficient to support any popula
locusts murrain among the cattle, boils and
tion No army has ever invaded Egypt
other sicknesses while the stagnant wa
from Asia, or Asia from Egypt, except by
are drying up. It reads like what some
the short route adjoining the Mediterranean
Rider Haggard of the Court of Solonio
between Pelusium and Jaffa, and with the
mifflit have written in workmg-up the tales
command of the sea and assistance of
of travellers and old popular tra/ffions
trains to carry supplies and water. And
into an historical romance of the deliver
the account in Exodus itself confirms this,
ance of Israel from Egypt.
.
for both food and water are stated to have
When we come to the Exodus the impos
been supplied miraculously, and there is no
sibilities of the narrative are even more
mention made of anything but the present
obvious. The robust c0™7°n’se/athearid and uninhabited desert in the various
Bishop Colenso, sharpened by a mathe
encampments? and marches. In fact, the
matical education, submitted P1//
Bible constantly dwells on the inhospitable
these to the convincing test of .arl*™et1^
barrenness of the “ howling wilderness
The host of Israelites who left Egyp
Accordingly, reconcilers have been reduced
said to have comprised 603,550 fighti g
to the supposition that ciphers may have
men above the age of twenty; exc:la/1Y
been added by copyists, and that the real
of the Levites and of a mixed multitude
number may have been 6,000, or even, as
who followed. This implies a total populasome writers think, 600. But this is incon
tion of at least 2,500,000, who are said to
sistent with the detailed numeration by
have wandered for forty years /
twelve separate tribes, which works out to
desert of Sinai, one of the most and
the same figure of 603,550 fighting men1 for
wildernesses in the world, destitute alike
the total number. Nor is it consistent
of water, arable soil, and pasture, and
with the statement that the Hebrews did
where a Bedouin tribe of even 600> souls
evacuate Egypt in sufficient numbers and
would find it difficult to exist. They are
sufficiently armed to burst through the
said to have been miraculously fed during
frontiers, and capture the walled cities of
these forty years on manna, a swee?s“’
considerable nations like the Amontes and
gummy exudation from the scanty foliage
Canaanites, who had been long settle/
of certain prickly desert plants, which is
the country. The narrative of Manetho
described as being “as small as the
quoted by Josephus, seems much more like
hoar frost,” and as so imbued with
real history : that the Hebrews formed part
of an army^ which, after having held Lower
Sabbatarian qualities as to keep fresh•
only for the day it is gathered, but tor ; Egypt for thirteen years, was fina ly defeated,
two days if gathered on a Friday, so as
and retreated by the usual military route
to prevent the necessity of Sabbath labour
across the short part of the desert from
Pelusium to Palestine; the Hebrews, for
in Bishop Colenso points out with irresistible
some reason, branching off, and-taking to a
force the obvious impossibilities in regar
Bedouin life on the outskirts of the desert
to food, water, fuel, sanitation, transport,
�92
HUMAN ORIGINS
and cultivated land, just as many Bedouin
tribes live a semi-nomad life in the same
regions at the present day. Too much
emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that
to the present time, not a single monu
mental notice of the Hebrews, as dwellers
m the land of Egypt and the house of
bondage, is forthcoming. In narrating the
results of his excavations in 1896, Professor
Minders Petrie reported the discovery of
the upper part of a black granite colossus
Ox Amenhotep III., on which was inscribed
an account of wars carried on by that king in
Syria, apparently Northern Palestine, with
the people of Israel, whom he spoiled.
hat was the first time that any mention
of tne Israelites in any form had been
found in Egypt, and, obviously, it throws
no light upon the statements of the Old
Testament, which remain the sole, and not
unquestioned, authority upon the events
gathering round the reputed Exodus.
The Books of the Pentateuch ascribed to
Moses are full of the most flagrant con
tradictions and absurdities. It is evident
that, instead of being the production of
some one contemporary writer, they have
been compiled and edited, probably many
times over, from old documents and tradi
tions, these being pieced together in juxta
position or succession, without regard to
their being contradictory or repetitions.
Thus in Exodus xxxiii. 2o#God says to
Moses : “ Thou canst not see my face and
live ; for there shall no man see me and
live”; and accordingly he shows Moses
only his cc back parts while in verse 11 in
the very same chapter we read : “And the
Lord spoke unto Moses face to face, as a
man speaketh unto a friend.” Again, in
Exodus xxiv. the Lord says to Moses,
that he alone shall come near the Lord ”
(verse 2); while in verses 9-11 of the same
chapter we are told that “ Moses, Aaron,
Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the
elders of Isiael, went up ; and they saw the
God of Israel, and there was under his feet
as it were a paved work of a sapphire
stone,” and, although they saw God, were
none the worse for it, but survived and “ did
eat and drink.” Is it possible to believe
that these excessively crude representations
of the Deity, and these flagrant inconsis
tencies, were all written at the same time,
by the same hand, and that the hand of a
man who, if not a holy inspired prophet,
was at any rate an educated and learned
ex-priest of Hieropolis, skilled in all the
knowledge of the Egyptians ?
The contradictions in the ideas and pre
cepts of morality and religion are even more
startling. These oscillate between the two
extremes of the conception of the later
prophets of a one Supreme God, who loves
justice and mercy better than sacrifice, and
that of a ferocious and vindictive tribal god
whose appetite for human blood is as
insatiable as that of the war-god of the
Mexicans. Thus we have, on the one
hand, the commandment, “Thou shalt do
no muider,” and, on the other, the injunc
tion to commit indiscriminate massacres.
A single instance may suffice. The “ Book
of the Law of Moses ” is quoted in 2 Kings
xiv. as saying: “The fathers shall not be put
to death for the children, nor the children
for the fathers ; but every man shall be put
to death for his own sin.” In Numbers
xxxi., Moses, the “meekest of mankind,” is
represented as extremely wrath with the
captains who, having warred against Midian
at the Lord’s command, had only slaughtered
the males, and taken the women of Midian
and their little ones captives ; and he
commands them to “kill every male among
the little ones, and every woman that hath
known man by lying with him ; but all the
women children that have not known man
by lying with him, keep alive for your
selves ”—these M idianites, be it remembered,
being the people whose high priest Jethro
had hospitably received Moses when he
fled for his life from Egypt, and gave him
his daughter as a wife, by whom he had
children who were half Midianites ; so that,
if the zealous Phinehas was right in slaying
the Hebrew who had married a Midianite
woman, Moses himself deserved the same
fate.
The same injunction of indiscriminate
massacre in order to escape the jealous
wrath of an offended Jehovah is repeated,
over and over again, in Joshua and Judges;
and even as late as after the foundation of
the Monarchy we find Samuel telling Saul,
m the name of the Lord of Hosts, to “ go
and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy
them, slaying both man and woman, infant
and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and
ass,” and denouncing Saul, and hewing
Agag in pieces before the Lord, because
this savage injunction had not been literally
obeyed. Even David, the man after the
Lord’s own heart, tortures to death the
prisoners taken at the fall of Rabbah, and
gives up seven of the sons of Saul to the
Gibeonites to be sacrificed before the
insatiate deity as human victims. It is
one of the strangest contradictions of
human nature that such atrocious violations
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
of the moral sense should have been
received for so many centuries as a divine
revelation, rather than as instances of what
may be more appropriately called “ devil
worship.”
Nor is it a less singular proof of the
power of cherished prepossessions that
such a medley of the sublime religious
ideas and lofty poetry of the prophetic
ages, with such a mass of puerile and
absurd legends, such obvious contradictions,
and such a number of passages obviously
dating from a later period, should be
received by many men of intelligence, even
to the present day, as the work of a single
contemporary writer, the inspired prophet
Moses.
When we pass from the Pentateuch to the
succeeding Books of Joshua and of Judges
the same remarks apply. The falling of
the walls of Jericho at the sound of the
trumpet, and the defeat of an army of
135,000 men of Midian and Amalek, with a
slaughter of 120,000, by 300 men under
Gideon, armed with pitchers and trumpets,
are on a par with the wandering of 2,500,000
Israelites in the desert for forty years, fed
with manna of the size of hoar-frost. The
moral atmosphere also continues to be that
of Red Indians down to the time of David,
for we read of nothing but murders and
massacres, sometimes of other races, some
times of one tribe by another ; while the
actions selected for special commendation
are like those of Jael, who drove a nail into
the head of the sleeping fugitive whom she
had invited into her tent; or of Jephthah,
who sacrificed his daughter as an offering
to the Lord in obedience to a vow.
The only safe conclusion seems to be
that authentic annals of Jewish history
begin with the Monarchy, and that every
thing prior to David and Solomon, or pos
sibly Saul and Samuel, consists of myth,
legend, and oral tradition, so inextricably
blended, and so mixed up with successive
later additions, as to give no certain infor
mation as to events or dates.
All that it is safe to assume is that, in a
general way, the Hebrews were originally a
Semitic tribe who migrated from Chaldsea
into Palestine, and perhaps thence into
Egypt, where, assuming the Exodus story
to be genuine, they remained for an uncer
tain time and were oppressed by the
national dynasty which expelled the
Hyksos ; leaving Egypt in the reign
of Menepthah, and as a consequence
of the rebellion recorded by Manetho;
that they then lived for an unknown
93
time as wandering Bedouins on the frontier
of Palestine in a state of very rude bar
barism; and finally burst in like the horde of
Aztecs Who conquered the older and more
civilised Mayas. For a long period after
this, perhaps for 200 or 300 years, they
lived in a state of chronic warfare with one
another, and with their neighbours, mas
sacring and being massacred with the alter
nate vicissitudes of war, but with the same
rudeness and ferocity of superstitions and
manners. Gradually, however, they ad
vanced in civilisation, and something of a
national feeling arose, which led to a partial
consolidation under priests, and a more
complete one under kings.
The first king, Saul, was opposed by
priestly influence and defeated and slain in
battle; but a captain of condottieri, David,
arose, a man of great energy and military
genius, who gradually formed a standing
army and conquered province after pro
vince, until at his death he left to his suc
cessor, Solomon, an empire extending from
the frontier of Egypt to Damascus, and
from the Red Sea almost to the Mediter
ranean.
This kingdom commanded two of the
great commercial routes between the East
and West, the caravan route between Tyre
and Babylon, wiA Damascus and Tadmor,
and the route from Tyre to the terminus at
Ezion-Gebir, of the sea-routes to Arabia,
Africa, and India. Solomon entered into
close commercial relations with Tyre, and
during his long and splendid reign Jeru
salem blossomed rapidly into a wealthy and
a cultured city, and the surrounding cities
and districts shared in the general pros
perity. The greatness of the kingdom did
not last long, for the revolt of the ten tribes
and the growth of other powers soon re
duced Judaea and Samaria to political in
significance ; but Jerusalem, down to the
time of its final destruction by Nebuchad
rezzar—z>., for a period of some 400 years
after Solomon—never seems to have lost its
character of a considerable and civilised
city. It is evident from the later prophets
that it was the seat of a good deal of wealth
and luxury, for their invectives are, to a
great extent, what we should call at the
present day Socialist denunciations of the
oppression of the poor by the rich, land
grabbing by the powerful, and extravagance
of dress by the ladies of fashion. There
were hereditary nobles, organised colleges
of priests and scribes, and no doubt there
was a certain amount of intellectual life and
literary activity. But of a sacred book
�HUMAN ORIGINS
94
there is no trace until the discovery of one
in the Temple in the reign of Josiah ; and
the peculiar tenets of modern Judaism had
no real hold on the mass of the people
until after the return from Exile and the
reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The history, therefore, contained in the
Old Testament is comparatively modern.
There is nothing which can be relied on as
authentic in regard to events and dates
prior to the establishment of the Monarchy,
and even the wildest myths and the most
impossible legends do not carry us back
within 2,000 years of the time when we
have genuine historical annals attested by
monuments both in Egypt and Chaldaea.
PART II.—EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE
CHAPTER VIII.
GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY
Proved by Contemporary Monuments—Sum
mary of Historical Evidence — Geological
Evidence of Human Periods — Neolithic
Period — Palaeolithic or Quaternary — Ter
tiary — Secondary and Older Periods —
The Recent or Post-Glacial Period—LakeVillages— Bronze Age— Kitchen-Middens—
Scandinavian Peat-mosses—Neolithic Remains
comparatively Modern—Definition of PostGlacial-Period—Its Duration—Mellard Read’s
Estimate—Submerged Forests—Changes in
Physical Geography — H uxley — Obj ections
from America—Niagara—Quaternary Period
—Immense Antiquity — Presence of Man
throughout—First Glacial Period—Scandi
navian and Laurentian Ice-caps—Immense
Extent — Mass of Dbbris — Elevation and
Depression—In Britain—Inter-Glacial and
Second Glacial Periods—Antiquity measured
by Changes of Land—Lyell’s EstimateGlacial Dbb'ris and Loess—Recent Erosion—
Bournemouth —• Evans—Prest wich—W ealden
Ridge and Southern Drift—Contain Human
Implements—Evidence from New World—
California.
We have now to take leave of historical
records and fall back on the exact sciences
for further traces of human origins. Our
guides are still contemporary records, but
these are no longer stately tombs and
temples, massive pyramids and written
inscriptions. Instead of these we have flint
implements, incised bones, and a few rare
specimens of human skulls and skeletons,
the meaning of which has to be deciphered
by skilled experts in their respective depart
ments of science.
Still, these records tell their tale as con
clusively as any hieroglyphic or cuneiform
writings in Egyptian manuscripts or on
Babylonian cylinders. The celt, the knife,
the lance and arrow-heads, and other
weapons and implements, can be traced in
an uninterrupted progressive series from
the oldest and rudest palaeolithic specimens,
to the highly-finished ones of polished
stone, and through these into the age of
metals, and into historic times and the
actual implements of existing savage races.
It is impossible to doubt that one of the
palaeolithic celts from St. Acheul or St.Prest is as truly a work of the human hand,
guided by human intelligence, as a modern
axe ; and that an arrow-head from Moustier
or Kent’s Cavern is no more an elf-bolt, or a
lusus nature^ than is a Winchester rifle.
Before entering on this new line of in
vestigation, it may be well to sum up briefly
the evidence as to the starting-point from
history and tradition. The commencement
of the strictly historical period takes us
back certainly for 7,000 years in Egypt,
and probably for 9,000 years in Chaldsea.
In each case we find populous cities,
important temples, and public works,
writing and other advanced arts and indus
tries, and all the signs of an old civilisation,
already existing. Other nations also then
existed with whom these ancient empires
had relations of war and of commerce,
though the annals of even the oldest of
them, such as China, do not carry us back
further than from 4,000 to 5,000 years.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY
Traditions do not add much to the infor
mation furnished by monuments, and fade
rapidly away into myths and legends. The
oldest and most authentic, those of.Egypt,
confirm the inference of great antiquity as to
its civilisation prior to Menes, but give no
clue as to its origin. They neither trace it
up to the stone age, which we know existed
in the valley of the Nile, nor refer it to
any foreign source. The Egyptian people
thought themselves autochthonous, and
attributed their arts, industries, and sciences
to the inventions of native gods, or demi
gods, who reigned like mortal kings, in a
remote and fabulous antiquity. We can
gather nothing, therefore, from tradition
that would enable us to add even 1,000
years with certainty to the date of Menes ;
but from the high state of civilisation
which had been evolved prior to his acces
sion from the primitive conditions of the
stone period whose remains are found in
the Nile Valley, it is not extravagant to add
10,000 or 20,000 years to his date of 5004
years B.C., as a matter of probable conjec
ture for the first dawn of historical civilisa
tion. In any case we shall be well within
the mark if we take 10,000 years as our first
unit, or standard of chronological measure
ment, with which to start in our further
researches.
It may be well also to supplement this
statement of the historical standard by a
brief review of the previous geological
periods through which evidences of man’s
existence can be traced. Immediately
behind the historic age lies the recent
period during which the existing fauna and
flora, climate and configuration of seas and
lands, have undergone no material change.
It is characterised generally as the neolithic
period, in which we find polished stone
superseding the older and ruder forms of
dripped stone, and passing itself into the
copper, bronze, and iron ages of early
history. It may also be called the recent
or post-glacial period, for it coincides with
the final disappearance of the last great
glaciation, and the establishment of condi
tions of climate resembling those of the
present day.
Behind this again lies the quaternary or
pleistocene period, so called from its fauna,
which, although containing extinct species,
shows along with them many existing forms,
some of which have migrated and some
remain. This also may be called the glacial
period, for, although the commencement,
termination, and different phases of the two
great glaciations and intermediate and
95
inter-glacial periods cannot . be exactly
defined, nor hard-and-fast lines drawn
between the later pliocene at one end and
the post-glacial at the other, there is no
doubt that in a general way the quater
nary and glacial periods coincide, and that
the changes of climate were to a consider
able extent the cause of the changes of flora
and fauna.
Behind the quaternary lies the tertiary,
with its three main divisions of Pliocene,
Miocene, and Eocene, each containing
numerous subdivisions, and all showing a
progressive advance in forms of life, from
older and more generalised types towards
newer and more specialised ones, and a
constant approach towards genera and
species now existing. Behind the tertiary
lies the secondary period, into which it is
unnecessary to enterfor the present purpose,
for all is different, and even mammalian
life is known to be present only in a few
forms of small and feeble marsupials. Nor
is it necessary to enter on any detailed con
sideration of the Eocene or earlier tertiary,
for the types of mammalian life are so
different from those of later periods that it
cannot be supposed that any animal so
highly organised as man had then come
into existence. The utmost we can suppose
is that, as in the case of the horse, some
ancestral form from which the quadrumana
and man may possibly have been developed
may be found.
My present object being not to write a
book on geology, but on human origins, I
shall not attempt to trace back the geological
evidence beyond the Miocene, or to enter
on any details of the later periods, except
so far as they bear on what may be called
geological chronology—i.e., on the probable
dates which may be assigned to. the first
appearance and subsequent evolution of the
human race.
Beginning with the recent or post-glacial
period, the Swiss and Italian lake-villages
supply clear evidence of the progress of
man in Western Europe through the neo
lithic into the historical period. They afford
us an unbroken series of substantially the
same state of society, existing down to the
time of the Romans, in the shape of com
munities living in lake-villages built upon
piles, like the villages in Thrace described
by Herodotus, or those of the present day
in New Guinea. Some of these have been
occupied continuously, so that the debris, of
different ages are stored in consecutive
order like geological strata, and afford an
unerring test of their relative antiquity. It
�96
HUMAN ORIGINS
is clear that many of those lake-villages
were founded in the age of stone, and passed
through that of bronze into the age of iron.
The oldest settlements belong to the neo
lithic age, and contain polished stone imple
ments and pottery ; but they show a state
of civilisation not yet very far advanced.
The inhabitants were only just emerging
from the hunting into the pastoral stage.
They lived principally on the produce of the
chase, the bones of the stag and wild boar
being very plentiful, while those of ox and
sheep are rare. Agriculture and the cereals
seem to have been unknown, though stores
of acorns and hazel nuts were found which
had been roasted for food.
By degrees the bones of wild animals
became scarce, and those of ox and sheep
common, showing that the pastoral stage
had been reached; and the goat, pig, and
horse were added to the list of domestic
animals—the dog being included from the
first, and the horse only at a later period.
Agriculture follows next in order, and con
siderable proficiency was attained, barley
and wheat being staple articles of food, and
apples, pears, and other fruit being stored
for winter consumption. Flax also was
grown, and the arts of spinning and weaving
were introduced, so that clothing, instead
of being confined to skins, was made of
coarse linen and woollen stuffs.
The most important advance, however,
in the arts of civilisation is afforded by the
introduction of metals. These begin to
appear about the middle of the neolithic
period, at first very sparingly, and in a few
districts, such as Spain, Upper Italy, and
Hungary, where native copper was found
and was hammered into shapes modelled
on the old stone implements ; but as a
general rule, and in all the later settlements,
bronze, in new and improved shapes, super
sedes stone and copper. For the most part
these bronze implements seem to have been
obtained by foreign commerce from the
Phoenicians, Etruscans, and other nations
bordering on the Mediterranean, though in
some cases they were cast on the spot from
native or imported ores. The existence of
bronze, however, must go back to a far
greater antiquity than the time when the
neolithic people of Europe obtained their
first supplies from Phoenician traders.
Bronze, as we have seen in a former chapter,
is an alloy of two metals, copper and tin,
and the hardest and most serviceable alloy
is to be obtained only by mixing the
two in a definite proportion. Now, it is to
be noted that nearly all the prehistoric
bronze found in Europe is an alloy in this
definite proportion. Clearly all this bronze,
or the art of making it, must have originated
from some common centre.
The neolithic period which preceded
that of metals is of longer duration, but
still comparatively recent. Attempts have
been made to measure it by a sort of
natural chronometer in the case of the lake
villages,. by comparing the amount of silt
ing-up since the villages were built with the
known rate of silting-up since Roman
times. The calculations vary very much,
and can be taken as only approximative ;
but the oldest dates assigned do not exceed
5000 B.C., and most of them are not more
than 2000 or 3000 B.c. It must be remem
bered, however, that the foundation of a
lake-village on piles implies a long
antecedent neolithic period to have
arrived at a stage of civilisation which
made the construction of such villages
possible.
The civilisation coincides wonderfully
with that of the primitive Aryan groups, as
shown by linguistic palaeontology. The
discussion as to the origin of these has
thrown a great deal of light on this ques
tion, and has gone far to dispel the old
notion that they radiated from some centre
in Asia, and overran Europe in successive
waves. On the contrary, all the evidence
and all the best authorities point to their
having occupied, when we first get traces
of them, pretty much the same districts of
the great plain of Northern Europe and
Southern Russia as we now find them in,
and developed there their distinct dialects
and nationalities ; while the words common
to all or nearly all the Aryan-speaking
families point to their having been pastoral
nomads, in a state of civilisation very like
that of the earlier lake-villagers, before this
separation took place.
The Scandinavian kitchen-middens, or
shell-mounds, carry us further back into
this early neolithic period. The shell
mounds which are found in great numbers
along the Baltic shore of Denmark are
often of great size. They are formed of an
accumulation of shells of oysters, mussels,
and other shell-fish, bones of wild animals,
birds, and fish, all of existing species, with
numerous implements of flint or bone, and
occasional fragments of coarse pottery.
They are decidedly more archaic than the
lake-dwellings, showing a much ruder
civilisation of savages living like the
Fuegians of the present day, in scanty
tribes on the sea-shore, supported mainly
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
by shell-fish, supplemented by the chase of
wild animals.
The dog was their only domestic animal,
and their only arts the fabrication of rude
pottery and implements of stone and bone,
unless it can be inferred, from the occa
sional presence of bones of cod and other
deep-sea fish, that they possessed some
form of boat or canoe, and had hooks and
lines or nets. These mounds must have
taken an enormous time to accumulate, for
they are very numerous, and often of great
bulk, some of them being 1,000 feet long,
200 feet wide, and io feet thick.
How
long such masses must have taken to accu
mulate must be apparent when we consider
that the state of civilisation implies a very
scanty population. It has been calculated
that, if the neolithic population of Denmark
required as many square miles for its sup
port as the similar existing populations of
Greenland and Patagonia, their total
number could not have exceeded 1,000, and
. each mound must have been the accumula
tion of perhaps two or three families.
Ancient, however, as these mounds must
be, they are clearly neolithic. They are
sharply distinguished from the far older
remains of the palaeolithic period by the
knowledge, however rude, of pottery and
polished stone, and still more by the fauna,
which is entirely recent, and from which
the extinct animals of the quaternary period
have disappeared ; while the position of the
mounds shows that only slight geological
changes, such as are now going on, have
occurred since they were accumulated.
Similar mounds, on even a larger scale,
occur on the sea-coasts of various districts
in Europe and America, but they afford no
indication beyond that of great antiquity.
The peat-mosses of Denmark have been
appealed to as supplying something like a
conjectural date for the early neolithic
period in that country. These are formed
in hollows of the glacial drift, which have
been small lakes or ponds in the midst of
forests, into which trees have fallen, and
which have become gradually converted
into peat by the growth of marsh plants.
It is clearly established that there have
been three successive ages of forest growth,
the upper one of beech, below it one of
oak, and lowest of all one of fir. The
implements and relics found in the beech
stratum are all modern, those in the oak
stratum are of the later neolithic and bronze
ages, and those in the lowest, or fir-horizon,
are earlier and ruder neolithic, resembling
those found in the older lake-villages and
97
shell-mounds. Now, beech has been the
characteristic forest tree of Denmark cer
tainly since the Roman period, or for 2,000
years, and no one can say for how much
longer. The stages of oaks and firs must
equally have been of long duration, and
the different stages could only have been
brought about by slow secular variations of
climate during the post-glacial period. Still,
this affords no reliable information as to
specific dates, and we can only take Steenstrup’s calculation of from 4,000 to 16,000
years for the formation of some of these
peat-bogs as a very vague estimate, carrying
us back perchance to a time when Egypt
and Chaldaea must have been already
densely peopled, and far advanced in
civilisation.
On the whole, it seems that the neolithic
arrow-heads found in Egypt, and the frag
ments of pottery brought up by borings
through the deposits of the Nile, are the
oldest certain human relics of the neolithic
age which have yet been discovered, and
these do not carry us back further than
a possible date of 15,000 or 20,000 years
B.c.
Nor is there any certainty that any of
the neolithic remains found in the newer
deposits of rivers and the upper strata of
caves go further, or even so far, back as
these relics of an Egyptian stone period.
All that the evidence really shows is, that
while the neolithic period must have lasted
for a long time as compared with historical
standards, its duration is almost infinitesi
mally small as compared with that of the
preceding palaeolithic period. Thus in
Kent’s Cavern neolithic remains are found
only in a small surface layer of black earth
from three to twelve inches thick ; while
below this palaeolithic implements and a
quaternary fauna occur in an upper stalag
mite one to three feet thick, below it in red
cave earth five to six feet thick, then in a
lower stalagmite in places ten or twelve feet
thick, and below it again in a breccia three
or four feet thick. This is confirmed by the
evidence of all the caves explored in all
parts of the world, which uniformly show
any neolithic remains confined to a super
ficial layer of a few inches, with many feet
of palaeolithic strata below them. And
river-drifts in the same manner show neo
lithic remains confined to the alluvia and
peat-beds of existing streams, while palaeo,
lithic remains occur during the whole series
of deposits while these rivers were exca
vating their present valleys. If we say feet
for inches, or twelve for one, we shall be
�98
HUMAN ORIGINS
well within the mark in estimating the com
parative duration of the palaeolithic and
neolithic periods, as measured by the thick
ness of their deposits in caves and river
drifts ; and, as we shall see hereafter, other
geological evidence from elevations and
depressions, denudations and depositions,
point to even a higher figure.
In going back from the neolithic into the
palaeolithic period, we are confronted by
the difficulty to which I have already re
ferred, of there being no hard-and-fast lines
by which geological eras are clearly sepa
rated from one another. Zoologically there
seems to be a very decided break between
the recent and the quaternary. The in
stances are rare and doubtful in which we
can see any trace of the remains of palaeo
lithic man, and of the fauna of extinct
animals, passing gradually into those of
neolithic and recent times. But geologi
cally, outside the British Isles (I am speak
ing now only of Europe) there is no such
abrupt break. We cannot draw a line at
the culmination of the last great glacia
tion and say, Here the glacial period ends
and the post-glacial begins. Nor can we
say of any definite period or horizon, This
is glacial and this recent.
A great number of palaeolithic remains
and of quaternary fossils are undoubtedly
post-glacial, in the sense of being found in
deposits which have accumulated since the
last great glaciers and ice-caps began to
retreat. Existing valleys have been exca
vated to a large extent since the present
rivers, swollen by the melting snows and
torrential rains of this period of the latest
glacial retreat, superseded old lines of
drainage, and began to wear down the sur
face of the earth into its present aspect.
This phase is more properly included in
the term glacial, for both the coming-on
and the disappearance of the periods of
intense cold are as much part of the pheno
menon as their maximum culmination, and
very probably occupied much longer inter
vals of time. In like manner, we cannot
positively say when this post-glacial period
ended and the recent began. Not, I should
say, until the exceptional effects of the last
great glacial period had finally disappeared,
and the climate, geographical conditions,
and fauna had assumed nearly or entirely
the modern conditions in which we find
them at the commencement of history.
And this may have been different in dif
ferent countries, for local conditions might
make the glacial period commence sooner
and continue later in some districts than in
others. Thus in North America, where the
glaciation was more intense, and the ice
cap extended some ten degrees further
south than in Europe, it might well be that
it was later in retreating and disappearing.
The elevation of the Laurentian highlands
into the region of perpetual snow was evi
dently one main factor of the American ice
cap, just as that of Scandinavia was of that
of Europe; and it by no means follows that
their depression was simultaneous. It would
be unwise, for instance, to take the time
occupied in cutting back the Niagara gorge
by a river which began to run only at some
stage of the post-glacial period, as an abso
lute test of the duration of that period all
over the world. Indeed, the glacial period
cannot be said to have ended or the post
glacial to have begun at the present day in
Greenland, if the disappearance of the ice
cap over very extensive regions is to be
taken as the test.
Any approximation to the duration of the
post-glacial period in any given locality
can be obtained only by defining its com
mencement with the first deposits which lie
above the latest glacial drift, and measur
ing the amount of work done since.
This has been done very carefully by the
officers of the Geological Survey and other
eminent authorities in England and Scot
land, and the result clearly shows that, since
the last glaciation left the country buried in
a thick mantle of boulder-clay and drift,
such an amount of denudation and such
movements of elevation and depression
have taken place as must have required a
great lapse of time. The most complete
attempt at an estimate of this time is that
made by Mr. Mellard Read, of the Geo
logical Survey, from the changes proved to
have occurred in the Mersey valley.
In this case it is shown that the valley,
■ almost in its present dimensions, must have
been first carved out of an uniform plain of
glacial drift and upper boulder-clay by sub
aerial denudation ; then that a depression
let the sea into the valley and accumulated
a series of estuarine clays and silts; then that
an elevation raised the whole into a plain
on which grew an extensive forest of oak
rooted in the clays. This again must have
subsided and let-in the sea for a second
time, which must have remained long
enough to leave a large estuarine deposit,
and finally the whole must have been raised
to the present level before historical times.
The phenomenon of the submerged forest
is a very general one, being traced along
almost all the sea-coasts of Western Europe,
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY
where shelving shores and sheltered bays
favour the preservation of patches of this
primaeval forest. It testifies to a consider
able amount of elevation and subsequent
depression, for its remains can be traced
below low-water mark, and are occasionally
dredged up far out to sea, and stately oaks
could not have flourished unless more or
less continental conditions had prevailed.
It is evident that in this age of forests
the land now covered by the German
Ocean must have been a river valley,
the continent of Europe extending
beyond the Orkneys and Hebrides, pro
bably to the hundred fathom line. . Such
movements of elevation and depression, so
far as we know anything of them, are ex
tremely slow. There has been no change
in the fords of rivers in Britain since
Roman times, and the spit connecting St.
Michael’s Mount with Cornwall was dry at
ebb and covered at flood, as at the present
day, when the British carted their tin across
it to trade with the Phoenicians. Mr. Read
goes into elaborate calculations based, on
the time required for these geological
changes, and arrives at the conclusion that
they point to a date of not less than 5o>o°°
or 60,000 years ago for the commencement
of the post-glacial period. These calcula
tions are disputed, but it seems certain that
several multiples of the historical standard
of, say, 10,000 years must be required to
measure the period since the glacial age
finally disappeared, and the earth, with its
existing fauna, climate, and geographical
conditions, came fairly into view. This is
confirmed by the great changes which have
taken place in the distribution of land and
water since the quaternary period. Huxley,
in an article on “ The Aryan question,”
points out that in .recent times four great
separate bodies of water—the Black Sea,
the Caspian, the Sea of Aral, and Lake
Balkash—occupied the southern end of the
vast plains which extend from the Arctic
Sea to the highlands of the Balkan penin
sula, of Asia Minor, of Persia and Afghan
istan, and of the high plateaux of Central
Asia, as far as the Altai. But he says,
“This state of things is comparatively
modern. At no very distant period the land
of Asia Minor was continuous with that of
Europe, across the present site of the Bos
phorus, forming a barrier several hundred
feet high, which dammed-up the waters of
the Black Sea. A vast extent of Eastern
Europe and of west-central Asia thus
became one vast Ponto-Aralian Mediterra
nean, into which the largest rivers of
99
Europe and Asia, the Danube, Volga,
Oxus, andjaxartes, discharged their waters,
and which sent its overflow northwards
through the present basin of the Obi.” The
time necessary for such changes goes far to
confirm Mellard Read’s estimate for the long
duration of the recent or post-glacial period.
In fact, all the evidence from the Old
World goes to confirm the long duration of
the post-glacial period, and the immensely
greater antiquity of the glacial period taken
as a whole. It is only from the New World
that any serious arguments are forthcoming
to abridge those periods, or rather the post
glacial period, for that alone is affected by
the facts adduced. It is said that recent
measurements of the recession of the Falls
of Niagara show that, instead of requiring
35,000 years, as estimated by Lyell, to cut
back the gorge of seven miles from Lewis
ton to the Falls, 10,000 years at the outside
would have been amply sufficient; and that
this is confirmed by the gorges of other
rivers, such as that of the Mississippi at St.
Paul’s. The evidence is not conclusive, for
it depends on the rate of erosion going on
for the last twenty or thirty years, which
may obviously give a different result from
the true average ; and, in fact, older esti
mates, based on longer periods, gave the
rate adopted by Lyell. But if we admit the
accuracy of the modern estimates, it does
not affect the total duration of the glacial
period, but simply that of a late phase of
the post-glacial, when the ice-cap which
covered North America to a depth often of
2,000 or 3,000 feet had melted away and
shrunk back 400 miles from its . original
southern boundary, so as to admit of the
waters of the great lakes finding an outlet
to the north-east instead of by the old
drainage to the south. Nothing is more
likely than that, as the great Laurentian
ice-cap of America was deeper and ex
tended further than the Scandinavian ice
cap of Europe, it may have taken longer to
melt the larger accumulation of ice, and
thus postponed the establishment of post
glacial conditions and river-drainage to a
later period than in the warmer and more
insular climate of Europe. It is a matter
of every-day observation that the larger a
snowball is the longer it takes to melt, and
that when the mass is large it requires a
long time to make -it disappear even after
mild weather has set in.
The only other argument for a short
glacial period is drawn from the rate of
advance of the glaciers in Greenland, which
is shown to be much more rapid than that
�TOO
HUMAN ORIGINS
of the glaciers of Switzerland, from which
former calculations had been made. But
obviously the rate at which the fronts of
glaciers advance when forced by a mass of
continental ice down fiords on a steep
descending gradient into a deep sea, where
the front is floated off in icebergs, affords
no clue as to that of an ice-cap spread,
with a front of 1,000 miles, over half a
continent, retarded by friction, and sur
mounting mountain chains 3,000 feet high.
Nor does the rate of advance afford the
slightest clue to the time during which the
ice-cap may have remained stationary,
alternately advanced and retreated, and
finally disappeared.
We have now to adjust our time-telescope
to a wider range, and see what the Quater
nary or glacial period teaches us as to the
antiquity of man. The first remark is that,
if the post-glacial period is much longer
than that for which we have historical
records, the glacial exceeds the post-glacial
in a far higher proportion. The second is,
that throughout the whole of this glacial
period, from its commencement to its close,
we have conclusive evidence of the exist
ence of man, and that not only in a few
limited localities, but widely spread over
nearly all the habitable regions of the
earth.
The first point has been so conclusively
established by all geologists of all countries,
from the time of Lyell down to the present
day, that it is unnecessary to enter on any
detailed arguments, and the leading facts
may be taken as established. It may be
sufficient, therefore, if I give a short
summary of those facts, and quote a few
of the instances which show the enormous
period of time which must have elapsed
between the close of the tertiary and the
commencement of the modern epoch.
The glacial period was not one and
simple, but comprised several phases'.
During the Pliocene the climate was
gradually becoming colder; and either to
wards its close or at the commencement
of the Quaternary this culminated in a
first and most intense glaciation. Ice-caps
radiating from Scandinavia crept outwards,
filling up the North Sea, crossing valleys
and mountains, and covering with their
boulders and moraines a wide circle,
embracing Britain down to the Thames
valley, Germany to the Hartz mountains,
and Russia almost as far east as the Urals.
In North America a still more massive
ice-cap overflowed mountain ranges 3,000
feet high, and covered the whole eastern
half of the continent with an unbroken
mantle of ice as far south as New York and
Washington.
At the same time every great mountain
chain and high plateau' sent out enormous
glaciers, which, in the case of the Alps,
filled up the valley of the Rhone and the
Lake of Geneva, buried the whole of the
lower country of Switzerland under 3,000
feet of ice, and left the boulders of its
terminal moraine, carried from the Mont
Blanc range, at that height on the opposite
range of the Jura. Nor is this a solitary
instance. We find everywhere traces ofenormous glaciers in the Pyrenees and
Carpathians, the Atlas and Lebanon, the
Taurus and Caucasus, the highlands of
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; in the Rocky
Mountains and Sierra Nevada; in the
Andes and Cordilleras of South America ;
in South Africa and in New Zealand.
These may not have all been simultaneous,
but they certainly all belong to the same
period of the great glaciation, and show
that it must have been affected by some
general cause, and not have been entirely
due to mere local accidents.
How this first great glacial period came
on, or how long it lasted, we do not know,
unless a clue be afforded—and authorities
differ as to this—by Dr. Croll’s theory, which
explains the great variations in climate as
due to periodic changes in the eccentricity
of the earth’s orbit, the periods of greatest
cold coinciding with those of greatest
eccentricity. But we know generally from
the amount of work done and the changes
which took place that the Ice Age must have
lasted for an immense time. The ice, which
covered so great a portion of the northern
hemisphere, was not a polar ice-cap, but,
as is proved conclusively from the direction
of the striae which were engraved by it on
the subjacent rocks, spread outwards in all
directions from great masses of elevated
land. This land must have been more
elevated than at present, so as to rise, like
Greenland, far into the region of perpetual
snow, where all rain falls and accumulates
in the solid form ; and also to supply the
enormous mass of dlbris which the ice-caps
and glaciers left behind them. It is not
too much to say that a million of square
miles in Europe, and more in North
America, were covered by the debris of
rocks ground down by these glaciers, and
often to great depths. Most of the debris
of the first glaciation have been removed
by denudation, or ploughed out by the
second great advance of the ice, leaving
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
only the larger and harder boulders to
testify to their extent ; but enough remains
to show that the first series of boulder-clays
and drifts must have been on a scale larger
than those of the second and subsequent
glaciations, which now form the superficial
stratum of so much of the earth’s surface,
and often attain a depth of several hundred
feet. Wright, in his Ice Age in North
America., estimates that “not less than
1,000,000 square miles of territory in North
America is still covered with an average
depth of fifty feet of glacial dlbnsP
However, this first period of elevation
and of intense glaciation passed away, and
was succeeded by one of depression and
of milder climate. Whether or no the
depression was due, as some think, to the
weight of the enormous mass of ice weigh
ing down the yielding crust of the earth,
and whether or no the milder climate .was
partly occasioned by this depression letting
in the sea, the fact is certain that the two
coincided, and were general and not merely
local phenomena. Marine shells at the
top of what are now high, hills, which
during the preceding glaciation were pro
bably higher, attest the fact that a large
amount of land must have sunk below the
sea towards the close of this first glacial
period. It is equally clear that a long
inter-glacial period ensued, during which
many changes took place in the geographi
cal conditions and in the fauna and flora,
requiring a very long time. Thus Britain,
which had been reduced to an Arctic
Archipelago, in which only a few of the
highest mountain peaks emerged as frozen
islands, became united to the continent,
and the abode of a fauna consisting in
great part of African animals. At one time
boreal shells were deposited, at the bottom
of an Arctic ocean, on what is now the top
of Moel-Tryfen in Wales, a hill i,3°° feet
above the present sea-level; while at
another the hippopotamus found its way,
in some great river flowing from the south,
as far north as Yorkshire, and the remains
of African animals such as the hyena
accumulated in our caves. In Southern
France we had at one time a vegetation of
the Arctic willow and reindeer moss, at
another that of the fig-tree and canary
laurel. When we consider that little
if any change has occurred, either in
geographical conditions or in fauna or
flora, within the historical period, it is
difficult to assign the time which would be
sufficient to bring about such changes by
any known natural causes. And yet it
lot
comprises only a portion of the glacial
period, for after this inter-glacial period
had lasted for an indefinite time the climate
again became cold, and culminated in a
second glaciation, which, if not equal to
the first, was still of extreme severity, and
brought back ice-caps and glaciers almost
to their former limits, passing away slowly
and with several vicissitudes and alternate
retreats and advances.
It is not always easy to determine the
position of each individual phase of the two
glacial and the inter-glacial periods, for
they must often have been intermixed, while
the results of the last glaciation and of
subsequent denudation have to a great
extent obscured those of the earlier periods.
But taking a general view of the glacial
period as a whole, there are a few leading
facts which testify conclusively to its
immense antiquity. First, there is the
amount of elevation and depression. We
have seen that marine Arctic shells have
been found on the top of Moel-Tryfen,
1,300 feet above the present sea-level.
Nor is this an isolated instance, for marine
drifts apparently of the same character
have been traced on the mountains of
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland to a height
of between 2,000 and 3,000 feet. In
Norway, also, old sea beaches are found
to a height of 800 feet. Nor are these
great movements confined to the Old World
or to limited localities. According to
Professor Le Conte, at a meeting of
the Geological Congress at Washington, a
great continental movement, commencing
in the later tertiary and terminating in the
beginning of the quaternary, caused
changes of level amounting to 2,500 or
3,000 feet on both sides of the continent of
North America.
Now, elevation and depression of large
masses of land are, as far as we know
anything certain about them, very slow
processes, especially in countries unaffected
by recent volcanic action, which is the case
with nearly all the regions in North
America and Europe once covered by the
great ice-sheets. There has been little or
no perceptible change anywhere since the
commencement of history, and the only
accurate measurements of changes now
going on are those in Sweden, where
it appears that in some cases elevation,
and in others depression, is taking place
at the rate of about two and a half feet in a
century. In volcanic regions earthquakes
have occasionally caused movements of
greater amount in limited areas, but there
�lol
HUMAN ORIGINS
is no trace of anything of the sort in these
movements of the glacial period which
have apparently gone on by slight secular .
changes in the earth’s crust, as they are now
doing in Scandinavia.
But in this case a depression of 2,000
feet, followed by an elevation of equal
amount, at Lyell’s rate of two and a half
feet per century, would require 160,000
years, without allowing for any pauses
during the process. And this embraces
only part of the whole glacial period, for
the depression did not begin until after the
climax of the first great glaciation, when
the land probably stood higher than at
present. Of course, the actual movements
may have been more rapid; but, unless
we resort to the exploded theories of
cataclysms and catastrophes, the time
for such movements must have been very
great.
An equally conclusive proof of the im
mense antiquity of the glacial period is
afforded by the formation known as the
loess, which fills up so many of the valley
systems of Europe, Asia, and America to
great depths, and spreads over the adja
cent table-lands. It is the moraine mud
of glaciers, deposited by the water
which inundated the country when great
rivers from glaciated districts ran at higher
levels, and began to excavate their present
valleys. Lyell estimates the thickness of
this deposit in the Rhine valley at 800 feet,
and it is found at much higher levels on
upland plains. Now, this loess , is not a
marine or lacustrine deposit, as is proved
by the shells it contains, which are all of
land species ; nor is it a deposit of running
water, for there are no sands or gravels ;
but distinctly such a deposit from tranquil
sheets of muddy water like those accumu
lated in Egypt by the inundations of the
Nile. When the Rhine brought down such
volumes of muddy water from the glaciers
of the Alps as to overflow the upland plains,
it must have flowed at a level many hun
dred feet higher than its present valley,
which must have been since scooped out
by sub-aerial denudation. The rate of de
position of the Nile mud is about three
inches per century, and there seems no
reason why that of the fine glacial mud
should have been more rapid, charged as
the Nile is every year with mud from the
torrential rains of the Abyssinian high
lands. At this rate it would have required
320,000 years to accumulate the 800 feet of
loess of the Rhine valley. Here again the
rate may have been faster, but it is suffi
cient to show that an immense time must
have elapsed, and the loess is a distinctly
glacial deposit, containing palaeolithic
human remains and a pleistocene fauna,
and embracing only a portion of the quater
nary period. Nor is it an isolated pheno
menon confined to Europe, but is found
over the whole world wherever rivers have
flowed from regions which were formerly
buried under ice and snow.
Loess is
found in the valleys of the Yang-tseKang and the Mississippi; and Sir Charles
Lyell, referring to the fossil human bone
discovered at Natchez, says : “My reluc
tance in 1846 to regard the fossil human
bone as of post-pliocene date arose, in part,
from the reflection that the ancient loess of
Natchez is anterior in time to the whole
modern delta of the Mississippi. The table
land was, I believe, once a part of the
original alluvial plain or delta of the great
river before it was upraised. It has now
risen more than 200 feet above its pristine
level. After the upheaval, or during it, the
Mississippi cut through the whole fluviatile
formation, of which its bluffs are now
formed, just as the Rhine has in many
parts of its valley excavated a passage
through its ancient loess. If I was right
in calculating that the present delta of the
Mississippi has acquired, as a minimum of
time, more than 100,000 years for its
growth, it would follow, if the claims of
the Natchez man to have co-existed with
the mastodon are admitted, that North
America was peopled more than a thousand
centuries ago by the human race. But,
even were that true, we could not presume,
reasoning from ascertained geological
data, the Natchez bone was anterior
in date to the antique flint haches of
St. Acheul.”
Human remains have since been found m
the United States, both in the loess, and
in drifts, which are presumably older ; but
even if this were doubtful, the evidence
would remain the same for the immense
time required for such a deposit, and there
is abundant proof in Europe that human
implements, and even skulls and skeletons,
have been unearthed at considerable depths
the loess, along with remains of the mam
moth and other extinct animals.
It must be remembered also that the
loess is only one part of the work due to
glacial erosion. It is, in fact, only the
deposit of the fine mud ground from the
rocks by glaciers, the streams issuing
from which carry it beyond the coarser
debris, which, as wehave seen, cover 1,000,000
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY
square miles to an average depth of fifty
feet in North America alone. _ The volumes
of the loess and of the debris tell the same
story of enormous erosion requiring im
mense periods of time.
Even in comparatively recent times
striking proofs of immense antiquity are
afforded by the amounts of denudation and
erosion which have taken place since the ice
disappeared and the lands and seas assumed
substantially their present contours and
levels. I will give one instance which,
although comparatively modern, will come
home readily to most British readers. Sir
John Evans, in his Ancient Stone Imple
ments, referring to those found at Bourne
mouth ioo feet above the present sea-level
in the gravels of the old Solent river,
which then ran at that height, says
“Who, standing on the edge of the
lofty cliff at Bournemouth, and gazing over
the wide expanse of waters between the
present shore and a line connecting the
Needles on the one hand and the BallardDown Foreland on the other, can fully
comprehend how immensely remote was
the epoch when what is now that vast bay
was high and dry land, and a long range of
chalk down, 600 feet above the sea, bounded
the horizon on the south ? And yet this
must have seen the sight that met the eyes
of those primaeval men who frequented
that ancient river, which buried their handi
works in gravels that now cap the cliffs, and
of the course of which so strange but indu
bitable a memorial subsists, in what has
now become the Solent Sea.”
And the same may be said of the still
wider strait which separates England from
France. No geologist could look either at
the Needles and Ballard Foreland, or at
Shakespear’s Cliff and Cape Grisnez, with
out a conviction that the chalk ridge was
once continuous, and has been worn away,
inch by inch, by the very same process as
is now going on. Nor can the action of
ice or river floods be evoked to accelerate
the process, for evidently it has throughout
been a case of marine erosion. The
only question is whether this dates back
even into the later phases of the glacial
period, for the opposite cliffs show no sign
of having been either depressed beneath
the sea or elevated above it, but rather
appear to have stood at their present level
since the erosion began. In any case, it
can only have occupied a comparatively
short and recent phase of the glacial
period, for there is abundant evidence that
the British islands have been connected
103
with the Continent in, geologically speak
ing, comparatively recent times.
Great, however, as is the antiquity shown
by these relatively modern instances, they
sink into insignificance compared with that
evidenced by a recent discovery, which I
quote the more readily because it rests on
the high authority of the late Professor
Prestwich, who has been foremost among
modern geologists in reducing the time
required for the glacial period and for the
existence of man. It. is afforded by the
upland gravels in Kent and Surrey, which
are scattered over wide areas of the chalk
downs and green-sand, at elevations far
above existing valleys and water sheds, and
which could have been deposited only
before the present rivers began to run,
and when the configuration of the
country was altogether different. Mr. Har
rison, a shopkeeper at Ightham in Kent,
who is an ardent field-geologist, recently
discovered what have been named eolithic,
or pre-palaeolithic, implements, in consider
able numbers and in various localities, in
these gravels of the great southern drift,
at an elevation of 75° fee^ above the sea
level. These discoveries, which have since
been repeated by other observers, led
Professor Prestwich to institute an exhaus
tive inquiry as to these upland drifts ; and
the startling conclusion he arrives at is
that the oldest of them, the great southern
drift, in which the implements are found,
could have come only from a mountain
range 2,000 to 3,000 feet high, which
formerly ran from east to west in the line
of the anticlinal axis which runs down the
centre to the present Weald of Kent,
between the north and south chalk downs,
and which has been since worn down to
the present low forest ridge by sub-aerial
denudation. The reasoning by which this
inference is supported seems irresistible.
The drift could not have been deposited by
the present rivers or during the present
configuration of the country, for it is found
at levels 300 or 400 feet higher than the
highest watersheds between the existing
valleys. It consists not only of chalk flints,
but to a great extent of cherts and sand
stones, such as are found at present in the
forest-ridge of the Wealden and nowhere
else. It must have been brought by water,
for the gravels are to a considerable
extent rounded and water-worn. Judging
from the size of the rolled stones, this
water must have travelled with consider
able velocity ; and it must have come from
the south, because the cherts and grits are
�i&4
HUMAN origins
found only there, and because the levels at
which the gravels are found are in that
direction. By following these levels as far
as the present surface extends, which is to
the southern edge of the green sand, it is
easy to plot out what must have been the
continuation of this rising gradient to the
south, and what the elevation of the southern
range in which these northward-flowing
streams took their origin. Prestwich has
gone into the question in full detail, and
his conclusion is that the height of this
Wealden ridge must have been at least
2,800 feet, or, in other words, that about
2,000 feet must have disappeared by
denudation. This is the more conclusive
because, as remarked above, Prestwich
approached the subject with a bias towards
shortening rather than lengthening the
periods commonly assigned for the glacial
epoch and the antiquity of man.
The present average rate of denudation
of continents has been approximately
measured by calculating the amount of
solid matter brought down by rivers. It
varies a good deal, according to the nature
of the area drained ; but the average is
about one foot in 3,000 years. At this rate
the time required for the removal of 2,000
feet of the Wealden ridge would be no less
than 6,000,000 years ; but of course this
would be no fair test, as denudation would
be vastly more rapid than the present
average rate on hilly ranges and under
glacial conditions of climate. It is enough
to say that the period required must have
been extremely great, and quite ample to
fit in with the most extended time required
by Croll’s theory of the varying eccentricity
of the earth’s orbit.
It is to be noted also that Prestwich pro
nounces part of this high level or southern
drift to be older than the Westleton pebble
drift which forms part of the Upper Plio
cene series in Suffolk and Norfolk, and
which he has traced over many of our
southern counties. If this conclusion is
correct, it solves the problem of tertiary man
by showing numerous palaeolithic imple
ments in a deposit older than an undoubted
Pliocene bed. The implements found in
these high-level southern drifts are all of a
very rude type, and the discovery is con
firmed by similar implements having been
found at corresponding elevations on the
chalk downs of Hertfordshire and on the
South Downs.
I will mention only one other instance,
which shows that the New World confirms
the conclusion as to the antiquity of the
quaternary age. The auriferous gravels of
California consist of an enormous mass of
debris washed down by pre-glacial or early
glacial rivers from the western slopes of the
great coast range. During their deposition
they became interstratified with lavas and
tuffs from eruptions of volcanoes long since
extinct, and finally covered by an immense
flow of basalts, which formed a gently
inclined plane from the Sierra Nevada to
the Pacific. This plane was attacked by the
denudations of the existing river-courses,
and cut down into a series of flat-topped
hills, divided by steep canons and by the
valleys of the present great rivers. In one
case, that of the Colombia river, this denu
dation has been carried down to a depth of
over 2,000 feet, and the river flows between
precipitous cliffs of this height. The pre
sent gold-mining is carried on mainly by
shafts and tunnels driven through super
ficial gravels and sheets of basalts and tuffs,
which are brought down in great masses by
hydraulic jets to the gravels of the pre
glacial rivers. In a large number of these
cases stone implements of undoubted
human origin have been found at great
depths under several successive sheets of
basalts, tuffs, and gravels. Mr. Skertchley,
an eminent English geologist, who visited
the district, says of these gravels : “ What
ever may be their absolute age from
a geological standpoint, their immense
antiquity historically is beyond question..
The present great river system of the Sacra-*
mento, Joaquin, and other rivers has been
established; canons 2,000 feet deep have
been carried through lava, gravels, and
into the bed rock; and the gravels, once
the bed of large rivers, now cap hills 6,000
feet high. There is ample ground for the
belief that these gravels are of Pliocene
age, but the presence of objects of human
formation invests them with a higher inte
rest to the anthropologist than even to the
geologist.”
I will return to this subject more fully in
the chapter on “ Tertiary Man ” when deal
ing with the question of the human remains
found in these Californian gravels.
Those who wish to pursue the subject
further will find abundant evidence in the
works of Lyell, Geikie, Evans, Boyd Daw
kins, and other modern geologists, and a
popular summary of it in my Modern
Science and Modern Thought.
It is sufficient for my present purpose to
have shown that, even taking the quater
nary period alone, geology proves that
there is an abundant balance in the
�Q UA TERNAR Y MAN
bank of.Time to meet any demands that
may be made upon it by the kindred
sciences.
CHAPTER IX.
QUATERNARY MAN
No longer doubted—Men existed in '-numbers
and widely spread — Palaeolithic Imple
ments of similar Type found everywhere
— Progress shown—Tests of Antiquity —
Position of Strata—Fauna—Oldest Types—
Mixed Northern and Southern Species—Rein
deer Period — Correspondence of Human
Remains with these Periods—Advance of
Civilisation—Clothing and Barbed Arrows—
Drawing and Sculpture—Passage into Neo
lithic and Recent Periods—Corresponding
Progress of Physical Man—Distinct Races
—How tested—Tests applied to Historical,
Neolithic, and Palaeolithic Man — Long
Heads and Broad Heads — Aryan Contro
versy — Primitive European Types—Canon
Taylor—Huxley—Preservation of Human
Remains depends mainly on Burials—About
forty Skulls and Skeletons known from
Quaternary Times—Summary of Results—
Quatrefages and Hamy—Races of Cannstadt
I *s»Cro-Magnon — F urfooz—Truchere—Skele
tons of Neanderthal and Spy—Cannstadt
Type oldest — Cro-Magnon Type next—
Skeleton of Cro-Magnon—Broad-headed and
Short Race resembling Lapps—American
Type—Negroes and Negritos—Summary of
Results.
The time is past when it is necessary
to go into any lengthened argument to
prove that man existed throughout the
Quaternary period. Little more than half
a century has elapsed since the confirma
tion of Boucher de Perthes’s discovery of
palaeolithic implements in the old gravels
of the Somme, and now the proofs have
multiplied to such an extent that they are
reckoned, not by scores or hundreds, but
by tens of thousands. Stone tools and
weapons have been found not in one locality
npr in one formation only, but in all the
deposits of the Quaternary age, from the
earliest to the latest, and in association with
the fauna of the Quaternary period, from
the extinct mammoth, woolly rhinoceros,
and cave-bear, to the reindeer, horse, ox,
and other existing animals. No geologist or
palaeontologist, who approaches the subject
105
with anything like competent knowledge,
and without theological or other pre
possessions, doubts that man is as much a
characteristic member of the Quaternary
fauna as any of these extinct or existing
animals, and that reasonable doubt only
begins when we pass from the Quaternary
into the Tertiary ages. I will content
myself, therefore, instead of proving facts
which are no longer disputed, with show
ing what bearing they have on the question
of human origins.
The first fact to note is that at this
palaeolithic celt (type of St. Acheul).
From Quaternary deposits of the Nerbudda,
India.
remote period man existed in considerable
numbers, and was already widely spread
over nearly the whole surface of the habit
able earth.
Implements and weapons of the palaeo
lithic type, such as celts or hatchets, lance
and arrow-heads, knives, borers, and
scrapers of flint, or, if that material be
wanting, of some hard stone of the district,
fashioned by chipping without any grinding
or polishing, have been found in the sands
and gravels of most of the river valleys
of Southern England, France, Belgium,
�io6
HUMAN ORIGINS
Germany, Spain, and Italy. Still more
numerously also in the caves and glacial
drifts of these andother European countries.
Nor are they confined to Europe. Stone
implements of the same type have been
found in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Natal,
South Africa, Greece, Syria, Palestine,
Hindostan, and as far east as China and
Japan, while in the New World they
have been found in Maryland, Ohio,
California, and other States in North
America, and in Brazil, and the Argentine
probability that it will eventually be proved
that, with a few exceptions, wherever man
could have existed during the Quaternary
period, there he did exist. The northern
portions of Europe which were buried
under ice-caps are the only countries where
considerable search has failed to discover
palaeolithic implements, while vast areas
of Asia, Africa, and America remain un
explored.
The next point to observe is that through-
PALAEOLITHIC CELT IN ARGILLITE.
From the Delaware, United States (Abbott).
pampas in the South. And this has been
the result of the explorations of little more
than forty years, prior to which the co
existence of man with the extinct animals
was almost universally denied; explora
tions which, except in a few European
countries, have been very partial.
In fact, the area over which these evi
dences of man’s existence have been found
may be best defined by the negative, where
they have not been found, as there is every
(type of St. Acheul).
From Algeria (Lubbock).
PALAEOI.ITHIC FLINT CELT
out the whole of the Quaternary period
there has been a constant advance in
human intelligence. Any theory of human
origins which says that man has fallen and
not risen is demonstrably false. How
do we know this? The time-scale of
the Quaternary, as of other geological
periods, is determined partly by the super
position of strata, and partly by the changes
of fauna. In the case of existing rivers
�quaternary man
107
modern as we descend in the one case or
ascend in the others.
This is practically confirmed by. tne
coincidence of innumerable observations.
The oldest Quaternary fauna is character
ised by a preponderance of three species—
the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), the
woolly rhinoceros (Rhinoceros tichormus),
and the cave-bear (Ursus spelmus).
There are a few survivals from the Plio
cene, as the gigantic elephant (Elephas
antiquus), and a few anticipations of later
forms, as the reindeer, horse, and ox; but the
three mentioned are, with relics of palaeo
lithic man, the most characteristic. Then
comes a long period when a strange mixture
of northern and southern forms occurs. Side
by side with the remains of Arctic animals,
such as the mammoth, the glutton, the
musk ox, and the lemming, are found those
of African species adapted only for a warm
climate—the lion, panther, hyena, and, above
all, the hippopotamus, not distinguishable
from the existing species, which could
certainly not have lived in rivers that were
frozen in winter.
The intermixture is difficult to explain.
No doubt Africa and Europe were then
united, and the theory of migration may be
invoked. The Arctic animals may, it is
said, have moved south in winter and the
African animals north in summer, and
this was doubtless the case to some extent.
But there are some facts which militate
against this theory ; for instance, the hyena
caves, which seem to show a continuous
occupation by the same African species for
long periods. Nor is it easy to conceive
how the hippopotamus could have travelled
every summer from Africa to Yorkshire,
and retreated every autumn with the ap
proach of frost. Such instances point
rather to long inter-glacial periods with
vicissitudes of climate, enabling now a
northern, and now a southern, fauna to in
habit permanently the same region.
Be this as it may, the fact is certain that
palaeolithic celt of quartzite from
this strange intermixture of northern and
NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA.
southern species is found in almost all the
(Quatrefages.)
European deposits of the Quaternary age
until towards its close with the coming-on
lower. In the case of deposits in caves
of the second great glacial period, when
or in still water, or where glacial moraines
the southern forms disappear, and the rein
and debris are superimposed on one
deer, with an Arctic or boreal flora and
another, the case is reversed : the
fauna, become preponderant, and extend
lowest are the oldest, and the highest the
themselves over Southern France and Ger
most recent.
many up to the Alps and Pyrenees.
In like manner, if the fauna has changed,
The Quaternary period is therefore
the remains found in the highest deposits
roughly divided into three stages: 1st,
of rivers and the lowest deposits of caves
that of the mammoth and cave-bear, there
will be the oldest, and will become more
which have excavated their presentgalleys
in the course of ages, it is evident that th
highest deposits are the oldest. It the
Somme, Seine, or Thames left remains of
their terraces and patches of their silts and
gravels at heights 100 feet or more above
their present level, it is because they once
ran at these higher levels, and gradual y
worked their way downwards, leaving
traces of their floods ever lower and
�108
HUMAN ORIGINS
being some difference of opinion as to
which came first, though they may have
been simultaneous ; 2nd, the middle stage
of the mixed fauna ; 3rd, the latest stage,
that of the reindeer.
Now, to these stages there is striking
correspondence in the associated character
of the human implements. In the earliest,
those of the oldest deposits and of the
oldest animals, we find the rudest imple
ments. They consist almost exclusively
of native stones, chipped roughly into a few
primitive shapes ; celts, which are merely
lumps of flint or other hard stone with a
little chipping to supplement natural frac
tures in bringing them to a point or edge,
while the butt-end is left rough to be grasped
by the hand ; scrapers with a little chipping
to an edge on one side ; very rude arrow
heads without the vestige of a barb or
socket; and flakes struck off at a blow,
which may have served for knives. As we
ascend to later deposits, we find these
primitive types constantly improving. The
celts are chipped all over and the butt-ends
adapted for haftings; so with the other
implements and weapons, the arrow-heads
being barbed. And a great advance
occurs in the use of bone, which seems to
have been as. important a civilising agent
for palaeolithic as metals were for neo
lithic man. This again may be due to the
increasing preponderance of the reindeer,
whose horns afforded an abundant and
easily manipulated material for working
into the desired forms by flint knives.
At any rate, the fact is that, as we trace
palaeolithic man upwards into the later half
of the Quaternary period when the reindeer
became abundant, we find a notable advance
in civilisation. Bone needles appear, show
ing that skins of animals were stitched
together with sinews to provide clothing.
Barbed arrows and harpoons show that the
arts of war and of the chase had made a
great advance on the primitive unhafted
celt. . And finally we arrive at a time when
certain tribes showed not only an advance
in the industrial arts, but a really marvel
lous proficiency in the arts of sculpture and
drawing. In the later reindeer period,
when herds of that animal and of the wild
horse and ox roamed over the plains of
Southern France and Germany, and when
the mammoth and cave-bear, though not
extinct, were becoming scarce, tribes of
palaeolithic savages who lived in the caves
and rock shelters of the valleys of Southern
France and Germany, and of Switzerland
and Belgium, drew pictures of the animals
by which they were surrounded with the
point of a flint on pieces of bone or of
schist. They also carve'd bones into
images of these animals, to adorn the
handles of their weapons, or perhaps for
use as idols or amulets. Both drawings and
sculptures are in many cases admirably
executed, so as to leave no doubt as to the
animal intended, especially in the case of
the wild animals. Most of them represent
the reindeer in various attitudes; but the
mammoth, the cave-bear, the wild horse,
the Bos primigenius, and others, are
also represented with wonderful fidelity.
Portraits of the human figure are rare
and very roughly done.
With the close of the reindeer age we pass
into the Recent period, and from palaeolithic
to neolithic man. . Except in the British
Isles, whose geological detachment explains
the gap, there is no physical break, and we
cannot draw a hard-and-fast line as to where
one ends and where the other begins. All
we can say is that there is general evidence
of constantly decreasing cold during the
whole post-glacial period, from the climax
of the second great glaciation until modern
conditions of climate are fairly established
and the existing fauna has completely
superseded that of the Quaternary, the
older characteristic forms of which having
either become extinct or migrated. How
does this affect the most characteristic of
all Quaternary forms, that of man ? Can
we trace an uninterrupted succession from
the earliest Quaternary to the latest modern
times, or is there a break between the
Quaternary and Recent periods which with
our present knowledge cannot be bridged
over? And did the division of mankind
into widely different races, which is such
a prominent feature throughout human
history, exist in the palaeolithic age?
These are questions which can be an
swered—and that imperfectly—only by the
evidence of skulls and skeletons. I mplements
and weapons may have altered with the lapse
of ages, and new forms may have been intro
duced by commerce and conquest, without
any fundamental change in the race using
them. Still less can language be appealed
to as a test of race, for experience shows
how easily the language of a superior race
may be imposed on populations with which
it has no affinity in blood. To establish
distinction of races we consult the physical
anthropologist rather than the archaeologist
or philologist.
On what are the distinctions of the
human race founded ? Mainly on colour,
�Q UA TERNA RY MAN
stature, hair, and anatomical characters.
These are wonderfully persistent, and
have been so since historical times,
intermediate characters appearing only
where there has been intercrossing be
tween different races. But the primitive
types have continued unchanged ; no
one has ever seen a white race of
Negroes, or a black one of Europeans.
And this has certainly been the case during
the historical period, for the paintings on
old Egyptian tombs show us the types of
the Negro, the Libyan, the Syrian, and the
Copt as distinct as at the present day ; and
the Negroes especially, with their black
colour, long heads, projecting muzzles, and
woolly hair growing* in separate tufts, might
pass for typical photographs of the African
Negro of the nineteenth century.
Of these indications of race we are
practically reduced to the anatomical
in any finds in Quaternary gravel or caves
Even, then, a number of causes, which will
be indicated later on, combine to make
human remains few and scanty, and to
become constantly fewer and more imper
fect as we ascend the stream of time to
earlier periods. It must be remembered
also that even these scanty specimens of
early man are confined almost entirely to
one comparatively small portion of the
earth, that of Europe, and that we have
hardly a single palaeolithic skull or skeleton
of the black, the yellow, the olive, the
copper-coloured, or other typical race into
which the population of the earth is
divided.
We are confined, therefore, in the
main, to Europe for anything like positive
evidence of these anatomical characters of
prehistoric man, and can draw inferences
as to other habitable portions of the earth
and other races only from implements. For
tunately these racial characters are very
persistent, especially those of the skull and
. stature, and they exist in ample abundance
throughout the historic, prehistoric, and
neolithic ages to enable us to draw trust
worthy conclusions. At present, and
as far as we can see back with certainty,
the races which have inhabited Europe
may be classified as tall and short, long
headed and broad-headed, and as of
intermediate types, which latter, though
constituting a majority of most modern
countries, may be dismissed for the present,
as they are almost certainly not primitive,
but the result of intercrossing. _
Colour, complexion, and hair are also
very persistent, though, as we have pointed
109
out, we have no certain evidence by which
to test them beyond the historical period.
But the form of skulls, jaws, teeth, and
other parts of the skeleton remains wonder
fully constant in races where there has been
little or no intermixture.
The first great division is in the form of
the skull. Comparing the extreme breadth
of the skull with its extreme length from
front to back, if the breadth does not exceed
three-fourths or 75 per cent, of the length,
the skull is said to be dolicocephalic or
long-headed ; if it equals or exceeds 83 per
cent., it is called brachycephalic—z>., short
or broad-headed. Intermediate indices
between 75 and 83 per cent, are called
sub-dolicocephalic, or sub-brachycephalic,
according as they approach one or the other
of these extremes.
The prognathism of the jaws, the form
of the eye-orbits and nasal bones, the
superciliary ridges, the proportion of the
frontal to the posterior regions of the skull,
the stature and proportions of the limbs,
are also characteristic and persistent
features, and correspond generally with the
type of the skulls.
The controversy as to the origin of the
Aryans—a term which, strictly speaking,
denotes linguistic affinities—has led to a
great deal of argument as to these ethno
logical traits in prehistoric and neolithic
times; and Canon Taylors interesting
volume on the Origin of the Aryans, and
Professor Huxley’s article on the same
subject in the Nineteenth Century for
November, 1890 (reprinted in his Collected
Essays}, give a summary of the latest
researches on the subject. We shall have
to refer to these more fully in discussing
the question as to the place or places of
human origins ; but for the present it is
sufficient to state the general result at
which the latest science has arrived.
While not denying the specific unity of
the human race, the theory of a common
Asiatic centre from which all the _ four
main divisions of mankind—the Ethiopic,
the Mongolic, the American, _ and the
Caucasic—contemporaneously migrated, is
given up as unsupported by evidence.
When we first know anything of the early
European races, we find them occupying
substantially very much the same regions
as at present. Of the European types
already named, one, apparently the oldest
in Western Europe and in the Mediterra
nean region, probably represented by the
Iberians, and now by the Spanish Basques,
was short, dark, and long-headed ; a second,
�no
HUMAN ORIGINS
short, dark, and broad-headed, type, was
probably represented by the ancient Ligu
rians, and survives now in the Auvergnats
and Savoyards ; a third, tall, fair, and
long-headed, had its original seat in the
regions of the Baltic and North Sea, and
was always an energetic and conquering
race ; while the fourth, like the third, was
tall and fair, but broad-headed, and possibly
not a primitive race, but the result of
some ancient intermixture of the third or
Northern type with some of the broad
headed races.
Now, as far back as human remains
exist in sufficient numbers to enable us
to form some conclusion—that is, up to
the early neolithic period—we find similar
race-types already existing, and to a
considerable extent in the same localities.
In modern and historical times we find,
according to Canon Taylor, “all the
anthropological tests agreeing in exhibit
ing two extreme types—the African, with
long heads, long eye-orbits, and flat hair;
and the Mongolian, with round heads, round
orbits, and round hair. The European
type is intermediate—the head, orbits, and
sections of hair are oval. In the east of
Europe we find an approximation to the
Asiatic type ; in the south of Europe to the
African.”
More specifically, we find in Europe the
four races of tall and short long-heads, and
tall and short broad-heads, mentioned above.
The question is, how far back can any of
these races be identified ?
The preservation of human remains
depends mainly on the practice of burying
the dead. Until the corpse is placed in a
tomb, protected by a stone coffin or dolmen,
or in a grave dug in a cave, or otherwise
sheltered from rains, floods, and wild beasts,
the chances of its preservation are few and
far between. It is not until the neolithic
period that the custom of burying the
dead became general, and even then it
was not universal; in many nations, even in
historical times, corpses being burnt, not
buried. It was connected, perhaps, with
ideas of a future existence, which either
required troublesome ghosts to be put
securely out of the way, or to retain a
shadowy existence by some mysterious
connection with the body which had once
served them for a habitation. Cremation,
as Professor Ridgeway suggests, may have
originated in the idea of securing the soul
from any chance of pollution by contact
with the corpse. Such ideas, however, only
come with some advance of civilisation,
and it is questionable whether in prehistoric
times the human animal had any more
notion of preserving the body after death
than the bodies of other animals by which
he was surrounded.
The neolithic habit of burying, though it
preserves many relics of its own time, in
creases the difficulty when we come to deal
with those of an earlier age. A great
many caves which had been inhabited by
palaeolithic man were selected as fitting
spots for the graves of their neolithic suc
cessors, and thus the remains of the two
periods became intermixed. It is never
safe to rely on the antiquity of skulls and
skeletons found in association with palaeo
lithic implements and extinct animals,
unless the exploration has been made with
the greatest care by some competent scien
tific observer, or unless the circumstances of
the case are such as to preclude the possi
bility of later interments. Thus the famous
cavern of Aurignac had been long a
palaeolithic station, and many of the human
remains date back to this period; but
whether the fourteen skeletons which were
found in it, and lost owing to the pietistic
zeal of the Mayor who directed their burial,
were really palaeolithic, or part of a secon
dary neolithic interment, is a disputed
point.
But to return to undoubted neolithic
skulls, we have evidence that the four
distinct European races already existed.
Thus in Britain we have two forms of
barrows or burial tombs, one long, the other
round, and it has become proverbial that
long skulls go with long barrows, and round
skulls with round barrows. The long
barrows are the older, and belong entirely
to the stone age, no trace of metal, accord
ing to Canon Greenwell, having ever been
found in them. The skulls and skeletons
are those of a short, long-headed race,
who may be identified with the Iberians.
The round barrows contain bronze and,
finally, iron, and the people buried in
them were the tall, fair, round-headed
Gauls or Celts of early history, inter
mediate types between these and the
older race. Later came the tall, fair, and
long-headed Anglo-Saxon and Scandina
vian races, so that we have three out of the
four European types clearly defined in the
British islands and traceable in their des
cendants of the present day. But when we
attempt to go beyond the Iberians of the
neolithic age in Britain, we are completely
at fault. We have abundant remains of
palaeolithic implements, but scarcely a
�Q UA TERNAR Y MAN
single undoubted specimen of a palaeolithic
skeleton, and it is impossible to say whether
the men who feasted on the mammoth and
rhinoceros in Kent’s cavern, or who left
their rude implements in the high-level
gravel of the chalk downs, were tall or
short, long-headed or round-headed. On
the contrary, there seems a great hiatus
between the neolithic and the palaeolithic
periods in Great Britain, although, so far
as the Continent is concerned, there is
evidence of continuity. It would almost
seem that in these islands the old era had
disappeared with the last glacial period,
and that a new one had been introduced.
But, although the skulls . and bones of
palaeolithic races are wanting in Britain
and are scarce everywhere, enough have
been found in other European countries
to enable anthropologists not merely to say
that different races already existed at this
immensely remote period, but to classify
them by their types, and see how far these
correspond with those.of later times. This
has been done especially in France and
Belgium, where the discoveries of palaeo
lithic skeletons and skulls have been far
more frequent than elsewhere. Debierre in
his HHomme avant I'histoire. published in
the Bibliotheque Scientifique of 1888, enu
merates upwards of forty instances of such
undoubted Quaternary human remains, of
which at least twenty consisted of. entire
skulls, and others of jaws and other impor
tant bones connected with racial type.
The inference drawn from these remains
will be found in this work of Deb.ierre’s, and
in Y&xrrfs Palceontologie Humaine, Quatrefages’s Races Humaines^ and Topinard’s
Anthropologic; and it will' be sufficient to
give a short summary of the results., always
premising that doubt must attach itself to
the neolithic or palaeolithic character of
remains where the determination of their
exact place in any deposit is. unsettled.
Quaternary fossil man is divided, in
the Crania Ethnica of Quatrefages and
Hamy, into four races : 1st, the Cannstadt
race; 2nd, the Cro-Magnon race; 3rd, the
races of Grenelle and Furfooz ; 4th, the
race of Truchere.
The Cannstadt race is so called from the
first skull presumably of this type, which
was discovered two centuries ago in the
loess of the valley of the Neckar near
Wurtemberg. But the type is more cer
tainly represented by the celebrated
Neanderthal skull, which gave rise to
much discussion, and which was pronounced by some to be that of an idiot,
hi
and by others the most pithecoid specimen
of a human skull yet known.
A later discovery has set at rest all
doubt as to the Neanderthal skull being the
oldest Quaternary human type known in
Western Europe. In the year 1886 two
Belgian savants, Messrs. Fraipont and
Lohest—one an anatomist, the other a geo
logist—discovered in a cave at Spy near
Namur two skeletons with the skulls com
plete, which presented the Neanderthal
type in an exaggerated form. They were
found under circumstances which leave.no
doubt as to their belonging to the earliest
Quaternary deposit, being at the bottom of
the cave, in the lowest of three distinct
strata, the two uppermost of which were
full of the usual palaeolithic implements of
stone and bone, while the few found in the
lowest stratum with the skeletons were of
the rudest description. Huxley pronounces
the evidence such as will bear the severest
criticism, and he sums up the anatomical
characters of the skeletons in the following
terms :—
“ They were short of stature, but power
fully built, with strong, curiously curved
thigh-bones, the lower ends of which are so
fashioned that they must have walked with
a bend at the knees. Their long-depressed
skulls had very strong brow-ridges; their
lower jaws, of brutal depth and solidity,
sloped away from the teeth downwards and
backwards, in consequence of the absence
of that especially characteristic feature of
the higher type of man, the chin promi
nence.”
M. Fraipont says: “We consider our
selves in a position to say. that, having
regard merely to the anatomical structure
of the man of Spy, he possessed a greater
number of pithecoid characters than any
other race of mankind.”
And again he says :—
“The distance which separates the man
of Spy from the modern anthropoid ape is
undoubtedly enormous; but we must be
permitted to point out that, if the man of the
Quaternary age is the stock whence exist
ing races have sprung, he has travelled a
very great way. From the data now ob
tained, it is permissible to believe that we
shall be able to pursue the ancestral type
of man and the anthropoid apes still
further, perhaps as far as the Eocene and
even beyond.”
This Cannstadt or Neanderthal type was
widely diffused early in . the Quaternary
period, being detected in a skull from
the breccia of Gibraltar, and in skull?
�112
HUMAN ORIGINS
from Italy, . Spain, Austria, Sweden,
France, Belgium, and Western Germany ;
in fact, wherever skulls and skeletons
have been found in the oldest deposits
of caves and river-beds, notably in the
alluvia of the Seine valley near Paris,
where three distinct superimposed strata
are found, each with different human
types, that of Cannstadt being the oldest.
Hence it seems certain that the oldest
race of all in Europe was dolicocephalic,
and probable that it was of the Cannstadt
type, the skulls of.which are all low and
long, the length being attained by a great
development of the posterior part of the
head, which compensates for a deficient
forehead.
This type is also interesting because,
although the oldest, it shows occasional
signs of survival through the later palaeo
lithic and neolithic ages down to recent
times. The skulls of St. Manserg, a
mediaeval bishop of Toul, and of Lykke, a
scientific Dane of the last century, closely
resemble the Neanderthal skull in type, and
can scarcely be accounted for except as
instances of that atavism, or reversion to
old ancestral forms, which occasionally
crops up both in the human and in animal
species. It is thought by many that these
earliest palaeolithic men may be the
ancestors of the tall, fair, long-headed race
of Northern Europe; and Professor Vir
chow states that in the Frisian islands off
the North German coast, where the original
Teutonic type has been least affected by
intermixture, the F risian skull unmistakeably
approaches the Neanderthal and Spy type.
But if this be so, the type must have per
sisted for an immense time, for, as Huxley
observes, “ the difference is abysmal
between these rude and brutal savages and
the comely, fair, tall, and long-headed races
of historical times and of civilised nations.”
At the present day the closest resemblance
to the Neanderthal type is afforded by the
skulls of certain tribes of native Australians.
Next in antiquity to the Cannstadt type,
though still in the early age when the
mammoth and cave-bear were abundant,
and the implements and weapons still very
rude, we have that of the Cro-Magnon
type. The name is taken from the
skeleton of an old man, which was found
entire in the rock shelter of Cro-Magnon
in the valley of the Vezere, near the
station of Moustier, wherein occur the
types of some of the oldest and rudest
stone implements.
The skeleton was
found in the inner extremity of the
shelter, buried under a mass of debris and
fallen blocks of limestone, and associated
with bones of the mammoth and imple
ments of the Moustier type, so that there
appears to be no doubt of its extreme
antiquity.
. The skull, like that of the Cannstadt type
is dolichocephalic, but in all other respects
it is different. The brow-bridges and
generally bestial characters have disap
peared the brain is of fair or even large
capacity ; the stature tall; the forehead
fairly high and well rounded ; the face large;
the nose straight, the jaws prognathous,’
and the chin prominent.
This type is found in a number of locali
ties, especially in the south-west of France,
Belgium, and Italy, and it continued
through the Quaternary into the neolithic
period, being found in the caves of the rein
deer age and in dolmens. It is thought
by some ethnologists to present analogies
to the Berber type of North Africa, and to
that of the extinct Guanches of the Canary
Islands.
Co-existent with, or a little later than, this
type is one of a totally different character
viz., that of a brachycephalic race of very
short stature, closely resembling the modern
Lapps. This has been subdivided into the
several races of Furfooz, Grenelle, and
Truchere, according to the degree of
brachycephaly and other features; but
practically we may look on these as the
results of local variations or intercrossings,
and consider all the short, brachycephalic
races as forming a third type sharply
opposed to those of Cannstadt and CroMagnon.
We have thus evidence that the Qua
ternary fauna in Europe comprised three
distinct races of palaeolithic men, and
there is a good deal of evidence for
the existence of a fourth distinct race in
America with features differing from any
of the European races, and resembling
those of the native American in recent
times. But this affords no clue as to the
existence of other palaeolithic types in
Asia, Africa, India, Australia, and other
countries, forming quite three-fourths of
the inhabited world, in which totally
different races now exist or have existed
since the commencement of history; races
which cannot possibly have been derived
from any of the European types during
the lapse of time comprised within the
Quaternary period.
The Negro race is the most striking in
stance of this, for it differs essentially from
�Q UA TERNAR Y MAN
any other in many particulars, aU of which
are in the direction of approximation
towards the pithecoid or ape-like type.
The size of the brain is less, and a larger
proportion of it is in the hinder half; the
muzzle is much more projecting, and the
nose flatter; the fore-arm longer ; while
various other anatomical peculiarities all
point in the same direction, though the type
remains human in the main features. It
diverges, however, from the known types of
Quaternary man in Europe and from the
American type, as completely as. it does
from those of modern man, evidencing
that it is not derived from them, or they
from it, in the way of direct descent. If
there is any truth in evolution, the Negro
type must be one of the oldest, as
nearest to the animal ancestor, and this
ancestor must be placed very far back
beyond the Quaternary period, to allow
sufficient time for the development of
entirely different and improved races.
This will be the more evident if we con
sider the case of the pygmy Negritos, who
probably represent the earlier, perhaps pri
mitive, type of which the Negro were off
shoots, and who are spread over a wide tropi
cal belt of half the circumference of the
earth, from New Guinea to Western Africa.
They seem originally to have occupied
a large part of this belt, and to have
been driven to dense forests, high moun
tains, and isolated islands, by taller and
stronger races, such as the true Negro,
the Melanesian, and the Malay. But they
had already existed long enough to develop
various sub-types, for, although always
approaching more to the Negro type than
any other, the Negrito type differs in the
length of skull, colour, hair, prognathism,
and other particulars. They all agree in the
one respect which makes it impossible to
associate them with any known Quaternary
type, either as ancestors dr descendant^-—
viz., that of dwarfish stature. As a rule,
the Bushmen and Negritos do not average
above four feet six inches, and the females
three inches less ; while in some cases they
are as low as four feet—?>., they are quite
a foot shorter than the average of the
higher races, and nearly a foot and a half
below that of the Quaternary Cro-Magnon
and Mentone skeletons, and of the modern
Swedes and Scotchmen. They are small
and slightly built m proportion, but they
are by no means deformed specimens of
humanity. Professor Flower suggests that
they may be “the primitive type from which
the African Negroes on the one hand, and
113
the Melanesians on the other, have sprung.”
In any case they must certainly have existed
as a distinct type in the Quaternary period,
and probably earlier. It is remarkable
also that the oldest human implements
known get continually smaller as they
get older, until those from the Miocene beds
of Thenay and Puy Courny are almost
too small for the hands even of Stanley’s
pygmies. There is evidence that some of
these Negritos migrated into Europe not
later than the Neolithic age, Dr. Kollmann,
a Swiss anthropologist, having unearthed
skeletons of about four feet eight inches in
height in a neolithic deposit near Schaff
hausen, while an under-sized folk is still
found in Sicily and Sardinia, which islands
are surviving blocks of the ancient land
connection between Europe and Africa.
In concluding this summary of the
evidence as to Quaternary man, I must
remark on the analogy which it presents
to that of the historical period dealt with
in the earlier chapters. In each case we
have distinct evidence carrying us a long
way back : in that of the historical period
for 9,000 years ; in that of the Quaternary
for a vastly longer time, which, if the effects
of high eccentricity, postulated by Croll’s
theory, had any influence on the two last
glacial periods, cannot be less than 200,000
years. In each case also the positive
evidence takes us back to a state of things
which gives the most incontrovertible proof
of long previous existence ; In the historical
case the evidence of a dense population
and high civilisation already long prevailing
when written records began ; in the case
of palaeolithic man, that of his existence in
the same state of rude civilisation in the
most remote regions, and over the greater
part of the habitable earth, his almost
uniform progression upwards from a lower
to a higher civilisation, and his existing at
the beginning of the Quaternary period
already differentiated into races as remote
from one another as the typical races of
the present day. These facts of themselves
afford an irresistible presumption that the
origin of the human race must be sought
much further back, and it remains to con
sider what positive evidence has been
adduced in support of this presumption.
I
�114
HUMAN ORIGINS
culminate in the Lias, and become so
nearly extinct in the Secondary that the
crocodilia are their sole remaining repre
sentatives.
CHAPTER X.
And this applies when we attempt to
take our first step backwards in tracing the
TERTIARY MAN
origin of man, and follow him from the
Quaternary into the Pliocene. When did
Definition of Periods—Passage from Pliocene to
the Pliocene end andthe Quaternary begin?
Quaternary—Scarcity of Human Remains in
Within which of the two did the first great
Tertiary—Denudation—Evidence from Caves
glacial period fall ? Does pre-glacial mean
wanting—Tertiary Man a necessary inference
Pliocene, or is it included in the Quater
from widespread existence of Quaternary Man
—Both equally inconsistent with Genesis—
nary ? and to which do the oldest human
Was the first great Glaciation Pliocene or
remains such as the skeletons of Spy belong?
Quaternary ?—Section of Perrier—Supports
The difficulty of answering these ques
Croll’s Theory—Elephas Meridionalis—Mam
tions is increased because, as we go back
moth—St. Prest—Cut Bones—Instances of
in time, the human remains which guide us
Tertiary Man—Halitherium — Balseonotus —
in the Quaternary age necessarily become
Puy Courny—Thenay—Proofs of Human
scarcer. Mankind must have been fewer in
Agency — Latest Conclusions — Gaudry’s
number, and their relics to a great extent
Theory — Dryopithecus — Type of Tertiary
removed by denudation or destroyed by
Man—Skeleton of Castenedolo—Shows no
other causes, as, eg., devoured by carni
approach to the Missing Link—This must be
vora. The evidence from caves, which
sought in the Eocene—Evidence from the
affords by far the most information as to
New World—Glacial Period in America—
Palaeolithic Implements—Quaternary ManQuaternary man, entirely fails us as to the
Similar to Europe—California—Conditions
Pliocene and earlier periods. This may be
different—Auriferous Gravels—Volcanic Erup
readily accounted for when we consider the
tions—Enormous Denudation—Great Anti
great amount of the earth’s surface which
quity-Flora and Fauna—Point to Tertiary
has been removed by denudation. In fact,
Age—Discovery of Human Remains—Table
we have seen that nearly 2,000 feet of a
Mountain—Latest Finds—Calaveras Skullmountain range must have disappeared
Summary of Evidence—Other Evidence—
from the Weald of Kent, since the streams
Tuolumne—Brazil—Buenos Ayres—N ampa
from it rolled down the gravels with con
Images—Take us farther from First Origins
tained human implements, scattered over
and the Missing Link—If Darwin’s Theory
the North Downs as described by Professor
applies to Man, must go back to the Eocene.
Prestwich. What chance would Tertiary
The first difficulty which meets us in this caves have of surviving such an extensive
question is that of distinguishing clearly denudation ? Moreover, if any of the
between the different geological periods. present caves existed before the glacial
No hard-and-fast line separates the Quater period, their original contents must have
nary from the Pliocene, the Pliocene from been swept out, perhaps more than once,
the Miocene, or the Miocene from the before they became filled by the present
Eocene. They pass from one into the other deposits. We have evidence of this in
by insensible gradations, and the- names small patches of the older deposit being
given to them merely imply that such con found adhering to the cave-roof, as at
siderable changes have taken place in the Brixham and Maccagnone in Sicily. In
fauna as to enable us to distinguish one the latter place Dr. Falconer found flakes
period from another. And even this only of chipped stone and pieces of carbon in
applies when we take the periods as a whole, patches of a hard breccia.
There is another consideration also which
and see what have been the predominant
types, for single types often survive through must have greatly diminished the chance
successive periods. The course of evolu of finding human remains in Tertiary
tion seems to be that types and species, like deposits. Why did men take to living in
dark and damp caves ? Presumably for
individuals, have their periods of birth,
growth, maturity, decay, and death. Thus protection against cold. But in the Miocene
and the greater part of the Pliocene there
fish of the ganoid type appear sparingly in
was no great cold. The climate, as shown
the Silurian, culminate in the Devonian,
by the vegetation, was mild, equable, and
while the majority gradually die out in the
later formations. So also the gigantic ranged from semi-tropical to south-tempe*
rate, and the earth was to a certain extent
Saurians appear in the Carboniferous,
�TERTIARY MAN
covered by forests sustaining many fruit
bearing trees. Under such conditions men
would have every inducement to live in the
open air, and in or near forests where they
could obtain food and shelter, rather
than in caves. A few scattered savages,
thus living, would leave exceedingly few
traces of their existence. If the pygmy
races of Central Africa, or of the Andaman
Islands, became extinct, the chances would
be exceedingly small of a future geologist
finding any of their stone implements,
which alone would have a chance of sur
viving, dropped under secular accumula
tions of vegetable mould in a wide forest.
It is the more important, therefore, where
instances of human remains in Tertiary
strata, supported by strong primA facie
evidence, and vouched for by competent
authorities, do actually occur, to examine
them dispassionately, and not dismiss them
with a sort of scientific non possumus, like
that which was so long opposed to the
existence of Quaternary man and the dis
coveries of Boucher de Perthes. It is per
fectly evident from ‘the admitted existence
of man throughout the Quaternary period,
over a great part of the earth’s surface,
and divided into distinct types, that,
if there is any truth in evolution, he
must have had a long previous exist
ence. The only other possible alterna
tive would be the special miraculous
creations of men of different types, and
in many different centres, at the particu
lar period of time when the Tertiary
was replaced by the Quaternary. In other
words, that while all the rest of the animal
creation have come into existence by
evolution from ancestral types, man alone,
and that not merely as regards his spiritual
qualities, but physical man, with every bone
and muscle having its counter-part in the
other quadrumana, was an exception to
this universal law, and sprang into exist
ence spontaneously or by repeated acts of
supernatural interference.
As long as the account of the creation
in Genesis was held to be a divinelyinspired. narrative, and no facts contra
dicting it had been discovered, it is con
ceivable that such a theory might be held ;
but to admit evolution for Quaternary and
refuse to admit it for Tertiary man is an
extreme instance of “ straining at a gnat
and swallowing a camel,” for a duration of
even 10,000 or 20,000years is just as incon
sistent with Genesis as one of 100,000 or
half a million.
In attacking the question of Tertiary
ns
man, the first point to aim at is some clear
conception of where the Pliocene ends and
the Quaternary begins. These are, after
all, but terms applied to gradual changes
through long intervals of time ; still, they
require some definition, or otherwise we
should be beating the air, and ticketing in
some museums as Tertiary the identical
specimens which in others were labelled as
Quaternary. The distinction turns very
much on whether the first great glaciation
was Pliocene or Quaternary, and it must be
decided partly by the order of superposition
and.partly by the fauna. If we can find a
section where a thick morainic deposit is
interposed between two stratified deposits—
a lower one characterised by the usual fauna
of the Older Pliocene, and an upper one by
that of the Newer Pliocene—it is evident
that the glacier or ice-cap which left this
moraine must have existed in Pliocene
times. We know that the climate became
colder in the Pliocene, and rapidly colder
towards its close, and that in the cliffs of
Cromer the forest bed with a temperate
climate had given place to Arctic willows
and mosses, before the first and lowest
boulder-clay had bi ought blocks of Scandi
navian granite to England. We should be
prepared, therefore, for evidence that this
first. period of greatest cold had occurred
within the limits of the Pliocene period.
Such evidence is afforded by the valleys
which radiate from the great central boss of
France in the Auvergne. The hill of
Perrier had long been known as a rich site
of fossil remains of the extinct Pliocene
fauna, and its section has been carefully
studied by some of the best French geolo
gists, whose results are summed up as
follows by Hamy in his Palceontologie
Humaine:—
“ The bed-rock is primitive protogine,
which is covered by nearly horizontal lacus
trine Miocene, itself covered by some
metres of fluviatile gravels. Above comes
a bed of fine sand, a mfetre thick, which
contains numerous specimens of the wellknown mammalian fauna of the Lower Plio
cene, characterised by two mastodons (AT.
Armenicus and M. Borsonif Then comes
a mass of conglomerates 150 metres thick,
consisting of pebbles andboulders cemented
by yellowish mud ; and above this a dis
tinct layer of Upper Pliocene characterised
by the Elephas Meridionalis.
“The boulders, some of which are of
great size, are all angular, never rounded or
stratified, often scratched, and mostly con
sisting of trachyte, which must have been
�HUMAN ORIGINS
transported twenty-five kilometres from the
Puy de Dome. In short, the conglomerate
is absolutely indistinguishable from any
other glacial moraine, whether of the
Quaternary period or of the present day.
It is divided into three sections by two
layers of rolled pebbles and sands, which
could only have been caused by running
water, so that the glacier must have ad
vanced and retreated three times, leaving
each time a moraine fifty metres thick ; and
the whole of this must have occurred before
the deposit of the Upper Pliocene stratum
with its Elephas Meridionalis and other
Pliocene mammals.”
The importance of this will presently be
seen, for the Elephas Meridionalis is one of
the extinct animals which is most directly
connected with the proofs of man’s exist
ence before the Quaternary periodi
The three advances and retreats of
the great Perrier glacier also fit in well
with the calculated effects of precession
during high eccentricity, as about three
such periods must have occurred in the
period of the coming on, culminating,
and receding of each phase of maximum
eccentricity.
This evidence from Perrier does not
stand alone, for in the neighbouring
valleys, and in many other localities,
isolated boulders of foreign rocks, which
could have been transported only by ice,
are found at heights considerably above
those of the more recent moraines and
boulders which had been supposed to
mark the limit of the greatest glaciation.
Thus, on the slopes of the Jura and the
Vosges, boulders of Alpine rocks, much
worn by age, and whose accompanying
drifts and moraines have disappeared by
denudation, are found at heights 150 or 200
metres above the more obvious moraines
and boulders, which themselves rise to a
height of nearly 4,000 feet, and must have
been the front of glaciers from the Alps
which buried the plain of Switzerland under
that thickness of solid ice.
The only possible alternative to this
evidence from Perrier would be to throw
back the duration of the Quaternary and
limit that of the Pliocene enormously, by
supposing that all the deposits above the
great glacial conglomerate or old moraine
are inter-glacial, and not Tertiary. This
is, as has been pointed out, very much a
question of words, for the phenomena and
the time required to account for them
remain the same by whatever name we
elect to call them.
But it has its
importance, for it involves a fundamental
principle of geology, that of classifying
eras and formations by their fauna. If the
Elephas Meridionalis is a Pliocene and
not a Quaternary species, we must admit,
with the great majority of Continental
geologists, that the first and greatest
glaciation fell within the Pliocene period.
If, on the other hand, this elephant is, like
the mammoth, part of the Quaternary
fauna, we may believe, as many English
geologists do, that the first glacial period
coincided with and probably occasioned
the change from Pliocene to Quaternary,
and that everything above the oldest
boulder-clays and moraines is not Tertiary,
but inter-glacial.
As bones of the Elephas Meridionalis
have been frequently found in connection
with human implements, and with cuts on
them which could have been made only by
flint knives shaped by the human hand, it
will be seen . at once what an interest
attaches to this apparently dry geological
question of the age of the great southern
elephant.
The transition from the mastodon into
the elephant took place in the Old World
(for in America the succession is different)
in the Pliocene period. In the older
Pliocene we have nothing but mastodons,
in the newer nothing but elephants ; and
the transition from the older to the newer
type is distinctly traced by intermediate
forms in the fossil fauna of the Sewalek
hills. The Elephas Meridionalis is the
oldest known form of true elephant,
and it is characteristic of all the different
formations of the Upper Pliocene, while it
is nowhere found in cave or river deposits
which belong unmistakeably to the Quater
nary. It was a gigantic animal, fully four
feet higherthan the tallest existing elephant,
and bulky in proportion. It had a near
relation in the Elephas Antiquus. which
was of.equal size, and different from it
mainly in a more specialised structure of
the molar teeth. The remains of this
elephant have been found in the lower strata
of some of the oldest bone-caves and river
silts, as to which it is difficult to say
whether they are older or younger than the
first glacial period. The remains of a
pygmy elephant, no bigger than an ass,
have also been found in the Upper Pliocene,
at Malta and Sicily, and those of the exist
ing African elephant in Sicily and Spain.
It would seem, therefore, that the Upper
Pliocene was the golden age of the ele
phants, when they were most widely
�TERTIARY MAN
diffused, and comprised most species and
most varieties, both in the direction of
gigantic and of diminutive size. But in
passing from the Pliocene into the Quater
nary period, they all, or almost all, disap
peared, and were superseded by the Elephas
Primigenius, or mammoth, which appeared
in the latest Pliocene, and became the
principal representative of the genus
Elephas in Europe and Northern Asia
down to comparatively recent times.
This succession is confirmed by that of
the rhinoceros, of which several species
were contemporary with the Elephas Meridionalis, while the Rhinoceros tichorinus,
or woolly rhinoceros, who is the inseparable
companion of the mammoth, appeared and
disappeared with him.
In these matters, those who are not
themselves specialists must rely on autho
rity, and when we find Lyell, Geikie,
and Prestwich coinciding with modern
117
tion in calling it a Pliocene river; but,
in the judgment of some, it is old
Quaternary. Its age might never have
been disputed if the question of man’s
antiquity had not been involved, for in
these sands and gravels have been found
numerous specimens of cut bones of the
ElephaS Meridionalis, together with the
flint knives which made the cuts, and other
stone implements, rude, but still unmistakeably of the usual palaeolithic type.
The subjoined plate will enable the
reader to compare the arrow-head, which is
the commonest type found at St. Prest,
with a comparatively recent arrow-head
from the Yorkshire wolds, and see how
illogical it seems to concede human agency
to the post-glacial and deny it to the
Pliocene specimen.
In this and other instances cut bones
afford one of the most certain tests of the
presence of man. The bones tell their own
tale, and their geolo
POST-GLACIAL.
gical age can be gene
rally identified. Sharp
cuts could be made
on them only while
PLIOCENE.
the bones were fresh;
and the state of fossilisation,andpresence
of dendrites or minute
crystals alike on the
side of the cuts and
on the bone, negative
any idea of forgery.
ARROW-HEAD—ST. PREST.
ARROW-HEAD—YORKSHIRE WOLDS.
The cuts can be com
(Hamy, Pahzontologie Humaine.}
(Evans, Stone Implements.}
pared with those on
thousands of un
French, German, Italian, and Belgian geo
doubted human cuts on bones from the
logists, in considering Elephas Meridionalis reindeer and other later periods, and with
as one of the characteristic Upper Pliocene cuts now made with old flint knives on
fauna, we can have no hesitation in adopt fresh bones. All these tests have been
ing their conclusion.
applied by some of the best anthropologists
In this case the section at St. Prest, near of the day, who have made a special study
Chartres, appears to afford a first abso of the subject, and who have shown their
lutely secure foothold in tracing our way caution and good faith by rejecting numerous
backwards towards human origins beyond
specimens which did not fully meet the
the Quaternary. The sands and gravels of most rigorous requirements. Their con
a river which ran on the bed-rock without
clusion is that there could be no reason
any underlying glacial debris are here able doubt that the cuts were really
exposed. The river had no relation to the
made by human implements guided by
Eure, the bed of which it crosses at human hands. The only possible alterna
an angle, and it must have run before that tive suggested is that they might have been
river had begun to excavate its valley, and made by gnawing animals or fishes. But,
when the drainage of the country was quite as Quatrefages observes, even an ordinary
different. The sands contain an extra carpenter would have no difficulty in dis
ordinary number of bones of the Elephas tinguishing between a clean cut made by a
Meridionalis, associated with old species of sharp knife, and a groove cut by repeated
rhinoceros and other Pliocene species.
strokes of a narrow chisel; and how much
Lyell, who visited the spot, had no hesita more would it be impossible for a Professor
�HUMAN ORIGINS
trained to scientific investigation, and armed
still denied by competent authorities.
with a microscope, to mistake a groove
Among these ought to be placed the
gnawed out by a shark or rodent for a cut
example from Portugal, for, although
made by a flint knife. No one who will refer
a large celt very like those of the
to Quatrefages’sAAwjw^fossiles, and look at the figures
of cut bones given there from
actual photographs, can feel
any doubt that the cuts there
delineated were made by flint
knives held by the human
hand.
In addition to this instance
of St. Prest, Quatrefages in
his Histoire des Races Humaines, published in 1887,
and containing the latest
summary of the evidence
generally accepted by French
geologists as to Tertiary man,
says that, omitting doubtful
cases, the presence of man
has been signalised in de
posits undoubtedly Tertiary
in five different localities—
viz., in France by the Abbe
Bourgeois, in the Lower Mio
cene of Thenay near Pontlevoy (Loir-et-Cher); by M.
Rames at Puy Courny near
Aurillac (Cantal), in the
Upper Miocene ; in Italy by
M. Capellini in the Pliocene
of Monte Aperto near Sienna,
and by M. Ragazzoni in the
Lower Pliocene of Castelnedolo near Brescia ; in Por
tugal by M. Ribiero at Otta,
in the valley of the Tagus, in
the Upper Miocene.
To these may be added the
cut bones of Halitherium, a
Miocene species, from Pouance (Maine et Loire), by M.
Delaunay; and those on the
tibia of a Rhinoceros Etruscus, and on other fossil bones
from the Upper Pliocene of
the Vai d’Arno. In addition CUTS WITH FLINT KNIFE ON RIB OF BAL^EONOTUS—PLIOCENE.
to these are the numerous
From Monte Aperto, Italy.
remains, certainly human and
(Quatrefages, Histoire des Races Humaines.}
presumably Tertiary, from
North and South America,
which will be referred to
later, and a considerable
number of cases where there
is a good deal of primd
facie evidence for Tertiary
human remains, but the
CUT MAGNIFIED BY MICROSCOPE.
authenticity of which is
�TER.TIAR Y MAN
ng
oldest palaeolithic type was undoubtedly tent geologist, were interstratified with
found in strata which had always been tuffs and lavas of these older volcanoes,
considered as Miocene, the Congress of and no doubt as to their geological age
Palaeontologists who assembled at Lisbon was raised by the Congress of French
were divided in opinion as to the conclu archaeologists to whom they were sub
mitted. The whole question turns, there
siveness of the evidence.
I have already discussed this matter so fore, on the sufficiency of the proofs of
fully in a former work {Problems of the human origin, as to which the same
Future, ch. v. on Tertiary Man) that I do Congress expressed themselves satisfied.
The specimens consist of several wellnot propose to go over the ground again,
but merely to refer briefly to some of the known palaeolithic types, celts, scrapers,
more important points which come out in arrow-heads, and flakes, only ruder and
the above six instances. In three of them— smaller than those of later periods. They
were found at three different localities in
those of the Halitherium of Pouance, the
Balasonotus of Monte Aperto, and the the same stratum of gravel, and comply
rhinoceros of the Vai d’Arno—the evidence with all the tests by which the genuineness
of Quaternary implements is ascertained,
depends entirely on cut bones, and in the
case of St. Prest on that of cut bones of such as bulbs of percussion, conchoidal
Elephas Meridionalis combined with paleo fractures, and, above all, intentional chip
ping in a determinate direction. It is
lithic implements.
evident that a series of small parallel chips
The evidence from cut bones is, for the
reasons already stated, very conclusive; and or trimmings, confined often to one side
when a jury of four or five of the leading
authorities, such as Quatrefages, Hamy,
Mortillet, and Delaunay, who have devoted
themselves to this branch of inquiry, and
have shown their great care and conscien
tiousness by rejecting numbers of cases
which did not satisfy the most rigid tests,
arrive unanimously at the conclusion that
many of the cuts on the bones of Tertiary
animals are unmistakeably of human origin,
there seems no room left for any reasonable
scepticism. I cannot doubt, therefore, that
we have positive evidence to confirm the
existence of man, at any rate from the
Pliocene period, through the long series
FLINT SCRAPER FROM HIGH LEVEL DRIFT,
of ages intervening between it and the
rent. (Prestwich.)
Quaternary.
But the discovery of flint implements at
Puy Courny in the Upper .Miocene, and only of the flint, and which have the effect
at Thenay in the Lower Miocene, carries us of bringing it into a shape which is known
back a long step further, and involves such from Quaternary and recent, implements
important issues as to the origin of the to be adapted for human use, imply, intelli
human race that it may be well to recapitu gent design, and could not have been pro
late the evidence upon which those dis duced by the casual collisions of pebbles
rolled down by an impetuous torrent.
coveries rest.
The first question is as to the geological Thus the annexed plate of an implement
age of the deposits in which these chipped from the high level drift on the North
implements have been found. In the case Downs, shown by Professor Prestwich to
of Puy Courny this appears to be beyond the Anthropological Society, is rude enough,
dispute. In the central region -of the but no one has ever expressed doubt as
Auvergne there have been two series of to its human origin.
The chipped flints from Puy Courny
volcanic eruptions, the later towards the
close of the Pliocene or commencement also afford another conclusive proof of
of the Quaternary period, while the earlier intelligent design. The gravelly. deposit
is proved by its position and fossils to in which they are found contains five
belong to the Upper Miocene. The different varieties of flints, and of these all
gravels in which the chipped flints were that look like human implements are con
discovered by M. Rames, a very compe fined to one particular variety, which from
�120
IlUMAN ORIGINS
ks nature is peculiarly adapted for human
use. As Quatrefages says, no torrents or
other natural causes could have exercised
such a discrimination, which could have
been made only by an intelligent being
selecting the stones best adapted for his
tools and weapons.
The general reader must be content to
rely to a great extent on the verdict of
experts, and in this instance of Puy Courny
need not perhaps go further than the con
clusion of the French Congress of archaeo
logists, who pronounced in favour both of
their Miocene and human origin. It may
'
be well, however, to
UPPER MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS.
PUY COURNY.
annex a plate showing
in two instances how
closely the specimens
from Puy Courny re
semble those of later
periods, of the human
origin of which no
doubt has ever been
entertained. It is cer
tainly carrying scien
tific scepticism to an
unreasonable pitch to
doubt that whatever
cause fashioned the
two lower figures, the
same
cause must
equally have fashioned
the upper ones ; and,
if that cause be human
intelligence in the
SCRAPER, OR LANCE-HEAD.
Quaternary period, it
Puy Courny. Upper Miocene
Puy Courny. Upper Miocene
must have been human
(Rames).
__ .
(Rames).,
(Quatrefages, RacesHumaines, p. 95.) (Quatrefages, Races Humaine, p.95.) or human-like intelli
gence in the Upper
Miocene.
The evidence for the
still older implements
of Thenay is of the
same nature as that
for those of Puy
Courny.
First as
regards the geological
horizon. Subjoined is
the section at Thenay
as made by M. Bour
geois, verified by MM.
Vibraye, ■ Delaunay,
Schmidt,
Belgrand,
and others, from per
sonal inspection, and
given by M. Hamy
in his Palceontologie
Humaine.
It would seem that
there could be little
doubt as to the geo
logical position of the
strata from which the
alleged chipped flints
come.
The Faluns
are a well - known
marine deposit of a
�TERTIARY MAN
121
shallow sea spread over a great part
of Central and Southern France, and
identified by its shells as Upper Miocene.
The Orleans Sands are another Miocene
deposit perfectly characterised by its
mammalian fauna, in which the Mastodon
Angustidens first appears, with other
peculiar species. The Calcaire de Beauce
is a solid fresh-water limestone formed
in the great lake which in the Miocene
age occupied the plain of the Beauce
and extended into Touraine. It forms
a clear horizon or dividing line between
the Upper Miocene, characterised by the
Mastodon, and the Lower Miocene, of
which the Acrotherium, a four-toed and
hornless rhinoceros, is the most charac
teristic fossil.
fessor Prestwich, who visited the section a
good many years ago in company with the
Abbe Bourgeois, and who is one of the
highest authorities on this class of questions,
remained unconvinced that the flints shown
him really came from the alleged strata
below the Calcaire de Beauce, and thought
that the specimens which appeared to show
human manufacture might have been on
the surface, and become intermixed with
the natural flints of the lower strata.
The geological horizon, however, seems
to have been generally accepted by French
and Continental geologists, especially by
the latest authorities, and the doubts which
have been expressed have turned mainly
on the proof of human design shown by
the implements. This is a question which
The supposed chipped flints are said to
appear sparingly in the upper deposits,
to disappear in the Calcaire de Beauce,
and to reappear, at first sparingly and
then plentifully, in the lacustrian marls
below7 the limestone. They are most
numerous in a thin layer of greenishyellow clay, No. 3 of section, below which
they rapidly disappear. There can be no
question, therefore, that if the flints really
came from the alleged deposits, and really
show the work of human hands, the savages
by w'hom they were chipped must have
lived on the shores or sand-banks of this
Miocene lake. As regards the geological
question, it is right to observe that Pro-
must be decided by the authority of experts
for it requires special experience to be able
to distinguish between accidental fractures
and human design in implements of the
extremely rude type of the earlier forma
tions. The test is mainly afforded by the
nature of the chipping. If it consists of a
number of small chips, all in the same
direction, with the result of bringing one
face or side into a definite form, adapted
for some special use, the inference is strong
that the chips were the work of design.
The general form might be the result of
accident, but fractures from frost or colli
sions simulating chipping could hardly be
all in the same direction, and confined to
�122
HUMAN ORIGINS
existing savages, which are beyond all
doubt products of human manufacture.
Tried by these tests, the evidence stands
as follows :—
When specimens of the flints from Thenay
were first submitted to the Anthropological
Congress at Brussels, in
1867, their human origin was
MIDDLE MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS.
admitted by MM. Worsae,
de Vibraye, de Mortillet, and
Schmidt, and rejected by
MM. Nilson, Hebert, and
others, while M. Quatrefages
reserved his opinion, thinking
a strong case made out, but
not being entirely satisfied.
M. Bourgeois himself was
partly responsible for these
doubts, for, like Boucher de
scraper, OR borer. Thenay.
SCRAPER FROM THENAY.
Perthes, he had injured his
(Showing bulb of percussion.
(Hamy, Palceontologie
case by overstating it, and
Humaine, p. 49.)
Quatrefages, Races Humaines,
including a number of small
p. 92.)
flints, which might have been,
and probably were, merely
natural specimens. But the
whole collection having been
transferred to the Archaeo
logical Museum at St.
Germain, its director, M.
Mortillet, selected those
which appeared most demon
strative of human origin, and
placed them in a glass case,
side by side with similar
types of undoubted Quater
nary implements. This re
moved a great many doubts,
and later discoveries of still
better specimens of the type
of scrapers have, in the words
of Quatrefages, “ dispelled
his last doubts,” while not a
single instance has occurred
of any convert in the opposite
direction, or of any opponent
who, after an equally careful
and minute investigation, has
adduced facts contradicting
the conclusions of Quatre
fages, Mortillet, and Hamy.
BORER, or awl.
KNIFE, OR SCRAPER.
In order to assist the
Thenay. Miocene.
Thenay. (Gaudry.
reader in forming an opinion
(Congres Prehistorique,
Quatrefages, p. 92.)
as to the claim of these
Bruxelles, 1872.)
flints from Thenay to show
such as would be made by scraping bones
clear traces of human design, I subjoin
or skins, while nothing of the sort is seen some illustrations of photographs in which
on the other natural edges, though they
they are compared with specimens of later
may be sharper. But, above all, the surest
date, which are undoubtedly and by
test is afforded by a comparison with other universal consent the work of human
implements of later dates, or even of hands.
one part of the stone. The inference is
strengthened if the specimen shows bulbs
of percussion where the blows had been
struck to fashion the implement, and if the
microscope discloses parallel stride and
other signs of use on the chipped edge,
�TERTIARY MAN
123
those fabricated by palaeolithic men of the
These figures seem to leave no reasonable
valley drift times.”
doubt that some at least of the flints from
In fact, we have only to look at the
Thenay show unmistakeable signs of human
figures which accompany Prestwich’s
handiwork, and I only hesitate to accept
essay1 to see that their types resemble
them as conclusive proofs of the existence
those of Puy Courny and Thenay, rather
of man in the Middle Miocene, because
than those of St. Acheul and Moustier.
such an authority as Prestwich retains
The following remarks of the Professor
doubts of their having come from the
would apply almost as well to the Miocene
geological horizon accepted by the most
implements as to those of the plateau :—
eminent modern French geologists.
“Unlike the valley implements, the
The evidence of the authenticity of these
implements from
COMPARE QUATERNARY IMPLEMENTS.
Thenay is, more
over,
greatly
strengthened
by
the discovery of
other Miocene im
plements at Puy
Courny, which have
not been seriously
impugned, and by
the essay of Pro
fessor Prestwich,
confirming the dis
covery of numerous
flint implements in
the upper level
gravels of the North
Downs, which could
have been deposit
ed only by streams
flowing from a
mountain ridge
along the anticlinal
of the Weald, of
which 2,000 feet
must have dis
appeared by sub
aerial denudation
since these rivers
flowed northwards
from its flanks.
How far back such
a denudation may
Carry us is a matter
of speculation.
QUATERNARY. Mammoth Period.
quaternary.
Chaleux, Belgium.
Certainly, as Prest
River Drift, Mesvin, Belgium.
Reindeer Period. (Congres
wich admits, into
(Congr^s Prehistorique, Bruxelles, 1872.)
Prehistorique, Bruxelles, 1872.)
the pre-glacial or
very early glacial
plateau implements are, as a rule, made of
ages, and possibly into the Tertiaries; but,
the fragments of natural drift flints that are
'at any rate, to a period which, by whatever
found scattered over the surface of the
name we call it, must be enormous accord
ground, or picked up in gravel-beds and
ing to any standard of centuries or millen
merely roughly trimmed. Sometimes the
niums. And what is specially interesting in
work is so slight as to be scarcely apparent;
these extremely ancient implements is that,
at others, it is sufficient to show a distinct
in Prestwich’s words, “ these plateau imple
ments exhibit distinct characters and types
such as would denote them to be the work
1 Journal of Anthropological Institute, Feb.,
1892, p. 262.
of a more primitive and ruder race than
�124
HUMAN ORIGINS
design and object. It indicates the very
infancy of the art, and probably the ear
liest efforts of man to fabricate his tools
and weapons from other substances than
wood or bone. That there was an object
and design is manifest from the fact that
they admit of being grouped according to
certain patterns. These are very simple,
but they answered to the wants of a primi
tive people.
“With few exceptions, the implements
are small, from 2 to 5 inches in length, and
mostly such as could have been usedin the
hand, and in the hand only. There is, with
the exceptions before named, an almost
entire absence of the large massive spear
head forms of the valley drifts, and a large
preponderance of forms adapted for chip
ping, hammering, and scraping. With
these are some implements that could not
have been used in the hand, but they are
few and rude. The difference between the
plateau and the valley implements is as
great or greater than between the latter and
the neolithic implements. Though the work
on the plateau implements is often so slight
as scarcely to be recognisable, even the
tools and weapons of modern savages—for
example, those of the Australian natives—
show, when divested of their mounting,
an amount of work no more distinct than
do these early palaeolithic specimens.
“ Some persons may be disposed to look
upon the slight and rude work which these
flints have received as the result only of the
abrasion and knocking about caused by
collision during the transport of the drift.
This belief prevailed for a time even in the
case of the comparatively well-fashioned
valley implements. A little practice, and
comparison with natural drift flints, will
show the difference, notwithstanding the,
at first, unpromising appearance of these
early specimens of man’s handicraft. . It is
as such, and from their being the earliest
with which we are acquainted, that they
are of so great interest, for they give us
some slight insight into the occupation
and surroundings of the race by whom
they were used. A main object their
owners would seem to have had in view was
the trimming of flints to supply them with
implements adapted to the breaking of
bones for the sake of the marrow, scraping
skins, and round bodies such as bones or
sticks, for use as simple tools or poles.
From the scarcity of the large massive im
plements of the pointed and adze type, so
common in the valley drifts, it would seem
as though offensive and defensive weapons
of this class had not been so much needed,
whether from the rarity of the large mam
malia, so common later on in the low-level
valley drifts, or from the habits and
character of those early people.”
Last, but not least, there is the discovery,
made by Dr. Dubois in 1892, of part of a
skull and thigh bone in the upper Pliocene
beds at Trinil, on the banks of the river
Bengawan, in Java. These remains, he
assumed, belonged to an animal named by
him Pithecanthropus erectusor “ upright
ape-man,” and they are of the greater
significance as occurring in a region where
it seems probable that man and ape diverged
from their common pithecoid ancestor.
The positive evidence is therefore
extremely strong that man existed in the
Tertiaries, and if we add to it the irresis
tible inference that he must have done so
to develop so many different races, and
leave his rude implements in so many and
such remote regions as are found early in
the Quaternary, I do not see how it is
possible to avoid accepting it as an estab
lished fact.
In using the term Tertiary Man, I do
not venture to define the exact meaning of
“ man,” or the precise stage in his evolution
which had been attained at this enormously
remote period. M. Gaudry, an excellent
authority, while admitting that the flints
fromThenay showed evidence of intentional
chipping, thought that they might have
been the work of the Dryopithecus, a fossil
ape, supposed to be nearer man than any
existing anthropoid, whose remains had
been found at Sausan in the Middle Mio
cene. But the Dryopithecus has been
deposed from his pride of place by the
subsequent discovery of a more perfect
jaw,1 and he is now considered, though
1 Having applied to Professor Flower, as the
highest authority, to inform me of the actual
position of the evidence as to the Dryopithecus,
he was good enough to reply to me as follows:—
“ Dryopithecus (Middle Miocene of France)
is an undoubted anthropoid, allied to gorilla and
chimpanzee; but the recent discovery of a more
complete jaw than that first found shows that it
is rather a lowerform than the two just mentioned,
instead of higher as once thought. (See Gaudry,
Mem. Soc. Geol. France—Palaontologie, 1890.)
The animal called Pliopiihecus, from the same
formation, is now generally considered to be
not distinguishable from the genus Hylobates
(Gibbon). So there is no doubt about the exist
ence of anthropoid apes in the Miocene of
Europe, but not of a higher type than the present
African or Asiatic species.”
�TERTIARY MAN
undoubtedly an anthropoid ape, to be of a
lower type than the chimpanzee or gorilla.
The strongest argument, however, for the
essentially human character of the artificers
of the flints of Thenay and Puy Courny is
that their type continues, with no change
except that of slight successive improve
ments, through the Pliocene, Quaternary,
and even down to the present day. ’ The
scraper of the Esquimaux and the Andaman
islanders is but an enlarged and improved
edition of the Miocene scraper, and in the
latter case the stones seem to have been
split by the same agency—viz., that of fire.
The early knowledge of fire is also con
firmed by the discovery, reported by M.
Bourgeois in the Orleans Sand at Thenay,
with bones of mastodon and dinotherium,
of a stony fragment mixed with carbon, in
a sort of hardened paste, which, as we can
hardly suppose pottery to have been known,
must be the remnant of a hearth on which
there had been a fire.
There must always, however, remain a
doubt as to the nature of this ancestral
Tertiary man, until actual skulls and skele
tons have been found under circumstances
which preclude doubt, and in sufficient
numbers to enable anthropologists to speak
with the same confidence as to types and
races as they can of his Quaternary
successors. This, again, is difficult from
the rarity of such remains, and from the
fact that, after burial of the dead was intro
duced, graves must often have been dug
down from the surface into older strata,
with which, in course of time, their contents
become intermixed. No case, therefore,
can be safely admitted where the find was
not made by well-known scientific authori
ties under circumstances which preclude
the possibility of subsequent interment,
and vouch for the geological age of the
undisturbed deposit. This test disposes of
all the alleged discoveries of human remains
in the Tertiaries of the Old World, except
one; and, although it is quite possible that
some maybe genuine among those rejected,
it is safer not to rely on them. There is
one, however, which is supported by ex
tremely strong evidence, and the dis
cussion of which I have reserved for the
last, as, if accepted, it throws a new and
unexpected light on the evolution of the
human race.
The following is the account of it, taken
from Quatrefages’s Races Humaines:—
11 The bones of four individuals—a man, a
woman, and two children—were found at
Castenedolo, near Brescia, in a bed identi
125
fied by its fossils as Lower Pliocene. The
excavations were made with the utmost
care, in undisturbed strata, by M. Ragazzoni, a well-known scientific man, assisted
by M. Germani, and the results confirmed
by M. Sergi, a well-known geologist, after a
minute personal investigation. The deposit
was removed in successive horizontal
layers, and not the least trace was found of
the beds having been mixed or disturbed.
The human bones presented the same
fossilised appearance as those of the extinct
animals in the same deposit. The female
skeleton was almost entire, and the frag
ments of the skull were sufficiently perfect
to admit of their being pieced together so
as to show almost its entire form.”
The first conjecture naturally was that it
must have been a case of subsequent inter
ment—a conjecture which was strengthened
by the fact of the female skeleton being so
entire ; but this is negatived by the undis
turbed nature of the beds, and by the fact
that the other bones were found scattered
at considerable distances throughout the
stratum.
M. Quatrefages concisely sums up the
evidence by saying “ that there exists no
serious reason for doubting the discovery,
and that, if made in a Quaternary deposit,
no one would have thought of contesting
its accuracy. Nothing can be opposed to
it but theoretical a priori objections similar
to those which so long repelled the exist
ence of Quaternary man.”
But if we accept this discovery, it leads
to the remarkable conclusion that Tertiary
man not only existed, but has undergone
little change in the thousands of centuries
which have since elapsed. The skull is of
fair capacity, very much like what might be
expected from a female of the Cannstadt
type, and less rude and ape-like than the
skulls of Spy and Neanderthal, orthose of
modern Bushmen and Australians. And
the other bones of the skeleton show no
marked peculiarities.
This makes it difficult to accept the
discovery unreservedly, notwithstanding
the great weight of positive evidence in its
favour. The principal objection to Tertiary
man has been that, as all other species bad
changed, and many had become extinct two
or three times over since the Miocene, it
was unlikely that an animal so highly
specialised as man should alone have had
a continuous existence. And this argument,
of course, becomes stronger the more it can
be shown that the oldest skeletons differed
little, if at all, from those of the Quaternary
�126
HUMAN ORIGINS
and Recent ages. Moreover, the earlier
specimens of Quaternary man which are so
numerous and authentic show, if not any
thing that can be fairly called the “missing
link,” still a decided tendency, as they get
older, towards the type of the rudest exist
ing races, which again show a distinct
though distant approximation towards the
type of the higher apes. The oldest Qua
ternary skulls are dolichocephalic, very
thick, with enormous frontal sinuses, low
and receding foreheads, flattened vertices,
prognathous jaws, and slight and receding
chins. The average cranial capacity is
about 1,150 cubic centimetres, or fully onefourth less than that of modern European
man ; and of this smaller brain a larger pro
portion is in the posterior region. The
other peculiarities of the skeletons all tend
in the same direction, and, as we have
seen in Huxley’s description of the men
of Spy, sometimes go a long way in the
pithecoid direction, even to the extent of
not being able to straighten the knee in
walking.
It would, therefore, be contrary to all our
ideas of evolution to find that some 100,000
or 200,000, or more probably 400,000 or
500,000, years prior to these men of Spy
and Neanderthal, the human race had
existed in higher physical perfection nearer
to the existing type of modern man.
Quatrefages meets this by saying that
Tertiary men with a larger brain, and there
fore more intelligence than the other Ter
tiary mammals, might have survived, where
these succumbed to changes and became
extinct. This is doubtless true to some
extent, but it hardly seems sufficient to
account for the presence of a higher and
more recent type, like that of Castenedolo
in the Lower Pliocene, that is, a whole geo
logical period earlier than that of the
Lower Quaternary. It is more to the pur
pose to say with Gaudry that the changes
on which the distinction of species are
founded are often so slight that they might
just as well be attributed to variations of
races ; and to appeal to instances like that
of the Hylobates of the Miocene, one of
the nearest congeners of man, in which no
genuine difference can be detected from
the Hylobates or Gibbon of the present
day ; and if the discovery, already referred
to, of anthropoid primates in the Eocene
of Patagonia, should be confirmed, it
would greatly strengthen the argument
for the persistence of the order to which
man belongs through several geological
I
periods.
In any case, we require more than the
evidence of this one discovery before we
can assume the type of Tertiary man as a
proved fact with the same confidence as we
can the existence of some anthropoid animal
in those remote ages, from the repeated
evidence of chipped stones and cut bones,
showing unmistakeable signs of being the
work of human intelligence. And, in the
meantime, the only safe conclusion seems
to be that it is very probable that we may
have to go back to the Eocene to find the
“ missing link,” or the ancestral animal
which may have been the common pro
genitor of man and of the other quadrumana.
I turn now to the evidence from the New
World. I have kept this distinct, for there
is no such proof of synchronism between
the later geological phases of this and of
the Old World as would warrant us in
assuming that what is true in one is neces
sarily true in the other. Thus, in Europe,
the presence of the mastodon is a conclu
sive proof that the formation in which its
remains are found is Upper Miocene or
Pliocene, and it has completely disappeared
before the glacial period and the Quater
nary era. But in North America it has sur
vived both these periods, and it is even a
question whether it is not found in recent
peat-mosses with arrow-heads of the his
torical Indians.
The glacial period also, which in the Old
World affords such a clear demarcation
between Tertiary and Recent ages, and such
manifest proofs of two great glaciations
with a long inter-glacial period, presents
different conditions in America, where the
ice-caps radiated from different centres,
and extended further south and over wider
areas. There is no proof whether the great
cold set in sooner or later, and whether
the elevations and depressions of land
synchronised with those of Europe. The
evidence for a long inter-glacial period is
by no means so clear, and the best
American geologists differ respecting it.
And, above all, the glacial period seems to
have lasted longer, and the time required
for post-glacial or recent denudation, and
erosion of river-gorges, to be less than is
required to account for post-glacial phe
nomena on this side of the Atlantic.
The evidence, therefore, from the New
World, though conclusive as to the
existence of man from an immense
antiquity, can hardl} be accepted as equally
so in an attempt to prove that antiquity
to be Tertiary in the sense of identifying
�TERTIARY MAN
it with specific European formations.
With this reservation I proceed to give a
short account of this evidence as bearing
on the question of the oldest proofs of
man’s existence. The first step or proof
of the presence of man in the Quaternary
deposits which correspond with the oldest
river-drifts of Europe has been made
quite recently. Mr. Abbott was the first
to discover implements of the usual
palaeolithic type in Quaternary gravels of
the river Delaware, near Trenton, in New
Jersey; and since then, as described by
Dr. Wright in his Ice Age in America,
they have been frequently found in
Ohio, Illinois, and other States, in the
old gravels of rivers which carried the
drainage of the great lake district to
the Hudson and the Mississippi, before
the present line of drainage was estab
lished by the Falls of Niagara and
the St. Lawrence. So far the evidence
merely confirms that drawn from similar
finds in the Old World of the existence of
127
the Secondary Age, though doubtless it
stood much higher before it was so greatly
denuded. All along its western flank and
far down into the great valley is an enormous
bed of auriferous gravel, doubtless derived
from the waste of the rocks of the Sierra
during an immense time by old rivers now
buried under their own deposits. While
these deposits were going on, a great out
burst of volcanoes occurred on the western
slope of the Sierra, and successive sheets
of tuffs, ashes, and lavas are interstratified
with the gravels, while finally an immense
flow of basalt covered up everything. The
country then presented the appearance of
a great plain, sloping gradually downwards
from the Sierra according to the flow of
the basalt and lavas. This plain was in
its turn attacked by denudation and worn
down by the existing main rivers into
valleys and gorges, and by their tributary
streams into a series of flat-topped hills,
capped by basalt and divided from one
another by deep and narrow canons.
SECTION OF GREAT CALIFORNIAN LAVA STREAM, CUT THROUGH BY RIVERS.
a, a, basalt; b, b, volcanic ashes; c, c, tertiary; d, d, cretaceous rocks; R, R, direction
of the old river-bed ; R, R, sections of the present river-beds.
(Le Conte, from Whitney.)
man in the early glacial or Quaternary
times, already widely diffused, and every
where in a similar condition of primitive
savagery, and chipping his rude stone
implements into the same forms. But if
we cross the Rocky Mountains into
California, we find evidence which
apparently carries us further back and
raises new questions.
The whole region west of the Rocky
Mountains is comparatively recent. The
coast range which now fronts the Pacific
is composed entirely of marine Tertiary
strata, and, when these were deposited, the
waves of the Pacific beat against the flanks
of the Sierra Nevada. At length the coast
range was upheaved, and a wide valley
left between it and the Sierra of over 400
miles in length, and with an average breadth
of seventy-five miles. The Sierra itself is old
land, the lower hills consisting of Triassic
slates and the higher ranges of granite;
and it has never been under water since
The immense time required for this latest
erosion may be inferred when it is stated
that, where the Columbia river cuts through
the axis of the Cascade Mountains, the pre
cipitous rocks on either side, to a height of
from 3,000 to 4,000 feet, consist of this late
Tertiary or Post-Tertiary basalt, and that
the Deschutes river has been cut into the
great basaltic plain for 140 miles to a depth
of from 1,000 to 2,500 feet, without reach
ing the bottom of the lava. The American
and Yuba valleys have been lowered from
800 to 1,500 feet, and the gorge of the
Stanislas river has cut through one of these
basalt-covered hills to the depth of 1,500
feet.
The enormous gorge of the Colorado has
cut its canons for hundreds of miles from
3,000 to 6,000 feet deep through all the
orders of sedimentary rocks from the Tertiaries down, and from 600 to 800 feet into
the primordial granite below, thus draining
the great lakes which in Tertiary times
�128
HUMAN ORIGINS
occupied a vast space in the interior of
America, which is now an arid desert.
Evidently the gravels which lie below the
basalt, and interstratified with the tuffs and
lavas, or below them, and which belong to
an older and still more extensive denuda
tion, must be of immense antiquity, an
antiquity which remains the same whether
we call it Quaternary or Tertiary. It is in
these gravels that gold is found, and in the
search for it great masses have been re
moved in which numerous stone imple
ments have been discovered.
The great antiquity of those gravels and
volcanic tuffs is further confirmed by the
changes in the flora and fauna which are
proved to have occurred. The animal
remains found beneath the basaltic cap are
very numerous, and all of extinct species.
They belong to the genera rhinoceros,
felis, canis, bos, tapirus, hipparion,
elephas (primigenius), mastodon, and
auchenia, and form an assemblage
entirely distinct from any now living in any
part of North America. Some of the
genera survived into the Quaternary age as
in Europe; but many, both of the genera
and species, are among those most charac
teristic of the Pliocene period.
The flora also, which is well preserved in
the white clays formed from the volcanic
ash, comprises forty-nine species of decidu
ous trees and shrubs, all distinct from those
now living, without a single trace of the
pines, firs, and other conifera which are
now the prevalent trees throughout Cali
fornia.
Tried by any test, therefore, of fauna,
flora, and of immensely long deposit before
the present drainage and configuration of
the country had begun to be established,
Professor Whitney’s contention that the
auriferous gravels are of Tertiary origin
seems to be fully established. It can only
be met by obliterating all definite distinc
tion between the Quaternary and the Plio
cene, and adding to the former all the time
subtracted from the latter. And even if we
apply this to the physical changes, it would
upset all our standards of geological for
mations characterised by fossils, to suppose
that a fauna comprising the elotherium,
hipparion, and auchenia could be properly
transferred to the Quaternary. In fact, no
one would have thought of doing so if
human implements and remains had not
been found in them.
The discovery of such implements was
first reported in 1862, and since then a
large number have been found, but their
authenticity has been hotly contested. The
most common were stone mortars, very
like those of the Indians of the present
day, only ruder; and it was objected, first,
that they were ground and not chipped,
and therefore belonged to the neolithic
age; secondly, that they might have slipped
down from the surface or been taken down
by miners. The difficulty in meeting these
objections was that the implements had
been found not by scientific men in situ,
but by ignorant miners, who were too keen
in the pursuit of gold to notice the location
of the find, and only knew that they
had picked them out in sorting loads of
the gravels, and generally thrown them
aside. They had occurred in such a
number of instances, over such wide
areas, and with such a total absence of
any motive on the part of the miners to
misrepresent or commit a fraud, that the
cumulative evidence became almost irresis
tible ; and we cannot sum it up better than
in the words of the latest and best authority,
Professor Wright, in an article in the
Century of April, 1891, which is the more
important because only two years pre
viously, in his Ice Age in North America,
he had still expressed himself as retaining
doubts.
He says : “ But so many of such dis
coveries have been reported as to make it
altogether improbable that the miners were
in every case mistaken ; and we must
conclude that rude stone implements do
actually occur in connection with the bones
of various extinct animals in the undis
turbed strata of the gold-bearing gravel.”
Fortunately, the mo^c important human
remains have been found in what may be
considered as a test case, where it was
physically impossible that they could have
been introduced by accident, and where
the evidence of a common workman as to
the locality of the find is as good as that
of a professed geologist.
During the deposition of the auriferous
gravel on the western flanks of the Sierra
there were great outbursts of volcanoes
near the summits of that range. Towards
their close a vast stream of lava flowed
down the shallow valley of the ancient
Stanislas river, filling up its channel for
forty miles or more, and covering its exten
sive gravel deposits. The modern Stanislas
river has cut across its former bed, and
now flows in a gorge from 1,200 to 2,000
feet deeper than the old valley which was
filled up by the lava stream, the surface of
which appears as a long flat-topped ridge,
�TERTIARY MAN
129
A second object exhibited was a pestle
known as Table Mountain. In many places
the sides of the valley which originally found by Mr. King, who was at one time
General Director of the United States
directed the course of the lava have been
Geological Survey, and is an expert whose
worn away, so that the walls on either side
present a perpendicular face one hundred judgment on such matters should be final,
and who had no doubt that the gravel in
feet or more in height.
The gravel of the ancient Stanislas river which he found the object must have lain
being very auriferous, great efforts have in place ever since the lava came down and
been made to reach the portion of it which covered it. The third object was a mortar
lies under Table Mountain. Large sums taken from the old gravel at the end of a
have been spent in sinking shafts from the tunnel driven diagonally 175 feet from the
top through the lava cap, and tunnelling western edge of the basalt cliff, and ioo
into it from the sides. Great masses of feet or more below the surface of the flat
gravel have been thus quarried and re top of Table Mountain, as supported by
evidence entirely satisfactory to Professor
moved, and a considerable amount of gold
Wright, who had just visited the locality
obtained, though in most cases not enough
to meet the expenses, and the workings have and cross-examined the principal witnesses.
This may prepare us to consider the case of
been mostly discontinued.
the celebrated Calaveras skull as by no means
It is evident that objects brought from a
an isolated or exceptional one, but antece
great depth below this lava cap must have
dently probable from the number of human
remained there undisturbed since they were
implements found in the same gravels, under
deposited along with the gravels, and that
the same beds of basalt and lava, at Table
the evidence of the simplest miner, who
Mountain and numerous other places.
says he brought them with a truck-load
of dirt from the
bottoms of shafts,
or ends of tunnels
pierced for hun
dreds of feet
through the solid
lava, is, if he speaks
the truth, as good
as if a scientist
SECTION ACROSS TABLE MOUNTAIN, TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
had found them
in situ. And this
b, lava; G, gravel; S, slate ; R, old river-bed ; R', present river-bed.
evidence, together
(Le Conte.)
with that of mining
Professor Wright, in the article already
inspectors and respectable residents who
referred to, which is the latest on the sub
took an interest in scientific subjects,
has been forthcoming in such a large ject, and made after his visit to California
number of instances as to preclude any in 1890, which he says enabled him to add
supposition of mistake or fraud. Three of some important evidence, sums up the facts
the latest of these discoveries were reported as follows :—“In February, 1866, Mr. Mattenson, a
at the meeting of the Geological Society of
America on the 30th December, 1890, and blacksmith living near Table Mountain, in
the county Calaveras, employed his spare
they seem to be supported by very firstearnings in driving a tunnel under the por
class evidence.1 Mr. Becker, one of the
staff of the United States Geological Sur tion of the Sierra lava flow known as Bald
vey, to whom has been committed the re Hill. At a depth of 1.50 feet below the sur
face, of which 100 feet consisted of solid
sponsible work of reporting upon the goldbearing gravels of California, exhibited to lava, and the last fifty of interstratified beds
of lava, gravel, and volcanic tuffs, he came
the Society a stone mortar and some arrow
or spear-heads, with the sworn statement upon petrified wood, and an object which he
from Mr. Neale, a well-known mining at first took for the rpot of a tree, thickly
encased in cemented gravel. But seeing
superintendent, that he took them with his
own hands from undisturbed gravel in a that -what he took for one of the roots was a
lower jaw, he took the mass to the surface,
mine of which he had charge under the
and gave it to Mr. Scribner, the agent of
lava of Table Mountain.
an express company, and still living in the
1 Professor Wright in Century, April, 1891.
neighbourhood, and highly respected. Mr.
K
�13°
HUMAN ORIGINS
Scribner, on perceiving what it was, sent it
“ Even these Californian remains do not
to Dr. Jones, a medical gentleman of the exhaust the proofs of man’s great antiquity
highest reputation, now living at San in America, since we have the record of
Francisco, who gave it to Professor Whitney, another discovery which indicates that he
who visited the spot, and after a careful may, possibly, have existed at an even more
inquiry was fully satisfied with the evidence. remote epoch. Mr. E. L. Berthoud has
Soon afterwards Professor Whitney took described the finding of stone implements
the skull home with him to Cambridge, of a rude type in the Tertiary gravels of
where, in conjunction with Dr. Wynam, he the Crow Creek, Colorado. Some shells
subjected it to a very careful investigation, were obtained from the same gravels,
to see if the relic itself confirmed the story which were determined by Mr. T. A.
told by the discoverer, and this it did to
Conrad to be species which are ‘ certainly
such a degree that, to use ProfessorWright’s not older than Older Pliocene, or possibly
words, the circumstantial evidence alone
Miocene.’ ”
places its genuineness beyond all reason
I do not dwell on the discoveries which
able question.”
have been made of human implements and
This is not a solitary instance, for the skeletons in the cases of Minas Geraes in
Professor reports, as the result of his
Brazil, and in the drift or loess of the
personal inquiries only a year ago in the pampas of Buenos Ayres; for, although
district, that “the evidence that human associated with extinct animals usually
implements and fragments of the human considered as Pliocene, there is a differ
skeleton have been found in the stratum ence of opinion among competent geolo
of gravel underneath the lava of Table
gists whether the deposits are really
Mountain seems to be abundantly Tertiary or only early Quaternary.
sufficient”; among others a fragment of a
_ There is, however, one discovery, made
skull which came up with a bucketful of since the date of these above recorded, of
dirt from 180 feet below the surface of human work below the great basalt cap of
Table Mountain at Tuolumne.
North-Western America, brought up from
Dr. Wallace, in an article on “The a great depth of underlying gravels and
Antiquity of Man in North America,” in sands of a silted-up lake, formerly forming
the Nineteenth Century of November, 1887, part of the course of the Snake river at
thus enumerates some of the principal Nampa in Idaho, which is as-startling in its
instances :—
way as that of the Calaveras skull. The
“ In Tuolumne county from 1862 to 1865 following account of it is given on the
stone mortars and platters were found in authority of Professor Wright, who, having
the auriferous gravel along with bones and visited the locality in the summer of 1890,
teeth of mastodon ninety feet below the states that he found “ abundant confirma
surface, and a stone muller was obtained tory evidence”:—
in a tunnel driven under Table Mountain.
The Nampa image was brought up in
In 1870 a stone mortar was found at a boring an Artesian well, at Nampa in Ada
depth of sixty feet in gravel under clay and county, Idaho, through a lava-cap fifteen
‘ cement,’ as the hard clay with vegetable feet thick, and below it about 200 feet of
remains (the old volcanic ash) is called by the quicksands and clays of a silted-up
the miners. In Calaveras county- from lake, formed in a basin of the Snake river,
i860 to 1869 many mortars and other stone which joins the Columbia river, and flows,
implements were found in the gravels into the Pacific, forming part, therefore, of
under lava beds, and in other auriferous the same geographical and drainage system
gravels and clays at a depth of 150 feet. as the Californian gravels. At this depth
In Amador county stone mortars have been the borers came upon a stratum of
found in similar gravel at a depth of forty coarse sand, mixed with clay balls at the
feet. In Placer county stone platters and top, and resting at the bottom on an
dishes have been found in auriferous gravels ancient vegetable soil. The image was
from ten to twenty feet below the surface. found in the lower part of this coarse sand.
In Nevada county stone mortars and The borer, or liner of the well, was a sixground discs have been found from fifteen inch iron tube, and the drill was only used
to thirty feet deep in the gravel. In Butte in piercing the lava, while the sands below
county similar mortars and pestles have it were all extracted by a sand pump. Mr.
been found in the lower gravel beneath
King, a respectable citizen of Nampa, who
lava beds and auriferous gravel; and many was boring the well, states that he had
other similar finds have been recorded........ been for several days closely watching the
�TERTIARY MAN
progress of the well and passing through
his hands the contents of the sand pump
as they were brought up, so that he had
hold of the image before he suspected what
it was. Mr. Cumming, superintendent of
that portion of the Union Pacific Railway,
a highly-trained graduate of Harvard
College, was on the ground next day and
fiftw the image, and heard Mr. King’s
account of the discovery ; and Mr. Adams,
the president of the railway, happening to
pass that way about a month later, he
brought it to the notice of some of the
foremost geologists in the United States.
The image was sent to Boston by Mr.
King, who gave every information, and it
was found to be modelled from stiff clay,
like that of the clay balls found in the
jsand, slightly, if at all, touched by fire, and
^©Crusted like those balls with grains of
oxide of iron, which Professor Putnam
FRONT VIEW.
BACK VIEW.
THE NAMPA IMAGE—ACTUAL SIZE.
{Drawn from the object by J. D. Woodward.)
considers to be a conclusive proof of its
great antiquity. Mr. Emmons, of the
State Geological Society, gives it as his
■Opinion that the strata in which this image
is said to have been found is older by far
than any others in which human remains
have been discovered, unless it be those
taider Table Mountain, in California, from
•which came the celebrated Calaveras skull.
So much for the authenticity of the dis
covery, which seems unassailable; but now
-comes the remarkable feature of it, which,
■to a great extent, revolutionises our con
ception of this early palaeolithic age. The
image, or rather statuette, which is scarcely
an inch and a-half long, is by no means a
rede object, but, on the contrary, more
.artistic, and a better representation of the
human form than the little idols of many
comparatively modern and civilised people,
such as the Phoenicians. It is, in fact, very
like the little statuettes so abundantly found
in the neighbourhood of the old temple
pyramids of Mexico, which are generally
believed to be not much older than the
date of the Spanish Conquest.
In the face of this mass of evidence, from
both the Old and New Worlds, there
appears to be no warrant for further
question as to the existence of man in
Tertiary times. But we must accept with
it conclusions which are much opposed to
preconceived opinions. In the two bestauthenticated instances in which human
skulls have been found in presumably
Tertiary strata—those of Castenedolo and
Calaveras—it is distinctly stated that they
present no unusual appearance, and do not
go nearly as far in a brutal or pithecoid
direction as the Quaternary skulls of
Neanderthal and Spy, or as those of many
existing savage races. The Nampa image
also appears to show the existence of
considerable artistic skill at a period which,
if notTertiary, must be of immense antiquity.
How can this be reconciled with the theory
of evolution and the descent of man from
some animal ancestor common to him and
the other quadrumana ? Up to a certain
point—-viz., the earliest Quaternary period,
the evidence of progression seems fairly
satisfactory. _ If we take the general
average of this class of skulls as compared
with modern skulls, we find them of smaller
brain-capacity, thicker and flatter, with
prominent frontal sinuses, receding fore
heads, projecting _ muzzles, and weaker
chins. The brain is decidedly smaller, the
average being 1,150 cubic centimetres as
compared with 1,250 in Australians and
Bushmen, and 1,600 in well-developed
Europeans ; and of this smaller capacity a
larger proportion is contained in the
posterior part.1 Other parts of the skeleton
will tell the same story, and in many of the
earliest and most extreme instances, as
those of Neanderthal and Spy, a very
decided step is made in the direction of the
“ missing link.”
But if we accept the only two specimens
known of the type of Tertiary man, the
skulls of Castenedolo and Calaveras, which
are supported by such extremely strong evi
dence, it would seem that as we recede in
time, instead of getting nearer to the
“missing link,” we get further from it.
This, and this alone, throws doubt on evi
dence which would otherwise seem to be
1 Quatrefages and Hamy, Crania Ethnica.
�HUMAN ORIGINS
132
irresistible, and without a greater number
of well-authenticated confirmations we must
be content to hold our judgment, as to the
existence of man in the Tertiary period in
either hemisphere, to a certain extent in
suspense. But this extends only to the type
of man as shown by these two skulls, and
does not at all affect the fact that an ances
tral type of man did exist in the Pliocene
and Miocene periods. This is established
beyond reasonable doubt by the numerous
instances in which chipped implements and
cut bones have been found by experienced
observers, and pronounced genuine by the
highest authorities.
All we can say with any certainty is that,
if the Darwinian theory of evolution applies
to man, as it does to all other animals, and
specially to man’s closest kindred, the other
quadrumana, the common ancestor must be
sought very much further back in the
Eocene, which inaugurated the reign of
placental mammalia, and in which the
primitive types of so many of the later
mammals have been found. Nor will this
appear incredible when we consider that
man’s cousins, the apes and monkeys, first
appear in the Miocene, or even earlier in
the Eocene, and become plentiful in the
later Pliocene, and that even anthropoid
apes, and one of them, the Hylobates,
scarcely if at all distinguishable from the
Gibbon of the present day, have been found
at Sansan and other Miocene deposits in
the south of France, at (Eningen in Swit
zerland, and Pikermi in Greece.
CHAPTER XI.
RACES OF MANKIND
Monogeny or Polygeny — Darwin — Existing
Races—Colour—Hair—Skulls and Brains—
Dolichocephali and Brachycephali—Jaws and
Teeth—Stature—Other Tests—Isaac Taylor
— Prehistoric Types in Europe— Huxley’s
Classification—Language no Test of Race—■
Egyptian Monuments—Human and Animal
Races unchanged for 6,000 years—Neolithic
Races—Palaeolithic—Different Races of Man
as far back as we can trace—Types of Canstadt, Cro-Magnon, and Furfooz—Oldest
Races Dolichocephalic—Skulls of Neander
thal and Spy—Simian Characters—Objections
—Evidence confined to Europe—American
Man—Calaveras Skull—Tertiary Man—Skull
of Castenedolo—-Leaves Monogeny or Poly
geny an Open Question—Arguments on each
side—Old Arguments from the Bible and
Philology exploded—What Darwinian Theory
requires—Animal Types traced up to the
Eocene—Secondary Origins-—Dog and Horse
—Fertility of Races—Question of Hybridity
—Application to Man—Difference of Consti
tution^—Negro and White—Bearing on Ques
tion of Migration—Apes and Monkeys—
Question of Original Locality of Man—Asiatic
Theory— Eur-African —American —Arctic —
None based on sufficient Evidence—Mere
Speculations—Conclusion—Summary of Evi
dence as to Human Origins.
The immense antiquity of man upon earth
having been established, other questions
of great interest present themselves as to
the races of mankind. These questions
no longer depend on positive facts of
observation, like the discovery of palaeo
lithic remains in definite geological deposits,
but on inference and conjecture from these
and other observed facts, most of which are
of comparatively recent date and hardly
extend beyond the historical period.
Thus, if we start with the existing state
of things, we find a great variety of human
races actually prevailing, located in different
parts of the world, and of fundamental
types so dissimilar as to constitute what in
animal zoology would often be called sepa
rate species,1 and yet fertile among them
selves, and so similar in many physical and
mental characters as to infer an origin from
common ancestors. And we can infer from
history that this was so to a great extent
6,000 years ago, and that the length of time
has been insufficient to produce any marked
changes, either in physical or linguistic
types, of the different fundamental races.
Was this always so, and what inference
can be drawn as to the much-disputed ques
tion between monogeny and polygeny—that
is, between the theory of descent from a
single pair in a single locality, and that of
descent from several pairs, developed in
different localities by parallel, but not
strictly identical, lines of evolution ?
1 Topinard, one of the latest and best authori
ties, says in his book on Anthropology : “We
have seen the marked difference between woolly
and straight hair, between the prognathous and
the orthognathous, the jet black of the Yoloff
and the pale complexion of the Scandinavian,
between the ultra-dolichocephalic Esquimaux or
New Caledonian and the ultra-brachycephalic
Mongolian. But the line of separation between
the European and the Bosjesman, as regards
these two characters, is, in a morphological
point of view, still wider, as much so as between
each of the anthropoid apes, or between the dog
and the wolf, the goat and the sheep.”
�RACES OF MANKIND
This is a question which cannot be
decided off-hand by a priori considerations.
No doubt Darwinism points to the evolu
tion of all life from primitive forms, and
ultimately, perhaps, from the single
simplest form of life in the cell. But
this does not necessarily imply that the
more highly specialised, and what may be
called the secondary, forms of life, have all
originated from single secondary centres,
at one time and in one locality.
On the contrary, we have the authority
of Darwin himself for saying that this is
not a necessary consequence of his theory.
In a letter to Bentham he says : “ I dispute
whether a new race or species is necessarily
or even generally descended from a single
or pair of parents. The whole body of
individuals, I believe, became altered
together—like our race-horses, and like all
domestic breeds which are changed through
unconscious selection by man.”
The problem is, therefore, an open one,
and can be solved (or rather attacked, for in
the present state of our knowledge a com
plete solution is probably impossible) only
by a careful induction from ascertained
facts, ascending step by step from the
present to the past, from the known to the
unknown.
The first step is to have a clear idea of
what actually exists at the present moment.
There are an almost endless number of
minor varieties of the human race, but
none of them of sufficient importance to
imply diversity of origin, with the excep
tion of four, or at the most, five or six
fundamental types, which stand so widely
apart that it is difficult to imagine that
they are all descended from a common
pair of ancestors. These are the white,
yellow, and black races of the Old World,
the copper-coloured of America, and
perhaps the olive-coloured of Malaysia
and Polynesia, and the pygmy races of
1 Africa and Eastern Asia. The difficulty of
supposing these races to have all sprung
from a single pair will at once be apparent
if we personify this pair under the name of
Adam for the first man and Eve for the
first woman, and ask ourselves the ques
tion : What do we suppose to have been
their colour ?
But colour alone, though an obvious,
is by no means the sole, criterion of
difference of race.
The evidence is
cumulative, and other equally marked and
persistent characters, both of physical
Structure and of physiological and mental
peculiarities, stand out as distinctly as
133
differences of colour in the great typical
races. For instance, the hair is a per
sistent index of race. When the section
of it is circular, the hair is straight and
lank ; when flattened, woolly; and when
oval, curly or wavy. Now these characters
are so persistent that many of the best
anthropologists have taken hair as the
surest test of race. Everywhere the lank
and straight hair and circular section go
with the yellow and copper-coloured races ;
the woolly hair and flat section with the
black ; and the wavy hair and oval section
with the white races.
The solid framework of the skeleton
also affords very distinctive types of race,
especially where it is looked at in a general
way as applicable to great masses of pure
races, and not to individuals of mixed race,
like most Europeans. The skull is most
important, for it affords the measure of the
size and shape of the brain, which is the
highest organ, and that on which the
differentiation of man from the lower
animals mainly depends. The size of the
brain alone does not always afford a con
clusive proof of mental superiority, for it
varies with sex, height, and other indi
vidual characters, and often seems to
depend more on quality than on quantity.
Still, if we take general averages, we find
that superior and civilised races have
larger brains than inferior and savage
ones. Thus the average brain of the
European is about 1,500 cubic centimetres,
while that of the Australian and Bushman
does not exceed 1,200.
The shape as well as the size of the
skull affords another test of race which is
often appealed to. The main distinction
taken is between dolichocephalic and
brachycephalic, or long and broad skulls.
Here also we must look at general averages
rather than at individuals, for there is often
considerable variation within the same
race, especially among the mesocephalic,
or medium between the two extremes,
which is generally the prevalent form
where there has been much intermixture
of races. But, if we take widely different
types, there can be no doubt that the long
or broad skull is a characteristic and
persistent feature. The formation of the
jaws and teeth affords another important
test. Some races are .what is called prog
nathous—that is, the jaws project, and the
teeth are set in sockets sloping outwards,
so that the lower part of the face approxi
mates to the form of a muzzle ; others are
orthognathous, or have the iaws and teeth
�134
HUMAN ORIGINS
vertical. And the form of the chin seems
to be wonderfully correlated with the
general character and energy of the race.
It is hard to say why, but as a matter of
fact a weak chin generally denotes a weak,
and a strong chin a strong, race or individual.
Thus the chimpanzee and other apes have
no chin; the negro and lower races generally
have chins weak and receding. The races
who, like the Iberians, have been conquered
or driven from plains to mountains have
had poor chins ; while their successive
conquerors of Aryan-speaking race—-Celts,
Romans, Teutons, and Scandinavians—
might almost be classified by the pro
minence and solidity of this feature of the
face. The use of the term “Aryan” as
denoting race is misleading. As Professor
Keane remarks in his valuable treatise on
Man, Past and Present, there is no trace
whatever of the group of communities thus
named, since this has long been merged in
the countless other races on which its
language was imposed. “We can and
must speak of Aryan tongues, and of an
Aryan linguistic family; but of an Aryan
race there can be no further question, since
the absorption of the original stock in a
hundred other races in remote prehistoric
times.” Wherever the term is used through
out this book, it must be thus understood.
Stature is another very persistent feature.
The pygmy races of Equatorial Africa
described by Stanley have remained the
same since the early records of Egypt,
while the races of the north temperate
zone, Gauls, Germans, and Scandinavians,
have from the first dawn of history amazed
the shorter races of the south by their tall
stature, huge limbs, blue eyes, and yellow
hair. Here and there isolated tall races
may be found where the race has become
thoroughly acclimatised to a suitable
environment, as among some negro tribes,
and the Araucanian Indians of Patagonia ;
but, as a rule, the inferior races are short,
the bulk of the civilised races of the world
of intermediate stature, and the great
conquering races of the north temperate
zone decidedly tall.
Other tests are afforded by the shape of
the eye-orbits and nasal bones, and other
characters, all of which agree, in the words
of Isaac Taylor in his Origin of the
Aryans, in “ exhibiting two extreme types
—the African with long heads, long orbits,
and flat hair; and the Mongolian with
round heads, round orbits, and round hair.
The European type is intermediate, the
head, the orbit, and the hair being oval.
In the East of Europe we find an approximation to the Asiatic type ; in the South of
Europe to the African.”
Taking these prominent and already
noted characters as tests, we find four
distinct types among the earliest inhabitants
of Europe, which can be traced from
historic to neolithic times. They consist
of two long-headed and two short-headed
races, and in each case one is tall and
the other short. The dolichocephalic are
recognised everywhere throughout Western
Europe and on the Mediterranean basin,
including North Africa, as the oldest race,
and they are thought still to survive in the
original type in some of the people of
Wales and Ireland and the Spanish
Basques ; while they doubtless form a
large portion, intermixed with other races,
of the blood of the existing populations of
Great Britain and Ireland, of Western and
Southern France, of Spain, Portugal, Sicily,
Sardinia, North Africa, and other Mediter
ranean districts. This is known as the
Iberian race, and it can be traced clearly
beyond history and the knowledge of
metals into the neolithic stone age, and
may possibly be descended from some of
the vastly older palaeolithic types such as
that of Cro-Magnon. The type is every
where a feeble one, of short stature,
dolichocephalic, narrow oval face, orthog
nathic teeth, weak chin, and swarthy
complexion. We have only to compare a
skull of this type with one of ruder and
stronger races, to understand how the
latter must have survived as conquerors in
the struggle for existence in the early ages
of the world, before gunpowder and military
discipline had placed civilisation in a better
position to contend with brute force and
energy. Huxley sums up the latest evidence
as to the distinctive types of these historic
and prehistoric races of Europe as follows:—
1. Blond long-heads of tall stature who
appear with least admixture in Scandinavia,
North Germany, and parts of the British
Islands.
2. Brunette broad-heads of short stature
in Central France, the Central European
Highlands, and Piedmont. These are
identified with the Ligurian race, and their
most typical modern representatives are
the Auvergnats and Savoyards.
3. Mongoloid brunette broad-heads of
short stature in Arctic and Eastern Europe,
and Central Asia, represented by the Lapps
and other tribes of Northern Russia, pass
ing into the Mongols and Chinese of
Eastern Asia.
�RACES OF MANKIND
4. Brunette long-heads of short stature
—the Iberian race.
Huxley adds : “ The inhabitants of the
regions which lie between these five present
the intermediate gradations which might
be expected to result from their inter
mixture. The evidence at present extant
is consistent with the supposition that the
blond long-heads, the brunette broad-heads,
and the brunette long-heads—the Scan
dinavian, Ligurian, and Iberian races—have
existed in Europe very nearly in their
present localities throughout historic times
and very far back into prehistoric times.
There is no proof of any migration of
Asiatics into Europe west of the basin of
the Dnieper down to the time of Attila.
On the contrary, the first great movements
of the European population of which there
is any conclusive evidence are that series
of Gaulish invasions of the East and South
which ultimately extended from North Italy
to Galatia in Asia Minor.” I may add that
in more recent times many of the principal
movements have been from west to east—
viz., of Germans absorbing Slavs, and Slavs
absorbing or expelling Fins and Tartars.
The next question is, how far can we
trace back the existence of the present
widely different fundamental types of man
kind by the light of ascertained and certain
facts ?
The most important of these facts is that
the figures on Egyptian monuments
enable us to say that the existing diver
sities of the races of mankind are not
of recent origin, but have existed un
changed from the dawn of history. The
Egyptians themselves have come down
from the Old Empire, through all the
vicissitudes of conquests, mixtures of races,
changes of religion and language, so little
altered that the fellah of to-day is often the
image of the Egyptians who built the pyra
mids. The wooden statue of an officer of
Chephren, who died some 6,000 years ago
(see Ulus., p. 63), was such a striking por
trait of the village magistrate of to-day
that the Arab workmen christened it the
Sheik-el-Beled.” And these old Egyp
tians knew’ from the earliest times three at
least of the fundamental types of mankind :
the Nahsu, or negroes to the south, who are
represented on the monuments so faithfully
that they might be taken as typical pictures
of the modern negro; the Lebu to the west,
a fair-skinned and blue-eyed white race,
whose descendants remain to this day as
Kabyles and Berbers, in the same localities
of North Africa; and to the east various
135
tribes of Arabs, Syrians, and other Asiatics,
who are always painted of a yellowishbrown colour, and whose features may often
be traced in their modern descendants.
The same may be said of the wild and
domestic animals of the various countries,
which are the same now, unless where sub
sequently imported, as when they were first
known to the ancient Egyptians.
We start, therefore, with this undoubted
fact, that a period of 6,000 or 7,000 years
has been insufficient to make any percep
tible change in the types of pure races,
whether of the animal or of human species.
And doubtless this period might be greatly
extended if we had historical records of the
growth of Egyptian civilisation in the times
prior to Menes, for in the earliest records
we find accounts of wars both with the
Nahsu and the Lebu, implying large popu
lations of those races already existing both
to the south and west of the valley of the
Nile.
These positive dates carry us back so far
that it is of little use to investigate minutely
the differences of races shown by the
remains of the neolithic period. They were
very marked and numerous, but we have no
evidence to show that they were different
from those of more recent times, or that
their date can be confidently said to be much
older than the oldest Egyptian records.
All we can infer with certainty is that,
whether the neolithic period be of longer
or shorter duration, no changes have taken
place in the animal fauna contemporary
with man which cannot be traced to human
agency or other known causes. No new
species have appeared, or old ones disap
peared, in the course of natural evolution,
as was the case during the Quaternary and
preceding geological periods.
The neolithic is, however, a mere drop in
the ocean of time compared with the earlier
periods in which the existence of palaeo
lithic man can be traced by his remains ;
and as far back as we can go we find our
selves confronted by the same fact of a
diversity of races. As we have seen in the
chapter on Quaternary man, Europe, where
alone skulls and skeletons of the palaeo
lithic age have been discovered, affords at
least three very distinct types—that of Cannstadt, of Cro-Magnon, and of Furfooz.
The Cannstadt type, which includes the
men of Neanderthal and Spy, and which
was widely diffused, having been found as
far south as Gibraltar, is apparently the
oldest, and certainly the rudest and most
savage, being characterised by enormous
�HUMAN ORIGINS
136
brow-ridges, a low and receding forehead,
projecting muzzle, and thick bones with
powerful muscular attachments. It is very
dolichocephalic, but the length is due
mainly to the projection of the posterior
part of the brain, the total size of which is
below the average. The Cro-Magnon type,
which is also very old, being contemporary
with the cave-bear and mammoth, is the
very opposite of that of Cannstadt in many
respects. The superciliary ridges are
scarcely marked, the forehead is elevated,
the contour of the skull good, and the
volume of the brain equal or superior to
that of many modern civilised races. The
stature was tall, the nose straight or pro
jecting, and the chin prominent. The only
resemblance to the Cannstadt type is that
they are both dolichocephalic chiefly on
the posterior region, and both prognathous;
but the differences are so many and pro
l’homme
AVANT l’histoire.
(From
found that no anthropologist would say that
one of these races could have been derived
directly from the other. Still less could he
say that the small round-headed race of
Furfooz could have been a direct descen
dant of either of the two former. It is
found in close vicinity with them over an
extensive area, but generally in caves and
deposits which, from their geological situa
tion and associated fauna, point to a later
origin. In fact, if we go by European
evidence alone, we may consider it proved
that the oldest known races were dolichoce
phalic, that the brachycephalic races came
later, and that as long ago as in neolithic
times considerable intercrossing had taken
place, which has gone on ever since, pro
ducing the great variety of intermediate
types which now prevail over a great part
of Europe.
This inference of the priority of the
Cannstadt type is strengthened by its un
doubted approximation to that of the most
savage existing races and of the anthropoid
apes. If we take the skulls and skeletons
of Neanderthal and Spy, and compare them
with those of modern civilised man, we
find that, while they are still perfectly
human, they make a notable approximation
towards a savage and simian type in all
the peculiarities which have been described
by anthropologists as tests. The most
important of all, that of the capacity and
form of the brain, is best illustrated by the
subjoined diagram of the skulls of the
European, the Neanderthal, and the chim
panzee placed in superposition.
It will be seen at a glance that the
Neanderthal skull, especially in the frontal
part, which is the chief seat of intelligence,
is nearer to the chimpanzee than to modern
man. And all the other
characters correspond to
this inferiority of brain.
The enormous super
ciliary ridges; the greater
length of the fore-arm ;
the prognathous jaws,
larger canine teeth, and
smaller chin; the thicker
bones and stronger mus
cular attachments; the
rounder ribs ; the flatter
tibia, and many other
characters described by
palaeontologists, all point
in the same direction, and
take us some considerable
way towards the missing
Debierre.)
link 'which is to connect
the human race with animal ancestors.
Still, there are other considerations
which must make us pause before asserting
too positively that in following Quaternary
man up to the Cannstadt type we are on
the track of original man, and can say with
confidence that by following it up still
further wfc shall arrive at the earlier form
from which man was differentiated. In
the first place, Europe is the only part of
the world where this Cannstadt type has
hitherto been found. We have abundant
evidence from palaeolithic stone implements
that man existed pretty well over the whole
earth in early Quaternary times, but have
hitherto no sufficient evidence from human
remains outside of Europe from which we
can draw any inference as to the type of
man by whom these implements were made.
It is clear that in Europe the oldest races
�RACES OF MANKIND
were dolichocephalic, but we have no
certainty that this was the case in Asia,
in so many parts of which round-headed
races exclusively prevail, and have done so
from the earliest times. Again, we have
no evidence as to the origin of another
of the most strongly-marked types, that
of the Negro, or of the Negrito,
Bushmen, Australian, or other existing
races who approach most nearly to the
simian type. The only evidence we have
of the type of races who were certainly
early Quaternary, and may very possibly
go back to an older geological age than
that of the men of Neanderthal and Spy,
comes from the NewWorld,from California,
Brazil, and Buenos Ayres, and points to a
type not so savage and simian as that of
Cannstadt, but rather to that which charac
terises all the different varieties of American
man, though here also we find evidence of
distinct dolichocephalic and brachycephalic
races from the very earliest times. Another
difficulty in the way of considering the
Cannstadt type as a real advance towards
primitive man and the missing link arises
from the totally different and very superior
type of Cro-Magnon being found so near
it in time, as proved by the existence in
both of the cave-bear, mammoth, and
■other extinct animals. We can hardly
suppose the Cro-Magnon _ type to have
sprung by slow evolution in the ordinary
way of direct succession, from such a very
different type as that of Cannstadt, during
such a short interval of time as a small
portion of one geological period. Again,
it is very perplexing to find that the only
Tertiary skulls and skeletons for which we
possess really strong evidence, those of
Castenedolo, instead of showing, as might
be expected, a still more rude and simian
aspect than that of Cannstadt, show us the
Cannstadt type, indeed, but in a milder and
more human form.
All that can be said with certainty is
that, as far as authentic evidence carries
us back, the ancestral animal, or missing
link, has not been discovered, but that man
already existed from an enormous antiquity,
extending certainly through the Quaternary
into the Pliocene, and probably into the
Miocene period, and that at the earliest
date at which his remains have been found
the race was already divided, as at present,
into several sharply distinguished types.
This leaves the question of man’s ultimate
origin completely open to speculation, and
enables both monogenists and polygenists
to contend for their respective views with
137
plausible arguments, and without fear of
being refuted by facts. Polygeny, or plural
origins, would at first sight seem to be the
most plausible theory to account for the
great diversities of human races actually
existing, which can be shown to have
existed from such an immense antiquity.
And this seems to have been the first guess
of primitive nations, for most of them
considered themselves as autochthonous,
sprung from the soil, or created by their
own native gods. But by degrees this
theory gave place to that of monogeny,
which has been for a long while almost uni
versally accepted by the civilised world.
The cause of this among Christians, Jews,
and Mohammedans hasbeen the acceptance
of the narratives in Genesis, first of Adam
and secondly of Noah, as literally true
accounts of events which actually occurred.
This is an argument which has completely
broken down, and no competent and dis
passionate thinker any longer accepts the
Hebrew Scriptures as a literal and conclu
sive authority on facts of history and
science which lie within the domain of
human reason. The question, therefore,
became once more an open one; but, as the
old orthodox argument for monogeny faded
into oblivion, a new and more powerful one
was furnished by the doctrine of Evolution
as expounded by Darwin. The same argu
ment applies to man as to the rest of the
animal world, that if separate species imply
separate creations, these supernatural crea
tions must be multiplied to such an extent
as to make them altogether incredible ; as,
for instance, 150 separate creations for the
land shells alone of one of the group of
Madeira islands ; while, on the other hand,
genera grade off into species, species into
races, and races into varieties, by such in
sensible degrees as to establish an irresis
tible inference that they have all been deve
loped by evolution from common ancestors.
No one, I suppose, seriously doubts that
this is in the main the true theory of life,
though there may still be some uncertainty
as to the causes and mode of operation,
and of the different steps and stages of this
evolution. Monogeny, therefore, in this
general sense of evolution from some primi
tive mammalian type, may be accepted as
the present conclusion of science for man
as it has come to be for the horse, dog, and
so many other animals which are his con
stant companions. Their evolution can in
many cases be traced up, through succes
sive steps, to some more simple and general
ised type in the Eocene ; and it may be per-
�IJS
HUMAN ORIGINS
mitted to believe that if the whole geological
record could be traced as far back as that
of the horse, in the case of man and the
other quadrumana, their pedigree would be
as clearly made out. This, however, does
not conclude the question, for it is quite
permissible to contend that in the case of
man, as in that of the horse, though the
primary ancestral type in the Eocene may
be one, the secondary types from which
existing races are more immediately derived
may be more than one, and may have been
evolved in different localities. Thus in the
case of the dog it is almost certain that
some of the existing races have been
derived from wolves, and others from jackals
and foxes ; but this is quite consistent with
the belief that all the canine genus have
been evolved from the marsupial Carnivora
of the Eocene, through the Arctocyon, who
was a generalised type, half dog and half
bear. In fact, we have the authority of
Darwin himself, as quoted in the beginning
of this chapter, for saying that this would
be quite consistent with his view of the
origin of species.
Now the controversy between monogenists and polygenists has turned mainly
on these comparatively recent developments
of secondary types. It has been fought to
a great extent before the immense antiquity
of the human race had been established,
and it had become almost certain that its
original starting-point must be sought at
least as far back as in the Eocene period.
The main argument for monogeny has
been that the different races of mankind
are fertile among themselves. This is
doubtless true to a great extent, and shows
that these races have not diverged very
far from their ancestral type. But the
researches of Darwin and his successors
have thrown a good deal of new light on
the question of hybridity. Species can no
longer be looked upon as separated' from
one another and from races by hard-andfast lines, on one side of which is absolute
sterility and on the other absolute fertility;
but rather as blending into one another by
insensible gradations from free intercross
ing to sterility, according as the differences
from the original type became more pro
nounced and more fixed by heredity.
To revert to the case of dogs, we find
free interbreeding between races descended
from different secondary ancestors, such as
wolves, jackals, and foxes, though freer, I
believe, and more permanent as the races
are closer ; but as the specific differences
become more marked the fertility does not
abruptly cease, but . rapidly diminishes.
Thus Buffon’s experiment shows that a
hybrid cross between the dog and the wolf
may be produced and perpetuated for at
least three generations ; on the other hand,
the leporine cross between the hare and
rabbit has no established results ; and we
see in the mule the last expiring trace
of fertility in a cross between species which
have diverged so far in different directions
as the horse and the ass.
The human race repeats this lesson of
the animal world, and shows a graduated
scale of fertility and permanence in crosses,
between different types according as they
are closely or distantly related. Thus, if
we take the two extremes, the blond white
of North temperate Europe and the Negro
of Equatorial Africa, the disposition to
union is almost replaced by repugnance,
which is only overcome under special
circumstances, such as slavery, and by an
absence of women of their own race ; while
the offspring, the mulatto, is everywhere a
feeble folk, with deficient vitality,diminished
fertility, and prone to die out, or revert to
one or other of the original types. But
where the types are not so extremely diver
gent the fertility of the cross increases, as
between the brunette white of Southern
Europe and the Arab or Moor with the
Negro, and of the European with the
native Indian of America.
Perhaps the strongest argument for
polygeny is that derived from the different
constitutions of different races as regards
susceptibility to climatic and other influ
ences.
At present, and as far back as history
and tradition enable us to trace, mankind
has, as in the case of other animals, been
very much restricted to definite geological
provinces. Thus, in the extreme case of
the fair white and the Negro, the former
cannot live and propagate its type south
of the parallel of 40°, or the latter north of
it. This argument was no doubt pushed
too far by Agassiz, who supposed the whole
world to be divided into a number of limited
districts, in each of which a separate
creation both of men, animals, and plants
had taken place suited to the environment.
This is clearly inconsistent with facts, but
there is still some force in it when stripped
of exaggeration, and confined to the three
or four leading types which are markedly
different. Especially it bears on the argu
ment, on which monogenists mainly rely,
of the peopling of the earth by migration
from one common centre. No doubt migra-
�RACES OF MANKIND
139
white, or the white from the Negro. _ To
tion has played a very great part in the
deny the extension of human origins into
diffusion of all animal and vegetable
the Tertiaries is practically to deny
species, and their zoological provinces are
determined very much by the existence of Darwin’s theory of evolution altogether,
or to contend that man is an exception to
insurmountable barriers in early geological
the laws by which the rest of the animal
times. No doubt also man is better
creation have come into existence in the
organised for migration than most other
course of evolution.
terrestrial animals, and history and tradi
The question of the locality in which the
tion show that in comparatively recent times
human species first originated depends also
he has reached the remotest islands of the
very materially on the date assigned for
Pacific by perfectly natural means. But this
human origins. The various speculations
does not meet the difficulty of accounting,
which have been hazarded on this subject
if we place the origin of man from a single
are almost all based on the supposition
pair anywhere in the northern hemisphere,
that this origin took place in comparatively
for his presence in palaeolithic times in
recent times, when geographical and other
South Africa and South America. How
causes were not materially different from
did he get across the equatorial zone, in
those of the present day. It was for ages
which only a tropical fauna, including the
the accepted belief that all mankind were
tropical Negro, can now live and flourish?
descended primarily from a single pair of
Or vice versd, if the original Adam and
ancestors, who were miraculously created
Eve were black, and the Garden of Eden
in Mesopotamia, and secondarily from three
situated in the tropics, how did their
pairs who were miraculously preserved in
descendants migrate northwards, and live
the ark in Armenia. This, of course, never
on the skirts of the ice-caps of the glacial
had any other foundation than the belief
period? Or how did the yellow race, so
in the inspired authority of the Bible ; and
tolerant of heat and cold and of insanitary
when it came to be established that this, as
conditions, and so different in physical and
regards its scientific and prehistoric specu
moral characters from both the whites and
lations, was irreconcilable with the most
the blacks, either originate from them or
certain facts of science, the orthodox
give rise to them ? The nearest congeners
account of the Creation fell with it. The
of man, the anthropoid apes and monkeys,
theory of Asiatic origin was, however, taken
are all catarrhinein the Old World, and all
up on other grounds, and still lingers in
platyrrhine in South America. Why, if all
are descended from the same pair of ances some quarters, mainly among philologists,
who, headed by Max Muller, thought they
tors, and have spread from the same spot by
had discovered in Sanscrit and Zend the
migration ? We can only reconcile the
nearest approach to a common Aryan lan
fact that it is so with the facts of evolution,
guage. Tracing backwards the lines of
by throwing the common starting-points
migration of these people, the Sanscrit
or points of the lines of development much
speaking Hindoos and the Zend-speaking
further back into the Eocene, or even
Iranians, they found them intersecting
further; and if this be true for monkeys,
somewhere about the Upper Oxus, and
why not for man ?
One point seems quite clear, that jumped at the conclusion that the great
elevated plateau of Pamir, the “ roof of the
monogeny is only possible by extending
world,” had been the birthplace of man, as
the date of human origins far back into
it was of so many of the great rivers which
the Tertiaries. On any short-dated theories
flowed from it to the north, south, east, and
of man’s appearance upon earth—-as, for
west. This theory, however, has pretty
instance, that of Prestwich, that palaeolithic
well broken down, since it has been shown
man probably only existed for some
that other branches of the Aryan languages,
20,000 or 25,000 years before the neolithic
specially the Lithuanian, contain more
period—some theory like that of Agassiz,
archaic elements than either Sanscrit or
of separate creations in separate zoological
Zend ; that language is often no conclusive
provinces, follows inevitably.
If the
test of race; that migrations of peoples
immense time from the Miocene to the
have been from . west to east as well
Recent period has been insufficient to
as from east to west ; and that all
differentiate the Hylobates and Dryohistory, prehistoric traditions, and lin
pithecus very materially from the existing
guistic palaeontology point to the prin
anthropoid apes, a period such as 40,000
cipal Aryan-speaking races as having been
or 50,000 years would have gone a very
located in Northern and Central Europe
little way in deriving the Negro from the
�140
HUMAN ORIGINS
and in Central and Southern Russia verymuch as we find them at the present day..
The whole question of place of origin is
very much one of guess-work. The immense
antiquity which on the lowest possible esti
mate can be assigned for the proved exist
ence of man carries us back to a period
when geological, geographical, and climatic
conditions were so entirely different that all
inferences from those of the present period
are useless. For instance, certainly half
the Himalayas, and probably the whole,
were under the sea ; the Pamir and Central
Asia, instead of being the roof of the world,
may have been fathoms deep under a great
ocean; Greenland and Spitzbergen were
types of the north temperate climate best
suited for the highest races of man.
In like manner, language ceases to be an
available factor in any attempt to trace
human origins to their source. It is doubt
less true that at the present day different
fundamental types of language distinguish
the different typical races of the human
family. Thus the monosyllabic type, con
sisting of roots only without grammar,
characterises the Chinese and its allied
races of the extreme east of Asia; the
agglutinative, in which different shades of
meaning were attached to roots by definite
particles glued on to them, as it were, by
prefixes or suffixes, is the type adopted by
most of the oldest and most numerous
races of mankind in the Old World as their
means of conveying ideas by sound; while
in the New World the common type
of an immense variety of languages is
polysynthetic, or an attempt to splutter out
as it were a whole sentence in a single
immensely long word made up of fragments
of separate roots and particles—a type
which in the Old World is confined to the
Euskarian of the Spanish Basque. And at
the head of all, as refined instruments, for
the conveyance of thought, there stand the
two inflectional languages,.the Aryan and
Semitic, by which, though in each case by
a totally different system, roots acquire
their different shades of meaning by
particles, no longer mechanically glued on
to them, but melted down as it were with
the roots, and incorporated into new words
according to definite grammatical rules.
But this carries us back a very little way.
Judging by philology alone, the Chinese,
whose annals go back only to about 3000
B.C., would be an older race than the
Egyptians or Akkadians, whose languages
can be traced at least 2,000 years further
back. And if we go back into prehistoric
and geological times, we are absolutely
ignorant whether the neolithic and palaeo
lithic races spoke these languages, or
indeed had the gift of articulate speech at
all. Some palaeontologists have held that
there was evidence for the oldest palaeo
lithic race being speechless, and have
christened it “Homo alalus”; but this is
based on the fact that a single human
jaw, that of La Naulette, lacks the genial
tubercle, to which one of the muscles of
the tongue is attached, and which is absent
also in anthropoid apes.
It is, however, certain that from the first
man had a certain faculty, like other
animals, of expressing his meaning by
sounds and gestures; but at what particular
stage in the course of human evolution this
faculty ripened into what may be properly
called language is a matter of conjecture.
It may have been in the Tertiary, the
Quaternary, or not until the Recent period.
As Professor Cunningham expounds the
matter in his address at a recent meeting
of the British Association : “In the solu
tion of this vexed' question we have little
solid ground to go upon beyond the material
changes produced in the brain. The struc
tural characters which distinguish the
human brain in the region of the speech
centre constitute one of the leading pecu
liarities of the human cerebral cortex.
They are totally absent in the brain of the
anthropoid ape, and of the speechless
microcephalic idiot.”
All we can say is that, when we first
catch sight of languages, they are already
developed into the present distinct types,
arguing, as in the case of physical types,
either for distinct miraculous creations, or
for such an immensely remote ancestry as
to give time for the fixation of separate
secondary types before the formation of
language. Thus, if we confine ourselves
to the most perfect and advanced, and
apparently therefore^most modern, form of
language of the foremost races of the
world, the inflectional, we find two types,
the Semitic and Aryan, constructed on such
totally different principles that it is im
possible for one to be derived from the
other, or both to be descended from a
common parent. The Semitic device of
expressing shades of meaning by internal
flexion—that is, by ringing the changes of
vowels between three consonants, making
every word triliteral—is fundamentally dif
ferent from the Aryan device for attaining
the same object by fusing roots and added
particles into one new word in which equal
�RACES OF MANKIND
value is attached to vowels and consonants.
We can partly see how the latter may have
been developed from the agglutinative, but
not how the stiff and cramped Semitic can
have been derived either from that or from
the far more perfect and flexible type of the
Aryan languages. It has far more the ap
pearance of being an artificial invention
implying a considerable advance of intel
lectual attainment, and, therefore, of com
paratively recent date. In any case, we
may safely accept the conclusion that there
is nothing in language which assists us in
tracing back human origins into geological
times, or, indeed, much further than the
commencement of history.
.
We are reduced, therefore, to geological
evidence, and this gives us nothing better
than mere probabilities, or rather guesses,
as to the original centre or centres of
human existence upon the earth. . The in
ference most generally drawn is in favour
of the locality where the earliest traces of
human remains have been found, and where
the existence of the nearest allied species,
the apes and monkeys, can be carried back
furthest. This locality is undoubtedly EurAfrica, that is the continent which existed
when Europe and Africa were united by
one or more land connections. And in this
locality the preference must be assigned to
Western Europe and to Africa north of the
Atlas ; in fact, to the portion of this ancient
continent facing the Atlantic and Western
Mediterranean, then an island sea. Thus
far, Central and South-Western France,
Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Algeria, to which
may now be added Java, have afforded the
oldest proofs of the existence of man, and
of the co-existence of anthropoid ages.
Darwin inclined to the view that North
Africa was probably the scene of man’s first
appearance ; and a later authority on the
subject, Brinton, in his Races and Peoples^
gives at length reasons for assigning this to
somewhere in Eur-Africa.
. .
But it must be remembered that this in
ference rests entirely on the fact that the
district in question has been more or less
explored, while the rest of the earth can
hardly be said to have been explored at all
for anything prior to those Quaternary
palaeolithic implements, which prove the
existence of man, already spread over
nearly the whole of the habitable globe.
The foregoing summary of the matter
shows that in our present state of know
ledge all theories of the place, time, and
manner of human origins must remain
speculations. We have proof positive that
141
man was already spread over most parts
of the world in the Quaternary period; and
the irresistible inference that he must have
existed long before is confirmed by con
clusive evidence as to the finding of his
remains and implements in the earliest
Quaternary and latest Pliocene periods, and
by very strong evidence for carrying them
back into the Miocene. Anthropoid apes,
which are similar to man in physical
structure, and, in their limits, are as highly
specialised from any more general and
primitive ancestral form as man himself,
undoubtedly did exist in the Miocene
period, and have come down to us with
comparatively little change. It puzzles the
best anatomists to find any clear distinction
between the present Hylobates and the
Hylobates of the Middle Miocene, while
that between the white man and the Negro
is clear and unmistakeable. Why, then,
should “ Homo ” not have existed as soon
as “ Hylobates,” and why should any pre
possession in favour of man’s recent crea
tion, based mainly on exploded beliefs in
the scientific value of. the myths and
guesses of the earliest civilised nations of
Asia, stand in the way of accepting the
enormous and rapidly-increasing accumu
lation of evidence, tracing back the evolu
tion of the mammal man to the same
course of development as other mammals ?
As regards the course of th is . evolution,
all we know with any certainty is that, as
far as we can trace it back, the human
species was already differentiated
distinct races, and that in all probability
the present fundamental types were already
formed.
In conclusion, I may remark that the
questions as to monogeny or polygeny, and
as to the place of man’s fiist appearance
on earth, lose most of their importance
when it is realised that human oiigms must
be pushed back at least as far as the
Miocene, and probably into the Eocene
period. As long as it was held that no
traces of man’s existence could be found,
as Cuvier held, until the Recent period ; or
even, as some English geologists still con
tend, until the post-glacial, or, at any rate,
the glacial or Quaternary periods, it wasevident that the facts could only be
explained by the theory of a series of
supernatural
interferences..
Agassiz s
theory, or some modification of it, 01
numerous special creations of life at special
centres, as of the Esquimaux and polarbear in Arctic regions, the Negro and
gorilla in the troDics, and so forth.
�142
HUMAN ORIGINS
must be adopted. This theory has
been completely given up as regards
animals, in favour of the Darwinian theory
of evolution by natural causes; and no one
now believes in a multiplicity of miracles
to account for the existence of animal
species. Is man alone an exception to
this universal law, or is he, like the rest of
creation, a product of what Darwinians
call “ Evolution,” and enlightened theo
logians “ the original impress”?
The existing species of anthropoid apes—
the orang, the chimpanzee, and the _goriUn
do not differ more widely from one another
than do many of the extreme types of the
human species. In colour, hair, volume of
brain, form of skull, stature, and a hundred
other peculiarities, the Negro and the
European stand further apart than those
anthropoids do from one anothei'; and no
naturalist, say, from Mars or Saturn, inves
tigating the human family for the first time,
and free from prepossession, would hesitate
to class the white, black, yellow, red, and
perhaps five or six other varieties, as dif
ferent species.
In the case of these anthropoid apes no
one supposes that they were miraculously
created in recent times. On the contrary,
we find their type already fully developed
in the Miocene, and we infer that, like
the horse, camel, and many other existing
mammals, their origin may be traced step
by step backwards to some lower and
generalised type in the Eocene. Who can
doubt that physical man, an animal con
structed almost exactly on the same ana
tomical ground-plan as the anthropoids,
came into existence by a similar process ?
The only answer would be, if it could be
proved, that his existence on earth had
been so short as to make it impossible that
so many and such great specific variations
as now exist, some o'f which have been
proved to have existed early in the Quater
nary period, could have been developed by
natural means and by the slow processes of
evolution. But this is just where the evi
dence fails, and is breaking down more and
more every year and with every fresh dis
covery.
Recent man has given place to Quater
nary man ; post-glacial to inter-glacial and
pre-glacial; and now the evidence for the
existence of man, or of some ancestral form
of man, in the Tertiary period, has accu
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few competent anthropologists who any
longer deny it.
But with this extension of time the story
of Human Origins, instead of being an
anomaly and a discord, falls in with the
sublime harmony of the universe, and, there
fore, takes its place in the universal order.
The next R. P. A. Cheap Reprint will be Cotter Morison’s SERVICE OF
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Human origins
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Laing, Samuel [1812-1897]
Clodd, Edward [1840-1930]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 144 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints
Series number: No. 8
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Published for the Rationalist Press Association. Publisher's advertisements on last two pages. RA 1803 does not have the last two pages. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watts & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1903
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RA726
RA1725
RA1803
N429
Subject
The topic of the resource
Anthropology
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Human origins), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Anthropology-History
Human Beings-Origins
NSS